We must understand why it is so obvious that the gods and ancestors
have those powers. Besides, this explanation would not be generally
valid. There are many places in the world where the most powerful
supernatural agents are notthe ones that matter most. The Fang have
all these rituals and complex emotions associated with the possible
presence of the ghosts-ancestors. Now the Fang also say that the nat-
ural world (meaning earth and sky and all creatures great and small)
was created by a god called Mebeghe, vastly more powerful than
either the living or the dead. His work was then completed by another
god, Nzame, who invented all cultural objects: tools, houses, etc., and
taught people to hunt, domesticate animals and raise crops. However [141]
mighty, these gods do not seem to matter that much. There are no
cults or rituals specifically directed at Mebeghe or Nzame, although
they are assumed to be around, and they are in fact very rarely men-
tioned. The situation is a bit different in Christianized areas, where
"Nzame" has become the name of the Christian god and has therefore
become more important. But even there people still pay a lot of atten-
tion to what the ghosts-ancestors know or want and much less to the
supposedly all-powerful gods. This is in fact a common theme in
African religions, where a supreme god is both supreme and in actual
fact of little importance to people. For a long time, this puzzled travel-
ers, anthropologists and of course missionaries. Many African people
seemed to recognize a Creator in the same sense as the Biblical one,
yet were remarkably indifferent to Him. We will see below the expla-
nation for this apparent paradox. For the time being, let us just keep in
mind that what matters is not so much the powers of supernatural
beings considered in the abstract, as those powers that are relevant to
practical concerns.
Like the Kwaio ancestors, gods and spirits are very generally repre-
sented as agents we can interact with, and this shapes the way people
intuitively think of their powers. To take a Western example, consider
another of Justin Barrett's studies of the God-concept. Barrett asked
his Christian subjects to imagine various situations in which they may
have to pray God to save other people from imminent danger. For
instance, a ship in high seas has just hit an iceberg and is sinking fast.
Praying is in essence asking God to do something about the situation,
to tinker with a probable sequence of causes and effects that should
result in a wreckage. But there is a variety of ways in which God could
help. For instance, God could help the ship stay afloat with a broken
hull, or give the passengers the physical strength to withstand a long
WHYGODS AND SPIRITS?