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Title: Ritual and beliefStudies in the history of religion
Author: Edwin Sidney Hartland
Release date: July 21, 2023 [eBook #71238]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Williams and Norgate, 1914
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RITUAL AND BELIEF ***
RITUAL AND BELIEF
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
RELIGION
BY
EDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND, F.S.A.
LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1914
PREFACE
{v}
Among the various intellectual activities of the last fifty years
none has awakened a more widespread interest than that of the study of
the evolution of human civilization. The reason is apparent: it has
revolutionized our conception of human history, and has shaken to
their very centre the religious traditions of Europe and civilized
America. The general doctrine of evolution as applied to the universe
at large was established shortly after the middle of the nineteenth
century by Darwin and Spencer. Geology had already revealed the
enormous age of the earth, and the long procession of periods through
which the flora and fauna had advanced to ever higher organization.
Archæology had begun its enquiries into the antiquity of man; but the
evidence was not yet fully understood, and its weight or even its
existence was denied. While theology, after first indignantly
repudiating the new teachers, was trying with many grimaces to
accommodate itself to their teaching, new lines of investigation were
entered upon in this country and America by Lubbock, Tylor, M‘Lennan,
and Morgan. The mental and social development of mankind, the history
of ideas and of institutions, received fresh and unexpected
illumination. It began to be possible to sketch a very different
outline of human origins and early history from that which had
hitherto remained almost unquestioned. In a country like ours, where
an established Church {vi} arrogated to itself all social and almost
all intellectual influences, and where it was very generally supported
by those who dissented from it on other points in its dogmatic
opposition to the results of scientific enquiry, it was natural that
attention should be directed to the bearing of those results on
theology. Anthropology, as the new Science of Man came to be called,
was materially assisted in the quarrel by Biblical criticism begun in
Germany and popularized in England by Colenso and others. The
authenticity of the books so long attributed to Moses was questioned
and overthrown; they themselves were emptied of all historical
authority, and put on a level in this respect with the books of
heathen nations. Professor Robertson Smith’s fight for liberty of
criticism in the Free Church of Scotland roused the enthusiasm even of
men who did not agree with all his opinions; and when he was finally
ejected from his chair at Aberdeen, he was provided with a home first
at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge, and the editorship of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_. Thus unmuzzled, he devoted himself to the
study of Semitic religion and customs on the largest scale and in the
most unbiassed spirit. Unfortunately, his health gave way; and two
precious volumes are well-nigh all that has reached us of his labours.
But his influence at Cambridge, and particularly over a younger
fellow-countryman to whom we owe _The Golden Bough_, was of a most
fruitful character. To the impulse he gave is to be traced
much--perhaps more than we suspect--of what anthropology has
accomplished in various directions during the last five-and-twenty
years.
Meanwhile revolt against false interpretation of known facts and
inadequate methods of enquiry had spread elsewhere. Professor Max
Müller, by his unsurpassed {vii} powers of exposition, his eloquence
and his wide knowledge of the Aryan tongues, had become the champion
in this country of the German explanation of myths as a disease of
language, a teacher on whose lips learned and simple hung. Great as
was his learning, however, it was circumscribed by the Indo-European
languages and literature. He took little account of savage myths which
could not be interpreted on his principles, and still less of the
equally important rites and beliefs of European peasants and primitive
peoples beyond the seas. In Germany, Mannhardt, originally a disciple
of the same school, had turned to more reasonable and penetrating
modes of interpretation. It is his glory to have been the first to
combat the fancies of the philologists in a series of works steeped as
deeply in classical learning as theirs, but with a much wider outlook
and a keener sense of actuality. Yet he died without having made many
converts; and in Germany still the sun-myth lingers, though hastening
fast to its inevitable setting. In England his works were hardly
known, when, in 1887, Andrew Lang, after a powerful article on
“Mythology” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, and other preliminary
essays, published _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, in which he attacked
with overwhelming acumen and wit the philological position. It is not
too much to say that as far as English-speaking countries were
concerned the blow was decisive, the philological position was
carried, and the enemy’s flag planted triumphantly on the battlements.
The way was thus cleared for a really scientific enquiry into the
beginnings of religion. No longer were we hampered with the story of
Genesis and the primitive revelation. Our vision was not to be bounded
by the Aryan and Semitic peoples. The guesswork of the philological
school was at an end, and ritual was admitted {viii} to be at least as
indispensable to the enquiry as story and belief. Professor Tylor had
already done something more than pioneer work in the chapters on
Mythology and Animism in _Primitive Culture_. In the chapters on
Animism in particular he had exhibited the universal belief in the
souls, not merely of human beings, but of other animate, and even of
inanimate, creatures. He had boldly discussed the relation of this
belief to the doctrine of spirits generally, and considered the
transitional series of ideas through the cult of the dead, possession,
fetishism, idol-worship, and the beliefs of the Christian Fathers. It
became evident that a doctrine so complex and subtle, even in its
simpler manifestations, could not bean original and innate belief of
the human mind, but that it must have been evolved from something
simpler, perhaps vaguer, certainly more comprehensive. “A theoretical
conception of primitive philosophy, designed to account for phenomena
now classed under Biology, especially Life and Death, Health and
Disease, Sleep and Dreams, Trance and Visions” pre-supposes a long
period of observation, comparison and discussion, during which the
ideas slowly took shape and ranged themselves round a central theory.
The late Mr Andrew Lang was the first seriously to consider the
questions involved. His answer, given in _The Making of Religion_
(1898), was twofold. On the one hand, he suggested that “the savage
theory of the soul may be based, at least in part, on
experiences”--hypnotism, clairvoyance, hallucination, and so
forth--“which cannot at present be made to fit into any purely
materialistic system of the universe.” On the other hand, he contended
that “the idea of God, in its earliest known shape, need not logically
be derived from the idea of spirit, however that idea itself may have
been attained or {ix} evolved.” In this he was aiming partly at Sir
Edward Tylor’s theory of Animism, as developed in the last of his
famous chapters on that subject, partly at the theory of the ancient
sceptic Euhemerus, revived and championed within recent years by
Herbert Spencer and Grant Allen, that gods had been developed out of
the ghosts of dead men. He sought to draw a broad distinction between
the two concepts, that of a god and that of a spirit of any sort. He
claimed that the idea of God was earlier than that of a spirit, and
that “a relatively Supreme God,” often expressly described as Creator,
existing before death came into the world, and practically eternal,
had everywhere preceded the propitiation of the dead. He did not
commit himself to any definite opinion as to how this idea of a
Supreme God was reached by the rude forefathers of the race. But when
he oracularly observed, “The hypothesis of St Paul seems not the most
unsatisfactory,” it is no wonder that orthodox readers understood by
that expression a primitive revelation, whereas what he meant was the
argument from Design as stated in Rom. i. 19, 20. Though Lang’s book,
therefore, was hailed as a sign that anthropological science was after
all coming round to the support of the old orthodoxy, he himself was
too true a sceptic to fall satisfactorily into line. In fact, he
solved nothing. The “High Gods” of the lowest savages must have had
some origin, must have been evolved out of conceptions lower or more
indefinite.
Professor Frazer has approached the problem from another side. In the
first edition of _The Golden Bough_ he attempted no definition of
Religion; and the relation of Magic to Religion, therefore, was hardly
clear. Critics did not fail to call his attention to this. In the
second edition (1900) he accordingly proceeded to define {x} his
position. There, with Sir Alfred Lyall and Professor Jevons, he
recognizes “a fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle
between magic and religion”; and in _The Magic Art_, he has more
recently somewhat expanded his exposition of their relations. Magic,
it appears, is a false science based on the assumption “that in nature
one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the
intervention of any spiritual or personal agency.” Religion is “a
propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are
believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human
life.” Man began with magic. He knew of no beings superior to himself,
and he believed that by certain ceremonies he could cause the results
he desired. “Yet his power, great as he believes it to be, is by no
means arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he
strictly conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called
the laws of nature as conceived by him. To neglect these rules, to
break these laws in the smallest particular is to incur failure, and
may even expose the unskilful practitioner himself to the utmost
peril. If he claims a sovereignty over nature, it is a constitutional
sovereignty, rigorously limited in its scope, and exercised in exact
conformity with ancient usage.” After a while man found out his
blunder. “The shrewder intelligences must in time have come to
perceive that magical ceremonies and incantations did not really
effect the results they were designed to produce, and which the
majority of their simpler fellows still believed that they did
actually produce.… The discovery amounted to this, that men for the
first time recognized their inability to manipulate at pleasure
certain natural forces which hitherto they had believed to be
completely within their control. It was a confession of human {xi}
ignorance and weakness. Man saw that he had taken for causes what were
no causes, and that all his efforts to work by means of these
imaginary causes had been vain.… Not that the effects which he had
striven so hard to produce did not continue to manifest themselves.
They were still produced, but not by him.” In this emergency he turned
to “a new system of faith and practice, which seemed to offer a
solution of his harassing doubts and a substitute, however precarious,
for that sovereignty over nature which he had abdicated. If the great
world went on its way without the help of him or his fellows, it must
surely be because there were other beings, like himself, but far
stronger, who, unseen themselves, directed its course and brought
about all the varied series of events which he had hitherto believed
to be dependent on his own magic.… To these mighty beings, whose
handiwork he traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of
nature, man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his dependence on
their invisible power, and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish
him with all good things.” Here, to be sure, was a revolution. The Age
of Religion succeeded to the Age of Magic, though gradually,
reluctantly, and, as regards at least the majority of mankind,
incompletely even to the present day.
It is needless to dwell on the contrast between this hypothesis and
Lang’s. The one traces religion back to the belief in a Supreme God,
the other to a reaction against the belief in magic. They are alike in
one respect: they both derive it from an exercise of man’s reasoning
faculties. It seems a just criticism to say that neither of them takes
sufficient account of man’s emotional nature. Yet it must have played
an important part in the evolution of religion. It is, if I may say
so, the merit of another {xii} enquirer, Dr R. R. Marett, that he was
the first to point this out. In an article published in _Folk-lore_ in
the year 1900, he analyzed, with psychological knowledge and skill,
the experiences that underlay Animism, and came to the conclusion that
behind the logic was emotion, the recoil from the uncanny and the
mysterious, “that basic feeling of awe, which drives a man, ere he can
think or theorize upon it, into personal relations with the
Supernatural.” Dr Marett’s views have been subsequently developed in a
series of papers printed in different periodicals and collections, and
republished in 1909 in a volume entitled _The Threshold of Religion_.
This has been supplemented more recently by his inaugural lecture as
Reader in Social Anthropology at Oxford, on _The Birth of Humility_
(1910), in which he takes the opportunity of criticizing with vivacity
and effect Professor Frazer’s exposition of the relations of magic and
religion. His opinions have been reinforced by the independent
enquiries of two learned Frenchmen, MM. Hubert and Mauss, who in 1904
published in _L’Année Sociologique_ a remarkable “Esquisse d’une
théorie générale de la Magie,” reissued five years later among
their collected essays entitled _Mélanges d’Histoire des Religions_.
They approach the subject from the social side, insisting that
religion is before everything a social matter, its judgements are
social judgements, its rites social rites. They point out its intimate
connection with magic, and by skilful analysis exhibit the parallelism
between them.
More recently the psychological aspect of the problem has been
considered by a group of American writers, notably by Professor James
Leuba (_A Psychological Study of Religion_) and Dr Irving King (_The
Development of Religion_, New York, 1910). The latter work is a most
suggestive and judicious survey of the evidence afforded {xiii} by
savage rites and belief. The writer insists on the priority of rites
to belief, and finds their origin in social activities, largely in
what he calls play-activities, and in spontaneous reactions to the
environment. The religious attitude may be coeval with these
activities, but organized beliefs were developed gradually. The
particular forms they took were the result of different social
situations, these in turn depending on the physical and cultural
environment. “In and so far as they have elements which are similar
functionally, religion and magic,” he holds, “originally formed a part
of a primitive, undifferentiated attitude, and separated from each
other as experience became more complex and the requirements of action
more varied.” Magic became the individualist and antisocial
application of the impulses and organized methods of which religion
was the social expression and application.
Lastly, Professor Durkheim, taking Totemism as the most primitive
religion known to us, has in _Les Formes Elémentaires de la vie
Religieuse_ analyzed elementary conceptions, with the result that he
derives religious ideas and practices entirely from a social origin.
As I have considered his theory more fully on another page, it needs
no further reference here.
Thus at the present moment the controversy stands--if it be legitimate
to call it a controversy. Criticism, according to a pregnant saying of
Andrew Lang’s, is a form of co-operation--of co-operation in the
pursuit of truth. The following essays are intended in that spirit as
a humble contribution to the discussion. Their primary intention is
not controversial. They rather seek to express some of the results of
a study of the phenomena, from the point of view of one who has been
convinced that the emotions and the imagination--and {xiv} not merely
the individual, but the collective emotions and imagination--have had
at least as much to do with the generation of religious practices and
beliefs as the reason, and that for the form they may have assumed,
physical, social, and cultural influences must be held accountable.
The essay on “The Relations of Religion and Magic” is an expansion of
two presidential addresses, one delivered to the Anthropological
Section of the British Association at York in 1906, the other to the
section on the Religions of the Lower Culture at the International
Congress for the History of Religions at Oxford in 1908. The essay on
“The Rite at the Temple of Mylitta” was contributed to the volume of
_Anthropological Essays_ presented to Sir Edward Tylor, in honour of
his seventy-fifth birthday, in 1907. That on “The Voice of the Stone
of Destiny” was published in _Folk-lore_, 1903. Both of these have
undergone revision. The remaining essays are new. One of them deals as
a preliminary with some of the difficulties that beset the enquirer
into the religious ideas of the lower races, with wandering fires that
mislead him, with barriers that seem impassable. The others seek to
concentrate attention on particular instances of ritual or belief, to
elucidate the ideas and emotions that underlie them, or further to
illustrate their evolution. I am indebted to the publishers of such as
have been already published for their courtesy in facilitating
reproduction here.
E. SIDNEY HARTLAND
Highgarth, Gloucester,
_January_ 1914.
CONTENTS
{xv}
LEARNING TO “THINK BLACK”
THE RELATIONS OF RELIGION AND MAGIC:
I. THE COMMON ROOT
II. THEORIES AND DEFINITIONS
III. DEVELOPMENT
IV. DIVERGENCE
THE BOLDNESS OF THE CELTS
THE HAUNTED WIDOW
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOURNING CLOTHES
THE RITE AT THE TEMPLE OF MYLITTA
THE VOICE OF THE STONE OF DESTINY
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST
ENDNOTES
RITUAL AND BELIEF
{1}
LEARNING TO “THINK BLACK”
Sir Edward Tylor begins the chapters on Animism in that great work
which laid the foundation of the modern study of the history of
civilization, by a discussion of the evidence for the existence of
tribes destitute of religion. In some half-dozen pages he easily shows
that the existence of such tribes, “though in theory possible, and
perhaps in fact true, does not at present rest on that sufficient
proof which, for an exceptional state of things, we are entitled to
demand.” He convicts travellers and missionaries who have made the
assertion, of contradicting themselves; and he renders probable that
the denial of religion to peoples in the lower culture is begotten of
a perverted judgement in theological matters, and “the use of wide
words in narrow senses.”[1.1]
Other causes are equally prolific of error in regard to savage
beliefs. Sir Edward Tylor refers to haste and imperfect acquaintance
by the traveller with the people whose beliefs he is professing to
repeat. These are obvious causes on which it is needless to dwell.
Many peoples, too, are accustomed out of mere politeness to endeavour
to divine what sort of answer to his remarks will please a guest, or
what sort of answer an enquirer expects to his questions, and to make
it accordingly, {2} regardless whether it has any relation to the
facts or not. This courtier-like etiquette of agreement applies to
every subject, and is emphasized when the enquirer is an official or
social superior from whom favour may be looked for or displeasure
apprehended. The Malayans, a jungle tribe of southern India,
invariably say “Yes” in reply to a question by a government officer or
a member of a higher caste, “believing that a negative answer might
displease him.”[2.1] In such cases it is difficult to extract the
truth on the most indifferent and trivial, to say nothing of
weightier, matters.
Passing over these commonplaces, let us pause for a moment on another
cause mentioned by Tylor, namely, the natural reluctance of savages to
reveal “to the prying and contemptuous foreigner their worship of gods
who seem to shrink, like their worshippers, before the white man and
his mightier Deity.”[2.2] Very instructive is the account given by
Kolben of the Hottentots. Writing in the early years of the eighteenth
century, he says it is “a difficult thing to get out of the Hottentots
what are really their notions concerning God and religion, or whether
they have any at all. They keep all their religious opinions and
ceremonies, as they do every other matter established among them, as
secret as they can from Europeans, and when they are questioned
concerning such matters are very shy in their answers and hide the
truth as much as they can.” They take refuge from questions in “a
thousand fictions,” which they excuse, when taxed with them, by
alleging that “the Europeans are a crafty, designing people. They
never ask a question for the sake of the answer only, but have other
ends to serve, perhaps against the peace and security of the
Hottentots.” From this source, we are told, have sprung {3} most of
the contradictions to be found in authors upon the religion of the
Hottentots.[3.1] More than a hundred years after Kolben’s day a
British traveller, exploring Great Namaqualand under the auspices of
the British Government and of the Royal Geographical Society,
assembled some of the old men among the Namaqua and put them through
an examination. His thirst for information was doubtless praiseworthy;
and he was at least successful in proving, albeit unconsciously, the
truth of the older traveller’s words. For the proceeding he adopted
affords a brilliant example of “how not to do it.” I quote some of his
questions: “What laws have the Namaqua?” Answer--“They have none; they
only listen to their chiefs.” “Do the people know anything of the
stars?” Answer--“Nothing.” “Do the Namaqua believe in lucky and
unlucky days?” Answer--“They don’t know anything of these things.”
“Are there rainmakers in the land?” Answer--“None.” “What do the old
Namaqua think becomes of people when they die?” Answer--“They know
nothing of these things; all they see is that the people die and are
buried, but what becomes of them they know not; and before the
missionaries came to the Great River the people had never heard of
another world.”[3.2]
Many European casuists justify one who is questioned concerning
matters he desires to keep secret, and who meets the inquisitive
person with a falsehood. It cannot therefore be surprising that these
poor Hottentots thus took advantage of the only defence open to them
when they found their most cherished beliefs and customs the subject
of impertinent and bungling interrogations by an {4} unsympathetic
intruder into their country. Their Bantu neighbours do the same. The
Kaffir, we are told, “dislikes to find Europeans investigating his
customs, and he usually hides all he can from them and takes a
sportive pleasure in baffling and misleading them.”[4.1] When
questioned by Andersson, the Ovambo denied that they had any belief,
or abruptly stopped him with a “Hush!”[4.2] Prying of this kind is
rarely welcomed even among peoples on a much higher plane of
civilization. Not to appeal to our own feelings, we may take as an
illustration a people of the Far East. To question a native of Korea
concerning custom or belief at once arouses his suspicions. Indeed,
for a stranger to enquire the number of houses in a village, or what
the land produces, needs much tact if bad feeling is to be avoided. A
missionary who lived for many years in the country was of opinion that
people are unconscious of their customs. At any rate a Korean asked
suddenly about a certain custom will in all likelihood deny that such
a thing exists; and yet he may be absolutely free from dishonesty in
the matter: he is simply unconscious, he has never thought about
it.[4.3]
To this point we will return directly: our present point is the
conscious refusal of information. And here it should be noted that
savages, as well as others, do not hide their beliefs only because
they do not understand the motive of enquiry, or because they are
afraid of ridicule or of the denunciations of the missionary, even
where the Christian priest can call down the thunderbolt of the
magistrate. These reasons operate, but not alone. {5} From all
quarters of the world comes the report that the native is
uncommunicative. The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco are quite
aware that their “superstition is regarded with disfavour by the
missionaries”; but they are naturally “very reticent in these
matters,” and their reticence is only heightened--not caused--by this
knowledge.[5.1] An excellent illustration of the difficulty of
discovering the beliefs and even the practices of savages is afforded
by Mr Batchelor, a missionary who, having resided among the Ainu of
Japan for more than twelve years, wrote an interesting book upon them.
He naturally supposed that so long a residence and intimacy with them
entitled him to think he knew practically all that could be told about
them. Alas for the fallibility of even a careful observer! There was
one chamber in the mind of every Ainu which he had not explored. When
another twelve years had elapsed he wrote that “when writing that book
I must frankly confess that I had no idea, nor had I for many years
after, that ophiolatry was practised at all by this people.” And all
the while the Ainu whom he knew so well were holding beliefs, relating
myths, and practising rites of which he had not the least
suspicion.[5.2] Nor is there any reason to suggest that they were
concealing those things from him out of fear of ridicule or clerical
reproofs.
Deeper reasons exist. German missionaries have been labouring for a
number of years among the tribes on the north-eastern coast of New
Guinea. In view of the various difficulties attending the
investigation of the beliefs of these tribes the latest scientific
explorer of the country called in the aid of some of the more
experienced {6} of the missionaries. He thus sums up the position:
“The heathen Papuan is a reticent fellow, and no power in the world
can move him to disclose the secrets of his fathers. He has too much
fear of the vengeance of the spirits and of the sorcerers, who would
infallibly kill him if he betrayed the smallest thing. Long years of
work accomplished with endless patience have been necessary to
convince the Black that sorcery is powerless,--that it is all lies and
deceit. Only if he is about to be baptized will he voluntarily deliver
up to his teacher his knowledge of witchcraft and its methods. In
plain terms, he feels the need on this point to lighten both his
conscience and his pocket.”[6.1] Reasons of this order have never
been better put than by an eminent French anthropologist whose
untimely death a few years ago was a serious blow to the cause of
science. Reviewing the work of a lady for whom English colleagues yet
mourn, he says: “The savage does not like to speak of his belief; he
fears the contemptuous mockery of the Whites. Perhaps, too, he fears
to give an advantage over himself, in allowing more to be known than
is fitting of the rites by which he tries to conciliate the
benevolence of the spirits, or to turn away their disfavour from his
hut and his plantations. To make known his resources for the fight
would be to half-disarm him; surrounded with supernatural dangers, he
does not willingly indicate the supernatural means by which he
guarantees himself against them.”[6.2] One other reason may be added
to these: a reason probably operative in many more cases than
enquirers have been aware of. The things after which they ask are
often revealed only to the initiate. An {7} outsider, one who is not
known to be, or at least treated as, an initiate, will seek in vain by
means direct or indirect for information on these matters. A stony
silence or repeated lies are all he will get. This has been the cause
of much mystification and many contradictory statements about tribes
in various parts of the world, not the least in Australia.[7.1]
It is not suggested, of course, that all contradictory statements
emanate from the deliberate mystification of non-initiate enquirers.
We have not by any means exhausted the causes of error in regard to
savage beliefs. Contradictory statements are made in good faith
because those who make them hold contradictory beliefs. On the
subject, for example, of the future life the mutually destructive
character of the beliefs often held by the same tribes, and even by
the same individuals, is one of the truisms of anthropology. The Zulus
and their neighbours hold that their dead are to be recognized in the
form of various animals, notably snakes, that haunt the tomb or the
abodes of the living, and yet that these very dead dwell in the bowels
of the earth, presiding in patriarchal fashion over shadowy kraals,
and rejoicing in the possession of herds of sky-blue kine with red and
white spots. Moreover, notwithstanding this wealth of cattle, they are
dependent, if not for their continued existence, at least for their
comfort, on the sacrifices offered by their descendants. The truth is
that “the whole spirit-world is one of haze and uncertainty.”[7.2]
This opinion, expressed by an experienced missionary, {8} is true of
all savage and barbarous nations. It is not merely the doctrine of
souls that is difficult to understand fully and to state clearly: all
the relations with the supernatural are shifting; and the supernatural
itself melts away into mist and gloom and the undefined terrors of
night.
Proof of the mental capacity of peoples in the lower culture, and
their alertness within the narrow range of their appetites, their
bodily needs, and the warfare they wage for existence against untoward
environment of various kinds, is to be found in every record of
exploration, in the reports of every missionary. Beyond that range
there are differences between races, as between individuals, in
reasoning power, in curiosity, and in general development. Some cause
to us unknown may have turned the thoughts of one people into
profounder and subtler channels than those of another. We are told of
two neighbouring tribes in California that their differences are very
striking, and are based on deep-lying racial factors. The mythology of
the one is more dramatic, that of the other is more metaphysical,
exhibiting “more of the power of abstract thought and intellectual
conception.”[8.1] We must beware of reading too extensive a meaning
into what is after all merely a comparison of characteristics. It is
adduced here for the sole purpose of illustrating the statement that
such differences exist even between tribes that are subject to similar
external influences. In spite of these differences the unanimous
verdict, alike of missionaries and explorers, scientific enquirers and
traders, given with tiresome iteration, is that of dormant faculties,
want of interest, inability to follow a train of thought, and dislike
of intellectual effort. These are qualities that we are sufficiently
familiar {9} with at home to render them fully credible in “the poor
heathen.” Ask a man anywhere--ask a Zulu, ask an English peasant--why
such and such a thing is done. He will tell you: “It is the custom,”
and will look at you with wondering eyes that you can demand a reason
or dream of any alternative as possible. Custom to him is more than a
second nature. It is nature itself, the established order, the cosmos.
To conceive of departure from it would entail a greater burden of
thought than he has ever undertaken or would willingly bear. It may
even be so much a part of his existence that, like the Korean referred
to above, he is barely conscious of it.
In such a case the custom may be denied in perfect good faith.
Sometimes, it is true, another cause may lead to the denial. This is
well illustrated in a recent work on the Holy Land. The author,
speaking of local variations of custom, says: “The small area in which
peculiar customs occur, and the comparative isolation of these areas
which still prevails, make it often extremely difficult to ascertain
local customs and usages. Many of these can only be discovered
accidentally or by long residence in the particular locality. The
people of neighbouring villages may be quite unaware of the existence
of a certain custom, while only a few miles away it may be very
familiar. I have known intelligent, educated natives to be entirely
ignorant of certain customs, and even to deny their existence, because
they were not in vogue in their own particular district, whereas
further enquiry or fuller acquaintance with other parts revealed the
fact that they were perfectly familiar to others.”[9.1] Here the
expression “intelligent, educated natives” must be interpreted of
course by reference to the standard {10} of intelligence and education
in the rural parts of a country so backward as Palestine. In such a
case the ignorance by natives described as intelligent and educated of
customs quite different from, and perhaps opposed to, their own may be
due to the concentration of their faculties in the struggle for daily
needs, or the absorption of their interests in the concerns of their
own little community. Millions of men and women in our country, who
may be fairly described, by reference to their class and occupation,
as “intelligent, educated natives,” are quite ignorant--and supremely
indifferent--about everything not pertaining to their material
well-being, their habitual amusements, the affairs of their little
town, their family or their church, or the latest scandal whispered in
their tiny coterie. These fill up their life; they have neither
leisure nor inclination to worry about anything beyond. We cannot,
therefore, be surprised that where the facilities for communication
are smaller and the general indigence greater, similar mental
indolence may exist. Economic causes, the product themselves of the
environment, are often responsible for internal conditions, and cannot
be disentangled from them. Intelligent curiosity about things not
immediately or apparently affecting ourselves is a rare virtue, and of
late development. We ourselves often deem that we pay it abundant
homage by witnessing the exhibition of a few lantern slides, or
slumbering tranquilly through a lecture on Dante. But to it, if
rightly and strenuously pursued, we owe how much of modern discovery
and the amenities of civilization! Let us, however, return to our
savages.
Of the Nootkas or Ahts of Vancouver Island we are told by Sproat in a
passage that has often been quoted that he “had abundant proof in
conversing with them about matters in which they took an interest,
that their mental {11} capacities are by no means small. It is true
that the native mind, to an educated man, seems generally to be
asleep; and if you suddenly ask a novel question, you have to repeat
it while the mind of the savage is awaking, and to speak with emphasis
until he has got your meaning. This may partly arise from the
questioner’s imperfect knowledge of the language; still, I think, not
entirely, as the savage may be observed occasionally to become
forgetful when voluntarily communicating information. On his attention
being fully aroused he often shows much quickness in reply and
ingenuity in argument. But a short conversation wearies him,
particularly if questions are asked that require efforts of thought or
memory on his part. The mind of the savage then appears to rock to and
fro out of mere weakness, and he tells lies and talks
nonsense.”[11.1] On this Professor Boas, the distinguished American
anthropologist, comments thus: “I happen to know through personal
contact the tribes mentioned by Sproat. The questions put by the
traveller seem mostly trifling to the Indian; and he naturally soon
tires of a conversation carried on in a foreign language, and one in
which he finds nothing to interest him. As a matter of fact, the
interest of those natives can easily be raised to a high pitch, and I
have often been the one who was wearied out first. Neither does the
management of their intricate system of exchange prove mental
inertness in matters which concern the natives. Without mnemonic aids,
they plan the systematic distribution of their property in such a
manner as to increase their wealth and social position. These plans
require great foresight and constant application.”[11.2]
So far as this comment is directed to depreciate the {12} value of
Sproat’s estimate of the mental powers of the Nootkas, I cannot think
that Professor Boas has been quite fair to the writer. Sproat was no
passing traveller, speaking to the natives in a foreign language, and
jotting down superficial impressions derived from hasty observation.
He had “lived among them and had a long acquaintanceship with them.”
He was a settler, and for five years a colonial magistrate in constant
contact with several of their tribes. His own account of his method of
collecting information and the substance of his book are conclusive as
to his painstaking researches; and Professor Boas himself elsewhere
bears testimony to his trustworthiness.[12.1] Moreover, a comparison
of the quotations renders it clear that on the whole they confirm one
another. Probably, however, Professor Boas’ criticism is intended to
apply not so much to Sproat’s statements as to the use made of them by
Herbert Spencer and other theorists. It comes to this, therefore, that
the Nootka’s mental capacity is considerable, his mind is alert and
active on subjects that interest him, but that he is not interested in
many of those on which an anthropologist desires to learn, and hence
he speedily becomes “bored” and answers at random.
The horizon of savage interests among the neighbouring Dene or Ten’a
of the Yukon Valley is thus defined by an experienced missionary: “The
activity of their minds is commonly confined within a narrow circle,
as is evidenced by their favourite subjects of conversation. Food,
hunting and fishing, with their attendant circumstances, family
happenings, health and disease, devils and their actions, sexual
propensities--such are the topics which practically sum up the
encyclopædia of their conversation.” “The {13} Ten’a mind,” he says
in another place, “is anything but speculative, and its imaginative
powers have not been turned to building theories of its belief, but
rather to excogitate a variety of ways whereby this belief
perseveringly asserts itself.” The native’s “dogmas are very nebulous
and undefined, and he has never heard them explicitly formulated, nor
even attempted to state them distinctly to himself.” Consequently,
“whereas there is a certain uniformity in the practices, and an
overabundance of them, there are very few points of belief common to
several individuals, and these are of the vaguest kind.”[13.1]
If we turn to an entirely different race, the same features present
themselves. The capacity of the Bantu peoples of the Lower Congo for
the intellectual acts of perception, recognition, memory, and so
forth, is well developed and appears early in childhood. “In this
respect the natives are much on a par with the civilized races; but
the limit is reached early in life, and but little mental progress is
observable after adolescence is reached. The ideas are mostly of the
simpler forms, seldom passing the concretes of actual experience,
generalizations being as a rule beyond their power. Association of
ideas, though good as implied by good memory, only takes place in the
concrete form of contiguity in time and space as actually already
perceived; analogies are confined to the crudest forms, and a very
simple figure of speech is apt to be unintelligible.… The
fundamental act of intelligence, the intuition of likeness and
unlikeness, is very circumscribed; and high acts of intellect are
thereby negatived.… An accompanying trait is the absence of rational
surprise. On seeing something new a vacant wonder is all that is
observable; and this is very transient, and the {14} new experience is
classified as ‘white man’s fashion.’ It almost follows as a matter of
course that there is no curiosity, no wish to enquire into the cause
of a novel experience; it never occurs to the native that there is a
cause of the novelty or an explanation required. In like manner there
is almost total absence of theorizing about natural phenomena.” In
fact, the relation of cause and effect in all but the most patent and
mechanical cases is said to be beyond his grasp.[14.1] In general
terms this description may stand for all the Bantu, due allowance
being made, as pointed out above, for individual and tribal
differences.
The natural result is vagueness on all religious and metaphysical
subjects. This is a characteristic of savages all over the world. Nor
is it limited by any means to them. Recent investigations have
established the evolution of some at least of the majestic figures of
the Olympian Pantheon from not merely rude but vague and nameless
personalities; and to the very end of Hellenic religion, unknown gods
and dim, indefinite heroes continued to be honoured not merely in
every country place, but in Athens herself. The Arabs of Moab have
professed for many generations the religion of the Prophet. Yet they
have the feeblest apprehension of that great Allah in whom they are
supposed to believe. When questioned on his nature, his abode, his
occupation, they usually answer: “We do not know.” One of them told a
missionary: “It is said that Allah is like an old man with a white
beard, but I do not know where he dwells; it is asserted that he is
above,” pointing to the sky. They also honour numerous beings called
by the generic name of _Wely_ (protector or friend), who are
identified with rocks, trees, and other holy places. Even of these,
however, {15} their ideas are obscure. Like the local hero of the
Greeks, the _Wely_ is not as a rule individualized with a personal
name. Who he is in most cases is unknown. His exact connection with
the spot where he is honoured is equally unknown. Some Arabs say that
it is he who gives vigour to the sacred tree; others declare that he
dwells beneath it, or that he dwells in the branches and the leaves;
but Allah knows.[15.1] And the pious reference to Allah and his
knowledge is sufficient for the Arab.
The fact is that on these subjects the majority of the human race,
whether savage or civilized, think little. Their minds are seldom
excited to the point of reasoning on their beliefs. They accept what
they are told, and do not even know whether they believe it or not,
because they have never reflected upon it. One has only to talk for a
few minutes to a peasant at home to find out how narrow the border of
his knowledge is, how misty and uncertain is everything beyond the
routine of his daily life and the village gossip and amusements,
unless where in the neighbourhood of a town the supreme interests of
football open to him a prospect into another world. Gossip,
amusements, his daily bread are subjects of importance; they fill his
horizon; on them his views are perfectly definite. Nor does he differ
in this respect from people who are looked upon as his social
superiors. It would be making too strenuous a demand upon their
intellectual life to expect them to rise above the markets, the
newspaper, the latest novel, the county cricket-score, and the
problems of golf and bridge. All the rest they are content to leave to
their professional advisers, who in nine cases out of ten, if the
truth must be told, have as little taste or capacity as themselves for
metaphysical speculation, historical research or theological enquiry,
and {16} are bound as tightly in the cords of tradition as the far
more imaginative Zulu medicine-man, or the Eskimo wizard. For the
average man in civilization appraises the subjects of thought no
otherwise than does his brother in savagery. Each alike is eminently
practical. Something done, or to be done, by himself or others is what
interests him. Some personal gain, some bodily pleasure--for this he
will think and think hard; all other mental exertion must be easy and
short. Nor could the human race exist on any other terms.
Still further difficulties beset the enquirer into the beliefs of the
lower culture. On the threshold is that of language. To be sure that
you have grasped the real meaning of your savage friend you must be
able to talk his language as he talks it himself--and even then you
may be mistaken. “When there is no certain medium of communication,”
says Bishop Codrington, writing of the Melanesians, “when a native
interpreter who speaks a little broken English is employed to ask
questions and to return the answers, nothing can be depended on as
certain which is received. To be able to use some European word, or
word supposed to be English, to describe a native practice or to
convey a native belief, is to have an easy means of giving
information; and so among the islands ‘plenty devil’ is the
description given of a sacred spot, and ‘_tevoro_’ (devil) in Fiji has
become the common appellation of the native ghosts or spirits.
Supposing, again, that the enquirer is able to communicate pretty
freely on ordinary subjects in the language of any island, he will
surely find himself baffled when any one of the elder people
undertakes to give him information. The vocabulary of ordinary life is
almost useless when the region of mysteries and superstitions is
approached.”[16.1]
{17}
The use of the word “devil,” universal in and around Melanesia when
speaking in pigeon English of the native mysteries and the objects of
the native cult or fear, illustrates one of the pitfalls in the path
of the anthropologist. The native ideas do not coincide with ours. The
history, the environment, the social and intellectual condition of
peoples in the lower culture are as diverse from ours as their
geographical situation. Consequently their speech contains no
equivalent for many of our words, even of words that seem to us to
convey ideas elementary and simple. No Australian language possesses a
word which is the exact equivalent of our word “mother.” The word we
roughly equate with “mother” includes a host of other women beside her
who has given birth to the child. Some of these women we should
designate as “aunt,” or as “stepmother”; but many of them stand in no
relation of kinship according to our reckoning. Yet they are all
addressed and spoken of by the same term as the veritable mother.
Kinship, in fact, is counted in the lower culture along lines quite
different from ours; and though it is probable that our degrees of
kindred have evolved from a rudimentary condition similar to that
which we find among savages, we have so far outgrown it that their
reckoning is often unintelligible to us, and only a very few of the
terms in use among European nations remain to point back to an earlier
stage of development. If we have this difficulty in finding
equivalents for terms expressive of the simplest relationships of our
social life, how much greater must be our difficulty when we come to
terms expressive of the mysterious and supersensual relations of man
to the unknown and dimly conceived powers of the universe about him!
We have no word to render the Fijian _mana_, the Siouan _wakan_, the
Malagasy _andria-manitra_. {18} Conversely, scarce a savage language
can render our word “God.” Over and over again missionaries have
sought, and sought in vain, for a native word for the purpose. When
they have fixed upon one, as often as not they have had to confess a
blunder; and many times in despair they have invented a word. The idea
embodied in the acts by which the mysterious relations between man and
the supernatural are emphasized and knit together is equally incapable
of translation by any one vocable. A Roman Catholic missionary,
speaking of the religious assembly of the Creeks of North America,
says: “The _mitewewin_ represents the highest expression of magic
(_maeghiw_ or _maskikiy_) among the nations of the Algonkian stock.
The word, in fact, signifies at the same time labour, occupation,
judgement, adoration, and sacrifice. It is a religious act addressed
to the _powakans_, or animal fetishes, and a sort of Illinoian
freemasonry requiring initiation and inviolable secrecy; it is a
camp-meeting…; it is the grand council of an entire nation.”[18.1]
These sentences afford an excellent example of the difficulty of
translating the native ideas into English words. They unite a brave
and more or less successful attempt to convey the notion of
_mitewewin_, with incidental but none the less certain failures in the
cases of _maeghiw_ or _maskikiy_ and _powakan_. For none of them would
a single English word, or even a phrase, be adequate.
The opportunity of blundering in the endeavour to understand and
report the beliefs and usages of the lower races is obviously as great
as could be desired. When to the various causes enumerated above is
added not merely the conscious want of sympathy on the part of the
observer, but his unconscious prejudice in favour of {19} certain
interpretations derived from the civilized and the specifically
Christian notions in which he has been brought up from his youth, the
wonder is not that so many mistakes have been made, but that we have
on the whole succeeded in obtaining so large a mass of fairly
trustworthy information. Even that of which we are the best assured,
however, must be used with caution. It must be criticized, checked
with other accounts of the same or neighbouring tribes; and allowance
must be made for the personal equation of the observer. The use of a
word like _worship_, _spirit_, or _God_, which connotes to us very
different ideas from those connoted to the native mind by the native
word thus translated, must put us at once on our guard. Fancied
resemblances between the myths, heard perhaps at second-hand and only
half-understood, and some story, Biblical or other, known to the
reporter, and the expectation of finding in savage tradition some
fragment of divine revelation have proved real Will-o’-the-wisps to
the unwary. Nor must we forget that things actually seen are also
liable to be misinterpreted. Captain John Smith, in writing of
Virginia, describes as a human sacrifice--a sacrifice of
children--what seems to have been no more than the ceremony of
initiation into manhood.[19.1] It is true that his account was
written three hundred years ago, and that he was not allowed to
witness the whole performance. But after all our subsequent experience
and accumulation of records, nothing is harder even yet than to
determine the meaning of ceremonies and institutions, often carefully
examined and minutely described by skilled eyewitnesses and scientific
explorers.
