Fetichism in West Africa

by Robert Hamill Nassau

Resuming my street-preaching conversation: Immediately after the admission by the audience of their knowledge of Anzam as the Creator and Father, I say, “Why then do you not obey this Father’s commands, who tells you to do so and so? Why do you disobey his prohibitions, who forbids you to do so and so? Why do you not worship him?” Promptly they reply: “Yes, he made us; but, having made us, he abandoned us, does not care for us; he is far from us. Why should we care for him? He does not help nor harm us. It is the spirits who can harm us whom we fear and worship, and for whom we care.”

Another witness on this subject is the Rev. Dr. J. L. Wilson.[9] Speaking of Africa and its Negro inhabitants, he says: “The belief in one great Supreme Being is universal. Nor is this idea held imperfectly or obscurely developed in their minds. The impression is so deeply engraved upon their moral and mental nature that any system of atheism strikes them as too absurd and preposterous to require a denial. Everything which transpires in the natural world beyond the power of man or of spirits, who are supposed to occupy a place somewhat higher than man, is at once and spontaneously ascribed to the agency of God. All the tribes in the country with which the writer has become acquainted (and they are not few) have a name for God; and many of them have two or more, significant of His character as a Maker, Preserver, and Benefactor. (In the Grebo country Nyiswa is the common name for God; but He is sometimes called Geyi, indicative of His character as Maker. In Ashanti He has two names: viz., Yankumpon, which signifies ‘My Great Friend,’ and Yemi, ‘My Maker.’) The people, however, have no correct idea of the character or attributes of the Deity. Destitute of (a written) revelation, and without any other means of forming a correct conception of His moral nature, they naturally reason up from their own natures, and, in consequence, think of Him as a being like themselves.

“Nor have they any correct notion of the control which God exercises over the affairs of the world. The prevailing notion seems to be that God, after having made the world and filled it with inhabitants, retired to some remote corner of the universe, and has allowed the affairs of the world to come under the control of evil spirits; and hence the only religious worship that is ever performed is directed to these spirits, the object of which is to court their favor, or ward off the evil effects of their displeasure.

“On some rare occasions, as at the ratification of an important treaty, or when a man is condemned to drink the ‘red-water ordeal,’ the name of God is solemnly invoked; and, what is worthy of note, is invoked three times with marked precision. Whether this involves the idea of a Trinity we shall not pretend to decide; but the fact itself is worthy of record. Many of the tribes speak of the ‘Son of God.’ The Grebos call him ‘Greh,’ and the Amina people, according to Pritchard, call him ‘Sankombum.’”

The following testimony I gather from conversations with the late Rev. Ibia j‘Ikĕngĕ, a native minister and member of the Presbytery of Corisco, who himself was born in heathenism. He stated:

That his forefathers believed in many inferior agencies who are under the control of a Superior Being; that they were therefore primitive monotheists. Under great emergencies they looked beyond the lower beings, and asked help of that Superior; before doing so, they prayed to him, imploring him as Father to help;

That the people of this country believed God made the world and everything in it; but he did not know whether they had had any ideas about creation from dust of the ground or in God’s likeness;

That they believed in the existence, in the first times, of a great man, who had simply to speak, and all things were made by the word of his power. As to man’s creation, a legend states it thus: Two eggs fell from on high. On striking the ground and breaking, one became a man and the other a woman. (Apparently there is no memory of any legend indicating the name, character, or work of the Holy Spirit.)

That there is a legend of a great chief of a village who always warned people not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. Finally, he himself ate of it and died;

That there was no legend, but, among a few persons, a vague tradition of a once happy period, and of a coming time of good; but he knew of nothing corresponding to the story of Cain and Abel;