1. de Carvalho, Henrique Augusto Dias, Guiné; Apontamentos inéditos [Lisboa, 1944], 75.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 74–75. The passage is repeated with different phrasing, 238–39. On page 75, “1898” is erroneously printed as “1878.”

3. Ibid., 75. Padre Adriano Reimão de Serpa Pinto served in Guinea from 1896 to 1908. Rema, Henrique Pinto, História das missões católicas da Guiné (Braga, 1982), 293, 363.Google Scholar The celebration of All Souls' Day continued to be held in Guinea, including Bolama, in the years following. António Carreira, who observed celebrations at Cacheu, Geba, Bafatá, and other communities from the 1920s, relates that the activities lacked (and perhaps never had) the flagrant behavior described by Dias de Carvalho. Personal communications, September 13 and 24, 1982.

4. Africanists interested in culture contact and syncretism owe an enormous debt to the scholarship of Melville J. Herskovits and his students concerning African societies and Africans living in the Americas. Herskovits in particular stressed the value of historical sources, e.g., Acculturation; The Study of Culture Contact (New York, 1938), 15–18, 58–59.Google Scholar Besides individuals cited in notes, I received valuable comments from Paula Ben-Amos, Stanley H. Brandes, William B. Cohen, James Fernandez, Peter B. Goldman, Barbara Hanawalt, Barbara K. Kopytoff, Joseph J. Lauer, Emilio F. Moran, and Darrell Reeck. Debbie Chase typed the paper.

5. McCall, Daniel F., That Old Time Religion in West Africa (Boston, 1979), 9.Google Scholar For discussion see McCall, Daniel F., “Mother Earth: The Great Goddess of West Africa” in Preston, James J., ed., Mother Worship; Theme and Variations (Chapel Hill, 1982), 304–21.Google Scholar

6. Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th ed.; London, 1926), 1:709.Google Scholar

7. Ibid. All Souls' Day is celebrated on November 3, if the 2nd falls on a Sunday or is a festival of the first class.

8. Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira (Lisbon, 1935–1960), 8:486.Google Scholar

9. Gallop, Rodney, Portugal; a Book of Folk-Ways (Cambridge, 1936), 100.Google Scholar

10. Moss, Leonard W. and Cappannari, Stephen C., “In Quest of the Black Virgin” in Preston, , Mother Worship, 71.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., 68.

12. Ibid., 65.

13. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1:709.Google Scholar

14. Gallop, , Folk-Ways, 181–82.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., 182.

16. Ibid., 182–83.

17. Ibid., 183. Gallop's footnote reads: “Though even these might be interpreted as the propritiation of beings who are feared rather than as a welcome to those loved.” I am indebted to Padre Henrique Pinto Rema for emendations regrading Gallop's quotations in Portuguese.

18. Gallop, , Folk-Ways, 96.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., 184–85.

20. Ibid., 122.

21. Ibid., 128–30, and see the picture representing Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Marceana on page 129.

22. Ibid., 127–28. Daniel F. McCall comments: “In German areas brunnen, or springs, have names and/or legends that indicate such associations. The Melusine myth in France and contiguous countries has a water connection. Some notes I made some years ago driving around Western Europe…showed that most of these water spirits were feminine…. The dyads of Greece and the voluptuously carved tree spirits of Indian art and Slavic folklore tree spirits are also feminine.” Personal communication, 2 October 1982.

23. Gallop, , Folk-Ways, 78.Google Scholar Mouras are visible to humans only on Midsummer's Night.

24. Ibid.

25. Illustrations in Hogarth, Peter, Dragons (Toronto, 1980)Google Scholar depict a wonderful variety of dragons, snakes, and composite creatures, besides men and maidens.

26. Appia, Beatrice, “Les forgerons du Fouta-Djallon,” Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 25 (1965), 322, 322n1.Google ScholarNingiri (or Ninganni) hatch from the python egg at the center of a clutch of eggs. See also Parrinder, Geoffrey, West African Religion (London, 1969), 50–53et passim.Google Scholar

27. Gallop, , Folk-Ways, 131–32.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., 134–35.

29. Ibid., 63.

30. Ibid., 60. I am indebted to António Carreira for emending the quotation: Gallop incorrectly transcribed “mão de finado” as “mão refinada.” Carreira remarks that a “mão de finado” or “mão d'anjo” (“angel's hand”) carved of wood was used in the Cape Verde Islands to ascertain the amorous inclinations of young people. Personal communication, 24 September 1982.

