Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/77

Rh fetish assumes the form of a carved image of a human being, by no means prepossessing in appearance. This is set up in or near the village, and thus becomes the village idol, to which all prayers and sacrifices are directed.

"Around Blantyre the Yaos and Mang'anjas profess no such form of fetish-worship. Among these tribes the spirit is not located in any individual object as in the above cases. The hut in which he lived, the village tree under which he worked, or sat, or rested in the heat of the day, the grave in the still forest—these are the chosen haunts of the spirit who has gone from mortal eyes into the silent land. The little child creeps past the old chief's grave by the wayside in great fear and trembling. It is the abode of the awful unseen, the home and haunt of that dread denizen of the other world whose existence is an article in the creed of all childhoods. The spirit-reality is here as in the other case, but in a purer form. Here the spirit is not localised in such form as to inhabit a definite material object. It is still human in its associations, the ties of earth are not wholly severed. That other bourne is not so far away as we sometimes deem it to be, and thin is the veil of earthly things."

The above communication was lately received by me from the Rev. Alexander Hetherwick, Presbyterian Mission, Blantyre, British Central Africa.

[This, like all interesting notes, suggests many questions, as to which Mr. Lovett has kindly promised to communicate further with the writer. No answer, however, can be received for many months.—].

In English Idyls (Sampson Low), a little book of sketches of humble life on the East Anglian coast, by Mr. P. H. Emerson, formerly a member of this Society, are several items of folklore. The first sketch, "Bobjack," describes an old waterman reputed