Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/536

512 "if there were no spirits to be circumvented there would be no need of medicine-men as middlemen, and no need of fetishes as mediums for getting into touch with the spirits." But what is meant here by spirits?

Let us take the Boloki first. Mr. Weeks says,—"The rivers and creeks are crowded with the spirits of their ancestors, and the forest and bush are also full of spirits, ever seeking to injure the living who are overtaken by night when travelling by road or canoe." And elsewhere, speaking of the spirits of the dead,—"The land and water are full of these disembodied spirits, hence the timorous folk are afraid to travel by night." It is clear that the ghosts of the dead are always about, and that they are naturally hostile to the living: therefore they must be conciliated, or overpowered and compelled to some measure of amity with the survivors. But a somewhat careful search through the elaborate analysis here given of the various kinds of spirits that plague the Boloki does not enable me to discover definitely that there are any elemental spirits known to them. It is true we are told of water-spirits (mingoli; sing. mongoli). Mongoli however is defined as "a disembodied soul, a spirit, a ghost of the bush, forest, and water that sends evil and good upon the living." Then there are disease-spirits. "Each sickness has its own spirit (or bwete; pl. mete)"; and the native name for a disease is also the name for the spirit responsible for sending it. "They cannot tell us," writes Mr Weeks, "from whence these spirits emanate." There are also the spirits of unborn children, called bingbongbo; the spirit for giving wealth called ejo; the spirit that gives bodily strength, called embanda. Lastly, "the word jando stands for the peculiar characteristics of the animal to which it is prefixed, i.e. a man successful in fishing is said to have the peculiarities of a crocodile, for this creature is regarded as being quick in catching fish; and a person swift and cunning in fight and flight has the qualities of a leopard." An alternative explanation given of jando immediately afterwards is spirit. "These qualities or spirits are not gained by eating either of these creatures, but are procured, for a few, from the witch-doctor by some occult intercourse with the crocodile and leopard. It is also affirmed by the natives that a person can become so