The Primitive African Faith Seems To Be That There Is One Almighty
Maker Of Heaven And Earth; That He Has
Given the various plants of
earth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit
world, where
All who have ever been born and died continue to live;
that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here
or among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt,
such as witchcraft. Their idea of moral evil differs in no respect
from ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferior
beings, not to the Supreme. Evil-speaking - lying - hatred -
disobedience to parents - neglect of them - are said by the intelligent
to have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, or
adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching. The
only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to have
more wives than one. This, until the arrival of Europeans, never
entered into their minds even as a doubt.
Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good
or evil, is ascribed to the Deity. Men are inseparably connected
with the spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed to
have joined the hosts of his ancestors. All the Africans we have met
with are as firmly persuaded of their future existence as of their
present life. And we have found none in whom the belief in the
Supreme Being was not rooted.
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