The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1878-03-08
AFRICA'S SUPERSTITIONs

Mr. Paul Is. Du ChaIllu lectured Friday
nigh at Association Hall, New York, on the
"Witchcraft and Snperstitions of Africa. u
| am going to take you again, said he, into
the jungle of Equatorial Africa. Stanley
met that jungle at the head waters of the
Congo; he met there the cannibals I saw
and the dwarls | discovered. And what a
jungle it is ! At the end of each DAVIS
journey | made, no negro could tell me
where that vast forest ended. There arc
great dangers there, and sometimes one has
to fight the people. 1t is not very pleasant
to fight; it was not very pleasant for Stan
ley but he had to fight or be killed.
The people are scattered in great tribes,
divided into clans and the clans into fanii-
lies, the chiefs and the old men making the
laws. Three institutions arc everywhere
prevalent-po!ygamy, slavery and witch.
craft. 1t is wonderful how these people
love to get married. They marry all the
time and never get tired of it. Some of
them marry as old as eighty-fvc or ninety
years, just as some of us do at home, YOU
know. Laughter.] The largest number
of wives have seen belonging to one man
was about three hundred, and when asked
him how many children he had, he said be.
tween six and eight hundred Two hun.
dred, more or less, didn't seem to trouble
him at all. The wives are not slaves, but
their husbands buy them when they are
three or four years old from their fathers
that is sort of dowry. Polygamy is also
Il political institution. The tribes are
always at war, aud hence man tries to get
as many wives as he can from the surround.
ing tribes so as to have friends among them.
They have great adherence of blood re.
lationship, and no man is allowed to take a
wife of his own clan.
The great curse Of that country is its su.
pcrstitions, and it is very hard to get ut the
bottom facts about their religious belief
They have two names which represent our
ideas Of God and of the devil. The devil
is the source Of all evil and withcraft.
When person is sick he is bewitched by
some one, and the sorcerer or sorceress has
to be killed. The doctors point them out,
and they have to swallow poison to prove
their innocence. This poison is the root of
a tree called "bundo," belonging to the
strychninc order, but these doctors take it
and do not die. Here, if a man sees the
new moon over his right shoulder, or his
left, it is lucky or unlucky but there it is
un'ucky if he secs the new moon at all. and
on the day of the new moon nobody dare
so out of his hut. The queen of witcbcraft
lives in the moon, and tho people of the
world are the insects on which witchcraft
feeds, and when witcbcraft is very hungry
she sends the plauge and kills more people.
Those who have any connection with the
spirit in the moon are women and must be
in trance. The people are honest in their
beliefs, but Of course there is jugglcry
among them. Among many tribes canni-
balism exists, but think it is sort of re.
ligious feast, as they do not kill people pur-
posely, except prisoners of war. AS among
the Indians, they have no mercy on those
taken in war. 1 made inquiries about this