RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Ideas of a Supreme Being—His various names—Views of the spirit
life—Fetishism—Medicine men and spirits—Black and white magic—Origin
of the term fetish—Native crusade against fetishes—Bundle of
charms—Its contents—Sacrifices to fetishes—Rise and fall of
witch-doctors—An attempt to define fetishism—Natives very religious.
We have found a vague knowledge of a Supreme Being, and a belief in Him,
very general among those tribes on the Congo with which we have come
into contact. In each case the natives’ ideas of the Supreme Being were
gathered and noted long before our teaching had influenced their views
or increased their knowledge concerning Him. Before we could preach our
views we had to learn their language, and while learning their language
we necessarily received—in the definitions of the words we were learning
from them—their ideas of that great Being who created the world. We
found their knowledge of Him was scarcely more than nominal, and no
worship was ever paid to Him.
On the Lower Congo He is called _Nzambi_, or by His fuller title _Nzambi
a mpungu_; no satisfactory root word has yet been found for _Nzambi_,
but for _mpungu_ there are sayings and proverbs that clearly indicate
its meaning as, most of all, supreme, highest, and _Nzambi a mpungu_ as
the Being most High, or Supreme.
On the Upper Congo among the Bobangi folk the word used for the Supreme
Being is _Nyambe_; among the Lulanga people, _Nzakomba_; among the
Boloki, _Njambe_; among the Bopoto people it is _Libanza_, which word is
also well known among the Boloki people, and was probably introduced by
slaves from Bopoto. At Yakusu, near Stanley Falls, the word used is
_Mungu_, which is a shortened form of the Swahili word _muungu_, and
this may contain the root of the Lower Congo word _mpungu_. It is
interesting to note that the most common name for the Supreme Being on
the Congo is also known, in one form or another, over an extensive area
of Africa reaching from 6° north of the Equator away to extreme South
Africa; as, for example, among the Ashanti it is _Onyame_, at Gaboon it
is _Anyambie_, and two thousand miles away among the Barotse folk it is
_Niambe_.
These are the names that stand for a Being who is endowed with strength,
wealth, and wisdom by the natives; and He is also regarded and spoken of
by them as the principal Creator of the world, and the Maker of all
things. Some think Him so perfect in all His works that semi-sane
people, crooked sticks, and deformed persons and animals are placed to
the credit of a subordinate divinity—a demiurge called _Kombu_.
But the Supreme Being is believed by the natives to have withdrawn
Himself to a great distance after performing His creative works; that He
has now little or no concern in mundane affairs; and apparently no power
over spirits and no control over the lives of men, either to protect
them from malignant spirits or to help them by averting danger. They
also consider the Supreme Being (_Nzambi_) as being so good and kind
that there is no need to appease Him by rites, ceremonies, or
sacrifices. Hence they never pray to this Supreme One, they never
worship Him, or think of Him as being interested in the doings of the
world and its peoples.
During the whole thirty years of my life in various parts of the Congo I
have heard the name of the Deity used in the following four ways only:
Among the Lower Congo people, when they desire to emphasize a statement
or vouch for the truthfulness of their words, they use the name in an
oath. When in extreme trouble they cry out: “I wish _Nzambi_ had never
made me!” or when in great distress: “_Nzambi_, pity me!” Also on the
Lower Congo there is the phrase _lufwa lua Nzambi_ = death by God, i.e.
a natural death as distinctive from death by witchcraft; but this view
of death is not so frequently heard on the Lower Congo as among the
Boloki people, where _awi na Njambe_ = he died by God, i.e. there is no
witchcraft about the death of the deceased, nor anything pointing to
witchcraft about the accident that caused the death, is often heard.
These are the only phrases which suppose that the Supreme Being has
anything to do with the world. They are generally employed in the case
of poor folk when they die, as no one wants the trouble and expense of
engaging a witch-doctor to seek out the witch.
About four years ago I asked a most intelligent native, whose age was
about 45, if he could recall any prayer that was offered to the Supreme
Being (_Nzambi_) by his family or any natives before the coming of the
missionaries. He sat quietly for a few minutes and then answered: “No,
but a woman in great distress would say, ‘_Nzambi_, pity me,’ not
because she thought she would receive pity, for we all believed _Nzambi_
was too far away to hear us or think of us, but because it was a saying
amongst us for such times of distress.”
