That the people of this country believed God made the world and everything in it; but he did not know whether they had had any ideas about creation from dust of the ground or in God's likeness; That they believed in the existence, in the first times, of a great man, who had simply to speak, and all things were made by the word of his power. As to man's creation, a legend states it thus: Two eggs fell from on high. On striking the ground and breaking, one became a man and the other a woman. (Apparently there is no memory of any legend indicating the name, character, or work of the Holy Spirit.) That there is a legend of a great chief of a village who always warned people not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. Finally, he himself ate of it and died; That there was no legend, but, among a few persons, a vague tradition of a once happy period, and of a coming time of good; but he knew of nothing corresponding to the story of Cain and Abel; That there is a fable that a woman brought to the people of her village the fruit of a forbidden tree. In order to hide it she swallowed it; and she became possessed of an evil spirit, which was the beginning of witchcraft; That there was some tradition of a Deluge (he was not aware of any about the Dispersion at the Tower of Babel); That all men believed they were sinners, but that they knew of no remedy for sin; That sacrifices are made constantly, their object being to appease the spirits and avert their anger; That many of the tribes are, and probably all, before they emerged on the seacoast, were cannibal (of the origin of cannibalism he did not know, but he was certain it had no religious idea associated with it[10]); That there was a legend that a "Son" of God, by name Ilongo ja Anyambe, was to come and deliver mankind from trouble and give them happiness; but as he had not as yet come, the heathen were no longer expecting him; That there was a division of time, six months, making an "upuma," or _year_, and a rest day, which came two days after the new moon, and was called Buhwa bwa Mandanda,--it was a day for dancing and feasting; That the dead were usually buried; but persons held in superstitious reverence, as twins, Udinge, etc., were not buried, but left at the foot of a ceiba, or silk-cotton tree, or other sacred tree; That burial-places are regarded with a mixed feeling of reverence and awe; That the immortality of the soul is believed in, but that there is no tradition of the resurrection of the body; That they believe God gave law to mankind, and that, for those who keep this law, there is reserved in the future a "good place," and for the bad a "bad place," but no definite ideas about what that "good" or that "bad" will be, or as to the locality of those places; That they believe in a distinction of spirits,--that some are _demons_, as in the old days of demoniacal possession, this distinction following the Jewish idea of diaboloi and daimonai. CHAPTER III