[ Fetishes. ]
To return to Angola, we may add the report of another of our countrymen, Andrew Battell (my near neighbour, dwelling at Leigh, in Essex) who served under Manuel Silvera Pereira,211 Governor under the King of Spain, at his city of St. Paul, and with him went far into the country of Angola, their army being eight hundred Portugals and fifty thousand Naturals. This Andrew Battell telleth that they are all heathens in Angola. They had their idols of wood in the midst of their towns, fashioned like a negro, and at the foot thereof was a great heap of elephants’ teeth, containing three or four tuns of them: these were piled in the earth, and upon them were set the skulls of dead men, which they had slain in the wars, in monument of their victory.212 The idol they call Mokisso [Mukishi], and some of them have houses built over them. If any be sick, he accounteth it Mokisso’s hand, and sendeth to appease his angry God, with pouring wine (which they have of the palm tree) at his feet.213 They have proper names of distinction for their Mokissos, as Kissungo, Kalikete, etc., and use to swear by them, Kissungo wy, that is, by Kissungo.214