Page:West African Studies.djvu/637

 multifarious ramifications, consisting of Ju-Ju priests of the district, the Ju-Ju priests of the surrounding country, and the travelling Ju-Ju men, described by the natives as witch doctors, who keep up a communication of ideas and thought from end to end of the pagan countries of West and South-West Africa.

Secondly, not only is the teaching of Christianity opposed to Ju-Juism, but it is also opposed to the whole fabric of native customs other than Ju-Juism. Polygamy, for example, is an actual necessity, according to native custom, thus a wife after the birth of an infant retires from the companionship of her husband and devotes herself for the following two years to the cares of nursing. Then, again, at certain times, according to native custom, a woman is not allowed to prepare food that has to be eaten by others than herself. This would place the man with only one wife in a peculiar position, as it is a general custom in all these rivers, from the kings downwards, to have their food cooked by one of their wives. This custom arises from the fact that poisoning is known to be very much practised amongst all the Pagan tribes, and experience has taught the men that their greatest safety lies in the faithfulness of their wives, for the wives are aware that they have all to lose and nothing to gain by the death of their husbands.

Many people who have visited Western Africa will say that the reports of secret poisoning on the coast are travellers' yarns; but to refute that I will here describe a custom met with still in many places on the coast, and invariably practised amongst all natives in the purely native towns in the immediate vicinity of the coast towns. Even the coast towns people practise it still in