Religion and Superstitions.
These are subjects which I should hardly have ventured to introduce into this book if I had had to rely exclusively upon enquiries made only during my stay among the Mafulu villages, without having the benefit of five years’ observation by the Mafulu Fathers of the Mission. And, notwithstanding this additional facility, my notes on these questions will be found to involve puzzles and apparent inconsistencies; and there is no part of the book which should be read and accepted with greater reserve and doubt as to possible misunderstanding. Subject to this caution, I give the information as I have obtained it.
I heard nothing to justify the idea of the Mafulu people having any belief in a universal God or All Father; but there is a general belief among them in a mysterious individual named Tsidibe, who may be a man, or may be a spirit (they appear to be vague as to this), who has immense power, and who once passed through their country in a direction from east to west. Wherever you may be, if you speak of this personage, and ask to be told in which direction he travelled, they always point out one which is from east to west. They believe that it was Tsidibe who taught them all their customs, including dancing and manufacture, and that he ultimately reached and remained in the land of the white man, where he is now living; and that the superior knowledge of the white man in manufacture, and especially in the making of clothes, has been acquired from him. The idea of his ultimate association with the white man can hardly, however, be a very ancient tradition. One of the Fathers was seriously asked by a native whether he had ever seen Tsidibe. They seem to think that he is essentially a beneficent being. They regret his having left their country; but they have no doubt as to this, and do not regard him as still continuing to exercise any influence over them and their affairs, have no ceremonies or observances with reference to him, and do not address to him any supplications. As traces of his passage through their country they will show you extraordinarily shaped rocks and stones, such as fragments which have fallen from above into the valley, and rocks and stones which have lodged in strange positions. But there are no ceremonies with reference to these and the natives have no fear of them, and indeed they will proudly point them out to you as evidences of this mysterious being having been in their country, and of his power. They would not hesitate to touch one of these stones, but they would never injure it. I learnt nothing about him which would justify me in suggesting that the Mafulu people deified him as an ancestor, or even regarded him as being one, though some of the matters attributed to him are perhaps not dissimilar from those often attributed to deified ancestors.[1]
They certainly have a lively belief in ghosts of people who have lived and died, and in spirits which have never occupied human form, all of whom (ghosts and spirits) are evil disposed, and in sorcery.
Every human being, male and female, has during life a mysterious ghostly self, in addition to his bodily visible and conscious self; and this ghostly self will on his death survive him as a ghost. There appears to be no idea of this ghostly self leaving the body in times of sleeping or dreaming; though, if a man dreams of someone who is dead, he thinks that he has been visited by that person’s ghost.
At death the ghost leaves the body, and becomes, and remains, a malevolent being. There is no idea of re-incarnation, or of the ghost passing into any animal or plant, though, as will be seen hereafter, it sometimes apparently becomes a plant; and there is no difference in their minds between the case of a person who has died naturally and one who has been killed in battle or otherwise, or between persons who have or have not been eaten, or who have or have not been buried, though in case of burial there are the methods of getting rid of the ghost; and there is no superstitious avoidance of graves or fear of mentioning a deceased person by name, and no superstition as to the shadows of living persons passing over graves and sacred places. Except as above stated, I found no trace of any belief in a future state.
When on the death of a man or woman or child, the ghostly self leaves the body, or at all events when the funeral pig-killing has been performed, the ghost goes away to the tops of the mountains, where apparently it exists as a ghost for ever. The shouting immediately after the death, and afterwards at the funeral, are steps towards driving it there; and the pig-killing ceremony completes the process. On reaching the mountains the ghost becomes one of two things. The ghost of a young or grown-up person up to, say, forty or forty-five years of age becomes the shimmering light upon the ground and undergrowth, which occurs here and there where the dense forest of the mountains is penetrated by the sun’s beams. It is apparently only the light which shimmers on the ground and undergrowth, and not that in the air. The ghost of an elderly person over forty or forty-five years of age becomes a large sort of fungus, which is indigenous to the mountains, where alone it is found. Any native who on a hunting expedition or otherwise meets with a glade in which this shimmering light occurs will carefully pass round it, instead of going across it; and any native finding one of these fungi will neither eat nor touch, nor even tread upon it; though indeed, as regards the eating, I understand that this particular fungus is one of the poisonous non-edible forms. A native who, after the recent death of another, is travelling in the mountains, and there finds a young fungus of this species only just starting into growth, will think that it is probably the ghost of the recently departed one.
As regards the use by me with reference to both sunbeams and fungi of the word “becomes” I recognise that it may justify much doubt and questioning. The idea of actually becoming the flickering light or the fungus, as distinguished from that of entering into or haunting it, is a difficult one to grasp, especially as regards the flickering light. I tried to get to the bottom of this question when I was at Mafulu; but the belief as to actual becoming was insisted upon, and I could get no further. I cannot doubt, however, that there is much room for further investigation on the point, which is of a character concerning which misapprehension may well arise, especially in dealing with such simple and primitive people as are the Mafulu natives.
The foods of these ghosts in both their forms are the ghostly elements of the usual native vegetable foods (sweet potato, yam, taro, banana, and in fact every vegetable food) and the ghostly elements of the excrement of the still living natives; and the ghosts come down from the mountains to the villages and gardens to procure these foods. Here again the difficulty as to meaning above referred to arises, as they can hardly imagine that the flickering lights cease to flicker in their mountain glades, or that the fungi cease to exist in their mountain habitats during these food-seeking incursions; and yet, unless this be so, the superstitious difficulty is increased. A ghost is also sometimes for some reason or other dissatisfied with his mountain abode; and he will then return to the village (not apparently in the visible form of a flickering light or a fungus).
As the intentions of the ghost towards living humanity are always evil, his visits, whether for procuring food or in consequence of dissatisfaction with his habitat, are feared by the people; but I could not ascertain what was the nature of the injuries by the ghost to themselves of which they were afraid, nor could I hear of any actual instance of a disaster or misfortune which had been attributed to the machinations of such a ghost. When sleeping in their dark enclosed houses, however, the people fill up all openings by which the ghost might enter (this does not apply to the emone, the entrance openings of which are not closed at night; but perhaps the fact that a number of men are always sleeping together there gives them confidence); and when the Mission Station at Mafulu was started the natives were amazed at the missionaries daring to sleep alone in rooms with open doors and windows, through which the ghosts might enter.