Notes on a Skull of the Troglodytes Niger. 43 



erected ; it is left open at one end, and in it the valuables of th$ 

 deceased are placed — his furniture, clothes, utensils, and food. 

 These, however, are shortly after, more or less damaged or 

 broken, for one of two reasons, if not for both — either to kill 

 the articles themselves (for in Calabar all things are supposed 

 to possess life), that their spirits may go to benefit the spirit 

 of the deceased, — or, to prevent people from sacrilegiously 

 stealing them. The whole being intended as an offering to the 

 fetish, or evil spirit, and left as sacred to the memory of the 

 deceased. As in other parts of Heathendom, an evil spirit is 

 worshipped, as well as a good spirit ; and fear, which is the 

 moving principle of their worship, naturally makes more re- 

 spect be paid to the bad than to the good, the vengeance of the 

 former being most feared, and therefore greater pains are taken 

 to propitiate his anger. The principal fetish, or evil spirit, 

 worshipped in the houses of Old Calabar is, strange to say, a 

 human skull without the lower jaw, which is tied by bands of 

 plaited leaves, crossing one another, to the top of a thick block 

 of wood, the upper part of the rounded stem of which is also 

 wrapped about with bands of plaited leaves or thongs. Dr 

 Sommerville kindly showed me one of these in his possession. 

 We may therefore suppose this skull of the T. niger had been 

 offered as a highly valued propitiatory offering to the fetish, 

 if not also worshipped as the representative of the much-feared 

 fetish or evil spirit itself in the home of the man from above 

 whose grave it was taken. 



Crania of the two species of Chimpanzee are described by 

 Professor Owen in the Transactions of the Zoological Society 

 of London. Captain Wagstaff, who brought them to Bristol, 

 stated " that the natives, when they succeed in killing one of 

 these Chimpanzees (the gorilla), make a fetish of the cranium. 

 The specimens bore indications of the sacred marks in broad red 

 stripes, crossed by a white stripe, which could be washed off. 

 Their superstitious reverence of these hideous remains of their 

 formidable and dreaded enemy adds to the difficulty which a 

 stranger has to contend with in procuring specimens." This 

 quotation shows how general is the feeling of superstitious 

 dread which appears to exist with regard to these Chimpanzees, 

 creatures, which of all the lower animals, in their structure 

 and general appearance, make the nearest approach to man. 



