The remarks of Waitz may be cited in full: 

’The religion of the negro may be considered by some as a particularly rude form of polytheism and may be branded with the special name of fetishism.  It would follow, from a minute examination of it, that—­apart from the extravagant and fantastic traits, which are rooted in the character of the negro, and which radiate therefrom over all his creations—­in comparison with the religions of other savages it is neither very specially differentiated nor very specially crude in form.

’But this opinion can be held to be quite true only while we look at the outside of the negro’s religion, or estimate its significance from arbitrary pre-suppositions, as is specially the case with Ad.  Wuttke.

’By a deeper insight, which of late several scientific investigators have succeeded in attaining, we reach, rather, the surprising conclusion that several of the negro races—­on whom we cannot as yet prove, and can hardly conjecture, the influence of a more civilised people—­in the embodying of their religious conceptions are further advanced than almost all other savages, so far that, even if we do not call them monotheists, we may still think of them as standing on the boundary of monotheism, seeing that their religion is also mixed with a great mass of rude superstition which, in turn, among other peoples, seems to overrun completely the purer religious conceptions.’

This conclusion as to an element of pure faith in negro religion would not have surprised Waitz, had recent evidence as to the same creed among lower savages lain before him as he worked.

This volume of his book was composed in 1860.  In 1872 he had become well aware of the belief in a good Maker among the Australian natives, and of the absence among them of ancestor worship.[16]

Waitz’s remarks on the Supreme Being of the Negro are well worth noting, from his unconcealed astonishment at the discovery.

Wilson’s observations on North and South Guinea religion were published in 1856.  After commenting on the delicate task of finding out what a savage religion really is, he writes:  ’The belief in one great Supreme Being, who made and upholds all things, is universal.’[17] The names of the being are translated ‘Maker,’ ‘Preserver,’ ‘Benefactor,’ ‘Great Friend.’  Though compact of all good qualities, the being has allowed the world to ’come under the control of evil spirits,’ who, alone, receive religious worship.  Though he leaves things uncontrolled, yet the chief being (as in Homer) ratifies the Oath, at a treaty, and is invoked to punish criminals when ordeal water is to be drunk.  So far, then, he has an ethical influence.  ‘Grossly wicked people’ are buried outside of the regular place.  Fetishism prevails, with spiritualism, and Wilson thinks that mediums might pick up some good tricks in Guinea.  He gives no examples.  Their inspired men do things ‘that cannot be accounted for,’ by the use of narcotics.