Besides the ceremonies noted, the game of lacrosse brings the Indians together in large numbers. Lacrosse, as played by the Menomini, has a semi-religious nature and is performed in honor of the Thunderers. Any number of players may take part, provided the sides are equal in number. The party scoring the first four goals is considered victorious. Other minor native games, such as the bowl and dice, the cup and pin, the women's hockey game, and the moccasin game, have still a small vogue. Foot and horse racing are generally indulged in at the annual Fourth of July celebration. all these contests both Christians and pagans take part, and there seems to be very little friction between them.

In

The moral standards of the Menomini are good. Their reputation for honesty is especially high. As usual among Indians, however, drunkenness is their besetting sin. The Government officers stationed on the reservation are combating the illicit sale of liquor to the Indians, and seem to be very successful.

The Menomini are better off than many tribes in that they have had, as a general rule, men of exceptionally good personal qualities settled among them in the Government employ. The Indians are anxious to improve, and learn readily, and it is my opinion that in course of time they will become worthy citizens of the United States.

THE BRITISH WEST INDIAN

NEGRO

THIRD PAPER: CUSTOMS, MANNERS, AND SUPERSTITIONS

BY SAMUEL B. JONES, M. D.

Resident Physician at the Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, N. C.

THE varied customs and superstitions of the West Indian Negro relate to the personal and social life of the individual and his attitude to the unseen world. Among customs which had a personal bearing was that of naming children. This was distinctly African in character until the English influences submerged the African.

African names like Quaco and Quasi, Quamin, and Ya-Ya, were common enough among Negroes of these islands about a century ago, and traces of these may still be found if carefully sought. And, however contemptuously Thomas Carlyle might employ the name Quashee as the generic name of the whole Negro race, this cannot abolish its interest for the antiquarian. Had he exhibited the same sympathy in dealing with the antiquities of the Negro as he had done with those of the Anglo Saxon, he would have left as illuminating and interesting a chapter on the Negro as he has on his own race. For to one who is rightly informed, Quashee, or rather Quasi, points to the Gold Coast as the original home of the Negro who bore it, to kinship with the Tshi-speaking tribes inhabiting that region at the present day, and finally to their immemorial custom of naming their children for the seven days of the week, or rather for the presiding god of that day of the week on which the child was born. The Negro did no more than the Anglo-Saxon who, in spite of the lapse of centuries, recalls the gods his fathers worshipped in the days of the week—the sun's day, the moon's day, great Thor's day. The West Indian Negro, who has heard of some ancestor bearing a seemingly unintelligible name, is reminded that Quasi was the boy born on Monday, that it was on a Sunday that Quamin came into the world, while Aquasiba or Quashee was the girl born on Monday, as Fibba was the Saturday girl. Compare the custom among some Roman Catholics of giving a child at baptism the name of its patron saint.

The Gold Coast Negroes are said to be the only ones who count seven days to the week, the Congolese counting four. One of these days, Bennah, the analogue of Wednesday, sacred to Woden, is of special interest as furnishing the name for the series of improvised songs, the "bennah songs," in which a soloist leads and is followed by a full chorus. Perhaps Bennah was the god of mirth, or Wednesday, his day, was a time for tribal merriment. At any rate the name still persists. Bennah songs, set to tunes bearing a striking resemblance to Gregorian chants, as noted by Charles Kingsley many years ago, are still sung by men and women laboring in the fields, by stevedores loading steamers with sugar, by porters; in fact, wherever concerted action and rhythmic movements make the performance of a task less difficult. The "bennah songs" are secular, there being no indigenous sacred songs similar to the plantation songs of the United States; but intrinsically they are identical so far as the tunes are concerned. Analysis of these shows wide intervals, harmonies of thirds and sixths, enharmonic tones defying modern musical notation but capable of expressing every phase and degree of human feeling.

A large number of the common superstitions seem trifling, but every one was based upon a fact, real and vital, in the existence of a semi-civilized man. The untrained mind realizes that it lives in a world of mystery and seeks measures to avoid every harmful agency, seen and unseen. Some of these West Indian customs and superstitions are the outcome of this lack of training. A number are clearly African in origin; others are shared in common with the peasantry of England and America. The umbilical cord of the new-born babe was carefully buried under a tree or a large stone, the idea being to bind the child by this act to that particular spot of earth. Portions of the body waste must be guarded, and the clippings of the hair and parings of the nails scrupulously disposed of where no malicious person or enemy can get them and through them harm the owner. The care of the hair was of extreme importance, and when one considers the solicitude of some Negroes for the hair, he will appreciate the importance of seeing that no "evil hand" shall cause it to fall out or become shorter, or ruin its quality. Persistent headache would result if birds should build their nests with any portion of it; so, too, if an enemy should comb it.