Among the Lower Congo people the belief exists that when there is a halo
round the moon it is a sign that the Supreme Being is there confirming
the residence in that cool place—hence state of happiness of some
spirits which have just arrived; and when the halo is round the sun,
then those who have recently lost relatives or friends by death will
tremble and wail, because that halo round the sun is an indication to
them that the Supreme Being (_Nzambi_) is there confirming the
punishment that has consigned the late departed to the hot place—hence
state of unhappiness. There is a proverb that shows the lastingness of
this punishment: “The bad people are tortured like a locust on the
burning grass; it wants to die, but is kept alive.” These comprise the
only ideas concerning the Supreme Being that I have ever heard
expressed, either on the Lower Congo or among the Boloki natives.
On the other hand, there is a seeming contradiction of the moon and sun
theory, as stated in the preceding paragraph, by another belief extant
among the Lower Congo people, viz. that all the souls of the departed go
to a great spirit-town in the forest, and that is the reason why burials
take place at sunset. The natives argue thus: During the day folk go to
farms, to market, to work in the forests, etc., and the town is left
empty; in the evening the inhabitants have returned from their different
occupations, and are ready to accord a welcome to any visitor; thus also
the spirit-town: all the spirits are away at their different employments
and do not return until the evening, and if the deceased were buried
during the morning or early afternoon there would be no one in the town
to welcome him. These differing beliefs appear to be co-existent, and
the natives, if they perceive their inconsistency, have not offered any
explanation. I once pointed out the contradictory nature of these
beliefs to a smart native with whom I was conversing on the subject, and
his reply was: “Some believe one thing, some believe the other, and some
people believe both.”
Among the Boloki people there is a general and firm belief in a
spirit-world, or nether region (called _longa_). It is supposed to be
somewhere down below. From many natives I have received the same
direction, always accompanied by the same action and words, viz. they
have pointed with their fingers to the ground, saying, “It is down
underneath there.” In the nether regions the conditions of existence
appear to be similar to those in the villages and town, with this
exception, that a man may be too high in the social scale to be punished
on earth, but he cannot escape punishment in the nether regions for the
disagreeable qualities he has exhibited on earth. Within a few hours of
an unpopular head-man’s death, I have heard the ordinary natives
laughingly say to one another as they have snapped their fingers in
glee: “He is being punished now.” Who allotted the punishment and saw to
its infliction I could never ascertain. Juries of head-men on earth sat
to decide difficult cases; and it may be that they thought juries in the
nether region sat on cases and allotted the necessary punishment.
The firing of guns, shouting, wailing, beating of drums and such noises
are heard in the nether regions, and give notice to the inhabitants
there of the approach of another disembodied spirit. The louder the
noise the greater is the expectation of those in the spirit-land of
seeing a great man arrive. The spirits of the departed wait about the
entrance to the nether regions to greet the one about whose departure
for their abode so much fuss is being made.
The soul of a living person is called _elimo_, but on the person’s death
his soul becomes a disembodied spirit named _mongoli_; and the Boloki
spirits after sojourning for a time in the nether regions leave that
place and wander about the rivers and creeks, doing all the harm they
can to the living by flooding their villages and keeping the fish from
entering the nets and traps. The spirits of the Bomuna people, and of
the bush-people generally, are supposed to roam about the forests,
turning the animals from the traps and nets set to snare them, not to
save them from death, but to show their hatred of the folk living in the
towns.
Are these disembodied spirits turned out of the spirit-land as a
punishment? Natives believe that the spirits of bad men are punished in
the nether region—by bad they mean a disagreeable, unsociable,
disobliging, greedy, rude, discourteous person. The ghost of such a one
will return to trouble his whilom neighbours, and it is against his
disagreeable qualities as a man that they have to guard now that he is a
spirit. There are many stories about the doings of the disembodied
spirits—their tricks and their mode of revenge—which will be related in
subsequent chapters. The foregoing paragraphs give, I trust, a clear
statement of the natives’ ideas of the Supreme Being and their views of
existence after death, so far as I have been able to collect their
thoughts and beliefs during a long and intimate intercourse with the
people.
