ABSTRACT
Some religious systems apparently postulate causes for otherwise incomprehensible events, without speculating further about the nature of those causes. The Dinka, pastoralists of southern Sudan, are said to attribute responsibility for natural events, such as lightning, to formless ‘Powers’, without ascribing any further properties to them (Lienhardt, 1961). The Nuer sometimes felt their god to be present, and sometimes far away in the sky: animistic ideas are almost entirely absent from their concept of spirits (Evans-Pritchard, 1951).
