Ellis, and to my great pleasure found that the three first said nothing against my statements, and that Sir A. B. Ellis had himself said the same thing in his Ewe Speaking People. Moreover, I sent a circular written on this point to people in West Africa whom I knew had opportunities of knowing the facts as at present existing,—the answers were unanimous with Ellis and myself.
Nevertheless, mind, you will find something that looks like worship of ancestors in West Africa. Only it is no more worship, properly so called, than our own deference to our living, elderly, and influential relations.
In almost all Western African districts (it naturally does not show clearly in those where reincarnation is believed to be the common and immediate lot of all human spirits) is a class of spirits called "the well disposed ones," and this class is clearly differentiated from "them," the generic name used for non-human spirits. These "well disposed ones" are ancestors, and they do what they can to benefit their particular village or family, acting in conjunction with the village or family Fetish, who is not a human spirit, nor an ancestor. But the things given to ancestors are gifts, not in the proper sense of the word sacrifices, for the well disposed ones are not gods even of the rank of a Sasabonsum or an Ombuiri.
In an extremely interesting answer to my inquiries that I received from Mr. J. H. Batty, of Cape Coast, who had kindly submitted my questions to a native gentleman well versed in affairs, the statement regarding ancestors is, "The people believe that the spirits of their departed relations exercise a guardian care over them, and they will frequently stand over the graves of their deceased friends and
