the resurrection.

Commoro was, like all his people, extremely tall. Upon entering my tent
he took his seat upon the ground, the Latookas not using stools like the
other White Nile tribes. I commenced the conversation by complimenting
him on the perfection of his wives and daughters in a funeral dance
which had lately been held, and on his own agility in the performance,
and inquired for whom the ceremony had been performed. He replied that
it was for a man who had been recently killed, but no one of great
importance, the same ceremony being observed for every person without
distinction.

I asked him why those slain in battle were allowed to remain unburied.
He said it had always been the custom, but that he could not explain it.

"But," I replied, "why should you disturb the bones of those whom you
have already buried, and expose them on the outskirts of the town?"

"It was the custom of our forefathers," he answered, "therefore we
continue to observe it."

"Have you no belief in a future existence after death? Is not some idea
expressed in the act of exhuming the bones after the flesh is decayed?"

Commoro (loq.).--"Existence AFTER death! How can that be? Can a dead man
get out of his grave, unless we dig him out?"

"Do you think man is like a beast, that dies and is ended?"

Commoro.--"Certainly. An ox is stronger than a man, but he dies, and his
bones last longer; they are bigger. A man's bones break quickly; he is
weak."

"Is not a man superior in sense to an ox? Has he not a mind to direct
his actions?"

Commoro--"Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to
obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing."

"Do you not know that there is a spirit within you different from flesh?
Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep?
Nevertheless your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"

Commoro (laughing)--"Well, how do YOU account for it? It is a thing I
cannot understand; it occurs to me every night."

"The mind is independent of the body. The actual body can be fettered,
but the mind is uncontrollable. The body will die and will become dust
or be eaten by vultures; but the spirit will exist forever."

Commoro--"Where will the spirit live?"

"Where does fire live? Cannot you produce a fire*

(* The natives always produce fire by rubbing two sticks
together.)

by rubbing two sticks together? Yet you SEE not the