to me (pace Mr. Dennett) to have the same force. We find it used by the Duala, Benga, and Mpongwe. The Hereros believe in a Supreme Deity, Njambi Karunga, who is distinct from the ancestral spirits (ovakuru), and does not, like them, receive worship and sacrifice, though invoked under stress of calamity. In Angola, we find Nzambi, and also a distinct being, Kalunga, a personification of Death. On the other hand, the Barotse pay stated devotions to Nyambi at sunrise and sunset—see the remarkable account given in the journals of the late M. Coillard (Coillard of the Zambesi, pp. 345-8).
Mr. Dennett asks (p. 163): "And can NGO [the leopard] then be the sacred animal of not only the Kongo people, but of all the Bantu?" This is certainly a subject worth investigating; we find scattered indications that such may even have been the case with the Zulus. The name ingwe (=ngo) is seldom heard, being counted unlucky; the animal is usually called isilo, which really means "a wild beast" in general, and isilo itself is one of the royal titles of great chiefs. The leopard's skin, too, could only be worn by chiefs. Again, the name nyalugwe, used in Nyanja, is probably substituted, for reasons connected with hlonipa, or, to use Mr. Dennett's word, china, for some cognate form of ngo.
A curious parallel to the ematon of the Bini (p. 194) is described by Livingstone (Missionary Travels, ch. xii.[1]). At Lilonda, the residence of the deceased Barotse chief Santuru, he found "a grove . . . in which are to be seen various instruments of iron just in the state he left them. One looks like the guard of a basket-hilted sword; another has an upright stem of the metal, on which are placed branches worked at the ends into miniature axes, hoes, and spears; on these he was accustomed to present offerings, according as he desired favours to be conferred in undertaking hewing, agriculture, or fighting."
Lastly, the Bini folk-tale on p. 230 is a variant of one found both in Bantu and Negro Africa, in several different versions, one being given by Mr. Dennett himself in Folklore of the Fjort. The theme usually is that the Hare and the Elephant agree to kill their mothers in time of famine, and the Elephant does so, while
- ↑ P. 191 in Ward & Lock's edition.
