The priests take but a small part in the public affairs; and it is forbidden to them, under very severe penalties, to enter the capital. On great occasions, when a sacrifice of prisoners is to be made, recourse however is had to them, to give an additional solemnity to the proceedings.
These ceremonies take place before the greater idols, who, according to the negroes, represent the evil spirits; and the number of victims should be five and twenty: unlike most other lands, who in the same circumstances are too eager for blood, they are allowed to ransom their lives, should it be in their power.
The negroes of Senegal adore a river, trees, and serpents, with a crowd of shapeless idols, the legends of whom neither amuse by their incident, or excite the imagination by the beauty of their poetry.
In parts of Africa, they worship the soul of the dead, and a being named Molongo, upon whom they are most prodigal in bestowing titles; such as sovereign of nature, and of the Sun and Moon, and king of the earth and sea; while on others, they pay deep reverence to monkeys, who are brought up with care, and covered with honours.
Among the nations of Congo, and in the Caffre-land, the people are abandoned to the grossest superstitions. In the middle and to south of Africa, the worship of idols is universal; while in Abyssinia and at the Cape, are some faint gleams of Christianity mingled with impure legends, which have doubtless been derived from the mythologies of Greece and India.
P O L Y N E S I A.
The inhabitants of Polynesia, are, like all those whose faith is primitive and simple, devoted to the worship of the Sun, which they regard as a divinity; and which they imagine at one time to have been a human being: they believe he married his sister, who, when all the rest of her family came upon earth, remained by herself in the skies, and from their union sprang the months.