| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Primitive culture, Vol. II (of 2) : Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom
Author: Tylor, Edward B. (Edward Burnett)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Primitive culture, Vol. II (of 2) : Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom" ***
(OF 2) ***
PRIMITIVE CULTURE
PRIMITIVE CULTURE
RESEARCHES INTO THE DEVELOPMENT
OF MYTHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION,
LANGUAGE, ART, AND CUSTOM
BY EDWARD B. TYLOR, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AUTHOR OF “RESEARCHES INTO THE EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND,” ETC.
“Ce n’est pas dans les possibilités, c’est dans l’homme même qu’il
faut étudier l’homme: il ne s’agit pas d’imaginer ce qu’il auroit pû
ou dû faire, mais de regarder ce qu’il fait.”—DE BROSSES.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1920
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
[_Rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved_]
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER XII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Doctrine of Soul’s Existence after Death; its main divisions,
Transmigration and Future Life—Transmigration of Souls: re-birth in
Human and Animal Bodies, transference to Plants and Objects—Resurrection
of Body: scarcely held in savage religion—Future Life: a general if not
universal doctrine of low races—Continued existence, rather than
Immortality; second death of Soul—Ghost of Dead remains on earth,
especially if corpse unburied; its attachment to bodily remains—Feasts
of the Dead 1
CHAPTER XIII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Journey of the Soul to the Land of the Dead—Visits by the Living to the
Regions of Departed Souls—Connexion of such legends with myths of
Sunset: the Land of the Dead thus imagined as in the West—Realization of
current religious ideas, whether of savage or civilized theology, in
narratives of visits to the Regions of Souls—Localization of the Future
Life—Distant earthly region: Earthly Paradise, Isles of the
Blest—Subterranean Hades or Sheol—Sun, Moon, Stars—Heaven—Historical
course of belief as to such localization—Nature of Future
Life—Continuance-theory, apparently original, belongs especially to the
lower races—Transitional theories—Retribution-theory, apparently
derived, belongs especially to the higher races—Doctrine of Moral
Retribution as developed in the higher culture—Survey of Doctrine of
Future State, from savage to civilized stages—Its practical effect on
the sentiment and conduct of Mankind 44
CHAPTER XIV.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Animism, expanding from the Doctrine of Souls to the wider
Doctrine of Spirits, becomes a complete Philosophy of Natural
Religion—Definition of Spirits similar to and apparently
modelled on that of Souls—Transition-stage: classes of Souls
passing into good and evil Demons—Manes-Worship—Doctrine of
Embodiment of Spirits in human, animal, vegetable, and inert
bodies—Demoniacal Possession and Obsession as causes of Disease and
Oracle-inspiration—Fetishism—Disease-spirits embodied—Ghost attached to
or operating through, an Object—Analogues of Fetish-doctrine in Modern
Science—Stock-and-Stone-Worship—Idolatry—Survival of Animistic
Phraseology in modern Language—Decline of Animistic theory of Nature 108
CHAPTER XV.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Spirits regarded as personal causes of Phenomena of the World—Pervading
Spirits as good and evil Demons affecting man—Spirits manifest in Dreams
and Visions: Nightmares; Incubi and Succubi; Vampires; Visionary
Demons—Demons of darkness repelled by fire—Demons otherwise manifest:
seen by animals; detected by footprints—Spirits conceived and treated as
material—Guardian and Familiar Spirits—Nature-Spirits; historical course
of the doctrine—Spirits of Volcanos, Whirlpools, Rocks—Water-Worship:
Spirits of Wells, Streams, Lakes, &c.—Tree-Worship: Spirits embodied in
or inhabiting Trees; Spirits of Groves and Forests—Animal-worship:
Animals Worshipped, directly, or as incarnations or representatives of
Deities; Totemism; Serpent-Worship—Species-Deities; their relation to
Archetypal Ideas 184
CHAPTER XVI.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Higher Deities of Polytheism—Human characteristics applied to
Deity—Lords of Spiritual Hierarchy—Polytheism: its course of development
in lower and higher Culture—Principles of its investigation;
classification of Deities according to central conceptions of their
significance and function—Heaven-god—Rain
god—Thunder-god—Wind-gods—Earth-god—Water
god—Sea-god—Fire-god—Sun-god—Moon-god 247
CHAPTER XVII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Polytheism comprises a class of great Deities, ruling the course of
Nature and the life of Man—Childbirth-god—Agriculture-god—War-god—God of
the Dead—First Man as Divine Ancestor—Dualism; its rudimentary and
unethical nature among low races; its development through the course of
culture—Good and Evil Deity—Doctrine of Divine Supremacy, distinct from,
while tending towards, the doctrine of Monotheism—Idea of a Highest or
Supreme Deity evolved in various forms; its place as completion of the
Polytheistic system and outcome of the Animistic philosophy; its
continuance and development among higher nations—General survey of
Animism as a Philosophy of Religion—Recapitulation of the theory
advanced as to its development through successive stages of culture; its
primary phases best represented among the lower races, while survivals
of these among the higher races mark the transition from savage through
barbaric to civilized faiths—Transition of Animism in the History of
Religion; its earlier and later stages as a Philosophy of the Universe;
its later stages as the principle of a Moral Institution 304
CHAPTER XVIII.
RITES AND CEREMONIES.
Religious Rites: their purpose practical or symbolic—Prayer: its
continuity from low to high levels of Culture; its lower phases
Unethical; its higher phases Ethical—Sacrifice: its original Gift-theory
passes into the Homage-theory and the Abnegation-theory—Manner of
reception of Sacrifice by Deity—Material Transfer to elements,
fetish-animals, priests; consumption of substance by deity or idol;
offering of blood; transmission by fire; incense—Essential transfer:
consumption of essence, savour, &c.—Spiritual Transfer: consumption or
transmission of soul of offering—Motive of Sacrificer—Transition from
Gift-theory to Homage-theory: insignificant and formal offerings;
sacrificial banquets—Abnegation-theory; sacrifice of children,
&c.—Sacrifice of Substitutes: part given for whole; inferior life for
superior; effigies—Modern survival of Sacrifice in folklore and
religion—Fasting, as a means of producing ecstatic vision; its course
from lower to higher Culture—Drugs use to produce ecstasy—Swoons and
fits induced for religious purposes—Orientation: its relation to
Sun-myth and Sun-worship; rules of East and West as to burial of dead,
position of worship, and structure of temple—Lustration by Water and
Fire: its transition from material to symbolic purification; its
connexion with special events of life; its appearance among the lower
races—Lustration of new-born children; of women; of those polluted by
bloodshed or the dead—Lustration continued at higher levels of
Culture—Conclusion 362
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUSION.
Practical results of the study of Primitive Culture—Its bearing least
upon Positive Science, greatest upon Intellectual, Moral, Social, and
Political Philosophy—Language—Mythology—Ethics and Law—Religion—Action
of the Science of Culture, as a means of furthering progress and
removing hindrance, effective in the course of Civilization 443
CHAPTER XII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Doctrine of Soul’s Existence after Death; its main divisions,
Transmigration and Future Life—Transmigration of Souls: re-birth in
Human and Animal Bodies, transference to Plants and
Objects—Resurrection of Body: scarcely held in savage
religion—Future Life: a general if not universal doctrine of low
races—Continued existence, rather than Immortality; second death of
Soul—Ghost of Dead remains on earth, especially if corpse unburied;
its attachment to bodily remains—Feasts of the Dead.
Having thus traced upward from the lower levels of culture the opinions
of mankind as to the souls, spirits, ghosts, or phantoms, considered to
belong to men, to the lower animals, to plants, and to things, we are
now prepared to investigate one of the great religious doctrines of the
world, the belief in the soul’s continued existence in a Life after
Death. Here let us once more call to mind the consideration which cannot
be too strongly put forward, that the doctrine of a Future Life as held
by the lower races is the all but necessary outcome of savage Animism.
The evidence that the lower races believe the figures of the dead seen
in dreams and visions to be their surviving souls, not only goes far to
account for the comparative universality of their belief in the
continued existence of the soul after the death of the body, but it
gives the key to many of their speculations on the nature of this
existence, speculations rational enough from the savage point of view,
though apt to seem far-fetched absurdities to moderns in their much
changed intellectual condition. The belief in a Future Life falls into
two main divisions. Closely connected and even largely overlapping one
another, both world-wide in their distribution, both ranging back in
time to periods of unknown antiquity, both deeply rooted in the lowest
strata of human life which lie open to our observation, these two
doctrines have in the modern world passed into wonderfully different
conditions. The one is the theory of the Transmigration of Souls, which
has indeed risen from its lower stages to establish itself among the
huge religious communities of Asia, great in history, enormous even in
present mass, yet arrested and as it seems henceforth unprogressive in
development; but the more highly educated world has rejected the ancient
belief, and it now only survives in Europe in dwindling remnants. Far
different has been the history of the other doctrine, that of the
independent existence of the personal soul after the death of the body,
in a Future Life. Passing onward through change after change in the
condition of the human race, modified and renewed in its long ethnic
course, this great belief may be traced from its crude and primitive
manifestations among savage races to its establishment in the heart of
modern religion, where the faith in a future existence forms at once an
inducement to goodness, a sustaining hope through suffering and across
the fear of death, and an answer to the perplexed problem of the
allotment of happiness and misery in this present world, by the
expectation of another world to set this right.
In investigating the doctrine of Transmigration, it will be well first
to trace its position among the lower races, and afterwards to follow
its developments, so far as they extend in the higher civilization. The
temporary migration of souls into material substances, from human bodies
down to morsels of wood and stone, is a most important part of the lower
psychology. But it does not relate to the continued existence of the
soul after death, and may be more conveniently treated of elsewhere, in
connexion with such subjects as dæmoniacal possession and
fetish-worship. We are here concerned with the more permanent tenancy of
souls for successive lives in successive bodies.
Permanent transition, new birth, or re-incarnation of human souls in
other human bodies, is especially considered to take place by the soul
of a deceased person animating the body of an infant. It is recorded by
Brebeuf that the Hurons, when little children died, would bury them by
the wayside, that their souls might enter into mothers passing by, and
so be born again.[1] In North-West America, among the Tacullis, we hear
of direct transfusion of soul by the medicine-man, who, putting his
hands on the breast of the dying or dead, then holds them over the head
of a relative and blows through them; the next child born to this
recipient of the departed soul is animated by it, and takes the rank and
name of the deceased.[2] The Nutka Indians not without ingenuity
accounted for the existence of a distant tribe speaking the same
language as themselves, by declaring them to be the spirits of their
dead.[3] In Greenland, where the wretched custom of abandoning and even
plundering widows and orphans was tending to bring the whole race to
extinction, a helpless widow would seek to persuade some father that the
soul of a dead child of his had passed into a living child of hers, or
_vice versâ_, thus gaining for herself a new relative and protector.[4]
It is mostly ancestral or kindred souls that are thought to enter into
children, and this kind of transmigration is therefore from the savage
point of view a highly philosophical theory, accounting as it does so
well for the general resemblance between parents and children, and even
for the more special phenomena of atavism. In North-West America, among
the Koloshes, the mother sees in a dream the deceased relative whose
transmitted soul will give his likeness to the child;[5] and in
Vancouver’s Island in 1860 a lad was much regarded by the Indians
because he had a mark like the scar of a gun-shot wound on his hip, it
being believed that a chief dead some four generations before, who had
such a mark, had returned.[6] In Old Calabar, if a mother loses a child,
and another is born soon after, she thinks the departed one to have come
back.[7] The Wanika consider that the soul of a dead ancestor animates a
child, and this is why it resembles its father or mother;[8] in Guinea a
child bearing a strong resemblance, physical or mental, to a dead
relative, is supposed to have inherited his soul;[9] and the Yorubas,
greeting a new-born infant with the salutation, ‘Thou art come!’ look
for signs to show what ancestral soul has returned among them.[10] Among
the Khonds of Orissa, births are celebrated by a feast on the seventh
day, and the priest, divining by dropping rice-grains in a cup of water,
and judging from observations made on the person of the infant,
determines which of his progenitors has reappeared, and the child
generally at least among the northern tribes receives the name of that
ancestor.[11] In Europe the Lapps repeat an instructive animistic idea
just noticed in America; the future mother was told in a dream what name
to give her child, this message being usually given by the very spirit
of the deceased ancestor, who was about to be incarnate in her.[12]
Among the lower races generally the renewal of old family names by
giving them to new-born children may always be suspected of involving
some such thought. The following is a curious pair of instances from the
two halves of the globe. The New Zealand priest would repeat to the
infant a long list of names of its ancestors, fixing upon that name
which the child by sneezing or crying when it was uttered, was
considered to select for itself; while the Cheremiss in Russia would
shake the baby till it cried, and then repeat names to it, till it chose
itself one by leaving off crying.[13]
The belief in the new human birth of the departed soul, which has even
led West African negroes to commit suicide when in distant slavery, that
they may revive in their own land, in fact amounts among several of the
lower races to a distinct doctrine of an earthly resurrection. One of
the most remarkable forms which this belief assumes is when dark-skinned
races, wanting some reasonable theory to account for the appearance
among them of human creatures of a new strange sort, the white men, and
struck with their pallid deathly hue combined with powers that seem
those of superhuman spiritual beings, have determined that the manes of
their dead must have come back in this wondrous shape. The aborigines of
Australia have expressed this theory in the simple formula, ‘Blackfellow
tumble down, jump up Whitefellow.’ Thus a native who was hanged years
ago at Melbourne expressed in his last moments the hopeful belief that
he would jump up Whitefellow, and have lots of sixpences. The doctrine
has been current among them since early days of European intercourse,
and in accordance with it they habitually regarded the Englishmen as
their own deceased kindred, come back to their country from an
attachment to it in a former life. Real or imagined likeness completed
the delusion, as when Sir George Grey was hugged and wept over by an old
woman who found in him a son she had lost, or when a convict, recognized
as a deceased relative, was endowed anew with the land he had possessed
during his former life. A similar theory may be traced northward by the
Torres Islands to New Caledonia, where the natives thought the white men
to be the spirits of the dead who bring sickness, and assigned this as
their reason for wishing to kill white men.[14] In Africa, again, the
belief is found among the Western negroes that they will rise again
white, and the Bari of the White Nile, believing in the resurrection of
the dead on earth, considered the first white people they saw as
departed spirits thus come back.[15]
Next, the lower psychology, drawing no definite line of demarcation
between souls of men and of beasts, can at least admit without
difficulty the transmission of human souls into the bodies of the lower
animals. A series of examples from among the native tribes of America
will serve well to show the various ways in which such ideas are worked
out. The Ahts of Vancouver’s Island consider the living man’s soul able
to enter into other bodies of men and animals, going in and out like the
inhabitant of a house. In old times, they say, men existed in the forms
of birds, beasts, and fishes, or these had the spirits of the Indians in
their bodies; some think that after death they will pass again into the
bodies of the animals they occupied in this former state.[16] In an
Indian district of North-West California, we find natives believing the
spirits of their dead to enter into bears, and travellers have heard of
a tribe begging the life of a wrinkle-faced old she grizzly bear as the
recipient of the soul of some particular grandam, whom they fancied the
creature to resemble.[17] So, among the Esquimaux, a traveller noticed a
widow who was living for conscience’ sake upon birds, and would not
touch walrus-meat, which the angekok had forbidden her for a time,
because her late husband had entered into a walrus.[18] Among other
North American tribes, we hear of the Powhatans refraining from doing
harm to certain small wood-birds which received the souls of their
chiefs;[19] of Huron souls turning into turtle-doves after the burial of
their bones at the Feast of the Dead;[20] of that pathetic funeral rite
of the Iroquois, the setting free a bird on the evening of burial, to
carry away the soul.[21] In Mexico, the Tlascalans thought that after
death the souls of nobles would animate beautiful singing birds, while
plebeians passed into weasels and beetles and such like vile
creatures.[22] So, in Brazil, the Içannas say that the souls of the
brave will become beautiful birds, feeding on pleasant fruits, but
cowards will be turned into reptiles.[23] Among the Abipones we hear of
certain little ducks which fly in flocks at night, uttering a mournful
hiss, and which fancy associates with the souls of the dead;[24] while
in Popayan it is said that doves were not killed, as inspired by
departed souls.[25] Lastly, transmigration into brutes is also a
received doctrine in South America as when a missionary heard a
Chiriquane woman of western Brazil say of a fox, ‘May not that be the
spirit of my dead daughter?’[26]
In Africa, again, mention is made of the Maravi thinking that the souls
of bad men became jackals, and of good men snakes.[27] The Zulus, while
admitting that a man may turn into a wasp or lizard, work out in the
fullest way the idea of the dead becoming snakes, a creature whose
change of skin has so often been associated with the thought of
resurrection and immortality. It is especially certain green or brown
harmless snakes, which come gently and fearlessly into houses, which are
considered to be ‘amatongo’ or ancestors, and therefore are treated
respectfully, and have offerings of food given them. In two ways, the
dead man who has become a snake can still be recognized; if the creature
is one-eyed, or has a scar or some other mark, it is recognized as the
‘itongo’ of a man who was thus marked in life; but if he had no mark the
‘itongo’ appears in human shape in dreams, thus revealing the
personality of the snake.[28] In Guinea, monkeys found near a graveyard
are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the dead, and in certain
localities monkeys, crocodiles, and snakes, being thought men in
metempsychosis, are held sacred.[29] It is to be borne in mind that
notions of this kind may form in barbaric psychology but a portion of
the wide doctrine of the soul’s future existence. For a conspicuous
instance of this, let us take the system of the Gold-Coast negroes. They
believe that the ‘kla’ or ‘kra,’ the vital soul, becomes at death a
‘sisa’ or ghost, which can remain in the house with the body, plague the
living, and cause sickness, till it departs or is driven by the sorcerer
to the bank of the River Volta, where the ghosts build themselves houses
and dwell. But they can and do come back from this Land of Souls. They
can be born again as souls in new human bodies, and a soul who was poor
before will now be rich. Many will not come back as men, but will become
animals. To an African mother who has lost her child, it is a
consolation to say, ‘He will come again.’[30]
In higher levels of culture, the theory of re-embodiment of the soul
appears in strong and varied development. Though seemingly not received
by the early Aryans, the doctrine of migration was adopted and adapted
by Hindu philosophy, and forms an integral part of that great system
common to Brahmanism and Buddhism, wherein successive births or
existences are believed to carry on the consequences of past and prepare
the antecedents of future life. To the Hindu the body is but the
temporary receptacle of the soul, which, ‘bound in the chains of deeds’
and ‘eating the fruits of past actions,’ promotes or degrades itself
along a series of embodiments in plant, beast, man, deity. Thus all
creatures differ rather in degree than kind, all are akin to man, an
elephant or ape or worm may once have been human, and may become human
again, a pariah or barbarian is at once low-caste among men and
high-caste among brutes. Through such bodies migrate the sinful souls
which desire has drawn down from primal purity into gross material
being; the world where they do penance for the guilt incurred in past
existences is a huge reformatory, and life is the long grievous process
of developing evil into good. The rules are set forth in the book of
Manu how souls endowed with the quality of goodness acquire divine
nature, while souls governed by passion take up the human state, and
souls sunk in darkness are degraded to brutes. Thus the range of
migration stretches downward from gods and saints, through holy
ascetics, Brahmans, nymphs, kings, counsellors, to actors, drunkards,
birds, dancers, cheats, elephants, horses, Sudras, barbarians, wild
beasts, snakes, worms, insects, and inert things. Obscure as the
relation mostly is between the crime and its punishment in a new life,
there may be discerned through the code of penal transmigration an
attempt at appropriateness of penalty, and an intention to punish the
sinner wherein he sinned. For faults committed in a previous existence
men are afflicted with deformities, the stealer of food shall be
dyspeptic, the scandal-monger shall have foul breath, the horse-stealer
shall go lame, and in consequence of their deeds men shall be born
idiots, blind, deaf and dumb, mis-shaped, and thus despised of good men.
After expiation of their wickedness in the hells of torment, the
murderer of a Brahman may pass into a wild beast or pariah; he who
adulterously dishonours his guru or spiritual father shall be a hundred
times re-born as grass, a bush, a creeper, a carrion bird, a beast of
prey; the cruel shall become blood-thirsty beasts; stealers of grain and
meat shall turn into rats and vultures; the thief who took dyed
garments, kitchen-herbs, or perfumes, shall become accordingly a red
partridge, a peacock, or a musk-rat. In short, ‘in whatever disposition
of mind a man accomplishes such and such an act, he shall reap the fruit
in a body endowed with such and such a quality.’[31] The recognition of
plants as possible receptacles of the transmigrating spirit well
illustrates the conception of souls of plants. The idea is one known to
lower races in a district of the world which has been under Hindu
influence. Thus we hear among the Dayaks of Borneo of the human soul
entering the trunks of trees, where it may be seen damp and blood-like,
but no longer personal and sentient, or of its being re-born from an
animal which has eaten of the bark, flower, or fruit;[32] and the
Santals of Bengal are said to fancy that uncharitable men and childless
women are eaten eternally by worms and snakes, while the good enter into
fruit-bearing trees.[33] But it is an open question how far these and
the Hindu ideas of vegetable transmigration can be considered as
independent. A curious commentary on the Hindu working out of the
conception of plant-souls is to be found in a passage in a 17th-century
work, which describes certain Brahmans of the Coromandel Coast as eating
fruits, but being careful not to pull the plants up by the roots, lest
they should dislodge a soul; but few, it is remarked, are so scrupulous
as this, and the consideration has occurred to them that souls in roots
and herbs are most vile and abject bodies, so that if dislodged they may
become better off by entering into the bodies of men or beasts.[34]
Moreover, the Brahmanic doctrine of souls transmigrating into inert
things has in like manner a bearing on the savage theory of
object-souls.[35]
Buddhism, like the Brahmanism from which it seceded, habitually
recognized transmigration between superhuman and human beings and the
lower animals, and in an exceptional way recognized a degradation even
into a plant or a thing. How the Buddhist mind elaborated the doctrine
of metempsychosis, may be seen in the endless legends of Gautama himself
undergoing his 550 births, suffering pain and misery through countless
ages to gain the power of freeing sentient beings from the misery
inherent in all existence. Four times he became Maha Brahma, twenty
times the dewa Sekra, and many times or few he passed through such
stages as a hermit, a king, a rich man, a slave, a potter, a gambler, a
curer of snake bites, an ape, an elephant, a bull, a serpent, a snipe, a
fish, a frog, the dewa or genius of a tree. At last, when he became the
supreme Buddha, his mind, like a vessel overflowing with honey,
overflowed with the ambrosia of truth, and he proclaimed his triumph
over life:—
‘Painful are repeated births.
O house-builder! I have seen thee,
Thou canst not build again a house for me.
Thy rafters are broken
Thy roof-timbers are shattered.
My mind is detached,
I have attained to the extinction of desire.’
Whether the Buddhists receive the full Hindu doctrine of the migration
of the individual soul from birth to birth, or whether they refine away
into metaphysical subtleties the notion of continued personality, they
do consistently and systematically hold that a man’s life in former
existences is the cause of his now being what he is, while at this
moment he is accumulating merit or demerit whose result will determine
his fate in future lives. Memory, it is true, fails generally to recall
these past births, but memory, as we know, stops short of the beginning
even of this present life. When King Bimsara’s feet were burned and
rubbed with salt by command of his cruel son that he might not walk, why
was this torture inflicted on a man so holy? Because in a previous birth
he had walked near a dagoba with his slippers on, and had trodden on a
priest’s carpet without washing his feet. A man may be prosperous for a
time on account of the merit he has received in former births, but if he
does not continue to keep the precepts, his next birth will be in one of
the hells, he will then be born in this world as a beast, afterwards as
a preta or sprite; a proud man may be born again ugly with large lips,
or as a demon or a worm. The Buddhist theory of ‘karma’ or ‘action,’
which controls the destiny of all sentient beings, not by judicial
reward and punishment, but by the inflexible result of cause into
effect, wherein the present is ever determined by the past in an
unbroken line of causation, is indeed one of the world’s most remarkable
developments of ethical speculation.[36]
Within the classic world, the ancient Egyptians were described as
maintaining a doctrine of migration, whether by successive embodiments
of the immortal soul through creatures of earth, sea, and air, and back
again to man, or by the simpler judicial penalty which sent back the
wicked dead to earth as unclean beasts.[37] The pictures and
hieroglyphic sentences of the Book of the Dead, however, do not afford
the necessary confirmation for these statements, even the mystic
transformations of the soul not being of the nature of transmigrations.
Thus it seems that the theological centre whence the doctrine of moral
metempsychosis may have spread over the ancient cultured religions, must
be sought elsewhere than in Egypt. In Greek philosophy, great teachers
stood forth to proclaim the doctrine in a highly developed form. Plato
had mythic knowledge to convey of souls entering such new incarnations
as their glimpse of real existence had made them fit for, from the body
of a philosopher or a lover down to the body of a tyrant and usurper; of
souls transmigrating into beasts and rising again to man according to
the lives they led; of birds that were light-minded souls; of oysters
suffering in banishment the penalty of utter ignorance. Pythagoras is
made to illustrate in his own person his doctrine of metempsychosis, by
recognizing where it hung in Here’s temple the shield he had carried in
a former birth, when he was that Euphorbos whom Menelaos slew at the
siege of Troy. Afterwards he was Hermotimos, the Klazomenian prophet
whose funeral rites were so prematurely celebrated while his soul was
out, and after that, as Lucian tells the story, his prophetic soul
passed into the body of a cock. Mikyllos asks this cock to tell him
about Troy—were things there really as Homer said? But the cock replies,
‘How should Homer have known, O Mikyllos? When the Trojan war was going
on, he was a camel in Baktria!’[38]
In the later Jewish philosophy, the Kabbalists took up the doctrine of
migration, the _gilgul_ or ‘rolling on’ of souls, and maintained it by
that characteristic method of Biblical interpretation which it is good
to hold up from time to time for a warning to the mystical interpreters
of our own day. The soul of Adam passed into David, and shall pass into
the Messiah, for are not these initials in the very name of Ad(a)m, and
does not Ezekiel say that ‘my servant David shall be their prince for
ever.’ Cain’s soul passed into Jethro, and Abel’s into Moses, and
therefore it was that Jethro gave Moses his daughter to wife. Souls
migrate into beasts and birds and vermin, for is not Jehovah ‘the lord
of the spirits of all flesh’? and he who has done one sin beyond his
good works shall pass into a brute. He who gives a Jew unclean meat to
eat, his soul shall enter into a leaf, blown to and fro by the wind;
‘for ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth;’ and he who speaks ill
words, his soul shall pass into a dumb stone, as did Nabal’s, ‘and he
became a stone.’[39] Within the range of Christian influence the
Manichæans appear as the most remarkable exponents of the
metempsychosis. We hear of their ideas of sinners’ souls transmigrating
into beasts, the viler according to their crimes; that he who kills a
fowl or rat will become a fowl or rat himself; that souls can pass into
plants rooted in the ground, which thus have not only life but sense;
that the souls of reapers pass into beans and barley, to be cut down in
their turn, and thus the elect were careful to explain to the bread when
they ate it, that it was not they who reaped the corn it was made of;
that the souls of the auditors, that is, the spiritually low commonalty
who lived a married life, would pass into melons and cucumbers, to
finish their purification by being eaten by the elect. But these details
come to us from the accounts of bitter theological adversaries, and the
question is, how much of them did the Manichæans really and soberly
believe? Allowing for exaggeration and constructive imputation, there is
some reason to consider the account at least founded on fact. The
Manichæans appear to have recognized a wandering of imperfect souls,
whether or not their composite religion may with its Zarathustrian and
Christian elements have also absorbed in so Indian a shape the doctrine
of purification of souls by migration into animals and plants.[40] In
later times, the doctrine of metempsychosis has been again and again
noticed in a district of South-Western Asia. William of Ruysbroek speaks
of the notion of souls passing from body to body as general among the
mediæval Nestorians, even a somewhat intelligent priest consulting him
as to the souls of brutes, whether they could find refuge elsewhere so
as not to be compelled to labour after death. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela
records in the 12th century of the Druses of Mount Hermon: ‘They say
that the soul of a virtuous man is transferred to the body of a new-born
child, whereas that of the vicious transmigrates into a dog, or some
other animal.’ Such ideas indeed, seem not yet extinct in the modern
Druse nation. Among the Nassairi, also, transmigration is believed in as
a penance and purification: we hear of migration of unbelievers into
camels, asses, dogs, or sheep, of disobedient Nassairi into Jews,
Sunnis, or Christians, of the faithful into new bodies of their own
people, a few such changes of ‘shirt’ (i.e. body), bringing them to
enter paradise or become stars.[41] An instance of the belief within the
limits of modern Christian Europe may be found among the Bulgarians,
whose superstition is that Turks who have never eaten pork in life will
become wild boars after death. A party assembled to feast on a boar has
been known to throw it all away, for the meat jumped off the spit into
the fire, and a piece of cotton was found in the ears, which the wise
man decided to be a piece of the ci-devant Turk’s turban.[42] Such
cases, however, are exceptional. Metempsychosis never became one of the
great doctrines of Christendom, though not unknown in mediæval
scholasticism, and though maintained by an eccentric theologian here and
there into our own times. It would be strange were it not so. It is in
the very nature of the development of religion that speculations of the
earlier culture should dwindle to survivals, yet be again and again
revived. Doctrines transmigrate, if souls do not; and metempsychosis,
wandering along the course of ages, came at last to animate the souls of
Fourier and Soame Jenyns.[43]
Thus we have traced the theory of metempsychosis in stage after stage of
the world’s civilization, scattered among the native races of America
and Africa, established in the Asiatic nations, especially where
elaborated by the Hindu mind into its system of ethical philosophy,
rising and falling in classic and mediæval Europe, and lingering at last
in the modern world as an intellectual crotchet, of little account but
to the ethnographer who notes it down as an item of evidence for his
continuity of culture. What, we may well ask, was the original cause and
motive of the doctrine of transmigration? Something may be said in
answer, though not at all enough for full explanation. The theory that
ancestral souls return, thus imparting their own likeness of mind and
body to their descendants and kindred, has been already mentioned and
commended as in itself a very reasonable and philosophical hypothesis,
accounting for the phenomenon of family likeness going on from
generation to generation. But why should it have been imagined that
men’s souls could inhabit the bodies of beasts and birds? As has been
already pointed out, savages not unreasonably consider the lower animals
to have souls like their own, and this state of mind makes the idea of a
man’s soul transmigrating into a beast’s body at least seem possible.
But it does not actually suggest the idea. The view stated in a previous
chapter as to the origin of the conception of soul in general, may
perhaps help us here. As it seems that the first conception of souls may
have been that of the souls of men, this being afterwards extended by
analogy to the souls of animals, plants, &c., so it may seem that the
original idea of transmigration was the straightforward and reasonable
one of human souls being re-born in new human bodies, where they are
recognized by family likenesses in successive generations. This notion
may have been afterwards extended to take in re-birth in bodies of
animals, &c. There are some well-marked savage ideas which will fit with
such a course of thought. The half-human features and actions and
characters of animals are watched with wondering sympathy by the savage,
as by the child. The beast is the very incarnation of familiar qualities
of man; and such names as lion, bear, fox, owl, parrot, viper, worm,
when we apply them as epithets to men, condense into a word some leading
feature of a human life. Consistently with this, we see in looking over
details of savage transmigration that the creatures often have an
evident fitness to the character of the human beings whose souls are to
pass into them, so that the savage philosopher’s fancy of transferred
souls offered something like an explanation of the likeness between
beast and man. This comes more clearly into view among the more
civilized races who have worked out the idea of transmigration into
ethical schemes of retribution, where the appropriateness of the
creatures chosen is almost as manifest to the modern critic as it could
have been to the ancient believer. Perhaps the most graphic restoration
of the state of mind in which the theological doctrine of metempsychosis
was worked out in long-past ages, may be found in the writings of a
modern theologian whose spiritualism often follows to the extreme the
intellectual tracks of the lower races. In the spiritual world, says
Emanuel Swedenborg, such persons as have opened themselves for the
admission of the devil and acquired the nature of beasts, becoming foxes
in cunning, &c., appear also at a distance in the proper shape of such
beasts as they represent in disposition.[44] Lastly, one of the most
notable points about the theory of transmigration is its close bearing
upon a thought which lies very deep in the history of philosophy, the
development-theory of organic life in successive stages. An elevation
from the vegetable to the lower animal life, and thence onward through
the higher animals to man, to say nothing of superhuman beings, does not
here require even a succession of distinct individuals, but is brought
by the theory of metempsychosis within the compass of the successive
vegetable and animal lives of a single being.
Here a few words may be said on a subject which cannot be left out of
sight, connecting as it does the two great branches of the doctrine of
future existence, but which it is difficult to handle in definite terms,
and much more to trace historically by comparing the views of lower and
higher races. This is the doctrine of a bodily renewal or resurrection.
To the philosophy of the lower races it is by no means necessary that
the surviving soul should be provided with a new body, for it seems
itself to be of a filmy or vaporous corporeal nature, capable of
carrying on an independent existence like other corporeal creatures.
Savage descriptions of the next world are often such absolute copies of
this, that it is scarcely possible to say whether the dead are or are
not thought of as having bodies like the living; and a few pieces of
evidence of this class are hardly enough to prove the lower races to
hold original and distinct doctrines of corporeal resurrection.[45]
Again, attention must be given to the practice, so common among low and
high races, of preserving relics of the dead, from mere morsels of bone
up to whole mummified bodies. It is well known that the departed soul is
often thought apt to revisit the remains of the body, as is seen in the
well-known pictures of the Egyptian funeral ritual. But the preservation
of these remains, even where it thus involves a permanent connexion
between body and soul, does not necessarily approach more closely to a
bodily resurrection.[46] In discussing the closely allied doctrine of
metempsychosis, I have described the theory of the soul’s transmigration
into a new human body as asserting in fact an earthly resurrection. From
the same point of view, a bodily resurrection in Heaven or Hades is
technically a transmigration of the soul. This is plain among the higher
races, in whose religion these doctrines take at once clearer definition
and more practical import. There are some distinct mentions of bodily
resurrection in the Rig Veda: the dead is spoken of as glorified,
putting on his body (tanu); and it is even promised that the pious man
shall be born in the next world with his entire body (sarvatanû). In
Brahminism and Buddhism, the re-births of souls in bodies to inhabit
heavens and hells are simply included as particular cases of
transmigration. The doctrine of the resurrection appears far back in the
religion of Persia, and is thence supposed to have passed into late
Jewish belief.[47] In early Christianity, the conception of bodily
resurrection is developed with especial strength and fulness in the
Pauline doctrine. For an explicit interpretation of this doctrine, such
as commended itself to the minds of later theologians, it is instructive
to cite the remarkable passage of Origen, where he speaks of ‘corporeal
matter, of which matter, in whatever quality placed, the soul always has
use, now indeed carnal, but afterwards indeed subtler and purer, which
is called spiritual.’[48]
Passing from these metaphysical doctrines of civilized theology, we now
take up a series of beliefs higher in practical moment, and more clearly
conceived in savage thought. There may well have been, and there may
still be, low races destitute of any belief in a Future State.
Nevertheless, prudent ethnographers must often doubt accounts of such,
for this reason, that the savage who declares that the dead live no
more, may merely mean to say that they are dead. When the East African
is asked what becomes of his buried ancestors, the ‘old people,’ he can
reply that ‘they are ended,’ yet at the same time he fully admits that
their ghosts survive.[49] In an account of the religious ideas of the
Zulus, taken down from a native, it is explicitly stated that
Unkulunkulu the Old-Old-One said that people ‘were to die and never rise
again,’ and that he allowed them to ‘die and rise no more.’[50] Knowing
so thoroughly as we now do the theology of the Zulus, whose ghosts not
only survive in the under-world, but are the very deities of the living,
we can put the proper sense to these expressions. But without such
information, we might have mistaken them for denials of the soul’s
existence after death. This objection may even apply to one of the most
formal denials of a future life ever placed on record among an
uncultured race, a poem of the Dinka tribe of the White Nile, concerning
Dendid the Creator:—
‘On the day when Dendid made all things,
He made the sun;
And the sun comes forth, goes down, and comes again:
He made the moon;
And the moon comes forth, goes down, and comes again:
He made the stars;
And the stars come forth, go down, and come again:
He made man;
And man comes forth, goes down into the ground, and comes no more.’
It is to be remarked, however, that the close neighbours of these Dinka,
the Bari, believe that the dead do return to live again on earth, and
the question arises whether it is the doctrine of bodily resurrection,
or the doctrine of the surviving ghost-soul, that the Dinka poem denies.
The missionary Kaufmann says that the Dinka do not believe the
immortality of the soul, that they think it but a breath, and with death
all is over; Brun-Rollet’s contrary authority goes to prove that they do
believe in another life; both leave it an open question whether they
recognize the existence of surviving ghosts.[51]
Looking at the religion of the lower races as a whole, we shall at least
not be ill-advised in taking as one of its general and principal
elements the doctrine of the soul’s Future Life. But here it is needful
to explain, to limit, and to reserve, lest modern theological ideas
should lead us to misconstrue more primitive beliefs. In such enquiries
the phrase ‘immortality of the soul’ is to be avoided as misleading. It
is doubtful how far the lower psychology entertains at all an absolute
conception of immortality, for past and future fade soon into utter
vagueness as the savage mind quits the present to explore them, the
measure of months and years breaks down even within the narrow span of
human life, and the survivor’s thought of the soul of the departed
dwindles and disappears with the personal memory that kept it alive. The
doctrine of the surviving soul may indeed be treated as common to all
known races, though its acceptance is not unanimous. In savage as in
civilized life, dull and careless natures ignore a world to come as too
far off, while sceptical intellects are apt to reject its belief as
wanting proof. There are even statements on record of whole classes
being formally excluded from future life. This may be a matter of social
pride. In the Tonga Islands, according to Mariner, it was held that the
chiefs and nobles would live hereafter in the happy island of Bolotu,
but that the souls of the common people would die with their bodies. So
Captain John Smith relates as to the belief of the Virginians, that the
chiefs went after death beyond the sunset mountains, there to dance and
sing with their predecessors, ‘but the common people they suppose shall
not live after death.’ In the record of a missionary examination of the
Nicaraguans, they are made to state their belief that if a man lived
well, his soul would ascend to dwell among the gods, but if ill it would
perish with the body, and there would be an end of it.[52] None of these
accounts, however, agree with what is known of the religion of kindred
peoples, Polynesian, Algonquin, or Aztec. But granted that the soul
survives the death of the body, instance after instance from the records
of the lower culture shows this soul to be regarded as a mortal being,
liable like the body itself to accident and death. The Greenlanders
pitied the poor souls who must pass in winter or in storm the dreadful
mountain where the dead descend to reach the other world, for then a
soul is like to come to harm, and die the other death where there is
nothing left, and this is to them the dolefullest thing of all.[53] Thus
the Fijians tell of the fight which the ghost of a departed warrior must
wage with the soul-killing Samu and his brethren; this is the contest
for which the dead man is armed by burying the war-club with his corpse,
and if he conquers, the way is open for him to the judgment-seat of
Ndengei, but if he is wounded, his doom is to wander among the
mountains, and if killed in the encounter he is cooked and eaten by Samu
and his brethren. But the souls of unmarried Fijians will not even
survive to stand this wager of battle; such try in vain to steal at low
water round to the edge of the reef past the rocks where Nangananga,
destroyer of wifeless souls, sits laughing at their hopeless efforts,
and asking them if they think the tide will never flow again, till at
last the rising flood drives the shivering ghosts to the beach, and
Nangananga dashes them in pieces on the great black stone, as one
shatters rotten firewood.[54] Such, again, were the tales told by the
Guinea negroes of the life or death of departed souls. Either the great
priest before whom they must appear after death would judge them,
sending the good in peace to a happy place, but killing the wicked a
second time with the club that stands ready before his dwelling; or else
the departed shall be judged by their god at the river of death, to be
gently wafted by him to a pleasant land if they have kept feasts and
oaths and abstained from forbidden meats, but if not, to be plunged into
the river by the god, and thus drowned and buried in eternal
oblivion.[55] Even common water can drown a negro ghost, if we may
believe the missionary Cavazzi’s story of the Matamba widows being
ducked in the river or pond to drown off the souls of their departed
husbands, who might still be hanging about them, clinging closest to the
best-loved wives. After this ceremony, they went and married again.[56]
From such details it appears that the conception of some souls suffering
extinction at death or dying a second death, a thought still as
heretofore familiar to speculative theology, is not unknown in the lower
culture.
The soul, as recognized in the philosophy of the lower races, may be
defined as an ethereal surviving being, conceptions of which preceded
and led up to the more transcendental theory of the immaterial and
immortal soul, which forms part of the theology of higher nations. It is
principally the ethereal surviving soul of early culture that has now to
be studied in the religions of savages and barbarians and the folk-lore
of the civilized world. That this soul should be looked on as surviving
beyond death is a matter scarcely needing elaborate argument. Plain
experience is there to teach it to every savage; his friend or his enemy
is dead, yet still in dream or open vision he sees the spectral form
which is to his philosophy a real objective being, carrying personality
as it carries likeness. This thought of the soul’s continued existence
is, however, but the gateway into a complex region of belief. The
doctrines which, separate or compounded, make up the scheme of future
existence among particular tribes, are principally these: the theories
of lingering, wandering, and returning ghosts, and of souls dwelling on
or below or above the earth in a spirit-world, where existence is
modelled upon the earthly life, or raised to higher glory, or placed
under reversed conditions, and lastly, the belief in a division between
happiness and misery of departed souls, by a retribution for deeds done
in life, determined in a judgment after death.
‘All argument is against it; but all belief is for it,’ said Dr. Johnson
of the apparition of departed spirits. The doctrine that ghost-souls of
the dead hover among the living is indeed rooted in the lowest levels of
savage culture, extends through barbaric life almost without a break,
and survives largely and deeply in the midst of civilization. From the
myriad details of travellers, missionaries, historians, theologians,
spiritualists, it may be laid down as an admitted opinion, as wide in
distribution as it is natural in thought, that the two chief
hunting-grounds of the departed soul are the scenes of its fleshly life
and the burial place of its body. As in North America the Chickasaws
believed that the spirits of the dead in their bodily shape moved about
among the living in great joy; as the Aleutian islanders fancied the
souls of the departed walking unseen among their kindred, and
accompanying them in their journeys by sea and land; as Africans think
that souls of the dead dwell in their midst, and eat with them at meal
times; as Chinese pay their respects to kindred spirits present in the
hall of ancestors;[57] so multitudes in Europe and America live in an
atmosphere that swarms with ghostly shapes—spirits of the dead, who sit
over against the mystic by his midnight fire, rap and write in
spirit-circles, and peep over girls’ shoulders as they scare themselves
into hysterics with ghost-stories. Almost throughout the vast range of
animistic religion, we shall find the souls of the departed hospitably
entertained by the survivors on set occasions, and manes-worship, so
deep and strong among the faiths of the world, recognizes with a
reverence not without fear and trembling those ancestral spirits which,
powerful for good or ill, manifest their presence among mankind.
Nevertheless death and life dwell but ill together, and from savagery
onward there is recorded many a device by which the survivors have
sought to rid themselves of household ghosts. Though the unhappy savage
custom of deserting houses after a decease may often be connected with
other causes, such as horror or abnegation of all things belonging to
the dead, there are cases where it appears that the place is simply
abandoned to the ghost. In Old Calabar it was customary for the son to
leave his fathers’ house to decay, but after two years he might rebuild
it, the ghost being thought by that time to have departed;[58] the
Hottentots abandoned the dead man’s house, and were said to avoid
entering it lest the ghost should be within;[59] the Yakuts let the hut
fall in ruins where any one had expired, thinking it the habitation of
demons;[60] the Karens were said to destroy their villages to escape the
dangerous neighbourhood of departed souls.[61] Such proceedings,
however, scarcely extend beyond the limits of barbarism, and only a
feeble survival of the old thought lingers on into civilization, where
from time to time a haunted house is left to fall in ruins, abandoned to
a ghostly tenant who cannot keep it in repair. But even in the lowest
culture we find flesh holding its own against spirit, and at higher
stages the householder rids himself with little scruple of an unwelcome
inmate. The Greenlanders would carry the dead out by the window, not by
the door, while an old woman, waving a firebrand behind, cried
‘piklerrukpok!’ i.e., ‘there is nothing more to be had here!’;[62] the
Hottentots removed the dead from the hut by an opening broken out on
purpose, to prevent him from finding the way back;[63] the Siamese, with
the same intention, break an opening through the house wall to carry the
coffin through, and then hurry it at full speed thrice round the
house;[64] in Russia the Chuwashes fling a red-hot stone after the
corpse is carried out, for an obstacle to bar the soul from coming
back;[65] so Brandenburg peasants pour out a pail of water at the door
after the coffin, to prevent the ghost from walking; and Pomeranian
mourners returning from the churchyard leave behind the straw from the
hearse that the wandering soul may rest there, and not come back so far
as home.[66] In the ancient and mediæval world, men habitually invoked
supernatural aid beyond such material shifts as these, calling in the
priest to lay or banish intruding ghosts, nor is this branch of the
exorcist’s art even yet forgotten. There is, and always has been, a
prevalent feeling that disembodied souls, especially such as have
suffered a violent or untimely death, are baneful and malicious beings.
As Meiners suggests in his ‘History of Religions,’ they were driven
unwillingly from their bodies, and have carried into their new existence
an angry longing for revenge. No wonder that mankind should so generally
agree that if the souls of the dead must linger in the world at all,
their fitting abode should be not the haunts of the living but the
resting-places of the dead.
After all, it scarcely seems to the lower animistic philosophy that the
connexion between body and soul is utterly broken by death. Various
wants may keep the soul from its desired rest, and among the chief of
these is when its mortal remains have not had the funeral rites. Hence
the deep-lying belief that the ghosts of such will walk. Among some
Australian tribes the ‘ingna,’ or evil spirits, human in shape, but with
long tails and long upright ears, are mostly souls of departed natives,
whose bodies were left to lie unburied or whose death the avenger of
blood did not expiate, and thus they have to prowl on the face of the
earth, and about the place of death, with no gratification but to harm
the living.[67] In New Zealand, the ideas were to be found that the
souls of the dead were apt to linger near the bodies, and that the
spirits of men left unburied or killed in battle and eaten, would
wander; and the bringing such malignant souls to dwell within the sacred
burial-enclosure was a task for the priest to accomplish with his
charms.[68] Among the Iroquois of North America the spirit also stays
near the body for a time, and ‘unless the rites of burial were
performed, it was believed that the spirits of the dead hovered for a
time upon the earth, in a state of great unhappiness. Hence their
extreme solicitude to procure the bodies of the slain in battle.’[69]
Among Brazilian tribes, the wandering shadows of the dead are said to be
considered unresting till burial.[70] In Turanian regions of North Asia,
the spirits of the dead who have no resting-place in earth are thought
of as lingering above ground, especially where their dust remains.[71]
South Asia has such beliefs: the Karens say that the ghosts who wander
on earth are not the spirits of those who go to Plu, the land of the
dead, but of infants, of such as died by violence, of the wicked, and of
those who by accident have not been buried or burned;[72] the Siamese
fear as unkindly spirits the souls of such as died a violent death or
were not buried with the proper rites, and who desiring expiation,
invisibly terrify their descendants.[73] Nowhere in the world had such
thoughts a stronger hold than in classic antiquity, where it was the
most sacred of duties to give the body its funeral rites, that the shade
should not flit moaning near the gates of Hades, nor wander in the
dismal crowd along the banks of Acheron.[74] An Australian or a Karen
would have taken in the full significance of the fatal accusation
against the Athenian commanders, that they abandoned the bodies of their
dead in the sea-fight of Arginousai. The thought is not unknown to
Slavonic folk-lore: ‘Ha! with the shriek the spirit flutters from the
mouth, flies up to the tree, from tree to tree, hither and thither till
the dead is burned.’[75] In mediæval Europe the classic stories of
ghosts that haunt the living till laid by rites of burial pass here and
there into new legends, where, under a changed dispensation, the doleful
wanderer now asks Christian burial in consecrated earth.[76] It is
needless to give here elaborate details of the world-wide thought that
when the corpse is buried, exposed, burned, or otherwise disposed of
after the accepted custom of the land, the ghost accompanies its relics.
The soul stays near the Polynesian or the American Indian burial-place;
it dwells among the twigs and listens joyfully to the singing birds in
the trees where Siberian tribes suspend their dead; it lingers by the
Samoyed’s scaffolded coffin; it haunts the Dayak’s place of burial or
burning; it inhabits the little soul-hut above the Malagasy grave, or
the Peruvian house of sun-dried bricks; it is deposited in the Roman
tomb (animamque sepulchro condimus); it comes back for judgment into the
body of the later Israelite and the Moslem; it inhabits, as a divine
ancestral spirit, the palace-tombs of the old classic and new Asiatic
world; it is kept down by the huge cairn raised over Antar’s body lest
his mighty spirit should burst forth, by the iron nails with which the
Cheremiss secures the corpse in its coffin, by the stake that pins down
the suicide’s body at the four-cross way. And through all the changes of
religious thought from first to last in the course of human history, the
hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place
where men’s flesh creeps with terror. Not to discuss here the general
subject of funeral rites of mankind, of which only part of the
multifarious details are directly relevant to the present purpose, a
custom may be selected which is admirably adapted for the study of
animistic religion, at once from the clear conception it gives of the
belief in disembodied souls present among the living, and from the
distinct line of ethnographic continuity in which it may be traced
onward from the lower to the higher culture. This is the custom of
Feasts of the Dead.
Among the funeral offerings described in the last chapter of which the
purpose more or less distinctly appears to be that the departed soul
shall take them away in some ghostly or ideal manner, or that they shall
by some means be conveyed to him in his distant spirit-home, there are
given supplies of food and drink. But the feasts of the dead with which
we are now concerned are given on a different principle; they are, so to
speak, to be consumed on the premises. They are set out in some proper
place, especially near the tombs or in the dwelling-houses, and there
the souls of the dead come and satisfy themselves. In North America,
among Algonquins who held that one of a man’s two souls abides with the
body after death, the provisions brought to the grave were intended for
the nourishment of this soul; tribes would make offerings to ancestors
of part of any dainty food, and an Indian who fell by accident into the
fire would believe that the spirits of his ancestors pushed him in for
neglecting to make due offerings.[77] The minds of the Hurons were
filled with fancies not less lifelike than this. It seemed to them that
the dead man’s soul, in his proper human figure, walked in front of the
corpse as they carried it to the burial-ground, there to dwell till the
great feast of the dead; but meanwhile it would come and walk by night
in the village, and eat the remnants in the kettles, wherefore some
would not eat of these, nor touch the food at funeral feasts—though some
indeed would eat all.[78] In Madagascar, the elegant little upper
chamber in King Radama’s mausoleum was furnished with a table and two
chairs, and a bottle of wine, a bottle of water, and two tumblers were
placed there conformably with the ideas entertained by most of the
natives, that the ghost of the departed monarch might occasionally visit
the resting-place of his body, meet with the spirit of his father, and
partake of what he was known to be fond of in his lifetime.[79] The
Wanika of East Africa set a coco-nut shell full of rice and tembo near
the grave for the ‘koma’ or shade, which cannot exist without food and
drink.[80] In West Africa the Efik cook food and leave it on the table
in the little shed or ‘devil-house’ near the grave, and thither not only
the spirit of the deceased, but the spirits of the slaves sacrificed at
his funeral, come to partake of it.[81] Farther south, in the Congo
district, the custom has been described of making a channel into the
tomb to the head or mouth of the corpse, whereby to send down month by
month the offerings of food and drink.[82]
Among rude Asiatic tribes, the Bodo of North-East India thus celebrate
the last funeral rites. The friends repair to the grave, and the nearest
of kin to the deceased, taking an individual’s usual portion of food and
drink, solemnly presents it to the dead with these words, ‘Take and eat,
heretofore you have eaten and drunk with us, you can do so no more; you
were one of us, you can be so no longer; we come no more to you, come
you not to us.’ Thereupon each of the party breaks off a bracelet of
thread put on his wrist for this purpose, and casts it on the grave, a
speaking symbol of breaking the bond of fellowship, and ‘next the party
proceed to the river and bathe, and having thus lustrated themselves,
they repair to the banquet and eat, drink, and make merry as though they
never were to die.’[83] With more continuance of affection, Naga tribes
of Assam celebrate their funeral feasts month by month, laying food and
drink on the graves of the departed.[84] In the same region of the
world, the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur are remarkable for their pathetic
reverence for their dead. When a Ho or Munda has been burned on the
funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are carried in procession
with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding
drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray
lowers it from time to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass
vessels mournfully reverse them to show that they are empty; thus the
remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every
dwelling of a friend or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to
mourn and praise the goodness of the departed; the bones are carried to
all the dead man’s favourite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the
grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village
dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and
buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food, covered with one of
those huge stone slabs which European visitors wonder at in the
districts of the aborigines in India. Besides these, monumental stones
are set up outside the village to the memory of men of note; they are
fixed on an earthen plinth, where the ghost, resting in its walks among
the living, is supposed to sit shaded by the pillar. The Kheriahs have
collections of these monuments in the little enclosures round their
houses, and offerings and libations are constantly made at them. With
what feelings such rites are celebrated may be judged from this Ho
dirge:—
‘We never scolded you; never wronged you;
Come to us back!
We ever loved and cherished you; and have lived long together
Under the same roof;
Desert it not now!
The rainy nights, and the cold blowing days, are coming on;
Do not wander here!
Do not stand by the burnt ashes; come to us again!
You cannot find shelter under the peepul, when the rain comes down.
The saul will not shield you from the cold bitter wind.
Come to your home!
It is swept for you, and clean; and we are there who loved you ever;
And there is rice put for you; and water;
Come home, come home, come to us again!’
Among the Kol tribes this kindly hospitality to ancestral souls passes
on into the belief and ceremony of full manes-worship: votive offerings
are made to the ‘old folks’ when their descendants go on a journey, and
when there is sickness in the family it is generally they who are first
propitiated.[85] Among Turanian races, the Chuwash put food and napkins
on the grave, saying, ‘Rise at night and eat your fill, and there ye
have napkins to wipe your mouths!’ while the Cheremiss simply said,
‘That is for you, ye dead, there ye have food and drink!’ In this Tatar
region we hear of offerings continued year after year, and even of
messengers sent back by a horde to carry offerings to the tombs of their
forefathers in the old land whence they had emigrated.[86]
Details of this ancient rite are to be traced from the level of these
rude races far upward in civilization. South-East Asia is full of it,
and the Chinese may stand as its representative. He keeps his coffined
parent for years, serving him with meals as if alive. He summons
ancestral souls with prayer and beat of drum to feed on the meat and
drink set out on special days when they are thought to return home. He
even gives entertainments for the benefit of destitute and unfortunate
souls in the lower regions, such as those of lepers and beggars.
Lanterns are lighted to show them the way, a feast is spread for them,
and with characteristic fancy, some victuals are left over for any blind
or feeble spirits who may be late, and a pail of gruel is provided for
headless souls, with spoons for them to put it down their throats with.
Such proceedings culminate in the so-called Universal Rescue, now and
then celebrated, when a little house is built for the expected visitors,
with separate accommodation and bath-rooms for male and female
ghosts.[87] The ancient Egyptian would set out his provision of cakes
and trussed ducks on reed scaffolds in the tomb, or would even keep the
mummy in the house to be present as a guest at the feast, σύνδειπνον καὶ
συμπότην ἐποιήσατο, as Lucian says.[88] The Hindu, as of old, offers to
the dead the funeral cakes, places before the door the earthen vessels
of water for him to bathe in, of milk for him to drink, and celebrates
at new and full moon the solemn presentation of rice-cakes made with
ghee, with its attendant ceremonies so important for the soul’s release
from its twelvemonth’s sojourn with Yama in Hades, and its transition to
the Heaven of the Pitaras, the Fathers.[89] In the classic world such
rites were represented by funeral feasts and oblations of food.[90]
In Christian times there manifests itself that interesting kind of
survival which, keeping up the old ceremony in form, has adapted its
motive to new thoughts and feelings. The classic funeral oblations
became Christian, the silicernium was succeeded by the feast held at the
martyr’s tomb. Faustus inveighs against the Christians for carrying on
the ancient rites: ‘Their sacrifices indeed ye have turned into
love-feasts, their idols into martyrs whom with like vows ye worship; ye
appease the shades of the dead with wine and meals, ye celebrate the
Gentiles’ solemn days with them, such as calends and solstices,—of their
life certainly ye have changed nought,’[91] and so forth. The story of
Monica shows how the custom of laying food on the tomb for the manes
passed into the ceremony, like to it in form, of setting food and drink
to be sanctified by the sepulchre of a Christian saint. Saint-Foix, who
wrote in the time of Louis XIV., has left us an account of the
ceremonial after the death of a King of France, during the forty days
before the funeral when his wax effigy lay in state. They continued to
serve him at meal-times as though still alive, the officers laid the
table, and brought the dishes, the maître d’hôtel handed the napkin to
the highest lord present to be presented to the king, a prelate blessed
the table, the basins of water were handed to the royal arm-chair, the
cup was served in its due course, and grace was said in the accustomed
manner, save that there was added to it the De Profundis.[92] Spaniards
still offer bread and wine on the tombs of those they love, on the
anniversary of their decease.[93] The conservative Eastern Church still
holds to ancient rite. The funeral feast is served in Russia, with its
tables for the beggars, laden with fish pasties and bowls of shchi and
jugs of kvas, its more delicate dinner for friends and priests, its
incense and chants of ‘everlasting remembrance’; and even the repetition
of the festival on the ninth, and twentieth, and fortieth day are not
forgotten. The offerings of saucers of kutiya or kolyvo are still made
in the church; this used to be of parboiled wheat and was deposited over
the body, it is now made of boiled rice and raisins, sweetened with
honey. In their usual mystic fashion, the Orthodox Christians now
explain away into symbolism this remnant of primitive offering to the
dead: the honey is heavenly sweetness, the shrivelled raisins will be
full beauteous grapes, the grain typifies the resurrection, ‘that which
thou sowest is not quickened except it die.’[94]
In the calendar of many a people, differing widely as they may in race
and civilization, there are to be found special yearly festivals of the
dead. Their rites are much the same as those performed on other days for
individuals; their season differs in different districts, but seems to
have particular associations with harvest-time and the fall of the year,
and with the year’s end as reckoned at midwinter or in early spring.[95]
The Karens make their annual offerings to the dead in the ‘month of
shades,’ that is, December;[96] the Kocch of North Bengal every year at
harvest-home offer fruits and a fowl to deceased parents;[97] the Barea
of East Africa celebrate in November the feast of Thiyot, at once a
feast of general peace and merry-making, of thanksgiving for the
harvest, and of memorial for the deceased, for each of whom a little
pot-full of beer is set out two days, to be drunk at last by the
survivors;[98] in West Africa we hear of the feast of the dead at the
time of yam-harvest;[99] at the end of the year the Haitian negroes take
food to the graves for the shades to eat, ‘manger zombi,’ as they
say.[100] The Roman Feralia and Lemuralia were held in February and
May.[101] In the last five or ten days of their year the Zoroastrians
hold their feasts for departed relatives, when souls come back to the
world to visit the living, and receive from them offerings of food and
clothing.[102] The custom of setting empty seats at the St. John’s Eve
feast, for the departed souls of kinsfolk, is said to have lasted on in
Europe to the seventeenth century. Spring is the season of the
time-honoured Slavonic rite of laying food on the graves of the dead.
The Bulgarians hold a feast in the cemetery on Palm Sunday, and, after
much eating and drinking, leave the remains upon the graves of their
friends, who, they are persuaded, will eat them during the night. In
Russia such scenes may still be watched on the two appointed days called
Parents’ Days. The higher classes have let the rite sink to prayer at
the graves of lost relatives, and giving alms to the beggars who flock
to the cemeteries. But the people still ‘howl’ for the dead, and set out
on their graves a handkerchief for a tablecloth, with gingerbread, eggs,
curd-tarts, and even vodka, on it; when the weeping is over, they eat up
the food, especially commemorating the dead in Russian manner by
partaking of his favourite dainty, and if he were fond of a glass, the
vodka is sipped with the ejaculation, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven be his! He
loved a drink, the deceased!’[103] When Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, at the
end of the tenth century, instituted the celebration of All Souls’ Day
(November 2),[104] he set on foot one of those revivals which have so
often given the past a new lease of life. The Western Church at large
took up the practice, and round it there naturally gathered surviving
remnants of the primitive rite of banquets to the dead. The accusation
against the early Christians, that they appeased the shades of the dead
with feasts like the Gentiles, would not be beside the mark now, fifteen
hundred years later. On the eve of All Souls’ begins, within the limits
of Christendom, a commemoration of the dead which combines some touches
of pathetic imagination with relics of savage animism scarcely to be
surpassed in Africa or the South Sea Islands. In Italy the day is given
to feasting and drinking in honour of the dead, while skulls and
skeletons in sugar and paste form appropriate children’s toys. In Tyrol,
the poor souls released from purgatory fire for the night may come and
smear their burns with the melted fat of the ‘soul light’ on the hearth,
or cakes are left for them on the table, and the room is kept warm for
their comfort. Even in Paris the souls of the departed come to partake
of the food of the living. In Brittany the crowd pours into the
churchyard at evening, to kneel bareheaded at the graves of dead
kinsfolk, to fill the hollow of the tombstone with holy water, or to
pour libations of milk upon it. All night the church bells clang, and
sometimes a solemn procession of the clergy goes round to bless the
graves. In no household that night is the cloth removed, for the supper
must be left for the souls to come and take their part, nor must the
fire be put out, where they will come to warm themselves. And at last,
as the inmates retire to rest, there is heard at the door a doleful
chant—it is the souls, who, borrowing the voices of the parish poor,
have come to ask the prayers of the living.[105]
If we ask how the spirits of the dead are in general supposed to feed on
the viands set before them, we come upon difficult questions, which will
be met with again in discussing the theory of sacrifice. Even where the
thought is certainly that the departed soul eats, this thought may be
very indefinite, with far less of practical intention in it than of
childish make-believe. Now and then, however, the sacrificers themselves
offer closer definitions of their meaning. The idea of the ghost
actually devouring the material food is not unexampled. Thus, in North
America, Algonquin Indians considered that the shadow-like souls of the
dead can still eat and drink, often even telling Father Le Jeune that
they had found in the morning meat gnawed in the night by the souls.
More recently, we read that some Potawatomis will leave off providing
the supply of food at the grave if it lies long untouched, it being
concluded that the dead no longer wants it, but has found a rich
hunting-ground in the other world.[106] In Africa, again, Father Cavazzi
records of the Congo people furnishing their dead with supplies of
provisions, that they could not be persuaded that souls did not consume
material food.[107] In Europe the Esths, offering food for the dead on
All Souls’, are said to have rejoiced if they found in the morning that
any of it was gone.[108] A less gross conception is that the soul
consumes the steam or savour of the food, or its essence or spirit. It
is said to have been with such purpose that the Maoris placed food by
the dead man’s side, and some also with him in the grave.[109] The idea
is well displayed among the natives in Mexican districts, where the
souls who came to the annual feast are described as hovering over and
smelling the food set out for them, or sucking out its nutritive
quality.[110] The Hindu entreats the manes to quaff the sweet essence of
the offered food; thinking on them, he slowly sets the dish of rice
before the Brahmans, and while they silently eat the hot food, the
ancestral spirits take their part of the feast.[111] At the old Slavonic
meals for the dead, we read of the survivors sitting in silence and
throwing morsels under the table, fancying that they could hear the
spirits rustle, and see them feed on the smell and steam of the viands.
One account describes the mourners at the funeral banquet inviting in
the departed soul thought to be standing outside the door, and every
guest throwing morsels and pouring drink under the table, for him to
refresh himself. What lay on the ground was not picked up, but was left
for friendless and kinless souls. When the meal was over, the priest
rose from table, swept out the house, and hunted out the souls of the
dead ‘like fleas,’ with these words, ‘Ye have eaten and drunken, souls,
now go, now go!’[112] Many travellers have described the imagination
with which the Chinese make such offerings. It is that the spirits of
the dead consume the impalpable essence of the food, leaving behind its
coarse material substance, wherefore the dutiful sacrificers, having set
out sumptuous feasts for ancestral souls, allow them a proper time to
satisfy their appetite, and then fall to themselves.[113] The Jesuit
Father Christoforo Borri suggestively translates the native idea into
his own scholastic phraseology. In Cochin China, according to him,
people believed ‘that the souls of the dead have need of corporeal
sustenance and maintenance, wherefore several times a year, according to
their custom, they make splendid and sumptuous banquets, children to
their deceased parents, husbands to their wives, friends to their
friends, waiting a long while for the dead guest to come and sit down at
table to eat.’ The missionaries argued against this proceeding, but were
met by ridicule of their ignorance, and the reply ‘that there were two
things in the food, one the substance, and the other the accidents of
quantity, quality, smell, taste, and the like. The immaterial souls of
the dead, taking for themselves the substance of the food, which being
immaterial is food suited to the incorporeal soul, left only in the
dishes the accidents which corporeal senses perceive; for this the dead
had no need of corporeal instruments, as we have said.’ Thereupon the
Jesuit proceeds to remark, as to the prospect of conversion of these
people, ‘it may be judged from the distinction they make between the
accidents and the substance of the food which they prepare for the
dead,’ that it will not be very difficult to prove to them the mystery
of the Eucharist.[114] Now to peoples among whom prevails the rite of
feasts of the dead, whether they offer the food in mere symbolic
pretence, or whether they consider the souls really to feed on it in
this spiritual way (as well as in the cases inextricably mixed up with
these, where the offering is spiritually conveyed away to the world of
spirits), it can be of little consequence what becomes of the gross
material food. When the Kafir sorcerer, in cases of sickness, declares
that the shades of ancestors demand a particular cow, the beast is
slaughtered and left shut up for a time for the shades to eat, or for
its spirit to go to the land of shades, and then is taken out to be
eaten by the sacrificers.[115] So, in more civilized Japan, when the
survivors have placed their offering of unboiled rice and water in a
hollow made for the purpose in a stone of the tomb, it seems to them no
matter that the poor or the birds really carry off the grain.[116]
Such rites as these are especially exposed to dwindle in survival. The
offerings of meals and feasts to the dead may be traced at their last
stage into mere traditional ceremonies, at most tokens of affectionate
remembrance of the dead, or works of charity to the living. The Roman
Feralia in Ovid’s time were a striking example of such transition, for
while the idea was recognized that the ghosts fed upon the offerings,
‘nunc posito pascitur umbra cibo,’ yet there were but ‘parva munera,’
fruits and grains of salt, and corn soaked in wine, set out for their
meal in the middle of the road. ‘Little the manes ask, the pious thought
stands instead of the rich gift, for Styx holds no greedy gods:’—
‘Parva petunt manes. Pietas pro divite grata est
Munere. Non avidos Styx habet ima deos.
Tegula porrectis satis est velata coronis,
Et sparsae fruges, parcaque mica salis,
Inque mero mollita ceres, violaeque solutae:
Haec habeat media testa relicta via.
Nec majora veto. Sed et his placabilis umbra est.’[117]
Still farther back, in old Chinese history, Confucius had been called on
to give an opinion as to the sacrifices to the dead. Maintainer of all
ancient rites as he was, he stringently kept up this, ‘he sacrificed to
the dead as if they were present,’ but when he was asked if the dead had
knowledge of what was done or no, he declined to answer the question;
for if he replied yes, then dutiful descendants would injure their
substance by sacrifices, and if no, then undutiful children would leave
their parents unburied. The evasion was characteristic of the teacher
who expressed his theory of worship in this maxim, ‘to give oneself
earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual
beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.’ It is said that
in our own time the Taepings have made a step beyond Confucius; they
have forbidden the sacrifices to the spirits of the dead, yet keep up
the rite of visiting their tombs on the customary day, for prayer and
the renewal of vows.[118] How funeral offerings may pass into
commemorative banquets and feasts to the poor, has been shown already.
If we seek in England for vestiges of the old rite of funeral sacrifice,
we may find a lingering survival into modern centuries, doles of bread
and drink given to the poor at funerals, and ‘soul-mass cakes’ which
peasant girls perhaps to this day beg for at farmhouses with the
traditional formula,
‘Soul, soul, for a soul cake,
Pray you, mistress, a soul cake.’[119]
Were it not for our knowledge of the intermediate stages through which
these fragments of old custom have come down, it would seem far-fetched
indeed to trace their origin back to the savage and barbaric times of
the institution of feasts of departed souls.
Footnote 1:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés. dans la Nouvelle France,’ 1636, p. 130;
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 75. See Brinton, p. 253.
Footnote 2:
Waitz, vol. iii. p. 195, see p. 213. Morse, ‘Report on Indian
Affairs,’ p. 345.
Footnote 3:
Mayne, ‘British Columbia,’ p. 181.
Footnote 4:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ pp. 248, 258, see p. 212. See also Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ p. 353; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 793.
Footnote 5:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 28.
Footnote 6:
Bastian, ‘Zur vergl. Psychologie,’ in Lazarus and Steinthal’s
‘Zeitschrift,’ vol. v. p. 160, &c., also Papuas and other races.
Footnote 7:
Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W. Afr.’ p. 376.
Footnote 8:
Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 201.
Footnote 9:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 210; see also R. Clarke, ‘Sierra Leone,’ p.
159.
Footnote 10:
Bastian, l. c.
Footnote 11:
Macpherson, p. 72; also Tickell in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. ix.
pp. 793, &c.; Dalton in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 22 (similar rite
of Mundas and Oraons).
Footnote 12:
Klemm, ‘C. G.’ vol. iii. p. 77; K. Leems, ‘Lapper,’ c. xiv.
Footnote 13:
R. Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 284; see Shortland, ‘Traditions,’ p. 145;
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 353; Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 279; see
also p. 276 (Samoyeds). Compare Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v.
p. 426; Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 353; Kracheninnikow, ii. 117. See
Plath, ‘Rel. der alten Chinesen,’ ii. p. 98.
Footnote 14:
Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. i. p. 301, vol. ii. p. 363 (native’s
accusation against some foreign sailors who had assaulted him,
‘_djanga_ Taal-wurt kyle-gut bomb-gur,’—‘one of the dead struck
Taal-wurt under the ear,’ &c. The word _djanga_ = the dead, the
spirits of deceased persons (see Grey, ‘Vocab. of S. W. Australia’),
had come to be the usual term for a European). Lang, ‘Queensland,’ pp.
34, 336; Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 183; Scherzer, ‘Voy. of Novara,’
vol. iii. p. 34; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 222, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii.
pp. 362-3, and in Lazarus and Steinthal’s ‘Zeitschrift,’ l. c.;
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 424.
Footnote 15:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 85; Brun-Rollet, ‘Nil Blanc,’ &c. p. 234.
Footnote 16:
Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ ch. xviii., xix., xxi. Souls of the dead appear
in dreams, either in human or animal forms, p. 174. See also Brinton,
p. 145.
Footnote 17:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 113.
Footnote 18:
Hayes, ‘Arctic Boat Journey,’ p. 198.
Footnote 19:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 102.
Footnote 20:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 104.
Footnote 21:
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 174.
Footnote 22:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 5.
Footnote 23:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 602; Markham in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. iii. p. 195.
Footnote 24:
Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. pp. 74, 270.
Footnote 25:
Coreal in Brinton, l. c. See also J. G. Müller, pp. 139 (Natchez), 223
(Caribs), 402 (Peru).
Footnote 26:
Chomé in ‘Lettres Edif.’ vol. viii.; see also Martius, vol. i. p. 446.
Footnote 27:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 419 (Maravi).
Footnote 28:
Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 196, &c.; Arbousset and Daumas, p.
237.
Footnote 29:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 210, 218. See also Brun-Rollet, pp. 200,
234; Meiners, vol. i. p. 211.
Footnote 30:
Steinhauser in ‘Mag. der Evang. Miss.’ Basel, 1856, No. 2, p. 135.
Footnote 31:
Manu, xi. xii. Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p. 164, vol. ii. pp. 215,
347-52.
Footnote 32:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 181; Perelaer, ‘Ethnog. Beschr. der
Dajaks,’ p. 17.
Footnote 33:
Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 210. See also Shaw in ‘As. Res.’ vol. iv.
p. 46 (Rajmahal tribes).
Footnote 34:
Abraham Roger, ‘La Porte Ouverte,’ Amst. 1670, p. 107.
Footnote 35:
Manu, xii. 9: ‘çarîrajaih karmmadoshaih yâti sthâvaratâm narah’—‘for
crimes done in the body, the man goes to the inert (motionless)
state;’ xii. 42, ‘sthâvarâh krimakîtâçcha matsyâh sarpâh sakachhapâh
paçavaçcha mrigaschaiva jaghanyâ tâmasî gatih’—‘inert (motionless)
things, worms and insects, fish, serpents, tortoises and beasts and
deer also are the last dark form.’
Footnote 36:
Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. i. pp. 35, 289, &c., 318;
Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, ‘Le Bouddha et sa Religion,’ p. 122; Hardy,
‘Manual of Budhism,’ pp. 98, &c., 180, 318, 445, &c.
Footnote 37:
Herod. ii. 123, see Rawlinson’s Tr.; Plutarch. De Iside 31, 72;
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. ii. ch. xvi.
Footnote 38:
Plat. Phædo, Timæus, Phædrus, Repub.; Diog. Laert. Empedokles xii.;
Pindar. Olymp. ii. antistr. 4; Ovid. Metam. xv. 160; Lucian. Somn.
17, &c. Philostr. Vit. Apollon. Tyan. See also Meyer’s
Conversations-Lexicon, art. ‘Seelenwanderung.’ For re-birth in old
Scandinavia, see Helgakvidha, iii., in ‘Edda.’
Footnote 39:
Eisenmenger, part ii. p. 23, &c.
Footnote 40:
Beausobre, ‘Hist. de Manichée,’ &c., vol. i. pp. 245-6, vol. ii. pp.
496-9; G. Flügel, ‘Mani.’ See Augustin. Contra Faust.; De Hæres.; De
Quantitate Animæ.
Footnote 41:
Gul. de Rubruquis in ‘Rec. des Voy. Soc. de Géographie de Paris,’ vol.
iv. p. 356. Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and tr. by Asher, Hebrew 22, Eng.
p. 62. Niebuhr, ‘Reisebeschr. nach Arabien,’ &c., vol. ii. pp.
438-443; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 796.
Footnote 42:
St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 57. Compare the tenets of the
Russian sect of Dukhobortzi, in Haxthausen, ‘Russian Empire,’ vol. i.
p. 288, &c.
Footnote 43:
Since the first publication of the above remark, M. Louis Figuier has
supplied a perfect modern instance by his book, entitled ‘Le Lendemain
de la Mort,’ translated into English as ‘The Day after Death: Our
Future Life according to Science.’ His attempt to revive the ancient
belief, and to connect it with the evolution-theory of modern
naturalists, is carried out with more than Buddhist elaborateness.
Body is the habitat of soul, which goes out when a man dies, as one
forsakes a burning house. In the course of development, a soul may
migrate through bodies stage after stage, zoophyte and oyster,
grasshopper and eagle, crocodile and dog, till it arrives at man,
thence ascending to become one of the superhuman beings or angels who
dwell in the planetary ether, and thence to a still higher state, the
secret of whose nature M. Figuier does not endeavour to penetrate,
‘because our means of investigation fail at this point.’ The ultimate
destiny of the more glorified being is the Sun; the pure spirits who
form its mass of burning gases, pour out germs and life to start the
course of planetary existence. (Note to 2nd edition.)
Footnote 44:
Swedenborg, ‘The True Christian Religion,’ 13. Compare the notion
attributed to the followers of Basilides the Gnostic, of men whose
souls are affected by spirits or dispositions as of wolf, ape, lion,
or bear, wherefore their souls bear the properties of these, and
imitate their deeds (Clem. Alex. Stromat. ii. c. 20).
Footnote 45:
See J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ p. 208 (Caribs); but compare
Rochefort, p. 429. Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 269, Castrén, ‘Finnische
Mythologie,’ p. 119.
Footnote 46:
For Egyptian evidence see the funeral papyri and translations of the
‘Book of the Dead.’ Compare Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 254, &c.
Footnote 47:
Aryan evidence in ‘Rig-Veda,’ x. 14, 8; xi. 1, 8; Manu, xii. 16-22;
Max Müller, ‘Todtenbestattung,’ pp. xii. xiv.; ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 47;
Muir in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. i. 1865, p. 306; Spiegel,
‘Avesta’; Haug, ‘Essays on the Parsis.’
Footnote 48:
Origen, De Princip. ii. 3, 2: ‘materiæ corporalis, cujus materiæ anima
usum semper habet, in qualibet qualitate positæ, nunc quidem carnali,
postmodum vero subtiliori et puriori, quæ spiritalis appellatur.’
Footnote 49:
Burton, ‘Central Africa,’ vol. ii. p. 345.
Footnote 50:
Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 84.
Footnote 51:
Kaufmann, ‘Schilderungen aus Centralafrika,’ p. 124; G. Lejean in
‘Rev. des Deux Mondes,’ Apr. 1, 1860, p. 760; see Brun-Rollet, ‘Nil
Blanc,’ pp. 100, 234. A dialogue by the missionary Beltrame (1859-60),
in Mitterutzner, ‘Dinka-Sprache,’ p. 57, ascribes to the Dinkas ideas
of heaven and hell, which, however, show Christian influence.
Footnote 52:
Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 136; John Smith, ‘Descr. of
Virginia,’ 33; Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 50. The reference to the Laos
in Meiners, vol. ii. p. 760, is worthless.
Footnote 53:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 259.
Footnote 54:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 244. See ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii.
p. 113 (Dayaks). Compare wasting and death of souls in depths of
Hades, Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 232.
Footnote 55:
Bosman, ‘Guinea’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 401. See also Waitz,
‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 191 (W. Afr.); Callaway, ‘Rel. of
Amazulu,’ p. 355.
Footnote 56:
Cavazzi, ‘Congo, Matamba, et Angola,’ lib. i. p. 270. See also
Liebrecht in ‘Zeitschr. für Ethnologie,’ vol. v. p. 96 (Tartary,
Scandinavia, Greece).
Footnote 57:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 310; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’
pp. 111, 193; Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 235.
Footnote 58:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 323.
Footnote 59:
Kolben, p. 579.
Footnote 60:
Billings, p. 125.
Footnote 61:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien.’ vol. i. p. 145; Cross, l.c., p. 311. For
other cases of desertion of dwellings after a death, possibly for the
same motive, see Bourien, ‘Tribes of Malay Pen.’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. iii. p. 82; Polack, ‘M. of New Zealanders,’ vol. i. pp. 204, 216;
Steiler, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 271. But the Todas say that the buffaloes
slaughtered and the hut burnt at the funeral are transferred to the
spirit of the deceased in the next world; Shortt in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. vii. p. 247. See Waitz, vol. iii. p. 199.
Footnote 62:
Egede, ‘Greenland,’ p. 152; Cranz, p. 300.
Footnote 63:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 323; see pp. 329, 363.
Footnote 64:
Bowring, ‘Siam,’ vol. i. p. 122; Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien.’ vol. iii. p.
258.
Footnote 65:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 120.
Footnote 66:
Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ pp. 213-17. Other cases of taking out the
dead by a gap made on purpose: Arbousset and Daumas, p. 502 (Bushmen);
Magyar, p. 351 (Kimbunda); Moffat, p. 307 (Bechuanas); Waitz, vol.
iii. p. 199 (Ojibwas);—their motive is probably that the ghost may not
find its way back by the door.
Footnote 67:
Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. pp. 228, 236, 245.
Footnote 68:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 221; Schirren, p. 91; see Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ p. 233.
Footnote 69:
Morgan, ‘League of Iroquois,’ p. 174.
Footnote 70:
J. G. Müller, p. 286.
Footnote 71:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 126.
Footnote 72:
Cross in ‘Journ. Amer. Or. Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 309; Mason in ‘Journ. As.
Soc. Bengal,’ 1865, part ii. p. 203. See also J. Anderson, ‘Exp. to W.
Yunnan,’ pp. 126, 131 (Shans).
Footnote 73:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ pp. 51, 99-101.
Footnote 74:
Lucian. De Luctu. See Pauly, ‘Real. Encyclop.’ and Smith, ‘Dic. of Gr.
and Rom. Ant.’ s.v. ‘inferi.’
Footnote 75:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 277.
Footnote 76:
Calmet, vol. ii. ch. xxxvi.; Brand, vol. iii. p. 67.
Footnote 77:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 75; Schoolcraft, ‘Indian
Tribes,’ part i. pp. 39, 83; part iv. p. 65; Tanner’s ‘Narr.’ p. 293.
Footnote 78:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 104.
Footnote 79:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. pp. 253, 364. See Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’
p. 220.
Footnote 80:
Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 150.
Footnote 81:
T. J. Hutchinson, p. 206.
Footnote 82:
Cavazzi, ‘Congo, &c.’ lib. i. p. 264. So in ancient Greece, Lucian.
Charon, 22.
Footnote 83:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 180.
Footnote 84:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 235.
Footnote 85:
Tickell in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. ix. p. 795; Dalton, ibid.
1866, part ii. p. 153, &c.; and in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 1, &c.;
Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. ii. p. 415, &c.
Footnote 86:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 62; Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 121.
Footnote 87:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 173, &c.; vol. ii. p. 91, &c.;
Meiners, vol. i. p. 306.
Footnote 88:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. ii. p. 362; Lucian. De Luctu, 21.
Footnote 89:
Manu, iii.; Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i. p. 161, &c.; Pictet,
‘Origines Indo-Europ.’ part ii. p. 600; Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p.
332.
Footnote 90:
Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘funus.’; Smith’s ‘Dic.’ s.v. ‘funus.’
See Meiners, vol. i. pp. 305-19.
Footnote 91:
Augustin. contra Faustum, xx. 4; De Civ. Dei, viii. 27; conf. vi. 2.
See Beausobre, vol. ii. pp. 633, 685; Bingham, xx. c. 7.
Footnote 92:
Saint-Foix, ‘Essais Historiques sur Paris,’ in ‘Œuvres,’ vol. iv. p.
147, &c.
Footnote 93:
Lady Herbert, ‘Impressions of Spain,’ p. 8.
Footnote 94:
H. C. Romanoff, ‘Rites and Customs of Greco-Russian Church,’ p. 249;
Ralston, ‘Songs of the Russian People,’ pp. 135, 320; St. Clair and
Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 77; Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. i. p. 115.
Footnote 95:
Beside the accounts of annual festivals of the dead cited here, see
the following:—Santos, ‘Ethiopia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 685
(Sept.); Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. pp. 23, 522, 528 (Aug., Oct.,
Nov.); Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peru,’ p. 134 (Peruvian feast dated as
Nov. 2 in coincidence with All Souls’, but this reckoning is vitiated
by confusion of seasons of N. and S. hemisphere, see J. G. Müller, p.
389; moreover, the Peruvian feast may have been originally held at a
different date, and transferred, as happened elsewhere, to the
‘Spanish All Souls’); Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. pp. 44, 62 (esp.
Apr.); Caron, ‘Japan,’ in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 629 (Aug.).
Footnote 96:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l. c. p. 238.
Footnote 97:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 147.
Footnote 98:
Munzinger, ‘Ostafr. Stud.’ p. 473.
Footnote 99:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 194.
Footnote 100:
G. D’Alaux in ‘Rev. des Deux Mondes,’ May 15, 1852, p. 76.
Footnote 101:
Ovid. Fast. ii. 533; v. 420.
Footnote 102:
Spiegel, ‘Avesta,’ vol. ii. p. ci.; Alger, p. 137.
Footnote 103:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ pp. 374, 408; St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’
p. 77; Romanoff, ‘Greco-Roman Church,’ p. 255.
Footnote 104:
Petrus Damianus, ‘Vita S. Odilonis,’ in the Bollandist ‘Acta
Sanctorum,’ Jan. 1, has the quaint legend attached to the new
ordinance. An island hermit dwelt near a volcano, where souls of the
wicked were tormented in the flames. The holy man heard the
officiating demons lament that their daily task of new torture was
interfered with by the prayers and alms of devout persons leagued
against them to save souls, and especially they complained of the
Monks of Cluny. Thereupon the hermit sent a message to Abbot Odilo,
who carried out the work to the efficacy of which he had received such
perfect spiritual testimony, by decreeing that November 2, the day
after All Saints’, should be set apart for services for the departed.
Footnote 105:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 336. Meiners, vol. i. p. 316; vol. ii.
p. 290. Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksaberglaube,’ p. 216. Cortet, ‘Fêtes
Religieuses,’ p. 233; ‘Westminster Rev.’ Jan. 1860; Hersart de la
Villemarqué, ‘Chants de la Bretagne,’ vol. ii. p. 307.
Footnote 106:
Le Jeune in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1634, p. 16; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 195.
Footnote 107:
Cavazzi, ‘Congo,’ &c., book i. 265.
Footnote 108:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 865, but not so in the account of the Feast of the
Dead in Boecler, ‘Ehsten Abergl. Gebr.’ (ed. Kreutzwald), p. 89.
Compare Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 345 (Gês). The following
passage from a spiritualist journal, ‘The Medium,’ Feb. 9, 1872, shows
this primitive notion curiously surviving in modern England. ‘Every
time we sat at dinner, we had not only spirit-voices calling to us,
but spirit-hands touching us; and last evening, as it was his
farewell, they gave us a special manifestation, unasked for and
unlooked for. He sitting at the right hand of me, a vacant chair
opposite to him began moving, and, in answer to whether it would have
some dinner, said “Yes.” I then asked it to select what it would take,
when it chose _croquets des pommes de terre_ (a French way of dressing
potatoes, about three inches long and two wide. I will send you one
that you may see it). I was desired to put this on the chair, either
in a tablespoon or on a plate. I placed it in a tablespoon, thinking
that probably the plate might be broken. In a few seconds I was told
that it was eaten, and looking, found the half of it gone, with the
marks showing the teeth.’ (Note to 2nd ed.)
Footnote 109:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 220, see 104.
Footnote 110:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 24.
Footnote 111:
Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i. p. 163, &c.; Manu. iii.
Footnote 112:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 408; Hartknoch, ‘Preussen,’ part i. p. 187.
Footnote 113:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. pp. 33, 48; Meiners, vol. i. p. 318.
Footnote 114:
Borri, ‘Relatione della Nuova Missione della Comp. di Giesu,’ Rome,
1631, p. 208; and in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 822, &c.
Footnote 115:
Grout, ‘Zulu Land,’ p. 140; see Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 11.
Footnote 116:
Caron, ‘Japan,’ vol. vii. p. 629; see Turpin, ‘Siam,’ ibid. vol. ix.
p. 590.
Footnote 117:
Ovid. Fast. ii. 533.
Footnote 118:
Legge, ‘Confucius,’ pp. 101-2, 130; Bunsen, ‘God in History,’ p. 271.
Footnote 119:
Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. i. p. 392, vol. ii. p. 289.
CHAPTER XIII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Journey of the Soul to the Land of the Dead—Visits by the Living to
the Regions of Departed Souls—Connexion of such legends with myths
of Sunset: the Land of the Dead thus imagined as in the
West—Realization of current religious ideas, whether of savage or
civilized theology, in narratives of visits to the Regions of
Souls—Localization of the Future Life—Distant earthly region:
Earthly Paradise, Isles of the Blest—Subterranean Hades or
Sheol—Sun, Moon, Stars—Heaven—Historical course of belief as to such
localization—Nature of Future Life—Continuance-theory, apparently
original, belongs especially to the lower races—Transitional
theories—Retribution-theory, apparently derived, belongs especially
to the higher races—Doctrine of Moral Retribution as developed in
the higher culture—Survey of Doctrine of Future State, from savage
to civilized stages—Its practical effect on the sentiment and
conduct of Mankind.
The departure of the dead man’s soul from the world of living men, its
journey to the distant land of spirits, the life it will lead in its new
home, are topics on which the lower races for the most part hold
explicit doctrines. When these fall under the inspection of a modern
ethnographer, he treats them as myths; often to a high degree
intelligible and rational in their origin, consistent and regular in
their structure, but not the less myths. Few subjects have aroused the
savage poet’s mind to such bold and vivid imagery as the thought of the
hereafter. Yet also a survey of its details among mankind displays in
the midst of variety a regular recurrence of episode which brings the
ever-recurring question, how far is this correspondence due to
transmission of the same thought from tribe to tribe, and how far to
similar but independent development in distant lands?
From the savage state up into the midst of civilization, the comparison
may be carried through. Low races and high, in region after region, can
point out the very spot whence the flitting souls start to travel toward
their new home. At the extreme western cape of Vanua Levu, a calm and
solemn place of cliff and forest, the souls of the Fijian dead embark
for the judgement-seat of Ndengei, and thither the living come in
pilgrimage, thinking to see their ghosts and gods.[120] The Baperi of
South Africa will venture to creep a little way into their cavern of
Marimatlé, whence men and animals came forth into the world, and whither
souls return at death.[121] In Mexico the cavern of Chalchatongo led to
the plains of paradise, and the Aztec name of Mictlan, ‘Land of the
Dead,’ now Mitla, keeps up the remembrance of another subterranean
temple which opened the way to the sojourn of the blessed.[122] How
naturally a dreary place, fit rather for the dead than the living,
suggests the thought of an entrance to the land of the departed, is seen
in the fictitious travels known under the name of Sir John Mandevill,
where the description of the Vale Perilous, adapted from the terrible
valley which Friar Odoric had seen full of corpses and heard resound
with strange noise of drums, has this appropriate ending: ‘This vale es
full of deuilles and all way has bene; and men saise in that cuntree
that thare es ane entree to hell.’[123] In more genuine folklore, North
German peasants still remember on the banks of the swampy Drömling the
place of access to the land of departed souls.[124] To us Englishmen the
shores of lake Avernus, trodden daily by our tourists, are more familiar
than the Irish analogue of the place, Lough Derg, with its cavern
entrance of St. Patrick’s Purgatory leading down to the awful world
below. The mass of mystic details need not be repeated here of the
soul’s dread journey by caverns and rocky paths and weary plains, over
steep and slippery mountains, by frail bark or giddy bridge across gulfs
or rushing rivers, abiding the fierce onset of the soul-destroyer or the
doom of the stern guardian of the other world. But before describing the
spirit-world which is the end of the soul’s journey, let us see what the
proof is which sustains the belief in both. The lower races claim to
hold their doctrines of the future life on strong tradition, direct
revelation, and even personal experience. To them the land of souls is a
discovered country, from whose bourne many a traveller returns.
Among the legendary visits to the world beyond the grave, there are some
that seem pure myth, without a touch of real personal history. Ojibwa,
the eponymic hero of his North American tribe, as one of his many
exploits descended to the subterranean world of departed spirits, and
came up again to earth.[125] When the Kamchadals were asked how they
knew so well what happens to men after death, they could answer with
their legend of Haetsh the first man. He died and went down into the
world below, and a long while after came up again to his former
dwelling, and there, standing above by the smoke-hole, he talked down to
his kindred in the house and told them about the life to come; it was
then that his two daughters whom he had left below followed him in anger
and smote him so that he died a second time, and now he is chief in the
lower world, and receives the Italmen when they die and rise anew.[126]
Thus, again, in the great Finnish epic, the Kalewala, one great episode
is Wainamoinen’s visit to the land of the dead. Seeking the last
charm-words to build his boat, the hero travelled with quick steps week
after week through bush and wood till he came to the Tuonela river, and
saw before him the island of Tuoni the god of death. Loudly he called to
Tuoni’s daughter to bring the ferry-boat across:—
‘She, the virgin of Manala,
She, the washer of the clothing,
She, the wringer of the linen,
By the river of Tuonela,
In the under-world Manala,
Spake in words, and this their meaning,
This their answer to the hearer:—
“Forth the boat shall come from hither,
When the reason thou hast given
That hath brought thee to Manala,
Neither slain by any sickness,
Nor by Death dragged from the living,
Nor destroyed by other ending.”’
Wainamoinen replies with lying reasons. Iron brought him, he says, but
Tuoni’s daughter answers that no blood drips from his garment; Fire
brought him, he says, but she answers that his locks are unsinged, and
at last he tells his real mission. Then she ferries him over, and
Tuonetar the hostess brings him beer in the two-eared jug, but
Wainamoinen can see the frogs and worms within and will not drink, for
it was not to drain Manala’s beer-jug he had come. He lay in the bed of
Tuoni, and meanwhile they spread the hundred nets of iron and copper
across the river that he might not escape; but he turned into a reed in
the swamp, and as a snake crept through the meshes:—
‘Tuoni’s son with hooked fingers
Iron-pointed hooked fingers
Went to draw his nets at morning—
Salmon-trout he found a hundred,
Thousands of the little fishes,
But he found no Wainamoinen,
Not the old friend of the billows.
Then the ancient Wainamoinen,
Come from out of Tuoni’s kingdom,
Spake in words, and this their meaning,
This their answer to the hearer:—
“Never mayst thou, God of goodness,
Never suffer such another
Who of self-will goes to Mana,
Thrusts his way to Tuoni’s kingdom.
Many they who travel thither,
Few who thence have found the home-way,
From the houses of Tuoni
From the dwellings of Manala.”’[127]
It is enough to name the familiar classic analogues of these mythic
visits to Hades,—the descent of Dionysos to bring back Semele, of
Orpheus to bring back his beloved Eurydike, of Herakles to fetch up the
three-headed Kerberos at the command of his master Eurystheus; above
all, the voyage of Odysseus to the ends of the deep-flowing Ocean, to
the clouded city of Kimmerian men, where shining Helios looks not down
with his rays, and deadly night stretches always over wretched
mortals,—thence they passed along the banks to the entrance of the land
where the shades of the departed, quickened for a while by the taste of
sacrificial blood, talked with the hero and showed him the regions of
their dismal home.[128]
The scene of the descent into Hades is in very deed enacted day by day
before our eyes, as it was before the eyes of the ancient myth-maker,
who watched the sun descend to the dark under-world, and return at dawn
to the land of living men. These heroic legends lie in close-knit
connexion with episodes of solar myth. It is by the simplest poetic
adaptation of the Sun’s daily life, typifying Man’s life in dawning
beauty, in mid-day glory, in evening death, that mythic fancy even fixed
the belief in the religions of the world, that the Land of Departed
Souls lies in the Far West or the World Below. How deeply the myth of
the Sunset has entered into the doctrine of men concerning a Future
State, how the West and the Under-World have become by mere imaginative
analogy Regions of the Dead, how the quaint day-dreams of savage poets
may pass into honoured dogmas of classic sages and modern divines,—all
this the crowd of details here cited from the wide range of culture
stand to prove.
Moreover, visits from or to the dead are matters of personal experience
and personal testimony. When in dream or vision the seer beholds the
spirits of the departed, they give him tidings from the other world, or
he may even rise and travel thither himself, and return to tell the
living what he has seen among the dead. It is sometimes as if the
traveller’s material body went to visit a distant land, and sometimes
all we are told is that the man’s self went, but whether in body or in
spirit is a mere detail of which the story keeps no record. Mostly,
however, it is the seer’s soul which goes forth, leaving his body behind
in ecstasy, sleep, coma, or death. Some of these stories, as we trace
them on from savage into civilized times, are no doubt given in good
faith by the visionary himself, while others are imitations of these
genuine accounts.[129] Now such visions are naturally apt to reproduce
the thoughts with which the seer’s mind was already furnished. Every
idea once lodged in the mind of a savage, a barbarian, or an enthusiast,
is ready thus to be brought back to him from without. It is a vicious
circle; what he believes he therefore sees, and what he sees he
therefore believes. Beholding the reflexion of his own mind like a child
looking at itself in a glass, he humbly receives the teaching of his
second self. The Red Indian visits his happy hunting-grounds, the Tongan
his shadowy island of Bolotu, the Greek enters Hades and looks on the
Elysian Fields, the Christian beholds the heights of Heaven and the
depths of Hell.
Among the North American Indians, and especially the Algonquin tribes,
accounts are not unusual of men whose spirits, travelling in dreams or
in the hallucinations of extreme illness to the land of the dead, have
returned to reanimate their bodies, and tell what they have seen. Their
experiences have been in great measure what they were taught in early
childhood to expect, the journey along the path of the dead, the
monstrous strawberry at which the jebi-ug or ghosts refresh themselves,
but which turns to red rock at the touch of their spoons, the bark
offered them for dried meat and great puff-balls for squashes, the river
of the dead with its snake-bridge or swinging log, the great dog
standing on the other side, the villages of the dead beyond.[130] The
Zulus of our own day tell of men who have gone down by holes in the
ground into the underworld, where mountains and rivers and all things
are as here above, and where a man may find his kindred, for the dead
live in their villages, and may be seen milking their cattle, which are
the cattle killed on earth and come to life anew. The Zulu Umpengula,
who told one of these stories to Dr. Callaway, remembered when he was a
boy seeing an ugly little hairy man called Uncama, who once, chasing a
porcupine that ate his mealies, followed it down a hole in the ground
into the land of the dead. When he came back to his home on earth he
found that he had been given up for dead himself, his wife had duly
burnt and buried his mats and blankets and vessels, and the wondering
people at sight of him again shouted the funeral dirge. Of this Zulu
Dante it used to be continually said, ‘There is the man who went to the
underground people.’[131] One of the most characteristic of these savage
narratives is from New Zealand. This story, which has an especial
interest from the reminiscence it contains of the gigantic extinct Moa,
and which may be repeated at some length as an illustration of the
minute detail and lifelike reality which such visionary legends assume
in barbaric life, was told to Mr. Shortland by a servant of his named Te
Wharewera. An aunt of this man died in a solitary hut near the banks of
Lake Rotorua. Being a lady of rank she was left in her hut, the door and
windows were made fast, and the dwelling was abandoned, as her death had
made it tapu. But a day or two after, Te Wharewera with some others
paddling in a canoe near the place at early morning saw a figure on the
shore beckoning to them. It was the aunt come to life again, but weak
and cold and famished. When sufficiently restored by their timely help,
she told her story. Leaving her body, her spirit had taken flight toward
the North Cape, and arrived at the entrance of Reigna. There, holding on
by the stem of the creeping akeake-plant, she descended the precipice,
and found herself on the sandy beach of a river. Looking round, she
espied in the distance an enormous bird, taller than a man, coming
towards her with rapid strides. This terrible object so frightened her,
that her first thought was to try to return up the steep cliff; but
seeing an old man paddling a small canoe towards her she ran to meet
him, and so escaped the bird. When she had been safely ferried across
she asked the old Charon, mentioning the name of her family, where the
spirits of her kindred dwelt. Following the path the old man pointed
out, she was surprised to find it just such a path as she had been used
to on earth; the aspect of the country, the trees, shrubs, and plants
were all familiar to her. She reached the village and among the crowd
assembled there she found her father and many near relations; they
saluted her, and welcomed her with the wailing chant which Maoris always
address to people met after long absence. But when her father had asked
about his living relatives, and especially about her own child, he told
her she must go back to earth, for no one was left to take care of his
grandchild. By his orders she refused to touch the food that the dead
people offered her, and in spite of their efforts to detain her, her
father got her safely into the canoe, crossed with her, and parting gave
her from under his cloak two enormous sweet potatoes to plant at home
for his grandchild’s especial eating. But as she began to climb the
precipice again, two pursuing infant spirits pulled her back, and she
only escaped by flinging the roots at them, which they stopped to eat,
while she scaled the rock by help of the akeake-stem, till she reached
the earth and flew back to where she had left her body. On returning to
life she found herself in darkness, and what had passed seemed as a
dream, till she perceived that she was deserted and the door fast, and
concluded that she had really died and come to life again. When morning
dawned, a faint light entered by the crevices of the shut-up house, and
she saw on the floor near her a calabash partly full of red ochre mixed
with water; this she eagerly drained to the dregs, and then feeling a
little stronger, succeeded in opening the door and crawling down to the
beach, where her friends soon after found her. Those who listened to her
tale firmly believed the reality of her adventures, but it was much
regretted that she had not brought back at least one of the huge
sweet-potatoes, as evidence of her visit to the land of spirits.[132]
Races of North Asia[133] and West Africa[134] have in like manner their
explorers of the world beyond the grave.
Classic literature continues the series. Lucian’s graphic tales
represent the belief of their age, if not of their author. His Eukrates
looks down the chasm into Hades, and sees the dead reclining on the
asphodel in companies of kinsfolk and friends; among them he recognizes
Sokrates with his bald head and pot-belly, and also his own father,
dressed in the clothes he was buried in. Then Kleodemos caps this story
with his own, how when he was sick, on the seventh day when his fever
was burning like a furnace, every one left him, and the doors were shut.
Then there stood before him an all-beauteous youth in a white garment,
who led him through a chasm into Hades, as he knew by seeing Tantalos
and Tityos and Sisyphos; and bringing him to the court of judgement,
where were Aiakos and the Fates and the Erinyes, the youth set him
before Pluto the King, who sat reading the names of those whose day of
life was over. But Pluto was angry, and said to the guide, ‘This one’s
thread is not run out, that he should depart, but bring me Demylos the
coppersmith, for he is living beyond the spindle.’ So Kleodemos came
back to himself free from his fever and announced that Demylos, who was
a sick neighbour, would die; and accordingly a little while after there
was heard the cry of the mourners wailing for him.[135] Plutarch’s
stories, told more seriously, are yet one in type with the mocking
Lucian’s. The wicked, pleasure-seeking Thespesios lies three days as
dead, and revives to tell his vision of the world below. One Antyllos
was sick, and seemed to the doctors to retain no trace of life; till,
waking without sign of insanity, he declared that he had been indeed
dead, but was ordered back to life, those who brought him being severely
chidden by their lord, and sent to fetch Nikander instead, a well-known
currier, who was accordingly taken with a fever, and died on the third
day.[136] Such stories, old and new, are current among the Hindus at
this day. A certain man’s soul, for instance, is carried to the realm of
Yama by mistake for a namesake, and is sent back in haste to regain his
body before it is burnt; but in the meanwhile he has a glimpse of the
hideous punishments of the wicked, and of the glorious life of those who
had mortified the flesh on earth, and of suttee-widows now sitting in
happiness by their husbands.[137] Mutatis mutandis these tales reappear
in Christian mythology, as when Gregory the Great records that a certain
nobleman named Stephen died, who was taken to the region of Hades, and
saw many things he had heard before but not believed; but when he was
set before the ruler there presiding, he sent him back, saying that it
was this Stephen’s neighbour—Stephen the smith—whom he had commanded to
be brought; and accordingly the one returned to life, and the other
died.[138]
The thought of human visitors revealing the mysteries of the world
beyond the grave, which indeed took no slight hold on Christian belief,
attached itself in a remarkable way to the doctrine of Christ’s descent
into Hades. This dogma had so strongly established itself by the end of
the 4th century, that Augustine could ask, ‘Quis nisi infidelis
negaverit fuisse apud inferos Christum?’[139] A distinct statement of
the dogma was afterwards introduced into the symbol commonly called the
‘Apostles’ Creed:’ ‘Descendit ad inferos,’ ‘Descendit ad inferna,’ ‘He
descended into hell.’[140] The Descent into Hades, which had the
theological use of providing a theory of salvation applicable to the
saints of the old covenant, imprisoned in the limbo of the fathers, is
narrated in full in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and is made
there to rest upon a legend which belongs to the present group of human
visits to the other world. It is related that two sons of Simeon, named
Charinus and Leucius, rose from their tombs at the Resurrection, and
went about silently and prayerfully among men, till Annas and Caiaphas
brought them into the synagogue, and charged them to tell of their
raising from the dead. Then, making the sign of the cross upon their
tongues, the two asked for parchment and wrote their record. They had
been set with all their fathers in the depths of Hades, when on a sudden
there appeared the colour of the sun like gold, and a purple royal light
shining on them; then the patriarchs and prophets, from Adam to Simeon
and John the Baptist, rejoicing proclaimed the coming of the light and
the fulfilment of the prophecies; Satan and Hades wrangled in strife
together; in vain the brazen gates were shut with their iron bars, for
the summons came to open the gates that the king of glory may come in,
who hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder;
then the mighty Lord broke the fetters and visited them who sat in
darkness and the shadow of death; Adam and his righteous children were
delivered from Hades, and led into the glorious grace of Paradise.[141]
Dante, elaborating in the ‘Divina Commedia’ the conceptions of paradise,
purgatory, and hell familiar to the actual belief of his age, describes
them once more in the guise of a living visitor to the land of the dead.
Echoes in mediæval legend of such exploring expeditions to the world
below still linger faintly in the popular belief of Europe. It has been
thus with St. Patrick’s Purgatory,[142] the cavern in the island of
Lough Derg, in the county Donegal, which even in the seventeenth century
O’Sullevan could describe first and foremost in his ‘Catholic History’
as ‘the greatest of all memorable things of Ireland.’ Mediæval visits to
the other world were often made in the spirit. But like Ulysses,
Wainamoinen, and Dante, men could here make the journey in body, as did
Sir Owain and the monk Gilbert. When the pilgrim had spent fifteen days
in prayer and fasting in the church, and had been led with litanies and
sprinkling of holy water to the entrance of the purgatory, and the last
warnings of the monks had failed to turn him from his venture, the door
was closed upon him, and if found next morning, he could tell the events
of his awful journey—how he crossed the narrow bridge that spans the
river of death, how he saw the hideous torments of hell, and approached
the joys of paradise. Sir Owain, one of King Stephen’s knights, went
thither in penance for his life of violence and rapine, and this was one
of the scenes he beheld in purgatory:—
‘There come develes other mony mo,
And badde the knygth with hem to go,
And ladde him into a fowle contreye,
Where ever was nygth and never day,
For hit was derke and wonther colde:
Yette was there never man so bolde,
Hadde he never so mony clothes on,
But he wolde be colde as ony stone.
Wynde herde he none blowe,
But faste hit frese bothe hye and lowe.
They browgte him to a felde full brode,
Overe suche another never he yode,
For of the lengthe none ende he knewe
Thereover algate he moste nowe.
As he wente he herde a crye,
He wondered what hit was, and why,
He syg ther men and wymmen also
That lowde cryed, for hem was woo.
They leyen thykke on every londe,
Faste nayled bothe fote and honde
With nayles glowyng alle of brasse:
They ete the erthe so wo hem was;
Here face was nayled to the grownde.
“Spare,” they cryde, “a lytylle stounde.”
The develes wolde hem not spare:
To hem peyne they thowgte yare.’
When Owain had seen the other fields of punishment, with their fiery
serpents and toads, and the fires where sinners were hung up by their
offending members, and roasted on spits, and basted with molten metal,
and turned about on a great wheel of fire, and when he had passed the
Devil’s Mouth over the awful bridge, he reached the fair white glassy
wall of the Earthly Paradise, reaching upward and upward, and saw before
him the beautiful gate, whence issued a ravishing perfume. Then he soon
forgot his pains and sorrows.
‘As he stode, and was so fayne,
Hym thowgth ther come hym agayne
A swyde fayr processyoun
Of alle manere menne of relygyoun,
Fayre vestementes they hadde on,
So ryche syg he never none.
Myche joye hym thowgte to se
Bysshopes yn here dygnité;
Ilkone wente other be and be,
Every man yn his degré.
He syg ther monkes and chanones,
And freres with newe shavene crownes;
Ermytes he saw there amonge,
And nonnes with fulle mery songe;
Persones, prestes, and vycaryes;
They made fulle mery melodyes.
He syg ther kynges and emperoures,
And dukes that had casteles and toures,
Erles and barones fele,
That some tyme hadde the worldes wele.
Other folke he syg also,
Never so mony as he dede thoo.
Wymmen he syg ther that tyde:
Myche was the joye ther on every syde:
For alle was joye that with hem ferde,
And myche solempnyté he herde.’
The procession welcomed Owain, and led him about, showing him the
beauties of that country:—
‘Hyt was grene, and fulle of flowres
Of mony dyvers colowres;
Hyt was grene on every syde,
As medewus are yn someres tyde.
Ther were trees growyng fulle grene
Fulle of fruyte ever more, y wene;
For ther was frwyte of mony a kynde,
Such yn the londe may no mon fynde.
Ther they have the tree of lyfe,
Theryn ys myrthe, and never stryfe;
Frwyte of wysdom also ther ys,
Of the whyche Adam and Eve dede amysse:
Other manere frwytes ther were fele,
And alle manere joye and wele.
Moche folke he syg ther dwelle,
There was no tongue that mygth hem telle;
Alle were they cloded yn ryche wede,
What cloth hit was he kowthe not rede.
There was no wronge, but ever rygth,
Ever day and nevere nygth.
They shone as brygth and more clere
Than ony sonne yn the day doth here.’
The poem, in fifteenth-century English, from which these passages are
taken, is a version of the original legend of earlier date, and as such
contrasts with a story really dating from early in the fifteenth
century—William Staunton’s descent into Purgatory, where the themes of
the old sincerely-believed visionary lore are fading into moral
allegory, and the traveller sees the gay gold and silver collars and
girdles burning into the wearer’s flesh, and the jags that men were
clothed in now become adders and dragons, sucking and stinging them, and
the fiends drawing down the skin of women’s shoulders into pokes, and
smiting into their heads with burning hammers their gay chaplets of gold
and jewels turned to burning nails, and so forth. Late in this fifteenth
century, St. Patrick’s Purgatory fell into discredit, but even the
destruction of the entrance-building, in 1479, by Papal order, did not
destroy the ideal road. About 1693, an excavation on the spot brought to
light a window with iron stanchions; there was a cry for holy water to
keep the spirits from breaking out from prison, and the priest smelt
brimstone from the dark cavity below, which, however, unfortunately
turned out to be a cellar. In still later times, the yearly pilgrimage
of tens of thousands of votaries to the holy place has kept up this
interesting survival from the lower culture, whereby a communication may
still be traced, if not from Earth to Hades, at least from the belief of
the New Zealander to that of the Irish peasant.
To study and compare the ideal regions where man has placed the abodes
of departed souls is not an unprofitable task. True, geography has now
mapped out into mere earth and water the space that lay beyond the
narrower sea and land known to the older nations, and astronomy no
longer recognizes the flat earth trodden by men as being the roof of
subterranean halls, nor the sky as being a solid firmament, shutting out
men’s gaze from strata or spheres of empyræan regions beyond. Yet if we
carry our minds back to the state of knowledge among the lower races, we
shall not find it hard to understand the early conceptions as to the
locality of the regions beyond the grave. They are no secrets of high
knowledge made known to sages of old; they are the natural fancies which
childlike ignorance would frame in any age. The regularity with which
such conceptions repeat themselves over the world bears testimony to the
regularity of the processes by which opinion is formed among mankind. At
the same time, the student who carefully compares them will find in them
a perfect illustration of an important principle, widely applicable to
the general theory of the formation of human opinion. When a problem has
presented itself to mankind at large, susceptible of a number of
solutions about equally plausible, the result is that the several
opinions thus produced will be found lying scattered in country after
country. The problem here is, given the existence of souls of the dead
who from time to time visit the living, where is the home of these
ghosts? Why men in one district should have preferred the earth, in
another the under-world, in another the sky, as the abode of departed
souls, is a question often difficult to answer. But we may at least see
how again and again the question was taken in hand, and how out of the
three or four available answers some peoples adopted one, some another,
some several at once. Primitive theologians had all the world before
them where to choose their place of rest for the departed, and they used
to the full their speculative liberty.
Firstly, when the land of souls is located on the surface of the earth,
there is choice of fit places among wild and cloudy precipices, in
secluded valleys, in far-off plains and islands. In Borneo, Mr. St. John
visited the heaven of the Idaan race, on the summit of Kina Balu, and
the native guides, who feared to pass the night in this abode of
spirits, showed the traveller the moss on which the souls of their
ancestors fed, and the footprints of the ghostly buffaloes that followed
them. On Gunung Danka, a mountain in West Java, there is such another
‘Earthly Paradise.’ The Sajira who dwell in the district indeed profess
themselves Mohammedans, but they secretly maintain their old belief, and
at death or funeral they enjoin the soul in solemn form to set aside the
Moslem Allah, and to take the way to the dwelling-place of his own
forefathers’ souls:—
‘Step up the bed of the river, and cross the neck of land,
Where the aren trees stand in a clump, and the pinangs in a row,
Thither direct thy steps, Laillah being set aside.’
Mr. Jonathan Rigg had lived ten years among these people, and knew them
well, yet had never found out that their paradise was on this mountain.
When at last he heard of it, he made the ascent, finding on the top only
a few river-stones, forming one of the balai, or sacred cairns, common
in the district. But the popular belief, that a tiger would devour the
chiefs who permitted a violation of the sacred place, soon received the
sort of confirmation which such beliefs receive everywhere, for a tiger
killed two children a few days later, and the disaster was of course
ascribed to Mr. Rigg’s profanation.[143] The Chilians said that the soul
goes westward over the sea to Gulcheman, the dwelling-place of the dead
beyond the mountains; life, some said, was all pleasure there, but
others thought that part would be happy and part miserable.[144] Hidden
among the mountains of Mexico lay the joyous garden-land of Tlalocan,
where maize, and pumpkins, and chilis, and tomatos never failed, and
where abode the souls of children sacrificed to Tlaloc, its god, and the
souls of such as died by drowning or thunderstroke, or by leprosy or
dropsy, or other acute disease.[145] A survival of such thought may be
traced into mediæval civilization, in the legends of the Earthly
Paradise, the fire-girt abode of saints not yet raised to highest bliss,
localized in the utmost East of Asia, where earth stretches up towards
heaven.[146] When Columbus sailed west-ward across the Atlantic to seek
‘the new heaven and the new earth’ he had read of in Isaiah, he found
them, though not as he sought. It is a quaint coincidence that he found
there also, though not as he sought it, the Earthly Paradise which was
another main object of his venturous quest. The Haitians described to
the white men their Coaibai, the paradise of the dead, in the lovely
Western valleys of their island, where the souls hidden by day among the
cliffs came down at night to feed on the delicious fruit of the
mamey-trees, of which the living ate but sparingly, lest the souls of
their friends should want.[147]
Secondly, there are Australians who think that the spirit of the dead
hovers awhile on earth and goes at last toward the setting sun, or
westward over the sea to the island of souls, the home of his fathers.
