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Updated: May 21, 2025
Huxley thinks that it possibly came from the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. Many of these sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. They are just as much forbidden in the nascent morality of savage peoples. From the mysteries of Mtanga he might have learned, also, had he been present, the virtue of unselfish generosity.
'This Mulungu' or Mtanga, 'in the world beyond the grave, is represented as assigning to spirits their proper places, whether for ethical reasons or not we are not informed. Santos says 'they acknowledge a God who, both in this world and the next, measures retribution for the good or evil done in this.
Is it not certain that such a being could be conceived of by men who had never dreamed of ghosts? Is there any logical reason why Mtanga should not be regarded as originally on the same footing as Munganngaur, but now half forgotten and neglected, for practical or philosophical reasons? On these problems light is thrown by a successor of Mr. Spencer's authority, Mr.
A village god is given beer to drink, as Indra got Soma. A dead chief is propitiated by human sacrifices. I find no trace of any gift to Mtanga. His mysteries are really unknown to Mr. Macdonald: they were laughed at by a travelled and 'emancipated' Yao. 'These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who often say that they would die if they revealed them.
Spencer would find a mid-point between a common ghost and Mtanga, in a ghost of a chief attached to a mountain, the place and place-name preserving the ghost's name and memory. But it is, I think, a far cry from such a chief's ghost to the pre-human, angel-served Mtanga. Of ancestor worship and ghost worship, we have abundant evidence.
The Mikado was a political Dendid or Ndengei an awful, withdrawn, impotent potentate. Power was wielded by the Tycoon. A Mikado of genius asserted himself; hence arose modern Japan. In the same way, a religious reformer like Khuen Ahten in Egypt would preach down minor gods, ghosts and sacred beasts, and proclaim the primal Maker, Ndengei, Dendid, Mtanga.
On this point we are left in uncertainty, just because Mr. Macdonald could not ascertain the secrets of his mysteries, which, in Australia, have been revealed to a few Europeans. Where Mulungu is used as a proper name, it 'certainly points to a personal Being, by the Wayao sometimes said to be the same as Mtanga.
Macdonald says nothing of sacrifice to Mtanga. Mr. Scott does not seem to know more about the Mysteries than Mr. Macdonald, and his article on Mulungu does not much enlighten us. Does Mulungu, as Creative God, receive sacrifice, or not? Mr. He appears to be confusing the Creator with spirits, and no reliance can be placed on this part of his evidence.
'The chief addresses his own god; the chief 'will not trouble himself about his great-great-grand-father; he will present his offering to his own immediate predecessor, saying, 'O father, I do not know all your relatives; you know them all: invite them to feast with you. 'All the offerings are supposed to point to some want of the spirit, Mtanga, on the other hand, is nihil indiga nostri.
But the position of Mtanga raises one of these delicate and crucial questions which cannot be solved by ignoring their existence. Is Mtanga evolved out of an ancestral ghost? If so, why, as greatest of divine beings, 'Very Chief, and having powerful ministers under him, is he left unpropitiated, unless it be by moral discourses at the mysteries?
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