We may go further still. Where the observer puts aside his prejudices,
where he is animated by true sympathy--not {20} the false and mawkish
sympathy that too often takes its place--where he is able to
communicate with the natives in their own tongue, there is
notwithstanding very often a difficulty in following their ideas. We
have been told of the Andaman Islanders that “with these, as with
other savages, it is vain to expect them to understand the logical
conclusions to which their beliefs tend.”[20.1] That may be because
they have never thought them out. In the majority of cases it would
probably be juster to say that their logic follows a different course,
their ideas run in different channels, from ours. After conceding
everything that has been said with perfect truth as to their
vagueness, their indolence of mind on subjects not concerned with
their daily life, and their dislike of intellectual effort, there
remains the fact that they are human; they do reason, albeit after
their own fashion. Language among the higher races has been trained
and tortured during many centuries to express the highest thoughts of
the highest thinkers; and how inadequate an instrument has it often
been found! It must therefore not surprise us if the thought of races
in the lower culture occasionally surpasses a language not yet
exercised and adapted to the complicated processes of ideation and
ratiocination. Thus not merely is it difficult or impossible to
translate native words by English equivalents, as I have already
pointed out: the native finds it not easy to translate his thoughts
into his own tongue. When he has struggled with more or less success
to effect this, his course of thought is so widely different from ours
that we can hardly believe in its coherence.
The objects of thought, alike among savages and among ourselves, fall
into categories. Many of these categories manifest themselves in the
very fibre of language. A {21} familiar illustration is the curious
distinctions of grammatical gender, so different even in different
languages sprung from a common stock, and those comparatively simple,
as are the Aryan tongues of civilization. When we refer to the
languages of the lower culture, with their minute distinctions of
number and person, of action, tense, and all sorts of relations of
time and place, we are overwhelmed by their complexity and puzzled by
the oddness of their grouping. Categories of another kind become
visible when we attempt to push our explorations further into savage
thought. The counting of kinship and the difficulties attending the
attempt to translate words expressive of religious ideas have already
been mentioned. In the totemism of Australia the totems are classes of
animals or other objects not merely united by some mystic bond to one
or other class of tribesmen; they are related to other objects of
human environment in such a way that the whole universe is shared
among them. To us these relationships are strange and inexplicable;
they form categories that we do not understand. To the native these
categories are familiar by immemorial association; they have become
part of the texture of his mind; and thereby they have acquired
emotional values, from the bonds of which he can hardly deliver
himself. So it seems that the West African Bantu comprise their entire
social system, every activity of their mental and physical life, and
every aspect of the external universe under a limited number of
categories wholly alien to our modes of thought. Hints of them are
perhaps to be found in the various classes of Bantu nouns that have
not yet been fully explained by philologists. In any case the
classification of these nouns is probably no arbitrary association of
purely formal significance. It is based on some archaic experience,
which has grouped {22} together various objects often to us utterly
dissimilar: the connecting links escape us.[22.1] Among other peoples
in parts of the earth remote from one another categories have been
discovered associating and dissociating acts and modes of feeling, and
apportioning their environment in unexpected ways. Such categories
must react on mentality to an extent that we can hardly measure. They
form part of the traditional presuppositions of thought. They are the
framework in which ideas are grouped. We, who have gradually
elaborated and established through generations of increasing discovery
and invention a habit of regarding everything from a more or less
scientific standpoint, have acquired a series of presuppositions of an
entirely different character. To the educated classes of Europe and
America they in their turn have become traditional. They are the
axioms from which we argue. Every new experience must be fitted into
the framework thus supplied, otherwise we cannot logically interpret
it. At the best we may make for it what has been wittily called a
watertight compartment. Men of the lower culture brought suddenly into
contact with civilization and civilized ideas experience a
corresponding difficulty. Missionaries are often in despair over their
converts’ relapses. These relapses are occasioned not merely by the
difference of moral atmosphere, but quite as much by the intellectual
abyss between savagery and civilization. Christianity and
heathenism--the new and the old--are jumbled together in the convert’s
mind. His traditional modes of thought are as little changed as his
outward environment, and the new ideas are incongruous with them. The
result is chaos. So the civilized enquirer into savage belief is
constantly brought up in what seems {23} a blind alley. He cannot find
the way out, not because there is not a logical issue, but because the
landscape is unfamiliar. He attempts to adapt the thoughts of the
savage, so far as he has seized them, to his own totally different
mental framework; and they are refractory. Not until the effort is
abandoned, and patient, unprejudiced search has discovered the true
pattern of the puzzle, will it be solved.
For it needs a considerable apprenticeship to enable the observer, in
Miss Kingsley’s phrase, to “think black,” to understand the logic of
“black” thought, and accurately, or at least approximately, to
reproduce its process and aims. When we are told, therefore, by a
writer whom I cited a few pages back that the relation of cause and
effect in all but the most patent and mechanical cases is beyond the
grasp of the West African Bantu, that statement must be taken with
some qualification. It should be explained that it is the relation of
cause and effect according to our ideas and our reasoning that is
beyond the native grasp, because our axioms are unknown to him; he
reasons from quite another set of logical presuppositions. To change
the figure, he is a child, but a child familiar only with what we deem
a topsy-turvy world, though it is the same world from which we
ourselves emerged long ago. If we would comprehend him we must
painfully climb down into that world again, breathe its air,
familiarize ourselves with its scenes of wonder and of terror, and
make intimate companions of all its strange inhabitants. Thus and thus
only can we recover the clue that will lead us safely through the
shadowy forests and haunted valleys and over the primeval
mountain-tops of native thought. Then we shall find that the savage is
not so irrational as we have thought him, and that in his wildest
divergence from our {24} methods of reasoning he has a method of his
own--a method followed once upon a time by our own ancestors, a method
from which the peasantry of many a European country is not yet wholly
emancipated.
This is to “think black.” It is not everybody who can do it: it
requires more sympathy and insight than are given to all men. Above
all, it requires patience, long and close contact with the native, and
the persistent and self-abandoning endeavour to penetrate his
thoughts. Some missionaries have achieved it, some travellers, some
traders, some colonists, some government officials. Too many of them,
alas! have only skimmed the surface of the native mind. Even the
latter, however, though they have failed to read the underlying
meaning of what they saw, have sometimes taught us what to look for.
To that extent the modern school of anthropology is founded on their
observations. The training now given in anthropology at the
universities and elsewhere utilizes and criticizes the reports of all
observers, as well as the conclusions drawn from them by
anthropologists at home. That training is of material assistance in
fitting new labourers out for fresh fields of enquiry, or for working
over again those fields which have been hitherto imperfectly reaped by
ill-equipped enquirers. In some measure it supplies the place of
longer preliminary intercourse with the man of lower culture; and it
has the advantage that it teaches the student what kind of phenomenon
to expect--an advantage perhaps not unaccompanied by dangers of its
own.
Be that as it may, the information of all kinds, good, bad, and
indifferent, already at our service on the subject of the religions of
the lower culture has been and is still being subjected to ruthless
comparison and criticism. The result of this constant sifting is to
put us in {25} possession of a considerable body of material for a
sane judgement in regard to some of the beliefs of tribes in various
parts of the world and to help us forward on the track of others. We
no longer summarily deny the possession of religion to tribes whose
practices we do not understand. We no longer attempt to docket beliefs
imperfectly apprehended under headings applicable only to the highly
developed and literary theology of Europe. We lie under a more
insidious temptation--that of the too rapid generalization of the
beliefs of the lower culture, for which the groundwork may not as yet
exist. But we are learning the lesson that only by unwearied
investigation, diligent observation, sympathetic enquiry without
prepossession, can we attain to a real grasp of the protean ideas and
half-formulated speculations of savage minds.
THE RELATIONS OF RELIGION
AND MAGIC
{26}
I. The Common Root
Thus forewarned of the difficulties and dangers of our path, let us
proceed to enquire whether there are any general ideas relating to
religion disseminated among men in the lower stages of culture, that
either are themselves primitive, or can have been derived from an
earlier condition of thought discoverable by us.
The religious practices of savage and barbarous peoples are largely
based upon ideas which anthropologists have agreed to group together
under the comprehensive title of animism. Animism is, to quote Sir
Edward Tylor, who was the first to investigate the subject and to use
the word in this sense, “the groundwork of the philosophy of religion,
from that of savages up to that of civilized man.”[26.1] As he uses
the word, it expresses the doctrine which attributes a living and
often a separable soul--a soul in any case distinct from the
body--alike to human beings, to the lower animals and plants, and even
to inanimate objects. Let us note, however, that this soul is not
necessarily immaterial. The refined conception of the soul, which we
have received from the Greek philosophers, belongs not to the savage.
To him, as to the average man of civilization, the notion of an
absolutely immaterial being would seem to be unthinkable. At all {27}
events it has hardly occurred to him. The soul, to him, may be thin as
a vapour, oftentimes invisible as the air; at other times it takes a
visible and even tangible form. So far as it is connected with what we
know as a living body, the ordinary, familiar form and substance, it
is the principle of life. But it is capable of existing independently
of the body, at least for a time. The body, on the other hand, is also
capable of continuing to exist, and even to live, though not in full
health and vigour, for a time without the soul; but a lengthened
separation usually means death. This, without taking account of
details varying from culture to culture and people to people, may be
described as the outline of the savage doctrine of the soul, reduced
as nearly as may be into the terms in which we think. Beyond this, and
probably as a development of it, is the belief in spirits, beings
frequently vague and shadowy, sometimes regarded as more substantial,
sometimes inhabiting objects and persons known and definite, at other
times unattached, but in all cases of more or less power, which may be
exercised to the advantage or to the detriment of their human fellows,
or perhaps subordinates. The distinction between spirits and gods is
not very easy to formulate, and need not for our present purpose
trouble us.
Animism thus conceived is, it is obvious, too complex and elaborate to
be really primitive. It appears to be itself derived from a simpler
and earlier conception, whereby man attributes to all the objects of
external nature life and personality. In other words, the external
world is first interpreted by the savage thinker in the terms of his
own consciousness; animism, or the distinction of soul and body, is a
development necessitated by subsequent observation and the train of
reasoning which that observation awakens.
{28}
Primitive man is so far away from us, not merely in time but in
thought, that we find it difficult to imagine his attempts to grapple
with the interpretation of external phenomena. What waves of desire,
of curiosity, of wonder, of awe, of terror, of hope, of bewilderment
must have rolled through the sluggish dawn of his intellect! As he
struggled in his little communities (tiny by comparison with ours)
with the evolution of speech, how did those various and perhaps
ill-defined emotions come to utterance? He was not naturally
speculative. Savage man even now is not, as a rule, speculative,
though, as we have seen in the preceding essay, observers who have had
opportunities of comparison have noted differences in this respect
between one people and another. Everything primitive man saw,
everything he heard or felt must have struck his mind primarily in
relation to himself--or rather to the community (the food-group, as it
has been called), of which the individual formed a part, to its
dangers and its needs. The personal element would dominate his
thoughts, and must have found expression in his words. As a matter of
fact, it forms everywhere the basis of language. Hence it was
impossible for man to interpret external phenomena in any other than
personal terms. This necessity may have been an inheritance from a
pre-human stage, since there is reason to think that the lower animals
project their own sensations to other animals, and even to objects
without life. Yet to fix the objective personalities that primitive
man thought he saw and felt about him must have taken time and
observation. Not all objects claimed his attention in the same degree
or with the same insistence. Some would stand out aggressively, would
fill him with a sense of power manifested in ways that seemed
analogous with his own. Others would long remain comparatively
unregarded, {29} until something happened which aroused his interest.
His attitude was first of all and intensely practical, not
contemplative. His fellow-men, the animals he hunted, the trees whose
branches he saw waving in the breeze, the sun and moon overhead going
their daily rounds--to all these he would early attach significance:
they would easily yield the personal quality. But what of the pools,
the hills, the rocks, and so forth? There must have been many things
that long abode in the twilight of perception--many things upon which
reflection was not yet concentrated. The North American Indian lays a
tribute of tobacco at the foot of any strange rock whose form strikes
him as he goes by, or strews his gift upon the waters of the lake or
stream that bears his canoe. On the top of every pass in the
Cordilleras of South America and of every pass in the mountains of
China the native leaves a token still more trivial. It may be that his
earliest forefather, who set the example of such an offering, did so
without any definite conception of a personality behind the
phenomenon, but, smitten by fear or awe, simply sought, by the means
familiar to him in the case of known personal beings, to conciliate
whatever power might lurk beneath an unwonted form. And although a
comparatively definite conception of a personality might in time
crystallize, to be transformed later by the evolution of animism into
the idea of a spirit, yet there must always have remained, after all
these crystallizations, the vague and formless Unknown, confronted in
all its more prominent manifestations through the medium of an
undefined dread of power which might at any time be revealed from it.
In this relation of the personal and the impersonal lies, as it seems
to me, the secret of primitive philosophy, if philosophy it may be
called, all un-selfconscious as {30} it must have been. There is no
written record of man’s earliest guesses at the meaning of the
universe. Whatever they were, they were limited to his immediate
surroundings and the relation of these surroundings to himself. We
must judge of them as they are represented in the beliefs and actions
of modern, or at all events much later, savages and in those of great
historic nations. For all scientific enquirers are agreed that the
history of the human mind has been that of a slow evolution from
something lower than the lowest savagery known to-day, that it has not
everywhere evolved in the same way or to the same degree, and that the
course it has taken has left traces, discoverable by close inspection,
upon every mental product and in every civilization throughout the
world. The testimony on which we have to rely in the investigation is
of the most various value, and often most difficult of interpretation.
Its difficulties and defects have already been touched upon; nor do I
propose further to consider them now. The minute examination and
relentless criticism to which it has been subjected have revealed its
weakness; they have also revealed its strength. They have left a solid
body of evidence from which we may cautiously but confidently reason.
What can we learn from it on the point under discussion?
The first thing to be noticed is the fluidity of the savage concept of
personality. It is not confined within the bounds of one stable and
relatively unchangeable body. You may quite easily be transformed,
like the hero of Apuleius’ tale, into an ass. Your next-door
neighbour, for whom you have the profoundest respect as a prosperous
man of business and a churchwarden of exemplary piety, may startle you
some morning with a sudden change into a noisy little street-arab, not
a tenth {31} of his own portly dimensions, turning a wheel all down
his garden path, or into a melancholy cow cropping a bare pittance of
grass from his closely trimmed lawn. He and his magnificent wife may
even become, like Philemon and Baucis, an oak and a lime-tree before
your eyes, or a pair of standing stones upon the moor. None of these
metamorphoses would be accounted impossible by peoples in the lower
culture. To them the essential incident of the tale of Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde would be mere commonplace. The personality which they have
known running in one mould can, in their opinion, be directed into,
and will run as freely in, another mould, and yet be the same. So hard
do such archaic beliefs die, that in remote parts of our own country
it is still firmly believed that a witch may assume the form of a
hare, and if any bold sportsman succeed in wounding the animal, the
injury will afterwards be found on the witch’s proper person,
testifying beyond dispute to the preservation of her individuality
under the temporary change of shape and species.
Shape-shifting, as it is called, may even take place by means of death
and a new birth without loss of identity. Miss Kingsley tells us that
in West Africa “the new babies as they arrive in the family are shown
a selection of small articles belonging to deceased members whose
souls are still absent: the thing the child catches hold of identifies
him. ‘Why, he’s Uncle John; see! he knows his own pipe’; or ‘That’s
Cousin Emma; see! she knows her market calabash,’ and so on.”[31.1]
This belief and corresponding practices are found over a large part of
the world. Nor is it necessary that the deceased should be born again
in human form, or even of the same sex. A group of tribes in Central
Australia {32} have elaborated the doctrine of re-birth to an unusual
degree. Two of the tribes, the Warramunga and Urabunna, definitely
hold, if we may trust our authorities, that the sex changes with each
successive birth.[32.1] A Mongolian tale relates that a certain
Khotogait prince, having been beheaded for conspiracy against the
Chinese Emperor, twice reappeared as a child of the Empress, and was
identified by the cicatrice on his neck. Both children were destroyed,
and he was then born as a hairless bay mare, whose hide is still
preserved.[32.2] In the same way, fish, fruit, worms, stones, any
object indeed, may, if it can once (no matter how) enter the body of
a woman, be born again and become human. As developed by animism, the
doctrine of a new birth has become what we know as that of the
Transmigration of Souls, which has played a part in more religions and
more philosophies than one.[32.3]
Moreover, detached portions of the person, as locks of hair, parings
of finger-nails, and so forth, are not dead inert matter. They are
still endued with the life of their original owner. Nay, garments once
worn, or other objects which have been in intimate contact with a
human being, are penetrated by his personality, remain as it were
united with him for good and ill. It would be no exaggeration to say
of this belief that it is universal. Upon it rests much of the
practice of witchcraft, as well as of the medicine of the lower
culture. The cleft ash through which a child has been drawn for the
cure of infantile hernia, bound up and allowed to grow together,
continues to sympathize with him in health and sickness {33} as though
part of his own body. In ancient Greece maidens on their marriage
offered their veils to Hera, the goddess who favoured marriage and
aided childbirth;[33.1] and Athenian women who became pregnant for
the first time used to hang up their girdles in the temple of Artemis.
These customs were not mere acts of homage; they had a practical
intention.
Some votive offerings may perhaps be interpreted as surrogates of
human sacrifice. Others, made when the votary is suffering from
sickness, may be intended to transfer the disease. These explanations
are in many cases very questionable; and a large number of offerings
remain that do not easily submit to be thus explained. The Greek women
just mentioned had no disease to be returned to the custody of the
goddess, ready for another victim. In view of future contingencies
they placed in her care objects identified with themselves; they
brought into physical touch with her a portion of their own
personality. Convergence of more than one rite, similar in outward
form but distinct in origin, has doubtless occurred very often in
human history. But the ambiguity which would follow is not always to
be traced on a careful analysis. It is obvious, at all events, that if
an article of my clothing in a witch’s hands may cause me to suffer
and die, the same article in contact with a beneficent power may
relieve my pain, restore me to health, or promote my general
prosperity. My shirt or stocking, or a shred from it, placed upon a
sacred bush, or thrust into a sacred well--a lock of my hair laid upon
a sacred image--my name written upon the walls of a temple--a stone
from my hand cast upon a sacred cairn--a remnant of my food thrown
into a sacred waterfall or suspended from a sacred tree--a nail {34}
driven by my hand into the trunk of a tree--is thenceforth in
immediate contact with divinity. It is a portion of my personality
enveloped with the sanctity of the divine being; and so long as it
remains there I am myself in contact with the same divine being,
whoever he may be, and derive all the advantages incident to the
contact.
Such beliefs as these are world-wide; they are a commonplace of
anthropology; and it would be waste of time to multiply examples. They
exhibit a concept of personality imperfectly crystallized. It is still
fluid and vague, only to become entirely definite under the influence
of trained reason and larger and more scientific knowledge. But, such
as it is, there is behind and around it the still vaguer, the
unlimited territory of the Impersonal, because the Unknown. Every
object on which the attention has been fixed, every object, therefore,
that may be said to be known, has its own personality--every object,
whether living, or, according to our ideas, not-living. What remains
is the stuff out of which personalities are formed as it is gradually
reduced into relations with the savage observer. These personalities
do not necessarily correspond even to anything objective. They may be
creations of the excited imagination. It is sufficient for the savage
that they seem to be, and to have a relation to himself which he
cannot otherwise interpret. His emancipation from this state of mind
is slow, though among some peoples in the lower culture it is more
perceptible than among others. But it leaves its traces
everywhere--there, most of all, where emotion is most acute and
permanent, where hopes and fears are most overwhelming, in the sphere
of religion.
Now every personality is endowed with qualities which enable it to
persist, to influence others, and even to {35} overcome, subjugate,
and destroy them for its own ends. No more than ourselves could the
primeval savage avoid being influenced and often overmatched by the
charm and wiles of woman, the wisdom of the elders of his horde, the
dauntless might of the warrior. The non-human personalities with which
he came in contact possessed qualities not less remarkable than those
of the human. The strength, the fierceness, the agility of the lion,
the speed of the antelope, the cunning of the fox, the lofty forms and
endurance of the forest trees, their response to every breath of wind,
and the kindly shelter they yielded to birds and beasts and men, the
fantastic forms and stern patience of the rocks, the smooth and
smiling treachery of the lake, the gentle murmur and benign largess of
the river, the splendour, the burning heat of the sun, the
changeableness and movement of the clouds are a few of the more
obvious qualities attached to the myriad personalities with which men
found themselves environed. These personalities and their qualities
would impress them all the more because of the mystery that
perpetually masked them. Mystery magnified them. Hence every non-human
personality was apt to be conceived in larger than human terms, and
its qualities were larger than human.
I do not pause here to adduce illustrations of this attitude towards
the objects surrounding mankind. In any event it would of course be
impossible to illustrate it from prehistoric, not to say primeval,
ages. It is characteristic of modern savages wherever an intimate
acquaintance enables the civilized observer to penetrate into their
_arcana_. Some of them have got no further; others have advanced to
the full stage of animism. Reference may be made to any work in which
the life and ideas of a savage tribe are depicted.
{36}
Not merely was every personality, human and other, endowed with
qualities, but by virtue of those qualities it possessed a
potentiality and an atmosphere of its own. The successful warrior and
huntsman by more than his successes, by his confidence and his brag,
his readiness to quarrel and his vindictiveness, or the many-wintered
elder, wise and slow to wrath, experienced in war and forestry, of
far-reaching purpose and subtle in execution, would be enshrined in a
belief in his powers, surrounded with a halo of which we still see a
dim, a very dim, reflection in the touching regard entertained for a
political leader or the worship paid to an ecclesiastical dignitary.
Nor would this atmosphere surround only important or successful men.
Everyone is conscious of powers of some sort, and everyone would
attribute to others capabilities larger or smaller. Some would possess
in their own consciousness and in the eyes of their fellows a very
small modicum of power for good or evil. The mere glance or voice of
others would inspire terror or confidence. This potentiality, this
atmosphere would often cling with greater intensity to non-human
beings, objective or imaginary. The snake, the bird, the elephant, the
sun, the invisible wind, the unknown wielder of the lightning, would
be richly endowed. None, human or non-human, would (in theory, at
least) be wholly without it.
The Iroquoian tribes of North America possess a word which exactly
expresses this potentiality, this atmosphere, which they believe
inheres in and surrounds every personality. They call it _orenda_. A
fine hunter is one whose _orenda_ is fine, superior in quality. When
he is successful he is said to baffle or thwart the _orenda_ of the
quarry; when unsuccessful, the game is said to have foiled or
outmatched his _orenda_. A person who defeats {37} another in a game
of skill or chance is said to overcome his _orenda_. “At public games
or contests of skill or endurance, or of swiftness of foot, where clan
is pitted against clan, phratry against phratry, tribe against tribe,
or nation against nation, the _shamans_--men reputed to possess
powerful _orenda_--are employed for hire by the opposing parties
respectively to exercise their _orenda_ to thwart or overcome that of
their antagonists,” and thus secure victory. So, when a storm is
brewing, it (the storm-maker) is said to be preparing its _orenda_;
when it is ready to burst, it has finished, has prepared its _orenda_.
Similar expressions are used for a man or one of the lower animals
when in a rage. A prophet or soothsayer is one who habitually puts
forth his _orenda_, and has thereby learned the secrets of the future.
The _orenda_ of shy birds and other animals which it is difficult to
ensnare or kill is said to be acute or sensitive--that is, in
detecting the presence of the hunter, whether man or beast. Anything
reputed to have been instrumental in obtaining some good or
accomplishing some end is said to possess _orenda_. Of one who, it is
believed, has died from witchcraft it is said, “An evil _orenda_ has
struck him.”[37.1]
Among the Algonkian and Siouan tribes are found beliefs that seem to
go behind this personal but mystic potentiality to its source in the
Unknown, the Impersonal. The Algonkian word expressive of the idea is
_manitou_. The early French missionaries, who were the first to make
it known to us, interpreted it of a personal being--God or the Devil,
they hardly knew which. They were reading into it their own more
highly crystallized beliefs. As in the case of _orenda_, we are
fortunate in having the term more accurately defined for us by a
descendant {38} of the native tribes, who may be presumed to have been
better equipped by inheritance and early associations to understand
Algonkian thought than the Jesuit Fathers were. “The Algonkin
conception of the manitou,” he tells us, “is bound up with the
manifold ideas that flow from an unconscious relation with the outside
world.… The term _manitou_ is a religious word; it carries with it
the idea of solemnity; and whatever the association it always
expresses a serious attitude, and kindles an emotional sense of
mystery.… The essential character of Algonkin religion is a pure,
naïve worship of nature. In one way or another associations cluster
about an object and give it a certain potential value; and because of
this supposed potentiality the object becomes the recipient of an
adoration. The degree of the adoration depends in some measure upon
the extent of confidence reposed in the object, and upon its supposed
power of bringing pleasure or inflicting pain. The important thing
with the individual is the emotional effect experienced while in the
presence of the object, or with an interpreted manifestation of the
object. The individual keeps watch for the effect, and it is the
effect that fills the mind with a vague sense of something strange,
something mysterious, something intangible. One feels it as the result
of an active substance, and one’s attitude toward it is purely
passive. To experience a thrill is authority enough of the existence
of the substance. The sentiment of its reality is made known by the
fact that something has happened. It is futile to ask an Algonkin for
an articulate definition of the substance, partly because it would be
something about which he does not concern himself, and partly because
he is quite satisfied with only the sentiment of its existence. He
feels that the property is everywhere, is omnipresent. The feeling
that it is {39} omnipresent leads naturally to the belief that it
enters into everything in nature; and the notion that it is active
causes the mind to look everywhere for its manifestations. These
manifestations assume various forms; they vary with individuals and
with reference to the same and different objects.
“Language affords means of approaching nearer to a definition of this
religious sentiment. In the Algonkin dialects of the Sauk, Fox, and
Kickapoo, a rigid distinction of gender is made between things with
life and things without life.… Accordingly, when they refer to the
manitou in the sense of a virtue, a property, an abstraction, they
employ the form expressive of inanimate gender. When the manitou
becomes associated with an object, then the gender becomes less
definite.…
“When the property becomes the indwelling element of an object, then
it is natural to identify the property with animate being. It is not
necessary that the being shall be the tangible representative of a
natural object.” This the writer illustrates from the account given by
a Fox Indian of the sweat-lodge, in the course of which he observes:
“The manitou comes from the place of his abode in the [heated] stone,
… when the water is sprinkled on it. It comes out in the steam, and
in the steam it enters the body wherever it finds entrance. It moves
up and down and all over inside the body, driving out everything that
inflicts pain. Before the manitou returns to the stone it imparts some
of its nature to the body. That is why one feels so well after having
been in the sweat-lodge.” The writer’s comment on this is instructive.
“The sentiment,” he says, “behind the words rests upon the
consciousness of a belief in an objective presence; it rests on the
sense of an existing reality with the quality of self-dependence; it
rests on the perception of a definite, {40} localized personality. Yet
at the same time there is the feeling that the apprehended reality is
without form and without feature. This is the dominant notion in
regard to the virtue abiding in the stone of the sweat-lodge; it takes
on the character of conscious personality with some attributes of
immanence and design.”
But further, as the manitou--this mystic, all-pervasive property or
substance--on investing an object acquires conscious personality, so
also “it is natural to confuse the property”--the manitou--“with an
object containing,” or invested with, “the property.” “It is no
trouble for an Algonkin to invest an object with the mystic substance,
and then call the object by the name of the substance. The process
suggests a possible explanation of how an Algonkin comes to people his
world with manitou forces different in kind and degree; it explains in
some measure the supernatural performances of mythological beings, the
beings that move in the form of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and other
objects of nature. All these are a collection of agencies. Each
possesses a virtue in common with all the rest, and in so far do they
all have certain marks of agreement. Where one differs from another is
in the nature of its function, and in the degree of the possession of
the cosmic substance. But the investment of a common mystic virtue
gives them all a common name, and that name is _manitou_.”
The conclusion is “that there is an unsystematic belief in a cosmic
mysterious property which is believed to be existing everywhere in
nature; that the conception of the property can be thought of as
impersonal, but that it becomes obscure and confused when the property
becomes identified with objects in nature; that it manifests itself in
various forms; and that its emotional effect awakens a sense of
mystery; that there is a lively {41} appreciation of its miraculous
efficacy; and that its interpretation is not according to any regular
rule, but is based on one’s feelings rather than on one’s
knowledge.”[41.1]
Whatever differences an exact analysis, in accordance with the clearly
cut methods of scientific thought, may result in discovering between
the concept of _manitou_ as here displayed and the Iroquoian _orenda_,
two resemblances stand out prominently. _Orenda_ is, like _manitou_, a
mystic, or magical--not a natural--quality or potentiality, which
resides in some persons or objects in greater measure than others. And
the fact that it is “held to be the property of all things, all
bodies, and by the inchoate mentation of man is regarded as the
efficient cause of all phenomena, all the activities of his
environment,”[41.2] approximates the conception very closely to that
of _manitou_.
When we turn to the Omaha, a Siouan tribe, we find a concept hardly
distinguishable from that of the Algonkins. Here again we have the
advantage of native help. Mr Francis La Flesche, the son of a former
chief of the tribe, is jointly responsible for an exhaustive monograph
on the Omaha with Miss Alice Fletcher, whose knowledge of this and
neighbouring tribes is among investigators of European descent
unrivalled. We may therefore rely upon their exposition with
confidence equal to that we have given to those already cited on the
Iroquois and the Algonkins. “An invisible and continuous life was
believed,” they tell us, “to permeate all things, seen and unseen.
This life manifests itself in two ways: first, by causing to move--all
motion, all actions of mind or body are because of this invisible
life; second, by causing {42} permanency of structure and form, as in
the rock, the physical features of the landscape, mountains, plains,
streams, rivers, lakes, the animals and man. This invisible life was
also conceived of as being similar to the will-power of which man is
conscious within himself--a power by which all things are brought to
pass. Through this mysterious life and power all things are related to
one another and to man, the seen to the unseen, the dead to the
living, a fragment of anything to its entirety. This invisible life
and power was called _Wakonda_. While it was a vague entity, yet there
was an anthropomorphic colouring to the conception, as is shown in the
prayers offered and the manner in which appeals for compassion and
help were made, also in the ethical quality attributed to certain
natural phenomena--the regularity of night following day, of summer
winter (these were recognized as emphasizing truthfulness as a
dependable quality and set forth for man’s guidance),--and in the
approval by Wakonda of certain ethical actions on the part of
mankind.”[42.1] “There is therefore,” the writers tell us in another
place, “no propriety in speaking of Wakonda as ‘the Great Spirit.’
Equally improper would it be to regard the term as a synonym of
nature, or of an objective god, a being apart from nature. It is
difficult to formulate the native idea expressed in this word. The
European mind demands a kind of intellectual crystallization of
conceptions, which is not essential to the Omaha, and which, when
attempted, is apt to modify the original meaning.” But while the
concept appears to be vague and impersonal, inasmuch as human
conditions were projected upon nature, “certain anthropomorphic
attributes were ascribed to it, approximating to a kind of {43}
personality.” Moreover, “there is a distinction in the Omaha mind
between varying meanings of the word _wakonda_. The Wakonda addressed
in the tribal prayer and in the tribal religious ceremonies which
pertain to the welfare of all the people is _the_ Wakonda that is the
permeating life of visible nature--an invisible life and power that
reaches everywhere and everything, and can be appealed to by man to
send him help. From this central idea of a permeating life comes, on
the one hand, the application of the word _wakonda_ to anything
mysterious or inexplicable, be it an object or an occurrence; and, on
the other hand, the belief that the peculiar gifts of an animate or
inanimate form can be transferred to man. The means by which this
transference takes place is mysterious and pertains to Wakonda, but is
not Wakonda. So the media--the shell, the pebble, the thunder, the
animal, the mythic monster--may be spoken of as wakondas, but they are
not regarded as _the_ Wakonda.”[43.1]
Like the Algonkian _manitou_, the Siouan _wakonda_ is thus seen to
hover between the Personal and the Impersonal, whereas the Iroquoian
_orenda_ clings about persons and things. Yet it is applied in an
adjectival form by various Siouan tribes to medicine-men, to the
sacred pipe, to the sleight-of-hand tricks performed by the
medicine-men or jugglers, and apparently to anyone who displays
unusual qualities or powers. Thus it is used for a man who is
extraordinarily stingy, to a man who has a habit of loud and rapid
speech, to one who is a hard, almost an unmerciful, rider, to a child
who speaks or walks for the first time and has thus manifested a new
and individual power to act. A woman during her menstrual period is
_wakan_; to perform acts of worship is to make _wakan_; the secret
society among the Dakotas {44} which is the depository of their
mysteries is _wakanwacipi_, the sacred dance. In these cases the word
conveys the sense not only of mysterious, powerful, wonderful, but
also of sacred, spiritual, taboo. And a Ponka medicine-man once told
the late J. O. Dorsey, “I am a wakanda.”[44.1]
Equivalent ideas and expressions are used by other American tribes.
Supernatural power impresses the Tlingit, for example, “as a vast
immensity, one in kind and impersonal, inscrutable as to its nature,
but whenever manifesting itself to men, taking a personal, and it
might be said a human personal, form in whatever object it displays
itself. Thus the sky-spirit is the ocean of supernatural energy as it
manifests itself in the sky, the sea-spirit as it manifests itself in
the sea, the bear-spirit as it manifests itself in the bear, the
rock-spirit as it manifests itself in the rock, etc. It is not meant
that the Tlingit consciously reasons this out thus, or formulates a
unity in the supernatural, but such appears to be his unexpressed
feeling. For this reason there is but one name, _yēk_, a name which
is affixed to any specific personal manifestation of it.… This
supernatural energy must be carefully differentiated from natural
energy and never confused with it. It is true that the former is
supposed to bring about results similar to the latter, but in the mind
of the Tlingit the conceived difference between these two is as great
as with us. A rock rolling downhill or an animal running is by no
means a manifestation of supernatural energy, although if something
peculiar be associated with these actions, something outside of the
Indian’s usual experience of such phenomena, they may be thought of as
such.” On the other hand, and here we approach the Iroquoian idea,
“the number of {45} spirits [_yēk_] with which this world was peopled
was simply limitless.… There is said to have been a spirit in every
trail on which one travelled, and one around every fire; one was
connected with everything one did.” The writer whom I am quoting goes
on to give a large number of instances showing that the heavenly
bodies, the wind, the sea, mountains, lakes, trees, animals, in short,
all things, were addressed, to conciliate them, to render them
friendly, to acquire some gift or advantage, were treated with
reverence or with magical intent. And of course the medicine-men or
shamans were the special favourites of the spirits, and were endowed
with power which they often matched against one another.[45.1]
Thus we have in these North American ideas two distinct
conceptions--the possession of what I have called a potentiality or
atmosphere of its own by the individual personality, whether human or
non-human; and the impersonal, mysterious, undefined reservoir of
power in the universe as conceived by the savage. These two
conceptions are not mutually exclusive, for the impersonal power is
often held to be the source of the personal power or potentiality. As
among the American Indian tribes, so elsewhere they are differently
emphasized by different peoples. The Bantu of the Lower Congo basin
emphasize the impersonal conception. According to the Bafiote, the
first ages of the world were ruled by Nzambi, though whether he made
everything seems a matter of doubt. When he retired from active
interference in the concerns of men, he left behind, or sent, or there
remained in the earth, Something. Indeed, it seems to be believed that
Nzambi himself, or his power, his vital and creative energy, is still
in earth and water, in the air, in plants, animals and men. In any
case, the Something remaining {46} on earth since Nzambi’s outward and
visible departure is or has _Lunyēnsu_. The concept of _Lunyēnsu_ is
that of natural force, vital energy, power of increase, in short, the
All-ruling, the Highest, that penetrates every living thing. It is not
life, but an activity bound up with life, its manifestation, its
condition. A crippled limb does not possess it, and with death it
ceases entirely, it is gone. The Something, however, which either is
or has _Lunyēnsu_ is even wider than this. It is represented by
_Bu-nssi_ (probably the older name) or _Mkissi-nssi_. The latter means
the supernatural or magical power of the earth, and seems to be due to
the later overgrowth of fetishism. The former conveys the idea of the
force, the energy of earth. In any case it is not to be confounded
with fetish-power, for it is revered as fetish-power is not, nor with
the earth-spirit, for the Bafiote know no elemental spirits. It must
be conceived as the terrestrial energy, the all-permeating creative
force, the all-wielding, the fertility, the becoming. Hence there is a
sacredness attaching to the earth; and connected as the earth is with
the idea of fecundity and the operations of agriculture, and as it is
an inseparable condition of life, these all form a foundation for the
right to the soil, for hospitality and the relations of the sexes. The
indefiniteness of _Bu-nssi_ is shown by the fact that the natives
themselves are not agreed whether it is one or many. In fact, in the
use of its synonym, _Mkissi_, the plural form--and what is
significant, the plural personal form--is often heard. Opinion wavers
as the needs or the excitement of the moment may demand, or perhaps as
tradition wavers with changing mental environment. But those who claim
the older faith or the deeper insight adhere to the statement that
there is but one _Mkissi-nssi_, even _Bu-nssi_.
Thus the conception of _Bu-nssi_ roughly corresponds {47} with that of
the reservoir of power we have already found among the Omaha and other
tribes. On the other hand, the Bafiote hold that everything in nature
has its peculiar property, everything is pervaded by forces. All
things influence one another by visible deeds of power or in
secret-wise. Hence are evolved manifold relations, among which the
most important for man are those that extend to his person. The effect
of physical forces is obvious. But experience teaches that there are
other forces that are efficacious, although the process is not always
understood. Such forces as these act without immediate and perceptible
contact. So at least the wise men believe, and they act accordingly.
How it happens they do not bother their heads. It is so, and that is
enough. If it were otherwise they could not explain the events that
happen. Here is, in something more than germ, the Iroquoian _orenda_.
But the more sensual Bafiote, whether from their own nature and social
organization, or from the tropical environment in which they live, are
preoccupied with the relations of the various forces thus permeating
all things. These forces are misused. Prudence and activity, strength
of limb and skill do not suffice; far too much evil occurs among them.
The Bafiote are obsessed, like all the African peoples, with the idea
of witchcraft. They must be protected against it. Power is therefore
matched against power, spell against spell. If there were not
thoroughly wicked men who sought openly or secretly to injure others,
fetishes would hardly be needed. By the use of fetishes they seek to
master the forces of which on every side they see indications, and to
make them their own. Fetishes are not gods. There is nothing
spiritual, nothing independent of men, about them. They are material
objects, fabricated by art, so as to embody forces working by
mysterious means for the aid {48} or injury of men. The destruction of
the fetish involves the annihilation of the forces it embodies,
whereas the existence of a god is in nowise imperilled by the
destruction of his image. In short, fetishes are magical instruments.
