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On the West Coast of Africa there is a somewhat elaborate scheme of departmental deities. The sky is the chief god, but in Dahomi and Ashanti there are gods of lightning, fire, the ocean, the rainbow, war, markets, silk, cotton, and poison trees, smallpox, sensual desire, discord, and wisdom; in Dahomi there is a tutelary god of the royal family.
+393+. The best example of a half-civilized phallic cult is that which is now practiced in Yoruba and Dahomi, countries with definite government and institutions. These are expressions of popular appetite, and it does not appear that the cult itself is otherwise religiously significant. +394+. In modern India the Çivaite phallicism is pronounced and important.
In Africa, outside of Egypt, the only trace of an independent sun-god appears to be in Dahomi, where, however, he is not prominent; why such a god should not be found in the neighboring countries of Ashanti and Yoruba is not clear; climatic conditions would affect all these countries alike.
A curious feature of Dahomi religion is the importance that is attached to the family ghost as protector, the ghost, that is, of a former member of the family, ordinarily its head; he has a shrine, and becomes practically an inferior deity.
A negro fetish, becoming intimately associated with a clan, sometimes resembles a totem. The half-civilized Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba have elaborate theistic systems, with monarchical governments that leave no place for a totemistic organization. +513+. Madagascar, before it came under European control, had a well-defined religious and political hierarchy.
In Africa the partially civilized peoples, such as the Baganda and adjacent tribes in the east, and Yoruba, Dahomi, and Ashanti in the west, have fairly well-developed religious organizations, in which totems play a subordinate part.
+645+. Other such deities are reported in South Africa, as the Qamata of the Xosa, Morimo of the Bakuana, and farther north Molungu. On the West Coast also, in Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba, a number of deities exist which were in all probability originally local. Such appears to be the character of certain gods of the non-Aryan tribes of India, as the Kolarian Sunthals and Koles.
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