The civilized man would be apt to imagine that these wild African
fetishists are easily converted to a "purer creed." The contrary
is everywhere and absolutely the case; their faith is a web woven
with threads of iron. The negro finds it almost impossible to rid
himself of his belief; the spiritual despotism is the expression
of his organization, a part of himself. Progressive races, on the
other hand, can throw off or exchange every part of their
religion, except perhaps the remnant of original and natural
belief in things unseen--in fact, the Fetishist portion, such as
ghost-existence and veneration of material objects, places, and
things. I might instance the Protestant missionary who, while
deriding the holy places at Jerusalem, considers the "Cedars of
Lebanon" sacred things, and sternly forbids travellers to gather
the cones.

The stereotyped African answer to Europeans ridiculing these
institutions, including wizard-spearing and witch-burning is,
"There may be no magic, though I see there is, among you whites.
But we blacks have known many men who have been bewitched and
died." Even in Asia, whenever I spoke contemptuously to a Moslem
of his Jinns, or to a Hindu of his Rakshasa, the rejoinder
invariably was, "You white men are by nature so hot that even our
devils fear you."

Witchcraft, which has by no means thoroughly disappeared from
Europe, maintains firm hold upon the African brain. The idea is
found amongst Christians, for instance, the "reduced Indians" of
the Amazonas River; and it is evidently at the bottom of that
widely spread superstition, the "evil eye," which remains