United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Yama, the first of Aryan men who died, was worshipped by Vedic Aryans, but confessedly as a ghost-god. Mr. Tylor gives a list of first ancestors deified. Tamoi, of the Guaranis, was 'the ancient of heaven, clearly no mortal man. The Maori Maui was the first who died, but he is not one of the original Maori gods. Haetsh, among the Kamchadals, precisely answers to Yama.
The ghost comes from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as originally thought of, does not. All Gods are Elohim, kalou, wakan; all Elohim, kalou, wakan are not Gods. A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that Tá-li-y-Tooboo did so.
Metaphysically he is improved on in statement, morally he is stained with the worst crimes of the hungry ghost-god, or god framed on the lines of animism.
Whether an easy-going, hungry ghost-god with a liking for his family, or a moral Creator not to be bribed, is better suited to an environment of not especially scrupulous savages, any man can decide. Whether a set of not particularly scrupulous savages will readily evolve a moral unbribable Creator, when they have a serviceable family ghost-god eager to oblige, is a question as easily resolved.
Beyond all doubt, savages who find themselves under the watchful eye of a moral deity whom they cannot 'square' will desert him as soon as they have evolved a practicable ghost-god, useful for family purposes, whom they can square.
Unkulunkulu will be described later. This is the list: Where the First Ancestor is equivalent to the Creator, and is supreme, he is from the first deathless and immortal. When he dies he is a confessed ghost-god. Now, ghost-worship and dead ancestor-worship are impossible before the ancestor is dead and is a ghost.
Word Of The Day