Thus these rudest savages have developed two thoughts which we meet with
again and again far onward in the course of culture—the thought of an
island of the dead, and the thought that the world of departed souls is
in the West, whither the Sun descends at evening to his daily
death.[148] Among the North American Indians, when once upon a time an
Algonquin hunter left his body behind and visited the land of souls in
the sunny south, he saw before him beautiful trees and plants, but found
he could walk right through them. Then he paddled in the canoe of white
shining stone across the lake where wicked souls perish in the storm,
till he reached the beautiful and happy island where there is no cold,
no war, no bloodshed, but the creatures run happily about, nourished by
the air they breathe.[149] Tongan legend says that, long ago, a canoe
returning from Fiji was driven by stress of weather to Bolotu, the
island of gods and souls lying in the ocean north-west of Tonga. That
island is larger than all theirs together, full of all finest fruits and
loveliest flowers, that fill the air with fragrance, and come anew the
moment they are plucked; birds of beauteous plumage are there, and hogs
in plenty, all immortal save when killed for the gods to eat, and then
new living ones appear immediately to fill their places. But when the
hungry crew of the canoe landed, they tried in vain to pluck the shadowy
bread-fruit, they walked through unresisting trees and houses, even as
the souls of chiefs who met them walked unchecked through their solid
bodies. Counselled to hasten home from this land of no earthly food, the
men sailed to Tonga, but the deadly air of Bolotu had infected them, and
they soon all died.[150]
Such ideas took strong hold on classic thought, in the belief in a
paradise in the Fortunate Islands of the far Western Ocean. Hesiod in
the ‘Works and Days’ tells of the half-gods of the Fourth Age, between
the Age of Bronze and the Age of Iron. When death closed on this heroic
race, Zeus granted them at the ends of Earth a life and home, apart from
man and far from the immortals. There Kronos reigns over them, and they
dwell careless in the Islands of the Happy, beside deep-eddying
Ocean—blest heroes, for whom the grain-giving field bears, thrice
blooming yearly, the honey-sweet fruit:—
‘Ἔνθ’ ἤτοι τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε·
Τοîς δὲ δίχ’ ἀνθρώπον βίοτον καὶ ἤθἐ ὀπάσσας
Ζεὺς Κρονίδες κατένασσε πατήρ ἐς πείρατα γαίες,
Τηλοὐ ἀπ’ ἀθανάτον· τοῖσιν Κρόνος ἐμβασιλεύει·
Καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες
Ἐν μακάρον νήσοισι παρ’ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνεν,
Ὄλβιοι ἤροες, τοῖσιν μελιεδέα καρπὸν
Τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.’[151]
These Islands of the Blest, assigned as the abode of blessed spirits of
the dead, came indeed to be identified with the Elysian Fields. Thus
Pindar sings of steadfast souls, who through three lives on either side
have endured free from injustice; then they pass by the road of Zeus to
the tower of Kronos, where the ocean breezes blow round the islands of
the happy, blazing with golden flowers of land and water. Thus, also, in
the famous hymn of Kallistratos in honour of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,
who slew the tyrant Hipparchos:—
‘Φίλταθ’ Ἁρμόδἰ, οὔ τι πω τέθνηκας
Νήσοις δ’ ἐν μακάρων σε φασὶν εîναι,
Ἵνα περ ποδώκες Ἀχιλλεύς,
Τυδείδεν τε φασὶ τὸν ἐσθλὸν Διομήδεα.’[152]
This group of legends has especial interest to us Englishmen, who
ourselves dwell, it seems, on such an island of the dead. It is not that
we or our country are of a more ghostly nature than others, but the idea
is geographical we are dwellers in the region of the setting sun, the
land of death. The elaborate account by Procopius, the historian of the
Gothic War, dates from the 6th century. The island of Brittia, according
to him, lies opposite the mouths of the Rhine, some 200 stadia off,
between Britannia and Thule, and on it dwell three populous nations, the
Angles, Frisians, and Britons. (By Brittia, it appears, he means our
Great Britain, his Britannia being the coast-land from modern Brittany
to Holland, and his Thule being Scandinavia.) In the course of his
history it seems to him needful to record a story, mythic and dreamlike
as he thinks, yet which numberless men vouch for as having been
themselves witnesses by eye and ear to its facts. This story is that the
souls of the departed are conveyed across the sea to the island of
Brittia. Along the mainland coast are many villages, inhabited by
fishermen and tillers of the soil and traders to this island in their
vessels. They are subject to the Franks, but pay no tribute, having from
of old had to do by turns the burdensome service of transporting the
souls. Those on duty for each night stay at home till they hear a
knocking at the doors, and a voice of one unseen calling them to their
work. Then without delay rising from their beds, compelled by some
unknown power they go down to the beach, and there they see boats, not
their own but others, lying ready but empty of men. Going on board and
taking the oars, they find that by the burden of the multitude of souls
embarked, the vessel lies low in the water, gunwale under within a
finger’s breadth. In an hour they are at the opposite shore, though in
their own boats they would hardly make the voyage in a night and day.
When they reach the island, the vessel becomes empty, till it is so
light that only the keel touches the waves. They see no man on the
voyage, no man at the landing, but a voice is heard that proclaims the
name and rank and parentage of each newly arrived passenger, or if
women, those of their husbands. Traces of this remarkable legend seem to
have survived, thirteen centuries later, in that endmost district of the
Britannia of Procopius which still keeps the name of Bretagne. Near Raz,
where the narrow promontory stretches westward into the ocean, is the
‘Bay of Souls’ (boé ann anavo); in the commune of Plouguel the corpse is
taken to the churchyard, not by the shorter road by land, but in a boat
by the ‘Passage de l’Enfer,’ across a little arm of the sea; and Breton
folk-lore holds fast to the legend of the Curé de Braspar, whose dog
leads over to Great Britain the souls of the departed, when the wheels
of the soul-car are heard creaking in the air. These are but mutilated
fragments, but they seem to piece together with another Keltic myth,
told by Macpherson in the last century, the voyage of the boat of heroes
to Flath-Innis, Noble Island, the green island home of the departed,
which lies calm amid the storms far in the Western Ocean. With full
reason, also, Mr. Wright traces to the situation of Ireland in the
extreme West its especial association with legends of descents to the
land of shades. Claudian placed at the extremity of Gaul the entrance
where Ulysses found a way to Hades—
‘Est locus extremum qua pandit Gallia litus,
Oceani prætentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulysses,’ &c.
No wonder that this spot should have been since identified with St.
Patrick’s Purgatory, and that some ingenious etymologist should have
found in the name of ‘Ulster’ a corruption of ‘Ulyssisterra,’ and a
commemoration of the hero’s visit.[153]
Thirdly, the belief in a subterranean Hades peopled by the ghosts of the
dead is quite common among the lower races. The earth is flat, say the
Italmen of Kamchatka, for if it were round, people would fall off; it is
the wrong side of another heaven, which covers another earth below,
whither the dead will go down to their new life, and so, as Steller
says, their mundane system is like a tub with three bottoms.[154] In
North America, the Tacullis held that the soul goes after death into the
bowels of the earth, whence it can come back in human shape to visit
friends.[155] In South America, Brazilian souls travel down to the world
below in the West, and Patagonian souls will depart to enjoy eternal
drunkenness in the caves of their ancestral deities.[156] The New
Zealander who says ‘The sun has returned to Hades’ (kua hoki mai te Ra
ki te Rua), simply means that it has set. When a Samoan Islander dies,
the host of spirits that surround the house, waiting to convey his soul
away, set out with him crossing the land and swimming the sea, to the
entrance of the spirit-world. This is at the westernmost point of the
westernmost island, Savaii, and there one may see the two circular holes
or basins where souls descend, chiefs by the bigger and plebeians by the
smaller, into the regions of the under-world. There below is a heaven,
earth, and sea, and people with real bodies, planting, fishing, cooking,
as in the present life; but at night their bodies become like a confused
collection of fiery sparks, and in this state during the hours of
darkness they come up to revisit their former abodes, retiring at dawn
to the bush or to the lower regions.[157] For the state of thought on
this subject among rude African tribes, it is enough to cite the Zulus,
who at death will descend to live in Hades among their ancestors, the
‘Abapansi,’ the ‘people underground.’[158] Among rude Asiatic tribes,
such an example may be taken from the Karens. They are not quite agreed
where Plu, the land of the dead, is situate; it may be above the earth
or beyond the horizon. But the dominant and seemingly indigenous opinion
is that it is below the earth. When the sun sets on earth, it rises in
the Karen Hades, and when it sets in Hades it rises in this world. Here,
again, the familiar belief of the European peasant is found; the spirits
of the dead may come up from the land of shades by night, but at
daybreak must return.[159]
Such ideas, developed by uncultured races, may be followed up in various
detail, through the stage of religion represented by the Mexican and
Peruvian nations,[160] into higher ranges of culture. The Roman Orcus
was in the bowels of the earth, and when the ‘lapis manalis,’ the stone
that closed the mouth of the world below, was moved away on certain
solemn days, the ghosts of the dead came up to the world above, and
partook of the offerings of their friends.[161] Among the Greeks, the
Land of Hades was in the world below, nor was the thought unknown that
it was the sunset realm of the Western god (πρὸς ἑσπέρου θεοῦ). What
Hades seemed like to the popular mind, Lucian thus describes:—‘The great
crowd, indeed, whom the wise call “idiots,” believing Homer and Hesiod,
and the other myth-makers about these things, and setting up their
poetry as a law, have supposed a certain deep place under the earth,
Hades, and that it is vast, and roomy, and gloomy, and sunless, and how
thought to be lighted up so as to behold every one within, I know
not.’[162] In the ancient Egyptian doctrine of the future life, modelled
on solar myth, the region of the departed combines the under-world and
the west, Amenti; the dead passes the gate of the setting sun to
traverse the roads of darkness, and behold his father Osiris; and with
this solar thought the Egyptian priests, representing in symbolic
ceremony the scenes of the other world, carried the corpse in the sacred
boat across to the burial-place, on the western side of the sacred
lake.[163] So, too, the cavernous Sheol of the Israelites, the shadowy
region of departed souls, lay deep below the earth. Through the great
Aryan religious systems, Brahmanism, Zarathustrism, Buddhism, and onward
into the range of Islam and of Christianity, subterranean hells of
purgatory or punishment make the doleful contrast to heavens of light
and glory.
It is, however, a point worthy of special notice that the conception of
hell as a fiery abyss, so familiar to the religions of the higher
civilization, is all but unknown to savage thought, so much so that if
met with, its genuineness is doubtful. Captain John Smith’s ‘History of
Virginia,’ published in 1624, contains two different accounts of the
Indians’ doctrine of a future life. Smith’s own description is of a land
beyond the mountains, toward sunset, where chiefs and medicine-men in
paint and feathers shall smoke, and sing, and dance with their
forefathers, while the common people have no life after death, but rot
in their graves. Heriot’s description is of tabernacles of the gods to
which the good are taken up to perpetual happiness, while the wicked are
carried to ‘Popogusso,’ a great pit which they think to be at the
furthest parts of the world where the sun sets, and there burn
continually.[164] Now knowing so much as we do of the religion of the
Algonquins, to whom these Virginians belonged, we may judge that while
the first account is genuinely native, though perhaps not quite
correctly understood, the second was borrowed by the Indians from the
white men themselves. Yet even here the touch of solar myth is manifest,
and the description of the fiery abyss in the region of sunset may be
compared with one from our own country, in the Anglo-Saxon dialogue of
Saturn and Solomon. ‘Saga me forhwan byth seo sunne read on æfen? Ic the
secge, forthon heo locath on helle.—Tell me, why is the sun red at even?
I tell thee, because she looketh on hell.’[165] To the same belief
belongs another striking mythic feature. The idea of volcanos being
mouths of the under-world seems not unexampled among the lower races,
for we hear of certain New Zealanders casting their dead down into a
crater.[166] But in connexion with the thought of a gehenna of fire and
brimstone, Vesuvius, Etna, and Hecla had spiritual as well as material
terrors to the mind of Christendom, for they were believed to be places
of purgatory or the very mouths of the pit where the souls of the damned
were cast down.[167] The Indians of Nicaragua used in old times to offer
human sacrifices to their volcano Masaya, flinging the corpses into the
crater, and in later years, after the conversion of the country, we hear
of Christian confessors sending their penitents to climb the mountain,
and (as a glimpse of hell) to look down upon the molten lava.[168]
Fourthly, in old times and new, it has come into men’s minds to fix upon
the sun and moon as abodes of departed souls. When we have learnt from
the rude Natchez of the Mississippi and the Apalaches of Florida that
the sun is the bright dwelling of departed chiefs and braves, and have
traced like thoughts on into the theologies of Mexico and Peru, then we
may compare these savage doctrines with Isaac Taylor’s ingenious
supposition in his ‘Physical Theory of Another Life,’—the sun of each
planetary system is the house of the higher and ultimate spiritual
corporeity, and the centre of assembly to those who have passed on the
planets their preliminary era of corruptible organization. Or perhaps
some may prefer the Rev. Tobias Swinden’s book, published in the last
century, and translated into French and German, which proved the sun to
be hell, and its dark spots gatherings of damned souls.[169] And when in
South America the Saliva Indians have pointed out the moon, their
paradise where no mosquitos are, and the Guaycurus have shown it as the
home of chiefs and medicine-men deceased, and the Polynesians of Tokelau
in like manner have claimed it as the abode of departed kings and
chiefs, then these pleasant fancies may be compared with Plutarch’s
description of the virtuous souls who after purification in the middle
space gain their footing on the moon, and there are crowned as
victors.[170] The converse notion of the moon as the seat of hell, has
been elaborated in profoundest bathos by Mr. M. F. Tupper:
‘I know thee well, O Moon, thou cavern’d realm,
Sad Satellite, thou giant ash of death,
Blot on God’s firmament, pale home of crime,
Scarr’d prison-house of sin, where damned souls
Feed upon punishment. Oh, thought sublime,
That amid night’s black deeds, when evil prowls
Through the broad world, thou, watching sinners well,
Glarest o’er all, the wakeful eye of—Hell!’
Skin for skin, the brown savage is not ill matched in such speculative
lore with the white philosopher.
Fifthly, as Paradise on the face of the earth, and Hades beneath it
where the sun goes down, are regions whose existence is asserted or not
denied by savage and barbaric science, so it is with Heaven. Among the
examples which display for us the real course of knowledge among
mankind, and the real relation which primitive bears to later culture,
the belief in the existence of a firmament is one of the most
instructive. It arises naturally in the minds of children still, and in
accordance with the simplest childlike thought, the cosmologies of the
North American Indians[171] and the South Sea Islanders[172] describe
their flat earth arched over by the solid vault of heaven. Like thoughts
are to be traced on through such details as the Zulu idea that the blue
heaven is a rock encircling the earth, inside which are the sun, moon,
and stars, and outside which dwell the people of heaven; the modern
negro’s belief that there is a firmament stretched above like a cloth or
web; the Finnish poem which tells how Ilmarinen forged the firmament of
finest steel, and set in it the moon and stars.[173] The New Zealander,
with his notion of a solid firmament, through which the waters can be
let down on earth through a crack or hole from the reservoir of rain
above, could well explain the passage in Herodotus concerning that place
in North Africa where, as the Libyans said, the sky is pierced, as well
as the ancient Jewish conception of a firmament of heaven, ‘strong as a
molten mirror,’ with its windows through which the rain pours down in
deluge from the reservoirs above, windows which late Rabbinical
literature tells us were made by taking out two stars.[174] In nations
where the theory of the firmament prevails, accounts of bodily journeys
or spiritual ascents to heaven are in general meant not as figure, but
as fact. Among the lower races, the tendency to localize the region of
departed souls above the sky seems less strong than that which leads
them to place their world of the dead on or below the earth’s surface.
Yet some well-marked descriptions of a savage Heaven are on record, the
following, and others to be cited presently. Even some Australians seem
to think of going up to the clouds at death, to eat and drink, and hunt
and fish as here.[175] In North America, the Winnebagos placed their
paradise in the sky, where souls travel along that ‘Path of the Dead’
which we call the Milky Way; and working out the ever-recurring solar
idea, the modern Iroquois speak of the soul going upward and westward,
till it comes out on the beauteous plains of heaven, with people and
trees and things as on earth.[176] In South America the Guarayos,
representatives in some sort of the past condition of the Guarani race,
worship Tamoi the Grandfather, the Ancient of Heaven; he was their first
ancestor, who lived among them in old days and taught them to till the
ground; then rising to heaven in the East he disappeared, having
promised to be the helper of his people on earth, and to transport them,
when they died, from the top of a sacred tree into another life, where
they shall find their kindred and have hunting in plenty, and possess
all that they possessed on earth; therefore it is that the Guarayos
adorn their dead, and burn their weapons for them, and bury them with
their faces to the East, whither they are to go.[177] Among American
peoples whose culture rose to a higher level than that of these savage
tribes, we hear of the Peruvian Heaven, the glorious ‘Upper World,’ and
of the temporary abode of Aztec warriors on heavenly wooded plains,
where the sun shines when it is night on earth, wherefore it was a
Mexican saying that the sun goes at evening to lighten the dead.[178]
What thoughts of heaven were in the minds of the old Aryan poets, this
hymn from the Rig-Veda may show:—
‘Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed,
in that immortal imperishable world place me, O Soma!
Where king Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of heaven is,
where these mighty waters are, there make me immortal!
Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where the worlds
are radiant, there make me immortal!
Where wishes and desires are, where the place of the bright sun is,
where there is freedom and delight, there make me immortal!
Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside,
where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me
immortal!’[179]
In such bright vague thoughts from the poet’s religion of nature, or in
cosmic schemes of ancient astronomy, with their artificial glories of
barbaric architecture exaggerated in the skies, or in the raptures of
mystic vision, or in the calmer teaching of the theologic doctrine of a
future life, descriptions of realms of blessed souls in heaven are to be
followed through the religions of the Brahman, the Buddhist, the Parsi,
the later Jew, the Moslem, and the Christian.
For the object, not of writing a handbook of religions, but of tracing
the relation which the religion of savages bears to the religion of
cultured nations, these details are enough to show the general line of
human thought regarding the local habitations of departed souls. It
seems plain from the most cursory inspection of these various
localizations, however much we may consider them as inherited or
transmitted from people to people in the complex movements of
theological history, that they are at any rate not derived from any
single religion accepted among ancient or primæval men. They bear
evident traces of independent working out in the varied definition of
the region of souls, as on earth among men, on earth in some distant
country, below the earth, above or beyond the sky. Similar ideas of this
kind are found in different lands, but this similarity seems in large
measure due to independent recurrence of thoughts so obvious. Not less
is independent fancy compatible with the ever-recurring solar myth in
such ideas, placing the land of Death in the land of Evening or of
Night, and its entrance at the gates of Sunset. Barbaric poets of many a
distant land must have gazed into the West to read the tale of Life and
Death, and tell it of Man. If, however, we look more closely into the
stages of intellectual history to which these theories of the Future
World belong, it will appear that the assignment of the realm of
departed souls to the three great regions, Earth, Hades, Heaven, has not
been uniform. Firstly, the doctrine of a land of souls on Earth belongs
widely and deeply to savage culture, but dwindles in the barbaric stage,
and survives but feebly into the mediæval. Secondly, the doctrine of a
subterranean Hades holds as large a place as this in savage belief, and
has held it firmly along the course of higher religions, where, however,
this under-world is looked on less and less as the proper abode of the
dead, but rather as the dismal place of purgatory and hell. Lastly, the
doctrine of a Heaven, floored upon a firmament, or placed in the upper
air, seems in early savage belief less common than the other two, but
yields to neither of them in its vigorous retention by the thought of
modern nations. These local theories appear to be taken, firstly and
mostly, in the most absolute literal sense, and although, under the
influence of physical science, much that was once distinctly-meant
philosophy has now passed among theologians into imagery and metaphor,
yet at low levels of knowledge the new canons of interpretation find
little acceptance, and even in modern Europe the rude cosmology of the
lower races in no small measure retains its place.
Turning now to consider the state of the departed in these their new
homes, we have to examine the definitions of the Future Life which
prevail through the religions of mankind. In these doctrines there is
much similarity caused by the spreading of established beliefs into new
countries, and also much similarity that is beyond what such
transmission can account for. So there is much variety due to local
colour and circumstance, and also much variety beyond the reach of such
explanation. The main causes of both similarity and variety seem to lie
far deeper, in the very origin and inmost meaning of the doctrines. The
details of the future life, among the lower races and upwards, are no
heterogeneous mass of arbitrary fancies. Classified, they range
themselves naturally round central ideas, in groups whose correspondence
seems to indicate the special course of their development. Amongst the
pictures into which this world has shaped its expectations of the next,
two great conceptions are especially to be discerned. The one is that
the future life is, as it were, a reflexion of this; in a new world,
perhaps of dreamy beauty, perhaps of ghostly gloom, men are to retain
their earthly forms and their earthly conditions, to have around them
their earthly friends, to possess their earthly property, to carry on
their earthly occupations. The other is that the future life is a
compensation for this, where men’s conditions are re-allotted as the
consequence, and especially as the reward or punishment, of their
earthly life. The first of these two ideas we may call (with Captain
Burton) the ‘continuance-theory,’ contrasting with it the second as the
‘retribution-theory.’ Separately or combined, these two doctrines are
the keys of the subject, and by grouping typical examples under their
two headings, it will be possible to survey systematically man’s most
characteristic schemes of his life beyond the grave.
To the doctrine of Continuance belongs especially the savage view of the
spirit-land, that it is as the dream-land where the souls of the living
so often go to visit the souls of the dead. There the soul of the dead
Karen, with the souls of his axe and cleaver, builds his house and cuts
his rice; the shade of the Algonquin hunter hunts souls of beaver and
elk, walking on the souls of his snow-shoes over the soul of the snow;
the fur-wrapped Kamchadal drives his dog-sledge; the Zulu milks his cows
and drives his cattle to kraal; South American tribes live on, whole or
mutilated, healthy or sick, as they left this world, leading their old
lives, and having their wives with them again, though indeed, as the
Araucanians said, they have no more children, for they are but
souls.[180] Soul-land is dream-land in its shadowy unreal pictures, for
which, nevertheless, material reality so plainly furnished the models,
and it is dream-land also in its vivid idealization of the soberer
thoughts and feelings of waking life.
‘There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.’
Well might the Mohawk Indian describe the good land of paradise, as he
had seen it in a dream. The shade of the Ojibwa follows a wide and
beaten path that leads toward the West, he crosses a deep and rapid
water, and reaching a country full of game and all things the Indian
covets, he joins his kindred in their long lodge.[181] So, on the
southern continent, the Bolivian Yuracarés will go, all of them, to a
future life where there will be plenty of hunting, and Brazilian
forest-tribes will find a pleasant forest full of calabash-trees and
game, where the souls of the dead will live happily in company.[182] The
Greenlanders hoped that their souls—pale, soft, disembodied forms which
the living could not grasp—would lead a life better than that of earth,
and never ceasing. It might be in heaven, reached by the rainbow, where
the souls pitch their tents round the great lake rich in fish and fowl,
the lake whose waters above the firmament overflowing make rain on
earth, and if its banks broke, there would be another deluge. But
gaining the most and best of their living from the depths of the sea,
they were also apt to think the land of Torngarsuk to be below the sea
or earth, and to be entered by the deep holes in the rocks. Perpetual
summer is there, ever beauteous sunshine, and no night, good water and
superfluity of birds and fish, seals and reindeer to be caught without
difficulty, or found alive seething in a great kettle.[183] In the
Kimbunda country of South-West Africa, souls live on in ‘Kalunga,’ the
world where it is day when it is night here; and with plenty of food and
drink, and women to serve them, and hunting and dancing for pastime,
they lead a life which seems a corrected edition of this.[184] On
comparison of these pictures of the future life with such as have
expressed the longings of more cultured nations, there appear indeed
different details, but the principle is ever the same—the idealization
of earthly good. The Norseman’s ideal is sketched in the few broad
touches which show him in Walhalla, where he and the other warriors
without number ride forth arrayed each morning and hew each other on
Odin’s plain, till the slain have been ‘chosen’ as in earthly battle,
and meal-tide comes, and slayers and slain mount and ride home to feast
on the everlasting boar, and drink mead and ale with the Æsir.[185] To
understand the Moslem’s mind, we must read the two chapters of the Koran
where the Prophet describes the faithful in the garden of delights,
reclining on their couches of gold and gems, served by children ever
young, with bowls of liquor whose fumes will not rise into the drinkers’
heads, living among the thornless lotus-trees and date-palms loaded to
the ground, feasting on the fruits they love and the meat of the rarest
birds, with the houris near them with beautiful black eyes, like pearls
in the shell, where no idle or wicked speech is heard, but only the
words ‘Peace, Peace.’
‘They who fear the judgment of God shall have two gardens.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
Adorned with groves.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
In each of them shall spring two fountains.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
In each of them shall grow two kinds of fruits.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
They shall lie on carpets brocaded with silk and embroidered with
gold; the fruits of the two gardens shall be near, easy to pluck.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
There shall be young virgins with modest looks, unprofaned by man or
jinn.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
They are like jacinth and coral.
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?
What is the recompence of good, if not good?
Which of the benefits of God will ye deny?’ &c.[186]
With these descriptions of Paradise idealized on secular life, it is
interesting to compare others which bear the impress of a priestly
caste, devising a heaven after their manner. We can almost see the
faces of the Jewish rabbis settling their opinions about the high
schools in the firmament of heaven, where Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai and
the great Rabbi Eliezer teach Law and Talmud as they taught when they
were here below, and masters and learners go prosing on with the weary
old disputations of cross question and crooked answer that pleased
their souls on earth.[187] Nor less suggestively do the Buddhist
heavens reflect the minds of the ascetics who devised them. As in
their thoughts sensual pleasure seemed poor and despicable in
comparison with mystic inward joy, rising and rising till
consciousness fades in trance, so, above their heavens of millions of
years of mere divine happiness, they raised other ranges of heavens
where sensual pain and pleasure cease, and enjoyment becomes
intellectual, till at a higher grade even bodily form is gone, and
after the last heaven of ‘Neither-consciousness-nor-unconsciousness’
there follows Nirwâna, as ecstasy passes into swoon.[188]
But the doctrine of the continuance of the soul’s life has another and a
gloomier side. There are conceptions of an abode of the dead
characterized not so much by dreaminess as by ghostliness. The realm of
shades, especially if it be a cavern underground, has seemed a dim and
melancholy place to the dwellers in this ‘white world,’ as the Russian
calls the land of the living. One description of the Hurons tells how
the other world, with its hunting and fishing, its much-prized hatchets
and robes and necklaces, is like this world, yet day and night the souls
groan and lament.[189] Thus the region of Mictlan, the subterranean land
of Hades whither the general mass of the Mexican nation, high and low,
expected to descend from the natural death-bed, was an abode looked
forward to with resignation, but scarcely with cheerfulness. At the
funeral the survivors were bidden not to mourn too much, the dead was
reminded that he had passed and suffered the labours of this life,
transitory as when one warms himself in the sun, and he was bidden to
have no care or anxiety to return to his kinsfolk now that he has
departed for ever and aye, for his consolation must be that they too
will end their labours, and go whither he has gone before.[190] Among
the Basutos, where the belief in a future life in Hades is general, some
imagine in this underworld valleys ever green, and herds of hornless
speckled cattle owned by the dead; but it seems more generally thought
that the shades wander about in silent calm, experiencing neither joy
nor sorrow. Moral retribution there is none.[191] The Hades of the West
African seems no ecstatic paradise, to judge by Captain Burton’s
description: ‘It was said of the old Egyptians that they lived rather in
Hades than upon the banks of the Nile. The Dahomans declare that this
world is man’s plantation, the next is his home,—a home which, however,
no one visits of his own accord. They of course own no future state of
rewards and punishment: there the King will be a King, and the slave a
slave for ever. Ku-to-men, or Deadman’s land, the Dahoman’s other but
not better world, is a country of ghosts, of umbræ, who, like the
spirits of the nineteenth century in Europe, lead a quiet life, except
when by means of mediums they are drawn into the drawing-rooms of the
living.’ With some such hopeless expectation the neighbours of the
Dahomans, the Yorubas, judge the life to come in their simple proverb
that ‘A corner in this world is better than a corner in the world of
spirits.’[192] The Finns, who feared the ghosts of the departed as
unkind, harmful beings, fancied them dwelling with their bodies in the
grave, or else, with what Castrén thinks a later philosophy, assigned
them their dwelling in the subterranean Tuonela. Tuonela was like this
upper earth, the sun shone there, there was no lack of land and water,
wood and field, tilth and meadow, there were bears and wolves, snakes
and pike, but all things were of a hurtful, dismal kind, the woods dark
and swarming with wild beasts, the water black, the cornfields bearing
seed of snakes’ teeth, and there stern pitiless old Tuoni, and his grim
wife and son with the hooked fingers with iron points, kept watch and
ward over the dead lest they should escape.[193] Scarce less dismal was
the classic ideal of the dark realm below, whither the shades of the
dead must go to join the many gone before (ἐς πλεόνων ἱκέσθαι; penetrare
ad plures; andare tra i più). The Roman Orcus holds the pallid souls,
rapacious Orcus, sparing neither good nor bad. Gloomy is the Greek land
of Hades, dark dwelling of the images of departed mortals, where the
shades carry at once their living features and their dying wounds, and
glide and cluster and whisper, and lead the shadow of a life. Like the
savage hunter on his ghostly prairie, the great Orion still bears his
brazen mace, still chases over the meadows of asphodel the flying beasts
he slew of yore in the lonely mountains. Like the rude African of
to-day, the swift-footed Achilles scorns such poor, thin, shadowy life;
rather would he serve a mean man upon earth than be lord of all the
dead.
‘Truly, oxen and goodly sheep may be taken for booty,
Tripods, too, may be bought, and the yellow beauty of horses;
But from the fence of the teeth when once the soul is departed,
Never cometh it back, regained by plunder or purchase.’[194]
Where and what was Sheol, the dwelling of the ancient Jewish dead? Of
late years the Biblical critic has no longer to depend on passages of
the Old Testament for realizing its conception, so plainly is it
connected with the seven-circled Irkalla of the Babylonian-Assyrian
religion, the gloomy subterranean abode whence there is no return for
man, though indeed the goddess Isthar passed through its seven gates,
and came back to earth from her errand of saving all life from
destruction. In the history of religions, few passages are more
instructive than those in which the prophets of the Old Testament
recognize the ancestral connexion of their own belief with the national
religions of Babylon-Assyria, as united in the doctrine of a gloomy
prison of ghosts, through whose gates Jew and Gentile alike must pass.
Sheol (שאול from שאל) is, as its name implies, a cavernous recess, yet
it is no mere surface-grave or tomb, but an under-world of awful depth:
‘High as Heaven, what doest thou? deeper than Sheol, what knowest thou?’
Asshur and all her company, Elam and all her multitude, the mighty
fallen of the uncircumcised, lie there. The great king of Babylon must
go down:—
‘Sheol from beneath is moved because of thee, to meet thee at thy
coming:
He rouseth for thee the mighty dead, all the great chiefs of the
earth;
He maketh to rise up from their thrones, all the kings of the
nations.
All of them shall accost thee, and shall say unto thee:
Art thou, even thou too, became weak as we? Art thou made like unto
us?’
To the Greek Septuagint, _Sheol_ was _Hades_, and for this the Coptic
translators had their long-inherited Egyptian name of _Amenti_, while
the Vulgate renders it as _Infernus_, the lower regions. The Gothic
Ulfilas, translating the Hades of the New Testament, could use _Halja_
in its old German sense of the dim shadowy home of the dead below the
earth; and the corresponding word _Hell_, if this its earlier sense be
borne in mind, fairly translates Sheol and Hades in the English version
of the Old and New Testament, though the word has become misleading to
uneducated ears by being used also in the sense of Gehenna, the place of
torment. The early Hebrew historians and prophets, holding out neither
the hope of everlasting glory nor the fear of everlasting agony as
guiding motives for man’s present life, lay down little direct doctrine
of a future state, yet their incidental mentions justify the translators
who regard Sheol as Hades. Sheol is a special locality where dead men go
to their dead ancestors: ‘And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was
gathered unto his people ... and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.’
Abraham, though not even buried in the land of his forefathers, is thus
‘gathered unto his people;’ and Jacob has no thought of his body being
laid with Joseph’s body, torn by wild beasts in the wilderness, when he
says, ‘I shall go down to my son mourning to Sheol (‘εἰς ᾅδου’ in the
LXX., ‘èpesët èàmenti’ in the Coptic, ‘in infernum’ in the Vulgate). The
rephaim, the ‘shades’ of the dead, who dwell in Sheol, love not to be
disturbed from their rest by the necromancer; ‘And Samuel said to Saul,
why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?’ Yet their quiet is
contrasted in a tone of sadness with the life on earth; ‘Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, whither thou goest.’[195]
Such thoughts of the life of the shades below did not disappear when, in
the later years of the Jewish nation, the great change in the doctrine
of the future life passed in so large a measure over the Hebrew mind,
their earlier thoughts of ghostly continuance giving place to the
doctrines of resurrection and retribution. The ancient ideas have even
held their place on into Christian thought, in pictures like that of the
Limbus Patrum, the Hades where Christ descended to set free the
patriarchs.
The Retribution-theory of the future life comprises in a general way the
belief in different grades of future happiness, especially in different
regions of the other world allotted to men according to their lives in
this. This doctrine of retribution is, as we have already seen, far from
universal among mankind, many races recognizing the idea of a spirit
outliving the body, without considering the fate of this spirit to
depend at all upon the conduct of the living man. The doctrine of
retribution indeed hardly seems an original part of the doctrine of the
future life. On the contrary, if we judge that men in a primitive state
of culture arrived at the notion of a surviving spirit, and that some
races, but by no means all, afterwards reached the further stage of
recognizing a retribution for deeds done in the body, this theory will
not, so far as I know, be discountenanced by facts.[196] Even among the
higher savages, however, a connexion between man’s life and his
happiness or misery after death is often held as a definite article of
theology, and thence it is to be traced onward through barbaric
religions, and into the very heart of Christianity. Yet the grounds of
good and evil in the future life are so far from uniform among the
religions of the world, that they may differ widely within what is
considered one and the same creed. The result is more definite than the
cause, the end than the means. Men who alike look forward to a region of
unearthly happiness beyond the grave, hope to reach that happy land by
roads so strangely different, that the path of life which leads one
nation to eternal bliss may seem to the next the very descent into the
pit. In noticing among savage and barbaric peoples the qualifications
which determine future happiness, we may with some distinctness define
these as being excellence, valour, social rank, religious ordinance. On
the whole, however, in the religions of the lower range of culture,
unless where they may have been affected by contact with higher
religions, the destiny of the man after death seems hardly to turn on
judicial reward or punishment for his moral conduct in life. Such
difference as is made between the future conditions of different classes
of souls, seems more often to belong to a remarkable intermediate
doctrine, standing between the earlier continuance-theory and the later
retribution-theory. The idea of the next life being similar to this
seems to have developed into the idea that what gives prosperity and
renown here will give it also there, so that earthly conditions carry on
their contrasts into the changed world after death. Thus a man’s
condition after death will be a result of, rather than a compensation or
retribution for, his condition during life. A comparison of doctrines
held at various stages of culture may justify a tentative speculation as
to their actual sequence in history, favouring the opinion that through
such an intermediate stage the doctrine of simple future existence was
actually developed into the doctrine of future reward and punishment, a
transition which for deep import to human life has scarcely its rival in
the history of religion.
The effect of earthly rank on the future life, as looked at by the lower
races, brings out this intermediate stage in bold relief. Mere transfer
from one life to another makes chiefs and slaves here chiefs and slaves
hereafter, and this natural doctrine is very usual. But there are cases
in which earthly caste is exaggerated into utter difference in the life
to come. The aerial paradise of Raiatea, with its fragrant ever-blooming
flowers, its throngs of youths and girls all perfection, its luxurious
feasts and merrymakings, were for the privileged orders of Areois and
chiefs who could pay the priests their heavy charges, but hardly for the
common populace. This idea reached its height in the Tonga islands,
where aristocratic souls would pass to take their earthly rank and
station in the island paradise of Bolotu, while plebeian souls, if
indeed they existed, would die with the plebeian bodies they dwelt
in.[197] In Vancouver’s Island, the Ahts fancied Quawteaht’s calm sunny
plenteous land in the sky as the resting-place of high chiefs, who live
in one great house as the Creator’s guests, while the slain in battle
have another to themselves. But otherwise all Indians of low degree go
deep down under the earth to the land of Chay-her, with its poor houses
and no salmon and small deer, and blankets so small and thin that when
the dead are buried the friends often bury blankets with them, to send
them to the world below with the departed soul.[198] The expectation of
royal dignity in the life after death, distinct from the fate of
ordinary mortals, comes well into view among the Natchez of Louisiana,
where the sun-descended royal family would in some way return to the
Sun; thus also in the mightier empire of Peru, where each sun-descended
Inca, feeling the approach of death, announced to his assembled vassals
that he was called to heaven to rest with his father the Sun.[199] But
in the higher religions, the change in this respect from the doctrine of
continuance to the doctrine of retribution is wonderful in its
completeness. The story of that great lady who strengthened her hopes of
future happiness by the assurance, ‘They will think twice before they
refuse a person of my condition,’ is a mere jest to modern ears. Yet,
like many other modern jest, it is only an archaism which in an older
stage of culture had in it nothing ridiculous.
To the happy land of Torngarsuk the Great Spirit, says Cranz, only such
Greenlanders came as have been valiant workers, for other ideas of
virtue they have none; such as have done great deeds, taken many whales
and seals, borne much hardship, been drowned at sea, or died in
childbirth.[200] Thus Charlevoix says of the Indians further south, that
their claim to hunt after death on the prairies of eternal spring is to
have been good hunters and warriors here. Lescarbot, speaking of the
belief among the Indians of Virginia that after death the good will be
at rest and the wicked in pain, remarks that their enemies are the
wicked and themselves the good, so that in their opinion they are after
death much at their ease, and principally when they have well defended
their country and slain their enemies.[201] So Jean de Lery said of the
rude Tubinambas of Brazil, that they think the souls of such as have
lived virtuously, that is to say, who have well avenged themselves and
eaten many of their enemies, will go behind the great mountains and
dance in beautiful gardens with the souls of their fathers, but the
souls of the effeminate and worthless, who have not striven to defend
their country, will go to Aygnan the Evil Spirit, to incessant
torments.[202] More characteristic and probably more genuinely native
than most of these expectations, is that of the Caribs, that the braves
of their nation should go after death to happy islands, where all good
fruits grow wild, there to spend their time in dancing and feasting, and
to have their enemies the Arawaks for slaves; but the cowards who feared
to go to war should go to serve the Arawaks, dwelling in their waste and
barren lands beyond the mountains.[203]
The fate of warriors slain in battle is the subject of two singularly
contrasted theories. We have elsewhere examined the deep-lying belief
that if a man’s body be wounded or mutilated, his soul will arrive in
the same state in the other world. Perhaps it is some such idea of the
soul being injured with the body by a violent death, that leads the
Mintira of the Malay Peninsula, though not believing in a future reward
and punishment, to exclude from the happy paradise of ‘Fruit Island’
(Pulo Bua) the souls of such as die a bloody death, condemning them to
dwell on ‘Red Land’ (Tana Mera), a desolate barren place, whence they
must even go to the fortunate island to fetch their food.[204] In North
America, the idea is mentioned among the Hurons that the souls of the
slain in war live in a band apart, neither they nor suicides being
admitted to the spirit-villages of their tribe. A belief ascribed to
certain Indians of California may be cited here, though less as a sample
of real native doctrine than to illustrate that borrowing of Christian
ideas which so often spoils such evidence for ethnological purposes.
They held, it is said, that Niparaya, the Great Spirit, hates war, and
will have no warriors in his paradise, but that his adversary Wac, shut
up for rebellion in a great cave, takes thither to himself the slain in
battle.[205] On the other hand, the thought which shows out in such bold
relief in the savage mind, that courage is virtue, and battle and
bloodshed the hero’s noblest pursuit, leads naturally to a hope of glory
for his soul when his body has been slain in fight. Such expectation was
not strange in North America, to that Indian tribe, for instance, who
talked of the Great Spirit walking in the moonlight on his island in
Lake Superior, whither slain warriors will go to him to take their
pleasure in the chace.[206] The Nicaraguans declared that men who died
in their houses went underground, but the slain in war went to serve the
gods in the east, where the sun comes from. This corresponds in part
with a remarkable threefold contrast of the future life among their
Aztec kinsfolk. Mictlan, the Hades of the general dead, and Tlalocan,
the Earthly Paradise, reached by certain special and acute ways of
death, have been mentioned here already. But the souls of warriors slain
in battle or sacrificed as captives, and of women who died in
child-birth, were transported to the heavenly plains; there the heroes,
peeping through the holes in their bucklers pierced by arrows in earthly
fight, watched the Sun arise and saluted him with shout and clash of
arms, and at noon the mothers received him with music and dance to
escort him on his western way.[207] In such wise, to the old Norseman,
to die the ‘straw-death’ of sickness or old age was to go down into the
dismal loathly house of Hela the Death-goddess; if the warrior’s fate on
the field of battle were denied him, and death came to fetch him from a
peaceful couch, yet at least he could have the scratch of the spear,
Odin’s mark, and so contrive to go with a blood-stained soul to the
glorious Walhalla. Surely then if ever, says a modern writer, the
kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by
force.[208] Thence we follow the idea onward to the battle-fields of
holy war, where the soldier earned with his blood the unfading crown of
martyrdom, and Christian and Moslem were urged in mutual onset and
upheld in agony by the glimpse of paradise opening to receive the slayer
of the infidel.
Such ideas, current among the lower races as to the soul’s future
happiness or misery, do not seem, setting aside some exceptional points,
to be thoughts adopted or degraded from doctrines of cultured nations.
They rather belong to the intellectual stratum in which they are found.
If so, we must neither ignore nor exaggerate their standing in the lower
ethics. ‘The good are good warriors and hunters,’ said a Pawnee chief;
whereupon the author who mentions the saying remarks that this would
also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could express it.[209]
Nevertheless, if experience has led societies of savage men to fix on
certain qualities, such as courage, skill, and industry, as being
virtues, then many moralists will say that such a theory is not only
ethical, but lying at the very foundation of ethics. And if these savage
societies further conclude that such virtues obtain their reward in
another world as in this, then their theories of future happiness and
misery, destined for what they call good and bad men, may be looked on
in this sense as belonging to morality, though at no high stage of
development. But many or most writers, when they mention morality,
assume a narrower definition of it. This must be borne in mind in
appreciating what is meant by the statements of several well-qualified
ethnologists, who have, in more or less degree, denied a moral character
to the future retribution as conceived in savage religion. Mr. Ellis,
describing the Society Islanders, at least gives an explicit definition.
When he tried to ascertain whether they connected a person’s condition
in a future state with his disposition and conduct in this, he never
could learn that they expected in the world of spirits any difference in
the treatment of a kind, generous, peaceful man, and that of a cruel,
parsimonious, quarrelsome one.[210] This remark, it seems to me, applies
to savage religion far and wide. Dr. Brinton, commenting on the native
religions of America, draws his line in a somewhat different place.
Nowhere, he says, was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was
judged and punished in the next world. No contrast is discoverable
between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a
negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard.[211]
Professor J. G. Müller, in his ‘American Religions,’ yet more pointedly
denies any ‘ethical meaning’ in the contrasts of the savage future life,
and looks upon what he well calls its ‘light-side’ and ‘shadow-side’ not
as recompensing earthly virtue and vice, but rather as carrying on
earthly conditions in a new existence.[212]
The idea that admission to the happier region depends on the performance
of religious rites and the giving of offerings, seems scarcely known to
the lowest savages. It is worth while, however, to notice some
statements which seem to mark its appearance at the level of high
savagery or low barbarism. Thus in the Society Islands, though the
destiny of man’s spirit to the region of night or to elysium was
irrespective of moral character, we hear of neglect of rites and
offerings as being visited by the displeasure of deities.[213] In
Florida, the belief of the Sun-worshipping people of Achalaque was thus
described: those who had lived well, and well served the Sun, and given
many gifts to the poor in his honour, would be happy after death and be
changed into stars, whereas the wicked would be carried to a destitute
and wretched existence among mountain precipices, where fierce wild
beasts have their dens.[214] According to Bosman, the souls of Guinea
negroes reaching the river of death must answer to the divine judge how
they have lived; have they religiously observed the holy days dedicated
to their god, have they abstained from all forbidden meats and kept
their vows inviolate, they are wafted across to paradise; but if they
have sinned against these laws they are plunged in the river and there
drowned for ever.[215] Such statements among peoples at these stages of
culture are not frequent, and perhaps not very valid as accounts of
original native doctrine. It is in the elaborate religious systems of
more organized nations, in modern Brahmanism and Buddhism, and degraded
forms of Christianity, that the special adaptation of the doctrine of
retribution to the purposes of priestcraft and ceremonialism has become
a commonplace of missionary reports.
It is well not to speak too positively on a subject so difficult and
doubtful as this of the history of the belief in future retribution.
Careful criticism of the evidence is above all necessary. For instance,
we have to deal with several statements recorded among low races,
explicitly assigning reward or punishment to men after death, according
as they were good or bad in life. Here the first thing to be done is to
clear up, if possible, the question whether the doctrine of retribution
may have been borrowed from some more cultured neighbouring religion, as
the very details often show to have been the case. Examples of direct
adoption of foreign dogmas on this subject are not uncommon in the
world. When among the Dayaks of Borneo it is said that a dead man
becomes a spirit and lives in the jungle, or haunts the place of burial
or burning, or when some distant mountain-top is pointed to as the abode
of spirits of departed friends, it is hardly needful to question the
originality of ideas so characteristically savage. But one of these
Dayak tribes, burning the dead, says that ‘as the smoke of the funeral
pile of a good man rises, the soul ascends with it to the sky, and that
the smoke from the pile of a wicked man descends, and his soul with it
is borne down to the earth, and through it to the regions below.’[216]
Did not this exceptional idea come into the Dayak’s mind by contact with
Hinduism? In Orissa, again, Khond souls have to leap across the black
unfathomable river to gain a footing on the slippery Leaping Rock, where
Dinga Pennu, the judge of the dead, sits writing his register of all
men’s daily lives and actions, sending virtuous souls to become blessed
spirits, keeping back wicked ones and sending them to suffer their
penalties in new births on earth.[217] Here the striking myth of the
leaping rock is perfectly savage, but the ideas of a judgment, moral
retribution, and transmigration, may have come from the Hindus of the
plains, as the accompanying notion of the written book unquestionably
did. Dr. Mason is no doubt right in taking as the indigenous doctrine of
the Karens their notion of an under-world where the ghosts of the dead
live on as here, while he sets down to Hindu influence the idea of
Tha-ma, the judge of the dead (the Hindu Yama), as allotting their fate
according to their lives, sending those who have done deeds of merit to
heaven, those who have done wickedness to hell, and keeping in Hades the
neither good nor bad.[218] How the theory of moral retribution may be
superposed on more primitive doctrines of the future life, comes
remarkably into view in Turanian religion. Among the Lapps, Jabme-Aimo,
the subterranean ‘home of the dead’ below the earth, where the departed
have their cattle and follow their livelihood like Lapps above, though
they are richer, wiser, stronger folk, and also Saivo-Aimo, a yet
happier ‘home of the gods,’ are conceptions thoroughly in the spirit of
the lower culture. But in one account the subterranean abode becomes a
place of transition, where the dead stay awhile, and then with bodies
renewed are taken up to the Heaven-god, or if misdoers, are flung into
the abyss. Castrén is evidently right in rejecting this doctrine as not
native, but due to Catholic influence. So, at the end of the 16th Rune
of the Finnish Kalewala, which tells of Wainamoinen’s visit to the
dismal land of the dead, there is put into the hero’s mouth a second
speech, warning the children of men to harm not the innocent, for sad
payment is in Tuoni’s dwelling—the bed of evil-doers is there, with its
glowing red-hot stones below and its canopy of snakes above. But the
same critic condemns this moral ‘tag,’ as a later addition to the
genuine heathen picture of Manala, the under-world of the dead.[219] Nor
did Christianity scorn to borrow details from the religions it
abolished. The narrative of a mediæval visit to the other world would be
incomplete without its description of the awful Bridge of Death; Acheron
and Charon’s bark were restored to their places in Tartarus by the
visionary and the poet; the wailing of sinful souls might be heard as
they were hammered white-hot in Vulcan’s smithies; and the weighing of
good and wicked souls, as we may see it figured on every Egyptian
mummy-case, now passed into the charge of St. Paul and the Devil.[220]
The foregoing considerations having been duly weighed, it remains to
call attention to the final problem, at what state of religious history
the full theological doctrine of judicial retribution and moral
compensation in a future life may have arisen. It is hard, however, to
define where this development takes place even at a barbaric stage of
culture. Thus among the barbaric nations of West Africa, there appear
such beliefs as that in Nuffi, that criminals who escape their
punishment here will receive it in the other world; the division of the
Yoruba under-world into an upper and a lower region for the righteous
and wicked; the Kru doctrine that only the good will rejoin their
ancestors in heaven; the Oji doctrine that only the good will dwell
after death in the heavenly house or city of the Deity whom they call
the ‘Highest.’[221] How far is all this to be taken as native
conception, and how far as due to ages of Christian and Moslem
intercourse, to which at any rate few will scruple to refer the last
case?
In the lower ranges of civilization, some of the most remarkable
doctrines of this class are recorded in North America. Thus they appear
in connexion with the fancy of a river or gulf to be passed by the
departing soul on its way to the land of the dead, one of the most
remarkable traits of the mythology of the world. This seems in its
origin a nature-myth, connected probably with the Sun’s passage across
the sea into Hades, and in many of its versions it appears as a mere
episode of the soul’s journey without any moral sense attached to it.
Brebeuf, the same early Jesuit missionary who says explicitly of the
Hurons that there is no difference in their future life between the fate
of the virtuous and the vicious, mentions also among them the tree-trunk
that bridges the river of death; here the dead must cross, the dog that
guards it attacks some souls, and they fall. Yet in other versions this
myth has a moral sense attached to it, and the passage of the
heaven-gulf becomes an ordeal to separate good and wicked. To take but
one instance, there is Catlin’s account of the Choctaw souls journeying
far westward, to whom the long slippery barkless pine-log, stretching
from hill to hill, bridges over the deep and dreadful river; the good
pass safely to a beauteous Indian paradise, the wicked fall into the
abyss of waters, and go the dark hungry wretched land where they are
henceforth to dwell.[222] This and many similar beliefs current in the
religions of the world, which need not be particularised here, seem best
explained as originally nature-myths, afterwards adapted to a religious
purpose. A different conception was recorded so early as 1623, by
Captain John Smith among the Massachusetts, whose name is still borne by
the New England district they once inhabited: They say, at first there
was no king but Kiehtan, that dwelleth far westerly above the heavens,
whither all good men go when they die, and have plenty of all things.
The bad men go thither also and knock at the door, but he bids them go
wander in endless want and misery, for they shall not stay there.[223]
Lastly, the Salish Indians of Oregon say that the good go to a happy
hunting-ground of endless game, while the bad go to a place where there
is eternal snow, hunger, and thirst, and are tantalised by the sight of
game they cannot kill, and water they cannot drink.[224] If, now, in
looking at these records, the doubts which beset them can be put aside,
and the accounts of the different fates assigned to the good and wicked
can be accepted as belonging to genuine native American religion and if,
moreover, it be considered that the goodness and wickedness for which
men are to be thus rewarded and punished are moral qualities, however
undeveloped in definition, this will amount to an admission that the
doctrine of moral retribution at any rate appears within the range of
savage theology. Such a view, however, by no means invalidates the view
here put forward as to the historical development of the doctrine, but
only goes to prove at how early a stage it may have begun to take place.
The general mass of evidence still remains to show the savage doctrine
of the future state, as originally involving no moral retribution, or
arriving at this through transitional and rudimentary stages.
In strong contrast with the schemes of savage future existence, I need
but set before the reader’s mind a salient point here and there in the
doctrine of distinct and unquestionable moral retribution, as held in
religions of the higher culture. The inner mystic doctrines of ancient
Egypt may perhaps never be extracted now from the pictures and
hieroglyphic formulas of the ‘Book of the Dead.’ But the ethnographer
may satisfy himself of two important points as to the place which the
Egyptian view of the future life occupies in the history of religion. On
the one hand, the soul’s quitting and revisiting the corpse, the placing
of the image in the tomb, the offering of meat and drink, the fearful
journey to the regions of the departed, the renewed life like that on
earth, with its houses to dwell in and fields to cultivate—all these are
conceptions which connect the Egyptian religion with the religions of
the ruder races of mankind. But on the other hand, the mixed ethical and
ceremonial standard by which the dead are to be judged adapts these
primitive and even savage thoughts to a higher social development, such
as may be shown by fragments from that remarkable ‘negative confession’
which the dead must make before Osiris and the forty-two judges in
Amenti. ‘O ye Lords of Truth! let me know you!... Rub ye away my faults.
I have not privily done evil against mankind.... I have not told
falsehoods in the tribunal of Truth.... I have not done any wicked
thing. I have not made the labouring man do more than his task daily....
I have not calumniated the slave to his master.... I have not
murdered.... I have not done fraud to men. I have not changed measures
of the country. I have not injured the images of the gods. I have not
taken scraps of the bandages of the dead. I have not committed adultery.
I have not withheld milk from the mouths of sucklings. I have not hunted
wild animals in the pasturages. I have not netted sacred birds.... I am
pure! I am pure! I am pure!’[225]
The Vedic hymns, again, tell of endless happiness for the good in heaven
with the gods, and speak also of the deep pit where the liars, the
lawless, they who give no sacrifice, will be cast.[226] The rival
theories of continuance and retribution are seen in instructive
coexistence in classic Greece and Rome. What seems the older belief
holds its ground in the realm of Hades; that dim region of bodiless,
smoke-like ghosts remains the home of the undistinguished crowd in the
μέσος βίος, the ‘middle life.’ Yet at the same time the judgment-seat of
Minos and Rhadamanthos, the joys of Elysium for the just and good, fiery
Tartarus echoing with the wail of the wicked, represent the newer
doctrine of a moral retribution. The idea of purgatorial suffering,
which hardly seems to have entered the minds of the lower races, expands
in immense vigour in the great Aryan religions of Asia. In Brahmanism
and Buddhism, the working out of good and evil actions into their
necessary consequence of happiness and misery is the very key to the
philosophy of life, whether life’s successive transmigrations be in
animal, or human, or demon births on earth, or in luxurious
heaven-palaces of gold and jewels, or in the agonizing hells where
Oriental fancy riots in the hideous inventory of torture—caldrons of
boiling oil and liquid fire; black dungeons and rivers of filth; vipers,
and vultures, and cannibals; thorns, and spears, and red-hot pincers,
and whips of flame. To the modern Hindu, it is true, ceremonial morality
seems to take the upper hand, and the question of happiness or misery
after death turns rather on ablutions and fasts, on sacrifices and gifts
to brahmans, than on purity and beneficence of life. Buddhism in South
East Asia, sadly degenerate from its once high estate, is apt to work
out the doctrine of merit and demerit into debtor and creditor accounts
kept in good and bad marks from day to day; to serve out so much tea in
hot weather counts 1 to the merit-side, and putting a stop to one’s
women scolding for a month counts 1 likewise, but this may be balanced
by the offence of letting them keep the bowls and plates dirty for a
day, which counts 1 the wrong way; and it appears that giving wood for
two coffins, which count 30 marks each, and burying four bones, at 10
marks a-piece, would just be balanced by murdering a child, which counts
100 to the bad.[227] It need hardly be said here that these two great
religions of Asia must be judged rather in their records of long past
ages, than in the lingering degeneration of their modern reality.
In the Khordah-Avesta, a document of the old Persian religion, the fate
of good and wicked souls at death is pictured in a dialogue between
Zarathustra (Zoroaster), and Ahura-Mazda and Anra-Mainyu (Ormuzd and
Ahriman). Zarathustra asks,’Ahura-Mazda, Heavenly, Holiest, Creator of
the corporeal world, Pure! When a pure man dies, where does his soul
dwell during this night?’ Then answers Ahura-Mazda: ‘Near his head it
sits down, reciting the Gâthâ Ustavaiti, praying happiness for itself;
“Happiness be to the man who conduces to the happiness of each. May
Ahura-Mazda create, ruling after his wish.”’ On this night the soul sees
as much joyfulness as the whole living world possesses; and so the
second and the third night. When the lapse of the third night turns
itself to light, then the soul of the pure man goes forward,
recollecting itself by the perfume of plants. A wind blows to meet it
from the mid-day regions, a sweet-scented one, more sweet-scented than
the other winds, and the soul of the pure man receives it—‘Whence blows
this wind, the sweetest-scented which I ever have smelt with the nose?’
Then comes to meet him his own law (his rule of life) in the figure of a
maiden beautiful, shining, with shining arms, powerful, well-grown,
slender, large-bosomed, with praiseworthy body, noble, with brilliant
face, one of fifteen years, as fair in her growth as the fairest
creatures. Then to her speaks the soul of the pure man, asking, ‘What
maiden art thou whom I have seen here as the fairest of maidens in
body?’ She answers, ‘I am, O youth, thy good thoughts, words, and works,
thy good law, the own law of thine own body. Thou hast made the pleasant
yet pleasanter to me, the fair yet fairer, the desirable yet more
desirable, the sitting in a high place sitting in a yet higher place.’
Then the soul of the pure man takes the first step and comes to the
first paradise, the second and third step to the second and third
paradise, the fourth step and arrives at the Eternal Lights. To the soul
speaks a pure one deceased before, asking it, ‘How art thou, O pure
deceased, come away from the fleshly dwellings, from the corporeal world
hither to the invisible, from the perishable world hither to the
imperishable. Hail! has it happened to thee long?’ ‘Then speaks
Ahura-Mazda: “Ask not him whom thou askest, for he is come on the
fearful way of trembling, the separation of body and soul. Bring him
hither of the food, of the full fatness, that is the food for a youth
who thinks, speaks, and does good, who is devoted to the good law after
death—that is the food for a woman who especially thinks good, speaks
good, does good, the following, obedient, pure after death.”’ And now
Zarathustra asks, when a wicked one dies, where his soul dwells? He is
told how, running about near the head, it utters the prayer, Ke
maúm:—‘Which land shall I praise, whither shall I go praying, O
Ahura-Mazda?’ In this night it sees as much unjoyfulness as the whole
living world; and so the second and the third night, and it goes at dawn
to the impure place, recollecting itself by the stench. An evil-smelling
wind comes towards the dead from the north, and with it the ugly hateful
maiden who is his own wicked deeds, and the soul takes the fourth step
into the darkness without beginning, and a wicked soul asks how long—woe
to thee!—art thou come? and the mocking Anra-Mainyu, answering in words
like the words of Ahura-Mazda to the good, bids food to be
brought—poison, and mixed with poison, for them who think and speak and
do evil, and follow the wicked law. The Parsi of our own time, following
in obscure tradition the ancient Zoroastrian faith, before he prays for
forgiveness for all that he ought to have thought, and said, and done,
and has not, for all that he ought not to have thought, and said, and
done, and has, confesses thus his faith of the future life:—‘I am wholly
without doubt in the existence of the good Mazadayaçnian faith, in the
coming of the resurrection and the later body, in the stepping over the
bridge Chinvat, in an invariable recompense of good deeds and their
reward, and of bad deeds and their punishment.’[228]
In Jewish theology, the doctrine of future retribution appears after the
Babylonish captivity, not in ambiguous terms, but as the
strongly-expressed and intensely-felt religious conviction it has since
remained among the children of Israel. Not long afterward, it received
the sanction of Christianity.
A broad survey of the doctrine of the Future Life among the various
nations of the world shows at once how difficult and how important is a
systematic theory of its development. Looked at ethnographically, the
general relations of the lower to the higher culture as to the belief in
future existence may be defined somewhat as follows:—If we draw a line
dividing civilization at the junction of savagery and barbarism—about
where the Carib and New Zealander ends and the Aztec or Tatar begins, we
may see clearly the difference of prevalent doctrine on either side. On
the savage side, the theory of hovering ghosts is strong, rebirth in
human or animal bodies is often thought of, but above all there prevails
the expectation of a new life, most often located in some distant
earthly region, or less commonly in the under-world or on the sky. On
the cultured side, the theory of hovering ghosts continues, but tends to
subside from philosophy into folklore, the theory of re-birth is
elaborated into great philosophic systems, but eventually dies out under
the opposition of scientific biology, while the doctrine of a new life
after death maintains its place with immense power in the human mind,
although the dead have been ousted by geography from any earthly
district, and the regions of heaven and hell are more and more
spiritualized out of definite locality into vague expressions of future
happiness and misery. Again, on the savage side we find the dominant
idea to be a continuance of the soul in a new existence, like the
present life, or idealized and exaggerated on its model; while on the
cultured side the doctrine of judgment and moral retribution prevails
with paramount, though not indeed absolute sway. What, then, has been
the historical course of theological opinion, to have produced in
different stages of culture these contrasted phases of doctrine?
In some respects, theories deriving savage from more civilized ideas are
tenable. In certain cases, to consider a particular savage doctrine of
the future state as a fragmentary, or changed, or corrupted outcome of
the religion of higher races, seems as easy as to reverse this view by
taking savagery as representing the starting-point. It is open to anyone
to suppose that the doctrine of transmigration among American savages
and African barbarians may have been degraded from elaborate systems of
metempsychosis established among philosophic nations like the Hindus;
that the North American and South African doctrine of continued
existence in a subterranean world may be derived from similar beliefs
held by races at the level of the ancient Greeks; that when rude tribes
in the Old or New World assign among the dead a life of happiness to
some, and of misery to others, this idea may have been inherited or
adopted from cultured nations holding more strongly and systematically
the doctrine of retribution. In such cases the argument is to a great
extent the same, whether the lower race be considered degenerate
descendants of a higher nation, or whether the simpler supposition be
put forward that they have adopted the ideas of some more cultured
people. These views ought to have full attention, for degenerate and
borrowed beliefs form no small item in the opinions of uncivilized
races. Yet this kind of explanation is more adapted to meet special
cases than general conditions; it is rather suited to piecemeal
treatment, than to comprehensive study, of the religions of mankind.
Worked out on a large scale, it would endeavour to account for the
doctrines of the savage world, as being a patchwork of fragments from
various religions of high nations, transported by not easily-conceived
means from their distant homes and set down in remote regions of the
earth. It may be safely said that no hypothesis can account for the
varied doctrines current among the lower tribes, without the admission
that religious ideas have been in no small measure developed and
modified in the districts where they are current.
Now this theory of development, in its fullest scope, combined with an
accessory theory of degeneration and adoption, seems best to meet the
general facts of the case. A hypothesis which finds the origin of the
doctrine of the future life in the primitive animism of the lower
races, and thence traces it along the course of religious thought, in
varied developments fitted to exacter knowledge and forming part of
loftier creeds, may well be maintained as in reasonable accordance
with the evidence. Such a theory, as has been sufficiently shown in
the foregoing chapters, affords a satisfactory explanation of the
occurrence, in the midst of cultured religions, of intellectually low
superstitions, such as that of offerings to the dead, and various
others. These, which the development theory treats naturally as
survivals from a low stage of education lingering on in a higher, are
by no means so readily accounted for by the degeneration theory. There
are more special arguments which favour the priority of the savage to
the civilized phases of the doctrine of a future life. If savages did
in general receive their views of another existence from the religious
systems of cultured nations, these systems can hardly have been such
as recognize the dominant doctrines of heaven and hell. For, as to the
locality of the future world, savage races especially favour a view
little represented in civilized belief, namely, that the life to come
is in some distant earthly country. Moreover, the belief in a fiery
abyss or Gehenna, which excites so intensely and lays hold so firmly
of the imagination of the most ignorant men, would have been
especially adapted to the minds of savages, had it come down to them
by tradition from an ancestral faith. Yet, in fact, the lower races so
seldom recognize such an idea, that even the few cases in which it
occurs lie open to suspicion of not being purely native. The
proposition that the savage doctrines descend from the more civilized
seems thus to involve the improbable supposition, that tribes capable
of keeping up traditions of Paradise, Heaven, or Hades, should
nevertheless have forgotten or discarded a tradition of Hell. Still
more important is the contrast between the continuance-theory and the
retribution-theory of the future existence, in the sections of culture
where they respectively predominate. On the one hand, the
continuance-theory, with its ideas of a ghostly life like this, is
directly vouched for by the evidence of the senses in dreams and
visions of the dead, and may be claimed as part of the ‘Natural
Religion,’ properly so called, of the lower races. On the other hand,
the retribution-theory is a dogma which this evidence of apparitions
could hardly set on foot, though capable of afterwards supporting it.
Throughout the present study of animistic religion, it constantly
comes into view that doctrines which in the lower culture are
philosophical, tend in the higher to become ethical; that what among
savages is a science of nature, passes among civilized nations into a
moral engine. Herein lies the distinction of deepest import between
the two great theories of the soul’s existence after bodily death.
According to a development theory of culture, the savage, unethical
doctrine of continuance would be taken as the more primitive,
succeeded in higher civilization by the ethical doctrine of
retribution. Now this theory of the course of religion in the distant
and obscure past is conformable with experience of its actual history,
so far as this lies within our knowledge. Whether we compare the early
Greek with the later Greek, the early Jew with the later Jew, the
ruder races of the world in their older condition with the same races
as affected by the three missionary religions of Buddhism,
Mohammedanism, Christianity, the testimony of history vouches for the
like transition towards ethical dogma.
In conclusion, though theological argument on the actual validity of
doctrines relating to the future life can have no place here, it will be
well not to pass by without further remark one great practical question
which lies fairly within the province of Ethnography. How, in the
various stages of culture, has the character and conduct of the living
been affected by the thought of a life to come? If we take the savage
beliefs as a starting-point, it will appear that these belong rather to
speculative philosophy than to practical rule of life. The lower races
hold opinions as to a future state because they think them true, but it
is not surprising that men who take so little thought of a contingency
three days off, should receive little practical impulse from vague
anticipations of a life beyond the grave. Setting aside the
consideration of possible races devoid of all thought of a future
existence, there unquestionably has been and is a great mass of mankind
whose lives are scarcely affected by such expectations of another life
as they do hold. The doctrine of continuance, making death as it were a
mere journey into a new country, can have little direct action on men’s
conduct, though indirectly it has indeed an enormous and disastrous
influence on society, leading as it does to the slaughter of wives and
slaves, and the destruction of property, for the use of the dead in the
next world. If this world to come be thought a happier region, the
looking forward to it makes men more willing to risk their lives in
battle, promotes the habit of despatching the sick and aged into a
better life, and encourages suicide when life is very hateful here. When
the half-way house between continuance and retribution is reached, and
the idea prevails that the manly virtues which give rank and wealth and
honour here will lead hereafter to yet brighter glory, then this belief
must add new force to the earthly motives which make bold warriors and
mighty chiefs. But among men who expect to become hovering ghosts at
death, or to depart to some gloomy land of shades, such expectation
strengthens the natural horror and hatred of dissolution. They tend
toward the state of mind frequent among modern Africans, whose thought
of death is that he shall drink no more rum, wear no more fine clothes,
have no more wives. The negro of our own day would feel to the utmost
the sense of those lines in the beginning of the Iliad, which describe
the heroes’ ‘souls’ being cast down to Hades, but ‘themselves’ left a
prey to dogs and carrion birds.
Rising to the level of the higher races, we mark the thought of future
existence taking a larger and larger place in the convictions of
religion, the expectation of a judgment after death gaining in intensity
and becoming, what it scarcely seems to the savage, a real motive in
life. Yet this change is not to be measured as proceeding throughout in
any direct proportion with the development of culture. The doctrine of
the future life has hardly taken deeper and stronger root in the higher
than in the middle levels of civilization. In the language of ancient
Egypt, it is the dead who are emphatically called the ‘living,’ for
their life is everlasting, whether in the world of the departed, or
nearer home in the tomb, the ‘eternal dwelling.’ The Moslem says that
men sleep in life and wake in death; the Hindu likens the body which a
soul has quitted to the bed he rises from in the morning. The story of
the ancient Getæ, who wept at births and laughed at funerals, embodies
an idea of the relation of this life to the next which comes to the
surface again and again in the history of religion, nowhere perhaps
touched in with a lighter hand than in the Arabian Nights’ tale where
Abdallah of the Sea indignantly breaks off his friendship with Abdallah
of the Land, when he hears that the dwellers on the land do not feast
and sing when one of them dies, like the dwellers in the sea, but mourn
and weep and tear their garments. Such thoughts lead on into the morbid
asceticism that culminates in the life of the Buddhist saint, eating his
food with loathing from the alms-bowl that he carries as though it held
medicine, wrapping himself in grave-clothes from the cemetery, or
putting on his disfigured robe as though it were a bandage to cover a
sore, whose looking forward is to death for deliverance from the misery
of life, whose dreamiest hope is that after an inconceivable series of
successive existences he may find in utter dissolution and not-being a
refuge even from heaven.
The belief in future retribution has been indeed a powerful engine in
shaping the life of nations. Powerful both for good and evil, it has
been made the servant-of-all-work of many faiths. Priesthoods have used
it unscrupulously for their professional ends, to gain wealth and power
for their own caste, to stop intellectual and social progress beyond the
barriers of their consecrated systems. On the banks of the river of
death, a band of priests has stood for ages to bar the passage against
all poor souls who cannot satisfy their demands for ceremonies, and
formulas, and fees. This is the dark side of the picture. On the bright
side, as we study the moral standards of the higher nations, and see how
the hopes and fears of the life to come have been brought to enforce
their teachings, it is plain that through most widely differing
religions the doctrine of future judgment has been made to further
goodness and to check wickedness, according to the shifting rules by
which men have divided right from wrong. The philosophic schools which
from classic times onward have rejected the belief in a future
existence, appear to have come back by a new road to the very
starting-point which perhaps the rudest races of men never quitted. At
least this seems true as regards the doctrine of future retribution,
which is alike absent from the belief of classes of men at the two
extremes of culture. How far the moral standard of life may have been
adjusted throughout the higher races with reference to a life hereafter,
is a problem difficult of solution, so largely do unbelievers in this
second life share ethical principles which have been more or less shaped
under its influence. Men who live for one world or for two, have high
motives of virtue in common; the noble self-respect which impels them to
the life they feel worthy of them; the love of goodness for its own sake
and for its immediate results; and beyond this, the desire to do good
that shall survive the doer, who will not indeed be in the land of the
living to see his work, but who can yet discount his expectations into
some measure of present satisfaction. Yet he who believes that his
thread of life will be severed once and for ever by the fatal shears,
well knows that he wants a purpose and a joy in life, which belong to
him who looks for a life to come. Few men feel real contentment in the
expectation of vanishing out of conscious existence, henceforth, like
the great Buddha, to exist only in their works. To remain incarnate in
the memory of friends is something. A few great spirits may enjoy in the
reverence of future ages a thousand years or so of ‘subjective
immortality;’ though as for mankind at large, the individual’s personal
interest hardly extends beyond those who have lived in his time, while
his own memory scarce outlives the third and fourth generation. But over
and above these secular motives, the belief in immortality extends its
powerful influence through life, and culminates at the last hour, when,
setting aside the very evidence of their senses, the mourners smile
through their tears, and say it is not death but life.
Footnote 120:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 239; Seemann, ‘Viti,’ p. 398.
Footnote 121:
Arbousset and Daumas, p. 347; Casalis, p. 247.
Footnote 122:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 20, &c.
Footnote 123:
See ‘The Buke of John Mandeuill,’ 31, edited by Geo. F. Warner,
published by the Roxburghe Club, 1889; Yule, ‘Cathay,’ Hakluyt Soc.
(Note to 3rd ed.)
Footnote 124:
Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ p. 215. Other cases in Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. ii. pp. 58, 369, &c.
Footnote 125:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Res.’ vol. ii. pp. 32, 64, and see ante, vol. i.
p. 312.
Footnote 126:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 271; Klemm, ‘C. G.’ vol. ii. p. 312.
Footnote 127:
Kalewala, Rune xvi.; see Schiefner’s German Translation, and Castrén,
‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 128, 134. A Slavonic myth in Hanusch, p. 412.
Footnote 128:
Homer. Odyss. xi. On the vivification of ghosts by sacrifice of blood,
and on libations of milk and blood, see Meiners, vol. i. p. 315, vol.
ii. p. 89; J. G. Müller, p. 85; Rochholz, ‘Deutscher Glaube und
Brauch,’ vol. i. p. 1, &c.
Footnote 129:
See for example, various details in Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. pp.
369-75, &c.
Footnote 130:
See vol. i. p. 481; also below, p. 52, note. Tanner’s ‘Narr.’ p. 290;
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 233; Keating, vol. ii. p.
154; Loskiel, part i. p. 35; Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol.
xiii. p. 14. See Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 269.
Footnote 131:
Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. pp. 316-20.
Footnote 132:
Shortland, ‘Traditions of New Zealand,’ p. 150; R. Taylor, ‘New
Zealand,’ p. 423. The idea, of which the classic representative
belongs to the myth of Persephone, that the living who tastes the food
of the dead may not return, and which is so clearly stated in this
Maori story, appears again among the Sioux of North America. Ahak-tah
(‘Male Elk’) seems to die, but after two days comes down from the
funeral-scaffold where his body had been laid, and tells his tale. His
soul had travelled by the path of braves through the beautiful land of
great trees and gay loud-singing birds, till he reached the river, and
saw the homes of the spirits of his forefathers on the shore beyond.
Swimming across, he entered the nearest house, where he found his
uncle sitting in a corner. Very hungry, he noticed some wild rice in a
bark dish. ‘I asked my uncle for some rice to eat, but he did not give
it to me. Had I eaten of the food for spirits, I never should have
returned to earth.’ Eastman, ‘Dacotah,’ p. 177.
Footnote 133:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 139, &c.
Footnote 134:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ Letter 19, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 501; Burton,
‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 158. For modern visits to hell and heaven by
Christianized negro visionaries in America, see Macrae, ‘Americans at
Home,’ vol. ii. p. 91.
Footnote 135:
Lucian. Philopseudes, c. 17-28.
Footnote 136:
Plutarch. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, xxii.; and in Euseb. Præp. Evang.
xi. 36.
Footnote 137:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 63.
Footnote 138:
Gregor. Dial. iv. 36. See Calmet, vol. ii. ch. 49.
Footnote 139:
Augustin. Epist. clxiv. 2.
Footnote 140:
See Pearson, ‘Exposition of the Creed;’ Bingham, ‘Ant. Ch. Ch.’ book
x. ch. iii. Art. iii. of the Church of England was reduced to its
present state by Archbp. Parker’s revision.
Footnote 141:
Codex Apocr. N. T. Evang. Nicod. ed. Giles. ‘Apocryphal Gospels,’ &c.
tr. by A. Walker; ‘Gospel of Nicodemus.’ The Greek and Latin texts
differ much.
Footnote 142:
The following details mostly from T. Wright, ‘St. Patrick’s Purgatory’
(an elaborate critical dissertation on the mediæval legends of visits
to the other world).
Footnote 143:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 278. Rigg. in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’
vol. iv. p. 119. See also Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 397;
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. i. p. 83; Irving, ‘Astoria,’ p. 142.
Footnote 144:
Molina, ‘Chili,’ vol. ii. p. 89.
Footnote 145:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 496; Sahagun, iii. App. c. 2, x. c.
29; Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 5.
Footnote 146:
See Wright, l.c. &c.; Alger, p. 391; &c.
Footnote 147:
‘History of Colon,’ ch. 61; Pet. Martyr. Dec. i. lib. ix.; Irving,
‘Life of Columbus,’ vol. ii. p. 121.
Footnote 148:
Stanbridge in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 299; G. F. Moore, ‘Vocab. W.
Austr.’ p. 83; Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 181.
Footnote 149:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 321; see part iii. p. 229.
Footnote 150:
Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 107. See also Burton, ‘W. and W. fr.
W. Africa,’ p. 154 (Gold Coast).
Footnote 151:
Hesiod. Opera et Dies, Pindar, Olymp. ii. antistr. 4. Callistrat.
Hymn. in Ilgen, Scolia Græca, 10. Strabo, iii. 2, 13; Plin. iv. 36.
Footnote 152:
Loc. cit.
Footnote 153:
Procop. De Bello Goth. iv. 20; Plut. Fragm. Comm. in Hesiod. 2; Grimm,
‘D. M.’ p. 793; Hersart de Villemarqué, vol. i. p. 136; Souvestre,
‘Derniers Bretons,’ p. 37; Jas. Macpherson, ‘Introd. to Hist. of Great
Britain and Ireland,’ 2nd ed. London, 1772, p. 180; Wright, ‘St.
Patrick’s Purgatory,’ pp. 64, 129.
Footnote 154:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 269.
Footnote 155:
Harmon, ‘Journal,’ p. 299; see Lewis and Clarke, p. 139 (Mandans).
Footnote 156:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ pp. 140, 287; see Humboldt and
Bonpland, ‘Voy.’ vol. iii. p. 132; Falkner, ‘Patagonia,’ p. 114.
Footnote 157:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 232; Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 235.
Footnote 158:
Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. p. 317, &c.; Arbousset and Daumas, p.
474. See also Burton, ‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 157.
Footnote 159:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 195; Cross, l.c. p. 313. Turanian examples in
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 119.
Footnote 160:
See below, pp. 79, 85.
Footnote 161:
Festus, s.v. ‘manalis,’ &c.
Footnote 162:
Sophocl. Œdip. Tyrann. 178; Lucian. De Luctu, 2. See classic details
in Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ art. ‘inferi.’
Footnote 163:
Birch in Bunsen’s ‘Egypt,’ vol. v.; Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. ii.
p. 368; Alger, p. 101.
Footnote 164:
Smith, ‘History of Virginia,’ in ‘Works’ ed. by Arber; Pinkerton, vol.
xiii. pp. 14, 41; vol. xii. p. 604; see below, p. 95.
Footnote 165:
Thorpe, ‘Analecta Anglo-Saxonica,’ p. 115.
Footnote 166:
Schirren, p. 151. See Taylor, ‘N. Z.’ p. 525.
Footnote 167:
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 781; Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c. p. 170.
Footnote 168:
Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 160; Brinton, p. 288.
Footnote 169:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ p. 138, see also 220 (Caribs), 402
(Peru), 505, 660 (Mexico); Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 233;
Taylor, ‘Physical Theory,’ ch. xvi.; Alger, ‘Future Life,’ p. 590; see
also above, p. 16, note.
Footnote 170:
Humboldt and Bonpland, ‘Voy.’ vol. v. p. 90; Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’
vol. i. p. 233; Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 531; Plutarch. De Facie in
Orbe Lunæ; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ pp. 80, 89 (souls in stars).
Footnote 171:
See Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. pp. 269, 311; Smith,
‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 54; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 223;
Squier, ‘Abor. Mon. of N. Y.’ p. 156; Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p.
180.
Footnote 172:
Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 134; Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 103;
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ pp. 101, 114, 256.
Footnote 173:
Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 393; Burton, ‘W. and W. fr. W. Afr.’
p. 454; Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 295.
Footnote 174:
Herodot. iv. 158, see 185, and Rawlinson’s note. See Smith’s ‘Dic. of
the Bible,’ s.v. ‘firmament.’ Eisenmenger, part i. p. 408.
Footnote 175:
Eyre, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 367.
Footnote 176:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iv. p. 240 (but compare part v. p.
403); Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 176; Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ p. 209.
Footnote 177:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. pp. 319, 328; see Martius,
vol. i. p. 485 (Jumanas).
Footnote 178:
J. G. Müller, p. 403; Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 496;
Kingsborough, ‘Mexico,’ Cod. Letellier, fol. 20.
Footnote 179:
Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 46; Roth in ‘Zeitschr. d. Deutsch.
Morgenl. Ges.’ vol. iv. p. 427.
Footnote 180:
Cross, ‘Karens,’ l.c. pp. 309, 313; Le Jeune in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1634,
p. 16; Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 272; Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i.
p. 316; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. ii. pp. 310, 315; J. G. Müller,
‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 139, 286.
Footnote 181:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 224; Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part ii.
p. 135.
Footnote 182:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. i. p. 364; Spix and Martius,
‘Brasilien,’ vol. i. p. 383; De Laet, Novus Orbis, xv. 2.
Footnote 183:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 258.
Footnote 184:
Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 336.
Footnote 185:
Edda: ‘Gylfaginning.’
Footnote 186:
‘Koran,’ ch. lv. lvi.
Footnote 187:
Eisenmenger, ‘Entdecktes Judenthum,’ part i. p. 7.
Footnote 188:
Hardy, ‘Manual of Budhism,’ pp. 5, 24; Köppen, ‘Rel. des Buddha,’ vol.
i. p. 235, &c.
Footnote 189:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 105.
Footnote 190:
Sahagun, ‘Hist. de Nueva España,’ book iii. appendix ch. i., in
Kingsborough, vol. vii.; Brasseur, vol. iii. p. 571.
Footnote 191:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ pp. 247, 254.
Footnote 192:
Burton, ‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 156; ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 403;
‘Wit and Wisdom from W. Afr.’ pp. 280, 449; see J. G. Müller, p. 140.
Footnote 193:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 126, &c.; Kalewala, Rune xv. xvi. xlv. &c.;
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 780.
Footnote 194:
Homer. Il. ix. 405; Odyss. xi. 218, 475; Virg. Æn. vi. 243, &c., &c.
Footnote 195:
Gen. xxxv. 29; xxv. 8; xxxvii. 35; Job xi. 8; Amos ix. 2; Psalm
lxxxix. 48; Ezek. xxxi., xxxii.; Isaiah xiv. 9, xxxviii. 10-18; 1
Sam., xxviii. 15; Eccles. ix. 10. ‘Records of the Past,’ vol. i. pp.
141-9; Sayce ‘Lectures on Hist. of Rel.’ part ii.; Alger, ‘Critical
History of the Doctrine of a Future Life,’ ch. viii.
Footnote 196:
The doctrine of reversal, as in Kamchatka, where rich and poor will
change places in the other world (Steller, pp. 269-72), is too
exceptional in the lower culture to be generalized. See Steinhauser,
‘Rel. des Negers,’ l. c., p. 135. A Wolof proverb is ‘The more
powerful one is in this world, the more servile one will be in the
next.’ (Burton, ‘Wit and Wisdom,’ p. 28.)
Footnote 197:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. pp. 245, 397; see also Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ p. 237 (Samoans); Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 105.
Footnote 198:
Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ p. 209.
Footnote 199:
‘Rec. des Voy. au Nord,’ vol. v. p. 23 (Natchez); Garcilaso de la
Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ lib. i. c. 23, tr. by C. R. Markham;
Prescott, ‘Peru,’ vol. i. pp. 29, 83; J. G. Müller, p. 402, &c.
Footnote 200:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 259.
Footnote 201:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 77; Lescarbot, ‘Hist. de la
Nouvelle France,’ Paris, 1619, p. 679.
Footnote 202:
Lery, ‘Hist. d’un Voy. en Brésil,’ p. 234; Coreal, ‘Voi. aux Indes
Occ.’ i. p. 224.
Footnote 203:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 430.
Footnote 204:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 325.
Footnote 205:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 104; see also Meiners, vol. ii. p.
769; J. G. Müller, pp. 89, 139.
Footnote 206:
Chateaubriand, ‘Voy. en Amérique’ (Religion).
Footnote 207:
Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 22; Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’ book
xiii. c. 48; Sahagun, book iii. app. ch. i.-iii. in Kingsborough, vol.
vii. Compare Anderson, ‘Exp. to W. Yunnan,’ p. 125. (Shans, good men
and mothers dying in child-birth to heaven, bad men and those killed
by the sword to hell.)
Footnote 208:
Alger, ‘Future Life,’ p. 93.
Footnote 209:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 300.
Footnote 210:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 397; see also Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol.
i. p. 243.
Footnote 211:
Brinton, p. 242, &c.
Footnote 212:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 87, 224. See also the opinions of
Meiners, ‘Gesch. der Religion,’ vol. ii. p. 768; Wuttke. ‘Gesch. des
Heidenthums,’ vol. i. p. 115.
Footnote 213:
Ellis, l. c.; Moerenhout, ‘Voyage,’ vol. i. p. 433.
Footnote 214:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 378.
Footnote 215:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ letter x.; in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 401.
Footnote 216:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 181; see Mundy, ‘Narrative,’ vol. i.
p. 332.
Footnote 217:
Macpherson, p. 92. Compare Moerenhout, l. c. (Tahiti).
Footnote 218:
Mason, l. c. p. 195. See also De Brosses, ‘Nav. aux Terres Australes,’
vol. ii. p. 482 (Caroline Is.).
Footnote 219:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 136, 144. See Georgi, ‘Reise im Russ.
Reich,’ vol. i. p. 278. Compare accounts of Purgatory among the North
American Indians, apparently derived from missionaries, in Morgan,
‘Iroquois,’ p. 169; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 345.
Footnote 220:
See T. Wright, ‘St. Patrick’s Purgatory.’
Footnote 221:
Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 171, 191; Bowen, ‘Yoruba Lang.’ p. xvi. See J. L.
Wilson, p. 210.
Footnote 222:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1635, p. 35; 1636, p. 105. Catlin, ‘N. A.
Ind.’ vol. ii. p. 127; Long’s ‘Exp.’ vol. i. p. 180. See Brinton, p.
247; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 191, vol. iii. p. 197; and the collection of
myths of the Heaven-Bridge and Heaven-Gulf in ‘Early History of
Mankind,’ chap. xii.
Footnote 223:
Smith, ‘New England,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 244.
Footnote 224:
Wilson in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 303.
Footnote 225:
Birch, Introduction to and translation of the ‘Book of the Dead,’ in
Bunsen, vol. v.; Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. v.
Footnote 226:
For references to Rig Veda see Muir, ‘Sanskrit Texts,’ sec. xviii.;
Max Müller, Lecture on Vedas in ‘Essays,’ vol. ii.
Footnote 227:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ new ser. vol. ii. p. 210. See Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 387.
Footnote 228:
Spiegel, ‘Avesta,’ ed. Bleek, vol. iii. pp. 136, 163; see vol. i. pp.
xviii. 90, 141; vol. ii. p. 68.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Animism, expanding from the Doctrine of Souls to the wider Doctrine
of Spirits, becomes a complete Philosophy of Natural
Religion—Definition of Spirits similar to and apparently modelled on
that of Souls—Transition stage: classes of Souls passing
into good and evil Demons—Manes-Worship—Doctrine of
Embodiment of Spirits in human, animal, vegetable, and inert
bodies—Demoniacal Possession and Obsession as causes of Disease and
Oracle-inspiration—Fetishism—Disease-spirits embodied—Ghost attached
to remains of Corpse—Fetish produced by a Spirit embodied in,
attached to, or operating through, an Object—Analogues
of Fetish-doctrine in Modern Science—Stock-and-Stone
Worship—Idolatry—Survival of Animistic Phraseology in modern
Language—Decline of Animistic theory of Nature.
The general scheme of Animism, of which the doctrine of souls hitherto
discussed forms part, thence expands to complete the full general
philosophy of Natural Religion among mankind. Conformably with that
early childlike philosophy in which human life seems the direct key to
the understanding of nature at large, the savage theory of the universe
refers its phenomena in general to the wilful action of pervading
personal spirits. It was no spontaneous fancy, but the reasonable
inference that effects are due to causes, which led the rude men of old
days to people with such ethereal phantoms their own homes and haunts,
and the vast earth and sky beyond. Spirits are simply personified
causes. As men’s ordinary life and actions were held to be caused by
souls, so the happy or disastrous events which affect mankind, as well
as the manifold physical operations of the outer-world, were accounted
for as caused by soul-like beings, spirits whose essential similarity of
origin is evident through all their wondrous variety of power and
function. Much that the primitive animistic view thus explains, has been
indeed given over by more advanced education to the ‘metaphysical’ and
‘positive’ stages of thought. Yet animism is still plainly to be traced
onward from the intellectual state of the lower races, along the course
of the higher culture, whether its doctrines have been continued and
modified into the accepted philosophy of religion, or whether they have
dwindled into mere survivals in popular superstition. Though all I here
undertake is to sketch in outline such features of this spiritualistic
philosophy as I can see plainly enough to draw at all, scarcely
attempting to clear away the haze that covers great parts of the
subject, yet even so much as I venture on is a hard task, made yet
harder by the responsibility attaching to it. For it appears that to
follow the course of animism on from its more primitive stages, is to
account for much of mediæval and modern opinion whose meaning and reason
could hardly be comprehended without the aid of a development-theory of
culture, taking in the various processes of new formation, abolition,
survival, and revival. Thus even the despised ideas of savage races
become a practically important topic to the modern world, for here, as
usual, whatever bears on the origin of philosophic opinion, bears also
on its validity.
At this point of the investigation, we come fully into sight of the
principle which has been all along implied in the use of the word
Animism, in a sense beyond its narrower meaning of the doctrine of
souls. By using it to express the doctrine of spirits generally, it is
practically asserted that the idea of souls, demons, deities, and any
other classes of spiritual beings, are conceptions of similar nature
throughout, the conceptions of souls being the original ones of the
series. It was best, from this point of view, to begin with a careful
study of souls, which are the spirits proper to men, animals, and
things, before extending the survey of the spirit-world to its fullest
range. If it be admitted that souls and other spiritual beings are
conceived of as essentially similar in their nature, it may be
reasonably argued that the class of conceptions based on evidence most
direct and accessible to ancient men, is the earlier and fundamental
class. To grant this, is in effect to agree that the doctrine of souls,
founded on the natural perceptions of primitive man, gave rise to the
doctrine of spirits, which extends and modifies its general theory for
new purposes, but in developments less authenticated and consistent,
more fanciful and far-fetched. It seems as though the conception of a
human soul, when once attained to by man, served as a type or model on
which he framed not only his ideas of other souls of lower grade, but
also his ideas of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that
sports in the long grass up to the heavenly Creator and Ruler of the
world, the Great Spirit.
The doctrines of the lower races fully justify us in classing their
spiritual beings in general as similar in nature to the souls of men. It
will be incidentally shown here, again and again, that souls have the
same qualities attributed to them as other spirits, are treated in like
fashion, and pass without distinct breaks into every part of the general
spiritual definition. The similar nature of soul and other spirit is, in
fact, one of the commonplaces of animism, from its rudest to its most
cultured stages. It ranges from the native New Zealanders’ and West
Indians’ conceptions of the ‘atua’ and the ‘cemi,’ beings which require
special definition to show whether they are human souls or demons or
deities of some other class,[229] and so onward to the declaration of
Philo Judæus, that souls, demons, and angels differ indeed in name, but
are in reality one,[230] and to the state of mind of the modern Roman
Catholic priest, who is cautioned in the rubric concerning the
examination of a possessed patient, not to believe the demon if he
pretends to be the soul of some saint or deceased person, or a good
angel (neque ei credatur, si dæmon simularet se esse animam alicujus
Sancti, vel defuncti, vel Angelum bonum).[231] Nothing can bring more
broadly into view the similar nature of souls and other spiritual beings
than the existence of a full transitional series of ideas. Souls of dead
men are in fact considered as actually forming one of the most important
classes of demons and deities.
It is quite usual for savage tribes to live in terror of the souls of
the dead as harmful spirits. Thus Australians have been known to
consider the ghosts of the unburied dead as becoming malignant
demons.[232] New Zealanders have supposed the souls of their dead to
become so changed in nature as to be malignant to their nearest and
dearest friends in life;[233] the Caribs said that, of man’s various
souls, some go to the seashore and capsize boats, others to the forest
to be evil spirits;[234] among the Sioux Indians the fear of a ghost’s
vengeance has been found to act as a check on murder;[235] of some
tribes in Central Africa it may be said that their main religious
doctrine is the belief in ghosts, and that the main characteristic of
these ghosts is to do harm to the living.[236] The Patagonians lived in
terror of the souls of their wizards, which become evil demons after
death;[237] Turanian tribes of North Asia fear their shamans even more
when dead than when alive, for they become a special class of spirits
who are the hurtfullest in all nature, and who among the Mongols plague
the living on purpose to make them bring offerings.[238] In China it is
held that the multitudes of wretched destitute spirits in the world
below, such as souls of lepers and beggars, can sorely annoy the living;
therefore at certain times they are to be appeased with offerings of
food, scant and beggarly; and a man who feels unwell, or fears a mishap
in business, will prudently have some mock-clothing and mock-money burnt
for these ‘gentlemen of the lower regions.’[239] Notions of this sort
are widely prevalent in Indo-China and India; whole orders of demons
there were formerly human souls, especially of people left unburied or
slain by plague or violence, of bachelors or of women who died in
childbirth, and who henceforth wreak their vengeance on the living. They
may, however, be propitiated by temples and offerings, and thus have
become in fact a regular class of local deities.[240] Among them may be
counted the diabolic soul of a certain wicked British officer, whom
native worshippers in the Tinnevelly district still propitiate by
offering at his grave the brandy and cheroots he loved in life.[241]
India even carried theory into practice by an actual manufacture of
demons, as witness the two following accounts. A certain brahman, on
whose lands a kshatriya raja had built a house, ripped himself up in
revenge, and became a demon of the kind called brahmadasyu, who has been
ever since the terror of the whole country, and is the most common
village deity in Kharakpur.[242] Toward the close of the last century
there were two brahmans, out of whose house a man had wrongfully, as
they thought, taken forty rupees; whereupon one of the brahmans
proceeded to cut off his own mother’s head, with the professed view,
entertained by both mother and son, that her spirit, excited by the
beating of a large drum during forty days, might haunt, torment, and
pursue to death the taker of their money and those concerned with him.
Declaring with her last words that she would blast the thief, the
spiteful hag deliberately gave up her life to take ghostly vengeance for
those forty rupees.[243] By instances like these it appears that we may
trace up from the psychology of the lower races the familiar ancient and
modern European tales of baleful ghost-demons. The old fear even now
continues to vouch for the old belief.
Happily for man’s anticipation of death, and for the treatment of the
sick and aged, thoughts of horror and hatred do not preponderate in
ideas of deified ancestors, who are regarded on the whole as kindly
patron spirits, at least to their own kinsfolk and worshippers.
Manes-worship is one of the great branches of the religion of mankind.
Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they plainly keep up
the social relations of the living world. The dead ancestor, now passed
into a deity, simply goes on protecting his own family and receiving
suit and service from them as of old; the dead chief still watches over
his own tribe, still holds his authority by helping friends and harming
enemies, still rewards the right and sharply punishes the wrong. It will
be enough to show by a few characteristic examples the general position
of manes-worship among mankind, from the lower culture upward.[244] In
the two Americas it appears not unfrequently, from the low savage level
of the Brazilian Camacans, to the somewhat higher stage of northern
Indian tribes whom we hear of as praying to the spirits of their
forefathers for good weather or luck in hunting, and fancying when an
Indian falls into the fire that the ancestral spirits pushed him in to
punish neglect of the customary gifts, while the Natchez of Louisiana
are said to have even gone so far as to build temples for dead men.[245]
Turning to the dark races of the Pacific, we find the Tasmanians laying
their sick round a corpse on the funeral pile, that the dead might come
in the night and take out the devils that caused the diseases; it is
asserted in a general way of the natives, that they believed most
implicitly in the return of the spirits of their departed friends or
relations to bless or injure them as the case might be.[246] In Tanna,
the gods are spirits of departed ancestors, aged chiefs becoming deities
after death, presiding over the growth of yams and fruit trees, and
receiving from the islanders prayer and offerings of first fruits.[247]
Nor are the fairer Polynesians behind in this respect. Below the great
mythological gods of Tonga and New Zealand, the souls of chiefs and
warriors form a lower but active and powerful order of deities, who in
the Tongan paradise intercede for man’s benefit with the higher deities,
who direct the Maori war parties on the march, hover over them and give
them courage in the fight, and, watching jealously their own tribes and
families, punish any violation of the sacred laws of tapu.[248] Thence
we trace the doctrine into the Malay islands, where the souls of
deceased ancestors are looked to for prosperity in life and help in
distress.[249] In Madagascar, the worship of the spirits of the dead is
remarkably associated with the Vazimbas, the aborigines of the island,
who are said still to survive as a distinct race in the interior, and
whose peculiar graves testify to their former occupancy of other
districts. These graves, small in size, and distinguished by a cairn and
an upright stone slab or altar, are places which the Malagasy regard
with equal fear and veneration, and their faces become sad and serious
when they even pass near. To take a stone or pluck a twig from one of
these graves, to stumble against one in the dark, would be resented by
the angry Vazimba inflicting disease, or coming in the night to carry
off the offender to the region of ghosts. The Malagasy is thus enabled
to account for every otherwise unaccountable ailment by his having
knowingly or unknowingly given offence to some Vazimba. They are not
indeed always malevolent, they may be placable or implacable, or partake
of both characters. Thus it comes to pass, that at the altar-slab which
long ago some rude native family set up for commemoration or dutiful
offering of food to a dead kinsman, a barbaric supplanting race now
comes to smear the burnt fat of sacrifice, and set up the heads of
poultry and sheep and the horns of bullocks, that the mysterious tenant
may be kind, not cruel, with his superhuman powers.[250]
On the continent of Africa, manes-worship appears with extremest
definiteness and strength. Thus Zulu warriors, aided by the ‘amatongo,’
the spirits of their ancestors, conquer in the battle; but if the dead
turn their backs on the living, the living fall in the fight, to become
ancestral spirits in their turn. In anger the ‘itongo’ seizes a living
man’s body and inflicts disease and death; in beneficence he gives
health, and cattle, and corn, and all men wish. Even the little children
and old women, of small account in life, become at death spirits having
much power, the infants for kindness, the crones for malice. But it is
especially the head of each family who receives the worship of his kin.
Why it is naturally and reasonably so, a Zulu thus explains. ‘Although
they worship the many Amatongo of their tribe, making a great fence
around them for their protection; yet their father is far before all
others when they worship the Amatongo. Their father is a great treasure
to them even when he is dead. And those of his children who are already
grown up know him thoroughly, his gentleness, and his bravery.’ ‘Black
people do not worship all Amatongo indifferently, that is, all the dead
of their tribe. Speaking generally, the head of each house is worshipped
by the children of that house; for they do not know the ancients who are
dead, nor their laud-giving names, nor their names. But their father
whom they knew is the head by whom they begin and end in their prayer,
for they know him best, and his love for his children; they remember his
kindness to them whilst he was living; they compare his treatment of
them whilst he was living, support themselves by it, and say, “He will
still treat us in the same way now he is dead. We do not know why he
should regard others besides us; he will regard us only.”’[251] It will
be seen in another place how the Zulu follows up the doctrine of divine
ancestors till he reaches a first ancestor of man and creator of the
world, the primæval Unkulunkulu. In West Africa, manes-worship displays
in contrast its two special types. On the one hand, we see the North
Guinea negroes transferring the souls of the dead, according to their
lives, to the rank of good and evil spirits, and if evil worshipping
them the more zealously, as fear is to their minds a stronger impulse
than love. On the other hand, in Southern Guinea, we see the deep
respect paid to the aged during life, passing into worship when death
has raised them to yet higher influence. There the living bring to the
images of the dead food and drink, and even a small portion of their
profits gained in trade; they look especially to dead relatives for help
in the trials of life, and ‘it is no uncommon thing to see large groups
of men and women, in times of peril or distress, assembled along the
brow of some commanding eminence, or along the skirts of some dense
forest, calling in the most piteous and touching tones upon the spirits
of their ancestors.’[252]
In Asia, manes-worship comes to the surface in all directions. The rude
Veddas of Ceylon believe in the guardianship of the spirits of the dead;
these, they say, are ‘ever watchful, coming to them in sickness,
visiting them in dreams, giving them flesh when hunting;’ and in every
calamity and want they call for aid on the ‘kindred spirits,’ and
especially the shades of departed children, the ‘infant spirits.’[253]
Among non-Hindu tribes of India, whose religions more or less represent
præ-Brahmanic and præ-Buddhistic conditions, wide and deep traces appear
of an ancient and surviving cultus of ancestors.[254] Among Turanian
tribes spread over the northern regions of the Old World, a similar
state of things may be instanced from the Mongols, worshipping as good
deities the princely souls of Genghis Khan’s family, at whose head
stands the divine Genghis himself.[255] Nor have nations of the higher
Asiatic culture generally rejected the time-honoured rite. In Japan the
‘Way of the Kami,’ better known to foreigners as the Sin-tu religion, is
one of the officially recognized faiths, and in it there is still kept
up in hut and palace the religion of the rude old mountain-tribes of the
land, who worshipped their divine ancestors, the Kami, and prayed to
them for help and blessing. To the time of these ancient Kami, say the
modern Japanese, the rude stone implements belong which are found in the
ground in Japan as elsewhere: to modern ethnologists, however, these
bear witness not of divine but savage parentage.[256] In Siam the lower
orders scruple to worship the great gods, lest through ignorance they
should blunder in the complex ritual; they prefer to pray to the
‘theparak,’ a lower class of deities among whom the souls of great men
take their places at death.[257] In China, as every one knows,
ancestor-worship is the dominant religion of the land, and interesting
problems are opened out to the Western mind by the spectacle of a great
people who for thousands of years have been thus seeking the living
among the dead. Nowhere is the connexion between parental authority and
conservatism more graphically shown. The worship of ancestors, begun
during their life, is not interrupted but intensified when death makes
them deities. The Chinese, prostrate bodily and mentally before the
memorial tablets that contain the souls of his ancestors, little thinks
that he is all the while proving to mankind how vast a power unlimited
filial obedience, prohibiting change from ancestral institutions, may
exert in stopping the advance of civilization. The thought of the souls
of the dead as sharing the happiness and glory of their descendants is
one which widely pervades the world, but most such ideas would seem
vague and weak to the Chinese, who will try hard for honour in his
competitive examination with the special motive of glorifying his dead
ancestors, and whose titles of rank will raise his deceased father and
grandfather a grade above himself, as though, with us, Zachary Macaulay
and Copley the painter should now have viscounts’ coronets officially
placed on their tombstones. As so often happens, what is jest to one
people is sober sense to another. There are 300 millions of Chinese who
would hardly see a joke in Charles Lamb reviling the stupid age that
would not read him, and declaring that he would write for antiquity. Had
he been a Chinese himself, he might have written his book in all
seriousness for the benefit of his great-great-grandfather. Among the
Chinese, manes-worship is no rite of mere affection. The living want the
help of the ancestral spirits, who reward virtue and punish vice: ‘The
exalted ancestor will bring thee, O Prince, much good!’—‘Ancestors and
fathers will abandon you and give you up, and come not to help, and ye
will die.’ If no help comes in time of need, the Chinese will reproach
his ancestor, or even come to doubt his existence. Thus in a Chinese ode
the sufferers in a dreadful drought cry, ‘Heu-tsi cannot or will not
help.... Our ancestors have surely perished.... Father, mother,
ancestors, how could you calmly bear this?’ Nor does manes-worship stop
short with direct family ties; it is naturally developed to produce, by
deification of the heroic dead, a series of superior gods to whom
worship is given by the public at large. Thus, according to legend, the
War-god or Military Sage was once in human life a distinguished soldier,
the Mechanics’ god was a skilful workman and inventor of tools, the
Swine-god was a hog-breeder who lost his pigs and died of sorrow, and
the Gamblers’ god, a desperate gamester who lost his all and died of
want, is represented by a hideous image called a ‘devil gambling for
cash,’ and in this shape receives the prayers and offerings of confirmed
gamblers, his votaries. The spirits of San-kea Ta-te, and Chang-yuen-sze
go to partake of the offerings set out in their temples, returning
flushed and florid from their meal; and the spirit of Confucius is
present in the temple, where twice a year the Emperor does sacrifice to
him.[258]
The Hindu unites in some degree with the Chinese as to ancestor-worship,
and especially as to the necessity of having a son by blood or adoption,
who shall offer the proper sacrifices to him after death. ‘May there be
born in our lineage,’ the manes are supposed to say, ‘a man to offer to
us, on the thirteenth day of the moon, rice boiled in milk, honey and
ghee.’ Offerings made to the divine manes, the ‘pitaras’ (patres,
fathers) as they are called, preceded and followed by offerings to the
greater deities, give to the worshipper merit and happiness.[259] In
classic Europe, apotheosis lies part within the limits of myth, where it
was applied to fabled ancestors, and part within the limits of actual
history, as where Julius and Augustus shared its honours with the vile
Domitian and Commodus. The most special representatives of
ancestor-worship in Europe were perhaps the ancient Romans, whose word
‘manes’ has become the recognized name for ancestral deities in modern
civilized language; they embodied them as images, set them up as
household patrons, gratified them with offerings and solemn homage, and
counting them as or among the infernal gods, inscribed on tombs D. M.,
‘Diis Manibus.’[260] The occurrence of this D. M. in Christian epitaphs
is an often-noticed case of religious survival.
Although full ancestor-worship is not practised in modern Christendom,
there remains even now within its limits a well-marked worship of the
dead. A crowd of saints, who were once men and women, now form an order
of inferior deities, active in the affairs of men and receiving from
them reverence and prayer, thus coming strictly under the definition of
manes. This Christian cultus of the dead, belonging in principle to the
older manes-worship, was adapted to answer another purpose in the course
of religious transition in Europe. The local gods, the patron gods of
particular ranks and crafts, the gods from whom men sought special help
in special needs, were too near and dear to the inmost heart of
præ-Christian Europe to be done away with without substitutes. It proved
easier to replace them by saints who could undertake their particular
professions, and even succeed them in their sacred dwellings. The system
of spiritual division of labour was in time worked out with wonderful
minuteness in the vast array of professional saints, among whom the most
familiar to modern English ears are St. Cecilia, patroness of musicians;
St. Luke, patron of painters; St. Peter, of fishmongers; St. Valentine,
of lovers; St. Sebastian, of archers; St. Crispin, of cobblers; St.
Hubert, who cures the bite of mad dogs; St. Vitus, who delivers madmen
and sufferers from the disease which bears his name; St. Fiacre, whose
name is now less known by his shrine than by the hackney-coaches called
after him in the seventeenth century. Not to dwell here minutely on an
often-treated topic, it will be enough to touch on two particular
points. First, as to the direct historical succession of the Christian
saint to the heathen deity, the following are two very perfect
illustrations. It is well known that Romulus, mindful of his own
adventurous infancy, became after death a Roman deity propitious to the
health and safety of young children, so that nurses and mothers would
carry sickly infants to present them in his little round temple at the
foot of the Palatine. In after ages the temple was replaced by the
church of St. Theodorus, and there Dr. Conyers Middleton, who drew
public attention to its curious history, used to look in and see ten or
a dozen women, each with a sick child in her lap, sitting in silent
reverence before the altar of the saint. The ceremony of blessing
children, especially after vaccination, may still be seen there on
Thursday mornings.[261] Again, Sts. Cosmas and Damianus, according to
Maury, owe their recognized office to a similar curious train of events.
They were martyrs who suffered under Diocletian, at Ægææ in Cilicia. Now
this place was celebrated for the worship of Æsculapius, in whose temple
incubation, i.e. sleeping for oracular dreams, was practised. It seems
as though the idea was transferred on the spot to the two local saints,
for we next hear of them as appearing in a dream to the Emperor
Justinian, when he was ill at Byzantium. They cured him, he built them a
temple, their cultus spread far and wide, and they frequently appeared
to the sick to show them what they should do. Legend settled that Cosmas
and Damianus were physicians while they lived on earth, and at any rate
they are patron-saints of the profession of medicine to this day.[262]
Second, as to the actual state of hagiolatry in modern Europe, it is
obvious on a broad view that it is declining among the educated classes.
Yet modern examples may be brought forward to show ideas as extreme as
those which prevailed more widely a thousand years ago. In the Church of
the Jesuit College at Rome lies buried St. Aloysius Gonzaga, on whose
festival it is customary especially for the college students to write
letters to him, which are placed on his gaily decorated and illuminated
altar, and afterwards burnt unopened. The miraculous answering of these
letters is vouched for in an English book of 1870. To the same year
belongs an English tract commemorating a late miraculous cure. An
Italian lady afflicted with a tumour and incipient cancer of the breast
was exhorted by a Jesuit priest to recommend herself to the Blessed John
Berchmans, a pious Jesuit novice from Belgium, who died in 1621, and was
beatified in 1865. Her adviser procured for her ‘three small packets of
dust gathered from the coffin of this saintly innocent, a little cross
made of the boards of the room the blessed youth occupied, as well as
some portion of the wadding in which his venerable head was wrapped.’
During nine days’ devotion the patient accordingly invoked the Blessed
John, swallowed small portions of his dust in water, and at last pressed
the cross to her breast so vehemently that she was seized with sickness,
went to sleep, and awoke without a symptom of the complaint. And when
Dr. Panegrossi the physician beheld the incredible cure, and heard that
the patient had addressed herself to the Blessed Berchmans, he bowed his
head, saying, ‘When such physicians interfere, we have nothing more to
say!’[263] To sum up the whole history of manes-worship, it is plain
that in our time the dead still receive worship from far the larger half
of mankind, and it may have been much the same ever since the remote
periods of primitive culture in which the religion of the manes probably
took its rise.
It has now been seen that the theory of souls recognizes them as capable
either of independent existence, or of inhabiting human, animal, or
other bodies. On the principle here maintained, that the general theory
of spirits is modelled on the theory of souls, we shall be able to
account for several important branches of the lower philosophy of
religion, which without such explanation may appear in great measure
obscure or absurd. Like souls, other spirits are supposed able either to
exist and act flitting free about the world, or to become incorporate
for more or less time in solid bodies. It will be well at once to get a
secure grasp of this theory of Embodiment, for without it we shall be
stopped every moment by a difficulty in understanding the nature of
spirits, as defined in the lower animism. The theory of embodiment
serves several highly important purposes in savage and barbarian
philosophy. On the one hand it provides an explanation of the phenomena
of morbid exaltation and derangement, especially as connected with
abnormal utterance, and this view is so far extended as to produce an
almost general doctrine of disease. On the other hand, it enables the
savage either to ‘lay’ a hurtful spirit in some foreign body, and so get
rid of it, or to carry about a useful spirit for his service in a
material object, to set it up as a deity for worship in the body of an
animal, or in a block or stone or image or other thing, which contains
the spirit as a vessel contains a fluid: this is the key to strict
fetishism, and in no small measure to idolatry. In briefly considering
these various branches of the Embodiment-theory, there may be
conveniently included certain groups of cases often impossible to
distinguish apart. These cases belong theoretically rather to obsession
than possession, the spirits not actually inhabiting the bodies, but
hanging or hovering about them and affecting them from the outside.
As in normal conditions the man’s soul, inhabiting his body, is held to
give it life, to think, speak, and act through it, so an adaptation of
the self-same principle explains abnormal conditions of body or mind, by
considering the new symptoms as due to the operation of a second
soul-like being, a strange spirit. The possessed man, tossed and shaken
in fever, pained and wrenched as though some live creature were tearing
or twisting him within, pining as though it were devouring his vitals
day by day, rationally finds a personal spiritual cause for his
sufferings. In hideous dreams he may even sometimes see the very ghost
or nightmare-fiend that plagues him. Especially when the mysterious
unseen power throws him helpless on the ground, jerks and writhes him in
convulsions, makes him leap upon the bystanders with a giant’s strength
and a wild beast’s ferocity, impels him, with distorted face and frantic
gesture, and voice not his own nor seemingly even human, to pour forth
wild incoherent raving, or with thought and eloquence beyond his sober
faculties to command, to counsel, to foretell—such a one seems to those
who watch him, and even to himself, to have become the mere instrument
of a spirit which has seized him or entered into him, a possessing demon
in whose personality the patient believes so implicitly that he often
imagines a personal name for it, which it can declare when it speaks in
its own voice and character through his organs of speech; at last,
quitting the medium’s spent and jaded body, the intruding spirit departs
as it came. This is the savage theory of dæmoniacal possession and
obsession, which has been for ages, and still remains, the dominant
theory of disease and inspiration among the lower races. It is obviously
based on an animistic interpretation, most genuine and rational in its
proper place in man’s intellectual history, of the actual symptoms of
the cases. The general doctrine of disease-spirits and oracle-spirits
appears to have its earliest, broadest, and most consistent position
within the limits of savagery. When we have gained a clear idea of it in
this its original home, we shall be able to trace it along from grade to
grade of civilization, breaking away piecemeal under the influence of
new medical theories, yet sometimes expanding in revival, and at least
in lingering survival holding its place into the midst of our modern
life. The possession-theory is not merely known to us by the statements
of those who describe diseases in accordance with it. Disease being
accounted for by attack of spirits, it naturally follows that to get rid
of these spirits is the proper means of cure. Thus the practices of the
exorcist appear side by side with the doctrine of possession, from its
first appearance in savagery to its survival in modern civilization; and
nothing could display more vividly the conception of a disease or a
mental affection as caused by a personal spiritual being than the
proceedings of the exorcist who talks to it, coaxes or threatens it,
makes offerings to it, entices or drives it out of the patient’s body,
and induces it to take up its abode in some other. That the two great
effects ascribed to such spiritual influence in obsession and
possession, namely, the infliction of ailments and the inspiration of
oracles, are not only mixed up together but often run into absolute
coincidence, accords with the view that both results are referred to one
common cause. Also that the intruding or invading spirit may be either a
human soul or may belong to some other class in the spiritual hierarchy,
countenances the opinion that the possession-theory is derived from, and
indeed modelled on, the ordinary theory of the soul acting on the body.
