Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/213

 NOTES ON SOME CUSTOMS OF THE LOWER CONGO PEOPLE.

BY THE REV. JOHN H. WEEKS, 27 YEARS BAPTIST MISSIONARY ON THE CONGO.

(Continued from p. 63.)

IX. and X., from sketches, made by my colleague Rev. F. Longland, of the originals in my possession, illustrate the notes on hunting customs in vol. xix., pp. 431 et seq.

Plate IX. shows one of the hunting-fetish drums used in making "medicine" at the beginning of the hunting season. The body of the "antelope" is hollow, and forms the drum. The skin, which is that of the harness antelope, is tightly drawn over the drum, and the hair is removed from the skin along the opening in the back of the figure, making it vibrate more easily when the notched bamboo is rubbed by either of the sticks. The solid stick gives a deep note when rubbed hard along the back, and the split bamboo stick gives sharp rattling notes. The knees in the original animal drum are, as shown, at the back of the legs instead of the front. Such a drum is always a part of the nganga's outfit.

Plate X. shows a hunting-fetish cross. When a party has been successful in killing an antelope, the blood is caught in the animal's bladder and carried to the "kimpovela," who brings a cross, such as shown, and sticks it in the ground near the great hunter's grave at which the ceremonies already described were observed. The blood from the bladder is poured over the cross as an oblation to the deceased great hunter who has heard their request