Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/327

Rh Kutka the Creator is Haetsh the First Man, who dwelt on earth, and died, and descended into Hades to be chief of the under-world; there he receives the dead and new-risen Kamchadals, to continue a life like that of earth in his pleasant subterranean land where mildness and plenty prevail, as they did in the regions above in the old days when the Creator was still on earth. Among all the lower races who have reasoned out this divine ancestor, none excel those consistent manes-worshippers, the Zulus. Their worship of the manes of the dead has not only made the clan-ancestors of a few generations back into tribal deities (Unkulunkulu), but beyond these, too far off and too little known for actual worship, yet recognized as the original race-deity and identified with the Creator, stands the First Man, he who 'broke off in the beginning,' the Old-Old-One, the great Unkulunkulu. While the Zulu's most intense religious emotions are turned to the ghosts of the departed, while he sacrifices his beloved oxen and prays with agonising entreaty to his grandfather, and carries his tribal worship back to those ancestral deities whose praise-giving names are still remembered, the First Man is beyond the reach of such rites. 'At first we saw that we were made by Unkulunkulu. But when we were ill we did not worship him, nor ask anything of him. We worshipped those whom we had seen with our eyes, their death and their life among us. ... Unkulunkulu had no longer a son who could worship him; there was no going back to the beginning, for people increased, and were scattered abroad, and each house had its own connections; there was no one who said, "For my part I am of the house of Unkulunkulu."' Nay more, the Zulus who would not dare to affront an 'idhlozi,' a common ghost, that might be angry and kill them, have come to make open mock of the name of the great first ancestor. When the grown-up people wish to talk privately or eat something by themselves, it is the regular thing to send the children out to