In illustrating the doctrine by typical examples from the enormous mass
of available details, it will hardly be possible to discriminate among
the operating spirits, between those which are souls and those which are
demons, nor to draw an exact line between obsession by a demon outside
and possession by a demon inside, nor between the condition of the
demon-tormented patient and the demon-actuated doctor, seer, or priest.
In a word, the confusion of these conceptions in the savage mind only
fairly represents their intimate connexion in the Possession-theory
itself.
In the Australian-Tasmanian district, disease and death are ascribed to
more or less defined spiritual influences; descriptions of a demon
working a sorcerer’s wicked will by coming slyly behind his victim and
hitting him with his club on the back of his neck, and of a dead man’s
ghost angered by having his name uttered, and creeping up into the
utterer’s body to consume his liver, are indeed peculiarly graphic
details of savage animism.[264] The theory of disease-spirits is well
stated in its extreme form among the Mintira, a low race of the Malay
peninsula. Their ‘hantu’ or spirits have among their functions that of
causing ailments; thus the ‘hantu kalumbahan’ causes small-pox; the
‘hantu kamang’ brings on inflammation and swellings in the hands and
feet; when a person is wounded, the ‘hantu pari’ fastens on the wound
and sucks, and this is the cause of the blood flowing. And thus, as the
describer says, ‘To enumerate the remainder of the hantus would be
merely to convert the name of every species of disease known to the
Mintira into a proper one. If any new disease appeared, it would be
ascribed to a hantu bearing the same name.’[265] It will help us to an
idea of the distinct personality which the disease-demon has in the
minds of the lower races, to notice the Orang Laut of this district
placing thorns and brush in the paths leading to a part where small-pox
had broken out, to keep the demons off; just as the Khonds of Orissa try
with thorns, and ditches, and stinking oil poured on the ground, to
barricade the paths to their hamlets against the goddess of small-pox,
Jugah Pennu.[266] Among the Dayaks of Borneo, ‘to have been smitten by a
spirit’ is to be ill; sickness may be caused by invisible spirits
inflicting invisible wounds with invisible spears, or entering men’s
bodies and driving out their souls, or lodging in their hearts and
making them raving mad. In the Indian Archipelago, the personal
semi-human nature of the disease-spirits is clearly acknowledged by
appeasing them with feasts and dances and offerings of food set out for
them away in the woods, to induce them to quit their victims, or by
sending tiny proas to sea with offerings, that spirits which have taken
up their abode in sick men’s bowels may embark and not come back.[267]
The animistic theory of disease is strongly marked in Polynesia, where
every sickness is ascribed to spiritual action of deities, brought on by
the offerings of enemies, or by the victim’s violation of the laws of
tapu. Thus in New Zealand each ailment is caused by a spirit,
particularly an infant or undeveloped human spirit, which sent into the
patient’s body gnaws and feeds inside; and the exorcist, finding the
path by which such a disease-spirit came from below to feed on the
vitals of a sick relative, will persuade it by a charm to get upon a
flax-stalk and set off home. We hear, too, of an idea of the parts of
the body—forehead, breast, stomach, feet, &c.—being apportioned each to
a deity who inflicts aches and pains and ailments there.[268] So in the
Samoan group, when a man was near death, people were anxious to part on
good terms with him, feeling assured that if he died with angry feelings
towards any one, he would certainly return and bring calamity on that
person or some one closely allied to him. This was considered a frequent
source of disease and death, the spirit of a departed member of the
family returning and taking up his abode in the head, chest, or stomach
of a living man, and so causing sickness and death. If a man died
suddenly, it was thought that he was eaten by the spirit that took him;
and though the soul of one thus devoured would go to the common
spirit-land of the departed, yet it would have no power of speech there,
and if questioned could but beat its breast. It completes this account
to notice that the disease-inflicting souls of the departed were the
same which possessed the living under more favourable circumstances,
coming to talk through a certain member of the family, prophesying
future events, and giving directions as to family affairs.[269] Farther
east, in the Georgian and Society Islands, evil demons are sent to
scratch and tear people into convulsions and hysterics, to torment poor
wretches as with barbed hooks, or to twist and knot inside them till
they die writhing in agony. But madmen are to be treated with great
respect, as entered by a god, and idiots owe the kindness with which
they are appeased and coaxed to the belief in their superhuman
inspiration.[270] Here, and elsewhere in the lower culture, the old real
belief has survived which has passed into a jest of civilized men in the
famous phrase of the ‘inspired idiot.’
American ethnography carries on the record of rude races ascribing
disease to the action of evil spirits. Thus the Dacotas believe that the
spirits punish them for misconduct, especially for neglecting to make
feasts for the dead; these spirits have the power to send the spirit of
something, as of a bear, deer, turtle, fish, tree, stone, worm, or
deceased person, which entering the patient causes disease; the
medicine-man’s cure consists in reciting charms over him, singing
‘He-le-li-lah, &c.,’ to the accompaniment of a gourd-rattle with beads
inside, ceremonially shooting a symbolic bark representation of the
intruding creature, sucking over the seat of pain to get the spirit out,
and firing guns at it as it is supposed to be escaping.[271] Such
processes were in full vogue in the West Indies in the time of Columbus,
when Friar Roman Pane put on record his quaint account of the native
sorcerer pulling the disease off the patient’s legs (as one pulls off a
pair of trousers), going out of doors to blow it away, and bidding it
begone to the mountain or the sea; the performance concluding with the
regular sucking-cure and the pretended extraction of some stone or bit
of flesh, or such thing, which the patient is assured that his
patron-spirit or deity (cemi) put into him to cause the disease, in
punishment for neglect to build him a temple or honour him with prayer
or offerings of goods.[272] Patagonians considered sickness as caused by
a spirit entering the patient’s body; ‘they believe every sick person to
be possessed of an evil demon; hence their physicians always carry a
drum with figures of devils painted on it, which they strike at the beds
of sick persons to drive out from the body the evil demon which causes
the disorder.’[273] In Africa, according to the philosophy of the
Basutos and the Zulus, the causes of disease are the ghosts of the dead,
come to draw the living to themselves, or to compel them to sacrifice
meat-offerings. They are recognized by the diviners, or by the patient
himself, who sees in dreams the departed spirit come to torment him.
Congo tribes in like manner consider the souls of the dead, passed into
the ranks of powerful spirits, to cause disease and death among mankind.
Thus, in both these districts, medicine becomes an almost entirely
religious matter of propitiatory sacrifice and prayer addressed to the
disease-inflicting manes. The Barolong give a kind of worship to
deranged persons, as being under the direct influence of a deity; while
in East Africa the explanation of madness and idiocy is simple and
typical—‘he has fiends.’[274] Negroes of West Africa, on the supposition
that an attack of illness has been caused by some spiritual being, can
ascertain to their satisfaction what manner of spirit has done it, and
why. The patient may have neglected his ‘wong’ or fetish-spirit, who has
therefore made him ill; or it may be his own ‘kla’ or personal
guardian-spirit, who on being summoned explains that he has not been
treated respectfully enough, &c.; or it may be a ‘sisa’ or ghost of some
dead man, who has taken this means of making known that he wants perhaps
a gold ornament that was left behind when he died.[275] Of course, the
means of cure will then be to satisfy the demands of the spirit. Another
aspect of the negro doctrine of disease-spirits is displayed in the
following description from Guinea, by the Rev. J. L. Wilson, the
missionary:—‘Demoniacal possessions are common, and the feats performed
by those who are supposed to be under such influence are certainly not
unlike those described in the New Testament. Frantic gestures,
convulsions, foaming at the mouth, feats of supernatural strength,
furious ravings, bodily lacerations, gnashing of teeth, and other things
of a similar character, may be witnessed in most of the cases which are
supposed to be under diabolical influence.’[276] The remark several
times made by travellers is no doubt true, that the spiritualistic
theory of disease has tended strongly to prevent progress in the medical
art among the lower races. Thus among the Bodo and Dhimal of North-East
India, who ascribe all diseases to a deity tormenting the patient for
some impiety or neglect, the exorcists divine the offended god and
appease him with the promised sacrifice of a hog; these exorcists are a
class of priests, and the people have no other doctors.[277] Where the
world-wide doctrine of disease-demons has held sway, men’s minds, full
of spells and ceremonies, have scarce had room for thought of drugs and
regimen.
The cases in which disease-possession passes into oracle-possession are
especially connected with hysterical, convulsive, and epileptic
affections. Mr. Backhouse describes a Tasmanian native sorcerer,
‘affected with fits of spasmodic contraction of the muscles of one
breast, which he attributes, as they do all other diseases, to the
devil’; this malady served to prove his inspiration to his people.[278]
When Dr. Mason was preaching near a village of heathen Pwo, a man fell
down in an epileptic fit, his familiar spirit having come over him to
forbid the people to listen to the missionary, and he sang out his
denunciations like one frantic. This man was afterwards converted, and
told the missionary that ‘he could not account for his former exercises,
but that it certainly appeared to him as though a spirit spoke, and he
must tell what was communicated.’ In this Karen district flourishes the
native ‘wee’ or prophet, whose business is to work himself into the
state in which he can see departed spirits, visit their distant home,
and even recall them to the body, thus raising the dead; these wees are
nervous excitable men, such as would become mediums, and in giving
oracles they go into actual convulsions.[279] Dr. Callaway’s details of
the state of the Zulu diviners are singularly instructive. Their
symptoms are ascribed to possession by ‘amatongo’ or ancestral spirits;
the disease is common, from some it departs of its own accord, others
have the ghost laid which causes it, and others let the affection take
its course and become professional diviners, whose powers of finding
hidden things and giving apparently inaccessible information are vouched
for by native witnesses, who at the same time are not blind to their
tricks and their failures. The most perfect description is that of a
hysterical visionary, who had ‘the disease which precedes the power to
divine.’ This man describes that well-known symptom of hysteria, the
heavy weight creeping up within him to his shoulders, his vivid dreams,
his waking visions of objects that are not there when he approaches, the
songs that come to him without learning, the sensation of flying in the
air. This man was ‘of a family who are very sensitive, and become
doctors.’[280] Persons whose constitutional unsoundness induces morbid
manifestations are indeed marked out by nature to become seers and
sorcerers. Among the Patagonians, patients seized with falling sickness
or St. Vitus’s dance were at once selected for magicians, as chosen by
the demons themselves who possessed, distorted, and convulsed them.[281]
Among Siberian tribes, the shamans select children liable to convulsions
as suitable to be brought up to the profession, which is apt to become
hereditary with the epileptic tendencies it belongs to.[282] Thus, even
in the lower culture, a class of sickly brooding enthusiasts begin to
have that power over the minds of their lustier fellows, which they have
kept in so remarkable a way through the course of history.
Morbid oracular manifestations are habitually excited on purpose, and
moreover the professional sorcerer commonly exaggerates or wholly feigns
them. In the more genuine manifestations the medium may be so intensely
wrought upon by the idea that a possessing spirit is speaking from
within him, that he may not only give this spirit’s name and speak in
its character, but possibly may in good faith alter his voice to suit
the spiritual utterance. This gift of spirit-utterance, which belongs to
‘ventriloquism’ in the ancient and proper sense of the term, of course
lapses into sheer trickery. But that the phenomena should be thus
artificially excited or dishonestly counterfeited, rather confirms than
alters the present argument. Real or simulated, the details of
oracle-possession alike illustrate popular belief. The Patagonian wizard
begins his performance with drumming and rattling till the real or
pretended epileptic fit comes on by the demon entering him, who then
answers questions from within him with a faint and mournful voice.[283]
In Southern India and Ceylon the so-called ‘devil-dancers’ have to work
themselves into paroxysms, to gain the inspiration whereby they profess
to cure their patients.[284] So, with furious dancing to the music and
chanting of the attendants, the Bodo priest brings on the fit of
maniacal inspiration in which the deity fills him and gives oracles
through him.[285] In Kamchatka the female shamans, when Billukai came
down into them in a thunderstorm, would prophesy; or, receiving spirits
with a cry of ‘hush!’ their teeth chattered as in fever, and they were
ready to divine.[286] Among the Singpho of South-East Asia, when the
‘natzo’ or conjurer is sent for to a sick patient, he calls on his ‘nat’
or demon, the soul of a deceased foreign prince, who descends into him
and gives the required answers.[287] In the Pacific Islands, spirits of
the dead would enter for a time the body of a living man, inspiring him
to declare future events, or to execute some commission from the higher
deities. The symptoms of oracular possession among savages have been
especially well described in this region of the world. The Fijian priest
sits looking steadfastly at a whale’s tooth ornament, amid dead silence.
In a few minutes he trembles, slight twitchings of face and limbs come
on, which increase to strong convulsions, with swelling of the veins,
murmurs and sobs. Now the god has entered him, and with eyes rolling and
protruding, unnatural voice, pale face and livid lips, sweat streaming
from every pore, and the whole aspect of a furious madman, he gives the
divine answer, and then, the symptoms subsiding, he looks round with a
vacant stare, and the deity returns to the land of spirits. In the
Sandwich Islands, where the god Oro thus gave his oracles, his priest
ceased to act or speak as a voluntary agent, but with his limbs
convulsed, his features distorted and terrific, his eyes wild and
strained, he would roll on the ground foaming at the mouth, and reveal
the will of the possessing god in shrill cries and sounds violent and
indistinct, which the attending priests duly interpreted to the people.
In Tahiti, it was often noticed that men who in the natural state showed
neither ability nor eloquence, would in such convulsive delirium burst
forth into earnest lofty declamation, declaring the will and answers of
the gods, and prophesying future events, in well-knit harangues full of
the poetic figure and metaphor of the professional orator. But when the
fit was over, and sober reason returned, the prophet’s gifts were
gone.[288] Lastly, the accounts of oracular possession in Africa show
the primitive ventriloquist in perfect types of morbid knavery. In
Sofala, after a king’s funeral, his soul would enter into a sorcerer,
and speaking in the familiar tones that all the bystanders recognized,
would give counsel to the new monarch how to govern his people.[289]
About a century ago, a negro fetish-woman of Guinea is thus described in
the act of answering an enquirer who has come to consult her. She is
crouching on the earth, with her head between her knees and her hands up
to her face, till, becoming inspired by the fetish, she snorts and foams
and gasps. Then the suppliant may put his question, ‘Will my friend or
brother get well of this sickness?’—‘What shall I give thee to set him
free from his sickness?’ and so forth. Then the fetish-woman answers in
a thin, whistling voice, and with the old-fashioned idioms of
generations past; and thus the suppliant receives his command, perhaps
to kill a white cock and put him at a four-cross way, or tie him up for
the fetish to come and fetch him, or perhaps merely to drive a dozen
wooden pegs into the ground, so to bury his friend’s disease with
them.[290]
The details of demoniacal possession among barbaric and civilized
nations need no elaborate description, so simply do they continue the
savage cases.[291] But the state of things we notice here agrees with
the conclusion that the possession-theory belongs originally to the
lower culture, and is gradually superseded by higher medical knowledge.
Surveying its course through the middle and higher civilization, we
shall notice first a tendency to limit it to certain peculiar and severe
affections, especially connected with mental disorder, such as epilepsy,
hysteria, delirium, idiocy, madness; and after this a tendency to
abandon it altogether, in consequence of the persistent opposition of
the medical faculty. Among the nations of South-East Asia, obsession and
possessions by demons is strong at least in popular belief. The Chinese
attacked with dizziness, or loss of the use of his limbs, or other
unaccountable disease, knows that he has been influenced by a malignant
demon, or punished for some offence by a deity whose name he will
mention, or affected by his wife of a former existence, whose spirit has
after a long search discovered him. Exorcism of course exists, and when
the evil spirit or influence is expelled, it is especially apt to enter
some person standing near; hence the common saying, ‘idle spectators
should not be present at an exorcism.’ Divination by possessed mediums
is usual in China: among such is the professional woman who sits at a
table in contemplation, till the soul of a deceased person from whom
communication is desired enters her body and talks through her to the
living; also the man into whom a deity is brought by invocations and
mesmeric passes, when, assuming the divine figure and attitude, he
pronounces the oracle.[292] In Burma, the fever-demon of the jungle
seizes trespassers on his domain, and shakes them in ague till he is
exorcised, while falls and apoplectic fits are the work of other
spirits. The dancing of women by demoniacal possession is treated by the
doctor covering their heads with a garment, and thrashing them soundly
with a stick, the demon and not the patient being considered to feel the
blows; the possessing spirit may be prevented from escaping by a knotted
and charmed cord hung round the bewitched person’s neck, and when a
sufficient beating has induced it to speak by the patient’s voice and
declare its name and business, it may either be allowed to depart, or
the doctor tramples on the patient’s stomach till the demon is stamped
to death. For an example of invocation and offerings, one characteristic
story told by Dr. Bastian will suffice. A Bengali cook was seized with
an apoplectic fit, which his Burmese wife declared was but a just
retribution, for the godless fellow had gone day after day to market to
buy pounds and pounds of meat, yet in spite of her remonstrances would
never give a morsel to the patron-spirit of the town; as a good wife,
however, she now did her best for her suffering husband, placing near
him little heaps of coloured rice for the ‘nat,’ and putting on his
fingers rings with prayers addressed to the same offended being—‘Oh ride
him not!’—‘Ah let him go!’—‘Grip him not so hard!’—‘Thou shalt have
rice!’—‘Ah, how good that tastes!’ How explicitly Buddhism recognizes
such ideas, may be judged from one of the questions officially put to
candidates for admission as monks or talapoins—‘Art thou afflicted by
madness or the other ills caused by giants, witches, or evil demons of
the forest and mountain?’[293] Within our own domain of British India,
the possession-theory and the rite of exorcism belonging to it may be
perfectly studied to this day. There the doctrine of sudden ailment or
nervous disease being due to a blast or possession by a ‘bhut,’ or
being, that is, a demon, is recognized as of old; there the old witch
who has possessed a man and made him sick or deranged, will answer
spiritually out of his body and say who she is and where she lives;
there the frenzied demoniac may be seen raving, writhing, tearing,
bursting his bonds, till, subdued by the exorcist, his fury subsides, he
stares and sighs, falls helpless to the ground, and comes to himself;
and there the deities caused by excitement, singing, and incense to
enter into men’s bodies, manifest their presence with the usual
hysterical or epileptic symptoms, and speaking in their own divine name
and personality, deliver oracles by the vocal organs of the inspired
medium.[294]
In the Ancient Babylonian-Assyrian texts, the exorcism-formulas show the
doctrine of disease-demons in full development, and similar opinions
were current in ancient Greece and Rome, to whose languages indeed our
own owes the technical terms of the subject, such as ‘demoniac’ and
‘exorcist.’ Homer’s sick men racked with pain are tormented by a hateful
demon (στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔχραε δαίμων). ‘Epilepsy’ (ἐπίληψις) was, as its
name imports, the ‘seizure’ of the patient by a superhuman agent: the
agent being more exactly defined in ‘nympholepsy,’ the state of being
seized or possessed by a nymph, i.e., rapt or entranced (νυμφόληπτος,
lymphatus). The causation of mental derangement and delirious utterance
by spiritual possession was an accepted tenet of Greek philosophy. To be
insane was simply to have an evil spirit, as when Sokrates said of those
who denied demonic or spiritual knowledge, that they themselves were
demoniac (δαιμονᾶν ἔφη), and Alexander ascribed to the influence of
offended Dionysos the ungovernable drunken fury in which he killed his
friend Kleitos; raving madness was obsession or possession by an evil
demon (κἀκοδαιμονία). So the Romans called madmen ‘larvati,’ ‘larvarum
pleni,’ full of ghosts. Patients possessed by demons stared and foamed,
and the spirits spoke from within them by their voices. The craft of the
exorcist was well known. As for oracular possession, its theory and
practice remained in fullest vigour through the classic world, scarce
altered from the times of lowest barbarism. Could a South Sea Islander
have gone to Delphi to watch the convulsive struggles of the Pythia, and
listen to her raving, shrieking utterances, he would have needed no
explanation whatever of a rite so absolutely in conformity with his own
savage philosophy.[295]
The Jewish doctrine of possession[296] at no time in its long course
exercised a direct influence on the opinion of the civilized world
comparable to that produced by the mentions of demoniacal possession in
the New Testament. It is needless to quote here even a selection from
the familiar passages of the Gospels and Acts which display the manner
in which certain described symptoms were currently accounted for in
public opinion. Regarding these documents from an ethnographic point of
view, it need only be said that they prove, incidentally but absolutely,
that Jews and Christians at that time held the doctrine which had
prevailed for ages before, and continued to prevail for ages after,
referring to possession and obsession by spirits the symptoms of mania,
epilepsy, dumbness, delirious and oracular utterance, and other morbid
conditions, mental and bodily.[297] Modern missionary works, such as
have been cited here, give the most striking evidence of the
correspondence of these demoniac symptoms with such as may still be
observed among uncivilized races. During the early centuries of
Christianity, demoniacal possession indeed becomes peculiarly
conspicuous, perhaps not from unusual prevalence of the animistic theory
of disease, but simply because a period of intense religious excitement
brought it more than usually into requisition. Ancient ecclesiastical
records describe, under the well-known names of ‘dæmoniacs’
(δαιμονιζόμενοι), ‘possessed’ (κατεχόμενοι), ‘energumens’
(ἐνεργούμενοι), the class of persons whose bodies are seized or
possessed by an evil spirit; such attacks being frequently attended with
great commotions and vexations and disturbances of the body, occasioning
sometimes frenzy and madness, sometimes epileptic fits, and other
violent tossings and contortions. These energumens formed a recognised
part of an early Christian congregation, a standing-place apart being
assigned to them in the church. The church indeed seems to have been the
principal habitation of these afflicted creatures, they were occupied
out of service-time in such work as sweeping, daily food was provided
for them, and they were under the charge of a special order of clergy,
the exorcists, whose religious function was to cast out devils by prayer
and adjuration and laying on of hands. As to the usual symptoms of
possession, Justin, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Cyril, Minucius, Cyprian,
and other early Fathers, give copious descriptions of demons entering
into the bodies of men, disordering their health and minds, driving them
to wander among the tombs, forcing them to writhe and wallow and rave
and foam, howling and declaring their own diabolical names by the
patients’ voices, but when overcome by conjuration or by blows
administered to their victims, quitting the bodies they had entered, and
acknowledging the pagan deities to be but devils.[298]
On a subject so familiar to educated readers I may be excused from
citing at length a vast mass of documents, barbaric in nature and only
more or less civilized in circumstance, to illustrate the continuance of
the doctrine of possession and the rite of exorcism through the middle
ages and into modern times. A few salient examples will suffice. For a
type of medical details, we may instance the recipes in the ‘Early
English Leechdoms’: a cake of the ‘thost’ of a white hound baked with
meal is to be taken against the attack by dwarves (i.e. convulsions); a
drink of herbs worked up off clear ale with the aid of garlic, holy
water, and singing of masses, is to be drunk by a fiend-sick patient out
of a church bell. Philosophical argument may be followed in the
dissertations of the ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ concerning demons
substantially inhabiting men and causing illness in them, enquiries
which may be pursued under the auspices of Glanvil in the ‘Saducismus
Triumphatus.’ Historical anecdote bears record of the convulsive
clairvoyant demon who possessed Nicola Aubry, and under the Bishop of
Laon’s exorcism testified in an edifying manner to the falsity of
Calvinism; of Charles VI. of France, who was possessed, and whose demon
a certain priest tried in vain to transfer into the bodies of twelve men
who were chained up to receive it; of the German woman at Elbingerode
who in a fit of toothache wished the devil might enter into her teeth,
and who was possessed by six demons accordingly, which gave their names
as Schalk der Wahrheit, Wirk, Widerkraut, Myrrha, Knip, Stüp; of George
Lukins of Yatton, whom seven devils threw into fits and talked and sang
and barked out of, and who was delivered by a solemn exorcism by seven
clergymen at the Temple Church at Bristol in the year 1788.[299] A
strong sense of the permanence of the ancient doctrine may be gained
from accounts of the state of public opinion in Europe, from Greece and
Italy to France, where within the last century derangement and hysteria
were still popularly ascribed to possession and treated by exorcism,
just as in the dark ages.[300] In the year 1861, at Morzine, at the
south of the Lake of Geneva, there might be seen in full fury an
epidemic of diabolical possession worthy of a Red Indian settlement or a
negro kingdom of West Africa, an outburst which the exorcisms of a
superstitious priest had so aggravated that there were a hundred and ten
raving demoniacs in that single village.[301] The following is from a
letter written in 1862 by Mgr. Anouilh, a French missionary-bishop in
China. ‘Le croiriez-vous? dix villages se sont convertis. Le diable est
furieux et fait les cent coups. Il y a eu, pendant les quinze jours que
je viens de prêcher, cinq ou six possessions. Nos catéchumènes avec
l’eau bénite chassent les diables, guérissent les malades. J’ai vu des
choses merveilleuses. Le diable m’est d’un grand secours pour convertir
les païens. Comme au temps de Notre-Seigneur, quoique père du mensonge,
il ne peut s’empêcher de dire la vérité. Voyez ce pauvre possédé faisant
mille contorsions et disant à grands cris: “Pourquoi prêches-tu la vraie
religion? Je ne puis souffrir que tu m’enlèves mes disciples.”—“Comment
t’appelles-tu?” lui demande le catéchiste. Après quelques refus: “Je
suis l’envoyé de Lucifer”—“Combien êtes-vous?”—“Nous sommes vingt-deux.”
“L’eau bénite et le signe de la croix ont délivré ce possédé.”’[302] To
conclude the series with a modern spiritualistic instance, one of those
where the mediums feel themselves entered and acted through by a spirit
other than their own soul. The Rev. Mr. West of Philadelphia describes
how a certain possessed medium went through the sword exercise, and fell
down senseless; when he came to himself again, the spirit within him
declared itself to be the soul of a deceased ancestor of the minister’s,
who had fought and died in the American War.[303] We in England now
hardly hear of demoniacal possession except as a historical doctrine of
divines. We have discarded from religious services the solemn ceremony
of casting out devils from the bodies of the possessed, a rite to this
day officially retained in the Rituals of the Greek and Roman Churches.
Cases of diabolical influence alleged from time to time among ourselves
are little noticed except by newspaper paragraphs on superstition and
imposture. If, however, we desire to understand the doctrine of
possession, its origin and influence in the world, we must look beyond
countries where public opinion has passed into this stage, and must
study the demoniac theory as it still prevails in lower and lowest
levels of culture.
It has to be thoroughly understood that the changed aspect of the
subject in modern opinion is not due to disappearance of the actual
manifestations which early philosophy attributed to demoniacal
influence. Hysteria and epilepsy, delirium and mania, and such like
bodily and mental derangement, still exist. Not only do they still
exist, but among the lower races, and in superstitious districts among
the higher, they are still explained and treated as of old. It is not
too much to assert that the doctrine of demoniacal possession is kept
up, substantially the same theory to account for substantially the same
facts, by half the human race, who thus stand as consistent
representatives of their forefathers back into primitive antiquity. It
is in the civilized world, under the influence of the medical doctrines
which have been developing since classic times, that the early animistic
theory of these morbid phenomena has been gradually superseded by views
more in accordance with modern science, to the great gain of our health
and happiness. The transition which has taken place in the famous insane
colony of Gheel in Belgium is typical. In old days, the lunatics were
carried there in crowds to be exorcised from their demons at the church
of St. Dymphna; to Gheel they still go, but the physician reigns in the
stead of the exorcist. Yet wherever, in times old or new, demoniacal
influences are brought forward to account for affections which
scientific physicians now explain on a different principle, care must be
taken not to misjudge the ancient doctrine and its place in history. As
belonging to the lower culture it is a perfectly rational philosophical
theory to account for certain pathological facts. But just as mechanical
astronomy gradually superseded the animistic astronomy of the lower
races, so biological pathology gradually supersedes animistic pathology,
the immediate operation of personal spiritual beings in both cases
giving place to the operation of natural processes.
We now pass to the consideration of another great branch of the lower
religion of the world, a development of the same principles of spiritual
operation with which we have become familiar in the study of the
possession-theory. This is the doctrine of Fetishism. Centuries ago, the
Portuguese in West Africa, noticing the veneration paid by the negroes
to certain objects, such as trees, fish, plants, idols, pebbles, claws
of beasts, sticks and so forth, very fairly compared these objects to
the amulets or talismans with which they were themselves familiar, and
called them _feitiço_ or ‘charm,’ a word derived from Latin _factitius_,
in the sense of ‘magically artful.’ Modern French and English adopted
this word from the Portuguese as _fétiche_, _fetish_, although curiously
enough both languages had already possessed the word for ages in a
different sense, Old French _faitis_, ‘well made, beautiful,’ which Old
English adopted as _fetys_, ‘well made, neat.’ It occurs in the
commonest of all quotations from Chaucer:
‘And Frensch sche spak ful faire and _fetysly_,
Aftur the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe.’
The President de Brosses, a most original thinker of the 18th century,
struck by the descriptions of the African worship of material and
terrestrial objects, introduced the word Fétichisme as a general
descriptive term,[304] and since then it has obtained great currency by
Comte’s use of it to denote a general theory of primitive religion, in
which external objects are regarded as animated by a life analogous to
man’s. It seems to me, however, more convenient to use the word Animism
for the doctrine of spirits in general, and to confine the word
Fetishism to that subordinate department which it properly belongs to,
namely, the doctrine of spirits embodied in, or attached to, or
conveying influence through, certain material objects. Fetishism will be
taken as including the worship of ‘stocks and stones,’ and thence it
passes by an imperceptible gradation into Idolatry.
Any object whatsoever may be a fetish. Of course, among the endless
multitude of objects, not as we should say physically active, but to
which ignorant men ascribe mysterious power, we are not to apply
indiscriminately the idea of their being considered vessels or vehicles
or instruments of spiritual beings. They may be mere signs or tokens set
up to represent ideal notions or ideal beings, as fingers or sticks are
set up to represent numbers. Or they may be symbolic charms working by
imagined conveyance of their special properties, as an iron ring to give
firmness, or a kite’s foot to give swift flight. Or they may be merely
regarded in some undefined way as wondrous ornaments or curiosities. The
tendency runs through all human nature to collect and admire objects
remarkable in beauty, form, quality, or scarceness. The shelves of
ethnological museums show heaps of the objects which the lower races
treasure up and hang about their persons—teeth and claws, roots and
berries, shells and stones, and the like. Now fetishes are in great
measure selected from among such things as these, and the principle of
their attraction for savage minds is clearly the same which still guides
the superstitious peasant in collecting curious trifles ‘for luck.’ The
principle is one which retains its force in far higher ranges of culture
than the peasant’s. Compare the Ostyak’s veneration for any peculiar
little stone he has picked up, with the Chinese love of collecting
curious varieties of tortoise-shell, or an old-fashioned English
conchologist’s delight in a reversed shell. The turn of mind which in a
Gold-Coast negro would manifest itself in a museum of monstrous and most
potent fetishes, might impel an Englishman to collect scarce
postage-stamps or queer walking-sticks. In the love of abnormal
curiosities there shows itself a craving for the marvellous, an
endeavour to get free from the tedious sense of law and uniformity in
nature. As to the lower races, were evidence more plentiful as to the
exact meaning they attach to objects which they treat with mysterious
respect, it would very likely appear more often and more certainly than
it does now, that these objects seem to them connected with the action
of spirits, so as to be, in the strict sense in which the word is here
used, real fetishes. But this must not be taken for granted. To class an
object as a fetish, demands explicit statement that a spirit is
considered as embodied in it or acting through it or communicating by
it, or at least that the people it belongs to do habitually think this
of such objects; or it must be shown that the object is treated as
having personal consciousness and power, is talked with, worshipped,
prayed to, sacrificed to, petted or ill-treated with reference to its
past or future behaviour to its votaries. In the instances now selected,
it will be seen that in one way or another they more or less satisfy
such conditions. In investigating the exact significance of fetishes in
use among men, savage or more civilized, the peculiar difficulty is to
know whether the effect of the object is thought due to a whole personal
spirit embodied in or attached to it, or to some less definable
influence exerted through it. In some cases this point is made clear,
but in many it remains doubtful.
It will help us to a clearer conception of the nature of a fetish, to
glance at a curious group of nations which connect a disease at once
with spiritual influence, and with the presence of some material object.
They are a set of illustrations of the savage principle, that a disease
or an actual disease-spirit may exist embodied in a stick or stone or
such-like material object. Among the natives of Australia, one hears of
the sorcerers extracting from their own bodies by passes and
manipulations a magical essence called ‘boylya,’ which they can make to
enter the patient’s body like pieces of quartz, which causes pain there
and consumes the flesh, and may be magically extracted either as
invisible or in the form of a bit of quartz. Even the spirit of the
waters, ‘nguk-wonga,’ which had caused an attack of erysipelas in a
boy’s leg (he had been bathing too long when heated) is declared to have
been extracted by the conjurers from the affected part in the shape of a
sharp stone.[305] The Caribs, who very distinctly referred diseases to
the action of hostile demons or deities, had a similar sorcerer’s
process of extracting thorns or splinters from the affected part as the
peccant causes, and it is said that in the Antilles morsels of stone and
bone so extracted were wrapped up in cotton by the women, as protective
fetishes in childbirth.[306] The Malagasy, considering all diseases as
inflicted by an evil spirit, consult a diviner, whose method is often to
remove the disease by means of a ‘faditra;’ this is some object, such as
a little grass, ashes, a sheep, a pumpkin, the water the patient has
rinsed his mouth with, or what not, and when the priest has counted on
it the evils that may injure the patient, and charged the faditra to
take them away for ever, it is thrown away, and the malady with it.[307]
Among those strong believers in disease-spirits, the Dayaks of Borneo,
the priest, waving and jingling charms over the affected part of the
patient, pretends to extract stones, splinters, and bits of rag, which
he declares are spirits; of such evil spirits he will occasionally bring
half-a-dozen out of a man’s stomach, and as he is paid a fee of six
gallons of rice for each, he is probably disposed (like a chiropodist
under similar circumstances) to extract a good many.[308] The most
instructive accounts of this kind are those which reach us from Africa.
Dr. Callaway has taken down at length a Zulu account of the method of
stopping out disease caused by spirits of the dead. If a widow is
troubled by her late husband’s ghost coming and talking to her night
after night as though still alive, till her health is affected and she
begins to waste away, they find a ‘nyanga’ or sorcerer who can bar out
the disease. He bids her not lose the spittle collected in her mouth
while she is dreaming, and gives her medicine to chew when she wakes.
Then he goes with her to lay the ‘itongo,’ or ghost; perhaps he shuts it
up in a bulb of the inkomfe plant, making a hole in the side of this,
putting in the medicine and the dream-spittle, closing the hole with a
stopper, and re-planting the bulb. Leaving the place, he charges her not
to look back till she gets home. Thus the dream is barred; it may still
come occasionally, but no longer infests the woman; the doctor prevails
over the dead man as regards that dream. In other cases the cure of a
sick man attacked by the ancestral spirits may be effected with some of
his blood put into a hole in an anthill by the doctor, who closes the
hole with a stone, and departs without looking back; or the patient may
be scarified over the painful place, and the blood put into the mouth of
a frog, caught for the purpose and carried back. So the disease is
barred out from the man.[309] In West Africa, a case in point is the
practice of transferring a sick man’s ailment to a live fowl, which is
set free with it, and if any one catches the fowl, the disease goes to
him.[310] Captain Burton’s account from Central Africa is as follows.
Disease being possession by a spirit or ghost, the ‘mganga’ or sorcerer
has to expel it, the principal remedies being drumming, dancing, and
drinking, till at last the spirit is enticed from the body of the
patient into some inanimate article, technically called a ‘keti’ or
stool for it. This may be an ornament, such as a peculiar bead or a
leopard’s claw, or it may be a nail or rag, which by being driven into
or hung to a ‘devil’s tree’ has the effect of laying the disease-spirit.
Or disease-spirits may be extracted by chants, one departing at the end
of each stave, when a little painted stick made for it is flung on the
ground, and some patients may have as many as a dozen ghosts extracted,
for here also the fee is so much apiece.[311] In Siam, the Laos sorcerer
can send his ‘phi phob’ or demon into a victim’s body, where it turns
into a fleshy or leathery lump, and causes disease ending in death.[312]
Thus, on the one hand, the spirit-theory of disease is seen to be
connected with that sorcerer’s practice prevalent among the lower races,
of pretending to extract objects from the patient’s body, such as
stones, bones, balls of hair, &c., which are declared to be causes of
disease conveyed by magical means into him; of this proceeding I have
given a detailed account elsewhere, under the name of the
‘sucking-cure.’[313] On the other hand, there appears among the lower
races that well-known conception of a disease or evil influence as an
individual being, which may be not merely conveyed by an infected object
(though this of course may have much to do with the idea), but may be
removed by actual transfer from the patient into some other animal or
object. Thus Pliny informs us how pains in the stomach may be cured by
transmitting the ailment from the patient’s body into a puppy or duck,
which will probably die of it;[314] it is considered baneful to a Hindu
woman to be a man’s third wife, wherefore the precaution is taken of
first betrothing him to a tree, which dies in her stead;[315] after the
birth of a Chinese baby, its father’s trousers are hung in the room
wrong side up, that all evil influences may enter into them instead of
into the child.[316] Modern folklore still cherishes such ideas. The
ethnographer may still study in the ‘white witchcraft’ of European
peasants the arts of curing a man’s fever or headache by transferring it
to a crawfish or a bird, or of getting rid of ague or gout or warts by
giving them to a willow, elder, fir, or ash-tree, with suitable charms,
‘Goe morgen, olde, ick geef oe de Kolde,’ ‘Goden Abend, Herr Fleder,
hier bring ick mien Feber, ick bind em di an und gah davan,’ ‘Ash-tree,
ashen tree, pray buy this wart of me,’ and so forth; or of nailing or
plugging an ailment into a tree-trunk, or conveying it away by some of
the patient’s hair or nail-parings or some such thing, and so burying
it. Looking at these proceedings from a moral point of view, the
practice of transferring the ailment to a knot or a lock of hair and
burying it is the most harmless, but another device is a very pattern of
wicked selfishness. In England, warts may be touched each with a pebble,
and the pebbles in a bag left on the road to church, to give up their
ailments to the unlucky finder; in Germany, a plaister from a sore may
be left at a cross-way to transfer the disease to a passer-by; I am told
on medical authority that the bunches of flowers which children offer to
travellers in Southern Europe are sometimes intended for the ungracious
purpose of sending some disease away from their homes.[317] One case of
this group, mentioned to me by Mr. Spottiswoode, is particularly
interesting. In Thuringia it is considered that a string of
rowan-berries, a rag, or any small article, touched by a sick person and
then hung on a bush beside some forest path, imparts the malady to any
person who may touch this article in passing, and frees the sick person
from the disease. This gives great probability to Captain Burton’s
suggestion that the rags, locks of hair, and what not, hung on trees
near sacred places by the superstitious from Mexico to India and from
Ethiopia to Ireland, are deposited there as actual receptacles of
disease; the African ‘devil’s trees’ and the sacred trees of Sindh, hung
with rags through which votaries have transferred their complaints,
being typical cases of a practice surviving in lands of higher culture.
The spirits which enter or otherwise attach themselves to objects may be
human souls. Indeed one of the most natural cases of the fetish-theory
is when a soul inhabits or haunts what is left of its former body. It is
plain enough that by a simple association of ideas the dead person is
imagined to keep up a connexion with his remains. Thus we read of the
Mandan women going year after year to take food to the skulls of their
dead kinsfolk, and sitting by the hour to chat and jest in their most
endearing strain with the relics of a husband or child;[318] thus the
Guinea negroes, who keep the bones of parents in chests, will go to talk
with them in the little huts which serve for their tombs.[319] And thus,
from the savage who keeps and carries with his household property the
cleaned bones of his forefathers,[320] to the mourner among ourselves
who goes to weep at the grave of one beloved, imagination keeps together
the personality and the relics of the dead. Here, then, is a course of
thought open to the animistic thinker, leading him on from fancied
association to a belief in the real presence of a spiritual being in a
material object. Thus there is no difficulty in understanding how the
Karens thought the spirits of the dead might come back from the other
world to reanimate their bodies;[321] nor how the Marian islanders
should have kept the dried bodies of their dead ancestors in their huts
as household gods, and even expected them to give oracles out of their
skulls;[322] nor how the soul of a dead Carib might be thought to abide
in one of his bones, taken from the grave and carefully wrapped in
cotton, in which state it could answer questions, and even bewitch an
enemy if a morsel of his property were wrapped up with it;[323] nor how
the dead Santal should be sent to his fathers by the ceremony of
committing to the sacred river morsels of his skull from the
funeral-pile.[324] Such ideas are of great interest in studying the
burial rites of mankind, especially the habit of keeping relics of the
dead as vehicles of superhuman power, and of even preserving the whole
body as a mummy, as in Peru and Egypt. The conception of such human
relics becoming fetishes, inhabited or at least acted through by the
souls which formerly belonged to them, will give a rational explanation
of much relic-worship otherwise obscure.
A further stretch of imagination enables the lower races to associate
the souls of the dead with mere objects, a practice which may have had
its origin in the merest childish make-believe, but which would lead a
thorough savage animist straight on to the conception of the soul
entering the object as a body. Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in Keeling
Island who held a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll; this
spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired
at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively like a table
or a hat at a modern spirit-séance.[325] Among the Salish Indians of
Oregon, the conjurers bring back men’s lost souls as little stones or
bones or splinters, and pretend to pass them down through the tops of
their heads into their hearts, but great care must be taken to remove
the spirits of any dead people that may be in the lot, for the patient
receiving one would die.[326] There are indigenous Kol tribes of India
who work out this idea curiously in bringing back the soul of a deceased
man into the house after the funeral, apparently to be worshipped as a
household spirit; while some catch the spirit re-embodied in a fowl or
fish, the Binjwar of Raepore bring it home in a pot of water, and the
Bunjia in a pot of flour.[327] The Chinese hold such theories with
extreme distinctness, considering one of a man’s three spirits to take
up its abode in the ancestral tablet, where it receives messages and
worship from the survivors; while the long keeping of the dead man’s
gilt and lacquered coffin, and the reverence and offerings continued at
the tomb, are connected with the thought of a spirit lingering about the
corpse. Consistent with these quaint ideas are ceremonies in vogue in
China, of bringing home in a cock (live or artificial) the spirit of a
man deceased in a distant place, and of enticing into a sick man’s coat
the departing spirit which has already left his body, and so conveying
it back.[328] Tatar folklore illustrates the idea of soul-embodiment in
the quaint but intelligible story of the demon-giant who could not be
slain, for he did not keep his soul in his body, but in a twelve-headed
snake carried in a bag on his horse’s back; the hero finds out the
secret and kills the snake, and then the giant dies too. This tale is
curious, as very likely indicating the original sense of a well-known
group of stories in European folklore, the Scandinavian one, for
instance, where the giant cannot be made an end of, because he keeps his
heart not in his body, but in a duck’s egg in a well far away; at last
the young champion finds the egg and crushes it, and the giant
bursts.[329] Following the notion of soul-embodiment into civilized
times, we learn that ‘A ghost may be laid for any term less than an
hundred years, and in any place or body, full or empty; as, a solid
oak—the pommel of a sword—a barrel of beer, if a yeoman or simple
gentleman—or a pipe of wine, if an esquire or a justice.’ This is from
Grose’s bantering description in the 18th century of the art of ‘laying’
ghosts,[330] and it is one of the many good instances of articles of
serious savage belief surviving as jests among civilized men.
Thus other spiritual beings, roaming free about the world, find
fetish-objects to act through, to embody themselves in, to present them
visibly to their votaries. It is extremely difficult to draw a distinct
line of separation between the two prevailing sets of ideas relating to
spiritual action through what we call inanimate objects. Theoretically
we can distinguish the notion of the object acting as it were by the
will and force of its own proper soul or spirit, from the notion of some
foreign spirit entering its substance or acting on it from without, and
so using it as a body or instrument. But in practice these conceptions
blend almost inextricably. This state of things is again a confirmation
of the theory of animism here advanced, which treats both sets of ideas
as similar developments of the same original idea, that of the human
soul, so that they may well shade imperceptibly into one another. To
depend on some typical descriptions of fetishism and its allied
doctrines in different grades of culture, is a safer mode of treatment
than to attempt too accurate a general definition.
There is a quaint story, dating from the time of Columbus, which shows
what mysterious personality and power rude tribes could attach to
lifeless matter. The cacique Hatuey, it is related, heard by his spies
in Hispaniola that the Spaniards were coming to Cuba. So he called his
people together, and talked to them of the Spaniards—how they persecuted
the natives of the islands, and how they did such things for the sake of
a great lord whom they much desired and loved. Then, taking out a basket
with gold in it, he said, ‘Ye see here their lord whom they serve and go
after; and, as ye have heard, they are coming hither to seek this lord.
Therefore let us make him a feast, that when they come he may tell them
not to do us harm.’ So they danced and sang from night to morning before
the gold-basket, and then the cacique told them not to keep the
Christian’s lord anywhere, for if they kept him in their very bowels
they would have to bring him out; so he bade them cast him to the bottom
of the river, and this they did.[331] If this story be thought too good
to be true, at any rate it does not exaggerate authentic savage ideas.
The ‘maraca’ or ceremonial rattle, used by certain rude Brazilian
tribes, was an eminent fetish. It was a calabash with a handle and a
hole for a mouth, and stones inside; yet to its votaries it seemed no
mere rattle, but the receptacle of a spirit that spoke from it when
shaken; therefore the Indians set up their maracas, talked to them, set
food and drink and burned incense before them, held annual feasts in
their honour, and would even go to war with their neighbours to satisfy
the rattle-spirits’ demand for human victims.[332] Among the North
American Indians, the fetish-theory seems involved in that remarkable
and general proceeding known as getting ‘medicine.’ Each youth obtains
in a vision or dream a sight of his medicine, and considering how
thoroughly the idea prevails that the forms seen in visions and dreams
are spirits, this of itself shows the animistic nature of the matter.
The medicine thus seen may be an animal, or part of one, such as skin or
claws, feather or shell, or such a thing as a plant, a stone, a knife, a
pipe; this object he must obtain, and thenceforward through life it
becomes his protector. Considered as a vehicle or receptacle of a
spirit, its fetish-nature is shown in many ways; its owner will do
homage to it, make feasts in its honour, sacrifice horses, dogs, and
other valuable objects to it or its spirit, fast to appease it if
offended, have it burned with him to conduct him as a guardian-spirit to
the happy hunting-grounds. Beside these special protective objects, the
Indians, especially the medicine-men (the word is French, ‘médecin,’
applied to these native doctors or conjurers, and since stretched to
take in all that concerns their art), use multitudes of other fetishes
as means of spiritual influence.[333] Among the Turanian tribes of
Northern Asia, where Castrén describes the idea of spirits contained in
material objects, to which they belong, and wherein they dwell in the
same incomprehensible way as the souls in a man’s body, we may notice
the Ostyak’s worship of objects of scarce or peculiar quality, and also
the connexion of the shamans or sorcerers with fetish-objects, as where
the Tatars consider the innumerable rags and tags, bells and bits of
iron, that adorn the shaman’s magic costume, to contain spirits helpful
to their owner in his magic craft.[334] John Bell, in his journey across
Asia in 1719, relates a story which well illustrates Mongol ideas as to
the action of self-moving objects. A certain Russian merchant told him
that once some pieces of damask were stolen out of his tent. He
complained, and the Kutuchtu Lama ordered the proper steps to be taken
to find out the thief. One of the Lamas took a bench with four feet, and
after turning it several times in different directions, at last it
pointed directly to the tent where the stolen goods lay concealed. The
Lama now mounted astride the bench, and soon carried it, or, as was
commonly believed, it carried him, to the very tent, where he ordered
the damask to be produced. The demand was directly complied with: for it
is vain in such cases to offer any excuse.[335]
A more recent account from Central Africa may be placed as a pendant to
this Asiatic account of divination by a fetish-object. The Rev. H.
Rowley says of the Manganja, that they believed the medicine-men could
impart a power for good or evil to objects either animate or inanimate,
which objects the people feared, though they did not worship them. This
missionary once saw this art employed to detect the thief who had stolen
some corn. The people assembled round a large fig-tree. The magician, a
wild-looking man, produced two sticks, like our broomsticks, which after
mysterious manipulation and gibberish he delivered to four young men,
two holding each stick. A zebra-tail and a calabash-rattle were given to
a young man and a boy. The medicine-man rolled himself about in hideous
fashion, and chanted an unceasing incantation; the bearers of the tail
and rattle went round the stick-holders, and shook these implements over
their heads. After a while the men with the sticks had spasmodic
twitchings of the arms and legs, these increased nearly to convulsions,
they foamed at the mouth, their eyes seemed starting from their heads,
they realized to the full the idea of demoniacal possession. According
to the native notion, it was the sticks which were possessed primarily,
and through them the men, who could hardly hold them. The sticks whirled
and dragged the men round and round like mad, through bush and thorny
shrub, and over every obstacle, nothing stopped them, their bodies were
torn and bleeding; at last they came back to the assembly, whirled round
again, and rushed down the path to fall panting and exhausted in the hut
of one of a chief’s wives, the sticks rolling to her very feet,
denouncing her as the thief. She denied it, but the medicine-man
answered, ‘The spirit has declared her guilty, the spirit never lies.’
However, the ‘muavi’ or ordeal-poison was administered to a cock, as
deputy for the woman; the bird threw it up, and she was acquitted.[336]
Fetishism in the lower civilization is thus by no means confined to the
West African negro with whom we specially associate the term. Yet, what
with its being in fact extremely prevalent there, and what with the
attention of foreign observers having been particularly drawn to it, the
accounts from West Africa are certainly the fullest and most minute on
record. The late Professor Waitz’s generalization of the principle
involved in these is much to the purpose. He thus describes the negro’s
conception of his fetish. ‘According to his view, a spirit dwells or can
dwell in every sensible object, and often a very great and mighty one in
an insignificant thing. This spirit he does not consider as bound fast
and unchangeably to the corporeal thing it dwells in, but it has only
its usual or principal abode in it. The negro indeed in his conception
not uncommonly separates the spirit from the sensible object which it
inhabits, he even sometimes contrasts the one with the other, but most
usually combines the two as forming a whole, and this whole is (as the
Europeans call it) the “fetish,” the object of his religious worship.’
Some further particulars will show how this principle is worked out.
Fetishes (native names for them are ‘grigri,’ ‘juju,’ &c.) may be mere
curious mysterious objects that strike a negro’s fancy, or they may be
consecrated or affected by a priest or fetish-man; the theory of their
influence is that they belong to or are made effectual by a spirit or
demon yet they have to stand the test of experience, and if they fail to
bring their owner luck and safety, he discards them for some more
powerful medium. The fetish can see and hear and understand and act, its
possessor worships it, talks familiarly with it as a dear and faithful
friend, pours libations of rum over it, and in times of danger calls
loudly and earnestly on it as if to wake up its spirit and energy. To
give an idea of the sort of things which are chosen as fetishes, and of
the manner in which they are associated with spiritual influences,
Römer’s account from Guinea about a century ago may serve. In the
fetish-house, he says, there hang or lie thousands of rubbishy trifles,
a pot with red earth and a cock’s feather stuck in it, pegs wound over
with yarn, red parrots’ feathers, men’s hair, and so forth. The
principal thing in the hut is the stool for the fetish to sit on, and
the mattress for him to rest on, the mattress being no bigger than a
man’s hand and the stool in proportion, and there is a little bottle of
brandy always ready for him. Here the word fetish is used as it often
is, to denote the spirit which dwells in this rudimentary temple, but we
see that the innumerable quaint trifles which we call fetishes were
associated with the deity in his house. Römer once peeped in at an open
door, and found an old negro caboceer sitting amid twenty thousand
fetishes in his private fetish-museum, thus performing his devotions.
The old man told him he did not know the hundredth part of the use they
had been to him; his ancestors and he had collected them, each had done
some service. The visitor took up a stone about as big as a hen’s egg,
and its owner told its history. He was once going out on important
business, but crossing the threshold he trod on this stone and hurt
himself. Ha ha! thought he, art thou here? So he took the stone, and it
helped him through his undertaking for days. In our own time, West
Africa is still a world of fetishes. The traveller finds them on every
path, at every ford, on every house-door, they hang as amulets round
every man’s neck, they guard against sickness or inflict it if
neglected, they bring rain, they fill the sea with fishes willing to
swim into the fisherman’s net, they catch and punish thieves, they give
their owner a bold heart and confound his enemies, there is nothing that
the fetish cannot do or undo, if it be but the right fetish. Thus the
one-sided logic of the barbarian, making the most of all that fits and
glossing over all that fails, has shaped a universal fetish-philosophy
of the events of life. So strong is the pervading influence, that the
European in Africa is apt to catch it from the negro, and himself, as
the saying is, ‘become black.’ Thus even yet some traveller, watching a
white companion asleep, may catch a glimpse of some claw or bone or
such-like sorcerer’s trash secretly fastened round his neck.[337]
European life, lastly, shows well-marked traces of the ancient doctrine
of spirits or mysterious influences inhabiting objects. Thus a mediæval
devil might go into an old sow, a straw, a barleycorn, or a willow-tree.
A spirit might be carried about in a solid receptacle for use:—
‘Besides in glistering glasses fayre, or else in christall cleare,
They sprightes enclose.’
Modern peasant folklore knows that spirits must have some animal body or
other object to dwell in, a feather, a bag, a bush, for instance. The
Tyrolese object to using grass for toothpicks because of the demons that
may have taken up their abode in the straws. The Bulgarians hold it a
great sin not to fumigate the flour when it is brought from the mill
(particularly if the mill be kept by a Turk) in order to prevent the
devil from entering into it.[338] Amulets are still carried in the most
civilized countries of the world, by the ignorant and superstitious with
real savage faith in their mysterious virtues, by the more enlightened
in quaint survival from the past. The mental and physical phenomena of
what is now called ‘table-turning’ belong to a class of proceedings
which have here been shown to be familiar to the lower races, and
accounted for by them on a theory of extra-human influence which is in
the most extreme sense spiritualistic.
In giving its place in the history of mental development to the doctrine
of the lower races as to embodiment in or penetration of an object by a
spirit or an influence, there is no slight interest in comparing it with
theories familiar to the philosophy of cultured nations. Thus Bishop
Berkeley remarks on the obscure expressions of those who have described
the relation of power to the objects which exert it. He cites Torricelli
as likening matter to an enchanted vase of Circe serving as a receptacle
of force, and declaring that power and impulse are such subtle abstracts
and refined quintessences, that they cannot be enclosed in any other
vessels but the inmost materiality of natural solids; also Leibnitz as
comparing active primitive power to soul or substantial form. Thus, says
Berkeley, must even the greatest men, when they give way to abstraction,
have recourse to words having no certain signification, and indeed mere
scholastic shadows.[339] We may fairly add that such passages show the
civilized metaphysician falling back on such primitive conceptions as
still occupy the minds of the rude natives of Siberia and Guinea. To go
yet farther, I will venture to assert that the scientific conceptions
current in my own schoolboy days, of heat and electricity as invisible
fluids passing in and out of solid bodies, are ideas which reproduce
with extreme closeness the special doctrine of Fetishism.
Under the general heading of Fetishism, but for convenience’ sake
separately, may be considered the worship of ‘stocks and stones.’ Such
objects, if merely used as altars, are not of the nature of fetishes,
and it is first necessary to ascertain that worship is actually
addressed to them. Then arises the difficult question, are the stocks
and stones set up as mere ideal representatives of deities, or are these
deities considered as physically connected with them, embodied in them,
hovering about them, acting through them? In other words, are they only
symbols, or have they passed in the minds of their votaries into real
fetishes? The conceptions of the worshippers are sometimes in this
respect explicitly stated, may sometimes be fairly inferred from the
circumstances, and are often doubtful.
Among the lower races of America, the Dacotas would pick up a round
boulder, paint it, and then, addressing it as grandfather, make
offerings to it and pray to it to deliver them from danger;[340] in the
West India Islands, mention is made of three stones to which the natives
paid great devotion—one was profitable for the crops, another for women
to be delivered without pain, the third for sunshine and rain when they
were wanted;[341] and we hear of Brazilian tribes setting up stakes in
the ground, and making offerings before them to appease their deities or
demons.[342] Stone-worship held an important place in the midst of the
comparatively high culture of Peru, where not only was reverence given
to especial curious pebbles and the like, but stones were placed to
represent the penates of households and the patron-deities of villages.
It is related by Montesinos that when the worship of a certain sacred
stone was given up, a parrot flew from it into another stone, to which
adoration was paid: and though this author is not of good credit, he can
hardly have invented a story which, as we shall see, so curiously
coincides with the Polynesian idea of a bird conveying to and from an
idol the spirit which embodies itself in it.[343]
In Africa, stock-and-stone worship is found among the Damaras of the
South, whose ancestors are represented at the sacrificial feasts by
stakes cut from trees or bushes consecrated to them, to which stakes the
meat is first offered;[344] among the Dinkas of the White Nile, where
the missionaries saw an old woman in her hut offering the first of her
food and drink before a short thick staff planted in the ground, that
the demon might not hurt her;[345] among the Gallas of Abyssinia, a
people with a well-marked doctrine of deities, and who are known to
worship stones and logs, but not idols.[346] In the island of Sambawa,
the Orang Dongo attribute all supernatural or incomprehensible force to
the sun, moon, trees, &c., but especially to stones, and when troubled
by accident or disease, they carry offerings to certain stones to
implore the favour of their genius or dewa.[347] Similar ideas are to be
traced through the Pacific islands, both among the lighter and the
darker races. Thus in the Society Islands, rude logs or fragments of
basalt columns, clothed in native cloth and anointed with oil, received
adoration and sacrifice as divinely powerful by virtue of the atua or
deity which had filled them.[348] So in the New Hebrides worship was
given to water-worn pebbles,[349] while Fijian gods and goddesses had
their abodes or shrines in black stones like smooth round milestones,
and there received their offerings of food.[350] The curiously
anthropomorphic idea of stones being husbands and wives, and even having
children, is familiar to the Fijians as it is to the Peruvians and the
Lapps.
The Turanian tribes of North Asia display stock-and-stone worship in
full sense and vigour. Not only were stones, especially curious ones and
such as were like men or animals, objects of veneration, but we learn
that they were venerated because mighty spirits dwelt in them. The
Samoyed travelling ark-sledge, with its two deities, one with a stone
head, the other a mere black stone, both dressed in green robes with red
lappets, and both smeared with sacrificial blood, may serve as a type of
stone-worship. And as for the Ostyaks, had the famous King Log presented
himself among them, they would without more ado have wrapped his sacred
person in rags, and set him up for worship on a mountain-top or in the
forest.[351] The frequent stock-and-stone worship of modern India
belongs especially to races non-Hindu or part-Hindu in race and culture.
Among such may serve as examples the bamboo which stands for the Bodo
goddess Mainou, and for her receives the annual hog, and the monthly
eggs offered by the women;[352] the stone under the great cotton-tree of
every Khond village, shrine of Nadzu Pennu the village deity;[353] the
clod or stone under a tree, which in Behar will represent the deified
soul of some dead personage who receives worship and inspires oracles
there;[354] the stone kept in every house by the Bakadâra and Betadâra,
which represents their god Bûta, whom they induce by sacrifice to
restrain the demon-souls of the dead from troubling them;[355] the two
rude stones placed under a shed among the Shanars of Tinnevelly, by the
medium of which the great god and goddess receive sacrifice, but which
are thrown away or neglected when done with.[356] The remarkable groups
of standing-stones in India are, in many cases at least, set up for each
stone to represent or embody a deity. Mr. Hislop remarks that in every
part of Southern India, four or five stones may often be seen in the
ryot’s field, placed in a row and daubed with red paint, which they
consider as guardians of the field and call the five Pândus; he
reasonably takes these Hindu names to have superseded more ancient
native appellations. In the Indian groups it is a usual practice to daub
each stone with red paint, forming as it were a great blood-spot where
the face would be if it were a shaped idol.[357] In India, moreover, the
rites of stone-worship are not unexampled among the Hindus proper.
Shashtî, protectress of children, receives worship, vows, and offerings,
especially from women; yet they provide her with no idol or temple, but
her proper representative is a rough stone as big as a man’s head,
smeared with red paint and set at the foot of the sacred vata-tree. Even
Siva is worshipped as a stone, especially that Siva who will afflict a
child with epileptic fits, and then, speaking by its voice, will
announce that he is Panchânana the Five-faced, and is punishing the
child for insulting his image; to this Siva, in the form of a clay idol
or of a stone beneath a sacred tree, there are offered not only flowers
and fruits, but also bloody sacrifices.[358]
This stone-worship among the Hindus seems a survival of a rite belonging
originally to a low civilization, probably a rite of the rude indigenes
of the land, whose religion, largely incorporated into the religion of
the Aryan invaders, has contributed so much to form the Hinduism of
to-day. It is especially interesting to survey the stock-and-stone
worship of the lower culture, for it enables us to explain by the theory
of survival the appearance in the Old World, in the very midst of
classic doctrine and classic art, of the worship of the same rude
objects, whose veneration no doubt dated from remote barbaric antiquity.
As Mr. Grote says, speaking of Greek worship, ‘The primitive memorial
erected to a god did not even pretend to be an image, but was often
nothing more than a pillar, a board, a shapeless stone or a post,
receiving care and decoration from the neighbourhood, as well as
worship.’ Such were the log that stood for Artemis in Eubœa, the stake
that represented Pallas Athene, ‘sine effigie rudis palus, et informe
lignum,’ the unwrought stone (λίθος ἀργός) at Hyettos which ‘after the
ancient manner’ represented Herakles, the thirty such stones which the
Pharæans in like archaic fashion worshipped for the gods, and that one
which received such honour in Bœotian festivals as representing the
Thespian Eros. Theophrastus, in the 4th century B.C., depicts the
superstitious Greek passing the anointed stones in the streets, taking
out his phial and pouring oil on them, falling on his knees to adore,
and going his way. Six centuries later, Arnobius could describe from his
own heathen life the state of mind of the stock-and-stone worshipper,
telling how when he saw one of the stones anointed with oil, he accosted
it in flattering words, and asked benefits from the senseless thing as
though it contained a present power.[359] The ancient and graphic
passage in the book of Isaiah well marks stone-worship within the range
of the Semitic race:
‘Among the smooth stones of the valley is thy portion:
They, they are thy lot:
Even to them hast thou poured a drink-offering,
Hast thou offered a meat-offering.’[360]
Long afterwards, among the local deities which Mohammed found in Arabia,
and which Dr. Sprenger thinks he even acknowledged as divine during a
moment when he well-nigh broke down in his career, were Manah and Lât,
the one a rock, the other a stone or a stone idol; while the veneration
of the black stone of the Kaaba, which Captain Burton thinks an
aërolite, was undoubtedly a local rite which the Prophet transplanted
into his new religion, where it flourishes to this day.[361] The curious
passage in Sanchoniathon which speaks of the Heaven-god forming the
‘bætyls, animated stones’ (θεὸς Οὐρανὸς Βαιτύλια, λίθους ἐμψύχους,
μηχανησάμενος) perhaps refers to meteorites or supposed thunderbolts
fallen from the clouds. To the old Phœnician religion, which made so
deep a contact with the Jewish world on the one side and the Greek and
Roman on the other, there belonged the stone pillars of Baal and the
wooden ashera-posts, but how far these objects were of the character of
altars, symbols, or fetishes, is a riddle.[362] We may still say with
Tacitus, describing the conical pillar which stood instead of an image
to represent the Paphian Venus—‘et ratio in obscuro.’
There are accounts of formal Christian prohibitions of stone-worship in
France and England, reaching on into the early middle ages,[363] which
show this barbaric cultus as then distinctly lingering in popular
religion. Coupling this fact with the accounts of the groups of
standing-stones set up to represent deities in South India, a
corresponding explanation has been suggested in Europe. Are the menhirs,
cromlechs, &c., idols, and circles and lines of idols, worshipped by
remotely ancient dwellers in the land as representatives or embodiments
of their gods? The question at least deserves consideration, although
the ideas with which stone-worship is carried on by different races are
multifarious, and the analogy may be misleading. It is remarkable to
what late times full and genuine stone-worship has survived in Europe.
In certain mountain districts of Norway, up to the end of the last
century, the peasants used to preserve round stones, washed them every
Thursday evening (which seems to show some connection with Thor),
smeared them with butter before the fire, laid them in the seat of
honour on fresh straw, and at certain times of the year steeped them in
ale, that they might bring luck and comfort to the house.[364] In an
account dating from 1851, the islanders of Inniskea, off Mayo, are
declared to have a stone carefully wrapped in flannel, which is brought
out and worshipped at certain periods, and when a storm arises it is
supplicated to send a wreck on the coast.[365] No savage ever showed
more clearly by his treatment of a fetish that he considered it a
personal being, than did these Norwegians and Irishmen. The ethnographic
argument from the existence of stock-and-stone worship among so many
nations of comparatively high culture seems to me of great weight as
bearing on religious development among mankind. To imagine that peoples
skilled in carving wood and stone, and using these arts habitually in
making idols, should have gone out of their way to invent a practice of
worshipping logs and pebbles, is not a likely theory. But on the other
hand, when it is considered how such a rude object serves to uncultured
men as a divine image or receptacle, there is nothing strange in its
being a relic of early barbarism holding its place against more artistic
models through ages of advancing civilization, by virtue of the
traditional sanctity which belongs to survival from remote antiquity.
By a scarcely perceptible transition, we pass to Idolatry. A few chips
or scratches or daubs of paint suffice to convert the rude post or stone
into an idol. Difficulties which complicate the study of stock-and-stone
worship disappear in the worship of even the rudest of unequivocal
images, which can no longer be mere altars, and if symbols must at least
be symbols of a personal being. Idolatry occupies a remarkable district
in the history of religion. It hardly belongs to the lowest savagery,
which simply seems not to have attained to it, and it hardly belongs to
the highest civilization, which has discarded it. Its place is
intermediate, ranging from the higher savagery where it first clearly
appears, to the middle civilization where it reaches its extreme
development, and thenceforward its continuance is in dwindling survival
and sometimes expanding revival. The position thus outlined is, however,
very difficult to map exactly. Idolatry does not seem to come in
uniformly among the higher savages; it belongs, for instance, fully to
the Society Islanders, but not to the Tongans and Fijians. Among higher
nations, its presence or absence does not necessarily agree with
particular national affinities or levels of culture—compare the
idol-worshipping Hindu with his ethnic kinsman the idol-hating Parsi, or
the idolatrous Phœnician with his ethnic kinsman the Israelite, among
whose people the incidental relapse into the proscribed image-worship
was a memory of disgrace. Moreover, its tendency to revive is
ethnographically embarrassing. The ancient Vedic religion seems not to
recognize idolatry, yet the modern Brahmans, professed followers of
Vedic doctrine, are among the greatest idolators of the world. Early
Christianity by no means abrogated the Jewish law against image-worship,
yet image-worship became and still remains widely spread and deeply
rooted in Christendom.
Of Idolatry, so far as its nature is symbolic or representative, I have
given some account elsewhere.[366] The old and greatest difficulty in
investigating the general subject is this, that an image may be, even to
two votaries kneeling side by side before it, two utterly different
things; to the one it may be only a symbol, a portrait, a memento; while
to the other it is an intelligent and active being, by virtue of a life
or spirit dwelling in it or acting through it. In both cases
Image-worship is connected with the belief in spiritual beings, and is
in fact a subordinate development of animism. But it is only so far as
the image approximates to the nature of a material body provided for a
spirit, that Idolatry comes properly into connexion with Fetishism. It
is from this point of view that it is proposed to examine here its
purpose and its place in history. An idol, so far as it belongs to the
theory of spirit-embodiment, must combine the characters of portrait and
fetish. Bearing this in mind, and noticing how far the idol is looked on
as in some way itself an energetic object, or as the very receptacle
enshrining a spiritual god, let us proceed to judge how far, along the
course of civilization, the idea of the image itself exerting power or
being personally animate has prevailed in the mind of the idolater.
As to the actual origin of idolatry, it need not be supposed that the
earliest idols made by man seemed to their maker living or even active
things. It is quite likely that the primary intention of the image was
simply to serve as a sign or representative of some soul or deity, and
certainly this original character is more or less maintained in the
world through the long history of image-worship. At a stage succeeding
this original condition, it may be argued, the tendency to identify the
symbol and the symbolized, a tendency so strong among children and the
ignorant everywhere, led to the idol being treated as a living powerful
being, and thence even to explicit doctrines as to the manner of its
energy or animation. It is, then, in this secondary stage, where the
once merely representative image is passing into the active
image-fetish, that we are particularly concerned to understand it. Here
it is reasonable to judge the idolater by his distinct actions and
beliefs. A line of illustrative examples will carry the personality of
the idol through grade after grade of civilization. Among the lower
races, such thoughts are displayed by the Kurile islander throwing his
idol into the sea to calm the storm; by the negro who feeds ancestral
images and brings them a share of his trade profits, but will beat an
idol or fling it into the fire if it cannot give him luck or preserve
him from sickness; by famous idols of Madagascar, of which one goes
about of himself or guides his bearers, and another answers when spoken
to—at least, they did this till they were ignominiously found out a few
years ago. Among Tatar peoples of North Asia and Europe, conceptions of
this class are illustrated by the Ostyak, who clothes his puppet and
feeds it with broth, but if it brings him no sport will try the effect
of a good thrashing on it, after which he will clothe and feed it again;
by the Lapps, who fancied their uncouth images could go about at will;
or the Esths, who wondered that their idols did not bleed when Dieterich
the Christian priest hewed them down. Among high Asiatic nations, what
could be more anthropomorphic than the rites of modern Hinduism, the
dances of the nautch-girls before the idols, the taking out of Jagannath
in procession to pay visits, the spinning of tops before Krishna to
amuse him? Buddhism is a religion in its principles little favourable to
idolatry. Yet, from setting up portrait-statues of Gautama and other
saints, there developed itself the full worship of images, and even of
images with hidden joints and cavities, which moved and spoke as in our
own middle ages. In China, we read stories of worshippers abusing some
idol that has failed in its duty. ‘How now,’ they say, ‘you dog of a
spirit; we have given you an abode in a splendid temple, we gild you and
feed you and fumigate you with incense, and yet you are so ungrateful
that you won’t listen to our prayers!’ So they drag him in the dirt, and
then, if they get what they want, it is but to clean him and set him up
again, with apologies and promises of a new coat of gilding. There is
what appears a genuine story of a Chinaman who had paid an idol priest
to cure his daughter, but she died; whereupon the swindled worshipper
brought an action at law against the god, who for his fraud was banished
from the province. The classic instances, again, are perfect—the
dressing and anointing of statues, feeding them with delicacies and
diverting them with raree-shows, summoning them as witnesses; the story
of the Arkadian youths coming back from a bad day’s hunting and
revenging themselves by scourging and pricking Pan’s statue, and the
companion tale of the image which fell upon the man who ill-treated it;
the Tyrians chaining the statue of the Sun-god that he might not abandon
their city; Augustus chastising in effigy the ill-behaved Neptune;
Apollo’s statue that moved when it would give an oracle; and the rest of
the images which brandished weapons, or wept, or sweated, to prove their
supernatural powers. Such ideas continued to hold their place in
Christendom, as was natural, considering how directly the holy image or
picture took the place of the household god or the mightier idol of the
temple. The Russian boor covering up the saint’s picture that it may not
see him do wrong; the Mingrelian borrowing a successful neighbour’s
saint when his own crop fails, or when about to perjure himself choosing
for the witness of his deceitful oath a saint of mild countenance and
merciful repute; the peasant of Southern Europe, alternately coaxing and
trampling on his special saint-fetish, and ducking the Virgin or St.
Peter for rain; the winking and weeping images that are worked, even at
this day, to the greater glory of God, or rather to the greater shame of
Man—these are but the extreme instances of the worshipper’s endowment of
the sacred image with a life and personality modelled on his own.[367]
The appearance of idolatry at a grade above the lowest of known human
culture, and its development in extent and elaborateness under higher
conditions of civilization, are well displayed among the native races of
America. ‘Conspicuous by its absence’ among many of the lower tribes,
image-worship comes plainly into view toward the upper levels of
savagery, as where, for instance, Brazilian native tribes set up in
their huts, or in the recesses of the forest, their pygmy
heaven-descended figures of wax or wood;[368] or where the Mandans,
howling and whining, made their prayers before puppets of grass and
skins; or where the spiritual beings of the Algonquins (manitu) or the
Hurons (oki) were represented by, and in language identified with, the
carved wooden heads or more complete images to which worship and
sacrifice were offered. Among the Virginians and other of the more
cultured Southern tribes, these idols even had temples to dwell in.[369]
The discoverers of the New World found idolatry an accepted institution
among the islanders of the West Indies. These strong animists are
recorded to have carved their little images in the shapes in which they
believed the spirits themselves to have appeared to them; and some human
figures bore the names of ancestors in memory of them. The images of
such ‘cemi’ or spirits, some animal, but most of human type, were found
by thousands; and it is even declared that an island near Hayti had a
population of idol-makers, who especially made images of nocturnal
spectres. The spirit could be conveyed with the image, both were called
‘cemi,’ and in the local accounts of sacrifices, oracles, and miracles,
the deity and the idol are mixed together in a way which at least shows
the extreme closeness of their connexion in the native mind.[370] If we
pass to the far higher culture of Peru, we find idols in full reverence,
some of them complete figures, but the great deities of Sun and Moon
figured by discs with human countenances, like those which to this day
represent them in symbol among ourselves. As for the conquered
neighbouring tribes brought under the dominion of the Incas, their idols
were carried, half trophies and half hostages, to Cuzco, to rank among
the inferior deities of the Peruvian Pantheon.[371] In Mexico, idolatry
had attained to its full barbaric development. As in the Aztec mind the
world swarmed with spiritual deities, so their material representatives,
the idols, stood in the houses at the corners of the streets, on every
hill and rock, to receive from passers-by some little offering—a
nosegay, a whiff of incense, a drop or two of blood; while in the
temples more huge and elaborate images enjoyed the dances and
processions in their honour, were fed by the bloody sacrifice of men and
beasts, and received the tribute and reverence paid to the great
national gods.[372] Up to a certain point, such evidence bears upon the
present question. We learn that the native races of the New World had
idols, that those idols in some sort represented ancestral souls and
other deities, and for them received adoration and sacrifice. But
whether the native ideas of the connexion of spirit and image were
obscure, or whether the foreign observers did not get at these ideas, or
partly for both reasons, there is a general want of express statement
how far the idols of America remained mere symbols or portraits, or how
far they had come to be considered the animated bodies of the gods.
It is not always thus, however. In the island regions of the Southern
Hemisphere, while image-worship scarcely appears among the Andaman
islanders, Tasmanians, or Australians, and is absent or rare in various
Papuan and Polynesian districts, it prevails among the majority of the
island tribes who have attained to middle and high savage levels. In
Polynesian islands, where the meaning of the native idolatry has been
carefully examined, it is found to rest on the most absolute theory of
spirit-embodiment. Thus, New-Zealanders set up memorial idols of
deceased persons near the burial-place, talking affectionately to them
as if still alive, and casting garments to them when they passed by,
also they preserve in their houses small carved wooden images, each
dedicated to the spirit of an ancestor. It is distinctly held that such
an atua or ancestral deity enters into the substance of an image in
order to hold converse with the living. A priest can by repeating charms
cause the spirit to enter into the idol, which he will even jerk by a
string round its neck to arrest its attention; it is the same atua or
spirit which will at times enter not the image but the priest himself,
throw him into convulsions, and deliver oracles through him; while it is
quite understood that the images themselves are not objects of worship,
nor do they possess in themselves any virtue, but derive their
sacredness from being the temporary abodes of spirits.[373] In the
Society Islands, it was noticed in Captain Cook’s exploration that the
carved wooden images at burial-places were not considered mere
memorials, but abodes into which the souls of the departed retired. In
Mr. Ellis’s account of the Polynesian idolatry, relating as it seems
especially to this group, the sacred objects might be either mere stocks
and stones, or carved wooden images, from six or eight feet long down to
as many inches. Some of these were to represent ‘tii,’ divine manes or
spirits of the dead, while others were to represent ‘tu,’ or deities of
higher rank and power. At certain seasons, or in answer to the prayers
of the priests, these spiritual beings entered into the idols, which
then became very powerful, but when the spirit departed, the idol
remained only a sacred object. A god often came to and passed from an
image in the body of a bird, and spiritual influence could be
transmitted from an idol by imparting it by contact to certain valued
kinds of feathers, which could be carried away in this ‘inhabited’
state, and thus exert power elsewhere, and transfer it to new idols.
Here then we have the similarity of souls to other spirits shown by the
similar way in which both become embodied in images, just as these same
people consider both to enter into human bodies. And we have the pure
fetish, which here is a feather or a log or stone, brought together with
the more elaborate carved idol, all under one common principle of
spirit-embodiment.[374] In Borneo, notwithstanding the Moslem
prohibition of idolatry, not only do images remain in use, but the
doctrine of spirit-embodiment is distinctly applied to them. Among the
tribes of Western Sarawak the priestesses have made for them rude
figures of birds, which none but they may touch. These are supposed to
become inhabited by spirits, and at the great harvest feasts are hung up
in bunches of ten or twenty in the long common room, carefully veiled
with coloured handkerchiefs. Again, among some Dayak tribes, they will
make rude figures of a naked man and woman, and place these opposite to
one another on the path to the farms. On their heads are head-dresses of
bark, by their sides is the betel-nut basket, and in their hands a short
wooden spear. These figures are said to be inhabited each by a spirit
who prevents inimical influences from passing on to the farms, and
likewise from the farms to the village, and evil betide the profane
wretch who lifts his hand against them—violent fever and sickness would
be sure to follow.[375]
West Africa naturally applies its familiar fetish-doctrine of
spirit-embodiment to images or idols. How an image may be considered a
receptacle for a spirit, is well shown here by the straw and rag figures
of men and beasts made in Calabar at the great triennial purification,
for the expelled spirits to take refuge in, whereupon they are got rid
of over the border.[376] As to positive idols, nothing could be more
explicit than the Gold-Coast account of certain wooden figures called
‘amagai,’ which are specially treated by a ‘wong-man’ or priest, and
have a ‘wong’ or deity in connexion with them; so close is the connexion
conceived between spirit and image, that the idol is itself called
‘wong.’[377] So in the Ewe district, the same ‘edro’ or deity who
inspires the priest is also present in the idol, and ‘edro’ signifies
both god and idol.[378] Waitz sums up the principles of West African
idolatry in a distinct theory of embodiment, as follows: ‘The god
himself is invisible, but the devotional feeling and especially the
lively fancy of the negro demands a visible object to which worship may
be directed. He wishes really and sensibly to behold the god, and seeks
to shape in wood or clay the conception he has formed of him. Now if the
priest, whom the god himself at times inspires and takes possession of,
consecrates this figure to him, the idea has only to follow that the god
may in consequence be pleased to take up his abode in the figure, to
which he may be specially invited by the consecration, and thus
image-worship is seen to be comprehensible enough. Denham found that
even to take a man’s portrait was dangerous and caused mistrust, from
the fear that a part of the living man’s soul might be conveyed by magic
into the artificial figure. The idols are not, as Bosman thinks,
deputies of the gods, but merely objects in which the god loves to place
himself, and which at the same time display him in sensible presence to
his adorers. The god is also by no means bound fast to his dwelling in
the image, he goes out and in, or rather is present in it sometimes with
more and sometimes with less intensity.’[379]
Castrén’s wide and careful researches among the rude Turanian tribes of
North Asia led him to form a similar conception of the origin and nature
of their idolatry. The idols of these people are uncouth objects, often
mere stones or logs with some sort of human countenance, or sometimes
more finished images, even of metal; some are large, some mere dolls;
they belong to individuals, or families, or tribes; they may be kept in
the yurts for private use, or set up in sacred groves or on the steppes
or near the hunting and fishing places they preside over, or they may
even have special temple-houses; some open-air gods are left naked, not
to spoil good clothes, but others under cover are decked out with all an
Ostyak’s or Samoyed’s wealth of scarlet cloths and costly furs,
necklaces and trinkets; and lastly, to the idols are made rich offerings
of food, clothes, furs, kettles, pipes, and the rest of the inventory of
Siberian nomade riches. Now these idols are not to be taken as mere
symbols or portraits of deities, but the worshippers mostly imagine that
the deity dwells in the image or, so to speak, is embodied in it,
whereby the idol becomes a real god capable of giving health and
prosperity to man. On the one hand, the deity becomes serviceable to the
worshipper by being thus contained and kept for his use, and on the
other hand, the god profits by receiving richer offerings, failing which
it would depart from its receptacle. We even hear of numerous spirits
being contained in one image, and flying off at the death of the shaman
who owned it. In Buddhist Tibet, as in West Africa, the practice of
conjuring into puppets the demons which molest men is a recognized rite;
while in Siam the making of clay puppets to be exposed on trees or by
the roadside, or set adrift with food-offerings in baskets, is a
recognized manner of expelling disease-spirits.[380] In the
image-worship of modern India, there crop up traces of the
embodiment-theory. It is possible for the intelligent Hindu to attach as
little real personality to a divine image, as to the man of straw which
he makes in order to celebrate the funeral rites of a relative whose
body cannot be recovered. He can even protest against being treated as
an idolater at all, declaring the images of his gods to be but symbols,
bringing to his mind thoughts of the real deities, as a portrait reminds
one of a friend no longer to be seen in the body. Yet in the popular
religion of his country, what could be more in conformity with the
fetish-theory than the practice of making temporary hollow clay idols by
tens of thousands, which receive no veneration for themselves, and only
become objects of worship when the officiating brahman has invited the
deity to dwell in the image, performing the ceremony of the ‘adhivâsa’
or inhabitation, after which he puts in the eyes and the ‘prâna,’ i.e.,
breath, life, or soul.[381]
Nowhere, perhaps, in the wide history of religion, can we find
definitions more full and absolute of the theory of deities actually
animating their images, than in those passages from early Christian
writers which describe the nature and operation of the heathen idols.
Arnobius introduces the heathen as declaring that it is not the bronze
or gold and silver material they consider to be gods, but they worship
in them those beings which sacred dedication introduces, and causes to
inhabit the artificial images.[382] Augustine cites as follows the
opinions attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This Egyptian, he tells us,
considers some gods as made by the highest Deity, and some by men; ‘he
asserts the visible and tangible images to be as it were bodies of gods,
for there are within them certain invited spirits, of some avail for
doing harm or for fulfilling certain desires of those who pay them
divine honours and rites of worship. By a certain art to connect these
invisible spirits with visible objects of corporeal matter, that such
may be as it were animated bodies, effigies dedicate and subservient to
the spirits—this is what he calls making gods, and men have received
this great and wondrous power.’ And further, this Trismegistus is made
to speak of ‘statues animated with sense and full of spirit, doing so
great things; statues prescient of the future, and predicting it by
lots, by priests, by dreams, and by many other ways.’[383] This idea, as
accepted by the early Christians themselves, with the qualification that
the spiritual beings inhabiting the idols were not beneficent deities
but devils, is explicitly stated by Minucius Felix, in a passage in the
‘Octavius,’ which gives an instructive account of the animistic
philosophy of Christianity towards the beginning of the third century:
‘Thus these impure spirits or demons, as shown by the magi, by the
philosophers, and by Plato, are concealed by consecration in statues and
images, and by their afflatus obtain the authority as of a present deity
when at times they inspire priests, inhabit temples, occasionally
animate the filaments of the entrails, govern the flight of birds, guide
the falling of lots, give oracles enveloped in many falsehoods ... also
secretly creeping into (men’s) bodies as thin spirits, they feign
diseases, terrify minds, distort limbs, in order to compel men to their
worship; that fattening on the steam of altars or their offered victims
from the flocks, they may seem to have cured the ailments which they had
constrained. And these are the madmen whom ye see rush forth into public
places; and the very priests without the temple thus go mad, thus rave,
thus whirl about.... All these things most of you know, how the very
demons confess of themselves, so often as they are expelled by us from
the patients’ bodies with torments of word and fires of prayer. Saturn
himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatsoever demons ye worship,
overcome by pain declare what they are; nor surely do they lie
concerning their iniquity, above all when several of you are present.
Believe these witnesses, confessing the truth of themselves, that they
are demons. For adjured by the true and only God, they shudder reluctant
in the wretched bodies; and either they issue forth at once, or vanish
gradually, according as the faith of the patient aids, or the grace of
the curer favours.’[384]
The strangeness with which such words now fall upon our ears is full of
significance. It is one symptom of that vast quiet change which has come
over animistic philosophy in the modern educated world. Whole orders of
spiritual beings, worshipped in polytheistic religion, and degraded in
early Christendom to real but evil demons, have since passed from
objective to subjective existence, have faded from the Spiritual into
the Ideal. By the operation of similar intellectual changes, the general
theory of spirit-embodiment, having fulfilled the great work it had for
ages to do in religion and philosophy, has now dwindled within the
limits of the educated world to near its vanishing-point. The doctrines
of Disease-possession and Oracle-possession, once integral parts of the
higher philosophy, and still maintaining a vigorous existence in the
lower culture, seem to be dying out within the influence of the higher
into dogmatic survival, conscious metaphor, and popular superstition.
The doctrine of spirit-embodiment in objects, Fetishism, now scarcely
appears outside barbaric regions save in the peasant folklore which
keeps it up amongst us with so many other remnants of barbaric thought.
And the like theory of spiritual influence as applied to Idolatry,
though still to be studied among savages and barbarians, and on record
in past ages of the civilized world, has perished so utterly amongst
ourselves, that few but students are aware of its ever having existed.
To bring home to our minds the vastness of the intellectual tract
which separates modern from savage philosophy, and to enable us to
look back along the path where step by step the mind’s journey was
made, it will serve us to glance over the landmarks which language to
this day keeps standing. Our modern languages reach back through the
middle ages to classic and barbaric times, where in this matter the
transition from the crudest primæval animism is quite manifest. We
keep in daily use, and turn to modern meaning, old words and idioms
which carry us home to the philosophy of ancient days. We talk of
‘genius’ still, but with thought how changed. The genius of Augustus
was a tutelary demon, to be sworn by and to receive offerings on an
altar as a deity. In modern English, Shakspere, Newton, or Wellington,
is said to be led and prompted by his genius, but that genius is a
shrivelled philosophic metaphor. So the word ‘spirit’ and its kindred
terms keep up with wondrous pertinacity the traces which connect the
thought of the savage with its hereditary successor, the thought of
the philosopher. Barbaric philosophy retains as real what civilized
language has reduced to simile. The Siamese is made drunk with the
demon of the arrack that possesses the drinker, while we with so
different sense still extract the ‘spirit of wine.’[385] Look at the
saying ascribed to Pythagoras, and mentioned by Porphyry. ‘The sound
indeed which is given by striking brass, is the voice of a certain
demon contained in that brass.’ These might have been the
representative words of some savage animistic philosopher; but with
the changed meaning brought by centuries of philosophizing, Oken hit
upon a definition almost identical in form, that ‘What sounds,
announces its spirit’ (‘Was tönt, gibt seinen Geist kund’).[386] What
the savage would have meant, or Porphyry after him did mean, was that
the brass was actually animated by a spirit of the brass apart from
its matter, but when a modern philosopher takes up the old phrase, all
he means is the qualities of the brass. As in other animistic phrases
of thought and feeling such as ‘animal spirits,’ or being in ‘good and
bad spirits,’ the term only recalls with an effort the long-past
philosophy which it once expressed. The modern theory of the mind
considers it capable of performing even exalted and unusual functions
without the intervention of prompting or exciting demons; yet the old
recognition of such beings crops up here and there in phrases which
adapt animistic ideas to commonplaces of human disposition, as when a
man is still said to be animated by a patriotic spirit, or possessed
by a spirit of disobedience. In old times the ἐγγαστρίμυθος, or
‘ventriloquus’ was really held to have a spirit rumbling or talking
from inside his body, as when Eurykles the soothsayer was inspired by
such a familiar; or when a certain Patriarch mentioning a demon heard
to speak out of a man’s belly, remarks on the worthy place it had
chosen to dwell in. In the time of Hippokrates, the giving of oracular
responses by such ventriloquism was practised by certain women as a
profession. To this day in China one may get an oracular response from
a spirit apparently talking out of a medium’s stomach, for a fee of
about twopence-halfpenny. How changed a philosophy it marks, that
among ourselves the word ‘ventriloquist’ should have sunk to its
present meaning.[387] Nor is that change less significant which,
starting with the conception of a man being really ἔνθεος, possessed
by a deity within him, carries on a metamorphosed relic of this
thorough animistic thought, from ἐνθουσιασμός to ‘enthusiasm.’ With
all this, let it not be supposed that such change of opinion in the
educated world has come about through wanton incredulity or decay of
the religious temperament. Its source is the alteration in natural
science, assigning new causes for the operations of nature and the
events of life. The theory of the immediate action of personal spirits
has here, as so widely elsewhere, given place to ideas of force and
law. No indwelling deity now regulates the life of the burning sun, no
guardian angels drive the stars across the arching firmament, the
divine Ganges is water flowing down into the sea to evaporate into
cloud and descend again in rain. No deity simmers in the boiling pot,
no presiding spirits dwell in the volcano, no howling demon shrieks
from the mouth of the lunatic. There was a period of human thought
when the whole universe seemed actuated by spiritual life. For our
knowledge of our own history, it is deeply interesting that there
should remain rude races yet living under the philosophy which we have
so far passed from, since Physics, Chemistry, Biology, have seized
whole provinces of the ancient Animism, setting force for life and law
for will.
Footnote 229:
See Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 134; J. G. Müller, ‘Amerikanische
Urreligionen,’ p. 171.
Footnote 230:
Philo Jud. de Gigantibus, iv.
Footnote 231:
Rituale Romanum: De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Dæmonio.
Footnote 232:
Oldfield, ‘Abor. of Australia’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 236.
See Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 181.
Footnote 233:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 104.
Footnote 234:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 429.
Footnote 235:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part ii. p. 195; M. Eastman, ‘Dahcotah,’
p. 72.
Footnote 236:
Burton, ‘Central Afr.’ vol. ii. p. 344; Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p.
xxv.
Footnote 237:
Falkner, ‘Patagonia,’ p. 116; but cf. Musters, p. 180.
Footnote 238:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 122.
Footnote 239:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 206.
Footnote 240:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. pp. 129, 416; vol. iii. pp. 29, 257,
278; ‘Psychologie,’ pp. 77, 99; Cross, ‘Karens,’ l. c. p. 316; Elliot
in ‘Journ. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 115; Buchanan, ‘Mysore, &c.,’ in
Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 677.
Footnote 241:
Shortt, ‘Tribes of India,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 192;
Tinling, ‘Tour round India,’ p. 19.
Footnote 242:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 101.
Footnote 243:
Sir J. Shore in ‘Asiatic Res.’ vol. iv. p. 331.
Footnote 244:
For some collections of details of manes-worship, see Meiners,
‘Geschichte der Religionen,’ vol. i. book 3; Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol.
ii. pp. 402-11; ‘Psychologie,’ pp. 72-114.
Footnote 245:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 73, 173, 209, 261; Schoolcraft,
‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 39, part iii. p. 237; Waitz,
‘Anthropologie,’ vol. iii. pp. 191, 204.
Footnote 246:
Backhouse, ‘Australia,’ p. 105; Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 182.
Footnote 247:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 88.
Footnote 248:
Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 104; S. S. Farmer, p. 126; Shortland,
‘Trads. of N. Z.’ p. 81; Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 108.
Footnote 249:
J. R. Forster, ‘Observations,’ p. 604; Marsden, ‘Sumatra,’ p. 258;
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 234.
Footnote 250:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. pp. 123, 423. As to the connexion of the
Vazimbas with the Mazimba of East Africa, see Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 360,
426.
Footnote 251:
Callaway, ‘Religious System of Amazulu,’ part ii.; see also Arbousset
and Daumas, p. 469; Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ pp. 248-54; Waitz,
‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. pp. 411, 419; Magyar, ‘Reisen in
Süd-Afrika,’ pp. 21, 335 (Congo); Cavazzi, ‘Congo,’ lib. i.
Footnote 252:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 217, 388-93. See Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 181,
194.
Footnote 253:
Bailey in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. ii. p. 301. Compare Taylor, ‘New
Zealand,’ p. 153.
Footnote 254:
Buchanan, ‘Mysore,’ in Pinkerton, vol. viii. pp. 674-7. See
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 95 (Khonds); Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 183
(Santals).
Footnote 255:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 122; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 90. See
Palgrave, ‘Arabia,’ vol. i. p. 373.
Footnote 256:
Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ vol. i. p. 3, vol. ii. p. 51; Kempfer, ‘Japan,’ in
Pinkerton, vol. vii. pp. 672, 680, 723, 755.
Footnote 257:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 250.
Footnote 258:
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part i. p. 65, part ii. p. 89;
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. pp. vi. viii.; vol. ii. p. 373; ‘Journ.
Ind. Archip.’ New Ser. vol. ii. p. 363; Legge, ‘Confucius,’ p. 92.
Footnote 259:
Manu, book iii.
Footnote 260:
Details in Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘inferi’; Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr.
and Rom. Biog. and Myth.’; Meiners, Hartung, &c.
Footnote 261:
Middleton, ‘Letter from Rome’; Murray’s ‘Handbook of Rome.’
Footnote 262:
L. F. Alfred Maury, ‘Magie, &c.,’ p. 249; ‘Acta Sanctorum,’ 27 Sep.;
Gregor. Turon. De Gloria Martyr, i. 98.
Footnote 263:
J. R. Beste, ‘Nowadays at Home and Abroad,’ London, 1870, vol. ii. p.
44; ‘A New Miracle at Rome; being an Account of a Miraculous Cure,
&c., &c.,’ London (Washbourne), 1870.
Footnote 264:
Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 235; see Grey, ‘Australia,’
vol. ii. p. 337. Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ pp. 183, 195.
Footnote 265:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 307.
Footnote 266:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 204; ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 73, see p. 125
(Battas); Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 370. See also Mason, ‘Karens,’ l. c.
p. 201.
Footnote 267:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii. p. 110, vol. iv. p. 194; St. John,
‘Far East,’ vol. i. pp. 71, 87; Beeckman in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p.
133; Meiners, vol. i. p. 278. See also Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i.
p. 159.
Footnote 268:
Shortland, ‘Trads. of N. Z.’ pp. 97, 114, 125; Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’
pp. 48, 137.
Footnote 269:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 236.
Footnote 270:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. pp. 363, 395, &c., vol. ii. pp. 193, 274;
Cook, ‘3rd Voy.’ vol. iii. p. 131. Details of the superhuman character
ascribed to weak or deranged persons among other races, in
Schoolcraft, part iv. p. 49; Martius, vol. i. p. 633; Meiners, vol. i.
p. 323; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 181.
Footnote 271:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 250, part ii. pp. 179, 199,
part iii. p. 498; M. Eastman, ‘Dahcotah,’ pp. xxiii. 34, 41, 72. See
also Gregg, ‘Commerce of Prairies,’ vol. ii. p. 297 (Comanches);
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 163; Sproat, p. 174 (Ahts); Egede, ‘Greenland,’
p. 186; Cranz, p. 269.
Footnote 272:
Roman Pane, xix. in ‘Life of Colon’; in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 87.
Footnote 273:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. pp. 73, 168; Musters,
‘Patagonians,’ p. 180. See also J. G. Müller, pp. 207, 231 (Caribs);
Spix and Martius, ‘Brasilien,’ vol. i. p. 70; Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’
vol. i. p. 646 (Marcusis).
Footnote 274:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 247; Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 147, &c.;
Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 21, &c.; Burton, ‘Central Afr.’ vol. ii. pp.
320, 354; Steere in ‘Journ. Anthrop. Inst.’ vol. i. 1871, p. cxlvii.
Footnote 275:
Steinhauser, ‘Religion des Negers,’ in ‘Magaz. der Evang. Missions und
Bibel-Gesellschaften,’ Basel, 1856, No. 2, p. 139.
Footnote 276:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 217, 388.
Footnote 277:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ pp. 163, 170.
Footnote 278:
Backhouse, ‘Australia,’ p. 103.
Footnote 279:
Mason, ‘Burmah,’ p. 107, &c. Cross, l.c. p. 305.
Footnote 280:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 183, &c., 259, &c.
Footnote 281:
Falkner, ‘Patagonia,’ p. 116. See also Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p.
418 (Caribs).
Footnote 282:
Georgi, ‘Reise im Russ. Reich,’ vol. i. p. 280; Meiners, vol. ii. p.
488.
Footnote 283:
Falkner, l.c.
Footnote 284:
Caldwell, ‘Dravidian Languages,’ App.; Latham, vol. ii. p. 469.
Footnote 285:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 172.
Footnote 286:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 278.
Footnote 287:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 328, see vol. iii. p. 201,
‘Psychologie,’ p. 139. See also Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 59.
Footnote 288:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. pp. 352, 373; Moerenhout, ‘Voyage,’ vol.
i. p. 479; Mariner, ‘Tonga Islands,’ vol. i. p. 105; Williams, ‘Fiji,’
vol. i. p. 373.
Footnote 289:
Dos Santos, ‘Ethiopia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 686.
Footnote 290:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 57. See also Steinhauser, l.c. pp. 132, 139; J. B.
Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xvi.
Footnote 291:
Details from Tatar races in Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 164, 173, &c.;
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 90; from Abyssinia in Parkyns, ‘Life in
A.,’ ch. xxxiii.
Footnote 292:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 143, vol. ii. pp. 110, 320.
Footnote 293:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. pp. 103, 152, 381, 418, vol. iii. p.
247, &c. See also Bowring, ‘Siam,’ vol. i. p. 139; ‘Journ. Ind.
Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 507, vol. vi. p. 614; Turpin, in Pinkerton, vol.
ix. p. 761; Kempfer, ‘Japan,’ _ibid._ vol. vii. pp. 701, 730, &c.
Footnote 294:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p. 155, vol. ii. p. 183; Roberts, ‘Oriental
Illustrations of the Scriptures,’ p. 529; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ pp.
164, 184-7. Sanskrit paiçâcha-graha = demon-seizure, possession.
Ancient evidence in Pictet, ‘Origines Indo-Europ.’ part ii. ch. v.
Footnote 295:
Homer. Odyss. v. 396, x. 64; Plat. Phædr. Tim. &c.; Pausan. iv. 27, 2;
Xen. Mem. I. i. 9; Plutarch. Vit. Alex.; De Orac. Def.; Lucian.
Philopseudes; Petron. Arbiter, Sat.; &c., &c.
Footnote 296:
Joseph. Ant. Jud. viii. 2, 5. Eisenmenger, ‘Entdecktes Judenthum,’
part ii. p. 454. See Maury, p. 290.
Footnote 297:
Matth. ix. 32, xi. 18, xii. 22, xvii. 15; Mark, i. 23, ix. 17; Luke,
iv. 33, 39, vii. 33, viii. 27, ix. 39, xiii. 11; John, x. 20; Acts,
xvi. 16, xix. 13; &c.
Footnote 298:
For general evidence see Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Christian Church,’
book iii. ch. iv.; Calmet, ‘Dissertation sur les Esprits’; Maury,
‘Magie,’ &c.; Lecky, ‘Hist. of Rationalism.’ Among particular passages
are Tertull. Apolog. 23; De Spectaculis, 26; Chrysostom. Homil.
xxviii. in Matth. iv.; Cyril. Hierosol. Catech. xvi. 16; Minuc. Fel.
Octavius. xxi.; Concil. Carthag. iv.; &c., &c.
Footnote 299:
Details in Cockayne, ‘Leechdoms, &c., of Early England,’ vol. i. p.
365, vol. ii. p. 137, 355; Sprenger, ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ part ii.;
Calmet, ‘Dissertation,’ vol. i. ch. xxiv.; Horst, ‘Zauber-Bibliothek’;
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 557, &c.; ‘Psychologie,’ p. 115, &c.;
Voltaire, ‘Questions sur l’Encyclopédie,’ art., ‘Superstition’;
‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 5th ed. art. ‘Possession.’
Footnote 300:
See Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., part ii. ch. ii.
Footnote 301:
A. Constans, ‘Rel. sur une Epidémie d’Hystéro-Démonopathie, en 1861.’
2nd ed. Paris, 1863. For descriptions of such outbreaks, among the
North American Indians, see Le Jeune in ‘Rel. des Jés. dans la
Nouvelle France,’ 1639; Brinton, p. 275; and in Guinea, see J. L.
Wilson, ‘Western Africa,’ p. 217.
Footnote 302:
Gaume, ‘L’Eau Bénite au Dix-Neuvième Siècle,’ 3rd ed. Paris, 1866, p.
353.
Footnote 303:
West, in ‘Spiritual Telegraph,’ cited by Bastian.
Footnote 304:
(C. de Brosses.) ‘Du culte des dieux fétiches ou Parallèle de
l’ancienne Religion de l’Egypte avec la religion actuelle de
Nigritie.’ 1760. (De Brosses supposed the word _fétiche_ connected
with _chose fée, fatum_.)
Footnote 305:
Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 337; Eyre, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p.
362; Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 235, &c.; G. F. Moore,
‘Vocab. of S. W. Austr.’ pp. 18, 98, 103. See Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’
p. 195.
Footnote 306:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ pp. 419, 508; J. G. Müller, pp. 173, 207,
217.
Footnote 307:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. pp. 221, 232, 422.
Footnote 308:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 211, see 72.
Footnote 309:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 314.
Footnote 310:
Steinhauser, l.c. p. 141. See also Steere, ‘East Afr. Tribes,’ in
‘Journ. Anthrop. Soc.’ vol. i. p. cxlviii.
Footnote 311:
Burton, ‘Central Africa,’ vol. ii. p. 352. See ‘Sindh,’ p. 177.
Footnote 312:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 275.
Footnote 313:
‘Early Hist. of Mankind,’ ch. x. See Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p.
116, &c.
Footnote 314:
Plin. xxx. 14, 20. Cardan, ‘De Var. Rerum,’ cap. xliii.
Footnote 315:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p. 134, vol. ii. p. 247.
Footnote 316:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 122.
Footnote 317:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 1118-23; Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ pp. 155-70;
Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. ii. p. 375, vol. iii. p. 286; Halliwell, ‘Pop.
Rhymes,’ p. 208; R. Hunt, ‘Pop. Romances,’ 2nd Series, p. 211;
Hylten-Cavallius, ‘Wärend och Wirdarne,’ vol. i. p. 173. It is said,
however, that rags fastened on trees by Gypsies, which passers-by
avoid with horror as having diseases thus banned into them, are only
signs left for the information of fellow vagrants; Liebich, ‘Die
Zigeuner,’ p. 96.
Footnote 318:
Catlin, ‘N. A. Indians,’ vol. i. p. 90.
Footnote 319:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Africa,’ p. 394.
Footnote 320:
Meiners, ‘Gesch. der Rel.’ vol. i. p. 305; J. G. Müller, p. 209.
Footnote 321:
Mason, Karens, l.c. p. 231.
Footnote 322:
Meiners, vol. ii. pp. 721-3.
Footnote 323:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 418. See Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol.
i. p. 485 (Yumanas swallow ashes of deceased with liquor, that he may
live again in them).
Footnote 324:
Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 210. See Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 73; J.
G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 209, 262, 289, 401, 419.
Footnote 325:
Darwin, ‘Journal,’ p. 458.
Footnote 326:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 320.
Footnote 327:
‘Report of Jubbulpore Ethnological Committee,’ Nagpore, 1868, part i.
p. 5.
Footnote 328:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. pp. 151, 207, 214, vol. ii. p. 401; see
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part i. p. 59, part ii. p. 101.
Footnote 329:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 187; Dasent, ‘Norse Tales,’ p. 69; Lane,
‘Thousand and One Nights,’ vol. iii. p. 316; Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 1033.
See also Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 213. Eisenmenger, ‘Judenthum,’
part ii. p. 39.
Footnote 330:
Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. iii. p. 72.
Footnote 331:
Herrera, ‘Hist. de las Indias Occidentales,’ Dec. i. ix. 3.
Footnote 332:
Lery, Brésil, p. 249; J. G. Müller, pp. 210, 262.
Footnote 333:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes’; Waitz, vol. iii.; Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’
vol. i. p. 36; Keating, ‘Narrative,’ vol. i. p. 421; J. G. Müller, p.
74, &c. See Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 274.
Footnote 334:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 162, 221, 230; Meiners, vol. i. p. 170.
Footnote 335:
Bell, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 357.
Footnote 336:
H. Rowley, ‘Universities’ Mission to Central Africa,’ p. 217.
Footnote 337:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 174; Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 56, &c.;
J. L. Wilson, ‘West Africa,’ pp. 135, 211-6, 275, 338; Burton, ‘Wit
and Wisdom from W. Afr.’ pp. 174, 455; Steinhauser, l.c. p. 134;
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 397; Meiners, ‘Gesch. der
Relig.’ vol. i. p. 173. See also Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 396;
Flacourt, ‘Madag.’ p. 191.
Footnote 338:
Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ vol. iii. p. 255, &c. Bastian,
‘Psychologie,’ p. 171. Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksaberglaube,’ pp. 75-95,
225, &c. St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 46.
Footnote 339:
Berkeley, ‘Concerning Motion,’ in ‘Works,’ vol. ii. p. 86.
Footnote 340:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part ii. p. 196, part iii. p. 229.
Footnote 341:
Herrera, ‘Indias Occidentales,’ dec. i. iii. 3.
Footnote 342:
De Laet, Novus Orbis, xv. 2.
Footnote 343:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ i. 9; J. G. Müller, pp.
263, 311, 371, 387; Waitz, vol. iv. p. 454; see below, p. 175.
Footnote 344:
Hahn, ‘Gramm. des Hereró,’ s.v. ‘omu-makisina.’
Footnote 345:
Kaufmann, ‘Central-Afrika,’ (White Nile), p. 131.
Footnote 346:
Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 518, 523.
Footnote 347:
Zollinger in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 692.
Footnote 348:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 337. See also Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’
vol. i. p. 399.
Footnote 349:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ pp. 347, 526.
Footnote 350:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 220; Seemann, ‘Viti,’ pp. 66, 89.
Footnote 351:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 193, &c., 204, &c.; ‘Voyages au Nord,’ vol.
viii. pp. 103, 410; Klemm, ‘C. G.’ vol. iii. p. 120. See also Steller,
‘Kamtschatka,’ pp. 265, 276.
Footnote 352:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 174. See also Macrae in ‘As. Res.’ vol.
vii. p. 196; Dalton, ‘Kols,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 33.
Footnote 353:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 103, 358.
Footnote 354:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 177. See also Shortt, ‘Tribes of
Neilgherries,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 281.
Footnote 355:
Elliot in ‘Journ. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. 1869, p. 115.
Footnote 356:
Buchanan, ‘Mysore,’ in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 739.
Footnote 357:
Elliot in ‘Journ. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. pp. 96, 115, 125. Lubbock,
‘Origin of Civilization,’ p. 222. Forbes Leslie, ‘Early Races of
Scotland,’ vol. ii. p. 462, &c. Prof. Liebrecht, in ‘Ztschr. für
Ethnologie,’ vol. v. p. 100, compares the field-protecting
Priapos-hermes of ancient Italy, daubed with minium.
Footnote 358:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. pp. 142, 182, &c., see 221. See also Latham,
‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. ii. p. 239. (Siah-push, stone offered to the
representative of deity.)
Footnote 359:
Grote, ‘Hist. of Greece,’ vol. iv. p. 132; Welcker, ‘Griechische
Götterlehre,’ vol. i. p. 220. Meiners, vol. i. p. 150, &c. Details
esp. in Pausanias; Theophrast. Charact. xvi.; Tacit. Hist. ii. 3;
Arnobius, Adv. Gent.; Tertullianus; Clemens Alexandr.
Footnote 360:
Is. lvii. 6. The first line, ‘behhalkey-nahhal hhêlkech,’ turns on the
pun on hhlk = smooth (stone), and also lot or portion; a double sense
probably connected with the use of smooth pebbles for casting lots.
Footnote 361:
Sprenger, ‘Mohammad,’ vol. ii. p. 7, &c. Burton, ‘El Medinah,’ &c.,
vol. ii. p. 157.
Footnote 362:
Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 10. Deut. xii. 3; Micah v. 13, &c. Movers,
‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. pp. 105, 569, and see index, ‘Säule,’ &c. See De
Brosses, ‘Dieux Fétiches,’ p. 135 (considers bætyl = beth-el, &c.).
Footnote 363:
For references see Ducange s.v. ‘petra’; Leslie, ‘Early Races of
Scotland,’ vol. i. p. 256.
Footnote 364:
Nilsson, ‘Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,’ p. 241. See also
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 671 (speaking stones in Norway, &c.).
Footnote 365:
Earl of Roden, ‘Progress of Reformation in Ireland,’ London, 1851, p.
51. Sir J. E. Tennent in ‘Notes and Queries,’ Feb. 7, 1852. See
Borlase, ‘Antiquities of Cornwall,’ Oxford, 1754, book iii. ch. 2.
Footnote 366:
‘Early Hist. of Mankind,’ chap. vi.
Footnote 367:
For general collections of evidence, see especially Meiners,
‘Geschichte der Religionen,’ vol. i. books i. and v.; Bastian,
‘Mensch,’ vol. ii.; Waitz, ‘Anthropologie;’ De Brosses, ‘Dieux
Fétiches,’ &c. Particular details in J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 393;
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 395; Castrén, ‘Finnische Mythologie,’
p. 193, &c.; Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii.; Köppen, ‘Rel. des Buddha,’
vol. i. p. 493, &c.; Grote, ‘Hist, of Greece.’
Footnote 368:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ p. 263; Meiners, vol. i. p. 163.
Footnote 369:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ vol. i. p. 39; Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in
Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 14; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 203; J. G. Müller,
pp. 95-8, 128.
Footnote 370:
Fernando Colombo, ‘Vita del Amm. Cristoforo Colombo,’ Venice, 1571, p.
127, &c.; and ‘Life of Colon,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 84. Herrera,
dec. i. iii. 3. Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ pp. 421-4. Waitz, vol.
iii. p. 384; J. G. Müller, pp. 171-6, 182, 210, 232.
Footnote 371:
Prescott, ‘Peru,’ vol. i. pp. 71, 89; Waitz, vol. iv. p. 458; J. G.
Müller, pp. 322, 371.
Footnote 372:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 486; Waitz, vol. iv. p. 148; J. G.
Müller, p. 642.
Footnote 373:
Shortland, ‘Trads. of N. Z.’ &c., p. 83; Taylor, pp. 171, 183, 212.
Footnote 374:
J. R. Forster, ‘Obs. during Voyage,’ London, 1778, p. 534, &c.; Ellis,
‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 281, &c., 323, &c. See also Earl, ‘Papuans,’
p. 84; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 78 (Nias).
Footnote 375:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 198.
Footnote 376:
Hutchinson in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 336; see Bastian,
‘Psychologie,’ p. 172.
Footnote 377:
Steinhauser, in ‘Magaz. der Evang. Missionen,’ Basel, 1856, No. 2, p.
131.
Footnote 378:
Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xvi.
Footnote 379:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 183; Denham, ‘Travels,’ vol. i. p.
113; Römer, ‘Guinea’; Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. See
also Livingstone, ‘S. Afr.’ p. 282 (Balonda).
Footnote 380:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 193, &c.; Bastian, ‘Psych.’ p. 34, 208,
‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. pp. 293, 486. See ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol.
ii. p. 350 (Chinese).
Footnote 381:
Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. xvii.; Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p.
198, vol. ii. pp. xxxv, 164, 234, 292, 485.
Footnote 382:
Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, vi. 17-19.
Footnote 383:
Augustinus ‘De Civ. Dei,’ viii. 23: ‘at ille visibilia et
contrectabilia simulacra, velut corpora deorum esse asserit; inesse
autem his quosdam spiritus invitatos, &c.... Hos ergo spiritus
invisibiles per artem quandam visibilibus rebus corporalis materiæ
copulare, ut sint quasi animata corpora, illis spiritibus dicata et
subdita simulacra, &c.’ See also Tertullianus De Spectaculis, xii.:
‘In mortuorum autem idolis dæmonia consistunt, &c.’
Footnote 384:
Marcus Minucius Felix, Octavius, cap. xxvii.: ‘Isti igitur impuri
spiritus, dæmones, ut ostensum a magis, a philosophis, et a Platone
sub statuis et imaginibus consecrati delitescunt, &c.’
Footnote 385:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 455. See Spiegel, ‘Avesta,’ vol.
ii. p. 54.
Footnote 386:
Porphyr. de Vita Pythagoræ. Oken, ‘Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie,’
2753.
