Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitionsNassau, Robert Hamill
Philosophy
Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitions
Nassau, Robert Hamill
Ethnology -- Africa, West; Fetishism -- Africa, West
Another witness on this subject is the Rev. Dr. J. L. Wilson.[9] Speaking
of Africa and its Negro inhabitants, he says: "The belief in one great
Supreme Being is universal. Nor is this idea held imperfectly or obscurely
developed in their minds. The impression is so deeply engraved upon their
moral and mental nature that any system of atheism strikes them as too
absurd and preposterous to require a denial. Everything which transpires
in the natural world beyond the power of man or of spirits, who are
supposed to occupy a place somewhat higher than man, is at once and
spontaneously ascribed to the agency of God. All the tribes in the country
with which the writer has become acquainted (and they are not few) have a
name for God; and many of them have two or more, significant of His
character as a Maker, Preserver, and Benefactor. (In the Grebo country
Nyiswa is the common name for God; but He is sometimes called Geyi,
indicative of His character as Maker. In Ashanti He has two names: _viz._,
Yankumpon, which signifies 'My Great Friend,' and Yemi, 'My Maker.') The
people, however, have no correct idea of the character or attributes of
the Deity. Destitute of (a written) revelation, and without any other
means of forming a correct conception of His moral nature, they naturally
reason up from their own natures, and, in consequence, think of Him as a
being like themselves.
"Nor have they any correct notion of the control which God exercises over
the affairs of the world. The prevailing notion seems to be that God,
after having made the world and filled it with inhabitants, retired to
some remote corner of the universe, and has allowed the affairs of the
world to come under the control of evil spirits; and hence the only
religious worship that is ever performed is directed to these spirits, the
object of which is to court their favor, or ward off the evil effects of
their displeasure.
"On some rare occasions, as at the ratification of an important treaty, or
when a man is condemned to drink the 'red-water ordeal,' the name of God
is solemnly invoked; and, what is worthy of note, is invoked _three times_
with marked precision. Whether this involves the idea of a Trinity we
shall not pretend to decide; but the fact itself is worthy of record. Many
of the tribes speak of the 'Son of God.' The Grebos call him 'Greh,' and
the Amina people, according to Pritchard, call him 'Sankombum.'"
The following testimony I gather from conversations with the late Rev.
Ibia j'Ikěngě, a native minister and member of the Presbytery of
Corisco, who himself was born in heathenism. He stated:
That his forefathers believed in many inferior agencies who are under the
control of a Superior Being; that they were therefore primitive
monotheists. Under great emergencies they looked beyond the lower beings,
and asked help of that Superior; before doing so, they prayed to him,
imploring him as Father to help;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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