The Land of the Fathers: Missionary Travels in the South African Interior

Record summary

Nineteenth-century missionary accounts from the South African interior describe beliefs about ancestors, shades, witchcraft, divination and spirits associated with illness or misfortune. This lead points researchers toward published mission literature rather than one isolated apparition case, especially reports connected with Basotho, Tswana and neighboring communities. Such texts can reveal how local experiences were translated into Christian categories of ghost, demon or superstition. The exact work and passage must be selected from bibliographic research, since several mission books use overlapping titles and repeat material from oral testimony.