Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/87

Rh will see to this,—and then the priests arrive and find the stone, and exact the usual heavy penalty. Again, a form of ordeal consists in drinking from a bowl of water in which either a thunder-stone or the skull of a person who has been killed by lightning has been dipped.

It may be concluded from the numerous accounts which refer to the keraunic belief either in Nigeria or other parts of West Africa that it is chiefly localized in that part of the continent, and indeed there does seem to be some good ground for thinking so. Mr. Henry Balfour, for instance, remarks that:—

Ellis gives a similar account of flint arrowheads and axes on the Slave Coast, among the Ewe-speaking people, who believe them to be "thunderbolts" associated with their god of lightning. In Benin, according to Mr. Balfour,