“ They be fool men,” said he, and he went on to explain
that the ghost of that slave would be almost immediately back
on earth again growing up ready to work for some one else,
and would not wait for its last owner’s soul down below, and
out of the luxuriant jungle of information that followed 1
gathered that no man’s soul dallies below long, and also that
a soul returning to a family, a thing ensured by certain ju-jus,
was identified. The new babies as they arrive in the family
are shown a selection of small articles belonging to deceased
members whose souls are still absent; the thing the child
catches hold of identifies him. “ Why he’s Uncle John, see !
he knows his own pipe ; ” or PThat’s cousin Emma, see ! she
knows her market calabash, and so on.
I remember discoursing with a very charming French official
on the difficulty of eradicating fetish customs. ^
| Why not take the native in the rear, Mademoiselle,” said
he, “ and convert the native gods ? ”
I explained that his ingenious plan was not feasible,
because you cannot convert gods. Even educating gods is
hopeless work. All races of men through countless ages,
have been attempting to make their peculiar deities understand
how they are wanted to work, and what they are
wanted to do, and the result is anything but encouraging.
As I have dwelt on the repellent view of Negro funeral
custom, I must in justice to them cite their better view. There
is a custom that I missed much on going south of Calabar,
for it is a pretty one. Outside the villages in the Calabar
districts, by the sides of the most frequented roads, you
will see erections of boughs. I do not think these are
intended for huts, but for beds, for they are very like the
Calabar type of bed, only made in wood instead of clay.
Over them a roof of mats is put, to furnish a protection
against rain.
These shelters— graves or fetish huts they are wrongly
called by Europeans— are made by driving four longish stout
poles into the ground while at the height of about three feet or
so four more poles are tied so as to make a skeleton platform
which is filled in with withies and made flat. Another set of
five poles is tied above, and to these the roof is affixed. On