Fetichism in West Africa

by Robert Hamill Nassau

The awiri are generally favorably disposed, especially to their former human relatives; but it is necessary to gratify them with religious services constituting an ancestral worship. While some of them reside in great rocks or trees, others dwell in rivers, lakes, and seas.

Awiri, if they love a person and desire to favor him or her, have the special power to grant a gift desired by most Africans, viz., the birth of children. The awiri live mostly in the region of their own former human tribe. It is possible, however, for them to go everywhere; but they usually remain within their old tribal limits. If, however, a tribe should remove or become extinct, their awiri would still remain in that region, and would affiliate with the new people who might come to occupy the deserted village sites.

Awiri have a period of inactivity, the cold dry season of four months (in western Equatorial Africa), May to September. At that time they become very small, inactive, and almost lifeless (a condition of hibernation, somewhat like that of bears; or of inertia, as when a snake casts its skin?).

4. There is another class of spirits called Sinkinda (singular, “nkinda”), some of whom are the spirits of people who in the ordinary stations of life were “common,” or not distinguished for greatness or goodness. Others of these sinkinda are of uncertain origin, perhaps demons whom Njambi had created, but to whom He had never given bodily existence.

Almost all sinkinda are evilly disposed. They come to the villages on visits to warm themselves by the kitchen fires or out of curiosity to see what is going on, and sometimes, temporarily, to enter into the bodies of the living, especially of their own family. The entrance of a nkinda into a human body always sickens the person. It may enter any one, even a child. If many of them enter a man’s body, he becomes crazy.

Sometimes the nkinda, when asked who he is, says: “I am a spirit of a member of your own family, and I have come to live with you. I am tired of living in the forest with cold and hunger. I wish to stay with you.”

Often when people are sick with fever or cold, the diagnosis is made that some nkinda has come on a visit. If it is of the same family as those whom it is visiting, it comes and goes from time to time, to please itself; but it is never, like an uvengwa, visible.

Sometimes these sinkinda are called “ivâvi” (sing. “ovâvi,” messenger). They come from far and bring news, e. g., “An epidemic of disease is coming,” or “A ship is coming with wealth.” Sometimes the news thus brought proves true. (Is this our modern spiritualism?) In such cases the coming of the nkinda is regarded as a blessing, in that it warns the living of evil or brings them wealth. The information is always carried by the mouth of some living member of the family. If these sinkinda are asked by a non-possessed member of the family, “Where do you live?” the reply is, “Nowhere in particular. But at evenings we gather about your town, to see you and join in your dances and songs. We see you, though you do not see us.”

5. Mondi. There are beings, “myondi” (Benga; singular, “mondi”), who are agents in causing sickness or in either aiding or hindering human plans. These spirits are much the same as those of the fourth class, except that in power they seem to be more independent than other spirits. But they are not always simply passive in the hands of the doctor; they are often active on their own account, or at their own pleasure, generally to injure. They are worshipped almost always in a deprecatory way. They often take violent possession of human bodies; and for their expulsion it is that ilâgâ, sinkinda, and awiri are invoked. They are invoked especially at the new moons, but also at other times, particularly in sickness. The native oganga decides whether or no they be myondi that are afflicting the patient. When the diagnosis has been made, and myondi declared to be present in the patient’s body, the indication is that they are to be exorcised.

A slight doubt must be admitted in regard to these myondi, whether they really do constitute a distinct class, or whether any spirit of any class may not become a myondi. The name in that case would be given them, not as a class, but as producers of certain effects, at certain times and under certain circumstances.