Yet such is the inveterate anthropomorphism of mankind that they do
acquire a quasi-personal character, and tend to be thought of as
individual and conscious beings. But they are never worshipped; the
Fiote has no gods. He has only fetishes, the incorporation of powers
and energies he sees acting around him everywhere. By that
incorporation these powers and energies are appropriated for his
benefit, for his particular ends, or for the ends and benefit of the
society of which he is a member.[48.1]
Similar ideas of mysterious force wavering between the personal and
the impersonal and permeating all things appear to underlie the
Chinese conceptions of the _Tsing_, or operative energy, which
inspires, or manifests itself in, the _Khi_, breath or soul, to
produce the living being.[48.2] These ideas have been taken over by
the Annamites, among whom the _Tinh_ is “a fluid, a force which
resides in all things, and without which no existence can manifest
itself,” and is “the essential principle of all action.” Uniting with
the _Khi_, breath or soul, it produces “the life, the movement, the
beings and the things peopling the world.” It is their essential
condition. The entire system of magic and religion rests on these
ideas.[48.3] Much the same may be said of the Japanese _Kami_,
probably connected with Ainu _Kamui_.[48.4] It is, however,
unnecessary to discuss {49} at length the conceptions involved. They
have been elaborated through centuries of civilization and
philosophical exposition, until it is now difficult to determine how
much of their present form and content they owe to archaic savagery.
Let us turn to the Melanesian islands of the South Pacific. “The
Melanesian mind,” says Dr Codrington, “is entirely possessed by the
belief in a supernatural power or influence, called almost universally
_mana_. This is what works to effect everything which is beyond the
ordinary power of men, outside the common processes of nature; it is
present in the atmosphere of life, attaches itself to persons and to
things, and is manifested by results which can only be ascribed to its
operation. When one has got it he can use it and direct it, but its
force may break forth at some new point; the presence of it is
ascertained by proof. A man comes by chance upon a stone which takes
his fancy; its shape is singular, it is like something, it is
certainly not a common stone, there must be _mana_ in it.… Having
that power, it is a vehicle to convey _mana_ to other stones.… But
this power, though itself impersonal, is always connected with some
person who directs it; all spirits have it, ghosts generally, some
men. If a stone is found to have a supernatural power, it is because a
spirit has associated itself with it; a dead man’s bone has with it
_mana_, because the ghost is with the bone; a man may have so close a
connexion with a spirit or ghost that he has _mana_ in himself also,
and can so direct it as to effect what he desires; a charm is powerful
because the name of a spirit or ghost expressed in the form of words
brings into it the power which the ghost or spirit exercises through
it. Thus all conspicuous success is a proof that a man has _mana_; his
influence depends on the impression made {50} on the people’s mind
that he has it; he becomes a chief by virtue of it. Hence a man’s
power, though political or social in its character, is his _mana_; the
word is naturally used in accordance with the native conception of the
character of all power and influence as supernatural. If a man has
been successful in fighting, it has not been his natural strength of
arm, quickness of eye or readiness of resource that has won success;
he has certainly got the _mana_ of a spirit or of some deceased
warrior to empower him, conveyed in an amulet of a stone round his
neck, or a tuft of leaves in his belt, in a tooth hung upon a finger
of his bow-hand, or in the form of words with which he brings
supernatural assistance to his side. If a man’s pigs multiply, and his
gardens are productive, it is not because he is industrious and looks
after his property, but because of the stones full of _mana_ for pigs
and yams that he possesses. Of course a yam naturally grows when
planted; that is well known; but it will not be very large unless
_mana_ comes into play; a canoe will not be swift unless _mana_ be
brought to bear upon it, a net will not catch many fish nor an arrow
inflict a mortal wound.” Such a power or influence as this is of
course not physical, though it may show itself “in physical force or
in any kind of power or excellence which a man possesses.” Finally,
“all Melanesian religion consists, in fact, in getting this _mana_ for
one’s self, or getting it used for one’s benefit--all religion, that
is, as far as religious practices go, prayers and sacrifices.”[50.1]
(The very intention that animates the Fiote rites of fetishism.)
It is not easy to formulate a clear idea of the original source of
_mana_. It is said to be impersonal, to be present in the atmosphere
of life and communicable to persons and to things. To that extent it
resembles the {51} impersonal power or potentiality we have found
elsewhere. But wherever it is manifested it is connected with some
personal being who originates and directs it.[51.1] It is not a
quality inherent in men of more than ordinary power and skill. “If a
man,” writes Bishop Codrington, “has been successful in fighting, …
he has certainly got the _mana_ of a spirit or of some deceased
ancestor to empower him.” And again: “No man has this power of his
own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or
spirits; he cannot be said, as a spirit can, to be _mana_ himself,
using the word to express a quality; he can be said to have _mana_, it
may be said to be with him, the word being used as a
substantive.”[51.2] It would thus seem as if it were an essential
characteristic not of personal beings--even of powerful personal
beings--in general, but belonging to the world of spirits, including
the spirits of the dead. Yet not to all spirits; for elsewhere we
read: “It must not be supposed that every ghost becomes an object of
worship,” as a source of _mana_. “A man in danger may call upon his
father, his grandfather, or his uncle; his nearness of kin is
sufficient ground for it. The ghost who is to be worshipped is the
spirit of a man who in his lifetime had _mana_ in him; the souls of
common men are the common herd of ghosts, nobodies alike before and
after death. The supernatural power abiding in the powerful living man
abides in his ghost after death with increased vigour and more ease of
movement.”[51.3] Thus {52} we are found in something like what
logicians call a vicious circle. Only those ghosts have _mana_, or are
_mana_, after death who had _mana_ in their lifetime. But if they had
_mana_ in their lifetime, it was because they derived it from ghosts
or other spirits. In any case _mana_ appears to be conceived of as
transcending humanity, belonging to the mysterious region of the
Unknown, embodied in its primitive denizens, flowing from them, by the
channel of material objects (amulets), forms of words (charms) or
names, to certain human beings, and taken back by the latter into the
same great reservoir of power when they die, thence to be communicated
afresh to favoured mortals, and so on for ever. Probably, however, no
such definite concept finds a place in the Melanesian brain; the mode
of savage thought hardly admits of such crystallization.
It is likely that _mana_ (both the word and the meaning) {53} was
introduced into the Melanesian islands from Polynesia, where it is
widely spread and the word has numerous derivatives. In seeking there
its explanation we are at a disadvantage; because, with all their
devotion and merits, no missionary and no scientific enquirer has
given us such a study of Polynesian mentality as Dr Codrington has
given of that of the Melanesians. We turn therefore, in the first
place, to the more dangerous guidance of a dictionary. From that we
learn that everywhere _mana_ has the signification of power, and
almost everywhere of supernatural power. It is also defined as
influence, prestige, honour, authority; in Hawaiian it is used to
express, besides supernatural power such as would be attributed to the
gods, the simpler idea of power, and also spirit (in the sense of
energy of character), glory, majesty, intelligence--all doubtless
secondary meanings. We need not discuss in detail the derivatives in
various Polynesian dialects. Their general trend is towards the
expression of thought, opinion or belief, industry, vehement desire,
love--all of them activities primarily of the mind or emotions.
_Manava_ or _manawa_ is a word meaning the belly or internal organs of
the body, then the heart as the seat of affection, the feelings or
emotions, soul, conscience, and in one dialect at least, an
apparition, a ghost or spirit. _Mana_, in short, seems to recall the
idea of extraordinary qualities, especially power, and the emotional
reactions caused by their exhibition. Power or energy, overwhelming,
supernatural, is evidently the root-idea, vested in individual,
personal beings. One phrase, to be sure, in a Maori myth suggests the
independent possession of this power by an object we should not regard
as personal: _He taiaha whaimana_, explained by the lexicographer as
“A wooden sword which has done {54} deeds so wonderful as to possess a
sanctity and power of its own.” Literally it is “A sword in which
_mana_ is resident.” Whether this or the parallel Mangarevan _e
turuturu mana_, a powerful or magical staff, really implies an
inherent power independent of spiritual origin, must remain
undecided.[54.1] We are led to think of the weapons of Teutonic
mythology and romance, having names as if they were personalities, and
endowed with powers to render their bearers invincible--nay, when
drawn, to inspire them with ungovernable fury. But in the form in
which their stories reach us all such weapons owe their peculiar
properties, like the curse upon the Nibelung hoard, to some more than
earthly being, or at least to a mortal wizard.
Having furnished ourselves with this key, we may examine some of the
incidents of Polynesian life and religion reported by competent
observers. The inauguration ceremony of a Tahitian king, we are told
by the missionary Ellis, consisted in girding him with the _maro ura_,
or sacred girdle of red feathers. This girdle “was made with the
beaten fibres of the _aoa_; with these a number of _uru_, red
feathers, taken from the images of their deities, were interwoven with
feathers of other colours. The _maro_ thus became sacred, even as the
person of the gods, the feathers being supposed to retain all the
dreadful attributes of power and vengeance which the idols possessed,
and with which it was designed to endow the king.” So potent indeed
was it that “it not only raised him to the highest earthly station,
but identified {55} him with” the gods.[55.1] The same missionary
elsewhere relates that “throughout Polynesia the ordinary medium of
communicating or extending supernatural powers was the red feather of
a small bird found in many of the islands and the beautiful long
tail-feathers of the tropic or man-of-war bird. For these feathers the
gods were supposed to have a strong predilection; they were the most
valuable offerings that could be presented; to them the power or
influence of the gods was imparted, and through them transferred to
the objects to which they might be attached.” On certain ceremonial
occasions those persons “who wished their emblems of deity to be
impregnated with the essence of the gods, repaired to the ceremony
with a number of red feathers, which they delivered to the officiating
priest. The wooden idols being generally hollow, the feathers were
deposited in the inside of the image, which was filled with them.”
When the idols were solid, the feathers were attached on the outside.
To anyone who brought fresh feathers, two or three of the same kind
which had been thus “united to the god” at a former festival were
given in return. “These feathers were thought to possess all the
properties of the images to which they had been attached, and a
supernatural influence was supposed to be infused into them. They were
carefully wound round with very fine cord, the extremities alone
remaining visible. When this was done, the new-made gods were placed
before the larger images from which they had been taken; and lest
their detachment should induce the god to withhold his power, the
priest addressed a prayer to the principal deities, requesting them to
abide in the red feathers before them. {56} At the close of his _ubu_,
or invocation, he declared that they were dwelt in or inhabited (by
the gods), and delivered them to the parties who had brought the red
feathers. The feathers, taken home, were deposited in small
bamboo-canes, excepting when addressed in prayer. If prosperity
attended their owner, it was attributed to their influence, and they
were usually honoured with a _too_, or image, into which they were
inwrought; and subsequently, perhaps, an altar and a rude temple were
erected for them. In the event, however, of their being attached to an
image, this must be taken to the large temple, that the supreme idols
might sanction the transfer of their influence.”[56.1]
In the foregoing passages it will be perceived that the missionary is
doing something more than describing rites he had no doubt often
witnessed; he is labouring also to translate into English and
incorporate with his account the explanations he had extracted from
his Polynesian friends. He seems to exhaust his spiritual vocabulary
in speaking of “powers,” “influence,” “the communication of
attributes,” of “the essence of the gods.” But when he recalls the
words of the priest, they are even stronger and at the same time
simpler than any of these expressions: the god is prayed to “abide in”
the feathers; he is declared to “inhabit” them. If these be an
accurate translation of the words employed, it would seem that not
merely the power but a portion of the personality of the god passed
into the feathers, and that while his chief residence was still at the
great temple where his principal image dwelt, he was also present
whithersoever the bunches of feathers which had been consecrated by
deposition within or upon it were carried. He himself inhabited them;
and it was this fact that “identified” the king, as the wearer of such
feathers, with the gods.
{57}
It may be so. It may be another illustration of the fluidity of the
concept of personality. But what we have already learned of _mana_ may
lead us to place another interpretation upon it. It was not merely the
gods whose influence or personality was conveyed by contact. The king
in his turn spread an awful influence in the same way, or even by the
utterance of a word. In New Zealand “the garments of an _ariki_, or
high chief, were _tapu_, as well as everything relating to him; they
could not be worn by anyone else, lest they should kill him.” If a
single drop of a high chief’s blood flowed on anything, it consecrated
the object to him, or, as the natives phrased it, rendered it _tapu_.
This consequence resulted to everything touched by him, to everything
to which he chose to affix his name or the name of one of his
ancestors. He could not eat with his wife, lest his sanctity should
kill her, though she herself was by marriage consecrated to him. Nor
was the sanctity by any means confined to the highest chiefs. It
extended downwards to the lower ranks, but always in a decreasing
measure. It mainly depended on rank and influence;[57.1] it could be
none other than the effect of _mana_.
Between _mana_, however, and personality the dividing line is very
thin. We find it the same in other parts of the world. Father De
Acosta relates that upon the even of his feast the Mexican idol
Tezcatlipuca was furnished with a new robe. When it was put on, the
old robe was taken off “and kept with as much or more reverence than
we doe our ornaments.” Ecclesiastical ornaments of course are meant;
and the writer goes on to say that “there were in the coffers of the
idoll many ornaments, iewelles, eareings, and other riches, as
bracelets and pretious feathers, which served to no other vse than to
be {58} there, and was [_sic_] worshipped as their god it
selfe.”[58.1] Here the ornaments would seem to all intents identified
with the god, exactly as the red feathers of the Tahitian god are
“inhabited” by him. The explanation of the one is the explanation of
the other. The same ambiguity is discoverable in a much higher
civilization than either the Polynesian or the Mexican. Down to the
end of the eighteenth century Breton women, in order to secure a happy
delivery, used to dip their girdles in certain sacred fountains; and
even to-day the expectant mother who can wrap around her body a ribbon
thus dipped is sure in due course to bring into the world a robust
child, and that without danger to herself.[58.2] This we may be
inclined to think an example of an impersonal power analogous to that
of the Siouan _wakonda_ or the Algonkian _manitou_. But we can carry
the matter a step further. The Ursuline nuns of Quintin keep a girls’
school of high reputation in Brittany. When one of their pupils has
married and become pregnant, they sometimes send her as a special
favour a ribbon which has touched a reliquary containing a fragment of
the Virgin Mary’s zone; and it is worn by the recipient around her
waist until her baby is born.[58.3] It is not surely misinterpreting
the rite to deem that the Virgin’s zone, having been in contact with
her divinity, has acquired and retains a portion of the _mana_
emanating from her person; the reliquary in turn is permeated by that
_mana_, and communicates it to everything that touches it. The worthy
nuns probably have no exact theory on the subject; but a little
consideration of the practice will lead us to think that we have
understated its meaning. {59} It is the converse case to that of the
deposit of clothing and other articles on the shrine or the image of
the divine being, which we have already considered. In the latter case
there could be no question of _mana_ conveyed to the god from his
votary. Moreover, the true interpretation of the practice must explain
the cult of relics of the saints, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or
Buddhist. Now, these relics consist not merely of garments and
articles of use, like a staff, but also of the bodies or fragments of
the bodies of the saints. In them a portion of their very personality
inheres, and accounts for the beneficent potentiality residing in the
relics, as it accounts also for the liability to injury by witchcraft
upon similar fragments of the body or clothing of ordinary mortals.
For ordinary mortals, whatever their potentiality, cannot measure it
against that of saints and witches.
Yet human beings who are neither saints nor witches, and the lower
animals also, have their potentialities, the benefit of which is
capable of being transferred to others. This is one of the reasons for
cannibalism. Among the Veddas of Ceylon, one of the lowest known
peoples, it is said to have been the custom, when a man had been
killed, for the slayer to open the body and take out a piece of the
liver, which he would dry in the sun and keep in his pouch. Indeed a
man was sometimes put to death for the purpose. Its object was to make
its possessor strong and confident to avenge insults. He would bite
off a piece of the dried liver and chew it, saying to himself: “I have
killed this man; why should I not be strong and confident and kill
this other one who has insulted me?”[59.1] So the Turks, after the
death of the Albanian hero Scanderbeg, dug up his body and from his
bones constructed amulets to inspire courage into the wearer on {60}
the battlefield.[60.1] This potentiality may be communicated, like
the Melanesian _mana_, through other objects; and the possibility has
led to certain funeral customs in Europe as well as elsewhere. After a
death in the Highlands of Bavaria it was formerly the duty of the
housewife to prepare corpse-cakes (_Leichen-nudeln_). Having kneaded
the dough, she placed it to rise on the dead body, which lay on a bier
enswathed in a linen shroud. When the dough had risen, the cakes were
baked for the expected guests. To the cakes so prepared the belief
attached that “they contained the virtues and advantages of the
deceased,” and that his “living strength passed over into the kinsmen
who consumed the cakes, and was thus retained within the
kindred.”[60.2] The eating of the flesh of animals remarkable for
qualities such as ferocity, strength, fleetness, and so forth, with
intent to acquire these qualities is well known. One illustration will
be sufficient here. The Basuto, before going to war, make assurance
doubly, trebly sure by a cruel rite. The foreleg of a living bull is
cut off. The warriors eat it and are sprinkled with blood from the
animal, which is then killed. They are lanced by the witch-doctor, and
a powder made of the flesh of the bull is rubbed into the wounds. In
this way, namely, by eating the flesh, by sprinkling the blood, and by
inoculation, “the strength and courage of the animal” are imparted to
them.[60.3]
It appears then that the concept of personality is inseparable from
that of the potentiality with which a personality is endowed. Hence
the ambiguity of the Tahitian rite. Whether the feathers which had
been {61} attached to an image retained and transmitted to the next
wearer the _mana_, or a portion of the personality, of the god, the
one effect was equivalent to the other: they are indistinguishable.
But between _mana_ and the potentiality that elsewhere invests a
personality there is a difference. The latter may be, and frequently
is, held to be drawn from the common source of power, the invisible
and continuous life that permeates all things; whereas in Melanesia
(and perhaps in Polynesia too) _mana_ is definitely ascribed only to a
personal origin, if Dr Codrington has rightly interpreted the belief.
It is the special property of spirits--that is to say, of supernatural
beings--and is communicated by them to whatsoever or whomsoever they
will. An important step has thus been taken by the Melanesian mind
towards separating the Personal from the Impersonal, and human from
superhuman attributes and potentialities.
Thus we find in widely separated regions, among widely different races
and in cultures the most diverse, the idea of mystic power or
potentiality, often concentrated in individual persons or things, but
in effect spread throughout the world. Some peoples have been more
alive to the impersonal character of this power, and have ascribed to
it, wherever manifested, a unity of origin akin to the scientific
concept of force behind all phenomena. To others it has assumed a more
individual character. It clings in any case to personality and tends
to become inseparable from it; but the impersonal aspect is never
wholly wanting.
The patient reader will have observed the difficulty experienced alike
by scientific explorers and missionaries in expounding this idea in
its varied forms and applications. The difficulty has not arisen
wholly from its strangeness. It is due in large part to its want of
clarity. The savage {62} himself does not know; he has rarely had
occasion, and still more rarely inclination, to reflect on his
beliefs. He has had no schools of science or philosophy to think out
his thoughts for him. Hence they are ill defined; like clouds in the
sky, they take first one shape and then another. Yet those very
clouds, by comparison with the formless vapour from whence they have
been condensed, are continents of solidity and definiteness.
Although the idea of _orenda_, or _mana_, may not receive everywhere
the same explicit recognition, it is implied in the customs and
beliefs of mankind throughout the world. It underlies the practice of
Taboo. We have had already occasion to notice this in reference to the
_mana_ of Maori chiefs. In the population of Madagascar there is a
large, perhaps a predominant Polynesian element. When a Malagasy
sticks up in his field a figure or scarecrow to keep off robbers, it
is not that they may dread prosecution with all the rigour of the law,
though that may be the result if they are caught. What is threatened
is sickness, mysteriously induced by the power of the owner of the
field, or by the power which he has caused to be conjured into the
scarecrow.[62.1] A Samoan in the same way suspends to a cocoa-nut
palm a small figure of a shark made with a leaf of the tree; it is
notice to the robber that he will be inevitably devoured by a white
shark the next time he goes to fish.[62.2] Similar practices prevail
in the Melanesian islands.[62.3] Taboo has obtained a very prominent
position in the social order and government of Polynesian communities.
It is {63} from them that the word has been adopted into English
parlance, and adapted to a sense near akin to that of another
interesting word--to _boycott_. But it is not only in Polynesia and
the neighbouring islands of Melanesia that the dread of a mysterious
_mana_ is found, or that it leads to prohibitions and abstinences
often very burdensome. It is unnecessary to adduce examples of the
taboos on women, practically universal in the lower culture at certain
times. The Siberian Chukchi, whose fire has gone out on the cold and
timberless tundra, cannot borrow fire from his neighbour, for “the
fire of a strange family is regarded as infectious and as harbouring
strange spirits. Fear of pollution extends also to all objects
belonging to a strange hearth, to the skins of the tent and the
sleeping room, and even to the keepers and worshippers of strange
penates. The Chukchi from far inland, who travel but little, when they
come to a strange territory fear to sleep in tents or to eat meat
cooked on a strange fire, preferring to sleep in the open air and to
subsist on their own scant food-supply. On the other hand, an unknown
traveller, coming unexpectedly to a Chukchi camp, can hardly gain
admittance to a tent,” a difficulty of which the writer I am quoting
had personal experience.[63.1] This reluctance to contact with
strangers is not shyness; nor is it the dread of hostile intentions.
Each individual, each family or body of men, has its own atmosphere;
and this atmosphere conveys “pollution.” It is only throwing the idea
a step backwards to imagine the cause of the pollution as “strange
spirits.” Spirits are _mana_; and it is the _mana_ that is feared--the
mystic influence or potentiality that may strike the unwary stranger.
This is what issues in practice as the taboo. The subject of Taboo has
been treated so fully by {64} Professor Frazer[64.1] that it is
needless to discuss it here. Moreover, to do so in any detail would
require a volume. Suffice it to say that the universal avoidance of a
dead body, the prohibitions observed by priests, by chiefs, by hunters
and warriors, the prohibitions of temple and shrine, of times and
seasons, of speech and act, may all be traced to the same root-idea.
Our words _sanctity_, _pollution_, _infection_ feebly and partially
translate the intuitive dread of _orenda_ which is embodied in a
taboo.
The Evil Eye is a striking example of the belief in _orenda_ that has
survived into civilized communities. Here the whole maleficent
potentiality of a person is concentrated in a glance; and the amulets
so often worn on the body or suspended on the wall or at the door of
a house are directed to intercepting and so exhausting the influence.
In many cases, either by means of them or by a word or gesture, a
counter-_orenda_ is exercised, intended to annihilate, or at least
neutralize, the evil influence. An analogous superstition may be cited
from the Upper Congo. The Boloki believe that an occult power is
possessed and exercised by many individuals. They call it _likundu_.
Like the Evil Eye, its possession and exercise may be unconscious. “A
person is accused of possessing _likundu_ when he or she is
extraordinarily successful in hunting, fishing, skilled labour or the
accumulation of wealth. There is apparently,” says Rev. J. H. Weeks,
“only a certain amount of skill extant, only a certain number of fish
to be caught, only a certain amount of wealth to be gained; and for a
person to excel all others is a proof that he is using evil means {65}
to his own advantage, and in thus defrauding others of their share he
lays himself open to the charge of possessing _likundu_.” Consequently
“a person who possesses this _likundu_ may unconsciously cause the
hunting skill of any hunter in his family to fail.” When the charge is
seriously made “it causes much annoyance, and can only be disproved by
either drinking the ordeal or refraining from doing that which has
brought the charge,” of which Mr Weeks goes on to give an illustration
that had come under his own observation.[65.1]
Finally, what foundation there may be for the modern psychological
doctrine of Telepathy it is not my business to determine. But its
resemblance to the Iroquoian doctrine of _orenda_ may be pointed out
here. Telepathic communication may result from conscious or
unconscious exertion of will; it may occur at a supreme crisis of fate
or at a casual moment. It is in either case the product of a
potentiality which we call _mystic_ for want of a better name, and
which attaches to, or flows from, some personalities more strongly
than others. We have all had the experience of occasionally meeting,
or receiving a letter from, someone on whom our thoughts have been
more or less insistently dwelling, and whom we did not expect
immediately to see or hear from. Goethe is reported by his friend
Eckermann as having told him: “I have often enough had the experience
in my youthful years of a powerful longing for a beloved maiden taking
possession of me during a {66} lonely walk; and I thought about her
and thought about her until she really came and met me.” We need,
however, no such commonplace illustration to convince us of Goethe’s
_orenda_.
Without multiplying illustrations which will spring to the mind of
everyone, I venture to suggest that in man’s emotional response to his
environment, in his interpretation in the terms of personality of the
objects which encountered his attention, and in their investiture by
him with potentiality, atmosphere, _orenda_, _mana_--call it by what
name you will--we have the common root of magic and religion.
II. Theories and Definitions
At this point we are confronted with the difficult questions What is
Religion? and What is Magic?
Religion is notoriously hard to define. Every man thinks he knows what
it is; but when he comes to define it he never succeeds, clever as he
may be, in framing a definition generally acceptable. The ordinary
man, with a particular religion--the only one of which he has had any
experience--in his eye, defines it to square with that religion: if
others cannot be brought into the definition, so much the worse for
them. The anthropologist, whatever his bias, fares no better than the
ordinary man. He has his theories; and in expounding them he is
frequently called upon to define religion. In practice his theories
are hardly a safer guide than the other’s prejudices or ignorance.
Hence a definition of religion usually begs the question.
We will confine our attention here to some of the recent attempts made
by anthropologists to define religion.
{67}
To Professor Jevons the fundamental principle of religion is “belief
in the wisdom and goodness of God”; “the revelation of God to man’s
consciousness was immediate, direct, and carried conviction with it”;
and the original religion was monotheism, albeit a low form of that
faith.[67.1] This may perchance fit the religion of the Hebrews as
seen through theological spectacles; but it definitely excludes
Buddhism, at all events in its primitive form. For though Buddhism
arose out of an earlier religion, and in a comparatively high stage of
civilization, and though its founder admitted (apparently) the
existence of other intelligences than man, he would have nothing to do
with them. Sir Edward Tylor surmounts this difficulty by his famous
“minimum definition of religion--the belief in Spiritual
Beings.”[67.2] But it is only to land himself in another. For
religion is nothing if not practical: the mere belief is not religion.
As Lord Avebury points out: “A belief in ghosts is in itself no
evidence of religion. A ghost is not a god, though it may become
one.”[67.3] Australian savages believe in ghosts--and tremble; but of
very few of them is anything approaching to worship recorded.
Conscious of this objection, Professor Frazer employs the word
Religion to express “a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior
to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature
and of human life. Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, a
theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers higher than
man and an attempt to propitiate or please them.… Hence belief and
practice or, in theological language, faith and works {68} are equally
essential to religion, which cannot exist without both of
them.”[68.1]
This definition supplies the obvious deficiency in Tylor’s; but it
does not touch the case of Buddhism. And there is one important
respect in which all these definitions fail. None of them explicitly
recognizes the social character of the religions of the lower culture.
For aught that appears, religion might be the business of solitary
men, founded on their speculations, hopes and fears, uncommunicated to
and unshared by others, their own individual concern. But, in savage
life at least, religion is pre-eminently social. Individual rites
there may be; they are, however, parts of a whole, subordinate to the
common observances and common beliefs on which they are founded. The
individualist idea--the supreme necessity of saving one’s own
soul--has no place in them. St Simeon Stylites and the Hindu fakir are
equally the product of a much higher development.
A recent French writer, impressed with these objections to the
foregoing and similar definitions, has attempted to formulate one more
comprehensive and more subtle. Summing up a long discussion, he
concludes that “a religion is a connected (_solidaire_) system of
beliefs and practices relative to sacred--that is to say, separated,
interdicted--things,--beliefs and practices that unite into one moral
community, called Church, all who adhere to them.”[68.2] This,
however, is not Religion (with a capital {69} letter). Religion,
referring of course to the theoretical side or belief, he says
elsewhere, “is before everything a system of notions by means of which
individuals interpret the society of which they are members, and the
obscure but intimate relations they sustain with it.” And he goes on
to say of the practical side that the function of religious rites is
to tighten the bonds that unite the individual to the society.[69.1]
In other words, Religion is Society realizing itself. Before
considering this definition, let us turn to Magic.
Professor Frazer draws a sharp line between religion and magic. The
latter is founded (unconsciously indeed, for the primitive magician
“never analyses the mental processes on which his practice is based”)
on the assumption “that in nature one event follows another
necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual
or personal agency.… The magician does not doubt that the same
causes will always produce the same effects, that the performance of
the proper ceremony, accompanied by the appropriate spell, will
inevitably be attended by the desired results, unless indeed his
incantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the more
potent charms of another sorcerer.”[69.2] The laws governing the
practical application of this assumption are resolved into two:
“first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its
cause; and second, that things which have once been in contact with
each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the
physical contact has been severed. {70} The former principle may be
called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or
Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely, the Law of
Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he
desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that
whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person
with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of
his body or not. Charms based on the Law of Similarity may be called
Homœopathic or Imitative Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or
Contagion may be called Contagious Magic.”[70.1] Magic therefore is
the result of a mistaken association of ideas. It preceded religion.
But when man began to find out “the inherent falsehood and barrenness
of magic,” when “men for the first time recognized their inability to
manipulate at pleasure certain natural forces which hitherto they had
believed to be completely within their control,” they fell back on the
theory that there were other beings like themselves who directed the
course of nature and brought about the effects they had hitherto
believed to be dependent on their own magic. To them they turned in
their helplessness, and thus evolved religion.[70.2] Accordingly,
magic and religion have always been hostile. Magic has indeed in many
ages and in many lands permeated religion, has often gone the length
of fusing and amalgamating with it. But this fusion was not primitive:
they are originally and fundamentally distinct.[70.3]
In a powerful criticism of this theory Messrs Hubert and Mauss, two
French anthropologists, have pointed {71} out that Professor Frazer
has omitted one essential item. The effect of a magical rite is not
attained merely by sympathy. All magic is not sympathetic magic,
whether that sympathy be expressed by the Law of Similarity or the Law
of Contact. Moreover, even in sympathetic magic the sympathetic
formula is insufficient to account for the facts. Sympathy is only the
means by which the magical force passes from the magician to the
object at which it is aimed; it is not the magical force itself. That
still remains to be explained. It cannot be wholly explained by the
properties attributed to the materials used in the magical rite, and
that for three reasons. In the first place, the notion of property is
normally not the only one present. The employment of substances having
magical properties is ritually conditioned. They must be collected
according to rule, at certain times, in certain places, with certain
means, and after certain ritual preparations. When collected, they
must be employed according to certain rules and with the accompaniment
of rites, often exceedingly elaborate, which permit the utilization of
their qualities. In the second place, the magical property is not
conceived as naturally, absolutely, and specifically inherent in the
thing to which it is attached, but always as relatively extrinsic and
conferred. Sometimes it is conferred by a rite. At other times it is
explained by a myth; and in this case it is clearly regarded as
accidental and acquired. It often resides in secondary characters,
such as form, colour, rarity, and so forth. In the third place, the
notion of magical property suffices so little that it is always
confounded with a very generalized idea of force and nature. The idea
of the effect to be produced may indeed be precise; but that of the
special qualities of the substance used to produce it, and their
immediate action, is always obscure. {72} In fact, the idea of things
having undefined virtues is always prominent in magic. Salt, blood,
saliva, coral, iron, crystals, precious metals, the mountain ash, the
birch, the sacred fig-tree, camphor, incense, tobacco are among the
many objects which embody general magical powers, capable of all sorts
of applications. Corresponding with this is the extreme vagueness of
the designations applied to magical properties, such as divine,
sacred, mysterious, lucky, unlucky, and equivalent expressions. The
notion of property passes over easily into power and spirit. Property
and power are inseparable terms; property and spirit are often
confounded. The virtues or properties of a thing often belong to it as
the abode of a spirit. Spirits are indeed often the agents of magic.
It is hardly too much to say that there is no magical rite in which
their presence is not in some degree possible, though not expressly
mentioned. Magic works in a special atmosphere, if not in the world of
demons, at least in conditions in which their presence is possible.
Beyond doubt, one of the essential characteristics of magical
causality is that it is spiritual. Yet the idea of spiritual
personalities ill represents the general anonymous forces which
constitute the power of magicians. It gives no account of the virtue
of words or gestures, the power of a look or of the intention, the
influence or the mode of action of a rite. It does not explain why the
magical rite controls and directs spiritual existences, any more than
the sympathetic formula explains why the rite acts directly on the
object.[72.1]
{73}
I do not tarry now to give illustrations in detail of the various
points in the argument I have here summarized. It is clear that
Professor Frazer has overlooked something of importance, from one fact
alone to which he alludes, but of which he fails to observe the vast
implications. The commonest excuse made by the magician for the
failure of his spells is that some other magician of greater power is
thwarting him. There must therefore be degrees of power among
magicians, however it be acquired, and whether temporary or permanent,
inherent or due to the possession of greater knowledge or more
powerful spells. But that is a factor that tumbles the whole edifice
of the theory down. It introduces another element--the personal
potentiality. The same causes do not always produce the same effects,
apart from the personal element; the performance of the proper
ceremony, accompanied by the appropriate spell, is not inevitably
attended by the desired results; the magician has not reached the
scientific conclusion “that in nature one event follows another
necessarily and invariably, without the intervention of any spiritual
or personal agency.” Nay, the intervention of the magician himself is
proof to the contrary.
Destructive criticism is comparatively easy; anyone can make
objections. Not everyone can substitute a sounder theory in place of
that destroyed. It is when Messrs Hubert and Mauss come to construct
their own theory of magic that they find themselves in difficulty. For
they have to admit that in magic the same collective forces operate as
in religion. Faith is as necessary to magic as to religion; it is as
necessary to the magician as to the priest. Trickery no doubt there
is; that has not always been excluded from religion. But there is much
more than trickery. The magician believes in his own powers; {74} and
he believes all the more strongly because his public believes. The
faith of society and his own faith act and react upon one another. But
this is precisely the case with the priest and his religion.
If we examine the magician’s methods we can hardly distinguish them
from those employed in religion. The attempt to bewitch an enemy by
means of his clothing or a fragment of his body is precisely the same
in principle as the proceedings already described at the inauguration
of a Polynesian king or the communication of the virtues of mediæval
saints by means of their relics. It is true that in the one case the
object of the ceremony is maleficent, in the other cases it is
beneficent. If that were a real distinction, the processes would still
remain analogous. It is not real, however; for the sanctity of
Polynesian kings has its maleficent side, and the relics of the saints
have been often employed to the injury of an enemy, as well as to the
healing of a friend. Nor can it be said that magic is purely an art, a
technique, while religion is dependent upon higher and independent
wills. The aid of spirits is often invoked in magic; spell passes
easily into prayer, and prayer into spell. The accounts that have
reached us of the Witches’ Sabbath may be the product of
hallucination, or confessions extorted from victims who said what they
were expected to say. But at least they bear witness to the general
belief of the times, which regarded magic rather as a counter-religion
than as a mere technique. Professor Frazer’s reply to this is of
course that such a belief, such practices, were the result of a later
fusion of religion and magic. That the fusion was not primitive is,
however, incapable of proof. As we shall see by and by, in the lowest
societies of which we have evidence practices usually regarded as
magical are indistinguishable from those regarded as {75} religious.
The mutual hostility of religion and magic, where it exists, is, in
truth, the result of a later development.
Like religion, the chief factor in magic--that by which it
accomplishes its ends--is the mystic force that is released and set at
work by the rite or the spell. Behind the sympathetic formula, behind
the notions of property and of spirits, there is another notion still
more mysterious, the notion of power, vague, impersonal, always
operating, irresistible, or depending for its efficaciousness on
conditions not altogether at command. The investigations of the last
chapter have disclosed to us what this power is. By its very vagueness
and impersonality it enshrines possibilities illimitable. It may be
materialized, localized, personalized; but it ceases not to be
spiritual, to act at a distance, and that by direct connection, if not
by contact, to be mobile and to move without movement, to be
impersonal though clothed in personal forms, to be divisible yet
continuous. It is this notion that accounts in the last resort for the
phenomena of magic. Without it, magic is incomprehensible; like a
sentence without the copula, the action, the affirmation is wanting.
All this is equally true of religion. The authors see therefore that
magic is, like religion, a social phenomenon; it has parallel rites
with those of religion; it has parallel postulates and beliefs. To
distinguish it from religion they are driven to erect into a test the
individualistic aims of its practitioners, or of those on whose behalf
it is called in aid. Its true distinction is, according to this, that
it tends to be isolated, to be furtive, to be put into motion on
behalf of individuals and against the community; its methods become
arbitrary; it ceases to be a common obligation. Individuals in magic
have appropriated the ideas and the collective forces generated by
{76} religion, and turned them to their own ends. Religion, in short,
is social in its aims, magic is antisocial. That is the only
difference between them. In this distinction Professor Durkheim
agrees. Everywhere, he says, religious life has for its substratum a
definite group; even what are called private cults are celebrated by
the family or the corporation or society to which they are restricted.
On the other hand, though magical beliefs are widely diffused and
practised by large classes of a population, their effect is not to
bind together those who adhere to them and unite them into a group
having one common life: there is no magical Church. Between the
magician and those who consult him there is no durable bond. He has
clients, not a church. His relations with them are accidental, not
permanent; and they may have no relations with one another; they may
even be ignorant of one another’s existence.[76.1]
But this very charge of being antisocial is brought by many dominant
religions against their rivals. It was substantially the charge
brought against the early Christians by the Pagans. It is to-day the
charge formulated by fanatical Russian Christians against the Jews.
Here in the west of Europe it is, in a somewhat vaguer form, the
reproach of orthodox Christians against Agnostics and all shades of
Rationalists. To apply it as a test to distinguish religion from magic
is to qualify the same practices as religious or as magical, according
as they have social or antisocial ends. And how shall we define these
ends? The act which at one stage of civilization is antisocial, at
another is often a social duty. To attempt a change in this respect
may be antisocial as regards the existing society, though it may
result in ultimate benefit; and the attempt may be made from purely
individualist motives, for purely individualist ends. {77} Nay, the
same act may be in the same society social or antisocial, according to
circumstances. In Central Australia the man who kills an enemy by
means of _arungquiltha_, which may be rendered _evil magic_, commits
an antisocial act; he does it in secret: it would be dangerous to let
it become known. But if a woman run away from her husband and cannot
be recovered, he may lawfully avenge himself with the aid of
_arungquiltha_. He is performing an act of social justice, and will be
joined in doing it by the men of his local group. In the same way
vengeance may be taken for a murder, real or supposed, by a
_Kurdaitcha_ party, which performs what we should designate as a
magical ceremony to cause the victim to sicken and die. This is held
to be a social, not an antisocial act, for it is fulfilling the social
duty of revenge. It is done with the sanction of the council of
elders.[77.1] In Melanesia, as we have seen, all religion consists in
getting _mana_ for oneself, not for the benefit of others; though
doubtless the _mana_, when obtained, is often used for the advantage
of the community.[77.2] Often it is not. “A man will commonly have
his _keramo_, a _tindalo_ [a ghost that is worshipped] of killing, who
will help him in fighting or in slaying his private enemy.” The
_tindalo_, albeit the object of religious worship, has no prejudice
against antisocial acts. His worshipper, before going out to commit
what we should call murder, performs an elaborate ceremony,
sacrificing to the ghost, and cursing his victim. If he succeed in
killing him, the _tindalo_ gets as his share of the spoil the ghost of
the deceased, and is invoked to give _mana_ in return.[77.3]
The man who, in Europe or elsewhere, makes use of {78} spells to
injure individuals, or even of the Evil Eye, is practising magic: he
is doing an antisocial act. The man who defends himself with a
gesture, with spells, or by loading his body with amulets, is not
doing an antisocial act; he is simply protecting himself. But is he
practising religion or magic? Be it remembered here that a man may
have the Evil Eye without knowing it. Pius the Ninth, Vicar of Christ,
was reputed to have the Evil Eye. Nothing was so fatal as his
blessing; the faithful quailed at his glance and doubtless protected
themselves with amulets. So the Boloki of the Congo hold that “one can
have witchcraft without knowing it.”[78.1] In these cases there can
be no antisocial intention. Among the Thonga of South-Eastern Africa a
common procedure is to point at one’s enemy with the index-finger.
