Page:Medical Heritage Library (IA b30530933).pdf/103

Rh Understanding therefore in spiritual Matters is poor and naked, like their Bodies, which if they cannot provide of Necessaries with the Materials about them; how insuperable is the other, where all is out of fight?

To come to the point, the Negroes have chose Woods, Lakes, Hills, or a part of these, a bundle of Chips, or Roots, a Stone, a piece of Metal, or the like, for their Fetishes. Now what is more likely, or indeed grateful, than assigning a supernatural Power, and of course reverential Respects, to those very things they are immediately conversant with, and experience their Effects? For the Hill, the Wood or the Lake may afford Sustenance from time to time; perhaps in Extremity, either may have contributed to their Preservation or Defence from wild Beasts; or Panyarring, a more dreadful Evil. And others of them (for there are a great Diversity) have as a Charm, cured a Sickness, been propitious in their Journeys by Land or Water, in their Hunting, Fishing, or other Exercises; that is, they have been safe, they have observed, and protected from Danger, Distress, or Hurt, while they bore such a Fetish about them, or in the House, or Boat, they lodged or travelled in; which are the Reasons, and all the Reason they can give for their Choice. And some have descended from Father to Son with great Reputation, two, three, or more Generations, until the