The Pontypridd District Herald and Rhondda Valley, Llantrisant, Caerphilly, and Mountain Ash News. — 1893-01-14 (Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

DEFEAT OF THE ENGLISH TEAM.  coins again. " He made Man; 'And Mau comes forth, gc,es down into the grouul, and comes no 'ware." In this poetic tradition it seems clear that the doctrine of a future state among the Dinkas is net an article of religious belief. Yet, strange to say, the Bari, an adjoining tribe believe in some sort of futurity. although the missionary K ifm,in states that they believe the soul is but a breath, and after death that all is over. This belief in a future of some form is more widely distributed than most of us would credit. It is somewhat strange that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not entertained among the Jews up to the time of Moses. Among them it does not form an article in their theology until their contact with the Egyptians, whose "Book of the Deed" and the mummification of the dead demonstrate their belief not only iu the immortality of the soul, the "Ka" of the departed, but the doctrine of hewards and Punielnnents. In the Kabalistic philosophy of the Jews the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, was taught, and this phase of belief is expressed in the " Gilgul" or " rolling" of souls. It does not seem that the future individuality of the dead is a dogma sanctioned by the Book of Ecclesiastes, a work permeated with profound philosophy. The question of a future, whatever form it may take, has been an insoluble problem from the remotest ages. In those cases where like the Dinkas no such dogma is formulated, but among whom it appears to be discarded, it is difficult to deny after all if there be no actual belief in a transmigration of souls from one animal to another, either in an ascending or a descending scale. Traces of such a belief are extremely wide indeed, and are found among races so far apart as the Australian aborigines and the Algonquin Indians, from Vancouvers Island to Old Calabar. Whether these varied forms had a common origin from one common race, or whether they arose out of the circumstances of the case, and were due to simple analogies, which would strike all peoples alike, it is impossible to say. The fact, interesting as it doubtless is, remains. The problem of a present, let alone a future existence, with its multifarious incarnations and re-incarnatione,is vexing the minds of the thoughtful even today. Without entering into these abstruse questions, it may be worth while narrating a few of the beliefs prevalent among the outlying races supposed to occupy the lower rungs in the scale of civilization. Tne Algonquin Indians buried their dead children by the wayside, that their @calla might re-enter into mothers pa-sing by, and thus be born again. In Greenland the widow and orphan of a recently deceased bread-winner would be plundered an. abandoned, until a father who had lost a child was informed that the spirit of his dead child had entered the body of one of the plundered orphans, when she and they would be adopted as relatives. Its Old Calabar, if a mother lose a child, and another is born soon after, she thinks it is the lost one come back again. The Yorubas greet a newly born child with "Thou art come," and then they try to find by eongenital marks what ancestor has returned. A similar notion, but with a different custom, is observable among the Rhonda of Orissa, the Mundas and Oraons, and the Lapps of Not them Europe. Negroes have committed suicide in order to get back to their own land. This notion of an earthly resurrection does not seem, however, to have increased the death-rate among the slaves of the Southern States, when slavery was a legalized institution. The lowest in the scale of human intelligence, the Australian aborigines, had some kind of notion of an improved future before him, as expressed in the legend, ' " Blackfellow tumble down, jump up Whitefellow." A native having been sentenced to be hanged at Melbourne, when on the scaffold expressed his belief that he "would jump up Whitefellow, and have lots of sixpences." Among the Troquois, on the eve of burial, a bird is set free to carry away the soul. The Icannas of Brazil in their Walhalla, say the souls of the brave will become beautiful birds feeding on pleasant fruits. Cowards, on the other hands, will be changed into reptiles. Among the Abipones certain little ducks, which fly in flocks by night and utter mournful cries, are by the natives considered to contain the souls of the dead. The Popayans do not kill doves for the same reason. The Maravi of --Aar snakes :  te hue el fill r G