Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/339

 On the Orioiu of the Egyptian '' /ar." 309

spiration from his face, approached our circle, and bcc^an his speech. This was repeated after every dance, the oration being each time addressed to some particuhir person, or else some topic selected at random." In this case there is no mention of a sacrifice, but it illustrates how the bifisa were accustomed to dance until they were able to get into com- munication with the spirits.

Schweinfurth relates that he was kept awake at night in the Bahr-el-Ghazal by wizards who practised casting out devils.^* His description of another dance seen in the same province suggests that though he did not recognise it he was watching a spirit ceremon}'.^'' Though the Nilotic Dinkas recognize a high god their practical religion is more closely concerned with the spirits o( the dead, those of recently deceased relatives, the aticp, and those of mighty ancestral spirits, the jok. These two classes of spirits influence for good or evil every aspect of their lives. " The alicf> of a father, mother, or ancestor may at any time ask for food in a dream. A man will then take dura flour and mix it with fat in a little pot which he places in a corner of his hut, where it is left until the evening, when he may eat it, or even share it with any one belonging to his clan, but with no one else. ... If food were not provided, the atiep might, and probably would, make the dreamer or his wife and children ill. It was stated everywhere that the customs observed after a death, especially the death feasts, were held to propitiate the atiep of the deceased and to prevent it sending sickness or misfortune on the survivors." ^^ The spirits come to men in dreams and state their wishes, or they make their desires known through the tiet, a man who is able to see and to communicate with the spirits. " Their power is attributed to a spirit, always, we believe, an

^^Th( Heart of Aj'rka {'Lox\Aox\, 1873), ^o'- '•> P- ll^- '^^ Ibid. vol. i., p. 354.

I'C. G. Seligmann, Art. Dinka in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iv. (191 1), p. 708.