Olaudah equiano (1745-1797) was a Nigerian writer and former slave, traded from Africa and crossed the Atlantic inside a ship. He is known because after reaching a proper level of education, and freedom afterwards, he wrote a book of memoirs, describing his life as slave.
When telling the episode of his trip from Africa across the ocean, he was amazed by how the ship worked and thought it was a magical thing. From this beliefs it can be inferred that he came from a very rudimentary society in Africa, where they were not familiar with technological developments that were already ordinary in other regions. Moreover, his religious beliefs were probably in line with worshipping the forces of nature, as a politeist cult. This is why when facing the natural strength of the sea, his explanation attributed it to the magic exercised by the superpowerful natural forces.