This is antisocial: it is witchcraft. Before they go to war a ceremony
is performed by an old woman, naked and in a state of ritual purity,
over the warriors, and an incantation is muttered, to enable them to
kill their foes.[78.2] This may not be antisocial; but is it anything
else than magic? True, the men murmur prayers to their ancestral
spirits for help; but then religion is penetrated with magic. Even
Professor Durkheim admits that he cannot show a solution of continuity
between them; the frontiers between their respective domains are often
undefined, unfixed.[78.3] At all events he cannot say where the one
ends and the other begins.
Perhaps, however, not the intention but the tendency, whether social
or antisocial, is the test. In that case it is hard to conceive
anything more antisocial than the operations of the Holy Inquisition.
They were, it is {79} true, not performed by supernatural
instrumentality, or for supernatural purposes. To that extent they are
not directly parallel with the rites we have been considering. But
they were carried on by persons consecrated to religion, as religious
acts, surrounded by religious rites, by exorcisms, imprecations,
conjurations, shielded by the Church with all her powers, and
sanctioned, if not set in motion, by the highest ecclesiastical
authorities. They desolated every society where the institution was
introduced.[79.1] Secrecy has been already noted as a characteristic
of magic as opposed to religion. Naturally antisocial acts are
performed in secret. The deeds of the Holy Office were done in the
deepest dens of the building, and surrounded by impervious precautions
against discovery, except the last dread act. In that consummation of
cruelty, that supreme Act of Faith, as it was called, its officials
nominally took no part; though it was well known that they insisted
upon it relentlessly and with every terror, ghostly or secular, which
they knew so well how to wield. On the other hand, the African
sorcerer, conjuring the rain or the sunshine so necessary for the
crops, performs an eminently social work, and does it very often in
the open eye of day and before the assembled people. When a
fisher-boat was launched in the north-east of Scotland a bottle of
whisky used to be broken on the prow or stern with the words:
“Frae rocks an’ saands
An’ barren lands
An’ ill men’s hands
Keep’s free.
Weel oot, weel in,
Wi’ a gueede shot.”
{80}
“On the arrival of the boat at its new home the skipper’s wife, in
some of the villages, took a lapful of corn or barley, and sowed it
over the boat.”[80.1] These are not antisocial acts; they have no
antisocial tendency; and they are not performed in secret. Must we
account them religious, and the operations of the Inquisition magical?
Thus antisocial character is no sufficient test of magic as opposed to
religion. Professor Doutté, dealing with magic as developed in Islam,
adheres generally to the views of Messrs Hubert and Mauss. He
proposes, however, another definition. Quoting with approval the late
M. Marillier’s observation that magic is “the action on the without by
the within,”[80.2] he remarks that the savage has not yet made a
sufficient distinction between subject and object; he does not
differentiate himself from the universe. And he concludes that magic,
invented under the pressure of need, is only the objectivation of
desire under the form of an extended force, singular, bound to
gestures representative of the phenomenon desired and mechanically
producing it. If the savage externalize this magical force so far that
he ends by personifying it, we have the genesis of a god; the god, in
fact, may be a personified _mana_. A god can only be anthropomorphic;
he is the psycho-physical objectivation of man in phenomena.[80.3]
This brings Professor {81} Doutté much nearer to Dr Frazer’s
position, and might form the basis of an _eirenicon_ between them. For
though he is fully aware that much in magic is indistinguishable from
religion, he holds it to be a subsequent development: magic has so far
modelled itself on religion and borrowed its theistic methods of
procedure. It presents itself as an anti-religion. Under Christianity
it reaches its ultimate term with the Black Mass and the cult of the
devil: Islam does not lend itself so well to hideous parody. Yet
Professor Doutté, after flirting with Professor Frazer’s opinion,
comes back to the orthodoxy of the French sociologists: the real
distinction between religion and magic is that the one is social--it
sustains the life of the society; the other applies its rites to
strictly personal ends--it is antisocial. The one is magic lawful and
even obligatory; the other is magic useless or injurious to society,
and it is condemned and interdicted. Islam even recognizes white or
religious magic; the Prophet himself recommended it. Ibn Khaldoûn, a
great Mohammedan jurist, can find, indeed, no solid distinction
between the miracle of the saint and the prodigy wrought by the
sorcerer, save that of the morality of its aim. The test of morality
is what is permitted by the Law. That which is permitted by the Law is
moral; the rest is immoral. It comes to this, then, that a miracle is
legitimate magic, and magic is a forbidden miracle.[81.1]
The same difficulty in severing magic from religion is experienced by
one of the acutest writers who has considered the subject. “Magic and
religion,” says Dr Marett, “according to the view I would support,
belong {82} to the same department of human experience.… Together
they belong to the supernormal world, the _x_-region of experience,
the region of mental twilight. Magic I take to include all bad ways,
and religion all good ways, of dealing with the supernormal--bad and
good, of course, not as we may happen to judge them, but as the
society concerned judges them. Sometimes, indeed, the people
themselves hardly know where to draw the line between the two; and in
that case the anthropologist cannot well do it for them. But every
society thinks witchcraft bad. Witchcraft consists in leaguing oneself
with supernormal powers of evil in order to effect selfish and
antisocial ends. Witchcraft then is genuine magic--black magic, of the
devil’s colour.”[82.1] Presumably white magic--magic performed for
good and social ends--is not magic; it is a part of religion,
notwithstanding that precisely the same means may be employed as in
witchcraft--black magic. For Dr Marett adds: “Every primitive society
also distinguishes certain salutary ways of dealing with supernormal
powers. All these ways taken together constitute religion.”[82.2]
Coming more particularly to define religion, he says: “Savage life has
few safeguards. Crisis is a frequent, if intermittent, element in it.
Hunger, sickness and war are examples of crisis. Birth and death are
crises. Marriage is usually regarded by humanity as a crisis. So is
initiation--the turning-point in one’s career, when one steps out into
the world of men. Now what in terms of mind does crisis mean? It means
that one is at one’s wits’ end; that the ordinary and expected has
been replaced by the {83} extraordinary and unexpected; that we are
projected into the world of the unknown.… Psychologically regarded,
then, the function of religion is to restore men’s confidence when it
is shaken by crisis.… Religion is the facing of the unknown. It is
the courage in it that brings comfort.” Sociologically, “a religion is
the effort to face crisis, so far as that effort is organized by
society in some particular way. A religion is congregational--that is
to say, serves the ends of a number of persons simultaneously. It is
traditional--that is to say, has served the ends of successive
generations of persons. Therefore inevitably it has standardized a
method. It involves a routine, a ritual. Also, it involves some sort
of conventional doctrine, which is, as it were, the inner side of the
ritual--its lining.”[83.1]
On this definition two observations may be made. The first is that it
does not exclude any rites performed for social ends, or for
individual ends, so far as they are not definitely antisocial. The
Australian husband meets the crisis of desertion by his wife by means
of _arungquiltha_. He performs an act organized by society to meet
this very crisis--on the definition, therefore, a religious act. But
if by precisely the same process he attempt to slay his enemy, he is
guilty of magic. Or is the wife’s desertion not a crisis in the sense
attached to the word by Dr Marett? Perhaps it is a relief, a solution
of a domestic crisis.
The second observation is that the definition ignores the whole of
life not occupied by crises. When the Californian Hupa awakes in the
morning and sees the dawn, it cannot be said that he is at his wits’
end, that the ordinary and expected has been replaced by the
extraordinary and unexpected. What does he do? He {84} greets the dawn
with a silent prayer that he may see many dawns, for he regards it as
a person who is benevolently inclined to him.[84.1] This surely is
religion. The point is met by the further statement that “the religion
of a savage is part of his custom; nay, rather it is his whole custom
so far as it appears sacred--so far as it coerces him by way of his
imagination. Between him and the unknown stands nothing but his
custom. It is his all-in-all, his stand-by, his faith and his hope.
Being thus the sole source of his confidence, his custom, so far as
his imagination plays about it, becomes his ‘luck.’ We may say that
any and every custom, in so far as it is regarded as lucky, is a
religious rite.”[84.2] In that case religion is much more than the
facing of the unknown, the organized effort to face crisis. It is
custom coercing man by way of his imagination. A convenient custom
coerces by way of their imagination weary women at Tlemcen in Algeria
not to sweep out the house for three days at the New Year, so that
they may not lose their luck.[84.3] Can we legitimately call this
religion? Or take another case. There are people in England who will
not utter a boast, or tell a small social fib, without taking the
precaution to touch wood. I have known educated women drag a chair
across the room to a visitor who had just boasted of immunity from a
trifling ailment, in order that she might touch wood. Despite their
education, they were coerced by way of their imagination to this
little ceremony. There must be thousands of things done merely for
luck, and done habitually, by peoples alike in barbarism and in
civilization. Some of them probably are relics of a once living
belief. About others there is no such presumption; {85} yet they
exercise the same constraint. Does that make them religious rites?
Does it make even those that once were portions of some living belief,
but are so no longer, religious rites now? Of course it is all a
matter of definition of terms. But a definition of religion which
would include all these would be catholic indeed.
The criticisms in this chapter involve no reflection on the
perspicacity of scientific writers who are trying to obtain a clear
vision of religion and magic and of their specific differences. But
they do aim at illustrating the futility of the attempt absolutely to
define anything so fluid and elusive as religion.[85.1] Both religion
and magic owe their origin to society; they are born and nurtured in a
social atmosphere. Both are concerned with forces mysterious,
far-reaching, enveloping and constraining {86} men and things. These
forces are not always personal, though their evolution usually takes a
personal direction. The means used by both are similar, because the
forces are the same, or at least alike. Spell and prayer are very near
akin; the one passes insensibly into the other. And the material means
common to both are chosen arbitrarily or according to some fancied
symbolism, and employed in closely parallel ways. There is, in short,
no decided boundary between religion and magic.
The task remains, notwithstanding, of defining the words for the
purposes of the following pages. It is hopeless to attempt to
harmonize the definitions we have considered. Whatever definition we
adopt, it is clear that we cannot so express it as to confine religion
within its own bounds, or to outlaw magic from the territory occupied
by its rival. Yet a working definition is needed. In framing it regard
ought to be paid to the ordinary meaning of the words: the definition
must not be arbitrary.
Now the word Magic, by the usage of centuries, is concerned not so
much with aim or tendency as with method. It conveys the notion of
power, by whatsoever means acquired, wielded by the magician as his
own, and not as that of a higher being whose coöperation is only
obtained by supplication and self-abasement. Supplication,
self-abasement, flattery are the religious means of winning the help
of divinities. Where higher beings, whether called gods or devils, or
by the more ambiguous title of spirits, are invoked by spell,
compliance with the call is not dependent on their goodwill; the
command is irresistible; and the procedure is magical. Sacrifice is
utilized in both procedures; but it has a very different value in the
one and the other. In the one it operates as a communion with the
divinity, as a gift to {87} win favour which he is by no means bound
to grant, or as an atonement for wrong. In the other it is a condition
on the fulfilment of which the desire of him who offers it is
accomplished, inevitably and by compulsion. In such a case he who
offers the sacrifice is not a worshipper; he is a master of the beings
to whom it is offered. True, they are sometimes gods. In the religion
of the Hindus “prayers, penances, and sacrifices are supposed to
possess an inherent and actual value, in no degree depending upon the
disposition or motive of the person who performs them. They are drafts
upon Heaven, for which the Gods cannot refuse payment. The worst men,
bent upon the worst designs, have in this manner obtained power which
has made them formidable to the Supreme Deities themselves.”[87.1]
Thus has Southey succinctly stated the belief on which his poem of
_The Curse of Kehama_ is built. Here by _prayers_ are meant liturgical
_formulæ_, which everywhere tend to degenerate into magical spells.
Penances are in the nature of sacrifices. Or they are taboos that
preserve and enhance the force and influence of the suppliant. Both
alike are a magical process, in the sense in which the word Magic is
generally employed. The constraining power of sacrifices was also a
tenet of Egyptian religion, at all events in its last ages.[87.2]
Have analogous beliefs in the magical powers of a rite even yet
disappeared from Christianity?
This then is the sense in which I venture to think the words Magic and
Magical should be employed. It is based upon their general, if
somewhat vague, usage; and it is therefore intelligible to the
ordinary reader without recourse to a special definition. It is
substantially that of Professor Frazer, save that it affirms nothing
concerning {88} the origin of the power active in magical practices:
it simply takes them as they are--again an undeniable convenience. It
follows that for our purpose Religion will be confined to cultual
systems, whose objects, so far as they are personal, are endowed with
free will, are to be approached with true worship, and may or may not
grant the prayers of their suppliants. Here also we have common usage
on our side, with all its advantages. In this use of the word
Religion, where the object is impersonal, or is but vaguely personal,
it is none the less treated with reverence and submission, as
something transcending man; it is the object of an emotional attitude,
actively directed towards it. The object thus, even where it is not
personal, tends to become so. Buddhism, in its original form, and
similar religions are the product of comparatively high civilizations.
The puritan severity of their primitive thought and practice was
speedily relaxed; they acquired personal gods, and thus liberated
themselves from a rule of life based upon philosophical considerations
and the effort to escape without the aid of the higher personalities,
of which they despaired, from the evils by which they felt themselves
oppressed. In the lower civilizations, as we have seen, no sooner is
an impersonal power conceived as acting than it assumes personal
characteristics. When once the attention is concentrated upon any
manifestation of it, these characteristics, originally vague, are
likely to be emphasized, and may grow into true personalities. In
magic, on the other hand, the impersonal power does not so readily
become thus transformed, because the attention fastens on the personal
agent, the magician, rather than on the power by which he operates.
When all is said, however, religion is (ideally, at least)
social--that is to say, moral--in its aims and tendencies, {89}
whereas magic lends itself to individualist aims. Religion binds the
society together by raising the individual above himself, and teaching
him to subordinate his desires and actions to the general good; magic
has no compunction in assisting to carry out the wishes of the
individual, though they may be contrary to the interests of the
society as a whole. To that extent it is disruptive, antisocial,
immoral; and when thus applied it may be described as Black, or Evil,
or Hostile Magic. Here perhaps we find the origin of the opposition
between them. So far from religion and magic having been originally
hostile, the further we go back into savage life, and presumably,
therefore, towards primitive humanity, the more we find them
interwoven, indistinguishable. It is only in the advance of
civilization, and the consequent evolution of religion and of magic
that they become conscious of mutual hostility. When once the
separation had begun it would tend to widen. Certain methods and means
would be regarded as proper to the one, certain other methods and
means as proper to the other, albeit neither of them, not even the
highest known and recognized form of religion, has hitherto been able
to shake itself entirely free from the methods of the other. This is
not incompatible with increasing hostility. The loftier the claims of
religion become, the closer its relations with the profoundest thought
of mankind, the more awful the sanctions it invokes, the more
inevitable, the more irreconcilable the hostility becomes. Family
quarrels are ever the bitterest.
III. Development
The discussion has led to some anticipation of the argument. We turn
back again to the personal potentiality.
{90}
He for whom the world is full of personal beings and hardly anything
else--a universe of objects interpreted in the terms of conscious
personality and projected on a background of the Unknown with all its
possibilities--he for whom each of those objects, human and non-human,
living and not-living, is invested in a greater or less degree with
_orenda_, will naturally and instinctively on the one hand avail
himself of his own _orenda_, and on the other hand will dread and
endeavour to turn to account the _orenda_ of others. But this very
endeavour to turn others’ _orenda_ to account is an exercise by prayer
or compulsion of his own. I can see no satisfactory evidence that
early man consciously entertained any great faith in the order and
uniformity of nature. Automatically, no doubt, he assumed that night
would follow day and day night, that the winter would follow the
summer or the dry season the wet, that the trees would blossom in the
spring or after the rains set in, as he had been accustomed to see
them. But that was not the result of reflection; it was not an act of
faith. So things had always been, and he could not conceive any
different course. It was not part of his mental furniture; it was no
acquisition of reasoning. It was the very framework of his mind. When
he began to reflect he referred these phenomena to the same cause to
which he referred his own acts, and the more uncertain and capricious
acts of other living beings--to personal will and _orenda_. Even if he
had risen to the large conception of the Siouan _wakonda_, that
impersonal force must, as we have seen, clothe itself with personality
in order to operate. Immediately and for practical purposes the
personal will and _orenda_ of himself or some other object were the
fount of all causation. They impelled and directed all actions, all
means, and were responsible for all effects. If he took aim at his
{91} enemy and flung his spear, or whatever primitive weapon served
the same purpose; if it hit the man, and he fell; he might witness the
result, but the mere mechanical causation, however inevitable in its
action, would be the last thing he would think about. Conscious of his
own will, of his own effort, of the words, perhaps, with which he had
accompanied and directed the spear, he would attribute the result to
such causes as these. His own _orenda_ felt in his passion, his will,
his effort, and displayed in his acts and words, the _orenda_ of the
spear, either inherent in itself, conceived as a personal being, or
conferred by its maker, and manifested in the keenness of its point,
the precision and the force with which it flies to its work and
inflicts the deadly wound--these would be to him the true causes of
his enemy’s fall. His _orenda_ is mightier than his enemy’s and
overcomes it. So, when the enemy is absent and he cannot visibly reach
him, his _orenda_ may yet suffice to accomplish the desired injury. By
a psychological process which Dr Marett has subtly analysed,[91.1] he
is led to perform in pantomime all the acts of a murder in the absence
of the victim, either silently, or to the accompaniment of a chant, or
of spoken words. His foe, who is as convinced as himself of the power
of such a performance, if it come to his knowledge, falls a victim to
the terror it inspires, unless he can call in the aid of some other
person, objective or imaginary, whose _orenda_ is more powerful still.
Nor would the belief lack vindication even in the case of the victim’s
ignorance; for any chance misfortune or sickness would be put down to
a hostile _orenda_; and if he did escape, it would be due to his own
superior _orenda_.
Thus what we generally call magic or witchcraft is {92} primarily an
application of _orenda_. By his _orenda_ a man bewitches his enemy
(or, for a consideration, someone else’s enemy), causes rain or
sunshine, raises and protects the crops, gains success in hunting,
divines the cause of sickness and cures it, raises the dead, spells
out the future. His incantations, his gestures, his apparatus--whether
of plants, stones, animal products, magical drawings, or whatever else
it may be--would be of no avail without this. In Central Australia the
Arunta magician arms his “pointing bone” with _arungquiltha_. In
Central Africa the Murundi impregnates his magical implements with
evil influence by means of his imprecations, his incantations, and his
evocation of spirits. That is, he puts into them his _orenda_ or the
_mana_ of the spirits: until then they are absolutely powerless and
indifferent.[92.1] This influence, this _orenda_, _mana_, or
_arungquiltha_, is the nexus--the copula, as it has been called--which
links the subject, the magician, to the object, the result.
But man is not the only being who possesses _orenda_. The _orenda_ of
his quarry sometimes foils his own. The cicada chirping in the fields
ripens the maize for the Iroquois; the _orenda_ of the rabbit controls
the snow and fixes the depth to which it must fall. The awful
mountain, the treacherous sea, those mighty beings who command the
winds, who send forth the storm, who rule in the darkness and mystery
of the forest, possess an _orenda_ surpassing man’s. It is useless to
pit his _orenda_ against theirs. Therefore he must adopt a different
course. He must lay down his _orenda_ and submit it to theirs. This is
the literal meaning of the Iroquoian phrase which signifies in modern
usage “He habitually prays.”[92.2] He must take such a course as he
would to {93} obtain assistance from a human being (say, a powerful
chief), or to conciliate an enemy. By gift, by abasement, by
abstinence, by self-torture, by cajolery he must win this powerful
_orenda_ to his side. Of these efforts abstinence and abasement are
negative forms of propitiation. They are perhaps the earliest forms.
If our reports be complete (on which we may have our doubts),
abstinence is the only form used among the Andaman Islanders, where
belief is said to outrun active worship.[93.1] In any case a taboo
for propitiatory purposes is very early and very persistent. Not
without insight does the poet tell us that Caliban
“Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape.”
And the modern European has still his Lent, and his Ember Days and
Fridays throughout the year. Such abstinence is the laying down and
submission of the _orenda_ to those of mightier beings. On the other
hand, gift, prayer, cajolery are, properly speaking, an active
exercise of _orenda_. The relation of spell and incantation to prayer
has already been alluded to. They are often indistinguishable: they
shade into one another by the finest gradations. Gifts are not mere
self-deprivation. They must be accompanied by rites more or less
elaborate, to render them acceptable to the lofty beings for whom they
are intended. Or they are part of a bargain; they are the performance
on the suppliant’s side which demands a corresponding return on the
side of the god. More than one comparatively civilized people has held
that sacrifices properly performed not merely incline but compel the
gods to grant what their worshipper desires. Gesture-language plays a
large part in savage life. A {94} ceremony such as those familiar to
us in sympathetic magic--to take only one instance, the sticking of
pins into a waxen figure--frequently is, to a large extent,
gesture-language: it helps to suggest to the supernatural personages
of whose _orenda_ the magician desires to make use exactly what is
wanted. It is more than this, of course. It is in part the
make-believe which is a relief to overcharged feelings; in part it is
the means by which the _orenda_ is conveyed to the object intended to
be affected. The concomitant words that form part of the ceremony
emphasize the desire. They fill and strengthen the instrument with the
_orenda_ of the performer, or of the supernatural personage invoked or
compelled to assist; they direct the instrument, considered as a
personal being, in the service it is required to fulfil; or they
allure, entreat, or command the object at which the rite is aimed.
If the view here taken be accurate, the essential opposition between
magic and religion disappears. Nor am I greatly concerned to decide
whether of the two developed the earlier. Their origin is the same;
they grow from one root. Nay, I should hardly be wrong if I changed
the metaphor and said: magic and religion are the two faces of one
medal. From the lowest stage of culture to the highest we find them
inseparable. Gods were not invented because man proved unequal to the
strain of arranging the affairs of the universe by himself; nor has
the age of religion been everywhere preceded by the age of magic. “By
whatever name it is called,” says Dr Codrington, speaking of the
Melanesian _mana_, “it is the belief in this supernatural power and in
the efficacy of the various means by which spirits and ghosts can be
induced to exercise it for the benefit of men that is the foundation
of the rites and practices which can be called religious: and it is
from the same belief that everything {95} which may be called magic
and witchcraft draws its origin. Wizards, doctors, weather-mongers,
prophets, diviners, dreamers, all alike, everywhere in the islands,
work by this power. There are many of these who may be said to
exercise their art as a profession; they get their property and
influence in this way. Every considerable village or settlement is
sure to have someone who can control the weather and the waves,
someone who knows how to treat sickness, someone who can work mischief
with various charms. There may be one whose skill extends to all these
branches; but generally one man knows how to do one thing and one
another. This various knowledge is handed down from father to son,
from uncle to sister’s son [for in many of these islands descent is
still reckoned exclusively through the mother], in the same way as is
the knowledge of rites and methods of sacrifice and prayer; and very
often the same man who knows the sacrifice knows also the making of
the weather and of charms for many purposes besides. But as there is
no order of priests, there is also no order of magicians or
medicine-men. Almost every man of consideration knows how to approach
some ghost or spirit, and has some secret of occult practices.
Knowledge of either kind can be bought, if the possessor chooses to
impart it to any other than the heirs of whatever he has
besides.”[95.1]
Here we see, as yet undistinguished, the beginnings of the
professional magician and the professional priest. Roughly and
provisionally it may be said that the professional magician is he who
in the course of the evolution of society, by birth, by purchase, or
by study and practice in the conventional methods, has acquired the
most powerful _orenda_. Similarly, the professional {96} priest is he
who in these ways, or by prayer and fasting, has obtained the favour
of the imaginary personages believed to influence or control the
affairs of men--who has, in a word, possessed himself of their
_orenda_. The union of these two professions in one person is not
adventitious; it is probably fundamental; it is at least so general
that in describing the society of savages and peoples in low stages of
culture observers are often at a loss whether to call their
functionaries priests or wizards, exorcists or medicine-men.
Consequently, many anthropological writers use the word _shaman_,
borrowed from the Tunguz, a tribe of South-Eastern Siberia, and
including all four meanings. For in that condition of society the
functions of priest and sorcerer and medicine-man are, as Professor
Frazer says, “not yet differentiated from each other.” That could not
be until, in the course of evolution, religion became severed from
magic. Yet it has never become so wholly severed that the primitive
connection may not be traced. Priests have become organized into a
separate order. Triumphant religions have proscribed the conquered
faiths, and have repudiated their practices as magical. Magic has thus
become a term of opprobrium. The conquered faiths under repression
have carried on their religious worship mixed with magical rites and
tending more and more to be degraded, yet never losing all religious
elements. Even the magic of the Middle Ages and later, in Europe, if
we may trust the confessions of the judicial victims themselves, was
mingled with the worship of a being in whom they recognized the devil,
perhaps the last avatar of a heathen god; and witchcraft was one of
the commonest charges against heretics. On the other hand, not even
the highest religions have been able to free themselves wholly from
rites strictly parallel to those {97} characterized as magical, by
which their followers have striven to compass union with the objects
of worship, to avail themselves of the _orenda_ of these objects, to
locate it in their own persons or in the images and implements of
their cult, to intensify their own _orenda_, and to exercise it for
the benefit, spiritual, corporal or pecuniary, of themselves and
others.
It may be well to illustrate the foregoing speculation from the
customs and superstitions of the Arunta of Central Australia. The
Arunta have been represented to be the lowest and least evolved of
known humanity in their beliefs and institutions: they are, it is
said, still in the stage of primitive absence of religion; magic alone
is the object of their belief; magic alone they practise. Now none of
the Australian tribes are, strictly speaking, in a primitive
condition. The civilization of all of them has evolved to some extent.
It has evolved, speaking in general terms, along similar lines; and
these lines have been conditioned by the environment. It is admittedly
significant that, in a land where so many archaic types of the lower
animals have survived, we should find archaic types of human culture.
Yet the most archaic types of Australian culture are far from being
primitive. So far are they that the social organization is of the most
complex character, the product of a succession of stages of
development. The least archaic types exhibit the old social
organization breaking down and new structures in course of formation.
With the evolution of society an evolution of belief has also been
going on. It has not been exactly concurrent. Culture rarely or never
evolves equally in all directions. It is a mental process, partly
conscious, partly unconscious. The collective mind of a given society,
like the individual minds of which it is composed, is not exercised
equally {98} on all subjects at the same time. Hence while, for
example, we find among the Euahlayi tribe, in the north of New South
Wales, an advanced theology and a more developed worship than have
been recorded elsewhere in Australia, the social organization is still
on the basis of female descent; and though the clansmen eat without
scruple their hereditary totems, in other respects the totemic system
seems to be in full force. In the same way the Arunta and their
neighbours certainly preserve relics of a very archaic condition of
thought and social organization. Though for certain purposes a son
inherits from his mother’s husband, it is doubtful whether descent is
counted through the father for social purposes; the physical relation
between father and child, indeed, is but imperfectly recognized. On
the other hand, they have developed a very elaborate theory of
reincarnation, and their totemic system seems to be in course of
transformation into a number of societies bearing in some respects
remarkable resemblance to those of the tribes of British
Columbia.[98.1] Magical practices (chiefly in connection with these
societies or totemic groups) are more prominent than religious.
Yet a closer examination will lead us to the conclusion that something
more than, on any definition of magic, we can call magical practices,
something we must recognize as religion, albeit of a low type, is not
wholly wanting to the natives of Central Australia. We may perhaps
grant that Twanyirika, with whose name the women and {99} uninitiate
children are kept in awe, is a bugbear “to frighten babes withal,” and
nothing more. The Kaitish and the Loritja, adjacent tribes sharing the
general culture of the Arunta, at all events believe in the real
existence of a superior being, who invented the initiation rites and
is pleased when men perform them now.[99.1] Indeed, if Herr
Strehlow’s investigations are to be trusted, the Arunta themselves are
not destitute of belief in such a being, though we learn little about
him, and he has no influence on the destinies of mankind.[99.2] Among
the Warramunga, a tribe a little further to the north, the Wollunqua,
a gigantic mythical snake, is the object of important rites, and one
of the totem-clans is called by its name. It dwells in a certain
water-hole in a lonely valley of the Murchison Range, “and there is
always the fear that it may take it into its head to come out of its
hiding-place and do some damage.” Hence propitiation is necessary.
This is effected by building a mound of sandy earth and delineating on
it a representation of the animal. “They say that when he sees the
mound with his representation drawn upon it, he is gratified, and
wriggles about underneath with pleasure.” On the evening of the day
succeeding that on which the ceremonies in connection with this mound
were witnessed by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, “the old men who had
made the mound said that they had heard the Wollunqua talking, and
that he was pleased with what had been done and was sending rain; the
explanation of which doubtless was that they, like ourselves, had
heard thunder in the distance. No rain fell, but a few days later the
distant rumble of thunder was again heard at night-time; and {100}
this, the old men now said, was the Wollunqua growling because the
remains of the mound had been left uncovered. They also told the
younger men that a heavy bank of clouds which lay on the western
horizon had been placed there as a warning by the Wollunqua, and at
once cut down boughs and hid the ruins of the mound from view, after
which the Wollunqua ceased from growling, and all went on peacefully
until the end of the series” of ceremonies.[100.1] There are, of
course, myths associated with the Wollunqua. The mound recalled one of
them. During its building and the ceremonies about it chants were sung
referring to the deeds of the Wollunqua, breaking out from time to
time into refrains of words, now at least meaningless, and said to
belong to the language of the mythical past. The name Wollunqua is
avoided in common parlance. A circumlocution is employed instead,
“because, so they told us, if they were to call it too often by its
real name, they would lose their control over it and it would come out
and eat them all up.”[100.2] How does this differ from the familiar
taboo of sacred names? When the explorers were taken to visit the
Wollunqua’s dwelling-place (should we be wrong to call it his
shrine?), the two chief men of the totemic group went down to the
water’s edge and addressed him in whispers with bowed heads, praying
him to remain quiet and do them no harm, for they were mates of his
and had brought up two great white men to see where he lived and to
tell them about him. “We could plainly see that it was all very real
to them, and that they implicitly believed that the Wollunqua was
indeed alive beneath the water, watching them, though they could not
see him.”[100.3] In all these rites (the details {101} of which were
carried out with earnestness and frequently with excitement) it can
hardly be denied that we have the elements of a true cult. The only
one as to which any qualification could be admitted is “the savage
attack,” described as being made on the mound when the ceremony
relating to it was concluded. The result of it was that the figures
delineated on the mound were destroyed, and all that remained was a
rough heap of sandy earth. This is represented as an attempt to
“coerce the mythic beast.” It is not quite certain that the
interpretation is correct, for it does not rest on native statements,
but is an inference of the explorers. The obliteration of sacred
figures drawn on sand or earth for the purpose of a rite is not
confined to the cult of the Wollunqua, nor even to Australia. It is
equally found among the Pueblo tribes of North America and the
Mongolian Buddhists of Central Asia.[101.1] Its object is to hide the
sacred symbols from the eyes of the profane. But if the interpretation
were correct (and it is not inconsistent with some of the expressions
and traditions reported), it is no more than we might expect. If a
savage deals with the mythic figures of his imagination as he deals
with his fellowman, we must not be surprised that he should pass from
cajolery to coercion, from prayer to defiance. Peoples on a much
higher religious horizon (as we shall see hereafter) do not hesitate
to threaten, and even to offer violence to, the objects of their
worship, when they are unable to obtain otherwise what they want.
Nor are the rites of the Wollunqua alone among these tribes in bearing
evidence of something more than magical ceremonies, namely, of
rudimentary worship. {102} When at the close of the initiation rites
among the Arunta someone with a bundle of _churinga_, sacred stones or
sticks in the shape of a bull-roarer, comes up to the newly initiated
youth, saying: “Here is Twanyirika, of whom you have heard so much;
they are _churinga_ and will help to heal you quickly,”[102.1]
neither the neophyte nor his friend regards them as mere toys. The
statement that they will help to heal the neophyte’s wounds is enough
to show this. We must not be misled by the apparent anticlimax to
forget that they are, throughout this group of tribes, mysterious
objects, marked with the emblem of the totem, and in the closest
association with it; to the Arunta and Loritja they are the outward
and visible sign, if not the embodiment, of the ancestral souls or
invisible portions, and as such are regarded with veneration.[102.2]
They are kept cunningly concealed from the eyes of the profane, hidden
in stores which are sanctuaries, places of refuge from the pursuit of
enemies, for men and even for wild animals. Herr Strehlow relates that
when he was trying to find a native word to translate _church_, two
baptized Blackfellows in all seriousness suggested to him the use of
_arknanaua_, the name of these sacred storehouses in their
tongue.[102.3] The very word _churinga_ means, as nearly as can be
rendered in a European tongue, hidden away, secret, appropriated,
sacred. It is used as an adjective to describe objects employed in the
sacred ceremonies, and the secret name bestowed on a child at birth.
In this connection it is {103} important to remember that the sacred
ceremonies, and in fact everything sacred, are among these tribes
secret also from the uninitiate. Though individuals may, at least
among the Arunta and Loritja, have special property in their
_churingas_, the latter are, as a whole, the collective property of
the totemic clan; they are under the control of the ceremonial
headman; their loss is the most serious evil that can befall a group;
and even to lend them to another group, as is occasionally done for
special purposes, is undertaken with the greatest solemnity and
caution. When returned, they are received with every mark of
veneration, with weeping and a low, mournful chant; and both parties
must be strictly fasting.[103.1]
The _churinga_ are, moreover, endowed with power, with _mana_, which
not merely heals wounds, but when they are brought ceremonially in
contact with the body produces other physical, mental, and even moral
effects. In the Kaitish tribe the performance of some ceremonies, in
the course of which the _churinga_ are handled, renders a man so full
of this _mana_, or, as they call it, _churinga_, using the very word,
that he becomes for the time taboo.[103.2] In addition, the
_churinga_ have virtue to make the yams and the grass-seed grow; they
frighten the game, or enable a man to secure it, and so forth. They
are handled in a manner which it is no exaggeration to call devout.
They are polished with red ochre to “soften” them, a term that, as
Messrs Spencer and Gillen remark, “very evidently points to the fact
that the [_churinga_] is regarded as something much more than a piece
of wood or stone. It is intimately associated with the ancestor, and
has ‘feelings,’ just as human beings have, which can be soothed by
rubbing in the same way in which those of living men can be.” We
gather that a man will sing {104} to his _churinga_, that the subject
of his song will be the mythical story of the ancestor (or the
previous incarnation) to whom it belonged, and that as he sings and
rubs it with his hand, “he gradually comes to feel that there is some
special association between him and the sacred object--that a virtue
of some kind passes from it to him, and also from him to it.” So from
generation to generation it gathers more and more of what our authors
describe as magical power--what would certainly be called in Melanesia
_mana_--the mystic potentiality already discussed.[104.1]
Thus the _churinga_ have to the Blackfellow a more or less definitely
personal aspect. It may be said that the songs chanted over them are
after all merely magical spells. But the spell implies some more or
less defined personality in the objects to which it is addressed. In
these tribes rites are performed, called in the Arunta tongue
_Intichiuma_, for the purpose of causing a manifestation of the power
of the totem, of multiplying the totem-animal or plant, and generally
of increasing the prosperity of the totem. In the course of these
rites there is much singing. The members of the group invite the
witchetty grubs to come from all directions and lay their eggs, or the
hakea-trees to flower and their blossoms to fill with honey; they beg
the rain to come and bring fish; they direct the kangaroos to go from
one place to another; and so on. Even when the songs and the actions
performed in the ceremonies recall the events of the mythical past,
they are not necessarily more magical than the words of sacred dramas,
which everywhere in the lower culture inseparably interweave what we
generally speak of as magic and religion. The mighty ancestors (as
elsewhere {105} the gods) whose deeds they chant are present in the
rite. “The totem, the ancestor, and the descendant (that is to say,
the performer) appear in these songs as one. Without keeping in view
the indivisible unity of the totem, the mythic ancestor and the
offspring (_ratapa_), many of the songs are quite
incomprehensible.”[105.1] Thus where invitation or command is not
issued directly to the object, the _mana_ of the ancestors seems to be
evoked for the accomplishment of the end.
Again, so far from the Arunta medicine-men being practitioners of
anything analogous to modern science, they are initiated by, and their
power is derived from, the spirits. These spirits are believed to put
the candidate to death, to carry him down into their abode, and there
to take out his internal organs, replacing them with a new set,
planting in his body a supply of magical crystals by which all his
subsequent wonders will be performed, and then bringing him to life
again. He remains, however, in a condition of insanity for some days.
It is true that an imitation of this process can be performed by
medicine-men of flesh and blood; but candidates thus initiated have a
lower repute (save apparently among the Warramunga) than those
initiated directly by the spirits. The crystals are in any case the
home and symbol of the magician’s powers. They are in fact full of
_mana_. If they be lost, the magician ceases to be a magician, and the
crystals themselves return to the spirits. All over Australia, so far
as we know, the same influence is attributed to them.[105.2] On the
eastern side of the continent, where something like a tribal
All-Father {106} is believed in, he is regarded, like Odin, as the
mightiest of magicians, and the crystals are, as well as the
bull-roarer, among his special attributes. Let me observe too in
passing that it is not a little significant that, as in the witchcraft
of Europe and Africa, portions of dead bodies are in great request in
Australia for magical purposes. The “pointing bone,” to which I
referred just now, is part of a dead man’s leg or arm. A portion of
his personality inheres in it. Consequently, even before it is “sung,”
it is endowed with his _mana_, which the singing only enhances and
directs in its course.[106.1] For the same reason human fat and a
dead man’s hair are important parts of the Australian native’s magical
apparatus.
The initiation of the medicine-man or magician by spirits, often the
spirits of the dead, is practically the universal belief in Australia.
