“The natives of Equatorial Africa worship also the spirits of their ancestors; a
worship for which their minds are prepared by the veneration which they pay to
old age. Young men never enter the presence of an aged person without
curtseying (a genuine curtsey like that of a charity-school girl), and passing in a
stooping attitude, as if they were going under a low door. When seated in his
presence, it is always at a humble distance. If they hand him a lighted pipe, or a
mug of water, they fall on one knee. If an old man, they address him as rora—
father; if an old woman as ngwe—mother. It is customary for only the old people
to communicate bad news to one another; and it is not to be wondered at that we
find the negroes such perfect courtiers, since it is the etiquette of the country that
the aged should only be addressed in terms of flattery and adulation.
“When they die their relics are honoured. In the Congo country their bodies are
dried into mummies. Here, their bones are sometimes stored up and visited at set
periods. Or, when a person noted for his wisdom has died, his head, when
partially decomposed, is often cut off and suspended, so as to drip upon a mass
of chalk placed underneath. This matter is supposed to be the wisdom which
formerly animated the brain, and which, rubbed upon the foreheads of others,
will communicate its virtue.”
It can easily be understood how this reverence paid to the relics of one’s
ancestors would develope into the worship of their spirits. The Equatorial
Savage believes that the manes of his forefathers influence his life and fortunes
entirely to his advantage, and by a dying friend or relative will often send
messages to them. Mr. Reade adds that a son has been known to kill his aged
mother from a conviction that her spirit would be of more service to him than
her substance; a reason for matricide which would hardly be accepted as
conclusive in civilised countries! The savage lives, however, in constant
communion and sympathy with the spirit-world. The visions which come to him
in his dreams, and the sounds which he fancies himself to hear, are those of the
Unseen. And as he is always brooding upon his dreams and relating them to his
friends, he necessarily dreams the more, until it becomes difficult for him to
draw a line between the dream and the reality.
When any calamity befalls the tribe, or at the approach of any imminent danger,
they gather together on the brink of some lofty bluff, or on the forest’s haunted
threshold, and stretching their arms towards the sky, while the women wail and
the children weep, they call upon the spirits of the departed to come and help
them.