of the Cameroons, in West Africa, think that
every man has several souls, of which one is lodged in an elephant, a
wild boar, a leopard, or what not. When any one comes home, feels ill,
and says, "I shall soon die," and is as good as his word, his friends
are of opinion that one of his souls has been shot by a hunter in a wild
boar or a leopard, for example, and that that is the real cause of his
death. (J. Keller, "Ueber das Land und Volk der Balong", "Deutsches
Kolonialblatt", 1 October, 1895, page 484.) A Catholic missionary,
sleeping in the hut of a chief of the Fan negroes, awoke in the middle
of the night to see a huge black serpent of the most dangerous sort
in the act of darting at him. He was about to shoot it when the chief
stopped him, saying, "In killing that serpent, it is me that you would
have killed. Fear nothing, the serpent is my elangela." (Father Trilles,
"Chez les Fang, leurs Moeurs, leur Langue, leur Religion", "Les Missions
Catholiques", XXX. (1898), page 322.) At Calabar there used to be some
years ago a huge old crocodile which was well known to contain the
spirit of a chief who resided in the flesh at Duke Town. Sporting
Vice-Consuls, with a reckless disregard of human life, from time to time
made determined attempts to injure the animal, and once a peculiarly
active officer succeeded in hitting it. The chief was immediately laid
up with a wound in his leg. He SAID that a dog had bitten him, but
few people perhaps were deceived by so flimsy a pretext. (Miss Mary H.
Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa" (London, 1897), pages 538 sq. As to
the external or bush souls of human beings, which in this part of Africa
are supposed to be lodged in the bodies of animals, see Miss Mary H.
Kingsley op. cit. pages 459-461; R. Henshaw, "Notes on the Efik belief
in 'bush soul'", "Man", VI.(1906), pages 121 sq.; J. Parkinson,
"Notes on the Asaba people (Ibos) of the Niger", "Journal of the
Anthropological Institute", XXXVI. (1906), pages 314 sq.) Once when Mr
Partridge's canoe-men were about to catch fish near an Assiga town in
Southern Nigeria, the natives of the town objected, saying, "Our
souls live in those fish, and if you kill them we shall die." (Charles
Partridge, "Cross River Natives" (London, 1905), pages 225 sq.) On
another occasion, in the same region, an Englishman shot a hippopotamus
near a native village. The same night a woman died in the village,
and her friends demanded and obtained from the marksm