From their own accounts, the Camma must have a very unpleasant country. It is overrun with spirits, but the evil far outnumber the good, and, according to the usual custom of ignorant nations, the Camma pay their chief reverence to the former, because they can do the most harm.
As specimens of these spirits, three will be mentioned. The first is a good spirit called Mbuiri, who traverses the country, and occasionally pays a visit to the villages. He has taken under his protection the town of Aniambia, which also has the privilege of being guarded by an evil spirit of equal power, so that the inhabitants enjoy a peace of mind not often to be found in the Camma country. There is only one drawback to the repose of the place, and that is the spirit of an insane woman, who made her habitation outside the village when she was alive, and continues to cultivate her plantation, though she is a spirit. She retains her dislike to human beings, and, if she can catch a man alone, she seizes him, and beats him to death.
The evil spirit which protects Aniambia is a very wicked and mischievous being named Abambou, who lives chiefly in burial-places, and makes his bed of skeletons. In order to propitiate Abambou, offerings are made to him daily, consisting entirely of food. Sometimes the Camma cook the food, and lay it in lonely places in the wood, where Abambou would be sure to find it; and sometimes they propitiate him by offerings of plantains, sugar-cane, and nuts. A prayer accompanies the offering, and is generally couched in the universal form of asking the protecting spirit to help the Camma and destroy inimical tribes. It is rather curious that, when a free man makes an offering to Abambou, he wraps it in leaves; but the slaves are obliged to lay it on the bare ground.
Fetish houses are appropriated to Mbuiri and Abambou, and are placed close to each other. They are little huts, about six feet high and six wide. No image is placed in the huts, but only a fire, which is always kept burning, and a chest, on the top of which are laid some sacred chalk and red parrot’s feathers.
A bed is usually prepared in Abambou’s house, on which he may repose when he is tired of walking up and down the country; and, as the medicine-man takes care that no one but himself shall open the door of the hut, the villagers pass by in awe-struck silence, none knowing whether at that moment the dreadful Abambou may not be sleeping within. Now and then he is addressed publicly, the gist of the speeches being that everybody is quite well and perfectly happy, and hopes that he will not hurt them.
The evil spirit, however, who is most feared by this tribe is the Ovengua or Vampire. It is most surprising to find the Hungarian and Servian superstition about the vampire existing among the savages of Western Africa, and yet it flourishes in all its details along the banks of the Rembo.
No worship is paid to the Ovengua, who is not thought to have any power over diseases, nor to exercise any influence upon the tenor of a man’s life. He is simply a destructive demon, capricious and cruel, murdering without reason, and wandering ceaselessly through the forests in search of victims. By day he hides in dark caverns, so that travellers need not fear him, but at night he comes out, takes a human form, and beats to death all whom he meets. Sometimes when an Ovengua comes across a body of armed men, they resist him, and kill the body in which he has taken up his residence.
When an Ovengua has been thus killed, the conquerors make a fire and burn the body, taking particular care that not a bone shall be left, as from the bones new Ovenguas are made. The natives have a curious idea that, if a person dies from witchcraft, the body decays until the bones are free from flesh. As soon as this is the case, they leave the grave one by one, form themselves end to end into a single line, and then gradually resolve themselves into a new Ovengua. Several places are especially dreaded as being favorite resorts of this horrible demon, and neither bribes, threats, nor persuasions, can induce a Camma to venture near them after nightfall. It is very probable that cunning and revengeful men may take advantage of the belief in the vampire, and, when they have conceived an antipathy against any one, may waylay and murder him treacherously, and then contrive to throw the blame on the Ovengua.
The prevalence of this superstition may perhaps account for much of the cruelty exercised upon those who are suspected of witchcraft, the fear of sorcery being so overwhelming as to overcome all feelings of humanity, and even to harden the heart of the parent against the child. The slightest appearance of disbelief in such an accusation would at once induce the terrified multitude to include both parties in the accusation, and the consequence is that, when any one is suspected of witchcraft, none are so loud and virulent in their execrations as those who ought to be the natural protectors of the accused.
Mr. C. Reade, in his “Savage Africa,” gives an example of the cruelty which is inspired by terror.