60 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



returns to tlie grave of its body to be refreshed by the offerings, and if it does 

 not find them there it will exert its new power to injure those it left behind, 

 and who, as pious men, should have ministered to the spirits of their 

 ancestors.' 



The African fears the ghost or disembodied spirit of the recently dead, 

 and appeases it with offerings and sacrifice. He does not fear much the bush 

 spirits, but at the mention of the recently dead a strong man will tremble. 

 The dead are never mentioned, and one of the original objects of mourning 

 was to hide the living from the spirit of the dead, which is apt to be vindictive 

 on its awakening to the realization of separation from earthly things. The 

 living do not desire to be remembered by the dead : on the contrary, they pray 

 that the disembodied spirit will speedily forget them ; as a consequence the 

 negro knows his parents and near relations who have passed beyond, and duly 

 honours them, as they may still be attracted by earthly things ; his grand- 

 father he may or he may not know and give homage to, but all beyond lose tlieir 

 individuality, and are merged into the general body of spirits to whom he 

 renders offerings as a whole. The dead man is still animated by the same 

 passions, feelings, and fancies as in life ; besides, their status and position have 

 to be maintained in the next world. Consequently, if he was a man of power 

 and revelled in blood in life, he would in shadeland clamour for blood and the 

 ministry of others to maintain his social position. Hence the feasts of the 

 dead, accompanied by the sacrifices of multitudes of human beings, as in 

 Ashanti, Dahomey, and Benin, which were only surpassed by the same rites 

 held by the Aztec monarch before the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish. 



Human sacrifices have been practised by all the different sections of the 

 Yoruba nation and other West African tribes, especially at periodical festivals 

 and other great occasions ; they were very common and abundant in Dahomey 

 and Ashanti with their ancestor-worship. " The King of Dahomey is reported, 

 as far back as 1664, to have built a royal dead-house, the mortar of which had 

 been mixed with human blood. In Yoruba," says Bishop Johnston, a native, 

 " the human victim, chosen for sacrifice, and who may be either a free-born or a 

 slave, or a person of noble or wealthy parentage, or one of humble birth, is, 

 after he has been chosen and marked fit for the purpose, called an Oluwo. 



"He is always well fed and nourished and supplied with whatever he 

 should desire during the period of his confinement. When the occasion arrives 

 for him to be sacrificed and offered up, he is commonly led about and paraded 

 through the streets of the town or city of the sovereign who would sacrifice 

 him for the well-being of his government, and of every family and individual 



' For the distinction between shadow, breath, ghosts, soul, and spirit see Dennett, opus oil., 

 pp. 79, et seq. The same ideas are to some extent shared by tlie Sierra Leone natives. 



