Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/75



have received from the Rev. T. C. Botha Vlok, of the Dutch Reformed Mission at Mkhoma, a specimen of a fetish which he has discovered in common use among the Achewa tribe of Central Angoniland. It consists of a few short pieces of wood the size of one's forefinger, bound together with a strip of calico into the figure of a child's doll. The pieces of wood form the head and body of the figure, the calico rag being fastened to them by means of a short piece of bark rope. Inside the calico there is concealed a tiny box made of the handle of a gourd- cup and shaped like a pill-box. This is wrapped in a small cloth rag and fastened under the calico garment of the doll. This tiny 'pill-box' is supposed to contain the spirit of some dead ancestor which has been captured and inserted into its present abode, and thus captivated is an object of religious regard among the Achewa tribe. Mr. Vlok tells us that these doll fetishes are in common use round his station of Mlkhoma, where they are treasured as household gods, and are the objects to which sacrifice and prayer are made in the native creed.

"Among the Achewa, as among all Bantu tribes, the spirits of the departed are the objects of supreme worship. The Mzimii, 'Spirit,' of the dead ancestor is the 'god' of the living, and in that great communion of saints on which the African religious faith is based is cherished as the medium of communication between the living and the dead. The great world of spirit is to these untutored races full of interest and dread, and for them possesses a reality that it has lost in great measure to our modern Christianity. These spirits of the departed linger near the bodies