Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/355

Rh this fire a few persons sit, during the service, apparently listening to what is going on. To them the novice pays no attention, thinking their interest is centred on the cooking of some article of food. The man of experience, who has studied customs and habits, knows that this small group, on the outskirts of the crowd, consists of the village-doctor and his attendants, and that they are engaged in burning charms "to drive away the spirit of the book", so that it may not enter into those who, out of courtesy, come to hear what the missionary has to say.

Often has the missionary spoken of life, destiny, and immortality, with a fire smouldering near at hand. I seldom let my audience know that I understand the custom, or that I observed what was going on, but one fellow-countryman, a novice in the country, to whom I explained it, had his "spirit stirred within him" when he saw the people "given to idolatry", and burst out on them and all their practices. At the close I encouraged a discussion, and felt more convinced than ever I did before, that vituperation can under no circumstances serve instead of argument. They reasoned with him in this manner: "You live among our people; we circumcise our young men ; this stinks in your nose. We kill our cattle in sacrifice to our ancestors; you say it is God we must worship. On what river had he his kraal? Where are his people? You say the spirit lives, but does not care for sacrifice. Does the father forget his own child? Should not the children obey? You have your customs; we do not like them. We have ours; you do not like them. Why does the master scold, as we are both the same? Is not the land enough to grow corn for all?"

There is a class of legends which I used to regard as purely mythical, or, rather, the invention of interested doctors, but which, in view of recent discoveries in connection with that uncanny science known as Hypnotism, I am inclined to think may have had a basis of truth, however much that may have been distorted. In fact, most popular legends have their origin, however remotely, in some