the under-world, but are the very deities of the living, we can put the proper sense to these expressions. But without such information, we might have mistaken them for denials of the soul's existence after death. This objection may even apply to one of the most formal denials of a future life ever placed on record among an uncultured race, a poem of the Dinka tribe of the White Nile, concerning Dendid the Creator: —
'On the day when Dendid made all things, He made the sun; And the sun comes forth, goes down, and comes again: He made the moon; And the moon comes forth, goes down, and comes again: He made the stars; And the stars come forth, go down, and come again: He made man; And man comes forth, goes down into the ground, and comes no more.'
It is to be remarked, however, that the close neighbours of these Dinka, the Bari, believe that the dead do return to live again on earth, and the question arises whether it is the doctrine of bodily resurrection, or the doctrine of the surviving ghost-soul, that the Dinka poem denies. The missionary Kaufmann says that the Dinka do not believe the immortality of the soul, that they think it but a breath, and with death all is over; Brun-Rollet's contrary authority goes to prove that they do believe in another life; both leave it an open question whether they recognize the existence of surviving ghosts.[1]
Looking at the religion of the lower races as a whole, we shall at least not be ill-advised in taking as one of its general and principal elements the doctrine of the soul's Future Life. But here it is needful to explain, to limit, and to reserve, lest modern theological ideas should lead us to misconstrue more primitive beliefs. In such enquiries the
1 Kaufmann, 'Schilderungen aus Centralafrika,' p. 124; G. Lejean in 'Rev. des Deux Mondes,' Apr. 1, 1860, p. 760; see Brun-Rollet, 'Nil Blanc,' pp. 100, 234. A dialogue by the missionary Beltrame (1859-60), in Mitterutzner, 'Dinka-Sprache,' p. 57, ascribes to the Dinkas ideas of heaven and hell, which, however, show Christian influence.
- ↑ 1