Footnote 387:
Suidas, s.v. ἐγγαστρίμυθος; Isidor. Gloss. s.v. ‘præcantatores’;
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 578. Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c. p. 269.
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. p. 115.
CHAPTER XV.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Spirits regarded as personal causes of Phenomena of the
World—Pervading Spirits as good and evil Demons affecting
man—Spirits manifest in Dreams and Visions: Nightmares; Incubi and
Succubi; Vampires; Visionary Demons—Demons of darkness repelled by
fire—Demons otherwise manifest: seen by animals; detected by
footprints—Spirits conceived and treated as material—Guardian and
Familiar Spirits—Nature-Spirits; historical course of the
doctrine—Spirits of Volcanoes, Whirlpools, Rocks—Water-Worship:
Spirits of Wells, Streams, Lakes, &c.—Tree-Worship: Spirits
embodied in or inhabiting Trees; Spirits of Groves and
Forests—Animal-Worship: Animals worshipped, directly, or as
incarnations or representatives of Deities; Totem-Worship;
Serpent-Worship—Species-Deities; their relation to Archetypal
Ideas.
We have now to enter on the final topic of the investigation of Animism,
by completing the classified survey of spiritual beings in general, from
the myriad souls, elves, fairies, genii, conceived as filling their
multifarious offices in man’s life and the world’s, up to the deities
who reign, few and mighty, over the spiritual hierarchy. In spite of
endless diversity of detail, the general principles of this
investigation seem comparatively easy of access to the enquirer, if he
will use the two keys which the foregoing studies supply: first, that
spiritual beings are modelled by man on his primary conception of his
own human soul, and second, that their purpose is to explain nature on
the primitive childlike theory that it is truly and throughout ‘Animated
Nature.’ If, as the poet says, ‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere
causas,’ then rude tribes of ancient men had within them this source of
happiness, that they could explain to their own content the causes of
things. For to them spiritual beings, elves and gnomes, ghosts and
manes, demons and deities, were the living personal causes of universal
life. ‘The first men found everything easy, the mysteries of nature were
not so hidden from them as from us,’ said Jacob Böhme the mystic. True,
we may well answer, if these primitive men believed in that animistic
philosophy of nature which even now survives in the savage mind. They
could ascribe to kind or hostile spirits all good and evil of their own
lives, and all striking operations of nature; they lived in familiar
intercourse with the living and powerful souls of their dead ancestors,
with the spirits of the stream and grove, plain and mountain, they knew
well the living mighty Sun pouring his beams of light and heat upon
them, the living mighty Sea dashing her fierce billows on the shore, the
great personal Heaven and Earth protecting and producing all things. For
as the human body was held to live and act by virtue of its own
inhabiting spirit-soul, so the operations of the world seemed to be
carried on by the influence of other spirits. And thus Animism, starting
as a philosophy of human life, extended and expanded itself till it
became a philosophy of nature at large.
To the minds of the lower races it seems that all nature is possessed,
pervaded, crowded, with spiritual beings. In seeking by a few types to
give an idea of this conception of pervading Spirits in its savage and
barbaric stage, it is not indeed possible to draw an absolute line of
separation between spirits occupied in affecting for good and ill the
life of Man, and spirits specially concerned in carrying on the
operations of Nature. In fact these two classes of spiritual beings
blend into one another as inextricably as do the original animistic
doctrines they are based on. As, however, the spirits considered
directly to affect the life and fortune of Man lie closest to the centre
of the animistic scheme, it is well to give them precedence. The
description and function of these beings extend upwards from among the
rudest human tribes. Milligan writes of the Tasmanians: ‘They were
polytheists; that is, they believed in guardian angels or spirits, and
in a plurality of powerful but generally evil-disposed beings,
inhabiting crevices and caverns of rocky mountains, and making temporary
abode in hollow trees and solitary valleys; of these a few were supposed
to be of great power, while to the majority were imputed much of the
nature and attributes of the goblins and elves of our native land.’[388]
Oldfield writes of the aborigines of Australia, ‘The number of
supernatural beings, feared if not loved, that they acknowledge, is
exceedingly great; for not only are the heavens peopled with such, but
the whole face of the country swarms with them; every thicket, most
watering-places, and all rocky places abound with evil spirits. In like
manner, every natural phenomenon is believed to be the work of demons,
none of which seem of a benign nature, one and all apparently striving
to do all imaginable mischief to the poor black fellow.’[389] It must be
indeed an unhappy race among whom such a demonology could shape itself,
and it is a relief to find that other people of low culture, while
recognizing the same spiritual world swarming about them, do not hold
its main attribute to be spite against themselves. Among the Algonquin
Indians of North America, Schoolcraft finds the very groundwork of their
religion in the belief ‘that the whole visible and invisible creation is
animated with various orders of malignant or benign spirits, who preside
over the daily affairs and over the final destinies of men.’[390] Among
the Khonds of Orissa, Macpherson describes the greater gods and tribal
manes, and below these the order of minor and local deities: ‘They are
the tutelary gods of every spot on earth, having power over the
functions of nature which operate there, and over everything relating to
human life in it. Their number is unlimited. They fill all nature, in
which no power or object, from the sea to the clods of the field, is
without its deity. They are the guardians of hills, groves, streams,
fountains, paths, and hamlets, and are cognizant of every human action,
want, and interest in the locality, where they preside.’[391] Describing
the animistic mythology of the Turanian tribes of Asia and Europe,
Castrén has said that every land, mountain, rock, river, brook, spring,
tree, or whatsoever it may be, has a spirit for an inhabitant; the
spirits of the trees and stones, of the lakes and brooks, hear with
pleasure the wild man’s pious prayers and accept his offerings.[392]
Such are the conceptions of the Guinea negro, who finds the abodes of
his good and evil spirits in great rocks, hollow trees, mountains, deep
rivers, dense groves, echoing caverns, and who passing silently by these
sacred places leaves some offering, if it be but a leaf or a shell
picked up on the beach.[393] Such are examples which not unfairly
picture the belief of the lower races in a world of spirits on earth,
and such descriptions apply to the state of men’s minds along the course
of civilization.
The doctrine of ancient philosophers such as Philo[394] and
Iamblichus,[395] of spiritual beings swarming through the atmosphere we
breathe, was carried on and developed in special directions in the
discussions concerning the nature and functions of the world-pervading
host of angels and devils, in the writings of the early Christian
Fathers.[396] Theologians of modern centuries have for the most part
seen reason to reduce within comparatively narrow limits the action
ascribed to external spiritual beings on mankind; yet there are some who
retain to the full the angelology and demonology of Origen and
Tertullian. These two views may be well contrasted by setting side by
side the judgments of two ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, as to the
belief in pervading demons prevalent in uncivilized countries. The
celebrated commentator, Dom Calmet, lays down in the most explicit terms
the doctrine of angels and demons, as a matter of dogmatic theology. But
he is less inclined to receive unquestioned the narratives of particular
manifestations in the mediæval and modern world. He mentions indeed the
testimony of Louis Vivez, that in the newly discovered countries of
America, nothing is more common than to see spirits which appear at
noon-day, not only in the country but in towns and villages, speaking,
commanding, sometimes even striking men; and the account by Olaus Magnus
of the spectres or spirits seen in Sweden and Norway, Finland and
Lapland, which do wonderful things, some even serving men as domestics
and driving the cattle out to pasture. But what Calmet remarks on these
stories, is that the greater ignorance prevails in a country, the more
superstition reigns there.[397] It seems that in our own day, however,
the tendency is to encourage less sceptical views. Monsignor Gaume’s
book on ‘Holy Water,’ which not long since received the special and
formal approval of Pius IX., appears ‘at an epoch when the millions of
evil angels which surround us are more enterprising than ever;’ and here
Olaus Magnus’ story of the demons infesting Northern Europe is not only
cited but corroborated.[398] On the whole, the survey of the doctrine of
pervading spirits through all the grades of culture is a remarkable
display of intellectual continuity. Most justly does Ellis the
missionary, depicting the South Sea Islanders’ world crowded with its
innumerable pervading spirits, point out the closeness of correspondence
here between doctrines of the savage and the civilized animist,
expressed as both may be in Milton’s familiar lines:—
‘Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.’[399]
As with souls, so with other spirits, man’s most distinct and direct
intercourse is had where they become actually present to his senses in
dreams and visions. The belief that such phantoms are real and personal
spirits, suggested and maintained as it is by the direct evidence of the
senses of sight, touch, and hearing, is naturally an opinion usual in
savage philosophy, and indeed elsewhere, long and obstinately resisting
the attacks of the later scientific doctrine. The demon Koin strives to
throttle the dreaming Australian;[400] the evil ‘na’ crouches on the
stomach of the Karen;[401] the North American Indian, gorged with
feasting, is visited by nocturnal spirits;[402] the Caribs, subject to
hideous dreams, often woke declaring that the demon Maboya had beaten
them in their sleep, and they could still feel the pain.[403] These
demons are the very elves and nightmares that to this day in benighted
districts of Europe ride and throttle the snoring peasant, and whose
names, not forgotten among the educated, have only made the transition
from belief to jest.[404] A not less distinct product of the savage
animistic theory of dreams as real visits from personal spiritual
beings, lasted on without a shift or break into the belief of mediæval
Christendom. This is the doctrine of the incubi and succubi, those male
and female nocturnal demons which consort sexually with men and women.
We may set out with their descriptions among the islanders of the
Antilles, where they are the ghosts of the dead, vanishing when
clutched;[405] in New Zealand, where ancestral deities ‘form attachments
with females and pay them repeated visits,’ while in the Samoan Islands
such intercourse of mischievious inferior gods caused ‘many supernatural
conceptions;’[406] and in Lapland, where details of this last extreme
class have also been placed on record.[407] From these lower grades of
culture the idea may be followed onward. Formal rites are specified in
the Hindu Tantra, which enable a man to obtain a companion-nymph by
worshipping her and repeating her name by night in a cemetery.[408]
Augustine, in an instructive passage, states the popular notions of the
visits of incubi, vouched for, he tells us, by testimony of such
quantity and quality that it may seem impudence to deny it; yet he is
careful not to commit himself to a positive belief in such spirits.[409]
Later theologians were less cautious, and grave argumentation on
nocturnal intercourse with incubi and succubi was carried on till, at
the height of mediæval civilization, it is found accepted in full belief
by ecclesiastics and lawyers. Nor is it to be counted as an ugly but
harmless superstition, when for example it is set forth in the Bull of
Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, as an accepted accusation against ‘many
persons of both sexes, forgetful of their own salvation, and falling
away from the Catholic faith.’ The practical outcome of this belief is
known to students who have traced the consequence of the Papal Bull in
the legal manual of the witchcraft tribunals, drawn up by the three
appointed Inquisitors, the infamous Malleus Maleficarum; and have
followed the results of this again into those dreadful records which
relate in their bald matter-of-fact phraseology the confessions of the
crime of diabolic intercourse, wrung from the wretched victims worked on
by threat and persuasion in the intervals of the rack, till enough
evidence was accumulated for clear judgment, and sentence of the
stake.[410] I need not dwell on the mingled obscenity and horror of
these details, which here only have their bearing on the history of
animism. But it will aid the ethnographer to understand the relation of
modern to savage philosophy, if he will read Richard Burton’s seriously
believing account in the ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ where he concludes
with acquiescence in a declaration lately made by Lipsius, that on the
showing of daily narratives and judicial sentences, in no age had these
lecherous demons appeared in such numbers as in his own time—and this
was about A.D. 1600.[411]
In connexion with the nightmare and the incubus, another variety of
nocturnal demon requires notice, the vampire. Inasmuch as certain
patients are seen becoming day by day, without apparent cause, thin,
weak, and bloodless, savage animism is called upon to produce a
satisfactory explanation, and does so in the doctrine that there exist
certain demons which eat out the souls or hearts or suck the blood of
their victims. The Polynesians said that it was the departed souls (tii)
which quitted the graves and grave-idols to creep by night into the
houses, and devour the heart and entrails of the sleepers, and these
died.[412] The Karens tell of the ‘kephu,’ which is a wizard’s stomach
going forth in the shape of a head and entrails, to devour the souls of
men, and they die.[413] The Mintira of the Malay Peninsula have their
‘hantu penyadin;’ he is a water-demon, with a dog’s head and an
alligator’s mouth, who sucks blood from men’s thumbs and great toes, and
they die.[414] It is in Slavonia and Hungary that the demon
blood-suckers have their principal abode, and to this district belongs
their special name of _vampire_, Polish _upior_, Russian _upir_. There
is a whole literature of hideous vampire-stories, which the student will
find elaborately discussed in Calmet. The shortest way of treating the
belief is to refer it directly to the principles of savage animism. We
shall see that most of its details fall into their places at once, and
that vampires are not mere creations of groundless fancy, but causes
conceived in spiritual form to account for specific facts of wasting
disease. As to their nature and physical action, there are two principal
theories, but both keep close to the original animistic idea of
spiritual beings, and consider these demons to be human souls. The first
theory is that the soul of a living man, often a sorcerer, leaves its
proper body asleep and goes forth, perhaps in the visible form of a
straw or fluff of down, slips through keyholes and attacks its sleeping
victim. If the sleeper should wake in time to clutch this tiny
soul-embodiment, he may through it have his revenge by maltreating or
destroying its bodily owner. Some say these ‘mury’ come by night to men,
sit upon their breasts and suck their blood, while others think it is
only children’s blood they suck, they being to grown people mere
nightmares. Here we have the actual phenomenon of nightmare, adapted to
a particular purpose. The second theory is that the soul of a dead man
goes out from its buried corpse and sucks the blood of living men. The
victim becomes thin, languid, and bloodless, falls into a rapid decline
and dies. Here again is actual experience, but a new fancy is developed
to complete the idea. The corpse thus supplied by its returning soul
with blood, is imagined to remain unnaturally fresh and supple and
ruddy; and accordingly the means of detecting a vampire is to open his
grave, where the reanimated corpse may be found to bleed when cut, and
even to move and shriek. One way to lay a vampire is to stake down the
corpse (as with suicides and with the same intention); but the more
effectual plan is to behead and burn it. This is the substance of the
doctrine of vampires. Still, as one order of demons is apt to blend into
others, the vampire-legends are much mixed with other animistic
folklore. Vampires appear in the character of the poltergeist or
knocker, as causing those disturbances in houses which modern
spiritualism refers in like manner to souls of the departed. Such was
the ghost of a certain surly peasant who came out of his grave in the
island of Mycone in 1700, after he had been buried but two days; he came
into the houses, upset the furniture, put the lamps out, and carried on
his tricks till the whole population went wild with terror. Tournefort
happened to be there and was present at the exhumation; his account is
curious evidence of the way an excited mob could persuade themselves,
without the least foundation of fact, that the body was warm and its
blood red. Again, the blood-sucker is very generally described under the
Slavonic names of werewolf (wilkodlak, brukolaka, &c.); the descriptions
of the two creatures are inextricably mixed up, and a man whose eyebrows
meet, as if his soul were taking flight like a butterfly, to enter some
other body, may be marked by this sign either as a werewolf or a
vampire. A modern account of vampirism in Bulgaria well illustrates the
nature of spirits as conceived in such beliefs as these. A sorcerer
armed with a saint’s picture will hunt a vampire into a bottle
containing some of the filthy food that the demon loves; as soon as he
is fairly inside he is corked down, the bottle is thrown into the fire,
and the vampire disappears for ever.[415]
As to the savage visionary and the phantoms he beholds, the Greenlander
preparing for the profession of sorcerer may stand as type, when, rapt
in contemplation in his desert solitude, emaciated by fasting and
disordered by fits, he sees before him scenes with figures of men and
animals, which he believes to be spirits. Thus it is interesting to read
the descriptions by Zulu converts of the dreadful creatures which they
see in moments of intense religious exaltation, the snake with great
eyes and very fearful, the leopard creeping stealthily, the enemy
approaching with his long assagai in his hand—these coming one after
another to the place where the man has gone to pray in secret, and
striving to frighten him from his knees.[416] Thus the visionary
temptations of the Hindu ascetic and the mediæval saint are happening in
our own day, though their place is now rather in the medical handbook
than in the record of miracle. Like the disease-demons and the
oracle-demons, these spiritual groups have their origin not in fancy,
but in real phenomena interpreted on animistic principles.
In the dark especially, harmful spirits swarm. Round native Australian
encampments, Sir George Grey used to see the bush dotted with little
moving points of fire; these were the firesticks carried by the old
women sent to look after the young ones, but who dared not quit the
firelight without a brand to protect them from the evil spirits.[417] So
South American Indians would carry brands or torches for fear of evil
demons when they ventured into the dark.[418] Tribes of the Malay
Peninsula light fires near a mother at childbirth, to scare away the
evil spirits.[419] Such notions extend to higher levels of civilization.
In Southern India, where for fear of pervading spirits only pressing
need will induce a man to go abroad after sundown, the unlucky wight who
has to venture into the dark will carry a fire-brand to keep off the
spectral foes. Even in broad daylight, the Hindu lights lamps to keep
off the demons,[420] a ceremony which is to be noticed again at a
Chinese wedding.[421] In Europe, the details of the use of fire to drive
off demons and witches are minute and explicit. The ancient Norse
colonists in Iceland carried fire round the lands they intended to
occupy, to expel the evil spirits. Such ideas have brought into
existence a whole group of Scandinavian customs, still remembered in the
country, but dying out in practice. Till a child is baptized, the fire
must never be let out, lest the trolls should be able to steal the
infant; a live coal must be cast after the mother as she goes to be
churched, to prevent the trolls from carrying her off bodily or
bewitching her; a live coal is to be thrown after a troll-wife or witch
as she quits a house, and so forth.[422] Into modern times, the people
of the Hebrides continued to protect the mother and child from evil
spirits, by carrying fire round them.[423] In modern Bulgaria, on the
Feast of St. Demetrius, lighted candles are placed in the stables and
the wood-shed, to prevent evil spirits from entering into the domestic
animals.[424] Nor did this ancient idea remain a mere lingering notion
of peasant folklore. Its adoption by the Church is obvious in the
ceremonial benediction of candles in the Roman Ritual: ‘Ut quibuscumque
locis accensæ, sive positæ fuerint, discedant principes tenebrarum, et
contremiscant, et fugiant pavidi cum omnibus ministris suis ab
habitationibus illis, &c.’ The metrical translation of Naogeorgus shows
perfectly the retention of primitive animistic ideas in the middle
ages:—
‘... a wondrous force and might
Doth in these candels lie, which if at any time they light,
They sure beleve that neyther storm or tempest dare abide,
Nor thunder in the skies be heard, nor any devil’s spide,
Nor fearefull sprightes that walke by night, nor hurts of frost or
haile.’[425]
Animals stare and startle when we see no cause; is it that they see
spirits invisible to man? Thus the Greenlander says that the seals and
wildfowl are scared by spectres, which no human eye but the sorcerer’s
can behold;[426] and thus the Khonds hold that their flitting ethereal
gods, invisible to man, are seen by beasts.[427] The thought holds no
small place in the folklore of the world. Telemachos could not discern
Athene standing near him, for not to all do the gods visibly appear; but
Odysseus saw her, and the dogs, and they did not bark, but with low
whine slunk across the dwelling to the further side.[428] So in old
Scandinavia, the dogs could see Hela the death-goddess move unseen by
men;[429] so Jew and Moslem, hearing the dogs howl, know that they have
seen the Angel of Death come on his awful errand;[430] while the beliefs
that animals see spirits, and that a dog’s melancholy howl means death
somewhere near, are still familiar to our own popular superstition.
Another means by which men may detect the presence of invisible spirits,
is to adopt the thief-catcher’s well-known device of strewing ashes.
According to the ideas of a certain stage of animism, a spirit is
considered substantial enough to leave a footprint. The following
instances relate sometimes to souls, sometimes to other beings. The
Philippine islanders expected the dead to return on the third day to his
dwelling, wherefore they set a vessel of water for him to wash himself
clean from the grave-mould, and strewed ashes to see footprints.[431] A
more elaborate rite forms part of the funeral customs of the Hos of
North-East India. On the evening of a death, the near relatives perform
the ceremony of calling the dead. Boiled rice and a pot of water are
placed in an inner room, and ashes sprinkled from thence to the
threshold. Two relatives go to the place where the body was burnt, and
walk round it beating ploughshares and chanting a plaintive dirge to
call the spirit home; while two others watch the rice and water to see
if they are disturbed, and look for the spirit-footsteps in the ashes.
If a sign appears, it is received with shivering horror and weeping, the
mourners outside coming in to join. Till the survivors are thus
satisfied of the spirit’s return, the rite must be repeated.[432] In
Yucatan there is mention of the custom of leaving a child alone at night
in a place strewn with ashes; if the footprint of an animal were found
next morning, this animal was the guardian deity of the child.[433]
Beside this may be placed the Aztec ceremony at the second festival of
the Sun-god Tezcatlipoca, when they sprinkled maize-flour before his
sanctuary, and his high-priest watched till he beheld the divine
footprints, and then shouted to announce, ‘Our great god is come.’[434]
Among such rites in the Old World, the Talmud contains a salient
instance; there are a great multitude of devils, it is said; and he who
will be aware of them let him take sifted ashes and strew them by his
bed, and in the early morning he shall see as it were marks of cocks’
feet.[435] This is an idea that has widely spread in the modern world,
as where in German folklore the little ‘earth-men’ make footprints like
a duck’s or goose’s in the strewn ashes. Other marks, too, betoken the
passage of spirit-visitors;[436] and as for ghosts, our own superstition
is among the most striking of the series. On St. Mark’s Eve, ashes are
to be sifted over the hearth, and the footprints will be seen of any one
who is to die within the year; many a mischievous wight has made a
superstitious family miserable by slily coming down stairs and marking
the print of some one’s shoe.[437] Such details as these may justify us
in thinking that the lower races are apt to ascribe to spirits in
general that kind of ethereal materiality which we have seen they
attribute to souls. Explicit statements on the subject are scarce till
we reach the level of early Christian theology. The ideas of Tertullian
and Origen, as to the thin yet not immaterial substance of angels and
demons, probably represent the conceptions of primitive animism far more
clearly than the doctrine which Calmet lays down with the weight of
theological dogma, that angels, demons, and disembodied souls are pure
immaterial spirit; but that when by divine permission spirits appear,
act, speak, walk, eat, they must produce tangible bodies by either
condensing the air, or substituting other terrestrial solid bodies
capable of performing these functions.[438]
No wonder that men should attack such material beings by material means,
and even sometimes try to rid themselves by a general clearance from the
legion of ethereal beings hovering around them. As the Australians
annually drive from their midst the accumulated ghosts of the last
year’s dead, so the Gold Coast negroes from time to time turn out with
clubs and torches to drive the evil spirits from their towns; rushing
about and beating the air with frantic howling, they drive the demons
into the woods, and then come home and sleep more easily, and for a
while afterwards enjoy better health.[439] When a baby was born in a
Kalmuk horde, the neighbours would rush about crying and brandishing
cudgels about the tents, to drive off the harmful spirits who might hurt
mother and child.[440] Keeping up a closely allied idea in modern
Europe, the Bohemians at Pentecost, and the Tyrolese on Walpurgisnacht,
hunt the witches, invisible and imaginary, out of house and stall.[441]
Closely allied to the doctrine of souls, and almost rivalling it in the
permanence with which it has held its place through all the grades of
animism, is the doctrine of patron, guardian, or familiar spirits. These
are beings specially attached to individual men, soul-like in their
nature, and sometimes considered as actually being human souls. These
beings have, like all others of the spiritual world as originally
conceived, their reason and purpose. The special functions which they
perform are twofold. First, while man’s own proper soul serves him for
the ordinary purposes of life and thought, there are times when powers
and impressions out of the course of the mind’s normal action, and words
that seem spoken to him by a voice from without, messages of mysterious
knowledge, of counsel or warning, seem to indicate the intervention of
as it were a second superior soul, a familiar demon. And as enthusiasts,
seers, sorcerers, are the men whose minds most often show such
conditions, so to these classes more than to others the informing and
controlling patron-spirits are attached. Second, while the common
expected events of daily life pass unnoticed as in the regular course of
things, such events as seem to fall out with especial reference to an
individual, demand an intervening agent; and thus the decisions,
discoveries, and deliverances, which civilized men variously ascribe to
their own judgment, to luck, and to special interposition of Providence,
are accounted for in the lower culture by the action of the
patron-spirit or guardian-genius. Not to crowd examples from all the
districts of animism to which this doctrine belongs, let us follow it by
a few illustrations from the lower grades of savagery upward. Among the
Watchandis of Australia, it is held that when a warrior slays his first
man, the spirit of the dead enters the slayer’s body and becomes his
‘woorie’ or warning spirit; taking up its abode near his liver, it
informs him by a scratching or tickling sensation of the approach of
danger.[442] In Tasmania, Dr. Milligan heard a native ascribe his
deliverance from an accident to the preserving care of his deceased
father’s spirit, his guardian angel.[443] That the most important act of
the North American Indian’s religion is to obtain his individual patron
genius or deity, is well known. Among the Esquimaux, the sorcerer
qualifies for his profession by getting a ‘torngak’ or spirit which will
henceforth be his familiar demon, and this spirit may be the soul of a
deceased parent.[444] In Chili, as to guardian spirits, it has been
remarked that every Araucanian imagines he has one in his service; ‘I
keep my amchi-malghen (guardian nymph) still,’ being a common expression
when they succeed in any undertaking.[445] The Caribs display the
doctrine well in both its general and special forms. On the one hand,
there is a guardian deity for each man, which accompanies his soul to
the next life; on the other hand, each sorcerer has his familiar demon,
which he evokes in mysterious darkness by chants and tobacco-smoke; and
when several sorcerers call up their familiars together, the consequence
is apt to be a quarrel among the demons, and a fight.[446] In Africa,
the negro has his guardian spirit—how far identified with what Europeans
call soul or conscience, it may be hard to determine; but he certainly
looks upon it as a being separate from himself, for he summons it by
sorcery, builds a little fetish-hut for it by the wayside, rewards and
propitiates it by libations of liquor and bits of food.[447] In Asia,
the Mongols, each with his patron genius,[448] and the Laos sorcerers
who can send their familiar spirits into others’ bodies to cause
disease,[449] are examples equally to the purpose.
Among the Aryan nations of Northern Europe,[450] the old doctrine of
man’s guardian spirit may be traced, and in classic Greece and Rome it
renews with philosophic eloquence and cultured custom the ideas of the
Australian and the African. The thought of the spiritual guide and
protector of the individual man is happily defined by Menander, who
calls the attendant genius, which each man has from the hour of birth,
the good mystagogue (i.e. the novice’s guide to the mysteries) of this
life.
Ἄπαντι δαίμον ἀνδρὶ συμπαρίσταται
Εὐθὺς γενομένῳ μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ βίου.
Ἀγαθός; κακὸν γὰρ δαίμον’ οὐ νομιστέον
Εἶναι τὸν βίον βλάπτοντα χρηστόν. Πάντα γὰρ
Δεῖ ἀγαθὸν εἶναι τὸν Θεόν.
The divine warning voice which Sokrates used to hear, is a salient
example of the mental impressions leading to the belief in guardian
spirits.[451] In the Roman world, the doctrine came to be accepted as a
philosophy of human life. Each man had his ‘genius natalis,’ associated
with him from birth to death, influencing his action and his fate,
standing represented by its proper image as a lar among the household
gods; and at weddings and joyous times, and especially on the
anniversary of the birthday when genius and man began their united
career, worship was paid with song and dance to the divine image,
adorned with garlands, and propitiated with incense and libations of
wine. The demon or genius was, as it were, the man’s companion soul, a
second spiritual ego. The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep
far from the young Octavius, ‘for thy demon,’ said he, ‘is in fear of
his;’ and truly in after years that genius of Augustus had become an
imperial deity, by whom Romans swore solemn oaths, not to be
broken.[452] The doctrine which could thus personify the character and
fate of the individual man, proved capable of a yet further development.
Converting into animistic entities the inmost operations of the human
mind, a dualistic philosophy conceived as attached to every mortal a
good and an evil genius, whose efforts through life drew him backward
and forward toward virtue and vice, happiness and misery. It was the
kakodaimōn of Brutus which appeared to him by night in his tent: ‘I am
thy evil genius,’ it said, ‘we meet again at Philippi.’[453]
As we study the shapes which the attendant spirits of the individual man
assumed in early and mediæval Christendom, it is plain that the good and
evil angels contending for man from birth to death, the guardian angel
watching and protecting him, the familiar spirit giving occult knowledge
or serving with magic art, continue in principle, and even in detail,
the philosophy of earlier culture. Such beings even take visible form.
St. Francisca had a familiar angel, not merely that domestic one that is
given as a guardian to every man, but this was as it were a boy of nine
years old, with a face more splendid than the sun, clad in a little
white tunic; it was in after years that there came to her a second
angel, with a column of splendour rising to the sky, and three golden
palm-branches in his hands. Or such attendant beings, though invisible,
make their presence evident by their actions, as in Calmet’s account of
that Cistercian monk whose familiar genius waited on him, and used to
get his chamber ready when he was coming back from the country, so that
people knew when to expect him home.[454] There is a pleasant quaintness
in Luther’s remark concerning guardian angels, that a prince must have a
greater, stronger, wiser angel than a count, and a count than a common
man.[455] Bishop Bull, in one of his vigorous sermons, thus sums up a
learned argument: ‘I cannot but judge it highly probable, that every
faithful person at least hath his particular good _Genius_ or _Angel_,
appointed by God over him, as the Guardian and Guide of his Life.’ But
he will not insist on the belief, provided that the general ministry of
angels be accepted.[456] Swedenborg will go beyond this. ‘Every man,’ he
says, ‘is attended by an associate spirit; for without such an
associate, a man would be incapable of thinking analytically,
rationally, and spiritually.’[457] Yet in the modern educated world at
large, this group of beliefs has passed into the stage of survival. The
conception of the good and evil genius contending for man through life,
indeed, perhaps never had much beyond the idealistic meaning which art
and poetry still give it. The traveller in France may hear in our own
day the peasant’s salutation, ‘Bonjour à vous et à votre compagnie!’
(i.e. your guardian angel).[458] But at the birthday festivals of
English children, how few are even aware of the historical sequence,
plain as it is, from the rites of the classic natal genius and the
mediæval natal saint! Among us, the doctrine of guardian angels is to be
found in commentaries, and may be sometimes mentioned in the pulpit; but
the once distant conception of a present guardian spirit, acting on each
individual man and interfering with circumstances on his behalf, has all
but lost its old reality. The familiar demon which gave occult knowledge
and did wicked work for the magician, and sucked blood from miserable
hags by witch-teats, was two centuries ago as real to the popular mind
as the alembic or the black cat with which it was associated. Now, it
has been cast down to the limbo of unhallowed superstitions.
To turn from Man to Nature. General mention has been made already of the
local spirits which belong to mountain and rock and valley, to well and
stream and lake, in brief to those natural objects and places which in
early ages aroused the savage mind to mythological ideas, such as modern
poets in their altered intellectual atmosphere strive to reproduce. In
discussing these imaginary beings, it is above all things needful to
bring our minds into sympathy with the lower philosophy. Here we must
seek to realize to the utmost the definition of the Nature-Spirits, to
understand with what distinct and full conviction savage philosophy
believes in their reality, to discern how, as living causes, they can
fill their places and do their daily work in the natural philosophy of
primæval man. Seeing how the Iroquois at their festivals could thank the
invisible aids or good spirits, and with them the trees, shrubs, and
plants, the springs and streams, the fire and wind, the sun, moon, and
stars—in a word, every object that ministered to their wants—we may
judge what real personality they attached to the myriad spirits which
gave animated life to the world around them.[459] The Gold Coast negro’s
generic name for a fetish-spirit is ‘wong;’ these aerial beings dwell in
temple-huts and consume sacrifices, enter into and inspire their
priests, cause health and sickness among men, and execute the behests of
the mighty Heaven-god. But part or all of them are connected with
material objects, and the negro can say, ‘In this river, or tree, or
amulet, there is a wong.’ But he more usually says, ‘This river, or
tree, or amulet is a wong.’ Thus among the wongs of the land are rivers,
lakes, and springs, districts of land, termite-hills, trees, crocodiles,
apes, snakes, elephants, birds.[460] In a word, his conceptions of
animating souls and presiding spirits as efficient causes of all nature
are two groups of ideas which we may well find it hard to distinguish,
for the sufficient reason that they are but varying developments of the
same fundamental animism.
In the doctrine of nature-spirits among nations which have reached a
higher grade of culture, are found at once traces of such primitive
thought, and of its change under new intellectual conditions. Knowing
the thoughts of rude Turanian tribes of Siberia as to pervading spirits
of nature, we are prepared to look for remodelled ideas of the same
class among a nation whose religion shows plain traces of evolution from
the low Turanian stage. The archaic system of manes-worship and
nature-worship, which survives as the state religion of China, fully
recognizes the worship of the numberless spirits which pervade the
universe. The belief in their personality is vouched for by the
sacrifices offered to them. ‘One must sacrifice to the spirits,’ says
Confucius, ‘as though they were present at the sacrifice.’ At the same
time, spirits were conceived as embodied in material objects. Confucius
says, again: ‘The action of the spirits, how perfect is it! Thou
perceivest it, and yet seest it not! Incorporated or immembered in
things, they cannot quit them. They cause men, clean and pure and better
clothed, to bring them sacrifice. Many, many, are there of them, as the
broad sea, as though they were above and right and left.’ Here are
traces of such a primitive doctrine of personal and embodied
nature-spirits as is still at home in the religion of rude Siberian
hordes. But it was natural that Chinese philosophers should find means
of refining into mere ideality these ruder animistic creations. Spirit
(shin), they tell us, is the fine or tender part in all the ten thousand
things; all that is extraordinary or supernatural is called spirit; the
unsearchable of the male and female principles is called spirit; he who
knows the way of passing away and coming to be, he knows the working of
spirit.[461]
The classic Greeks had inherited from their barbaric ancestors a
doctrine of the universe essentially similar to that of the North
American Indian, the West African, and the Siberian. We know, more
intimately than the heathen religion of our own land, the ancient Greek
scheme of nature-spirits impelling and directing by their personal power
and will the functions of the universe, the ancient Greek religion of
nature, developed by imagination, adorned by poetry, and consecrated by
faith. History records for our instruction, how out of the midst of this
splendid and honoured creed there were evolved the germs of the new
philosophy. Led by minuter insight and stricter reason, thoughtful
Greeks began the piecemeal supersession of the archaic scheme, and set
in movement the transformation of animistic into physical science, which
thence pervaded the whole cultured world. Such, in brief, is the history
of the doctrine of nature-spirits from first to last. Let us endeavour,
by classifying some of its principal special groups, to understand its
place in the history of the human intellect.
What causes volcanos? The Australians account for volcanic rocks by the
tradition that the sulky underground ‘ingna’ or demons made great fires
and threw up red-hot stones.[462] The Kamchadals say that just as they
themselves warm up their winter-houses, so the ‘kamuli’ or
mountain-spirits heat up the mountains in which they dwell, and fling
the brands out of the chimney.[463] The Nicaraguans offered human
sacrifices to Masaya or Popogatepec (Smoking-Mountain), by throwing the
bodies into the crater. It seems as though it were a controlling deity,
not the mountain itself, that they worshipped; for one reads of the
chiefs going to the crater, whence a hideous old naked woman came out
and gave them counsel and oracle; at the edge were placed earthen
vessels of food to please her, or to appease her when there was a storm
or earthquake.[464] Thus animism provided a theory of volcanoes, and so
it was likewise with whirlpools and rocks. In the Vei country in West
Africa, there is a dangerous rock on the Mafa river, which is never
passed without offering a tribute to the spirit of the flood—a leaf of
tobacco, a handful of rice, or a drink of rum.[465] An early missionary
account of a rock-demon worshipped by the Huron Indians will show with
what absolute personality savages can conceive such a being. In the
hollow of a certain sacred rock, it is related, dwells an ‘oki’ or
spirit who can give success to travellers, wherefore they put tobacco
into one of the cracks, and pray thus: ‘Demon who dwellest in this
place, behold tobacco I present to thee; help us, keep us from
shipwreck, defend us against our enemies, and vouchsafe that when we
have made a good trade, we may return safe and sound to our village.’
Father Marquette relates how, travelling on a river in the then little
known region of North America, he was told of a dreadful place to which
the canoe was just drawing near, where dwells a demon waiting to devour
such as dare to approach; this terrific manitu proved on arrival to be
some high rocks in the bend of the river, against which the current runs
violently.[466] Thus the missionary found in living belief among the
savage Indians the very thought which had so long before passed into the
classic tale of Skylla and Charybdis.
In those moments of the civilized man’s life when he casts off hard dull
science, and returns to childhood’s fancy, the world-old book of
animated nature is open to him anew. Then the well-worn thoughts come
back fresh to him, of the stream’s life that is so like his own; once
more he can see the rill leap down the hillside like a child, to wander
playing among the flowers; or can follow it as, grown to a river, it
rushes through a mountain gorge, henceforth in sluggish strength to
carry heavy burdens across the plain. In all that water does, the poet’s
fancy can discern its personality of life. It gives fish to the fisher,
and crops to the husbandman; it swells in fury and lays waste the land;
it grips the bather with chill and cramp, and holds with inexorable
grasp its drowning victim:[467]
“Tweed said to Till,
‘What gars ye rin sae still?’
Till said to Tweed,
‘Though ye rin wi’ speed,
And I rin slaw,
Yet, where ye drown ae man,
I drown twa.’”
What ethnography has to teach of that great element of the religion of
mankind, the worship of well and lake, brook and river, is simply
this—that what is poetry to us was philosophy to early man; that to his
mind water acted not by laws of force, but by life and will; that the
water-spirits of primæval mythology are as souls which cause the water’s
rush and rest, its kindness and its cruelty; that lastly man finds, in
the beings which with such power can work him weal and woe, deities with
a wider influence over his life, deities to be feared and loved, to be
prayed to and praised and propitiated with sacrificial gifts.
In Australia, special water-demons infest pools and watering-places. In
the native theory of disease and death, no personage is more prominent
than the water-spirit, which afflicts those who go into unlawful pools
or bathe at unlawful times, the creature which causes women to pine and
die, and whose very presence is death to the beholder, save to the
native doctors, who may visit the water-spirit’s subaqueous abode and
return with bleared eyes and wet clothes to tell the wonders of their
stay.[468] It would seem that creatures with such attributes come
naturally into the category of spiritual beings, but in such stories as
that of the bunyip living in the lakes and rivers and seen floating as
big as a calf, which carries off native women to his retreat below the
waters, there appears that confusion between the spiritual water-demon
and the material water-monster, which runs on into the midst of European
mythology in such conceptions as that of the water-kelpie and the
sea-serpent.[469] America gives cases of other principal animistic ideas
concerning water. The water has its own spirits, writes Cranz, among the
Greenlanders, so when they come to an untried spring, an angekok or the
oldest man must drink first, to free it from a harmful spirit.[470] ‘Who
makes this river flow?’ asks the Algonquin hunter in a medicine-song,
and his answer is, ‘The spirit, he makes this river flow.’ In any great
river, or lake, or cascade, there dwell such spirits, looked upon as
mighty manitus. Thus Carver mentions the habit of the Red Indians, when
they reached the shores of Lake Superior or the banks of the
Mississippi, or any other great body of water, to present to the spirit
who resides there some kind of offering; this he saw done by a Winnebago
chief who went with him to the Falls of St. Anthony. Franklin saw a
similar sacrifice made by an Indian, whose wife had been afflicted with
sickness by the water-spirits, and who accordingly to appease them tied
up in a small bundle a knife and a piece of tobacco and some other
trifling articles, and committed them to the rapids.[471] On the
river-bank, the Peruvians would scoop up a handful of water and drink
it, praying the river-deity to let them cross or to give them fish, and
they threw maize into the stream as a propitiatory offering; even to
this day the Indians of the Cordilleras perform the ceremonial sip
before they will pass a river on foot or horseback.[472] Africa displays
well the rites of water-worship. In the East, among the Wanika, every
spring has its spirit, to which oblations are made; in the West, in the
Akra district, lakes, ponds, and rivers received worship as local
deities. In the South, among the Kafirs, streams are venerated as
personal beings, or the abodes of personal deities, as when a man
crossing a river will ask leave of its spirit, or having crossed will
throw in a stone; or when the dwellers by a stream will sacrifice a
beast to it in time of drought, or, warned by illness in the tribe that
their river is angry, will cast into it a few handfuls of millet or the
entrails of a slaughtered ox.[473] Not less strongly marked are such
ideas among the Tatar races of the North. Thus the Ostyaks venerate the
river Ob, and when fish is scanty will hang a stone about a reindeer’s
neck and cast it in for a sacrifice. Among the Buraets, who are
professing Buddhists, the old worship may still be seen at the
picturesque little mountain lake of Ikeougoun, where they come to the
wooden temple on the shore to offer sacrifices of milk and butter and
the fat of the animals which they burn on the altars. So across in
Northern Europe, almost every Esthonian village has its sacred
sacrificial spring. The Esths could at times even see the churl with
blue and yellow stockings rise from the holy brook Wöhhanda, no doubt
that same spirit of the brook to whom in older days there were
sacrificed beasts and little children; in newer times, when a German
landowner dared to build a mill and dishonour the sacred water, there
came bad seasons that lasted year after year, and the country people
burned down the abominable thing.[474] As for the water-worship
prevailing among non-Aryan indigenes of British India, it seems to reach
its climax among the Bodo and Dhimal of the North-East, tribes to whom
the local rivers are the local deities,[475] so that men worship
according to their water-sheds, and the map is a pantheon.
Nor is such reverence strange to Aryan nations. To the modern Hindu,
looking as he still does on a river as a living personal being to be
adored and sworn by, the Ganges is no solitary water deity, but only the
first and most familiar of the long list of sacred streams.[476] Turn to
the classic world, and we but find the beliefs and rites of a lower
barbaric culture holding their place, consecrated by venerable antiquity
and glorified by new poetry and art. To the great Olympian assembly in
the halls of cloud-compelling Zeus, came the Rivers, all save Ocean, and
thither came the nymphs who dwell in lovely groves and at the springs of
streams, and in the grassy meads; and they sate upon the polished
seats:—
‘Οὔτε τις οὖν Ποταμῶν ἀπέην, νόσφ’ Ὠκεανοῖο,
Οὔτ’ ἅρα Νυμφαών ταί τ’ ἄλσεα καλὰ νέμονται,
Καὶ πηγὰς ποταμῶν, καὶ πίσεα ποιήεντα.
Ἐλθόντες δ’ ἐς δῶμα Διὸς νεφεληγερέταο,
Ξεστῇς αἰθούσῃσιν ἐφίζανον, ἃσ Διὶ πατρὶ
Ἤφαιστος ποίησεν ἰδυίῃσι πραπίδεσσιν.’
Even against Hephaistos the Fire-god, a River-god dared to stand
opposed, deep-eddying Xanthos, called of men Skamandros. He rushed down
to overwhelm Achilles and bury him in sand and slime, and though
Hephaistos prevailed against him with his flames, and forced him, with
the fish skurrying hither and thither in his boiling waves and the
willows scorched upon his banks, to rush on no more but stand, yet at
the word of white-armed Here, that it was not fit for mortals’ sake to
handle so roughly an immortal god, Hephaistos quenched his furious fire,
and the returning flood sped again along his channel:—
‘Ἤφαιστε, σχέο, τέκνον ἀγακλέες; οὐ γὰρ ἔοικεν
Ἀθάνατον θεὸν ὧδε βροτῶν ἕνεκα στυφελίζειν.
Ὣς ἔφαθ’· Ἥφαιστος δὲ κατέσβεσε θεσπιδαὲς πῦρ·
Ἄψορρον δ’ ἄρα κῦμα κατέσσυτο καλὰ ῥέεθρα.’
To beings thus conceived in personal divinity, full worship was given.
Odysseus invokes the river of Scheria; Skamandros had his priest and
Spercheios his grove; and sacrifice was done to the rival of Herakles,
the river-god Acheloos, eldest of the three thousand river-children of
old Okeanos.[477] Through the ages of the classic world, the river-gods
and the water-nymphs held their places, till within the bounds of
Christendom they came to be classed with ideal beings like them in the
mythology of the northern nations, the kindly sprites to whom offerings
were given at springs and lakes, and the treacherous nixes who entice
men to a watery death. In times of transition, the new Christian
authorities made protest against the old worship, passing laws to forbid
adoration and sacrifice to fountains—as when Duke Bretislav forbade the
still half-pagan country folk of Bohemia to offer libations and
sacrifice victims at springs,[478] and in England Ecgbert’s
Poenitentiale proscribed the like rites, ‘if any man vow or bring his
offerings to any well,’ ‘if one hold his vigils at any well.’[479] But
the old veneration was too strong to be put down, and with a varnish of
Christianity and sometimes the substitution of a saint’s name,
water-worship has held its own to our day. The Bohemians will go to pray
on the river-bank where a man has been drowned, and there they will cast
in an offering, a loaf of new bread and a pair of wax-candles. On
Christmas Eve they will put a spoonful of each dish on a plate, and
after supper throw the food into the well, with an appointed formula,
somewhat thus:—
‘House-father gives thee greeting,
Thee by me entreating:
Springlet, share our feast of Yule,
But give us water to the full;
When the land is plagued with drought,
Drive it with thy well-spring out.’[480]
It well shows the unchanged survival of savage thought in modern
peasants’ minds, to find still in Slavonic lands the very same fear of
drinking a harmful spirit in the water, that has been noticed among the
Esquimaux. It is a sin for a Bulgarian not to throw some water out of
every bucket brought from the fountain; some elemental spirit might be
floating on the surface, and if not thrown out, might take up his abode
in the house, or enter into the body of some one drinking from the
vessel.[481] Elsewhere in Europe, the list of still existing water-rites
may be extended. The ancient lake-offerings of the South of France seem
not yet forgotten in La Lozère, the Bretons venerate as of old their
sacred springs, and Scotland and Ireland can show in parish after parish
the sites and even the actual survivals of such observance at the holy
wells. Perhaps Welshmen no longer offer cocks and hens to St. Tecla at
her sacred well and church of Llandegla, but Cornish folk still drop
into the old holy-wells offerings of pins, nails, and rags, expecting
from their waters cure for disease, and omens from their bubbles as to
health and marriage.[482]
The spirits of the tree and grove no less deserve our study for their
illustrations of man’s primitive animistic theory of nature. This is
remarkably displayed in that stage of thought where the individual tree
is regarded as a conscious personal being, and as such receives
adoration and sacrifice. Whether such a tree is looked on as inhabited,
like a man, by its own proper life or soul, or as possessed, like a
fetish, by some other spirit which has entered it and uses it for a
body, is often hard to determine. Shelley’s lines well express a
doubting conception familiar to old barbaric thought—
‘Whether the sensitive plant, or that
Which within its boughs like a spirit sat
Ere its outward form had known decay,
Now felt this change, I cannot say.’
But this vagueness is yet again a proof of the principle which I have
confidently put forward here, that the conceptions of the inherent soul
and of the embodied spirit are but modifications of one and the same
deep-lying animistic thought. The Mintira of the Malay Peninsula believe
in ‘hantu kayu,’ i.e. ‘tree-spirits,’ or ‘tree-demons,’ which frequent
every species of tree, and afflict men with diseases; some trees are
noted for the malignity of their demons.[483] Among the Dayaks of
Borneo, certain trees possessed by spirits must not be cut down; if a
missionary ventured to fell one, any death that happened afterwards
would naturally be set down to this crime.[484] The belief of certain
Malays of Sumatra is expressly stated, that certain venerable trees are
the residence, or rather the material frame, of spirits of the
woods.[485] In the Tonga Islands, we hear of natives laying offerings at
the foot of particular trees, with the idea of their being inhabited by
spirits.[486] So in America, the Ojibwa medicine-man has heard the tree
utter its complaint when wantonly cut down.[487] A curious and
suggestive description bearing on this point is given in Friar Roman
Pane’s account of the religion of the Antilles islanders, drawn up by
order of Columbus. Certain trees, he declares, were believed to send for
sorcerers, to whom they gave orders how to shape their trunks into
idols, and these ‘cemi’ being then installed in temple-huts, received
prayer and inspired their priests with oracles.[488] Africa shows as
well-defined examples. The negro woodman cuts down certain trees in fear
of the anger of their inhabiting demons, but he finds his way out of the
difficulty by a sacrifice to his own good genius, or, when he is giving
the first cuts to the great asorin-tree, and its indwelling spirit comes
out to chase him, he cunningly drops palm-oil on the ground, and makes
his escape while the spirit is licking it up.[489] A negro was once
worshipping a tree with an offering of food, when some one pointed out
to him that the tree did not eat; the negro answered, ‘O the tree is not
fetish, the fetish is a spirit and invisible, but he has descended into
this tree. Certainly he cannot devour our bodily food, but he enjoys its
spiritual part and leaves behind the bodily which we see.’[490]
Tree-worship is largely prevalent in Africa, and much of it may be of
this fully animistic kind; as where in Whidah Bosman says that ‘the
trees, which are the gods of the second rank of this country, are only
prayed to and presented with offerings in time of sickness, more
especially fevers, in order to restore the patients to health;’[491] or
where in Abyssinia the Gallas made pilgrimage from all quarters to their
sacred tree Wodanabe on the banks of the Hawash, worshipping it and
praying to it for riches, health, life, and every blessing.[492]
The position of tree-worship in Southern Asia in relation to Buddhism is
of particular interest. To this day there are districts of this region,
Buddhist or under strong Buddhist influence, where tree-worship is still
displayed with absolute clearness of theory and practice. Here in legend
a dryad is a being capable of marriage with a human hero, while in
actual fact a tree-deity is considered human enough to be pleased with
dolls set up to swing in the branches. The Talein of Burmah, before they
cut down a tree, offer prayers to its ‘kaluk’ (_i.q._, ‘kelah’), its
inhabiting spirit or soul. The Siamese offer cakes and rice to the
takhien-tree before they fell it, and believe the inhabiting nymphs or
mothers of trees to pass into guardian-spirits of the boats built of
their wood, so that they actually go on offering sacrifice to them in
this their new condition.[493] These people have indeed little to learn
from any other race, however savage, of the principles of the lower
animism. The question now arises, did such tree-worship belong to the
local religions among which Buddhism established itself? There is strong
evidence that this was the case. Philosophic Buddhism, as known to us by
its theological books, does not include trees among sentient beings
possessing mind, but it goes so far as to acknowledge the existence of
the ‘dewa’ or genius of a tree. Buddha, it is related, told a story of a
tree crying out to the brahman carpenter who was going to cut it down,
‘I have a word to say, hear my word!’ but then the teacher goes on to
explain that it was not really the tree that spoke, but a dewa dwelling
in it. Buddha himself was a tree-genius forty-three times in the course
of his transmigrations. Legend says that during one such existence, a
certain brahman used to pray for protection to the tree which Buddha was
attached to; but the transformed teacher reproved the tree-worshipper
for thus addressing himself to a senseless thing which hears and knows
nothing.[494] As for the famous Bo tree, its miraculous glories are not
confined to the ancient Buddhist annals; for its surviving descendant,
grown from the branch of the parent tree sent by King Asoka from India
to Ceylon in the 3rd century B.C., to this day receives the worship of
the pilgrims who come by thousands to do it honour, and offer prayer
before it. Beyond these hints and relics of the old worship, however,
Mr. Fergusson’s recent investigations, published in his ‘Tree and
Serpent Worship,’ have brought to light an ancient state of things which
the orthodox Buddhist literature gives little idea of. It appears from
the sculptures of the Sanchi tope in Central India, that in the Buddhism
of about the 1st century A.D., sacred trees had no small place as
objects of authorized worship. It is especially notable that the
representatives of indigenous race and religion in India, the Nagas,
characterized by their tutelary snakes issuing from their backs between
their shoulders and curving over their heads, and other tribes actually
drawn as human apes, are seen adoring the divine tree in the midst of
unquestionable Buddhist surroundings.[495] Tree-worship, even now well
marked among the indigenous tribes of India, was obviously not abolished
on the Buddhist conversion. The new philosophic religion seems to have
amalgamated, as new religions ever do, with older native thoughts and
rites. And it is quite consistent with the habits of the Buddhist
theologians and hagiologists, that when tree-worship was suppressed,
they should have slurred over the fact of its former prevalence, and
should even have used the recollection of it as a gibe against the
hostile Brahmans.
Conceptions like those of the lower races in character, and rivalling
them in vivacity, belong to the mythology of Greece and Rome. The
classic thought of the tree inhabited by a deity and uttering oracles,
is like that of other regions. Thus the sacred palm of Negra in Yemen,
whose demon was propitiated by prayer and sacrifice to give oracular
response,[496] or the tall oaks inhabited by the gods, where old
Slavonic people used to ask questions and hear the answers,[497] have
their analogue in the prophetic oak of Dodona, wherein dwelt the deity,
‘ναῖεν δ’ ἐνὶ πυθμένι φηγοῦ.’[498] The Homeric hymn to Aphrodite tells
of the tree-nymphs, long-lived yet not immortal—they grow with their
high-topped leafy pines and oaks upon the mountains, but when the lot of
death draws nigh, and the lovely trees are sapless, and the bark rots
away and the branches fall, then their spirits depart from the light of
the sun:—
‘Νύμφαι μιν θρέψουσιν ὀρεσκῷοι βαθύκολποι,
αἵ τόδε ναιετάυσιν ὄρος μέγα τε ζάθεόν τε·
αἵ ῥ’ οὔτε θνητοῖς οὔτ’ ἀθανάτοισιν ἕπονται·
δηρὸν μὲν ζώουσι καὶ ἄμβροτον εἷδαρ ἔδουσι,
καί τε μετ’ ἀθανάτοισι καλὸν χορὸν ἐρρώσαντο.
τῇσι δὲ Σειληνοί τε καὶ εὔσκοπος Ἀργειφόντης
μίσγοντ’ ἐν φιλότητι μυχῷ σπείων ἐροέντων.
τῇσι δ’ ἅμ’ ἢ ἐλάται ἠὲ δρύς ὑψικάρηνοι
γεινομένῃσιν ἔφυσαν ἐπὶ χθονὶ βωτιανείρῃ,
καλαί, τηλεθάουσαι, ἐν οὔρεσιν ὑψηλοῖσιν·
ἀλλ’ ὅτε κεν δὴ μοῖρα παρεστήκῃ θανάτοιο,
ἀζάνεται μὲν πρῶτον ἐπὶ χθονὶ δένδρεα καλά,
φλοιὸς δ’ ἀμφιπεριφθινύθει, πίπτουσι δ’ ἄπ’ ὄζοι,
τῶν δὲ θ’ ὁμοῦ ψυχὴ λείπει φαός ἠελίοιο.’[499]
The hamadryad’s life is bound to her tree, she is hurt when it is
wounded, she cries when the axe threatens, she dies with the fallen
trunk:—
‘Non sine hamadryadis fato cadit arborea trabs.’[500]
How personal a creature the tree-nymph was to the classic mind, is shown
in legends like that of Paraibios, whose father, regardless of the
hamadryad’s entreaties, cut down her ancient trunk, and in himself and
in his offspring suffered her dire vengeance.[501] The ethnographic
student finds a curious interest in transformation-myths like Ovid’s,
keeping up as they do vestiges of philosophy of archaic type—Daphne
turned into the laurel that Apollo honours for her sake, the sorrowing
sisters of Phaethon changing into trees, yet still dropping blood and
crying for mercy when their shoots are torn.[502] Such episodes mediæval
poetry could still adapt, as in the pathless infernal forest whose
knotted dusk-leaved trees revealed their human animation to the
Florentine when he plucked a twig,
‘Allor porsi la mano un poco avante,
E colsi un ramoscel da un gran pruno:
E’ l tronco suo gridò: Perchè mi schiante?’[503]
or the myrtle to which Ruggiero tied his hippogriff, who tugged at the
poor trunk till it murmured and oped its mouth, and with doleful voice
told that it was Astolfo, enchanted by the wicked Alcina among her other
lovers,
‘D’ entrar o in fera o in fonte o in legno o in sasso.’[504]
If these seem to us now conceits over quaint for beauty, we need not
scruple to say so. They are not of Dante and Ariosto, they are sham
antiques from classic models. And if even the classic originals have
become unpleasing, we need not perhaps reproach ourselves with decline
of poetic taste. We have lost something, and the loss has spoiled our
appreciation of many an old poetic theme, yet it is not always our sense
of the beautiful that has dwindled, but the old animistic philosophy of
nature that is gone from us, dissipating from such fancies their
meaning, and with their meaning their loveliness. Still, if we look for
living men to whom trees are, as they were to our distant forefathers,
the habitations and embodiments of spirits, we shall not look in vain.
The peasant folklore of Europe still knows of willows that bleed and
weep and speak when hewn, of the fairy maiden that sits within the
fir-tree, of that old tree in Rugaard forest that must not be felled,
for an elf dwells within, of that old tree on the Heinzenberg near Zell,
which uttered its complaint when the woodman cut it down, for in it was
Our Lady, whose chapel now stands upon the spot.[505] One may still look
on where Franconian damsels go to a tree on St. Thomas’s Day, knock
thrice solemnly, and listen for the indwelling spirit to give answer by
raps from within, what manner of husbands they are to have.[506]
In the remarkable document of mythic cosmogony, preserved by Eusebius
under the alleged authorship of the Phœnician Sanchoniathon, is the
following passage: ‘But these first men consecrated the plants of the
earth, and judged them gods, and worshipped the things upon which they
themselves lived and their posterity, and all before them, and (to
these) they made libations and sacrifices.’[507] From examples such as
have been here reviewed, it seems that direct and absolute tree-worship
of this kind may indeed lie very wide and deep in the early history of
religion. But the whole tree-cultus of the world must by no means be
thrown indiscriminately into this one category. It is only on such
distinct evidence as has been here put forward, that a sacred tree may
be taken as having a spirit embodied in or attached to it. Beyond this
limit, there is a wider range of animistic conceptions connected with
tree and forest worship. The tree may be the spirit’s perch or shelter
or favourite haunt. Under this definition come the trees hung with
objects which are the receptacles of disease-spirits. As places of
spiritual resort, there is no real distinction between the sacred tree
and the sacred grove. The tree may serve as a scaffold or altar, at once
convenient and conspicuous, where offerings can be set out for some
spiritual being, who may be a tree-spirit, or perhaps the local deity,
living there just as a man might do who had his hut and owned his plot
of land around. The shelter of some single tree, or the solemn seclusion
of a forest grove, is a place of worship set apart by nature, of some
tribes the only temple, of many tribes perhaps the earliest. Lastly, the
tree may be merely a sacred object patronized by or associated with or
symbolizing some divinity, often one of those which we shall presently
notice as presiding over a whole species of trees or other things. How
all these conceptions, from actual embodiment or local residence or
visit of a demon or deity, down to mere ideal association, can blend
together, how hard it often is to distinguish them, and yet how in spite
of this confusion they conform to the animistic theology in which all
have their essential principles, a few examples will show better than
any theoretical comment.[508] Take the groups of malicious wood-fiends
so obviously devised to account for the mysterious influences that beset
the forest wanderer. In the Australian bush, demons whistle in the
branches, and stooping with outstretched arms sneak among the trunks to
seize the wayfarer; the lame demon leads astray the hunter in the
Brazilian forest; the Karen crossing a fever-haunted jungle shudders in
the grip of the spiteful ‘phi,’ and runs to lay an offering by the tree
he rested under last, from whose boughs the malaria-fiend came down upon
him; the negro of Senegambia seeks to pacify the long-haired tree-demons
that send diseases; the terrific cry of the wood-demon is heard in the
Finland forest; the baleful shapes of terror that glide at night through
our own woodland are familiar still to peasant and poet.[509] The North
American Indians of the Far West, entering the defiles of the Black
Mountains of Nebraska, will often hang offerings on the trees or place
them on the rocks, to propitiate the spirits and procure good weather
and hunting.[510] In South America, Mr. Darwin describes the Indians
offering their adorations by loud shouts when they came in sight of the
sacred tree standing solitary on a high part of the Pampas, a landmark
visible from afar. To this tree were hanging by threads numberless
offerings such as cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, &c., down to the
mere thread pulled from his poncho by the poor wayfarer who had nothing
better to give. Men would pour libations of spirits and maté into a
certain hole, and smoke upwards to gratify Walleechu, and all around lay
the bleached bones of the horses slaughtered as sacrifices. All Indians
made their offerings here, that their horses might not tire, and that
they themselves might prosper. Mr. Darwin reasonably judges on this
evidence that it was to the deity Walleechu that the worship was paid,
the sacred tree being only his altar; but he mentions that the Gauchos
think the Indians consider the tree as the god itself, a good example of
the misunderstanding possible in such cases.[511] The New Zealanders
would hang an offering of food or a lock of hair on a branch at a
landing place, or near remarkable rocks or trees would throw a bunch of
rushes as an offering to the spirit dwelling there.[512] The Dayaks
fasten rags of their clothes on trees at cross roads, fearing for their
health if they neglect the custom;[513] the Macassar man halting to eat
in the forest will put a morsel of rice or fish on a leaf, and lay it on
a stone or stump.[514] The divinities of African tribes may dwell in
trees remarkable for size and age, or inhabit sacred groves where the
priest alone may enter.[515] Trees treated as idols by the Congo people,
who put calabashes of palm wine at their feet in case they should be
thirsty,[516] and amongst West African negro tribes farther north, trees
hung with rags by the passers-by, and the great baobabs pegged to hang
offerings to, and serving as shrines before which sheep are
sacrificed,[517] display well the rites of tree sacrifice, though
leaving undefined the precise relation conceived between deity and tree.
The forest theology that befits a race of hunters is dominant still
among Turanian tribes of Siberia, as of old it was across to Lapland.
Full well these tribes know the gods of the forest. The Yakuts hang on
any remarkably fine tree iron, brass, and other trinkets; they choose a
green spot shaded by a tree for their spring sacrifice of horses and
oxen, whose heads are set up in the boughs; they chant their
extemporised songs to the Spirit of the Forest, and hang for him on the
branches of the trees along the roadside offerings of horsehair, emblems
of their most valued possession. A clump of larches on a Siberian
steppe, a grove in the recesses of a forest, is the sanctuary of a
Turanian tribe. Gaily-decked idols in their warm fur-coats, each set up
beneath its great tree swathed with cloth or tinplate, endless
reindeer-hides and peltry hanging to the trees around, kettles and
spoons and snuff-horns and household valuables strewn as offerings
before the gods—such is the description of a Siberian holy grove, at the
stage when the contact of foreign civilization has begun by ornamenting
the rude old ceremonial it must end by abolishing.[518] A race
ethnologically allied to these tribes, though risen to higher culture,
kept up remarkable relics of tree-worship in Northern Europe. In
Esthonian districts, during the last century, the traveller might often
see the sacred tree, generally an ancient lime, oak, or ash, standing
inviolate in a sheltered spot near the dwelling-house, and old memories
are handed down of the time when the first blood of a slaughtered beast
was sprinkled on its roots, that the cattle might prosper, or when an
offering was laid beneath the holy linden, on the stone where the
worshipper knelt on his bare knees, moving from east to west and back,
which stone he kissed thrice when he had said, ‘Receive the food as an
offering!’ It may well have been an indwelling tree-deity for whom this
worship was intended, for folklore shows that the Esths recognized such
a conception with the utmost distinctness; they have a tale of the
tree-elf who appeared in personal shape outside his crooked birch-tree,
whence he could be summoned by three knocks on the trunk and the
inquiry, ‘Is the crooked one at home?’ But also it may have been the
Wood-Father or Tree-King, or some other deity, who received sacrifice
and answered prayer beneath his sacred tree, as in a temple.[519] If,
again, we glance at the tree-and-grove worship of the non-Aryan
indigenous tribes of British India, we shall gather clear and
instructive hints of its inner significance. In the courtyard of a Bodo
house is planted the sacred ‘sij’ or euphorbia of Batho, the national
god, to whom under this representation the ‘deoshi’ or priest offers
prayer and kills a pig.[520] When the Khonds settle a new village, the
sacred cotton-tree must be planted with solemn rites, and beneath it is
placed the stone which enshrines the village deity.[521] Nowhere,
perhaps, in the world in these modern days is the original meaning of
the sacred grove more picturesquely shown than among the Mundas of
Chota-Nagpur, in whose settlements a sacred grove of sal-trees, a
remnant of the primæval forest spared by the woodman’s axe, is left as a
home for the spirits, and in this hallowed place offerings to the gods
are made.[522]
Here, then, among the lower races, is surely evidence enough to put on
their true historic footing the rites of tree and grove which are found
flourishing or surviving within the range of Semitic or Aryan culture.
Mentions in the Old Testament record the Canaanitish Ashera-worship, the
sacrifice under every green tree, the incense rising beneath oak and
willow and shady terebinth, rites whose obstinate revival proves how
deeply they were rooted in the old religion of the land.[523] The
evidence of these Biblical passages is corroborated by other evidence
from Semitic regions, as in the lines by Silius Italicus which mention
the prayer and sacrifice in the Numidian holy groves, and the records of
the council of Carthage which show that in the 5th century, an age after
Augustine’s time, it was still needful to urge that the relics of
idolatry in trees and groves should be done away.[524] From the more
precise descriptions which lie within the range of Aryan descent and
influence, examples may be drawn to illustrate every class of belief and
rite of the forest. Modern Hinduism is so largely derived from the
religions of the non-Aryan indigenes, that we may fairly explain thus a
considerable part of the tree-worship of modern India, as where in the
Birbhûm district of Bengal a great annual pilgrimage is made to a shrine
in a jungle, to give offerings of rice and money and sacrifice animals
to a certain ghost who dwells in a bela-tree.[525] In thoroughly Hindu
districts may be seen the pippala (Ficus religiosa) planted as the
village tree, the ‘chaityataru’ of Sanskrit literature, while the Hindu
in private life plants the banyan and other trees and worships them with
divine honours.[526] Greek and Roman mythology give perfect types not
only of the beings attached to individual trees, but of the dryads,
fauns, and satyrs living and roaming in the forest—creatures whose
analogues are our own elves and fairies of the woods. Above these
graceful fantastic beings are the higher deities who have trees for
shrines and groves for temples. Witness the description in Ovid’s story
of Erisichthon:—
‘And Ceres’ grove he ravaged with the axe,
They say, and shame with iron the ancient glades.
There stood a mighty oak of age-long strength,
Festooned with garlands, bearing on its trunk
Memorial tablets, proofs of helpful vows.
Beneath, the dryads led their festive dance,
And circled hand-in-hand the giant bole.’[527]
In more prosaic fashion, Cato instructs the woodman how to gain
indemnity for thinning a holy grove; he must offer a hog in sacrifice
with this prayer, ‘Be thou god or goddess to whom this grove is sacred,
permit me, by the expiation of this pig, and in order to restrain the
overgrowth of this wood, &c., &c.’[528] Slavonic lands had their groves
where burned the everlasting fire of Piorun the Heaven-god; the old
Prussians venerated the holy oak of Romowe, with its drapery and images
of the gods, standing in the midst of the sacred inviolate forest where
no twig might be broken nor beast slain; and so on down to the
elder-tree beneath which Pushkait was worshipped with offerings of bread
and beer.[529] The Keltic Heaven-god, whose image was a mighty oak, the
white-robed Druids climbing the sacred tree to cut the mistletoe, and
sacrificing the two white bulls beneath, are types from another national
group.[530] Teutonic descriptions begin with Tacitus, ‘Lucos ac nemora
consecrant, deorumque nominibus adpellant secretum illud, quod sola
reverentia vident,’ and the curious passage which describes the Semnones
entering the sacred grove in bonds, a homage to the deity that dwelt
there; many a century after, the Swedes were still holding solemn
sacrifice and hanging the carcases of the slaughtered beasts in the
grove hard by the temple of Upsal.[531] With Christianity comes a
crusade against the holy trees and groves. Boniface hews down in the
presence of the priest the huge oak of the Hessian Heaven-god, and
builds of the timber a chapel to St. Peter. Amator expostulated with the
hunters who hung the heads of wild beasts to the boughs of the sacred
pear-tree of Auxerre, ‘Hoc opus idololatriæ culturæ est, non christianæ
elegantissimæ disciplinæ;’ but this mild persuasion not availing, he
chopped it down and burned it. In spite of all such efforts, the old
religion of the tree and grove survived in Europe often in most pristine
form. Within the last two hundred years, there were old men in Gothland
who would ‘go to pray under a great tree, as their forefathers had done
in their time;’ and to this day the sacrificial rite of pouring milk and
beer over the roots of trees is said to be kept up on out-of-the-way
Swedish farms.[532] In Russia, the Lyeshy or wood-demon still protects
the birds and beasts in his domain, and drives his flocks of field-mice
and squirrels from forest to forest, when we should say they are
migrating. The hunter’s luck depends on his treatment of the
forest-spirit, wherefore he will leave him as a sacrifice the first game
he kills, or some smaller offering of bread or salted pancake on a
stump. Or if one falls ill on returning from the forest, it is known
that this is the Lyeshy’s doing, so the patient carries to the wood some
bread and salt in a clean rag, and leaving it with a prayer, comes home
cured.[533] Names like _Holyoake_ and _Holywood_ record our own old
memories of the holy trees and groves, memories long lingering in the
tenacious peasant mind; and it was a great and sacred _linden_-tree with
three stems, standing in the parish of Hvitaryd in South Sweden, which
with curious fitness gave a name to the family of _Linnæus_. Lastly,
Jakob Grimm even ventures to connect historically the ancient sacred
inviolate wood with the later royal forest, an ethnological argument
which would begin with the savage adoring the Spirit of the Forest, and
end with the modern landowner preserving his pheasants.[534]
To the modern educated world, few phenomena of the lower civilization
seem more pitiable than the spectacle of a man worshipping a beast. We
have learnt the lessons of Natural History at last thoroughly enough to
recognize our superiority to our ‘younger brothers,’ as the Red Indians
call them, the creatures whom it is our place not to adore but to
understand and use. By men at lower levels of culture, however, the
inferior animals are viewed with a very different eye. For various
motives, they have become objects of veneration ranking among the most
important in the lower ranges of religion. Yet I must here speak shortly
and slightly of Animal-worship, not as wanting in interest, but as
over-abounding in difficulty. Wishing rather to bring general principles
into view than to mass uninterpreted facts, all I can satisfactorily do
is to give some select examples from the various groups of evidence, so
as at once to display the more striking features of the subject, and to
trace the ancient ideas upward from the savage level far into the higher
civilization.
First and foremost, uncultured man seems capable of simply worshipping a
beast as beast, looking on it as possessed of power, courage, cunning,
beyond his own, and animated like a man by a soul which continues to
exist after bodily death, powerful as ever for good and harm. Then this
idea blends with the thought of the creature as being an incarnate
deity, seeing, hearing, and acting even at a distance, and continuing
its power after the death of the animal body to which the divine spirit
was attached. Thus the Kamchadals, in their simple veneration of all
things that could do them harm or good, worshipped the whales that could
overturn their boats, and the bears and wolves of whom they stood in
fear. The beasts, they thought, could understand their language, and
therefore they abstained from calling them by their names when they met
them, but propitiated them with certain appointed formulas.[535] Tribes
of Peru, says Garcilaso de la Vega, worshipped the fish and vicuñas that
provided them food, the monkeys for their cunning, the sparrowhawks for
their keen sight. The tiger and the bear were to them ferocious deities,
and mankind, mere strangers and intruders in the land, might well adore
these beings, its old inhabitants and lords.[536] How, indeed, can one
wonder that in direct and simple awe, the Philippine islanders, when
they saw an alligator, should have prayed him with great tenderness to
do them no harm, and to this end offered him of whatever they had in
their boats, casting it into the water.[537] Such rites display at least
a partial truth in the famous apophthegm which attributes to fear the
origin of religion: ‘Primos in orbe deos fecit timor.’[538] In
discussing the question of the souls of animals in a previous chapter,
instances were adduced of men seeking to appease by apologetic phrase
and rite the animals they killed.[539] It is instructive to observe how
naturally such personal intercourse between man and animal may pass into
full worship, when the creature is powerful or dangerous enough to claim
it. When the Stiêns of Kambodia asked pardon of the beast they killed,
and offered sacrifice in expiation, they expressly did so through fear
lest the creature’s disembodied soul should come and torment them.[540]
Yet, strange to say, even the worship of the animal as divine does not
prevent the propitiatory ceremony from passing into utter mockery. Thus
Charlevoix describes North American Indians who, when they had killed a
bear, would set up its head painted with many colours, and offer it
homage and praise while they performed the painful duty of feasting on
its body.[541] So among the Ainos, the indigenes of Yesso, the bear is a
great divinity. It is true they slay him when they can, but while they
are cutting him up they salute him with obeisances and fair speeches,
and set up his head outside the house to preserve them from
misfortune.[542] In Siberia, the Yakuts worship the bear in common with
the spirits of the forest, bowing toward his favourite haunts with
appropriate phrases of prose and verse, in praise of the bravery and
generosity of their ‘beloved uncle.’ Their kindred the Ostyaks swear in
the Russian courts of law on a bear’s head, for the bear, they say, is
all-knowing, and will slay them if they lie. This idea actually serves
the people as a philosophical, though one would say rather superfluous,
explanation of a whole class of accidents: when a hunter is killed by a
bear, it is considered that he must at some time have forsworn himself,
and now has met his doom. Yet these Ostyaks, when they have overcome and
slain their deity, will stuff its skin with hay, kick it, spit on it,
insult and mock it till they have satiated their hatred and revenge, and
are ready to set it up in a yurt as an object of worship.[543]
Whether an animal be worshipped as the receptacle or incarnation of an
indwelling divine soul or other deity, or as one of the myriad
representatives of the presiding god of its class, the case is included
under and explained by the general theory of fetish-worship already
discussed. Evidence which displays these two conceptions and their
blending is singularly perfect in the islands of the Pacific. In the
Georgian group, certain herons, kingfishers, and woodpeckers were held
sacred and fed on the sacrifices, with the distinct view that the
deities were embodied in the birds, and in this form came to eat the
offered food and give the oracular responses by their cries.[544] The
Tongans never killed certain birds, or the shark, whale, &c., as being
sacred shrines in which gods were in the habit of visiting earth; and if
they chanced in sailing to pass near a whale they would offer scented
oil or kava to him.[545] In the Fiji Islands, certain birds, fish,
plants, and some men, were supposed to have deities closely connected
with or residing in them. Thus the hawk, fowl, eel, shark, and nearly
every other animal became the shrine of some deity, which the worshipper
of that deity might not eat, so that some were even tabued from eating
human flesh, the shrine of their god being a man. Ndengei, the dull and
otiose supreme deity, had his shrine or incarnation in the serpent.[546]
Every Samoan islander had his tutelary deity or ‘aitu,’ appearing in
some animal, an eel, shark, dog, turtle, &c., which species became his
fetish, not to be slighted or injured or eaten, an offence which the
deity would avenge by entering the sinner’s body and generating his
proper incarnation within him till he died.[547] The ‘atua’ of the New
Zealander, corresponding with this in name, is a divine ancestral soul,
and is also apt to appear in the body of an animal.[548] If we pass to
Sumatra, we shall find that the veneration paid by the Malays to the
tiger, and their habit of apologizing to it when a trap is laid, is
connected with the idea of tigers being animated by the souls of
departed men.[549] In other districts of the world, one of the most
important cases connected with these is the worship paid by the North
American Indian to his medicine-animal, of which he kills one specimen
to preserve its skin, which thenceforth receives adoration and grants
protection as a fetish.[550] In South Africa, as has been already
mentioned, the Zulus hold that divine ancestral shades are embodied in
certain tame and harmless snakes, whom their human kinsfolk receive with
kindly respect and propitiate with food.[551] In West Africa, monkeys
near a grave-yard are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the
dead, and the general theory of sacred and worshipped crocodiles,
snakes, birds, bats, elephants, hyænas, leopards, &c., is divided
between the two great departments of the fetish-theory, in some cases
the creature being the actual embodiment or personation of the spirit,
and in other cases sacred to it or under its protection.[552] Hardly any
region of the world displays so perfectly as this the worship of
serpents as fetish-animals endowed with high spiritual qualities, to
kill one of whom would be an offence unpardonable. For a single
description of negro ophiolatry, may be cited Bosman’s description from
Whydah in the Bight of Benin; here the highest order of deities were a
kind of snakes which swarm in the villages, reigned over by that huge
chief monster, uppermost and greatest and as it were the grandfather of
all, who dwelt in his snake-house beneath a lofty tree, and there
received the royal offerings of meat and drink, cattle and money and
stuffs. So heartfelt was the veneration of the snakes, that the Dutchmen
made it a means of clearing their warehouses of tiresome visitors; as
Bosman says, ‘If we are ever tired with the natives of this country, and
would fain be rid of them, we need only speak ill of the snake, at which
they immediately stop their ears and run out of doors.’[553] Lastly,
among the Tatar tribes of Siberia, Castrén finds the explanation of the
veneration which the nomade pays to certain animals, in a distinct
fetish-theory which he thus sums up: ‘Can he also contrive to propitiate
the snake, bear, wolf, swan, and various other birds of the air and
beasts of the field, he has in them good protectors, for in them are
hidden mighty spirits.’[554]
In the lower levels of civilization the social institution known as
Totemism is of frequent occurrence. Its anthropological importance was
especially brought into notice by J. F. McLennan, whose views as to an
early totem-period of society have much influenced opinion since his
time.[555] The totemic tribe is divided into clans, the members of each
clan connecting themselves with, calling themselves by the name of, and
even deriving their mythic pedigree from some animal, plant, or thing,
but most often an animal; these totem-clans are exogamous, marriage not
being permissible within the clan, while permissible or obligatory
between clan and clan. Thus among the Ojibwa Indians of North America,
the names of such clan-animals, Bear, Wolf, Tortoise, Deer, Rabbit, &c.,
served to designate the intermarrying clans into which the tribes were
divided, Indians being actually spoken of as bears, wolves, &c., and the
figures of these animals indicating their clans in the native
picture-writing. The Ojibwa word for such a clan-name has passed into
English in the form ‘totem,’ and thus has become an accepted term among
anthropologists to denote similar clan-names customary over the world,
this system of dividing tribes being called Totemism. Unfortunately for
the study of the subject, John Long, the trader interpreter who
introduced the Ojibwa word totem into Europe in 1791, does not seem to
have grasped its meaning in the native law of marriage and clanship, but
to have confused the totem-animal of the clan with the patron or
guardian animal of the individual hunter, his manitu or ‘medicine.’[556]
Even when the North American totem-clans came to be better understood as
social institutions regulating marriage, the notion of the guardian
spirit still clung to them. Sir George Grey, who knew of the American
totem-clans from the ‘Archæologia Americana,’ put on record in 1841 a
list of exogamous classes in West Australia, and mentioned the opinion
frequently given by the natives as to the origin of these class-names,
that they were derived from some animal or vegetable being very common
in the district which the family inhabited, so that the name of this
animal or vegetable came to be applied to the family. This seems so far
valuable evidence, but Grey was evidently led by John Long’s mistaken
statement, which he quotes, to fall himself into the same confusion
between the tribal name and the patron animal or vegetable, the ‘kobong’
of his natives, which he regarded as a tribal totem.[557] In Mr. J. G.
Frazer’s valuable collection of information on totemism,[558] the use of
the self-contradictory term ‘individual totem’ has unfortunately tended
to perpetuate this confusion. In the present state of the problem of
totemism, it would be premature to discuss at length its development and
purpose. Mention may however be made of observations which tend to place
it on a new footing, as being distinctly related to the transmigration
of souls. In Melanesia men may say that after death they will reappear
for instance as sharks or bananas, and the family will acknowledge the
kinship by feeding the sharks and abstaining from the bananas. It is not
unreasonable that Dr. Codrington should suggest such practices as
throwing light on the origin of totemism.[559] The late investigations
of Spencer and Gillen, conducted with scrupulous care in an almost
untouched district of Central Australia, show totemism in the Arunta
tribe, not as the means of regulating the intermarriage of clans, but as
based on a native theory of the ancestry of the race, as descended from
the Alcheringa, quasi-human animal or vegetable ancestors, whose souls
are still reborn in human form in successive generations.[560] This
careful and definite account may be the starting-point of a new study.
Savages would be alive to the absurdity of naming clans after animals in
order to indicate a prohibition of marrying-in, opposed to the habit of
the animals themselves. Indeed, it seems more likely that such
animal-names may have commonly belonged to inbred clans, before the rule
of exogamy was developed. At present the plainest fact as to Totemism is
its historical position as shown by its immense geographical
distribution. Its presence in North America and Australia has been
noticed. It extends its organization through the forest-region of South
America from Guyana to Patagonia. Northward of Australia it is to be
traced among the more unchanged of the Malay populations, who underneath
foreign influence still keep remains of a totemic system like that of
the American tribes. Thence we follow the totem-clan into India, when it
appears among non-Aryan hill-tribes such as the Oraons and Mundas, who
have clans named after Eel, Hawk, Heron, and so on, and must not kill or
eat these creatures. North of the Himalaya it appears among Mongoloid
tribes in their native low cultured state, such as the Yakuts with their
intermarrying totem-clans Swan, Raven, and the like. In Africa totemism
appears in the Bantu district up to the West Coast. For example, the
Bechuana are divided into Bakuena, men of the crocodile; Batlapi, of the
fish; Balaung, of the lion; Bamorara, of the wild vine. A man does not
eat his tribe-animal, or clothe himself in its skin, and if he must kill
it as hurtful, the lion for instance, he asks pardon of it, and purifies
himself from the sacrilege. These few instances illustrate the
generalization that totemism in its complete form belongs to the savage
and early barbaric stages of culture, only partial remains or survivals
of it having lasted into the civilized period. Though appearing in all
other quarters of the globe, it is interesting to notice that there is
no distinct case of totemism found or recorded in Europe.[561]
The three motives of animal-worship which have been described, viz.,
direct worship of the animal for itself, indirect worship of it as a
fetish acted through by a deity, and veneration for it as a totem or
representative of a tribe-ancestor, no doubt account in no small measure
for the phenomena of Zoolatry among the lower races, due allowance being
also made for the effects of myth and symbolism, of which we may gain
frequent glimpses. Notwithstanding the obscurity and complexity of the
subject, a survey of Animal-worship as a whole may yet justify an
ethnographic view of its place in the history of civilization. If we
turn from its appearances among the less cultured races to notice the
shapes in which it has held its place among peoples advanced to the
stage of national organization and stereotyped religion, we shall find a
reasonable cause for its new position in the theory of development and
survival, whereby ideas at first belonging to savage theology have in
part continued to spread and solidify in their original manner, while in
part they have been changed to accommodate them to more advanced ideas,
or have been defended from the attacks of reason by being set up as
sacred mysteries. Ancient Egypt was a land of sacred cats and jackals
and hawks, whose mummies are among us to this day, but the reason of
whose worship was a subject too sacred for the Father of History to
discuss. Egyptian animal-worship seems to show, in a double line, traces
of a savage ancestry extending into ages lying far behind even the
remote antiquity of the Pyramids. Deities patronising special sacred
animals, incarnate in their bodies, or represented in their figures,
have nowhere better examples than the divine bull-dynasty of Apis, the
sacred hawks caged and fed in the temple of Horus, Thoth and his
cynocephalus and ibis, Hathor the cow and Sebek the crocodile. Moreover,
the local character of many of the sacred creatures, worshipped in
certain nomes yet killed and eaten with impunity elsewhere, fits
remarkably with that character of tribe-fetishes and deified totems with
which Mr. McLennan’s argument is concerned. See the men of Oxyrynchos
reverencing and sparing the fish oxyrynchos, and those of Latopolis
likewise worshipping the latos. At Apollinopolis men hated crocodiles
and never lost a chance of killing them, while the people of the
Arsinoite nome dressed geese and fish for these sacred creatures,
adorned them with necklaces and bracelets, and mummified them
sumptuously when they died.[562] In the modern world the most civilized
people among whom animal-worship vigorously survives, lie within the
range of Brahmanism, where the sacred animal, the deity incarnate in an
animal or invested with or symbolized by its shape, may to this day be
studied in clear example. The sacred cow is not merely to be spared, she
is as a deity worshipped in annual ceremony, daily perambulated and
bowed to by the pious Hindu, who offers her fresh grass and flowers;
Hanuman the monkey-god has his temples and his idols, and in him Siva is
incarnate, as Durga is in the jackal; the wise Ganesa wears the
elephant’s head; the divine king of birds, Garuda, is Vishnu’s vehicle;
the forms of fish, and boar, and tortoise, were assumed in those
avatar-legends of Vishnu which are at the intellectual level of the Red
Indian myths they so curiously resemble.[563] The conceptions which
underlie the Hindu creed of divine animals were not ill displayed by
that Hindu who, being shown the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John with their respective man, lion, ox, and eagle, explained these
quite naturally and satisfactorily as the avatars or vehicles of the
four evangelists.
In Animal-worship, some of the most remarkable cases of development and
survival belong to a class from which striking instances have already
been taken. Serpent-worship unfortunately fell years ago into the hands
of speculative writers, who mixed it up with occult philosophies,
Druidical mysteries, and that portentous nonsense called the ‘Arkite
Symbolism,’ till now sober students hear the very name of Ophiolatry
with a shiver. Yet it is in itself a rational and instructive subject of
inquiry, especially notable for its width of range in mythology and
religion. We may set out among the lower races, with such accounts as
those of the Red Indian’s reverence to the rattlesnake, as grandfather
and king of snakes, as a divine protector able to give fair winds or
cause tempests;[564] or of the worship of great snakes among the tribes
of Peru before they received the religion of the Incas, as to whom an
old author says, ‘They adore the demon when he presents himself to them
in the figure of some beast or serpent, and talks with them.’[565]
Thenceforth such examples of direct Ophiolatry may be traced on into
classic and barbaric Europe; the great serpent which defended the
citadel of Athens and enjoyed its monthly honey-cakes;[566] the Roman
genius loci appearing in the form of the snake (Nullus enim locus sine
genio est, qui per anguem plerumque ostenditur);[567] the old Prussian
serpent-worship and offering of food to the household snakes;[568] the
golden viper adored by the Lombards, till Barbatus got it in his hands
and the goldsmiths made it into paten and chalice.[569] To this day,
Europe has not forgotten in nursery tales or more serious belief the
snake that comes with its golden crown and drinks milk out of the
child’s porringer; the house-snake, tame and kindly but seldom seen,
that cares for the cows and the children and gives omens of a death in
the family; the pair of household snakes which have a mystic connexion
of life and death with the husband and housewife themselves.[570]
Serpent-worship, apparently of the directest sort, was prominent in the
indigenous religions of Southern Asia. It now even appears to have
maintained no mean place in early Indian Buddhism, for the sculptures of
the Sanchi tope show scenes of adoration of the five-headed snake-deity
in his temple, performed by a race of serpent-worshippers, figuratively
represented with snakes growing from their shoulders, and whose raja
himself has a five-headed snake arching hood-wise over his head. Here,
moreover, the totem-theory comes into contact with ophiolatry. The
Sanskrit name of the snake, ‘nâga,’ becomes also the accepted
designation of its adorers, and thus mythological interpretation has to
reduce to reasonable sense legends of serpent-races who turn out to be
simply serpent-worshippers, tribes who have from the divine reptiles at
once their generic name of Nâgas, and with it their imagined ancestral
descent from serpents.[571] In different ways, these Nâga tribes of
South Asia are on the one hand analogues of the Snake Indians of
America, and on the other of the Ophiogenes or Serpent-race of the
Troad, kindred of the vipers whose bite they could cure by touch, and
descendants of an ancient hero transformed into a snake.[572]
Serpents hold a prominent place in the religions of the world, as the
incarnations, shrines, or symbols of high deities. Such were the
rattlesnake worshipped in the Natchez temple of the Sun, and the snake
belonging in name and figure to the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl;[573] the
snake as worshipped still by the Slave Coast negro, not for itself but
for its indwelling deity;[574] the snake kept and fed with milk in the
temple of the old Slavonic god Potrimpos;[575] the serpent-symbol of the
healing deity Asklepios, who abode in or manifested himself through the
huge tame snakes kept in his temples[576] (it is doubtful whether this
had any original connexion with the adoption of the snake, from its
renewal by casting its old slough, as the accepted emblem of new life or
immortality in later symbolism); and lastly, the Phœnician serpent with
its tail in its mouth, symbol of the world and of the Heaven-god Taaut,
in its original meaning perhaps a mythic world-snake like the
Scandinavian Midgard-worm, but in the changed fancy of later ages
adapted into an emblem of eternity.[577] It scarcely seems proved that
savage races, in all their mystic contemplations of the serpent, ever
developed out of their own minds the idea, to us so familiar, of
adopting it as a personification of evil.[578] In ancient times, we may
ascribe this character perhaps to the monster whose well-known form is
to be seen on the mummy-cases, the Apophis-serpent of the Egyptian
Hades;[579] and it unequivocally belongs to the destroying serpent of
the Zarathustrians, Azhi Dahâka,[580] a figure which bears so remarkable
a relation to that of the Semitic serpent of Eden, which may possibly
stand in historical connexion with it. A wondrous blending of the
ancient rites of Ophiolatry with mystic conceptions of Gnosticism
appears in the cultus which tradition (in truth or slander) declares the
semi-Christian sect of Ophites to have rendered to their tame snake,
enticing it out of its chest to coil round the sacramental bread, and
worshipping it as representing the great king from heaven who in the
beginning gave to the man and woman the knowledge of the mysteries.[581]
Thus the extreme types of religious veneration, from the soberest
matter-of-fact to the dreamiest mysticism, find their places in the
worship of animals.[582]
Hitherto in the study of animistic doctrine, our attention has been
turned especially to those minor spirits whose functions concern the
closer and narrower detail of man’s life and its surroundings. In
passing thence to the consideration of divine beings whose functions
have a wider scope, the transition may be well made through a special
group. An acute remark of Auguste Comte’s calls attention to an
important process of theological thought, which we may here endeavour to
bring as clearly as possible before our minds. In his ‘Philosophie
Positive,’ he defines deities proper as differing by their general and
abstract character from pure fetishes (i.e., animated objects), the
humble fetish governing but a single object from which it is
inseparable, while the gods administer a special order of phenomena at
once in different bodies. When, he continues, the similar vegetation of
the different oaks of a forest led to a theological generalization from
their common phenomena, the abstract being thus produced was no longer
the fetish of a single tree, but became the god of the forest; here,
then, is the intellectual passage from fetishism to polytheism, reduced
to the inevitable preponderance of specific over individual ideas.[583]
Now this observation of Comte’s may be more immediately applied to a
class of divine beings which may be accurately called species-deities.
It is highly suggestive to study the crude attempts of barbaric theology
to account for the uniformity observed in large classes of objects, by
making this generalization from individual to specific ideas. To explain
the existence of what we call a species, they would refer it to a common
ancestral stock, or to an original archetype, or to a species-deity, or
they combined these conceptions. For such speculations, classes of
plants and animals offered perhaps an early and certainly an easy
subject. The uniformity of each kind not only suggested a common
parentage, but also the notion that creatures so wanting in
individuality, with qualities so measured out as it were by line and
rule, might not be independent arbitrary agents, but mere copies from a
common model, or mere instruments used by controlling deities. Thus in
Polynesia, as has been just mentioned, certain species of animals were
considered as incarnations of certain deities, and among the Samoans it
appears that the question as to the individuality of such creatures was
actually asked and answered. If, for instance, a village god were
accustomed to appear as an owl, and one of his votaries found a dead owl
by the roadside, he would mourn over the sacred bird and bury it with
much ceremony, but the god himself would not be thought to be dead, for
he remains incarnate in all existing owls.[584] According to Father
Geronimo Boscana, the Acagchemen tribe of Upper California furnish a
curious parallel to this notion. They worshipped the ‘panes’ bird, which
seems to have been an eagle or vulture, and each year, in the temple of
each village, one of them was solemnly killed without shedding blood,
and the body burned. Yet the natives maintained and believed that it was
the same individual bird they sacrificed each year, and more than this,
that the same bird was slain by each of the villages.[585] Among the
comparatively cultured Peruvians, Acosta describes another theory of
celestial archetypes. Speaking of star-deities, he says that shepherds
venerated a certain star called Sheep, another star called Tiger
protected men from tigers, &c.: ‘And generally, of all the animals and
birds there are on the earth, they believed that a like one lived in
heaven, in whose charge were their procreation and increase, and thus
they accounted of divers stars, such as that they call Chacana, and
Topatorca, and Mamana, and Mizco, and Miquiquiray, and other such, so
that in a manner it appears that they were drawing towards the dogma of
the Platonic ideas.’[586] The North American Indians also have
speculated as to the common ancestors or deities of species. One
missionary notes down their idea as he found it in 1634. ‘They say,
moreover, that all the animals of each species have an elder brother,
who is as it were the principle and origin of all the individuals, and
this elder brother is marvellously great and powerful. The elder brother
of the beavers, they told me, is perhaps as large as our cabin.’ Another
early account is that each species of animals has its archetype in the
land of souls; there exists, for example, a manitu or archetype of all
oxen, which animates all oxen.[587] Here, again, occurs a noteworthy
correspondence with the ideas of a distant race. In Buyán, the island
paradise of Russian myth, there are to be found the Snake older than all
snakes, and the prophetic Raven, elder brother of all ravens, and the
Bird, the largest and oldest of all birds, with iron beak and copper
claws, and the Mother of Bees, eldest among bees.[588] Morgan’s
comparatively modern account of the Iroquois mentions their belief in a
spirit of each species of trees and plants, as of oak, hemlock, maple,
whortleberry, raspberry, spearmint, tobacco; most objects of nature
being thus under the care of protecting spirits.[589] The doctrine of
such species-deities is perhaps nowhere more definitely stated than by
Castrén in his ‘Finnish Mythology.’ In his description of the Siberian
nature-worship, the lowest level is exemplified by the Samoyeds, whose
direct worship of natural objects for themselves may perhaps indicate
the original religious condition of the whole Turanian race. But the
doctrine of the comparatively cultured heathen Finns was at a different
stage. Here every object in nature has a ‘haltia,’ a guardian deity or
genius, a being which was its creator and thenceforth became attached to
it. These deities or genii are, however, not bound to each single
transitory object, but are free personal beings which have movement,
form, body, and soul. Their existence in no wise depends on the
existence of the individual objects, for although no object in nature is
without its guardian deity, this deity extends to the whole race or
species. This ash-tree, this stone, this house, has indeed its
particular ‘haltia,’ yet these same ‘haltiat’ concern themselves with
other ash-trees, stones, and houses, of which the individuals may
perish, but their presiding genii live on in the species.[590] It seems
as though some similar view ran through the doctrine of more civilized
races, as in the well-known Egyptian and Greek examples where whole
species of animals, plants, or things, stand as symbolic of, and as
protected by, particular deities. The thought appears with most perfect
clearness in the Rabbinical philosophy which apportions to each of the
2100 species, of plants for instance, a presiding angel in heaven, and
assigns this as the motive of the Levitical prohibition of mixtures
among animals and plants.[591] The interesting likeness pointed out by
Father Acosta between these crude theological conceptions and the
civilized philosophical conceptions which have replaced them, was again
brought into view in the last century by the President De Brosses, in
comparing the Red Indians’ archetypes of species with the Platonic
archetypal ideas.[592] As for animals and plants, the desire of
naturalists to ascend to primal unity to some extent finds satisfaction
in a theory tracing each species to an origin in a single pair. And
though this is out of the question with inanimate objects, our language
seems in suggestive metaphor to lay hold on the same thought, when we
say of a dozen similar swords, or garments, or chairs, that they have
the same _pattern_ (patronus, as it were father), whereby they were
shaped from their _matter_ (materia, or mother substance).
Footnote 388:
F. R. Nixon, ‘Cruise of the Beacon’; Bonwick, p. 182.
Footnote 389:
Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 228.
Footnote 390:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Res.’ vol. i. p. 41. ‘Indian Tribes,’ vol. iii. p.
327. Waitz, vol. iii. p. 191. See also J. G. Müller, p. 175. (Antilles
Islanders); Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 482.
Footnote 391:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 90. See also Cross, ‘Karens,’ in ‘Journ. Amer.
Or. Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 315; Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 239.
Footnote 392:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 114, 182, &c.
Footnote 393:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 218, 388; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 171.
Footnote 394:
Philo, De Gigant. I. iv.
Footnote 395:
Iamblichus, ii.
Footnote 396:
Collected passages in Calmet, ‘Diss. sur les Esprits’; Horst,
‘Zauber-Bibliothek,’ vol. ii. p. 263, &c.; vol. vi. p. 49, &c.; see
Migne’s Dictionaries.
Footnote 397:
Calmet, ‘Dissertation sur les Esprits,’ vol. i. ch. xlviii.
Footnote 398:
Gaume, ‘L’Eau Bénite au XIXme Siècle,’ pp. 295, 341.
Footnote 399:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 331.
Footnote 400:
Backhouse, ‘Australia,’ p. 555; Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 337.
Footnote 401:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 211.
Footnote 402:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 226.
Footnote 403:
Rochefort, ‘Antilles,’ p. 419.
Footnote 404:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 1193; Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 332; St. Clair and
Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 59; Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ p. 122; Bastian,
‘Psychologie,’ p. 103; Brand, vol. iii. p. 279. The _mare_ in
_nightmare_ means spirit, elf, or nymph; compare Anglo-Sax. _wudumære_
(wood-mare) = echo.
Footnote 405:
‘Vita del Amm. Christoforo Colombo,’ ch. xiii.; and ‘Life of Colon,’
in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 84.
Footnote 406:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ pp. 149, 389. Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p.
119.
Footnote 407:
Högström, ‘Lapmark,’ ch. xi.
Footnote 408:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 151. See also Borri, ‘Cochin-China,’ in
Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 823.
Footnote 409:
Augustin. ‘De Civ. Dei,’ xv. 23: ‘Et quoniam creberrima fama est,
multique se expertos, vel ab eis qui experti essent, de quorum fide
dubitandum non esset, audisse confirmant, Silvanos et Faunos, quos
vulgo incubos vocant, improbos sæpe extitisse mulieribus, et earum
appetisse ac peregisse concubitum; et quosdam dæmones, quos Dusios
Galli nuncupant, hanc assidue immunditiam et tentare et efficere;
plures talesque asseverant, ut hoc negare impudentiæ videatur; non
hinc aliquid audeo definire, utrum aliqui spiritus ... possint etiam
hanc pati libidinem; ut ... sentientibus feminibus misceantur.’ See
also Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 449, 479; Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 332;
Cockayne, ‘Leechdoms of Early England,’ vol. i. p. xxxviii., vol. ii.
p. 345.
Footnote 410:
The ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ was published about 1489. See on the general
subject, Horst, ‘Zauber-Bibliothek,’ vol. vi.; Ennemoser, ‘Magic,’
vol. ii.; Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c. p. 256; Lecky, ‘Hist, of Rationalism,’
vol. i.
Footnote 411:
Burton, ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ iii. 2. ‘Unum dixero, non opinari me
ullo retro ævo tantam copiam Satyrorum, et salacium istorum Geniorum
se ostendisse, quantum nunc quotidianæ narrationes, et judiciales
sententiæ proferunt.’
Footnote 412:
J. R. Forster, ‘Observations during Voyage round World,’ p. 543.
Footnote 413:
Cross, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 312.
Footnote 414:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 307.
Footnote 415:
J. V. Grohmann, ‘Aberglauben aus Böhmen,’ &c., p. 24; Calmet, ‘Diss.
sur les Esprits,’ vol. ii.; Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 1048, &c.; St. Clair and
Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 49; see Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ p.
409.
Footnote 416:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 268. Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 246, &c.
Footnote 417:
Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 302. See also Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p.
180.
Footnote 418:
Southey, ‘Brazil,’ part i. p. 238. See also Rochefort, p. 418; J. G.
Müller, p. 273 (Caribs); Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 301; Schoolcraft,
‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 140.
Footnote 419:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. pp. 270, 298; vol. ii. ‘N. S.’ p. 117.
Footnote 420:
Roberts, ‘Oriental Illustrations,’ p. 531; Colebrook in ‘As. Res.’
vol. vii. p. 274.
Footnote 421:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 77.
Footnote 422:
Hylten-Cavallius, ‘Wärend och Wirdarne,’ vol. i. p. 191; Atkinson,
‘Glossary of Cleveland Dial.’ p. 597. (Prof. Liebrecht, in
‘Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,’ vol. v. 1873, p. 99, adds comparison of
the still usual German custom of keeping a light burning in the
lying-in room till the child is baptized (Wuttke, 2nd ed. No. 583),
and the similar ancient Roman practice whence the goddess Candelifera
had her name (note to 2nd. ed.).)
Footnote 423:
Martin, ‘Western Islands,’ in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 612.
Footnote 424:
St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 44.
Footnote 425:
Rituale Romanum; Benedictio Candelarum. Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’
vol. i. p. 46.
Footnote 426:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 267, see 296.
Footnote 427:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 100.
Footnote 428:
Homer, Odyss, xvi. 160.
Footnote 429:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 632.
Footnote 430:
Eisenmenger, ‘Judenthum,’ part i. p. 872. Lane, ‘Thousand and One
Nights,’ vol. ii. p. 56.
Footnote 431:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 162. Other localities in ‘Journ. Ind.
Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 333.
Footnote 432:
Tickell in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. ix. p. 795. The dirge is
given above, p. 32.
Footnote 433:
De Brosses, ‘Dieux Fétiches,’ p. 46.
Footnote 434:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 79.
Footnote 435:
Tractat. Berachoth.
Footnote 436:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 420, 1117; St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 54.
See also Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 325; Tschudi, ‘Peru,’ vol. ii.
p. 355.
Footnote 437:
Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ vol. i. p. 193. See Boecler, ‘Ehsten
Abergl.’ p. 73.
Footnote 438:
Tertullian, De Carne Christi, vi.; Adv. Marcion, ii.; Origen, De
Princip. i. 7. See Horst, l.c. Calmet, ‘Dissertation,’ vol. i. ch.
xlvi.
Footnote 439:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 217. See Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton,
vol. xvi. p. 402.
Footnote 440:
Pallas, ‘Reisen,’ vol. i. p. 360.
Footnote 441:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 1212; Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ p. 119; see
Hyltén-Cavallius, part i. p. 178 (Sweden).
Footnote 442:
Oldfield, ‘Abor. of Australia,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 240.
Footnote 443:
Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 182.
Footnote 444:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 268; Egede, p. 187.
Footnote 445:
Molina, ‘Chili,’ vol. ii. p. 86.
Footnote 446:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ pp. 416, 429; J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’
pp. 171, 217.
Footnote 447:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 182; J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 387; Steinhauser,
l.c. p. 134. Compare Callaway, p. 327, &c.
Footnote 448:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 77.
Footnote 449:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 275.
Footnote 450:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 829; Rochholz, ‘Deutscher Glaube,’ part i. p. 92;
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 247.
Footnote 451:
Menander, 205, in Clement. Stromat.; Xenophon, Memor. Socr.; Plato,
Apol. Socr. &c. See Plotin. Ennead. iii. 4; Porphyr. Plotin.
Footnote 452:
Paulus Diaconus: ‘_Genium_ appellant Deum, qui vim obtineret rerum
omnium _generandarum_.’ Censorin. de Die Natali, 3: ‘Eundem esse
genium et larem, multi veteres memoriæ prodiderunt.’ Tibull. Eleg. i.
2, 7; Ovid. Trist. iii. 13, 18, v. 5, 10; Horat. Epist. ii. 1, 140,
Od. iv. 11, 7. Appian. de Bellis Parth. p. 156. Tertullian, Apol.
xxiii.
Footnote 453:
Serv. in Virg. Æn. vi. 743: ‘Cum nascimur, duos genios sortimur: unus
hortatur ad bona, alter depravat ad mala, quibus assistentibus post
mortem aut asserimur in meliorem vitam, aut condemnamur in
deteriorem.’ Horat. Epist. ii. 187; Valer. Max. i. 7; Plutarch,
Brutus. See Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.;’ Smith’s ‘Dic. of Biog. & Myth.’
s.v. ‘genius.’
Footnote 454:
Acta Sanctorum Bolland.: S. Francisca Romana ix. Mart. Calmet,
‘Dissertation,’ ch. iv. xxx.; Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. pp. 140,
347, vol. iii. p. 10; Wright, ‘St. Patrick’s Purgatory,’ p. 33.
Footnote 455:
Rochholz, p. 93.
Footnote 456:
Bull, ‘Sermons,’ 2nd ed. London, 1714, vol. ii. p. 506.
Footnote 457:
Swedenborg, ‘True Christian Religion,’ p. 380. See also A. J. Davis,
‘Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse,’ p. 38.
Footnote 458:
D. Monnier, ‘Traditions Populaires,’ p. 7.
Footnote 459:
L. H. Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 64. Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p.
107. See Schoolcraft, ‘Tribes,’ vol. iii. p. 337.
Footnote 460:
Steinhauser, ‘Religion des Negers,’ in ‘Magazin der Evang. Missionen,’
Basel, 1856; No. 2, p. 127, &c.
Footnote 461:
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part i. p. 44.
Footnote 462:
Oldfield, ‘Abor. of Austr.’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 232.
Footnote 463:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ pp. 47, 265.
Footnote 464:
Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ in Ternaux-Compans, part xiv. pp. 132, 160.
Compare Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. ii. p. 169.
Footnote 465:
Creswick, ‘Veys,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 359. See Du Chaillu,
‘Ashango-land,’ p. 106.
Footnote 466:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 108. Long’s Exp. vol. i. p. 46.
See Loskiel, ‘Indians of N. A.’ part i. p. 45.
Footnote 467:
For details of the belief in water-spirits as the cause of drowning,
see ante, vol. i. p. 109.
Footnote 468:
Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 328; Eyre, vol. ii. p. 362;
Grey, vol. ii. p. 339; Bastian, ‘Vorstellungen von Wasser und Feuer,’
in ‘Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,’ vol. i. (contains a general
collection of details as to water-worship).
Footnote 469:
Compare John Morgan, ‘Life of William Buckley’; Bonwick, p. 203;
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 48, with Forbes Leslie, Brand, &c.
Footnote 470:
Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 267.
Footnote 471:
Tanner, ‘Narr.’ p. 341; Carver, ‘Travels,’ p. 383; Franklin, ‘Journey
to Polar Sea,’ vol. ii. p. 245; Lubbock, ‘Origin of Civilization,’ pp.
213-20 (contains details as to water-worship); see Brinton, p. 124.
Footnote 472:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Ant.’ p. 161; Garcilaso de la Vega,
‘Comm. Real.’ i. 10. See also J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ pp. 258,
260, 282.
Footnote 473:
Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 198; Steinhauser, l.c. p. 131; Villault in Astley,
vol. i. p. 668; Backhouse, ‘Afr.’ p. 230; Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol.
i. p. 90; Bastian, l.c.
Footnote 474:
Castrén, ‘Vorlesungen über die Altaischen Völker,’ p. 114. ‘Finn.
Myth.’ p. 70. Atkinson, ‘Siberia,’ p. 444. Boecler, ‘Ehsten Abergläub.
Gebräuche,’ ed. Kreutzwald, p. 6.
Footnote 475:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 164; Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal.’ p. 184. See
also Lubbock, l.c.; Forbes Leslie, ‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol. i.
p. 163, vol. ii. p. 497.
Footnote 476:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 206, &c.
Footnote 477:
Homer, Il. xx. xxi. See Gladstone, ‘Juventus Mundi,’ pp. 190, 345,
&c., &c.
Footnote 478:
Cosmas, book iii. p. 197, ‘superstitiosas institutiones, quas villani
adhuc semipagani in Pentecosten tertia sive quarta feria observabant
offerentes libamina super fontes mactabant victimas et dæmonibus
immolabant.’
Footnote 479:
Poenitentiale Ecgberti, ii. 22, ‘gif hwilc man his ælmessan gehâte
oththe bringe to hwilcon wylle;’ iv. 19, ‘gif hwâ his wæccan æt ænigum
wylle hæbbe.’ Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 549, &c. See Hyltén-Cavallius, ‘Wärend
och Wirdarne,’ part i. pp. 131, 171 (Sweden).
Footnote 480:
Grohmann, ‘Aberglauben aus Böhmen und Mähren,’ p. 43, &c. Hanusch,
‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 291, &c. Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ p. 139,
&c.
Footnote 481:
St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 46. Similar ideas in Grohmann, p.
44. Eisenmenger, ‘Entd. Judenthum,’ part i. p. 426.
Footnote 482:
Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., p. 158. Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. ii. p. 366, &c.
Hunt, ‘Pop. Rom. 2nd Series,’ p. 40, &c. Forbes Leslie, ‘Early Races
of Scotland,’ vol. i. p. 156, &c.
Footnote 483:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 307.
Footnote 484:
Beeker, ‘Dyaks,’ in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii. p. 111.
Footnote 485:
Marsden, ‘Sumatra,’ p. 301.
Footnote 486:
S. S. Farmer, ‘Tonga,’ p. 127.
Footnote 487:
Bastian, ‘Der Baum in vergleichender Ethnologie,’ in Lazarus and
Steinthal’s ‘Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie,’ &c., vol. v. 1868.
Footnote 488:
Chr. Colombo, ch. xix.; and in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 87.
Footnote 489:
Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W. Afr.’ pp. 205, 243.
Footnote 490:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 188.
Footnote 491:
Bosman, letter 19, and in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 500.
Footnote 492:
Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 77; Prichard, ‘N. H. of Man,’ p. 290; Waitz, vol.
ii. p. 518. See also Merolla, ‘Congo,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 236.
Footnote 493:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. pp. 457, 461, vol. iii. pp. 187,
251, 289, 497. For details of tree-worship from other Asiatic
districts, see Ainsworth, ‘Yezidis,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 23;
Jno. Wilson, ‘Parsi Religion,’ p. 262.
Footnote 494:
Hardy, ‘Manual of Budhism,’ pp. 100, 443.
Footnote 495:
Fergusson, ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pl. xxiv. xxvi. &c.
Footnote 496:
Tabary in Bastian, l.c. p. 295.
Footnote 497:
Hartknoch, ‘Alt. und Neues Preussen,’ part i. ch. v.
Footnote 498:
See Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclopedie.’ Homer. Odyss. xiv. 327, xix. 296.
Footnote 499:
Hymn. Homer. Aphrod. 257.
Footnote 500:
Ausonii Idyll. De Histor. 7.
Footnote 501:
Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica, ii. 476. See Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’
vol. iii. p. 57.
Footnote 502:
Ovid. Metamm. i. 452, ii. 345, xi. 67.
Footnote 503:
Dante, ‘Divina Commedia,’ ‘Inferno,’ canto xiii.
Footnote 504:
Ariosto, ‘Orlando Furioso,’ canto vi.
Footnote 505:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 615, &c. Bastian, ‘Der Baum,’ l.c. p. 297; Hanusch,
‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 313.
Footnote 506:
Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ p. 57, see 183.
Footnote 507:
Euseb. ‘Præp. Evang.’ i. 10.
Footnote 508:
Further details as to tree-worship in Bastian, ‘Der Baum,’ &c., here
cited; Lubbock, ‘Origin of Civilization,’ p. 206, &c.; Fergusson,
‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ &c.
Footnote 509:
Bastian, ‘Der Baum,’ l.c. &c.
Footnote 510:
Irving, ‘Astoria,’ vol. ii. ch. viii.
Footnote 511:
Darwin, ‘Journal,’ p. 68.
Footnote 512:
Polack, ‘New Z.’ vol. ii. p. 6; Taylor, p. 171, see 99.
Footnote 513:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 89.
Footnote 514:
Wallace, ‘Eastern Archipelago,’ vol. i. p. 338.
Footnote 515:
Prichard, ‘Nat. Hist. of Man,’ p. 531.
Footnote 516:
Merolla in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 236.
Footnote 517:
Lubbock, p. 193; Bastian, l.c.; Park, ‘Travels,’ vol. i. pp. 64, 106.
Footnote 518:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 86, &c., 191, &c.; Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’
vol. i. p. 363; Simpson, ‘Journey,’ vol. ii. p. 261.
Footnote 519:
Boecler, ‘Ehsten Abergläubische Gebräuche,’ &c., ed. Kreutzwald, pp.
2, 112, 146.
Footnote 520:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ pp. 165, 173.
Footnote 521:
Macpherson, p. 61.
Footnote 522:
Dalton, ‘Kols,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 34. Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien.’ vol. i. p. 134, vol. iii. p. 252.
Footnote 523:
Deut. xii. 3; xvi. 21. Judges vi. 25. 1 Kings xiv. 23; xv. 13; xviii.
19. 2 Kings xvii. 10; xxiii. 4. Is. lvii. 5. Jerem. xvii. 2. Ezek. vi.
13; xx. 28. Hos. iv. 13, &c., &c.
Footnote 524:
Sil. Ital. Punica, iii. 675, 690. Harduin, Acta Conciliorum, vol. i.
For further evidence as to Semitic tree-and-grove worship, see Movers,
‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 560, &c.
Footnote 525:
Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ pp. 131, 194.
Footnote 526:
Boehtlingk and Roth, s.v. ‘chaityataru.’ Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p.
204.
Footnote 527:
Ovid. Metamm. viii. 741.
Footnote 528:
Cato de Re Rustica, 139; Plin. xvii. 47.
Footnote 529:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ pp. 98, 229. Hartknoch, part i. ch. v. vii.;
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 67.
Footnote 530:
Maxim. Tyr. viii.; Plin. xvi. 95.
Footnote 531:
Tacit. Germania, 9, 39, &c.; Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 66.