31. Thornton, John reaches similar conclusions in “Early Kongo-Portuguese Relations: A New Interpretation,” HA, 8 (1981), 186.Google Scholar

32. Davidson, Basil, Black Mother, (London, 1961), 119.Google Scholar Wyatt MacGaffey speculates that the victorious Kongolese armies saw signs and ghostly symbols “not out of ancestral habit but specifically from recent Portuguese influence, or from a desire to impress Portuguese correspondents.” Personal communication, 12 August 1982.

33. Mbiti, John S., African Religions and Philosophies (Garden City, N.Y., 1970), 2–3.Google Scholar

34. See Parrinder, , West African Religion, 11ff.Google Scholar for discussion of the “fourfold” classification. Parrinder's information and analyses derive principally from the Ghana-Nigeria area and are congruent with findings in the sources cited following. For a “two-tiered” arrangement of unobservables” and an informative analysis of Christian and Muslim influences see Horton, Robin, “African Conversion,” Africa, 41 (1971), 85–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and subsequent discussion in 43 (1973) and 45 (1975).

35. Mark, Peter Allen, “Economic and Religious Change among the Diola of Boulouf (Casamance), 1890–1940; Trade, Cash Cropping, and Islam in Southwestern Senegal” (Ph.D., Yale, 1976), 26Google Scholar; Scantamburlo, Luigi, “The Ethnography of the Bijagós People of the Island of Bubaque, Guiné-Bissau” (M.A. (Wayne State, 1978), 80Google Scholar; Simmons, William S., Eyes of the Night; Witchcraft among a Senegalese People (Berkeley, 1971), 53Google Scholar; and Arcin, Andre, Histoire de la Guinée francaise (Paris, 1911), 48Google Scholar; and see all, passim, for aspects of the discussion following.

36. Scantamburlo, Luigi, Gramática e dicionário da língua criol da Guiné-Bissau (Bologna, 1981), 172Google Scholar; and Hair, P.E.H., “An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast Before 1700,” African Language Review, 6 (1967), 45.Google Scholar For terms and usages among African groups in the Guinea-Bissau, region, Carreira, António, “Símbolos, ritualistas, e ritualismos ânimofeiticistas na Guiné Portuguesa,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 16 (1961), 505–39.Google Scholar

37. André Donelha, Desarição da Serra Leoa e dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), Portuguese text, introduction, notes, and appendices by Avelino Teixeira da Mota, notes and English translation by P.E.H. Hair (Lisboa, 1977), 112–13, related that the Mani invaders of Sierra Leone whipped “idols” when things went badly. Hecquard, H., “Rapport sur un voyage dans la Cazamance,” Revue Maritime et Coloniale, 8 (1852), 413Google Scholar, noted that when Diola living on Carabane Island at the mouth of the Casamance River prayed for rain without success, they first threatened their “fetishes” and then dragged them through their fields until rainfall commenced. And Lasnet, Alexandreet at, Une Mission au Sénégal (Paris, 1900), 160–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, recorded that the “fetish” of Carabane was insulted and publicly beaten for having failed to protect the community from a fire. K.L. Little was informed that Mendi flogged nomoli “because they may be sleeping.” Cited in Atherton, John H. and Kalous, Milan, “Nomoli,” JAH, 11 (1970), 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Atherton and Kalous present much valuable information concerning the association of stones and ancestral spirits.

38. See especially Carreira, António, Vida Social dos Manjacos (Bissau, 1947), 90–92Google Scholar, and photographs of “forquilas da alma” facing pages 64 and 80, and the general discussion in da Mota, A. Teixeira, Guiné Portuguesa (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1954), 1, 245–50.Google Scholar

39. See J.A. MacCulloch, “Secret Societies (Introductory),” and Thomas, N.W., “Secret Societies (African)” in Hastings, James, ed., Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (13 vols.: New York, 1955–1958), 11:287–303.Google Scholar The python was a totem of the Simo Society, which controlled kola trade and exercised wide powers along parts of the Upper Guinea Coast.

40. Fr. Balthasar Barreira, Sierra Leone, 1605, quoted in Purchas, S., Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes (London, 1624, reprt. 1950), IX, 262.Google Scholar

41. For derivation of “tangomao,” Hair, , “Ethnolinguistic Inventory,” 49, 54Google Scholar; and for discussion of sources concerning both lançados and tangomaos see Carreira, António, Cabo Verde; Formação e extinção de uma sociedade escravocrata (1460–1878) (Lisboa, 1972), 47–62.Google Scholar For kola trade along the Upper Guinea Coast and the Portuguese and Luso-African “cover-up” for reasons of self-interest see Brooks, , “Kola Trade and State-Building; Upper Guinea Coast and Senegambia, 15th–17th Centuries” (Boston University African Studies Center, Working Paper No. 38 [1980]).Google Scholar

42. The foregoing is a restatement of material in my “Perspectives on Luso-African Commerce and Settlement in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau Region, 16th–19th Centuries,” Boston University African Studies Center, Working Paper No. 24 (1980), 1–13.Google Scholar See also Brooks, “Historical Perspectives on the Guinea-Bissau Region, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries,” submitted to the festschrift honoring Avelino Teixeira da Mota, to be published by the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical.

