Course XXVII - Teaching 27: Religion of the African Jungle

The belief of African black people of the jungle consists of a primitive fetishism, a degenerated traditional worship of ancient Atlantean peoples.
The Kaffirs believe in life after death, revere constantly their ancestors, and call them Insicholaga, or Barinos.
According to certain black peoples, the spirits of ancestors inhabited caverns, while others believe that they dwell on the summits, basing these beliefs on the geographic form of the country where they live. These spirits visit periodically living beings, and help or damage them according to inclination and spiritual progress of the former.
The astral world where those ancestors stayed was quite small, according to the mind of those black people.
This worship consisted of a communication with the dead and never was discontinued. A caste called Isitonga was the mediums. These beings, a sort of initiated wizards, who generally suffered of strange nervous diseases that prepared them for the exercise of magic, healed any kind of illness by means of rites and bizarre practices, because they attributed evils of human heath to malefic causes that should be destroyed.
In this sense, we should notice that those curative symptoms had certain truth at bottom, because the root of a disease really is rather in the mental state of man than in his physical body.
The supreme god of those black people was Uncholog, the Great Spirit, and after him, Icante, the great spirit of the waters. Offerings devoted to this god were thrown into the water instead of throwing it into fire.
Zulu people’s mythology is richer.
Unkulunkulu is the preserver of Humanity and Creation.
Black people are very respectful to fire and feel it is a serious guilt to let it go out, because it should shine always at the holy hearth, in the centre of the tribe, guarded by young black vestals. Any black rite includes Molemos, that is, amulets to protect his owner against any evil.
The Malgaches revered Jachar, supreme god with no altars or offerings, because he knew well which what men needed.
Kiso fetishes were a kind of gnomes ruling over powers of Nature.
Also we should not forget the god Maramba, the depository of oaths.
In Guinea, the natives revered especially Agoyo, the god of the good advice, who stayed at the house of the high priest.
Among black people of the west coast of Africa, Horei was the wicked spirit that mooed during ceremonies devoted to him.
Boson, white god, was the principle of good among black people of Gold Coast. That is why many times these natives retained the first white people that visited them, believing that the latter were gods. But most black people gave free rein to magic, and practiced divination with a jar with three holes. The sound emitted by this jar was interpreted by the priests as a good or bad omen.