See for example O. Lenz, Skizzen aus Westafrika (Berlin, 1878), pp. 184 sq.; C. Cuny, "De Libreville au Cameroun," Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Septième Série, xvii. (1896) p. 341; Ch. Wunenberger, "La mission et le royaume de Humbé, sur les bords du Cunène," Missions Catholiques, xx. (1888) p. 262; Lieut. Herold, "Bericht betreffend religiöse Anschauungen und Gebräuche der deutschen Ewe-Neger," Mittheilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten, v. (1892) p. 153; Dr. R. Plehn, "Beiträge zur Völkerkunde des Togo-Gebietes," Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin, ii. Dritte Abtheilung (1899), p. 97; R. Fisch, "Die Dagbamba," Baessler-Archiv, iii. (1912) p. 148. For evidence of similar beliefs and practices in other parts of Africa, see Brard, "Der Victoria-Nyanza," Petermann's Mittheilungen, xliii. (1897) pp. 79 sq.; Father Picarda, "Autour du Mandéra," Missions Catholiques, xviii. (1886) p. 342.
Footnote 47: (return)
Rev. R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (London, 1904), pp. 241 sq.
Footnote 48: (return)
"Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel," in John Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. (London, 1814) p. 334.
Footnote 49: (return)
Gouvernement Général de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, Notices publiées par le Gouvernement Central à l'occasion de l'Exposition Coloniale de Marseille, La Côte d'Ivoire (Corbeil, 1906), pp. 570–572.
Footnote 50: (return)
Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, New Edition (Edinburgh and London, 1901), pp. 34 sq., 37 sq.
Footnote 51: (return)
Above, p. 35.
Footnote 52: (return)
E. R. Smith, The Araucanians (London, 1855), pp. 236 sq.
Footnote 53: (return)
Father Trilles, "Milles lieues dans l'inconnu; à travers le pays Fang, de la côte aux rives du Djah," Missions Catholiques, xxxv. (1903) pp. 466 sq., and as to the poison ordeal, ib. pp. 472 sq.
Footnote 54: (return)
R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 194.
Footnote 55: (return)
Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 133 sq.
Footnote 56: (return)
In like manner the Baganda generally ascribed natural deaths either to sorcery or to the action of a ghost; but when they could not account for a person's death in either of these ways they said that Walumbe, the God of Death, had taken him. This last explanation approaches to an admission of natural death, though it is still mythical in form. The Baganda usually attributed any illness of the king to ghosts, because no man would dare to practise magic on him. A much-dreaded ghost was that of a man's sister; she was thought to vent her spite on his sons and daughters by visiting them with sickness. When she proved implacable, a medicine-man was employed to catch her ghost in a gourd or a pot and throw it away on waste land or drown it in a river. See Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 98, 100, 101 sq., 286 sq., 315 sq.
LECTURE III
MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF DEATH
Belief of savages in man's natural immortality.
In my last lecture I shewed that many savages do not believe in what we call a natural death; they imagine that all men are naturally immortal and would never die, if their lives were not cut prematurely short by sorcery. Further, I pointed out that this mistaken view of the nature of death has exercised a disastrous influence on the tribes who entertain it, since, attributing all natural deaths to sorcery, they consider themselves bound to discover and kill the wicked sorcerers whom they regard as responsible for the death of their friends. Thus in primitive society as a rule every natural death entails at least one and often several deaths by violence; since the supposed culprit being unknown suspicion may fall upon many persons, all of whom may be killed either out of hand or as a consequence of failing to demonstrate their innocence by means of an ordeal.
Savage stories of the origin of death.
Yet even the savages who firmly believe in man's natural immortality are obliged sorrowfully to admit that, as things are at the present day, men do frequently die, whatever explanation we may give of so unexpected and unnatural an occurrence. Accordingly they are hard put to it to reconcile their theory of immortality with the practice of mortality. They have meditated on the subject and have given us the fruit of their meditation in a series of myths which profess to explain the origin of death. For the most part these myths are very crude and childish; yet they have a value of their own as examples of man's early attempts to fathom one of the great mysteries which encompass his frail and transient existence on earth; and accordingly I have here collected, in all their naked simplicity, a few of these savage guesses at truth.
Four types of such stories.
Myths of the origin of death conform to several types, among which we may distinguish, first, what I will call the type of the Two Messengers; second, the type of the Waxing and Waning Moon; third, the type of the Serpent and his Cast Skin; and fourth, the type of the Banana-tree. I will illustrate each type by examples, and will afterwards cite some miscellaneous instances which do not fall under any of these heads.
I. The tale of the Two Messengers. Zulu story of the chameleon and the lizard. The same story among other Bantu tribes.
First, then, we begin with the type of the Two Messengers. Stories of this pattern are widespread in Africa, especially among tribes belonging to the great Bantu family, which occupies roughly the southern half of the continent. The best-known example of the tale is the one told by the Zulus. They say that in the beginning Unkulunkulu, that is, the Old Old One, sent the chameleon to men with a message saying, "Go, chameleon, go and say, Let not men die." The chameleon set out, but it crawled very slowly, and it loitered by the way to eat the purple berries of the ubukwebezane tree, or according to others it climbed up a tree to bask in the sun, filled its belly with flies, and fell fast asleep. Meantime the Old Old One had thought better of it and sent a lizard posting after the chameleon with a very different message to men, for he said to the animal, "Lizard, when you have arrived, say, Let men die." So the lizard went on his way, passed the dawdling chameleon, and arriving first among men delivered his message of death, saying, "Let men die." Then he turned on his heel and went back to the Old Old One who had sent him. But after he was gone, the chameleon at last arrived among men with his glad tidings of immortality, and he shouted, saying, "It is said, Let not men die!" But men answered, "O! we have heard the word of the lizard; it has told us the word, 'It is said, Let men die.' We cannot hear your word. Through the