Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1909 — Nigerian Superstitions. [ARTICLE]

Nigerian Superstitions.

“The natives of southern Nigeria, Africa,” says a traveler, “are extremely superstitious. Most of the people wear some kind of charm around their neck or waist in the belief that they are thus protected from illness or death from their enemies. When, however, the talisman has lost its supposed bower and its wearer feels the hand of death upon him be submits to his fate—he is wanted by the fetich. To many places and things they attach a superstitious veneration. The rock found at the source of the river Imo is considered sacred and as such la safely guarded. Every village has Its sacred grove, surrounded by human skulls, chatties and rotten eggshells on sticks.

“They believe that a spirit haunts the locality of a murder or the sacred grove at night, and no native would pass near such a place during the darkness. Any unusual phenomenon is by them attributed to a supernatural agency. Not only has a village its good spirit, but also its evil spirit, and When any misfortune of any kind overtakes a village a process of driving out the latter is Indulged In with the help of much noise and every one beating the walls of the huts with sticks.”