Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/683

Rh outside the door of a hut, where it smokes a long pipe. If any intruder makes his appearance he is beaten off by blows. The idea of the ghost of an ancestor returning to guard his descendants is believed by a certain number of the Eghāp, but the belief is by no means general.

The world is supposed to be in the form of a huge flat plate which floats on an enormous sea. As already mentioned, under the earth is the land of the departed souls. The heavens are made from a kind of glass, and the outer edge is believed to be where the horizon comes into contact with the earth.

The sun is composed of fire and contains innumerable ghosts. Every day it walks over the sky on a number of feet; in the evening it goes into an enormous hut where it sleeps until morning.

There are a number of beliefs concerning the moon. Striebel says that in Bali and Bamum the ideas concerning the nature of the moon are different from those held by the Eghāp. It also is believed to have feet and to be able to walk across the sky. The phases of the moon are believed to be caused by its crawling into a large hut, and when at the full it is thought to be carrying this on its back. According to some the moon is more favourable to the Eghāp than the sun because it does not give such a strong light, and it is also believed to regulate the menstrual periods of the women.

The stars are regarded by some people as being related to glow-worms; by others as small fires burning in the sky; and by others it is thought that all the stars together represent a people who are ruled by the moon. Meteors and shooting stars are the messengers of Mbomvei, and so they travel very quickly with his orders.

A meteor (fo nsang) is believed generally to be a harbinger of bad luck. Once when one appeared in the sky two chiefs and one chief's mother died the same year. It is also believed that there is some connection between the