94 
The Minor Tribes 
help thinking, from Egypt. And when an African 
chief said in my presence to a Yahoo-like naval 
officer, “ When so be I die, I come up for white 
man! When so be you die, you come up for 
monkey! ” my suspicion is that he had distorted 
the doctrine of some missionary. Man would 
hardly have a future without a distinct priestly 
class whose interest it is to teach “ another and a 
better,”—or a worse. 
Certain missionaries in the Gaboon River have 
detected evidences of Judaism amongst the Mpon- 
gwe, which deserve notice but which hardly require 
detailed refutation, i. Circumcision, even on the 
eighth day as amongst the Efik of the old Calabar 
River; but this is a familiar custom borrowed from 
Egypt by the Semites ; it is done in a multitude of 
ways, which are limited only by necessity; the 
resemblance of the Mpongwe rite to that of the 
Jews, though remarkable, is purely accidental. 2. 
The division of tribes into separate families and 
frequently into the number twelve ; but this again 
appears fortuitous ; almost all the West African 
people have some such division, and they range up- 
wards from three, as amongst the Kru-men, the Gal- 
las, the Wakwafi,and the Wanyika. 1 3. Exogamy 
or the rigid interdiction of marriage between clans 
1 For further details see “ Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast,” 
vol. ii. chap. iv. 
