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In any case we ask for evidence how, in the 'impenetrable forests' did a new Supreme Deity become universally known? Why was Nyankupon, the supposed new god of a new powerful set of strangers, left wholly unpropitiated? The reverse was to be expected.
Then, of course, Nyankupon would receive the best sacrifices of all, as the most powerful deity? Far from that, Nyankupon received no sacrifice, and had no priests. No priest would have a traditional way of serving him. As the unlucky man in Voltaire says to his guardian angel, 'It is well worth while to have a presiding genius, so the Tshis and Bantu might ironically remark, 'A useful thing, a new Supreme Being! A quarter of a continent or so adopts a new foreign god, and leaves him planté l
Nyankupon cannot be explained apart from Taaroa, Puluga, Ahone, Ndengei, Dendid, and Ta-li-y-Tochoo, Gods to be later described, who cannot, by any stretch of probabilities, be regarded as of European origin.
Major Ellis's theory is a natural result of his belief in a tangle of polytheism as 'the original state of religion. If so, there was not much room for the natural development of Nyankupon, in whom 'the missionaries find a parallel to the Jahveh of the Jews. On our theory Nyankupon takes his place in the regular process of the corruption of theism by animism.
Yet he almost exactly answers to the African Nyankupon, who is explained away as a 'loan-god. For the belief in relatively pure creative beings, whether they are morally adored, without sacrifice, or merely neglected, is so widely diffused, that Anthropology must ignore them, or account for them as 'loan-gods' or give up her theory! Macdonald shows that, contrary to Mr.
Only his name and the idea of his nature are universally diffused in West African belief. He lives in no definite home, or hill, but 'in Nyankupon's country. Nyankupon, at the present day, is 'ignored rather than worshipped, while Bobowissi has priests and offerings.
All of these represent the primeval Supreme Being, more or less or altogether stripped, under advancing conditions of culture, of his ethical influence, and crowded out by the horde of useful greedy ghosts or ghost gods, whose business is lucrative. Nyankupon has no pretensions to be, or to have been a 'spirit.
Major Ellis writes: 'Almost certainly the addition of one more to an already numerous family' of gods, 'was strenuously resisted by the priesthood, who, confessedly, are adding now lower gods every day! Yet Nyankupon is universally known, in spite of priestly resistance.
We have also instanced many Supreme Beings of more advanced races, Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyankupon, who do not sniff the savour of any offerings. There seems to be nothing incredible or illogical in the theory of such transference.
Nyankupon, I presume = Anzambi, Anyambi, Nyambi, Nzambi, Anzam, Nyam, the Nzam of the Fans, 'and of all Bantu coast races, the creator of man, plants, animals, and the earth; he takes no further interest in the affair. The crowd of spirits take only too much interest; and, therefore, are the lucrative element in religion.
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