CHAPTER IX.
SOME AFRICAN SUPERSTITIONS.
AFRICA is the land of superstition,—dark, cruel, ghastly superstition. It
accompanies its victim from the cradle to the grave; throws its fell shadow over
every scene and incident of life. We cannot attempt, nor do we desire, to paint it
in all its horrors. For our purpose it will be sufficient to glance at some of the
ceremonies, hideous or grotesque, which are practised by the Equatorial Savage.
In his childhood he has to be initiated into certain mysteries. What those are Mr.
Winwood Reade learned from a negro steward, who informed him that he was
taken into a fetich, or idol house, severely flogged, and plastered with goat-dung:
this ceremony, like the rites of masonry, being conducted to the sound of music.
Afterwards from behind a kind of screen or shrine issued uncouth and terrible
sounds such as he had never before heard. These, he was told, emanated from
the spirit called Ukuk. He afterwards brought to Mr. Winwood Reade the
instrument with which the fetich-man produces the noise. It may be described as
a whistle made of hollowed mangrove wood, about two inches long, and covered
at one end with a scrap of bat’s wing. For a period of five days after initiation the
novice wears an apron of dry palm leaves.
He is next instructed in the science of fetich; and afterwards he learns what kinds
of food are forbidden to his tribe, for one tribe may not eat crocodile, another
hippopotamus, nor a third buffalo. He learns to reverence and dread the spirit
Ukuk, which dwells, it is said, in the bowels of the earth, and visits the upper
world only when he has some business to perform. On the occasion of his visits,
he abides in the fetich-house, which is built in a peculiar form, roofed with dry
plantain leaves, and always kept in darkness. Thence strange dread sounds, like
the growling of a tiger, are heard to proceed, so that the women and children
shudder as they listen. When the mangrove-tube is thus at work, the initiated
hasten to the house, and a “lodge” or “council” is held.