(M152) Similarly among the Thonga, another Bantu tribe of South Africa, “any man, who has departed this earthly life, becomes a _shikwembu_, a god”;(463) “when an old decrepit man or woman dies, he at once becomes a god: he has entered the domain of infinity.”(464) In this tribe “the spirits of the ancestors are the main objects of religious worship. They form the principal category of spirits.”(465) “On the one hand, the ancestor-gods are truly gods, endowed with the attributes of divinity; whilst, on the other, they seem to be nothing but mere human beings, exactly on the same level as their worshippers.”(466) There are two great classes of these ancestor-gods, to wit, “those of the family, and those of the country, the latter being those of the reigning family. They do not differ as regards their nature. In national calamities those of the country are invoked, whilst, for purely family matters, those of the family are called upon. Moreover, each family has two sets of gods, those on the father’s side and those on the mother’s, those of _kweru_ and those of _bakokwana_. They are equal in dignity. Both can be invoked, and the divinatory bones are always asked to which the offering must be made. It seems, however, as if the gods on the mother’s side were more tender-hearted and more popular than those on the father’s. The reason for this is, perhaps, that relations are easier with the family of the mother than with that of the father. It is also just possible that it is a relic of the matriarchal period, when the ancestors of the mother only were known, and consequently invoked. At any rate, the part played by _batukulu_ [uterine] nephews in the offerings shows that they are the true representatives of the gods, not of those of their father, but of their mother.”(467) Among the Thonga “the belief in the continuation of life after death is universal, being at the base of the ancestrolatry, which is the religion of the tribe.”(468) “How real is the ancestrolatry, the religion of the Thonga, of, in fact, all the South African Bantus! How frequent and manifold are its manifestations! This is the first, and the most perceptible set of their religious intuitions, and any European, who has stayed in their villages, learnt their language, and tried to understand their customs, has had the opportunity of familiarizing himself with this religion.”(469)