Footnote 532:
Hyltén-Cavallius, ‘Wärend och Wirdarne,’ part i. p. 142.
Footnote 533:
Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ p. 153, see 238.
Footnote 534:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 62, &c.
Footnote 535:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 276.
Footnote 536:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Comentarios Reales,’ i. ch. ix. &c.
Footnote 537:
Marsden, ‘Sumatra,’ p. 303.
Footnote 538:
Petron. Arb. Fragm.; Statius, iii. Theb. 661.
Footnote 539:
See ante, ch. xi.
Footnote 540:
Mouhot, ‘Indo-China,’ vol. i. p. 252.
Footnote 541:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v. p. 443.
Footnote 542:
W. M. Wood in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 36.
Footnote 543:
Simpson, ‘Journey,’ vol. ii. p. 269; Erman, ‘Siberia,’ vol. i. p. 492;
Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. i. p. 456; ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv.
p. 590.
Footnote 544:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 336.
Footnote 545:
Farmer, ‘Tonga,’ p. 126; Mariner, vol. ii. p. 106.
Footnote 546:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 217, &c.
Footnote 547:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 238.
Footnote 548:
Shortland, ‘Trads. of N. Z.’ ch. iv.
Footnote 549:
Marsden, ‘Sumatra,’ p. 292.
Footnote 550:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. p. 40; Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i.
p. 36; Schoolcraft, ‘Tribes,’ part i. p. 34, part v. p. 652; Waitz,
vol. iii. p. 190.
Footnote 551:
See ante, p. 8; Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 196.
Footnote 552:
Steinhauser, ‘Religion des Negers,’ l.c. p. 133. J. L. Wilson, ‘W.
Afr.’ pp. 210, 218. Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xv.
Footnote 553:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ letter 19; in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 499. See
Burton, ‘Dahome,’ ch. iv., xvii. An account of the Vaudoux
serpent-worship still carried on among the negroes of Hayti, in
‘Lippincott’s Magazine,’ Philadelphia, March, 1870.
Footnote 554:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 196, see 228.
Footnote 555:
J. F. McLennan in ‘Fortnightly Review,’ 1869-70; reprinted in ‘Studies
in Ancient History,’ 2nd Series, pp. 117, 491.
Footnote 556:
John Long, ‘Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter,’ London,
1791, p. 86. See pp. 233, 411 of present volume.
Footnote 557:
Grey, ‘Journals of Expeditions in N. W. & W. Australia,’ vol. ii. pp.
225-9; ‘Archæologia Americana,’ vol. ii. p. 109.
Footnote 558:
J. G. Frazer, ‘Totemism,’ p. 53; ‘Golden Bough,’ 2nd ed. vol. iii. pp.
419, 423.
Footnote 559:
Codrington, ‘Melanesians,’ pp. 32-3, 170.
Footnote 560:
Spencer and Gillen, ‘Native Tribes of Central Australia,’ 1899, pp.
73, 121.
Footnote 561:
General references in J. F. McLennan, ‘Studies in Ancient History;’ J.
G. Frazer, ‘Totemism.’
Footnote 562:
Herod. ii.; Plutarch, De Iside & Osiride; Strabo, xvii. 1; Wilkinson,
‘Ancient Eg.,’ edited by Birch, vol. iii.; Bunsen, 2nd Edition, with
notes by Birch, vol. i.
Footnote 563:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 195, &c.
Footnote 564:
Schoolcraft, part iii. p. 231; Brinton, p. 108, &c.
Footnote 565:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Comentarios Reales,’ i. 9.
Footnote 566:
Herodot. viii. 41.
Footnote 567:
Servius ad Æn. v. 95.
Footnote 568:
Hartknoch, ‘Preussen,’ part i. pp. 143, 162.
Footnote 569:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 648.
Footnote 570:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 650. Rochholz, ‘Deutscher Glaube,’ &c., vol. i. p.
146. Monnier, ‘Traditions Populaires,’ p. 644. Grohmann, ‘Aberglauben
aus Böhmen,’ &c., p. 78. Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ p. 175.
Footnote 571:
Fergusson ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ p. 55, &c., pl. xxiv. McLennan
l.c. p. 563, &c.
Footnote 572:
Strabo, xiii. 1, 14.
Footnote 573:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 62, 585.
Footnote 574:
J. B. Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xiv.
Footnote 575:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 217.
Footnote 576:
Pausan. ii. 28; Ælian, xvi. 39. See Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol.
ii. p. 734.
Footnote 577:
Macrob. Saturnal. i. 9. Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 500.
Footnote 578:
Details such as in Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part i. pp. 38, 414,
may be ascribed to Christian intercourse. See Brinton, p. 121.
Footnote 579:
Lepsius, ‘Todtenbuch,’ and Birch’s transl. in Bunsen’s ‘Egypt,’ vol.
v.
Footnote 580:
Spiegel, ‘Avesta,’ vol. i. p. 66, vol. iii. p. lix.
Footnote 581:
Epiphan. Adv. Hæres. xxxvii. Tertullian. De Præscript. contra
Hæreticos, 47.
Footnote 582:
Further collections of evidence relating to Zoolatry in general may be
found in Bastian, ‘Das Thier in seiner mythologischen Bedeutung,’ in
Bastian and Hartmann’s ‘Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,’ vol. i., Meiners,
‘Geschichte der Religionen,’ vol. i.
Footnote 583:
Comte, ‘Philosophie Positive,’ vol. v. p. 101.
Footnote 584:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 242.
Footnote 585:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 105.
Footnote 586:
Acosta, ‘Historia de las Indias,’ book v. c. iv.; Rivero & Tschudi,
pp. 161, 179; J. G. Müller, p. 365.
Footnote 587:
Le Jeune in ‘Rel. des Jés. dans la Nouvelle France,’ 1634, p. 13.
Lafitau, ‘Mœurs des Sauvages,’ vol. i. p. 370. See also Waitz, vol.
iii. p. 194; Schoolcraft, part iii. p. 327.
Footnote 588:
Ralston, ‘Songs of the Russian People,’ p. 375. The Slavonic myth of
Buyán with its dripping oak and the snake Garafena lying beneath, is
obviously connected with the Scandinavian myth of the dripping ash,
Yggdrasill, the snake Nidhögg below, and the two Swans of the
Urdharfount, parents of all swans.
Footnote 589:
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 162.
Footnote 590:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 106, 160, 189, &c.
Footnote 591:
Eisenmenger, ‘Judenthum,’ part ii. p. 376; Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol.
iii. p. 194.
Footnote 592:
De Brosses, ‘Dieux Fétiches,’ p. 58.
CHAPTER XVI.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Higher Deities of Polytheism—Human characteristics applied
to Deity—Lords of Spiritual Hierarchy—Polytheism: its
course of development in lower and higher Culture—Principles
of its investigation; classification of Deities according
to central conceptions of their significance and
function—Heaven-god—Rain-god—Thunder-god—Wind
gods—Earth-god—Water-god—Sea-god—Fire-god—Sun-god—Moon-god.
Surveying the religions of the world and studying the descriptions of
deity among race after race, we may recur to old polemical terms in
order to define a dominant idea of theology at large. Man so habitually
ascribes to his deities human shape, human passions, human nature, that
we may declare him an Anthropomorphite, an Anthropopathite, and (to
complete the series) an Anthropophysite. In this state of religious
thought, prevailing as it does through so immense a range among mankind,
one of the strongest confirmations may be found of the theory here
advanced concerning the development of Animism. This theory that the
conception of the human soul is the very ‘fons et origo’ of the
conceptions of spirit and deity in general, has been already vouched for
by the fact of human souls being held to pass into the characters of
good and evil demons, and to ascend to the rank of deities. But beyond
this, as we consider the nature of the great gods of the nations, in
whom the vastest functions of the universe are vested, it will still be
apparent that these mighty deities are modelled on human souls, that in
great measure their feeling and sympathy, their character and habit,
their will and action, even their material and form, display throughout
their adaptations, exaggerations and distortions, characteristics shaped
upon those of the human spirit. The key to investigation of the Dii
Majorum Gentium of the world is the reflex of humanity, and as we behold
their figures in their proper districts of theology, memory ever brings
back the Psalmist’s words, ‘Thou thoughtest I was altogether as
thyself.’
The higher deities of Polytheism have their places in the general
animistic system of mankind. Among nation after nation it is still clear
how, man being the type of deity, human society and government became
the model on which divine society and government were shaped. As chiefs
and kings are among men, so are the great gods among the lesser spirits.
They differ from the souls and minor spiritual beings which we have as
yet chiefly considered, but the difference is rather of rank than of
nature. They are personal spirits, reigning over personal spirits. Above
the disembodied souls and manes, the local genii of rocks and fountains
and trees, the host of good and evil demons, and the rest of the
spiritual commonality, stand these mightier deities, whose influence is
less confined to local or individual interests, and who, as it pleases
them, can act directly within their vast domain, or control and operate
through the lower beings of their kind, their servants, agents, or
mediators. The great gods of Polytheism, numerous and elaborately
defined in the theology of the cultured world, do not however make their
earliest appearance there. In the religions of the lower races their
principal types were already cast, and thenceforward, for many an age of
progressing or relapsing culture, it became the work of poet and priest,
legend-monger and historian, theologian and philosopher, to develop and
renew, to degrade and abolish, the mighty lords of the Pantheon.
With little exception, wherever a savage or barbaric system of religion
is thoroughly described, great gods make their appearance in the
spiritual world as distinctly as chiefs in the human tribe. In the
lists, it is true, there are set down great deities, good or evil, who
probably came in from modern Christian missionary teaching, or otherwise
by contact with foreign religions. It is often difficult to distinguish
from these the true local gods, animistic figures of native meaning and
origin. Among the following polytheistic systems, examples may be found
of such combinations, with the complex theological problems they
suggest. Among the Australians, above the swarming souls,
nature-spirits, demons, there stand out mythic figures of higher
divinity; Nguk-wonga, the Spirit of the Waters; Biam, who gives
ceremonial songs and causes disease, and is perhaps the same as Baiame
the creator; Nambajandi and Warrugura, lords of heaven and the nether
world.[593] In South America, if we look into the theology of the Manaos
(whose name is well known in the famous legend of El Dorado and the
golden city of Manoa), we see Mauari and Saraua, who may be called the
Good and Evil Spirit, and beside the latter the two Gamainhas, Spirits
of the Waters and the Forest.[594] In North America the description of a
solemn Algonquin sacrifice introduces a list of twelve dominant manitus
or gods; first the Great Manitu in heaven, then the Sun, Moon, Earth,
Fire, Water, the House-god, the Indian corn, and the four Winds or
Cardinal Points.[595] The Polynesian’s crowd of manes, and the lower
ranks of deities of earth, sea, and air, stand below the great gods of
Peace and War, Oro and Tane the national deities of Tahiti and Huahine,
Raitubu the Sky-producer, Hina who aided in the work of forming the
world, her father Taaroa, the uncreate Creator who dwells in
Heaven.[596] Among the Land Dayaks of Borneo, the commonalty of spirits
consists of the souls of the departed, and of such beings as dwell in
the noble old forests on the tops of lofty hills, or such as hover about
villages and devour the stores of rice; above these are Tapa, creator
and preserver of man, and Iang, who taught the Dayaks their religion,
Jirong, whose function is the birth and death of men, and Tenabi, who
made, and still causes to flourish, the earth and all things therein
save the human race.[597] In West Africa, an example may be taken from
the theology of the Slave Coast, a systematic scheme of all nature as
moved and quickened by spirits, kindly or hostile to mankind. These
spirits dwell in field and wood, mountain and valley; they live in air
and water; multitudes of them have been human souls, such ghosts hover
about the graves and near the living, and have influence with the
under-gods, whom they worship; among these ‘edrõ’ are the patron-deities
of men and families and tribes; through these subordinate beings works
the highest god, Mawu. The missionary who describes this negro hierarchy
quite simply sees in it Satan and his Angels.[598] In Asia, the
Samoyed’s little spirits that are bound to his little fetishes, and the
little elves of wood and stream, have greater beings above them, the
Forest-Spirit, the River-Spirit, the Sun and Moon, the Evil Spirit and
the Good Spirit above all.[599] The countless host of the local gods of
the Khonds pervade the world, rule the functions of nature, and control
the life of men, and these have their chiefs; above them rank the
deified souls of men who have become tutelary gods of tribes; above
these are the six great gods, the Rain-god, the goddess of Firstfruits,
the god of Increase, the god of Hunting, the iron god of War, the god of
Boundaries, with which group stands also the Judge of the Dead, and
above all other gods, the Sun-god and Creator Boora Pennu, and his wife
the mighty Earth-goddess, Tari Pennu.[600] The Spanish conquerors found
in Mexico a complex and systematic hierarchy of spiritual beings;
numberless were the little deities who had their worship in house and
lane, grove and temple, and from these the worshipper could pass to gods
of flowers or of pulque, of hunters and goldsmiths, and then to the
great deities of the nation and the world, the figures which the
mythologist knows so well, Centeotl the Earth-goddess, Tlaloc the
Water-god, Huitzilopochtli the War-god, Mictlanteuctli the Lord of
Hades, Tonatiuh and Metztli the Sun and Moon.[601] Thus, starting from
the theology of savage tribes, the student arrives at the polytheistic
hierarchies of the Aryan nations. In ancient Greece, the
cloud-compelling Heaven-god reigns over such deities as the god of War
and the goddess of Love, the Sun-god and the Moon-goddess, the Fire-god
and the ruler of the Under-world, the Winds and Rivers, the nymphs of
wood and well and forest.[602] In modern India, Brahma-Vishnu-Siva reign
pre-eminent over a series of divinities, heterogeneous and often obscure
in nature, but among whom stand out in clear meaning and purpose such
figures as Indra of Heaven and Sûrya of the Sun, Agni of the Fire,
Pavana of the Winds and Varuna of the Waters, Yama lord of the
Under-world, Kâma god of Love and Kârttikeya of War, Panchânana who
gives epilepsy and Manasâ who preserves from snake-bites, the divine
Rivers, and below these the ranks of nymphs, elves, demons, ministering
spirits, of heaven and earth—Gandharvas, Apsaras, Siddhas, Asuras,
Bhûtas, Râkshasas.[603]
The systematic comparison of polytheistic religions has been of late
years worked with admirable results. These have been due to the adoption
of comparatively exact methods, as where the ancient Aryan deities of
the Veda have been brought into connexion with those of the Homeric
poems, in some cases as clearly as where we Englishmen can study in the
Scandinavian Edda the old gods of our own race, whose names stand in
local names on the map of England, and serve as counters to reckon our
days of the week. Yet it need scarcely be said that to compare in full
detail the deities even of closely connected nations, and à fortiori
those of tribes not united in language and history, is still a difficult
and unsatisfactory task. The old-fashioned identifications of the gods
and heroes of different nations admitted most illusory evidence. Some
had little more ground than similar-sounding names, as when the Hindu
Brahma and Prajâpati were discovered to be the Hebrew Abraham and
Japhet, and when even Sir William Jones identified Woden with Buddha.
With not much more stringency, it is still often taken as matter of
course that the Keltic Beal, whose bealtines correspond with a whole
class of bonfire-customs among several branches of the Aryan race, is
the Bel or the Baal of the Semitic cultus. Unfortunately, classical
scholarship at the Renaissance started the subject on an unsound
footing, by accepting the Greek deities with the mystified shapes and
perverted names they had assumed in Latin literature. That there was a
partial soundness in such comparisons, as in identifying Zeus and
Jupiter, Hestia and Vesta, made the plan all the more misleading when
Kronos came to figure as Saturn, Poseidon as Neptune, Athene as Minerva.
To judge by example of the possible results of comparative theology
worked on such principles, Thoth being identified with Hermes, Hermes
with Mercury, and Mercury with Woden, there comes to pass the absurd
transition from the Egyptian ibis-headed divine scribe of the gods, to
the Teutonic heaven-dwelling driver of the raging tempest. It is not in
this loose fashion that the mental processes are to be sought out, which
led nations to arrange so similarly and yet so diversely their array of
deities.
A twofold perplexity besets the soberest investigator on this ground,
caused by the modification of deities by development at home and
adoption from abroad. Even among the lower races, gods of long
traditional legend and worship acquire a mixed and complex personality.
The mythologist who seeks to ascertain the precise definition of the Red
Indian Michabu in his various characters of Heaven-god and Water-god,
Creator of the Earth and first ancestor of Man, or who examines the
personality of the Polynesian Maui in his relation to Sun, lord of
Heaven or Hades, first Man, and South Sea Island hero, will sympathize
with the Semitic or Aryan student bewildered among the heterogeneous
attributes of Baal and Astarte, Herakles and Athene. Sir William Jones
scarcely overstated the perplexity of the problem in the following
remarkable forecast delivered more than a century ago, in the first
anniversary discourse before the Asiatic Society of Bengal, at a time
when glimpses of the relation of the Hindu to the Greek Pantheon were
opening into a new broad view of comparative theology in his mind. ‘We
must not be surprised,’ he says, ‘at finding, on a close examination,
that the characters of all the Pagan deities, male and female, melt into
each other and at last into one or two; for it seems a well-founded
opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses in ancient Rome, and
modern Váránes [Benares] mean only the powers of nature, and principally
those of the Sun, expressed in a variety of ways and by a multitude of
fanciful names.’ As to the travelling of gods from country to country,
and the changes they are apt to suffer on the road, we may judge by
examples of what has happened within our knowledge. It is not merely
that one nation borrows a god from another with its proper figure and
attributes and rites, as where in Rome the worshipper of the Sun might
take his choice whether he would adore in the temple of the Greek
Apollo, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Mithra, or the Syrian
Elagabalus. The intercourse of races can produce quainter results than
this. Any Orientalist will appreciate the wonderful hotchpot of Hindu
and Arabic language and religion in the following details, noted down
among rude tribes of the Malay Peninsula. We hear of Jin Bumi the
Earth-god (Arabic jin = demon, Sanskrit bhûmi = earth); incense is burnt
to Jewajewa (Sanskrit dewa = god) who intercedes with Pirman the supreme
invisible deity above the sky (Brahma?); the Moslem Allah Táala, with
his wife Nabi Mahamad (Prophet Mohammed), appear in the Hinduized
characters of creator and destroyer of all things; and while the spirits
worshipped in stones are called by the Hindu term of ‘dewa’ or deity,
Moslem conversion has so far influenced the mind of the
stone-worshipper, that he will give to his sacred boulder the title of a
Prophet Mohammed.[604] If we would have examples nearer home, we may
trace the evil demon Aeshma Daeva of the ancient Persian religion
becoming the Asmodeus of the book of Tobit, afterwards to find a place
in the devilry of the middle ages, and to end his career as the Diable
Boiteux of Le Sage. Even the Aztec war-god Huitzilopochtli may be found
figuring as the demon Vizlipuzli in the popular drama of Doctor Faustus.
In ethnographic comparisons of the religions of mankind, unless there is
evidence of direct relation between gods belonging to two peoples, the
safe and reasonable principle is to limit the identification of deities
to the attributes they have in common. Thus it is proper to compare the
Dendid of the White Nile with the Aryan Indra, in so far as both are
Heaven-gods and Rain-gods; the Aztec Tonatiuh with the Greek Apollo, in
so far as both are Sun-gods; the Australian Baiame with the Scandinavian
Thor, in so far as both are Thunder-gods. The present purpose of
displaying Polytheism as a department of Animism does not require that
elaborate comparison of systems which would be in place in a manual of
the religions of the world. The great gods may be scientifically ranged
and treated according to their fundamental ideas, the strongly-marked
and intelligible conceptions which, under names often obscure and
personalities often mixed and mystified, they stand to represent. It is
enough to show the similarity of principle on which the theologic mind
of the lower races shaped those old familiar types of deity, with which
our first acquaintance was gained in the pantheon of classic mythology.
It will be observed that not all, but the principal figures, belong to
strict Nature-worship. These may be here first surveyed. They are Heaven
and Earth, Rain and Thunder, Water and Sea, Fire and Sun and Moon,
worshipped either directly for themselves, or as animated by their
special deities, or these deities are more fully set apart and adored in
anthropomorphic shape—a group of conceptions distinctly and throughout
based on the principles of savage fetishism. True, the great Nature-gods
are huge in strength and far-reaching in influence, but this is because
the natural objects they belong to are immense in size or range of
action, pre-eminent and predominant among lesser fetishes, though still
fetishes themselves.
In the religion of the North American Indians, the Heaven-god displays
perfectly the gradual blending of the material sky itself with its
personal deity. In the early times of French colonization, Father
Brebeuf mentions the Hurons addressing themselves to the earth, rivers,
lakes, and dangerous rocks, but above all to heaven, believing that it
is all animated, and some powerful demon dwells therein. He describes
them as speaking directly to heaven by its personal name ‘Aronhiaté!’
Thus when they throw tobacco into the fire as sacrifice, if it is Heaven
they address, they say ‘Aronhiaté! (Heaven!) behold my sacrifice, have
pity on me, aid me!’ They have recourse to Heaven in almost all their
necessities, and respect this great body above all creatures, remarking
in it particularly something divine. They imagine in the sky an ‘oki,’
i.e. demon or power, which rules the seasons of the year and controls
the winds and waves. They dread its anger, calling it to witness when
they make some important promise or treaty, saying, Heaven hears what we
do this day, and fearing chastisement should their word be broken. One
of their renowned sorcerers said, Heaven will be angry if men mock him;
when they cry every day to Heaven, Aronhiaté! yet give him nothing, he
will avenge himself. Etymology again suggests the divine sky as the
inner meaning of the Iroquois supreme deity, Taronhiawagon the
‘sky-comer’ or ‘sky-holder,’ who had his festival about the winter
solstice, who brought the ancestral race out of the mountain, taught
them hunting, marriage, and religion, gave them corn and beans, squashes
and potatoes and tobacco, and guided them on their migrations as they
spread over the land. Among the North American tribes, not only does the
conception of the personal divine Heaven thus seem the fundamental idea
of the Heaven-god, but it may expand under Christian influence into a
yet more general thought of divinity in the Great Spirit in Heaven.[605]
In South Africa, the Zulus speak of the Heaven as a person, ascribing to
it the power of exercising a will, and they also speak of a Lord of
Heaven, whose wrath they deprecate during a thunderstorm. In the native
legends of the Zulu princess in the country of the Half-Men, the captive
maiden expostulates personally with the Sky, for only acting in an
ordinary way, and not in the way she wishes, to destroy her enemies:—
‘Listen, yon heaven. Attend; mayoya, listen.
Listen, heaven. It does not thunder with loud thunder.
It thunders in an undertone. What is it doing?
It thunders to produce rain and change of season.’
Thereupon the clouds gather tumultuously; the princess sings again and
it thunders terribly, and the Heaven kills the Half-Men round about her,
but she is left unharmed.[606] West Africa is another district where the
Heaven-god reigns, in whose attributes may be traced the transition from
the direct conception of the personal sky to that of the supreme
creative deity. Thus in Bonny, one word serves for god, heaven, cloud;
and in Aquapim, Yankupong is at once the highest god and the weather. Of
this latter deity, the Nyankupon of the Oji nation, it is remarked by
Riis, ‘The idea of him as a supreme spirit is obscure and uncertain, and
often confounded with the visible heavens or sky, the upper world
(sorro) which lies beyond human reach; and hence the same word is used
also for heavens, sky, and even for rain and thunder.’[607] The same
transition from the divine sky to its anthropomorphic deity shows out in
the theology of the Tatar tribes. The rude Samoyed’s mind scarcely if at
all separates the visible personal Heaven from the divinity united with
it under one and the same name, Num. Among the more cultured Finns, the
cosmic attributes of the Heaven-god, Ukko the Old One, display the same
original nature; he is the ancient of Heaven, the father of Heaven, the
bearer of the Firmament, the god of the Air, the dweller on the Clouds,
the Cloud-driver, the shepherd of the Cloud-lambs.[608] So far as the
evidence of language, and document, and ceremony, can preserve the
record of remotely ancient thought, China shows in the highest deity of
the state religion a like theologic development. Tien, Heaven, is in
personal shape the Shang-ti or Upper Emperor, the Lord of the Universe.
The Chinese books may idealize this supreme divinity; they may say that
his command is fate, that he rewards the good and punishes the wicked,
that he loves and protects the people beneath him, that he manifests
himself through events, that he is a spirit full of insight,
penetrating, fearful, majestic. Yet they cannot refine him so utterly
away into an abstract celestial deity, but that language and history
still recognize him as what he was in the beginning, Tien, Heaven.[609]
With such evidence perfectly accords the history of the Heaven-god among
our Indo-European race. This being, adored in ancient Aryan religion,
was—
‘... the whole circle of the heavens, for him
A sensitive existence, and a God,
With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise.’
The evidence of language to this effect has been set forth with extreme
clearness by Professor Max Müller. In the first stage, the Sanskrit Dyu
(Dyaus), the bright sky, is taken in a sense so direct that it expresses
the idea of day, and the storms are spoken of as going about in it;
while Greek and Latin rival this distinctness in such terms as ἔνδιος,
‘in the open air,’ εὔδιος, ‘well-skyed, calm,’ sub divo, ‘in the open
air,’ sub Jove frigido, ‘under the cold sky,’ and that graphic
description by Ennius of the bright firmament, Jove whom all invoke:—
‘Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem.’
In the second stage, Dyaus pitar, Heaven-father, stands in the Veda as
consort of Prithivî mâtar, Earth-mother, ranked high or highest among
the bright gods. To the Greek he is Ζεὺς πατήρ, the Heaven-father, Zeus
the All-seer, the Cloud-compeller, King of Gods and Men. As Max Müller
writes: ‘There was nothing that could be told of the sky that was not in
some form or other ascribed to Zeus. It was Zeus who rained, who
thundered, who snowed, who hailed, who sent the lightning, who gathered
the clouds, who let loose the winds, who held the rainbow. It is Zeus
who orders the days and nights, the months, seasons, and years. It is he
who watches over the fields, who sends rich harvests, and who tends the
flocks. Like the sky, Zeus dwells on the highest mountains; like the
sky, Zeus embraces the earth; like the sky, Zeus is eternal, unchanging,
the highest god. For good and for evil, Zeus the sky and Zeus the god
are wedded together in the Greek mind, language triumphing over thought,
tradition over religion.’ The same Aryan Heaven-father is Jupiter, in
that original name and nature which he bore in Rome long before they
arrayed him in the borrowed garments of Greek myth, and adapted him to
the ideas of classic philosophy.[610] Thus, in nation after nation, took
place the great religious development by which the Father-Heaven became
the Father in Heaven.
The Rain-god is most often the Heaven-god exercising a special function,
though sometimes taking a more distinctly individual form, or blending
in characteristics with a general Water-god. In East Central Africa, the
spirit of an old chief dwelling on a cloudy mountain-top may receive the
worship of his votaries and send down the refreshing showers in answer
to their prayers; among the Damaras the highest deity is Omakuru the
Rain-giver, who dwells in the far North; while to the negro of West
Africa the Heaven-god is the rain-giver, and may pass in name into the
rain itself.[611] Pachacamac, the Peruvian world-creator, has set the
Rain-goddess to pour waters over the land, and send down hail and
snow.[612] The Aztec Tlaloc was no doubt originally a Heaven-god, for he
holds the thunder and lightning, but he has taken especially the
attributes of Water-god and Rain-god; and so in Nicaragua the Rain-god
Quiateot (Aztec quiahuitl = rain, teotl = god) to whom children were
sacrificed to bring rain, shows his larger celestial nature by being
also sender of thunder and lightning.[613] The Rain-god of the Khonds is
Pidzu Pennu, whom the priests and elders propitiate with eggs and arrack
and rice and a sheep, and invoke with quaintly pathetic prayers. They
tell him how, if he will not give water, the land must remain
unploughed, the seed will rot in the ground, they and their children and
cattle will die of want, the deer and the wild hog will seek other
haunts, and then of what avail will it be for the Rain-god to relent,
how little any gift of water will avail, when there shall be left
neither man, nor cattle, nor seed; so let him, resting on the sky, pour
waters down upon them through his sieve, till the deer are drowned out
of the forest and take refuge in the houses, till the soil of the
mountains is washed into the valleys, till the cooking-pots burst with
the force of the swelling rice, till the beasts gather so plentifully in
the green and favoured land, that men’s axes shall be blunted with
cutting up the game.[614] With perfect meteorological fitness, the Kol
tribes of Bengal consider their great deity Marang Buru, Great Mountain,
to be the Rain-god. Marang Buru, one of the most conspicuous hills of
the plateau near Lodmah in Chota-Nagpur, is the deity himself or his
dwelling. Before the rains come on, the women climb the hill, led by the
wives of the pahans, with girls drumming, to carry offerings of milk and
bel-leaves, which are put on the flat rock at the top. Then the wives of
the pahans kneel with loosened hair and invoke the deity, beseeching him
to give the crops seasonable rain. They shake their heads violently as
they reiterate this prayer, till they work themselves into a frenzy, and
the movement becomes involuntary. They go on thus wildly gesticulating,
till a cloud is seen; then they rise, take the drums, and dance the
kurrun on the rock, till Marang Buru’s response to their prayer is heard
in the distant rumbling of thunder, and they go home rejoicing. They
must go fasting to the mount, and stay there till there is ‘a sound of
abundance of rain,’ when they get them down to eat and drink. It is said
that the rain always comes before evening, but the old women appear to
choose their own moment for beginning the fast.[615] It was to Ukko the
Heaven-god, that in old days the Finn turned with such prayers:—
‘Ukko, thou, O God above us
Thou, O Father in the heavens,
Thou who rulest in the cloud-land,
And the little cloud-lambs leadest,
Send us down the rain from heaven,
Make the clouds to drop with honey,
Let the drooping corn look upward,
Let the grain with plenty rustle.’[616]
Quite like this were the classic conceptions of Ζεὺς ὑέτιος Jupiter
Pluvius. They are typified in the famous Athenian prayer recorded by
Marcus Aurelius, ‘Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the plough-lands of the
Athenians, and the plains!’[617] and in Petronius Arbiter’s complaint of
the irreligion of his times, that now no one thinks heaven is heaven, no
one keeps a fast, no one cares a hair for Jove, but all men with closed
eyes reckon up their goods. Afore-time the ladies walked up the hill in
their stoles with bare feet and loosened hair and pure minds, and
entreated Jove for water; then all at once it rained bucketsfull, then
or never, and they all went home wet as drowned rats.[618] In later
ages, when drought parched the fields of the mediæval husbandman, he
transferred to other patrons the functions of the Rain-god, and with
procession and litany sought help from St. Peter or St. James, or, with
more of mythological consistency, from the Queen of Heaven. As for
ourselves, we have lived to see the time when men shrink from addressing
even to Supreme Deity the old customary rain-prayers, for the rainfall
is passing from the region of the supernatural, to join the tides and
seasons in the realm of physical science.
The place of the Thunder-god in polytheistic religion is similar to that
of the Rain-god, in many cases even to entire coincidence. But his
character is rather of wrath than of beneficence, a character which we
have half lost the power to realize, since the agonizing terror of the
thunderstorm which appals savage minds has dwindled away in ours, now
that we behold in it not the manifestation of divine wrath, but the
restoration of electric equilibrium. North American tribes, as the
Mandans, heard in the thunder and saw in the lightning the clapping
wings and flashing eyes of that awful heaven-bird which belongs to, or
even is, the Great Manitu himself.[619] The Dacotas could show at a
place called Thunder-tracks, near the source of the St. Peter’s River,
the footprints of the thunder-bird five and twenty miles apart. It is to
be noticed that these Sioux, among their varied fancies about
thunder-birds and the like, give unusually well a key to the great
thunderbolt-myth which recurs in so many lands. They consider the
lightning entering the ground to scatter there in all directions
thunderbolt-stones, which are flints, &c., their reason for this notion
being the very rational one, that these siliceous stones actually
produce a flash when struck.[620] In an account of certain Carib
deities, who were men and are now stars, occurs the name of Savacou, who
was changed into a great bird; he is captain of the hurricane and
thunder, he blows fire through a tube and that is lightning, he gives
the great rain. Rochefort describes the effect of a thunderstorm on the
partly Europeanized Caribs of the West Indies two centuries ago. When
they perceive its approach, he says, they quickly betake themselves to
their cabins, and range themselves in the kitchen on their little seats
near the fire; hiding their faces and leaning their heads in their hands
and on their knees, they fall to weeping and lamenting in their jargon
‘Maboya mouche fache contre Caraïbe,’ i.e., Maboya (the evil demon) is
very angry with the Caribs. This they say also when there comes a
hurricane, not leaving off this dismal exercise till it is over, and
there is no end to their astonishment that the Christians on these
occasions manifest no such affliction and fear.[621] The Tupi tribes of
Brazil are an example of a race among whom the Thunder or the Thunderer,
Tupan, flapping his celestial wings and flashing with celestial light,
was developed into the very representative of highest deity, whose name
still stands among their Christian descendants as the equivalent of
God.[622] In Peru, a mighty and far-worshipped deity was Catequil the
Thunder-god, child of the Heaven-god, he who set free the Indian race
from out of the ground by turning it up with his golden spade, he who in
thunder-flash and clap hurls from his sling the small round smooth
thunderstones, treasured in the villages as fire-fetishes and charms to
kindle the flames of love. How distinct in personality and high in rank
was the Thunder and Lightning (Chuqui yllayllapa) in the religion of the
Incas, may be judged from his huaca or fetish-idol standing on the bench
beside the idols of the Creator and the Sun at the great Solar festival
in Cuzco, when the beasts to be sacrificed were led round them, and the
priests prayed thus: ‘O Creator, and Sun, and Thunder, be for ever
young! do not grow old. Let all things be at peace! let the people
multiply, and their food, and let all other things continue to
increase.’[623]
In Africa, we may contrast the Zulu, who perceives in thunder and
lightning the direct action of Heaven or Heaven’s lord, with the Yoruba,
who assigns them not to Olorun the Lord of Heaven, but to a lower deity,
Shango the Thunder-god, whom they call also Dzakuta the Stone-caster,
for it is he who (as among so many other peoples who have forgotten
their Stone Age) flings down from heaven the stone hatchets which are
found in the ground, and preserved as sacred objects.[624] In the
religion of the Kamchadals, Billukai, the hem of whose garment is the
rainbow, dwells in the clouds with many spirits, and sends thunder and
lightning and rain.[625] Among the Ossetes of the Caucasus the Thunderer
is Ilya, in whose name mythologists trace a Christian tradition of
Elijah, whose fiery chariot seems indeed to have been elsewhere
identified with that of the Thunder-god, while the highest peak of
Ægina, once the seat of Pan-hellenic Zeus, is now called Mount St.
Elias. Among certain Moslem schismatics, it is even the historical Ali,
cousin of Mohammed, who is enthroned in the clouds, where the thunder is
his voice, and the lightning the lash wherewith he smites the
wicked.[626] Among the Turanian or Tatar race, the European branch shows
most distinctly the figure of the Thunder-god. To the Lapps, Tiermes
appears to have been the Heaven-god, especially conceived as Aija the
Thunder-god; of old they thought the Thunder (Aija) to be a living
being, hovering in the air and hearkening to the talk of men, smiting
such as spoke of him in an unseemly way; or, as some said, the
Thunder-god is the foe of sorcerers, whom he drives from heaven and
smites, and then it is that men hear in thunder-peals the hurtling of
his arrows, as he speeds them from his bow, the Rainbow. In Finnish
poetry, likewise, Ukko the Heaven-god is portrayed with such attributes.
The Runes call him Thunderer, he speaks through the clouds, his fiery
shirt is the lurid storm-cloud, men talk of his stones and his hammer,
he flashes his fiery sword and it lightens, or he draws his mighty
rainbow, Ukko’s bow, to shoot his fiery copper arrows, wherewith men
would invoke him to smite their enemies. Or when it is dark in his
heavenly house he strikes fire, and that is lightning. To this day the
Finlanders call a thunderstorm an ‘ukko,’ or an ‘ukkonen,’ that is, ‘a
little ukko,’ and when it lightens they say, ‘There is Ukko striking
fire!’[627]
What is the Aryan conception of the Thunder-god, but a poetic
elaboration of thoughts inherited from the savage state through which
the primitive Aryans had passed? The Hindu Thunder-god is the Heaven-god
Indra, Indra’s bow is the rainbow, Indra hurls the thunderbolts, he
smites his enemies, he smites the dragon-clouds, and the rain pours down
on earth, and the sun shines forth again. The Veda is full of Indra’s
glories: ‘Now will I sing the feats of Indra, which he of the
thunderbolt did of old. He smote Ahi, then he poured forth the waters;
he divided the rivers of the mountains. He smote Ahi by the mountain;
Tvashtar forged for him the glorious bolt.’—‘Whet, O strong Indra, the
heavy strong red weapon against the enemies!’—‘May the axe (the
thunderbolt) appear with the light; may the red one blaze forth bright
with splendour!’—‘When Indra hurls again and again his thunderbolt, then
they believe in the brilliant god.’ Nor is Indra merely a great god in
the ancient Vedic pantheon, he is the very patron-deity of the invading
Aryan race in India, to whose help they look in their conflicts with the
dark-skinned tribes of the land. ‘Destroying the Dasyus, Indra protected
the Aryan colour’—‘Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshipper, he
subdued the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin.’[628] This
Hindu Indra is the offspring of Dyaus the Heaven. But in the Greek
religion, Zeus is himself Zeus Kerauneios, the wielder of the
thunderbolt, and thunders from the cloud-capped tops of Ida or Olympos.
In like manner the Jupiter Capitolinus of Rome is himself Jupiter
Tonans:
‘Ad penetrale Numæ, Capitolinumque Tonantem.’[629]
Thus, also, it was in accurate language that the old Slavonic nations
were described as adoring Jupiter Tonans as their highest god. He was
the cloud-dwelling Heaven-god, his weapon the thunder-bolt, the
lightning-flash, his name Perun the Smiter (Perkun, Perkunas). In the
Lithuanian district, the thunder itself is Perkun; in past times the
peasant would cry when he heard the thunder peal ‘Dewe Perkune apsaugog
mus!—God Perkun spare us!’ and to this day he says, ‘Perkunas
gravja!—Perkun is thundering!’ or ‘Wezzajs barrahs!—the Old One
growls!’[630] The old German and Scandinavian theology made Thunder,
Donar, Thor, a special deity to rule the clouds and rain, and hurl his
crushing hammer through the air. He reigned high in the Saxon heaven,
till the days came when the Christian convert had to renounce him in
solemn form, ‘ec forsacho Thunare!—I forsake Thunder!’ Now, his survival
is for the most part in mere verbal form, in the etymology of such names
as Donnersberg, Thorwaldsen, Thursday.[631]
In the polytheism of the lower as of the higher races, the Wind-gods are
no unknown figures. The Winds themselves, and especially the Four Winds
in their four regions, take name and shape as personal divinities, while
some deity of wider range, a Wind-god, Storm-god, Air-god, or the mighty
Heaven-god himself, may stand as compeller or controller of breeze and
gale and tempest. We have already taken as examples from the Algonquin
mythology of North America the four winds whose native legends have been
versified in ‘Hiawatha;’ Mudjekeewis the West Wind, Father of the Winds
of Heaven, and his children, Wabun the East Wind, the morning-bringer,
the lazy Shawondasse the South Wind, the wild and cruel North Wind, the
fierce Kabibonokka. Viewed in their religious aspect, these mighty
beings correspond with four of the great manitus sacrificed to among the
Delawares, the West, South, East, and North; while the Iroquois
acknowledged a deity of larger grasp, Gäoh, the Spirit of the Winds, who
holds them prisoned in the mountains in the Home of the Winds.[632] The
Polynesian Wind-gods are thus described by Ellis: ‘The chief of these
were Veromatautoru and Tairibu, brother and sister to the children of
Taaroa, their dwelling was near the great rock, which was the foundation
of the world. Hurricanes, tempests, and all destructive winds, were
supposed to be confined within them, and were employed by them to punish
such as neglected the worship of the gods. In stormy weather their
compassion was sought by the tempest-driven mariner at sea, or the
friends of such on shore. Liberal presents, it was supposed, would at
any time purchase a calm. If the first failed, subsequent ones were
certain of success. The same means were resorted to for procuring a
storm, but with less certainty. Whenever the inhabitants of one island
heard of invasion from those of another, they immediately carried large
offerings to these deities, and besought them to destroy by tempest the
hostile fleet whenever it might put to sea. Some of the most intelligent
people still think evil spirits had formerly great power over the winds,
as they say there have been no such fearful storms since they abolished
idolatry, as there were before.’ Or, again, the great deity Maui adds a
new complication to his enigmatic solar-celestial character by appearing
as a Wind-God. In Tahiti he was identified with the East Wind; in New
Zealand he holds all the winds but the west in his hands, or he
imprisons them with great stones rolled to the mouths of their caves,
save the West Wind which he cannot catch or prison, so that it almost
always blows.[633] To the Kamchadal, it is Billukai the Heaven-god who
comes down and drives his sledge on earth, and men see his traces in the
wind-drifted snow.[634] To the Finn, while there are traces of
subordinate Wind-gods in his mythology, the great ruler of wind and
storm is Ukko the Heaven-god;[635] while the Esth looked rather to
Tuule-ema, Wind’s Mother, and when the gale shrieks he will still say
‘Wind’s mother wails, who knows what mothers shall wail next.’[636] Such
instances from Allophylian mythology[637] show types which are found
developed in full vigour by the Aryan races. In the Vedic hymns, the
Storm Gods, the Maruts, borne along with the fury of the boisterous
winds, with the rain-clouds distribute showers over the earth, make
darkness during the day, rend the trees and devour the forests like wild
elephants.[638] No effort of the Red Indian’s personifying fancy in the
tales of the dancing Pauppuk-keewis the Whirlwind, or that fierce and
shifty hero, Manabozho the North-West Wind, can more than match the
description in the Iliad, of Achilles calling on Boreas and Zephyros
with libations and vows of sacrifice, to blow into a blaze the funeral
pyre of Patroklos—
... his prayer
Swift Iris heard, and bore it to the Winds.
They in the hall of gusty Zephyrus
Were gathered round the feast; in haste appearing,
Swift Iris on the stony threshold stood.
They saw, and rising all, besought her each
To sit beside him; she with their requests
Refused compliance, and addressed them thus,’ &c.
Æolus with the winds imprisoned in his cave has the office of the Red
Indian Spirit of the Winds, and of the Polynesian Maui. With quaint
adaptation to nature-myth and even to moral parable, the Harpies, the
Storm-gusts that whirl and snatch and dash and smirch with eddying
dust-clouds, become the loathsome bird-monsters sent to hover over the
table of Phineus to claw and defile his dainty viands.[639] If we are to
choose an Aryan Storm-god for ideal grandeur, we must seek him in
‘... the hall where Runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale.’
Jakob Grimm has defined Odin or Woden as ‘the all-penetrating creative
and formative power.’ But such abstract conceptions can hardly be
ascribed to his barbaric worshippers. As little may his real nature be
discovered among the legends which degrade him to a historical king of
Northern men, an ‘Othinus rex.’ See the All-father sitting cloud-mantled
on his heaven-seat, overlooking the deeds of men, and we may discern in
him the attributes of the Heaven-god. Hear the peasant say of the raging
tempest, that it is ‘Odin faring by;’ trace the mythological transition
from Woden’s tempest to the ‘Wütende Heer,’ the ‘Wild Huntsman’ of our
own grand storm-myth, and we shall recognize the old Teutonic deity in
his function of cloud-compeller, of Tempest-god.[640] The ‘rude
Carinthian boor’ can show a relic from a yet more primitive stage of
mental history, when he sets up a wooden bowl of various meats on a tree
before his house, to fodder the wind that it may do no harm. In Swabia,
Tyrol, and the Upper Palatinate, when the storm rages, they will fling a
spoonful or a handful of meal in the face of the gale, with this formula
in the last-named district, ‘Da Wind, hast du Mehl für dein Kind, aber
aufhören musst du!’[641]
The Earth-deity takes an important place in polytheistic religion. The
Algonquins would sing medicine-songs to Mesukkummik Okwi, the Earth, the
Great-Grandmother of all. In her charge (and she must be ever at home in
her lodge) are left the animals whose flesh and skins are man’s food and
clothing, and the roots and medicines of sovereign power to heal
sickness and kill game in time of hunger; therefore good Indians never
dig up the roots of which their medicines are made, without depositing
an offering in the earth for Mesukkummik Okwi.[642] In the list of
fetish-deities of Peruvian tribes, the Earth, adored as Mamapacha,
Mother Earth, took high subordinate rank below Sun and Moon in the
pantheon of the Incas, and at harvest-time ground corn and libations of
chicha were offered to her that she might grant a good harvest.[643] Her
rank is similar in the Aquapim theology of West Africa; first the
Highest God in the firmament, then the Earth as universal mother, then
the fetish. The negro, offering his libation before some great
undertaking, thus calls upon the triad: ‘Creator, come drink! Earth,
come drink! Bosumbra, come drink!’[644]
Among the indigenes of India, the Bygah tribes of Seonee show a
well-marked worship of the Earth. They call her ‘Mother Earth’ or
Dhurteemah, and before praying or eating their food, which is looked on
always as a daily sacrifice, they invariably offer some of it to the
earth, before using the name of any other god.[645] Of all religions of
the world, perhaps that of the Khonds of Orissa gives the Earth-goddess
her most remarkable place and function. Boora Pennu or Bella Pennu, the
Light-god or Sun-god, created Tari Pennu the Earth-goddess for his
consort, and from them were born the other great gods. But strife arose
between the mighty parents, and it became the wife’s work to thwart the
good creation of her husband, and to cause all physical and moral ill.
Thus to the Sun-worshipping sect she stands abhorred on the bad eminence
of the Evil Deity. But her own sect, the Earth-worshipping sect, seem to
hold ideas of her nature which are more primitive and genuine. The
functions which they ascribe to her, and the rites with which they
propitiate her, display her as the Earth-mother, raised by an intensely
agricultural race to an extreme height of divinity. It was she who with
drops of her blood made the soft muddy ground harden into firm earth;
thus men learnt to offer human victims, and the whole earth became firm;
the pastures and ploughed fields came into use, and there were cattle
and sheep and poultry for man’s service; hunting began, and there were
iron and ploughshares and harrows and axes, and the juice of the
palm-tree; and love arose between the sons and daughters of the people,
making new households, and society with its relations of father and
mother, and wife and child, and the bonds between ruler and subject. It
was the Khond Earth-goddess who was propitiated with those hideous
sacrifices, the suppression of which is matter of recent Indian history.
With dances and drunken orgies, and a mystery play to explain in
dramatic dialogue the purpose of the rite, the priest offered Tari Pennu
her sacrifice, and prayed for children and cattle and poultry and brazen
pots and all wealth; every man and woman wished a wish, and they tore
the slave-victim piecemeal, and spread the morsels over the fields they
were to fertilize.[646] In Northern Asia, also, among the Tatar races,
the office of the Earth-deity is strongly and widely marked. Thus in the
nature-worship of the Tunguz and Buraets, Earth stands among the greater
divinities. It is especially interesting to notice among the Finns a
transition like that just observed from the god Heaven to the
Heaven-god. In the designation of Maaemä, Earth-mother, given to the
earth itself, there may be traced survival from the stage of direct
nature-worship, while the passage to the conception of a divine being
inhabiting and ruling the material substance, is marked by the use of
the name Maan emo, Earth’s mother, for the ancient subterranean goddess
whom men would ask to make the grass shoot thick and the thousandfold
ears mount high, or might even entreat to rise in person out of the
earth to give them strength. The analogy of other mythologies agrees
with the definition of the divine pair who reign in Finn theology: as
Ukko the Grandfather is the Heaven-god, so his spouse Akka the
Grandmother is the Earth-goddess.[647] Thus in the ancient
nature-worship of China, the personal Earth holds a place below the
Heaven. Tien and Tu are closely associated in the national rites, and
the idea of the pair as universal parents, if not an original conception
in Chinese theology, is at any rate developed in Chinese classic
symbolism. Heaven and Earth receive their solemn sacrifices not at the
hands of common mortals but of the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, and his
great vassals and mandarins. Yet their adoration is national; they are
worshipped by the people who offer incense to them on the hill-tops at
their autumn festival, they are adored by successful candidates in
competitive examination; and, especially and appropriately, the
prostration of bride and bridegroom before the father and mother of all
things, the ‘worshipping of Heaven and Earth,’ is the all-important
ceremony of a Chinese marriage.[648]
The Vedic hymns commemorate the goddess Prithivî, the broad Earth, and
in their ancient strophes the modern Brahmans still pray for benefits to
mother Earth and father Heaven, side by side:—
‘Tanno Vâto mayobhu vâtu bheshajam tanmâtâ Prithivî tatpitâ
Dyauh.’[649]
Greek religion shows a transition to have taken place like that among
the Turanian tribes, for the older simpler nature-deity Gaia, Γῆ πάντων
μήτηρ, Earth the All-Mother, seems to have faded into the more
anthropomorphic Dēmētēr, Earth-Mother, whose eternal fire burned in
Mantinēa, and whose temples stood far and wide over the land which she
made kindly to the Greek husbandman.[650] The Romans acknowledged her
plain identity as Terra Mater, Ops Mater.[651] Tacitus could rightly
recognize this deity of his own land among German tribes, worshippers of
‘Nerthum (or, Hertham), id est Terram matrem,’ Mother Earth, whose holy
grove stood in an ocean isle, whose chariot drawn by cows passed through
the land making a season of peace and joy, till the goddess, satiated
with mortal conversation, was taken back by her priest to her temple,
and the chariot and garments and even the goddess herself were washed in
a secret lake, which forthwith swallowed up the ministering
slaves—‘hence a mysterious terror and sacred ignorance, what that should
be which only the doomed to perish might behold.’[652] If in these
modern days we seek in Europe traces of Earth-worship, we may find them
in curiously distinct survival in Germany, if no longer in the Christmas
food-offerings buried in and for the earth up to early in this
century,[653] at any rate among Gypsy hordes. Dewel, the great god in
heaven (dewa, deus), is rather feared than loved by these weatherbeaten
outcasts, for he harms them on their wanderings with his thunder and
lightning, his snow and rain, and his stars interfere with their dark
doings. Therefore they curse him foully when misfortune falls on them,
and when a child dies, they say that Dewel has eaten it. But Earth,
Mother of all good, self-existing from the beginning, is to them holy,
so holy that they take heed never to let the drinking-cup touch the
ground, for it would become too sacred to be used by men.[654]
Water-worship, as has been seen, may be classified as a special
department of religion. It by no means follows, however, that savage
water-worshippers should necessarily have generalized their ideas, and
passed beyond their particular water-deities to arrive at the conception
of a general deity presiding over water as an element. Divine springs,
streams, and lakes, water-spirits, deities concerned with the clouds and
rain, are frequent, and many details of them are cited here, but I have
not succeeded in finding among the lower races any divinity whose
attributes, fairly criticized, will show him or her to be an original
and absolute elemental Water-god. Among the deities of the Dakotas,
Unktahe the fish-god of the waters is a master-spirit of sorcery and
religion, the rival even of the mighty Thunderbird.[655] In the Mexican
pantheon, Tlaloc god of rain and waters, fertilizer of earth and lord of
paradise, whose wife is Chalchihuitlicue, Emerald-Skirt, dwells among
the mountain-tops where the clouds gather and pour down the
streams.[656] Yet neither of these mythic beings approaches the
generality of conception that belongs to full elemental deity, and even
the Greek Nēreus, though by his name he should be the very
personification of water (νηρός), seems too exclusively marine in his
home and family to be cited as the Water-god. Nor is the reason of this
hard to find. It is an extreme stretch of the power of theological
generalization to bring water in its myriad forms under one divinity,
though each individual body of water, even the smallest stream or lake,
can have its personal individuality or indwelling spirit.
Islanders and coast-dwellers indeed live face to face with mighty
water-deities, the divine Sea and the great Sea-gods. What the sea may
seem to an uncultured man who first beholds it, we may learn among the
Lampongs of Sumatra: ‘The inland people of that country are said to pay
a kind of adoration to the sea, and to make to it an offering of cakes
and sweetmeats on their beholding it for the first time, deprecating its
power of doing them mischief.’[657] The higher stage of such doctrine is
where the sea, no longer itself personal, is considered as ruled by
indwelling spirits. Thus Tuaraatai and Ruahatu, principal among marine
deities of Polynesia, send the sharks to execute their vengeance. Hiro
descends to the depths of the ocean and dwells among the monsters, they
lull him to sleep in a cavern, the Wind-god profits by his absence to
raise a violent storm to destroy the boats in which Hiro’s friends are
sailing, but, roused by a friendly spirit-messenger, the Sea-god rises
to the surface and quells the tempest.[658] This South Sea Island myth
might well have been in the Odyssey. We may point to the Guinea Coast as
a barbaric region where Sea-worship survives in its extremest form. It
appears from Bosman’s account, about 1700, that in the religion of
Whydah, the Sea ranked only as younger brother in the three divine
orders, below the Serpents and Trees. But at present, as appears from
Captain Burton’s evidence, the religion of Whydah extends through
Dahome, and the divine Sea has risen in rank. ‘The youngest brother of
the triad is Hu, the ocean or sea. Formerly it was subject to
chastisement, like the Hellespont, if idle or useless. The Huno, or
ocean priest, is now considered the highest of all, a fetish king, at
Whydah, where he has 500 wives. At stated times he repairs to the beach,
begs ‘Agbwe,’ the ... ocean god, not to be boisterous, and throws in
rice and corn, oil and beans, cloth, cowries, and other valuables.... At
times the king sends as an ocean sacrifice from Agbome a man carried in
a hammock, with the dress, the stool, and the umbrella of a caboceer; a
canoe takes him out to sea, where he is thrown to the sharks.’[659]
While in these descriptions the individual divine personality of the sea
is so well marked, an account of the closely related Slave Coast
religion states that a great god dwells in the sea, and it is to him,
not to the sea itself, that offerings are cast in.[660] In South America
the idea of the divine Sea is clearly marked in the Peruvian worship of
Mamacocha, Mother Sea, giver of food to men.[661] Eastern Asia, both in
its stages of lower and higher civilization, contributes members to the
divine group. In Kamchatka, Mitgk the Great Spirit of the Sea, fish-like
himself, sends the fish up the rivers.[662] Japan deifies separately on
land and at sea the lords of the waters; Midsuno Kami, the Water-god, is
worshipped during the rainy season; Jebisu, the Sea-god, is younger
brother of the Sun.[663]
Among barbaric races we thus find two conceptions current, the personal
divine Sea and the anthropomorphic Sea-god. These represent two stages
of development of one idea—the view of the natural object as itself an
animated being, and the separation of its animating fetish-soul as a
distinct spiritual deity. To follow the enquiry into classic times shows
the same distinction as strongly marked. When Kleomenes marched down to
Thyrea, having slaughtered a bull to the sea (σφαγιασάμενος δέ τῇ
θαλάσσῃ ταῦρον) he embarked his army in ships for the Tirynthian land
and Nauplia.[664] Cicero makes Cotta remark to Balbus that ‘our
generals, embarking on the sea, have been accustomed to immolate a
victim to the waves,’ and he goes on to argue, not unfairly, that if the
Earth herself is a goddess, what is she other than Tellus, and ‘if the
Earth, the Sea too, whom thou saidst to be Neptune.’[665] Here is direct
nature-worship in its extremest sense of fetish-worship. But in the
anthropomorphic stage appear that dim præ-Olympian figure of Nēreus the
Old Man of the Sea, father of the Nereids in their ocean caves, and the
Homeric Poseidōn the Earth-shaker, who stables his coursers in his cave
in the Ægean deeps, who harnesses the gold-maned steeds to his chariot
and drives through the dividing waves, while the subject sea-beasts come
up at the passing of their lord, a king so little bound to the element
he governs, that he can come from the brine to sit in the midst of the
gods in the assembly on Olympos, and ask the will of Zeus.[666]
Fire-worship brings into view again, though under different aspects and
with different results, the problems presented by water-worship. The
real and absolute worship of fire falls into two great divisions, the
first belonging rather to fetishism, the second to polytheism proper,
and the two apparently representing an earlier and later stage of
theological ideas. The first is the rude barbarian’s adoration of the
actual flame which he watches writhing, roaring, devouring like a live
animal; the second belongs to an advanced generalization, that any
individual fire is a manifestation of one general elemental being—the
Fire-god. Unfortunately, evidence of the exact meaning of fire-worship
among the lower races is scanty, while the transition from fetishism to
polytheism seems a gradual process of which the stages elude close
definition. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that rites performed with
fire are, though often, yet by no means necessarily, due to worship of
the fire itself. Authors who have indiscriminately mixed up such rites
as the new fire, the perpetual fire, the passing through the fire,
classing them as acts of fire-worship, without proper evidence as to
their meaning in any particular case, have added to the perplexity of a
subject not too easy to deal with, even under strict precautions. Two
sources of error are especially to be noted. On the one hand, fire
happens to be a usual means whereby sacrifices are transmitted to
departed souls and deities in general; and on the other hand, the
ceremonies of earthly fire-worship are habitually and naturally
transferred to celestial fire-worship in the religion of the Sun.
It may best serve the present purpose to carry a line of some of the
best-defined facts which seems to bear on fire-worship proper, from
savagery on into the higher culture. In the last century, Loskiel, a
missionary among the North American Indians, remarks that ‘In great
danger, an Indian has been observed to lie prostrate on his face, and
throwing a handful of tobacco into the fire, to call aloud, as in an
agony of distress, “There, take and smoke, be pacified, and don’t hurt
me.”’ Of course this may have been a mere sacrifice transmitted to some
other spiritual being through fire, but we have in this region explicit
statements as to a distinct fire-deity. The Delawares, it appears from
the same author, acknowledged the Fire-manitu, first parent of all
Indian nations, and celebrated a yearly festival in his honour, when
twelve manitus, animal and vegetable, attended him as subordinate
deities.[667] In North-West America, in Washington Irving’s account of
the Chinooks and other Columbia River Tribes, mention is made of the
spirit which inhabits fire. Powerful both for evil and good, and
seemingly rather evil than good in nature, this being must be kept in
good humour by frequent offerings. The Fire-spirit has great influence
with the winged aërial supreme deity, wherefore the Indians implore him
to be their interpreter, to procure them success in hunting and fishing,
fleet horses, obedient wives, and male children.[668] In the elaborately
systematic religion of Mexico, there appears in his proper place a
Fire-god, closely related to the Sun-god in character, but keeping well
marked his proper identity. His name was Xiuhteuctli, Fire-lord, and
they called him likewise Huehueteotl, the old god. Great honour was paid
to this god Fire, who gives them heat, and bakes their cakes, and roasts
their meat. Therefore at every meal the first morsel and libation were
cast into the fire, and every day the deity had incense burnt to him.
Twice in the year were held his solemn festivals. At the first, a felled
tree was set up in his honour, and the sacrificers danced round his fire
with the human victims, whom afterwards they cast into a great fire,
only to drag them out half roasted for the priests to complete the
sacrifice. The second was distinguished by the rite of the new fire, so
well known in connexion with solar worship; the friction-fire was
solemnly made before the image of Xiuhteuctli in his sanctuary in the
court of the great teocalli, and the game brought in at the great hunt
which began the festival was cooked at the sacred fire for the banquets
that ended it.[669] Polynesia well knows from the mythological point of
view Mahuika the Fire-god, who keeps the volcano-fire on his
subterranean hearth, whither Maui goes down (as the Sun into the
Underworld) to bring up fire for man; but in the South Sea islands there
is scarcely a trace of actual rites of fire-worship.[670] In West
Africa, among the gods of Dahome is Zo the fire-fetish; a pot of fire is
placed in a room, and sacrifice is offered to it, that fire may ‘live’
there, and not go forth to destroy the house.[671]
Asia is a region where distinct fire-worship may be peculiarly well
traced through the range of lower and higher civilization. The rude
Kamchadals, worshipping all things that did them harm or good,
worshipped the fire, offering to it noses of foxes and other game, so
that one might tell by looking at furs whether they had been taken by
baptized or heathen hunters.[672] The Ainos of Yesso worship Abe kamui
the Fire-deity as the benefactor of men, the messenger to the other
gods, the purifier who heals the sick.[673] Turanian tribes likewise
hold fire a sacred element, many Tunguz, Mongol, and Turk tribes
sacrifice to Fire, and some clans will not eat meat without first
throwing a morsel upon the hearth. The following passage is from a
Mongol wedding-song to the personified Fire, ‘Mother Ut, Queen of Fire,
thou who art made from the elm that grows on the mountain-tops of
Changgai-Chan and Burchatu-Chan, thou who didst come forth when heaven
and earth divided, didst come forth from the footsteps of Mother Earth,
and wast formed by the King of Gods. Mother Ut, whose father is the hard
steel, whose mother is the flint, whose ancestors are the elm-trees,
whose shining reaches to the sky and pervades the earth. Goddess Ut, we
bring thee yellow oil for offering, and a white wether with yellow head,
thou who hast a manly son, a beauteous daughter-in-law, bright
daughters. To thee, Mother Ut, who ever lookest upward, we bring brandy
in bowls, and fat in both hands. Give prosperity to the King’s son (the
bridegroom), to the King’s daughter (the bride), and to all the
people!’[674] As an analogue to Hephaistos the Greek divine smith, may
stand the Circassian Fire-god, Tleps, patron of metal-workers, and the
peasants whom he has provided with plough and hoe.[675]
Among the most ancient cultured nations of the Old World, Egyptians,
Babylonians, Assyrians, accounts of fire-worship are absent, or so
scanty and obscure that their study is more valuable in compiling the
history than in elucidating the principles of religion.[676] For this
scientific purpose, the more full and minute documents of Aryan religion
can give a better answer. In various forms and under several names, the
Fire-god is known. Nowhere does he carry his personality more distinctly
than under his Sanskrit name of Agni, a word which keeps its quality,
though not his divinity, in the Latin ‘ignis.’ The name of Agni is the
first word of the first hymn of the Rig-Veda: ‘Agnim île puro-hitam
yajnasya devam ritvijam!—Agni I entreat, divine appointed priest of
sacrifice!’ The sacrifices which Agni receives go to the gods, he is the
mouth of the gods, but he is no lowly minister, as it is said in another
hymn:
‘No god indeed, no mortal is beyond the might of thee, the mighty
one, with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!’
Such the mighty Agni is among the gods, yet he comes within the
peasant’s cottage to be protector of the domestic hearth. His worship
has survived the transformation of the ancient patriarchal Vedic
religion of nature into the priest-ridden Hinduism of our own day. In
India there may yet be found the so-called Fire-priests (Agnihotri) who
perform according to Vedic rite the sacrifices entitling the worshippers
to heavenly life. The sacred fire-drill for churning the new fire by
friction of wood (arani) is used so that Agni still is new-born of the
twirling fire-sticks, and receives the melted butter of the
sacrifice.[677] Among the records of fire-worship in Asia, is the
account of Jonas Hanways’s ‘Travels,’ dating from about 1740, of the
everlasting fire at the burning wells near Baku, on the Caspian. At the
sacred spot stood several ancient stone temples, mostly arched vaults 10
to 15 feet high. One little temple was still used for worship, near the
altar of which, about three feet high, a large hollow cane conveyed the
gas up from the ground, burning at the mouth with a blue flame. Here
were generally forty or fifty poor devotees, come on pilgrimage from
their country to make expiation for themselves and others, and
subsisting on wild celery, &c. These pilgrims are described as marking
their foreheads with saffron, and having great veneration for a red cow;
they wore little clothing, and the holiest of them kept one arm on their
heads, or continued unmoved in some other posture; they are described as
Ghebers, or Gours, the usual Moslem term for Fire-worshippers.[678]
In general, this name of Ghebers is applied to the Zoroastrians or
Parsis, whom a modern European would all but surely point to if asked to
instance a modern race of Fire-worshippers. Classical accounts of the
Persian religion set down fire-worship as part and parcel of it; the
Magi, it is recorded, hold the gods to be Fire and Earth and Water; and
again, the Persians reckon the Fire to be a god (θεοφοροῦσιν).[679] On
the testimony of the old religious books of the Parsis themselves, Fire,
as the greatest Ized, as giver of increase and health, as craving for
wood and scents and fat, seems to take the distinctest divine
personality. Their doctrine that Ardebehist, the presiding angel or
spirit of fire, is adored, but not the material object he belongs to, is
a perfect instance of the development of the idea of an elemental
divinity from that of an animated fetish. When, driven by Moslem
persecution from Persia, Parsi exiles landed in Gujarat, they described
their religion in an official document as being the worship of Agni or
Fire, thus claiming for themselves a place among recognized Hindu
sects.[680] In modern times, though for the most part the Parsis have
found toleration and prosperity in India, yet an oppressed remnant of
the race still keeps up the everlasting fires at Yezd and Kirman, in
their old Persian land. The modern Parsis, as in Strabo’s time, scruple
to defile the fire or blow it with their breath, they abstain from
smoking out of regard not to themselves but to the sacred element, and
they keep up consecrated ever-burning fires before which they do
worship. Nevertheless, Prof. Max Müller is able to say of the Parsis of
our own day: ‘The so-called Fire-worshippers certainly do not worship
the fire, and they naturally object to a name which seems to place them
on a level with mere idolators. All they admit is, that in their youth
they are taught to face some luminous object while worshipping God, and
that they regard the fire, like other great natural phenomena, as an
emblem of the Divine power. But they assure us that they never ask
assistance or blessings from an unintelligent material object, nor is it
even considered necessary to turn the face to any emblem whatever in
praying to Ormuzd.’[681] Now, admitting this view of fire-worship as
true of the more intelligent Parsis, and leaving aside the question how
far among the more ignorant this symbolism may blend (as in such cases
is usual) into actual adoration, we may ask what is the history of
ceremonies which thus imitate, yet are not, fire-worship. The
ethnographic answer is clear and instructive. The Parsi is the
descendant of a race in this respect represented by the modern Hindu, a
race who did simply and actually worship Fire. Fire-worship still forms
a link historically connecting the Vedic with the Zoroastrian ritual;
for the Agnishtoma or praise of Agni the Fire, where four goats are to
be sacrificed and burnt, is represented by the Yajishn ceremony, where
the Parsi priests are now content to put some hair of an ox in a vessel
and show it to the Fire. But the development of the more philosophic
Zarathustrian doctrines has led to a result common in the history of
religion, that the ancient distinctly meant rite has dwindled to a
symbol, to be preserved with changed sense in a new theology.
Somewhat of the same kind may have taken place among the European race
who seem in some respects the closest relatives of the old Persians.
Slavonic history possibly keeps up some trace of direct and absolute
fire-worship, as where in Bohemia the Pagans are described as
worshipping fires, groves, trees, stones. But though the Lithuanians and
Old Prussians and Russians are among the nations whose especial rite it
was to keep up sacred everlasting fires, yet it seems that their
fire-rites were in the symbolic stage, ceremonies of their great
celestial-solar religion, rather than acts of direct worship to a
Fire-god.[682] Classical religion, on the other hand, brings prominently
into view the special deities of fire. Hēphaistos, Vulcan, the divine
metallurgist who had his temples on Ætna and Lipari, stands in especial
connexion with the subterranean volcanic fire, and combines the nature
of the Polynesian Mahuika and the Circassian Tleps. The Greek Hestia,
the divine hearth, the ever-virgin venerable goddess, to whom Zeus gave
fair office instead of wedlock, sits in the midst of the house,
receiving fat:—
‘Τῇ δὲ πατὴρ Ζεὺς δῶκε καλὸν γέρας ἀντὶ γάμοιο,
Καί τε μέσῳ οἴκῳ κατ’ ἄρ’ ἔζετο πῖαρ ἑλοῦσα.’
In the high halls of gods and men she has her everlasting seat, and
without her are no banquets among mortals, for to Hestia first and last
is poured the honey-sweet wine:—
‘Ἐστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν
Ἀθανάτων τε θεῶν χαμαὶ ἐρχομένων τ’ ἀνθρώπων
Ἔδρην ἀίδιον ἔλαχε, πρεσβηίδα τιμὴν,
Καλὸν ἔχουσα γέρας καὶ τίμιον· οὐ γὰρ ἄτερ σοῦ
Εἰλαπίναι θνητοῖσιν, ἵν’ οὐ πρῶτῃ πυμάτῃ τε
Ἑστίῃ ἀρχόμενος σπένδει μελιηδέα οἶνον.’[683]
In Greek civil life, Hestia sat in house and assembly as representative
of domestic and social order. Like her in name and origin, but not
altogether in development, is Vesta with her ancient Roman cultus, and
her retinue of virgins to keep up her pure eternal fire in her temple,
needing no image, for she herself dwelt within:—
‘Esse diu stultus Vestæ simulacra putavi:
Mox didici curvo nulla subesse tholo.
Ignis inextinctus templo celatur in illo.
Effigiem nullam Vesta nec ignis habet.’[684]
The last lingering relics of fire-worship in Europe reach us, as usual,
both through Turanian and Aryan channels of folklore. The Esthonian
bride consecrates her new hearth and home by an offering of money cast
into the fire, or laid on the oven for Tule-ema, Fire-mother.[685] The
Carinthian peasant will ‘fodder’ the fire to make it kindly, and throw
lard or dripping to it, that it may not burn his house. To the Bohemian
it is a godless thing to spit into the fire, ‘God’s fire’ as he calls
it. It is not right to throw away the crumbs after a meal, for they
belong to the fire. Of every kind of dish some should be given to the
fire, and if some runs over it is wrong to scold, for it belongs to the
fire. It is because these rites are now so neglected that harmful fires
so often break out.[686]
What the Sea is to Water-worship, in some measure the Sun is to
Fire-worship. From the doctrines and rites of earthly fire, various and
ambiguous in character, generalized from many phenomena, applied to many
purposes, we pass to the religion of heavenly fire, whose great deity
has a perfect definiteness from his embodiment in one great individual
fetish, the Sun.
Rivalling in power and glory the all-encompassing Heaven, the Sun moves
eminent among the deities of nature, no mere cosmic globe affecting
distant material worlds by force in the guise of light and heat and
gravity, but a living reigning Lord:—
‘O thou, that with surpassing glory crown’d,
Look’st from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world.’
It is no exaggeration to say, with Sir William Jones, that one great
fountain of all idolatry in the four quarters of the globe was the
veneration paid by men to the sun: it is no more than an exaggeration to
say with Mr. Helps of the sun-worship in Peru, that it was inevitable.
Sun-worship is by no means universal among the lower races of mankind,
but manifests itself in the upper levels of savage religion in districts
far and wide over the earth, often assuming the prominence which it
keeps and develops in the faiths of the barbaric world. Why some races
are sun-worshippers and others not, is indeed too hard a question to
answer in general terms. Yet one important reason is obvious, that the
Sun is not so evidently the god of wild hunters and fishers, as of the
tillers of the soil, who watch him day by day giving or taking away
their wealth and their very life. On the geographical significance of
sun-worship, D’Orbigny has made a remark, suggestive if not altogether
sound, connecting the worship of the sun not so much with the torrid
regions where his glaring heat oppresses man all day long, and drives
him to the shade for refuge, as with climates where his presence is
welcomed for his life-giving heat, and nature chills at his departure.
Thus while the low sultry forests of South America show little
prominence of Sun-worship, this is the dominant organized cultus of the
high table-lands of Peru and Cundinamarca.[687] The theory is ingenious,
and if not carried too far may often be supported. We may well compare
the feelings with which the sun-worshipping Massagetæ of Tartary must
have sacrificed their horses to the deity who freed them from the
miseries of winter, with the thoughts of men in those burning lands of
Central Africa where, as Sir Samuel Baker says, ‘the rising of the sun
is always dreaded ... the sun is regarded as the common enemy,’ words
which recall Herodotus’ old description of the Atlantes or Atarantes who
dwelt in the interior of Africa, who cursed the sun at his rising, and
abused him with shameful epithets for afflicting them with his burning
heat, them and their land.[688]
The details of Sun-worship among the native races of America give an
epitome of its development among mankind at large. Among many of the
ruder tribes of the northern continent, the Sun is looked upon as one of
the great deities, as representative of the greatest deity, or as that
greatest deity himself. Indian chiefs of Hudson’s Bay smoked thrice to
the rising sun. In Vancouver Island men pray in time of need to the sun
as he mounts toward the zenith. Among the Delawares the sun received
sacrifice as second among the twelve great manitus; the Virginians bowed
before him with uplifted hands and eyes as he rose and set; the
Pottawatomis would climb sometimes at sunrise on their huts, to kneel
and offer to the luminary a mess of Indian corn; his likeness is found
representing the Great Manitu in Algonquin picture-writings. Father
Hennepin, whose name is well known to geologists as the earliest visitor
to the Falls of Niagara, about 1678, gives an account of the native
tribes, Sioux and others, of this far-west region. He describes them as
venerating the Sun, ‘which they recognize, though only in appearance, as
the Maker and Preserver of all things;’ to him first they offer the
calumet when they light it, and to him they often present the best and
most delicate of their game in the lodge of the chief, ‘who profits more
by it than the Sun.’ The Creeks regarded the Sun as symbol or minister
of the Great Spirit, sending toward him the first puff of the calumet at
treaties, and bowing reverently toward him in confirming their council
talk or haranguing their warriors to battle.[689] Among the rude
Botocudos of Brazil, the idea of the Sun as the great good deity seems
not unknown; the Araucanians are described as bringing offerings to him
as highest deity; the Puelches as ascribing to the sun, and praying to
him for, all good things they possess or desire; the Diaguitas of
Tucuman as having temples dedicated to the Sun, whom they adored, and to
whom they consecrated birds’ feathers, which they then brought back to
their cabins, and sprinkled from time to time with the blood of
animals.[690]
Such accounts of Sun-worship appearing in the lower native culture of
America, may be taken to represent its first stage. It is on the whole
within distinctly higher culture that its second stage appears, where it
has attained to full development of ritual and appurtenance, and become
in some cases even the central doctrine of national religion and
statecraft. Sun-worship had reached this level among the Natchez of
Louisiana, with whom various other tribes of this district stood in
close relation. Every morning at sunrise the great Sun-chief stood at
the house-door facing the east, shouted and prostrated himself thrice,
and smoked first toward the sun, and then toward the other three
quarters. The Sun-temple was a circular hut some thirty feet across and
dome-roofed: here in the midst was kept up the everlasting fire, here
prayer was offered thrice daily, and here were kept images and fetishes
and the bones of dead chiefs. The Natchez government was a solar
hierarchy. At its head stood the great chief, called the Sun or the
Sun’s brother, high priest and despot over his people. By his side stood
his sister or nearest female relative, the female chief who of all women
was alone permitted to enter the Sun-temple. Her son, after the custom
of female succession common among the lower races, would succeed to the
primacy and chiefship; and the solar family took to themselves, wives
and husbands from the plebeian order, who were their inferiors in life,
and were slain to follow them as attendants in death.[691] Another
nation of sun-worshippers were the Apalaches of Florida, whose daily
service was to salute the Sun at their doors as he rose and set. The
Sun, they said, had built his own conical mountain of Olaimi, with its
spiral path leading to the cave-temple, in the east side. Here, at the
four solar festivals, the worshippers saluted the rising sun with chants
and incense as his rays entered the sanctuary, and again when at midday
the sunlight poured down upon the altar through the hole or shaft
pierced for this purpose in the rocky vault of the cave; through this
passage the sun-birds, the tonatzuli, were let fly up sunward as
messengers, and the ceremony was over.[692] Day by day, in the temples
of Mexico, the rising sun was welcomed with blast of horns, and incense,
and offering of a little of the officiators’ own blood drawn from their
ears, and a sacrifice of quails. Saying, the Sun has risen, we know not
how he will fulfil his course nor whether misfortune will happen, they
prayed to him—‘Our Lord, do your office prosperously.’ In distinct and
absolute personality, the divine Sun in Aztec theology was Tonatiuh,
whose huge pyramid-mound stands on the plain of Teotihuacan, a witness
of his worship for future ages. Beyond this, the religion of Mexico, in
its complex system or congeries of great gods, such as results from the
mixture and alliance of the deities of several nations, shows the solar
element rooted deeply and widely in other personages of its divine
mythology, and attributes especially to the Sun the title of Teotl,
God.[693] Again, the high plateau of Bogota in New Granada was the seat
of the semi-civilized Chibchas or Muyscas, of whose mythology and
religion the leading ideas were given by the Sun. The Sun was the great
deity to whom the human sacrifices were offered, and especially the
holiest sacrifice, the blood of a pure captive youth daubed on a rock on
a mountain-top for the rising sun to shine on. In native Muysca legend,
the mythic civilizer of the land, the teacher of agriculture, the
founder of the theocracy and institutor of sun-worship, is a figure in
whom we cannot fail to discern the personal Sun himself.[694] It is
thus, lastly, in the far more celebrated native theocracy to the south.
In the royal religion of Peru, the Sun was at once ancestor and founder
of the dynasty of Incas, who reigned as his representatives and almost
in his person, who took wives from the convent of virgins of the Sun,
and whose descendants were the solar race, the ruling aristocracy. The
Sun’s innumerable flocks of llamas grazed on the mountains, and his
fields were tilled in the valleys, his temples stood throughout the
land, and first among them the ‘Place of Gold’ in Cuzco, where his new
fire was kindled at the annual solar festival of Raymi, and where his
splendid golden disc with human countenance looked forth to receive the
first rays of its divine original. Sun-worship was ancient in Peru, but
it was the Incas who made it the great state religion, imposing it
wherever their wide conquests reached, till it became the central idea
of Peruvian life.[695] The culture of the Old World never surpassed this
highest range of Sun-worship in the New.
In Australia and Polynesia the place of the solar god or hero is rather
in myth than in religion. In Africa, though found in some
districts,[696] Sun-worship is not very conspicuous out of Egypt. In
tracing its Old World development, we begin among the ruder Allophylian
tribes of Asia, and end among the great polytheistic nations. The
northeast quarter of India shows the doctrine well defined among the
indigenous stocks. The Bodo and Dhimal place the Sun in the pantheon as
an elemental god, though in practical rank below the sacred rivers.[697]
The Kol tribes of Bengal, Mundas, Oraons, Santals, know and worship as
supreme, Sing-bonga, the Sun-god; to him some tribes offer white animals
in token of his purity, and while not regarding him as author of
sickness or calamity, they will resort to him when other divine aid
breaks down in sorest need.[698] Among the Khonds, Bura Pennu the
Light-god, or Bella Pennu the Sun-god, is creator of all things in
heaven and earth, and great first cause of good. As such, he is
worshipped by his own sect above the ranks of minor deities whom he
brought into being to carry out the details of the universal work.[699]
The Tatar tribes with much unanimity recognize as a great god the Sun,
whose figure may be seen beside the Moon’s on their magic drums, from
Siberia to Lapland. Castrén, the ethnologist, speaking of the Samoyed
expression for heaven or deity in general (jilibeambaertje), tells an
anecdote from his travels, which gives a lively idea of the thorough
simple nature-religion still possible to the wanderers of the steppes.
‘A Samoyed woman,’ he says, ‘told me it was her habit every morning and
evening to step out of her tent and bow down before the sun; in the
morning saying, “When thou Jilibeambaertje risest, I too rise from my
bed!” in the evening, “When thou Jilibeambaertje sinkest down, I too get
me to rest!” The woman brought this as a proof of her assertion that
even among the Samoyeds they said their morning and evening prayers, but
she added with pity that “there were also among them wild people who
never sent up a prayer to God.”’ Mongol hordes may still be met with
whose shamans invoke the Sun, and throw milk up into the air as an
offering to him, while the Karagas Tatars would bring to him as a
sacrifice the head and heart of bear or stag. Tunguz, Ostyaks, Woguls,
worship him in a character blending with that of their highest deity and
Heaven-god; while among the Lapps, Baiwe the Sun, though a mighty deity,
stood in rank below Tiermes the Thunder-god, and the great celestial
ruler who had come to bear the Norwegian name of Storjunkare.[700]
In direct personal nature-worship like that of Siberian nomades of our
day, the solar cultus of the ancient pastoral Aryans had its source. The
Vedic bards sing of the great god Sûrya, knower of beings, the
all-revealer before whom the stars depart with the nights like thieves.
We approach Sûrya (they say) shining god among the gods, light most
glorious. He shines on the eight regions, the three worlds, the seven
rivers; the golden-handed Savitar, all-seeing, goes between heaven and
earth. To him they pray, ‘On thy ancient paths, O Savitar, dustless,
well made, in the air, on those good-going paths this day preserve us
and bless us, O God!’ Modern Hinduism is full of the ancient
Sun-worship, in offerings and prostrations, in daily rites and appointed
festivals, and it is Savitar the Sun who is invoked in the ‘gâyatrî,’
the time-honoured formula repeated day by day since long-past ages by
every Brahman: ‘Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhîmahi dhiyo yo nah
prakodayât.—Let us meditate on the desirable light of the divine Sun;
may he rouse our minds!’ Every morning the Brahman worships the sun,
standing on one foot and resting the other against his ankle or heel,
looking towards the east, holding his hands open before him in a hollow
form, and repeating to himself these prayers: ‘The rays of light
announce the splendid fiery sun, beautifully rising to illumine the
universe.’—‘He rises, wonderful, the eye of the sun, of water, and of
fire, collective power of gods; he fills heaven, earth, and sky with his
luminous net; he is the soul of all that is fixed or locomotive.’—‘That
eye, supremely beneficial, rises pure from the east; may we see him a
hundred years; may we live a hundred years; may we hear a hundred
years.’—‘May we, preserved by the divine power, contemplating heaven
above the region of darkness, approach the deity, most splendid of
luminaries!’[701] A Vedic celestial deity, Mitra the Friend, came to be
developed in the Persian religion into that great ruling divinity of
light, the victorious Mithra, lord of life and head of all created
beings. The ancient Persian Mihr-Yasht invokes him in the character of
the sun-light, Mithra with wide pastures, whom the lords of the regions
praise at early dawn, who as the first heavenly Yazata rises over
Hara-berezaiti before the sun, the immortal with swift steeds, who first
with golden form seizes the fair summits, then surrounds the whole Aryan
region. Mithra came to be regarded as the very Sun, as where Dionysos
addresses the Tyrian Bel, ‘εἴτε σὺ Μίθρης Ηέλιος Βαβυλῶνος.’ His worship
spread from the East across the Roman empire, and in Europe he takes
rank among the great solar gods absolutely identified with the personal
Sun, as in this inscription on a Roman altar dating from Trajan’s
time—‘Deo Soli Mithræ.’[702] The earlier Sun-worship of Europe, upon
which this new Oriental variety was intruded, in certain of its
developments shows the same clear personality. The Greek Helios, to whom
horses were sacrificed on the mountain-top of Taugetos, was that same
personal Sun to whom Sokrates, when he had staid rapt in thought till
daybreak, offered a prayer before he departed (ἔπειτ’ ὤχετ’ ἀπιὼν
προσευξάμενος τῷ ἡλιῳ).[703] Cæsar devotes to the German theology of his
time three lines of his Commentaries. They reckon in the number of the
gods, he says, those only whom they perceive and whose benefits they
openly enjoy, Sun and Vulcan and Moon, the rest they know not even by
report.[704] It is true that Cæsar’s short summary does no justice to
the real number and quality of the deities of the German pantheon, yet
his forcible description of nature-worship in its most primitive stage
may probably be true of the direct adoration of the sun and moon, and
possibly of fire. On the other hand, European sun-worship leads into the
most perplexing problems of mythology. Well might Cicero exclaim, ‘How
many suns are set forth by the theologians!’[705] The modern student who
shall undertake to discriminate among the Sun-gods of European lands, to
separate the solar and non-solar elements of the Greek Apollo and
Herakles, or of the Slavonic Swatowit, has a task before him complicate
with that all but hopeless difficulty which besets the study of myth,
the moment that the clue of direct comparison with nature falls away.
The religion of ancient Egypt is one of which we know much, yet
little—much of its temples, rites, names of deities, liturgical
formulas, but little of the esoteric religious ideas which lay hidden
within these outer manifestations. Yet it is clear that central solar
conceptions as it were radiate through the Egyptian theology. Ra, who
traverses in his boat the upper and lower regions of the universe, is
the Sun himself in plain cosmic personality. And to take two obvious
instances of solar characters in other deities, Osiris the manifester of
good and truth, who dies by the powers of darkness and becomes judge of
the dead in the west-land of Amenti, is solar in his divine nature, as
is also his son Horus, smiter of the monster Set.[706] In the religions
of the Semitic race, the place of the Sun is marked through a long range
of centuries. The warning to the Israelites lest they should worship and
serve sun, moon, and stars, and the mention of Josiah taking away the
horses that the Kings of Judah had given to the sun, and burning the
chariots of the sun with fire,[707] agree with the place given in other
Semitic religions to the Sun-god, Shamas of Assyria, or Baal, even
expressly qualified as Baal-Shemesh or Lord Sun. Syrian religion, like
Persian, introduced a new phase of Sun-worship into Rome, the cultus of
Elagabal, and the vile priest emperor who bore this divine name made it
more intelligible to classic ears as Heliogabalus.[708] Eusebius is a
late writer as regards Semitic religion, but with such facts as these
before us we need not withhold our confidence from him when he describes
the Phœnicians and Egyptians as holding Sun, Moon, and Stars to be gods,
sole causes of the generation and destruction of all things.[709]
The widely spread and deeply rooted religion of the Sun naturally
offered strenuous resistance to the invasion of Christianity, and it was
one of the great signs of the religious change of the civilized world
when Constantine, that ardent votary of the Sun, abandoned the faith of
Apollo for that of Christ. Amalgamation even proved possible between the
doctrines of Sabæism and Christianity, and in and near Armenia a sect of
Sun-worshippers have lasted on into modern times under the profession of
Jacobite Christians;[710] a parallel case within the limits of
Mohammedanism being that of Beduin Arabs who still continue the old
adoration of the rising sun, in spite of the Prophet’s expressed command
not to bow before the sun or moon, and in spite of the good Moslem’s
dictum, that ‘the sun rises between the devil’s horns.’[711] Actual
worship of the sun in Christendom soon shrank to the stage of survival.
In Lucian’s time the Greeks kissed their hands as an act of worship to
the rising sun; and Tertullian had still to complain of many Christians
that with an affectation of adoring the heavenly bodies they would move
their lips toward the sunrise (Sed et plerique vestrum affectatione
aliquando et cœlestia adorandi ad solis ortum labia vibratis).[712] In
the 5th century, Leo the Great complains of certain Christians who,
before entering the Basilica of St. Peter, or from the top of a hill,
would turn and bow to the rising sun; this comes, he says, partly of
ignorance and partly of the spirit of paganism.[713] To this day, in the
Upper Palatinate, the peasant takes off his hat to the rising sun; and
in Pomerania, the fever-stricken patient is to pray thrice turning
toward the sun at sunrise, ‘Dear Sun, come soon down, and take the
seventy-seven fevers from me. In the name of God the Father, &c.’[714]
For the most part, the ancient rites of solar worship are represented in
modern Christendom in two ways; by the ceremonies connected with turning
to the east, of which an account is given in an ensuing chapter under
the heading of Orientation; and in the continuance of the great
sun-festivals, countenanced by or incorporated in Christianity.
Spring-tide, reckoned by so many peoples as New-Year, has in great
measure had its solar characteristics transferred to the Paschal
festival. The Easter bonfires with which the North German hills used to
be ablaze mile after mile, are not altogether given up by local custom.
On Easter morning in Saxony and Brandenburg, the peasants still climb
the hill-tops before dawn, to see the rising sun give his three joyful
leaps, as our forefathers used to do in England in the days when Sir
Thomas Browne so quaintly apologized for declaring that ‘the sun doth
not dance on Easter Day.’ The solar rite of the New Fire, adopted by the
Roman Church as a Paschal ceremony, may still be witnessed in Europe,
with its solemn curfew on Easter Eve, and the ceremonial striking of the
new holy fire. On Easter Eve, under the solemn auspices of the Greek
Church, a mob of howling fanatics crush and trample to death the victims
who faint and fall in their struggles to approach the most shameless
imposture of modern Christendom, the miraculous fire from heaven which
descends into the Holy Sepulchre.[715] Two other Christian festivals
have not merely had solar rites transferred to them, but seem distinctly
themselves of solar origin. The Roman winter-solstice festival, as
celebrated on December 25 (VIII. Kal. Jan.) in connexion with the
worship of the Sun-god Mithra, appears to have been instituted in this
special form after the Eastern campaign of Aurelian A.D. 273, and to
this festival the day owes its apposite name of Birthday of the
Unconquered Sun, ‘Dies Natalis Solis invicti.’ With full symbolic
appropriateness, though not with historical justification, the day was
adopted in the Western Church, where it appears to have been generally
introduced by the 4th century, and whence in time it passed to the
Eastern Church, as the solemn anniversary of the birth of Christ, the
Christian Dies Natalis, Christmas Day. Attempts have been made to ratify
this date as matter of history, but no valid nor even consistent early
Christian tradition vouches for it. The real solar origin of the
festival is clear from the writings of the Fathers after its
institution. In religious symbolism of the material and spiritual sun,
Augustine and Gregory of Nyassa discourse on the glowing light and
dwindling darkness that follow the Nativity, while Leo the Great, among
whose people the earlier solar meaning of the festival evidently
remained in strong remembrance, rebukes in a sermon the pestiferous
persuasion, as he calls it, that this solemn day is to be honoured not
for the birth of Christ, but for the rising, as they say, of the new
sun.[716] As for modern memory of the sun-rites of mid-winter, Europe
recognizes Christmas as a primitive solar festival by bonfires which our
‘yule-log,’ the ‘souche de Noël,’ still keeps in mind; while the
adaptation of ancient solar thought to Christian allegory is as plain as
ever in the Christmas service chant, ‘Sol novus oritur.’[717] The solar
Christmas festival has its pendant at Midsummer. The summer solstice was
the great season of fire-festivals throughout Europe, of bonfires on the
heights, of dancing round and leaping through the fires, of sending
blazing fire-wheels to roll down from the hills into the valleys in sign
of the sun’s descending course. These ancient rites attached themselves
in Christendom to St. John’s Eve.[718] It seems as though the same train
of symbolism which had adapted the midwinter festival to the Nativity,
may have suggested the dedication of the midsummer festival to John the
Baptist, in clear allusion to his words, ‘He must increase, but I must
decrease.’
Moon-worship, naturally ranking below Sun-worship in importance, ranges
through nearly the same district of culture. There are remarkable cases
in which the Moon is recognized as a great deity by tribes who take less
account, or none at all, of the Sun. The rude savages of Brazil seem
especially to worship or respect the moon, by which they regulate their
time and festivals, and draw their omens. They would lift up their hands
to the moon with wonder-struck exclamations of teh! teh! they would have
children smoked by the sorcerers to preserve them from moon-given
sickness, or the women would hold up their babes to the luminary. The
Botocudos are said to give the highest rank among the heavenly bodies to
Taru the Moon, as causing thunder and lightning and the failure of
vegetables and fruits, and as even sometimes falling to the earth,
whereby many men die.[719] An old account of the Caribs describes them
as esteeming the Moon more than the Sun, and at new moon coming out of
their houses crying ‘Behold the Moon!’[720] The Ahts of Vancouver’s
Island, it is stated, worship the Sun and Moon, particularly the full
moon and the sun ascending to the zenith. Regarding the Moon as husband
and the Sun as wife, their prayers are more generally addressed to the
Moon as the superior deity; he is the highest object of their worship,
and they speak of him as ‘looking down upon the earth in answer to
prayer, and seeing everybody.’[721] With a somewhat different turn of
mythic fancy, the Hurons seem to have considered Ataentsic the Moon as
maker of the earth and man, and grandmother of Iouskeha the Sun, with
whom she governs the world.[722] In Africa, Moon-worship is prominent in
an immense district where Sun-worship is unknown or insignificant. Among
south-central tribes, men will watch for the first glimpses of the new
Moon, which they hail with shouts of kua! and vociferate prayers to it;
on such an occasion Dr. Livingstone’s Makololo prayed, ‘Let our journey
with the white man be prosperous!’ &c.[723] These people keep holiday at
new-moon, as indeed in many countries her worship is connected with the
settlement of periodic festival. Negro tribes seem almost universally to
greet the new Moon, whether in delight or disgust. The Guinea people
fling themselves about with droll gestures, and pretend to throw
firebrands at it; the Ashango men behold it with superstitious fear; the
Fetu negroes jumped thrice into the air with hands together and gave
thanks.[724] The Congo people fell on their knees, or stood and clapped
their hands, crying, ‘So may I renew my life as thou art renewed!’[725]
The Hottentots are described early in the last century as dancing and
singing all night at new and full moon, calling the Moon the Great
Captain, and crying to him ‘Be greeted!’ ‘Let us get much honey!’ ‘May
our cattle get much to eat and give much milk!’ With the same thought as
that just noticed in the district north-west of them, the Hottentots
connect the Moon in legend with that fatal message sent to Man, which
ought to have promised to the human race a moon-like renewal of life,
but which was perverted into a doom of death like that of the beast who
brought it.[726]
The more usual status of the Moon in the religions of the world is, as
nature suggests, that of a subordinate companion deity to the Sun, such
a position as is acknowledged in the precedence of Sunday to Monday.
Their various mutual relations as brother and sister, husband and wife,
have already been noticed here as matter of mythology. As wide-lying
rude races who place them thus side by side in their theology, it is
enough to mention the Delawares of North America,[727] the Ainos of
Yesso,[728] the Bodos of North-East-India,[729] the Tunguz of
Siberia.[730] This is the state of things which continues at higher
levels of systematic civilization. Beside the Mexican Tonatiuh the Sun,
Metztli the Moon had a smaller pyramid and temple;[731] in Bogota, the
Moon, identified in local myth with the Evil Deity, had her place and
figure in the temple beside the Sun her husband;[732] the Peruvian
Mother-Moon, Mama-Quilla, had her silver disc-face to match the golden
one of her brother and husband the Sun, whose companion she had been in
the legendary civilizing of the land.[733] In the ancient Kami-religion
of Japan, the supreme Sun-god ranks high above the Moon-god, who was
worshipped under the form of a fox.[734] Among the historic nations of
the Old World, documents of Semitic culture show Sun and Moon side by
side. For one, we may take the Jewish law, to stone with stones till
they died the man or woman who ‘hath gone and served other gods, and
worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven.’
For another, let us glance over the curious record of the treaty-oath
between Philip of Macedon and the general of the Carthaginian and Libyan
army, which so well shows how the original identity of nature-deities
may be forgotten in their different local shapes, so that the same
divinity may come twice or even three times over in as many national
names and forms. Herakles and Apollo stand in company with the personal
Sun, and as well as the personal Moon is to be seen the ‘Carthaginian
deity,’ whom there is reason to look on as Astarte, a goddess latterly
of lunar nature. This is the list of deities invoked: ‘Before Zeus and
Hera and Apollo; before the goddess of the Carthaginians (δαίμονος
Καρχηδονίων) and Herakles and Iolaos; before Ares, Triton, Poseidon;
before the gods who fought with the armies, and Sun and Moon and Earth;
before the rivers and meadows and waters; before all the gods who rule
Macedonia and the rest of Greece; before all the gods who were at the
war, they who have presided over this oath.’[735] When Lucian visited
the famous temple of Hierapolis in Syria, he saw the images of the other
gods, ‘but only of the Sun and Moon they show no images.’ And when he
asked why, they told him that the forms of other gods were not seen by
all, but Sun and Moon are altogether clear, and all men see them.[736]
In Egyptian theology, not to discuss other divine beings to whom a lunar
nature has been ascribed, it is at least certain that Khonsu is the Moon
in absolute personal divinity.[737] In Aryan theology, the personal Moon
stands as Selēnē beside the more anthropomorphic forms of Hekatē and
Artemis,[738] as Luna beside the less understood Lucina, and Diana with
her borrowed attributes,[739] while our Teutonic forefathers were
content with his plain name of Moon.[740] As for lunar survivals in the
higher religions, they are much like the solar. Monotheist as he is, the
Moslem still claps his hands at sight of the new moon, and says a
prayer.[741] In Europe in the 15th century it was matter of complaint
that some still adored the new moon with bended knee, or hood or hat
removed, and to this day we may still see a hat raised or a curtsey
dropped to her, half in conservatism and half in jest. It is with
reference to silver as the lunar metal, that money is turned when the
act of adoration is performed, while practical peasant wit dwells on the
ill-luck of having no piece of silver when the new moon is first
seen.[742]
Thus, in tracing the development of Nature-Worship, it appears that
though Fire, Air, Earth, and Water are not yet among the lower races
systematized into a quaternion of elements, their adoration, with that
of Sun and Moon, shows already arising in primitive culture the familiar
types of those great divinities, who received their further development
in the higher Polytheism.
Footnote 593:
Eyre, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 362; Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol.
iii. p. 228; Lang, ‘Queensland,’ p. 444.
Footnote 594:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 583.
Footnote 595:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. America,’ part i. p. 43.
Footnote 596:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 1322.
Footnote 597:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 180.
Footnote 598:
J. B. Schlegel, ‘Schlüssel zur Ewe Sprache,’ p. xii.; compare Bowen,
‘Yoruba Lang.’ in ‘Smithsonian Contrib.’ vol. i. p. xvi.
Footnote 599:
Samoiedia, in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 531.
Footnote 600:
Macpherson, p. 84, &c.
Footnote 601:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. ch. i.
Footnote 602:
Gladstone, ‘Juventus Mundi,’ ch. vii. &c.
Footnote 603:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii.
Footnote 604:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. pp. 33, 255, 275, 338, vol. ii. p. 692.
Footnote 605:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.,’ 1636, p. 107; Lafitau, ‘Mœurs des Sauvages
Amériquains,’ vol. i. p. 132. Schoolcraft, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 36, &c. 237.
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ pp. 48, 172. J. G. Müller, ‘Amer.
Urrelig.’ p. 119.
Footnote 606:
Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. p. 203.
Footnote 607:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 168, &c.; Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W.
Afr.’ p. 76.
Footnote 608:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 7, &c.
Footnote 609:
Plath, ‘Religion und Cultus der alten Chinesen,’ part i. p. 18, &c.;
part ii. p. 32; Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. p. 396. See Max Müller,
‘Lectures,’ 2nd S. p. 437; Legge, ‘Confucius,’ p. 100. For further
evidence as to savage and barbaric worship of the Heaven as Supreme
Deity, see chap. xvii.
Footnote 610:
Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd Series, p. 425; Grimm, ‘D. M.’ ch. ix.;
Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 4. Connexion of the Sanskrit Dyu with
the Scandinavian Tyr and the Anglo Saxon Tiw is perhaps rather of
etymology than definition.
Footnote 611:
Duff Macdonald, ‘Africana,’ vol. i. p. 60 (E. Centr. Afr.). Waitz,
‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 169 (W. Afr.) p. 416 (Damaras).
Footnote 612:
Markham, ‘Quichua Gr. and Dic.’ p. 9; J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp.
318, 368.
Footnote 613:
Ibid. pp. 496-9; Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ pp. 40, 72.
Footnote 614:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 89, 355.
Footnote 615:
Dalton, ‘Kols,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 34. Compare 1 Kings
xviii.
Footnote 616:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 36; Kalewala, Rune ii. 317.
Footnote 617:
Marc. Antonin. v. 7. ‘Ἐὐχὴ Ἀθηναίων, ὖσον, ὖσον, ὦ φίλε Ζεῦ, κατὰ τῆς
ἀρούρας τῶν Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν πεδίων.’
Footnote 618:
Petron. Arbiter. Sat. xliv. ‘Antea stolatæ ibant nudis pedibus in
clivum, passis capillis, mentibus puris, et Jovem aquam exorabant.
Itaque statim urceatim pluebat: aut tunc aut nunquam; et omnes
redibant udi tanquam mures.’ See Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 160.
Footnote 619:
Pr. Max v. Wied, ‘N. Amer.’ vol. ii. pp. 152, 223; J. G. Müller, p.
120; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 179.
Footnote 620:
Keating, ‘Narr.’ vol. i. p. 407; Eastman, ‘Dahcotah,’ p. 71; Brinton,
p. 150, &c.; see M’Coy, ‘Baptist Indian Missions,’ p. 363.
Footnote 621:
De la Borde, ‘Caraïbes,’ p. 530; Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 431.
Footnote 622:
De Laet, ‘Novus Orbis,’ xv. 2. Waitz, vol. iii. p. 417; J. G. Müller,
p. 270; also 421 (thunderstorms by anger of Sun, in Cumana, &c.).
Footnote 623:
Brinton, p. 153; Herrera, ‘Indias Occidentales,’ Dec., v. 4. J. G.
Müller p. 327. ‘Rites and Laws of the Yncas,’ tr. & ed. by C. R.
Markham, p. 16, see 81; Prescott, ‘Peru,’ vol. i. p. 86.
Footnote 624:
Bowen, ‘Yoruba Lang.’ p. xvi. in ‘Smithsonian Contr.’ vol. i. See
Burton, ‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 142. Details as to thunder-axes, &c., in
‘Early Hist. of Mankind,’ ch. viii.
Footnote 625:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 266.
Footnote 626:
Klemm, ‘C. G.’ vol. iv. p. 85. (Ossetes, &c.) See Welcker, vol. i. p.
170; Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 158. Bastian, ‘Mensch.’ vol. ii. p. 423
(Ali-sect.).
Footnote 627:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 39, &c.
Footnote 628:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 32. 1, 55. 5, 130. 8, 165; iii. 34. 9; vi. 20; x. 44.
9, 89. 9. Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd S. p. 427; ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p.
42, vol. ii. p. 323. See Muir, ‘Sanskrit Texts.’
Footnote 629:
Homer. Il. viii. 170, xvii. 595. Ovid. Fast. ii. 69. See Welcker,
‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. ii. p. 194.
Footnote 630:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 257.
Footnote 631:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ ch. viii. Edda; Gylfaginning, 21, 44.
Footnote 632:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Res.’ vol. i. p. 139, vol. ii. p. 214; Loskiel,
part i. p. 43; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 190. Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 157; J.
G. Müller, p. 56. Further American evidence in Brinton, ‘Myths of New
World,’ pp. 50, 74; Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 267 (Sillagiksartok,
Weather-spirit); De la Borde, ‘Caraïbes,’ p. 530 (Carib Star Curumon,
makes the billows and upsets canoes).
Footnote 633:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 329 (compare with the Maori
Tempest-god Tawhirimatea, Grey, ‘Polyn. Myth.’ p. 5); Schirren,
‘Wandersage der Neuseeländer,’ &c. p. 85; Yate, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 144.
See also Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 115.
Footnote 634:
Steller, ‘Kamschatka,’ p. 266.
Footnote 635:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 37, 68.
Footnote 636:
Boecler, pp. 106, 147.
Footnote 637:
See also Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iv. p. 85 (Circassian Water-god
and Wind-god).
Footnote 638:
Muir, ‘Sanskrit Texts,’ vol. v. p. 150.
Footnote 639:
Homer. Il. xxiii. 192, Odyss. xx. 66, 77; Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica;
Apollodor. i. 9. 21; Virg. Æn. i. 56; Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol.
i. p. 707, vol. iii. p. 67.
Footnote 640:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ pp. 121, 871.
Footnote 641:
Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksabergl.’ p. 86.
Footnote 642:
Tanner’s ‘Narrative,’ p. 193; Loskiel, l.c. See also Rochefort, ‘Iles
Antilles,’ p. 414; J. G. Müller, p. 178 (Antilles).
Footnote 643:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ i. 10; Rivero & Tschudi,
p. 161; J. G. Müller, p. 369.
Footnote 644:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 170.
Footnote 645:
‘Report of Ethnological Committee, Jubbulpore Exhibition,’ 1866-7.
Nagpore, 1868, part ii. p. 54.
Footnote 646:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ chap. vi.
Footnote 647:
Georgi, ‘Reise im Russ. Reich,’ vol. i. pp. 275, 317. Castrén, ‘Finn.
Myth,’ p. 86, &c.
Footnote 648:
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part i. pp. 36, 73, part ii. p.
32. Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. pp. 86, 354, 413, vol. ii. pp. 67,
380, 455.
Footnote 649:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 89. 4, &c., &c.
Footnote 650:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. i. p. 385, &c.
Footnote 651:
Varro de Ling. Lat. iv.
Footnote 652:
Tacit. Germania, 40. Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 229, &c.
Footnote 653:
Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksabergl.’ p. 87.
Footnote 654:
Liebich, ‘Die Zigeuner,’ pp. 30, 84.
Footnote 655:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 485; Eastman, ‘Dahcotah,’
pp. i. 118, 161.
Footnote 656:
Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 14.
Footnote 657:
Marsden, ‘Sumatra,’ p. 301; see also 303 (Tagals).
Footnote 658:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 328.
Footnote 659:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ letter xix.; in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 494. Burton,
‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 141. See also below, chap. xviii. (sacrifice).
Footnote 660:
Schlegel, ‘Ewe Sprache,’ p. xiv.
Footnote 661:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ i. 10, vi. 17; Rivero &
Tschudi, ‘Peru,’ p. 161.
Footnote 662:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 265.
Footnote 663:
Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ part v. p. 9.
Footnote 664:
Herod. vi. 76.
Footnote 665:
Cicero, De Natura Deorum, iii. 20.
Footnote 666:
Homer, Il. i. 538, xiii. 18, xx. 13. Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol.
i. p. 616 (Nereus), p. 622 (Poseidon). Cox, ‘Mythology of Aryan
Nations,’ vol. ii. ch. vi.
Footnote 667:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. pp. 41, 45. See also J. G. Müller, p.
55.
Footnote 668:
Irving, ‘Astoria,’ vol. ii. ch. xxii.
Footnote 669:
Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’ vi. c. 28, x. c. 22, 30; Brasseur,
‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. pp. 492, 522, 536.
Footnote 670:
Schirren, ‘Wandersage der Neuseeländer,’ &c., p. 32; Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ pp. 252, 527.
Footnote 671:
Burton, ‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 148; Schlegel, ‘Ewe Sprache,’ p. xv.
Footnote 672:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 276.
Footnote 673:
Batchelor in ‘Tr. As. Soc. Japan,’ vols. x. xvi.
Footnote 674:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 57; Billings, ‘N. Russia,’ p. 123 (Yakuts);
Bastian, ‘Vorstellungen von Wasser und Feuer,’ in ‘Zeitschr. für
Ethnologie,’ vol. i. p. 383 (Mongols).
Footnote 675:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. vi. p. 85 (Circassia). Welcker, vol. i. p.
663.
Footnote 676:
See ‘Records of the Past,’ vol. iii. p. 137, vol. ix. p. 143; Sayce,
‘Lectures on Rel. of Ancient Babylonians,’ p. 170. For accounts of
Semitic fire-worship, see Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 327, &c.,
337, &c., 401.
Footnote 677:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 1. 1, 19. 2, iii. 1. 18, &c.; Max Müller, vol. i. p.
39; Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 53. Haug, ‘Essays on Parsis,’ iv.;
‘Early Hist. of Mankind,’ p. 255.
Footnote 678:
Hanway, ‘Journal of Travels,’ London, 1753, vol. i. ch. lvii.
Footnote 679:
Diog. Lært. Proœm. ii. 6. Sextus Empiricus adv. Physicos, ix.; Strabo,
xv. 3, 13.
Footnote 680:
John Wilson, ‘The Parsi Religion,’ ch. iv.; ‘Avesta,’ tr. by Spiegel,
Yacna, i. lxi.
Footnote 681:
Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 169. Haug, ‘Essays on Parsis,’ p. 281.
Footnote 682:
Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ pp. 88, 98.
Footnote 683:
Homer. Hymn. Aphrod. 29, Hestia 1. Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol.
ii. pp. 686, 691.
Footnote 684:
Ovid. Fast. vi. 295.
Footnote 685:
Boecler, ‘Ehsten Abergl.’ p. 29, &c.
Footnote 686:
Wuttke, ‘Volksabergl.’ p. 86. Grohmann, ‘Aberglauben aus Böhmen,’ p.
41.
Footnote 687:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. i. p. 242.
Footnote 688:
Herod, i. 216, iv. 184. Baker, ‘Albert Nyanza,’ vol. i. p. 144.
Footnote 689:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. iii. p. 181 (Hudson’s B., Pottawatomies),
205 (Virginians). J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ p. 117 (Delawares,
Sioux, Mingos, &c.). Sproat, ‘Ind. of Vancouver’s I.’ in ‘Tr. Eth.
Soc.’ vol. v. p. 253. Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. p. 43
(Delawares). Hennepin, ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique,’ p. 302 (Sioux), &c.
Bartram, ‘Creek and Cherokee Ind.’ in ‘Tr. Amer. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii.
part i. pp. 20, 26; see also Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part ii. p.
127 (Comanches, &c.); Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 164; Gregg, vol. ii. p.
238 (Shawnees); but compare the remarks of Brinton, ‘Myths of New
World,’ p. 141.
Footnote 690:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 327 (Botocudos). Waitz, vol. iii.
p. 518 (Araucanians). Dobrizhoffer, vol. ii. p. 89 (Puelches).
Charlevoix, ‘Hist. du Paraguay,’ vol. i. p. 331 (Diaguitas). J. G.
Müller, p. 255 (Botocudos, Aucas, Diaguitas).
Footnote 691:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 172; Waitz, vol. iii. p.
217.
Footnote 692:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ book ii. ch. viii.
Footnote 693:
Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’ ix. c. 34; Sahagun, ‘Hist. de Nueva
España,’ ii. App. in Kingsborough, ‘Antiquities of Mexico;’ Waitz,
vol. iv. p. 138; J. G. Müller, p. 474, &c.; Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol.
iii. p. 487; Tylor, ‘Mexico,’ p. 141.
Footnote 694:
Piedrahita, ‘Hist. Gen. de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de Granada,’
Antwerp, 1688: part i. book i. c. iii. iv.; Humboldt, ‘Vues des
Cordillères;’ Waitz, vol. iv. p. 352, &c.; J. G. Müller, p. 432, &c.
Footnote 695:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ lib. i. c. 15, &c., iii.
c. 20; v. c. 2, 6; ‘Rites and Laws of the Yncas,’ tr. & ed. by C. R.
Markham, (Hakluyt Soc., 1873) p. 84; Prescott, ‘Peru,’ book i. ch.
iii.; Waitz, vol. iv. p. 447, &c.; J. G. Müller, p. 362, &c.
Footnote 696:
Meiners, ‘Gesch. der Rel.’ vol. i. p. 383. Burton, ‘Central Afr.’ vol.
ii. p. 346; ‘Dahome,’ vol. ii. p. 147.
Footnote 697:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ pp. 167, 175 (Bodos, &c.).
Footnote 698:
Dalton, ‘Kols,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 33 (Oraons, &c.);
Hunter, ‘Annals of Rural Bengal,’ p. 184 (Santals).
Footnote 699:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 84, &c. (Khonds).
Footnote 700:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 16, 51, &c. Meiners, l.c. Georgi, ‘Reise im
Russ. Reich.’ vol. i. pp. 275, 317. Klemm, ‘Cultur-Geschichte,’ vol.
iii. p. 87. Sun-Worship in Japan, Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ part v. p. 9. For
further evidence as to savage and barbaric worship of the Sun as
Supreme Deity, see chap. xvii.
Footnote 701:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 35, 50; iii. 62, 10. Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd Ser.
pp. 378, 411; ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 19. Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i.
pp. 30, 133. Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 42.
Footnote 702:
‘Khordah-Avesta,’ xxvi. in Avesta tr. by Spiegel, vol. iii.; M. Haug,
‘Essays on Parsis.’ Strabo, xv. 3, 13. Nonnus, xl. 400. Movers,
‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 180: ‘Ἡλίῳ Μίθρᾳ ἀνικήτῳ’; ‘Διὸς ἀνικήτον
Ἡλίου.’
Footnote 703:
Plat. Sympos. xxxvi. See Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterlehre,’ vol. i. pp.
400, 412.
Footnote 704:
Cæsar de Bello Gallico, vi. 21: ‘Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos
cernunt et quorum aperte opibus juvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lunam,
reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt.’
Footnote 705:
Cicero de Natura Deorum, iii. 21.
Footnote 706:
See Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Egyptians’; Renouf, ‘Religion of Ancient
Egypt.’
Footnote 707:
Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3; 2 Kings xxiii. 11.
Footnote 708:
Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. pp. 162, 180, &c. Lamprid. Heliogabal. i.
Footnote 709:
Euseb. Præparat. Evang. i. 6.
Footnote 710:
Neander, ‘Church History,’ vol. vi. p. 341. Carsten Niebuhr,
‘Reisebeschr.’ vol. ii. p. 396.
Footnote 711:
Palgrave, ‘Arabia,’ vol. i. p. 9; vol. ii. p. 258. See Koran, xli. 37.
Footnote 712:
Tertullian. Apolog. adv. Gentes, xvi. See Lucian. de Saltat. xvii.;
compare Job. xxxi. 26.
Footnote 713:
Leo. I. Serm. viii. in Natal. Dom.
Footnote 714:
Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ p. 150.
Footnote 715:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 581, &c. Wuttke, pp. 17, 93. Brand, ‘Pop.
Ant.’ vol. i. p. 157, &c. ‘Early Hist. of Mankind,’ p. 260. Murray’s
‘Handbook for Syria and Palestine,’ 1868, p. 162.
Footnote 716:
See Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘Sol;’ Petavius, ‘Juliani Imp.