We now come to a larger subject—larger because it holds a more important
place in the life and thought of the native—I refer to fetishism. If
fetishism is a form of religion, then the Boloki people, like all other
tribes on the Congo, are a very religious folk. In obedience to fetish
taboo and custom they exhibit a devotion and persistency worthy of a
better cause; in subjection to the demands of their witch-doctors they
cut themselves, deny themselves many kinds of pleasant food, and pay
heavy fees, even to the impoverishment of themselves and families. But
all this is done through their abject fear of the various malignant
spirits who, so their medicine men inform them, have power over them for
the time being. It may be one spirit to-day and an entirely different
one next month, according to the sickness, misfortune, or particular
kind of bad luck from which the man is suffering; or a man may for
twenty years possess good health and good fortune, and consequently he
will need neither the medicine man nor his rites and ceremonies; or it
may be that a man thinks “prevention is better than cure,” and in such a
case he will fee the medicine men to appease on his behalf such evil
spirits over whom they profess to exercise control, or to prepare for
him certain charms to destroy their wicked designs.
No single witch-doctor pretends to control all the evil spirits, or
confer immunity from all diseases, or remove all misfortunes, or impart
every kind of good luck. Hence on the Lower Congo there are about fifty
different kinds of medicine men,[32] and among the Boloki some eighteen
varieties of them, each supreme in his own particular branch. The order
is not confined to men only, for many women are to be found in its
ranks. Some medicine men are supposed to be stronger than others, and,
controlling more powerful spirits, they either avert greater evils or
confer larger benefits, and consequently receive more respect and richer
fees for their services.
Footnote 32:
See _Folk-Lore_ for Dec. 31st, 1910, p. 447, for a complete list of
Lower Congo medicine men and their various functions written by the
author.
It is a misrepresentation to depict the Congo native as “bowing down to
wood and stone.” He never worships his fetishes; he exhorts them to do
his bidding; he commands them to do that for which they were made, and
he is not backward in arousing them to alertness by whistles and
explosions of gunpowder, or to activity by whacking them with a stick.
No native of any tribe I have met ever assigned creative powers to his
fetishes, or respected them as the representatives of a deity. The
fetishes were made yesterday at his bidding and expense by the
witch-doctor, and to-morrow, if they fail in their purpose, they will be
consigned to the rubbish heap, or left neglected on some shelf in his
house. The native lives and moves, so he believes, surrounded by evil
spirits which, on account of their own malignant natures or at the
instigation of his enemies, are constantly trying to work him harm, and
the only means known to him of counteracting the evil, or of appeasing
the malignant power, is the medicine man with his powerful fetishes,
charms, and ceremonies.
There are two phrases that contain the whole theory and practice of the
Congo medicine man’s black and white magic. By the black magic he
professes to incite an evil spirit by means of a fetish to inflict a
sickness or some other misfortune on an enemy; and by white magic, to
appease the evil spirit through the medium of the fetish, so that the
sickness or bad luck shall be removed from one’s self or one’s family
and friends. The same medicine man uses the same fetish to curse a man
with disease, or to cure the man so cursed, hence he often draws fees
from both parties.
To curse a person by the aid of a fetish is called _loka e nkisi_. The
fetish is beaten with a stick, informed what it is to do, and then hung
up outside the invoker’s house, and the spirit of the fetish flies off
to obey its orders. This is the simple _modus operandi_ followed by all
the witch-doctors on the Lower Congo, who invoke their fetishes to
employ their various powers against the enemies of their clients.
To soothe and appease the spirit of the fetish so that it will remove
the curse from working by so conciliating the fetish power, or the
spirit the fetish is supposed to control, that it will work for the
medicine man’s client and not against him, is called _lembola e nkisi_
(= to soften, tame a fetish), and the ceremony is as varied as there are
medicine men, for each branch of the profession has its own special
rites to observe.
