The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 187

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

187

those two patients represent tens of thousands who
at this hour are being tortured and maimed and
many of them killed, poor victims of heathen super-
stition. Some of the native modes of treating female
troubles are frightful and agonizing beyond ex-
pression.” j

Roman Catholics in Scandinavian Countries. —
According to latest reports European Scandinavia
has a total of 28,903 Roman Catholics among a total
population of 15,876,555; the rest is nominally Lu-
theran. In Iceland there are only 67 Roman Cath-
olics; in Finland, 655; in Sweden, 3,432; in Nor-
way, 2,612; and Denmark, to which country many
Polish farmers and farm hands have come in late
years, has a Roman Catholic population of about
22,000 — to be exact, 22,137. Recently some Ro-
man Catholic papers have boasted of great gains in
Scandinavian countries, but these figures plainly
indicate that there is no ground for this boasting.

Missionary Service for Tourists. —The Amer-
ican Missionary Association of the National Council
of Congregational Churches of the United States
has issued a “route card” for motorists who desire
to visit the missionary schools and colleges of that
denomination. This card, which is distributed with-
out cost by the various home missionary interests
of the Church, indicates both rail and motor routes
throughout the country, and in the instance of in-
stitutions in the Mississippi Valley and the South,
suggestions are given for visiting groups of schools
easily accessible to the main travel arteries.

Is This Argument Good? — “I was the guest of
the President of the Argentine Republic,” said
Roger Babson, noted statistician and economist.
“He said: ‘Mr. Babson, I have been wondering why
it is that South America, with all its great natural
advantages, is so far behind North. America, not-
withstanding that South America was settled before
North America.’ Well, those of you who have been
there know the reason, but being a guest, I said,
‘Mr. President, what do you think is the reason?’
He replied, ‘I have come to this conclusion:. South
America was settled by the Spanish, who came to
South America to get gold; but North America was
settled by the Pilgrim Fathers, who went there in
search of God.’”

Some African Beliefs and Practises.

" One of the best and most informative books we
have ever read on this subject is Africa and Her
Peoples by F. Deaville Walker, published by the

Edinburgh House Press, 2 Eaton Gate, S.W. 1,
London. A most interesting passage from the book
is the following: —

The West African Fetish.

“In the forest glade stands a gnarled tree,
crooked and twisted as though some monster of in-
iquity had wreaked vengeance upon it. Around its
trunk is a palisade of reeds, before which is a little
heap of pebbles or leaves and chicken-bones. As we
watch, a villager passes along the narrow footpath;
he plucks a leaf and adds it to that little pile, or
maybe he adds one more pebble to the number
already there. That tree is a fetish —the villager
is presenting leaf or stone or a larger offering as a
token of respect.

“Above the bush there rises a great naked rock,
towering precipitously above all around. Its base is
enclosed with a palisade; no man—save perhaps
a fetish priest — ever climbs that barrier or dare
ascend that rock. It is a fetish.

“Crossing the country, one comes upon another
palisade. It runs perhaps for some hundreds of
yards and may possibly enclose several acres of bush-
land. The villagers avoid it. Within is a piece of
marshy ground, perhaps a deep pool, and masses of
bush and trees. In that pool there is a crocodile,
a sacred crocodile. It is a fetish. In the past it is
possible that human victims, bound hand and foot,
were thrown in as sacrifices. And who shall say
that such things never occur to-day in that vast
interior where the white man cannot see and the
arm of the government does not reach?

‘What is a fetish? The term is used so loosely
as to baffle the uninitiated reader in England, and
perhaps it is an altogether unsuitable word. In the
sense in which it is used in this book, — and, on the
whole, we believe it to be the best one, —it means
the dwelling-place of a human spirit liberated from
the body. The object may be large or small, living
or dead; it may be animate (e.g., a reptile or
beast) or inanimate (e.g., a rock). If a spirit is
believed to dwell in it, it is a fetish, and as such is
held in awe by all. It is not the tree or the rock
that the African fears, but the spirit that resides in
it —that powerful, vengeful spirit!

“Some fetishes are made by priests. Anything
will do, literally, anything — a collection of chicken-
bones, or twigs, or dried leaves, or a little bundle of
grass, tied up with a scrap of string or dry grass,
smeared over with clay and daubed with the blood
of a sacrifice. It may contain a nasty, sticky, greasy
mess of something, or perhaps it is powder, in which