RELIGION. 



87 



a European pattern, was in the habit of firing 

 guns during storms ; lie declared that the two 

 deities were answering one another — the God 

 above speaking by thunder and lightning, the 

 god below by cannon and powder. Yet he could 

 anticipate the Bon General Janvier by General 

 Tazo, the swamp-fever, who he declared was 

 his best aid against the French invader. Some- 

 thing of this irreverence is remarkable in the 

 character of Richard Coeur de Lion. 



The Wanyika thus hold, with our philoso- 

 phers, that the Koma is a subjectiv^e, not an 

 objective, existence ; and yet ghost-craft is still 

 the only article of their creed. All their diseases 

 arise from possession, and no man dies what 

 we should term a natural death. Their rites 

 are intended either to avert evils from themselves 

 or to cast them upon others, and the primum 

 mobile of their sacrifices is the interest of the 

 Mganga, or Medicine-man. "When the critical 

 moment has arrived, the ghost, being adjured 

 to come forth from the possessed one, names 

 some article, technically called a Kehi, or 

 chair, in which, if Avorn round the neck or 

 limbs, it will reside without annoying the 

 wearer. This idea lies at the bottom of many 

 superstitious practices : this negro approach to 



