and that is that the souls of men exist before birth as well as
after death. This is indeed, as far as I have been able to find
out, a doctrine universally held by the West African tribes,
but among the M’pongwe there is this modification in it,
which agrees strangely well with the idea I found regarding
reincarnated diseases, existent among the Okyon tribes
(pure negroes). The malevolent minor spirits are capable of
being born with, what we will call, a man’s soul, as well as
going in with the man’s soul during sleep. For example, an
OlSgS. may be born with a man and that man will thereby be
born mad; he may at any period of his life, given certain
conditions, become possessed by an evil spirit, Onlogho
Abambo, Iniembe, Nkandada, and become mad, or i l l ; but
if - he is born mad, or sickly, one of the evil spirits such as
an OMga or an Ibambo, the soul of a man that has not been
buried properly, has been born with him.
The rest of the M’pongwe fetish is on broad lines common
to other tribes, so I relegate it to the general collection of
notes on fetish. M’pongwe jurisprudence is founded on the
same ideas as those on which West African jurisprudence at
large is founded, but it is so elaborated that it would be
desecration to sketch it. It requires a massive monograph.
CH A P T ER XI
ON THE WAY FROM KANGWE TO LAKE NCOVI
In which the voyager goes for bush again and wanders into a new lake
and a new river.
July 22nd, 1895.— Left Kangwe. The four Ajumba1 did
not turn up early in the morning as had been arranged,
but arrived about eight, in pouring rain, so decided to
wait until two o’clock, which will give us time to reach their
town of Arevooma before nightfall, and may perhaps
give us a chance of arriving there dry. A t two we start.
Good Mme. Jacot .comes down to Andande beach to see
us off, accompanied by Edmond; M. Jacot, I am sorry to
say, has a bad touch of fever, but insists that he will be all
right to-morrow ; and as he is a person whom one automatically
believes in, and also is a disciple of Kühne, one
can do nothing; so I go, though feeling anxious for Mme.
Jacot. I myself have an awful headache, complicated by the
conviction that I am in for a heavy bout of fever: but as an
Aduma canoe is one of the most comfortable things in Africa,
or out of it, this is no cause for delay. We go down river
on the Kangwe side of Lembarene Island, make a pause in
front of the Igalwa slave town, which is on the Island and
nearly opposite the Fan town of Fula on the mainland bank,
our. motive being to get stores of yam and plantain— and
magnificent specimens of both we get— and then, when our
1 These four Ajumba had been engaged, through the instrumentality
of M. Jacot, to accompany me to the Re nib we River. The Ajumba are
one of the noble tribes and are the parent stem of the M’pongwe ; their
district is the western side of Lake Ayzingo.