726 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



relations are not maintained by occasional offerings. I had 

 not, when making the suggestion, any evidence ; but con 

 clusive evidence has since been furnished by the Rev. Duff 

 MacDonald s Africcma. The following three extracts show 

 the transition from priestly actions of a private character to 

 those of a public character, among the Blantyre negroes. 



&quot;On the subject of the village gods opinions differ. Some say that 

 everyone in the village, whether a relative of the chief or not, must 

 worship the forefathers of the chief. Others say that a person not 

 related to the chief must worship his own forefathers, otherwise their 

 spirits will bring trouble upon him. To reconcile these authorities we 

 may mention that nearly everyone in the village is related to its chief, 

 or if not related is, in courtesy, considered so. Any person not related 

 to the village chief would be polite enough on all public occasions to 

 recognise the village god : on occasions of private prayer ... he 

 would approach the spirits of his own forefathers.&quot; 



&quot; The chief of a village has another title to the priesthood. It is his 

 relatives that are the village gods.&quot; 



&quot; Apart from the case of dreams and a few such private matters, it 

 is not usual for anyone to approach the gods except the chief of the 

 village. He is the recognised high priest who presents prayers and 

 offerings on behalf of all that live in his village.&quot; 



Here, then, we see very clearly the first stage in the differ 

 entiation of the chief into the priest proper the man who 

 intercedes with the supernatural being not on his own behalf 

 simply, nor on behalf only of members of his family, but on 

 behalf of unrelated persons. This is, indeed, a stage in 

 which, as shown by the disagreement among the people them 

 selves, the differentiation is incomplete. In another part of 

 Africa, we find it more definitely established. At Onitsha on 

 the Niger, &quot;the people reverence him [the king] as the 

 mediator between the gods and themselves, and salute him 

 with the title of Igue, which in Ebo means supreme being.&quot; 

 A kindred state of things is illustrated among remote and 

 unallied peoples. In Samoa, where the chiefs were priests, 

 &quot; every village had its god, and everyone born in that village 

 was regarded as the property of that god/ And among the 

 ancient Peruvians, more advanced though they were in their 

 social organization, a like primitive arrangement was trace- 



