Pygmies

• miserable remnants of ancient nonsocial peoples

68:1.6That con­tem­po­rary cul­tural so­ci­ety is a rather re­cent phe­nom­e­non is well shown by the pres­ent-day sur­vival of such prim­i­tive so­cial con­di­tions as char­ac­ter­ize the Aus­tralian na­tives and the Bush­men and Pyg­mies of Africa. Among these back­ward peo­ples may be ob­served some­thing of the early group hos­til­ity, per­sonal sus­pi­cion, and other highly an­ti­so­cial traits which were so char­ac­ter­is­tic of all prim­i­tive races. These mis­er­able rem­nants of the nonso­cial peo­ples of an­cient times bear elo­quent tes­ti­mony to the fact that the nat­u­ral in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic ten­dency of man can­not suc­cess­fully com­pete with the more po­tent and pow­er­ful or­ga­ni­za­tions and as­so­ci­a­tions of so­cial pro­gres­sion. These back­ward and sus­pi­cious an­ti­so­cial races that speak a dif­fer­ent di­alect ev­ery forty or fifty miles il­lus­trate what a world you might now be liv­ing in but for the com­bined teach­ing of the cor­po­real staff of the Plan­e­tary Prince and the later labors of the Adamic group of racial up­lifters.

• no marriage institution

82:2.2Among the early races there was lit­tle or no reg­u­la­tion of the re­la­tions of the sexes. Be­cause of this sex li­cense, no pros­ti­tu­tion ex­isted. To­day, the Pyg­mies and other back­ward groups have no mar­riage in­sti­tu­tion; a study of these peo­ples re­veals the sim­ple mat­ing cus­toms fol­lowed by prim­i­tive races. But all an­cient peo­ples should al­ways be stud­ied and judged in the light of the moral stan­dards of the mores of their own times.

• no religious reactions as a class

91:0.5Pre­re­li­gious pray­ing was part of the mana prac­tices of the Melane­sians, the oudah be­liefs of the African Pyg­mies, and the man­i­tou su­per­sti­tions of the North Amer­i­can In­di­ans. The Baganda tribes of Africa have only re­cently emerged from the mana level of prayer. In this early evo­lu­tion­ary con­fu­sion men pray to gods—lo­cal and na­tional—to fe­tishes, amulets, ghosts, rulers, and to or­di­nary peo­ple.

• no religious reactions as a class

92:6.1Twen­ti­eth-cen­tury Uran­tia re­li­gions pre­sent an in­ter­est­ing study of the so­cial evo­lu­tion of man’s wor­ship im­pulse. Many faiths have pro­gressed very lit­tle since the days of the ghost cult. The Pyg­mies of Africa have no re­li­gious re­ac­tions as a class, al­though some of them be­lieve slightly in a spirit en­vi­ron­ment. They are to­day just where prim­i­tive man was when the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gion be­gan. The ba­sic be­lief of prim­i­tive re­li­gion was sur­vival af­ter death. The idea of wor­ship­ing a per­sonal God in­di­cates ad­vanced evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment, even the first stage of rev­e­la­tion. The Dyaks have evolved only the most prim­i­tive re­li­gious prac­tices. The com­par­a­tively re­cent Es­ki­mos and Amerinds had very mea­ger con­cepts of God; they be­lieved in ghosts and had an in­def­i­nite idea of sur­vival of some sort af­ter death. Pres­ent-day na­tive Aus­tralians have only a ghost fear, dread of the dark, and a crude an­ces­tor ven­er­a­tion. The Zu­lus are just evolv­ing a re­li­gion of ghost fear and sac­ri­fice. Many African tribes, ex­cept through mis­sion­ary work of Chris­tians and Mo­hammedans, are not yet be­yond the fe­tish stage of re­li­gious evo­lu­tion. But some groups have long held to the idea of mono­the­ism, like the one­time Thra­cians, who also be­lieved in im­mor­tal­ity.