Now fetishes on the Lower Congo are either images, bundles, or large
horns, and these as a rule are owned by the medicine men. Smaller
fetishes and charms are made by them for various purposes and sold to
the natives. Sometimes a wealthy man will buy a powerful fetish and use
its power entirely for himself; at times a poorer man will pay a good
fee to a medicine man to borrow his fetish, or the rich man’s fetish for
one or two days, so that he may have the entire attention of the spirit
it controls. A rich man will sometimes buy a powerful fetish as a
speculation, and make a good profit by hiring it out for a fee, and the
poorer man will pay the fee, hoping to reap good results to his bodily
health or to his prosperity by having the undivided interest of the
fetish at his service.
The term fetish comes from the Portuguese word _feitiço_, and the early
navigators of the West African Coast were Portuguese, who carried with
them amulets and charms, i.e. _feitiços_, in the form of crosses, beads,
images, etc., that had been blessed by their priests. And when these
ancient navigators saw the natives wearing shells filled with some
mixture, or displaying on their persons some articles with which they
were unwilling to part even for costly gifts, what was more natural for
them than to regard such objects as something akin to their own
_feitiços_? And “as they discovered no other traces of religious worship
they concluded that this outward show of regard for these _feitiços_
constituted the whole of the negro worship.”[33]
Footnote 33:
I am indebted to F. Max Müller for much in this paragraph. See
_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 61. 1878.
The native word on the Lower Congo for fetish (_nkisi_), and among the
Boloki (_bonganga_), means an image, a horn, a shell, a saucepan, etc.,
and, in fact, anything into which a medicine man has put a part of his
“medicine” from his store bundle; and it is not an effective fetish
until it has been through the hands of the medicine man and received its
power from him. No one witch-doctor makes all the fetishes, but every
one has his own speciality, in the making of which he is accounted an
expert.
On the Lower Congo the native offers periodic sacrifices to his fetish
to keep it in a good humour, otherwise through sulkiness it may refuse
to help him; or he returns it to a medicine man to renew its energies
when it proves too weak for his purpose; he explodes gunpowder around it
to arouse it to proper alertness that it may attend to its owner’s
affairs; or he beats it to make it subservient to his wishes, but he
never worships it, nor does he ever pay homage to it. Among the Boloki
sugar-cane wine is poured over the fetish to render it amenable to its
owner’s wishes, and it is threatened if it does not act quickly on its
owner’s behalf; and while the Boloki fears his fetish in a way, yet he
never worships it.
“About 1872 some natives of Loanda came through the country preaching a
crusade against fetishes of all kinds, inducing the natives in town
after town to destroy all their fetishes, assuring them that since death
and sickness came by the exercise of the black art, which everyone fully
believes, if then every fetish were destroyed and no more made there
would be no more suffering and death. Far and wide the most strenuous
efforts were made to accomplish the destruction of _all_ fetishes to
that happy end.”[34] In 1909 a man with whom I was conversing told me
that he as a child was shaken over the fire during this campaign to
destroy any fetishes he had about his person. He well remembered this
crusade against fetishes, and said that when the people became ill and
died as usual, the originators of it said: “It is because some of the
people have not destroyed all their fetishes.”
Footnote 34:
See Dr. Bentley’s Appendix to the _Dictionary and Grammar of the Congo
Language_, 1895, on p. 849, under the word _Kiyoka_.
On the Lower Congo every witch-doctor has a bundle of medicines or
charms (called _ebunda dia mfula_) which is the source of his power and
the spring from which he draws his supplies for making his own great
fetish, and the charms, amulets, and minor fetishes for his clients.
This bundle is a conglomeration of powdered chalk, crushed red pepper,
wood ashes, bits of the skins of strong animals, claws and beaks of
strong birds, heads of snakes, poisonous plants and beans, various
herbs, and any other mess the medicine man can collect together. A
portion of this bundle is put into the head of the fetish image (and
sometimes into the stomach), and becomes the brains, intelligence
(_nkinda_) of the fetish.
When a medicine man uses his fetish on behalf of a client, he takes a
little of the bundle and puts it into a horn or shell and ties it round
his patient’s neck, telling him that while wearing it he must not eat
this or that article of diet, or he must not do certain things. In due
time the medicine man goes to receive his fee, and on receipt of it he
removes the special charm from the neck of his patient, and at the same
time takes off the taboo. If the person does not pay, then the medicine
man leaves him under the taboo, and perhaps adds others. The Congo
medicine man never has any bad debts.