43. d'Almada, André Álvares, “Tratado breve dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde” in Brásio, Padre António, ed., Monumenta Missionaria Africana; Africa Occidental (1570–1600) (2d ser., Lisbon, 1964), 3:312.Google Scholar

44. Fernandes, Valentim, Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels), ed. Monod, Th., da Mota, A. Teixeira, and Mauny, R. (Bissau, 1951), 70–73.Google Scholar Many aspects of Fernandes' account are elucidated by information in Schloss, Marc Ronald, “The Hatchet's Blood: Spirits and Society Among the Ehing of Senegal” (Ph.D., Virginia, 1979).Google Scholar See especially pages 1, 5–6, and 181–89.

45. Hair, P.E.H., “Hamlet in an Afro-Portuguese Setting: New Perspectives on Sierra Leone in 1607,” HA, 5 (1978), 36–37.Google Scholar

46. Hair, P.E.H., “Early Sources on Sierra Leone: (5) Barreira (letter of 23.2.1606),” Africana Research Bulletin, 5/4 (1975), 88, 91.Google Scholar (Compare the translation at the beginning of the section.) Ironically, the only lançados singled out for their religiosity during this period were “New Christians” accused of reverting to Jewish practices. da Mota, A. Teixeira, Some Aspects of Portuguese Colonisation and Sea Trade in West Africa in the 15th and 16th Centuries (Bloomington, 1978), 8.Google Scholar

47. For missionary activities see Rema, Missões Católicas, passim. Rema's invaluable compendium records little information concerning lay Christians.

48. Brooks, , “Luso-African Commerce and Settlement,” 9–10.Google Scholar

49. Rema, , Missões Católicas, 150Google Scholar, cited from the manuscript of Fr.de Santiago, Francisco, Chronica da Província de Nossa Senhora da Soledade (ms. da Provincia Portuguesa da Ordem Franciscana), of which one volume was published in 1762.Google Scholar For a discussion of chôros, which last for days, sometimes for weeks, see Carreira, , “Símbolos,” 533–36.Google Scholar The persistance of similar African funeral customs in the United States is remarked on by Blassingame, John W., The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York, 1972), 37Google Scholar: “Not only did Southern slaves decorate graves like their African ancestors; they also retained the practice of celebrating the journey of the deceased to his ‘home’ by dancing, singing, and drinking. According to the traveler Henry Knight, in the Southwest, ‘When a slave dies, the master gives the rest day, of their [slaves] own choosing, to celebrate the funeral. This, perhaps a month after the corpse is interred, is a jovial day with them; they sing and dance and drink the dead to his new home, which some believe to be in old Guinea.’” Note illustrations on pages 36 and 37; carved wooden grave markers in the cemetery on page 37 exhibit similarities to the “forquilas da alma” of the Guinea-Bissau region (see note 38). African survivals in the Americas respecting ancestors and funerals are discussed in Melville Herskovits, J., The Myth of the Negro Past (Boston, 1958), 63, 71, 197ff.Google Scholar For a stimulating comparative study of culture contact see Foster, George M., Culture and Conquest: America's Spanish Heritage (Chicago, 1960).Google Scholar With respect to religious syncretism, Foster observes (15, 165–66) that the Catholic Church emphasized Iberian practices it preferred; discouraged those it did not like, e.g., pagan survivals; and accepted syncretisms with indigenous beliefs where it had no choice. Regarding All Saints’ and All Souls' days, which celebration was encouraged, see ibid., 150–51, 198, 201–03.

50. Dias, António J., “Crencas e costumes dos indígenas da Ilha de Bissau no século xviii,” Portugal em Africa, 2d. ser., 2/9 (May-June, 1945), 161–62.Google Scholar Padre Dias presents extracts with commentaries from unpublished parts of Fr. Francisco de Santiago's manuscript cited in the previous footnote. Extracts in 2/10 (July-August, 1945), 226–27, describe proceedings at ohoros. Rulers were interred with cloth, iron, gold, and other valuable possessions, as well as selected captives. A horse was buried alive near the grave. For balobeiros see Carreira, , “Símbolos,” 514–15, 521–22.Google Scholar

51. Brooks, , “Luso-African Commerce and Settlement,” 3–4, 13–19.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., 13–19; and Rema, , Missões Católicas, 291–93.Google Scholar

