The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 06 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 06 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M153) Among the Basutos and Bechuanas, who also belong to the great Bantu
family, the sacrificial ritual is not highly developed. “Only in great
misfortunes which affect the whole people or the royal family, a black ox
is slaughtered; for in such cases they always think that the angry spirits
of the departed are the cause of all the suffering. ‘_Re amogioa ki
badimo_,’ say the people, ‘the spirits are robbing us.’ The ox is led to
the chiefs grave; there they pray, ‘Lord, we are come to call upon thee,
we who are thy children; make not our hearts troubled; take not, Lord,
that which is ours.’ The old chief is honoured and praised in songs, he is
invoked by all his praise-names, the ox is killed and its flesh eaten, but
the blood and the contents of the stomach are poured on the grave, and
there the bones of the sacrificed animal are also deposited.”(470)
(M154) The Zulus, another great Bantu tribe of South Africa, believe in
the existence of a being whom they call Unkulunkulu, which means “the
Old-Old-one, the most ancient man.” They say that “it is he who was the
first man; he broke off in the beginning. We do not know his wife; and the
ancients do not tell us that he had a wife.”(471) This Old-Old-one or
Great-Great-one “is represented as having made all things—men, cattle,
water, fire, the mountains, and whatever else is seen. He is also said to
have appointed their names. Creation was effected by splitting a reed,
when the first man and other things issued from the cleft.”(472) Further,
the Zulus and other Caffre tribes of Natal “believe that, when a person
dies, his _i-hloze_ or _isi-tute_ survives. These words are translated
‘spirit,’ and there seems no objection to the rendering. They refer to
something manifestly distinguished from the body, and the nature of which
the prophets endeavour to explain by saying that it is identical with the
shadow. The residence of the _ama-hloze_, or spirits, seems to be beneath;
the practice of breaking a man’s assagais, before they are buried with
him, shows that he is believed to return to earth through the grave; while
it appears to be generally thought that, if the earth were removed from
the grave, the ghost would return and frighten his descendants. When
spirits have entered the future state, they are believed to possess great
power; prosperity is ascribed to their favour, and misfortune to their
anger; they are elevated in fact to the rank of deities, and (except where
the Great-Great is worshipped concurrently with them) they are the only
objects of a Kafir’s adoration. Their attention (or providence) is limited
to their own relatives—a father caring for the family, and a chief for the
tribe, which they respectively left behind them. They are believed to
occupy the same relative position as they did in the body, the departed
spirit of a chief being sometimes invoked to compel a man’s ancestors to
bless him.”(473)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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