Fetichism in West Africa; forty years' observation of native customs and superstitions . id ininstalments. If one overreaches another in a trade, he must take backthe imperfect article or add to it. This is true, according tonative law, among themselves. Any amount of overreachingand deception is practised toward foreigners in a trade, or tomembers of another tribe ; and many foreigners are just asguilty in their dealings with the natives. Loans of trade-goods are constantly made, but the takingof interest therefor is not known. If a borrowed article, suchas a canoe, is broken or lost, a new c
Fetichism in West Africa; forty years' observation of native customs and superstitions . id ininstalments. If one overreaches another in a trade, he must take backthe imperfect article or add to it. This is true, according tonative law, among themselves. Any amount of overreachingand deception is practised toward foreigners in a trade, or tomembers of another tribe ; and many foreigners are just asguilty in their dealings with the natives. Loans of trade-goods are constantly made, but the takingof interest therefor is not known. If a borrowed article, suchas a canoe, is broken or lost, a new canoe must be given inits place. If the canoe is only injured and had been in wantof repair, the borrower, on returning it, must repair it andalso pay some goods. One going as surety for goods is heldresponsible. Pawning of goods is commonly practised everywhere. People are generous in inaking gifts to friends, or donationsto the needy ; but if a man who has been helped in time ofdistress subsequently increases in wealth, the one who helpedhim may demand a return of the original CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 25 XII. Religion. Religion is intimately mixed with every one of these afore-mentioned sociological aspects of family, rights of property,authority, tribal organization, judicial trials, punishments,intertribal relations, and commerce. Mr. R. E. Dennett, residing in Loango, has made a carefuland philosophic investigation into the religious ideas of the Ba-Vili or Fyat nation and adjacent tribes bordering on the result of his research shows that the native tribal govern-ment and religious and social life are inseparably united. Heclaims to have discovered a complex system of numbers and powers showing the Loango people to be more highlyorganized politically than are the equatorial tribes, and re-vealing a very curious co-relation of those numbers,governing the physical, rational, and moral natures, with con-science and with God. Some traces of the numbers wi
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