53. Brooks, “Guinea-Bissau Region;” and Brooks, , “A Nhara of the Guinea-Bissau Region: Mãe Aurélia Correia” in Women and Slavery in Africa, ed. Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A., (Madison, 1983).Google Scholar

54. de Lima, José Joaquim Lopes, Ensaios sobre a statistica das possessões portuguezas (6 vols.: Lisbon, 1844), 1/1:120.Google Scholar

55. Fernandes, , Description, 100–01.Google Scholar

56. de Lima, José Joaquim Lopes, Ensaios sobre a statistica das possessões portuguezas na Africa occidental e oriental, na Asia occidental, na China, e na Oceania (6 vols.: Lisbon, 1844), 1/1:120.Google Scholar

57. Davity, Pierre, Description générale de l'Afrique, seconde partie du monde (3d. ed., Paris, 1660), 410.Google Scholar I am indebted to Adam Jones for the quotation, which was afterwards incorporated into the works of Dapper and Barbot. Jones comments that Davity drew on du Jarric, Pierre, Histoire des choses les plus mémorables… (Bordeaux, 1608–1914)Google Scholar, which was based on Guerreiro, , Padres da Companhia de Jesus (1603ff.).Google Scholar Personal communication, 18 October 1982. It is noteworthy that both d'Almada, Álvares in Brásio, , Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 3:296–97Google Scholar, completed in 1594, and Guerreiro, , Padres da Companhia de Jesus, 1:404Google Scholar, supply some of the information in Davity's passage, but neither provides a time of year or a specific date; such evidently derives from a firsthand account. One awaits a textual study of these sources such as Thilmans, G. has provided for Senegal: “Le Sénégal dans l'oeuvre d'Olfried Dapper,” BIFAN, 33 (1971), 508–63.Google Scholar

58. de Lima, Lopes, Ensaios, 1/1:120.Google Scholar The sixth day was market day in the Guinea-Bissau region, mentioned in Fernandes, , Côte Occidentale d'Afrique, 68–69.Google Scholar Among Diola the six-day week continues. A year comprises four seasons, with the harvest period extending from mid-October to the end of December; no special new year's celebration is currently held. Thomas, Louis-Vincent and Sapir, David, “Le Diola et le temps,” BIFAN, 29 (1967), 345, 381–83.Google Scholar

59. de Lima, Lopes, Ensaios, 1/1:108.Google Scholar

60. Only rarely did commandants of the praças of Cacheu and Bissau acknowledge such payments in official dispatches, encouraging the erroneous notion that their “fortresses” compelled awe and respect from Africans. In fact Portuguese praças and presidios (detached garrisons) existed on the sufferance of Africans who desired commercial relations and who possessed a variety of effective sanctions as ‘landlords’ to maintain their ascendancy over the trading communities and the impotent garrisons. See Brooks, “Mãe Aurélia Correia.”

61. de Lima, Lopes, Ensaios, 1/1:126.Google Scholar

62. See Brooks, , “The Signares of Saint-Louis and Gorée: Women Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth Century Senegal” in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, ed. Hafkin, Nancy J. and Bay, Edna G. (Stanford, 1976), 30–31, 42–43.Google Scholar

63. Lauer, Joseph J., “Rice in the History of the Lower Gambla-Geba Area” (M.A., Wisconsin, 1969), 11, 15.Google Scholar

64. Brooks, , “Peanuts and Colonialism: Consequences of the Commercialization of Peanuts in West Africa, 1830–1870,” JAH, 16 (1975), 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the skilled and savvy cultivating practices of Diola women see Linares, Olga F., “From Tidal Swamp to Inland Valley: On the Social Organization of Wet Rice Cultivation among the Diola of Senegal,” Africa, 51 (1981), 565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65. Schloss, , “Hatchet's Blood,” 23Google Scholar; Lauer, , “Rice,” 11.Google Scholar Men prepare the fields, but cultivation and harvesting is done by women. The cycle of Diola rice agriculture is recounted in Snyder, Francis G., Capitalism and Legal Change; An African Transformation (New York, 1981), 87–92.Google Scholar

66. Schloss, , “Hatchet's Blood,” 20.Google Scholar Schloss, 27, notes that spirits at shrines are always offered libations of palm wine to initiate access to their spiritual powers. Religious beliefs among Diola groups are elucidated in Girard, Jean, Genèse du pouvoir charismatique en basse Casamanae (Dakar, 1969).Google Scholar

67. Thomas, Louis-Vincent, Les Diola (Dakar, 1959), 548.Google Scholar

68. Simmons, , Eyes of the Night, 53.Google Scholar