All souls in it grow
forward or backward into the prime of life and remain there, some
informants say; others say that each inhabitant remains there at the
same age as he was when he quitted the world above. This latter
view is most like the South West one. The former is possibly only
an attempt to make Srahmandazi into a heaven in conformation with
Christian teaching, which it is not, any more than it is a hell.
I have much curious information regarding its flora and fauna. A
great deal of both is seemingly indigenous, and then there are the
souls of great human beings, the Asrahmanfw, and the souls of all
the human beings, animals, and things sent down with them. The
ghosts do not seem to leave off their interest in mundane affairs,
for they not only have local palavers, but try palavers left over
from their earthly existence; and when there is an outbreak of
sickness in a Fantee town or village, and several inhabitants die
off, the opinion is often held that there is a big palaver going on
down in Srahmandazi and that the spirits are sending up on earth for
witnesses, subpoenaing them as it were. Medicine men or priests are
called in to find out what particular earthly grievance can be the
subject of the ghost palaver, and when they have ascertained this,
they take the evidence of every one in the town on this affair, as
it were on commission, and transmit the information to the court
sitting in Srahmandazi. This prevents the living being incommoded
by personal journeys down below, and although the priests have their
fee, it is cheaper in the end, because the witnesses' funeral
expenses would fall heavier still.
Although far more elaborated and thought out than any other African
underworld I have ever come across, the Tschwi Srahmandazi may be
taken as a type of all the African underworlds. The Bantu's idea of
a future life is a life spent in much such a place. As far as I can
make out there is no definite idea of eternity. I have even come
across cases in which doubt was thrown on the present existence of
the Creating God, but I think this has arisen from attempts having
been made to introduce concise conceptions into the African mind,
conceptions that are quite foreign to its true nature and which
alarm and worry it. You never get the strange idea of the
difference between time and eternity - the idea I mean, that they are
different things - in the African that one frequently gets in
cultured Europeans; and as for the human soul, the African always
believes "that still the spirit is whole, and life and death but
shadows of the soul."
CHAPTER XVI. FETISH - (concluded).
In which the discourse on apparitions is continued, with some
observations on secret societies, both tribal and murder, and the
kindred subject of leopards.
Apparitions are by no means always of human soul origin. All the
Tschwi and the Ewe gods, for example, have the habit of appearing
pretty regularly to their priests, and occasionally to the laity,
like Sasabonsum; but it is only to priests that these appearances
are harmless or beneficial. The effect of Sasabonsum's appearance
to the layman I have cited above, and I could give many other
examples of the bad effects of those of other gods, but will only
now mention Tando, the Hater, the chief god of the Northern Tschwi,
the Ashantees, etc. He is terribly malicious, human in shape, and
though not quite white, is decidedly lighter in complexion than the
chief god of the Southern Tschwi, Bobowissi. His hair is lank, and
he carries a native sword and wears a long robe. His well-selected
messengers are those awful driver ants (Inkran) which it is not
orthodox to molest in Tando's territories. He uses as his weapons
lightning, tempest, and disease, but the last is the most favourite
one.
There is absolutely no trick too mean or venomous for Tando. For
example, he has a way of appearing near a village he has a grudge
against in the form of a male child, and wanders about crying
bitterly, until some kind-hearted, unsuspecting villager comes and
takes him in and feeds him. Then he develops a contagious disease
that clears that village out.
This form of appearance and subsequent conduct is, unhappily, not
rigidly confined to Tando, but is used by many spirits as a method
of collecting arrears in taxes in the way of sacrifices. I have
found traces of it among Bantu gods or spirits, and it gives rise to
a general hesitation in West Africa to take care of waifs and strays
of unexplained origin.
Other things beside gods and human spirits have the habit of
becoming incarnate. Once I had to sit waiting a long time at an
apparently perfectly clear bush path, because in front of us a
spear's ghost used to fly across the path about that time in the
afternoon, and if any one was struck by it they died. A certain
spring I know of is haunted by the ghost of a pitcher. Many ladies
when they have gone alone to fill their pitchers in the evening time
at this forest spring have noticed a very fine pitcher standing
there ready filled, and thinking exchange is no robbery, or at any
rate they would risk it if it were, have left their own pitcher and
taken the better looking one; but always as soon as they have come
within sight of the village huts, the new pitcher has crumbled into
dust, and the water in it been spilt on the ground; and the worst of
it is, when they have returned to fetch their own discarded pitcher,
they find it also shattered into pieces.
