The religious observances of the Ekoi are altogether a fascinating study. Beneath many modern corruptions and disfigurements are yet to be found traces of an older, purer, form of worship, traces which carry us back to the oldest-known Minoan civilization, and link the belief of the modern Ekoi with that of the ancient Phoenician, the Egyptian, the Roman, and the Greek.
Trees are sacred; birds are sacred, for
Should the birds be injured or driven away the women would become barren and even the cattle cease to bear.
More recognition of the inviolability of cosmic law! Call it self-interest, if you will, it is at least a higher and worthier form of self-interest than the kind that rips the feathers off the birds and turns them loose to die a lingering death, or planes off the wooded hills in order to pile up riches on high.
The Ekoi spend their whole lives in the twilight of the beautiful mysterious bush, peopled, to their fancy, not by wild animals alone, of which they have no fear, but by were-leopards, and all kinds of terrible half-human shapes, and by the genii of rocks, trees, and rivers. Here, more truly even than in old Greece, the terror of Pan is everywhere!
Verily "savage" life is not without its consolations. We have dwelt on the bright side of the picture, and purposely so, for the other side has been too much dwelt upon; and so far from exaggerating, we are merely tending to restore the balance of an equable view. If we regard life as mainly the experience of a Soul, then the outward appurtenances of civilization count for less; and a people like the Ekoi may possibly fulfil the purposes of Soul in quite a satisfactory way. One can even imagine a Soul, wearied with life in modern civilization, taking a resting incarnation in such a people, to dwell with Pan in these beautiful glades.
That the journal of the Royal Geographical Society should publish such a sympathetic account is a noteworthy sign of the times. There seems to be a reactionary movement by which the heathen in his darkness is shedding a little light on our inveterate superstition.
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.