’In the native hypothesis about creation “the people of Mulungu” play a very important part.’  These ministers of his who do his pleasure are, therefore, as is Mulungu himself, regarded as prior to the existing world.  Therefore they cannot, in Wayao opinion, be ghosts of the dead at all; nor can we properly call them ‘spirits.’  They are beings, original, creative, but undefined.  The word Mulungu, however, is now applied to spirits of individuals, but whether it means ‘sky’ (Salt) or whether it means ‘ancestor’ (Bleek), it cannot be made to prove that Mulungu himself was originally envisaged as ‘spirit.’  For, manifestly, suppose that the idea of powerful beings, undefined, came first in evolution, and was followed by the ghost idea, that idea might then be applied to explaining the pre-existent creative powers.

Mtanga is by ‘some’ localised as the god of Mangochi, an Olympus left behind by the Yao in their wanderings.  Here, some hold, his voice is still audible.  ’Others say that Mtanga never was a man ... he was concerned in the first introduction of men into the world.  He gets credit for ... making mountains and rivers.  He is intimately associated with a year of plenty.  He is called Mchimwene juene, ‘a very chief.’  He has a kind of evil opposite, Chitowe, but this being, the Satan of the creed, ’is a child or subject of Mtanga,’ an evil angel, in fact.[7]

The thunder god, Mpambe, in Yao, Njasi (lightning) is also a minister of the Supreme Being.  ‘He is sent by Mtanga with rain.’  Europeans are cleverer than natives, because we ’stayed longer with the people of God (Mulungu).’

I do not gather that, though associated with good crops, Mtanga or Mulungu receives any sacrifice or propitiation.  ’The chief addresses his own god;’[8] 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.’[9]

‘All the offerings are supposed to point to some want of the spirit,’ Mtanga, on the other hand, is nihil indiga nostri.

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.[10]

’These rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who often say that they would die if they revealed them.’[11]

How can we pretend to understand a religion if we do not know its secret?  That secret, in Australia, yields the certainty of the ethical character of the Supreme Being.  Mr. Macdonald says about the initiator (a grotesque figure):—­

’He delivers lectures, and is said to give much good advice ... the lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called mwisichana, that is, “uninitiated."’