E. Aymonier, “Les Tchames et leurs religions,” Revue de l'histoire des Religions, xxiv. (1891) pp. 272-274.
192
S. Crowther and J. C. Taylor, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger (London, 1859), pp. 287 sq. Mr. Taylor's information is repeated in West African Countries and Peoples, by J. Africanus B. Horton (London, 1868), pp. 180 sq.
193
J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stämme (Berlin, 1906), pp. 304-310, 340; compare id. pp. 435, 480, 768. The “slaves of the Earth-gods” are children whom women have obtained through prayers offered to Agbasia, the greatest of the Earth-gods. When such a child is born, it is regarded as the slave of Agbasia; and the mother dedicates it to the service of the god, as in similar circumstances Hannah dedicated Samuel to the Lord (1 Samuel i.). If the child is a girl, she is married to the priest's son; if it is a boy, he serves the priest until his mother has given birth to a girl whom she exchanges for the boy. See J. Spieth, op. cit. pp. 448-450. In all such cases the original idea probably was that the child has been begotten in the woman by the god and therefore belongs to him as to his father, in the literal sense of the word.
194
T. E. Bowdich, Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, New Edition (London, 1873), pp. 226-229.
195
A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast (London, 1887), pp. 229 sq.
196
J. C. Reichenbach, “Etude sur le royaume d'Assinie,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), vii.ème Série, xi. (1890) p. 349.
197
Ramseyer and Kühne, Four Years in Ashantee (London, 1875), pp. 147-151; E. Perregaux, Chez les Achanti (Neuchatel, 1906), pp. 158-160.
198
H. Ling Roth, Great Benin (Halifax, England, 1903), pp. 76 sq.
199
A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, 1909), pp. 46 sq.
200
Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 428.
201
F. Speckmann, Die Hermannsburger Mission in Afrika (Hermannsburg, 1876), pp. 150 sq.
202
L. Grout, Zulu-land (Philadelphia, n. d.), p. 161.
203
(South African) Folk-lore Journal, i. (1879) p. 135; Rev. H. Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, Part iii. p. 389 note.
204
Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, Second Edition (London, 1890), pp. 216 sq. On the conception of the two fire-sticks as husband and wife, see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 208 sqq.
205
J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal (London, 1857), p. 27; N. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (London, 1836), ii. 293; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 270, 271.
206
J. Macdonald, op. cit. p. 189.
207
Rev. J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), pp. 136-138, from manuscript notes furnished by J. Sutton. Mr. Macdonald has described the custom more briefly in his Light in Africa, Second Edition (London, 1890), p. 189.
208
N. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (London, 1836), ii. 292.
209
A. Delegorgue, Voyage dans l'Afrique Australe (Paris, 1847), ii. 237.
210
Above, vol. i. p. 240.
211
See The Dying God, pp. 36 sq. On the Zulu festival of first-fruits see also T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, Voyage d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne Espérance (Paris, 1843), pp. 308 sq.; G. Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas (Breslau, 1872), p. 143. Fritsch mentions that after executing a grotesque dance in the presence of the assembled multitude the king gives formal permission to eat of the new fruits by dashing a gourd or calabash to the ground. This ceremony of breaking the calabash is mentioned also by J. Shooter (Kafirs of Natal, p. 27), L. Grout (Zulu-land, p. 162), and Mr. Dudley Kidd (The Essential Kafir, p. 271). According to this last writer the calabash is filled with boiled specimens of the new fruits, and the king sprinkles the people with the cooked food, frequently spitting it out on them. Mr. Grout tells us (l. c.) that at the ceremony a bull is killed and its gall drunk by the king and the people. In killing it the warriors must use nothing but their naked hands. The flesh of the bull is given to the boys to eat what they like and burn the rest; the men may not taste it. See L. Grout, op. cit. p. 161. According to Shooter, two bulls are killed; the first is black, the second of another colour. The boys who eat the beef of the black bull may not drink till the next morning, else the king would be defeated in war or visited with some personal misfortune. See Shooter, op. cit. pp. 26 sq. According to another account the sacrifice of the bull, performed by the warriors of a particular regiment with their bare hands, takes place several weeks before the festival of first-fruits, and “the strength of the bull is supposed to enter into the king, thereby prolonging his health and strength.” See D. Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas2 (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 91. For a general account of the Caffre festival of first-fruits, see Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 270-272.
212
Rev. W. C. Willoughby, “Notes on the Totemism of the Becwana,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905) pp. 311-313. It is very remarkable that among several Bantu tribes the cohabitation of husband and wife is enjoined as a religious or magical rite on a variety of solemn occasions, such as after the death of a son or daughter, the circumcision of a child, the first menstruation of a daughter, the occupation of a new house or of a new village, etc. For examples see C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 58, 59, 60, 65, 67, 69, 74; H. A. Junod, “Les Conceptions physiologiques des Bantou Sud-Africains et leurs tabous,” Revue d'Ethnographie et de Sociologie, i. (1910) p. 148; Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 48, 144, 357, 363, 378, 428, etc.; id., “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 59, 61. Among the Baganda the act of stepping or leaping over a woman is regarded as equivalent to cohabitation with her, and is accepted as a ritual substitute for it (J. Roscoe, The Baganda, p. 357 note). The ideas on which this custom of ceremonial cohabitation is based are by no means clear.
213
Ch. Croonenberghs, S.J., “La fête de la Grande Danse dans le haut Zambeze,” Les Missions Catholiques, xiv. (1882) pp. 230-234; L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), pp. 157 sq. The two accounts supplement each other. I have combined features from both in the text.
214
H. Tönjes, Ovamboland, Land, Leute, Mission (Berlin, 1911), pp. 200 sq.
215
V. Frič and P. Radin, “Contributions to the Study of the Bororo Indians,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) p. 392.
216
The ceremony is described independently by James Adair, History of the American Indians (London, 1775), pp. 96-111; W. Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida (London,
