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258 yournal of American Folk-Lore.

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION IN ANGOLA, AFRICA.

THE following information is obtained from the verbal communi-
cation of Mr. Heli Chatelain :
A black servant, named Jeremiah, who accompanied me to America,
belonged on his father's side to the Mbacca, and on his mother's to
the Mbamba. Before coming in contact with Europeans, he had
been subject, at irregular intervals, to the possession of a certain
spirit, the name and individuality of this particular demon being
supposed to be discoverable by the kind of gestures and actions per-
formed by the person under his influence. In this condition, Jere-
miah would rush to the woods, climb trees, and howl, the spirit
being apparently a dweller in the forests. After the arrival of the
missionaries, this tendency entirely disappeared, to his great relief.
Of the reality of the spiritual possession, however, he continued
to be profoundly convinced, conceiving that it stood on the same
foundation as any other fact of experience. While the patient is
in this state, he is addressed as if he were the spirit himself, and
his utterances are conceived to be those of the demon. It might
happen that a possessed person would feel called on to prophesy,
that is, to speak in the name of the demon, and in such case he
might express himself in a remarkable way, using words the sense
of which is understood, but which are not employed save in pro-
phetic utterance. Great reverence is paid to persons in this state,
as representing the spirits, and their advice and counsel may be fol-
lowed. It may be added that belief in the fact of such possession
is not confined to Africans, many priests in Angola entertaining a
firm assurance of the real existence of the demons. Padre Cavazzi,
the author of a valuable work relating to Angola, writing in the
seventeenth century, relates his own encounter with a goat locally
worshipped, in whose aspect he saw the expression and fury of the
fiend himself. A fetish, so-called, is merely a means of coming in
contact with these spirits, and acquiring power over them, in the
same manner as in sorcery a hair of a person, or some other article
belonging to him, must be owned in order to acquire control over
that individual.