Page:West African Studies.djvu/208

 ample, to a wave crest destined on their extinction to fall again. Now and again as a storm on the sea, the impulse of a revealed religion sweeps down on to this ocean of nature philosophy, elevates it or confuses it according to the initial profundity of it. If you have ever seen the difference between a deep sea storm and an esturial storm, you will know what I mean. Yet this has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the Fetish thought-form, but merely has a bearing on the quality of the minds that deal with it, as it must on all minds not under the influence of a revealed religion; and I now turn, in conclusion of this brief consideration of the schools of Fetish in West Africa, to the next school to the Mpongwe, namely, the school of Nkissism. I need not go into details concerning it here; you have them at your command in the two great works of Bastian, An Expedition under Loango Küste und Besuch in San Salvador, and in Mr. R. E. Dennett's Folk Lore of the Fjorts, published by the liberality of the Folk Lore Society, and also his former book, Seven Years among the Fjorts.

The predominant feature in this school is undoubtedly the extra recognition given to the mystery of the power of the earth, Nkissi 'nsi. Here you find the earth goddess Nzambi the paramount feature in the Fetish; from her the Fetish priests have their knowledge of the proper way to manage and communicate with lower earth spirits, round her circle almost all the legends, in her lies the ultimate human hope of help and protection. Nzambi is too large a sub- ject for us to enter into here. She is the great mother, but she is not absolute in power. She is not one of the forms of the great unheeding over-lord of gods, like