During intervals of time in the discharge of these pastoral duties my recreation was the writing and sifting of the multitude of notes I had collected on native superstition during the previous quarter of a century. The people of Batanga, though largely emancipated from the fetich practices of superstition, still believed in its witchcraft aspect. I began there to arrange the manuscript of this work. There, more than elsewhere, the natives seemed willing to tell me tales of their folk-lore, involving fetich beliefs. From them, and also from Mpongwe informants, were gathered largely the contents of Chapters XVI and XVII.
And now, on this my fifth furlough, the essay on Bantu Theology has grown to the proportions of this present volume.
The conclusions contained in all these chapters are based on my own observations and investigations.
Obligation is acknowledged to a number of writers on Africa and others, quotations from whose books are credited in the body of this work. I quote them, not as informants of something I did not already know, but as witnesses to the fact of the universality of the same superstitious ideas all over Africa.
By the courtesy of the American Geographical Society, Chapters IV, V, X, and XI have appeared in its Bulletin during the years 1901-1903.
I am especially obligated to Professor Libbey for his sympathetic encouragement during the writing of my manuscript, and for his judicious suggestions as to the final form I have given it.
ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU
Philadelphia, March 24, 1904