IN the first volume of this series we found that the Tshi-speaking peoples believe that every man has dwelling in him a spirit termed a kra, which enters him at birth and quits him at death, and is entirely distinct from the soul, which, at the death of the body, proceeds to the Land of the Dead, and there continues the life formerly led by the man in the world. In the second volume, we found that the Ewe speaking peoples have a similar belief, the indwelling spirit being by them termed a luwo. The Gã-speaking tribes, situated geographically between the Tshi and Ewe tribes, have modified this belief, and they assign to each individual two indwelling spirits, called kla, one male and one female, the former being of a bad and the latter of a good disposition. Each kla, like the kra and the luwo, is a guardian-spirit, but-and this is a new departure-they give good or bad advice, and prompt good or bad actions, according to their respective dispositions. The Yorubas also have modified what appears to be the original theory of one in-dwelling and guardian-spirit, and they hold that each man has three spiritual inmates, the first of whom, Olori, dwells in the head, the second, Ipin ijeun, in the stomach, and the third, Ipori, in the great toe.
Olori (Oni-ori, owner, or lord, of the head) sometimes called Ori (head, faculty, talent), seems to be the spirit which answers to the kra or luwo. He is the protector, guardian, and guide. Offerings are made to him, chiefly fowls, as with the kra and luwo, and some of the blood, mixed with palm-oil, is rubbed upon the forehead. Olori brings good-fortune, whence the proverb, "Olori causes the owner of the head to prosper, and not the crab on the bank of the river." The symbol of Olori is half a calabash studded over with cowries.
Ipin ijeun, or ipin ojehun (ipin, share, portion; ijeun, act of eating, from je ohun, to eat; hence "he who shares in the food"), is perhaps considered the most important of the three indwelling spirits, but as he shares in all that the man eats, he has no special sacrifice offered to him. A proverb says, "There is no orisha like the stomach; it receives food every day." In some respects hunger (ebi) seems to be personified, and to be considered the agent of Ipin ijeun; for he is said to communicate to the man, by pinching his stomach, the desire of his principal for food. Curiously enough, Ipin ijeun is connected with fire-worship. There is among the Yorubas no god of fire, answering to the Ewe god Dso, but fire (ina) was probably once personified, for it is still spoken of as Abanigbele, "the Inmate." It is not clear by what process fire-worship came to be blended with that of the indwelling spirit of the stomach; but the natives explain the connection between the two by saying that fire is necessary for the preparation of food, and food is necessary to Ipin ijeun, therefore he takes fire under his protection, and takes care that it is not extinguished. A proverbial saying runs, "Ipin ijeun does not allow fire to depart from the earth." When fire could only be produced by the tedious process of rubbing together two sticks, it was no doubt important to keep one or two embers of a fire always smouldering.
Ipori, the great toe, is the least important of the three guardian spirits, and sacrifice is rarely offered to him, except when a man is about to set out on a journey; in which case he anoints the great toe with a mixture of fowl's blood and palm-oil. Waterfowl are apparently "unclean" for this purpose, for a proverb says, "A waterfowl is not fit for the worship of Ipori."
The ghost-man, or soul, the "vehicle of individual personal existence," is called iwin, or olcan, but the latter also means "heart." Another word is ojiji, or oji, which has the meanings of ghost, shade, or shadow. After the death of the body, the ghost-man goes to Ipo-oku, "the Land of the Dead" (Ipo, place; oku, dead), which is beneath the earth, and where each man does that which he has been accustomed to do, and holds the same social position as he did in the world. To enable the ghost to reach this land it is essential that he should have the prescribed funeral rites performed over him. Should they be omitted, the ghost wanders about the world, cold, hungry, and homeless, and he runs the risk of being seized by some of the evil spirits which roam about the earth in great numbers, and cast by them into Orun-apadi, "the unseen world of potsherds," an uncomfortable place like a pottery furnace, heaped up with charcoal and the débris of broken earthen pots. Funeral rites cannot, of course, be performed at the moment that breath leaves the body, but as an earnest of their intention to perform them, and to prevent the evil spirits from seizing the ghost, the relations at once offer a sacrifice to propitiate them; and when the corpse is buried, a fowl, called Adire-iranna,[1] "the fowl that buys the road," that is, "that opens a right of way," is sacrificed.
