The Different Instruments With Which He Works In The Shaping Of
Human Destiny Bear His Name When In His Employ.
When acting by
means of water, he is O Mbuiri Aningo; when in the weather, O Mbuiri
Ngali; when in the forests, O Mbuiri Ibaka; when in the form of a
dwarf, O Mbuiri Akoa, and so on.
The great difference between O Mbuiri and the lesser spirits is
this: - the lesser spirits cannot incarnate themselves except
through extraneous things; O Mbuiri can, he can become visible
without anything beyond his own will to do so. The other spirits
must be in something to become visible. This is an extremely
delicate piece of Fetish which it took me weeks to work out. I
think I may say another thing about O Mbuiri, though I say it
carefully, and that is, that among the M'pongwe and the tribe who
are the parent tribe of the M'pongwe - the now rapidly dying out
Ajumba, and their allied tribe the Igalwa - O Mbuiri is a distinct
entity, while among the neighbouring tribes he is a class, i.e.
there are hundreds of O Mbuiri or Ibwiri, one for every remarkable
place or thing, such as rock, tree, or forest thicket, and for every
dangerous place in a river. Had I not observed a similar state of
affairs regarding Sasabonsum, a totally different kind of spirit on
the Windward coast, I should have had even greater trouble than I
had, in finding a key to what seemed at first a mass of conflicting
details regarding this important spirit O Mbuiri.
There is one other very important point in M'pongwe Fetish; and that
is that the souls of men exist before birth as well as after death.
This is indeed, as far as I have been able to find out, a doctrine
universally held by the West African tribes, but among the M'pongwe
there is this modification in it, which agrees strangely well with
the idea I found regarding reincarnated diseases, existent among the
Okyon tribes (pure negroes). The malevolent minor spirits are
capable of being born with, what we will call, a man's soul, as well
as going in with the man's soul during sleep. For example, an Olaga
may be born with a man and that man will thereby be born mad; he may
at any period of his life, given certain conditions, become
possessed by an evil spirit, Onlogho Abambo, Injembe, Nkandada, and
become mad, or ill; but if he is born mad, or sickly, one of the
evil spirits such as an Olaga or an Obambo, the soul of a man that
has not been buried properly, has been born with him.
The rest of the M'pongwe Fetish is on broad lines common to other
tribes, so I relegate it to the general collection of notes on
Fetish. M'pongwe jurisprudence is founded on the same ideas as
those on which West African jurisprudence at large is founded, but
it is so elaborated that it would be desecration to sketch it. It
requires a massive monograph.
CHAPTER VII. ON THE WAY FROM KANGWE TO LAKE NCOVI.
In which the voyager goes for bush again and wanders into a new lake
and a new river.
July 22nd, 1895. - Left Kangwe. The four Ajumba {170} did not turn
up early in the morning as had been arranged, but arrived about
eight, in pouring rain, so decided to wait until two o'clock, which
will give us time to reach their town of Arevooma before nightfall,
and may perhaps give us a chance of arriving there dry. At two we
start. We go down river on the Kangwe side of Lembarene Island,
make a pause in front of the Igalwa slave town, which is on the
Island and nearly opposite the Fan town of Fula on the mainland
bank, our motive being to get stores of yam and plantain - and
magnificent specimens of both we get - and then, when our canoe is
laden with them to an extent that would get us into trouble under
the Act if it ran here, off we go again. Every canoe we meet shouts
us a greeting, and asks where we are going, and we say "Rembwe" - and
they say "What! Rembwe!" - and we say "Yes, Rembwe," and paddle on.
I lay among the luggage for about an hour, not taking much interest
in the Rembwe or anything else, save my own headache; but this soon
lifted, and I was able to take notice, just before we reached the
Ajumba's town, called Arevooma. The sandbanks stretch across the
river here nearly awash, so all our cargo of yams has to be thrown
overboard on to the sand, from which they can be collected by being
waded out to. The canoe, thus lightened, is able to go on a little
further, but we are soon hard and fast again, and the crew have to
jump out and shove her off about once every five minutes, and then
to look lively about jumping back into her again, as she shoots over
the cliffs of the sandbanks.
When we reach Arevooma, I find it is a very prettily situated town,
on the left-hand bank of the river - clean and well kept, and
composed of houses built on the Igalwa and M'pongwe plan with walls
of split bamboo and a palm thatch roof. I own I did not much care
for these Ajumbas on starting, but they are evidently going to be
kind and pleasant companions. One of them is a gentlemanly-looking
man, who wears a gray shirt; another looks like a genial Irishman
who has accidentally got black, very black; he is distinguished by
wearing a singlet; another is a thin, elderly man, notably silent;
and the remaining one is a strapping, big fellow, as black as a
wolf's mouth, of gigantic muscular development, and wearing
quantities of fetish charms hung about him. The two first mentioned
are Christians; the other two pagans, and I will refer to them by
their characteristic points, for their honourable names are awfully
alike when you do hear them, and, as is usual with Africans, rarely
used in conversation.
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