ORIGINAL DOMAIN.--The Eastern, or Oceanic, Section had its home in
Malaysia, Andamans, Philippines, New Guinea, Melanesia, Australia,
Tasmania; with no later expansion. The Western, or African, Section
lived in Africa south of the Sahara.
LATER EXPANSION.--Subsequently the Africans spread, either voluntarily
or were taken as slaves to Madagascar, north Africa, southern United
States, West Indies, and Latin America.
_Religion._--Spirit-worship very prevalent among native Negro races, and
totemism in Australia. The Melanesian system is distinctly animistic,
distinguishing between pure spirits, that is, supernatural beings that
never were in a human body, and ghosts--that is, men’s disembodied
spirits revisiting their former abodes. There are prayer, sacrifice,
divination, omens, death and burial rites, a Hades too, with trees and
houses, as on earth, also a ghostly ruler, but no supreme being. There
is little or nothing of all this in Australia or New Guinea, where the
religious sentiment is so little developed that many close observers
have failed to detect it.
Among African tribes, though religion is animistic, ancestor-worship
seems much more prevalent than nature-worship. There is no supreme being
anywhere. The chief deities are _Munkulunkulu_, with many variants along
the eastern seaboard, and _Nzambi_, also with many variants on the west
side, both intermingling in the interior. Witchcraft, omens, and ordeals
are very prevalent; pure fetishism and human sacrifices prevail in Upper
Guinea, in Uganda and other parts.