Curious hygienic rules existed, in some cases serving a really useful end in the prevention of disease. The beginning of convalescence after a severe illness was marked by the patient taking a full warm bath made from a decoction of aromatic barks and leaves, among which the fragrant nunoo shrub, a plant used in certain

African rites, was not wanting. This "barking of the sick," as it was called, bore some resemblance to the lustral purifications of the ancient Jews. However much the sick was loved, the friend or relative who nursed him should never eat or drink what he touched if he had a cough, and she should beat her hand thoroughly in case she rubbed his limbs, in order to keep the disease from attacking her also. They held firmly to the infection theory of some diseases, notably tuberculosis and leprosy as well as elephantiasis. The person afflicted with the last sometimes washed the limb in water which he afterwards threw in the road, to see if he would get rid of his trouble vicariously; hence one should avoid stepping over small, damp areas on the highway. No one ought to have a wound dressed by a person whose finger nails were "poisonous." poisonous." The fear of lock-jaw was a real one in a tropical climate where large numbers of people walk with bare feet into which a rusty nail might pierce at any moment. The native treatment consisted in pounding the injured part until the wound bled freely, afterwards binding it up with moistened tobacco leaves.

Common superstitions showed a mixed origin. The old custom of rubbing the forehead with the first yams reaped during the yam season is certainly of African origin, and represents in all probability the offering of the first fruits to the god of the harvest. Of similar origin is the custom of avoiding sweeping a room at night, or throwing anything outside after dark, as the spirits of dead kindred without might be insulted by the discourtesy of the living. In other superstitions an English or Scotch influence may be traced; money is coming in when the right hand itches, going out when the left; the new moon should always be seen with a piece of money in one's pocket; sneezing on the right side is a lucky omen, unfavorable if on the left. A sure sign of death in the family is the flight of a bird through a room. The involuntary quivering of the lids of the left eye is a sign of bad news; vice versa if it is the right.

In another class of superstitions there is a distinct local flavor: walking backwards brings death to father or mother; the grounddove's wailing notes near a house are a sure sign of death in the family or among the friends of the occupants. When the sun broke through clouds and shone in spite of falling rain, the devil and his wife were wrangling over a fish bone. The boy who had loitered when sent on an errand might avoid a whipping by picking a blade of grass and beseeching it to take his licks." If the girl wanted to know if her love was returned, she threw a piece of "love vine" on a neighboring tree, and its luxuriant growth always satisfied her heart. The death of an important personage was foreshadowed by the scales on the Jew

fish, a very large fish caught at rare intervals in the Carribean Sea and probably brought there by the great floods of South American rivers. If the peculiar striations on these scales resembled a woman's dress, then a great woman would die; otherwise a man of importance was doomed.

Much has been written on the system of superstitions embraced under the term Obeah, which has been described as something peculiar to the West Indian Negro; but its growth was a necessary consequence of life in Africa, and it supplied needs which were not African, but human. It is exceedingly probable that the word is derived from, or connected with, Obboney, the spirit of evil in the theology of the Gold Coast Negro. Obeah was a degenerate relic of the system of divination and religion which prevails in some parts of West Africa to this day. Among the Yorubas its high priest was the babalowa, who by means of his divining bowl uttered prophecies as the Jews did by means of Urim and Thummim. The connection between the Yoruba babalowa and the Haytian papaloi is manifest and needs no further comment.

In his original home the African medicine man was the scientist of the tribe; through long years of observation he was able to make accurate forecasts of the weather; and the forests furnished him with powerful armamentarium of drugs of which he made use to heal or to poison. This training had extended through a number of years under an older man of the profession. As priest of the tribe he placed the sins of the people on the head of a victim, a beast or human being, and so made atonement for his kinsmen. He thus supplied vital needs. But the evil side of his work was more prominent in the West Indies; hence arose his name of Obeah-man, the man who worked with the Evil One, a name calculated to strike terror into the heart of the ignorant. Nevertheless the life of discipline in the new country did much to curtail the influence and power of the medicine man. The white man was greater than he, could scourge him or kill him at will. With the loss of his power he lost the art of divination; he was universally considered to be a poor successor to the native African medicine man, who was a hypnotist of no mean order. Tradition tells how the latter had caused water to boil without fire, burnt field after field of sugar-cane to wreak vengeance on his white masters by the sole aid of his "round cup and horn," and made the bodies of men rot before death, or twisted their bones into strange and horrible shapes till they hardly bore the semblance of men. The West Indian Obeah-man could only give a potion to win back an errant love, prepare poison for an enemy, or make a charm to protect the fields from