Opera,’ 290-2, 277. Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Christian Church,’ book
xx. ch. iv.; Neander, ‘Church Hist.’ vol. iii. p. 437; Beausobre,
‘Hist. de Manichée,’ vol. ii. p. 691; Gibbon, ch. xxii.; Creuzer,
‘Symbolik,’ vol. i. p. 761, &c.
Footnote 717:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 593, 1223. Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ vol. i. p.
467. Monnier, ‘Traditions Populaires,’ p. 188.
Footnote 718:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 583; Brand, vol. i. p. 298; Wuttke, pp. 14, 140.
Beausobre, l.c.
Footnote 719:
Spix and Martius, ‘Reise in Brasilien,’ vol. i. pp. 377, 381; Martius,
‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 327; Pr. Max. v. Wied, vol. ii. p. 58; J.
G. Müller, pp. 218, 254; also Musters, ‘Patagonians,’ pp. 58, 179.
Footnote 720:
De la Borde, ‘Caraibes,’ p. 525.
Footnote 721:
Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ p. 206; ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. v. p. 253.
Footnote 722:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1635, p. 34.
Footnote 723:
Livingstone, ‘S. Afr.’ p. 235; Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 175, 342.
Footnote 724:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 84; Du Chaillu, ‘Ashango-land,’ p. 428; see
Purchas, vol. v. p. 766. Müller, ‘Fetu,’ p. 47.
Footnote 725:
Merolla, ‘Congo,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 273.
Footnote 726:
Kolbe, ‘Beschryving van de Kaap de Goede Hoop,’ part i. xxix. See
ante, vol. i. p. 355.
Footnote 727:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. p. 43.
Footnote 728:
Bickmore, ‘Ainos,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 20.
Footnote 729:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 167.
Footnote 730:
Georgi, ‘Reise im Russ. R.’ vol. i. p. 275.
Footnote 731:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. pp. 9, 35; Tylor, ‘Mexico,’ l.c.
Footnote 732:
Waitz, vol. iv. p. 362.
Footnote 733:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ iii. 21.
Footnote 734:
Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ part v. p. 9.
Footnote 735:
Deuteron. xvii. 3; Polyb. vii. 9; see Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ pp. 159,
536, 605.
Footnote 736:
Lucian. de Syria Dea, iv. 34.
Footnote 737:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ ed. by Birch, vol. iii. p. 174. See
Plutarch. Is. et Osir.
Footnote 738:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. i. p. 550, &c.
Footnote 739:
Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 27.
Footnote 740:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ ch. xxii.
Footnote 741:
Akerblad, ‘Lettre à Italinsky.’ Burton, ‘Central Afr.’ vol. ii. p.
346. Mungo Park, ‘Travels,’ in ‘Pinkerton,’ vol. xvi. p. 875.
Footnote 742:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 29, 667; Brand, vol. iii. p. 146; Forbes Leslie,
‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol. i. p. 136.
CHAPTER XVII.
ANIMISM (_continued_).
Polytheism comprises a class of Great Deities, ruling
the course of Nature and the life of
Man—Childbirth-god—Agriculture-god—War-god—God of the Dead—First Man
as Divine Ancestor—Dualism; its rudimentary and unethical nature
among low races; its development through the course of culture—Good
and Evil Deity—Doctrine of Divine Supremacy, distinct from, while
tending towards, the doctrine of Monotheism—Idea of a Highest or
Supreme Deity evolved in various forms; its place as completion of
the Polytheistic system and outcome of the Animistic philosophy; its
continuance and development among higher nations—General survey of
Animism as a Philosophy of Religion—Recapitulation of the theory
advanced as to its development through successive stages of culture;
its primary phases best represented among the lower races, while
survivals of these among the higher races mark the transition from
savage through barbaric to civilized faiths—Transition of Animism in
the History of Religion; its earlier and later stages as a
Philosophy of the Universe; its later stages as the principle of a
Moral Institution.
Polytheism acknowledges, beside great fetish-deities like Heaven and
Earth, Sun and Moon, another class of great gods whose importance lies
not in visible presence, but in the performance of certain great offices
in the course of Nature and the life of Man. The lower races can furnish
themselves with such deities, either by giving the recognized gods
special duties to perform, or by attributing these functions to beings
invented in divine personality for the purpose. The creation of such
divinities is however carried to a much greater extent in the complex
systems of the higher polytheism. For a compact group of examples
showing to what different ideas men will resort for a deity to answer a
special end, let us take the deity presiding over Childbirth. In the
West Indies, a special divinity occupied with this function took rank as
one of the great indigenous fetish-gods;[743] in the Samoan group, the
household god of the father’s or mother’s family was appealed to;[744]
in Peru the Moon takes to this office,[745] and the same natural idea
recurs in Mexico;[746] in Esthonian religion the productive Earth-mother
appropriately becomes patroness of human birth;[747] in the classic
theology of Greece and Italy, the divine spouse of the Heaven-king,
Hera,[748] Juno,[749] favours and protects on earth marriage and the
birth of children; and to conclude the list, the Chinese work out the
problem from the manes-worshipper’s point of view, for the goddess whom
they call ‘Mother’ and propitiate with many a ceremony and sacrifice to
save and prosper their children, is held to have been in human life a
skilful midwife.[750]
The deity of Agriculture may be a cosmic being affecting the weather and
the soil, or a mythic giver of plants and teacher of their cultivation
and use. Thus among the Iroquois, Heno the Thunder, who rides through
the heavens on the clouds, who splits the forest-trees with the
thunderbolt-stones he hurls at his enemies, who gathers the clouds and
pours out the warm rains, was fitly chosen as patron of husbandry,
invoked at seed-time and harvest, and called Grandfather by his children
the Indians.[751] It is interesting to notice again on the southern
continent the working out of this idea in the Tupan of Brazilian tribes;
Thunder and Lightning, it is recorded, they call Tupan, considering
themselves to owe to him their hoes and the profitable art of tillage,
and therefore acknowledging him as a deity.[752] Among the Guarani race,
Tamoi the Ancient of Heaven had no less rightful claim, in his character
of heaven-god, to be venerated as the divine teacher of agriculture to
his people.[753] In Mexico, Centeotl the Grain-goddess received homage
and offerings at her two great festivals, and took care of the growth
and keeping of the corn.[754] In Polynesia, we hear in the Society
Islands of Ofanu the god of husbandry, in the Tonga Islands of Alo Alo
the fanner, god of wind and weather, bearing office as god of harvest,
and receiving his offering of yams when he had ripened them.[755] A
picturesque figure from barbaric Asia is Pheebee Yau, the Ceres of the
Karens, who sits on a stump and watches the growing and ripening com, to
fill the granaries of the frugal and industrious.[756] The Khonds
worship at the same shrine, a stone or tree near the village, both Būrbi
Pennu the goddess of new vegetation, and Pidzu Pennu the rain-god.[757]
Among Finns and Esths it is the Earth-mother who appropriately
undertakes the task of bringing forth the fruits.[758] And so among the
Greeks it is the same being, Dēmētēr the Earth-mother, who performs this
function, while the Roman Ceres who is confused with her is rather, as
in Mexico, a goddess of grain and fruit.[759]
The War-god is another being wanted among the lower races, and formed or
adapted accordingly. Areskove the Iroquois War-god seems to be himself
the great celestial deity; for his pleasant food they slaughtered human
victims, that he might give them victory over their enemies; as a
pleasant sight for him they tortured the war-captives; on him the
war-chief called in solemn council, and the warriors, shouting his name,
rushed into the battle he was surveying from on high. Canadian Indians
before the fight would look toward the sun, or addressed the Great
Spirit as god of war; Floridan Indians prayed to the Sun before their
wars.[760] Araucanians of Chili entreated Pillan the Thunder-god that he
would scatter their enemies, and thanked him amidst their cups after a
victory.[761] The very name of Mexico seems derived from Mexitli, the
national War-god, identical or identified with the hideous gory
Huitzilopochtli. Not to attempt a general solution of the enigmatic
nature of this inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity, we may
notice the association of his principal festival with the
winter-solstice, when his paste idol was shot through with an arrow, and
being thus killed, was divided into morsels and eaten, wherefore the
ceremony was called the teoqualo or ‘god-eating.’ This and other details
tend to show Huitzilopochtli as originally a nature-deity, whose life
and death were connected with the year’s, while his functions of War-god
may be of later addition.[762] Polynesia is a region where quite an
assortment of war-gods may be collected. Such, to take but one example,
was Tairi, war-god of King Kamehameha of the Sandwich Islands, whose
hideous image, covered with red feathers, shark-toothed,
mother-of-pearl-eyed, with helmet-crest of human hair, was carried into
battle by his special priest, distorting his own face into hideous
grins, and uttering terrific yells which were considered to proceed from
the god.[763] Two examples from Asia may show what different original
conceptions may serve to shape such deities as these upon. The Khond
War-god, who entered into all weapons, so that from instruments of peace
they became weapons of war, who gave edge to the axe and point to the
arrow, is the very personified spirit of tribal war, his token is the
relic of iron and the iron weapons buried in his sacred grove which
stands near each group of hamlets, and his name is Loha Pennu or
Iron-god.[764] The Chinese War-god, Kuang Tä, on the other hand, is an
ancient military ghost; he was a distinguished officer, as well as a
‘faithful and honest courtier,’ who flourished during the wars of the
Han dynasty, and emperors since then have delighted to honour him by
adding to his usual title more and more honorary distinctions.[765]
Looking at these selections from the army of War-gods of the different
regions of the world, we may well leave their classic analogues, Arēs
and Mars, as beings whose warlike function we recognize, but not so
easily their original nature.[766]
It would be easy, going through the religious systems of Polynesia and
Mexico, Greece and Rome, India and China, to give the names and offices
of a long list of divinities, patrons of hunting and fishing,
carpentering and weaving, and so forth. But studying here rather the
continuity of polytheistic ideas than the analysis of polytheistic
divinities, it is needless to proceed farther in the comparison of these
deities of special function, as recognized to some extent in the lower
civilization, before their elaborate development became one of the great
features of the higher.
The great polytheistic deities we have been examining, concerned as they
are with the earthly course of nature and human life, are gods of the
living. But even in savage levels man began to feel an intellectual need
of a God of the Dead, to reign over the souls of men in the next life,
and this necessity has been supplied in various ways. Of the deities set
up as lords of Deadman’s Land, some are beings whose original meaning is
obscure. Some are distinctly nature-deities appointed to this office,
often for local reasons, as happening to belong to the regions where the
dead take up their abode. Some, again, are as distinctly the deified
souls of men. The two first classes may be briefly instanced together in
America, where the light-side and shadow-side (as Dr. J. G. Müller well
calls them) of the conception of a future life are broadly contrasted in
the definitions of the Lord of the Dead. Among the Northern Indians this
may be Tarenyawagon the Heaven-God, identified with the Great Spirit,
who receives good warriors in his happy hunting-grounds, or his
grandmother, the Death-goddess Atahentsic.[767] In Brazil, the
Under-world-god, who places good warriors and sorcerers in Paradise,
contrasts with Aygnan the evil deity who takes base and cowardly Tupi
souls,[768] much as the Mexican Tlaloc, Water-god and lord of the
earthly paradise, contrasts with Mictlanteuctli, ruler of the dismal
dead-land in the shades below.[769] In Peru there has been placed on
record a belief that the departed spirits went to be with the Creator
and Teacher of the World—‘Bring us too near to thee ... that we may be
fortunate, being near to thee, O Uira-cocha!’ There are also statements
as to an under-world of shades, the land of the demon Supay.[770]
Accounts of this class must often be suspected of giving ideas
mis-stated under European influence, or actually adopted from Europeans,
but there is in some a look of untouched genuineness. Thus in Polynesia,
the idea of a Devil borrowed from colonists or missionaries may be
suspected in such a figure as the evil deity Wiro, chief of Reigna, the
New Zealander’s western world of departed souls. But few conceptions of
deity are more quaintly original than that of the Samoan deity
Saveasiuleo, at once ruler of destinies of war and other affairs of men
and chief of the subterranean Bulotū, with the human upper half of his
body reclining in his great house in company with the spirits of
departed chiefs, while his tail or extremity stretches far away into the
sea, in the shape of an eel or serpent. Under a name corresponding
dialectically (Siuleo = Hikuleo), this composite being reappears in the
kindred myths of the neighbouring group, the Tonga Islands. The Tongan
Hikuleo has his home in the spirit-land of Bulotū, here conceived as out
in the far western sea. Here we are told the use of his tail. His body
goes away on journeys, but his tail remains watching in Bulotū, and thus
he is aware of what goes on in more places than one. Hikuleo used to
carry off the first-born sons of Tongan chiefs, to people his island of
the blest, and he so thinned the ranks of the living that at last the
other gods were moved to compassion. Tangaloa and Maui seized Hikuleo,
passed a strong chain round him, and fastened one end to heaven and the
other to earth. Another god of the dead, of well-marked native type, is
the Rarotongan Tiki, an ancestral deity as in New Zealand, to whose long
house, a place of unceasing joys, the dead are to find their way.[771]
Among Turanian tribes, there are Samoyeds who believe in a deity called
‘A,’ dwelling in impenetrable darkness, sending disease and death to men
and reindeer, and ruling over a crowd of spirits which are manes of the
dead. Tatars tell of the nine Irle-Chans, who in their gloomy
subterranean kingdom not only rule over souls of the dead, but have at
their command a multitude of ministering spirits, visible and invisible.
In the gloomy under-world of the Finns reigns Mana or Tuoni, a being
whose nature is worked out by personification from the dismal dead-land
or death itself.[772] Much the same may be said of the Greek Aidēs,
Hades, and the Scandinavian Hel, whose names, perhaps not so much by
confusion as with a sense of their latent significance, have become
identified in language with the doleful abodes over which a personifying
fancy set them to preside.[773] As appropriately, though working out a
different idea, the ancient Egyptians conceived their great solar deity
to rule in the regions of his western under-world—Osiris is Lord of the
Dead in Amenti.[774]
In the world’s assembly of great gods, an important place must be filled
up by the manes-worshipper in logical development of his special system.
The theory of family manes, carried back to tribal gods, leads to the
recognition of superior deities of the nature of Divine Ancestor or
First Man, and it is of course reasonable that such a being, if
recognized, should sometimes fill the place of lord of the dead, whose
ancestral chief he is. There is an anecdote among the Mandans told by
Prince Maximilian von Wied, which brings into view conceptions lying in
the deepest recesses of savage religion, the idea of the divine first
ancestor, the mythic connexion of the sun’s death and descent into the
under-world, with the like fate of man and the nature of the spiritual
intercourse between man’s own soul and his deity. The First Man, it is
said, promised the Mandans to be their helper in time of need, and then
departed into the West. It came to pass that the Mandans were attacked
by foes. One Mandan would send a bird to the great ancestor to ask for
help, but no bird could fly so far. Another thought a look would reach
him, but the hills walled him in. Then said a third, thought must be the
safest way to reach the First Man. He wrapped himself in his
buffalo-robe, fell down, and spoke, ‘I think—I have thought—I come
back.’ Throwing off the fur, he was bathed in sweat. The divine helper
he had called on in his distress appeared.[775] There is instructive
variety in the ways in which the lower American races work out the
conception of the divine forefather. The Mingo tribes revere and make
offerings to the First Man, he who was saved at the great deluge, as a
powerful deity under the Master of Life, or even as identified with him;
some Mississippi Indians said that the First Man ascended into heaven,
and thunders there; among the Dog-ribs, he was creator of sun and
moon;[776] Tamoi, the grandfather and ancient of heaven of the Guaranis,
was their first ancestor, who dwelt among them and taught them to till
the soil, and rose to heaven in the east, promising to succour them on
earth, and at death to carry them from the sacred tree into a new life
where they should all meet again, and have much hunting.[777]
Polynesia, again, has thoroughly worked the theory of divine ancestors
into the native system of multiform and blending nature-deities. Men are
sprung from the divine Maui, whom Europeans have therefore called the
‘Adam of New Zealand,’ or from the Rarotongan Tiki, who seems his
equivalent (Mauitiki), and who again is the Tii of the Society Islands;
it is, however, the son of Tii who precisely represents a Polynesian
Adam, for his name is Taata, i.e., Man, and he is the ancestor of the
human race. There is perhaps also reason to identify Maui and the First
Man with Akea, first King of Hawaii, who at his earthly death descended
to rule over his dark subterranean kingdom, where his subjects are the
dead who recline under the spreading kou-trees, and drink of the
infernal rivers, and feed on lizards and butterflies.[778] In the
mythology of Kamchatka, the relation between the Creator and the First
Man is one not of identity but of parentage. Among the sons of Kutka the
Creator is Haetsh the First Man, who dwelt on earth, and died, and
descended into Hades to be chief of the under-world; there he receives
the dead and new-risen Kamchadals, to continue a life like that of earth
in his pleasant subterranean land where mildness and plenty prevail, as
they did in the regions above in the old days when the Creator was still
on earth.[779] Among all the lower races who have reasoned out this
divine ancestor, none excel those consistent manes-worshippers, the
Zulus. Their worship of the manes of the dead has not only made the
clan-ancestors of a few generations back into tribal deities
(Unkulunkulu), but beyond these, too far off and too little known for
actual worship, yet recognized as the original race-deity and identified
with the Creator, stands the First Man, he who ‘broke off in the
beginning,’ the Old-Old-One, the great Unkulunkulu. While the Zulu’s
most intense religious emotions are turned to the ghosts of the
departed, while he sacrifices his beloved oxen and prays with agonising
entreaty to his grandfather, and carries his tribal worship back to
those ancestral deities whose praise-giving names are still remembered,
the First Man is beyond the reach of such rites. ‘At first we saw that
we were made by Unkulunkulu. But when we were ill we did not worship
him, nor ask anything of him. We worshipped those whom we had seen with
our eyes, their death and their life among us.... Unkulunkulu had no
longer a son who could worship him; there was no going back to the
beginning, for people increased, and were scattered abroad, and each
house had its own connections; there was no one who said, “For my part I
am of the house of Unkulunkulu.”’ Nay more, the Zulus who would not dare
to affront an ‘idhlozi,’ a common ghost, that might be angry and kill
them, have come to make open mock of the name of the great first
ancestor. When the grown-up people wish to talk privately or eat
something by themselves, it is the regular thing to send the children
out to call at the top of their voices for Unkulunkulu. ‘The name of
Unkulunkulu has no respect paid to it among black men; for his house no
longer exists. It is now like the name of a very old crone, who has no
power to do even a little thing for herself, but sits continually where
she sat in the morning till the sun sets. And the children make sport of
her, for she cannot catch them and flog them, but only talk with her
mouth. Just so is the name of Unkulunkulu when all the children are told
to go and call him. He is now a means of making sport of children.’[780]
In Aryan religion, the divinities just described give us analogues for
the Hindu Yama, throughout his threefold nature as First Man, as solar
God of Hades, as Judge of the Dead. Professor Max Müller thus suggests
his origin, which may indeed be inferred from his being called the child
of Vivasvat, himself the Sun: ‘The sun, conceived as setting or dying
every day, was the first who had trodden the path of life from East to
West—the first mortal—the first to show us the way when our course is
run, and our sun sets in the far West. Thither the fathers followed
Yama; there they sit with him rejoicing, and thither we too shall go
when his messengers (day and night) have found us out.... Yama is said
to have crossed the rapid waters, to have shown the way to many, to have
first known the path on which our fathers crossed over.’ It is a
perfectly consistent myth-formation, that the solar Yama should become
the first of mortals who died and discovered the way to the other world,
who guides other men thither and assembles them in a home which is
secured to them for ever. As representative of death, Yama had even in
early Aryan times his aspects of terror, and in later Indian theology he
becomes not only the Lord but the awful Judge of the Dead, whom some
modern Hindus are said to worship alone of all the gods, alleging that
their future state is to be determined only by Yama, and that they have
nothing therefore to hope or fear from any beside him. In these days,
Hindu and Parsi in Bombay are learning from scholars in Europe the
ancient connexion of their long antagonistic faiths, and have to hear
that Yama son of Visavat sitting on his awful judgment-seat of the dead,
to reward the good and punish the wicked with hideous tortures, and Yima
son of Vivanhâo who in primæval days reigned over his happy deathless
kingdom of good Zarathustrian men, are but two figures developed in the
course of ages out of one and the same Aryan nature-myth.[781] Within
the limits of Jewish, Christian, and Moslem theology, the First Man
scarcely occupies more than a place of precedence among the human race
in Hades or in Heaven, not the high office of Lord of the Dead. Yet that
tendency to deify an ideal ancestor, which we observe to act so strongly
on lower races, has taken effect also here. The Rabbinical Adam is a
gigantic being reaching from earth to heaven, for the definition of
whose stature Rabbi Eliezer cites Deuteronomy iv. 32, ‘God made man
(Adam) upon the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other.’[782] It
is one of the familiar episodes of the Koran, how the angels were bidden
to bow down before Adam, the regent of Allah upon earth, and how Eblis
(Diabolus) swelling with pride, refused the act of adoration.[783] Among
the Gnostic sect of the Valentinians, Adam the primal man in whom the
Deity had revealed himself, stood as earthly representative of the
Demiurge, and was even counted among the Æons.[784]
The figures of the great deities of Polytheism, thus traced in outline
according to the determining idea on which each is shaped, seem to show
that conceptions originating under rude and primitive conditions of
human thought and passing thence into the range of higher culture, may
suffer in the course of ages the most various fates, to be expanded,
elaborated, transformed, or abandoned. Yet the philosophy of modern ages
still to a remarkable degree follows the primitive courses of savage
thought, even as the highways of our land so often follow the unchanging
tracks of barbaric roads. Let us endeavour timidly and circumspectly to
trace onward from savage times the courses of vast and pregnant
generalization which tend towards the two greatest of the world’s
schemes of religious doctrine, the systems of Dualism and Monotheism.
Rudimentary forms of Dualism, the antagonism of a Good and Evil Deity,
are well known among the lower races of mankind. The investigation of
these savage and barbaric doctrines, however, is a task demanding
peculiar caution. The Europeans in contact with these rude tribes since
their discovery, themselves for the most part holding strongly dualistic
forms of Christianity, to the extent of practically subjecting the world
to the contending influences of armies of good and evil spirits under
the antagonistic control of God and Devil, were liable on the one hand
to mistake and exaggerate savage ideas in this direction, so that their
records of native religion can only be accepted with reserve, while on
the other hand there is no doubt that dualistic ideas have been largely
introduced and developed among the savages themselves, under this same
European influence. For instance, among the natives of Australia, we
hear of the great deity Nambajandi who dwells in his heavenly paradise,
where the happy shades of black men feast and dance and sing for
evermore; over against him stands the great evil being Warrūgūra, who
dwells in the nethermost regions, who causes the great calamities which
befall mankind, and whom the natives represent with horns and tail,
although no horned beast is indigenous in the land.[785] There may be
more or less native substratum in all this, but the hints borrowed from
popular Christian ideas are unmistakeable. Thus also, among the North
American Indians, the native religion was modified under the influence
of ideas borrowed from the white men, and there arose a full dualistic
scheme, of which Loskiel, a Moravian missionary conversant especially
with Algonquin and Iroquois tribes, gives the following suggestive
particulars, dating from 1794. ‘They (the Indians) first received in
modern times through the Europeans the idea of the Devil, the Prince of
Darkness. They consider him as a very mighty spirit, who can only do
evil, and therefore call him the Evil One. Thus they now believe in a
great good and a great evil spirit; to the one they ascribe all good,
and to the other all evil. About thirty years ago, a remarkable change
took place in the religious opinions of the Indians. Some preachers of
their own nation pretended to have received revelations from above, to
have travelled into heaven, and conversed with God. They gave different
accounts of their journey to heaven, but all agreed in this, that no one
could arrive there without great danger; for the road runs close by the
gates of hell. There the Devil lies in ambush, and snatches at every one
who is going to God. Now those who have passed by this dangerous place
unhurt, come first to the Son of God, and from him to God himself, from
whom they pretend to have received a commandment, to instruct the
Indians in the way to heaven. By them the Indians were informed that
heaven was the dwelling of God, and hell that of the Devil. Some of
these preachers had not indeed reached the dwelling of God, but
professed to have approached near enough to hear the cocks in heaven
crow, or to see the smoke of the chimneys in heaven, &c., &c.’[786]
Such unequivocal proofs that savage tribes can adopt and work into the
midst of their native beliefs the European doctrine of the Good and Evil
Spirit, must induce us to criticize keenly all recorded accounts of the
religion of uncultured tribes, lest we should mistake the confused
reflexion of Christendom for the indigenous theology of Australia or
Canada. It is the more needful to bring this state of things into the
clearest light, in order that the religion of the lower tribes may be
placed in its proper relation to the religion of the higher nations.
Genuine savage faiths do in fact bring to our view what seem to be
rudimentary forms of ideas which underlie dualistic theological schemes
among higher nations. It is certain that even among rude savage hordes,
native thought has already turned toward the deep problem of good and
evil. Their crude though earnest speculation has already tried to solve
the great mystery which still resists the efforts of moralists and
theologians. But as in general the animistic doctrine of the lower races
is not yet an ethical institution, but a philosophy of man and nature,
so savage dualism is not yet a theory of abstract moral principles, but
a theory of pleasure or pain, profit or loss, affecting the individual
man, his family, or at the utmost stretch, his people. This narrow and
rudimentary distinction between good and evil was not unfairly stated by
the savage who explained that if anybody took away his wife, that would
be bad, but if he himself took someone’s else’s, that would be good. Now
by the savage or barbarian mind, the spiritual beings which by their
personal action account for the events of life and the operations of
nature, are apt to be regarded as kindly or hostile, sometimes or
always, like the human beings on whose type they are so obviously
modelled. In such a case, we may well judge by the safe analogy of
disembodied human souls, and it appears that these are habitually
regarded as sometimes friends and sometimes foes of the living. Nothing
could be more conclusive in this respect than an account of the three
days’ battle between two factions of Zulu ghosts for the life of a man
and wife whom the one spiritual party desired to destroy and the other
to save; the defending spirits prevailed, dug up the bewitched
charm-bags which had been buried to cause sympathetic disease, and flung
these objects into the midst of the assembly of the people watching in
silence, just as the spirits now fling real flowers at a table-rapping
séance.[787] For spirits less closely belonging to the definition of
ghosts, may be taken Rochefort’s remarks in the 17th century as to the
two sorts of spirits, good and bad, recognized by the Caribs of the West
Indies. This writer declares that their good spirits or divinities are
in fact so many demons who seduce them and keep them enchained in their
damnable servitude; but nevertheless, he says, the people themselves do
distinguish them from their evil spirits.[788] Nor can we pronounce this
distinction of theirs unreasonable, learning from other authorities that
it was the office of some of these spirits to attend men as familiar
genii, and of others to inflict diseases. After the numerous details
which have incidentally been cited in the present volumes, it will be
needless to offer farther proof that spiritual beings are really
conceived by savages and barbarians as ranged in antagonistic ranks as
good and evil, i.e., friendly and hostile to themselves. The interesting
enquiry on which it is here desirable to collect evidence, is this: how
far are the doctrines of the higher nations anticipated in principle
among the lower tribes, in the assignment of the conduct of the universe
to two mighty hostile beings, in whom the contending powers of good and
evil are personified, the Good Deity and the Evil Deity, each the head
and ruler of a spiritual host like-minded? The true answer seems to be
that savage belief displays to us the primitive conceptions which, when
developed in systematic form and attached to ethical meaning, take their
place in religious systems of which the Zoroastrian is the type.
First, when in district after district two special deities with special
native names are contrasted in native religion as the Good and Evil
Deity, it is in some cases easier to explain these beings as native at
least in origin, than to suppose that foreign intercourse should have
exerted the consistent and far-reaching influence needed to introduce
them. Second, when the deities in question are actually polytheistic
gods, such as Sun, Moon, Heaven, Earth, considered as of good or evil,
i.e., favourable or unfavourable aspect, this looks like native
development, not innovation derived from a foreign religion ignoring
such divinities. Third, when it is held that the Good Deity is remote
and otiose, but the Evil Deity present and active, and worship is
therefore directed especially to the propitiation of the hostile
principle, we have here a conception which appears native in the lower
culture, rather than derived from the higher culture to which it is
unfamiliar and even hateful. Now Dualism, as prevailing among the lower
races, will be seen in a considerable degree to assert its originality
by satisfying one or more of these conditions.
There have been recorded among the Indians of North America a group of
mythic beliefs, which display the fundamental idea of dualism in the
very act of germinating in savage religion. Yet the examination of these
myths leads us first to destructive criticism of a picturesque but not
ancient member of the series. An ethnologist, asked to point out the
most striking savage dualistic legend of the world, would be likely to
name the celebrated Iroquois myth of the Twin Brethren. The current
version of this legend is that set down in 1825 by the Christian chief
of the Tuscaroras, David Cusick, as the belief of his people. Among the
ancients, he relates, there were two worlds, the lower world in darkness
and possessed by monsters, the upper world inhabited by mankind. A woman
near her travail sank from this upper region to the dark world below.
She alighted on a Tortoise, prepared to receive her with a little earth
on his back, which Tortoise became an island. The celestial mother bore
twin sons into the dark world, and died. The tortoise increased to a
great island, and the twins grew up. One was of gentle disposition, and
was called Enigorio, the Good Mind, the other was of insolent character,
and was named Enigonhahetgea, the Bad Mind. The Good Mind, not contented
to remain in darkness, wished to create a great light; the Bad Mind
desired that the world should remain in its natural state. The Good Mind
took his dead mother’s head and made it the sun, and of a remnant of her
body he made the moon. These were to give light to the day and to the
night. Also he created many spots of light, now stars: these were to
regulate the days, nights, seasons, years. Where the light came upon the
dark world, the monsters were displeased, and hid themselves in the
depths, lest man should find them. The Good Mind continued the creation,
formed many creeks and rivers on the Great Island, created small and
great beasts to inhabit the forests, and fishes to inhabit the waters.
When he had made the universe, he doubted concerning beings to possess
the Great Island. He formed two images of the dust of the ground in his
own likeness, male and female, and by breathing into their nostrils gave
them living souls, and named them Ea-gwe-howe, that is ‘real people;’
and he gave the Great Island all the animals of game for their
maintenance; he appointed thunder to water the earth by frequent rains;
the island became fruitful, and vegetation afforded to the animals
subsistence. The Bad Mind went throughout the island and made high
mountains and waterfalls and great steeps, and created reptiles
injurious to mankind; but the Good Mind restored the island to its
former condition. The Bad Mind made two clay images in the form of man,
but while he was giving them existence they became apes; and so on. The
Good Mind accomplished the works of creation, notwithstanding the
imaginations of the Bad Mind were continually evil; thus he attempted to
enclose all the animals of game in the earth away from mankind, but his
brother set them free, and traces of them were made on the rocks near
the cave where they were shut in. At last the brethren came to single
combat for the mastery of the universe. The Good Mind falsely persuaded
the Bad Mind that whipping with flags would destroy his own life, but he
himself used the deer-horns, the instrument of death. After a two days’
fight, the Good Mind slew his brother and crushed him in the earth; and
the last words of the Bad Mind were that he would have equal power over
men’s souls after death, then he sank down to eternal doom and became
the Evil Spirit. The Good Mind visited the people, and then retired from
the earth.[789]
This is a graphic tale. Its versions of the cosmic myth of the
World-Tortoise, and its apparent philosophical myth of fossil
footprints, have much mythological interest. But its Biblical copying
extends to the very phraseology, and only partial genuineness can be
allowed to its main theme. Dr. Brinton has shown from early American
writers how much dualistic fancy has sprung up since the times of first
intercourse between natives and white men. When this legend is compared
with the earlier version given by Father Brebeuf, missionary to the
Hurons in 1636, we find its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism
vanishes; the names of Good and Bad Mind do not appear; it is the story
of Ioskeha the White One, with his brother Tawiscara the Dark One, and
we at once perceive that Christian influence in the course of two
centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to its real intent. Yet
to go back to the earliest sources and examine this myth of the White
One and the Dark One, proves it to be itself a perfect example of the
rise of primitive dualism in the savage mind. Father Brebeuf’s story is
as follows: Aataentsic the Moon fell from heaven on earth, and bore two
sons, Taouiscaron and Iouskeha, who being grown up quarrelled; judge, he
says, if there be not in this a touch of the death of Abel. They came to
combat, but with very different weapons. Iouskeha had a stag-horn,
Taouiscaron contented himself with some wild-rose berries, persuading
himself that as soon as he should thus smite his brother, he would fall
dead at his feet; but it fell out quite otherwise than he had promised
himself, and Iouskeha struck him so heavy a blow in the side that the
blood gushed forth in streams. The poor wretch fled, and from his blood
which fell upon the land came the flints which the savages still call
Taouiscara, from the victim’s name. From this we see it to be true that
the original myth of the two brothers, the White One and the Dark One,
had no moral element. It seems mere nature-myth, the contest between Day
and Night, for the Hurons knew that Iouskeha was the Sun, even as his
mother or grandmother Aataentsic was the Moon. Yet in the contrast
between these two, the Huron mind had already come to the rudimentary
contrast of the Good and Evil Deity. Iouskeha the Sun, it is expressly
said, seemed to the Indians their benefactor; their kettle would not
boil were it not for him; it was he who learnt from the Tortoise the art
of making fire; without him they would have no luck in hunting; it is he
who makes the corn to grow. Iouskeha the Sun takes care for the living
and all things concerning life, and therefore, says the missionary, they
say he is good. But Aataentsic the Moon, the creatress of earth and man,
makes men die and has charge of their departed souls, and they say she
is evil. The Sun and Moon dwell together in their cabin at the end of
the earth, and thither it was that the Indians made the mythic journey
of which various episodes have been more than once cited here; true to
their respective characters, the Sun receives the travellers kindly and
saves them from the harm the beauteous but hurtful Moon would have done
them. Another missionary of still earlier time identifies Iouskeha with
the supreme deity Atahocan: ‘Iouskeha,’ he says, ‘is good and gives
growth and fair weather; his grandmother Eatahentsic is wicked and
spoils.’[790] Thus in early Iroquois legend, the Sun and Moon, as god
and goddess of Day and Night, had already acquired the characters of the
great friend and enemy of man, the Good and Evil Deity. And as to the
related cosmic legend of Day and Night, contrasted in the persons of the
two brothers, the White One and the Dark One, though this was originally
pure unethic nature-myth, yet it naturally took the same direction among
the half-Europeanized Indians of later times, becoming a moral myth of
Good and Evil. The idea comes to full maturity in the modern shaping of
Iroquois religion, where the good and great deity Häwenneyu the Ruler
has opposed to him a rival deity keeping the same name as in the myth,
Hänegoategeh the Evil-minded. We have thus before us the profoundly
interesting fact, that the rude North American Indians have more than
once begun the same mythologic transition which in ancient Asia shaped
the contrast of light and darkness into the contrast of righteousness
and wickedness, by following out the same thought which still in the
European mind arrays in the hostile forms of Light and Darkness the
contending powers of Good and Evil.
Judging by such evidence, at once of the rudimentary dualism springing
up in savage animism, and of the tendency of this to amalgamate with
similar thought brought in by foreign intercourse, it is possible to
account for many systems of the dualistic class found in the native
religions of America. While the evidence may lead us to agree with Waitz
that the North American Indian dualism, the most distinct and universal
feature of their religion, is not to be altogether referred to a modern
Christian origin, yet care must be taken not to claim as the result of
primitive religious development what shows signs of being borrowed
civilized theology. The records remain of the Jesuit missionary teaching
under which the Algonquins came to use their native term Manitu, that
is, spirit or demon, in speaking of the Christian God and Devil as the
good and the evil Manitu. Still later, the Great Spirit and the Evil
Spirit, Kitchi Manitu and Matchi Manitu, gained a wider place in the
beliefs of North American tribes, who combined these adopted Christian
conceptions with older native beliefs in powers of light and warmth and
life and protection, of darkness and cold and death and destruction.
Thus the two great antagonistic Beings became chiefs of the kindly and
harmful spirits pervading the world and struggling for the mastery over
it. Here the nature-religion of the savage was expanded and developed
rather than set on foot by the foreigner. Among other American races,
such combinations of foreign and native religious ideas are easy to
find, though hard to analyse. In the extreme north-west, we may doubt
any native origin in the semi-Christianized Kodiak’s definition of
Shljem Shoá the creator of heaven and earth, to whom offerings were made
before and after the hunt, as contrasted with Ijak the bad spirit
dwelling in the earth. In the extreme south-east may be found more
originality among the Floridan Indians two or three centuries ago, for
they are said to have paid solemn worship to the Bad Spirit Toia who
plagued them with visions, but to have had small regard for the Good
Spirit, who troubles himself little about mankind.[791] On the southern
continent, Martius makes this characteristic remark as to the rude
tribes of Brazil: ‘All Indians have a lively conviction of the power of
an evil principle over them; in many there dawns also a glimpse of the
good; but they revere the one less than they fear the other. It might be
thought that they hold the Good Being weaker in relation to the fate of
man than the evil.’ This generalization is to some extent supported by
statements as to particular tribes. The Macusis are said to recognize
the good creator Macunaima, ‘he who works by night,’ and his evil
adversary Epel or Horiuch: of these people it is observed that ‘All the
powers of nature are products of the Good Spirit, when they do not
disturb the Indian’s rest and comfort, but the work of evil spirits when
they do.’ Uauüloa and Locozy, the good and evil deity of the Yumanas,
live above the earth and toward the sun; the Evil Deity is feared by
these savages, but the Good Deity will come to eat fruit with the
departed and take their souls to his dwelling, wherefore they bury the
dead each doubled up in his great earthen pot, with fruit in his lap,
and looking toward the sunrise. Even the rude Botocudos are thought to
recognize antagonistic principles of good and evil in the persons of the
Sun and Moon.[792] This idea has especial interest from its
correspondence on the one hand with that of the Iroquois tribes, and on
the other with that of the comparatively civilized Muyscas of Bogota,
whose good deity is unequivocally a mythic Sun, thwarted in his kindly
labours for man by his wicked wife Huythaca the Moon.[793] The native
religion of Chili is said to have placed among the subaltern deities
Meulen, the friend of man, and Huecuvu the bad spirit and author of
evil. These people can hardly have learnt from Christianity to conceive
their evil spirit as simply and fully the general cause of misfortune:
if the earth quakes, Huecuvu has given it a shock; if a horse tires,
Huecuvu has ridden him; if a man falls sick, Huecuvu has sent the
disease into his body, and no man dies but that Huecuvu suffocates
him.[794]
In Africa, again, allowing for Moslem influence, dualism is not ill
represented in native religion. An old account from Loango describes the
natives as theoretically recognizing Zambi the supreme deity, creator of
good and lover of justice, and over against him Zambi-anbi the
destroyer, the counsellor of crime, the author of loss and accident, of
disease and death. But when it comes to actual worship, as the good god
will always be favourable, it is the god of evil who must be appeased,
and it is for his satisfaction that men abstain some from one kind of
food and some from another.[795] Among accounts of the two rival deities
in West Africa, one describes the Guinea negroes as recognizing below
the Supreme Deity two spirits (or classes of spirits), Ombwiri and
Onyambe, the one kind and gentle, doing good to men and rescuing them
from harm, the other hateful and wicked, whose seldom mentioned name is
heard with uneasiness and displeasure.[796] It would be scarcely
profitable, in an enquiry where accurate knowledge of the doctrine of
any insignificant tribe is more to the purpose than vague speculation on
the theology of the mightiest nation, to dwell on the enigmatic traces
of ancient Egyptian dualism. Suffice it to say that the two
brother-deities Osiris and Seti, Osiris the beneficent solar divinity
whose nature the blessed dead took on them, Seti perhaps a rival
national god degraded to a Typhon, seem to have become the
representative figures of a contrasted scheme of light and darkness,
good and evil; the sculptured granite still commemorates the contests of
their long-departed sects, where the hieroglyphic square-eared beast of
Seti has been defaced to substitute for it the figure of Osiris.[797]
The conception of the light-god as the good deity in contrast to a rival
god of evil, is one plainly suggested by nature, and naturally recurring
in the religions of the world. The Khonds of Orissa may be counted its
most perfect modern exponents in barbaric culture. To their supreme
creative deity, Būra Pennu or Bella Pennu, Light-god or Sun-god, there
stands opposed his evil consort Tari Pennu the Earth-goddess, and the
history of good and evil in the world is the history of his work and her
counterwork. He created a world paradisaic, happy, harmless; she
rebelled against him, and to blast the lot of his new creature, man, she
brought in disease, and poison, and all disorder, ‘sowing the seeds of
sin in mankind as in a ploughed field.’
Death became the divine punishment of wickedness, the spontaneously
fertile earth went to jungle and rock and mud, plants and animals grew
poisonous and fierce, throughout nature good and evil were commingled,
and still the fight goes on between the two great powers. So far all
Khonds agree, and it is on the practical relation of good and evil that
they split into their two hostile sects of Būra and Tari. Būra’s sect
hold that he triumphed over Tari, in sign of her discomfiture imposed
the cares of childbirth on her sex, and makes her still his subject
instrument wherewith to punish; Tari’s sect hold that she still
maintains the struggle, and even practically disposes of the happiness
of man, doing evil or good on her own account, and allowing or not
allowing the Creator’s blessings to reach mankind.[798]
Now that the sacred books of the Zend-Avesta are open to us, it is
possible to compare the doctrines of savage tribes with those of the
great faith through which of all others Dualism seems to have impressed
itself on the higher nations. The religion of Zarathustra was a schism
from that ancient Aryan nature-worship which is represented in a pure
and early form in the Veda, and in depravity and decay in modern
Hinduism. The leading thought of the Zarathustrian faith was the contest
of Good and Evil in the world, a contrast typified and involved in that
of Day and Night, Light and Darkness, and brought to personal shape in
the warfare of Ahura-Mazda and Anra-Mainyu, the Good and Evil Deity,
Ormuzd and Ahriman. The prophet Zarathustra said: ‘In the beginning
there was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity.
These are the good and the base in thought, word, and deed. Choose one
of these two spirits. Be good, not base!’ The sacred Vendidad begins
with the record of the primæval contest of the two principles.
Ahura-Mazda created the best of regions and lands, the Aryan home,
Sogdia, Bactria, and the rest; Anra-Mainyu against his work created snow
and pestilence, buzzing insects and poisonous plants, poverty and
sickness, sin and unbelief. The modern Parsi, in passages of his
formularies of confession, still keeps alive the old antagonism. I
repent, he says, of all kind of sins which the evil Ahriman produced
amongst the creatures of Ormuzd in opposition. ‘That which was the wish
of Ormazd the Creator, and I ought to have thought and have not thought,
what I ought to have spoken and have not spoken, what I ought to have
done and have not done; of these sins repent I with thoughts, words, and
works, corporeal as well as spiritual, earthly as well as heavenly, with
the three words: Pardon, O Lord, I repent of sin. That which was the
wish of Ahriman, and I ought not to have thought and yet have thought,
what I ought not to have spoken and yet have spoken, what I ought not to
have done and yet have done; of these sins repent I with thoughts,
words, and works, corporeal as well as spiritual, earthly as well as
heavenly, with the three words: Pardon, O Lord, I repent of sin.’ ...
‘May Ahriman be broken, may Ormazd increase.’[799] The Izedis or
Yezidis, the so-called Devil-worshippers, still remain a numerous though
oppressed people in Mesopotamia and adjacent countries. Their adoration
of the sun and horror of defiling fire accord with the idea of a Persian
origin of their religion (Persian ized = god), an origin underlying more
superficial admixture of Christian and Moslem elements. This remarkable
sect is distinguished by a special form of dualism. While recognizing
the existence of a Supreme Being, their peculiar reverence is given to
Satan, chief of the angelic host, who now has the means of doing evil to
mankind, and in his restoration will have the power of rewarding them.
‘Will not Satan then reward the poor Izedis, who alone have never spoken
ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?’ Martyrdom for the rights
of Satan! exclaims the German traveller to whom an old white-bearded
devil-worshipper thus set forth the hopes of his religion.[800]
Direct worship of the Evil Principle, familiar as it is to low barbaric
races, is scarcely to be found among people higher in civilization than
these persecuted and stubborn sectaries of Western Asia. So far as such
ideas extend in the development of religion, they seem fair evidence how
far worship among low tribes turns rather on fear than love. That the
adoration of a Good Deity should have more and more superseded the
propitiation of an Evil Deity, is the sign of one of the great movements
in the education of mankind, a result of happier experience of life, and
of larger and more gladsome views of the system of the universe. It is
not, however, through the inactive systems of modern Parsism and Izedism
that the mighty Zoroastrian dualism has exerted its main influence on
mankind. We must look back to long-past ages for traces of its contact
with Judaism and Christianity. It is often and reasonably thought that
intercourse between Jews and ancient Persians was an effective agent in
producing that theologic change which differences the later Jew of the
Rabbinical books from the earlier Jew of the Pentateuch, a change in
which one important part is the greater prominence of the dualistic
scheme. So in later times (about the fourth century), the contact of
Zoroastrism and Christianity appears to have been influential in
producing Manichæism. Manichæism is known mostly on the testimony of its
adversaries, but thus much seems clear, that it is based on the very
doctrine of the two antagonistic principles of good and evil, of spirit
and matter. It sets on the one hand God, original good and source of
good alone, primal light and lord of the kingdom of light, and on the
other hand the Prince of Darkness, with his kingdom of darkness, of
matter, of confusion, and destruction. The theory of ceaseless conflict
between these contending powers becomes a key to the physical and moral
nature and course of the universe.[801] Among Christian or
semi-Christian sects, the Manichæans stand as representatives of dualism
pushed to its utmost development. It need scarcely be said, however,
that Christian dualism is not bounded by the limits of this or that
special sect. In so far as the Evil Being, with his subordinate powers
of darkness, is held to exist and act in any degree in independence of
the Supreme Deity and his ministering spirits of light, so far
theological schools admit, though in widely different grades of
importance, a philosophy of nature and of life which has its basis
rather in dualism than in monotheism.
We now turn to the last objects of our present survey, those theological
beliefs of the lower tribes of mankind which point more or less
distinctly toward a doctrine of Monotheism. Here it is by no means
proposed to examine savage ideas from the point of view of doctrinal
theology, an undertaking which would demand arguments quite beyond the
present range. Their treatment is limited to classifying the actual
beliefs of the lower races, with some ethnographic considerations as to
their origin and their relation to higher religions. For this purpose it
is desirable to distinguish the prevalent doctrines of the uncultured
world from absolute monotheism. At the outset, care is needed to exclude
an ambiguity of which the importance often goes unnoticed. How are the
mighty but subordinate divinities, recognized in different religions, to
be classed? Beings who in Christian or Moslem theology would be called
angels, saints, demons, would under the same definitions be called
deities in polytheistic systems. This is obvious, but we may realize it
more distinctly from its actually having happened. The Chuwashes, a race
of Tatar affinity, are stated to reverence a god of Death, who takes to
himself the souls of the departed, and whom they call Esrel; it is
curious that Castrén, in mentioning this, should fail to point out that
this deity is no other than Azrael the angel of death, adopted under
Moslem influence.[802] Again, in the mixed Pagan and Christian religion
of the Circassians, which at least in its recently prevalent form would
be reckoned polytheistic, there stand beneath the Supreme Being a number
of mighty subordinate deities, of whom the principal are Iele the
Thunder-god, Tleps the Fire-god, Seoseres the god of Wind and Water,
Misitcha the Forest-god, and Mariam the Virgin Mary.[803] If the
monotheistic criterion be simply made to consist in the Supreme Deity
being held as creator of the universe and chief of the spiritual
hierarchy, then its application to savage and barbaric theology will
lead to perplexing consequences. Races of North and South America, of
Africa, of Polynesia, recognizing a number of great deities, are usually
and reasonably considered polytheists, yet under this definition their
acknowledgment of a Supreme Creator, of which various cases will here be
shown, would entitle them at the same time to the name of monotheists.
To mark off the doctrines of monotheism, closer definition is required,
assigning the distinctive attributes of deity to none save the Almighty
Creator. It may be declared that, in this strict sense, no savage tribe
of monotheists has been ever known. Nor are any fair representatives of
the lower culture in a strict sense pantheists. The doctrine which they
do widely hold, and which opens to them a course tending in one or other
of these directions, is polytheism culminating in the rule of one
supreme divinity. High above the doctrine of souls, of divine manes, of
local nature-spirits, of the great deities of class and element, there
are to be discerned in barbaric theology shadowings, quaint or majestic,
of the conception of a Supreme Deity, henceforth to be traced onward in
expanding power and brightening glory along the history of religion. It
is no unimportant task, partial as it is, to select and group the
typical data which show the nature and position of the doctrine of
supremacy, as it comes into view within the lower culture.
On the threshold of the investigation, there meets us the same critical
difficulty which obstructs the study of primitive dualism. Among low
tribes who have been in contact with Christianity or Mohammedanism, how
are we to tell to what extent, under this foreign influence, dim,
uncouth ideas of divine supremacy may have been developed into more
cultured forms, or wholly foreign ideas implanted? We know how the
Jesuit missionaries led the native Canadians to the conception of the
Great Manitu; how they took up the native Brazilian name of the divine
Thunder, Tupan, and adapted its meaning to convey in Christian teaching
the idea of God. Thus, again, we find most distinctly-marked African
ideas of a Supreme Deity in the West, where intercourse with Moslems has
actually Islamized or semi-Islamized whole negro nations, and the name
of Allah is in all men’s mouths. The ethnographer must be ever on the
look-out for traces of such foreign influence in the definition of the
Supreme Deity acknowledged by any uncultured race, a divinity whose
nature and even whose name may betray his adoption from abroad. Thus the
supreme Iroquois deity, Neo or Hawaneu, the pre-existent creator, has
been triumphantly adduced to show the monotheism underlying the native
creeds of America. But it seems that this divinity was introduced by the
French Catholic missionaries, and that Niio is an altered form of
Dieu.[804] Among the list of supreme deities of the lower races who are
also held to be first ancestors of man, we hear of Louquo, the uncreate
first Carib, who descended from the eternal heaven, made the flat earth,
and produced man from his own body. He lived long on earth among men,
died and came to life again after three days, and returned to
heaven.[805] It would be hardly reasonable to enumerate, among genuine
deities of native West Indian religion, a being with characteristics
thus on the face of them adopted from the religion of the white men. Yet
even in such extreme cases, it does not necessarily follow that the
definitions of these deities, vitiated as they are for ethnographical
use by foreign influence, have not to some extent a native substratum.
In criticising details, moreover, it must not be forgotten how largely
the similarities in the religions of different races may be of
independent origin, and how closely allied are many ideas in the rude
native theologies of savages to ideas holding an immemorial place in the
religions of their civilized invaders. For the present purpose, however,
it is well to dwell especially on such evidence as by characteristic
traits or early date is farthest removed from suspicion of being
borrowed from a foreign source.
In surveying the peoples of the world, the ethnographer finds many who
are not shown to have any definite conception of a supreme deity; and
even where such a conception is placed on record, it is sometimes so
vaguely asserted, or on such questionable authority, that he can but
take note of it and pass on. In numerous cases, however, illustrated by
the following collection from different regions, certain leading ideas,
singly or blended, may be traced. There are many savage and barbaric
religions which solve their highest problem by the simple process of
raising to divine primacy one of the gods of polytheism itself. Even the
system of the manes-worshipper has been stretched to reach the limit of
supreme deity, in the person of the primæval ancestor. More frequently,
it is the nature-worshipper’s principle which has prevailed, giving to
one of the great nature-deities the precedence of the rest. Here, by no
recondite speculation, but by the plain teaching of nature, the choice
has for the most part lain between two mighty visible divinities, the
all-animating Sun and the all-encompassing Heaven. In the study of such
schemes, we are on intellectual terra firma. There is among the
religions of the lower races another notable group of systems, seemingly
in close connexion with the first. These display to us a heavenly
pantheon arranged on the model of an earthly political constitution,
where the commonalty are crowds of human souls and other tribes of
world-pervading spirits, the aristocracy are great polytheistic gods,
and the King is the supreme Deity. To this comparatively intelligible
side of the subject, a more perplexed and obscure side stands
contrasted. Among thoughtful men whose theory of the soul animating the
body has already led them to suppose a divine spirit animating the huge
mass of earth or sky, this idea needs but a last expansion to become a
doctrine of the universe as animated by one greatest, all-pervading
divinity, the World-Spirit. Moreover, where speculative philosophy
grapples with the vast fundamental world-problem, the solution is
attained by ascending from the Many to the One, by striving to discern
through and beyond the Universe a First Cause. Let the basis of such
reasoning be laid in theological ground, then the First Cause is
realized as the Supreme Deity. In such ways, the result of carrying to
their utmost limits the animistic conceptions which among low races and
high pervade the philosophy of religion, is to reach an idea of as it
were a soul of the world, a shaper, animator, ruler of the universe.
Entering these regions of transcendental theology, we are not to wonder
that the comparative distinctness belonging to conceptions of lower
spiritual beings here fades away. Human souls, subordinate
nature-spirits, and huge polytheistic nature-gods, carry with the
defined special functions they perform some defined character and
figure, but beyond such limits form and function blend into the infinite
and universal in the thought of supreme divinity. To realize this widest
idea, two especial ways are open. The first way is to fuse the
attributes of the great polytheistic powers into more or less of common
personality, thus conceiving that, after all, it is the same Highest
Being who holds up the heavens, shines in the sun, smites his foes in
the thunder, stands first in the human pedigree as the divine ancestor.
The second way is to remove the limit of theologic speculation into the
region of the indefinite and the inane. An unshaped divine entity
looming vast, shadowy, and calm beyond and over the material world, too
benevolent or too exalted to need human worship, too huge, too remote,
too indifferent, too supine, too merely existent, to concern himself
with the petty race of men,—this is a mystic form of formlessness in
which religion has not seldom pictured the Supreme.
Thus, then, it appears that the theology of the lower races already
reaches its climax in conceptions of a highest of the gods, and that
these conceptions in the savage and barbaric world are no copies stamped
from one common type, but outlines widely varying among mankind. The
degeneration-theory, in some instances no doubt with justice, may claim
such beliefs as mutilated and perverted remnants of higher religions.
Yet for the most part, the development-theory is competent to account
for them without seeking their origin in grades of culture higher than
those in which they are found existing. Looked upon as products of
natural religion, such doctrines of divine supremacy seem in no way to
transcend the powers of the low-cultured mind to reason out, nor of the
low-cultured imagination to deck with mythic fancy. There have existed
in times past, and do still exist, savage or barbaric peoples who hold
such views of a highest god as they may have attained to of themselves,
without the aid of more cultured nations. Among these races, Animism has
its distinct and consistent outcome, and Polytheism its distinct and
consistent completion, in the doctrine of a Supreme Deity.
The native religions of South America and the West Indies display a
well-marked series of types. The primacy of the Sun was long ago well
stated by the Moluches when a Jesuit missionary preached to them, and
they replied, ‘Till this hour, we never knew nor acknowledged anything
greater or better than the Sun.’[806] So when a later missionary argued
with the chief of the Tobas, ‘My god is good and punishes wicked
people,’ the chief replied, ‘My God (the Sun) is good likewise; but he
punishes nobody, satisfied to do good to all.’[807] In various
manifestations, moreover, there reigns among barbarians a supreme being
whose characteristics are those of the Heaven-god. It is thus with the
Tamoi of the Guaranis, ‘that beneficent deity worshipped in his blended
character of ancestor of mankind and ancient of heaven, lord of the
celestial paradise.’[808] It is so with the highest deity of the
Araucanians, Pillan the Thunder or the Thunderer, called also
Huenu-Pillan or Heaven-Thunder, and Vuta-gen or Great Being. ‘The
universal government of Pillan,’ says Molina, ‘is a prototype of the
Araucanian polity. He is the great Toqui (Governor) of the invisible
world, and as such has his Apo-Ulmenes, and his Ulmenes, to whom he
entrusts the administration of affairs of less importance. These ideas
are certainly very rude, but it must be acknowledged that the
Araucanians are not the only people who have regulated the things of
heaven by those of the earth.’[809] A different but not less
characteristic type of the Supreme Deity is placed on record among the
Caribs, a beneficent power dwelling in the skies, reposing in his own
happiness, careless of mankind, and by them not honoured nor
adored.[810]
The theological history of Peru, in ages before the Spanish conquest,
has lately had new light thrown on it by the researches of Mr. Markham.
Here the student comes into view of a rivalry full of interest in the
history of barbaric religion, the rivalry between the Creator and the
divine Sun. In the religion of the Incas, precedence was given to
Uiracocha, called Pachacamac, ‘Creator of the World.’ The Sun (with whom
was coupled his sister-wife the Moon) was the divine ancestor, the dawn
or origin, the totem or lar, of the Inca family. The three great deities
were the Creator, Sun, and Thunder; their images were brought out
together at great festivals into the square of Cuzco, llamas were
sacrificed to all three, and they could be addressed in prayer together,
‘O Creator, and Sun, and Thunder, be for ever young, multiply the
people, and let them always be at peace.’ Yet the Thunder and Lightning
was held to come by the command of the Creator, and the following prayer
shows clearly that even ‘our father the Sun’ was but his creature:—
‘Uiracocha! Thou who gavest being to the Sun, and afterwards said
let there be day and night. Raise it and cause it to shine, and
preserve that which thou hast created, that it may give light to
men. Grant this, Uiracocha!
‘Sun! Thou who art in peace and safety, shine upon us, keep us from
sickness, and keep us in health and safety.’
Among the transitions of religion, however, it is not strange that a
subordinate God, by virtue of his nearer intercourse and power, should
usurp the place of the supreme deity. Among the various traces of this
taking place under the Incas, are traditions of the great temple at
Cuzco called ‘The Golden Place,’ where Manco Ccapac originally set up a
flat oval golden plate to signify the Creator; Mayta Ccapac, it is said,
renewed the Creator’s symbol, but Huascar Inca took it down, and set up
in its stead in the place of honour a round golden plate like the sun
with rays. The famous temple itself, Ccuricancha the ‘Golden Place,’ was
known to the Spaniards as the Temple of the Sun; no wonder that the idea
has come to be so generally accepted, that the Sun was the chief god of
Peru. There is even on record a memorable protest made by one Inca, who
dared to deny that the Sun could be the maker of all things, comparing
him to a tethered beast that must make ever the same daily round, and to
an arrow that must go whither it is sent, not whither it will. But what
availed philosophic protest, even from the head of church and state
himself, against a state church of which the world has seldom seen the
equal for stiff and solid organization? The Sun reigned in Peru till
Pizarro overthrew him, and his splendid golden likeness came down from
the temple wall to be the booty of a Castilian soldier, who lost it in
one night at play.[811]
Among rude tribes of the North American continent, evidence of the
primacy of the divine Sun is not unknown. Father Hennepin’s account of
the Sioux worshipping the Sun as the Creator is explicit enough, and
agrees with the argument of the modern Shawnees, that the Sun animates
everything, and therefore must be the Master of Life or Great
Spirit.[812] It is the widespread belief in this Great Spirit which has
long and deservedly drawn the attention of European thinkers to the
native religions of the North American tribes. The name of the Great
Spirit originates with the equivalent term Kitchi Manitu in the language
of the Algonquin Indians. Before the European intercourse in the 17th
century, these tribes had indeed no deity so called, but as has been
already pointed out, the term came first into use by the application of
the native word manitu, meaning demon or deity, to the Christian God.
During the following centuries, the name of the Great Spirit, with the
ideas belonging to the name, travelled far and wide over the continent.
It became the ordinary expression of Europeans in their descriptions of
Indian religion, and in discourse carried on in English words between
Europeans and Indians, and was more or less naturalized among the
Indians themselves. On their religions it had on the one hand a
transforming influence, while on the other hand, as is usual in the
combination of religions, the new divinity incorporated into himself the
characteristics of native divinities, so that native ideas remained in
part represented in him. A divine being whose characteristics are often
so unlike what European intercourse would have suggested, could be
hardly altogether of foreign origin.[813] Again, among the Greenlanders,
Torngarsuk or Great Spirit (his name is an augmentative of
‘torngak’—‘demon’) was known to the early Danish missionary Egede as the
oracular deity of the angekoks, to whose under-world souls hope to
descend at death. He so far held the place of supreme deity in the
native mind, that, as Cranz the missionary relates somewhat afterwards,
many Greenlanders hearing of God and his almighty power were apt to fall
on the idea that it was their Torngarsuk who was meant; but he was
eventually identified with the Devil.[814] In like manner, Algonquin
Indians, early in the 17th century, hearing of the white man’s Deity,
identified him with one known to their own native belief, Atahocan the
Creator. When Le Jeune the missionary talked to them of an almighty
creator of heaven and earth, they began to say to one another,
‘Atahocan, Atahocan, it is Atahocan!’ The traditional idea of such a
being seems indeed to have lain in utter mythic vagueness in their
thoughts, for they had made his name into a verb, ‘Nitatahocan,’
meaning, ‘I tell a fable, an old fanciful story.’[815]
In late times, Schoolcraft represents the Great Spirit as a Soul of the
Universe, inhabiting and animating all things, recognized in rocks and
trees, in cataracts and clouds, in thunder and lightning, in tempest and
zephyr, becoming incarnate in birds and beasts as titular deities,
existing in the world under every possible form, animate and
inanimate.[816] Whether the Red Indian mind even in modern times really
entertained this extreme pantheistic scheme, we may well doubt. In early
times of American discovery, the records show a quite different and more
usual conception of a supreme deity. Among the more noteworthy of these
older documents are the following. Jacques Cartier, in his second
Canadian voyage (1535), speaks of the people having no valid belief in
God, for they believe in one whom they call Cudouagni, and say that he
often speaks with them, and tells them what the weather will be; they
say that when he is angry with them he casts earth in their eyes.
Thevet’s statement somewhat later is as follows: ‘As to their religion,
they have no worship or prayer to God, except that they contemplate the
new moon, called in their language Osannaha, saying that Andouagni calls
it thus, sending it little by little to advance or retard the waters.
For the rest, they fully believe that there is a Creator, greater than
the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, and who holds all in his power. He it
is whom they call Andouagni, without however having any form or method
of prayer to him.’[817] In Virginia about 1586, we learn from Heriot
that the natives believed in many gods, which they call ‘mantoac,’ but
of different sorts and degrees, also that there is one chief god who
first made other principal gods, and afterwards the sun, moon, and stars
as petty gods. In New England, in 1622, Winslow says that they believe,
as do the Virginians, in many divine powers, yet of one above all the
rest; the Massachusetts call their great god Kiehtan, who made all the
other gods; he dwells far westerly above the heavens, whither all good
men go when they die; ‘They never saw _Kiehtan_, but they hold it a
great charge and dutie, that one age teach another; and to him they make
feasts, and cry and sing for plentie and victorie, or anything is good.’
Another famous native American name for the supreme deity is Oki.
Captain John Smith, the hero of the colonization of Virginia in 1607, he
who was befriended by Pocahontas, ‘La Belle Sauvage,’ thus describes the
religion of the country, and especially of her tribe, the Powhatans:
‘There is yet in Virginia no place discovered to be so Savage in which
they haue not a Religion, Deer, and Bow and Arrowes. All things that are
able to doe them hurt beyond their prevention, they adore with their
kinde of divine worship; as the fire, water, lightning, thunder, our
Ordnance peeces, horses, &c. But their chiefe god they worship is the
Devill. Him they call Okee, and serue him more of feare than loue. They
say they haue conference with him, and fashion themselves as neare to
his shape as they can imagine. In their Temples they haue his image
evill favouredly carved, and then painted and adorned with chaines of
copper, and beads, and covered with a skin in such manner as the
deformities may well suit with such a God.’[818] This quaint account
deserves to be quoted at length as an example of the judgment which a
half-educated and whole-prejudiced European is apt to pass on savage
deities, which from his point of view seem of simply diabolic nature. It
is known from other sources that Oki, a word belonging not to the
Powhatan but to the Huron language, was in fact a general name for
spirit or deity. We may judge the real belief of these Indians better
from Father Brebeuf’s description of the Heaven God, cited here in a
former chapter: they imagine in the heavens an Oki, that is, a Demon or
power ruling the seasons of the year, and controlling the winds and
waves, a being whose anger they fear, and whom they call on in making
solemn treaties.[819] About a century later, Father Lafitau wrote
passages which illustrate well the transformation of native animistic
conceptions under missionary influence into analogues of Christian
theology. Such general terms for spiritual beings as ‘oki’ or ‘manitu’
had become to him individual names of one supreme being. ‘This great
Spirit, known among the Caribs under the name of _Chemiin_, under that
of _Manitou_ among the Algonquin nations, and under that of _Okki_ among
those who speak the Huron tongue ...’ &c. All American tribes, he says,
use expressions which can only denote God: ‘they call him the great
Spirit, sometimes the Master and Author of Life ...’ &c.[820] The longer
rude tribes of America have been in contact with European belief, the
less confidently can we ascribe to purely native sources the theologic
scheme their religions have settled into. Yet the Creeks towards the end
of the 18th century preserved some elements of native faith. They
believed in the Great Spirit, the Master of Breath (a being whom Bartram
represents as a soul and governor of the universe): to him they would
address their frequent prayers and ejaculations, at the same time paying
a kind of homage to the sun, moon, and stars, as the mediators or
ministers of the Great Spirit, in dispensing his attributes for their
comfort and well-being in this life.[821] In our own day, among the wild
Comanches of the prairies, the Great Spirit, their creator and supreme
deity, is above Sun and Moon and Earth; towards him is sent the first
puff of tobacco-smoke before the Sun receives the second, and to him is
offered the first morsel of the feast.[822]
Turning from the simple faiths of savage tribes of North America to the
complex religion of the half-civilized Mexican nation, we find what we
might naturally expect, a cumbrous polytheism complicated by mixture of
several national pantheons, and beside and beyond this, certain
appearances of a doctrine of divine supremacy. But these doctrines seem
to have been spoken of more definitely than the evidence warrants. A
remarkable native development of Mexican theism must be admitted, in so
far as we may receive the native historian Ixtlilxochitl’s account of
the worship paid by Nezahualcoyotl, the poet king of Tezcuco, to the
invisible supreme Tloque Nahuaque, he who has all in him, the cause of
causes, in whose star-roofed pyramid stood no idol, and who there
received no bloody sacrifice, but only flowers and incense. Yet it would
have been more satisfactory were the stories told by this Aztec
panegyrist of his royal ancestor confirmed by other records. Traces of
divine supremacy in Mexican religion are especially associated with
Tezcatlipoca, ‘Shining Mirror,’ a deity who seems in his original nature
the Sun-God, and thence by expansion to have become the soul of the
world, creator of heaven and earth, lord of all things, Supreme Deity.
Such conceptions may in more or less measure have arisen in native
thought, but it should be pointed out that the remarkable Aztec
religious formulas collected by Sahagun, in which the deity Tezcatlipoca
is so prominent a figure, show traces of Christian admixture in their
material, as well as of Christian influence in their style. For
instance, all students of Mexican antiquities know the belief in
Mictlan, the Hades of the dead. But when one of these Aztec
prayer-formulas (concerning auricular confession, the washing away of
sins, and a new birth) makes mention of sinners being plunged into a
lake of intolerable misery and torment, the introduction of an idea so
obviously European condemns the composition as not purely native. The
question of the actual developments of ideas verging on pantheism or
theism, among the priests and philosophers of native Mexico, is one to
be left for further criticism.[823]
In the islands of the Pacific, the idea of Supreme Deity is especially
manifested in that great mythologic divinity of the Polynesian race,
whom the New Zealanders call Tangaroa, the Hawaiians Kanaroa, the
Tongans and Samoans Tangaloa, the Georgian and Society islanders Taaroa.
Students of the science of religion who hold polytheism to be but the
mis-development of a primal idea of divine unity, which in spite of
corruption continues to pervade it, might well choose this South Sea
Island divinity as their aptest illustration from the savage world.
Taaroa, says Moerenhout, is their supreme or rather only god; for all
the others, as in other known polytheisms, seem scarcely more than
sensible figures and images of the infinite attributes united in his
divine person. The following is given as a native poetic definition of
the Creator. ‘He was; Taaroa was his name; he abode in the void. No
earth, no sky, no men. Taaroa calls, but nought answers; and alone
existing, he became the universe. The props are Taaroa; the rocks are
Taaroa; the sands are Taaroa; it is thus he himself is named.’ According
to Ellis, Taaroa is described in the Leeward Islands as the eternal
parentless uncreate Creator, dwelling alone in the highest heaven, whose
bodily form mortals cannot see, who after intervals of innumerable
seasons casts off his body or shell and becomes renewed. It was he who
created Hina his daughter, and with her aid formed the sky and earth and
sea. He founded the world on a solid rock, which with all the creation
he sustains by his invisible power. Then he created the ranks of lesser
deities such as reign over sea and land and air, and govern peace and
war, and preside over physic and husbandry, and canoe-building, and
roofing, and theft. The version from the Windward Islands is that
Taaroa’s wife was the rock, the foundation of all things, and she gave
birth to earth and sea. Now, fortunately for our understanding of this
myth, the name of Taaroa’s wife, with whom he begat the lesser deities,
was taken down in Tahiti in Captain Cook’s time. She was a rock called
Papa, and her name plainly suggests her identity with Papa the Earth,
the wife of Rangi the Heaven in the New Zealand myth of Heaven and
Earth, the great first parents. If this inference be just, then it seems
that Taaroa the Creator is no personification of a primæval theistic
idea, but simply the divine personal Heaven transformed under European
influence into the supreme Heaven-god. Thus, when Turner gives the
Samoan myths of Tangaloa in heaven presiding over the production of the
earth from beneath the waters, or throwing down from the sky rocks which
are now islands, the classic name by which he calls him is that which
rightly describes his nature and mythic origin—Tangaloa, the Polynesian
Jupiter. Yet in island district after district, we find the name of the
mighty heavenly creator given to other and lesser mythic beings. In
Tahiti, the manes-worshipper’s idea is applied not only to lesser
deities, but to Taaroa the Creator himself, whom some maintained to be
but a man deified after death. In the New Zealand mythology, Tangaroa
figures on the one hand as Sea-god and father of fish and reptiles, on
the other as the mischievous eaves-dropping god who reveals secrets. In
Tonga, Tangaloa was god of artificers and arts, and his priests were
carpenters; it was he who went forth to fish, and dragged up the Tonga
islands from the bottom of the sea. Here, then, he corresponds with
Maui, and indeed Tangaroa and Maui are found blending in Polynesia even
to full identification. It is neither easy nor safe to fix to definite
origin the Protean shapes of South Sea mythology, but on the whole the
native myths are apt to embody cosmic ideas, and as the idea of the Sun
preponderates in Maui, so the idea of the Heaven in Taaroa.[824] In the
Fiji Islands, whose native mythology is on the whole distinct from that
of Polynesia proper, a strange weird figure takes the supreme place
among the gods. His name is Ndengei, the serpent is his shrine, some
traditions represent him with a serpent’s head and body and the rest of
him stone. He passes a monotonous existence in his gloomy cavern,
feeling no emotion nor sensation, nor any appetite but hunger; he takes
no interest in any one but Uto, his attendant, and gives no sign of life
beyond eating, answering his priest, and changing his position from one
side to the other. No wonder Ndengei is less worshipped than most of the
inferior gods. The natives have even made a comic song about him, where
he talks with his attendant, Uto, who has been to attend the feast at
Rakiraki, where Ndengei has especially his temple and worship.
_Ndengei._ ‘Have you been to the sharing of food to-day?’
_Uto._ ‘Yes: and turtles formed a part; but only the under-shell was
shared to us two.’
_Ndengei._ ‘Indeed, Uto! This is very bad. How is it? We made them
men, placed them on the earth, gave them food, and yet they share to
us only the under-shell. Uto, how is this?’[825]
The native religion of Africa, a land pervaded by the doctrines of
divine hierarchy and divine supremacy, affords apt evidence for the
problem before us. The capacity of the manes-worshipper’s scheme to
extend in this direction may be judged from the religious speculations
of the Zulus, where may be traced the merging of the First Man, the
Old-Old-One, Unkulunkulu, into the ideal of the Creator, Thunderer, and
Heaven-god.[826] If we examine a collection of documents illustrating
the doctrines of the West African races lying between the Hottentots on
the south and the Berbers on the north, we may fairly judge their
conceptions, evidently influenced as these have been by Christian
intercourse, to be nevertheless based on native ideas of the personal
Heaven.[827] Whether they think of their supreme deity as actively
pervading and governing his universe, or as acting through his divine
subordinates, or as retiring from his creation and leaving the lesser
spirits to work their will, he is always to their minds the celestial
ruler, the Heaven-god. Examples may be cited, each in its way full of
instruction. In the mind of the Gold-coast negro, tendencies towards
theistic religion seem to have been mainly developed through the idea of
Nyongmo, the personal Heaven, or its animating personal deity. Heaven,
wide-arching, rain-giving, light-giving, who has been and is and shall
be, is to him the Supreme Deity. The sky is Nyongmo’s creature, the
clouds are his veil, the stars his face-ornaments. Creator of all
things, and of their animating powers whose chief and elder he is, he
sits in majestic rest surrounded by his children, the wongs, the spirits
of the air who serve him and represent him on earth. Though men’s
worship is for the most part paid to these, reverence is also given to
Nyongmo, the Eldest, the Highest. Every day, said a fetish-man, we see
how the grass and corn and trees spring forth by the rain and sunshine
that Nyongmo sends, how should he not be the Creator? Again, the mighty
Heaven-god, far removed from man and seldom roused to interfere in
earthly interests, is the type on which the Guinea negroes may have
modelled their thoughts of a Highest Deity who has abandoned the control
of his world to lesser and evil spirits.[828] The religion of another
district seems to show clearly the train of thought by which such ideas
may be worked out. Among the Kimbunda race of Congo, Suku-Vakange is the
highest being. He takes little interest in mankind, leaving the real
government of the world to the good and evil kilulu or spirits, into
whose ranks the souls of men pass at death. Now in that there are more
bad spirits who torment, than good who favour living men, human misery
would be unbearable, were it not that from time to time Suku-Vakange,
enraged at the wickedness of the evil spirits, terrifies them with
thunder, and punishes the more obstinate with his thunderbolts. Then he
returns to rest, and lets the kilulu rule again.[829] Who, we may ask,
is this divinity, calm and indifferent save when his wrath bursts forth
in storm, but the Heaven himself? The relation of the Supreme Deity to
the lesser gods of polytheism is graphically put in the following
passage, where an American missionary among the Yorubas describes the
relation of Olorung, the Lord of Heaven, to his lesser deities (orisa),
among whom the chief are the androgynous Obatala, representing the
reproductive power of nature, and Shango the Thunder-god. ‘The doctrine
of idolatry prevalent in Yoruba appears to be derived by analogy from
the form and customs of the civil government. There is but one king in
the nation, and one God over the universe. Petitioners to the king
approach him through the intervention of his servants, courtiers, and
nobles: and the petitioner conciliates the courtier whom he employs by
good words and presents. In like manner no man can directly approach
God; but the Almighty himself, they say, has appointed various kinds of
orisas, who are mediators and intercessors between himself and mankind.
No sacrifices are made to God, because he needs nothing; but the orisas,
being much like men, are pleased with offerings of sheep, pigeons, and
other things. They conciliate the orisa or mediator that he may bless
them, not in his own power, but in the power of God.’[830]
Rooted as they are in the depths of nature-worship, the doctrines of the
supreme Sun and Heaven both come to the surface again in the native
religions of Asia. The divine Sun holds his primacy distinctly enough
among the rude indigenous tribes of India. Although one sect of the
Khonds of Orissa especially direct their worship to Tari Pennu the
Earth-goddess, yet even they agree theoretically with the sect who
worship Bura Pennu or Bella Pennu, Light-god or Sun-god, in giving to
him supremacy above the manes-gods and nature-gods, and all spiritual
powers.[831] Among the Kol tribes of Bengal, the acknowledged primate of
all classes of divinities is the beneficent supreme deity, Sing-bonga,
Sun-god. Among some Munda tribes his authority is so real that they will
appeal to him for help where recourse to minor deities has failed; while
among the Santals his cultus has so dwindled away that he receives less
practical worship than his malevolent inferiors, and is scarce honoured
with more than nominal dignity and an occasional feast.[832] These are
rude tribes who, so far as we know, have never been other than rude
tribes. The Japanese are a comparatively civilized nation, one of those
so instructive to the student of culture from the stubborn conservatism
with which they have consecrated by traditional reverence, and kept up
by state authority, the religion of their former barbarism. This is the
Kami-religion, Spirit-religion, the ancient but mixed faith of divine
spirits of ancestors, nature-spirits, and polytheistic gods, which still
holds official place by the side of the imported Buddhism and
Confucianism. The Sun-goddess, Amaterasu, ‘Heaven-shiner,’ though but
sprung from the left eye of the parent Izanagi, came to be honoured
above all lesser kamis or gods, while by a fiction of ancestor-worship
the solar race, as in Peru, became the royal family, her spirit
descending to animate the Mikado. Kaempfer, in his ‘History of Japan,’
written early in the 18th century, showed how absolutely the divine
Tensio Dai Sin, represented below on the imperial throne, was looked
upon as ruler of the minor powers; he mentions the Japanese tenth month,
called the ‘godless month,’ because then the lesser gods are considered
to be away from their temples, gone to pay their annual homage to the
Dairi. He describes, as it was in his time, the great Japanese place of
pilgrimage, Yse. There was to be seen the small cavern in a hill near
the sea, where the divine Sun once hid herself, depriving the world of
light, and thus showing herself to be supreme above all gods. Within the
small ancient temple hard by, of which an account and a picture are
given from a Japanese book, there were to be seen round the walls the
usual pieces of cut white paper, and in the midst nothing but a polished
metal mirror.[833]
Over the vast range of the Tatar races, it is the type of the supreme
Heaven that comes prominently into view. Nature-worshippers in the
extreme sense, these rude tribes conceived their ghosts and elves and
demons and great powers of the earth and air to be, like men themselves,
within the domain of the divine Heaven, almighty and all-encompassing.
To trace the Samoyed’s thought of Num the personal Sky passing into
vague conceptions of pervading deity; to see with the Tunguz how Boa the
Heaven-god, unseen but all-knowing, kindly but indifferent, has divided
the business of his world among such lesser powers as sun and moon,
earth and fire; to discern the meaning of the Mongrel Tengri, shading
from Heaven into Heaven-god, and thence into god or spirit in general;
to follow the records of Heaven-worship among the ancient Turks and
Hiong-nu; to compare the supremacy among the Lapps of Tiermes, the
Thunderer, with the supremacy among the Finns of Jumala and Ukko, the
Heaven-god and heavenly Grandfather—such evidence seems good ground for
Castrén’s argument, that the doctrine of the divine Sky underlay the
first Turanian conceptions, not merely of a Heaven-god, but of a highest
deity who in after ages of Christian conversion blended into the
Christian God.[834] Here, again, we may have the advantage of studying
among a cultured race the survival of religion from ruder ancient times,
kept up by official ordinance. The state religion of China is in its
dominant doctrine the worship of Tien, Heaven, identified with Shang-ti,
the Emperor-above, next to whom stands Tu, Earth; while below them are
worshipped great nature-spirits and ancestors. It is possible that this
faith, as Professor Max Müller argues, may be ethnologically and even
linguistically part and parcel of the general Heaven-worship of the
Turanian tribes of Siberia. At any rate, it is identical with it in its
primary idea, the adoration of the supreme Heaven. Dr. Legge charges
Confucius with an inclination to substitute in his religious teaching
the name of Tien, Heaven, for that known to more ancient religion and
used in more ancient books, Shang-ti, the personal ruling Deity. But it
seems rather that the sage was in fact upholding the traditions of the
ancient faith, thus acting according to the character on which he prided
himself, that of a transmitter and not a maker, a preserver of old
knowledge, not a new revealer. It is in accordance with the usual course
of theologic development, for the divine Heaven to reign in rude
mythologic religion over the lesser spirits of the world before the
childlike poetic thought passes into the statesman’s conception of a
Celestial Emperor. As Plath well remarks, ‘It belongs to the Chinese
system that all nature is animated by spirits, and that all these follow
one order. As the Chinese cannot think of a Chinese Empire with an
Emperor only, and without the host of vassal-princes and officials, so
he cannot think of the Upper Emperor without the host of spirits.’
Developed in a different line, the idea of a supreme Heaven comes to
pervade Chinese philosophy and ethics as a general expression of fate,
ordinance, duty. ‘Heaven’s order is nature’—‘The wise man readily awaits
Heaven’s command’—‘Man must first do his own part; when he has done all,
then he can wait for Heaven to complete it’—‘All state officers are
Heaven’s workmen, and represent him’—‘How does Heaven speak? The four
seasons have their course, the hundred things arise, what speaks
he?’—‘No, Heaven speaks not; by the course of events he makes himself
understood, no more.’[835]
These stray scraps from old Chinese literature are intelligible to
European ears, for our Aryan race has indeed worked out religious ideas
from the like source and almost in the like directions. The Samoyed or
Tunguz Heaven-god had his analogue in Dyu, Heaven, of the Vedic hymns.
Once meaning the sky, and the sky personified, this Zeus came to mean
far more than mere heaven in the minds of Greek poets and philosophers,
when it rose toward ‘that conception which in sublimity, brightness, and
infinity transcended all others as much as the bright blue sky
transcended all other things visible upon earth.’ At the lower level of
mythic religion, the ideal process of shaping the divine world into a
monarchic constitution was worked out by the ancient Greeks, on the same
simple plan as among such barbarians as the Kols of Chota-Nagpur or the
Gallas of Abyssinia; Zeus is King over Olympian gods, and below these
again are marshalled the crowded ranks of demigods, heroes, demons,
nymphs, ghosts. At the higher level of theologic speculation, exalted
thoughts of universal cause and being, of physical and moral law, took
personality under the name of Zeus. It is in direct derivation along
this historic line, that the classical heaven-cultus still asserts
itself in song and pageant among us, in that quaintest of quaint
survivals, the factitious religion of the Italian Opera, where such
worship as artistic ends require is still addressed to the divine Cielo.
Even in our daily talk, colloquial expressions call up before the mind
of the ethnographer outlines of remotest religious history. Heaven
grants, forbids, blesses still in phrase, as heretofore in fact.
Vast and difficult as is the research into the full scope and history of
the doctrine of supremacy among the higher nations, it may be at least
seen that helpful clues exist to lead the explorer. The doctrine of
mighty nature-spirits, inhabiting and controlling sky and earth and sea,
seems to expand in Asia into such ideas as that of Mahâtman the Great
Spirit, Paramâtman the Highest Spirit, taking personality as Brahma the
all-pervading universal soul[836]—in Europe into philosophic conceptions
of which a grand type stands out in Kepler’s words, that the universe is
a harmonious whole, whose soul is God. There is a saying of Comte’s that
throws strong light upon this track of speculative theology: he declares
that the conception among the ancients of the Soul of the Universe, the
notion that the earth is a vast living animal, and in our own time, the
obscure pantheism which is so rife among German metaphysicians, are only
fetishism generalized and made systematic.[837] Polytheism, in its
inextricable confusion of the persons and functions of the great
divinities, and in its assignment of the sovereignty of the world to a
supreme being who combines in himself the attributes of several such
minor deities, tends toward the doctrine of fundamental unity. Max
Müller, in a lecture on the Veda, has given the name of kathenotheism to
the doctrine of divine unity in diversity which comes into view in these
instructive lines:—
‘Indram Mitram Varunam Agnim âhur atho
divyah sa suparno Garutmân:
Ekam sad viprâ bahudha vadanti Agnim
Yamam Mâtariçvânam âhuh.’
‘They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; then he is the
beautiful-winged heavenly Garutman: That which is One the wise call it
in divers manners; they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtariçvan.’[838]
The figure of the supreme deity, be he Heaven-god, Sun-god, Great
Spirit, beginning already in uncultured thought to take the form and
function of a divine ruler of the world, represents a conception which
it becomes the age-long work of systematic theology to develop and to
define. Thus in Greece arises Zeus the highest, greatest, best, ‘who was
and is and shall be,’ ‘beginning and chief of all things,’ ‘who rules
over all mortals and immortals,’ ‘Zeus the god of gods.’[839] Such is
Ahura Mazda in the Persian faith, among whose seventy-two names of might
are these: Creator, Protector, Nourisher, Holiest Heavenly One, Healing
Priest, Most Pure, Most Majestic, Most Knowing, Most Ruling at
Will.[840] There may be truth in the assertion that the esoteric
religion of ancient Egypt centred in a doctrine of divine unity,
manifested through the heterogeneous crowd of popular deities.[841] It
may be a hopeless task to disentangle the confused personalities of
Baal, Bel, and Moloch, and no antiquary may ever fully solve the enigma
how far the divine name of El carried in its wide range among the Jewish
and other Semitic nations a doctrine of divine supremacy.[842] The great
Syro-Phœnician kingdoms and religions have long since passed away into
darkness, leaving but antiquarian relics to vouch for their former
might. Far other has been the history of their Jewish kindred, still
standing fast to their ancient nationality, still upholding to this day
their patriarchal religion, in the midst of nations who inherit from the
faith of Israel the belief in one God, highest, almighty, who in the
beginning made the heavens and the earth, whose throne is established of
old, who is from everlasting to everlasting.
Before now bringing these researches to a close, it will be well to
state compactly the reasons for treating the animism of the modern
savage world as more or less representing the animism of remotely
ancient races of mankind. Savage animism, founded on a doctrine of souls
carried to an extent far beyond its limits in the cultivated world, and
thence expanding to a yet wider doctrine of spiritual beings animating
and controlling the universe in all its parts, becomes a theory of
personal causes developed into a general philosophy of man and nature.
As such, it may be reasonably accounted for as the direct product of
natural religion, using this term according to the sense of its
definition by Bishop Wilkins: ‘I call that Natural Religion, which men
might know, and should be obliged unto, by the meer principles of
Reason, improved by Consideration and Experience, without the help of
Revelation.’[843] It will scarcely be argued by theologians familiar
with the religions of savage tribes, that they are direct or nearly
direct products of revelation, for the theology of our time would
abolish or modify their details till scarce one was left intact. The
main issue of the problem is this, whether savage animism is a primary
formation belonging to the lower culture, or whether it consists, mostly
or entirely, of beliefs originating in some higher culture, and conveyed
by adoption or degradation into the lower. The evidence for the first
alternative, though not amounting to complete demonstration, seems
reasonably strong, and not met by contrary evidence approaching it in
force. The animism of the lower tribes, self-contained and
self-supporting, maintained in close contact with that direct evidence
of the senses on which it appears to be originally based, is a system
which might quite reasonably exist among mankind, had they never
anywhere risen above the savage condition. Now it does not seem that the
animism of the higher nations stands in a connexion so direct and
complete with their mental state. It is by no means so closely limited
to doctrines evidenced by simple contemplation of nature. The doctrines
of the lower animism appear in the higher often more and more modified,
to bring them into accordance with an advancing intellectual condition,
to adapt them at once to the limits of stricter science and the needs of
higher faith; and in the higher animism these doctrines are retained
side by side with other and special beliefs, of which the religions of
the lower world show scarce a germ. In tracing the course of animistic
thought from stage to stage of history, instruction is to be gained
alike from the immensity of change and from the intensity of permanence.
Savage animism, both by what it has and by what it wants, seems to
represent the earlier system in which began the age-long course of the
education of the world. Especially is it to be noticed that various
beliefs and practices, which in the lower animism stand firm upon their
grounds as if they grew there, in the higher animism belong rather to
peasants than philosophers, exist rather as ancestral relics than as
products belonging to their age, are falling from full life into
survival. Thus it is that savage religion can frequently explain
doctrines and rites of civilized religion. The converse is far less
often the case. Now this is a state of things which appears to carry a
historical as well as a practical meaning. The degradation-theory would
expect savages to hold beliefs and customs intelligible as broken-down
relics of former higher civilization. The development-theory would
expect civilized men to keep up beliefs and customs which have their
reasonable meaning in less cultured states of society. So far as the
study of survival enables us to judge between the two theories, it is
seen that what is intelligible religion in the lower culture is often
meaningless superstition in the higher, and thus the development-theory
has the upper hand. Moreover, this evidence fits with the teaching of
prehistoric archæology. Savage life, carrying on into our own day the
life of the Stone Age, may be legitimately claimed as representing
remotely ancient conditions of mankind, intellectual and moral as well
as material. If so, a low but progressive state of animistic religion
occupies a like ground in savage and in primitive culture.
Lastly, a few words of explanation may be offered as to the topics which
this survey has included and excluded. To those who have been accustomed
to find theological subjects dealt with on a dogmatic, emotional, and
ethical, rather than an ethnographic scheme, the present investigation
may seem misleading, because one-sided. This one-sided treatment,
however, has been adopted with full consideration. Thus, though the
doctrines here examined bear not only on the development but the actual
truth of religious systems, I have felt neither able nor willing to
enter into this great argument fully and satisfactorily, while
experience has shown that to dispose of such questions by an occasional
dictatorial phrase is one of the most serious of errors. The scientific
value of descriptions of savage and barbarous religions, drawn up by
travellers and especially by missionaries, is often lowered by their
controversial tone, and by the affectation of infallibility with which
their relation to the absolutely true is settled. There is something
pathetic in the simplicity with which a narrow student will judge the
doctrines of a foreign religion by their antagonism or conformity to his
own orthodoxy, on points where utter difference of opinion exists among
the most learned and enlightened scholars. The systematization of the
lower religions, the reduction of their multifarious details to the few
and simple ideas of primitive philosophy which form the common
groundwork of them all, appeared to me an urgently needed contribution
to the science of religion. This work I have carried out to the utmost
of my power, and I can now only leave the result in the hands of other
students, whose province it is to deal with such evidence in wider
schemes of argument. Again, the intellectual rather than the emotional
side of religion has here been kept in view. Even in the life of the
rudest savage, religious belief is associated with intense emotion, with
awful reverence, with agonizing terror, with rapt ecstasy when sense and
thought utterly transcend the common level of daily life. How much the
more in faiths where not only does the believer experience such
enthusiasm, but where his utmost feelings of love and hope, of justice
and mercy, of fortitude and tenderness and self-sacrificing devotion, of
unutterable misery and dazzling happiness, twine and clasp round the
fabric of religion. Language, dropping at times from such words as soul
and spirit their mere philosophic meaning, can use them in full
conformity with this tendency of the religious mind, as phrases to
convey a mystic sense of transcendent emotion. Yet of all this religion,
the religion of vision and of passion, little indeed has been said in
these pages, and even that little rather in incidental touches than with
purpose. Those to whom religion means above all things religious
feeling, may say of my argument that I have written soullessly of the
soul, and unspiritually of spiritual things. Be it so: I accept the
phrase not as needing an apology, but as expressing a plan. Scientific
progress is at times most furthered by working along a distinct
intellectual line, without being tempted to diverge from the main object
to what lies beyond, in however intimate connexion. The anatomist does
well to discuss bodily structure independently of the world of happiness
and misery which depends upon it. It would be thought a mere
impertinence for a strategist to preface a dissertation on the science
of war, by an enquiry how far it is lawful for a Christian man to bear
weapons and serve in the wars. My task has been here not to discuss
Religion in all its bearings, but to portray in outline the great
doctrine of Animism, as found in what I conceive to be its earliest
stages among the lower races of mankind, and to show its transmission
along the lines of religious thought.
The almost entire exclusion of ethical questions from this investigation
has more than a mere reason of arrangement. It is due to the very nature
of the subject. To some the statement may seem startling, yet the
evidence seems to justify it, that the relation of morality to religion
is one that only belongs in its rudiments, or not at all, to rudimentary
civilization. The comparison of savage and civilized religions bring
into view, by the side of a deep-lying resemblance in their philosophy,
a deep-lying contrast in their practical action on human life. So far as
savage religion can stand as representing natural religion, the popular
idea that the moral government of the universe is an essential tenet of
natural religion simply falls to the ground. Savage animism is almost
devoid of that ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the
very mainspring of practical religion. Not, as I have said, that
morality is absent from the life of the lower races. Without a code of
morals, the very existence of the rudest tribe would be impossible; and
indeed the moral standards of even savage races are to no small extent
well-defined and praiseworthy. But these ethical laws stand on their own
ground of tradition and public opinion, comparatively independent of the
animistic belief and rites which exist beside them. The lower animism is
not immoral, it is unmoral. For this plain reason, it has seemed
desirable to keep the discussion of animism, as far as might be,
separate from that of ethics. The general problem of the relation of
morality to religion is difficult, intricate, and requiring immense
array of evidence, and may be perhaps more profitably discussed in
connexion with the ethnography of morals. To justify their present
separation, it will be enough to refer in general terms to the accounts
of savage tribes whose ideas have been little affected by civilized
intercourse; proper caution being used not to trust vague statements
about good and evil, but to ascertain whether these are what philosophic
moralists would call virtue and vice, righteousness and wickedness, or
whether they are mere personal advantage and disadvantage. The essential
connexion of theology and morality is a fixed idea in many minds. But it
is one of the lessons of history that subjects may maintain themselves
independently for ages, till the event of coalescence takes place. In
the course of history, religion has in various ways attached to itself
matters small and great outside its central scheme, such as prohibition
of special meats, observance of special days, regulation of marriage as
to kinship, division of society into castes, ordinance of social law and
civil government. Looking at religion from a political point of view, as
a practical influence on human society, it is clear that among its
greatest powers have been its divine sanction of ethical laws, its
theological enforcement of morality, its teaching of moral government of
the universe, its supplanting the ‘continuance-doctrine’ of a future
life by the ‘retribution-doctrine’ supplying moral motive in the
present. But such alliance belongs almost or wholly to religions above
the savage level, not to the earlier and lower creeds. It will aid us to
see how much more the fruit of religion belongs to ethical influence
than to philosophical dogma, if we consider how the introduction of the
moral element separates the religions of the world, united as they are
throughout by one animistic principle, into two great classes, those
lower systems whose best result is to supply a crude childlike natural
philosophy, and those higher faiths which implant on this the law of
righteousness and of holiness, the inspiration of duty and of love.
Footnote 743:
Herrera, ‘Indias Occidentales,’ Dec. i. 3, 3; J. G. Müller, ‘Amer.
Urrel.’ pp. 175, 221.
Footnote 744:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 174.
Footnote 745:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peru,’ p. 160.
Footnote 746:
Kingsborough, ‘Mexico,’ vol. v. p. 179.
Footnote 747:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 89.
Footnote 748:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. i. p. 371.
Footnote 749:
Ovid. Fast. ii. 449.
Footnote 750:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 264.
Footnote 751:
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 158.
Footnote 752:
De Laet, ‘Novus Orbis,’ xv. 2; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 417; Brinson, pp.
152, 185; J. G. Müller, p. 271, &c.
Footnote 753:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. p. 319.
Footnote 754:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. pp. 16, 68, 75.
Footnote 755:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 333. Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p.
115.
Footnote 756:
Cross, in ‘Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 316; Mason, p. 215.
Footnote 757:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 91, 355.
Footnote 758:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 89.
Footnote 759:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. ii. p. 467. Cox, ‘Mythology of Aryan
Nations,’ vol. ii. p. 308.
Footnote 760:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 141, 271, 274, 591, &c.
Footnote 761:
Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. p. 90.
Footnote 762:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. pp. 17, 81.
Footnote 763:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 326; vol. iv. p. 158. See also
Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 112; Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p.
218.
Footnote 764:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 90, 360.
Footnote 765:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 267.
Footnote 766:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. i. p. 413. Cox, ‘Myth. of Aryan N.,’
vol. ii. pp. 254, 311.
Footnote 767:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 137, &c., 272, 286, &c., 500, &c. See
Sproat, p. 213 (Ahts), cited ante, p. 85. Chay-her signifies not only
the world below, but Death personified as a boneless greybeard who
wanders at night stealing men’s souls away.
Footnote 768:
Lery, ‘Bresil,’ p. 234.
Footnote 769:
Clavigero, vol. ii. pp. 14, 17; Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 495.
Footnote 770:
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, pp. 32, 48
(prayer from MS. communication by C. R. M.); Garcilaso de la Vega,
lib. ii. c. 2, 7; Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 251.
Footnote 771:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 237; Farmer, ‘Tonga,’ p. 126. Yate, ‘New
Zealand,’ p. 140; J. Williams, ‘Missionary Enterprise,’ p. 145. See
Schirren, ‘Wandersagen der Neuseeländer,’ p. 89; Williams, ‘Fiji,’
vol. i. p. 246.
Footnote 772:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ pp. 128, 147, 155; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 171
(Africa).
Footnote 773:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterl.’ vol. i. p. 395; Roscher, s.v. ‘Hades.’
Grimm, ‘Deutsch. Myth.’ p. 288.
Footnote 774:
Brugsch, ‘Religion der alten Aegypter’; ‘Book of Dead.’
Footnote 775:
Pr. Max. v. Wied, ‘N. Amerika,’ vol. ii. p. 157.
Footnote 776:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ pp. 133, &c., 228, 255. Catlin, ‘N. A.
Ind.’ vol. i. pp. 159, 177; Pr. Max v. Wied, vol. ii. pp. 149, &c.
Compare Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ p. 179 (Quawteaht the Great Spirit is
also First Man).
Footnote 777:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. p. 319.
Footnote 778:
Schirren, ‘Wandersagen der Neuseeländer,’ p. 64, &c., 88, &c. Ellis,
‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 111, vol. iv. pp. 145, 366.
Footnote 779:
Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 271.
Footnote 780:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 1-104.
Footnote 781:
‘Rig-Veda,’ x. ‘Atharva-Veda,’ xviii. Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd Ser.
p. 514. Muir, ‘Yama,’ &c., in ‘Journ. As. Soc. N. S.’ vol. i. 1865.
Roth in ‘Ztschr. Deutsch. Morgenl. G.’ vol. iv. p. 426. Ward,
‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 60. Avesta: ‘Vendidad,’ ii. Pictet, ‘Origines
Indo-Europ.’ part ii. p. 621.
Footnote 782:
Eisenmenger, part i. p. 365.
Footnote 783:
Koran, ii. 28, vii. 10, &c.
Footnote 784:
Neander, ‘Hist. of Chr.’ vol. ii. pp. 81, 109, 174.
Footnote 785:
Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 228. See also Eyre, vol. ii.
p. 356; Lang, ‘Queensland,’ p. 444.
Footnote 786:
Loskiel, ‘Gesch. der Mission unter den Ind. in Nord-Amer.’ part i. ch.
3.
Footnote 787:
Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 348.
Footnote 788:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 416. See J. G. Müller, p. 207.
Footnote 789:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part v. p. 632; see part i. p. 316, part
vi. p. 166; ‘Iroquois,’ p. 36, see 237; Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’
p. 63.
Footnote 790:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jésuites dans la Nouvelle France,’ 1635, p. 34,
1636, p. 100. Sagard, ‘Histoire du Canada,’ Paris, 1636, p. 490. L. H.
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 156. See ante, vol. i. pp. 288, 349.
Footnote 791:
Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. iii. pp. 182, 330, 335, 345; Le Jeune in
‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1637, p. 49; La Potherie, ‘Hist. de l’Amér.
Septentrionale,’ Paris, 1722, vol. i. p. 121; J. G. Müller, p. 149,
&c. Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 35, &c., 320, 412;
Catlin, vol. i. p. 156; Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 263.
Footnote 792:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. pp. 327, 485, 583, 645, see 247, 393,
427, 696. See also J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ pp. 259, &c., 403,
423; D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. i. p. 405, vol. ii. p. 257;
Falkner, ‘Patagonia,’ p. 114; Musters, ‘Patagonians,’ p. 179; Fitzroy,
‘Voy. of Adventure and Beagle,’ vol. i. pp. 180, 190.
Footnote 793:
Piedrahita, ‘Hist. de Neuv. Granada,’ part i. book i. ch. 3.
Footnote 794:
Molina, ‘Hist. of Chili,’ vol. ii. p. 84; Febres, ‘Diccionario
Chileño,’ s.v.
Footnote 795:
Proyart, ‘Loango,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 504. Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. ii. p. 109. See Kolbe, ‘Kaap de Goede Hoop,’ part i. xxix.:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 342 (Hottentots).
Footnote 796:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 217, 387. Waitz, vol. ii. p. 173.
Footnote 797:
Birch, in Bunsen, vol. v. p. 136. Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ &c.
Footnote 798:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 84.
Footnote 799:
Avesta, tr. by Spiegel. Vendidad, i.; ‘Khorda-Avesta.’ xlv. xlvi. Max
Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 1st Ser. p. 208.
Footnote 800:
Layard, ‘Nineveh,’ vol. i. p. 297; Ainsworth, ‘Izedis,’ in ‘Tr. Eth.
Soc.’ vol. i. p. 11.
Footnote 801:
Beausobre, ‘Hist. de Manichée,’ &c. Neander, ‘Hist. of Christian
Religion,’ vol. ii. p. 157, &c.
Footnote 802:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 155.
Footnote 803:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. vi. p. 85.
Footnote 804:
‘Études Philologiques sur quelques Langues Sauvages de l’Amérique,’
par N. O. (J. A. Cuoq.) Montreal, 1866, p. 14. Brinton, ‘Myths of New
World,’ p. 53. Schoolcraft, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 33.
Footnote 805:
De la Borde, ‘Caraibes,’ p. 524. J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ p. 228.
Footnote 806:
Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. p. 89.
Footnote 807:
Hutchinson, ‘Chaco Ind.’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 327.
Footnote 808:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. p. 319.
Footnote 809:
Molina, ‘Hist. of Chili,’ vol. ii. p. 84, &c. Compare Febres,
‘Diccionario Chileño.’
Footnote 810:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 415. Musters, ‘Patagonians,’ p. 179.
Footnote 811:
‘Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas,’ trans. from the
original Spanish MSS., and ed. by C. R. Markham, Hakluyt Soc. 1873, p.
ix. 5, 16, 30, 76, 84, 154, &c. The above remarks are based on the
early evidence here printed for the first time, and on private
suggestions for which I am also indebted to Mr. Markham. The title
Pachacamac has been also considered to mean Animator or Soul of the
World, camani = I create, camac = creator, cama = soul (note to 2nd
ed.). Garcilaso de la Vega, lib. i., ii. c. 2, iii. c. 20; Herrera,
dec. v. 4; Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 177, see 142; Rivero and
Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ ch. vii.; Waitz, vol. iv. p. 447; J.
G. Müller, p. 317, &c.
Footnote 812:
Sagard, ‘Hist. du Canada,’ p. 490. Hennepin, ‘Voy. dans l’Amérique,’
p. 302. Gregg, ‘Commerce of Prairies,’ vol. ii. p. 237.
Footnote 813:
Le Jeune, ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1637, p. 49; Brinton, p. 52; Lafitau, ‘Mœurs
des Sauvages Amériquains,’ vol. i. pp. 126, 145 (note to 3rd ed.).
Footnote 814:
Egede, ‘Descr. of Greenland,’ ch. xviii.; Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 263;
Rink, ‘Eskimoiske Eventyr,’ &c., p. 28.
Footnote 815:
Le Jeune, 1633, p. 16; 1634, p. 13.
Footnote 816:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 15.
Footnote 817:
Cartier, ‘Relation;’ Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 212; Lescarbot, ‘Nouvelle
France,’ p. 613. Thevet, ‘Singularitez de la France Antarctique,’
Paris, 1558, ch. 77. See also J. G. Müller, p. 102. Andouagni is
perhaps a miscopied form of Cudouagni. Other forms, Cudruagni, &c.,
occur.
Footnote 818:
Smith, ‘Hist. of Virginia,’ London, 1632, in Pinkerton, ‘Voyages,’
vol. xiii. pp. 13, 18, 244 (New Eng.); see Arber’s edition. Priority
has been claimed for E. Strachey (see Lang, ‘Making of Religion,’ p.
254), but this copyist seems only to have copied Capt. Smith’s ‘Map of
Virginia’ (1608). Brinton, p. 58; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 177, &c. J. G.
Müller, pp. 99, &c.; Loskiel, part i. pp. 33, 43.
Footnote 819:
Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 107; see above, p. 255. Sagard, p.
494; Cuoq, p. 176; J. G. Müller, p. 103. For other mention of a
Supreme Deity among North American tribes see Joutel, ‘Journal du
Voyage,’ &c., Paris, 1713, p. 224 (Louisiana); Sproat in ‘Tr. Eth.
Soc.’ vol. v. p. 253 (Vancouver’s I.).
Footnote 820:
Lafitau, ‘Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains,’ 1724, vol. i. pp. 124-6.
Footnote 821:
Bartram in ‘Tr. Amer. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. pp. 20, 26.
Footnote 822:
Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part ii. p. 127.
Footnote 823:
Prescott, ‘Mexico,’ book i. ch. vi. Sahagun, ‘Hist. de Nueva España,’
lib. vi. in Kingsborough, vol. v.; Torquemada, ‘Monarq. Ind.’ lib. x.
c. 14. Waitz, vol. iv. p. 136; J. G. Müller, p. 621, &c.
Footnote 824:
Moerenhout, ‘Voy. aux Iles du Grand Océan,’ vol. i. pp. 419, 437.
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p. 321, &c. J. R. Forster, ‘Voyage round
the World,’ pp. 540, 567. Grey, ‘Polyn. Myth.’ p. 6. Taylor, ‘New
Zealand,’ p. 118; see above, vol. i. p. 322. Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p.
244. Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. pp. 116, 121. Schirren,
‘Wandersagen der Neuseeländer,’ pp. 68, 89.
Footnote 825:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 217.
Footnote 826:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ part i. See ante, pp. 116, 313.
Footnote 827:
See especially Waitz, vol. ii. p. 167, &c.; J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’
pp. 209, 387; Bosman, Mungo Park, &c. Comp. Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol.
i. p. 390.
Footnote 828:
Steinhauser, ‘Religion des Negers,’ in ‘Mag. der Miss.’ Basel, 1856.
No. 2, p. 128. J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 92, 209; Römer, ‘Guinea,’
p. 42. See also Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 171, 419.
Footnote 829:
Magyar, ‘Reisen in Süd-Afrika,’ pp. 125, 335.
Footnote 830:
Bowen, ‘Gr. and Dic. of Yoruba,’ p. xvi. in ‘Smithsonian Contr.’ vol.
i.
Footnote 831:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 84, &c.
Footnote 832:
Dalton, ‘Kols,’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 32. Hunter, ‘Rural
Bengal,’ p. 184.
Footnote 833:
Siebold, ‘Nippon.’ Kaempfer, ‘Hist. of Japan,’ 1727, book I. ch. I,
IV. For accurate modern information, see papers of Chamberlain and
Satow in ‘Tr. As. Soc. Japan,’ and Murray’s Handbook (note to 3rd
ed.).
Footnote 834:
Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 1, &c. Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. p.
101. ‘Samoiedia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 531. ‘Georgi, Reise im
Russ. Reich.’ vol. i. p. 275.
Footnote 835:
Plath, ‘Rel. der Alten Chinesen,’ part i. p. 18, &c. See Max Müller,
‘Lectures on Science of Religion,’ No. III. in ‘Fraser’s Mag.’ 1870.
Legge, ‘Confucius,’ p. 100.
Footnote 836:
See Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. ii. Wuttke, ‘Heidenthum,’ part i. p.
254. Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p. xxi. vol. ii. p. 1.
Footnote 837:
Comte, ‘Philosophie Positive.’ Cf. Bp. Berkeley’s ‘Siris’; and for a
modern dissertation on the universal æther as the divine soul of the
world, see Phil. Spiller, ‘Gott im Lichte der Naturwissenschaften,’
Berlin, 1873 (note to 2nd ed.).
Footnote 838:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 164, 46. Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. pp. 27, 241.
Footnote 839:
See Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterlehre,’ pp. 143, 175.
Footnote 840:
Avesta; trans. by Spiegel, ‘Ormazd-Yasht.’ 12.
Footnote 841:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. iv. ch. xii.; Bunsen, ‘Egypt,’ vol. iv.
p. 325.
Footnote 842:
Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 169, &c.
Footnote 843:
‘Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion,’ London, 1678, book
i. ch. vi. Johnson’s Dictionary, s.v. The term ‘natural religion’ is
used in various and even incompatible senses. Thus Butler in his
‘Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and
Course of Nature,’ signifies by ‘natural religion’ a primæval system
which he expressly argues to have been not reasoned out, but taught
first by revelation. This system, of which the main tenets are the
belief in one God, the Creator and Moral Governor of the World, and in
a future state of moral retribution, differs in the extreme from the
actual religions of the lower races.
CHAPTER XVIII.
RITES AND CEREMONIES.
Religious Rites: their purpose practical or symbolic—Prayer: its
continuity from low to high levels of Culture; its lower phases
Unethical; its higher phases Ethical—Sacrifice: its
original Gift-theory passes into the Homage-theory and the
Abnegation-theory—Manner of reception of Sacrifice by Deity—Material
Transfer to elements, fetish-animals, priests; consumption of
substance by deity or idol; offering of blood; transmission by fire;
incense—Essential Transfer: consumption of essence, savour,
&c.—Spiritual Transfer: consumption or transmission of soul of
offering—Motive of Sacrificer—Transition from Gift-theory to
Homage-theory: insignificant and formal offerings; sacrificial
banquets—Abnegation-theory; sacrifice of children, &c.—Sacrifice of
Substitutes: part given for whole; inferior life for superior;
effigies—Modern survival of Sacrifice in folklore and
religion—Fasting, as a means of producing ecstatic vision; its
course from lower to higher Culture—Drugs used to produce
ecstasy—Swoons and fits induced for religious purposes—Orientation:
its relation to Sun-myth and Sun-worship; rules of East and West as
to burial of dead, position of worship, and structure of
temple—Lustration by Water and Fire: its transition from material to
symbolic purification; its connexion with special events of life;
its appearance among the lower races—Lustration of new-born
children; of women; of those polluted by bloodshed or the
dead—Lustration continued at higher levels of Culture—Conclusion.
Religious rites fall theoretically into two divisions, though these
blend in practice. In part, they are expressive and symbolic
performances, the dramatic utterance of religious thought, the
gesture-language of theology. In part, they are means of intercourse
with and influence on spiritual beings, and as such, their intention is
as directly practical as any chemical or mechanical process, for
doctrine and worship correlate as theory and practice. In the science of
religion, the study of ceremony has its strong and weak sides. On the
one hand, it is generally easier to obtain accurate accounts of
ceremonies by eye-witnesses, than anything like trustworthy and
intelligible statements of doctrine; so that very much of our knowledge
of religion in the savage and barbaric world consists in acquaintance
with its ceremonies. It is also true that some religious ceremonies are
marvels of permanence, holding substantially the same form and meaning
through age after age, and far beyond the range of historic record. On
the other hand, the signification of ceremonies is not to be rashly
decided on by mere inspection. In the long and varied course in which
religion has adapted itself to new intellectual and moral conditions,
one of the most marked processes has affected time-honoured religious
customs, whose form has been faithfully and even servilely kept up,
while their nature has often undergone transformation. In the religions
of the great nations, the natural difficulty of following these changes
has been added to by the sacerdotal tendency to ignore and obliterate
traces of the inevitable change of religion from age to age, and to
convert into mysteries ancient rites whose real barbaric meaning is too
far out of harmony with the spirit of a later time. The embarrassments,
however, which beset the enquirer into the ceremonies of a single
religion, diminish in a larger comparative study. The ethnographer who
brings together examples of a ceremony from different stages of culture
can often give a more rational account of it, than the priest, to whom a
special signification, sometimes very unlike the original one, has
become matter of orthodoxy. As a contribution to the theory of religion,
with especial view to its lower phases as explanatory of the higher, I
have here selected for ethnographic discussion a group of sacred rites,
each in its way full of instruction, different as these ways are. All
have early place and rudimentary meaning in savage culture, all belong
to barbaric ages, all have their representatives within the limits of
modern Christendom. They are the rites of Prayer, Sacrifice, Fasting and
other methods of Artificial Ecstasy, Orientation, Lustration.
Prayer, ‘the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed,’ is the
address of personal spirit to personal spirit. So far as it is actually
addressed to disembodied or deified human souls, it is simply an
extension of the daily intercourse between man and man; while the
worshipper who looks up to other divine beings, spiritual after the
nature of his own spirit, though of place and power in the universe far
beyond his own, still has his mind in a state where prayer is a
reasonable and practical act. So simple and familiar indeed is the
nature of prayer, that its study does not demand that detail of fact and
argument which must be given to rites in comparison practically
insignificant. It has not indeed been placed everywhere on record as the
necessary outcome of animistic belief, for especially at low levels of
civilization there are many races who distinctly admit the existence of
spirits, but are not positively known to pray to them. Beyond this lower
level, however, animism and ceremonial prayer become nearly
conterminous; and a view of their relation in their earlier stages may
be best gained from a selection of actual prayers taken down word for
word, within the limits of savage and barbaric life. These agree with an
opinion that prayer appeared in the religion of the lower culture, but
that in this its earlier stage it was unethical. The accomplishment of
desire is asked for, but desire is as yet limited to personal advantage.
It is at later and higher moral levels, that the worshipper begins to
add to his entreaty for prosperity the claim for help toward virtue and
against vice, and prayer becomes an instrument of morality.
In the Papuan Island of Tanna, where the gods are the spirits of
departed ancestors, and preside over the growth of fruits, a prayer
after the offering of first-fruits is spoken aloud by the chief who acts
as high priest to the silent assembly: ‘Compassionate father! Here is
some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of it!’ Then all
shout together.[844] In the Samoan Islands, when the libation of ava was
poured out at the evening meal, the head of the family prayed thus:—
‘Here is ava for you, O gods! Look kindly towards this family: let
it prosper and increase; and let us all be kept in health. Let our
plantations be productive; let food grow; and may there be abundance
of food for us, your creatures. Here is ava for you, our war gods!
