They believe
that it was _Tsidibe_ who taught them all their customs, including
dancing and manufacture, and that he ultimately reached and remained
in the land of the white man, where he is now living; and that the
superior knowledge of the white man in manufacture, and especially
in the making of clothes, has been acquired from him. The idea of
his ultimate association with the white man can hardly, however, be
a very ancient tradition. One of the Fathers was seriously asked by a
native whether he had ever seen _Tsidibe_. They seem to think that he
is essentially a beneficent being. They regret his having left their
country; but they have no doubt as to this, and do not regard him as
still continuing to exercise any influence over them and their affairs,
have no ceremonies or observances with reference to him, and do not
address to him any supplications. As traces of his passage through
their country they will show you extraordinarily shaped rocks and
stones, such as fragments which have fallen from above into the valley,
and rocks and stones which have lodged in strange positions. But there
are no ceremonies with reference to these and the natives have no
fear of them, and indeed they will proudly point them out to you as
evidences of this mysterious being having been in their country, and
of his power. They would not hesitate to touch one of these stones,
but they would never injure it. I learnt nothing about him which
would justify me in suggesting that the Mafulu people deified him
as an ancestor, or even regarded him as being one, though some of
the matters attributed to him are perhaps not dissimilar from those
often attributed to deified ancestors. [108]

They certainly have a lively belief in ghosts of people who have
lived and died, and in spirits which have never occupied human form,
all of whom (ghosts and spirits) are evil disposed, and in sorcery.

Every human being, male and female, has during life a mysterious
ghostly self, in addition to his bodily visible and conscious self;
and this ghostly self will on his death survive him as a ghost. There
appears to be no idea of this ghostly self leaving the body in times
of sleeping or dreaming; though, if a man dreams of someone who is
dead, he thinks that he has been visited by that person's ghost.

At death the ghost leaves the body, and becomes, and remains, a
malevolent being. There is no idea of re-incarnation, or of the ghost
passing into any animal