Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/82

 COLLECTANEA.

.

(Read at Meeting, 20th January, 1904.)

would be almost impossible to travel in Central Africa without coming into contact with the results of Witchcraft. Even the few months that I spent there in 1896 were sufficient to show me how real is its strength and how evil its influence.

But really reliable information on the subject is difficult to obtain. Those who practise it naturally prefer to keep their knowledge to themselves, and not lose a profitable source of income. Direct questions by a European to a native on such a subject, if answered at all, would only lead to false replies and confusion of ideas. There is also a further difficulty. The languages are in most cases in a state of transition, and in order to convey a new idea to the native we either have to adopt words from English, Arabic, or Portuguese, or else to take a native word which may already have a special meaning of its own. In the latter case we attach our own meaning to it, and are apt to imagine that this will be conveyed to the native by the use of the word, whilst in his mind the word gives a different idea, although he may be unable to define it. The opportunities for error and misunderstanding on both sides are therefore very great.