In this respect the Australian medicine-man is in line with many of
his professional brethren elsewhere. In the island of Saghalien the
Gilyak shamans are chosen vessels, to whom their tutelary gods reveal
their high calling in vision or in trance. From the moment that this
is done the gods install themselves as the new shaman’s assistants and
perform his commands. Yet shamanhood is not regarded as a gift, but as
a burden. To become a shaman, either a man must find favour with one
of these assistant tutelary gods, or such a god must be bestowed upon
him by his father or uncle. Conversion into a shaman forms a break in
the life of the chosen, accompanied by many complicated psychical
phenomena. The process in his own case was described by a shaman to a
Russian anthropologist. For more than two months he was sick and lay
without movement or consciousness. As soon {107} as he revived from
one attack he fell under another. “I should have died,” he said, “if I
had not become a shaman.” He began to dream at night that he sang
shaman songs. Visions appeared to him, and he was told to make a drum
and the proper apparatus of a shaman, and to sing. If he were a simple
man, the vision told him, nothing would happen; “but if thou art a
shaman, be a real shaman.” When he awoke he found that it was thought
the spirits had killed him, and preparations for his funeral rites had
been made. But he got a drum and began to sing. This produced a
feeling which hovered between intoxication and death. Then for the
first time he saw his tutelary gods, and received from them
instruction in his business as a shaman.[107.1] Among the Koryak on
the adjacent continent, “nobody can become a shaman of his own free
will. The spirits enter into any person they may choose and force him
to become their servant.” Such persons are “usually nervous young men,
subject to hysterical fits, by means of which the spirits express
their demand” that the patient shall become a shaman. Fasting,
paroxysms, exhaustion succeed one another. Finally, the spirits appear
to the patient in visible form, endow him with power, inspire and
instruct him.[107.2] In other words, they fill him with their _mana_.
Here we have manifestly the wide-spread phenomena of Possession. In
these tribes there are no professional priests. The magicians, though
in a sense the intermediaries between men and the higher powers, are
not charged with the duty of offering sacrifice and prayer. In South
Africa, among the Bantu tribes, also, there are {108} no professional
priests. Ancestor-worship is the religion; and the only worship paid
is paid to the _manes_ of the dead. The proper person to offer
sacrifices is the head of the family for the time being. But
medicine-men or magicians form a regular profession, which is divided
into a number of branches. For some of these branches initiation by
the spirits of the dead is not necessary. For others it is
indispensable. Frequently, however, the same man combines the practice
of several branches of the art. All who practise openly are recognized
as White Wizards, exercising their powers for the wellbeing of
society, in defence of the established order. Yet these very men
sometimes boast of being _baloyi_, a term by which evil wizards are
generally known. They claim to be more powerful than ordinary wizards,
able to discover and baffle their tricks, and to kill. Moreover, there
are good _baloyi_, who use their power to bless. They are sometimes
sent by ancestral spirits to increase the produce of the fields, and
then they are said to have bewitched the fields to make them bring
forth more fruit. Thus it is clear that a hard and fast line cannot be
drawn between the social and the antisocial magicians, at least among
some of the Bantu tribes. One of the chief branches of the profession
is that of exorcist. Now no man can set up as an exorcist without
having been himself possessed by the spirits and exorcised. This is
indeed the regular method of initiation, for a man is not merely
restored to ordinary life by exorcism; he is also aggregated to the
society of magicians; he enters a new life; he becomes a neophyte
among the practitioners, and must undergo further probation which may
result in his becoming more than an exorcist--he may become
clairvoyant or a diviner, a prophet or a worker of marvels; he may
cure diseases or cause the rain to fall. Many practitioners {109}
profess more than one of these accomplishments; the most distinguished
profess several.[109.1]
How far the phenomena of possession are voluntary need not here be
discussed. The Zulu or Xosa patient (if we may call him so) becomes
sickly and abstinent; he distinguishes himself by dreams and visions,
and begins to talk of his intercourse with spirits of the dead; he
becomes “a house of dreams”; he is hysterical; he sings; he behaves as
though he were out of his mind; he is possessed by an _Itongo_, an
ancestral spirit. Then he is admitted to the society of the magicians
and receives instruction from them. Finally, he is accounted a new
creature, whose intercourse with spirits and share in their
supernatural powers is recognized by everyone.[109.2]
Among the Ngombe in the Northern Congo basin, we are told, “the ghosts
call [to the man] from the bowels of the earth. He goes into the
grave, underground, and stays there four months. When the four months
are finished he comes forth, rubs himself with camwood and dances,
contorting his body.” This seems to be the neophyte’s only preparation
for the office of _nganga_. After that, according to the same
authority, “whenever a man is sick he is carried by others to the
_nganga_. They accompany him to the man of ghosts. He looks at the
body, then recites to the spirit. They lift up the man and go out. All
the people dance, and he who is afflicted with sickness is brought to
the doctor for medicine.”[109.3]
On the North American continent the medicine-man was not “possessed,”
as among the Siberian tribes and the Bantu; but his mode of initiation
was similar. The {110} Ojibway sorcerer after prolonged fasting was
initiated by the supernatural powers.[110.1] Among many of the
Californian tribes “a spirit, be it that of an animal, a place, the
sun or other natural object, a deceased relative or an entirely
unembodied spirit, visits the future medicine-man in his dreams, and
the connection thus established between them is the source and basis
of the latter’s power. This spirit becomes his guardian spirit or
‘personal.’ From it he receives the song or rite or knowledge of the
charm, and the understanding which enable him to cause or remove
disease, and to do and endure what other men cannot.”[110.2] The
Skidi Pawnee is allured to the abode of the mysterious animal-powers,
and there taught their knowledge and gifted with their powers; or he
is visited by a supernatural being in dreams for the same
purpose.[110.3]
Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo “there are two descriptions of _manangs_
[shamans], the regular and the irregular. The regular are those who
have been called to that vocation by dreams, and to whom the spirits
have revealed themselves. The irregular are self-created and without a
familiar spirit.” It is not enough for the _manang_ simply to say
“that he feels himself called; he must prove to his friends that he is
able to commune with the spirits; and in proof of this he will
occasionally abstain from food and indulge in trances, from which he
will awake with all the tokens of one possessed by a devil, foaming at
the mouth and talking incoherently.”[110.4] One of the ways to “get
magic” among the Malays is to meet the ghost of a murdered man. In
order to do this a {111} ceremony must be performed at the grave on a
Tuesday at full moon. The aspirant calls upon the deceased for help,
and states his request. Ultimately an aged man appears, to whom the
request is repeated; and it would seem that the suppliant gets what he
wants.[111.1]
In Europe the dominant religion has proscribed witchcraft with terrors
spiritual and physical, which have emphasized its separation and
intensified its spiritual aspect. The judicial records are full of
stories of initiation to the Black Art that begin by the formal
renunciation of Christian worship and baptism. The novice tramples
upon symbols of the Christian faith, or otherwise treats them with
indignity. He utters incantations with appropriate rites to call up
the devil. That gentleman then appears to receive his formal
profession of allegiance, admit him ceremonially into his band of
worshippers, and tutor him in the methods of his art. That the
confessions of this procedure were not wholly imaginary, and dictated
by the orthodox functionaries who examined the tortured victim, is
rendered probable from the fact that down to the present day, in many
continental countries, if not in the British Islands, the peasant
witch enters upon her trade by a rite recalling its main features.
It would be easy to expand the list. Enough has, however, been said to
show that over a wide area of the world and in the most various stages
of civilization what we call supernatural beings are concerned with
the preparation of the magician’s career, and that the Arunta beliefs
do not differ in this respect from those current among many other
peoples. In none of the foregoing cases does the shaman or magician as
such exercise the functions of priest. He offers no sacrifices, he
addresses no prayers on behalf of the community to the divinities.
{112} He performs wonders by the aid of the spirits; but the spirits
who first invade and then help him are by no means everywhere those
who are the object of worship. It is not my intention to discuss the
psychological and physiological aspects of the phenomena. They recall
the phenomena of “conversion” among ourselves. Occurring, as they
usually do, at or shortly after the commencement of adult life, they
display the effervescence of puberty, accentuated by the neurotic
peculiarities of the individual, acted upon, directed and controlled
by the social environment. As in the case of “conversion,” too, they
are liable to become epidemic, particularly at times of social and
political crisis, where feeling in the tribe is more than commonly
excited.
Before passing away from the subject we may turn to a different type
of shaman. Among the Veddas the shaman is in effect the priest. The
spirits to whom offerings are made are those of the dead. It is the
shaman who makes the offering, and performs the invocation; and he is
in return possessed by them. But here the novice is chosen and trained
by one who already exercises the profession. He does not become
possessed in his capacity as novice. Possession only takes place at
the public ceremonies; it is temporary; and it may affect others
besides the shaman. The position of shaman is practically hereditary,
for the novice trained is usually the shaman’s son, or his sister’s
son, that is to say, his actual or potential son-in-law. The Veddas
are on a level of civilization as low as the Arunta. Though they do
not practise rites of such senseless and revolting cruelty, in their
natural condition and apart from external influence they live entirely
by hunting and the collection of honey; they build no huts, but take
advantage of caves and rock-shelters; their pottery is of the roughest
description; {113} and the iron arrowheads, axes and other implements
which they possess are obtained by barter from the Sinhalese, for they
do not exercise the art of smithying. The lowest and wildest of them,
however, know nothing of hostile magic. Even protective magic is
hardly practised; and the charms they make use of appear to be derived
from the neighbouring Sinhalese. It is true they have traditions that
it used to be customary to seek strength and confidence to avenge
insults by chewing a small dried piece of the liver of a man who had
been killed for the purpose. This is an application of a well-known
magical principle.[113.1] But, so far as our information goes, it is
a solitary case. If therefore the Vedda shaman is not initiated by the
spirits, it is not because the Veddas have not yet passed out of the
age of magic. If there be an age of magic in which religion is
unknown, for aught that appears they have not yet passed into it. At
all events they cannot be said to confirm the generalization that
magic precedes religion; for magical practices once adopted persist
with remarkable tenacity into the highest planes of culture.
There is, finally, an example of a functionary occupying an ambiguous
position as priest or magician, at which we may glance for a moment.
The Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, before the arrival of strangers
in modern times, were, like the Arunta, living in the Stone Age. They
had no agriculture; their food was supplied by the chase, or the
search for insects, roots, and honey. They had indeed learned to build
huts; and they had the use of fire, but they were ignorant how to
produce it. They are divided into local tribes, ruled by elected
chiefs with very limited power. The chiefs acquire such authority as
they have by their skill in hunting and fishing {114} and their
reputation for generosity and hospitality; and it is on these
qualifications that social status mainly depends. Social and political
organization is therefore, as well as religion, in a somewhat
rudimentary stage. Nor is magic more advanced than religion. The only
persons who exercise any magical or religious functions are called by
the title of _oko-paiad_, or Dreamer. Such a man obtains his position
by relating an extraordinary dream foreshadowing some future event,
which afterwards happens. Since these practitioners are credited with
the power of communicating in dreams with the spirits, it may be
presumed that the initial dream is in the nature of a “call” by them.
The _oko-paiad_ does not seem to be subject to possession by the
spirits; but he is believed to have powers of second sight and a
mysterious influence over the fortunes and lives of his neighbours. He
is therefore the constant recipient of presents, which are in effect
bribes for his favour. Our information concerning his proceedings is
of the scantiest description. It does not extend to any active attempt
at magical interference with the fate or the actions of others.
Perhaps we may conclude that any interference he may be held to
exercise is confined to his intercourse in dreams with the spirits.
However this may be, his only recorded overt acts are on the
occurrence of an epidemic, when “he brandishes a burning log, and bids
the evil spirit keep at a distance.” Sometimes as a further precaution
he plants stakes in front of each hut, and smears them in stripes with
black beeswax, the smell of which, being peculiarly offensive to the
demon, ensures his speedy departure.[114.1] If any inference can be
drawn from this account it hardly seems to favour the priority of the
evolution of magic over religion; for the _oko-paiad_, {115} if not
initiated by the spirits, is essentially one who is in communication
with them, and who exercises his powers not merely against individuals
(of which there is no direct evidence), but in favour of them and of
the community.
The conclusion is that there is no solid and convincing proof of the
development of magic prior to religion. If the Mincopies, the Veddas,
and the tribes of Central Australia fail us, whither shall we turn for
evidence?
Yet there is a consideration generally applicable to savage life that
must not be overlooked here. Vague, uncertain, and contradictory as
the savage may be in his beliefs, sluggish as his mind may be in
regard to matters of speculation,--in matters of practical importance,
the provision of food and shelter, the protection of his women and
children, and the defence of his little community against aggression
by human foes or the wild beasts, he is bound to be on the alert and
to act. His wits are therefore sharpened for action. Action is natural
to him; thought which has no immediate objective in action is strange.
The energies remaining when the body is satisfied with food, when
shelter is assured, and hostilities against his fellow-man or the
lower animals are for the moment forgotten, must be expended in other
kinds of action. Bodily recreation--play--satisfies this craving for
movement and excitement, while at the same time it fulfils the useful
purpose (albeit unconsciously to him) of keeping his faculties, bodily
and mental, ready and supple, and of training them still further for
more directly practical ends. This form of activity, organized into
dances and games, easily begets ritual. The Hottentots danced all
night at full moon with extravagant gestures, saluting the moon and
invoking her for cattle-fodder and milk.[115.1] The Wichita of {116}
North America played every year in the spring a game of shinny, which
represented, there can be little doubt, the contest of winter and
spring.[116.1] In such cases as these, and they are legion, a
recreation has been indulged in at a period appropriate for it--the
dance in the clear, cool night, the game under the mild returning
warmth and stimulating influences of the early spring. Because it thus
naturally recurs at definite times it comes to be regarded as proper,
even necessary: it develops into a rite. To a similar game played by
the Omaha was attached, in the phrase of the writers who describe it,
“a cosmic significance.”[116.2] The impulse to movement, to exertion,
liberates emotion; the emotion is in turn intensified by its
collective expression; and this intensification would lead to the
conviction that the expression has somehow or other in itself an
influence on external nature, just as it would have in human
relations. The exact mechanism by which it acted probably would not
trouble the savage at an early stage. Later, it would be fitted into
the framework of his ideas. The Hottentot rite came to be addressed to
the moon. The Wichita rite seems to have been thought to assist
directly in conquest of the evil power of winter and the renewal of
life.
But we may go further back still. I have referred to the make-believe
that is a relief to overcharged feelings. Emotional stress is felt at
times by everybody, be he savage or civilized. It causes a reaction,
more or less powerful in proportion to the magnitude of the cause or
the excitability of the person who undergoes it. It is expressed in
acts sometimes of the wildest extravagance, sometimes rhythmic and
partially controlled. These acts are spontaneous, automatic.
Recurrence of the emotional stress would tend to be accompanied by
repetition of the {117} acts in which the reaction had been previously
expressed. If the recurrence were sufficiently frequent, the form of
the reaction would become a habit to be repeated on similar occasions,
even where the stress was less vivid or almost absent. It can hardly
be doubted that many rites owe their existence to such reactions. The
Pawnees, like the Wichita, a tribe belonging to the Caddoan stock of
North America, summoned with song and dance and other elaborate rites
the buffaloes which were the mainstay of their existence. Everything
depended--sustenance, provision of clothing and tents and all other
necessaries, hence the very continuance of the tribal life--on the
buffaloes. Their movements about the great central plains of the
continent were mysterious. The true causes were unknown; the course
was not predicable with certainty. Accordingly, the period of
expectation while the people were awaiting the advent of the herd was
one of great emotional tension. It was relieved by a series of acts,
originally automatic, or quasi-automatic, which would gradually assume
more and more definitely the calling and enticement of the expected
herd. This form of reaction to the particular stress would become
habitual. It would end as a solemn rite, which was believed to have a
powerful influence in bringing the animals and effecting a
satisfactory capture. The _orenda_ of the performers, expressed in the
manner consecrated by tradition, would then be held to exercise a
compelling power.[117.1]
To such an origin must be ascribed the rehearsal of a battle that
takes place in many savage tribes before {118} the warriors go forth
on a raid, and the dances and other ceremonies accomplished by women
left at home when their husbands are absent fighting or hunting. More
obviously must it be held responsible for a variety of other
performances, of which the common spell in this country and on the
continent of Europe, to recover an article stolen or the waning
affections of a lover, is a type. The love-lorn maiden takes some
object, frequently a shoulder-bone of lamb, and sticks a knife or a
pin into it, saying:
“’Tis not this bone I mean to stick,
But my lover’s heart I mean to prick,
Wishing him neither rest nor sleep
Till he comes with me to speak.”
Of spells like this the preparation of an effigy, and the assaults
upon it representing acts done to the person for whom the effigy
stands, are an elaboration. The overcharged emotion first of all finds
a vent in an attack upon any convenient object. Then from various
causes a special object is singled out as the appropriate vehicle of
the performer’s wrath, hatred or jealousy, the act gradually becomes
more solemn and deliberate, and a formal rite is evolved.
It should hardly be necessary to say that it is not claimed that the
foregoing paragraphs explain the genesis of all rites. But that many
do thus originate accords with all we know of human nature. In any
case a rite was not instituted because men were previously convinced
of its efficacy. The primitive savage may have been a man of
preternatural stupidity; but even he would not have been equal to
putting the cart before the horse in that fashion. The rite must have
been an established habit before a conscious meaning filtered into it.
Interpretation would be a gradual process. If the rite were shared
{119} by the social group, and by expansion or accretion attained
sufficient importance, the interpretation might take the form of a
myth. The myth in turn would contribute to the stability of the rite,
by means of the sacred character it would affix to it, or the
reminiscence of an ancient experience it would be supposed to embody.
Thus ritual, religious or magical, is evolved long before belief has
become definite and cogent. It may emerge from what I may style the
mere surface of human nature, from necessities mainly physical, from
direct nervous reaction. It may, on the other hand, have roots in the
social relations of mankind. The savage naturally, habitually--I might
almost say instinctively--applies the forms of social life to his
relations with his non-human surroundings. Presumably, as we have
seen, primitive man in his rough way did likewise.
But this affords no argument for holding that magic preceded religion.
Rites are not necessarily magical because they are not addressed to
defined personalities. They may be yet inchoate. Not until reflection
has begun to clarify in some degree man’s relation to his environment
(a slow and tedious process, slowest and most tedious of all in the
early stages) can we reckon them satisfactorily under the one head or
the other. If I am right in contending that magic and religion flow
from a common source, rites may remain for generations in an
indecisive condition which is neither, but may crystallize in either
shape according to the specific occasion, the environment, or the
dominant mental and institutional tendency of the social group. Such a
transformation will be gradual and piecemeal, and in large part, if
not entirely, unconscious. Many things done “for luck,” even in the
higher civilizations, are {120} still in this indeterminate state. The
intellectual atmosphere is unfavourable; their development is
arrested, probably for ever. I suspect that an accurate appreciation
of the Intichiuma rites practised by the Arunta and their neighbours
would show that they too are not finally to be assigned to either
category.
The part played by society in the generation of religion demands some
further observations. From whatever type of anthropoid ape man has
been evolved, it is safe to believe that he has from the first lived
in communities. But for this he could have made no progress, if even
he could have existed as man. The condition of the solitary apes is
incapable of improvement. It is incredible that if rudimentary human
beings had lived like them in a group consisting at the utmost of a
male, female, and still dependent young, they would ever have emerged
into humanity, or that if they had emerged they would have been able
to hold their own against the foes that surrounded them. The lowest
human beings are never found solitary. If they wander on the
food-quest, or are driven away from higher and more powerful
societies, they do not fail to come together at certain times to enjoy
the companionship of their fellows, to exchange experiences, to plan
hunts or raids, to perform rites in common and partake of common
pleasures. This implies organization. In fact, such communities, when
they meet and live the communal life, are not found to be a mere
incoherent congeries of individuals. They are true societies,
organized, some more, some less closely, on a definite plan, in which
every individual has his place. The Australian natives have evolved
social institutions of proverbial complexity. The Bushmen of South
Africa, persecuted and broken by intrusive races, have left us on the
walls of the caverns they haunted representations {121} marvellous in
their skill of ceremonies apparently totemic. And if this
interpretation of the drawings be doubtful, such remains as have been
preserved of their traditions afford evidence of an organization by no
means contemptible. The Seri of the Californian Gulf, perhaps on a
still lower plane of civilization, and certainly leading their life in
more miserable surroundings, are divided into clans and furnished with
a social hierarchy built up on a reverence for women almost chivalrous
in its type.[121.1]
The existence everywhere of organized societies implies the paramount
influence of the community over the individual. Nor is that influence
only a matter of implication. Abundant evidence is found of the
control wielded by society over the actions and the very thoughts of
its members. The individual is nothing: the group is everything. As
Professor Durkheim remarks, every society exercises power over its
members, power physical and above all moral. It keeps them in a
sensation of perpetual dependence. It is distinct from the individuals
who compose it, and consequently its interests are distinct from
theirs. But as it cannot attain its ends except through and by means
of the individual, it makes an imperious claim on his assistance,
exacting it even to the sacrifice of his inclinations and interests.
Thus at every moment we are obliged to submit to rules of conduct and
of thought which we have neither made nor wished to make, and which
may even be contrary to our most fundamental instincts.[121.2]
In these days and among civilized societies, when individualism is so
strongly developed in thought and action, we are apt to forget to what
an extent religion is an expression of the social organization. An
eminent {122} Oxford professor, not long ago deceased, used to say
that religion was a social secretion. That may be an excellent way to
phrase the relations between society and religion in modern Europe. It
is a very incomplete account of them as they exist on the Australian
steppe or in the forests of Brazil. In the lower culture religion is
much more than a social secretion: it is one aspect of the social
organization, inseparable from the rest. The organization cannot be
understood without it--nay, it cannot exist apart from it. In these
societies every member has his position and takes his share in
religious rites. Whatever his place in the social scale, he is on the
same level of knowledge, he shares in the same beliefs, with his
fellows. The mental atmosphere of each is charged with the same
electric fluid, which communicates itself to all alike. Especially on
the occasions of reunion its action is intensified, frequently
resulting in excitement, in vehement exaltation, translated into the
wildest and most extravagant actions. But these reunions are not
merely social, they are religious festivals. For religion pervades
every thought and deed both of the individual and of the community. It
binds the members together as no other force could do. The power of
society over the individual is the power of religion. For religion is
not as yet distinguished from politics, from law, from medicine, or
from other forms of social activity that in our stage of culture have
long vindicated their freedom.
Religion has therefore grown up with society. Its form has changed
with the changing forms of society. It cannot be said to be generated
by society, inasmuch as it is coeval with it. The very mould in which
a society in the lower stages of culture is cast is religious. Church
and State are of necessity coterminous, equivalent, {123} one. But
this evolution must of necessity have taken time. The inchoate society
of half-human beings would have had a correspondingly vague and
inchoate religion. As intelligence grew, the bonds of the horde would
gather strength, what we may call public opinion would become more and
more definite with the gradual acquisition of speech, until at last
man emerged in something like a regularly ordered community. It is
difficult for us to imagine the steps of this long process, by which,
with society, what we call religion was evolved. I have tried in an
earlier chapter to sketch the external conditions that would have
impressed humanity in its dawn. These external conditions would have
driven the individual more and more in upon the group, and thus would
have materially contributed to the conscious formation of common
interests founded upon the common need of material help, of sympathy,
and of relief from anxiety and terror, whether of actual or imagined
danger. The formation of common interests must have been accompanied
by the increasing subordination of the individual to the group. In the
extension of the authority of the group over the individual it is that
M. Durkheim finds the origin of the idea of the impersonal force which
the Omaha call _wakonda_. The idea, as I have shown, lies at the root
of the religious conceptions of peoples in more than one vast cultural
area. That such authority of the group, necessarily impersonal as it
is, would operate to strengthen the concept of a general impersonal
force, when once that concept had been formed, there can be no
question. To ascribe to it the origin of the concept, however, seems
to me an unwarranted inference. It is more probable that the conflict
of the Personal and the Impersonal should arise in the awakening mind
as the result of its outlook upon {124} the world. The whole
environment does not present a personal aspect at once. As
personalities grow into relative definiteness one after another, there
remains behind them the Unknown, full of vague possibilities,
impersonal, but the source of personalities, which are for ever
looming forth as the attention is concentrated on successive objects.
Since it is the source of personalities, it is the source of power,
mysterious and far-reaching, everywhere enveloping the beholder. It is
true this power, in order to become effectual, must clothe itself with
personal attributes. That, however, is not because it is formed on
experience of the authority of the group acting by individuals, but
because personalization is the inevitable tendency of the mind.
Professor Durkheim’s theory of religion is exhibited in detail only in
one type. He speaks of “the aptitude of society to erect itself into a
god or to create gods”;[124.1] but he illustrates his thesis only in
the case of totemism, which he takes as an example of the religion of
the least advanced people hitherto thoroughly examined. He is careful
to say that the question whether totemism has been more or less
widespread is of secondary importance; it is at all events the most
primitive and the simplest religion it is possible to reach.[124.2]
But his whole argument, if it prove anything, goes to show the
universality of totemism. For the idea of the soul, according to the
data of ethnography, appears to him to have been coeval with humanity,
and that not merely in germ but in all its essential characters; and
the soul is nothing else than the totemic principle incarnated in each
individual, a portion of the collective soul of the group, that is to
say of the totem, individualized.[124.3] Now totemism is certainly a
very archaic form of religion. That it was universal {125} is,
however, very far from being demonstrated. It may well be that many
branches of the human race have outgrown it, and that its traces have
been obliterated. But among peoples very low down in culture there are
many where it is unknown, or at least unrecognizable. It is more than
possible, could we ascertain the facts, that Bushman society was
organized on the basis of totemism. But there are other tribes no
higher than Bushmen and Australian Blackfellows where we fail to
discern it. The Veddas of Ceylon are indeed divided into clans with
female descent. Yet no totem has emerged after the most careful
enquiries. Their religion is essentially a cult of the dead, based on
fear. The dead man is addressed as “Lord! New Driver-away of Vaeddas!”
Sacrifices are offered and eaten as an act of communion with the
deceased. In addition to the dead of the local group, “certain
long-dead Veddas who may be regarded as legendary heroes” are invoked,
of whom the most important are Kande Yaka, an ancient hunter whose
assistance is implored for good hunting, and his brother Bilindi Yaka,
a sort of pale double of himself. But they are not known among all the
Vedda communities, though Kande is regarded by some as Lord or leader
of the dead. There are also other spirits, who appear to be of foreign
origin and superimposed upon the original cult of the dead, and are
perhaps on their way to become nature-spirits.[125.1] The religion of
the Andaman Islanders “consists of fear of the evil spirits of the
wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts
traditionally displeasing to them.” There is besides an
anthropomorphic being, Puluga, who is said to be “the cause of all
things.” He receives no active worship, though acts thought to be
displeasing to him are avoided “for fear of damage to {126} the
products of the jungle.” There is some evidence that he is the
north-east wind; and Sir R. C. Temple is of opinion that he is
“fundamentally, with some definiteness, identifiable with the storm,
mixed up with ancestral chiefs.” He acts by his daughters, the
Morowin, who are his messengers; but he seems to content himself with
pointing out to the evil spirits offenders against himself, without
actually taking steps against them.[126.1] Totemism is nowhere hinted
at by the enquirers who have busied themselves with this childlike,
and on the whole harmless, but somewhat capricious people.
Still very low in the scale of civilization, though somewhat higher
than these, are the tribes of the interior forests of Brazil. They
people their environment with imaginary beings more or less hostile.
The object of their ceremonies appears to be to conciliate the favour
of these gentry, or to hold them at arm’s length. When once the
death-rites are completed little account is taken of the departed. So
much we may gather from the reports of two German expeditions, written
by distinguished scientific men who led the expeditions. Although they
penetrated different parts of the country, there was a general
resemblance between the civilization of the Indians met with by both
explorers. A French anthropologist has remarked that English and
German observers do not interest themselves to the same degree, or in
the same way, in the social life of peoples in the lower culture; for
whereas the German explorers by preference describe, and that with
praiseworthy minuteness, the nature of the country and the material
civilization of the people, the English, on the other hand, interest
themselves more in the intellectual products, the traditions and
beliefs. In other words, he said, the German is {127} more of an
ethnographer, the Englishman more of a student of folklore and
psychologist. There is perhaps a measure of truth in this remark. It
may go far to explain why more distinct and definite accounts have not
been given either by Professor Karl von den Steinen or Dr Theodor
Koch-Grünberg of the religions of the aboriginal tribes of Brazil. In
any case, we miss much that we should have expected to find in their
reports on the religious beliefs and ceremonies of these tribes. Among
the omissions is that of any mention of totemism--an institution which
concerns organization and government as much as religion. What renders
the omission significant in the case of Professor von den Steinen, and
not merely the result of want of interest in the subject, is that he
has taken pains to ascertain and record the attitude of the natives
towards the lower animals. He makes it clear that they draw no strict
line of demarcation between man and brute. Nay, he goes the length of
saying that we must think the boundary completely away. Human beings
are indebted to the lower animals for the most important elements of
their culture, many of which they have acquired from them by force or
guile. More than that, the Bororó claim to be actually _araras_ (a
kind of bird with brilliant red plumage); their neighbours the Trumai
are believed to be water-animals; a certain cannibal tribe is
descended from the jaguar; and so forth. These beliefs are not
totemic, for they concern not clans but whole tribes.[127.1]
Apparently, therefore, there is no totemism among the wild
forest-tribes investigated.
If the concept of the soul (which, it is needless to say, all these
peoples possess) were coeval with humanity, and if it were only the
totemic principle individualized, then totemism must have been coeval
with humanity, and it {128} must have been universal. If so, it is at
least curious that the Veddas, the Andaman Islanders, and the
forest-tribes of Brazil--all of them on the horizon of civilization on
which totemism is found--should display no traces of it. If the
concept of impersonal force, the substratum of religious and magical
beliefs, be derived from the authority of society over the individual,
and not merely strengthened and developed by it, it is odd that
religious and magical beliefs should, so low down in culture, have
issued in such widely divergent forms. The worship of the dead, the
conciliation of hostile nature-spirits, the fear of an anthropomorphic
being of enormous power, are all explicable as the result of the
action of external conditions on human mentality and emotions. They
are not explicable as the direct product of the authority of the group
over the individual. And if totemism had originally held sway over the
Veddas, the Mincopies and the Brazilian tribes, it is not easy to
conceive how it could have evolved in directions so diverse,--and that
without leaving any authentic witness to its past. It is quite another
thing if the action of the group had been rather to combine and
consolidate, to intensify and to organize the sensations and emotions
awakened in its members by external nature, to give them a measure of
definiteness in the process, and to habituate the individual to
certain modes of reaction to the sensations, and to certain forms of
expression of the beliefs engendered by the emotions thus awakened.
IV. Divergence
In the foregoing pages I have attempted to trace Magic and Religion to
a common root. We have found them inextricably intertwined very low
down in culture; {129} we have seen the difficulty of distinguishing
them by way of scientific definition, and have been forced back upon
ordinary usage. Both alike are concerned with the supernatural and the
uncanny; but the one deals with it by compulsion, by the direct
exertion of human _orenda_ upon the objects sought to be constrained,
the other by the indirect method of appeal to mightier powers than
human to exercise their _orenda_ upon those objects, in order to
obtain the result desired. And I have contended that the opposition of
Magic and Religion, on which writers of authority like Professor
Frazer and the late Sir Alfred Lyall have so much insisted, is so far
from being essential that it is a result of their concurrent
development and of the general advance of civilization, and is even
yet imperfectly accomplished. The argument seems to require some
further illustrations.
First, let me observe that the definition of magic here adopted does
by no means coincide with that of Professor Frazer, though, like his,
it rests upon the method of compulsion as the distinguishing
characteristic. That, however, is not because of any faith by primeval
man in the invariable order of nature or in the inevitable sequence of
cause and effect. The compulsion of magic, as I understand it, is
wielded by, and dependent upon, the personal _orenda_ of the magician,
either directly or through the medium of the powerful and uncanny
beings whom he succeeds in bringing into play.
The idea of a god in our minds is associated with a reverential
attitude that is very far from being universally adopted. In a later
essay we shall see that threats of bodily injury, even (in the
legends) actual hand-to-hand combats, and (in fact) chastisement of
the material representatives of divinity, are often regarded as quite
appropriate measures to be taken in dealing with beings {130} who are
ordinarily the objects of worship. I have already referred to the
constraining power attributed to sacrifice and other rites in some of
the more advanced religions. Where ritual has undergone a long term of
development, where it has been subjected for many ages to continuous
thought, and to elaboration in order to provide for new needs or
against unforeseen contingencies, there it is apt to acquire a
proportionate value of its own, independent of the merits of the
performer. The sacrifice which is a gift to the gods imperiously
demands its looked-for repayment, and will not be denied. The penance,
whether it be in the nature of a sacrifice or a spell, carries with
it, like the Hindu rite of _dharna_, an implied curse if not responded
to. In either case the deity to whom it is directed has no choice but
to comply.
The constraining influence may take a variety of forms, and is by no
means confined to one plane of civilization, or to one cultural area.
Sometimes it is expressed in knots to which is widely attributed what
we call magical power. In Morocco, where civilization has rather
deteriorated than progressed for many ages, the cult of the dead is
largely prevalent. Professor Westermarck records that a Berber servant
of his told him that once when in prison he invoked a certain great
female saint whose tomb was in a neighbouring district, and tied his
turban, saying: “I am tying thee, Lälla Rah’ma Yusf, and I am not
going to open the knot till thou hast helped me.” And a person in
distress will sometimes go to her grave and knot the leaves of some
palmetto growing in its vicinity, with the words: “I tied thee here, O
saint, and I shall not release thee unless thou releasest me from the
toils in which I am at present.”[130.1]
This perhaps also is, as Professor Westermarck suggests, {131} a
conditional curse. Now a curse, like other magical proceedings before
referred to, is primarily a relief of overcharged feelings. Uttered
with all the strength of those feelings by an aggrieved or baffled
adversary, it evokes even in our breasts to-day shuddering and horror.
Much more then in days when the man’s _orenda_ was deemed to go out in
speech with immediate result upon the object to which he directed it.
When gods came to be adopted and worshipped, strength was added to the
curse by invocation of the god. The god’s name added to the curse was
an addition of the god himself. For the name is a part, and an
important part, of the god, and cannot be used without effect. The god
is bound to respond to it, and to act in accordance with the votary’s
demand. For this reason the real names of gods were kept secret.
Mystery thus attached to the name of the God of the Hebrews: hence the
express prohibition to “take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Almost all over the world this belief in efficacy of the uttered name
as a means of compulsion is responsible not merely for taboos on the
names of gods, and of men living or dead, but also for the form and
potency of magical formulæ. If you know the name of a spirit and
utter it, or sometimes even threaten to utter it, you compel the
owner’s attention to your wants. Or you may pretend to be some great
personage, such as (wherever the Mohammedan tradition has penetrated)
King Solomon or the angel Gabriel; and in that name you may issue your
commands. Or, as among Christians, you call for the obedience of a
spirit in the great name of God or the Lord Jesus Christ. In India to
repeat the divine name aloud, or even by way of meditation, “is the
most usual way of acquiring religious merit.… So much importance is
given to this mode of meditation that Tulsidas in {132} his _Ramayan_
lays down that the name of Rama is greater than Rama himself.” In
other words, its utterance compels him. “It is said of a certain Hindu
who had notoriously lived a life of impiety that he obtained salvation
by calling on his deathbed for his son by his name, which happened to
be Nârâyan.”[132.1] The name Nârâyan is sacred. It was originally
a title of Brahmâ, but is now usually applied to Vishnu, and is that
under which he was first worshipped.[132.2]
The curse, if curse it were, involved in the rite practised by
Professor Westermarck’s servant was not of the kind dependent on the
utterance of a name. It was rather of that in which the curse is
conveyed by a sign or figure deriving its power from the _orenda_ of
the magician himself. I have already referred to one species of such
curses intended for the protection of property by marking it as taboo
to the owner.[132.3] In this form they are chiefly used by the
Malayo-Polynesian and Melanesian peoples and on the eastern side of
Central Africa, though they have their analogues elsewhere.[132.4]
The leaden tablets of _defixiones_ employed by the ancient Greeks, of
which numerous examples are known, show a similar practice founded on
similar ideas. The tablet is inscribed with the name of the person
intended to be injured, and it is then “defixed,” or bound, with a
nail. The ceremony was doubtless accompanied by some words expressive
of the intention. Indeed the expression of the intention was in course
of time recorded on the tablet. A further stage in development was
reached when the gods were invoked, {133} beginning with Hermes and
Ge, and going on to other chthonic divinities. Later, apparently
towards the end of the third century B.C., the custom began of
devoting to various gods lost property and the thief who had stolen
it. Such tablets affixed to the walls of temples doubtless served the
purpose of our advertisements for the recovery of lost or stolen
property. The difference is that, whereas we offer material rewards,
the Greeks invoked the help of the gods and threatened the thief or
receiver with supernatural vengeance.[133.1] The use of _defixiones_
spread into Italy, and has lasted into quite modern times, or, it may
be truer to say, was revived under the influence of learned men who at
the close of the Middle Ages became imbued with the astrology and
magic of earlier days. One of these learned men, Cornelius Agrippa of
Nettesheim, who attained high judicial office under the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, but afterwards got into trouble for his occult
studies, wrote a book on Occult Philosophy, which was translated into
English in the middle of the seventeenth century. At that time the
study of magic was falling into disrepute. Agrippa’s book was left to
charlatans who preyed upon the ignorant. Some of the results have been
found up and down the country in the form of leaden tablets inscribed
with curses, mystical numbers and signs, names of the spirits invoked
to make the curses effectual and of the victims against whom the
curses were intended to operate.[133.2] In these modern cases {134}
the powers appealed to are no longer beings recognized by the dominant
religion. They are relics of religions passed away, or figments of the
pedantic imagination. Magic, in short, has for purposes of private
vengeance been ousted from religion and has set up for itself.
At any rate the Moroccan rite involves a threat; and a threat is near
akin to a curse. Much may be done with gods, as with men, by means of
a little judicious bluff. A certain Malay robber kept six tame
spirits, to whom he made an offering from time to time. When he did so
he called them by name, bidding them: “Come here! Eat my offering!
Take you care that my body is not affected, that the flow of my blood
is not stayed! Likewise with the bodies of my wife and children. (If
not) I’ll turn the earth and the sky the wrong way round!” He was
fully convinced of the power of these spirits and apparently of the
value of his terrible threat, though, as Mr Annandale, who reports the
case, points out, the spirits had been unable to save him from being
convicted and imprisoned for his crimes.[134.1]
In ancient Egypt magic was practised in connection with religion from
prehistoric times. Magic and religion “were two products of one and
the same _Weltanschauung_, not disparate either in their methods or in
their psychological basis. Nor were they differently estimated from
the ethical point of view: magic was deemed permissible, so long as it
was turned to no evil purpose. It follows that the classification of
Egyptian superstitious practices as (_a_) religious, (_b_) magical,
must be a purely external mode of classification: the distinction
between religion {135} and magic in Egypt has not, and cannot be made
to have, any deeper significance.”[135.1] The scholar from whom I
quote these words, so far from exaggerating the close relationship
between magic and religion, may be said to understate it. Magic was an
integral part of religion. The priests of the gods were magicians.
Magic was employed in the ritual of worship. It enabled the great god
Ra to overcome the serpent Apep.[135.2] Magical ceremonies performed
by the priests over the mummy, or over a statuette representing the
deceased, were the means by which his success in passing the necessary
tests and his lasting happiness after death were secured. The means
employed were those universally known to magic: amulets, waxen and
other figures, pictures, spells and words of power, the knowledge of
names, rites imitating the results desired, and so forth. Concerning
the dead we are told: “Few were those who remained for ever with the
Sun, and they were not necessarily the great ones of the earth, nor
yet the very good, but those who possessed the most minute information
as to the next world, and who were best versed in magic. Thus the
whole doctrine is based on a belief in the power of magic.”[135.3]
“In the next world a correct knowledge of magic words and formulas was
absolutely essential. There no door would open to him who knew not its
name; no demon would allow the passage of the dead who did not call
upon him correctly, nor would any god come to his help unless invoked
by the right name; no food could be had so long as the exactly
prescribed prayers were not uttered with the true intonations. But the
dead who {136} knew these formulas, and who knew how to speak them
correctly at the proper moment, who was _maâ kherû_
(right-speaking), might rest assured of immortality and of eternal
blessedness.”[136.1] This led of course to the multiplication of
spells, to the elaboration of ritual, during the long ages of Egyptian
history, until at last they must have become extremely burdensome.
