Africana; or, the heart of heathen Africa, Volume 1 (of 2) : Native customs…
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"Africana; or, the heart of heathen Africa, Volume 1 (of 2) : Native customs…." by Rev. Duff Macdonald is an ethnographic and missionary account written in the late 19th century. It sets out to systematize the beliefs, practices, and social life of East Central African peoples from close field observation, especially around Blantyre and Lake Nyasa. The volume surveys religion, law, family life, arts, language, and governance through a missionary lens, aiming
to inform and reform Christian mission methods while introducing readers to largely undocumented customs. The opening of the work explains the author’s purpose: to record customs before mission contact alters them, and to caution against missionaries assuming civil authority. He details the pitfalls of gathering reliable data—European bias in questions, “polite” answers from informants, interpreter and idiom traps (especially yes/no and before/after), and the distortions caused by note‑taking—then argues for the value of such study to psychology, ethnology, and the science of religion. Early chapters sketch first impressions: scant dress, heavy tattooing and lip rings, ubiquitous weapons, round smoke‑filled huts with rats, a predictable climate, maize porridge and beer, generous hospitality, light division of labor, and the local mosaic of Wayao, Machinga, Anyasa, Angulu, and Magololo chiefs; travel on winding footpaths, formal salutations, and women’s inferior status. Arts include ironworking, basketry, bark cloth, pottery, and simple music; “learned” roles blend herbalist and diviner, with witchcraft trials by poison and widespread charms. A rich oral literature—conundrums, sung tales with refrains, and word‑play chains—features animal fables and origin stories (pots, houses, death, monkeys). The theology section begins by defining spirit (lisoka, msimu, mulungu), treating the spirits of the dead as the operative gods, worshiped at verandah trees, bedsides, or mountain tops, and known through answered prayers. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Macdonald, Duff, 1850-1929 |
|---|---|
| Title | Africana; or, the heart of heathen Africa, Volume 1 (of 2) : Native customs and beliefs |
| Original Publication | London: Simpkin, Marshall & co., 1882. |
| Credits | Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 78.6 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | DT: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Africa |
| Subject | Missions -- Africa, East |
| Subject | Africa, East -- Social life and customs |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 76362 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-76362-0 |
| Release Date | Jun 23, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 780 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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