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I believe that similar charms or amulets, under the names of domini, grigri, fetich &c. &c. are common in all parts of Africa. In this case it is impossible not to admire the wonderful contagion of superstition; for, notwithstanding that the majority of the Negroes are Pagans, and absolutely reject the doctrines of Mahomet.
The landlord handed the apothecary the following writing: MR. JOSEPH FROWENFELD: Think not that anybody is to be either poisoned by me nor yet to be made a sufferer by the exercise of anything by me of the character of what is generally known as grigri, otherwise magique. This, sir, I do beg your permission to offer my assurance to you of the same. Ah, no! it is not for that!
But the superstition seems merely to have changed place with the Fetisch amongst the Negro Mohammedan converts. Haj Ibrahim, a merchant of Tripoli, was the only Mussulman I found who despised the use of charms. He observed: "The grigri is only fit for slaves, or ignorant Mussulmans." Hell is ordinarily denominated fire by people in The Desert.
In "Nago Mbwiri" the sense is an idol, an object of worship, a "medicine" as the North-American Indians say, in contradistinction to Munda, a grigri, talisman, or charm. Every Mpongwe, woman as well as man, has some Mbwiri to which offerings are made in times of misfortune, sickness, or danger. I afterwards managed to enter one of these rude and embryonal temples so carefully shut.
An essential article, hung round the neck or slung to the body, is the grigri, ta'awiz, or talisman, a Koranic verse or a magic diagram enclosed in a leathern roll or in a flat square. Of these prophylactics, which answer to European medals and similar fetish, a 'serious person' will wear dozens; and they are held to be such 'strong medicine' that even pagans will barter or pay for them.
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