Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/22

8 Brazil say of a fox, 'May not that be the spirit of my dead daughter?'

In Africa, again, mention is made of the Maravi thinking that the souls of bad men became jackals, and of good men snakes. The Zulus, while admitting that a man may turn into a wasp or lizard, work out in the fullest way the idea of the dead becoming snakes, a creature whose change of skin has so often been associated with the thought of resurrection and immortality. It is especially certain green or brown harmless snakes, which come gently and fearlessly into houses, which are considered to be 'amatongo' or ancestors, and therefore are treated respectfully, and have offerings of food given them. In two ways, the dead man who has become a snake can still be recognized; if the creature is one-eyed, or has a scar or some other mark, it is recognized as the 'itongo' of a man who was thus marked in life; but if he had no mark the 'itongo' appears in human shape in dreams, thus revealing the personality of the snake. In Guinea, monkeys found near a graveyard are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the dead, and in certain localities monkeys, crocodiles, and snakes, being thought men in metempsychosis, are held sacred. It is to be borne in mind that notions of this kind may form in barbaric psychology but a portion of the wide doctrine of the soul's future existence. For a conspicuous instance of this, let us take the system of the Gold-Coast negroes. They believe that the 'kla' or 'kra,' the vital soul, becomes at death a 'sisa' or ghost, which can remain in the house with the body, plague the living, and cause sickness, till it departs or is driven by the sorcerer to the bank of the River Volta, where the ghosts build themselves houses and dwell. But they can and do come back from