Moreover, sorcery was not only expended by man in the service of the
gods and of the dead: it was used by the gods themselves. “Only by
means of conjurations could Ra himself pass through” the divisions
between the twelve hourly spaces of the night.[136.2] By the power of
his name Neb-er-tcher or Khepera, often identified with certain
aspects of Ra, the Sun, evolved himself and created the world.[136.3]
The secret name of Ra was a word of might. Isis set herself with all
her arts to learn it, that she might possess the world in heaven and
upon earth as Ra did (that is, become a goddess); and when she had
extorted it from the august divinity, she turned the weapon without
hesitation upon himself.[136.4] By examples like these men were
authorized to have recourse to magic in their own secular concerns,
their loves and hates, their sickness, their social and business
relations, their private enterprizes, their competitions and
resentments. Kings consulted the soothsayers on public affairs; they
employed magical processes to vanquish their enemies; {137} with the
aid of soothsayers and magicians they governed their realm. It was
only when sorcery was directed against the king’s life, when it aimed
at the overthrow of his power, or the injury or death of others, that
it was reckoned a crime, or even reprehended on moral grounds.
Nor did the magician hesitate to compel even the gods to perform his
wishes, and to threaten them, like the Malay robber, with dire
disaster to themselves and the universe as a punishment of their
obstinacy. In one papyrus preserved to us, for example, a woman in
labour declares herself to be Isis and summons the gods to her help.
If they refuse to come, “Then shall ye be destroyed, ye nine gods; the
heaven shall no longer exist, the earth shall no longer exist, the
five days over and above the year shall cease to be, offerings shall
no longer be made to the gods, the lords of Heliopolis. The firmament
of the south shall fail, and disaster shall break forth from the sky
of the north. Lamentations shall resound from the graves, the midday
sun shall no longer shine, the Nile shall not bestow its waters of
inundation at the appointed time.”[137.1] Such bombastic menaces as
these continued to be part of the practitioner’s stock-in-trade in the
Roman Empire to the downfall of paganism.
Among the ancient Greeks in Plato’s time there were soothsayers and
medicine-men who professed to have power over the gods, so that they
could compel them to do their bidding, even though it were to injure
another person.[137.2] I am not aware whether any of their spells
have been preserved.[137.3]
{138}
Cases like these display the religion of the community applied to the
private advantage of the individual. More interesting is the authority
which Mr Hodson attributes to the _khullakpa_, or village priest, of
the Naga tribes of Manipur. The khullakpa is to be distinguished from
the _maiba_, or medicine-man, who is doctor and magician in one. The
maiba is called in to deal with individual cases; the khullakpa plays
the leading part when a village _genna_ is held. It is he who offers
the sacrifices and performs the rites. The term _genna_ means
forbidden. A genna extending to the whole village excludes strangers
from entering, and prohibits the inhabitants from going out and from
doing any work while the genna lasts; it may also prescribe fasting,
continence, and other observances. In short, “the ordinary routine of
life is profoundly modified, if not broken off altogether.” A genna
may be either periodical, as for the sake of the crops or the hunting;
or it may be occasional, as at a death, or against epidemic sickness,
or at an earthquake or eclipse. A sacrifice is invariably a part of
the ritual. The khullakpa “acts,” says Mr Hodson, “whenever a rite is
performed which requires the whole force of the community behind it,
and this force finds its operation through him. These village gennas
seem in many cases to be inspired by the belief that man, _the man_,
the {139} khullakpa, when fortified by the whole strength and will of
the village, is able to control and constrain forces which are beyond
his control if unaided.”[139.1] If this inference, made by an acute
observer, be correct, it is a remarkable example of the corporate
strength of the society applied by means of religious rites to the
coercion of the gods and other supernatural beings.
Not a little significant of the intimate relations of religion and
magic is the fact that many peoples have expressly ascribed the
authorship and practice of magic to their gods. In New South Wales the
figure of Baiame, the idealized headman just developing into a god, is
modelled upon that of a magician. He is described by one of the tribes
in so many words as “mightiest and most famous of _Wirreenun_,” or
magicians.[139.2] The Arawâk of British Guiana tell of a similar
personage in a semi-deified position, named Arawânili or Orowâma, to
whom the mysteries of sorcery were revealed by an _orehu_. The orehu
is a sort of mermaid who is an important figure in the mythology of
these Indians. She haunts the rivers, a capricious, mischievous, not
always malicious and cruel, but sometimes benevolent figure. In one of
her kindlier moments she met Arawânili brooding over the condition to
which men were reduced by the evil doings of the _yauhahu_, downright
malignant beings, the authors of sickness and death. To combat their
depredations she gave him the sorcerer’s rattle and instructed him how
to use it. “He followed her directions and thus became the founder of
that system which has since prevailed among all the Indian tribes.”
According to Arawâk belief Arawânili did not die like other men, but
“went up,” that is to say, disappeared or departed in the manner of
other American {140} culture-heroes. We have no evidence, however,
that he is actually worshipped.[140.1]
The coast-dwellers of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Pomerania, whose
effective belief is in spirits, both _manes_ and spirits non-human in
origin, presuppose in their witchcraft the existence of these spirits.
Sickness and other ills are caused by evil-disposed spirits, and are
combated by magic. But this magic is due to the superior might of
well-disposed spirits. It is they who reveal the spells by which human
ailments may be vanquished and human desires gratified. Among these
spirits are especially to be named the Inal, a spirit with wings like
a bird’s and face like an owl’s, inhabiting a great _giao_-tree
(_Ficus prolixa_), and the Kaya, a gigantic python with human face,
worshipped by certain of the natives as ancestor. From the ascription
to spirits of all spells made use of by the sorcerers, Father Meier,
to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the native beliefs,
infers that the belief in spirits preceded witchcraft.[140.2] Whether
the inference be right or wrong, there can be no doubt of the fact
that this belief and witchcraft are now inseparable.
Among the Lushai-Kuki of Assam, Pathian the creator, a quasi-supreme
and benevolent being, was acquainted with, but is not definitely
stated to have been the author of, witchcraft. It was taught by his
daughter, as a ransom for her life, to Vahrika, who had caught her
stealing water from his private supply. Vahrika is described as
“something like” Pathian--a purely mythological figure. He in turn
taught it all to others.[140.3] In Japan, Jimmu {141} Tennō, the
deified legendary founder of the empire, is said to have first taught
the use of magical formulæ; while the gods Ohonamochi and
Sukunabikona are credited with the invention of medicine and
magic.[141.1] The ancient Egyptians held Thoth, the god of writing
and guardian of law, “to have written the most sacred books and
formulas with his own hand, and therein to have set down his knowledge
of magic, in which art Isis was his only rival. His pre-eminence in
magic naturally led to his becoming the god of medicine, for magic was
fully as important to the medical practitioners of the Nile Valley as
knowledge of remedies.”[141.2] In other words, medicine was not yet
separated from magic, the physician was a sorcerer, who may have been
versed in simples, but whose practice was essentially mysterious and
derived its effect rather from what we call supernatural than natural
modes of action. Hence to recognize Thoth as god of medicine was
equivalent to recognizing him as god of magic, a character peculiarly
suitable to a god of letters.
Finally, not to lengthen the list, if we may trust the Ynglinga-saga,
Odin was the author of those crafts which men have long since plied,
and among them of magic. He “was wise in that craft wherewith went
most might, which is called spell-craft; and this he himself followed.
Wherefore he had might to know the fate of men and things not yet come
to pass; yea, or how to work for men bane or illhap or ill-heal, and
to take wit or strength from men and give them unto others.” He was a
notorious shape-shifter. “He knew how by words alone to slake the fire
or still the sea, and how to turn {142} the wind to whichso way he
would.” He could “wake up dead men from the earth.” He “knew of all
buried treasures where they were hidden; and he knew lays whereby the
earth opened before him, and mountains and rocks and mounds, and how
to bind with words alone whoso might be found dwelling therein; and he
would go in and take thence what he would. From all this craft he
became exceeding famed, and his foes dreaded him, but his friends put
their trust in him, and had faith in his craft and himself; but he
taught the more part of his cunning to the temple-priests, and they
were next to him in all wisdom and cunning: albeit many others got to
them much knowledge thereof, and thence sorcery spread far and wide
and endured long.”[142.1] Although the opening chapters of the
Ynglinga-saga, from which I have extracted these particulars, are a
late and euhemerized version of the Scandinavian mythology, the
account of Odin’s magical powers contains little that does not appear
in the early poems, or cannot be inferred from them. Whatever may have
been the primitive form of this renowned god, there can be no doubt
that he was before the close of the pagan age regarded as a god of
magic and sorcery. His reputation as god of poetry, and probably as
war-god, is bound up with this. The magical value attached to verse is
very common among peoples in an archaic stage of culture; and it was
shared to the full by the ancient Norsemen. Many of them--at least in
Viking days, and it is by no means unlikely much earlier--combined in
their own persons the warrior with the poet and the sorcerer. Nor
shall we go far astray if we conclude that these various strands had
been long interwoven to form the character of the Lord of the Anses.
The intimate relation existing among the Norse between {143} religion
and magic is further indicated by the superior magical knowledge and
powers ascribed to them and stated to be originally derived from Odin.
Thus, on the one hand, we find constraint of the higher powers for
public or private ends; on the other hand, the invention of spells and
practice of magic are attributed to the gods themselves. We may think
that constraint of the gods is inconsistent with worship. This is not
the notion of peoples among which magic and religion are thus
interwoven. The object of religion is to acquire benefits for the
individual or the community. With this end men deem themselves
justified in applying any means likely to secure it; and they treat
their gods as they would powerful fellow-men, seeking favours where
favours are to be had for the asking or in return for favours,
enforcing compliance with their wishes where prayers will not avail,
or cheating them where they get the chance. The repetition of a divine
name may be either a favour to the god, or may be compulsion. The
votary cares not to distinguish. In either case it brings about the
gratification of his wishes. The village _genna_ practised by the
Nagas is compulsion. It is none the less worship. Many of the magical
texts of ancient Egypt are directed to assisting the gods to overcome
their enemies, thus rendering them a favour which they were bound to
return. The ritual of the Scapegoat, familiar to us in its Hebrew
form,[143.1] but in fact found in many other quarters of the globe,
presents another form of these magical practices. The sins of which
men have been guilty, the evils from which they have been suffering
are laden on the head of the unfortunate victim, who is forthwith put
to death or driven away forever from society. {144} Whether in the
earliest form of the rite the victim was regarded as divine may be
doubted: it is certain that it has been taken up into the cult of the
gods in many religions, and has been deemed a pious act, a work of
obligation, for the wellbeing of the joint community of gods and men.
Divine beings may even be made accomplices in Black or antisocial
Magic without any compulsion. The white-headed carrion-hawk
(_Haliaster intermedius_) is the most important bird of omen observed
by the Kenyahs of Borneo. Under the name of Bali Flaki he is looked
upon as messenger and intermediary between themselves and Bali
Penyalong, the Supreme Being. Apparently every individual hawk is such
a messenger, but his sacred character appears in his title Bali: a
word probably derived from the Sanskrit and sometimes translated
_holy_, but having the force of “an adjectival equivalent of the
_mana_ of the Melanesians, or of the _wakanda_ or _orenda_ of North
American tribes, words which seem to connote all power other than
purely mechanical.”[144.1] Bali Flaki is appealed to publicly on
behalf of the community on various occasions, as on sowing or
harvesting the rice-crop, making war or peace, or in fact before any
undertaking or decision. His aid may also “be sought privately by any
man who wishes to injure another. For this purpose a man makes a rough
wooden image in human form, and retires to some quiet spot on the
river-bank, where he sets up a _tegulun_, a horizontal pole supported
about a yard above the ground by a pair of vertical poles. He lights a
small fire beside the _tegulun_, and taking a fowl in one hand, he
sits on the ground behind it, so as to see through it a square patch
of sky, and so waits until a hawk becomes visible upon the patch. As
{145} soon as a hawk appears he kills the fowl, and with a frayed
stick smears its blood on the wooden image, saying: ‘Put fat in his
mouth.’” This appears to be addressed to the hawk. In the description
of what is in effect the same rite as practised among some of the
Klemantans of the same island, we are definitely told it is so
addressed. The expression means, “Let his head be taken”; for the
people are head-hunters, and fat is put in the mouth of every head
taken. Messrs Hose and M‘Dougall, whom I am quoting, proceed: “And he
puts a bit of fat in the mouth of the image. Then he strikes at the
breast of the image with a wooden spear, and throws it into a pool of
water reddened with red earth, and then takes it out and buries it in
the ground,” in the manner in which only persons dying by violence or
some much feared disease are buried. “While the hawk is visible he
waves it towards the left; for he knows that if it flies to the left
he will prevail over his enemy, but that if it goes to the right his
enemy is too strong for him.” In the Klemantan rite, as described for
us, he also shouts to the hawk to go to the left. When it has gone in
the desired direction he addresses a prayer beginning “O Bali Flaki,
go your way, let this man (naming him) die; go and put him in the lake
of blood, O Bali Flaki; stab him in the chest, Bali Flaki,” and so on,
invoking all sorts of evil deaths upon him.[145.1] Now here we have a
well-known rite of antisocial magic. But to make it effectual the
coöperation of the divine power is requisite. That power is called
upon. There is no attempt to coerce Bali Flaki, who, if not himself a
god, is at least a messenger and intermediary of the great god Bali
Penyalong. Yet there is confidence that he can perform the request,
and that he shows by his flight that he will do so.
{146}
So on the mainland of India, in the Nilgiri Hills, the Toda sorcerer,
having procured some human hair--not that of the person to be injured,
for it would be impossible to get it--ties together by its means five
small stones, and with a piece of cloth makes a bundle of them. Over
them thus tied up he utters his incantation. It begins by calling on
his gods; and whether the opening clauses be precisely rendered or not
in the following free translation, it is clear that the gods are
invoked. Indeed, Dr Rivers, after careful enquiry, expresses the
opinion that “in the formulæ used in Toda sorcery appeal to the gods
is even more definite than in the prayers of the dairy ritual,” the
most important of the religious ceremonies. “In them,” he says, “the
names of four most important gods are mentioned, and it seems quite
clear that the sorcerer believes he is effecting his purpose through
the power of the gods.” The spell runs something like this: “For the
sake of Pithioteu, Ön, Teikirzi and Tirshti; by the power of the
gods, if there be power; by the gods’ country, if there be a country;
may his calves perish; as birds fly away, may his buffaloes go when
the calves come to suck; as I drink water, may he have nothing but
water to drink; as I am thirsty, may he also be thirsty; as I am
hungry, may he also be hungry; as my children cry, so may his children
cry; as my wife wears only a ragged cloth, so may his wife wear only a
ragged cloth.” The bundle thus enchanted he hides in the thatch of the
victim’s hut.[146.1]
Another example of the complicity in hostile magic of a supernatural
being, who perhaps can hardly be pronounced a god in the strict sense
of the term, though {147} powerful for good and ill, may be cited,
this time from the continent of Africa. The religion of the Boloki
(Bangala) on the Upper Congo, we are told, “has its basis in their
fear of those numerous invisible spirits which surround them on every
side, and are constantly trying to compass their sickness, misfortune
and death; and the Boloki’s sole object in practising their religion
is to cajole or appease, cheat, or conquer and kill those spirits that
trouble them--hence their _nganga_ [medicine-man], their rites, their
ceremonies and their charms. If there were no evil spirits to be
circumvented, there would be no need of their medicine-men and their
charms.” Among these various spirits is one called _Ejo_, the spirit
of wealth. “A man who wants to become rich pays a large fee to _nganga
ya bwaka_ [the most feared and respected of all the classes of
medicine-men], who then uses his influence with _Ejo_ on behalf of his
client, who must in all future gains set apart a portion for _Ejo_,
and should he fail to do so, _Ejo_ has the power to punish him.…
When a person has received the _mono mwa ejo_ (_ejo_ medicine or
charm), and has become wealthy by his luck-giving power, he takes the
nail-parings and hair-cuttings of a woman and makes medicine with
them; and the woman soon dies and her spirit goes to _Ejo_ as an
offering for its help. He is said to _lekia nkali_ (to pass her on as
a gift or sacrifice to _Ejo_).”[147.1] It is difficult to distinguish
a transaction like this from the ordinary relations of a man to his
god. The votary pays tithe of his gains obtained by favour of the
spirit; and over and above the tithe, he is under the necessity of
providing a human sacrifice from time to time for the spirit. But the
means by which the sacrifice is provided are the exercise of
witchcraft, and that with the full knowledge and assistance {148} of
the supernatural being who is to be kept in good humour thereby.
An example of the intermingling of religion and magic in a different
way may also be taken from the same people. “Physical phenomena (as
heavy storms), when taking place about the time that a person dies, or
is being buried, are regarded as caused by the deceased person; hence
when a storm threatens to break during the funeral festivities of a
man, the people present will call the beloved child of the deceased,
and, giving him a lighted ember from the hearth with a vine twined
round it, they will ask him to stop the rain. The lad steps forward
and waves the vine-encircled ember towards the horizon where the storm
is rising, and says: ‘Father, let us have fine weather during your
funeral ceremonies.’ The son, after this rite, must not drink water
(he may drink sugar-cane wine), nor put his feet in water for one day.
Should he not observe this custom, the rain will at once
fall.”[148.1] The boy’s father, having died, has become a _mongoli_,
that is to say, an ancestral spirit of indefinite powers, who watches
over the perpetuation of his family, haunts the forest or the river,
inspires mediums to deliver oracles, and visits the village at times
in the material form of a crocodile or a hippopotamus to receive
offerings of sugar-cane wine and food. His favourite son has influence
with him to change his purposes, and exercises that influence by
prayer. But to make the prayer effectual in staying the storm, he must
use a widely diffused charm against rain--the waving of a brand and
abstinence from water.
It is probable, as we have seen, that the early stages of ritual were
vague and inchoate. It was adaptable to {149} interpretation as
culture progressed, as new beliefs were evolved or imported. Such an
example of adaptability has been pointed out by Miss Werner in a rite
practised by the Anyanja of British Central Africa when rain is
wanted. It is complete in itself, but is now prefaced by an appeal to
Mpambe, a quasi-supreme being. “The principal part was taken by a
woman--the chief’s sister. She began by dropping _ufa_ [maize-flour]
on the ground, slowly and carefully, till it formed a cone, and in
doing this called out in a high-pitched voice, ‘_Imva Mpambe! Adza
mvula_’ (Hear thou, O God, and send rain!), and the assembled people
responded, clapping their hands softly and intoning--they always
intone their prayers--‘_Imva Mpambe_.’ The beer was then poured out as
a libation, and the people, following the example of the woman, threw
themselves on their backs and clapped their hands (a form of
salutation to superiors), and finally danced round the chief where he
sat on the ground.” Then followed the rite in question. “The dance
ceased; a large jar of water was brought and placed before the chief.
First Mbudzi (his sister) washed her hands, arms and face; then water
was poured over her by another woman; then all the women rushed
forward with calabashes in their hands, and, dipping them into the
jar, threw the water into the air with loud cries and wild
gesticulations.” This is obviously a rain-charm, but, as Miss Werner
says, it “might be taken as prayer and not magic, if we are to
understand the water to be thrown into the air as a sign that water is
wanted.” She adds: “Sometimes people smear themselves with mud and
charcoal to show that they want washing. If the rain still does not
come, they go and wash themselves in the rivers and streams.”[149.1]
The women’s action and cries may {150} be interpreted as addressed to
someone or something, though possibly originating merely in excessive
emotion and now become traditional. It would be only necessary for the
cries to become articulate and the name of Mpambe, or some other name,
to be pronounced, to form a genuine invocation, as has happened in the
Boloki rite just described. Actually the invocation forms the
preliminary of the rite: that may be what, for want of better
knowledge, we should call an accident. That it is comparatively recent
is shown by the employment of maize-flour. The evolution might easily
have taken another course.
Turning to another continent, we may find an example of adaptability
of a more elaborate ceremony. The Navaho are in the main an Athapascan
people who have wandered down to the sterile plains of New Mexico and
Arizona. There, ages ago, they came into contact with the more settled
Pueblo tribes. The researches of American anthropologists show the
practical identity of certain of their religious rituals with those of
their Pueblo neighbours. It would seem that these rituals have been
taken over from the latter. This is only natural, seeing that the
Navaho came down from the north with an undeveloped culture and
organization into a country where new needs were experienced and a
higher civilization was met with. But in taking over the rituals they
have applied them to purposes different from those of their original
performers. The chief aim of the ceremonies as used among the Pueblo
tribes is to obtain fertility, and the condition of fertility is rain.
This is clear from the use made of corn-meal and corn-pollen. “Pollen
is the symbol of fertility, and the rite at bottom is for rain. The
Navaho took over the use of the corn and the pollen together with the
other features; but the corn no longer served its previous {151}
purpose as a prayer for rain and the ripening of the crops: it was
used for the cure of disease.”[151.1] The Dene or Athapascans, of
which stem the Navaho are a branch, are a people of migratory hunters.
Agriculture would be foreign to them. Their principal ceremonies are
concerned with the conjuration of evil spirits and the cure of
diseases, which are usually ascribed to the spirits. It was natural
that when they borrowed the ceremonies of a settled agricultural
community they should imbue them with their own ideas. In their hands
the cure of disease “became the fundamental feature of the borrowed
rites. A ceremony intended for rain-making would naturally need some
alteration in order to serve as a cure of disease.”[151.2] And it has
received it. The fact that they have been able so to adapt the rites
probably points to some want of definiteness in the form of the rites
at the time they were borrowed.
Another illustration of adaptability is seen in the rites at wells or
rocks common all over Europe. What may have been the original cause of
the sacredness of a well or a rock, what may have been the original
intention of the processions, the dances and the decorations we have
of course no means of knowing. We may guess that some peculiarity in
the shape of the rock, the sweet or healing waters of the fountain, or
some sudden and unexplained or untoward incident first called and
concentrated popular attention, and that a precise, intelligible
meaning may hardly have been attached to the few and simple ceremonies
first performed. In course of time, we may conjecture, ritual and
belief were elaborated and defined. However this may be, we know that
before the end of paganism--at {152} least in those countries of the
west where inscriptions have been preserved--a spirit or god was
believed to haunt the place and to preside over the rites of which it
was the scene. To him they were addressed, and it was his favour they
sought to conciliate. Christianity came and diverted the rites to new
objects, not altogether forbidding, but baptizing them, in accordance
with the policy enunciated in Pope Gregory’s famous letter to the
Abbot Mellitus. All these changes necessitate adaptations of practice.
That which at first was formless receives a definite form. That which
may have been an indeterminate expression of awe and reverence becomes
distinctly worship, though not without elements, often retained to the
last, that we should call magical. And the changes in the nominal
objects of worship are accompanied by progressive changes in the
details of the ritual. Lastly when, as in many cases, official
recognition of the ritual is abandoned, and it is left to the unguided
superstition of the peasant, it tends to slip back into its original
indeterminate condition. Acts are performed or avoided, and ceremonies
undertaken, not as worship of a power known and resident on the
hallowed spot, but for benefits sometimes precise, more often for luck
mysterious, impersonal, half-credited, or from fear of something
equally mysterious, but for that reason all the more terrible. Beyond
this, the practices linger into a stage, unknown to the savages who
began them, where they are performed for pleasure, or else in the hope
of monetary gain, by children and adolescents, and die away gradually
under the stress of modern life and the influence of the schoolmaster.
The earlier stages of this round may, as we have seen, be observed
occasionally in the rites of peoples still in the lower culture. Close
observation, accurate analysis and {153} comparison would probably
result in finding them more frequently. Meanwhile let us turn to
another question.
If I have been right in insisting throughout these essays on the
fundamental organic unity of Magic and Religion, I have not denied
their gradual separation and opposition at a later stage. They have
their common root in the same attitude toward the environment, social
and physical. Rite and belief have been elaborated and organized
together. For ages during this process magic and religion must have
been integral parts of one another, as they are now in many parts of
the world. Except in regard to antisocial magic, they have not yet
among many peoples begun to feel opposition. But this unity, as
civilization progresses, becomes more and more unstable. Where, as is
said to be the case in Morocco, civilization has recoiled, magic comes
more and more to the front. Though it does so not without protests on
the part of those who retain any consciousness of the higher
development of religion, still on the whole it is successful in
overlaying religion and pushing it into the background. Another people
whose religion is in process of degeneration, if Dr Rivers’ opinion be
correct, is the Todas. There the magic of the dairy ritual has thrust
aside the worship of the gods. In this case, however, the opposition
is not open and avowed. The history of the Todas is a blank. We cannot
put our finger on one period and say: Here the gods were worshipped
and the dairy magic was unknown. We have no records. We can only
conclude from an examination of the internal evidence that the gods
once played a more prominent part in the life of the community than
they do now, but that Toda culture had not so far progressed that
magic was not an inseparable part of religion, and that any growth of
magic at the expense of religion would have {154} been viewed without
misgiving or even consciousness. Even religions where the opposition
is most pronounced are themselves by no means pure from magic. All the
subtlety, all the rhetoric of theologians may well be needed to rebut
the charge of magic against the seven sacraments of the Church. I at
least have no intention to risk the curse levelled by the Council of
Trent at him who denies their efficacy _ex opere operato_, and whether
or not the minister may be in a state of mortal sin.
In denouncing witchcraft the Christian Church has followed the lead of
the Hebrew religion. The Hebrew law against witchcraft was
unambiguous, pitiless. “Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to
live”[154.1] is the grim direction of the oldest Hebrew writing. It
is expanded by the Deuteronomist: “When thou art come into the land
which Yahwè thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the
abominations of those nations. There shall not be found with thee
anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
one that useth divination, one that practiseth augury, or an
enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar
spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whosoever doeth these
things is an abomination unto Yahwè; and because of these
abominations Yahwè thy God doth drive them out from before
thee.”[154.2] This is pretty comprehensive. Yet it left many
practices within the national religion, recognized as part of it,
though essentially magical. The scapegoat I have already mentioned.
The ordeal of the water of bitterness, to which a woman suspected by
her husband of infidelity was compelled to submit, is equally a
magical proceeding.[154.3] Both are sanctioned, not to say
prescribed, by Yahwè; though in their present form the prescriptions
may be late. Divination {155} is prohibited, and consultation with
familiar spirits or the ghosts of the dead, augury, and the taking of
omens. Nevertheless, the children of Israel enquired of Yahwè, and he
answered them by dreams; and the high priest divined by means of Urim
and Thummim. Teraphim seem to have been amulets--one might almost say
fetishes. They are referred to more than once in the Hebrew books. As
late as the prophet Hosea they were not merely tolerated but regarded
as necessities to the prosperity of the people. “For the children of
Israel shall abide many days without king and without prince, and
without sacrifice and without pillar (_massebah_), and without ephod
or teraphim. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek
the Lord their God and David their king, and shall come with fear unto
the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.”[155.1] The use of
the ephod was probably connected with divination, and Yahwè, speaking
through the prophet, expressly countenanced not only this, but also
the use of teraphim. With growing monotheism they were, however,
eventually repressed.
Indeed, a comparison of the passages in which reference is made to
various magical practices will suggest that the real reason of the
hostility to them arose from their connection with heathenism. They
were representative practices of a rival religion. They hindered the
concentration of worship on Yahwè at his sole shrine on Mount Zion.
On the other hand, the casting out of evil spirits continued unabated
and unreproved into New Testament times, and the wearing of personal
amulets in the shape of phylacteries persists among the uneducated
classes of Jews to the present day and has full rabbinical sanction.
Both these practices are uncontrovertibly magical.
{156}
Similar considerations inspired mediæval hostility to witchcraft, and
continued it with little decrease of intensity into the eighteenth
century. Witchcraft was rebellion against the established religion. It
was identified with heresy. It involved contempt of the omnipotent
priesthood, derogating thus not merely from its reputation, but also
its gains. It was believed even to set up a rival god. This belief was
an inheritance from primitive Christianity, which looked upon the
heathen gods as devils. Every miracle which imposed on the credulity
of those ages, if performed by a Christian, was attributed to divine
interference; if performed, on the contrary, by a pagan, was with as
little hesitation ascribed to Satan and his underlings. In either case
nobody doubted the fact of the occurrence, or thought it worth while
minutely to examine the evidence. The hostility of the Church to
witchcraft had, however, the excuse that the heathen rites were in a
large measure magical, and that magic, other than Black Magic, was
avowedly practised during pagan times and regarded with toleration, if
not complacency. Heathenism died a hard death. Somewhat changed in
form it survived for centuries; and many of the heretical sects were
more or less impregnated with it.
But all this does not fully account for the horror and hatred felt
against magic alike by churchmen and the laity. What gave intensity to
the opposition was the dread that magical powers would be used to the
disadvantage, the injury, the death of all against whom the magician
had a grudge. So persistently did this dread take hold of the
imagination that the practice of magic was finally identified with
Black Magic, and to be accused of witchcraft meant to be charged with
the attempt to injure, and perhaps to slay, one’s neighbours {157} by
mysterious, and because mysterious, horrible means. Against
proceedings of this kind there was no protection but in hunting out
and putting an end to the magicians. This feeling had manifested
itself even in pagan times. Both in Greece and at Rome the laws
condemned magicians to death.
It is, in fact, the tendency to individualism rather than magic itself
that has awakened hostility everywhere. But this tendency is inherent
in magic. In the lower stages of civilization magic is undistinguished
not only from religion but from medicine, from astronomy, from
engineering, from literary learning, from the practice of industries
other than the simplest and of art. Consequently everyone who
possesses a little more skill than ordinary, or is credited with a
knowledge surpassing that of the vulgar, faces the inevitable risk of
being reputed a magician, and the suspicion of using his advantages to
the detriment of others. Nor is the suspicion unfounded. Human nature
being what it is, power, of whatever kind, is utilized for the benefit
of its possessor, frequently without regard to the claims of others or
the public good. The shaman or the wizard who is called in to the aid
of the sick is often the depositary of knowledge of healing herbs and
of poisons. The powers that are at the disposal of beneficence are
equally applied to baleful ends. The healing of disease, whether it be
effected by suggestion or by physical remedies, may be a social good:
primarily and directly it is an individual benefit. To put the public
foe under a spell excites the approval of the community. To lay a
private enemy low is a very different matter. But the same expert by
the exercise of the same skill performs both. Moreover, he subserves
the ends of private gain and private revenge with equal indifference,
and, it is {158} believed, by the same mysterious means. In all these
instances the professor of magic places his skill, knowledge,
experience, and the terror of his name and incantations--in one word,
his _orenda_--at the service of his clients without distinction. As
civilization advances, and religion and religious ministers begin to
be differentiated from the wizard or medicine-man, the latter is
probably called on less and less to perform rites on behalf of the
public, and more and more on behalf of individuals. The portions of
magic that can be disposed for the purposes of the community are taken
up into religion. What remains when this is done becomes specifically
the method and practice of the magician. Small wonder then that the
only magic recognized as such is antisocial magic.
On the other hand, so great is the terror inspired by magic, and so
instinctively gregarious is mankind, that mere eccentricity, the
failure to follow the crowd, is often of itself sufficient to start
the cry of witchcraft. The slavery of man in the lower culture to
custom is a commonplace of anthropology. That custom is religious to
the core, for religion is only one aspect of the social polity.
Everyone observes it, because upon it depends the weal of all alike.
Everyone’s eye too is upon his neighbour; and a departure from custom
is sure to be noticed, and equally sure to be resented as something
sinister. At the least it is viewed with suspicion and concern. Done
innocently, it will bring misfortune on the doer and all connected
with him. Done with a purpose, it is abhorred and punished as evil
magic. Happily the fear of witchcraft is not everywhere an obsession.
Where it is, as almost all over Africa, it has become the most
powerful cause of the stagnation of culture. Mr Weeks, a missionary of
long {159} experience, and an admirable observer, speaking of the
Bangala on the Upper Congo, says the native “has a wonderful power of
imitation, but he lacks invention and initiative; but this lack is
undoubtedly due to suppression of the inventive faculty. For
generations it has been the custom to charge with witchcraft anyone
who commenced a new industry or discovered a new article of barter.
The making of anything out of the ordinary has brought on the maker a
charge of witchcraft that again and again has resulted in death by the
ordeal. To know more than others, to be more skilful than others, more
energetic, more acute in business, more smart in dress, has often
caused a charge of witchcraft and death. Therefore the native, to save
his life and live in peace, has smothered his inventive faculty, and
all spirit of enterprise has been driven out of him.”[159.1]
This deplorable result is attributable to the suspicion of antisocial
ends. It is this kind of magic which alone is reprobated in the lower
culture. Death is very generally regarded as unnatural. If not caused
by open violence, it must be due to spirits or to magic. Magic indeed
is often deemed responsible for deaths by violence, or deaths credited
to the immediate action of the spirits. Magic sets both causes in
motion. Hence at a death, however occasioned, an inquest is commonly
held to ascertain who is responsible; the accused is required to
undergo an ordeal, and is punished if found guilty--as he usually is.
But it is not the practice of magic that is condemned; it is the
application of magic to the injury of the community. The chieftain of
a tribe of Bantu “smells out” and puts to death the witch who has
slain his father. The same chieftain will habitually practise magic on
another chief before fighting with him. He {160} will make rain, or
employ a wizard for the purpose. His sacrifices and acts of worship
are inextricably mingled with magic. Even when the schism between
magic and religion has attained much wider dimensions than anywhere
among the Bantu, it is rather magic in its antisocial aspect than in
itself that is reprobated and punished. The departure from established
custom and established belief involves a severance from the community
and an imputation of antisocial ends. The pursuit of individual
desires and hatreds at odds with the general interest is what arouses
the anger of society. Practices essentially magical may be
incorporated in religious rites and exercised for what is believed to
be the public good; and they will continue to be exercised with
general assent, even in the highest forms of religion.
THE BOLDNESS OF THE CELTS
{161}
Ælian, writing of the boldness of the Celts, relates that many of
them await the overflowing sea, some throwing themselves armed into
the waves and receiving their onset with drawn swords and threatening
spears, just as if they could scare back or wound them.[161.1] This
report seems to have come to him in the shape of gossip; nor does he
assign it to any tribe or definite locality. That there was some
ground for it, however, is to be inferred from the existence in the
Book of Ballymote, an Irish manuscript of the end of the fourteenth
century, of a short tradition, obviously of much earlier date,
concerning Tuirbhe Trághmar, the father of Gobán Saer, who owned
Tráigh Tuirbhi. “’Tis from that heritage he, standing on Telach Bela
(the Hill of the Axe), would hurl a cast of his axe in the face of the
flood-tide, so that he forbade the sea, which then would not come over
the axe.”[161.2]
The rhetorician perhaps regarded this Celtic practice as a useless
piece of bravado, and only cited it by way of climax to his
illustrations of Celtic daring and recklessness. There is little doubt
that to the Celts themselves it was quite different. The sea and the
waves were looked upon as personal beings with whom it was possible
literally to fight, and who might even be overcome. {162} Such a view
is common to many seaboard peoples. A curiously parallel tradition is
found among the Malays at Jugra on the Selangor coast concerning the
bore of the Langat River. This bore was conceived to be caused by the
passage of a gigantic animal, probably a dragon. When it came up the
river the Malays used to go out in small canoes or dug-outs to “sport
amongst the breakers,” frequently getting upset for their pains.
Eventually however, as Mr Skeat was told, the bore was killed by a
Malay, who struck it upon the head with a stick. Whether from this
cause or from the diversion of the stream into a new channel to the
sea, there is no longer a bore in the river.[162.1] We may conclude
that the Malays who went out to sport among the breakers really went
to assail the bore in force, and that when the bore ceased to flow the
belief arose that one of them had attacked it successfully and killed
it.
European folk-tales have been found recording a similar belief. Among
the Basques we are told that a witch once determined to sink a certain
fishing-boat and drown its crew. Her plan was to overwhelm it with
three immense waves, the first of milk, the second of tears, and the
third of blood. The boat might ride in safety over the first two; but
the third wave would be herself in person, and the only way to escape
would be to launch a harpoon into the midst of it: the weapon would
pierce her heart, and the boat with its crew would be saved. With the
want of caution which, fortunately for the heroes of folk-tales, is so
remarkable a characteristic of cunning and malevolent beings, the plot
was laid in the hearing of the cabin-boy. At the critical moment he
nerved his arm to fling the harpoon, and struck the wave in the midst.
It divided and dashed upon the shore, {163} covering all the strand
with a bloody foam. The bark was saved; but on his return the master
found his wife dying of her wound, for she was the witch who had
planned the destruction of her husband and his craft.[163.1] This
Basque story, though only recorded in a literary version, appears to
be a genuine folk-tale, since it is also found substantially the same
among the traditions of the Frisian Islands and Norway.[163.2]
Other waters than the sea have likewise been endowed with personality.
Rivers and streams have everywhere been regarded as conscious beings,
or (in a later stage of animism) as the haunt of such beings. Usually
they have been reckoned as endowed with a might too mystical and too
tremendous to be attacked by man; but occasionally men of heroic mould
have been supposed to fight and overcome them. Professor Frazer has
argued with probability that the angel who wrestled with Jacob at the
ford of the Jabbok was in the original tale the river-god himself, the
awful spirit of the Jabbok.[163.3] He has not adduced any direct
parallel in support of the conjecture, though the examples of
offerings to streams for leave to cross them, of which he has
collected a number from various parts of the world, do show that these
waters are inhabited by supernatural beings, who must be treated with
respect and whose goodwill must be obtained. Where he has failed to
find parallels it is not likely that another can succeed. Yet it is
curious that he should have overlooked the {164} traditions of the
water-kelpie current in his native Scotland. Take one story told by Dr
Gregor concerning a water-kelpie who used to come out of the stream
and visit the sheeling where a certain blacksmith’s family and cow
spent the summer. His visits, as was natural, caused terror and
annoyance. At last the wife told the husband, who resolved to kill the
creature. The wife took fright at the proposal and tried to dissuade
him, under the fear that the kelpie would carry him off to his pool.
He was deaf to her appeals. Preparing two long, sharp-pointed spits of
iron, he repaired to the sheeling. He made a large fire on the hearth,
and laid the two spits in it. In a short time the kelpie made his
appearance as usual. The smith waited his opportunity, and with all
his might drove the red-hot spits into the creature’s sides. It fell
on the ground like a heap of starch.[164.1]
In this case the kelpie was killed. More numerous are the tales in
which he approaches a traveller in the shape of a horse and induces
him to mount; then he rushes to the pool, carrying the unwary man to
his death. Often, however, he can be caught and made to work, by
throwing over his head a bridle on which had been made the sign of the
cross. When this was done, the creature became quiet and might be
employed in labour needing strength and endurance, like that of
carrying stones to build a mill or a farm-steading. When set free
again, he took his leave, repeating the words:
“Sehr back an’ sehr behns,
Cairrit a’ ----s’ stanes.”[164.2]
In Sweden the corresponding water-spirit--if that may be called a
spirit which, as in all these cases, is regarded {165} as essentially
corporeal--is called the Neck, a word connected with Hnikarr, the Old
Norse appellation of Odin regarded as a water-god, and with the
Nicors, or water-monsters referred to in _Beowulf_. The Neck is said
to appear in various forms. Sometimes he is a grown man, and then
“particularly dangerous to haughty and pert damsels”; sometimes he is
a comely youth with his lower extremities like those of a horse;
sometimes he is an old man with a long beard; occasionally a handsome
youth with yellow locks flowing over his shoulders and a red cap,
sitting in a summer evening on the surface of the water with a golden
harp in his hand. In return for a black lamb he is not unwilling to
communicate his skill in music; and if the offering be accompanied by
the expression of a hope of his salvation, he is rendered especially
gracious. For above all things he longs for eternal happiness; nor can
deeper distress be inflicted upon him than by denying this
possibility. A Neck who takes up his abode under a bridge, or in a
stream, is commonly called a _Strömkarl_. He usually plays not on the
harp but on the viol. Near Hornborgabro in West Gothland a Strömkarl
was once heard singing to a pleasant melody these words thrice
repeated: “I know--and I know--and I know--that my Redeemer liveth.”
