The Races of Men: A Fragment

Record summary

Victorian ethnological works frequently classified African accounts of spirits, witchcraft and ancestors within racial theories of religion. This lead represents the scholarly context in which nineteenth-century African apparition reports were interpreted, rather than a discrete encounter. It can help researchers examine how terms such as savage, fetish, ghost and superstition were used in print and later repeated by psychical researchers. Any African example must be traced to a named travel narrative, mission report or ethnography. The interpretive framework itself is historically important but scientifically discredited.