IN CENTRAL AFRICA AND ELSEWHERE. 



157 



ground. We may, therefore, dismiss the definitions of Webster 

 and Littre, which really confuse fetichism and idolatry. 



Nor do the negroes worship the sun, nor regard them as 

 " grands fetiches " as Conte affirms ; they believe the Great 

 Spirit made them. Among the Bantus there seems to be a 

 general belief in the existence of a Great Creator, and in fact, from 

 what I have learned, you would hardly meet, from the Atlantic 

 to the Indian Ocean, an unsophisticated native, that is uncon- 

 taminated by contact with godless whites, who would not readily 

 admit the existence of a Supreme Being, who made the sun, 

 moon, trees, etc. They believe in Him as Maker and Father : 

 Ngambi is the native name in the Gaboon, according to the 

 Rev. R. H. Nassau, whose book, Fetichism in West Africa, the 

 fruit of forty years in the Gaboon, should be read by those 

 anxious to study this subject further. He also speaks of some 

 tradition, among the natives, of a deluge, also of a fable about 

 a woman bringing to her village the fruit of a forbidden tree 

 and, in order to hide it, swallowing it. 



Unfortunately these beliefs do not influence their conduct 

 much more than that of the ordinary European. Fetichism 

 is not taken up with conduct or with preparation for the Great 

 Beyond, but with warding off the machinations of evil spirits 

 in the great Now." 



Some spiritists have tried to impress on us our indebtedness 

 to spiritism for the great discovery of a life beyond the grave ; 

 they might as well boast that spiritism had invented printing or 

 gunpowder. A negro would smile if you told him his com- 

 munications with the spirit-world had proved to you an existence 

 beyond this world. He would regard you as an ignoramus 

 of a dangerous kind not to have known that before. 



Like our spiritists, the witch-doctors profess to communicate 

 with spirits and hold that such are not superhuman agencies, 

 but discarnate spirits. In fact, their world beyond is peopled 

 exclusively with such , if we except the Supreme Spirit and a power 

 of evil analogous to Satan, though of course their beliefs are vague 

 and they do seem to believe in certain second-class deities, 

 such as the god of hunting, etc. 



They seem to have no conception of angelic spirits, good or 

 bad. One does not read much of angels either, in descriptions 

 of that dreary worldly place, the spiritist heaven. It is much 

 more likely, for reasons we need not detail here, that if spirits 

 are communicated with, they are not discarnate human spirits 



