In any contest of a human being against these spirits of evil he knows always that whatever influence he may obtain over them by the doctor’s magic aid, or whatever limitations may thus be put on them, they can never, as in the case of a human enemy, be killed. The spirits can never die.
Sometimes the word “dead” is used of a fetich amulet that has been inhabited by a spirit conjured into it by a native doctor. The phrase does not mean that its spirit is actually dead, but that it has fled from inside of the fetich, and still lives elsewhere. Then the native doctor, to explain to his patient or client the inefficacy of the charm, says that the cause of the spirit’s escape and flight is that the wearer has failed to observe all the directions which had been given, and the spirit was displeased. The dead amulet is, nevertheless, available for sale to the curio-hunting foreigner.
CHAPTER V
SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICA—THEIR CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS
Inequalities among the spirits themselves, though they are so great, indicate no more than simple differentiations of character or work. Yet so radical are these varieties, and so distinct the names applied to them, that I am compelled to recognize a division into classes.
Classes and Functions.
1. Inina, or Ilina. A human embodied soul is spoken of and fully believed in by all the tribes. It is known in the Mpongwe tribes of the Gabun country as “inina” (plural, “anina”); in the adjacent Benga tribe, as “ilina” (plural, “malina”); in the great interior Fang tribes, as “nsisim.”
This animating soul, whether it be only one, or whether it appear in two, three, or even four forms, is practically the same, that talks, hears, and feels, that sometimes goes out of the body in a dream, and that exists as a spirit after the death of the body. That it has its own especial materiality seems to be indicated by the fact that in the Fang, Bakĕle, and other tribes the same word “nsisim” means not only soul but also shadow. The shadow of a tree or any other inanimate object and of the human body as cast by the sun is “nsisim.”