A comparison of the beliefs held by uncivilised peoples concerning the dead, seems to show that when in a very low state of culture, the ghost, no doubt from the association of ideas, is held to remain in the vicinity of the grave in which the body was interred; and that the notion of a distinct and separate place of abode for the dead, or Deadland, is only formed when a higher degree of culture is attained. The first belief often lingers on alongside the second, as in England, where the churchyard is considered to be the most likely place in which to see a ghost; and a similar survival among the Yorubas, or a trace of the former belief, is found in the word iboji, "a grave," which means, literally, "place of the ghost" (ibi, place; oji, ghost).
The dead often return to earth, and are born again in the families to which they belonged in their former life. In fact, one might say that they always return, since every mother sends for a babalawo to tell her
There can be little reasonable doubt but that the notion that man possesses a soul, an entity that continues his personality after death, arose from dreams, after the manner shown by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Principles of Sociology." [2] A man dreams that he is going through various adventures, but, as the evidence of his companions shows him that he has not really left their company, he comes to the conclusion that he has a second individuality, something that is himself and yet is detachable, something that can go out of him, and does so go out when he is asleep. Among the lower races all over the world, dreams are believed to be the adventures of
Similar conceptions of two entities, the kra, or life-phantom, and the soul, or death-phantom, among the Navajo and Algonquin Indians of North America, the Karens of Burma, and the Fijians, were mentioned in the last volume,[2] but whether these people believe in metempsychosis is uncertain; and to them we may now add the Greenlanders,[3] and the ancient Egyptians, whose ka appears to closely resemble the kra.[4] A correspondent informs me that the Irish peasants of County Mayo also believe in an entity like the kra. They call it the "spirit," consider it to be perfectly distinct from the soul, and liable to be stolen by the fairies during the sleep of its possessor, who, on awakening, is ignorant of his loss, but
"One day they were asked to go to a festival at a neighbouring village, and their mother gave them permission.
"They went to the village, where the people were assembled to play, and they sang their songs and beat their drums so well that the people rewarded them highly. They gave to each boy a thousand cowries, and plenty to eat and drink. Then they dismissed them next morning to return home.
"On the way back the elder boy, covetous of the thousand cowries that had been given to the younger, led him off the path into the forest, and murdered him. Then he took the thousand cowries, added them to those which he already had, and returned home.
"When he came back alone, his mother asked him where was his brother. 'I left him behind on the road,' said the boy.
"The day passed, and night began to fall, and still the younger brother had not returned home. Then his mother and her neighbours went to look for the child, but they could not find him. They searched for him for many days, but found him not. They concluded that someone had carried him off to sell him.
"Some months afterwards the mother went into the forest to look for leaves for medicine, and she came to the place where the child had been murdered. The body of the boy had already decayed, and from his bones had sprung up an olu.[1] The olu was very fine and large, and when the mother saw it she cried, I Oh! what a fine olu.' She was stooping down to pick it, when the olu began singing~--
'Do not pluck me, mother,
Do not pluck me, mother,
Do not pluck me, mother,
I'm a lowly plant on the ground.
I went to the village frolic,
I went to the village frolic,
I'm a lowly plant on the ground.
I was given a thousand cowries,
I'm a lowly plant on the ground.
'Do not pluck me, father.'
(etc., etc., as before.)
The father went to the king of the country, and told him all that had happened. The king himself came to see the olu. He stooped to pick the olu, and the olu, sang-
'Do not pluck me, oba.'[1]
(etc., etc., as before.)
Then the king sent and ordered the elder brother to be brought before him. And when the boy beard what the olu had sung he confessed. The king said, 'As you took your brother and slew him, so will we now take you and slay you. Then shall the child come back to life.'
"So the elder brother was killed and the younger came back to life, as the king had said."
Here the connection between the obu and the dead
It would certainly appear as if the dead were cognizant of and able to influence the affairs of the living, for it is usual for offerings and prayers to be made to them from time to time; and sometimes the skull of the deceased is exhumed and placed in a small temple, where offerings are made to it. Before taking the field for war, too, offerings are made at the graves of warriors of renown, and their assistance in the coming campaign is supplicated. Yet a proverb says, "As grass cannot grow in the sky, so the dead cannot look out of the grave into the street," from which it might be inferred that the dead are not cognizant of what is taking place in the world, or at all events do not know what is occurring till it is made known to them through the medium of sacrifice, and several folk-lore tales point to this conclusion as well. The following is an example:
A woman, an inhabitant of an inland town, who was going to the sea-shore to make salt by boiling sea-water, a common industry, and who expected to be away from home for some time, gave, on the eve of her departure, and in the presence of witnesses, a necklace of valuable beads to a neighbour, to be kept for her during her absence. The neighbour, a woman with two boys, accepted the trust, and, for safe custody, made a hole in the mud wall of her house, into which she put the necklace, and then closed the aperture with fresh mud, which she smoothed down to conform with the wall. Unfortunately the woman died before the owner of the necklace returned, and the secret of its hiding-place died with her, so that when the owner at last came back and claimed her property, it could not be found.
