Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/291

 Reviews. 255

belongs to the mu-mi class (pi. miztmn) as though it did not denote a person. These spirits

"are innumerable and ubiquitous and . . . manifest themselves in many ways. Some believe that every person has many Aiimu in his body, others believe that ordinary people have only one but admit that a Mnndu nine or big chief may have several. The Aiimu are not supposed to reside in any particular part of a man's body but to pervade the whole. Death is due to the Aiimu leaving the human frame and when a person dies his Aiimu go and live in a wild fig tree [Micmbo). The spirits of the good and bad do not associate but live apart in separate fig trees called Mikiiyu, and the people build miniature huts at the foot of each kind, these huts are called Nyiuuha wa (?) Aiitim."

The above sentence is not quite clear; apparently we are to understand that there are two kinds of wild fig-trees, called respectively mitnibo and mkuyic (singular of inikuyii, — the name is of very wide occurrence throughout Bantu Africa), one of which is appropriated to the spirits of the good and the other to those of the bad; but, as the sentence stands, it is impossible to see which is which. Probably Mr. Hobley meant to write, " The spirits of the good do not associate with those of the bad, but live apart" etc., — in which case the mkuyu would be their abode. The selection of this tree is a point worth noting; Livingstone {Last Journals, vol. i., p. 141) mentions "the wild fig-trees which are always planted at villages in the country west of Lake Nyasa." He remarks, — "It is a sacred tree all over Africa and India." It is always found growing on the bwalo or meeting-place of the elders ; and this seems to be the case, not only in Bantu Africa, but throughout the west. The Yao custom of placing offerings at the foot of a tree indicates that the spirit is thought of as inhabiting it, but we do not always find the belief stated in a definite form. The miniature huts made for spirits are probably to be found throughout the continent; I have seen them in Nyasaland, — even in villages close to the Blantyre Mission ; and they are described by Major Meldon in Ankole, {Joiirtial of the African Society, January, 1907). References might be multiplied indefinitely. Another remarkable passage occurs on pp. 89-90 :—

" Every married woman is believed to be at the same time the wife of a living man and also the wife of some Aiimu or spirit of a departed ancestor. This fully explains what was not at all clear in the earlier stages of this enquiry,