[36] Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 1887, p. 127. [↑]
[37] E.g., an aged female relative of the writer, quite orthodox in all her habits, and devout to the extent of calling the Book of Esther “Godless” because the word “God” does not occur in it, yet at a pinch declared that she had “never heard of Providence putting a boll of meal inside anybody’s door.” Her daughter-in-law, also of quite religious habits, quoted the saying with a certain sense of its audacity, but endorsed it, as she had cause to do. Yet both regularly practised prayer and asserted divine beneficence. [↑]
[38] See B. Seeman, “Fiji and the Fijians,” in Galton’s Vacation Tourists, 1862, pp. 275–76, as to the terrorism resorted to by Fijian priests against unbelievers. “Punishment was sure to overtake the skeptic, let his station in life be what it might”—i.e., supernatural punishment was threatened, and the priests were not likely to let it fail. Cp. Basil Thomson, The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom, 1909, introd., p. xi: “The reformers of primitive races never lived long: if they were low-born they were clubbed, and that was the end of them and their reforms; if they were chiefs, and something happened to them, either by disease or accident, men saw therein the figure of an offended deity; and obedience to the existing order of things became stronger than before.” Cp. Pagan Christs, 2nd ed., pp. 60–62, as to kings who wished to put down human sacrifices. [↑]
[39] See Pagan Christs, 2nd ed., pp. 1–2. [↑]
[40] E. J. Glave, art. cited, p. 825. Cp. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 582, 594. [↑]
[41] Cp. the Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, 1890, pp. 222–23, as to the “universal suspicion” which falls upon tribesmen of rationalistic and anti-superstitious tendencies, making them “almost doubt their own sanity.” [↑]
[42] Sir H. H. Johnston, The River Congo, ed. 1805, p. 289. Cp. Moffat, as cited above. [↑]
[43] Colenso, The Pentateuch, vol. i, pref. p. vii; introd. p. 9. [↑]
[44] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, iii, § 583. [↑]
[45] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1831, iv, 30–31, 126–28. [↑]