Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/673

Rh to look after the material welfare of the people on earth. For this reason they are frequently appealed to for their assistance to cause children to be born and the crops to bear well. When this is done the shie (a ring made from strands of raphia fibre), which is hung as a memorial sign outside the hut on a peg over the doorway, is taken down and placed on the ground. If a child is ill and the assistance of its maternal grandmother is required, then palm-wine is poured out on the ground near to the shie. Palm-oil is rubbed over it, and it is then sprinkled with camwood powder. The request is then made, being prefaced by the word "me" (mother). The mother's shie is called shie me. After the request has been made the shie is allowed to remain on the ground for one day, after which it is replaced on the peg above the doorway.

The supplication for any particular desire is made once only, and this is purely a private ceremony; but if the general welfare of the town is to be prayed for, the head-chief pays a series of ceremonial visits to the burial huts of his ancestors. The hut of the head-chief's father is visited first, and the ceremony there is practically the same as that just described, except that a goat is killed by having its throat cut, and the blood is allowed to flow over the shie. The liver is cut up and placed inside it. Requests are made for the general welfare of the town, the fertility of crops, the birth of children, and for success against any enemies. In every case the shie is left on the ground for a day before it is replaced. The flesh of the slaughtered animals is distributed to the attendants present at the ceremony, the heads being taken by the head-chief. In these and all other ceremonies the blood must be taken from a living animal. That of a dead one is considered valueless.

A few feet from the north-west corner of the head-chief's hut there is a small tree (Ficus sp.), at the foot of which is a small earthenware bowl (chikup) let into the ground.