Note 55 — RELIGION

Ghosts. Ghost stories abound. The following one, which was told me by a man from Rephyim, is typical: “One day I was coming up from the fields with others when I saw my elder brother’s wife coming down to meet us. We called out to her, but she did not answer, only coughed and spat and turned aside into the jungle. When I got up to the village I found she had died in her husband’s house while we were down at the fields.” Another one, also from Rephyim, runs as follows: “When my brother and I were children we met our uncle on our way up from the fields, but when he got near us he disappeared up into the sky and threw down a big stick and a stone. The stick just missed us, but the stone fell into my brother’s basket.” A very common story is that of hearing someone cutting jungle near the path, and on going there finding nothing. It is very unlucky to be touched by a ghost (omon). A man called Mhomo is said to have been caught by the leg by a ghost and died as a result. If the sound of cutting is heard from a bamboo clump, and it is found that there is no one there, the owner of the bamboos will die in the course of the year. To hear at night the sound of someone stamping down the earth on a grave means that there will be a death in the village shortly. The only ghostly animal I have heard of is a serow said to exist near Okotso. One man’s gun is said to have missed fire ten times while the animal stood and looked at him, while another man threw his spear clean through it, and instead of killing the serow was ill himself for a year.55