Fetichism in West Africa

The telling of Folk-lore Tales amounts, with the African Negro, almost to a passion. By day, both men and women have their manual occupations, or, even if idling, pass the time...

One of the effects of witchcraft beliefs in Africa is the depopulation of that continent. Over enormous areas of the country the death rate has exceeded the birth rate. Much of...

The view-point of the native African mind, in all unusual occurrences, is that of witchcraft. Without looking for an explanation in what civilization would call _natural_ causes...

When a heathen Negro is sick, the first thing done, just as in civilized lands, is to call the "doctor," who is to find out what is the particular kind of spirit that, by invadi...

That stream of the Negro race which is known ethnologically as "Bantu," occupies all of the southern portion of the African continent below the fourth degree of north latitude....

The observances of fetich worship fade off into the customs and habits of life by gradations, so that in some of the superstitious beliefs, while there may be no formal handling...

The distinction sought to be made by the half-civilized Negro between a white art and a black art, as a justification of his practice of fetich enchantments, lies in the object...

In the great emergencies of life, such as plagues, famines, deaths, funerals, and where witchcraft and black art are suspected, the aid or intervention of special fetiches is in...

In civilization, under governments other than autocratic, law being made and executed, at least professedly, with the consent of the governed, all enactments find not only their...

(It was an ancient and universal custom that a refugee, by clasping the knees of the king of any other tribe, could claim his protection. The king was bound to accept the claim....

Hundreds of acts and practices in the life of Christian households in civilized lands pass muster before the bar of æsthetic propriety and society, and even of the church, as no...

Missionary Paul of Tarsus, in the polite exordium of his great address to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill, courteously tells them that he believes them to be a very "reli...

In most tribes of the Bantu the unit in the constitution of the community is the family, not the individual. However successful a man may be in trade, hunting, or any other mean...

Even during the while that man was still a monotheist, as seen in a previous chapter, he had eventually come to the use of idols which he did not actually worship, by the making...

All the air and the future is peopled with a large and indefinite company of these beings. The attitude of the Creator (Anyambe) toward the human race and the lower animals bein...

Inequalities among the spirits themselves, though they are so great, indicate no more than simple differentiations of character or work. Yet so radical are these varieties, and...

Worship is an eminent part of every form of religion, but it is not essential to it. True, most religions have some form of worship. But a belief would still be a religion, even...

Civilization and religion do not necessarily move with equal pace. Whatever is really best in the ethics of civilization is derived from religion. If civilization falls backward...

It was made by a Loango man, a fetich doctor, very many years ago. The Mpongwe family that to-day owns these relics had sent south to Loango, to the Fiât or Ba-Vili tribe, to br...

Once there was a very powerful Shekyani chief named Ogwedembe. He had many sons and daughters and slaves and slave children and nieces and nephews. He had also a brother. His pr...

Articles used in the Fetich.--Mode of Preparation: A Fitness in the Quality of the Object for the End desired; Efficiency depends on the Localized Spirit; Misuse of the Word "Me...

Theology, Religion, Creed, Worship.--Source of the Knowledge of God; outside of us; comes from God; Evolution of Physical Species.--Materialism; Knowledge of God not evolved.--...

Distinction as to the Object aimed at in the White Art and in the Black Art.--Black Art actively Offensive.--The Black Art distinctively "Witchcraft."--Witchcraft Executions; cl...

Sickness, Death, Burial, Modes of Burial.--Mourning, Treatment of Widows.--Witchcraft Investigations.--Places of Burial.--Cannibalism--Family Quarrel as to Precedence in the Bur...

A passively Defensive Art.--Professedly of the Nature of a Medicine.--Distinction between a Fetich Doctor and a Christian Physician.--Manner of Performance of the White Art.--Th...