Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/543

Rh fortune, but also inflict misfortune. The presents referred to above are to bring the one and avert the other from the givers, and the whole idea of the "christening" ceremony is to make the spirit child amenable to the ordinary rules of life. "Lemba-lemba" leaves are only used by the nganga when something uncanny is to be counteracted in the person subject to his rites, as in the case of a madman, homicide, etc.

The natives believe even now that we white folk do not weave our cloth, but that the ximbi of the sea weave all the cloth beneath the waves, and that we have found an opening leading to their oceanic factory and, whenever we want cloth, we simply ring a bell at the hole (ntumpa), and the ximbi, without showing themselves, push up the end of a piece of cloth and we pull it yard by yard and length by length until we have all we want, and then we cut and fold it into pieces, and bind it into bales. They also believe that the cloth-weaving ximbi have only one eye, and that the power of sight of the two eyes is concentrated in the one eye, which enables them to weave such fine, close cloth. We are supposed to pay the ximbi by taking to them the spirits of the natives we have collected or bewitched to death, to become the slaves of the ximbi. The natives, believing that the cloth costs us little or nothing, are never satisfied with the presents travellers make them in cloth, and hence arise all the stories of native greed. The belief that we bewitch the natives so as to send their spirits to become the slaves of the ximbi causes their opposition to travellers and others who live in or pass through their country for no ostensible reason. The native understands the reason for a trader living here, but not for the presence of travellers, explorers, and missionaries.

I do not think that there is any idea of worship in "kimenga," or sacrifice, and no prayers are offered when the