The woman made a great commotion about the loss. She would not believe the two children when they declared that they had not seen or even heard of the necklace, and she took them before the chief, and charged them with theft. The chief heard the case. The fact of the necklace having been entrusted to the deceased woman was proved; the boys declared that they knew nothing of it, but the chief held that they were responsible. If they had not stolen it they knew where it was. They must restore it or pay the value. Such was the chief's decision, and in order to compel the elder boy to make restitution, he caused the younger to be "put in log," and threatened to sell him if the missing property were not recovered within a certain time.
In this dilemma the elder boy, knowing that human agency could avail him nought, souoght assistance from the gods. He went to the head priest of the babalawos at the town of Ife, unfolded his tale, and begged for aid. The priest consulted the god Ifa, and Ifa replied that in order to know what his mother had done with the necklace, the boy must go to Deadland and ask her. The child said he was ready to go, but how was he to get there? Then the oracle instructed him as follows:--
"Let the child in search of his mother
Offer an ebon sheep to the dead,
When night falls in the grove of Ifa.
Let the child in search of his mother
Sprinkle his eyes with lustral water,
Then shall the dead be visible to him.
Let the child in search of his mother
Follow the shadows' noiseless footsteps,
So shall he reach the land of the dead."
The babalawo instructed the boy that, upon making the necessary, payment, the door-keeper of Deadland would allow him to enter, and he warned him not to touch any of the dead, or else he would not be able to return to earth. Supposing all went well, and he returned again to the grove of Ifa, from which he would set forth, he must again sprinkle his eyes with the water of purification, to restore their natural properties to them, and then offer a living sacrifice to Ifa in gratitude for his assistance.
The boy followed out his instructions to the letter, and arrived safely in Deadland, where he saw his mother seated near a spring, around which many other dead people were walking slowly or sitting down. He approached his mother and called to her, whereupon she rose and came to him, saying, "What brings thee here my son? Why hast thou come to the land of the dead?" The boy replied, "The chief has put my brother in log, and will sell him as a slave if the necklace which was given thee to keep is not restored to our neighbour. Ifa the Great, the Unveiler of Futurity, the Governor of Lots, has permitted me to come here to ask thee where it is. Say, where is it?" His mother told him that it was hidden in the wall, explaining to him how to find the exact spot, and the boy was so overjoyed that, forgetting the warning of the priest, he tried to embrace her; but she stepped back hastily and avoided him, saying, "Touch me not my son, or the road to the world will be closed to thee for ever. Go home and effect thy brother's deliverance, and make frequent offerings to me, for I need them much." Then she turned away and went and sat down again by the spring.
The boy came back to the world, and found himself in the grove of Ifa, where he sprinkled his eyes as directed, and offered sacrifices. Then he went to the chief and told him what had occurred; so the necklace was found and his brother released. The two boys were not neglectful of their mother's last request. Everyfifth day they placed fresh offerings on her grave, and kept it always plentifully supplied with fresh water.
In this story the dead mother evidently did not know what was going on in the world above, for she had to ask her son why he came, yet she was able to reap the advantage of the offerings made on her grave.
Ordinarily, people do not have to undertake the dangerous journey to Deadland in order to consult the dead. When the members of a family wish to know how a departed relative is faring below, they apply to a priest, who takes a young child, bathes his face in water of purification, which, it may be remarked, is prepared with edible snails aud shea-butter, offers a sacrifice in a new earthen vessel, digs a hole in the earth in a sacred grove in the middle of the night, and bids the child look into it. Through the magical properties of the lustral water, the child, on looking down into the hole, is able to see into Deadland, and so can tell the priest all that is going on there. When the priest has obtained the information he requires, he again bathes the child's eyes with the water of purification, which causes him instantly to lose all recollection of what he has seen and heard. The priest thus remains the sole possessor of the information, and be is able to tell the family that employed him what he pleases.