No native thinks the fetish he uses is possessed of divine power, nor
does it represent a deity to him, and he uses no language about it that
would lead one to suppose that for a moment he in his own mind invests
it with divinity. What is the fetish to him? It is something in which a
portion of the _mfula_ bundle has been put which has imparted to it its
own mysterious power—to him any portion of the bundle contains the power
of the whole.
What then is the bundle? It is composed of the skins of strong animals
which are thereby represented, and their combined strength is conserved
in it; there are pieces of the skins of cunning animals, and their
united craftiness and cuteness are imparted to it; there are portions of
strong, swift birds that sail on tireless wings through the air, and
they give to it their power of flight; there are various poisonous
plants and beans that lend their qualities of harming the human body
when used against the enemy of a client; there are beneficial herbs and
powders that are supposed to cure the person who uses it for his
recovery from a disease; and there is generally powdered chalk,
symbolical of brain matter, that gives intelligence to the whole mass. I
do not think the native mind goes farther back than the _bundle_, which
contains for him representations of all those qualities that he fears
and admires, and whose combined forces overawe him. And should he go
beyond that bundle it is only to the animals—the lion, the leopard,
etc., whom he fears; the eagle, the hawk, and the falcon whom he admires
and wonders at for their flight through space; and to those plants and
herbs whose mysterious powers he dreads.
The native supposes that the medicine men have some occult method of so
mixing these qualities and forces together in the bundle that they
become active agents in flying through the air and seeking out the
enemies of their clients, or of destroying those who are bewitching
them, or of curing those who seek their aid. All the medicine men do not
have all the skins, powders, herbs, etc., in their charm bundles, but
each procures what he thinks will make the desired combination for his
purpose. It is quite probable that the medicine men and the more
intelligent natives believe that by mixing the skins, plants, chalk,
etc., in different ways they induce different spirits to take up their
abode in the various fetishes, because they like the mixture prepared
for them, and in thus taking up their residence in them, or being
influenced by them, the medicine men gain power over them.
This view is supported by the following considerations: The fetish when
first made is only a piece of wood and can be bought for a few pence;
but after the witch-doctor has put a portion of the charm bundle into it
the price for it is considerable—from a few shillings to a few
pounds—according to what it is expected to do. Sacrifices are offered,
not to the piece of wood, but to the spirit now dwelling in it, or over
which the charms in it have some influence. These sacrifices range from
an occasional drop of blood from a frog’s foot to a goat every new moon,
the blood of which is poured over the fetish, and the flesh of the
sacrificial goat must not be sold, but eaten by the sacrificer and his
family and friends—the larger the benefits expected, the more costly and
regular the sacrifice. The sacrifices are to keep the spirits in good
humour. The portion of the bundle put into the fetish is after a time
played out, becomes stale, and loses its power of attracting the spirit
to it, i.e. the fetish becomes ineffective, so the owner of it takes it
to a medicine man to have it refreshed by renewing the charms from the
bundle; and then if it is still inactive, i.e., if the owner’s luck is
still bad, or his health continues unsatisfactory, he throws the fetish
on one side and tries the fetish of another branch of the profession,
thinking that the former’s mixture of ingredients has no further power
to attract the spirit to his fetish, or the fetish does not influence
the particular spirit that is able to help him.
The Boloki medicine men have a “bag of tricks” made of very similar
ingredients to the charm bundle, and regarded in much the same way. The
only difference being that on the Lower Congo the witch-doctors largely
use images (called _teke_[35]) into which they put the portions of the
bundle, while among the Boloki the fetish power is imparted to any
article that comes conveniently to hand. During fifteen years’ residence
among the Boloki people I saw only two very crudely made images in use
(they are now in Horniman’s Museum), and those I bought easily for a few
brass rods, showing that they valued them very lightly as receptacles
for fetish power.
Footnote 35:
The Kiteke people are experts in carving figures of men and women, and
many of the images so frequently found years ago on the Lower Congo
received the name _teke_ for that reason. The Bakongo also make their
own images, but they are cruder than the Kiteke ones.