He is acquainted with a measure which, if played, will cause even
inanimate things, as trees and stones, to dance; so powerful is his
music.
But he appears in other forms. A favourite is that of a horse,
sometimes described as with hoofs reversed. At Bohuus in West Gothland
he was caught by means of a cunningly contrived halter, from which he
could not break loose. His captor kept him all the spring and made him
plough his fields. Only when once the halter accidentally slipped off
was the Neck able to escape this {166} slavery. He sprang like
lightning into the water, dragging the harrow after him. The Neck also
causes disease. His appearance forbodes tempest. He haunts wells and
must be propitiated with offerings, or measures must be taken to
render him innocuous.[166.1]
Without pausing to analyse the complex character assigned to the Neck,
it will be abundantly clear that he belongs to the same category as
the foregoing, and may be subdued by similar means. To fetch parallels
to the spirit of the Jabbok from Scotland and Sweden may be thought
going far afield. It is going no farther than Dr Frazer himself goes
for examples of the custom of propitiating river-spirits. The protest
often uttered by cautious anthropologists against those who would cast
the net so widely has its reason. When we are dealing with customs it
is well to remember that customs superficially alike may spring from
quite different social organizations, and their real intentions may be
divergent or even opposite: in short, they may have nothing in common
but external resemblance. They cannot be understood without taking
into account the sequences of which they are often part, and the
social organization and cultural condition from which they spring. It
is otherwise when those great products of human imagination that
animate the world about us are concerned. The personalities believed
to haunt mountain and stream, air and water, heaven and earth, are
elemental conceptions, the inevitable offspring of the human mind in
its intercourse with nature. Analogies discovered between them are
real analogies; they are the proofs of the essential oneness of
mankind in the snow-hut of an arctic winter and the tree-shelter of a
tropical forest. And when we find the relations believed to exist
between such personalities {167} and human beings, the need of their
conciliation or coercion in order to obtain benefits for their human
worshipper or antagonist, and the means taken for this purpose, the
same, with only such variations as may be accounted for by differences
of environment, then we may with confidence appeal to them as mutually
illustrative.
For these reasons it would appear that we must regard such tales as
those of the kelpie and the water-bull of Scotland and the Isle of
Man, or the Neck of Sweden, as illuminating the legend of Jacob’s
struggle at the ford of the Jabbok. Professor Frazer rightly adduces
as in some degree analogous the story of Menelaus catching the shy
sea-god Proteus sleeping on the sands, and compelling him to say his
sooth, as Jacob compels the angel to pronounce a blessing, and that of
Peleus catching and conquering the sea-goddess Thetis to be his bride.
Here we are reminded of a cycle of traditions found all over the
world, and known as the Swan-maiden cycle. The heroine of the tale is
a supernatural being, usually in the form of a bird which casts its
feathers like a robe and becomes human. The hero, possessing himself
of the robe, acquires power over her and makes her his wife, only to
lose her again when she recovers it. As told in Scotland and the
adjacent isles, in the Faeroe Islands and Iceland, the lady is a
seal.[167.1] It may be doubtful whether Thetis was ever so
represented; but it is certainly most suggestive that Proteus was
discovered sleeping among the seals. For it is not only for
matrimonial purposes that these supernatural beings are caught in
modern _märchen_. In a Tamil tale the hero {168} steals the dress of
one of a band of divine maidens, and thereby compels her to bring him
a certain divine parijata, or flower of the coral tree, which was
demanded by another lady as the price of her hand.[168.1] In the
Spanish tale of The Marquis of the Sun, the Marquis is a great
gamester. A man who played with him lost all he had, and then staked
his soul and lost it. To get it back he was advised to watch on the
banks of a river. Three princesses would come in the guise of doves,
cast their feathers and bathe. He was to take the dress of the
smallest and thus compel her to show him the road to the Marquis her
father’s castle.[168.2] It is true that both these adventures do
result in the hero’s union with the bird-maiden. Such union is,
however, incidental. In a Samoyed Swan-maiden story the heroine,
captured in the usual way, flings the hearts of herself and her
husband, as well as of other members of his family, into the air; and
their owners in consequence remain neither living nor dead. The
husband’s father’s sister goes in search of the hearts to the lake
where the bride was captured, and finds her six sisters there swimming
as before. She takes possession of the clothes of one of them, and
thus compels her to restore the hearts of her relatives.[168.3] So
the hero of a tale told by a tribe on Vancouver Island is sent in
search of his daughter, who has eloped with a wolf. He sees a number
of young wolves playing at ball, having laid aside their mantles. He
sets himself down beside the mantles, and in this way putting their
owners to shame at being found naked, compels them to bring him to his
son-in-law’s abode.[168.4] The mantles are obviously the wolf-skins,
laid aside to enable their owners to appear in human form.
{169}
Wolves are of course not water-spirits, like swans or seals; but they
obey the same law as that imagined for the latter. The man who seizes
something which is at once the symbol of their supernatural character
and the source of their power, renders them helpless and compels them
to his will. The contest is in these cases one of trickery and
determination, rather than of strength. The captures of Proteus and of
Thetis, however, seem to have been effected by main force and a
wrestler’s skill. This is often the case with the capture of mermaids
in the west of Europe. Hugh Miller long ago translated into literature
a local legend of Cromarty which told how John Reid captured on the
shores of the Firth a mermaid, from whom he extracted as a ransom the
grant of three wishes, including prosperity and union with the maiden
of his choice.[169.1] Mermaid-stories thus agree with kelpie-stories
and with those of Proteus and the spirit of the Jabbok in assigning
victory to the strength and skill of the human wrestler.
Water-spirits are not the only supernatural beings with whom men are
represented in story as matching themselves. The Lushei clans of Assam
believe in various demons that inhabit hills, streams and trees. They
are called Huai, those inhabiting the water being known as Tui-huai,
and those residing on the land as Rām-huai. A certain sacrifice,
generally of a big sow, is offered to the Rām-huai. It is called
Sakhua. One night, towards morning, it is related, a Rām-huai
appeared to a man who had unwittingly neglected his Sakhua sacrifice.
It came into the straw where he was sleeping and wrestled with him
until daylight. Even then it followed him and wrestled with him again;
nor does the man seem to have been loth. At last he conquered the
Rām-huai, {170} who then told him that his Sakhua sacrifice was
over-due; and he performed it at once. Sometimes the Rām-huai appears
as a tiger and sometimes as a man. On this occasion he seems to have
been in human form.[170.1]
Yet even in such a contest the skill displayed may be much more than a
trick of _jiu-jitsu_. An example or two will suffice. In the Wild
Huntsman of Teutonic lands anthropologists agree in recognizing
traditions of the god Woden. He is well known to the German rustic as
Wod. A tale from Mecklenburg represents a peasant as encountering him
one dark night in the form of a tall man on a white horse. The peasant
accepts the stranger’s challenge to pull against him, and grasps one
end of a heavy chain, while the stranger ascends into the clouds with
the other end. The peasant knows that, if he lose, he is himself lost.
He quickly twists the end around a stalwart oak, and the Huntsman tugs
in vain. A second and a third time the contest is renewed, after he
has persuaded the stranger that he is holding the chain, and it is
only his own strength that is being put forth. The oak-tree creaks and
crackles to its roots, but finally holds its ground. Wod owns himself
vanquished, and rewards his courageous antagonist with a share of his
game--a haunch of venison, which turns to a rich booty of gold and
silver ere he reaches home.[170.2] We are indebted to Ovid for
another example. He tells us how Numa by the advice of Egeria
entrapped Picus and Faunus, two ancient rustic deities who were wont
to drink of a certain stream. The king tempted them by means of wine
placed beside the fountain; and when they had fallen into the slumber
of intoxication he issued from his ambush and put them in chains. As
the price of freedom he compelled them to bring down Jupiter from the
sky, to give him the famous {171} formula for averting the
thunderbolt.[171.1] Innocents like these are of course easily caught
with strong drink. In Greek tradition Silenus, who as the son of a
nymph was described as of condition inferior to the gods, but superior
to mortals and to death, was not superior to some mortal weaknesses.
Indeed, he was notoriously convivial. Hence he fell victim to a
similar wile on the part of Midas, the Phrygian king. Nor was he
released before he had revealed some astounding geographical and
ethnological information, that staggered the sceptical Ælian when he
found it placed on record in the now lost pages of Theopompus.[171.2]
Such legends of contest are not confined to merely second-rate
personages like these subordinate or superseded divinities. When in
the _Iliad_ Diomed attacks and wounds Aphrodite, she goes crying to
her mother. Dione by way of consolation recounts a list of Olympian
gods who have grievously suffered in fight with headstrong and violent
men. It includes Ares, Hera, and Hades, all of them potent figures in
Greek mythology. Ares was bound by Otus and Ephialtes, the sons of
Aloeus, and kept in durance vile for thirteen moons, until Hermes came
to his rescue. Even he, it seems, was obliged to have recourse to
secret means to steal him away. The arrows of Herakles inflicted
grievous wounds on Hera and Pluto. And though naturally Dione
denounces untimely death as the penalty for such presumption, the
injuries received in the conflict are not all on one side.[171.3]
Odin himself fights more than once in the Scandinavian lays and sagas
against human antagonists. Nay, if M. A. J. Reinach’s interpretation
be accepted, Jacob’s {172} opponent at the ford of the Jabbok was no
other than “Elohim in person.” The growth of religious feeling, on
this theory, found this coarse representation abhorrent; and while the
incident, being part of the sacred legends, could not be ignored or
repudiated, it was so altered as to obscure its real
significance.[172.1]
However this may be, tales like these are echoes of belief in the
possibility of a successful corporeal struggle with the mysterious
powers. They are blurred memories of the practice of threatening and
even attacking what we call supernatural beings under their material
manifestations. Those beings were conceived, if not always in human
form, at least as human in their wills and passions, hence in their
motives and modes of action. The only way in which they differed from
humanity was in their vaster and undefined powers. They were, to adopt
Matthew Arnold’s phrase, magnified, non-natural--that is to say,
mysterious--men.[172.2] Thus conceived, they were accessible to every
sort of influence that affected mankind, including coercion. But it
took a bold man to coerce them, though the task might be attempted
upon occasion, even by ordinary mortals--not always with success.
Sometimes the contest is of a more distinctly intellectual character.
The trial of musical skill between Apollo and Marsyas will occur to
everyone. The Egyptian king called by Herodotus Rhampsinitus is said
to have penetrated to Hades and there played at dice with Demeter.
Varying fortune attended him; but he was so far successful that he
returned with a golden handkerchief, the gift of the goddess. And the
Egyptians {173} still in the historian’s time celebrated a feast in
memory of the adventure.[173.1]
If we turn from legend to fact, we find the belief translated into
action, into the attempt to control the supernatural by force. Thus
did Xerxes when he lashed the Hellespont and let down fetters into it,
for destroying the bridge he had endeavoured to build.[173.2] Thus
did the ancient priestesses of the Canary Islands when rain was too
long in coming: they beat the sea with rods to punish the spirit of
the waters for withholding the boon they needed.[173.3] In the same
way (the tale is probably at least founded on fact), when the Nile had
risen to the height of eighteen cubits--higher than it had ever risen
before--Pheros, the son and successor of Sesostris, is declared to
have taken a spear and driven it into the midst of the whirling
waters. It is added--and here we have a testimony to the recognition
by the ancient Egyptians of the awful divinity whom the king had thus
challenged--that he was thereupon struck with a disease of the eyes
and made blind.[173.4] The vengeance mentioned by Dr Frazer as taken
by the Kakhyeen of Upper Burmah points distinctly to the same
intention. “If some friend or relative has been drowned in crossing a
river, the avenger repairs once a year to the banks, and, filling a
bamboo vessel with the water, hews it through with his _dah_ [sword]
as if he were despatching {174} a living enemy.”[174.1] The Korwas of
Chota Nagpur on a similar occasion shoot arrows into the
river.[174.2]
After comparing these cases there can be little doubt that the Celtic
practice of fighting the waves reported by Ælian was not undertaken
as a foolhardy piece of presumption, but literally as a combat with a
foe susceptible to such attacks, or (as the Irish text suggests) a
necessary proceeding in self-defence, lest otherwise the sea should
encroach upon the land. The _orenda_ of the land-dwellers was pitted
against that of the waters.
The conclusion will be confirmed by considering a few examples of the
treatment of divinities other than those of sea or river. The tribe of
the Getai, the bravest of the Thracians, were in the habit, during
thunderstorms, of shooting arrows up to the sky and threatening their
god. It is indeed not clear what god they threatened. Usually it is
understood to be the god Zalmoxis, pre-eminently the god of the Getai.
But he seems to have been a chthonic divinity; and as the text of
Herodotus stands they recognized no other god. The historian’s account
of him is rationalized; and there is reason to think that he failed to
grasp all the essentials of the Getic religion: his own doubts on the
subject are more than hinted at. In shooting upwards, however, and
uttering threats, the Getai must have menaced some being conceived
more or less in personal terms. This is sufficient for our present
purpose.[174.3] The Atarantes, who dwelt ten days’ journey from Mount
Atlas, in like {175} manner cursed the sun when he was at his height
and reviled him with all manner of foul terms, because he oppressed
both themselves and their land by his burning heat.[175.1] Among the
Bayaka of the Kasai district in the Congo State it is common to hear
people running about at night and shouting insults to Moloki, a
malignant spirit who has made them ill, or caused the death of a
relation.[175.2] The Bechuana, on the great central plain of South
Africa, ascribe changes of weather to the influence of the _manes_ of
deceased members of the tribe. They are called by the generic term
_Barimo_, of which the singular form, _Morimo_, was adopted by the
early missionaries to translate God; and it is now frequently used
with that meaning. When hail damaged the crops, or rain fell
unseasonably, Moffat tells us, Morimo would be cursed in the vilest
language. “Would that I could catch it, I would transfix it with my
spear!” exclaimed in the missionary’s hearing a chief whose judgement
on other subjects would command attention.[175.3] On the occasion of
an earthquake a traveller saw the Bakwena women in an instant rushing
out of their huts, with clubs and hoes in their hands, holding them up
at the sky, and cursing God with most awful imprecations and demoniac
yells.[175.4] The proceedings of the Zulus, neighbours of the
Bakwena, during a thunderstorm were thus described by a native to
Bishop Callaway: “When it thunders the doctors go out and scold it;
they take a stick and say they are going to beat the lightning of
heaven. They say they can overcome the lightning. They shout and take
shields and sticks; they strike on their shields and shout. And when
it clears away again {176} they say, ‘We have conquered it.’ They say
they can overcome the heaven.”[176.1] The Hottentots curse the
thunder and shoot their poisoned arrows at the lightning, telling him
to be off. Some of them, however, adopt a milder course, assembling to
dance and sing an incantation. Two specimens of these incantations
have been preserved. The thunder is thus addressed:
“Son of the Thunder-cloud,
Thou brave loud-speaking Guru!
Talk softly, please,
For I have no guilt!
Leave me alone (Forgive me)!
For I have become quite weak (= I am quite stunned, perplexed).
Thou, O Guru,
Son of the Thunder-cloud!”
The other incantation is addressed to the lightning. It is a dramatic
performance, the lightning being played by one person, the chorus
representing the appeal of the inhabitants of the kraal.
_Chorus._
“Thou, Thunder-cloud’s daughter, daughter-in-law of the Fire!
Thou who hast killed my brother!
Therefore thou liest now so nicely in a hole!
_Solo._
(Yes) indeed, I have killed thy brother so well!
_Chorus._
(Well) therefore thou liest (now) in a hole.
Thou who hast painted thy body red, like Goro!
Thou who dost not drop the menses,
Thou wife of the Copper-bodied man (the mythical ancestor of the
Hottentots)!”[176.2]
{177}
Perhaps the sex of the lightning here may render it more amenable to
the softer arts of persuasion. The Bushmen used to look steadily at
the quarter whence the lightning came. They believed its object was to
kill them by stealth, and that if they looked towards it they would
cause the thunderbolts to turn back. It appears, they said, “to fear
our eye, when it feels that we quickly look towards it.… Therefore
it goes over us; it goes to sit on the ground yonder, while it does
not kill us.”[177.1] In other words, they believed themselves so
powerful that the lightning quailed before them and did not dare to
strike. Among the Nandi, a Nilotic tribe of East Africa, it is the
duty of the Toiyoi, or Thunder-clan, when a heavy thunderstorm occurs,
to seize an axe and, having rubbed it in the ashes of the fire, to
throw it outside the hut, crying out: “Thunder, be silent in our
village!”[177.2] Among their neighbours (but not kinsfolk), the
Wawanga, an old man was recently found by a government official to
have stuck a curious-looking spear in an ant-hill in his village to
drive off the hail.[177.3]
Similar practices are found in the less advanced cultures of the New
World. The Hurons of Canada were in the habit of sticking their
javelins into the ground point upwards. The explanation they gave, as
reported by the Jesuit Father, was that the thunder had intelligence,
and it would, on seeing these naked javelins, turn aside and be
careful not to come near their cabins.[177.4] The Salinans of
California possess an amulet which will stop the thunder, if it be
held in the hand and pushed out towards a thunder-cloud.[177.5] The
Guaycurus of Paraguay, {178} great and small, on the occasion of a
great storm of wind and rain, issued from their huts armed with clubs
and sticks, and uttering terrible cries, to fight with the hurricane,
persuaded that it was an attack on them by evil spirits, and that they
must defend themselves without showing cowardice.[178.1] According to
legends current at the time of the conquest, “the _hapiñuñu_, or
bosom-clutching spirits, who were believed to have been the original
occupants of the Peruvian valleys, were forcibly expelled by the early
human inhabitants, immigrants from the country of the Guaycurus. When
the ancestors of the Incas arrived in the sierra ‘from beyond
Potosi’--that is, from the Gran Chaco--these spirits, according to a
fragment of an ancient song which has been preserved by an Indian
writer, disappeared with terrible cries, saying:
‘We are conquered! We are conquered!
Alas, for I lose my lands!’”[178.2]
The tribes of the Uaupes River in Brazil, after a funeral, shoot into
the air to chase away, and if possible kill, the evil-disposed spirit
which has caused the death.[178.3]
In tropical surroundings, separated from the Hurons by nearly half the
globe, by the whole breadth of the Pacific Ocean and nearly the whole
breadth of the continent of North America, the Kai-folk of the Kai, or
forest hinterland of the south-eastern coast of German New Guinea,
adopt the very same measure as they for protection against the storms.
Like their surroundings, their culture is widely different from that
of the Hurons. They dwell in frail cabins raised upon posts, in order
to secure them from the intrusion of their half-domesticated swine and
the attacks of the wilder animals. These huts {179} cluster on the
mountain-side in tiny villages of from two to six. Their framework is
of wood, bound together with tough lengths of a climbing plant. The
walls consist of long pandanus leaves; and they are thatched with
leaves of the sago-palm, or with grass. It is obvious that such feeble
structures can offer little resistance to high winds. Happily
wind-storms are of rare occurrence; but when they do come they wield
terrific force, splitting or uprooting powerful trees. Against the
onslaught of such foes, which, it need not be said, are regarded as
personal beings, the Kai-folk have more than one means of defence.
They take one of the jawbones of wild beasts which hang in the hut as
trophies of the chase, put it in the fire and pray the storm-spirit to
accept the soul of the deceased animal and spare the house. But they
do not rely on the chance of placating the spirit; they oppose him
with threats and with weapons. They fasten a pointed stake or spear
before the windward side of the house, its point turned to the wind,
so that it will “prick him in the belly,” and thus compel him to leave
the hut in peace. Or they reply to each gust by striking the threshold
with a club or stone-axe, crying out: “If you tread here on my house,
I will smash your feet!”[179.1]
Almost all nations in the lower culture hold an eclipse to be the
attempt on the part of some evil-disposed being to eat up or destroy
the sun or moon. The custom of terrifying and driving him away is too
well known to need illustration.
In these cases, though the supernatural being may be out of reach,
that does not hinder men and women from pitting their _orenda_ against
his; and as soon as the storm {180} or the eclipse comes to an end
they naturally vaunt their success. In the form of wind indeed he may
be held to descend to actual blows with his human opponents. Professor
Frazer has collected a number of examples of fighting the storm and
the whirlwind.[180.1] Nor are those examples confined to such as
already recounted. Even in Europe eddies and gusts of wind are
attacked without hesitation by peasants, whether Scottish, Breton,
German, Slav, or Esthonian. A small whirlwind of the kind with which
we are all familiar is believed to be caused by a witch, who is
carried along unseen at its centre, and may be revealed and rendered
harmless by launching some object, preferably a knife, into it. In the
Tirol a knife of special form is used for the purpose, on the blade of
which are engraved nine St Andrew’s crosses and nine crescent moons.
It wounds the witch as surely as the harpoon in the Basque tale cited
at the beginning of this essay.[180.2]
Here and in many of the other instances the supernatural being is
regarded as actually hostile. At certain stages of evolution there is,
however, as little hesitation in turning upon a god with whom one is
usually on terms of friendship and submission. We have had some
examples of this. A god may provoke a worshipper, and human nature
will not always put up with the provocation. When he is found in
tangible shape as an idol his {181} aggrieved client may even resort
to corporal chastisement. Dr Farnell refers in this connection to the
passage in the seventh idyll of Theocritus, where the poet mentions
the whipping of the image of Pan with squills when food was scarce,
and to a Breton smith “who threatened the saint’s image with red-hot
pincers to compel him to heal his son.”[181.1] The two practices thus
put together are not strictly parallel. Originally at least they were
widely different in purpose, though they have some outward
resemblance. To beat the image of Pan with squills was not to punish
the god for neglect of duty, but to bring him into touch with the
powers of growth, to drive out the barrenness that possessed him and
to recreate his fructifying forces. It was a magical means of
restoring his life-giving properties. It may have been to some extent,
like punishment, a relief to the feelings of the beater; but the chief
object is unmistakably shown by the ritual requirement to beat with
squills.[181.2] It would seem, however, as if this had been forgotten
by the time of Theocritus; for in the following lines (not cited by Dr
Farnell) the poet goes on to threaten stinging with nettles in case of
the god’s recalcitrance, as if this were the same sort of petty
torment.
On the other hand, means are often taken, like those of the Breton
smith, to compel a god to grant his suppliant’s wishes, and in default
to inflict indignity and injury. Pietro della Valle tells in his
_Voyages_ of an image of Saint Anthony which was thus treated by
Portuguese sailors. First of all, prayers were addressed to the image
for a favourable wind. The wind not being forthcoming, the {182} image
was taken from its shrine and lashed to the mast, in the beginning
with comparatively slack cords. The bonds were progressively tightened
as the saint delayed to accede to his worshippers’ demands. They were
not in a mood to stand any nonsense. The image before which they had
knelt in prayer only a few hours earlier was now the object of curses
and derision; and every day the wind was delayed a new cord was added
to bind the sacred victim more tightly. At last, however, the wind
changed and blew from the quarter desired; the saint was loosed from
his uncomfortable position and replaced respectfully in his niche; the
sailors thanked him, but mingled with their thanks reproaches for the
obstinacy which had forced them to take severe measures with
him.[182.1] Saint Anthony indeed suffers much from his votaries. The
Spanish population of New Mexico do not hesitate to hang his image
head downwards to urge him to his duty of performing miracles. Other
obstinate saints they simply put away or imprison.[182.2] The modern
Aztecs give their sacred images a whipping when their prayers are not
attended to. The Tarascos of Mexico make San Mateo responsible for the
weather and the crops. When it freezes his image is taken from the
church in the early morning and dumped into cold water as a
punishment. On the other hand, he is rewarded for good crops by a
procession, a big feast, and abundance of brandy and tamales.[182.3]
In France, near the village of la Selle, on the highway from Autun to
Château Chinon, is a granite rock, on the top of which rustic piety
has erected a Calvary. Just below it is a little grotto that serves as
a niche to shelter {183} the statue of the good Saint Merri, the
patron of the parish. Saint Merri has a reputation extending far and
wide. Formerly on the stone at his feet might be seen offerings of
eggs and small change; and even yet pilgrimages are made to his shrine
in pursuance of vows or for the cure of certain diseases. Among these,
it would seem, as the offering of eggs may indicate, he was expected
to cure sterility. It is related that a pious woman of a neighbouring
village was in the habit of coming to implore the saint for her
daughter, who had been married for some years, but had had no
children. She had another daughter, who was not married; and the saint
made a mistake: it was her unmarried daughter to whom a child was
granted. The good woman, enraged at a blunder so inexcusable, returned
to the saint. Bitterly reproaching him with his mockery of her
prayers, she took a stick and inflicted on him a sound castigation,
breaking his arm and rolling him over on the ground, where he long
remained, a witness to his own unseemly jest and her righteous
indignation. The inhabitants at last made a collection to buy a new
saint, which is now placed on a pedestal in the foreground of the
grotto, while the old and guilty saint is relegated shamefully to a
corner, and still bears the scornful title of the Weeper.[183.1]
Corporal punishment of saints, otherwise than by way of penance during
their mortal life, has never enjoyed official favour in any form of
Christianity, however gratifying it may be to the feelings of
disappointed worshippers. So far as it is employed as a serious means
of compelling attention to the needs and prayers of {184} their
clients it is by no means confined to Christianity. Savage and
barbaric peoples do not hesitate to punish their idols in this manner.
The practice is reported from the Southern Pacific to the frozen
shores of the Arctic Ocean in both hemispheres. Two or three examples
will suffice. The Eskimo who wander along the inhospitable coasts of
Ungava to the north of Hudson’s Bay are attended each by a guardian
spirit, often in the form of a doll carried somewhere about the
person. These spirits are not naturally benevolent. They must be
abundantly propitiated with offerings of food, water and clothing, to
induce them to confer success and prosperity upon the man who may with
equal propriety be termed their master or their worshipper. If the
spirit prove obdurate and, like Saint Anthony, reluctant to grant the
needful assistance, its owner sometimes becomes angry with it and
inflicts a condign chastisement, deprives it of food, strips it of its
garments, or even palms it off secretly on some unsuspecting friend,
to his discomfort or injury.[184.1] When a chief dies in the district
of Ibouzo, on the Niger, without leaving a son, his _Ikengua_, or
domestic wooden idol of the god of riches, is cut in two and flung
away into the bush, because it has procured no male descendant for its
worshipper.[184.2] A Brahman boy in India attended a mission-school,
and was selected to compete in a tennis tournament. He and his two
younger brothers had each an image of Ganesa, which was kept in a
shrine for worship. Previous to the tournament the images were taken
out and solemnly threatened by the three brothers with something very
disagreeable if the eldest brother lost the match. He lost it. The
brothers returned home, and carried out their threat by pitching the
three {185} images into the well at the back of the house. The next
day they sallied out and bought three new images of the god to replace
the old ones.[185.1] The Paraiyans of Southern India on the occasion
of a drought invoke the dēvata called Kodumpāvi (wicked one). “The
ceremony consists in making a huge figure of Kodumpāvi in clay, which
is placed on a cart and dragged through the streets for seven to ten
days. On the last day the final death ceremonies of the figure are
celebrated.” It is mutilated, and funeral rites are performed by the
grave-diggers. “This procedure is believed to put Kodumpāvi to
shame,” and to get her to induce her paramour Sukra, who has neglected
his duty, to stay the drought.[185.2] If this be so, it is evident
that the figure is not identified with the dēvata, and the punishment
operates by the mental rather than the corporeal annoyance inflicted
upon her. Japan affords an example of righteous indignation expressing
itself in castigation which is passing, or has already passed, into a
spell. When the owner of a tea-house is dissatisfied with the number
of his customers, the wooden pestle of the tub in which various kinds
of meal and salt are mixed for the preparation of a certain dish is
taken out and struck through the uppermost paper panel of the door or
window, so that it falls on the floor with a crash. Out come the
people of the house armed with sticks, brooms, and so forth; and they
scold and thrash the pestle, making him responsible for the fewness of
their guests. He is bound and thrown into a chest. If shortly
afterwards the guests increase, the pestle is taken out of his prison,
his forgiveness is asked, and he is drenched with _saki_. It is hardly
necessary to observe that the pestle is a phallic representative, and
that the business of a tea-house {186} often extends to the
entertainment of a guest in more ways than one.[186.1]
The practice, however, is so well known that it would be waste of time
to multiply illustrations. I will only add that in the valley of the
Nile, in the days when the worship of animals, whatever its exact
origin or meaning, prevailed, the sacred beasts were carefully tended
and trained, and all their wants were provided for. In return they
were expected to grant their worshippers’ wishes. If they “could not
or would not help in emergency they were beaten; and if this measure
failed to prove efficacious, then the creatures were punished by
death;… and it was the priests themselves who condemned and executed
the sacred animal. Afterwards indeed they sought to secure its
immortality by the embalmment of the body, thereby hoping to appease
the wrath of the god, lest he should avenge the killing of the
creature in which he had been incarnate.”[186.2] There is such a
thing as carrying punishment too far, especially when you cannot carry
it far enough to put an end to a being of indefinite but superhuman
power, who will bottle up his anger until he can catch you off your
guard. This inconvenience is incident to the theory evolved by
Egyptian syncretism that the sacred animals were incarnations of the
divinities.
Another method of dealing with a god or any supernatural being is to
bind and imprison him, if you can catch him. This needs but a cursory
mention here. It has been dealt with at some length by Mr William
{187} Crooke, who has ingeniously suggested that the Homeric story,
already referred to, of the binding and imprisonment of Ares by Otus
and Ephialtes owes its origin to this practice.[187.1] In any case it
is a common expedient for the laying of a ghost. I was privileged to
live for some years in a house concerning which one of these
ghost-laying traditions was told; and so far as my experience goes the
expedient was entirely successful. It is still in use by medicine-men
for delivering their clients from the persecution of troublesome
spirits. Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo “sometimes the
witch-doctor will drive the spirit into a saucepan or calabash, and
either kill it or imprison it.”[187.2]
Obviously the adage “First catch your hare” applies here. The
supernatural being cannot always be caught. But he may be driven away.
Dr Frazer has illustrated very fully the widespread practice of
expelling evils considered as personal beings either periodically or
occasionally by ceremonies of violence or of enticement, persuasion
and magical spells.[187.3] The ancient Scandinavians seem to have
instituted solemn legal proceedings against troublesome ghosts. There
is a remarkable story in the _Eyrbyggia Saga_ of a number of malignant
ghosts who haunted the settlement at Frodiswater with disastrous
effects to men and stores. The Christian priest sang the hours there,
manufactured holy water and shrived all folk. This was not enough to
disperse the ghosts, who had audaciously come and sat by the fires, to
the horror of the survivors, and devastated the place with sickness
and misfortune. It was but the preparation for the stringent measures
to follow. The bed-gear of Thorgunna, the deceased stranger-woman who
had started {188} the mischief, was burned. The ghosts were summoned
to a door-doom; “and it was done in all matters even as at a doom of
the Thing: verdicts were delivered, cases summed up and doom given.”
The ghosts attended in obedience to the summons. As each was found
guilty he was sentenced to depart. “But as soon as the sentence on
Thorir Wooden-leg was given out, he rose and said: ‘Here have I sat
while sit I might’”; and thereafter he stumped out by the door
opposite to that before which the court was holding its session. Thus
they were banished one after another; “and each arose as the sentence
fell on him, and all said somewhat at their going forth; but ever it
seemed by the words of each that they were all loth to depart.” Last
of all judgement was given upon Thorod, the recently deceased goodman
of the house, “and when he heard it he stood up and said: ‘Meseems
little peace is here; so get us all gone otherwhere’; and therewith he
went out. Then in walked Kiartan [the heir] and his folk, and the
priest bare hallowed water and the holy things throughout the house;
and on the next day they sang all the hours and mass with great
solemnity; and so there was an end thereafter to all walkings and
hauntings at Frodiswater.”[188.1]
What is important to observe here is the entire respect paid by the
criminal _revenants_ to the formal and deliberate decision of the
society against which they had sinned. They obeyed it as they would
have obeyed it in their lifetime. In heathen times, out of which
Iceland had scarcely emerged, the Thing was the lawful assembly of the
whole community. Its doom outlawed those members who were convicted of
antisocial conduct, and such was undoubtedly the conduct of the dead
who returned to {189} harm the living. Though dead they were still
members of the society and subject to its laws. By those laws it was
their duty to abide in the howe, or grave-mound, and thence watch over
the well-being of the family, receiving in return a cult. The
authority of the Thing extended to all matters interesting the
community, religious as well as political, juridical and
administrative. Under Christianity, and the advancing civilization of
which it was a part, the religious authority was beginning to be
separated from its control, of which perhaps we may see a hint in the
narrative. But the religious officials were acting in unison with the
rest, though hardly now as part of them. On the other hand, the cult
of the dead was no longer officially recognized. It is improbable that
it had ceased; and assuredly the defunct were still charged with the
negative duty of remaining quietly in the howe and abstaining from all
molestation of those whom they had left behind. There may be some
doubt as to the technical status of the assembly which dealt with the
case. If not a local and subordinate Thing, it seems at least to have
been a properly constituted tribunal, proceeding in a perfectly
regular manner, and carrying in its decisions the force of law. It had
probably not yet become entirely divested of spiritual jurisdiction,
or at least of spiritual prestige, which may indeed be taken to be
sanctioned and supported by the countenance and assistance of the
priest of the new religion. The ghostly transgressors recognized its
authority, the propriety of its procedure, the justice and the binding
character of its sentence; and however much they grudged it, they
submitted.
It need not be said that more summary measures were often taken with
those who “walked” after death to the inconvenience of the survivors.
They consisted in {190} digging out and destroying the corpse, or
dealing with it in a way similar to that used with vampires, which are
indeed one species of these troublesome visitors. Examples are not
uncommon in the Norse sagas, and are plentiful in the folklore of the
Scandinavian and other countries.
An alternative to driving away the supernatural being is to threaten
and insult him. Of this I have in previous pages given some examples.
The ancient Greeks had a technical term for formulæ of this kind.
They called them θεῶν ἀνάγκαι, compulsions of the gods. It will be
sufficient to refer to a few cases of insult employed by different
peoples in all seriousness, and often in the sacred ritual. When a
sacrifice is offered to the ancestral _manes_ by the Thonga of
South-Eastern Africa on the occasion of sickness in the family, they
are told: “You are useless, you gods; you only give us trouble! For
although we give you offerings, you do not listen to us! We are
deprived of everything! You [naming the ancestral spirit who is
addressed as the cause of the evil] are full of hatred! You do not
enrich us! All those who succeed do so by the help of their gods!” We
are informed that when some great misfortune is the occasion for a
special sacrifice, the request presented in the prayer is preceded or
followed by a ritual insulting of the gods (_manes_). “There are two
words used to designate this curious part of the prayer: _holobela_,
to scold the gods, or _rukatela_, the real word for _to
insult_.”[190.1] Here it must not be forgotten that the personages
addressed are {191} members of the family. It is true that they have
been divinized by death, but their family relationship has not been
dissolved. They have still their duties to perform, as well as the
survivors; and if they neglect them a family quarrel may reasonably be
the consequence, as it might in their lifetime.
This method of bullying divinities is well known in India. A pair of
examples from the extremities of the peninsula will suffice. Parakutty
is a debased form of Vishnu (or perhaps it may be more correct to say
an aboriginal demon identified with Vishnu), worshipped by some of the
low castes in Cochin. The Nayadis are a jungle tribe reputed to be
skilful hunters. Parakutty is supposed to aid them in hunting. When
they fail to get the expected game they abuse him for his ingratitude,
and for betraying the trust they have reposed in him. He is also the
favourite deity of the Parayans. A Paraya magician is frequently
called in to assist in recovering stolen property. He invokes
Parakutty for the purpose. If the property be not recovered the
magician prays again, this time in a more indignant and abusive form,
and he thinks that then his object is sure to be gained.[191.1] In
_The Legends of the Panjab_, Sir R. C. Temple gives a long poem in
which a woman in trouble expresses her intention of cursing her patron
saint Gorakh Nâth for the misfortunes that have befallen her.[191.2]
In the same spirit Charlemagne, in the romances, is made to threaten
God to throw down his altars and make the churches with all their
priests cease from the land of the Franks.[191.3]
Great and awful as gods may be, they are after all but {192} human.
The most mysterious of them are conceived in quasi-human terms. On the
other hand, human beings are often looked upon as gods and treated
accordingly. But then their treatment is simply that of powerful men,
men possessed of and filled with a greater or less degree of _mana_,
who therefore require to be handled gingerly, like an unexploded bomb.
Such a man-god, if a native ruler or fellow-tribesman, can seldom be
driven away; but he may, especially if his _mana_ be suspected of
departing from him, be attacked and slain. To expound this practice
and the belief on which it is founded, or with which it is bound up,
Dr Frazer’s great work, _The Golden Bough_, has been written. The
white man, like the gods, is to peoples in the lower culture
mysterious, powerful, endowed with _mana_. To that extent he is the
object of wonder and fear, he is a god. Yet he may be fought and
overpowered, killed or driven away. Of the Bangala in the Upper Congo
basin we are told that before the unknown and mysterious the native
“is timid, fearful, and very superstitious. He will regard you as a
_god_, and yet try to fight you; he will superstitiously believe that
you have wonderful occult powers that can stop the rain, cause
pestilence and plagues; and yet he will not attempt to conciliate you,
but he will savagely tell you to clear out of his town and take your
witchcraft elsewhere.”[192.1]
So and not otherwise the savage treats his gods. Where milder means
avail not, and he can get his way by rough treatment of the idols or
other tangible forms in which they are presented, he does not hesitate
to use physical force. As little will he hesitate to use guile to eke
out his inferior strength. It is but another manifestation of his
_orenda_. Hence the tales of audacious heroes {193} who have measured
their strength or their cunning against more tremendous personages.
Hence the threats and insults addressed to powers beyond immediate
reach by peoples all over the world. Hence the punishment inflicted on
the images of gods and saints. Hence the boldness of the Celts.
THE HAUNTED WIDOW
{194}
According to the legend of Osiris as preserved for us by Plutarch,
the slain divinity accompanied with Isis, his sister-wife, after his
death, with the result that she had by him a child whose name is given
in Greek form as Harpocrates.[194.1] Doubt has been thrown by some
Egyptologists upon the accuracy of Plutarch’s report; but it is
probably correct. At all events the incident is fairly widespread both
in tale and superstition, as I shall proceed to show.
