ABSTRACT
Most of the Yayan Jidderi, as they are called in North Africa, or the Yayan Zanzanna, as they are known in Hausaland, are spirits which cause rashes and sore eyes, hence their name “Children of Spots,” or Little Spots, but some of them afflict their victims in other ways. Their complaints are comparatively trivial on the whole, they call in the aid of a greater spirit to inflict a serious injury, as we have seen in the case of Salah, but they can give smallpox, and that, particularly among the Hausas, is anything but trifling. The names are Arabic, but since we can hardly imagine that skin complaints were unknown in early times, we must suppose that these spirits are dead children whose names have been changed.
