This Country They Call Jong Sang Doo
(The Land Where The Slaves Are Sold).
But of all countries in the
world their own appears to them as the best, and their own people as
the happiest, and they pity the fate of other nations, who have been
placed by Providence in less fertile and less fortunate districts.
Some of the religious opinions of the negroes, though blended with
the weakest credulity and superstition, are not unworthy attention.
I have conversed with all ranks and conditions upon the subject of
their faith, and can pronounce, without the smallest shadow of
doubt, that the belief of one God and of a future state of reward
and punishment is entire and universal among them. It is
remarkable, however, that except on the appearance of a new moon, as
before related, the pagan natives do not think it necessary to offer
up prayers and supplications to the Almighty. They represent the
Deity, indeed, as the creator and preserver of all things, but in
general they consider Him as a being so remote and of so exalted a
nature that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of
wretched mortals can reverse the decrees and change the purposes of
unerring wisdom. If they are asked for what reason then do they
offer up a prayer on the appearance of the new moon, the answer is,
that custom has made it necessary, they do it because their fathers
did it before them. Such is the blindness of unassisted nature!
The concerns of this world, they believe, are committed by the
Almighty to the superintendence and direction of subordinate
spirits, over whom they suppose that certain magical ceremonies have
great influence. A white fowl suspended to the branch of a
particular tree, a snake's head or a few handfuls of fruit are
offerings which ignorance and superstition frequently present, to
deprecate the wrath, or to conciliate the favour, of these tutelary
agents. But it is not often that the negroes make their religious
opinions the subject of conversation; when interrogated in
particular concerning their ideas of a future state, they express
themselves with great reverence, but endeavour to shorten the
discussion by observing, "Mo o mo inta allo" ("No man knows anything
about it"). They are content, they say, to follow the precepts and
examples of their forefathers through the various vicissitudes of
life, and when this world presents no objects of enjoyment or of
comfort they seem to look with anxiety towards another, which they
believe will be better suited to their natures, but concerning which
they are far from indulging vain and delusive conjectures.
The Mandingoes seldom attain extreme old age. At forty most of them
become grey-haired and covered with wrinkles, and but few of them
survive the age of fifty-five or sixty. They calculate the years of
their lives, as I have already observed, by the number of rainy
seasons (there being but one such in the year), and distinguish each
year by a particular name, founded on some remarkable occurrence
which happened in that year.
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