Let there be a strong and numerous people for you in this land.
‘Here is ava for you, O sailing gods (gods who come in Tongan canoes
and foreign vessels). Do not come on shore at this place; but be
pleased to depart along the ocean to some other land.’[845]
Among the Indians of North America, more or less under European
influence, the Sioux will say, ‘Spirits of the dead, have mercy on me!’
then they will add what they want, if good weather they say so, if good
luck in hunting, they say so.[846] Among the Osages, prayers used not
long since to be offered at daybreak to Wohkonda, the Master of Life.
The devotee retired a little from the camp or company, and with affected
or real weeping, in loud uncouth voice of plaintive piteous tone, howled
such prayers as these:— ‘Wohkonda, pity me, I am very poor; give me what
I need; give me success against mine enemies, that I may avenge the
death of my friends. May I be able to take scalps, to take horses! &c.’
Such prayers might or might not have allusion to some deceased relative
or friend.[847] How an Algonquin Indian undertakes a dangerous voyage,
we may judge from John Tanner’s account of a fleet of frail Indian bark
canoes setting out at dawn one calm morning on Lake Superior. We had
proceeded, he writes, about two hundred yards into the lake, when the
canoes all stopped together, and the chief, in a very loud voice,
addressed a prayer to the Great Spirit, entreating him to give us a good
look to cross the lake. ‘You,’ said he, ‘have made this lake, and you
have made us, your children; you can now cause that the water shall
remain smooth while we pass over in safety.’ In this manner he continued
praying for five or ten minutes; he then threw into the lake a small
quantity of tobacco, in which each of the canoes followed his
example.[848] A Nootka Indian, preparing for war, prayed thus: ‘Great
Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear him, find
him asleep, and kill a great many of him.’[849] There is more pathos in
these lines from the war-song of a Delaware:—
‘O Great Spirit there above
Have pity on my children
And my wife!
Prevent that they shall mourn for me!
Let me succeed in this undertaking,
That I may slay my enemy
And bring home the tokens of victory
To my dear family and my friends
That we may rejoice together....
Have pity on me and protect my life,
And I will bring thee an offering.’[850]
The following two prayers are among those recorded by Molina, from the
memory of aged men who described to him the religion of Peru under the
Incas, in whose rites they had themselves borne part. The first is
addressed to the Sun, the second to the World-creator:—
‘O Sun! Thou who hast said, let there be Cuzcos and Tampus, grant
that these thy children may conquer all other people. We beseech
thee that thy children the Yncas may be the conquerors always, for
this hast thou created them.’
‘O conquering Uiracocha! Ever present Uiracocha! Thou who art in the
ends of the earth without equal! Thou who gavest life and valour to
men, saying “Let this be a man!” and to women, saying, “Let this be
a woman!” Thou who madest them and gavest them being! Watch over
them that they may live in health and peace. Thou who art in the
high heavens, and among the clouds of the tempest, grant this with
long life, and accept this sacrifice, O Uiracocha!’[851]
In Africa, the Zulus, addressing the spirits of their ancestors, think
it even enough to call upon them without saying what they want, taking
it for granted that the spirits know, so that the mere utterance ‘People
of our house!’ is a prayer. When a Zulu sneezes, and is thus for the
moment in close relation to the divine spirits, it is enough for him to
mention what he wants (‘to wish a wish,’ as our own folklore has it),
and thus the words ‘A cow!’ ‘Children!’ are prayers. Fuller forms are
such as these: ‘People of our house! Cattle!’—‘People of our house! Good
luck and health!’—‘People of our house! Children!’ On occasions of
ancestral cattle-sacrifice the prayers extend to actual harangues, as
when, after the feast is over, the headman speaks thus amid dead
silence: ‘Yes, yes, our people, who did such and such noble acts, I pray
to you—I pray for prosperity after having sacrificed this bullock of
yours. I say, I cannot refuse to give you food, for these cattle which
are here you gave me. And if you ask food of me which you have given me,
is it not proper that I should give it to you? I pray for cattle, that
they may fill this pen. I pray for corn, that many people may come to
this village of yours, and make a noise, and glorify you. I ask also for
children, that this village may have a large population, and that your
name may never come to an end.’ So he finishes.[852] From among the
negro races near the equator, the following prayers may be cited,
addressed to that Supreme Deity whose nature is, as we have seen, more
or less that of the Heaven-god. The Gold Coast negro would raise his
eyes to Heaven and thus address him: ‘God, give me to-day rice and yams,
gold and agries, give me slaves, riches, and health, and that I may be
brisk and swift!’ The fetish-man will often in the morning take water in
his mouth and say, ‘Heaven! grant that I may have something to eat
to-day;’ and when giving medicine shown him by the fetish, he will hold
it up to heaven first, and say, ‘Ata Nyongmo! (Father Heaven!) bless
this medicine that I now give.’ The Yebu would say, ‘God in heaven,
protect me from sickness and death. God give me happiness and
wisdom!’[853] When the Manganja of Lake Nyassa were offering to the
Supreme Deity a basketful of meal and a pot of native beer, that he
might give them rain, the priestess dropped the meal handful by handful
on the ground, each time calling, in a high-pitched voice, ‘Hear thou, O
God, and send rain!’ and the assembled people responded, clapping their
hands softly and intoning (they always intone their prayers) ‘Hear thou,
O God!’[854]
Typical forms of prayer may be selected in Asia near the junction-line
of savage and barbaric culture. Among the Karens of Burma, the
Harvest-goddess has offerings made to her in a little house in the
paddy-field, in which two strings are put for her to bind the spirits of
any persons who may enter her field. Then they entreat her on this wise:
‘Grandmother, thou guardest my field, thou watchest over my plantation.
Look out for men entering; look sharp for people coming in. If they
come, bind them with this string, tie them with this rope, do not let
them go!’ And at the threshing of the rice they say: ‘Shake thyself,
Grandmother, shake thyself! Let the paddy ascend till it equals a hill,
equals a mountain. Shake thyself, Grandmother, shake thyself!’[855] The
following are extracts from the long-drawn prayers of the Khonds of
Orissa: ‘O Boora Pennu! and O Tari Pennu, and all other gods! (naming
them). You, O Boora Pennu! created us, giving us the attribute of
hunger; thence corn food was necessary to us, and thence were necessary
producing fields. You gave us every seed, and ordered us to use
bullocks, and to make ploughs, and to plough. Had we not received this
art, we might still indeed have existed upon the natural fruits of the
jungle and the plain, but, in our destitution, we could not have
performed your worship. Do you, remembering this—the connexion betwixt
our wealth and your honour—grant the prayers which we now offer. In the
morning, we rise before the light to our labour, carrying the seed. Save
us from the tiger, and the snake, and from stumblingblocks. Let the seed
appear earth to the eating birds, and stones to the eating animals of
the earth. Let the grain spring up suddenly like a dry stream that is
swelled in a night. Let the earth yield to our ploughshares as wax melts
before hot iron. Let the baked clods melt like hailstones. Let our
ploughs spring through the furrows with a force like the recoil of a
bent tree. Let there be such a return from our seed, that so much shall
fall and be neglected in the fields, and so much on the roads in
carrying it home, that, when we shall go out next year to sow, the paths
and the fields shall look like a young corn-field. From the first times
we have lived by your favour. Let us continue to receive it. Remember
that the increase of our produce is the increase of your worship, and
that its diminution must be the diminution of your rites.’ The following
is the conclusion of a prayer to the Earth-goddess: ‘Let our herds be so
numerous that they cannot be housed; let children so abound that the
care of them shall overcome their parents—as shall be seen by their
burned hands; let our heads ever strike against brass pots innumerable
hanging from our roofs; let the rats form their nests of shreds of
scarlet cloth and silk; let all the kites in the country be seen in the
trees of our village, from beasts being killed there every day. We are
ignorant of what it is good to ask for. You know what is good for us.
Give it to us!’[856]
Such are types of prayer in the lower levels of culture, and in no small
degree they remain characteristic of the higher nations. If, in
long-past ages, the Chinese raised themselves from the condition of rude
Siberian tribes to their peculiar culture, at any rate their consecutive
religion has scarce changed the matter-of-fact prayers for rain and good
harvest, wealth and long life, addressed to manes and nature-spirits and
merciful Heaven.[857] In other great national religions of the world,
not the whole of prayer, but a smaller or larger part of it, holds
closely to the savage definition. This is a Vedic prayer: ‘What, Indra,
has not yet been given me by thee, Lightning-hurler, all good things
bring us hither with both hands ... with mighty riches fill me, with
wealth of cattle, for thou art great!’[858] This is Moslem: ‘O Allah!
unloose the captivity of the captives, and annul the debts of the
debtors: and make this town to be safe and secure, and blessed with
wealth and plenty, and all the towns of the Moslems, O Lord of all
creatures! and decree safety and health to us and to all travellers, and
pilgrims, and warriors, and wanderers, upon thy earth, and upon thy sea,
such as are Moslems, O Lord of all creatures!’[859] Thus also,
throughout the rituals of Christendom, stand an endless array of
supplications unaltered in principle from savage times—that the weather
may be adjusted to our local needs, that we may have the victory over
all our enemies, that life and health and wealth and happiness may be
ours.
So far, then, is permanence in culture: but now let us glance at the
not less marked lines of modification and new formation. The vast
political effect of a common faith in developing the idea of exclusive
nationality, a process scarcely expanding beyond the germ among savage
tribes, but reaching its full growth in the barbaric world, is apt to
have its outward manifestation in hostility to those of another creed,
a sentiment which finds vent in characteristic prayers. Such are these
from the Rig-Veda: ‘Take away our calamities. By sacred verses may we
overcome those who employ no holy hymns! Distinguish between the Aryas
and those who are Dasyus: chastising those who observe no sacred
rites, subject them to the sacrificer.... Indra subjects the impious
to the pious, and destroys the irreligious by the religious.’[860] The
following is from the closing prayer which the boys in many schools in
Cairo used to repeat some years ago, and very likely do still: ‘I seek
refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed. In the name of Allah, the
Compassionate, the Merciful ... O Lord of all creatures! O Allah!
destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of
the religion! O Allah! make their children orphans, and defile their
abodes, and cause their feet to slip, and give them and their families
and their households and their women and their children and their
relations by marriage and their brothers and their friends and their
possessions and their race and their wealth and their lands as booty
to the Moslems! O Lord of all creatures!’[861] Another powerful
tendency of civilization, that of regulating human affairs by fixed
ordinance, has since early ages been at work to arrange worship into
mechanical routine. Here, so to speak, religion deposits itself in
sharply defined shape from a supersaturated solution, and crystallizes
into formalism. Thus prayers, from being at first utterances as free
and flexible as requests to a living patriarch or chief, stiffened
into traditional formulas, whose repetition required verbal accuracy,
and whose nature practically assimilated more or less to that of
charms. Liturgies, especially in those three quarters of the world
where the ancient liturgical language has become at once
unintelligible and sacred, are crowded with examples of this
historical process. Its extremest development in Europe is connected
with the use of the rosary. This devotional calculating-machine is of
Asiatic invention; it had if not its origin at least its special
development among the ancient Buddhists, and its 108 balls still slide
through the modern Buddhist’s hands as of old, measuring out the
sacred formulas whose reiteration occupies so large a fraction of a
pious life. It was not till toward the middle ages that the rosary
passed into Mohammedan and Christian lands, and finding there
conceptions of prayer which it was suited to accompany, has flourished
ever since. How far the Buddhist devotional formulas themselves
partake of the nature of prayer, is a question opening into
instructive considerations, which need only be suggested here. By its
derivation from Brahmanism and its fusion with the beliefs of rude
spirit-worshipping populations, Buddhism practically retains in no
small measure a prayerful temper and even practice. Yet, according to
strict and special Buddhist philosophy, where personal divinity has
faded into metaphysical idea, even devotional utterances of desire are
not prayers; as Köppen says, there is no ‘Thou!’ in them. It must be
only with reservation that we class the rosary in Buddhist hands as an
instrument of actual prayer. The same is true of the still more
extreme development of mechanical religion, the prayer-mill of the
Tibetan Buddhists. This was perhaps originally a symbolic ‘chakra’ or
wheel of the law, but has become a cylinder mounted on an axis, which
by each rotation is considered to repeat the sentences written on the
papers it is filled with, usually the ‘Om mani padme hûm!’
Prayer-mills vary in size, from the little wooden toys held in the
hand, to the great drums turned by wind or water-power, which repeat
their sentences by the million.[862] The Buddhist idea, that ‘merit’
is produced by the recitation of these sentences, may perhaps lead us
to form an opinion of large application in the study of religion and
superstition, namely, that the theory of prayers may explain the
origin of charms. Charm-formulas are in very many cases actual
prayers, and as such are intelligible. Where they are mere verbal
forms, producing their effect on nature and man by some unexplained
process, may not they or the types they were modelled on have been
originally prayers, since dwindled into mystic sentences?
The worshipper cannot always ask wisely what is for his good, therefore
it may be well for him to pray that the greater power of the deity may
be guided by his greater wisdom—this is a thought which expands and
strengthens in the theology of the higher nations. The simple prayer of
Sokrates, that the gods would give such things as are good, for they
know best what are good,[863] raises a strain of supplication which has
echoed through Christendom from its earliest ages. Greatest of all
changes which difference the prayers of lower from those of higher
nations, is the working out of the general principle that the ethical
element, so scanty and rudimentary in the lower forms of religion,
becomes in the higher its most vital point; while it scarcely appears as
though any savage prayer, authentically native in its origin, were ever
directed to obtain moral goodness or to ask pardon for moral sin. Among
the semi-civilized Aztecs, in the elaborate ritual which from its early
record and its original characteristics may be thought to have a partial
authenticity, we mark the appearance of ethical prayer. Such is the
supplication concerning the newly-elect ruler: ‘Make him, Lord, as your
true image, and permit him not to be proud and haughty in your throne
and court; but vouchsafe, Lord, that he may calmly and carefully rule
and govern them whom he has in charge, the people, and permit not, Lord,
that he may injure or vex his subjects, nor without reason and justice
cause loss to any; and permit not, Lord, that he may spot or soil your
throne or court with any injustice or wrong, &c.’[864] Moral prayer,
sometimes appearing in rudiment, sometimes shrunk into insignificance,
sometimes overlaid by formalism, sometimes maintained firm and vigorous
in the inmost life, has its place without as well as within the
Jewish-Christian scheme. The ancient Aryan prayed: ‘Through want of
strength, thou strong and bright god, have I gone wrong; have mercy,
almighty, have mercy!... Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence
before the heavenly host, whenever we break the law through
thoughtlessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy!’[865] The modern
Parsi prays: ‘Of my sins which I have committed against the ruler
Ormazd, against men, and the different kinds of men.... Deceit,
contempt, idol-worship, lies, I repent of.... All and every kind of sin
which men have committed because of me, or which I have committed
because of men; pardon, I repent with confession!’[866] As a general
rule it would be misleading to judge utterances of this kind in the
religions of classic Greece and Rome as betokening the intense habitual
prayerfulness which pervades the records of Judaism, Mohammedanism,
Christianity. Moralists admit that prayer can be made an instrument of
evil, that it may give comfort and hope to the superstitious robber,
that it may strengthen the heart of the soldier to slay his foes in an
unrighteous war, that it may uphold the tyrant and the bigot in their
persecution of freedom in life and thought. Philosophers dwell on the
subjective operation of prayer, as acting not directly on outward
events, but on the mind and will of the worshipper himself, which it
influences and confirms. The one argument tends to guide prayer, the
other to suppress it. Looking on prayer in its effect on man himself
through the course of history, both must recognize it as even in savage
religion a means of strengthening emotion, of sustaining courage and
exciting hope, while in higher faiths it becomes a great motive power of
the ethical system, controlling and enforcing, under an ever-present
sense of supernatural intercourse and aid, the emotions and energies of
moral life.
Sacrifice has its apparent origin in the same early period of culture
and its place in the same animistic scheme as prayer, with which through
so long a range of history it has been carried on in the closest
connexion. As prayer is a request made to a deity as if he were a man,
so sacrifice is a gift made to a deity as if he were a man. The human
types of both may be studied unchanged in social life to this day. The
suppliant who bows before his chief, laying a gift at his feet and
making his humble petition, displays the anthropomorphic model and
origin at once of sacrifice and prayer. But sacrifice, though in its
early stages as intelligible as prayer is in early and late stages
alike, has passed in the course of religious history into transformed
conditions, not only of the rite itself but of the intention with which
the worshipper performs it. And theologians, having particularly turned
their attention to sacrifice as it appears in the higher religions, have
been apt to gloss over with mysticism ceremonies which, when traced
ethnographically up from their savage forms, seem open to simply
rational interpretation. Many details of offerings have already been
given incidentally here, as a means of elucidating the nature of the
deities they are offered to. Moreover, a main part of the doctrine of
sacrifice has been anticipated in examining the offerings to spirits of
the dead, and indeed the ideal distinction between soul and deity breaks
down among the lower races, when it appears how often the deities
receiving sacrifice are themselves divine human souls. In now attempting
to classify sacrifice in its course through the religions of the world,
it seems a satisfactory plan to group the evidence as far as may be
according to the manner in which the offering is given by the
worshipper, and received by the deity. At the same time, the examples
may be so arranged as to bring into view the principal lines along which
the rite has undergone alteration. The ruder conception that the deity
takes and values the offering for itself, gives place on the one hand to
the idea of mere homage expressed by a gift, and on the other to the
negative view that the virtue lies in the worshipper depriving himself
of something prized. These ideas may be broadly distinguished as the
gift-theory, the homage-theory, and the abnegation-theory. Along all
three the usual ritualistic change may be traced, from practical reality
to formal ceremony. The originally valuable offering is compromised for
a smaller tribute or a cheaper substitute, dwindling at last to a mere
trifling token or symbol.
The gift-theory, as standing on its own independent basis, properly
takes the first place. That most childlike kind of offering, the giving
of a gift with as yet no definite thought how the receiver can take and
use it, may be the most primitive as it is the most rudimentary
sacrifice. Moreover, in tracing the history of the ceremony from level
to level of culture, the same simple unshaped intention may still
largely prevail, and much of the reason why it is often found difficult
to ascertain what savages and barbarians suppose to become of the food
and valuables they offer to the gods, may be simply due to ancient
sacrificers knowing as little about it as modern ethnologists do, and
caring less. Yet rude races begin and civilized races continue to
furnish with the details of their sacrificial ceremonies the key also to
their meaning, the explanation of the manner in which the offering is
supposed to pass into the possession of the deity.
Beginning with cases in which this transmission is performed bodily, it
appears that when the deity is the personal Water, Earth, Fire, Air, or
a fetish-spirit animating or inhabiting such element, he can receive and
sometimes actually consume the offerings given over to this material
medium. How such notions may take shape is not ill shown in the quaintly
rational thought noticed in old Peru, that the Sun drinks the libations
poured out before him; and in modern Madagascar, that the Angatra drinks
the arrack left for him in the leaf-cup. Do not they see the liquids
diminish from day to day?[867] The sacrifice to Water is exemplified by
Indians caught in a storm on the North American lakes, who would appease
the angry tempest-raising deity by tying the feet of a dog and throwing
it overboard.[868] The following case from Guinea well shows the
principle of such offerings. Once in 1693, the sea being unusually
rough, the headmen complained to the king, who desired them to be easy,
and he would make the sea quiet next day. Accordingly he sent his
fetishman with a jar of palm oil, a bag of rice and corn, a jar of
pitto, a bottle of brandy, a piece of painted calico, and several other
things to present to the sea. Being come to the sea-side, he made a
speech to it, assuring it that his king was its friend, and loved the
white men; that they were honest fellows and came to trade with him for
what he wanted; and that he requested the sea not to be angry, nor
hinder them to land their goods; he told it, that if it wanted palm oil,
his king had sent it some; and so threw the jar with the oil into the
sea, as he did, with the same compliment, the rice, corn, pitto, brandy,
calico, &c.[869] Among the North American Indians the Earth also
receives offerings buried in it. The distinctness of idea with which
such objects may be given is well shown in a Sioux legend. The Spirit of
the earth, it seems, requires an offering from those who perform
extraordinary achievements, and accordingly the prairie gapes open with
an earthquake before the victorious hero of the tale; he casts a
partridge into the crevice, and springs over.[870] One of the most
explicit recorded instances of the offering to the Earth is the hideous
sacrifice to the Earth-goddess among the Khonds of Orissa, the tearing
of the flesh of the human victim from the bones, the priest burying half
of it in a hole in the earth behind his back without looking round, and
each householder carrying off a particle to bury in like manner in his
favourite field.[871] For offerings to the Fire, we may take for an
example the Yakuts, who not only give him the first spoonful of food,
but instead of washing their earthen pots allow him to clean out the
remains.[872] Here is a New Zealand charm called Wangaihau, i.e.,
feeding the Wind:—
‘Lift up his offering,
To Uenga a te Rangi his offering,
Eat, O invisible one, listen to me,
Let that food bring you down from the sky.’[873]
Beside this may be set the quaint description of the Fanti negroes
assisting at the sacrifice of men and cattle to the local fetish; the
victims were considered to be carried up in a whirlwind out of the midst
of the small inner ring of priests and priestesses; this whirlwind was,
however, not perceptible to the senses of the surrounding
worshippers.[874] These series of details collected from the lower
civilization throw light on curious problems as to sacrificial ideas in
the religions of the classic world; such questions as what Xerxes meant
when he threw the golden goblet and the sword into the Hellespont, which
he had before chained and scourged; why Hannibal cast animals into the
sea as victims to Poseidon; what religious significance underlay the
patriotic Roman legend of the leap of Marcus Curtius.[875]
Sacred animals, in their various characters of divine beings,
incarnations, representatives, agents, symbols, naturally receive meat
and drink offerings, and sometimes other gifts. For examples, may be
mentioned the sun-birds (tonatzuli), for which the Apalaches of
Florida set out crushed maize and seed;[876] the Polynesian deities
coming incarnate in the bodies of birds to feed on the meat-offerings
and carcases of human victims set out upon the altar-scaffolds;[877]
the well-fed sacred snakes of West Africa, and local fetish animals
like the alligator at Dix Cove which will come up at a whistle, and
follow a man half a mile if he carries a white fowl in his hands, or
the shark at Bonny that comes to the river bank every day to see if a
human victim has been provided for his repast;[878] in modern India
the cows reverently fed with fresh grass, Durga’s meat-offerings laid
out on stones for the jackals, the famous alligators in their
temple-tanks.[879] The definition of sacred animal from this point of
view distinctly includes man. Such in Mexico was the captive youth
adored as living representative of Tezcatlipoca, and to whom banquets
were made during the luxurious twelvemonth which preceded his
sacrifice at the festival of the deity whom he personated: such still
more definitely was Cortes himself, when Montezuma supposed him to be
the incarnate Quetzalcoatl come back into the land, and sent human
victims accordingly to be slaughtered before him, should he seem to
lust for blood.[880] Such in modern India is the woman who as
representative of Radha eats and drinks the offerings at the shameless
orgies of the Saktas.[881] More usually it is the priest who as
minister of the deities has the lion’s share of the offerings or the
sole privilege of consuming them, from the Fijian priest who watches
for the turtle and puddings apportioned to his god,[882] and the West
African priest who carries the allowances of food sent to the local
spirits of mountain, or river, or grove, which food he eats himself as
the spirit’s proxy,[883] to the Brahmans who receive for the divine
ancestors the oblation of a worshipper who has no sacred fire to
consume it, ‘for there is no difference between the Fire and a
Brahman, such is the judgment declared by them who know the
Veda.’[884] It is needless to collect details of a practice so usual
in the great systematic religions of the world, where priests have
become professional ministers and agents of deity, as for them to
partake of the sacrificial meats. It by no means follows from this
usage that the priest is necessarily supposed to consume the food as
representative of his divinity; in the absence of express statement to
such effect, the matter can only be treated as one of ceremonial
ordinance. Indeed, the case shows the caution needed in interpreting
religious rites, which in particular districts may have meanings
attached to them quite foreign to their general intent.
The feeding of an idol, as when Ostyaks would pour daily broth into the
dish at the image’s mouth,[885] or when the Aztecs would pour the blood
and put the heart of the slaughtered human victim into the monstrous
idol’s mouth,[886] seems ceremonial make-believe, but shows that in each
case the deity was somehow considered to devour the meal. The conception
among the lower races of deity, as in disembodied spiritual form, is
even less compatible with the notion that such a being should consume
solid matter. It is true that the notion does occur. In old times it
appears in the legend of Bel and the Dragon, where the footprints in the
strewn ashes betray the knavish priests who come by secret doors to eat
up the banquet set before Bel’s image.[887] In modern centuries, it may
be exemplified by the negroes of Labode, who could hear the noise of
their god Jimawong emptying one after another the bottles of brandy
handed in at the door of his straw-roofed temple;[888] or among the
Ostyaks, who, as Pallas relates, used to leave a horn of snuff for their
god, with a shaving of willow bark to stop his nostrils with after the
country fashion; the traveller describes their astonishment when
sometimes an unbelieving Russian has emptied it in the night, leaving
the simple folk to conclude that the deity must have gone out hunting to
have snuffed so much.[889] But these cases turn on fraud, whereas
absurdities in which low races largely agree are apt to have their
origin rather in genuine error. Indeed, their dominant theories of the
manner in which deities receive sacrifice are in accordance not with
fraud but with facts, and must be treated as strictly rational and
honest developments of the lower animism. The clearest and most general
of these theories are as follows.
When the deity is considered to take actual possession of the food or
other objects offered, this may be conceived to happen by abstraction of
their life, savour, essence, quality, and in yet more definite
conception their spirit or soul. The solid part may die, decay, be taken
away or consumed or destroyed, or may simply remain untouched. Among
this group of conceptions, the most materialized is that which carries
out the obvious primitive world-wide doctrine that the life is the
blood. Accordingly, the blood is offered to the deity, and even
disembodied spirits are thought capable of consuming it, like the ghosts
for whom Odysseus entering Hades poured into the trench the blood of the
sacrificed ram and black ewe, and the pale shades drank and spoke;[890]
or the evil spirits which the Mintira of the Malay Peninsula keep away
from the wife in childbirth by placing her near the fire, for the demons
are believed to drink human blood when they can find it.[891] Thus in
Virginia the Indians (in pretence or reality) sacrificed children, whose
blood the oki or spirit was said to suck from their left breast.[892]
The Kayans of Borneo used to offer human sacrifice when a great chief
took possession of a newly built house; in one late case, about 1847, a
Malay slave girl was bought for the purpose and bled to death, the
blood, which alone is efficacious, being sprinkled on the pillars and
under the house, and the body being thrown into the river.[893] The same
ideas appear among the indigenes of India, alike in North Bengal and in
the Deccan, where the blood alone of the sacrificed animal is for the
deities, and the votary retains the meat.[894] Thus, in West Africa, the
negroes of Benin are described as offering a cock to the idol, but it
receives only the blood, for they like the flesh very well
themselves;[895] while in the Yoruba country, when a beast is sacrificed
for a sick man, the blood is sprinkled on the wall and smeared on the
patient’s forehead, with the idea, it is said, of thus transferring to
him the victim’s life.[896] The Jewish law of sacrifice marks clearly
the distinction between shedding the blood as life, and offering it as
food. As the Israelites themselves might not eat with the flesh the
blood which is the life, but must pour it on the earth as water, so the
rule applies to sacrifice. The blood must be sprinkled before the
sanctuary, put upon the horns of the altar, and there sprinkled or
poured out, but not presented as a drink offering—‘their drink-offerings
of blood will I not offer.’[897]
Spirit being considered in the lower animism as somewhat of the
ethereal nature of smoke or mist, there is an obvious reasonableness
in the idea that offerings reduced to this condition are fit to be
consumed by, or transmitted to, spiritual beings towards whom the
vapour rises in the air. This idea is well shown in the case of
incense, and especially a peculiar kind of incense offered among the
native tribes of America. The habit of smoking tobacco is not
suggestive of religious rites among ourselves, but in its native
country, where it is so widely diffused as to be perhaps the best
point assignable in favour of a connexion in the culture of the
northern and southern continent, its place in worship is very
important. The Osages would begin an undertaking by smoking a pipe,
with such a prayer as this: ‘Great Spirit, come down to smoke with me
as a friend! Fire and Earth, smoke with me and help me to overthrow my
foes!’ The Sioux in Hennepin’s time would look toward the Sun when
they smoked, and when the calumet was lighted, they presented it to
him, saying: ‘Smoke, Sun!’ The Natchez chief at sunrise smoked first
to the east and then to the other quarters; and so on. It is not
merely, however, that puffs from the tobacco-pipe are thus offered to
deities as drops of drink or morsels of food might be. The calumet is
a special gift of the Sun or the Great Spirit, tobacco is a sacred
herb, and smoking is an agreeable sacrifice ascending into the air to
the abode of gods and spirits.[898] Among the Caribs, the native
sorcerer evoking a demon would puff tobacco-smoke into the air as an
agreeable perfume to attract the spirit; while among Brazilian tribes
the sorcerers smoked round upon the bystanders and on the patient to
be cured.[899] How thoroughly incense and burnt-offering are of the
same nature, the Zulus well show, burning incense together with the
fat of the caul of the slaughtered beast, to give the spirits of the
people a sweet savour.[900] As to incense more precisely of the sort
we are familiar with, it was in daily use in the temples of Mexico,
where among the commonest antiquarian relics are the earthen
incense-pots in which ‘copalli’ (whence our word copal) and bitumen
were burnt.[901] Though incense was hardly usual in the ancient
religion of China, yet in modern Chinese houses and temples the
‘joss-stick’ and censer do honour to all divine beings, from the
ancestral manes to the great gods and Heaven and Earth.[902] The
history of incense in the religion of Greece and Rome points the
contrast between old thrift and new extravagance, where the early
fumigations with herbs and chips of fragrant wood are contrasted with
the later oriental perfumes, myrrh and cassia and frankincense.[903]
In the temples of ancient Egypt, numberless representations of
sacrificial ceremony show the burning of the incense-pellets in
censers before the images of the gods; and Plutarch speaks of the
incense burnt thrice daily to the Sun, resin at his rising, myrrh at
his meridian, kuphi at his setting.[904] The ordinance held as
prominent a place among the Semitic nations. At the yearly festival of
Bel in Babylon, the Chaldæans are declared by Herodotus to have burned
a thousand talents of incense on the large altar in the temple where
sat his golden image.[905] In the records of ancient Israel, there has
come down to us the very recipe for compounding incense after the art
of the apothecary. The priests carried every man his censer, and on
the altar of incense, overlaid with gold, standing before the vail in
the tabernacle, sweet spices were burned morn and even, a perpetual
incense before the Lord.[906]
The sacrifice by fire is familiar to the religion of North American
tribes. Thus the Algonquins knew the practice of casting into the fire
the first morsel of the feast; and throwing fat into the flames for the
spirits, they would pray to them ‘make us find food.’ Catlin has
described and sketched the Mandans dancing round the fire where the
first kettleful of the green-corn is being burned, an offering to the
Great Spirit before the feast begins.[907] The Peruvians burnt llamas as
offerings to the Creator, Sun, Moon, and Thunder, and other lesser
deities. As to the operation of sacrifice, an idea of theirs comes well
into view in the legend of Manco Ccapac ordering the sacrifice of the
most beautiful of his sons, ‘cutting off his head, and sprinkling the
blood over the fire, that the smoke might reach the Maker of heaven and
earth.’[908] In Siberia the sacrifices of the Tunguz and Buraets, in the
course of which bits of meat and liver and fat are cast into the fire,
carry on the same idea.[909] Chinese sacrifices to sun and moon, stars
and constellations, show their purpose in most definite fashion; beasts
and even silks and precious stones are burned, that their vapour may
ascend to these heavenly spirits.[910] No less significant, though in a
different sense, is the Siamese offering to the household deity, incense
and arrack and rice steaming hot; he does not eat it all, not always any
part of it, it is the fragrant steam which he loves to inhale.[911]
Looking now to the records of Aryan sacrifice, views similar to these
are not obscurely expressed. When the Brahman burns the offerings on the
altar-fire, they are received by Agni the divine Fire, mouth of the
gods, messenger of the All-knowing, to whom is chanted the Vedic
strophe, ‘Agni! the sacrifice which thou encompassest whole, it goes
unto the gods!’[912] The Homeric poems show the plain meaning of the
hecatombs of old barbaric Greece, where the savour of the burnt offering
went up in wreathing smoke to heaven, ‘Κνίσση δ’ οὐρανὸν ἶκεν ἐλισσομένη
περὶ καπνῷ.’[913] Passed into a far other stage of history, men’s minds
had not lost sight of the archaic thought even in Porphyry’s time, for
he knows how the demons who desire to be gods rejoice in the libations
and fumes of sacrifice, whereby their spiritual and bodily substance
fattens, for this lives on the steam and vapours and is strengthened by
the fumes of the blood and flesh.[914]
The view of commentators that sacrifice, as a religious act of remote
antiquity and world-wide prevalence, was adopted, regulated, and
sanctioned in the Jewish law, is in agreement with the general
ethnography of the subject. Here sacrifice appears not with the lower
conception of a gift acceptable and even beneficial to deity, but with
the higher significance of devout homage or expiation for sin. As is so
usual in the history of religion, the offering consisted in general of
food, and the consummation of the sacrifice was by fire. To the
ceremonial details of the sacrificial rites of Israel, whether
prescribing the burning of the carcases of oxen and sheep or of the
bloodless gifts of flour mingled with oil, there is appended again and
again the explanation of the intent of the rite; it is ‘an offering made
by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.’ The copious records of
sacrifice in the Old Testament enable us to follow its expansion from
the simple patriarchal forms of a pastoral tribe, to the huge and
complex system organized to carry on the ancient service in a now
populous and settled kingdom. Among writers on the Jewish religion, Dean
Stanley has vividly portrayed the aspect of the Temple, with the flocks
of sheep and droves of cattle crowding its courts, the vast apparatus of
slaughter, the great altar of burnt-offering towering above the people,
where the carcases were laid, the drain beneath to carry off the streams
of blood. To this historian, in sympathy rather with the spirit of the
prophet than the ceremony of the priest, it is a congenial task to dwell
upon the great movement in later Judaism to maintain the place of
ethical above ceremonial religion.[915] In those times of Hebrew
history, the prophets turned with stern rebuke on those who ranked
ceremonial ordinance above weightier matters of the law. ‘I desired
mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt
offerings.’ ‘I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he goats.... Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do well.’
Continuing the enquiry into the physical operation ascribed to
sacrifice, we turn to a different conception. It is an idea well vouched
for in the lower culture, that the deity, while leaving apparently
untouched the offering set out before him, may nevertheless partake of
or abstract what in a loose way may be described as its essence. The
Zulus leave the flesh of the sacrificed bullock all night, and the
divine ancestral spirits come and eat, yet next morning everything
remains just as it was. Describing this practice, a native Zulu thus
naïvely comments on it: ‘But when we ask, “What do the Amadhlozi eat?
for in the morning we still see all the meat,” the old men say, “The
Amatongo lick it.” And we are unable to contradict them, but are silent,
for they are older than we, and tell us all things and we listen; for we
are told all things, and assent without seeing clearly whether they are
true or not.’[916] Such imagination was familiar to the native religion
of the West Indian islands. In Columbus’ time, and with particular
reference to Hispaniola, Roman Pane describes the native mode of
sacrifice. Upon any solemn day, when they provide much to eat, whether
fish, flesh, or any other thing, they put it all into the house of the
cemis, that the idol may feed on it. The next day they carry all home,
after the cemi has eaten. And God so help them (says the friar), as the
cemi eats of that or anything else, they being inanimate stocks or
stones. A century and a half later, a similar notion still prevailed in
these islands. Nothing could show it more neatly than the fancy of the
Caribs that they could hear the spirits in the night moving the vessels
and champing the food set out for them, yet next morning there was
nothing touched; it was held that the viands thus partaken of by the
spirits had become holy, so that only the old men and considerable
people might taste them, and even these required a certain bodily
purity.[917] Islanders of Pulo Aur, though admitting that their banished
disease-spirits did not actually consume the grains of rice set out for
them, nevertheless believed them to appropriate its essence.[918] In
India, among the indigenes of the Garo hills, we hear of the head and
blood of the sacrificed animal being placed with some rice under a
bamboo arch covered with a white cloth; the god comes and takes what he
wants, and after a time this special offering is dressed for the company
with the rest of the animal.[919] The Khond deities live on the flavours
and essences drawn from the offerings of their votaries, or from animals
or grain which they cause to die or disappear.[920] When the Buraets of
Siberia have sacrificed a sheep and boiled the mutton, they set it up on
a scaffold for the gods while the shaman is chanting his song, and then
themselves fall to.[921] And thus, in the folklore of mediæval Europe,
Domina Abundia would come with her dames into the houses at night, and
eat and drink from the vessels left uncovered for their increase-giving
visit, yet nothing was consumed.[922]
The extreme animistic view of sacrifice is that the soul of the offered
animal or thing is abstracted by or transmitted to the deity. This
notion of spirits taking souls is in a somewhat different way
exemplified among the Binua of Johore, who hold that the evil
River-spirits inflict diseases on man by feeding on the ‘semangat,’ or
unsubstantial body (in ordinary parlance the spirit) in which his life
resides,[923] while the Karen demon devours not the body but the ‘la,’
spirit or vital principle; thus when it eats a man’s eyes, their
material part remains, but they are blind.[924] Now an idea similar to
this furnished the Polynesians with a theory of sacrifice. The priest
might send commissions by the sacrificed human victim; spirits of the
dead are eaten by the gods or demons; the spiritual part of the
sacrifices is eaten by the spirit of the idol (i.e. the deity dwelling
or embodied in the idol) before whom it is presented.[925] Of the
Fijians it is observed that of the great offerings of food native belief
apportions merely the soul to the gods, who are described as being
enormous eaters; the substance is consumed by the worshippers. As in
various other districts of the world, human sacrifice is here in fact a
meat-offering; cannibalism is a part of the Fijian religion, and the
gods are described as delighting in human flesh.[926] Such ideas are
explicit among Indian tribes of the American lakes, who consider that
offerings, whether abandoned or consumed by the worshippers, go in a
spiritual form to the spirit they are devoted to. Native legends afford
the clearest illustrations. The following is a passage from an Ottawa
tale which recounts the adventures of Wassamo, he who was conveyed by
the spirit-maiden to the lodge of her father, the Spirit of the Sand
Downs, down below the waters of Lake Superior. ‘Son-in-law,’ said the
Old Spirit, ‘I am in want of tobacco. You shall return to visit your
parents, and can make known my wishes. For it is very seldom that those
few who pass these Sand Hills, offer a piece of tobacco. When they do
it, it immediately comes to me. Just so,’ he added, putting his hand out
of the side of the lodge, and drawing in several pieces of tobacco,
which some one at that moment happened to offer to the Spirit, for a
smooth lake and prosperous voyage. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘every thing
offered me on earth, comes immediately to the side of my lodge.’ Wassamo
saw the women also putting their hands to the side of the lodge, and
then handing round something, of which all partook. This he found to be
offerings of food made by mortals on earth. The distinctly spiritual
nature of this transmission is shown immediately after, for Wassamo
cannot eat such mere spirit-food, wherefore his spirit-wife puts out her
hand from the lodge and takes in a material fish out of the lake to cook
for him.[927] Another Ottawa legend, the already cited nature-myth of
the Sun and Moon, is of much interest not only for its display of this
special thought, but as showing clearly the motives with which savage
animists offer sacrifices to their deities, and consider these deities
to accept them. Onowuttokwutto, the Ojibwa youth who has followed the
Moon up to the lovely heaven-prairies to be her husband, is taken one
day by her brother the Sun to see how he gets his dinner. The two look
down together through the hole in the sky upon the earth below, the Sun
points out a group of children playing beside a lodge, at the same time
throwing a tiny stone to hit a beautiful boy. The child falls, they see
him carried into the lodge, they hear the sound of the sheesheegwun (the
rattle), and the song and prayer of the medicine-man that the child’s
life may be spared. To this entreaty of the medicine-man, the Sun makes
answer, ‘Send me up the white dog.’ Then the two spectators above could
distinguish on the earth the hurry and bustle of preparation for a
feast, a white dog killed and singed, and the people who were called
assembling at the lodge. While these things were passing, the Sun
addressed himself to Onowuttokwutto, saying, ‘There are among you in the
lower world some whom you call great medicine-men; but it is because
their ears are open, and they hear my voice, when I have struck any one,
that they are able to give relief to the sick. They direct the people to
send me whatever I call for and when they have sent it, I remove my hand
from those I had made sick.’ When he had said this, the white dog was
parcelled out in dishes for those that were at the feast; then the
medicine-man when they were about to begin to eat, said, ‘We send thee
this, Great Manito.’ Immediately the Sun and his Ojibwa companion saw
the dog, cooked and ready to be eaten, rising to them through the
air—and then and there they dined upon it.[928] How such ideas bear on
the meaning of human sacrifice, we may perhaps judge from this prayer of
the Iroquois, offering a human victim to the War-god: ‘To thee, O Spirit
Arieskoi, we slay this sacrifice, that thou mayst feed upon the flesh,
and be moved to give us henceforth luck and victory over our
enemies!’[929] So among the Aztec prayers, there occurs this one
addressed to Tezcatlipoca-Yautl in time of war: ‘Lord of battles; it is
a very certain and sure thing, that a great war is beginning to make,
ordain, form, and concert itself; the War-god opens his mouth, hungry to
swallow the blood of many who shall die in this war; it seems that the
Sun and the Earth-God Tlatecutli desire to rejoice; they desire to give
meat and drink to the gods of Heaven and Hades, making them a banquet of
the flesh and blood of the men who are to die in this war,’ &c.[930]
There is remarkable definiteness in the Peruvian idea that the souls of
human victims are transmitted to another life in divine as in funeral
sacrifice; at one great ceremony, where children of each tribe were
sacrificed to propitiate the gods, ‘they strangled the children, first
giving them to eat and drink, that they might not enter the presence of
the Creator discontented and hungry.’[931] Similar ideas of spiritual
sacrifice appear in other regions of the world. Thus in West Africa we
read of the tree-fetish enjoying the spirit of the food-offering, but
leaving its substance, and an account of the religion of the Gold Coast
mentions how each great wong or deity has his house, and his priest and
priestess to clean the room and give him daily bread kneaded with
palm-oil, ‘of which, as of all gifts of this kind, the wong eats the
invisible soul.’[932] So, in India, the Limbus of Darjeeling make small
offerings of grain, vegetables, and sugar-cane, and sacrifice cows,
pigs, fowls, &c., on the declared principle ‘the life breath to the
gods, the flesh to ourselves.’[933] It seems likely that such meaning
may largely explain the sacrificial practices of other religions. In
conjunction with these accounts, the unequivocal meaning of funeral
sacrifices, whereby offerings are conveyed spiritually into the
possession of spirits of the dead, may perhaps justify us in inferring
that similar ideas of spiritual transmission prevail extensively among
the many nations whose sacrificial rites we know in fact, but cannot
trace with certainty to their original significance.
Having thus examined the manner in which the operation of sacrifice is
considered to take physical effect, whether indefinitely or definitely,
and having distinguished its actual transmission as either substantial,
essential, or spiritual, let us now follow the question of the
sacrificer’s motive in presenting the sacrifice. Important and complex
as this problem is, its key is so obvious that it may be almost
throughout treated by mere statement of general principle. If the main
proposition of animistic natural religion be granted, that the idea of
the human soul is the model of the idea of deity, then the analogy of
man’s dealings with man ought, _inter alia_, to explain his motives in
sacrifice. It does so, and very fully. The proposition may be maintained
in wide generality, that the common man’s present to the great man, to
gain good or avert evil, to ask aid or to condone offence, needs only
substitution of deity for chief, and proper adaptation of the means of
conveying the gift to him, to produce a logical doctrine of sacrificial
rites, in great measure explaining their purpose directly as they stand,
and elsewhere suggesting what was the original meaning which has passed
into changed shape in the course of ages. Instead of offering a special
collection of evidence here on this proposition, it may be enough to ask
attentive reference to any extensive general collection of accounts of
sacrifice, such for instance as those cited for various purposes in
these volumes. It will be noticed that offerings to divinities may be
classed in the same way as earthly gifts. The occasional gift made to
meet some present emergency, the periodical tribute brought by subject
to lord, the royalty paid to secure possession or protection of acquired
wealth, all these have their evident and well-marked analogues in the
sacrificial systems of the world. It may impress some minds with a
stronger sense of the sufficiency of this theory of sacrifice, to
consider how the transition is made in the same imperceptible way from
the idea of substantial value received, to that of ceremonial homage
rendered, whether the recipient be man or god. We do not find it easy to
analyse the impression which a gift makes on our own feelings, and to
separate the actual value of the object from the sense of gratification
in the giver’s good-will or respect, and thus we may well scruple to
define closely how uncultured men work out this very same distinction in
their dealings with their deities. In a general way it may be held that
the idea of practical acceptableness of the food or valuables presented
to the deity, begins early to shade into the sentiment of divine
gratification or propitiation by a reverent offering, though in itself
of not much account to so mighty a divine personage. These two stages of
the sacrificial idea may be fairly contrasted, the one among the Karens
who offer to a demon arrack or grain or a portion of the game they kill,
considering invocation of no avail without a gift,[934] the other among
the negroes of Sierra Leone, who sacrifice an ox ‘to make God glad very
much, and do Kroomen good.’[935]
Hopeless as it may be in hundreds of accounts of sacrifice to guess
whether the worshipper means to benefit or merely to gratify the deity,
there are also numbers of cases in which the thought in the sacrificer’s
mind can scarcely be more than an idea of ceremonial homage. One of the
best-marked sacrificial rites of the world is that of offering by fire
or otherwise morsels or libations at meals. This ranges from the
religion of the North American Indian to that of the classic Greek and
the ancient Chinese, and still holds its place in peasant custom in
Europe.[936] Other groups of cases pass into yet more absolute formality
of reverence. See the Guinea negro passing in silence by the sacred tree
or cavern, and dropping a leaf or a sea-shell as an offering to the
local spirit;[937] the Talein of Burma holding up the dish at his meal
to offer it to the nat, before the company fall to;[938] the Hindu
holding up a little of his rice in his fingers to the height of his
forehead, and offering it in thought to Siva or Vishnu before he eats
it.[939] The same argument applies to the cases ranging far and wide
through religion, where, whatever may have been the original intent of
the sacrifice, it has practically passed into a feast. A banquet where
the deity has but the pretence and the worshippers the reality, may seem
to us a mere mockery of sacrifice. Yet how sincerely men regard it as a
religious ceremony, the following anecdote of a North American Indian
tribe will show. A travelling party of Potawatomis, for three days
finding no game, were in great distress for want of food. On the third
night, a chief, named Saugana, had a dream, wherein a person appearing
to him showed him that they were suffering because they had set out
without a sacrificial feast. He had started, on this important journey,
the dreamer said, ‘as a white man would,’ without making any religious
preparation. Therefore the Great Spirit had punished them with scarcity.
Now, however, twelve men were to go and kill four deer before the sun
was thus high (about nine o’clock). The chief in his dream had seen
these four deer lying dead, the hunters duly killed them, and the
sacrificial feast was held.[940] Further illustrative examples of such
sacred banquets may be chosen through the long range of culture. The
Zulus propitiate the Heaven-god above with a sacrifice of black cattle,
that they may have rain; the village chiefs select the oxen, one is
killed, the rest are merely mentioned; the flesh of the slaughtered ox
is eaten in the house in perfect silence, a token of humble submission;
the bones are burnt outside the village; and after the feast they chant
in musical sounds, a song without words.[941] The Serwatty Islanders
sacrifice buffaloes, pigs, goats, and fowls to the idols when an
individual or the community undertakes an affair or expedition of
importance, and as the carcases are devoured by the devotees, this
ensures a respectable attendance when the offerings are numerous.[942]
Thus among rude tribes of Northern India, sacrifices of beasts are
accompanied by libations of fermented liquor, and in fact sacrifice and
feast are convertible words.[943] Among the Aztecs, prisoners of war
furnished first an acceptable sacrifice to the deity, and then the
staple of a feast for the captors and their friends;[944] while in
ancient Peru whole flocks of sacrificed llamas were eaten by the
people.[945] The history of Greek religion plainly records the
transition from the early holocausts devoted by fire to the gods, to the
great festivals where the sacrifices provided meat for the public
banquets held to honour them in ceremonial homage.[946]
Beside this development from gift to homage, there arises also a
doctrine that the gist of sacrifice is rather in the worshipper giving
something precious to himself, than in the deity receiving benefit. This
may be called the abnegation-theory, and its origin may be fairly
explained by considering it as derived from the original gift-theory.
Taking our own feelings again for a guide, we know how it satisfies us
to have done our part in giving, even if the gift be ineffectual, and
how we scruple to take it back if not received, but rather get rid of it
in some other way—it is corban. Thus we may enter into the feelings of
the Assinaboin Indians, who considered that the blankets and pieces of
cloth and brass kettles and such valuables abandoned in the woods as a
medicine-sacrifice, might be carried off by any friendly party who
chanced to discover them;[947] or of the Ava Buddhists bringing to the
temples offerings of boiled rice and sweetmeats and coco-nut fried in
oil, and never attempting to disturb the crows and wild dogs who
devoured it before their eyes;[948] of the modern Moslems sacrificing
sheep, oxen, and camels in the valley of Muna on their return from
Mekka, it being a meritorious act to give away a victim without eating
any of it, while parties of Takruri watch around like vultures, ready to
pounce upon the carcases.[949] If the offering to the deity be continued
in ceremonial survival, in spite of a growing conviction that after all
the deity does not need and cannot profit by it, sacrifice will be thus
kept up in spite of having become practically unreasonable, and the
worshipper may still continue to measure its efficacy by what it costs
him. But to take this abnegation theory as representing the primitive
intention of sacrifice would be, I think, to turn history upside down.
The mere fact of sacrifices to deities, from the lowest to the highest
levels of culture, consisting to the extent of nine-tenths or more of
gifts of food and sacred banquets, tells forcibly against the
originality of the abnegation-theory. If the primary motive had been to
give up valuable property, we should find the sacrifice of weapons,
garments, ornaments, as prevalent in the lower culture as in fact it is
unusual. Looking at the subject in a general view, to suppose men to
have started by devoting to their deities what they considered
practically useless to them, in order that they themselves might suffer
a loss which none is to gain, is to undervalue the practical sense of
savages, who are indeed apt to keep up old rites after their meaning has
fallen away, but seldom introduce new ones without a rational motive. In
studying the religion of the lower races, men are found dealing with
their gods in as practical and straightforward a way as with their
neighbours, and where plain original purpose is found, it may well be
accepted as sufficient explanation. Of the way in which gift can pass
into abnegation, an instructive example is forthcoming in Buddhism. It
is held that sinful men are liable to be re-born in course of
transmigration as wandering, burning, miserable demons (preta). Now
these demons may receive offerings of food and drink from their
relatives, who can further benefit them by acts of merit done in their
name, as giving food to priests, unless the wretched spirits be so low
in merit that this cannot profit them. Yet even in this case it is held
that though the act does not benefit the spirit whom it is directed to,
it does benefit the person who performs it.[950] Unequivocal examples of
abnegation in sacrifice may be best found among those offerings of which
the value to the offerer utterly exceeds the value they can be supposed
to have to the deity. The most striking of these found among nations
somewhat advanced in general culture, appear in the history of human
sacrifice among Semitic nations. The king of Moab, when the battle was
too sore for him, offered up his eldest son for a burnt-offering on the
wall. The Phœnicians sacrificed the dearest children to propitiate the
angry gods, they enhanced their value by choosing them of noble
families, and there was not wanting among them even the utmost proof
that the efficacy of the sacrifice lay in the sacrificer’s grievous
loss, for they must have for yearly sacrifice only-begotten sons of
their parents (Κρόνῳ γαρ Φοίνικες καθ’ ἕκαστον ἔτος ἔθυον τὰ ἀγαπητὰ καὶ
μονογενῆ τῶν τέκνων). Heliogabalus brought the hideous Oriental rite
into Italy, choosing for victims to his solar divinity high-born lads
throughout the land. Of all such cases, the breaking of the sacred law
of hospitality by sacrificing the guest to Jupiter hospitalis, Ζεὺς
ξένιος, shows in the strongest light in Semitic regions how the value to
the offerer might become the measure of acceptableness to the god.[951]
In such ways, slightly within the range of the lower culture, but
strongly in the religion of the higher nations, the transition from the
gift-theory to the abnegation theory seems to have come about. Our
language displays it in a word, if we do but compare the sense of
presentation and acceptance which ‘sacrificium’ had in a Roman temple,
with the sense of mere giving up and loss which ‘sacrifice’ conveys in
an English market.
Through the history of sacrifice, it has occurred to many nations that
cost may be economized without impairing efficiency. The result is seen
in ingenious devices to lighten the burden on the worshipper by
substituting something less valuable than what he ought to offer, or
pretends to. Even in such a matter as this, the innate correspondence in
the minds of men is enough to produce in distant and independent races
so much uniformity of development, that three or four headings will
serve to class the chief divisions of sacrificial substitution among
mankind.
To give part for the whole is a proceeding so closely conformed to
ordinary tribute by subject to lord, that in great measure it comes
directly under the gift-theory, and as such has already had its examples
here. It is only when the part given to the gods is of contemptible
value in proportion to the whole, that full sacrifice passes gradually
into substitution. This is the case when in Madagascar the head of the
sacrificed beast is set up on a pole, and the blood and fat are rubbed
on the stones of the altar, but the sacrificers and their friends and
the officiating priest devour the whole carcase;[952] when rich Guinea
negroes sacrifice a sheep or goat to the fetish, and feast on it with
their friends, only leaving for the deity himself part of the
entrails;[953] when Tunguz, sacrificing cattle, would give a bit of
liver and fat and perhaps hang up the hide in the woods as the god’s
share, or Mongols would set the heart of the beast before the idol till
next day.[954] Thus the most ancient whole burnt-offering of the Greeks
dwindled to burning for the gods only the bones and fat of the
slaughtered ox, while the worshippers feasted themselves on the meat, an
economic rite which takes mythic shape in the legend of the sly
Prometheus giving Zeus the choice of the two parts of the sacrificed ox
he had divided for gods and mortals, on the one side bones covered
seemly with white fat, on the other the joints hidden under repulsive
hide and entrails.[955] With a different motive, not that of parsimony,
but of keeping up in survival an ancient custom, the Zarathustrian
religion performed by substitution the old Aryan sacrifice by fire. The
Vedic sacrifice Agnishtoma required that animals should be slain, and
their flesh partly committed to the gods by fire, partly eaten by
sacrificers and priests. The Parsi ceremony Izeshne, formal successor of
this bloody rite, requires no animal to be killed, but it suffices to
place the hair of an ox in a vessel, and show it to the fire.[956]
The offering of a part of the worshipper’s own body is a most usual act,
whether its intention is simply that of gift or tribute, or whether it
is considered as a _pars pro toto_ representing the whole man, either in
danger and requiring to be ransomed, or destined to actual sacrifice for
another and requiring to be redeemed. How a finger-joint may thus
represent a whole body, is perfectly shown in the funeral sacrifices of
the Nicobar islanders; they bury the dead man’s property with him, and
his wife has a finger-joint cut off (obviously a substitute for
herself), and if she refuses even this, a deep notch is cut in a pillar
of the house.[957] We are now concerned, however, with the
finger-offering, not as a sacrifice to the dead, but as addressed to
other deities. This idea is apparently worked out in the Tongan custom
of tutu-nima, the chopping off a portion of the little finger with a
hatchet or sharp stone as a sacrifice to the gods, for the recovery of a
sick relation of higher rank; Mariner saw children of five years old
quarrelling for the honour of having it done to them.[958] In the Mandan
ceremonies of initiation into manhood, when the youth at last hung
senseless and (as they called it) lifeless by the cords made fast to
splints through his flesh, he was let down, and coming to himself
crawled on hands and feet round the medicine-lodge to where an old
Indian sat with hatchet in his hand and a buffalo skull before him; then
the youth, holding up the little finger of his left hand to the Great
Spirit, offered it as a sacrifice, and it was chopped off, and sometimes
the fore-finger afterwards, upon the skull.[959] In India, probably as a
Dravidian rather than Aryan rite, the practice with full meaning comes
into view; as Siva cut off his finger to appease the wrath of Kali, so
in the southern provinces mothers will cut off their own fingers as
sacrifices lest they lose their children, and one hears of a golden
finger being allowed instead, the substitute of a substitute.[960] The
New Zealanders hang locks of hair on branches of trees in the
burying-ground, a recognised place for offerings.[961] That hair may be
a substitute for its owner is well shown in Malabar, where we read of
the demon being expelled from the possessed patient and flogged by the
exorcist to a tree; there the sick man’s hair is nailed fast, cut away,
and left for a propitiation to the demon.[962] Thus there is some ground
for interpreting the consecration of the boy’s cut hair in Europe as a
representative sacrifice.[963] As for the formal shedding of blood, it
may represent fatal bloodshed, as when the Jagas or priests in Quilombo
only marked with spears the children brought in, instead of running them
through;[964] or when in Greece a few drops of human blood had come to
stand instead of the earlier and more barbaric human sacrifice;[965] or
when in our own time and under our own rule a Vishnuite who has
inadvertently killed a monkey, a garuda, or a cobra, may expiate his
offence by a mock sacrifice, in which a human victim is wounded in the
thigh, pretends to die, and goes through the farce of resuscitation, his
drawn blood serving as substitute for his life.[966] One of the most
noteworthy cases of the survival of such formal bloodshed within modern
memory in Europe must be classed as not Aryan but Turanian, belonging as
it does to the folklore of Esthonia. The sacrificer had to draw drops of
blood from his forefinger, and therewith to pray this prayer, which was
taken down verbatim from one who remembered it:—‘I name thee with my
blood and betroth thee with my blood, and point thee out my buildings to
be blessed, stables and cattle-pens and hen-roosts; let them be blessed
through my blood and thy might!’ ‘Be my joy, thou Almighty, upholder of
my forefathers, my protector and guardian of my life! I beseech thee by
strength of flesh and blood; receive the food that I bring thee to thy
sustenance and the joy of my body; keep me as thy good child, and I will
thank and praise thee. By the help of the Almighty, my own God, hearken
to me! What through negligence I have done imperfectly toward thee, do
thou forget! But keep it truly in remembrance, that I have honestly paid
my gifts to my parents’ honour and joy and requital. Moreover falling
down I thrice kiss the earth. Be with me quick in doing, and peace be
with thee hitherto!’[967] These various rites of finger-cutting,
hair-cutting, and blood-letting, have required mention here from the
special point of view of their connexion with sacrifice. They belong to
an extensive series of practices, due to various and often obscure
motives, which come under the general heading of ceremonial mutilations.
When a life is given for a life, it is still possible to offer a life
less valued than the life in danger. When in Peru the Inca or some great
lord fell sick, he would offer to the deity one of his sons, imploring
him to take this victim in his stead.[968] The Greeks found it
sufficient to offer to the gods criminals or captives;[969] and the like
was the practice of the heathen tribes of northern Europe, to whom
indeed Christian dealers were accused of selling slaves for sacrificial
purposes.[970] Among such accounts, the typical story belongs to Punic
history. The Carthaginians, overcome and hard pressed in the war with
Agathokles, set down the defeat to divine wrath. Now Kronos had in
former times received his sacrifice of the chosen of their sons, but of
late they had put him off with children bought and nourished for the
purpose. In fact they had obeyed the sacrificer’s natural tendency to
substitution, but now in time of misfortune the reaction set in. To
balance the account and condone the parsimonious fraud, a monstrous
sacrifice was celebrated. Two hundred children, of the noblest of the
land, were brought to the idol. ‘For there was among them a brazen
statue of Kronos, holding out his hands sloping downward, so that the
child placed on them rolled off and fell into a certain chasm full of
fire.’[971] The Phœnician god here called Kronos is commonly though not
certainly identified with Moloch. Next, it will help us to realize how
the sacrifice of an animal may atone for a human life, if we notice in
South Africa how a Zulu will redeem a lost child from the finder by a
bullock, or a Kimbunda will expiate the blood of a slave by the offering
of an ox, whose blood will wash away the other.[972] For instances of
the animal substituted for man in sacrifice the following may serve.
Among the Khonds of Orissa, when Colonel Macpherson was engaged in
putting down the sacrifice of human victims by the sect of the
Earth-goddess, they at once began to discuss the plan of sacrificing
cattle by way of substitutes. Now there is some reason to think that
this same course of ceremonial change may account for the following
sacrificial practice in the other Khond sect. It appears that those who
worship the Light-god hold a festival in his honour, when they slaughter
a buffalo in commemoration of the time when, as they say, the
Earth-goddess was prevailing on men to offer human sacrifices to her,
but the Light-god sent a tribe-deity who crushed the bloody-minded
Earth-goddess under a mountain, and dragged a buffalo out of the jungle,
saying, ‘Liberate the man, and sacrifice the buffalo!’[973] This legend,
divested of its mythic garb, may really record a historical substitution
of animal for human sacrifice. In Ceylon, the exorcist will demand the
name of the demon possessing a demoniac, and the patient in frenzy
answers, giving the demon’s name, ‘I am So-and-so, I demand a human
sacrifice and will not go out without!’ The victim is promised, the
patient comes to from the fit, and a few weeks later the sacrifice is
made, but instead of a man they offer a fowl.[974] Classic examples of
substitution of this sort may be found in the sacrifice of a doe for a
virgin to Artemis in Laodicæa, a goat for a boy to Dionysos at Potniæ.
There appears to be Semitic connexion here, as there clearly is in the
story of the Æolians of Tenedos sacrificing to Melikertes (Melkarth)
instead of a new-born child a new-born calf, shoeing it with buskins and
tending the mother-cow as if a human mother.[975]
One step more in the course of substitution leads the worshipper to make
his sacrifice by effigy. An instructive example of the way in which this
kind of substitution arises may be found in the rites of ancient Mexico.
At the yearly festival of the water-gods and mountain-gods, certain
actual sacrifices of human victims took place in the temples. At the
same time, in the houses of the people, there was celebrated an
unequivocal but harmless imitation of this bloody rite. They made paste
images, adored them, and in due pretence of sacrifice cut them open at
the breast, took out their hearts, cut off their heads, divided and
devoured their limbs.[976] In the classic religions of Greece and Rome,
the desire to keep up the consecrated rites of ages more barbaric, more
bloodthirsty, or more profuse, worked itself out in many a compromise of
this class, such as the brazen statues offered for human victims, the
cakes of dough or wax in the figure of the beasts for which they were
presented as symbolic substitutes.[977] Not for economy, but to avoid
taking life, Brahmanic sacrifice has been known to be brought down to
offering models of the victim-animals in meal and butter.[978] The
modern Chinese, whose satisfaction in this kind of make-believe is so
well shown by their despatching paper figures to serve as attendants for
the dead, work out in the same fanciful way the idea of the sacrificial
effigy, in propitiating the presiding deity of the year for the cure of
a sick man. The rude figure of a man is drawn on or cut out of a piece
of paper, pasted on a slip of bamboo, and stuck upright in a packet of
mock-money. With proper exorcism, this representative is carried out
into the street with the disease, the priest squirts water from his
mouth over patient, image, and mock-money, the two latter are burnt, and
the company eat up the little feast laid out for the year-deity.[979]
There is curious historical significance in the custom at the inundation
of the Nile at Cairo, of setting up a conical pillar of earth which the
flood washes away as it rises. This is called the arûseh or bride, and
appears to be a substitute introduced under humaner Moslem influence,
for the young virgin in gay apparel who in older time was thrown into
the river, a sacrifice to obtain a plentiful inundation.[980] Again, the
patient’s offering the model of his diseased limb is distinctly of the
nature of a sacrifice, whether it be propitiatory offering before cure,
or thank-offering after. On the one hand, the ex-voto models of arms and
ears dedicated in ancient Egyptian temples are thought to be grateful
memorials,[981] as seems to have been the case with metal models of
faces, breasts, hands, &c., in Bœotian temples.[982] On the other hand,
there are cases where the model and, as it were, substitute of the
diseased part is given to obtain a cure; thus in early Christian times
in Germany protest was made against the heathen custom of hanging up
carved wooden limbs to a helpful idol for relief,[983] and in modern
India the pilgrim coming for cure will deposit in the temple the image
of his diseased limb, in gold or silver or copper according to his
means.[984]
If now we look for the sacrificial idea within the range of modern
Christendom, we shall find it in two ways not obscurely manifest. It
survives in traditional folklore, and it holds a place in established
religion. One of its most remarkable survivals may be seen in Bulgaria,
where sacrifice of live victims is to this day one of the accepted rites
of the land. They sacrifice a lamb on St. George’s day, telling to
account for the custom a legend which combines the episodes of the
offering of Isaac and the miracle of the Three Children. On the feast of
the Panagia (Virgin Mary) sacrifices of lambs, kids, honey, wine, &c.,
are offered in order that the children of the house may enjoy good
health throughout the year. A little child divines by touching one of
three saints’ candles to which the offering is to be dedicated; when the
choice is thus made, the bystanders each drink a cup of wine, saying
‘Saint So-and-So, to thee is the offering.’ Then they cut the throat of
the lamb, or smother the bees, and in the evening the whole village
assembles to eat the various sacrifices, and the men end the ceremony
with the usual drunken bout.[985] Within the borders of Russia, many and
various sacrifices are still offered; such is the horse with head
smeared with honey and mane decked with ribbons, cast into the river
with two millstones to its neck to appease the water-spirit, the
Vodyany, at his spiteful flood-time in early spring; and such is the
portion of supper left out for the house-demon, the domovoy, who if not
thus fed is apt to turn spirit-rapper, and knock the tables and benches
about at night.[986] In many another district of Europe, the tenacious
memory of the tiller of the soil has kept up in wondrous perfection
heirlooms from præ-Christian faiths. In Franconia, people will pour on
the ground a libation before drinking; entering a forest they will put
offerings of bread and fruit on a stone, to avert the attacks of the
demon of the woods, the ‘bilberry-man;’ the bakers will throw white
rolls into the oven flue for luck, and say, ‘Here, devil, they are
thine!’ The Carinthian peasant will fodder the wind by setting up a dish
of food in a tree before his house, and the fire by casting in lard and
dripping, in order that gale and conflagration may not hurt him. At
least up to the end of the 18th century this most direct elemental
sacrifice might be seen in Germany at the midsummer festival in the most
perfect form; some of the porridge from the table was thrown into the
fire, and some into running water, some was buried in the earth, and
some smeared on leaves and put on the chimney-top for the winds.[987]
Relics of such ancient sacrifice may be found in Scandinavia to this
day; to give but one example, the old country altars, rough earth-fast
stones with cup-like hollows, are still visited by mothers whose
children have been smitten with sickness by the trolls, and who smear
lard into the hollows and leave rag-dolls as offerings.[988] France may
be represented by the country-women’s custom of beginning a meal by
throwing down a spoonful of milk or bouillon; and by the record of the
custom of Andrieux in Dauphiny, where at the solstice the villagers went
out upon the bridge when the sun rose, and offered him an omelet.[989]
The custom of burning alive the finest calf, to save a murrain-struck
herd, had its last examples in Cornwall in the 19th century; the records
of bealtuinn sacrifices in Scotland continue in the Highlands within a
century ago; and Scotchmen still living remember the corner of a field
being left untilled for the Goodman’s Croft (i.e., the Devil’s), but the
principle of ‘cheating the devil’ was already in vogue, and the piece of
land allotted was but a worthless scrap.[990] It is a remnant of old
sacrificial rite, when the Swedes still bake at yule-tide a cake in the
shape of a boar, representing the boar sacrificed of old to Freyr, and
Oxford to this day commemorates the same ancestral ceremony, when the
boar’s head is carried in to the Christmas feast at Queen’s College,
with its appointed carol, ‘Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes
Domino.’[991] With a lingering recollection of the old libations, the
German toper’s saying still runs that heeltaps are a devil’s
offering.[992]
As for sacrificial rites most fully and officially existing in modern
Christendom, the presentation of ex-votos is one. The ecclesiastical
opposition to the continuance of these classic thank-offerings was but
temporary and partial. In the 5th century it seems to have been usual to
offer silver and gold eyes, feet, &c., to saints in acknowledgment of
cures they had effected. At the beginning of the 16th century, Polydore
Vergil, describing the classic custom, goes on to say: ‘In the same
manner do we now offer up in our churches sigillaria, that is, little
images of wax, and oscilla. As oft as any part of the body is hurt, as
the hand, foot, breast, we presently make a vow to God, and his saints,
to whom upon our recovery we make an offering of that hand or foot or
breast shaped in wax, which custom has so far obtained that this kind of
images have passed to the other animals. Wherefore so for an ox, so for
a horse, so for a sheep, we place puppets in the temples. In which thing
any modestly scrupulous person may perhaps say he knows not whether we
are rivalling the religion or the superstition of the ancients.’[993] In
modern Europe the custom prevails largely, but has perhaps somewhat
subsided into low levels of society, to judge by the general use of mock
silver and such-like worthless materials for the dedicated effigies. In
Christian as in præ-Christian temples, clouds of incense rise as of old.
Above all, though the ceremony of sacrifice did not form an original
part of Christian worship, its prominent place in the ritual was
obtained in early centuries. In that Christianity was recruited among
nations to whom the conception of sacrifice was among the deepest of
religious ideas, and the ceremony of sacrifice among the sincerest
efforts of worship, there arose an observance suited to supply the
vacant place. This result was obtained not by new introduction, but by
transmutation. The solemn eucharistic meal of the primitive Christians
in time assumed the name of the sacrifice of the mass, and was adapted
to a ceremonial in which an offering of food and drink is set out by a
priest on an altar in a temple, and consumed by priest and worshippers.
The natural conclusion of an ethnographic survey of sacrifice, is to
point to the controversy between Protestants and Catholics, for
centuries past one of the keenest which have divided the Christian
world, on this express question whether sacrifice is or is not a
Christian rite.
The next group of rites to be considered comprises Fasting and certain
other means of producing ecstasy and other morbid exaltation for
religious ends. In the foregoing researches on animism, it is frequently
observed or implied that the religious beliefs of the lower races are in
no small measure based on the evidence of visions and dreams, regarded
as actual intercourse with spiritual beings. From the earliest phases of
culture upward, we find religion in close alliance with ecstatic
physical conditions. These are brought on by various means of
interference with the healthy action of body and mind, and it is
scarcely needful to remind the reader that, according to philosophic
theories antecedent to those of modern medicine, such morbid
disturbances are explained as symptoms of divine visitation, or at least
of superhuman spirituality. Among the strongest means of disturbing the
functions of the mind so as to produce ecstatic vision, is fasting,
accompanied as it so usually is with other privations, and with
prolonged solitary contemplation in the desert or the forest. Among the
ordinary vicissitudes of savage life, the wild hunter has many a time to
try involuntarily the effects of such a life for days and weeks
together, and under these circumstances he soon comes to see and talk
with phantoms which are to him visible personal spirits. The secret of
spiritual intercourse thus learnt, he has thenceforth but to reproduce
the cause in order to renew the effects.
The rite of fasting, and the utter objective reality ascribed to what we
call its morbid symptoms, are shown in striking details among the savage
tribes of North America. Among the Indians (the accounts mostly refer to
the Algonquin tribes), long and rigorous fasting is enjoined among boys
and girls from a very early age; to be able to fast long is an enviable
distinction, and they will abstain from food three to seven days, or
even more, taking only a little water. During these fasts, especial
attention is paid to dreams. Thus Tanner tells the story of a certain
Net-no-kwa, who at twelve years old fasted ten successive days, till in
a dream a man came and stood before her, and after speaking of many
things gave her two sticks, saying, ‘I give you these to walk upon, and
your hair I give it to be like snow;’ this assurance of extreme old age
was through life a support to her in times of danger and distress. At
manhood the Indian lad, retiring to a solitary place to fast and
meditate and pray, receives visionary impressions which stamp his
character for life, and especially he waits till there appears to him in
a dream some animal or thing which will be henceforth his ‘medicine,’
the fetish-representative of his manitu or protecting genius. For
instance, an aged warrior who had thus in his youth dreamed of a bat
coming to him, wore the skin of a bat on the crown of his head
henceforth, and was all his life invulnerable to his enemies as a bat on
the wing. In after life, an Indian who wants anything will fast till he
has a dream that his manitu will grant it him. While the men are away
hunting, the children are sometimes made to fast, that in their dreams
they may obtain omens of the chase. Hunters fasting before an expedition
are informed in dreams of the haunts of the game, and the means of
appeasing the wrath of the bad spirits; if the dreamer fancies he sees
an Indian who has been long dead, and hears him say, ‘If thou wilt
sacrifice to me thou shalt shoot deer at pleasure,’ he will prepare a
sacrifice, and burn the whole or part of a deer, in honour of the
apparition. Especially the ‘meda’ or ‘medicine-man’ receives in fasts
much of his qualification for his sacred office. The Ojibwa prophetess,
known in after life as Catherine Wabose, in telling the story of her
early years, relates how at the age of womanhood she fasted in her
secluded lodge till she went up into the heavens and saw the spirit at
the entrance, the Bright Blue Sky; this was the first supernatural
communication of her prophetic career. The account given to Schoolcraft
by Chingwauk, an Algonquin chief deeply versed in the mystic lore and
picture-writing of his people, is as follows: ‘Chingwauk began by saying
that the ancient Indians made a great merit of fasting. They fasted
sometimes six or seven days, till both their bodies and minds became
free and light, which prepared them to dream. The object of the ancient
seers was to dream of the sun, as it was believed that such a dream
would enable them to see everything on the earth. And by fasting long
and thinking much on the subject, they generally succeeded. Fasts and
dreams were at first attempted at an early age. What a young man sees
and experiences during these dreams and fasts, is adopted by him as
truth, and it becomes a principle to regulate his future life. He relies
for success on these revelations. If he has been much favoured in his
fasts, and the people believe that he has the art of looking into
futurity, the path is open to the highest honours. The prophet, he
continued, begins to try his power in secret, with only one assistant,
whose testimony is necessary should he succeed. As he goes on, he puts
down the figures of his dreams and revelations, by symbols, on bark or
other material, till a whole winter is sometimes passed in pursuing the
subject, and he thus has a record of his principal revelations. If what
he predicts is verified, the assistant mentions it, and the record is
then appealed to as proof of his prophetic power and skill. Time
increases his fame. His _kee-keé-wins_, or records, are finally shown to
the old people, who meet together and consult upon them, for the whole
nation believe in these revelations. They in the end give their
approval, and declare that he is gifted as a prophet—is inspired with
wisdom, and is fit to lead the opinions of the nation. Such, he
concluded, was the ancient custom, and the celebrated old war-captains
rose to their power in this manner.’ It remains to say that among these
American tribes, the ‘jossakeed’ or soothsayer prepares himself by
fasting and the use of the sweating-bath for the state of convulsive
ecstasy in which he utters the dictates of his familiar spirits.[994]
The practice of fasting is described in other districts of the
uncultured world as carried on to produce similar ecstasy and
supernatural converse. The account by Roman Pane in the Life of Colon
describes the practice in Hayti of fasting to obtain knowledge of future
events from the spirits (cemi); and a century or two later, rigorous
fasting formed part of the apprentice’s preparation for the craft of
‘boyé’ or sorcerer, evoker, consulter, propitiator, and exorciser of
spirits.[995] The ‘keebèt’ or conjurers of the Abipones were believed by
the natives to be able to inflict disease and death, cure all disorders,
make known distant and future events, cause rain, hail, and tempests,
call up the shades of the dead, put on the form of tigers, handle
serpents unharmed, &c. These powers were imparted by diabolical
assistance, and Father Dobrizhoffer thus describes the manner of
obtaining them:—‘Those who aspire to the office of juggler are said to
sit upon an aged willow, overhanging some lake, and to abstain from food
for several days, till they begin to see into futurity. It always
appeared probable to me that these rogues, from long fasting, contract a
weakness of brain, a giddiness, and kind of delirium, which makes them
imagine that they are gifted with superior wisdom, and give themselves
out for magicians. They impose upon themselves first, and afterwards
upon others.’[996] The Malay, to make himself invulnerable, retires for
three days to solitude and scanty food in the jungle, and if on the
third day he dreams of a beautiful spirit descending to speak to him,
the charm is worked.[997] The Zulu doctor qualifies himself for
intercourse with the ‘amadhlozi,’ or ghosts, from whom he is to obtain
direction in his craft, by spare abstemious diet, want, suffering,
castigation, and solitary wandering, till fainting fits or coma bring
him into direct intercourse with the spirits. These native diviners fast
often, and are worn out by fastings, sometimes of several days’
duration, when they become partially or wholly ecstatic, and see
visions. So thoroughly is the connexion between fasting and spiritual
intercourse acknowledged by the Zulus, that it has become a saying among
them, ‘The continually stuffed body cannot see secret things.’ They have
no faith in a fat prophet.[998]
The effects thus looked for and attained by fasting among uncultured
tribes continue into the midst of advanced civilization. No wonder that,
in the Hindu tale, king Vasavadatta and his queen after a solemn penance
and a three days’ fast should see Siva in a dream and receive his
gracious tidings; no wonder that, in the actual experience of to-day,
the Hindu yogi should bring on by fasting a state in which he can with
bodily eyes behold the gods.[999] The Greek oracle-priests recognized
fasting as a means of bringing on prophetic dreams and visions; the
Pythia of Delphi herself fasted for inspiration; Galen remarks that
fasting dreams are the clearer.[1000] Through after ages, both cause and
consequence have held their places in Christendom. Thus Michael the
Archangel, with sword in right hand and scales in left, appears to a
certain priest of Siponte, who during a twelvemonth’s course of prayer
and fasting had been asking if he would have a temple built in his
honour:—
‘precibus jejunia longis
Addiderat, totoque orans se afflixerat anno.’[1001]
Reading the narratives of the wondrous sights seen by St. Theresa and
her companions, how the saint went in spirit into hell and saw the
darkness and fire and unutterable despair, how she had often by her side
her good patrons Peter and Paul, how when she was raised in rapture
above the grate at the nunnery where she was to take the sacrament,
Sister Mary Baptist and others being present, they saw an angel by her
with a golden fiery dart at the end whereof was a little fire, and he
thrust it through her heart and bowels and pulled them out with it,
leaving her wholly inflamed with a great love of God—the modern reader
naturally looks for details of physical condition and habit of life
among the sisterhood, and as naturally finds that St. Theresa was of
morbid constitution and subject to trances from her childhood, in after
life subduing her flesh by long watchings and religious discipline, and
keeping severe fast during eight months of the year.[1002] It is
needless to multiply such mediæval records of fasts which have produced
their natural effects in beatific vision—are they not written page after
page in the huge folios of the Bollandists? So long as fasting is
continued as a religious rite, so long its consequences in morbid mental
exaltation will continue the old and savage doctrine that morbid
phantasy is supernatural experience. Bread and meat would have robbed
the ascetic of many an angel’s visit; the opening of the refectory door
must many a time have closed the gates of heaven to his gaze.
It is indeed not the complete theory of fasting as a religious rite, but
only an important and perhaps original part of it, that here comes into
view. Abstinence from food has a principal place among acts of
self-mortification or penance, a province of religious ordinance into
which the present argument scarcely enters. Looking at the practice of
fasting here from an animistic point of view, as a process of bringing
on dreams and visions, it will be well to mention with it certain other
means by which ecstatic phenomena are habitually induced.
One of these means is the use of drugs. In the West India Islands at the
time of the discovery, Columbus describes the religious ceremony of
placing a platter containing ‘cohoba’ powder on the head of the idol,
the worshippers then snuffing up this powder through a cane with two
branches put to the nose. Pane further describes how the native priest,
when brought to a sick man, would put himself in communication with the
spirits by thus snuffing cohoba, ‘which makes him drunk, that he knows
not what he does, and so says many extraordinary things, wherein they
affirm that they are talking with the cemis, and that from them it is
told them that the infirmity came.’ On the Amazons, the Omaguas have
continued to modern times the use of narcotic plants, producing an
intoxication lasting twenty-four hours, during which they are subject to
extraordinary visions; from one of these plants they obtain the ‘curupa’
powder which they snuff into their nostrils with a Y-shaped reed.[1003]
Here the similar names and uses of the drug plainly show historical
connexion between the Omaguas and the Antilles islanders. The
Californian Indians would give children narcotic potions, in order to
gain from the ensuing visions information about their enemies; and thus
the Mundrucus of North Brazil, desiring to discover murderers, would
administer such drinks to seers, in whose dreams the criminals
appeared.[1004] The Darien Indians used the seeds of the Datura
sanguinea to bring on in children prophetic delirium, in which they
revealed hidden treasure. In Peru the priests who talked with the
‘huaca’ or fetishes used to throw themselves into an ecstatic condition
by a narcotic drink called ‘tonca,’ made from the same plant, whence its
name of ‘huacacacha’ or fetish-herb.[1005] The Mexican priests also
appear to have used an ointment or drink made with seeds of
‘ololiuhqui,’ which produced delirium and visions.[1006] In both
Americas tobacco served for such purposes. It must be noticed that
smoking is more or less practised among native races to produce full
intoxication, the smoke being swallowed for the purpose. By smoking
tobacco, the sorcerers of Brazilian tribes raised themselves to ecstasy
in their convulsive orgies, and saw spirits; no wonder tobacco came to
be called the ‘holy herb.’[1007] So North American Indians held
intoxication by tobacco to be supernatural ecstasy, and the dreams of
men in this state to be inspired.[1008] This idea may explain a
remarkable proceeding of the Delaware Indians. At their festival in
honour of the Fire-god with his twelve attendant manitus, inside the
house of sacrifice a small oven-hut was set up, consisting of twelve
poles tied together at the top and covered with blankets, high enough
for a man to stand nearly upright within it. After the feast this oven
was heated with twelve red-hot stones, and twelve men crept inside. An
old man threw twelve pipefulls of tobacco on these stones, and when the
patients had borne to the utmost the heat and suffocating smoke, they
were taken out, generally falling in a swoon.[1009] This practice, which
was carried on in the last century, is remarkable for its coincidence
with the Scythian mode of purification after a funeral, as described by
Herodotus. He relates that they make their hut with three stakes sloping
together at the top and covered in with wooden felts; then they cast
red-hot stones into a trough placed within and throw hemp-seed on them,
which sends forth fumes such as no Greek vapour-bath could exceed, and
the Scyths in their sweating-hut roar with delight.[1010]
Not to dwell on the ancient Aryan deification of an intoxicating drink,
the original of the divine Soma of the Hindus and the divine Haoma of
the Parsis, nor on the drunken orgies of the worship of Dionysos in
ancient Greece, we find more exact Old World analogues of the ecstatic
medicaments used in the lower culture. Such are the decoctions of
thalassægle which Pliny speaks of as drunk to produce delirium and
visions; the drugs mentioned by Hesychius, whereby Hekate was evoked;
the mediæval witch-ointments which brought visionary beings into the
presence of the patient, transported him to the witches’ sabbath,
enabled him to turn into a beast.[1011] The survival of such practices
is most thorough among the Persian dervishes of our own day. These
mystics are not only opium-eaters, like so large a proportion of their
countrymen; they are hashish-smokers, and the effect of this drug is to
bring them into a state of exaltation passing into utter hallucination.
To a patient in this condition, says Dr. Polak, a little stone in the
road will seem a great block that he must stride over; a gutter becomes
a wide stream to his eyes, and he calls for a boat to ferry him across;
men’s voices sound like thunder in his ears; he fancies he has wings and
can rise from the ground. These ecstatic effects, in which miracle is
matter of hourly experience, are considered in Persia as high religious
developments; the visionaries and their rites are looked on as holy, and
they make converts.[1012]
Many details of the production of ecstasy and swoon by bodily exercises,
chanting and screaming, &c., have been incidentally given in describing
the doctrine of demoniacal possession. I will only further cite a few
typical cases to show that the practice of bringing on swoons or fits by
religious exercises, in reality or pretence, is one belonging originally
to savagery, whence it has been continued into higher grades of
civilization. We may judge of the mental and bodily condition of the
priest or sorcerer in Guyana, by his preparation for his sacred office.
This consisted in the first place in fasting and flagellation of extreme
severity; at the end of his fast he had to dance till he fell senseless,
and was revived by a potion of tobacco-juice causing violent nausea and
vomiting of blood; day after day this treatment was continued till the
candidate, brought into or confirmed in the condition of a
‘convulsionary,’ was ready to pass from patient into doctor.[1013]
Again, at the Winnebago medicine-feast, members of the fraternity
assemble in a long arched booth, and with them the candidates for
initiation, whose preparation is a three days’ fast, with severe
sweating and steaming with herbs, under the direction of the old
medicine-men. The initiation is performed in the assembly by a number of
medicine-men. These advance in line, as many abreast as there are
candidates; holding their medicine-bags before them with both hands,
they dance forward slowly at first, uttering low guttural sounds as they
approach the candidates, their step and voice increasing in energy,
until with a violent ‘Ough!’ they thrust their medicine-bags at their
breasts. Instantly, as if struck with an electric shock, the candidates
fall prostrate on their faces, their limbs extended, their muscles rigid
and quivering. Blankets are now thrown over them, and they are suffered
to lie thus a few moments; as soon as they show signs of recovering from
the shock, they are assisted to their feet and led forward.
Medicine-bags are then put in their hands, and medicine-stones in their
mouths; they are now medicine men or women, as the case may be, in full
communion and fellowship; and they now go round the bower in company
with the old members, knocking others down promiscuously by thrusting
their medicine-bags at them. A feast and dance to the music of drum and
rattle carry on the festival.[1014] Another instance may be taken from
among the Alfurus of Celebes, inviting Empong Lembej to descend into
their midst. The priests chant, the chief priest with twitching and
trembling limbs turns his eyes towards heaven; Lembej descends into him,
and with horrible gestures he springs upon a board, beats about with a
bundle of leaves, leaps and dances, chanting legends of an ancient
deity. After some hours another priest relieves him, and sings of
another deity. So it goes on day and night till the fifth day, and then
the chief priest’s tongue is cut, he falls into a swoon like death, and
they cover him up. They fumigate with benzoin the piece taken from his
tongue, and swing a censer over his body, calling back his soul; he
revives and dances about, lively but speechless, till they give him back
the rest of his tongue, and with it his power of speech.[1015] Thus, in
the religion of uncultured races, the phenomenon of being ‘struck’ holds
so recognised a position that impostors will even counterfeit it. In its
morbid nature, its genuine cases at least plainly correspond with the
fits which history records among the convulsionnaires of St. Medard and
the enthusiasts of the Cevennes. Nor need we go even a generation back
to see symptoms of the same type accepted as signs of grace among
ourselves. Medical descriptions of the scenes brought on by fanatical
preachers at ‘revivals’ in England, Ireland, and America, are full of
interest to students of the history of religious rites. I will but quote
a single case. ‘A young woman is described as lying extended at full
length; her eyes closed, her hands clasped and elevated, and her body
curved in a spasm so violent that it appeared to rest arch-like upon her
heels and the back portion of her head. In that position she lay without
speech or motion for several minutes. Suddenly she uttered a terrific
scream, and tore handfuls of hair from her uncovered head. Extending her
open hands in a repelling attitude of the most appalling terror, she
exclaimed, “Oh, that fearful pit!” During this paroxysm three strong men
were hardly able to restrain her. She extended her arms on either side,
clutching spasmodically at the grass, shuddering with terror, and
shrinking from some fearful inward vision; but she ultimately fell back
exhausted, nerveless, and apparently insensible.’[1016] Such
descriptions carry us far back in the history of the human mind, showing
modern men still in ignorant sincerity producing the very fits and
swoons to which for untold ages savage tribes have given religious
import. These manifestations in modern Europe indeed form part of a
revival of religion, the religion of mental disease.
From this series of rites, practical with often harmful practicality, we
turn to a group of ceremonies whose characteristic is picturesque
symbolism. In discussing sun-myth and sun-worship, it has come into view
how deeply the association in men’s mind of the east with light and
warmth, life and happiness and glory, of the west with darkness and
chill, death and decay, has from remote ages rooted itself in religious
belief. It will illustrate and confirm this view to observe how the same
symbolism of east and west has taken shape in actual ceremony, giving
rise to a series of practices concerning the posture of the dead in
their graves and the living in their temples, practices which may be
classed under the general heading of Orientation.
While the setting sun has shown to men, from savage ages onward, the
western region of death, the rising sun has displayed a scene more
hopeful, an eastern home of deity. It seems to be the working out of the
solar analogy, on the one hand in death as sunset, on the other in new
life as sunrise, that has produced two contrasted rules of burial, which
agree in placing the dead in the sun’s path, the line of east and west.
Thus the natives of Australia have in some districts well-marked
thoughts of the western land of the dead, yet the custom of burying the
dead sitting with face to the east is also known among them.[1017] The
Samoans and Fijians, agreeing that the land of the departed lies in the
far west, bury the corpse lying with head east and feet west;[1018] the
body would but have to rise and walk straight onward to follow its soul
home. This idea is stated explicitly among the Winnebagos of North
America; they will sometimes bury a dead man sitting up to the breast in
a hole in the ground, looking westward; or graves are dug east and west,
and the bodies laid in them with the head eastward, with the motive
‘that they may look towards the happy land in the west.’[1019] With
these customs may be compared those of certain South American tribes.
The Yumanas bury their dead bent double with faces looking toward the
heavenly region of the sunrise, the home of their great good deity, who
they trust will take their souls with him to his dwelling;[1020] the
Guarayos bury the corpses with heads turned to the east, for it is in
the eastern sky that their god Tamoi, the Ancient of Heaven, has his
happy hunting-grounds where the dead will meet again.[1021] On the other
hand the Peruvian custom was to place the dead huddled up in a sitting
posture and with faces turned to the west.[1022] Barbaric Asia may be
represented by the modern Ainos of Yesso, burying the dead lying robed
in white with the head to the east, ‘because that is where the sun
rises;’ or by the Tunguz who bury with the head to the west; or by the
mediæval Tatars, raising a great mound over the dead, and setting up
thereon a statue with face turned toward the east, holding a
drinking-cup in his hand before his navel; or by the modern Siamese, who
do not sleep with their heads to the west, because it is in this
significant position that the dead are burned.[1023] The burial of the
dead among the ancient Greeks in the line of east and west, whether
according to Athenian custom of the head toward the sunset, or the
converse, is another link in the chain of custom.[1024] Thus it is not
to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and
widespread solar ideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the
body of Christ was laid with the head toward the west, thus looking
eastward, and the Christian usage of digging graves east and west, which
prevailed through mediæval times and is not yet forgotten. The rule of
laying the head to the west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise
looking toward the east, are perfectly stated in the following passage
from an ecclesiastical treatise of the 16th century: ‘Debet autem quis
sic sepeliri, ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad orientem,
in quo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de
occasu festinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum.’[1025]
Where among the lower races sun-worship begins to consolidate itself in
systematic ritual, the orientation of the worshipper and the temple
becomes usual and distinct. The sun-worshipping Comanches, preparing for
the war-path, will place their weapons betimes on the east side of the
lodge to receive the sun’s first rays; it is a remnant of old solar
rite, that the Christianized Pueblo Indians of New Mexico turn to the
sun at his rising.[1026] It has been already noticed how in old times
each morning at sunrise the Sun-chief of the Natchez of Louisiana stood
facing the east at the door of his house, and smoked toward the sun
first, before he turned to the other three quarters of the world.[1027]
The cave-temple of the sun-worshipping Apalaches of Florida had its
opening looking east, and within stood the priests on festival days at
dawn, waiting till the first rays entered to begin the appointed rites
of chant and incense and offering.[1028] In old Mexico, where
sun-worship was the central doctrine of the complex religion, men knelt
in prayer towards the east, and the doors of the sanctuaries looked
mostly westward.[1029] It was characteristic of the solar worship of
Peru that even the villages were habitually built on slopes toward the
east, that the people might see and greet the national deity at his
rising. In the temple of the sun at Cuzco, his splendid golden disc on
the western wall looked out through the eastern door, so that as he rose
his first beams fell upon it, reflected thence to light up the
sanctuary.[1030]
In Asia, the ancient Aryan religion of the sun manifests itself not less
plainly in rites of orientation. They have their place in the weary
ceremonial routine which the Brahman must daily accomplish. When he has
performed the dawn ablution, and meditated on the effulgent sun-light
which is Brahma, the supreme soul, he proceeds to worship the sun,
standing on one foot and resting the other against his ankle or heel,
looking toward the east, and holding his hands open before him in a
hollow form. At noon, when he has again adored the sun, it is sitting
with his face to the east that he must read his daily portion of the
Veda; it is looking toward the east that his offering of barley and
water must be first presented to the gods, before he turns to north and
south; it is with first and principal direction to the east that the
consecration of the fire and the sacrificial implements, a ceremony
which is the groundwork of all his religious acts, has to be
performed.[1031] The significance of such reverence paid by adorers of
the sun to the glorious eastern region of his rising, may be heightened
to us by setting beside it a ceremony of a darker faith, displaying the
awe-struck horror of the western home of death. The antithesis to the
eastward consecration by the orthodox Brahmans is the westward
consecration by the Thugs, worshippers of Kali the death-goddess. In
honour of Kali their victims were murdered, and to her the sacred
pickaxe was consecrated, wherewith the graves of the slain were dug. At
the time of the suppression of Thuggee, Englishmen had the consecration
of the pickaxe performed in make-believe in their presence by those who
well knew the dark ritual. On the dreadful implement no shadow of any
living thing must fall, its consecrator sits facing the west to perform
the fourfold washing and the sevenfold passing through the fire, and
then it being proved duly consecrated by the omen of the coco-nut
divided at a single cut, it is placed on the ground, and the bystanders
worship it, turning to the west.[1032]
These two contrasted rites of east and west established themselves and
still remain established in modern European religion. In judging of the
course of history that has brought about this state of things, it
scarcely seems that Jewish influence was effective. The Jewish temple
had the entrance in the east, and the sanctuary in the west. Sun-worship
was an abomination to the Jews, and the orientation especially belonging
to it appears as utterly opposed to Jewish usage, in Ezekiel’s
horror-stricken vision: ‘and, behold, at the door of the temple of
Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, about five-and-twenty men,
with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward
the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east.’[1033] Nor is
there reason to suppose that in later ages such orientation gained
ground in Jewish ceremony. The solar rites of other nations whose ideas
were prominent in the early development of Christianity, are sufficient
to account for the rise of Christian orientation. On the one hand there
was the Asiatic sun-worship, perhaps specially related to the veneration
of the rising sun in old Persian religion, and which has left relics in
the east of the Turkish empire into modern years; Christian sects
praying toward the sun, and Yezidis turning to the east as their kibleh
and burying their dead looking thither.[1034] On the other hand,
orientation was recognized in classic Greek religion, not indeed in
slavish obedience to a uniform law, but as a principle to be worked out
in converse ways. Thus it was an Athenian practice for the temple to
have its entrance east, looking out through which the divine image stood
to behold the rising sun. This rule it is that Lucian refers to, when he
talks of the delight of gazing toward the loveliest and most longed-for
of the day, of welcoming the sun as he peeps forth, of taking one’s fill
of light through the wide-open doors, even as the ancients built their
temples looking forth. Nor was the contrary rule as stated by Vitruvius
less plain in meaning; the sacred houses of the immortal gods shall be
so arranged, that if no reason prevents and choice is free, the temple
and the statue erected in the cell shall look toward the west, so that
they who approach the altar to sacrifice and vow and pray may look at
once toward the statue and the eastern sky, the divine figures thus
seeming to arise and look upon them. Altars of the gods were to stand
toward the east.[1035]
Unknown in primitive Christianity, the ceremony of orientation was
developed within its first four centuries. It became an accepted custom
to turn in prayer toward the east, the mystic region of the Light of the
World, the Sun of Righteousness. Augustine says, ‘When we stand at
prayer, we turn to the east, where the heaven arises, not as though God
were only there, and had forsaken all other parts of the world, but to
admonish our mind to turn to a more excellent nature, that is, to the
Lord.’ No wonder that the early Christians were thought to practise in
substance the rite of sun-worship which they practised in form. Thus
Tertullian writes: ‘Others indeed with greater truth and verisimilitude
believe the sun to be our God ... the suspicion arising from its being
known that we pray toward the region of the east.’ Though some of the
most ancient and honoured churches of Christendom stand to show that
orientation was no original law of ecclesiastical architecture, yet it
became dominant in early centuries. That the author of the ‘Apostolical
Constitutions’ should be able to give directions for building churches
toward the east (ὁ οἶκος ἔστω ἐπιμηκής, κατ’ ἀνατολὰς τετραμμένος), just
as Vitruvius had laid down the rule as to the temples of the gods, is
only a part of that assimilation of the church to the temple which took
effect so largely in the scheme of worship. Of all Christian ceremony,
however, it was in the rite of baptism that orientation took its fullest
and most picturesque form. The catechumen was placed with face toward
the west, and then commanded to renounce Satan with gestures of
abhorrence, stretching out his hands against him, or smiting them
together, and blowing or spitting against him thrice. Cyril of
Jerusalem, in his ‘Mystagogic Catechism,’ thus depicts the scene: ‘Ye
first came into the ante-room of the baptistery, and standing toward the
west (πρὸς τὰς δυσμάς) ye were commanded to put away Satan, stretching
out your hands as though he were present.... And why did ye stand toward
the west? It was needful, for sunset is the type of darkness, and he is
darkness and has his strength in darkness; therefore symbolically
looking toward the west ye renounce that dark and gloomy ruler.’ Then
turning round to the east, the catechumen took up his allegiance to his
new master, Christ. The ceremony and its significance are clearly set
forth by Jerome, thus: ‘In the mysteries [meaning baptism] we first
renounce him who is in the west, and dies to us with our sins; and so,
turning to the east, we make a covenant with the Sun of righteousness,
promising to be his servants.’[1036] This perfect double rite of east
and west, retained in the baptismal ceremony of the Greek Church, may be
seen in Russia to this day. The orientation of churches and the practice
of turning to the east as an act of worship, are common to both Greek
and Latin ritual. In our own country they declined from the Reformation,
till at the beginning of the 19th century they seemed falling out of
use; since then, however, they have been restored to a certain
prominence by the revived mediævalism of our own day. To the student of
history, it is a striking example of the connexion of thought and
ceremony through the religions of the lower and higher culture, to see
surviving in our midst, with meaning dwindled into symbolism, this
ancient solar rite. The influence of the divine Sun upon his rude and
ancient worshippers still subsists before our eyes as a mechanical
force, acting diamagnetically to adjust the axis of the church and turn
the body of the worshipper.
The last group of rites whose course through religious history is to be
outlined here, takes in the varied dramatic acts of ceremonial
purification of Lustration. With all the obscurity and intricacy due to
age-long modification, the primitive thought which underlies these
ceremonies is still open to view. It is the transition from practical to
symbolic cleansing, from removal of bodily impurity to deliverance from
invisible, spiritual, and at last moral evil. Our language follows this
ideal movement to its utmost stretch, where such words as cleansing and
purification have passed from their first material meaning, to signify
removal of ceremonial contamination, legal guilt, and moral sin. What we
thus express in metaphor, the men of the lower culture began early to
act in ceremony, purifying persons and objects by various prescribed
rites, especially by dipping them in and sprinkling them with water, or
fumigating them with and passing them through fire. It is the plainest
proof of the original practicality of proceedings now passed into
formalism, to point out how far the ceremonial lustrations still keep
their connexion with times of life when real purification is necessary,
how far they still consist in formal cleansing of the new-born child and
the mother, of the man-slayer who has shed blood, or the mourner who has
touched a corpse. In studying the distribution of the forms of
lustration among the races of the world, while allowing for the large
effect of their transmission from religion to religion, and from nation
to nation, we may judge that their diversity of detail and purpose
scarcely favours a theory of their being all historically derived from
one or even several special religions of the ancient world. They seem
more largely to exemplify independent working out, in different
directions, of an idea common to mankind at large. This view may be
justified by surveying lustration through a series of typical instances,
which show its appearance and character in savage and barbaric culture,
as being an act belonging to certain well-marked events of human life.
The purification of the new-born child appears among the lower races in
various forms, but perhaps in some particular instances borrowed from
the higher. It should be noticed that though the naming of the child is
often associated with its ceremonial cleansing, there is no real
connexion between the two rites, beyond their coming due at the same
early time of life. To those who look for the matter-of-fact origin of
such ceremonies, one of the most suggestive of the accounts available is
a simple mention of the two necessary acts of washing and name-giving,
as done together in mere practical purpose, but not as yet passed into
formal ceremony—the Kichtak Islanders, it is remarked, at birth wash the
child, and give it a name.[1037] Among the Yumanas of Brazil, as soon as
the child can sit up, it is sprinkled with a decoction of certain herbs,
and receives a name which has belonged to an ancestor.[1038] Among some
Jakun tribes of the Malay Peninsula, as soon as the child is born it is
carried to the nearest stream and washed; it is then brought back to the
house, the fire is kindled, and fragrant wood thrown on, over which it
is passed several times.[1039] The New Zealanders’ infant baptism is no
new practice, and is considered by them an old traditional rite, but
nothing very similar is observed among other branches of the Polynesian
race. Whether independently invented or not, it was thoroughly worked
into the native religious scheme. The baptism was performed on the
eighth day or earlier, at the side of a stream or elsewhere, by a native
priest who sprinkled water on the child with a branch or twig; sometimes
the child was immersed. With this lustration it received its name, the
priest repeating a list of ancestral names till the child chose one for
itself by sneezing at it. The ceremony was of the nature of a
dedication, and was accompanied by rhythmical formulas of exhortation.
The future warrior was bidden to flame with anger, to leap nimbly and
ward off the spears, to be angry and bold and industrious, to work
before the dew is off the ground; the future housewife was bidden to get
food and go for firewood and weave garments with panting of breath. In
after years, a second sacred sprinkling was performed to admit a lad
into the rank of warriors. It has to be noticed with reference to the
reason of this ceremonial washing, that a new-born child is in the
highest degree tapu, and may only be touched by a few special persons
till the restriction is removed.[1040] In Madagascar, a fire is kept up
in the room for several days, then the child in its best clothes is in
due form carried out of the house and back to its mother, both times
being carefully lifted over the fire, which is made near the door.[1041]
In Africa, some of the most noticeable ceremonies of the class are
these. The people of Sarac wash the child three days after birth with
holy water.[1042] When a Mandingo child was about a week old its hair
was cut, and the priest, invoking blessings, took it in his arms,
whispered in its ear, spat thrice in its face, and pronounced its name
aloud before the assembled company.[1043] In Guinea, when a child is
born, the event is publicly proclaimed, the new-born babe is brought
into the streets, and the headman of the town or family sprinkles it
with water from a basin, giving it a name and invoking blessings of
health and wealth upon it; other friends follow the example, till the
child is thoroughly drenched.[1044] In these various examples of
lustration of infants, the purifications by fire have especial
importance ethnologically, not because this proceeding is more natural
to the savage mind than that of bathing or sprinkling with water, but
because this latter ceremony may sometimes have been imitated from
Christian baptism. The fact of savage and barbaric lustration of infants
being in several cases associated with the belief in re-birth of
ancestral souls seems to mark the rite as belonging to remote
pre-Christian ages.[1045]
The purification of women at childbirth, &c., is ceremonially practised
by the lower races under circumstances which do not suggest adoption
from more civilized nations. The seclusion and lustration among North
American Indian tribes have been compared with those of the Levitical
law, but the resemblance is not remarkably close, and belongs rather to
a stage of civilization than to the ordinance of a particular nation. It
is a good case of independent development in such customs, that the rite
of putting out the fires and kindling ‘new fire’ on the woman’s return
is common to the Iroquois and Sioux in North America,[1046] and the
Basutos in South Africa. These latter have a well-marked rite of
lustration by sprinkling, performed on girls at womanhood.[1047] The
Hottentots considered mother and child unclean till they had been washed
and smeared after the uncleanly native fashion.[1048] Lustrations with
water were usual in West Africa.[1049] Tatar tribes in Mongolia used
bathing, while in Siberia the custom of leaping over a fire answered the
purpose of purification.[1050] The Mantras of the Malay Peninsula have
made the bathing of the mother after childbirth into a ceremonial
ordinance.[1051] It is so among the indigenes of India, where both in
northern and southern districts the naming of the child comes into
connexion with the purification of the mother, both ceremonies being
performed on the same day.[1052] Without extending further this list of
instances, it is sufficiently plain that we have before us the record of
a practical custom becoming consecrated by traditional habit, and making
its way into the range of religious ceremony.
Much the same may be said of the purification of savage and barbaric
races on occasion of contamination by bloodshed or funeral. In North
America, the Dacotas use the vapour-bath not only as a remedy, but also
for the removal of ceremonial uncleanness, such as is caused by killing
a person, or touching a dead body.[1053] So among the Navajos, the man
who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds himself
unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared for the
purpose by certain ceremonies.[1054] In Madagascar, no one who has
attended a funeral may enter the palace courtyard till he has bathed,
and in all cases there must be an ablution of the mourner’s garments on
returning from the grave.[1055] Among the Basutos of South Africa,
warriors returning from battle must rid themselves of the blood they
have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them and disturb
their sleep. Therefore they go in procession in full armour to the
nearest stream to wash, and their weapons are washed also. It is usual
in this ceremony for a sorcerer higher up the stream to put in some
magical ingredient, such as he also uses in the preparation of the holy
water which is sprinkled over the people with a beast’s tail at the
frequent public purifications. These Basutos, moreover, use fumigation
with burning wood to purify growing corn, and cattle taken from the
enemy. Fire serves for purification in cases too trifling to require
sacrifice; thus when a mother sees her child walk over a grave, she
hastens to call it, makes it stand before her, and lights a small fire
at its feet.[1056] The Zulus, whose horror of a dead body will induce
them to cast out and leave in the woods their sick people, at least
strangers, purify themselves by an ablution after a funeral. It is to be
noticed that these ceremonial practices have come to mean something
distinct from mere cleanliness. Kaffirs who will purify themselves from
ceremonial uncleanness by washing, are not in the habit of washing
themselves or their vessels for ordinary purposes, and the dogs and the
cockroaches divide between them the duty of cleaning out the
milk-baskets.[1057] Mediæval Tatar tribes, some of whom had
conscientious scruples against bathing, have found passing through fire
or between two fires a sufficient purification, and the household stuff
of the dead was lustrated in this latter way.[1058]
In the organised nations of the semi-civilized and civilized world,
where religion shapes itself into elaborate and systematic schemes, the
practices of lustration familiar to the lower culture now become part of
stringent ceremonial systems. It seems to be at this stage of their
existence that they often take up in addition to their earlier
ceremonial significance an ethical meaning, absent or all but absent
from them at their first appearance above the religious horizon. This
will be made evident by glancing over the ordinances of lustration in
the great national religions of history. It will be well to notice first
the usages of two semi-civilized nations of America, which though they
have scarcely produced practical effect on civilization at large, give
valuable illustration of a transition period in culture, leaving apart
the obscure question of their special civilization having been
influenced in early or late times from the Old World.
In the religion of Peru, lustration is well-marked and characteristic.
On the day of birth, the water in which the child has been washed was
poured into a hole in the ground, charms being repeated by a wizard or
priest; an excellent instance of the ceremonial washing away of evil
influences. The naming of the child was also more or less generally
accompanied with ceremonial washing, as in districts where at two years
old it was weaned, baptized, had its hair ceremonially cut with a stone
knife, and received its child-name; Peruvian Indians still cut off a
lock of the child’s hair at its baptism. Moreover, the significance of
lustration as removing guilt is plainly recorded in ancient Peru; after
confession of guilt, an Inca bathed in a neighbouring river and repeated
this formula, ‘O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed
unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, and let them never more
appear.’[1059] In old Mexico, the first act of ceremonial lustration
took place at birth. The nurse washed the infant in the name of the
water-goddess, to remove the impurity of its birth, to cleanse its heart
and give it a good and perfect life; then blowing on water in her right
hand she washed it again, warning it of forthcoming trials and miseries
and labours, and praying the invisible Deity to descend upon the water,
to cleanse the child from sin and foulness, and to deliver it from
misfortune. The second act took place some four days later, unless the
astrologers postponed it. At a festive gathering, amid fires kept alight
from the first ceremony, the nurse undressed the child sent by the gods
into this sad and doleful world, bade it receive the life-giving water,
and washed it, driving out evil from each limb and offering to the
deities appointed prayers for virtue and blessing. It was then that the
toy instruments of war or craft or household labour were placed in the
boy’s or girl’s hand (a custom singularly corresponding with one usual
in China), and the other children, instructed by their parents, gave the
newcomer its child-name, here again to be replaced by another at manhood
or womanhood. There is nothing unlikely in the statement that the child
was also passed four times through the fire, but the authority this is
given on is not sufficient. The religious character of ablution is well
shown in Mexico by its forming part of the daily service of the priests.
Aztec life ended as it had begun, with ceremonial lustration; it was one
of the funeral ceremonies to sprinkle the head of the corpse with the
lustral water of this life.[1060]
Among the nations of East Asia, and across the more civilized Turanian
districts of Central Asia, ceremonial lustration comes frequently into
notice; but it would often bring in difficult points of ethnography to
attempt a general judgment how far these may be native local rites, and
how far ceremonies adopted from foreign religious systems. As examples
may be mentioned in Japan the sprinkling and naming of the child at a
month old, and other lustrations connected with worship;[1061] in China
the religious ceremony at the first washing of the three days’ old
infant, the lifting of the bride over burning coals, the sprinkling of
holy-water over sacrifices and rooms and on the mourners after a
funeral;[1062] in Burma the purification of the mother by fire, and the
annual sprinkling-festival.[1063] Within the range of Buddhism in its
Lamaist form, we find such instances as the Tibetan and Mongol
lustration of the child a few days after birth, the lama blessing the
water and immersing the child thrice, and giving its name; the Buraet
consecration by threefold washing; the Tibetan ceremony where the
mourners returning from the funeral stand before the fire, wash their
hands with warm water over the hot coals, and fumigate themselves thrice
with proper formulas.[1064] With this infant baptism of Tibetans and
Mongols may be compared the rite of their ethnological kinsfolk in
Europe. The Lapps in their semi-Christianized state had a form of
baptism, in which a new name, that of the deceased ancestor who would
live again in the child, as the mother was spiritually informed in a
dream, was given with a threefold sprinkling and washing with warm water
where mystic alder-twigs were put. This ceremony, though called by the
Scandinavian name of ‘laugo’ or bath, was distinct from the Christian
baptism to which the Lapps also conformed.[1065] The natural
ethnographic explanation of these two baptismal ceremonies existing
together in Northern Europe, is that Christianity had brought in a new
rite, without displacing a previous native one.
Other Asiatic districts show lustration in more compact and
characteristic religious developments. The Brahman leads a life marked
by recurring ceremonial purification, from the time when his first
appearance in the world brings uncleanness on the household, requiring
ablution and clean garments to remove it, and thenceforth through his
years from youth to old age, where bathing is a main part of the long
minute ceremonial of daily worship, and further washings and aspersions
enter into more solemn religious acts, till at last the day comes when
his kinsfolk, on their way home from his funeral, cleanse themselves by
a final bath from their contamination by his remains. For the means of
some of his multifarious lustrations the Hindu has recourse to the
sacred cow, but his more frequent medium of removing uncleanness of body
and soul is water, the divine waters to which he prays, ‘Take away, O
Waters, whatsoever is wicked in me, what I have done by violence or
curse, and untruth!’[1066] The Parsi religion prescribes a system of
lustrations which well shows its common origin with that of Hinduism by
its similar use of cow’s urine and of water. Bathing or sprinkling with
water, or applications of ‘nirang’ washed off with water, form part of
the daily religious rites, as well as of such special ceremonies as the
naming of the new-born child, the putting on of the sacred cord, the
purification of the mother after childbirth, the purification of him who
has touched a corpse, when the unclean demon, driven by sprinkling of
the good water from the top of the head and from limb to limb, comes
forth at the left toe and departs like a fly to the evil region of the
north. It is, perhaps, the influence of this ancestral religion, even
more than the actual laws of Islam, that makes the modern Persian so
striking an example of the way in which ceremony may override reality.
It is rather in form than in fact that his cleanliness is next to
godliness. He carries the principle of removing legal uncleanness by
ablution so far, that a holy man will wash his eyes when they have been
polluted by the sight of an infidel. He will carry about a water-pot
with a long spout for his ablutions, yet he depopulates the land by his
neglect of the simplest sanitary rules, and he may be seen by the side
of the little tank where scores of people have been in before him,
obliged to clear with his hand a space in the foul scum on the water,
before he plunges in to obtain ceremonial purity.[1067]
Over against the Aryan rites of lustration in the religions of Asia, may
be set the well-known types in the religions of classic Europe. At the
Greek amphidromia, when the child was about a week old, the women who
had assisted at the birth washed their hands, and afterwards the child
was carried round the fire by the nurse, and received its name; the
Roman child received its prænomen with a lustration at about the same
age, and the custom is recorded of the nurse touching its lips and
forehead with spittle. To wash before an act of worship was a ceremony
handed down by Greek and Roman ritual through the classic ages: καθαραῖς
δὲ δρόσοις, ἀφυδρανάμενοι στχείετε ναούς—eo lavatum, ut sacrificem. The
holy-water mingled with salt, the holy-water vessel at the temple
entrance, the brush to sprinkle the worshippers, all belong to classic
antiquity. Romans, their flocks and herds and their fields, were
purified from disease and other ill by lustrations which show perfectly
the equivalent nature of water and fire as means of purification; the
passing of flocks and shepherds through fires, the sprinkling water with
laurel branches, the fumigating with fragrant boughs and herbs and
sulphur, formed part of the rustic rites of the Palilia. Bloodshed
demanded the lustral ceremony. Hektor fears to pour with unwashen hands
the libation of dark wine, nor may he pray bespattered with gore to
cloud-wrapped Zeus; Æneas may not touch the household gods till cleansed
from slaughter by the living stream. It was with far changed thought
that Ovid wrote his famous reproof of his too-easy countrymen, who
fancied that water could indeed wash off the crime of blood:—
‘Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cædis
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.’
