the woman. Among the Tschwi she requires special ceremonies
on her own account. In Togoland, among the Ewe
people, I know the period is between five and six weeks,
during which time the widow remains in the hut, armed with
a good stout stick, as a precaution against the ghost of her
husband, so as to ward off attacks should he be ill-tempered.
After these six weeks the widow can come out of the hut, but
as his ghost has not permanently gone hence, and is apt to
revisit the neighbourhood for the next six months, she has to
be taken care of during this period. Then, after certain ceremonies,
she is free to marry again. So I conclude the period
of mourning, in all tribes, is that period during which the soul
remains round its old possessions, whether these tribes have a
definite soul-burial or devil-making or not.
The ideas connected with the under-world to which the
ghost goes are exceedingly interesting. The Negroes and
Bantus are at one on these subjects in one particular only,
and that is that no marriages take place there. The Tschwis
say that this under-world, Srahmandazi, is just the same as this
world in all other particulars, save that it is dimmer, a veritable
shadow-land where men have not the joys of life, but only the
shadow of the joy. Hence, says the Tschwi proverb, “ One
day in this world is worth a year in Srahmandazi.” The
Tschwis, with their usual definiteness in this sort of detail,,
know all about their Srahmandazi. Its entrance is just east
of the middle Volta, and the way down is difficult to follow,
and when the sun sets on this world it rises on Srahmandazi.
The Bantus are vague on this important and interesting point.
The Benga, for example, although holding the absence of
marriage there, do not take steps to meet the case as
the Tschwis do, and kill a supply of wives to take down with
them. This reason for killing wives at a funeral is another
instance that, however strange and cruel a custom may be here
in West Africa, however much it may at first appear to be the
flower of a rootless superstition, you will find on close investigation
that it has some root in a religious idea, and a common-
sense element. The common-sense element in the killing of
wives and slaves among both the Tschwi and the Calabar tribes
consists in the fact that it discourages poisoning. A Calabar
chief elaborately explained to me that the rigorous putting down
of killing at funerals that was being carried on by the Government
not only landed a man in the next world as a wretched
pauper, but added an additional chance to his going there
prematurely, for his wives and slaves, no longer restrained by
the prospect of being killed at his death and sent off with
him would, on very slight aggravation, put “ bush in his
V I E W O N T H E M I D D L E V O L T A .
chop.” It is sad to think of this thorn being added to the
rose-leaves of a West Coast chief’s life, as there are 99^-
per cent, of thorns in it already.
I came across a similar case on the Gold Coast, when a
chief complained to me of the way the Government were preserving
vermin, in the shape of witches, in the districts under
its surveillance. You were no longer allowed to destroy them
as of old, and therefore the vermin were destroying the game ;