Identifier: ridpathsuniversa08ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's Universal history : an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the civilized life among men and nations, from recent and authentic sources with a preliminary inquiry on the time, place and manner of the beginning
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Cincinnati : Jones
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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kers of the Africantribes. All manner of serpents and liz-ards and beetles, whether harmless orvenomous, are represented among thefetich work of this people. After theforms of living things we find a secondgroup of objects representing inanimatethings. Such are stones and teeth andshells and mere bits of wood; also in alarger sense trees and rivers and otherfacts and phenomena of the naturalworld. The extent to which the fe-tiches are multiplied surpasses belief.We may not with any approximation tocertainty estimate the number of god-forms which the poor ingenuity andprofound superstition of the Nigritianpeoples have invented. What, then, are the beliefs which theAfrican races hold respecting theiridols? They regard them with senti-ments of awe and ven- „ ,. , „ , Ajr Beliefs of theAf-eratioil. We mUSt remem- ricans regarding., , , 1 their fetiches. ber, however, the accom-modated sense in which these wordsmust be employed. The word awe, asit is employed in our literature, can not
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686 GREAT RACES OE MANKIND. possibly stand for any fact or sentimentin the thought or imagination of theAfrican. All things are relative. Whatdoes the man of Dahomey know of awe ?What does he know of veneration ? And• yet he has sentiments, feelings, beliefs,as he stands before his fetich and offersto it the tribute of a savage worship. Among the Negro races the belief isuniversal that their idols arc able tohelp them and to hurt them. This helpand this hurt belong, however, to theAfrican sphere. What should the Ne-gro aborigines know of the help and thehurt of the gods in the broader spherewhere divine agency is supposed tooperate as the same is understood bythe more enlightened peoples? Mani-festly, both the help and the hurt must,to the Nigritians, relate to material orphysical, and not to spiritual, considera-tions and results. It may be noted as a general fact thatthe barbarous races of mankind do notBarbarians do seek, and therefore do notSSi^ Pray, for the enlightenmentmind-

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