Let us now take a case in which ancestor-worship, and no other form of
religion (beyond mere superstitions), has been declared to be the practice
of an African people. Mr. Spencer gives the example of natives of the
south-eastern district of Central Africa described by Mr. Macdonald in
'Africana.'[3] The dead man becomes a ghost-god, receives prayer and
sacrifice, is called a Mulungu (= great ancestor or = sky?), is preferred
above older spirits, now forgotten; such old spirits may, however, have a
mountain top for home, a great chief being better remembered; the
mountain god is prayed to for rain; higher gods were probably similar
local gods in an older habitat of the Yao.[4]
Such is in the main Mr. Spencer's _résumé_ of Mr. Duff Macdonald's report.
He omits whatever Mr. Macdonald says about a Being among the Yaos,
analogous to the Dendid of the Dinkas, or the Darumulun of Australia, or
the Huron Ahone. Yet analysis detects, in Mr. Macdonald's report,
copious traces of such a Being, though Mr. Macdonald himself believes in
ancestor-worship as the Source of the local religion. Thus, Mulungu,
or Mlungu, used as a proper name, 'is said to be the great spirit,
_msimu_, of all men, a spirit formed by adding all the departed spirits
together.[5] This is a singular stretch of savage philosophy, and
indicates (says Mr. Macdonald) 'a grasping after a Being who is the
totality of all individual existence.... If it fell from the lips of
civilised men instead of savages, it would be regarded as philosophy.
Expressions of this kind among the natives are partly traditional, and
partly dictated by the big thoughts of the moment.' Philosophy it is, but
a philosophy dependent on the ghost theory.
I go on to show that the Wayao have, though Mr. Spencer omits him, a Being
who precisely answers to Darumulun, if stripped (perhaps) of his ethical
aspect. On this point we are left in uncertainty, just because Mr.
Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets of his mysteries, which, in
Australia, have been revealed to a few Europeans.
Where Mulungu is used as a proper name, it 'certainly points to a personal
Being, by the Wayao sometimes said to be the same as Mtanga. At other
times he is a Being that possesses many powerful servants, but is himself
kept a good deal beyond the scene of earthly affairs, like the gods of
Epicurus.'
This is, of course, precisely the feature in African theology which
interests us. The Supreme Being, in spite of the potency which his
supposed place as latest evolved out of the ghost-world should naturally
give him, is neglected, either as half forgotten, or for philosophical
reasons. For these reasons Epicurus and Lucretius make their gods
_otiosi_, unconcerned, and the Wayao, with their universal collective
spirit, are no mean philosophers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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