Negro slave well known for his long, harmless, pious life." It is
generally held that the body of a man who has during his life attained
an unusual degree of sanctity is gifted with a supernatural power
which is often exerted on those who carry his bier to the grave. The
supernatural power of this old Negro saint was attested to in the
following peculiar way: "Having died toward evening, he would not, on
any account, have himself buried the same evening, and the bearers, in
spite of all their shouting of _la ilah ill Alllah_ (sic), could not
bring the corpse to the graveyard. It remained therefore, all night in
the house (though the people do not like to keep a corpse at night),
watched by a multitude of people praying. Next morning also it could
not be buried for a long time, the blessed dead compelled the bearers
to go through all the streets of the town, till at last, on the
recommendations of the governor, the higher officials carried the bier
to the grave, even the Turkish soldiers could not accomplish it. The
whole town was in uproar. The Mohammadans say the angels exercise this
coercive power. The Christians believe it is the devil."

It seems probable, as the author suggests, that we have in these
religious festivals in honor of a local celebrity surviving examples
of localized and more primitive type of religious cult which has not
yet been wholly superseded by the religion of Islam, with its wider
outlook and more rational conceptions of life. The notes here recorded
suggest at once questions which can only be answered by further
investigation and by comparison of the materials gathered in this
region with those that are now being brought to light in other fields.
It is the purpose of the Harvard African studies to answer these
questions, so far as they can be answered by a study of African life.

Interesting from other points of view are the reproductions of the
remarkable collection of Benin antiquities at the Peabody Museum, of
the celebrated Vai syllabary, and of an interesting poem of 100 lines
in the Suaheli language said to have been dictated by a dying mother
to her daughter. Transliteration and translation accompany the
reproduction in the original script.

ROBERT E. PARK.

* * * * *

_Fifty Years and Other Poems._ By JAMES WELDON JOHNSON. With an
Introduction by BRANDER MATTHEWS. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917. Pp.
xiv, 92.

Fro