difficulty in replacing human beings at funerals with gold-dust,
cloth, and other forms of riches, and this is already done in
districts under white influence. But in the Delta there is no
under-world to live in, the souls shortly after reaching the
under-world being forwarded back to this, in new babies, and
the wealth that is sent down with a man serves as an indication
as to what class of baby the soul is to be repacked and sent up
in. As wealth in the Delta consists of women and slaves I do
not believe the under-world gods of the Niger would understand
the status of a chief who arrived before them, let us say, with
ten puncheons of palm oil, and four hundred yards of crimson
figured velvet; they would say, “ Oh ! very good as far as
it goes, but where is your real estate ? The chances are you
are only a trade slave boy and have stolen these things ” ; and
in consequence of this, killing at funerals will be a custom
exceedingly difficult to stamp out in these regions. Try and
imagine yourself how abhorrent it must be to send down a dear
and honoured relative to the danger of his being returned to
this world shortly as a slave. There is no doubt a certain idea
among the Negroes that some souls may get a rise in status on
their next incarnation. You often hear a'woman saying she
will be a man next time, a slave he will be a freeman, and so
on, but how or why some souls obtain promotion I have not yet
sufficient evidence to show. I think a little more investigation
will place this important point in my possession. I once said
to a Calabar man, “ But surely it would be easy for a man s
friends to cheat; they could send down a chief’s outfit with a
man, though he was only a small man here ? ”
“ No,” said he, “ the other souls would tell on him, and
then he would get sent up as a dog or some beast as a
punishment.”
My first conception of the prevalence of the incarnation
idea was also gained from a Delta negro. I said, “ Why in the
world do you throw away in the bush the bodies of your dead
slaves ? Where I have been they tie a string to the leg of
a dead slave and when they bury him bring the string to
the top and fix it to a peg, with the owner’s name on, and
then when the owner dies he has that slave again down
below.”