Thus, too, the mourner must be cleansed by lustration from the
contaminating presence of death. At the door of the Greek house of
mourning was set the water-vessel, that those who had been within might
sprinkle themselves and be clean; while the mourners returning from a
Roman funeral, aspersed with water and stepping over fire, were by this
double process made pure.[1068]
The ordinances of purification in the Levitical law relate especially to
the removal of legal uncleanness connected with childbirth, death, and
other pollutions. Washing was prescribed for such purposes, and also
sprinkling with water of separation, water mingled with the ashes of the
red heifer. Ablution formed part of the consecration of priests, and
without it they might not serve at the altar nor enter the tabernacle.
In the later times of Jewish national history, perhaps through
intercourse with nations whose lustrations entered more into the daily
routine of life, ceremonial washings were multiplied. It seems also that
in this period must be dated the ceremony which in after ages has held
so great a place in the religion of the world, their rite of baptism of
proselytes.[1069] The Moslem lustrations are ablutions with water, or in
default with dust or sand, performed partially before prayer, and
totally on special days or to remove special uncleanness. They are
strictly religious acts, belonging in principle to prevalent usage of
Oriental religion; and their details, whether invented or adopted as
they stand in Islam, are not carried down from Judaism or
Christianity.[1070] The rites of lustration which have held and hold
their places within the pale of Christianity are in well-marked
historical connexion with Jewish and Gentile ritual. Purification by
fire has only appeared as an actual ceremony among some little-known
Christian sects, and in the European folklore custom of passing children
through or over fire, if indeed we can be sure that this rite is lustral
and not sacrificial.[1071] The usual medium of purification is water.
Holy-water is in full use through the Greek and Roman churches. It
blesses the worshipper as he enters the temple, it cures disease, it
averts sorcery from man and beast, it drives demons from the possessed,
it stops the spirit-writer’s pen, it drives the spirit-moved table it is
sprinkled upon to dash itself frantically against the wall; at least
these are among the powers attributed to it, and some of the most
striking of them have been lately vouched for by papal sanction. This
lustration with holy-water so exactly continues the ancient classic
rite, that its apologists are apt to explain the correspondence by
arguing that Satan stole it for his own wicked ends.[1072] Catholic
ritual follows ancient sacrificial usage in the priest’s ceremonial
washing of hands before mass. The priest’s touching with his spittle the
ears and nostrils of the infant or catechumen, saying, ‘Ephphatha,’ is
obviously connected with passages in the Gospels; its adoption as a
baptismal ceremony has been compared, perhaps justly, with the classical
lustration by spittle.[1073] Finally, it has but to be said that
ceremonial purification as a Christian act centres in baptism by water,
that symbol of initiation of the convert which history traces from the
Jewish rite to that of John the Baptist, and thence to the Christian
ordinance. Through later ages adult baptism carries on the Jewish
ceremony of the admission of the proselyte, while infant baptism
combines this with the lustration of the new-born infant. Passing
through a range of meaning such as separates the sacrament of the Roman
centurion from the sacrament of the Roman cardinal, becoming to some a
solemn symbol of new life and faith, to some an act in itself of
supernatural efficacy, the rite of baptism has remained almost
throughout the Christian world the outward sign of the Christian
profession.
In considering the present group of religious ceremonies, their
manifestations in the religions of the higher nations have been but
scantily outlined in comparison with their rudimentary forms in the
lower culture. Yet this reversal of the proportions due to practical
importance in no way invalidates, but rather aids, the ethnographic
lessons to be drawn by tracing their course in history. Through their
varied phases of survival, modification, and succession, they have each
in its own way brought to view the threads of continuity which connect
the faiths of the lower with the faiths of the higher world; they have
shown how hardly the civilized man can understand the religious rites
even of his own land without knowledge of the meaning, often the widely
unlike meaning, which they bore to men of distant ages and countries,
representatives of grades of culture far different from his.
Footnote 844:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 88; see p. 427.
Footnote 845:
Ibid. p. 200; see p. 174. See also Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p.
343. Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 235.
Footnote 846:
Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part iii. p. 237.
Footnote 847:
M’Coy, ‘Baptist Indian Missions,’ p. 359.
Footnote 848:
Tanner, ‘Narrative,’ p. 46.
Footnote 849:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 297.
Footnote 850:
Heckewelder, ‘Ind. Völkerschaften,’ p. 354.
Footnote 851:
‘Narratives of Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham,
pp. 31, 33. See also Brinton, p. 298.
Footnote 852:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 141, 174, 182. ‘Remarks on Zulu
Lang.’ Pietermaritzburg, 1870, p. 22.
Footnote 853:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 169. Steinhauser, l.c. p. 129.
Footnote 854:
Rowley, ‘Universities’ Mission to Central Africa,’ p. 226.
Footnote 855:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 215.
Footnote 856:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 110, 128. See also Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p.
182 (Santals).
Footnote 857:
Plath, ‘Religion der Chinesen,’ part ii. p. 2; Doolittle, vol. ii. p.
116.
Footnote 858:
‘Sama-Veda,’ i. 4, 2. Wuttke, ‘Gesch. des Heidenthums,’ part ii. p.
342.
Footnote 859:
Lane, ‘Modern Egyptians,’ vol. i. p. 128.
Footnote 860:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 51, 8, x. 105, 8. Muir, ‘Sanskrit Texts,’ part ii. ch.
iii.
Footnote 861:
Lane, ‘Modern Egyptians,’ vol. ii. p. 383.
Footnote 862:
See Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. i. pp. 345, 556; vol. ii. pp.
303, 319. Compare Fergusson, ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pl. xlii.
Footnote 863:
Xenoph. Memorabilia Socrat. i. 3, 2.
Footnote 864:
Sahagun, ‘Retorica, &c., de la Gente Mexicana,’ lib. vi. c. 4, in
Kingsborough, ‘Antiquities of Mexico,’ vol. v.
Footnote 865:
‘Rig-Veda,’ vii. 89, 3. Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 39.
Footnote 866:
‘Avesta,’ tr. by Spiegel; ‘Khorda-Avesta,’ Patet Qod.
Footnote 867:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ v. 19. Ellis,
‘Madagascar,’ vol. i., p. 421.
Footnote 868:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouv. Fr.’ vol. i. p. 394. See also Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in
‘Pinkerton,’ vol. xiii. p. 41.
Footnote 869:
Phillips in Astley’s ‘Voyages,’ vol. ii. p. 411; Lubbock, ‘Origin of
Civilization,’ p. 216. Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p.
500. Bastian in ‘Ztschr. für Ethnologie,’ 1869, p. 315.
Footnote 870:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Res.’ vol. ii. p. 75. See also Tanner, ‘Narr.’ p.
193, and above, p. 270.
Footnote 871:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 129.
Footnote 872:
Billings, ‘Exp. to Northern Russia,’ p. 125. Chinese sacrifices buried
for earth spirits, see ante, vol. i. p. 107; Plath, part ii. p. 50.
Footnote 873:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 182.
Footnote 874:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 67.
Footnote 875:
Herod. vii. 35, 54. Liv. vii. 6. Grote, ‘Hist. of Greece,’ vol. x. p.
589, see p. 715.
Footnote 876:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 367.
Footnote 877:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. pp. 336, 358. Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i.
p. 220.
Footnote 878:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 494; J. L. Wilson, ‘W.
Afr.’ p. 218; Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W. Afr.’ p. 331.
Footnote 879:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 195, &c.
Footnote 880:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 69. J. G. Müller, p. 631.
Footnote 881:
Ward, vol. ii. p. 194; ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 332.
Footnote 882:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 226.
Footnote 883:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 218.
Footnote 884:
Manu, iii. 212. See also ‘Avesta,’ tr. by Spiegel, vol. ii. p. lxxvii.
(sacrificial cakes eaten by priest).
Footnote 885:
Ysbrants Ides, ‘Reize naar China,’ p. 38. Meiners, vol. i. p. 162.
Footnote 886:
Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 46. J. G. Müller, p. 631.
Footnote 887:
Bel and the Dragon.
Footnote 888:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 47.
Footnote 889:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ part ii. p. 210.
Footnote 890:
Homer, Odyss. xi. xii.
Footnote 891:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 270.
Footnote 892:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41; see J. G. Müller,
p. 143; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 207. Comp. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 89. See
also Bollaert in ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’ vol. ii. p. 96.
Footnote 893:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii. p. 145. See also St. John, ‘Far East,’
vol. i. p. 160.
Footnote 894:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 147; Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 181;
Forbes Leslie, ‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol. ii. p. 458.
Footnote 895:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ letter xxi. in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 531. See also
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 192.
Footnote 896:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 96.
Footnote 897:
Levit. i. &c.; Deuteron. xii. 23; Psalm xvi. 4.
Footnote 898:
Waitz, vol. iii. p. 181. Hennepin, ‘Voyage,’ p. 302. Charlevoix,
‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v. p. 311, vi. p. 178. Schoolcraft, ‘Ind.
Tribes,’ part i. p. 49, part ii. p. 127. Catlin, vol. i. pp. 181, 229.
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 164. J. G. Müller, p. 58.
Footnote 899:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ pp. 418, 507. Lery, ‘Voy. en Brésil,’ p.
268. See also Musters in ‘Journ. Anthrop. Inst.’ vol. i. p. 202
(Patagonians).
Footnote 900:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 11, 141, 177. See also Casalis,
‘Basutos,’ p. 258.
Footnote 901:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 39. See also Piedrahita, part i.
lib. i. c. 3 (Muyscas).
Footnote 902:
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part ii. p. 31. Doolittle,
‘Chinese.’
Footnote 903:
Porphyr. de Abstinentia, ii. 5. Arnob. contra Gentes. vii. 26.
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 14.
Footnote 904:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ vol. v. pp. 315, 338. Plutarch, de Is.
et Osir.
Footnote 905:
Herodot. i. 183.
Footnote 906:
Exod. xxx., xxxvii. Lev. x. 1, xvi. 12, &c.
Footnote 907:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41. Le Jeune in ‘Rel.
des Jés.’ 1634, p. 16. Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 189.
Footnote 908:
‘Rites and Laws of Incas,’ p. 16, &c., 79; see ‘Ollanta, an ancient
Ynca Drama,’ tr. by C. R. Markham, p. 81. Garcilaso de la Vega, lib.
i. ii. vi.
Footnote 909:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. pp. 106, 114.
Footnote 910:
Plath, part ii. p. 65.
Footnote 911:
Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. i. p. 191.
Footnote 912:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 1, 4.
Footnote 913:
Homer, Il. i. 317.
Footnote 914:
Porphyr. De Abstinentia, ii. 42; see 58.
Footnote 915:
Stanley, ‘Jewish Church,’ 2d Ser. pp. 410, 424. See Kalisch on
Leviticus; Barry in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ art.
‘sacrifice.’
Footnote 916:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 11 (amadhlozi or amatongo =
ancestral spirits).
Footnote 917:
Roman Pane, ch. xvi. in ‘Life of Colon,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p.
86. Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 418; see Meiners, vol. ii., p. 516;
J. G. Müller, p. 212.
Footnote 918:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 194.
Footnote 919:
Eliot in ‘As. Res.’ vol. iii. p. 30.
Footnote 920:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 88, 100.
Footnote 921:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. p. 114.
Footnote 922:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 264.
Footnote 923:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 27.
Footnote 924:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 208.
Footnote 925:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 407. Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p.
358. Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ pp. 104, 220.
Footnote 926:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 231.
Footnote 927:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Researches,’ vol. ii. p. 140; see p. 190.
Footnote 928:
Tanner’s ‘Narrative,’ pp. 286, 318. See also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 207.
Footnote 929:
J. G. Müller, p. 142; see p. 282.
Footnote 930:
Sahagun, lib. vi. in Kingsborough, vol. v.
Footnote 931:
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, pp. 55, 58,
166. See ante, p. 385 (possible connexion of smoke with soul).
Footnote 932:
Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 188, 196. Steinhauser, l.c. p. 136. See also
Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xv.; Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 273.
Footnote 933:
A. Campbell in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 153.
Footnote 934:
O’Riley, in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 592. Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 12.
Footnote 935:
R. Clarke, ‘Sierra Leone,’ p. 43.
Footnote 936:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41. Welcker, ‘Griech.
Götterlehre,’ vol. ii. p. 693. Legge, ‘Confucius,’ p. 179. Grohmann,
‘Aberglauben aus Böhmen,’ p. 41, &c.
Footnote 937:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 218; Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol.
xvi. p. 400.
Footnote 938:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 387.
Footnote 939:
Roberts, ‘Oriental Illustrations,’ p. 545.
Footnote 940:
M’Coy, ‘Baptist Indian Missions,’ p. 305.
Footnote 941:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 59. See Casalis, p. 252.
Footnote 942:
Earl in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 174.
Footnote 943:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 170, see p. 146; Hooker, ‘Himalayan
Journals,’ vol. ii. p. 276.
Footnote 944:
Prescott, ‘Mexico,’ book i. ch. iii.
Footnote 945:
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ p. 33, &c.
Footnote 946:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterlehre,’ vol. ii. p. 50; Pauly,
‘Real-Encyclopedie,’ s.v. ‘Sacrificia.’
Footnote 947:
Tanner’s ‘Nar.’ p. 154; see also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 167.
Footnote 948:
Symes, ‘Ava,’ in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 440; Caron, ‘Japan,’ ib. vol.
vii. p. 629.
Footnote 949:
Burton, ‘Medinah,’ &c., vol. iii. p. 302; Lane, ‘Mod. Eg.’ vol. i. p.
132.
Footnote 950:
Hardy, ‘Manual of Budhism,’ p. 59.
Footnote 951:
2 Kings iii. 27. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 10, iv. 156; Laud. Constant.
xiii. Porphyr. De Abstin. ii. 56, &c. Lamprid. Heliogabal. vii.
Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 300, &c.
Footnote 952:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 419.
Footnote 953:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 59. Bosman in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 399.
Footnote 954:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. p. 106; Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p.
232.
Footnote 955:
Hesiod. Theog. 537. Welcker, vol. i. p. 764; vol. ii. p. 51.
Footnote 956:
Haug, ‘Parsis,’ Bombay, 1862, p. 238.
Footnote 957:
Hamilton in ‘As. Res.’ vol. ii. p. 342.
Footnote 958:
Mariner’s ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. i. p. 454; vol. ii. p. 222. Cook’s ‘3rd
Voy.’ vol. i. p. 403. Details from S. Africa in Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. iii. pp. 4, 24; Scherzer, ‘Voy. of Novara,’ vol. i. p. 212.
Footnote 959:
Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 172; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. ii.
p. 170. See also Venegas, ‘Noticia de la California,’ vol. i. p. 117;
Garcilaso de la Vega, lib. ii. c. 8 (Peru).
Footnote 960:
Buchanan, ‘Mysore,’ &c., in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 661; Meiners,
vol. ii. p. 472; Bastian, l.c. See also Dubois, ‘India,’ vol. i. p. 5.
Footnote 961:
Polack, ‘New Zealand,’ vol. i. p. 264.
Footnote 962:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 184.
Footnote 963:
Theodoret. in Levit. xix.; Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ Details in Bastian,
‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 229, &c.
Footnote 964:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 113 (see other details).
Footnote 965:
Pausan. viii. 23; ix. 8.
Footnote 966:
‘Encyc. Brit.’ art. ‘Brahma.’ See ‘Asiat. Res.’ vol. ix. p. 387.
Footnote 967:
Boecler, ‘Ehsten Aberglaübische Gebraüche,’ &c., p. 4.
Footnote 968:
Rivero and Tschudi, p. 196. See ‘Rites of Yncas,’ p. 79.
Footnote 969:
Bastian, p. 112, &c.; Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’ art.
‘Sacrificium.’
Footnote 970:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 40.
Footnote 971:
Diodor. Sic. xx. 14.
Footnote 972:
Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. p. 88; Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 256.
Footnote 973:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 108, 187.
Footnote 974:
De Silva in Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 181.
Footnote 975:
Details in Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘Sacrificia’; Bastian,
‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 114; Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 300.
Footnote 976:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 82; Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’
x. c. 29; J. G. Müller, pp. 502, 640. See also ibid. p. 379 (Peru);
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ pp. 46, 54.
Footnote 977:
Grote, vol. v. p. 366. Schmidt in Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’
art. ‘Sacrificium.’ Bastian, l.c.
Footnote 978:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 501.
Footnote 979:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 152.
Footnote 980:
Lane, ‘Modern Eg.’ vol. ii. p. 262. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 85.
Footnote 981:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. iii. p. 395; and in Rawlinson’s
Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 137. See 1 Sam. vi. 4.
Footnote 982:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 1131.
Footnote 983:
Ibid.
Footnote 984:
Bastian, vol. iii. p. 116.
Footnote 985:
St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 43. Compare modern Circassian
sacrifice of animal before cross, as substitute for child, in Bell,
‘Circassia,’ vol. ii.
Footnote 986:
Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ pp. 123, 153, &c.
Footnote 987:
Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksaberglaube,’ p. 86. See also Grimm, ‘Deutsche
Myth.’ pp. 417, 602.
Footnote 988:
Hyltén-Cavallius, ‘Wärend och Wirdarne,’ part i. pp. 131, 146, 157,
&c.
Footnote 989:
Monnier, ‘Traditions Populaires,’ pp. 187, 666.
Footnote 990:
R. Hunt, ‘Pop. Rom. of W. of England,’ 1st Ser. p. 237. Pennant, ‘Tour
in Scotland,’ in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 49. J. Y. Simpson, Address to
Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 1861, p. 33; Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. iii. pp.
74, 317.
Footnote 991:
Brand, vol. i. p. 484. Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 45, 194, 1188, see p. 250;
‘Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer,’ p. 900; Hyltén-Cavallius, part i. p.
175.
Footnote 992:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 962.
Footnote 993:
Beausobre, vol. ii. p. 667. Polydorus Vergilius, De Inventoribus Rerum
(Basel, 1521), lib. v. 1.
Footnote 994:
Tanner’s ‘Narrative,’ p. 288. Loskiel, ‘N. A. Ind.’ part i. p. 76.
Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part i. pp. 34, 113, 360, 391; part iii.
p. 227. Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 36. Charlevoix, ‘Nouv. Fr.’
vol. ii. p. 170; vol. vi. p. 67. Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. ii. p.
170. Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. iii. pp. 206, 217.
Footnote 995:
Colombo, ‘Vita,’ ch. xxv. Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 501. See also
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 143 (Guyana).
Footnote 996:
Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. p. 68.
Footnote 997:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 144.
Footnote 998:
Döhne, ‘Zulu Dic.’ s.v. ‘nyanga;’ Grout, ‘Zulu-land,’ p. 158;
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 387.
Footnote 999:
Somadeva Bhatta, tr. Brockhaus, vol. ii. p. 81. Meiners, vol. ii. p.
147.
Footnote 1000:
Maury, ‘Magic,’ &c., p. 237; Pausan. i. 34; Philostrat. Apollon. Tyan.
i.; Galen. Comment. in Hippocrat. i.
Footnote 1001:
Baptist. Mantuan. Fast. ix. 350.
Footnote 1002:
‘Acta Sanctorum Bolland.’ S. Theresa.
Footnote 1003:
Colombo, ‘Vita,’ ch. lxii.; Roman Pane, ibid. ch. xv.; and in
Pinkerton, vol. xii. Condamine, ‘Travels,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiv. p.
226; Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. pp. 441, 631 (details of
snuff-powders among Omaguas, Otomacs, &c.; native names curupá,
paricá, niopo, nupa; made from seeds of Mimosa acacioides, Acacia
niopo).
Footnote 1004:
Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., p. 425.
Footnote 1005:
Seemann, ‘Voy. of Herald,’ vol. i. p. 256. Rivero and Tschudi,
‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 184. J. G. Müller, p. 397.
Footnote 1006:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 558; Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 40; J.
G. Müller, p. 656.
Footnote 1007:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ p. 277; Hernandez, ‘Historia Mexicana,’
lib. v. c. 51; Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1292.
Footnote 1008:
D. Wilson, ‘Prehistoric Man,’ vol. i. p. 487.
Footnote 1009:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. p. 42.
Footnote 1010:
Herodot. iv. 73-5.
Footnote 1011:
Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., l.c.; Plin. xxiv. 102; Hesych. s.v. ‘ὠπήτειρα.’
See also Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 152, &c.; Baring-Gould,
‘Were-wolves,’ p. 149.
Footnote 1012:
Polak, ‘Persien,’ vol. ii. p. 245; Vambéry in ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’
vol. ii. p. 20; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 216.
Footnote 1013:
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 162.
Footnote 1014:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 286.
Footnote 1015:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 145. Compare ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii.
p. 247 (Aracan).
Footnote 1016:
D. H. Tuke in ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ Oct. 1870, p. 368.
Footnote 1017:
Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 327.
Footnote 1018:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 230. Seemann, ‘Viti,’ p. 151.
Footnote 1019:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iv. p. 54.
Footnote 1020:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 485.
Footnote 1021:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. pp. 319, 330.
Footnote 1022:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 202. See also Arbousset
and Daumas, ‘Voyage,’ p. 277 (Kafirs).
Footnote 1023:
Bickmore, in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 20. Georgi, ‘Reise,’ vol. i.
p. 266. Gul. de Rubruquis in Hakluyt vol. i. p. 78. Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 228.
Footnote 1024:
Ælian. Var. Hist. v. 14, vii. 19; Plutarch. Solon, x.; Diog. Laert.
Solon; Welcker, vol. i. p. 404.
Footnote 1025:
Beda in Die S. Paschæ. Durand, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, lib.
vii. c. 35-9. Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ vol. ii. pp. 295, 318.
Footnote 1026:
Gregg, ‘Commerce of Prairies,’ vol. i. pp. 270, 273; vol. ii. p. 318.
Footnote 1027:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 178.
Footnote 1028:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 365.
Footnote 1029:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 24; J. G. Müller, p. 641. See
Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 29.
Footnote 1030:
J. G. Müller, p. 363; Prescott, ‘Peru,’ book i. ch. 3. Garcilaso de la
Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ lib. iii. c. 20, says it was at the east
end; cf. lib. vi. c. 21 (llama sacrificed with head to east).
Footnote 1031:
Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i., iv. and v.
Footnote 1032:
‘Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs,’ London,
1837, p. 46.
Footnote 1033:
Ezek. viii. 16; Mishna, ‘Sukkoth,’ v. See Fergusson in Smith’s
‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ s.v. ‘Temple.’
Footnote 1034:
Hyde, ‘Veterum Persarum Religionis Historia,’ ch. iv. Niebuhr,
‘Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien,’ vol. i. p. 396. Layard, ‘Nineveh,’
vol. i. ch. ix.
Footnote 1035:
Lucian. De Domo, vi. Vitruv. de Architectura, iv. 5. See Welcker, vol.
i. p. 403.
Footnote 1036:
Augustin. de Serm. Dom. in Monte, ii. 5. Tertullian. Contra Valentin.
iii.; Apolog. xvi. Constitutiones Apostolicæ, ii. 57. Cyril. Catech.
Mystag. i. 2. Hieronym. in Amos. vi. 14; Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Chr.
Church,’ book viii. ch. 3, book xi. ch. 7, book xiii. ch. 8. J. M.
Neale, ‘Eastern Church,’ part i. p. 956; Romanoff, ‘Greco-Russian
Church,’ p. 67.
Footnote 1037:
Billings, ‘N. Russia,’ p. 175.
Footnote 1038:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 485.
Footnote 1039:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 264.
Footnote 1040:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 184; Yate, p. 82; Polack, vol. i. p. 51; A.
S. Thomson, vol. i. p. 118; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iv. p. 304.
See Schirren, ‘Wandersagen der Neuseeländer,’ pp. 58, 183; Shortland,
p. 145.
Footnote 1041:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 152.
Footnote 1042:
Munzinger, ‘Ost-Afrika,’ p. 387.
Footnote 1043:
Park, ‘Travels,’ ch. vi.
Footnote 1044:
J. L. Wilson, ‘Western Africa,’ p. 399. See also Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. ii. p. 279 (Watje); ‘Anthropological Review,’ Nov. 1864, p. 243
(Mpongwe); Barker-Webb and Berthelot, vol. ii. p. 163 (Tenerife).
Footnote 1045:
See pp. 5, 437.
Footnote 1046:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 261; part iii. p. 243, &c.
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v. p. 425. Wilson in ‘Tr. Eth.
Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 294.
Footnote 1047:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 267.
Footnote 1048:
Kolben, vol. i. pp. 273, 283.
Footnote 1049:
Bosman, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp. 423, 527; Meiners, vol. ii. pp.
107, 463.
Footnote 1050:
Pallas, ‘Mongolische Völkerschaften,’ vol. i. p. 166, &c.;
Strahlenberg, ‘Siberia,’ p. 97.
Footnote 1051:
Bourien in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 81.
Footnote 1052:
Dalton in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 22; Shortt, ibid. vol. iii. p.
375.
Footnote 1053:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 255.
Footnote 1054:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 127.
Footnote 1055:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 241; see pp. 407, 419.
Footnote 1056:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 258.
Footnote 1057:
Grout, ‘Zulu-land,’ p. 147; Backhouse, ‘Mauritius and S. Africa,’ pp.
213, 225.
Footnote 1058:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 75; Rubruquis, in Pinkerton, vol. vii.
p. 82; Plano Carpini in Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 37.
Footnote 1059:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 180; J. G. Müller,
‘Amer. Urrelig.’ p. 389; Acosta, ‘Ind. Occ.’ v. c. 25; Brinton, p.
126. See account of the rite of driving out sicknesses and evils into
the rivers, ‘Rites and Laws of Incas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham,
p. 22.
Footnote 1060:
Sahagun, ‘Nueva España,’ lib. vi.; Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’
lib. xii.; Clavigero, vol. ii. pp. 39, 86, &c.; Humboldt, ‘Vues des
Cordillères,’ Mendoza Cod.; J. G. Müller, p. 652.
Footnote 1061:
Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ v. p. 22; Kempfer, ‘Japan,’ ch. xiii. in Pinkerton,
vol. vii.
Footnote 1062:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 120, vol. ii. p. 273. Davis, vol. i.
p. 269.
Footnote 1063:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 247; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 106;
Symes in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 435.
Footnote 1064:
Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. ii. p. 320; Bastian,
‘Psychologie,’ pp. 151, 211; ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 499.
Footnote 1065:
Leems, ‘Finnmarkens Lapper.’ Copenhagen, c. xiv., xxii., and Jessen,
c. xiv.; Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 483; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii.
p. 77.
Footnote 1066:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. pp. 96, 246, 337; Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol.
ii. Wuttke, ‘Gesch. des Heidenthums,’ vol. ii. p. 378. ‘Rig-Veda,’ i.
22, 23.
Footnote 1067:
Avesta, Vendidad, v.-xii.; Lord, in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 570;
Naoroji, ‘Parsee Religion’; Polak, ‘Persien,’ vol i. p. 355, &c., vol.
ii. p. 271. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 125.
Footnote 1068:
Details in Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’ and Pauly,
‘Real-Encyclopedie,’ s.v. ‘amphidromia,’ ‘lustratio,’ ‘sacrificium,’
‘funus’; Meiners, ‘Gesch. der Religionen,’ book vii.; Lomeyer, ‘De
Veterum Gentilium Lustrationibus’; Montfaucon, ‘L’Antiquité
Expliquée,’ &c. Special passages; Homer, Il. vi. 266; Eurip. Ion. 96;
Theocrit. xxiv. 95; Virg. Æn. ii. 719; Plaut. Aulular. iii. 6; Pers.
Sat. ii. 31; Ovid. Fast. i. 669, ii. 45, iv. 727; Festus, s.v. ‘aqua
et ignis,’ &c. The obscure subject of lustration in the mysteries is
here left untouched.
Footnote 1069:
Ex. xxix. 4, xxx. 18, xl. 12; Lev. viii. 6, xiv. 8, xv. 5, xxii. 6;
Numb. xix. &c.; Lightfoot in ‘Works,’ vol. xi.; Browne in Smith’s
‘Dic. of the Bible,’ s.v. ‘baptism;’ Calmet, ‘Dic.’ &c.
Footnote 1070:
Reland, ‘De Religione Mohammedanica;’ Lane, ‘Modern Eg.’ vol. i. p.
98, &c.
Footnote 1071:
Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Christian Church,’ book xi. ch. 2. Grimm,
‘Deutsche Mythologie,’ p. 592; Leslie, ‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol.
i. p. 113; Pennant, in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 383.
Footnote 1072:
Rituale Romanum; Gaume, ‘L’Eau Bénite;’ Middleton, ‘Letter from Rome,’
&c.
Footnote 1073:
Rituale Romanum. Bingham, book x. ch. 2, book xv. ch. 3. See Mark vii.
34, viii. 23; John ix. 6.
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUSION.
Practical results of the study of Primitive Culture—Its bearing
least upon Positive Science, greatest upon Intellectual, Moral,
Social, and Political Philosophy—Language—Mythology—Ethics and
Law—Religion—Action of the Science of Culture, as a means of
furthering progress and removing hindrance, effective in the course
of Civilization.
It now remains, in bringing to a close these investigations on the
relation of primitive to modern civilization, to urge the practical
import of the considerations raised in their course. Granted that
archæology, leading the student’s mind back to remotest known conditions
of human life, shows such life to have been of unequivocally savage
type; granted that the rough-hewn flint hatchet, dug out from amidst the
bones of mammoths in a drift gravel-bed to lie on an ethnologist’s
writing-table, is to him a very type of primitive culture, simple yet
crafty, clumsy yet purposeful, low in artistic level yet fairly started
on the ascent toward highest development—what then? Of course the
history and præ-history of man take their proper places in the general
scheme of knowledge. Of course the doctrine of the world-long evolution
of civilization is one which philosophic minds will take up with eager
interest, as a theme of abstract science. But beyond this, such research
has its practical side, as a source of power destined to influence the
course of modern ideas and actions. To establish a connexion between
what uncultured ancient men thought and did, and what cultured modern
men think and do, is not a matter of inapplicable theoretic knowledge,
for it raises the issue, how far are modern opinion and conduct based on
the strong ground of soundest modern knowledge, or how far only on such
knowledge as was available in the earlier and ruder stages of culture
where their types were shaped. It has to be maintained that the early
history of man has its bearing, almost ignored as that bearing has been
by those whom it ought most stringently to affect, on some of the
deepest and most vital points of our intellectual, industrial, and
social state.
Even in advanced sciences, such as relate to measure and force and
structure in the inorganic and organic world, it is at once a common and
a serious error to adopt the principle of letting bygones be bygones.
Were scientific systems the oracular revelations they sometimes all but
pretend to be, it might be justifiable to take no note of the condition
of mere opinion or fancy that preceded them. But the investigator who
turns from his modern text-books to the antiquated dissertations of the
great thinkers of the past, gains from the history of his own craft a
truer view of the relation of theory to fact, learns from the course of
growth in each current hypothesis to appreciate its raison d’être and
full significance, and even finds that a return to older starting-points
may enable him to find new paths, where the modern track seems stopped
by impassable barriers. It is true that rudimentary conditions of arts
and sciences are often rather curious than practically instructive,
especially because the modern practitioner has kept up, as mere
elementary processes, the results of the ancient or savage man’s most
strenuous efforts. Perhaps our tool-makers may not gain more than a few
suggestive hints from a museum of savage implements, our physicians may
only be interested in savage recipes so far as they involve the use of
local drugs, our mathematicians may leave to the infant-school the
highest flights of savage arithmetic, our astronomers may only find in
the star-craft of the lower races an uninstructive combination of myth
and commonplace. But there are departments of knowledge, of not less
consequence than mechanics and medicine, arithmetic and astronomy, in
which the study of the lowest stages, as influencing the practical
acceptance of the higher, cannot be thus carelessly set aside.
If we survey the state of educated opinion, not within the limits of
some special school, but in the civilized world at large, on such
subjects especially as relate to Man, his intellectual and moral nature,
his place and function among his fellow-men and in the universe at
large, we see existing side by side, as if of equal right, opinions most
diverse in real authority. Some, vouched for by direct and positive
evidence, hold their ground as solid truths. Others, though founded on
crudest theories of the lower culture, have been so modified under the
influence of advancing knowledge, as to afford a satisfactory framework
for recognized facts; and positive science, mindful of the origin of its
own philosophic schemes, must admit the validity of such a title.
Others, lastly, are opinions belonging properly to lower intellectual
levels, which have held their place into the higher by mere force of
ancestral tradition; these are survivals. Now it is the practical office
of ethnography to make known to all whom it may concern the tenure of
opinions in the public mind, to show what is received on its own direct
evidence, what is ruder ancient doctrine reshaped to answer modern ends,
and what is but time-honoured superstition in the garb of modern
knowledge.
Topic after topic shows at a glimpse the way in which ethnography bears
on modern intellectual conditions. Language, appearing as an art in full
vigour among rude tribes, already displays the adaptation of childlike
devices in self-expressive sound and pictorial metaphor, to utter
thoughts as complex and abstruse as savage minds demand speech for. When
it is considered how far the development of knowledge depends on full
and exact means of expressing thought, is it not a pregnant
consideration that the language of civilized men is but the language of
savages, more or less improved in structure, a good deal extended in
vocabulary, made more precise in the dictionary definition of words? The
development of language between its savage and cultured stages has been
made in its details, scarcely in its principle. It is not too much to
say that half the vast defect of language as a method of utterance, and
half the vast defect of thought as determined by the influence of
language, are due to the fact that speech is a scheme worked out by the
rough and ready application of material metaphor and imperfect analogy,
in ways fitting rather the barbaric education of those who formed it,
than our own. Language is one of those intellectual departments in which
we have gone too little beyond the savage stage, but are still as it
were hacking with stone celts and twirling laborious friction-fire.
Metaphysical speculation, again, has been one of the potent influences
on human conduct, and although its rise, and one may almost say also its
decline and fall, belong to comparatively civilized ages, yet its
connexion with lower stages of intellectual history may to some extent
be discerned. For example, attention may be recalled to a special point
brought forward in this work, that one of the greatest metaphysical
doctrines is a transfer to the field of philosophy from the field of
religion, made when philosophers familiar with the conception of
object-phantoms used this to provide a doctrine of thought, thus giving
rise to the theory of ideas. Far more fully and distinctly, the study of
the savage and barbaric intellect opens to us the study of Mythology.
The evidence here brought together as to the relation of the savage to
the cultured mind in the matter of mythology has, I think, at any rate
justified this claim. With a consistency of action so general as to
amount to mental law, it is proved that among the lower races all over
the world the operation of outward events on the inward mind leads not
only to statement of fact, but to formation of myth. It gives no
unimportant clues to the student of mental history, to see by what
regular processes myths are generated, and how, growing by wear and
increasing in value at secondhand, they pass into pseudo-historic
legend. Poetry is full of myth, and he who will understand it
analytically will do well to study it ethnographically. In so far as
myth, seriously or sportively meant, is the subject of poetry, and in so
far as it is couched in language whose characteristic is that wild and
rambling metaphor which represents the habitual expression of savage
thought, the mental condition of the lower races is the key to
poetry—nor is it a small portion of the poetic realm which these
definitions cover. History, again, is an agent powerful, and becoming
more powerful, in shaping men’s minds, and through their minds their
actions in the world; now one of the most prominent faults of historians
is that, through want of familiarity with the principles of
myth-development, they cannot apply systematically to ancient legend the
appropriate test for separating chronicle from myth, but with few
exceptions are apt to treat the mingled mass of tradition partly with
undiscriminating credulity and partly with undiscriminating scepticism.
Even more injurious is the effect of such want of testing on that part
of traditional or documentary record which, among any section of
mankind, stands as sacred history. It is not merely that in turning to
the index of some book on savage tribes, one comes on such a suggestive
heading as this, ‘Religion—_see_ Mythology.’ It is that within the upper
half of the scale of civilization, among the great historic religions of
the world, we all know that between religion and religion, and even to
no small extent between sect and sect, the narratives which to one side
are sacred history, may seem to the other mythic legend. Among the
reasons which retard the progress of religious history in the modern
world, one of the most conspicuous is this, that so many of its approved
historians demand from the study of mythology always weapons to destroy
their adversaries’ structures, but never tools to clear and trim their
own. It is an indispensable qualification of the true historian that he
shall be able to look dispassionately on myth as a natural and regular
product of the human mind, acting on appropriate facts in a manner
suited to the intellectual state of the people producing it, and that he
shall treat it as an accretion to be deducted from professed history,
whenever it is recognized by the tests of being decidedly against
evidence as fact, and at the same time clearly explicable as myth. It is
from the ethnographic study of savage and barbaric races that the
knowledge of the general laws of myth-development, required for the
carrying out of this critical process, may be best or must necessarily
be gained.
The two vast united provinces of Morals and Law have been as yet too
imperfectly treated on a general ethnographic scheme, to warrant
distinct statement of results. Yet thus much may be confidently said,
that where the ground has been even superficially explored, every
glimpse reveals treasures of knowledge. It is already evident that
enquirers who systematically trace each department of moral and legal
institutions from the savage through the barbaric and into the civilized
condition of mankind, thereby introduce into the scientific
investigations of these subjects an indispensable element which merely
theoretical writers are apt unscrupulously to dispense with. The law or
maxim which a people at some particular stage of its history might have
made fresh, according to the information and circumstances of the
period, is one thing. The law or maxim which did in fact become current
among them by inheritance from an earlier stage, only more or less
modified to make it compatible with the new conditions, is another and
far different thing. Ethnography is required to bridge over the gap
between the two, a very chasm where the arguments of moralists and
legists are continually falling in, to crawl out maimed and helpless.
Within modern grades of civilization this historical method is now
becoming more and more accepted. It will not be denied that English law
has acquired, by modified inheritance from past ages, a theory of
primogeniture and a theory of real estate which are so far from being
products of our own times that we must go back to the middle ages for
anything like a satisfactory explanation of them; and as for more
absolute survival, did not Jewish disabilities stand practically, and
the wager of battle nominally, in our law of not many years back? But
the point to be pressed here is, that the development and survival of
law are processes that did not first come into action within the range
of written codes of comparatively cultured nations. Admitted that
civilized law requires its key from barbaric law; it must be borne in
mind that the barbarian lawgiver too was guided in judgment not so much
by first principles, as by a reverent and often stupidly reverent
adherence to the tradition of earlier and yet ruder ages.
Nor can these principles be set aside in the scientific study of moral
sentiment and usage. When the ethical systems of mankind, from the
lowest savagery upward, have been analyzed and arranged in their stages
of evolution, then ethical science, no longer vitiated by too exclusive
application to particular phases of morality taken unreasonably as
representing morality in general, will put its methods to fair trial on
the long and intricate world-history of right and wrong.
In concluding a work of which full half is occupied by evidence bearing
on the philosophy of religion, it may well be asked, how does all this
array of facts stand toward the theologian’s special province? That the
world sorely needs new evidence and method in theology, the state of
religion in our own land bears witness. Take English Protestantism as a
central district of opinion, draw an ideal line through its centre, and
English thought is seen to be divided as by a polarizing force extending
to the utmost limits of repulsion. On one side of the dividing line
stand such as keep firm hold on the results of the 16th century
reformation, or seek yet more original canons from the first Christian
ages; on the other side stand those who, refusing to be bound by the
doctrinal judgments of past centuries, but introducing modern science
and modern criticism as new factors in theological opinion, are eagerly
pressing toward a new reformation. Outside these narrower limits,
extremer partizans occupy more distant ground on either side. On the one
hand the Anglican blends gradually into the Roman scheme, a system so
interesting to the ethnologist for its maintenance of rites more
naturally belonging to barbaric culture; a system so hateful to the man
of science for its suppression of knowledge, and for that usurpation of
intellectual authority by a sacerdotal caste which has at last reached
its climax, now that an aged bishop can judge, by infallible
inspiration, the results of researches whose evidence and methods are
alike beyond his knowledge and his mental grasp. On the other hand,
intellect, here trampled under foot of dogma, takes full revenge
elsewhere, even within the domain of religion, in those theological
districts where reason takes more and more the command over hereditary
belief, like a mayor of the palace superseding a nominal king. In yet
farther ranges of opinion, religious authority is simply deposed and
banished, and the throne of absolute reason is set up without a rival
even in name; in secularism the feeling and imagination which in the
religious world are bound to theological belief, have to attach
themselves to a positive natural philosophy, and to a positive morality
which shall of its own force control the acts of men. Such, then, is the
boundless divergence of opinion among educated citizens of an
enlightened country, in an age scarcely approached by any former age in
the possession of actual knowledge and the strenuous pursuit of truth as
the guiding principle of life. Of the causes which have brought to pass
so perplexed a condition of public thought, in so momentous a matter as
theology, there is one, and that a weighty one, which demands mention
here. It is the partial and one-sided application of the historical
method of enquiry into theological doctrines, and the utter neglect of
the ethnographical method which carries back the historical into remoter
and more primitive regions of thought. Looking at each doctrine by
itself and for itself, as in the abstract true or untrue, theologians
close their eyes to the instances which history is ever holding up
before them, that one phase of a religious belief is the outcome of
another, that in all times religion has included within its limits a
system of philosophy, expressing its more or less transcendental
conceptions in doctrines which form in any age their fittest
representatives, but which doctrines are liable to modification in the
general course of intellectual change, whether the ancient formulas
still hold their authority with altered meaning, or are themselves
reformed or replaced. Christendom furnishes evidence to establish this
principle, if for example we will but candidly compare the educated
opinion of Rome in the 5th with that of London in the 19th century, on
such subjects as the nature and functions of soul, spirit, deity, and
judge by the comparison in what important respects the philosophy of
religion has come to differ even among men who represent in different
ages the same great principles of faith. The general study of the
ethnography of religion, through all its immensity of range, seems to
countenance the theory of evolution in its highest and widest sense. In
the treatment of some of its topics here, I have propounded special
hypotheses as to the order in which various stages of doctrine and rite
have succeeded one another in the history of religion. Yet how far these
particular theories may hold good, seems even to myself a minor matter.
The essential part of the ethnographic method in theology lies in
admitting as relevant the compared evidence of religion in all stages of
culture. The action of such evidence on theology proper is in this wise,
that a vast proportion of doctrines and rites known among mankind are
not to be judged as direct products of the particular religious systems
which give them sanction, for they are in fact more or less modified
results adopted from previous systems. The theologian, as he comes to
deal with each element of belief and worship, ought to ascertain its
place in the general scheme of religion. Should the doctrine or rite in
question appear to have been transmitted from an earlier to a later
stage of religious thought, then it should be tested, like any other
point of culture, as to its place in development. The question has to be
raised, to which of these three categories it belongs:—is it a product
of the earlier theology, yet sound enough to maintain a rightful place
in the later?—is it derived from a cruder original, yet so modified as
to become a proper representative of more advanced views?—is it a
survival from a lower stage of thought, imposing on the credit of the
higher by virtue not of inherent truth but of ancestral belief? These
are queries the very asking of which starts trains of thought which
candid minds should be encouraged to pursue, leading as they do toward
the attainment of such measure of truth as the intellectual condition of
our age fits us to assimilate. In the scientific study of religion,
which now shows signs of becoming for many a year an engrossing subject
of the world’s thought, the decision must not rest with a council in
which the theologian, the metaphysician, the biologist, the physicist,
exclusively take part. The historian and the ethnographer must be called
upon to show the hereditary standing of each opinion and practice, and
their enquiry must go back as far as antiquity or savagery can show a
vestige, for there seems no human thought so primitive as to have lost
its bearing on our own thought, nor so ancient as to have broken its
connection with our own life.
It is our happiness to live in one of those eventful periods of
intellectual and moral history, when the oft-closed gates of discovery
and reform stand open at their widest. How long these good days may
last, we cannot tell. It may be that the increasing power and range of
the scientific method, with its stringency of argument and constant
check of fact, may start the world on a more steady and continuous
course of progress than it has moved on heretofore. But if history is to
repeat itself according to precedent, we must look forward to stiffer
duller ages of traditionalists and commentators, when the great thinkers
of our time will be appealed to as authorities by men who slavishly
accept their tenets, yet cannot or dare not follow their methods through
better evidence to higher ends. In either case, it is for those among us
whose minds are set on the advancement of civilization, to make the most
of present opportunities, that even when in future years progress is
arrested, it may be arrested at the higher level. To the promoters of
what is sound and reformers of what is faulty in modern culture,
ethnography has double help to give. To impress men’s minds with a
doctrine of development, will lead them in all honour to their ancestors
to continue the progressive work of past ages, to continue it the more
vigorously because light has increased in the world, and where barbaric
hordes groped blindly, cultured men can often move onward with clear
view. It is a harsher, and at times even painful, office of ethnography
to expose the remains of crude old culture which have passed into
harmful superstition, and to mark these out for destruction. Yet this
work, if less genial, is not less urgently needful for the good of
mankind. Thus, active at once in aiding progress and in removing
hindrance, the science of culture is essentially a reformer’s science.
INDEX.
Abacus, i. 270.
Accent, i. 173.
Acephali, i. 390.
Achilles:—vulnerable spot, i. 358; dream, i. 444;
in Hades, ii. 81.
Acosta, on American archetypal deities, ii. 244.
Adam, ii. 312, 315.
Ælian, i. 372, ii. 423;
on Kynokephali, i. 389.
Æolus, i. 361, ii. 269.
Æsculapius:—incubation in temple, ii. 121;
serpents of, ii. 241.
Affirmative and negative particles, i. 192.
Afghans, race-genealogy of, i. 403.
Agni, ii. 281, 386.
Agreement in custom and opinion no proof of soundness, i. 13.
Agriculture, god of, ii. 305.
Ahriman, ii. 328.
Ahura-Mazda, ii. 283, 328, 355.
Alexander the Great, i. 395, ii. 138.
Alfonso di Liguori, St., bilocation of, i. 447.
Alger, W. R., i. 471, 484, ii. 83.
Algonquin languages, animate and inanimate genders, i. 302.
Ali as Thunder-god, ii. 264.
All Souls’, feast of dead, ii. 37.
Allegory, i. 277, 408.
Aloysius Gonzaga, St., letters to, ii. 122.
Alphabet, i. 171;
by raps, i. 145;
as numeral series, i. 258.
Amatongo, i. 443, ii. 115, 131, 313, 367, 387.
Amenti, Egyptian dead-land, ii. 67, 81, 96, 295, 311.
Amphidromia, ii. 439.
Analogy, myth product of, i. 297.
Ancestors, eponymic myths of, i. 398, ii. 234;
worship of divine, ii. 113, 311;
see Manes-worship, Totem-worship.
Ancestral names indicate re-birth of souls, ii. 5.
Ancestral tablet, Chinese, ii. 118, 152.
Andaman Islanders, mythic origin of, i. 369, 389.
Angang, omen from meeting animal, i., 120.
Angel, see Spirit;
of death, i. 295, ii. 196, 322.
Angelo, St., legend of, i. 295.
Anima, animus, i. 433, 470.
Animals:—omens from, i. 120;
calls to and cries of, 177;
imitative names from cries, &c., 206;
treated as human, i. 467, ii. 230;
souls of, i. 469;
future life and funeral sacrifice of, i. 469, ii. 75, &c.;
entry and transmigration of souls into and possession by spirits, ii.
7, 152, 161, 175, 231, 241, 378, &c.;
diseases transferred to, ii. 147;
see spirits invisible to men, ii. 196.
Animals, sacred, incarnations or representatives of deities, ii. 231;
receive and consume sacrifices, 378.
Animal-worship, i. 467, ii. 229, 378.
Animism:—defined, i. 23, 425;
is the philosophy of religion, i. 426, ii. 356;
is a primitive scientific system of man and nature based on the
conception of the human soul, i. 428, 499, ii. 108, 184, 356;
its stages of development, survival, and decline, i. 499, ii. 181,
356.
See Soul, Spirit, &c., &c.
Anra-Mainyu, ii. 328.
Antar, tumulus of, ii. 29.
Anthropomorphic conceptions of spirit and deity, ii. 110, 184, 247,
335.
Antipodes, i. 392.
Ape-men, i. 379;
apes degenerate men, 376;
can but will not talk, 379.
Apollo, ii. 294.
Apophis-serpent, ii. 241.
Apotheosis, ii. 120.
Apparitional soul, i. 428;
its likeness to body, 450.
Apparitions, i. 143, 440, 445, 478, ii. 24, 187, 410, &c.
Archetypal deities and ideas, ii. 243.
Ares, ii. 308.
Argos Panoptes, i. 320.
Argyll, Duke of, on primæval man, i. 60.
Arithmetic, see Counting.
Arriero, i. 191.
Arrows, magic, i. 345.
Artemidorus, on dream-omens, i. 122.
Artemis, ii. 302.
Aryan race:—no savage tribe among, i. 49;
antiquity of culture, i. 54.
Ascendant in horoscope, i. 129.
Ashera, worship of, ii. 166, 226.
Ashes strewn for spirit-footprints, i. 455. ii. 197.
Asmodeus, ii. 254.
Association of ideas, foundation of magic, i. 116.
Astrology, i. 128, 291.
Atahentsic, ii. 299, 309, 323.
Atahocan, ii. 323, 340.
Atavism, explained by transmigration, ii. 3.
Atheist, use of word, i. 420.
Augury, &c., i. 119. See ii. 179, 232.
Augustine, St., i. 199, 441, ii. 54, 427;
on dreams, i. 441;
on incubi, ii. 190.
Augustus, genius of, ii. 202.
Avatars, ii. 239.
Avernus, Lake, ii. 45.
Ayenbite of Inwyt, i. 456.
Baal-Shemesh, ii. 295.
Bacon, Lord, on allegory, i. 277.
Bætyls, animated stones, ii. 166.
Baku, burning wells of, ii. 281.
Baldr, i. 464.
Bale, Bishop, i. 384;
on witchcraft, i. 142.
Bands, clerical, i. 18.
Baptism, ii. 440;
orientation in, 427.
Baring-Gould, S., on werewolves, i. 314.
Bastian, Adolf, Mensch in der Geschichte, i. vi.; ii. 209, 222, 242,
280, &c.
Baudet, etymology of, i. 413.
Beal, ii. 252, 408.
Bear, Great, i. 359.
Beast-fables, i. 381, 409.
Bees, telling, i. 287.
Bel, ii. 293, 380, 384.
Berkeley, Bishop, on ideas, i. 499;
on force and matter, ii. 160.
Bewitching by objects, i. 116.
Bible and key, ordeal by, i. 128.
Bilocation, i. 447.
Bird, of thunder, i. 362;
bird conveys spirit, ii. 161, 175.
Blackstone’s Commentaries, i. 20.
Blemmyæ, headless men, i. 390.
Blood:—related to soul, i. 431;
revives ghosts, ii. 48;
offered to deities, 381;
substitute for life, 402.
Blood-red stain, myths to account for, i. 406.
Bloodsuckers, ii. 191.
Blow-tube, i. 67.
Bo tree, ii. 218.
Boar’s head, ii. 408.
Boats without iron, myth on, i. 374.
Bochica, i. 353, ii. 290.
Boehme, Jacob, on man’s primitive knowledge, ii. 185.
Bolotu, ii. 22, 62, 310.
Boni Homines, i. 77.
Book of Dead, Egyptian, ii. 13, 96.
Boomerang, i. 67.
Boreas, i. 362, ii. 268.
Bosjesman, etymology of word, i. 381.
Bow and Arrow, i. 7, 15, 64, 73.
Brahma, ii. 354, 425.
Brahmanism:—funeral rites, i. 465, &c.;
transmigration, ii. 9, 19, 97;
manes-worship, 119;
stone-worship, 164;
idolatry, 178;
animal-worship, 238;
sun-worship, 292;
orientation, 425;
lustration, 437.
Breath, its relation to soul, i. 432.
Bride-capture, game of, i. 72.
Bridge, first crossing, i. 106;
of dead, i. 495, ii. 50, 94, 100, &c.
Brinton, D. G., i. 53, 361, ii. 90, 340;
on dualistic myths, ii. 320.
Britain, eponymic kings of, i. 400;
voyage of souls to, ii. 64.
Brosses, C. de, on degeneration and development, i. 36;
origin of language, 161;
fetishism, ii. 144;
species-deities, 246.
Browne, Sir Thos., on magnetic mountain, i. 375.
Brutus, evil genius of, ii. 203.
Brynhild, i. 465.
Buck, buck, game of, i. 74.
Buddha, transmigrations of, i. 414, ii. 11.
Buddhism:—culture-tradition, i. 41;
saints rise in air, i. 149;
transmigration, ii. 11, 20, 97;
nirvana, ii. 79;
tree-worship, i. 476, ii. 217;
serpent-worship, 240;
religious formulas, 372.
Buildings, victim immured in foundation, i. 104, &c.;
mythic founders of, i. 394.
Bull, Bishop, on guardian angels, ii. 203.
Bura Pennu, ii. 327, 350, 368, 404.
Burial, ghost wanders till, ii. 27;
corpse laid east and west, 423.
Burning oats from straw, i. 44.
Burton, R. F., continuance-theory of future life, ii. 75;
disease-spirits, 150.
Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, incubi, &c., ii. 191.
Buschmann, on nature-sound, i. 223.
Butler, Bishop, on natural religion, ii. 356.
Cacodæmon, ii. 138, 202.
Cæsar, on German deities, ii. 294.
Cagots, i. 115, 384.
Calls to animals, i. 177.
Calmet, on souls, i. 457;
on spirits, ii. 188, &c.
Calumet, i. 210.
Candles against demons, ii. 194.
Cant, myth on word, i. 397.
Cardinal numbers, i. 257.
Cards, Playing, i. 82, 126.
Cassava, i. 63.
Castrén, ii. 80, 155, 177, 245, 351, &c.
Cave-men, condition of, i. 59.
Ceremonies, religious, ii. 362, &c.
Ceres, ii. 306.
Chances, games of, their relation to arts of divination, i. 78.
Chanticleer, i. 413.
Charivari at eclipse, i. 329.
Charms:—objects, i. 118, ii. 148;
formulas, their relation to prayers, ii. 373.
Charon, i. 490, ii. 93.
Chesterfield, Lord, on customs, i. 95;
on omens, i. 118.
Chic, myth on word, i. 397.
Child-birth-goddess, ii. 305.
Children, numerical series of names for, i. 254;
suckled by wild beasts, i. 281;
receive ancestors’ souls and names, ii. 4;
sacrifice of, ii. 398, 403.
Children’s language, i. 223.
China, religion of:—funeral rites, i. 464, 493;
manes-worship, ii. 118;
cultus of heaven and earth, 257, 272, 352;
divine hierarchy, 352;
prayer, 370;
sacrifices, 385, 405.
Chinese culture-tradition, i. 40;
remains in Borneo, i. 57.
Chiromancy or palmistry, i. 125.
Chirp or twitter of ghosts, &c., i. 453.
Christmas, origin of, ii. 297.
Chronology, limits of ancient, i. 54.
Cicero, on dreams, i. 444;
sun-gods, ii. 294.
Civilization, see Culture.
Civilization-myths, i. 39, 353.
Civilized men adopt savage life, i. 45.
Clairvoyance, by objects, i. 116.
Clashing rocks, myth of, i. 347.
Clicks, i. 171, 192.
Cocoa-nut, divination by, i. 80.
Coin placed with dead, i. 490, 494.
Columba, St., legend of, i. 104.
Columbus, his quest of Earthly Paradise, ii. 61.
Common, right of, i. 20.
Comparative theology, ii. 251.
Comte, Auguste, i. 19;
fetishism, i. 477, ii. 144, 354;
species-deities, 242.
Confucius, i. 157;
funeral sacrifice, i. 464, ii. 42;
spirits, 206;
name of supreme deity, 352.
Consonants, i. 169.
Constellations, myths of, i. 290, 356.
Continuance-theory of future life, ii. 75.
Convulsions:—by demoniacal possession, ii. 130;
artificially produced, 416.
Convulsionnaires, ii. 420.
Copal incense, ii. 384.
Cord, magical connexion by, i. 117.
Corpse taken out by special opening in house, ii. 26;
soul remains near, ii. 29, 150.
Cortes, i. 319.
Costume, i. 18.
Counting, art of i. 22, 240, &c.;
on fingers and toes, 244;
by letters of alphabet, &c., 258;
derivation of numeral words, 247;
evidence of independent development of low tribes, 271.
Counting games, i. 75, 87.
Couvade, in South India, i. 84.
Cow, name of, i. 208;
purification by nirang, &c., ii. 438.
Cox, G. W., i. 341, 346, 362.
Creator, doctrine of, ii. 249, 312, 321, &c.
Credibility of tradition, i. 275, 370.
Crete, earth of, fatal to serpents, i. 372.
Cromlechs and menhirs objects of worship, ii. 164.
Culture:—
definition of, i. 1;
scale of, i. 26;
primitive, represented by modern savages, i. 21, 68, ii. 443, &c.;
development of, i. 21, &c., 62, &c., 237, 270, 417, &c., ii. 356,
445;
evidence of independent progress from low stages, i. 56, &c.;
survival in culture, 70, &c.;
evidence of early culture from language, 236;
art of counting, 270;
myth, 284;
religion, i. 500, ii. 102, 184, 356, &c.;
practical import of study of culture, 443.
Curtius, Marcus, leap of, ii. 378.
Curupa, cohoba, narcotic used in W. Ind. and S. Amer., ii. 416.
Customs, permanence of, i. 70, 156;
rational origin of, 94.
Customs of Dahome, i. 462.
Cyclops, i. 391.
Cyrus, i. 281, 286.
Dancing for religious excitement, ii. 133, 420.
Danse Macabre, myth on name, i. 397.
Dante, Divina Commedia, ii. 55, 220.
Daphne, ii. 220.
Dark, evil spirits in, ii. 194.
Darwin, Charles, i. vii., ii. 152, 223.
Dasent, G. W., i. 19.
Davenport Brothers, i. 152, 311.
Dawn, i. 338, &c.
Day, sun as eye of, i. 350.
Day and Night, myths of, i. 322, 337, &c., ii. 48, 323.
Dead, use objects sacrificed for them, i. 485;
feasts of, ii. 29;
region of future life of, ii. 59, 74, 244;
god and judge of, ii. 75, &c., 308.
Deaf and Dumb, counting, i. 244, 262;
their mythic ideas, i. 298, 413.
Death:—
ascribed to sorcery, i. 138;
omens of, i. 145, 449;
angel of, i. 295, ii. 196, 332;
personification and myths of, i. 295, 349, 355, ii. 46, &c., 309;
death and sunset, myths of, i. 335, ii. 48;
exit of soul at death, i. 448, ii. 1, &c.;
death of soul, ii. 22.
Death-watch, i. 146.
Decimal notation, i. 261.
Degeneration in culture, i. 35, &c.;
is a secondary action, i. 38, 69;
examples of, in Africa, North America, &c., i. 47.
Delphi, oracle of, i. 94, ii. 138.
Demeter, i. 328, ii. 273, 306.
Democritus, theory of ideas, i. 497.
Demons:—souls become, ii. 27, 111, &c.;
iron, charm against, i. 140;
pervade world, ii. 111, 137, 185, &c.;
disease-demons, 126, &c., 177, 192, 215;
water-demons, i. 109, ii. 209;
tree and forest demons, ii. 215, 222;
possession and obsession by demons, i. 98, 152, 309, ii. 111, 123,
&c., 179, 404;
expulsion of, i. 103, ii. 125, 199, 438;
answer in own name through patient or medium, ii. 124, &c., 182, 404.
Dendid, creation-poem of, ii. 21.
Deodand, origin of, i. 20, 287.
Destruction of objects sacrificed to dead, i. 483;
to deities, ii. 376, &c.
Development of culture, see Culture.
Development myths, men from apes, &c., i. 376.
Devil:—as satyr, i. 307;
devils’ tree, ii. 148;
devil-dancers, ii. 133;
devil-worshippers, ii. 329.
Dice, for divination and gambling, i. 82.
Dies Natalis, ii. 202, 297.
Differential words, phonetic expression of distance and sex, i. 220.
Dirge, Lyke-wake, i. 495; of Ho, ii. 32.
Disease:—personification and myths of, i. 295;
caused by exit of soul, i. 436;
by demoniacal possession, &c., i. 127, ii. 114, 123, 404;
disease-spirits, ii. 125, &c., 178, 215, 408;
embodied in objects or animals, 146, 178, &c., see Demons, Vampires.
Distance expressed by phonetic modification, i. 220.
Divination:—lots, i. 78;
symbolic processes, 81, 117;
augury, &c., 119;
dreams, 121;
haruspication, 124;
swinging ring, &c., 126;
astrology, 128;
possessed objects, i. 125, ii. 155.
Divining rod and pendulum, i. 127.
Doctrines borrowed by low from high races:—on future life, ii. 91;
dualism, 316;
supremacy, 333.
Dodona, oak of, ii. 219.
Dog-headed men, i. 389.
Dolmens, &c., myths suggested by, i. 387.
Domina Abundia, ii. 389.
Dook, ghost, i. 433.
D’Orbigny, on religion of low tribes, i. 419;
on sun-worship, ii. 286.
Dravidian languages, high and low gender, i. 302.
Dreams:—
omens by, i. 121;
by contraries, 122;
caused by exit of soul, i. 440;
by spiritual visit to soul, i. 442, 478;
evidence of future life, ii. 24, 49, 75;
oracular fasting for, 410;
narcotizing for, 416.
Drift, stone implements from, i. 58.
Drivers’ and Drovers’ words, i. 180.
Drowning, superstition against rescuing from, i. 107;
caused by spirits, 109, ii. 209.
Drugs used to produce morbid excitement, dreams, visions, &c., ii. 416.
Dual and plural numbers in primitive culture, i. 265.
Dualism:—good and evil spirits, ii. 186;
good and evil genius, 202;
good and evil deity, 316.
Dusii, ii. 190.
Dwarfs, myths of, i. 385.
Dyu, ii. 258.
Earth, myths of, i. 322, &c., 364, ii. 270, 320.
Earth-bearer, i. 364.
Earth-goddess and earth-worship, i. 322, &c., ii. 270, 306, 345.
Earth-mother, i. 326, &c., 365.
Earthquake, myths of, i. 364.
Earthly Paradise, ii. 57, &c.
Earthly resurrection, ii. 5.
East and West, burial of dead, turning to in worship, adjusting temples
toward, ii. 383, 422.
Easter fires and festivals, ii. 297.
Eclipse, myths of, i. 288, 329, 356;
driving off eclipse monster, i. 328.
Ecstasy, swoon, &c.:—
by exit of soul, i. 439:
by demoniacal possession, ii. 130;
induced by fasting, drugs, excitement, ii. 410, &c.
Edda, i. 84, ii. 77, &c.
Egypt, antiquity of culture, i. 54;
religion of, future life, ii. 13, 96;
animal worship, 238;
sun-worship, 295, 311;
dualism, 327;
polytheism and supremacy, 355.
El, ii. 355.
Elagabal, Elagabalus, Heliogabalus, ii. 295, 398.
Elements, worship of the four, ii. 303.
Elf-furrows, myth of, i. 393.
Elijah as thunder-god, ii. 264.
Elysium, ii. 97.
Embodiment of souls and spirits, ii. 3, 123, &c.
Emotional tone, i. 166, &c.
Emphasis, i. 173.
Endor, witch of, i. 446.
Energumens or demoniacs, ii. 139.
Englishman, Peruvian myth of, i. 354.
Enigmas, Greek, i. 93.
Enoch, Book of, i. 408.
Enthusiasm, changed signification of, ii. 183.
Epicurean theory of development of culture, i. 37, 60;
of soul, 456;
of ideas, 497.
Epileptic fits by demoniacal possession, ii. 130, 137;
induced, 419.
Eponymic ancestors, &c., myths of, i. 387, 398, &c., ii. 235.
Essence of food consumed by souls, ii. 39;
by deities, 381.
Ethereal substance of soul, i. 454;
of spirit, ii. 198.
Ethnological evidence from myths of monstrous tribes, i. 379, &c.;
from eponymic race-genealogies, 401.
Etiquette, significance of, i. 95.
Etymological myths:—
names of places, i. 395;
of persons, 396;
nations, cities, &c., traced to eponymic ancestors or founders, 398,
&c.
Euhemerism, i. 279.
Evans, Sir John, on stone implements, i. 65;
Sebastian, i. 106, 453.
Evil deity, ii. 316, &c.;
worshipped only, 320.
Excitement of convulsions, &c., for religious purposes, ii. 133, 419.
Exeter, myth on name of, i. 396.
Exorcism and expulsion of souls and spirits, i. 102, 454, ii. 26, 40,
125, &c., 146, 179, 199, 438.
Expression of feature causes corresponding tone, i. 165, 183.
Expressive sound modifies words, i. 215.
Ex-voto offering, ii. 406, 409.
Eye of day, of Odin, of Graiæ, i. 350.
Fables of animals, i. 381, 409.
Familiar spirits, ii. 199.
Fancy, in mythology, i. 315, 405.
Fasting for dreams and visions, i. 306, 445, ii. 410.
Fauns and satyrs, ii. 227.
Feasts of the dead, ii. 30;
sacrificial banquets, 395.
Feralia, ii. 42.
Fergusson, Jas., on tree-worship, ii. 218;
serpent-worship, 240.
Fetch or wraith, i. 448, 452.
Fetish, etymology of, ii. 143.
Fetishism:—defined, ii. 143;
doctrine of, i. 477, ii. 157, &c., 175, 205, 215, 270, &c.;
survival of, ii. 160;
its relation to philosophical theory of force, 160;
to nature-worship, 205; to animal-worship, 231;
transition to polytheism, 243;
to supremacy, 335;
to pantheism, 354.
Fiji and S. Africa, moon-myth common to, i. 355.
Finger-joints cut off as sacrifice, ii. 400.
Fingers and toes, counting on, i. 242.
Finns, as sorcerers, i. 84, 115.
Fire, passing through or over, i. 85, ii. 281, 429, &c.;
lighted on grave, i. 484;
drives off spirits, ii. 194;
new fire, ii. 278, 290, 297, 432;
perpetual fire, 278;
sacrifice by fire, 383, &c.
Fire-drill, i. 15, 50;
ceremonial and sportive survival of, 75, ii. 281.
Fire-god and fire-worship, ii. 277, 376, &c., 403.
Firmament, belief in existence of, i. 299, ii. 70.
First Cause, doctrine of, ii. 335.
Food offered to dead, i. 485, ii. 30, &c.;
to deities, ii. 397;
how consumed, ii. 39, 376.
Footprints of souls and spirits, ii. 197.
Forest-spirits, ii. 215, &c.
Formalism, ii. 363, 371.
Formulas:—prayers, ii. 371;
charms, 373.
Fortunate Isles, ii. 63.
Four winds, cardinal points, i. 361.
Frances, St., her guardian angels, ii. 203.
French numeral series in English, i. 268.
Fumigation, see Lustration.
Funeral procession:—
horse led in, i. 463, 474;
kill persons meeting, 464.
Funeral sacrifice:—
attendants and wives killed for service of dead, i. 458;
animals, 472;
objects deposited or destroyed, 481;
motives of, 458, 472, 483;
survival of, 463, 474, 492;
see Feast of Dead.
Future Life, i. 419, 469, 480, ii. 1, &c., 100;
transmigration of soul, ii. 2;
remaining on earth or departure to spirit-world, ii. 22;
whether races without belief in, 20;
connexion with evidence of senses in dreams and visions, 24, 49;
locality of region of departed souls, 44, 74;
visionary visits to, 46;
connexion of solar ideas with, 48, 74, 311, 422;
character of future life, 74;
continuance-theory, 75;
retribution-theory, 83;
introduction of moral element, 10, 83;
stages or doctrine of future life, 100;
its practical effect on mankind, 104;
god of the dead, 308.
Gambling numerals, i. 268.
Games:—
children’s games related to serious occupations, i. 72;
counting-games, 74;
games of chance related to arts of divination, 78.
Gataker, on lots, i. 79.
Gates of Hades, Night, Death, i. 347.
Gayatri, daily sun-prayer of Brahmans, ii. 292.
Genders, distinguished as male and female, animate and inanimate, &c.,
i. 301.
Genghis-Khan, worshipped, ii. 117.
Genius, patron or natal, ii. 199, 216;
good and evil, 203;
changed signification of word, 181.
German and Scandinavian mythology and religion:—
funeral sacrifice, i. 464, 491;
Walhalla, ii. 79, 88;
Hel, i. 347, ii. 88;
Odin, Woden, i. 351, 362, ii. 269;
Loki, i. 83, 365;
Thor, Thunder, ii. 266;
Sun and Moon, i. 289, ii. 294.
Gesture-language, and gesture accompanying language, i. 163;
effect of gesture on vocal tone, 165;
gesture-counting original method, i. 246.
Ghebers or Gours, fire-worshippers, ii. 282.
Gheel, treatment of lunatics at, ii. 143.
Ghost:—ghost-soul, i. 142, 428, 433, 445, 488;
seen in dreams and visions, 440, &c.;
voice of, 452;
substance and weight of, 453;
of men, animals, and objects, 429, 469, 479;
popular theory inconsistent and broken down from primitive, 479;
ghost as harmful and vengeful demons, ii. 27;
ghosts of unburied wander, ii. 28;
ghosts remain near corpse or dwelling, ii. 29, &c.;
laying ghosts, ii. 153, 194.
Giants, myths of, i. 386.
Gibbon, on development of culture, i. 33.
Glanvil, Saducismus Triumphatus, ii. 140.
Glass-mountain, Anafielas, i. 492.
Godless month, ii. 350.
Gods:—seen in vision, i. 306;
of waters, ii. 209;
of trees, groves, and forests, 215;
embodied in or represented by animals, 231;
gods of species, 242;
higher gods of polytheism, 247, &c.;
of dualism, 316;
gods of different religions compared, 250;
classified by common attributes, 254.
Gog and Magog, i. 386, &c.
Goguet, on degeneration and development, i. 32.
Gold, worshipped, ii. 154.
Good and evil, rudimentary distinction of, ii. 89, 318;
good and evil spirits and dualistic deities, 317.
Goodman’s croft, ii. 408.
Graiæ, eye of, i. 352.
Great Spirit, ii. 256, 324, 339, 343, 354, 365, 395.
Great-eared tribes, i. 388.
Greek mythology and religion:—nature-myths, i. 320, 328, 349;
funeral rites, 464, 490;
future life, ii. 53, 63, &c.;
nature-spirits and polytheism, 206, &c.;
Zeus, 258, &c., 355;
Demeter, 273, 306;
Nereus, Poseidon, 277;
Hephaistos, Hestia, 284;
Apollo, 294;
Hekate, Artemis, 302;
stone-worship, 165;
sacrifice, 386, 396;
orientation, 426;
lustration, 439.
Grey, Sir George, i. 322.
Grote, George, on mythology, i. 276, 400.
Grove-spirits, ii. 215.
Guarani, name of, i. 401.
Guardian spirits and angels, ii. 199.
Gulf of dead, ii. 62.
Gunthram, dream of i. 442.
Gypsies, i. 49, 115.
Hades, under-world of departed souls, i. 335, 340, ii. 65, &c., 81, 97,
309;
descent into, i. 340, 345, ii. 45, 54, 83;
personification of, i. 340, ii. 55, 309, 311.
Haetsh, Kamchadal, ii. 46, 313.
Hagiology, ii. 120, 261;
rising in air, i. 151;
miracles, i. 157, 371;
second-sight, i. 449;
hagiolatry, ii. 120.
Hair, lock of, as offering, ii. 401.
Half-men, tribes of, i. 391.
Haliburton, on sneezing-rite, i. 103.
Hamadryad, ii. 215.
Hand-numerals, from counting on fingers, &c., i. 246.
Hanuman, monkey-god, i. 378.
Harakari, i. 463.
Harmosios and Aristogeiton, ii. 63.
Harpies, ii. 269.
Harpocrates, ii. 295.
Haruspication, i. 123, ii. 179.
Harvest-deity, ii. 305, 364, 368.
Hashish, ii. 379.
Head-hunting, Dayak, i. 459.
Headless tribes, myths of, i. 390.
Healths, drinking, i. 96.
Heart, related to soul, i. 431, ii. 152.
Heaven, region of departed souls, ii. 70.
Heaven and earth, universal father and mother, i. 322, ii. 272, 345.
Heaven-god, and heaven-worship, i. 306, 322, ii. 255, &c., 337, &c.,
367, 395.
Hebrides, low culture in, i. 45.
Hekate, i. 150, ii. 302, 418.
Hel, death-goddess, i. 301, 347, ii. 88, 311.
Hell, ii. 56, 68, 97;
related to Hades, ii. 74, &c.;
as place of torment, not conception of savage religion, 103.
Hellenic race-genealogy, i. 402.
Hellshoon, i. 491.
Hephaistos, ii. 212, 280.
Hera, ii. 305.
Herakles, ii. 294;
and Hesione, i. 339.
Hermes Trismegistus, ii. 178.
Hermotimos, i. 439, ii. 13.
Hero-children suckled by beasts, i. 281.
Hesiod, Isles of Blest, ii. 63.
Hestia, ii. 284.
Hiawatha, poem of, i. 345, 361.
Hide-boiling, i. 44.
Hierarchy, polytheistic, ii. 248, 337, 349, &c.
Hissing, for silence, contempt, respect, i. 197.
History, relation of myth to, i. 278, 416, ii. 447;
criticism of, i. 280;
similarity of nature-myth to, 320.
Hole to let out soul, i. 453.
Holocaust, ii. 385, 396.
Holyoake, Holywood, &c., ii. 229.
Holy Sepulchre, Easter fire at, ii. 297.
Holy water, ii. 188, 439.
Holy wells, ii. 214.
Horne Tooke on interjections, i. 175.
Horse, sacrificed or led at funeral, i. 463, 473.
Horseshoes, against witches and demons, i. 140.
House abandoned to ghost, ii. 25.
Hucklesbones, i. 82.
Huitzilopochtli, ii. 254, 307.
Human sacrifice:—funerals, i. 458;
to deities, ii. 271, 385, 389, 398, 403.
Humbolt, W. v., on continuity, i. 19;
on language, 236;
on numerals, 253.
Hume, Natural History of religion, i. 477.
Huns, as giants, i. 386.
Hunting-calls, i. 181.
Hurricane, i. 363.
Hyades, i. 358.
Hysteria, &c., by possession, ii. 131, &c.;
induced, 419.
Iamblichus, i. 150, ii. 187.
Ideas:—Epicurean related to object-souls, i. 497;
Platonic related to species-deities, ii. 244.
Idiots, inspired, ii. 128.
Idol, see Image.
Idolatry as related to fetishism, ii. 168.
Images:—fallen from heaven, i. 157;
as substitutes in sacrifice, i. 463, ii. 405;
fed and treated as alive, ii. 170;
moving, weeping, sweating, &c., 171;
animated by spirits or deities, 172.
Imagination, based on experience, i. 273, 298, 304.
Imitative words, i. 200;
verbs, &c., of blowing, swelling, mumbling, spitting, sneezing,
eating, &c., 203, &c.;
names of animals, 206;
names of musical instruments, 208;
verbs, &c., of striking, cracking, clapping, falling, &c., 211;
prevalence of imitative words in savage language, 212;
imitative adaptation of words, 214.
Immateriality of soul, not conception of lower culture, i. 456, ii.
198.
Immortality of soul, not conception of lower culture, ii. 22.
Implements, inventions of, i. 64, &c.
Incas, myth of ancestry and civilization, i. 288, 354, ii. 290, 301.
Incense, ii. 383.
Incubi and succubi, ii. 189.
Indigenes of low culture, i. 50, &c.;
considered as sorcerers, 113;
myths of, as monsters, 376, &c.
Indo-Chinese languages, musical pitch of vowels, i. 169.
Indra, i. 320, ii. 265.
Infant, lustration of, ii. 430, &c.
Infernus, ii. 81.
Innocent VIII., bull against witchcraft, i. 139, ii. 190.
Inspiration, ii. 124, &c.
Inspired idiot, ii. 128.
Interjectional words:—verbs, &c. of wailing, laughing, insulting,
complaining, fearing, driving, &c., i. 187;
hushing, hissing, loathing, hating, &c., 197.
Interjections, i. 175;
sense-words used as, 176;
directly expressive sounds, 183.
Intoxicating liquor, absence of, i. 63.
Intoxication as a rite, ii. 417.
Inventions, development of, i. 14, 62;
myths of, 39, 392.
Iosco, Ioskeha and Tawiscara, myth of, i. 288, 348, ii. 323.
Ireland, low culture in, i. 44.
Iron, charm against witches, elves, &c., i. 140.
Islands, earth of, fatal to serpents, i. 372;
of Blest, ii. 57.
Italian numeral series in English, i. 268.
Jameson, Mrs., on parables, i. 414.
Januarius, St., blood of, i. 157.
Jerome, St., ii. 428.
Jew’s harp, vowels sounded with, i. 168.
John, St., Midsummer festival of, ii. 298.
Johnson, Dr., i. 6, ii. 24.
Jonah, i. 329.
Jones, Sir W., on nature deities, ii. 253, 286.
Joss-sticks, ii. 384.
Journey to spirit-world, region of dead, i. 481, ii. 44, &c.
Judge of dead, ii. 92, 314.
Julius Cæsar, i. 320.
Jupiter, i. 350, ii. 258, &c.
Kaaba, black stone of, ii. 166.
Kalewala, Finnish epic, ii. 46, 80, 93, 261.
Kali, ii. 425.
Kami-religion of Japan, ii. 117, 301, 350.
Kang-hi on magnetic needle, i. 375.
Kathenotheism, ii. 354.
Keltic counting by scores continued in French and English, i. 263.
Kepler on world-soul, ii. 354.
Kimmerian darkness, ii. 48.
Kissing, i. 63.
Kitchi Manitu and Matchi Manitu, Great and Evil Spirit, ii. 324.
Klemm, Gustav, on development of implements, i. 64.
Kobong, ii. 235.
Koran, i. 407, ii. 77, 296.
Kottabos, game of, i. 82.
Kronos swallowing children, i. 341.
Kynokephali, i. 389.
Lake-dwellers, i. 61.
Language:—i. 17, 236, ii. 445;
directly expressive element in, i. 160;
correspondence of this in different languages, 163;
interjectional forms, 175;
imitative forms, 200;
differential forms, 220;
children’s language, 223;
origin and development of language, 229;
relation of language to mythology, 299;
gender, 301;
language attributed to birds, &c., 19, 469;
place of language in development of culture, ii. 445.
Langue d’oc, &c., i. 193.
Last breath, inhaling, i. 433.
Laying ghosts, ii. 25, 153.
Legge, J., on Confucius, ii. 352.
Leibnitz, i. 2.
Lewes, G. H., i. 497.
Liebrecht, Felix, i. vii., 108, 177, 348-9, ii. 24, 164, 195, &c.
Life caused by soul, i. 436.
Light and darkness, analogy of good and evil, ii. 324.
Likeness of relatives accounted for by re-birth of soul, ii. 3.
Limbus Patrum, ii. 83.
Linnæus, name of, ii. 229.
Little Red Riding-hood, i. 341.
Loki, 83, 365.
Lots, divination and gambling by, i. 78.
Lubbock, Sir J.:—
evidence of metallurgy and pottery, against degeneration-theory, i.
57;
on low tribes described as without religious ideas, i. 421;
on water-worship, ii. 210;
on totemism, ii. 237.
Lucian, i. 149, ii. 13, 52, 67, 302, 426.
Lucina, ii. 302.
Lucretius, i. 40, 60, 498.
Lunatics, demoniacal possession of, ii. 124, &c.
Lustration, by water and fire, ii. 429, &c.;
of new-born children, 430;
of women, 432;
of those polluted by blood or corpse, 433;
general, 434, &c.
Luther, on witches, i. 137;
on guardian angels, ii. 203.
Lyell, Sir C., on degeneration-theory, i. 57.
Lying in state, of King of France, ii. 35.
Lyke-wake dirge, i. 495.
McLennan, J. F., theory of totemism, ii. 236.
Macrocosm, i. 350, ii. 354.
Madness and idiocy by possession, ii. 128, &c., 179.
Magic:—
origin and development, i. 112, 132;
belongs to low level of culture, 112;
attributed to low tribes, 113;
based on association of ideas, 116;
processes of divination, 78, 118;
relation to Stone Age, 127;
see Fetishism.
Magnetic Mountain, philosophical myth of, i. 374.
Maistre, Count de, on degeneration in culture, i. 35;
astrology, 128;
animation of stars, 291.
Makrokephali, i. 391.
Malleus Maleficarum, ii. 140, 191.
Man, primitive condition of, i. 21, ii. 443;
see Savage.
Man of the woods, bushman, orang-utan, i. 381.
Man swallowed by monster, nature-myth of, i. 335, &c.
Manco Capac, i. 354.
Manes and manes-worship, i. 98, 143, 434, ii. 8, 111, &c., 129, 162,
307, 364;
theory of, ii. 113, &c.;
divine ancestor or first man as great deity, 311, 347.
Manichæism, ii. 14, 330.
Manitu, ii. 249, 324, 339.
Manoa, golden city of, ii. 249.
Manu, laws of:—ordeal by water, i. 141;
pitris, ii. 119.
Marcus Curtius, leap of, ii. 378.
Margaret, St., i. 340.
Markham, C. R., i. vii., ii. 337, 366, 392, &c.
Marriages in May, i. 70.
Mars, ii. 308.
Martius, Dr. V., on dualism, ii. 325.
Maruts, Vedic, i. 362, ii. 268.
Mass, ii. 410.
Master of life or breath, ii. 339, 343, 365.
Materiality of soul, i. 453;
of spirit, ii. 198.
Maui, i. 335, 343, 360, ii. 253, 267, 279.
Maundevile, Sir John, i. 375, ii. 45.
Medicine, of N. A. Indians, ii. 154, 200, 233, 372, &c., 411.
Meiners, History of Religions, ii. 27, 48, &c.
Melissa, i. 491.
Men descended from apes, myths of, i. 376;
men with tails, 383.
Menander, guardian genius, ii. 201.
Merit and demerit, Buddhist, ii. 12, 98.
Messalians, i. 103.
Metaphor, i. 234, 297;
myths from, 405.
Metaphysics, relation of animism to, i. 497, ii. 242, 311.
Metempsychosis, i. 379, 409, 469, 476, ii. 2;
origin of, ii. 16.
Micare digitis, i. 75.
Middleton, Conyers, i. 157, ii. 121.
Midgard-snake, ii. 241.
Midsummer festival, ii. 298.
Milk and blood, sacrifices of, ii. 48;
see Blood.
Milky Way, myths of, i. 359, ii. 72.
Mill, J. S., on ideas of number, i. 240.
Milton, on eponymic kings of Britain, i. 400.
Minne, drinking, i. 96.
Minucius Felix, on spirits, &c., ii. 179.
Miracles, i. 276, 371, ii. 121.
Mithra, i. 351, ii. 293, 297.
Moa, legend of, ii. 50.
Mohammed, legend of, i. 407.
Moloch, ii. 403.
Money borrowed to be repaid in next life, i. 491.
Monkeys, preserved as dwarfs, i. 388;
see Apes.
Monotheism, ii. 331.
Monster, driven off at eclipse, i. 328;
hero or maiden devoured by, 335.
Monstrous mythic human tribes, ape-like, tailed, gigantic and dwarfish,
noseless, great-eared, dog-headed, &c., i. 376, &c.;
their ethnological significance, 379, &c.
Month’s mind, i. 83.
Moon:—
omens and influence by changes, i. 130;
myths of, 288, 354;
inconstant, 354;
changes typical of death and new life, i. 354, ii. 300;
moon-myths common to S. Africa and Fiji, i. 354, and to Bengal and
Malay Peninsula, 356;
moon abode of departed souls, ii. 70.
Moon-god and moon-worship, i. 289, ii. 299, &c., 323.
Moral and social condition of low tribes, i. 29, &c.
Moral element in culture, i. 28;
absent or scanty in lower religions, i. 247, ii. 361;
divides lower from higher religions, ii. 361;
introduced in funeral sacrifice, i. 495;
in transmigration, ii. 12;
in future life, 85, &c.;
in dualism, 316, &c.;
in prayer, 373;
in sacrifice, 386, &c.;
in lustration, 429.
Morals and law, ii. 448.
Morbid imagination related to myth, i. 305.
Morbid excitement for religious purposes, ii. 416, &c.
Morning and evening stars, myths of, i. 344, 350.
Morra, game of, in Europe and China, i. 75.
Morzine, demoniacal possessions at, i. 152, ii. 141.
Mound-builders, i. 56.
Mountain, abode of departed souls on, ii. 60;
ascending for rain, 260.
Mouth of Night and Death, myths of, i. 347.
Müller, J. G., on future life, ii. 90, &c.
Müller, Max:—on language and myth, i. 299;
funeral rites of Brahmans, 466;
heaven-god, ii. 258, 353;
sun-myth of Yama, 314;
Chinese Religion, 352;
kathenotheism, 354.
Mummies, ii. 19, 34, 151.
Musical instruments named from sound, i. 208.
Musical tone used in language, i. 168, 174.
Mutilation of soul with body, i. 451.
Mythology:—i. 23, 273, &c.;
formation and laws of, 273, &c.;
allegorical interpretation, 277;
mixture with history, 278;
rationalization, euhemerism, &c., 278;
classification and interpretation, 281, 317, &c.;
nature-myths, 284, 316, &c.;
personification and animation of nature, 285;
grammatical gender as related to, 301;
personal names of objects as related to, 303;
morbid delusion, 305;
similarity of nature-myths to real history, 319;
historical import of mythology, i. 416, ii. 446;
its place in culture, ii. 446;
philosophical myths, i. 366;
explanatory legends, 392;
etymological myths, 395;
eponymic myths, 399;
legends from fancy and metaphor, 405;
realized or pragmatic legends, 407;
allegory and parables, 408.
Myths:—myth-riddles, i. 93;
origin of sneezing-rite, 101;
foundation-sacrifice, 104;
heroes suckled by beasts, 281;
sun, moon, and stars, 288, &c.;
eclipse, 288;
waterspout, 292;
sand-pillar, 293;
rainbow, 293, 297;
waterfalls, rocks, &c., 295;
disease, death, pestilence, 295;
phenomena of nature, 297, 320;
heaven and earth, i. 322, ii. 345;
sunrise and sunset, day and night, death and life, i. 335, ii. 48,
62, 322;
moon, inconstant, typical of death, i. 353;
civilization-legends, 39, 353;
winds, i. 361, ii. 266;
thunder, i. 362, ii. 264;
men and apes, development and degeneration, i. 378;
ape-men, 379;
men with tails, 382;
giants and dwarfs, 385;
monstrous men, 389;
personal names introduced, 394;
race-genealogies of nations, 402;
beast-fables, 409;
visits to spirit-world, ii. 46, &c.;
giant with soul in egg, 153;
transformation into trees, 219;
dualistic myth of two brothers, 320.
Nagas, serpent-worshippers, ii. 218, 240.
Names:—
of children in numerical series, i. 254;
of objects as related to myth, 303;
of personal heroes introduced into myths, 394;
of places, tribes, countries, &c., myths formed from, 396;
ancestral names given to children, ii. 4;
name-giving ceremonials, ii. 429.
Natural religion, i. 427, ii. 103, 356.
Nature, conceived of as personal and animated, i. 285, 478, ii. 184.
Nature-deities, polytheistic, ii. 255, 376.
Nature-myths, i. 284, 316, &c., 326.
Nature-spirits, elves, nymphs, &c., ii. 184, 204, &c.
Necromancy, i. 143, 312, 446;
see Manes.
Negative and affirmative particles, i. 192.
Negroes re-born as whites, ii. 5.
Neo or Hawaneu, ii. 333.
Neptune, ii. 276.
Nereus, ii. 274, 277.
Neuri, i. 313.
New birth of soul, ii. 3.
Newton, Sir Isaac, on sensible species, i. 498.
Nicene Council, spirit-writing at, i. 148.
Nicodemus, Gospel of, ii. 54.
Niebuhr, on origin of culture, i. 41.
Night, myths of, i. 334, ii. 48, 61.
Nightmare-demon, ii. 189, 193.
Nilsson, Sven, on development of culture, i. 61, 64.
Nirvana, ii. 12, 79.
Nix, water-demon, i. 110, ii. 213.
Norns or Fates, i. 352.
Noseless tribes, i. 388.
Notation, arithmetical, quinary, decimal, vigesimal, i. 261.
Numerals:—low tribes only to 3 or 5, i. 242;
derivation of numerals from counting fingers and toes, 246;
from other significant objects, 251;
series of number-names of children, 254;
new formation of numerals, 255;
etymology of, 259, 270;
numerals borrowed from foreign languages, 266;
initials of numerals, used as figures, 269;
see Notation.
Nympholepsy, ii. 137.
Nymphs:—water-nymphs, ii. 212;
tree-nymphs, 219, 227.
Objectivity of dreams and visions, i. 442, 479;
abandoned, 500.
Objects treated as personal, i. 286, 477, ii. 205;
souls or phantoms of objects, i. 478, 497, ii. 9;
dispatched to dead by funeral sacrifice, i. 481.
Occult sciences, see Magic.
Odin, or Woden, as heaven-god, i. 351, 362, ii. 269;
one-eyed, i. 351.
Odysseus, unbinding of, i. 153;
descent to Hades, i. 346, ii. 48, 65.
Ohio, Ontario, i. 190.
Ojibwa, myth of, i. 345, ii. 46.
Oki, demon, ii. 208, 255, 342.
Old man of sea, ii. 277.
Omens, i. 97, 118, &c., 145, 449.
Omophore, Manichæan, i. 365.
One-eyed tribes, i. 391.
Oneiromancy, i. 121.
Opening to let out soul, i. 453.
Ophiolatry, see Serpent-worship.
Ophites, ii. 242.
Oracles, i. 94, ii. 411;
by inspiration or possession, ii. 124, &c., 179.
Orang-utan, i. 381.
Orcus, ii. 67, 80.
Ordeal by fire, i. 85;
by sieve and shears, 128;
by water, 140;
by bear’s head, ii. 231.
Ordinal numbers, i. 257.
Oregon, Orejones, i. 389.
Orientation, solar rite or symbolism, ii. 422.
Origin of language, i. 231;
numerals, 247.
Orion, i. 358, ii. 81.
Ormuzd, ii. 283, 328.
Orpheus and Eurydike, i. 346, ii. 48.
Osiris, ii. 67, 295;
and Isis, i. 289.
Otiose supreme deity, ii. 320, 336, &c.
Outcasts, distinct from savages, i. 43, 49.
Owain, Sir, visit to Purgatory, ii. 56.
Pachacamac, ii. 337, 366.
Pandora, myth of, i. 408.
Panotii, i. 389.
Pantheism, ii. 332, 341, 354.
Papa, mamma, &c., i. 223.
Paper figures substitutes in sacrifice, i. 464, 493, ii. 405.
Parables, i. 411.
Pars pro toto in sacrifice, ii. 399.
Parthenogenesis, ii. 190, 307.
Particles, affirmative and negative, i. 192;
of distance, 220.
Passage de l’Enfer, ii. 65.
Patrick, St., i. 372;
his Purgatory, i. 45, 55.
Patroklos, i. 444, 464.
Patron saints, ii. 120;
patron spirits, 199.
Pattern and matter, ii. 246.
Pennycomequick, i. 396.
Periander, i. 491.
Perkun, Perun, ii. 266.
Persephone, myth of, i. 321.
Perseus and Andromeda, i. 339.
Persian race-genealogy, i. 403.
Personal names, in mythology, i. 303, 394, 396.
Personification:—natural phenomena, i. 28, &c., 320, 477, ii. 205, 254;
disease, death, &c., i. 295;
ideas, 300;
tribes, cities, countries, &c., 339;
Hades, i. 339, ii. 55.
Pestilence, personification and myths of, i. 295.
Peter and Paul, Acts of, i. 372.
Petit bonhomme, game of, i. 77.
Petronius Arbiter, i. 75, ii. 261.
Philology, Generative, i. 198, 230.
Philosophical myths, i. 368.
Phrase-melody, i. 174.
Pillars of Hercules, i. 395.
Pipe, i. 208.
Pithecusæ, i. 377.
Places, myths from names of, i. 395.
Planchette, i. 147.
Plants, souls of, i. 474.
Plath, on Chinese religion, ii. 352, &c.
Plato, on transmigration, ii. 13;
Platonic ideas, 244.
Pleiades, i. 291, 358.
Pliny on magic, i. 133;
on eclipses, 334.
Plurality of souls, i. 433.
Plutarch, visits to spirit-world, ii. 53.
Pneuma, psyche, i. 433, &c.
Pointer-facts, i. 62.
Polytheism, ii. 247, &c.;
based on analogy of human society, ii. 248, 337, 349, 352;
classification of deities by attributes, 255;
heaven-god, 255, 334, &c.;
rain-god, 259;
thunder-god, 262;
wind-god, 266;
earth-god, 270;
water-god, 274;
sea-god, 275;
fire-god, 277;
sun-god, 286, 335, &c.;
moon-god, 299;
gods of childbirth, agriculture, war, &c., 304;
god and judge of dead, 308;
first man, divine ancestor, 311;
evil deity, 316;
supreme deity, 332;
relation of polytheism to monotheism, 331.
Popular rhymes, &c., i. 86;
sayings, i. 19, 83, 122, 313, ii. 268, 353.
Poseidon, i. 365, ii. 277, 378.
Possession and obsession, see Demons, Embodiment.
Pott, A. F., on reduplication, i. 219;
on numerals, 261.
Pottery, evidence from remains, i. 56;
absence of potter’s wheel, 45, 63.
Pozzuoli, myth of subsidence of, i. 372.
Pragmatic or realized myths, i. 407.
Prayer:—
doctrine of, ii. 364, &c.;
relation to nationality, 371;
introduction of moral element, 373;
prayers, i. 98, ii. 136, 208, 261, 280, 292, 329, 338, 364, &c., 435;
rosary, ii. 372;
prayer-mill and prayer-wheel, 372.
Prehistoric archæology, i. 55, &c.; ii. 443.
Priests consume sacrifices, ii. 379.
Prithivi, i. 327, ii. 258, 272.
Procopius, voyage of souls to Britain, ii. 64.
Progression in culture, i. 14, 32;
inventions, 62, &c.;
language, 236;
arithmetic, 270;
philosophy of religion, see Animism.
Prometheus, i. 365, ii. 400.
Proverbs, i. 84, &c.;
see Popular Sayings.
Psychology, i. 428.
Pupil of eye, related to soul, i. 431.
Purgatory, ii. 68, 92;
St. Patrick’s, 55.
Purification, see Lustration.
Puss, i. 178.
Pygmies, myths of, i. 385;
connected with dolmens, 387;
monkeys as, 388.
Pythagoras, metempsychosis, ii. 13.
Quaternary period, i. 58.
Quetelet, on social laws, i. 11.
Quinary numeration and notation, i. 261;
in Roman numeral letters, 263.
Races:—
distribution of culture among, i. 49;
culture of mixed races, Gauchos, &c., 46, 52;
ethnology in eponymic genealogies, 401;
moral condition of low races, 26;
considered as magicians, 113;
as monsters, 380.
Rahu and Ketu, eclipse-monsters, i. 379.
Rain-god, ii. 254, 259.
Rainbow, myths of, i. vii. 293, ii. 239.
Ralston, W. R., i. 342, ii. 245, &c.
Rangi and Papa, i. 322, ii. 345.
Rapping, omens and communications by, i. 144, ii. 221.
Rationalization of myths, i. 278.
Red Swan, myth of, i. 345.
Reduplication, i. 219.
Reid, Dr., on ideas, i. 499.
Relics, ii. 150.
Religion, i. 22, ii. 357, 449;
whether any tribes without, i. 417;
accounts misleading among low tribes, 419;
rudimentary definition of, 424;
adoption from foreign religions, future life, ii. 91;
ideas and names of deities, 254, 309, 331, 344;
dualism, 316, 322;
supreme deity, 333;
natural religion, i. 427, ii. 103, 356.
Resurrection, ii. 5, 18.
Retribution-theory of future life, ii. 83;
not conception of lower culture, 83.
Return and restoration of soul, i. 436.
Revival, in culture, i. 136, 141.
Revivals, morbid symptoms in religious, ii. 421.
Reynard the Fox, i. 412.
Riddles, i. 90.
Ring, divination by swinging, i. 126.
Rising in air, supernatural, i. 149, ii. 415.
Rites, religious, ii. 362, &c.
River of death, i. 473, 480, ii. 23, 29, 51, 94.
River-gods and river-worship, ii. 209.
River-spirits, i. 109, ii. 209, 407.
Rock, spirit of, ii. 207.
Roman mythology and religion:—funeral rites, ii. 42;
future life, 45, 67, 81;
nature-spirits, 220, 227;
polytheism, 251;
Jupiter, 258, 265;
Neptune, 277;
Vesta, 285;
Lucina, 302, &c.
Roman numeral letters, i. 263.
Romulus, patron deity of children, ii. 121;
and Remus, i. 281.
Rosary, ii. 372.
Sabæism, ii. 296.
Sacred springs, streams, &c., ii. 209;
trees and groves, 222;
animals, 234, 378.
Sacrifice:—origin and theory of, ii. 375, &c., 207, 269;
manner of consumption or reception by deity, 216, 376, &c., see 39;
motive of sacrificer, 393, &c.;
substitution, 399;
survival, i. 76, ii. 214, 228, 406.
Saint-Foix, i. 474, ii. 35.
Saints, worship of, ii. 120.
Samson’s riddle, i. 93.
Sanchoniathon, ii. 221.
Sand-pillar, myths of, i. 293.
Sanskrit roots, i. 197, 224.
Savage, man of woods, i. 382.
Savage culture as representative of primitive culture:—i. 21, ii. 443;
magic, witchcraft, and spiritualism, i. 112, &c.;
language, i. 236, ii. 445;
numerals, i. 242;
myth, 284, 324;
doctrine of souls, 499;
future life, ii. 102;
animistic theory of nature, i. 285, ii. 180, 356;
polytheism, 248;
dualism, 317;
supremacy, 334;
rites and ceremonies, 363, 375, 411, 421, 429.
Savitar, ii. 292.
Scalp, i. 460.
Scores, counting by, i. 263.
Sea, myths of, ii. 275.
Sea-god and sea-worship, ii. 275, 377.
Second death, ii. 22.
Second sight, i. 143, 447.
Semitic race, no savage tribe among, i. 49;
antiquity of culture, 54;
race-genealogy, 404.
Sennaar, i. 395.
Serpent emblem of immortality and eternity, ii. 241.
Serpent-worship, ii. 8, 239, 310, 347.
Sex distinguished by phonetic modification, i. 222.
Shadow related to soul, i. 430, 435;
shadowless men, 85, 430.
Shell-mounds, i. 61.
Sheol, ii. 68, 81;
gates of, i. 347.
Shingles, disease, i. 307.
Shoulder-blade, divination by, i. 124.
Sieve and shears, oracle by, i. 128.
Silver at new moon, ii. 302.
Sing-bonga, ii. 291, 350.
Skylla and Charybdis, ii. 208.
Slaves sacrificed to serve dead, i. 458.
Sling, i. 73.
Snakes, destroyed in Ireland, &c., i. 372.
Sneezing, salutation on, i. 97;
connected with spiritual influence, 97.
Social rank retained in future life, ii. 22, 84.
Sokrates, ii. 137, 294;
demon of 202;
prayer of, 373.
Soma, Haoma, ii. 418.
Soul, doctrine of, definition and general course in history, i. 428,
499;
cause of life, 428;
qualities as conceived by lower races, 428;
conception of, related to dreams and visions, i. 429, ii. 24, 410;
related to shadow, heart, blood, pupil of eye, breath, i. 430;
plurality or division of, 434;
exit of, i. 309, 438, &c., 448, ii. 50;
restoration of, i. 436, 475;
trance, ecstasy, 439;
dreams, 440;
visions, 445;
soul not visible to all, 446;
likeness to body, i. 450;
mutilated with body, 451;
voice, a whisper, chirp, &c., 452;
material substance of soul, i. 453, ii. 198;
ethereality not immateriality of, in lower culture, i. 456;
human souls transmitted by funeral sacrifice to future life, i. 458,
ii. 31;
souls of animals, i. 467, ii. 41;
their future life and transmission by funeral sacrifice, i. 469;
souls of plants, trees, &c., i. 474, ii. 10;
souls of objects, i. 476, ii. 9, 75, 153, &c.;
transmission by funeral sacrifice, i. 481;
conveyed or consumed in sacrifice to deities, ii. 216, 389;
object-souls related to ideas, i. 497;
existence of soul after death of body, i. 428, &c., ii. 1, &c.;
transmigration or metempsychosis, ii. 2;
new birth in human body, 3;
in animal body, plant, inert object, 9, &c.;
souls remain on earth among survivors, near dwelling, corpse, or
tomb, i. 148, 447, ii. 25, &c., 150;
souls called up by necromancer or medium, i. 143, 312, 446, ii. 136,
&c.;
food set out for, ii. 30, &c.;
region of departed souls, ii. 59, &c., 73, 244;
future life of, i. 458, &c., ii. 74, &c.;
relation of soul to spirit in general, ii. 109;
souls pass into demons, patron-spirits, deities, 111, 124, 192, 200,
364, 375;
manes-worship, 112, &c.;
souls embodied in men, animals, plants, objects, 147, 153, 192, 232;
mystic meaning of word soul, 359.
Soul of world, ii. 335, &c., 354.
Soul-mass cake, ii. 43.
Sound-words, i. 231.
Speaking machine, i. 170.
Spear-thrower, i. 66.
Species-deities, ii. 242.
Spencer and Gillen, ii. 236.
Sphinx, i. 90.
Spirit:—course of meaning of word, i. 433, ii. 181, 206, 359;
animism, doctrine of spirits, i. 424, ii. 108, 356;
doctrine of spirit founded on that of soul, ii. 109;
spirits connected and confounded with souls, ii. 109, 363;
spirits seen in dreams and visions, i. 306, 440, ii. 154, 189, 194,
411;
action of spirits, i. 125, ii. 111, &c.;
embodiment of spirits, ii. 123;
disease by attack of, 126;
oracular inspiration by, 130;
whistling, &c., voice of, i. 453, ii. 135;
act through fetishes, ii. 143, &c.;
through idols, 167;
spirits causes of nature, 185, 204, &c., 250;
good and evil spirits, 186, 319;
spirits swarm in dark, fire drives off, 194;
seen by animals, 196;
footprints of, i. 455, ii. 197;
ethereal-material substance of, ii. 198;
exclusion, expulsion, exorcism of, 125, 199;
patron, guardian, and familiar spirits, 199;
nature-spirits of volcanoes, whirlpools, rocks, &c., 207;
water-spirits and deities, 209, 407;
tree-spirits and deities, 215;
spirits subordinate to great polytheistic deities, 248, &c.;
spirits receive prayer, 363;
sacrifice, 75;
see Animism, &c.
Spirit, Great, ii. 256, 324, 339, &c., 354, 365, 395.
Spirit-footprints, i. 455, ii. 197.
Spiritualism, modern:—
its origin in savage culture, i. 141, 155, 426, ii. 25, 39;
spirit-rapping, i. 144, ii. 193, 221, 407;
spirit-writing, 147;
rising in air, 149;
supernatural unbinding, 153;
moving objects, &c., i. 439, ii. 156, 319, 441;
mediums, i. 146, 312, ii. 132, 410;
oracular possession, i. 148, ii. 135, 141.
Spirit-world, journey or visit to, by soul, i. 439, 481, ii. 44, &c.
Spitting, i. 103;
lustration with spittle, ii. 439, 441.
Standing-stones, objects of worship, ii. 164.
Stanley, A. P., ii. 387.
Stars, myths of, i. 288, 356;
souls of, i. 291.
Staunton, William, his visit to Purgatory, ii. 58.
Stock-and-stone-worship, ii. 161, &c., 254, 388.
Stone, myths of men turned to, i. 353;
stone-worship, ii. 160, &c., 254, 388.
Stone Age, i. 56, &c.;
magic as belonging to, 140;
myths of giants and dwarfs as belonging to, 385.
Storm, myths of, i. 322;
storm-god, i. 323, ii. 266.
Strut, i. 62.
Substitutes in sacrifice, i. 106, 463, ii. 399, &c.
Succubi, see Incubi.
Sucking cure, ii. 146.
Suicide, body of, staked down, ii. 29, 193.
Sun, myths of, i. 288, 319, 335, &c., ii. 48, 66, 323;
sunset, myths of, connected with death and future life, i. 335, 345,
ii. 48, &c., 311;
sun abode of departed souls, ii. 69.
Sun-god and sun-worship, i. 99, 288, 353, ii. 263, 285, 323, &c., 376,
&c., 408, 422, &c.;
sun and moon as good and evil deity, ii. 324, &c.
Superlative, triple, i. 265.
Superstition, case of survival, i. 16, 72, &c.
Supreme deity, ii. 332, 367;
heaven-god, &c., as, 255, 337, &c.;
sun-god as, 290, 337, &c.;
conception of, in manes-worship, 334;
as chief of divine hierarchy, 335, &c.;
first cause, 335.
Survival in culture, i. 16, &c., 70, &c., ii. 403;
children’s games, i. 72;
games of chance, &c., 78;
proverbs, 89;
riddles, 91;
sneezing-salutation, 98;
foundation-sacrifice, 104;
not save drowning, 108;
magic, witchcraft, &c., 112;
spiritualism, 141;
numeration, 262, 271;
deodand, 287;
were-wolves, 313;
eclipse-monster, 330;
animism, i. 500, ii. 356;
funeral sacrifice, i. 463, 474, 492;
feasts of dead, ii. 35, 41;
possession, 140;
fetishism, 159;
stone-worship, 168;
water-worship, 213;
fire-worship, 285;
sun-worship, 297;
moon-worship, 302;
heaven-worship, 353;
sacrifice, 406, &c.
Susurrus necromanticus, i. 453, ii. 135.
Suttee, i. 465.
Swedenborg, spiritualism of, i. 144, 450, ii. 18, 204.
Symbolic connexion in magic, &c., i. 116, &c., ii. 144;
symbolism in religious ceremony, ii. 362, &c.
Symplegades, i. 350.
Tabor, i. 209.
Tacitus, i. 333, ii. 228, 273.
Tailed men, i. 383.
Tangaroa, Taaroa, ii. 345.
Tari Pennu, ii. 271, 349, 368, 404.
Taronhiawagon, ii. 256, 309.
Tarots, i. 82.
Tartarus, ii. 97.
Tatar race, culture of, i. 51;
race-genealogy of, 404.
Tattooing, mythic origin of, i. 393.
Taylor, Jeremy, on lots, i. 79.
Teeth-defacing, mythic origin of, i. 393.
Temple, Jewish, ii. 426.
Tertullian, i. 456, ii. 188, 427.
Tezcatlipoca, ii. 197, 344, 391.
Theodorus, St., church of, ii. 121.
Theophrastus, ii. 165.
Theresa, St., her visions, ii. 415.
Thor, ii. 266.
Thought, conveyance of, by vocal tone, i. 166;
Epicurean theory of, 497;
savage conception of, ii. 311.
Thousand and One Nights:
—water-spout and sand-pillar, i. 292;
Magnetic Mountain, 374;
Abdallah of Sea and Abdallah of Land, ii. 106.
Thunder-bird, myths of, i. 363, ii. 262;
thunder-bolt, ii. 262.
Thunder-god, ii. 262, 305, 312, 337, &c.
Tien and Tu, ii. 257, 272, 352.
Tlaloc, Tlalocan, ii. 61, 274, 309.
Tobacco smoked as sacrifice or incense, ii. 287, 343, 383;
to cause morbid vision, &c., 417.
Torngarsuk, ii. 340.
Tortoise, World, i. 364.
Totem-ancestors, i. 402, ii. 235;
totemism, ii. 235.
Traditions, credibility of, i. 275, 280, 370;
of early culture, i. 39, 52.
Transformation-myths, i. 308, 377, ii. 10, 220.
Transmigration of souls, i. 379, 409, 469, 476, ii. 2, &c.;
theory of, ii. 16.
Trapezus, i. 396.
Trees, objects suspended to, ii. 150, 223.
Tree-souls, i. 475, ii. 10, 215;
tree-spirits, i. 476, ii. 148, 215.
Tribe-names, mythic ancestors, i. 398;
tribe-deities, ii. 234.
Tribes without religion, i. 417.
Tuckett, F. F., i. 373.
Tumuli, remains of funeral sacrifice in, i. 486.
Tupan, ii. 263, 305, 333.
Turks, race-genealogy of, i. 403.
Turnskins, i. 308, &c.
Twin brethren, N. A. dualistic myth, ii. 320, &c.
Two paths, allegory of, i. 409.
Uiracocha, ii. 338, 366.
Ukko, ii. 257, 261, 265.
Ulster, mythic etymology of, ii. 65.
Unbinding, supernatural, i. 153.
Under-world, sun and souls of dead descend to, ii. 66;
see Hades.
Unkulunkulu, ii. 116, 313, 347.
Vampires, ii. 191.
Vapour-bath, narcotic, of Scyths and N. A. Indians, ii. 417.
Vasilissa the Beautiful, i. 342.
Vatnsdæla Saga, i. 439.
Veda, i. 54, 351, 362, 465, ii. 72, 265, 281, 354, 371, 386.
Vegetal, sensitive, and rational souls, i. 435.
Ventriloquism, i. 453, ii. 132, 182.
Vergil, Polydore, ii. 409.
Versipelles, i. 308, &c.
Vesta, ii. 285.
Vigesimal notation, i. 261;
survival in French and English, 263.
Visions:—
mythic fancy in, i. 305;
are apparitions of spirits, 143, 445, 478, ii. 194, 410;
as evidence of future life, 24, 49;
fasting for, 410;
use of drugs to cause, 416.
Visits to spirit-world, i. 436, 481, ii. 46, &c.
Vitruvius, on orientation, ii. 427.
Vocal tone, i. 166, &c.
Voice of ghosts and other spirits, whisper, twitter, murmur, i. 452,
ii. 134.
Volcano, mouth of underworld, i. 344, 364, ii. 69;
caused by spirits, 207.
Vowels, i. 168.
Vulcan, ii. 280, 284.
Wainamoinen, ii. 46, 93.
Waitz, Theodor, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, i. vi.;
fetishism, ii. 157, 176.
Walhalla, i. 491, ii. 77, 88.
War-god, ii. 306.
Warriors, fate of souls of, ii. 87.
Wassail, i. 97, 101.
Water, spirits not cross, i. 442.
Waterfalls and waterspouts, myths, of, i. 292, 294.
Water-gods and water-worship, ii. 209, 274, 376, 407.
Water-spirits and water-monsters, i. 109, ii. 208, &c.
Watling Street, Milky Way, i. 360.
Weapons, i. 64, &c.;
personal names given to, 303.
Wedgwood, Hensleigh, on imitative language, i. 161.
Weight of soul, i. 455;
of spirit, ii. 198.
Well-worship, ii. 209, &c.
Werewolves, &c., doctrine of, i. 113, 308, &c., 435, ii. 193.
West, mythic conceptions of, as region of night and death, i. 337, 343,
ii. 48, 61, 66, 311, &c., 422, &c.;
see East and West.
Whately, Archbishop, on origin of culture, i. 38, 41.
Wheatstone, Sir C., i. 170.
Wheel-lock, i. 15.
Whirlpool, spirit of, ii. 207.
Widow-sacrifice, i. 458.
Wild Hunt, i. 362, ii. 269.
Wilson, Daniel, on dual and plural, i. 265.
Wind gods, ii. 266.
Winds, myths of, i. 360.
Witchcraft, i. 116, &c.;
origin in savage culture, 138;
mediæval revival, 138;
iron charm against, 140;
ordeal by water, 140;
rising in air, 152;
doctrine of werewolves, 312;
incubi and succubi, ii. 190;
witch ointment, 418.
Woden, see Odin.
Wolf of Night, i. 341.
Wong, ii. 176, 205, 348.
World pervaded by spirits, ii. 137, 180, 185, 205, 250.
Worship as related to belief, i. 427, ii. 362.
Wraith or fetch, i. 448, 451.
Wright, Thomas, ii. 56, 65.
Wuttke, Adolf, i. 456, &c.
Xerxes, i. 286, ii. 378.
Yama, ii. 54, 314.
Yawning, possession, i. 102.
Yezidism, ii. 329.
Zend-Avesta, i. 116, 351, ii. 98, 293, 328, 438.
Zeus, i. 328, 350, ii. 258, &c., 353.
Zingani, myth of name, i. 400.
Zoroastrism, ii. 20, 98, 282, 319, 328, 354, 374, 400, 438.
THE END.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are
referenced.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Primitive culture, Vol. II (of 2) : Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.