The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-06
soutb African Fetishtsm .
)From the New York Mail and Express,

)From the New York Mail and Express9 What with Cecil Rhodes and his ad- venturous colleagues in the south and
 hundreds of explorers and government officials travelling inland from almost every part of the African coast, the dark continent is being stripped of its mystery, and in all probability will be as well known before the century is out as New England or the Middle States While the researches by scientific and other military explorers have put an end to many of the idle tales and
 strange stories which were connected with that great continent, they have disclosed hundreds of other facts more
 extraordinary than those exploded.
 The most interesting of all these are those connected with religious and su- perstitious forms and ceremonies. A collection of curios illustrating this sub ject was a great attraction in the ne
 gro building at the Atlanta Internation-
 al Exposition. Other collections, some
 even larger, are now to be found in nearly every leading city of our own country and the countries of Europe. We begin to have very complete | knowledge of what these numerous
 races of Africa believe in respecting the
 other world and it's relation to this one. l In the first place, the women, in the
 main, are more religious than the men. | Wherever any difference has been mo- | ted it has always been in favor of the 1 woman. They cultivate the medicine
 men, the wizards and the priests upon
 any and all occasions. Where their faith demands human sacrifice they I yield their own flesh and blood or their
 own lives with seeming equaninlty or
 even indifference. On the west coast,
 in the Ashantee district, as well as in
 the Dahomey division, where human
 beings are slain at funerals that their l spirits may prevent the spirit of a dis tinguished chief from feeling lonely in 1 the next world. the victims meet the ex- l ecutioner in many cases with delight.
 The only parallel to be found is in the history of India and of China. In re- spect to spiritual conceptions, the vari- ety is simply endless. Some of the | tribes are so low as to possess no word l for God, spirit. heaven, immortality. i right and wrong, At another stage l they worship animals, such as the ser l pent, crocodile, lion, elephant, shark and vulture. Many tribes of the Zulus and the Matalbeles have a theology and cosmogony similar to that of the North American Indian. Another group of tribes seems to find the divine power in | the sun, storm and other great material events. Tn few of the higher tribes, | especially in the Soudan, there is a comparatively well defined Poly theism, which, in spiritual character, is neither better nor worse than that of the early Greeks and Romans.
 Cannibalism appears to have been all most universal and to be practiced even to-day by at least one-third of the pop u1ation of Central Africa. Tn some places it has a religious form, the vic- tims being slain upon religious holidays by the priests and then eaten by the worshipers Fetishes are simply num- berless. Amulets and talismans are worn by everybody. The tooth of an animal, the whiskers of a monkey or cat or a. squirrel, the foot of a rabbit, an antelope or other small animals, the comb of q cock, the head of a bird, the
 scales of 8 fish, the skin of carnivora pieces of ore, rock, gems and even earth, flowers, seeds, roots and barks are all employed, alone or in combina- ton. for luck, to avert disease, to pro-
 pitiate the god of death, to avoid
 wounds in warfare, to prevent capture