As already stated, there are nearly fifty different kinds of medicine
men on the Lower Congo, and about eighteen among the Boloki. It is not
to be thought for a moment that all these medicine men sprang
simultaneously into existence, or that they are the product of only one
tribe; they are undoubtedly the evolution of many generations, and a
free appropriation from neighbouring tribes of fetish ceremonies, etc.,
that appealed to them through being made widely known by some famous
medicine man of the time. The Congo native has always been ready to try
a new fetish, hoping thereby to gain some advantage to his fortune and
health.
The following is probably the rise of many branches of the medicine
man’s profession now, or recently, in vogue: A quick-witted, observant
man noticed that a certain herb, or a certain mode of procedure, such as
massage or inducing perspiration by steaming, was beneficial to a
patient suffering from a certain disease. If he had given the herb in a
simple way without any hanky-panky, or had done a little medical rubbing
without any ceremonies, or had given a vapour bath without ostentatious
and mysterious rites, the natives would not have regarded him as a _bona
fide_ medicine man, and he would have procured very little business. In
order to protect his discovery and to draw patients he surrounded it
with the hocus-pocus of fetish rites and ceremonies, and thus started a
new class of “doctors” that had its day. It is more than probable that
many medicine men and their fetishes have risen in power, have had wide
fame and much popular support, have then fallen into disrepute and have
been abandoned in favour of new ones; and, if the truth were known, as
many if not more kinds of medicine men have been forgotten than are now
remembered.
The following is an account of the rise and fall of one fetish order in
very recent years: A few years ago a medicine man appeared in Portuguese
Congo with a new fetish called _nkisi a kiniambe_ = the divine fetish.
The witch-doctor and his fetish with its high-sounding name visited all
the towns round about San Salvador. The ceremony was a form of communion
prepared with small slices of cassava, pea nuts, and palm-wine. The
recipient had first to pay one string of beads for a child and five
strings for an adult, and he or she confessed all their witchcraft
palavers, i.e. all the evil desires they had in their hearts, for the
sickness or death of anyone. After this confession the medicine man gave
them a piece of cassava, a pea nut, and drop of palm-wine, and he also
gave them a promise that they should never die. When, however, the
recipients died the witch-doctor said it was because they had not made a
full confession of their witchcraft. He and his accomplices reaped a
large sum of money from the natives’ fear of death and the promise of
immunity from it; but the medicine man promised too much, and
consequently his fetish was soon in disrepute and quickly neglected.
While we find a dim knowledge of a Supreme Being among all the Congo
tribes, we also find co-extensive with it an elaborate system of
fetishism, which I would define as those means employed by the Congo
natives for influencing the various spirits by which they believe
themselves to be surrounded, either to act on their own behalf by giving
them good luck and good health, or to act against their enemies by
sending them misfortune, sickness, or death. Their system of belief has
its basis in their fear of those numerous invisible spirits—invisible to
the ordinary man, but not to the medicine man—which are constantly
trying to compass their sickness, misfortune, and death; and the
Boloki’s sole object—and the same may be written of his near and distant
neighbours on the Congo—is to cajole or appease, to cheat or conquer,
and even destroy the troublesome spirits, hence their witch-doctors with
their fetishes, their rites, and ceremonies. If there were no spirits to
be circumvented there would be no need of medicine men as middlemen, and
no need of fetishes as mediums for getting into touch with the spirits.
Theologically speaking, the Congo natives are utterly void of religion,
for they neither worship the Supreme Being nor their fetishes as
representing a deity; but if “the belief in and a measure of obedience
to a potent being or beings not ourselves is an early minimum of
religion,”[36] then the Congo folk are very religious, for they
carefully obey the taboos put on them by their witch-doctors in the name
of their fetishes; they invoke the power of the spirits by exploding
gunpowder around their fetishes, and by whistling to them and beating
them; they try to appease them by frequent sacrifices; and they have
dances about some of the fetishes, during which they call upon them, or
the spirits they influence, to protect their fighting-men and destroy
their enemies.
Footnote 36:
See Mr. Andrew Lang in _Folk-Lore_ for December, 1911, p. 412.
------------------------------------------------------------------------