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LECTURE I.
43
Savages
who are both scholars and philosophers. are shy and silent in the presence of white men, and they have a superstitious reluctance against mentioning even the names of their gods and heroes. Not many years ago it was supposed, on what would seem to be good authority, that the Zulus had no religious ideas at all; at present our very Bishops have been silenced by their theological inquiries.
Captain Gardiner, in his Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu, Country undertaken in 1835, gives the following dialogue:
'Have you any knowledge of the power by whom the world was made? When you see the sun rising and setting, and the trees growing, do you know who made them and who governs them?'
TPAI, a Zulu (after a little pause, apparently deep in thought), No; we see them, but cannot tell how they come; we suppose that they come of them
selves.'
A. To whom then do you attribute your success or failure in war?'
TPAI. When we are not successful, and do not take cattle, we think our father (Itongo) has not looked upon us.'
A. 'Do you think your father's spirits (Amatongo) made the world?'
TPAI. 'No.'
A. Where do you suppose the spirit of man goes after it leaves the body?'
TPAI. We cannot tell.'
A. Do you think it lives for ever?'
TPAI. That we cannot tell; we believe that the spirit of our forefathers looks upon us when we go
