Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/687

Rh Vogel says that in the Sudan there is a belief in one high god, an entity which is composed of all the ghosts of the departed. The Margi and Musgu have a belief in a high god, whose symbol is a staff. In various parts of the Grassland area there are a number of stone pillars with a three-gable ended extremity. I have seen these in Bamendjinda, Bamumkumbo, and Bawadju. Hotter also refers to these in the Bali area. In the same towns just mentioned I have seen small huts built by the side of running streams. Inside them, and on the ground, were small bowls of palm-wine which were placed there for the ghosts ("die people") who may visit their original homes.

Passarge mentions that with the ancestral cult masked dances are held at the time of sowing and harvesting. He says: "Indessen ist von ihnen nichts Näheres bekannt."

Thorbecke says that the religion of the Tikar may be divided into a belief in ghosts and gods. The former belief is vague and indefinite, and the latter firmly established.

According to this same authority the Tikar have a belief in an unseen high god whom they call Masuë. Sometimes he lives in the air, but more generally in or near water. Every tribe worships Masuë in any important stretch of water near by. Possibly there is some connection between this belief and that of the tribes in the Bamenda division, who build sacred huts on the banks of running streams.

In the Forest belt the general belief is that the ancestral ghosts wander in the bush and attempt to do evil. There seems to be a distinction, however, when we consider the belief of the tribes of the Cross River as described by Mansfeld. With the high god Ōbashi are a number of