An African Culture of Today.
193
An African Culture of Today in the country
between the baNtu Negro and the Semitic Arab.
Some Aspects of Spiritual Religion of the aZandé,
nick-named “Niam-niam”, peoples of African Equatoria.
By Tracy Philipps.
Doctor of Civil Law honoris causa. Membre de l’lnstitut colonial international.
Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Contents:
Preface : Who are the aZandé ?
Foreword and Framework.
1. The Supreme Spirit (Mboli).
a) Beliefs concerning the Supreme Spirit.
b) Practice of the Cult of the Supreme Spirit,
a) Prayer.
¡3) Offering.
2. Souls (ambisimo) and Ghosts {atólo).
a) Concept of soul.
b) Survival of the Human Spirit ofter Death.
3. Ghosts of Ancestors {atólo-aba). The practice of the cult.
4. Spirits, malignant {agilisa).
Preface : Who are the aZandé ?
Géopolitically, the aZandé have about two generations ago emer
ged from the stage of a well-organized nomadism on open or gallery-
forested savannah lands. And they may not inaccurately be classed as a
dominating, if not an 'imperial', ethnic group. Perhaps akin to the Fulani
(Peuhl) and coming more recently from a direction east-south-east of Lake
Chad, within the last generation the aZandé, under the Vongara family,
have moved south and given their language and organization, on terms
of full equality, to a confederation of at least thirteen peoples.
Today the paZandé language predominates from the 23 to the 30° long. E.
and from the 6 to the 3° lat. N. And Zande speech is understood from the 1
1 Zandé is the singular and aZandé the plural form.
Anthropos XLI-XLIV. 1946-1949.