AFRICAN MAGIC

Evening Star, Issue 18094, 9 October 1922, Page 7

AFRICAN MAGIC

THE GOURD THAT SPOKE. The native of Africa is a simple soul. Before his existence was complicated by the arrival of the European his wants were few, and his 1 thoughts were strictly regulated by Ins surroundings and the beliefs of hie father, so far as they had been translated into things material. Among the beliefs winch came from the past was the certainty that tnere is a life beyond, and that the spirits of those who have passed over can guide tlio destinies of the living. Ino African is a spiritualist. . In the midst of a Western civilisation Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ins mends seek to probe the future Tor the benefit of the present. With medium and seance, n touch of mystery and a deal of propaganda, they seek to revive interest m a now faith by trying to prove an age-old hope. The African has never heard of Bir Arthur, but the latterfsays a Nairobi correspondent of the * Daily Mail ) could tell him nothing. A woman, the daughter of ft European settler in the Nandi district of Kenya, had her curiosity aroused one day by si'nis of unusual excitement among some of the native squatters. Inquiry ©hated the information that there had arrived among them one who could speak with dead friends. The woman was frankly sceptical; but Western scepticism is of little use against a simplicity of faith which lias its roots in the past. . „ T , Ultimately the native fjaid : If you don’t believe, come and see.” She followed into the low grass hut, and when her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and the smoke from the open (ire on the floor she discerned a circle of her father’s laborers around one who eat- in the centre of the hut. There was nothing unusual’ about his appearance, and it may be that imagination, or a leaping _ flame from the fire, placed a strange light in his eyes. In front of him, on the earthen floor, stood an ordinary native gourd. Presently the silence was broken by low meanings and strange nuitterings, and the circle of natives swayed inward to listen. The woman was thoroughly conversant with the Nandi language, and she was amazed to hear the sounds form into words, and the words into sentences, giving forth details df the worldly goods and transient things of those around her, and, most astonishing of all, the past history of those, who had died and their fathers before them. Still unbelieving, she watched the lips of the, guardian of the gourd for signs of motion; but there was no movement visible. Ultimately she brought her Western ImowledgeTo her aid again and charged him with being a ventriloquist. The fire glared up fitfully, and she saw that ho was indignant. He protested most earnestly, and finally suggested that he would leave the hut altogether. He went outside and squatted some distance away, where it was impossible lor his voice to carry. ' But in the silence of the hut the words a till came from the gourd.