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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(NOVEMBER, 1897.
The Australians suppose that thickets, pools and rocks swarm with spirits.42 They believe that white men are the ghosts of dead Australians, and that the Kinir-Kinir or spirits of the departed. wander over the earth. The Australians have crowds of spirits called Ingoas, who worry and trouble men. They throw heated stones and sit apon men as nightmares.45 The Australians believed in innumerable evil spirits. The ghosts of hostile or unburied dead filled heaven and earth and caused evil. Australians hated to name the dead, to go near a grave, or to dream. They did not attempt to propitiate with charms the spirits. The object of their rites was to counteract the power of the unfriendly spirits.46
The Dayaks of Borneo and the Papuans of Now Guinea believe in evil spirits of the clouds, the sea, the rocks, and the forests.47 Before cutting down a tree the Dayaks are careful to please Pulang Gana, the place-spirit. The Philippine Islanders see phantoms, called tibalong, on the tree-tops. Children are carried off by their dead mothers who are vastly tall, with long hair, little feet, long wings, painted bodies and a peculiar smell. The Islanders shew the ghost-mothers to the Spaniards, but the Spaniards cannot see them,49 The Motus of New Guinea believe that the departed sometimes appear on earth. Children will run into the house and tell their widowed mother that their father has come back to see them; she goes to the door, and true enough sees her husband standing with his feet in the ground, as if he had risen out of it. She tries to catch hold of him, but he sinks back into the earth. The people do not cite these experiences as narsery tales. They firmly believe them, and in confirmation of these appearances appeal to the evidence of their own eyes. They also believe that when a person dies, the spirit of some departed friend comes to carry the spirit away.50 The health and lives of the Shoas and Gallas of North-East Africa are in the hands of a class of demons called Zar to whom tobacco smoke is as incense.61
In Madagascar, the spirits of the dead are supposed to dwell on lofty mountains,62 In the Lovale country, in the west of South Central Africa, inland from the Kongo River, men dress as sham devils and clear the wood of real spirits.53 In South Central Africa, one of the natives came close to Captain Cameron, and after a good look covered bis face with his hands, and yelled. He had never seen a white man, and took Cameron for a devil.54 The Bongos of the White Nile and other negroes hold that no good ever came from a spirit. The only thing they know about spirits is that they do harm.56 In Kulongo, near the White Nile, a great cavern is supposed to be full of spirits. Really it is full of bats and porcupines.56 Kafirs refuse to save a drowning man. They think the water-spirit has dragged him in.67
In Mexico, women who die in child-bed are feared and honoured. After death they become spirits, and act as guardians or attendants of the sun. Formerly young men tried to cut off the hair of such women, and wizards to cut off the left arm.68 The Mexicans deified all women who died in child-birth. Shrines decked with paper images were raised to their honour in every ward that had two streets. Once a year all persons sentenced to death were slain in honour of the goddess, that is, of the spirits of dead women. The spirits of these women moved throagh the air, and entered into people. They made children sick, sending paralysis and other sudden diseases. Their favourite haunt on earth was cross-roads, and on certain days of the year people would not go out of the house for fear of them. They were propitiated by offerings of bread and roasted maize. The wild tribes of Brazil live in constant fear of spirits. However brave in
+ Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Vol. I. p. 236. Wallace's Australasia, p. 100. ** Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. VII. p. 250. 45 Reville's Les Religions des Peuples Non-Civilizée, Vol. II. p. 154. 46 Descriptive Sociology, 3 Table 4.
47 Trans. By. Geog. Soc. April 1884, p. 210. 48 Straits Journal, June 1881, p. 147.
19 Careri in Churchill, Vol. IV. p. 430. 50 Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. VII. Pp. 485, 198.
61 Elworthy's The Evil Eye, p. 391. 12 Sibree's Madagascar, p. 312.
u Cameron's Across Africa, Vol. II. p. 189. u Op.cit. Vol. II. p. 146.
os Schweinfurth's Heart of Africa, Vol. I. p. 306. 16 Op. cit. Vol. I. pp. 233-235.
67 Cunningham's South Africa, p. 325. 18 Bancroft, Vol. III. p. 364.
69 Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 363.
