THE RELIGION OF SAVAGES. 225 



apparently made no well- sustained effort at religious investiga- 

 tion at Aru or anywhere else. 



The following gives evidence of further carelessness in quot- 

 ing : In writing of certain tribes in the country of Karaque in 

 Africa, Sir John says, "Captain Grant could jQnd no distinct 

 form of religion in some of the comparatively civilized tribes 

 visited by him/' * What Captain Grant says is this : " We could 

 not trace any distinct form of religion among this interesting race, 

 but there were certain indications or traces of Jewish worship." 

 Then Captain Grant tells us that the king had "many super- 

 stitions"; that he "combined in himself the offices of prophet, 

 priest, and king" ; that on the feast of the new moon he " assumed 

 the priestly garb " ; and that a younger brother of his " consulted 

 daily with the gods," and was considered a greater prophet and 

 priest than his royal brother. 



"According to Burchell," writes Sir John, "the Bachapins 

 (Kaffirs) had no form of worship or religion. They had no belief 

 in a good deity, but some vague idea of an evil being." f One 

 would glean from this quotation that the only approach to reli- 

 gious thought among the Bachapins consisted of a vague belief 

 in an evil spirit, whereas Burchell distinctly states that they 

 possessed a religion, although he believed they had no " form of 

 worship " or " religion." What he says is this : " Their religion 

 may be characterized as an inconsistent jumble of superstition 

 and ignorance, among which no signs were to be discovered of its 

 having ever been derived from any purer source, or that it was 

 aught else than the offspring of barbarous and uncultivated 

 minds." He then further states : " The superstition of the Bacha- 

 pins for it can not be called a religion (although he himself had 

 called it so) is of the weakest and most absurd kind. These 

 people have no outward worship, nor, if one may judge from 

 their never alluding to them, any private devotions; neither 

 could it be discovered that they possessed any very defined or ex- 

 alted notion of a supreme and beneficent deity, or of a great and 

 first creator. Although they do not worship a good deity, they 

 fear a bad one, whom they name Mooleemo, a word which my in- 

 terpreter translated by the Dutch word for devil. They also 

 believe in amulets as preservatives against evil, in lucky and un- 

 lucky omens, in witchcraft and sorcery." 



Now, if language means anything, Burchell's testimony may 

 be summed up thus : " The Bachapin Kaffirs possess a religion 

 scarce worthy of the name, consisting of witchcraft and sorcery 

 and the recognition of an evil spirit called Mooleemo. Their no- 



* A Walk across Africa, p. 145. 



f Travels in South Africa, vol. ii, p. 550. 



VOL. XLTIII. Ifl 



