For Fishing. The prescription for making the fetich for success in fishing is as follows: Go in the morning early, while the rest of the villagers are asleep, to an adjacent marsh or pond. (Almost all African villages are built on or near the bank of some stream or lake.) Find a place where pond-lilies are growing. Wade into the pond, bend low in the water, and pluck three lily-pads. There are water-spiders, called “mbwa-ja-miba” (dogs of the water), generally running over the surface of the water at such places; catch four of them. Gather also leaves of another water-plant called “ngâma.” All these articles leave in the village in a safe place. When other fishers come in from the sea, go to the beach to meet them; and if they have among their catch a certain fish called “hume,” having three spines, beg or buy it. This you are to dry over the fire. Watch the daily fishing until some one has killed a shark; obtain its heart, which also is to be dried. Take also a plate full of gourd seeds (ngândâ) and some ground-nuts (mbenda); also five “fingers” of unripe plantains cut from the living bunch on the stalk, and a tumblerful of palm-oil. All these above-named ingredients are to be mixed in one pot (which must be earthen) and are to be cooked in it. While the mess is boiling, sit by, face over the pot, in the steam rising from it, and speak into the pot, “Let me catch fish every day! every day!” No people are to be present, or to see any of these proceedings. Take the pot off the fire, not with your hands, but by your feet, and set it on the ground. Take all your fish-hooks, and hold them in the steam arising from the pot. Take a banana leaf that is perfect and not torn by wind, and laying it on the ground, spread out the hooks on it. Then eat the stewed mess, not with a real spoon, but with a leaf twisted as a spoon. In eating, the inedible portions, such as fish-bones, skins, rind, and so forth, are not to be ejected from the mouth on the ground, but must be removed by the fingers and carefully laid on the banana leaf. Having finished eating, call one of the village dogs, as if it was to be given liberty to eat the remains of the mess. As the dog begins to eat, strike it sharply, and as the animal runs away howling, say, “So! may I strike fish!” Then kick the pot over. Take the refuse of food from the banana leaf, and the hooks, and lay them at the foot of the plantain stalk from which the five “fingers” were cut. Leave the pot lying as it was until night. Then, unseen, take it out into the village street, and violently dash it to pieces on the ground, saying, “So! may I kill fish!” It is expected that the villagers shall not hear the sound of the breaking of the vessel; for it must be done only when they are believed to be asleep. When the bunch of plantains from which those fingers were taken ripens, and is finally cut down for food by others, you are forbidden to eat not only of it, but of the fruit of any of its shoots that in regular succession, year after year (according to the manner of bananas and plantains), take the place of the predecessor stalk. You may never eat of their fruit.
For Planting. Planting is done almost entirely by women. If a woman says to herself, “I want to have plenty of food! I will make medicine for it!” she proceeds to gather the necessary ingredients. She takes her ukwala (machete), pavo (knife), short hoe (like a trowel), and elinga (basket), and goes to the forest. She must go very early in the morning, and alone. She gathers a leaf called “tubĕ,” another called “injĕnji,” the bark of a tree called “bohamba,” the bark also of elâmbâ, and leaves of bokuda. Hiding them in a safe place, she goes back to her village to get her earthen pot. Returning with it to the forest, she makes a fire, not with coals from the village, but with new, clean fire made by the two fire-sticks. These, used by natives before steel and flint were introduced, require often an hour’s twirling before friction develops sufficient heat to cause a spark. The sparks are caught on thoroughly dried plantain fibre. Then she builds her fire. She goes to some spring or stream for water to put in the pot with the leaves and barks, and sets it on the fire. All this while she is not to be seen by other people. When the water has boiled, she sets the pot in the middle of the acre of ground which she intends to clear for her garden until its contents cool. In the meanwhile she goes to some creek and gets “chalk” (a white clay is found in places in the beds of streams). She washes it clean of mud and rubs it on her breast. Then she takes the pot, and empties its decoction by sprinkling it, with a bunch of leaves, over the ground, saying, “My forefathers! now in the land of spirits, give me food! Let me have food more abundantly than all other people!” Then she again sets the pot in the middle of the proposed plantation. She takes from it the tubĕ leaves and puts them into four little cornucopias (ehongo), which she rolls from another large leaf of the elende tree. She sets these in the four corners of the garden. Whenever she comes on any other day to work in the garden, she pulls a succulent plant, squeezes its juice into the ehongo; and this juice she drops into her eye. To be efficient, this medicine has a prohibition connected with it, viz., that during the days of her menses she shall not go to the garden.
When her plants have grown, and she has eaten of them, she must break the pot. Having done so, she makes a large fire at an end of the garden, and burns the pieces of earthenware so that they shall be utterly calcined. It is not required that she shall stay by the fire awaiting that result. She may, if she wishes, in the meanwhile go back to her village. She takes the ashes of the pot, mixes them with chalk in a jomba (bundle) of leaves, which she ties to a tree of her garden in a hidden spot where people will not see it.
Another strict prohibition is required of her by the medicine, viz., that she is not to steal from another woman’s garden. If she break this law, her own garden will not produce. The jomba is kept for years, or as long as she plants at that place, and the chalk mixture is rubbed on her breast at each planting season. From time to time also, as the leaves of the jomba decay or break away, she puts fresh ones about it, to prevent the wetting of its contents by raid or its injury in any other way.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FETICH—SUPERSTITION IN CUSTOMS
The observances of fetich worship fade off into the customs and habits of life by gradations, so that in some of the superstitious beliefs, while there may be no formal handling of a fetich amulet containing a spirit, nor actual prayer or sacrifice, nevertheless spiritism is in the thought, and more or less consciously held.
In our civilization there are thousands of professedly Christian people who are superstitious in such things as fear of Friday, No. 13, spilled salt, etc. In my childhood, at Easton, Pa., I was sent on an errand to a German farmhouse. The kind-hearted Frau was weeding her strawberry bed in the spring garden-making, and was throwing over the fence into the public road superfluous runners. I asked permission to pick them up to plant in my own little garden. She kindly assented, and I thanked her for them, whereupon she exclaimed, “Ach! nein! nein! Das ist no goot! You say, ‘Dank you’; now it no can grow any more!” I was too young to inquire into the philosophy of the matter. Surely she would not forbid gratitude. I think the gist of what she thought my error was, that I had thanked her for what she considered a worthless thing and had thrown away. I do not think she would have objected to thanks for anything she valued sufficiently to offer as a gift.