e that he centered his secular or African
Rhymes around his African religion? He must have done so unless he
changed all his rhyme-making habits after coming to America, for he
certainly clustered his American verse largely around his religion.
Assuming this to be true the large amount of animal lore in Negro rhyme
and story is at once explained.

Possibly the greatest hindrance to one's coming to this conclusion is
the fact that the Rabbit and some other animals found in Negro rhyme and
story do not appear in the records among those worshiped by aboriginal
Africans. The known record of the Africans' early religion covers only a
very few pages. Christians have not been willing to spend any time to
speak of in investigating the religions of the primitive and the lowly.
Thus if these animals were widely worshiped it would not be strange if
we should never have heard of it. Let us consider what is known,
however.

Taking up the matter of the rabbit Mr. John McBride, Jr., had a very
fine and lengthy discussion on "Br'er Rabbit in the Folk Tales of the
Negro and other Races" in _The Sewanee Review_, April, 1911. On page 201
of that journal's issue we find these words: "Among the Hottentots, for
example, there is a story in which the hare appears in the moon and of
which several versions are extant. The story goes that the moon sent the
hare to the earth to inform men that, as she died away and rose again,
so should all men die and again come to life," etc. I drop the story
here because so much of it suffices my purpose. It brings out the fact
that the African here had probably truly considered the Rabbit as a
messenger of the moon. Now the fact that the Hottentots were thus
talking in lore of receiving messages concerning immortality from the
moon means there must have been at least a time in their history when
they considered the Moon a kind of super-being, a kind of god.

I quote again from Dr. Sheppard's "Presbyterian Pioneers in Congo," page
113. "King Lukenga offers up a sacrifice of a goat or lamb on every new
moon. The blood is sprinkled on a large idol in his own fetich house, in
the presence of all his counselors. This sacrifice is for the
healthfulness of all the King's country, for the crops," etc.

I think after considering the foregoing one will see that there are
those of Africa who connect their worship with the moon. We learn also
that there are those who claim the rabbit to be the moon's messenger.
From