Among the Chinese the dead of both sexes have always been held capable
of sexual intercourse with the living. A favourite topic of Chinese
tales is that of a belated wanderer entertained by a liberal host or
hostess and passing the time in agreeable conversation, eating,
drinking, sleeping and sexual intercourse, and then suddenly awaking
to find himself or herself, as the case may be, in or on a tomb, with
no trace of human dwelling near. Visits are paid by the dead to the
living for various purposes, from which the enjoyment of the pleasures
of married life are not excluded. One famous story concerns a man of
the Ma clan, who died childless, leaving a wife who refused to marry
again. In her sorrow she {195} caused to be made a clay image of the
deceased and offered something to it whenever she took a meal, as she
had done to her husband in his lifetime. One night the image became
animated, and telling her that he was her husband permitted to return
and solace her fidelity and chastity, he passed the night with her,
rising at cockcrow and going away. The visit was repeated every night,
with the result that before the end of a month she had conceived and
in due time bore a son. Information was laid before the magistrate and
the woman was arrested. On hearing her story the magistrate said: “I
have heard that the children of ghosts are shadowless, and that those
that have shadows are not genuine.” He took the child into the
sunshine, and lo, its shadow was as faint as a light smoke. He further
tested it by pricking its finger and putting the blood on the clay
image of the woman’s husband, into which it soaked without leaving a
trace, whereas smeared on another image it was wiped off at once.
These experiments convinced the magistrate that the woman’s tale was
true; and all traces of suspicion subsequently vanished when, as the
boy grew up, he was found closely to resemble the deceased in face,
gesture and speech.[195.1]
Gansám, a divinity worshipped by the Muásís and Gonds of Bengal, is
said to have been a Gond chief who was devoured by a tiger just after
his marriage at an early age. “Cut off at such a moment, it was
unreasonable to suppose that his spirit would rest. One year after his
death he visited his wife, and she conceived by him; and the
descendants of the ghostly embrace are, it is said, living to this day
at Amodah in the Central Provinces.” As a result of other apparitions
to many of his old friends he persuaded them to inaugurate a regular
worship of {196} him, and two festivals in the year were established
in his honour.[196.1] Not in all cases, however, do the deceased
husband’s visits to his widow result in the birth of a child. The
legend of Záhir Pir, the saint of a Mohammedanized caste of
scavengers about Benares, relates that he was involved in strife with
his mother’s sister’s sons, who disputed his succession to his
father’s kingdom, and slew them. For this he was cursed by his mother
never to see her face again. In his anguish he called upon Mother
Earth to receive him into her bosom. On her refusal, because, being a
Hindu, he was not burnt, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and accepted
Islam. Afterwards renewing his petition, the earth opened and
disclosed a chapel as for a hermit. Záhir Pir entered on his charger,
and the earth closed above him and his devotions. Siryal, his widow,
reduced with his mother to poverty, mourned him and cried: “Mother
Earth, give me back my husband!” By God’s command the earth yielded
him up to visit her nightly; but every morning at daybreak he flew
away on his winged charger. Siryal had discarded her jewels as became
a widow when she lost her husband. Now that she received these secret
visits she resumed them as a matron. When her mother-in-law upbraided
her, saying: “What means this wanton finery?” she returned: “To thee
thy son is dead: to me my husband is alive.” In explanation of the
riddle she placed her beneath the bedstead at night that she might see
her son. But when Záhir Pir came at midnight his aged mother had
fallen into a deep sleep, which was undisturbed by the caresses above
her; nor was it until he had quitted the bed and vaulted into the
saddle that Siryal could rouse her. She started up and clutched his
bridle. Even then her curse prevented her from {197} seeing her son’s
face. “I do but obey thy bidding,” he groaned, turning his face away.
“Look back! thy house is burning.”[197.1] So among the Calmucks we
hear of a khan who, being married to a wife whom he did not love,
resorted to a girl living a little distance away. His visits resulted
in her pregnancy; but before the birth of her child he died. Death
does not prevent him from carrying her off to his funeral rites, nor
from afterwards paying her marital visits on the fifteenth of every
month, and spending the night with her, disappearing in the morning.
When she urges him to stay, so that his mother may see him and be
convinced of her truth, he gives her directions to go to the place of
the dead and fetch his heart. This she accomplishes, and thus recovers
him as her husband permanently.[197.2] The islanders of the East
Indian Archipelago are profoundly convinced that various kinds of
spirits can have similar intercourse with human beings. The spirits of
the dead are not excepted from this belief; and albinos are held to be
their offspring by a living mother. A famous priest-king of the
Toba-bataks, called Singa Mangaraja, owed his birth to this
cause.[197.3]
A story is told by the Dene (Athapascans) of the northern provinces of
Canada concerning a man who one night suddenly disappeared from his
wife’s side, and in the morning, in the ashes of the hearth, were
found the cloven footprints of a reindeer: he had been transformed.
{198} His wife was an adept in magic. By its aid she became an expert
hunter, and after the loss of her husband supplied the family,
consisting of her mother and little son, with food. As her son grew
up, he in turn hunted and successfully snared reindeer. One day he
caught a reindeer with human hair between its horns. He brought its
carcase to his mother, who had constantly mourned her husband. She at
once recognized the dead reindeer as her husband. Lying down along
with it, the animal revived and once more became man. Thus she
recovered the husband whom she had loved, and for whom she had so long
sorrowed. The story is ætiological, told to explain why so many
reindeer are caught with snares made of magical bonds of pine-root,
and why certain parts of the reindeer are not eaten.[198.1]
Plutarch mentions that Harpocrates was born lame, that is to say, with
his lower limbs feebly developed, and interprets this as a parable of
the new corn with its tender and imperfect shoots. We find, however,
that the offspring born of the unnatural connection with a dead man is
represented as being as remarkable as the manner of his generation,
and not infrequently monstrous. We have seen that the Toba-bataks thus
account for the birth of an albino. A story told by the Transylvanian
Gypsies concerns a girl named Mariutza of the Chale tribe, the
daughter of a wealthy chief. She loved a youth named Jarko, to whom
her father refused to give her. Her brothers caught her in his arms
one night, and slew him. They killed one of their father’s horses and
buried it with him in a grave on the edge of the forest, spreading the
report abroad that he had fled and would never return to the tribe.
She was not a witness of his death, and did not know what had become
of him. One {199} night, unable to sleep, she went out of the tent,
sat down beside a brook and wept bitterly, crying aloud: “Oh that I
could once more see him, dead or alive!” Hardly had she uttered the
words when she heard the ring of a horse’s hoofs, and her lover
galloped up on a white steed, his clothing covered with blood and his
hair with icicles. He took her up; and the steed made off to the
grave, where he lay down with her in his arms. She rested thus in her
lover’s arms until day began to break, when he sent her back to her
tent, charging her to cease from disturbing his rest any further with
her tears. As she hurried away the grave closed. After nine months she
bore a great stone that flew from tent to tent until it met her
brothers, and, striking them on the head, hurled them both dead to the
ground. Then it disappeared; and when folk came to look for Mariutza,
she too lay dead on her bed.[199.1] In a modern Icelandic tale a
youth and maiden love one another, but are prevented from marrying.
The youth dies, but after death visits his beloved by night. An old
woman in whom she confides compels the dead man to confess. He tells
her that the girl is pregnant, and will bear a son who will surpass
all men in beauty and intellect, and will become a priest; but unless
someone be found bold enough to stab him in the breast during his
first mass, the church will sink into the earth with all the people in
it. It was done; and the young priest disappeared, leaving behind on
the floor of the church nothing but three drops of blood.[199.2]
In Brittany a story is told with much circumstance of place and name,
relating how a peasant-farmer of the village of Keranniou died,
leaving a wife much younger {200} than himself and seven children.
After death he reappeared as ghost, and played a variety of tricks. At
length his widow found herself pregnant, and, seeking the priest,
confessed with tears that the deceased had lain with her several
times, insisting that he had been sent back by God because he had not
had his full tale of children. The duty of bringing into the world
one’s allotted number of children, it may be observed, is a motive in
many of the grimmer Breton stories. As her condition became visible
the neighbours taunted the unfortunate widow; but the priest took her
part openly in the church. A child was born, but without eyes. The
ghost appeared again, and took far more interest in it than in any of
the children born during his lifetime. The child was extremely
precocious, but lived only for seven months. When it died the dead
man’s ghost was seen to accompany the funeral procession. From that
hour he was never beheld again; and the villagers said he had been
waiting for the babe to lead him by the hand to Paradise.[200.1] A
similar incident is found as far away as among the Bella Coola of the
British Columbian fiords. There a husband and wife who were devoted to
one another made vows of mutual fidelity, even after the death of
either of them. The husband died; and his body was placed, as was
usual, in a little dead-hut. The widow wept bitterly, entered the
dead-hut and lay down to sleep beside the corpse. In her dreams she
saw him once more alive. He begot upon her a child, which was born
after the lapse of a fortnight. It was not like other children, for it
consisted only of a head without a body. The widow was unwilling to
exhibit such a monster; but her mother did not rest until she was
allowed to take it in her arms. When she saw what it was she let it
fall {201} in terror. The head sank into the earth and disappeared
from view.[201.1]
Cases like these suggest that Plutarch’s view of the crippled
condition in which Harpocrates was born is not to be accepted. It does
not necessarily follow that the interpretation of Osiris as a deity of
vegetation, adumbrated by the philosopher and adopted by Professor
Frazer, is wholly incorrect. We are in error if we suppose the myth of
Osiris to be one and self-consistent. The myths of Osiris were
innumerable. The realm of Egypt was formed by the union of a number of
small independent states or communities. Each of these communities had
its own customs, institutions, beliefs, _märchen_. Many stories told,
whether for serious credence or by way of pastime, in every district
were doubtless common to all Egypt. But probably even they had their
local variants; and these variants must often have been
irreconcilable. The phenomenon is familiar. It is abundantly
exemplified in the tales of the Greek and Scandinavian mythologies. In
Egypt, however, the formation of a strong central authority, and the
consequent growth and maintenance during many ages of a powerful and
educated priesthood, were among the influences that led to a
persistent attempt to unify and explain the principal divine myths, to
attach them to the various local and periodical solemnities already
observed from time immemorial, and to educe from the jumble something
like a system, a philosophy. Whether in this process an originally
independent myth had become united with a series of agricultural
rites, or whether a myth previously annexed to such rites had acquired
an independent existence by virtue of a higher inspiration, {202}
matters not to us. The story of Osiris is found on the Egyptian
monuments in a number of frequently disconnected texts, of which there
is no authoritative canon. Among those texts the exact status and
meaning of the Harpocratian episode is probably a subject on which the
Egyptians themselves would have been unable to agree. We can hardly be
wrong in indulging our scepticism at the expense of Plutarch’s
interpretation, though he may simply have reported it as it was given
to him. The parallel tales, whether of Europe or America, at least are
purely human. They yield no trace of vegetable symbolism. They are
founded upon impulses and beliefs that have all over the world
influenced the conduct of men towards the supernatural.
It was a common belief in antiquity, and thence through the Middle
Ages and right down, among the uneducated classes, to modern times,
that dead men and other supernatural beings might have intercourse
with living women. Upon this belief and the innumerable tales
connected therewith was founded Bürger’s famous ballad of
_Lenore_.[202.1] The story told by Herodotus of the paternity of
Demaratus, King of Sparta, is an early example. Demaratus, being
accused of not being the son of his predecessor, Ariston, adjured his
mother in a solemn ceremony to tell him the truth. Her account was
that, on the third night after her marriage to Ariston, an apparition
in his likeness and wearing garlands came to her, and, having embraced
her in conjugal wise, transferred to her the garlands it wore and
departed. Ariston, coming in afterwards, saw the garlands and asked
who had given them to her. She told him he had done so himself; and
when he denied {203} it she confirmed it with an oath. Ariston then
began to suspect divine interference. On making enquiry it was found
that the garlands were from the adjacent temple of the hero
Astrabakus; and the diviners identified the apparition with the hero
himself. In that night Demaratus’ mother became pregnant of
him.[203.1] Satyrs and Fauns, under the name of _incubi_, were
generally held to be guilty of criminal assaults upon women when
opportunity offered. Among the Gauls, we are told by Saint Augustine,
this kind of evil spirit was known as Dusii; and their constant
exploits, as well as those of the Silvans and Fauns, were so well
attested that to the great ecclesiastic it seemed it would be impudent
to deny them.[203.2]
Incubi were identified by later theologians with devils; and their
embraces were almost always an item in the accusation against witches
before a legal tribunal. When offspring resulted, it was naturally a
monster. The romance of Merlin, born of such a connection, born grisly
to sight and rough and not as other children, was cited as a fact by
the credulous writers of those days on witchcraft and
demonology.[203.3]
{204}
According to Bulgarian belief a ghost against which proper precautions
are not taken may cause, especially in the winter, much annoyance.
Such ghosts may even have sexual intercourse with women. As lately as
the year 1888, at the village of Orzoja, the death of a certain girl
was attributed by the people to this cause.[204.1] A Ruthenian story
represents a dead husband as haunting his wife every night for a whole
year. Whether he actually came to conjugal intercourse does not
appear. However that might have been, he gave her no rest from his
bodily attacks. Worn out, she sought for help against him, and was
advised to take poppy-seed to bed with her, to fasten upon her head a
large bowl, and to light a taper. When the dead man came as usual she
threw the poppy-seed in his face, as she had been prescribed. He asked
in a tone of surprise who had given her this advice. By way of answer
she threw more. In a fury the dead man flung himself upon her, by main
force tore the bowl from her and took to flight, apparently convinced
that he had torn off her head. The door banged after him so violently
as to split from top to bottom; and in the morning the bowl was found
some distance away, smashed to pieces. But the woman was delivered
from her tormentor from that hour.[204.2]
Sir Walter Scott’s novel, _The Pirate_, was based on the deeds and
capture of one John Gow. This man was taken prisoner in the Orkney
Islands and afterwards tried before the High Court of Admiralty in
London, condemned for piracy and executed. Before his capture he had
become affianced to an Orcadian girl. “It is {205} said,” writes Sir
Walter in the advertisement prefixed to the book, “that the lady whose
affections Gow had engaged went up to London to see him before his
death, and that, arriving too late, she had the courage to request a
sight of his dead body; and then, touching the hand of the corpse, she
formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without
going through this ceremony she could not, according to the
superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghost of
her departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any living
suitor the faith which she had plighted to the dead.”[205.1] In the
Orkney Islands these superstitions were then vivid. If we may judge by
a phrase in the record of a witch-trial at Kirkwall, it was the belief
in the early part of the seventeenth century that a man slain at the
going down of the sun remained neither living nor dead, but was
capable of sexual intercourse with any woman who would yield herself
to him; in return for which he gave “a guidly fe,” in the shape of
second sight and power of divining the future.[205.2] A
circumstantial and horrible account of a series of occurrences of the
same period in Iceland is given by contemporary authorities. A man of
position named Ivar Eyjulfsson was wedded to Herdis, daughter of Sera
Magnus Jonsson of Ottrardal. They lived at Reykjarfjörd on
affectionate terms; and the husband often prayed his wife in case of
his death not to marry again, or something untoward would happen. In
the year 1604, despite foreboding dreams during the whole of the
previous winter, he went to sea with four companions. On taking leave
of his wife and father-in-law {206} as if he never expected to see
them again, he reiterated his injunctions to her to remain single. A
quarrel arose at sea between Ivar and one of his companions named Jon;
the boat foundered, and Ivar, Jon, and another of the crew were
drowned. The bodies came to shore at Langardal, and were buried in the
churchyard there. On digging the grave an older grave, lying in
heathen fashion north and south, was found; and just where the breast
of the corpse lay was a great stone, and beside it an iron arrowhead.
This incident seems to have been regarded as having some connection
with the spooks which were subsequently manifested. Whatever that
connection may have been, it speedily began to be noised abroad that
Ivar and Jon “walked,” and that their quarrel was far from being ended
with their death. After a year or two of widowhood Herdis was courted
by an honourable man, one Sturla Gottskalksson, and on her father’s
advice consented to marry him. Already, however, she had been
suffering from an ulcer on the foot; and after she had given her
consent to Sturla it became worse. Nor was this all. One night her
first husband came to her bed and had intercourse with her. Another
night she struggled with him, seizing the coverlet with her teeth to
protect herself from him. One disaster followed another. A black
blister on her tongue burst and sloughed away half of that member. In
spite of all, the formal betrothal took place; but it was followed by
such an exhibition of ghostly fury that even Sturla wished to
withdraw, and only Sera Magnus’ firmness in insisting on the wedding
prevented the engagement from being broken off. When the wedding was
solemnized, no sooner had the vows been spoken in the church than
Herdis uttered a piercing cry, and those of the company who, being
Sunday-born children, had {207} the gift of seeing spirits beheld
Ivar’s ghost approach her. Such was the horror and confusion that the
ceremony had to be cut short, and the newly wedded pair left the
church without the customary prayer and blessing. The persecution was
repeated every time that Sturla attempted to consummate the marriage,
until even ordinary folk who were not ghost-seers saw how the ghost
waylaid the unfortunate Herdis. Recourse was had to a renowned
practitioner of supernatural arts, who by his incantations succeeded
in making things somewhat quieter in the house; but after awhile
matters were as bad as ever, and his spells ceased to be effective.
Sometimes Ivar appeared alone, sometimes with Jon, and then both were
usually in fierce contest. If the word of God were read they slunk out
of the house; as soon as the reading was over they returned. Herdis
was again subjected to the dead man’s assaults; and the magician could
only protect her by setting on her lap a woman holding upright a naked
blade of steel. At length the ghost attacked the magician himself,
and, blowing in his mouth, caused him a frightful ulcer in the neck;
so that he was compelled to leave the place, declaring that he could
not cope with all the devils that followed Ivar’s ghost. Herdis sought
refuge in a chapel, but in vain. She returned home, therefore; and
shortly after, on a Sunday morning, a loud crash was heard; her bed
had broken down, and two of its timbers had fallen to the ground. That
was the culmination of the ghostly persecution. The unhappy woman
breathed her last. The magician said, when he heard of it, that the
ghost had strangled her. Then he did what, by all the rules of the
ghostlayer’s art, he ought to have done before. Venturing back to
Sturla’s house, he ordered Ivar’s grave to be opened. Ivar’s body and
that of Jon were found undecayed, but right {208} evil to look upon.
They were disinterred and burnt, and with that all manifestations came
to an end.[208.1]
This narrative is not an ordinary saga, located indeed at a specified
place, but the events of which are told of an indefinite past, or are
clustered in a manner known to all students of folklore round a
celebrated name. It is quite distinguishable in character from the
Icelandic tale I have mentioned on a previous page. It was soberly
reported in the year 1606 by persons of credit, if also of credulity,
according to our standard, while most of the actors and a number of
persons who had more or less acquaintance with the facts were yet
living; it was related as something which had occurred not within
their recollections at some distant date, but quite recently. The
ghostlayer whose services were called in survived until the year 1647,
and was well known in the island. The account therefore discloses the
kind of horrors that in that age, as in earlier ages, witness the
_Heimskringla_ and various sagas, enlivened the long gloom of an
arctic winter. Foremost among those horrors may be reckoned the belief
that dead men still, in some circumstances at any rate, retained their
sexual instincts, and attempted, not in vain, to gratify those
instincts upon living women.
Indeed, communities boasting themselves of the culture and progress of
the twentieth century have not entirely discarded the terrors born of
some such belief. I do not refer to solitary cases of mania,[208.2]
such as are probably to be found in all communities from time to time,
but to cases in which the belief has been adopted by society {209} at
large and stamped with the collective approval, or at least
acceptance. This may be said to be done when a court of law, in the
course of a judicial investigation, admits evidence of haunting and
solemnly gives judgement based upon such evidence.
On the 16th February 1912, at Macon, Georgia, in the United States of
America, the second husband of a lady was actually granted a decree of
divorce on the ground that the ghost of her first husband haunted both
his wife and himself, and the difficulty was so great that it was
utterly impossible for them to live together. It was not of course
given in evidence that the ghost committed assaults, such as those we
have just been considering. The advance of civilization since the
seventeenth century has softened the manners even of ghosts. But it
was stated that the wife had promised her former husband that she
would not marry again; she violated the promise; and it was solemnly
testified in court that the first husband’s spirit appeared nightly
with groans and reproachful glances, and only ceased to do so when the
lady left her new husband.[209.1] In our country a luckless husband
would find that the posthumous jealousy of his predecessor in the
_ménage_ is no ground for divorce. Since the days of the witch-trials
our courts have remained unmoved by ghostly perturbations. They have
even been known to refuse assistance to the tenant of a haunted house.
But Europe is effete.
In the lower culture it is otherwise. The Ewhe of Togoland believe in
the possibility of conjugal intercourse and other communion between a
dead and a living spouse; but when it takes place it results in death
to the survivor. Stringent measures are therefore adopted to prevent
it. These measures are all the more necessary, since the {210}
survivor must during the period of mourning--in which all the danger
seems to be concentrated--lay aside all clothing and ornaments and go
entirely naked. A widow for the first six weeks has nothing to fear so
much as her deceased husband. She must remain all that time in the hut
beneath which her husband is buried, only leaving it for short
intervals to bathe and for other necessary purposes. In token of
mourning she goes with bowed head and eyes bent down, crossing her
arms over her breast so that the left hand rests on the right
shoulder, in order that “no mischief befall her from the dead man.”
She also carries a club to drive him away in case he wish to approach
her, otherwise there would immediately be an end of her.[210.1] She
sleeps, moreover, on the club, because, if she did not, he would take
it away from her unperceived. Ashes must be mingled with her food and
drink to prevent her husband from partaking of it--a sign probably of
the renewal of conjugal life--in which case she would die. She must
not answer any call, must eat neither beans, nor flesh nor fish, drink
neither palm-wine nor rum; for any infringement of these prohibitions
would cost her life. Smoking is the only solace permitted to her.
During the night a charcoal fire is kept up in the hut; and upon this
fire she strews a powder, consisting of peppermint-leaves dried and
rubbed down, and red pepper, so as to cause an evil-smelling smoke,
which makes the dead man--it would make any living man--averse to
entering.[210.2] After the death of his wife {211} a man, in some
districts at all events, must remain for three days in his hut and
abstain from intercourse with his other wives. At the expiration of
this period the women of the town assemble and wash him with medicine
prepared by the witch-doctor. Without this precaution none of his
other wives would dare to come near him, lest they too should
die.[211.1]
Before passing to another cultural area we may note two other
significant customs in Togoland. Weddings there, as elsewhere, are
occasions of festivity; and the firing of guns is doubtless an
expression of joy and triumph, for the Negro delights in noise. Even
when, among the Akposso, in the administrative district of Atakpame, a
man succeeds in seducing a married woman away from her husband into
his own house, he fires a gun, for he says: “I have now a new wife!”
With that the marriage is concluded, and he gives a great feast and
defies the former husband, who sometimes attempts to recover her by
force. But if the former husband be dead he fires no gun on marrying
the widow.[211.2] On the other hand, when a man’s wife dies in her
house the husband fears to enter it again, and it is usually
destroyed. Even where it is not destroyed, it is never again entered
by the widower or any of his relations or dependants. Only a stranger
not belonging to his {212} family may dare to dwell there. If the
widower take a new wife, he builds her a new house.[212.1] To build a
new house for a new wife is usual; what is important to observe here
is that the old house in which the deceased wife dwelt may be safely
inhabited by a stranger, and only by a stranger.
Precautions like those of the Togo are taken by widows in Loango. All
the openings in a widow’s hut are closed, and a spell is laid on every
place where the ghost might harbour. But that is not enough. What she
fears is that her deceased husband, or some other disembodied spirit
greedy of her society, will visit her by night. That would result
either in her death, or in her bringing some fearful monster into the
world. So the medicine-men prepare for her, according to the rules of
their art, a piece of wood wherewith to fasten the door by way of bar
or bolt; or they give her a fringed cord to stretch behind, and
another to stretch round, her bed, both of them of course enchanted.
More than this, the door of the hut is changed to another side,
further to mystify the unwelcome _revenant_. If she be very nervous
they lead her in the darkness by a roundabout way to another hut,
carefully erasing her footsteps, unless they carry her or make her
wear shoes that will render the traces unrecognizable. Besides that,
they furnish her with a magical staff to embrace when she goes to
sleep. Sometimes at least it is carried in daylight also. One would
think such precautions would daunt the most evil-designing ghost. If
any ghost, however, were so obdurate, or so conceited of his {213}
power to break down these defences, as to persist, he would find they
were mere outworks, and that there were stronger and more effectual
lines behind. The witch-doctors are not easily beaten--provided they
have a client who is willing and able to pay the enhanced cost of
their services. Without going into all the details of what is in
effect a war to the bitter end against the intrusive ghost, it may be
said generally that they will give him no rest; they will beat the
dwelling inside and outside with their conjuring implements; they will
sweep the courtyard clear; they will leave no corner where the poor
wretch can skulk; they will lay spells; they will hunt him through the
village with beating, with sweeping, with fire, with the discharge of
guns; they will rouse the whole population to their assistance; they
will lay bombs laden with magical virtue; they will stretch magical
cords across every path leading to the village. If, in spite of all
these boisterous proceedings, the ghost be so hardy or so clever as to
continue haunting the place, there will be nothing for it but to
remove the village, or to catch the supernatural enemy and to shoot
him dead beyond resurrection. But this is obviously an extreme
measure, to which it is seldom necessary to resort, and which can only
be undertaken by a specialist of the first rank and at a corresponding
cost. The ghosts of deceased men are, in Loango, scarcely more to be
dreaded than those of women dead in childbed, or of marriageable
girls. The former are especially dreaded by pregnant women and married
men, for their vengeful malice. The latter attack married men in their
sleep, or seduce them under varied forms; and to yield means impotence
or death.[213.1]
{214}
A little further to the south, beyond the Congo, it was the custom in
Matiambo for widows to sacrifice themselves, together with the slaves
of the deceased, who were sent to accompany their master into the
other world. Widows who neglected to do so, and who escaped victorious
from the ordeal for witchcraft, felt the soul of the departed spouse
oppressing their breasts; and the witch-doctor was required to purify
them before they ventured to contract a new marriage.[214.1] The
process of purification is not described, but is probably like that
reported by a missionary who has spent many years on the Congo. The
widow must go to a running stream, taking her husband’s bed and one or
two of the articles he has commonly used. These are all placed in the
middle of the stream; and after she has well washed she sits on the
bed. The witch-doctor dips her three times in the water and then
dresses her; the bed and other articles are broken and thrown down the
stream to float away. She is led out of the stream; a raw egg is
broken, and she swallows it; a toad is killed, and some of the blood
rubbed on her lips; lastly, a fowl is killed and hung by the
roadside--presumably a sacrifice to the deceased. She returns to her
town. On arriving there, {215} she sits on the ground, stretching out
her legs before her, and her deceased husband’s brother steps over
them. She is then free to marry again; but inasmuch as widows are not
allowed to marry for a year or two after the husband’s death, the rite
is most likely not performed until the end of that period. It is only
necessary after the death of a first husband. Corresponding ceremonies
are necessary for a man after his first wife’s death. He may not leave
his house, except at night, for six days, and he must sleep only on a
basket made by plaiting together two palm-fronds. He then undergoes a
similar purification to that just described, with some additional
precautions. On returning home his deceased wife’s sister steps over
his legs. No woman would dare to marry him until these rites are
performed.[215.1] Although they do not seem to be confined to cases
in which oppression by the ghost is endured, it is fairly certain that
their object is to get rid, not merely of the death-pollution, but of
the ghost. We shall see directly what is the meaning of the ceremonial
stepping over the survivor’s legs.
Meanwhile let us cross the continent to Delagoa Bay. The neighbourhood
of Delagoa Bay, together with a large extent of country to the north
in Portuguese and across the border in British territory, is occupied
by various branches of a Bantu people frequently known as Shangaans,
but which it is convenient to call the Thonga, a name proposed by M.
Henri Junod, a Swiss Protestant missionary. The tribe more immediately
around the Bay is called the Baronga. The rites of purification
practised by the Thonga on different occasions--among others, notably
after a death--are very remarkable, and indicate a considerable
preoccupation with sexual matters. These rites have been carefully
described by M. Junod, but {216} they have not yet been sufficiently
studied to enable us to pronounce on the meaning of them all. I shall
therefore only refer to one or two.
The death-pollution affects not merely all who come into contact with
the corpse; it affects the entire kin, and indeed the whole of the
village in which the deceased resided, whether related to him or not.
But it affects especially his wives, and among these his principal or
“great” wife. Like the grave-diggers who have been handling the
corpse, she is required to take a sweat-bath. She is required,
moreover, to fumigate herself over a fire of dry grass from the roof
of the hut, mingled with cock’s dung (not hen’s). A reed or a strip of
palm-leaf with a few other leaves suspended to it is then put round
her waist. She enters the hut, which has been already unroofed,
wailing to her deceased husband, and crawls out again by the hole at
the back made to remove the corpse, as if she were herself a corpse.
She cannot remain there. A new hut is therefore built for her; and
there she must afterwards sleep, until the days of her purification
are accomplished and she passes into the possession of her husband’s
kinsman to whom she is assigned. Even for the subordinate wives (who
have their own rites of purification to observe) it would be dangerous
to sleep on the very ground where they have been accustomed to meet
the deceased: hence their huts must also be removed. It is difficult
to understand what danger they are exposed to, unless it be assaults
from the ghost. The huts they occupy do not seem to be polluted, at
least beyond the general pollution of the village, or they could not
continue to occupy them. But the sites must be changed; and this can
hardly be for any other purpose than to mystify the ghost.[216.1]
{217}
Turning now to two other widely separated cultural regions, we will
first of all notice a significant article of dress worn by a widow in
the eastern islands of Torres Straits. The ordinary dress of a woman
comprised invariably a petticoat (sometimes more than one) of ample
size, extending from the waist to the knee or thereabouts, and made of
split leaves or bark-fibre. But a widow, and she alone, “twisted up a
petticoat of banana leaves, and, passing it between her legs, fixed it
at her waistband. This was the first sign of widowhood,” and had a
special name. It was put on as soon as the preliminary ceremonies had
finished, and prior to the removal of the body for the purpose of
mummification. The widow continued to wear it after she had discarded
every other sign of mourning, and until she married again.[217.1] In
the Mekeo district of British New Guinea, inhabited by a population
consisting, so far as has been ascertained, of a fusion of Melanesians
and Papuans, the lot of a widower is not a happy one. So closely is he
haunted by the ghost of his deceased wife that he becomes a social
outcast, shunned by everyone, and loses all civil rights, such is the
horror he inspires. Excluded thus {218} from communion with his
fellow-men, he skulks alone in the long grass and the bushes; for he
must not be seen. He invariably carries, like the Ewhe widow, a
tomahawk to defend himself against the dreaded spirit of his departed
spouse, who, we are told, would do him an ill turn if she could. This
may, to be sure, as the missionary to whom we are indebted for the
report presents it, be no more than the natural malignancy of the
dead, whose chief delight is to harm the living.[218.1] The
missionary, however, may not have penetrated the true inwardness of
the superstition. At all events, elsewhere there is no room for doubt.
Among the Indians of the Thompson River in British Columbia both
widows and widowers took elaborate precautions against the persecution
of their deceased spouses. Directly death occurred the survivor went
out and passed four times through a patch of rose-bushes, doubtless to
ensure that the spirit should not cling to him or her. Probably for
the same end ablutions in the creeks morning and evening for a year
were prescribed. Rigid abstention from certain kinds of food was part
of the discipline; and, contrary to the practice of the Ewhe, tobacco
was also forbidden. During a whole year the survivor was required to
sleep on a bed made of fir-branches, on which rose-bush sticks were
also spread at the head and foot, while in the middle were not only
rose-bush sticks, but also branches of bearberry, mountain-ash,
juniper, sage, and so forth. A widow could neither lie or sit where
her children slept, nor let them lie down {219} on her bed. Finally, a
widow often wore a breech-cloth made of dry bunch-grass for several
days, that the ghost of her husband should not have conjugal
intercourse with her.[219.1] The aborigines of Hispaniola also
believed that the dead walked in the night and entered into converse
with living people, even in their beds; but if we may trust Peter
Martyr, though in human shape they thus approached women, seeking
sexual intercourse, “when the matter cometh to actual deede,” suddenly
they vanished away.[219.2] Our information concerning this
unfortunate people, speedily destroyed by the Spaniards, is extremely
meagre; and we do not know whether any precautions were taken against
these ghostly visits. Among the Tarahumares of Mexico three great
feasts are given at intervals after a death. Until the last of them is
held the deceased hangs about the neighbourhood. Their object
therefore is to get rid of the ghost. To that end he is presented with
gifts and adjured to depart with them, and not to come and disturb the
survivors. At the second, and especially at the third feast,
ceremonial races are performed, in order to chase him away. Hikuli,
the sacred plant of the Tarahumares, plays a prominent part in these
festivities, for it “is thought to be very powerful in running off the
dead, chasing them to the end of the world, where they join the other
dead.” The third feast, the most elaborate of all, is deemed to be at
last effectual. Not until it is over “will a widower or a widow marry
again, being more afraid of the dead than are the other
relatives.”[219.3] It is {220} not expressly stated what their fear
is; but in the light of other examples it is perhaps not unreasonable
to suspect that it arises from jealousy on the part of the deceased.
At all events I have shown that among the Negroes on the northern
shore of the Gulf of Guinea, among the Bantu about the Lower Congo,
and among the Indians of the Thompson River in British Columbia, the
fear is seriously entertained that the deceased will seek a renewal of
conjugal intercourse, and the utmost precautions are taken to prevent
it. The precautions taken by the Baronga (also a Bantu tribe) in
South-East Africa, and by some Melanesian peoples of the Torres
Straits Islands and the mainland of New Guinea, strongly suggest the
same fear. The ancient inhabitants of Hispaniola attributed sexual
desires to the dead, though they do not seem to have believed in the
possibility of their accomplishment; and the Tarahumare husband or
wife is afraid to marry again until the deceased spouse has been
finally driven away from the society of the living to herd with the
other dead at the end of the world. It is very striking that the
populations of areas so widely different in race and culture, as well
as so far apart in space, as some of these, should display the
identical terror exhibited in the tales and superstitions cited from
ancient and modern Europe and from China. The story of the generation
of Harpocrates, though related of a god, points to similar ideas in
ancient Egypt; and it has its analogues in India and the East Indian
Archipelago.
Practices exist, moreover, in other countries that seem to bear
witness to the same terror, though the terror itself is not recorded.
In such cases they may be indirect evidence of its existence. The
practices I refer to are such as that among the Kikuyu and Anyanja in
East-Central {221} Africa. The former are a tribe Bantu in speech and
mainly Bantu in blood and custom, though mingled with other elements.
On the third day after the burial of a husband the elders assemble at
the village to kill a ram. This ceremony has the effect of cleansing
the village at large “from the stain of death”; but something more is
needed by the widow. Accordingly “the elders bring with them one of
their number who is very poor, and of the same clan as the deceased,
and he has to sleep in the hut of the senior widow of the deceased,”
and to have sexual relations with her. His poverty, and the rule that
“he generally lives on in the village and is looked upon as a
stepfather to the children,” point to the service he thus performs
being considered attended with some danger, and therefore not to be
undertaken except in hope of an adequate reward.[221.1] The Anyanja,
likewise a Bantu tribe, settled at the southern end of Lake Nyasa,
hold a beer-drinking accompanied by dance and song a month after the
burial, which takes place two or three days after the death. Up to
that time conjugal relations are forbidden throughout the village of
the deceased. The widow or widower and then each relative in turn is
shaved, and cohabitation by all except the widow is resumed. She must
wait until the second beer-drinking, six months or a year later. At
this second ceremony dancing takes place on the first night, and beer
is drunk the next day. Before sunset on the first day the widow is
again shaven, and the mother of the deceased informs her that she is
now free to marry again. That night “she has to sleep with a man paid
by her {222} relations.” He is not her permanent husband; his services
are merely required as a preliminary to her marriage. According to the
account from which I am quoting it would appear that she may marry
after mourning two or three months, but not without the same previous
ritual coition, else “her second husband would die, should she have
committed adultery.” A widower, on the other hand, “mourns five or six
months and is then given medicine, after which he may marry again, and
without which, should he marry, his new wife would die.”[222.1] There
are some difficulties here. It seems clear that until the mourning is
over the widows cannot marry again, and the length of mourning is
decided by the relatives of the deceased; it is closed with the
beer-drinking. When it is over, the widows select their husbands from
among the kindred of the deceased; he who marries the chief wife is
the heir. A widow cannot marry outside this limited circle, unless
she, or her new husband, be prepared to repay her bride-price, and
often more. Customs doubtless differ, but this is the usual course. It
is curious too that the second husband of a widow should die, if he
married her without the previous coition by another man, only if she
had committed adultery, whereas the woman marrying a widower will die
in any case if he have not had medicine. It is probable that there has
been some misunderstanding of the informants and that the second
husband runs the risk of death in any case by wedding a widow who has
not undergone the regular preliminary.[222.2] The probability is
confirmed by the practice of the Yaos, a neighbouring tribe, among
whom the second husband {223} pays a man to pass a night with the
widow before he takes her.[223.1] A further example may be given from
a wholly different cultural area. Among the Kamtchadals no one would
be willing to marry a widow “unless her sins have been previously
taken away by the highest degree of familiarity granted to anyone who
wishes to render her this service.” The writer to whom we are indebted
for the information reported in the eighteenth century that the
natives imagined that this expiation might cause the expiator to die
like the defunct husband, so that the poor women would remain widows
but for the assistance of the Russian soldiers, who were not afraid of
exposing themselves to a danger so equivocal.[223.2]
The Kikuyu, Anyanja and Kamtchadal customs are evidently the same. The
penalty for non-observance, though not expressed in our account of the
Kikuyu custom, is, it will hardly be questioned, the same as in the
other two; it is the death of the second husband. What I venture to
suggest, in view of the other Bantu customs already laid before the
reader, is that the risk actually run by marrying or cohabiting with
the widow is that of death from the posthumous jealousy of the
deceased. The fact that the deceased is still supposed to desire a
continuance of conjugal relations renders it natural to think that,
even where the extreme terrors that torture the widow in some places
are not shown, the belief may linger in his jealousy of other men, who
do what he perhaps is no longer conceived capable of. The suggestion
derives support from the rites performed about the Lower Congo. There,
it will be remembered, the terror of a dead husband is excessive. The
elaborate {224} purification of the widow, every incident of which
points to the desire to rid her of his attentions, culminates in his
brother stepping over her outstretched legs.
Now the act of stepping over another is everywhere regarded as one of
great rudeness, if not insult. More than this, it is regarded as
likely to communicate some mysterious injury or to take away some
luck, good quality or advantage from the person who is thus treated.
Hence it is often hotly resented. Without going beyond the Congo
region, it is enough to note that in Loango to step over a child is to
interfere with his development--in other words, to stop his growth; to
step over an adult is to transfer to him every evil from which one may
be suffering. It is not good even to reach, or to throw anything,
across him; and if such a thing be done, the action must be repeated
in the contrary direction, in order, it would seem, to reverse the
spell.[224.1] But in the ceremony of purification an act in ordinary
circumstances so injurious is ritually performed for some beneficial
effect. This may be simply to take away some evil; it may be to
dispossess finally and for ever the tenacious ghost, in case all the
previous efforts have proved unavailing. But the difference of the
performer’s sex means surely more than this. When a widow is purified,
her husband’s brother performs the final rite; when it is a widower,
his wife’s sister. Now it will be observed these persons belong to the
precise class from which the next spouse is to be taken. When the
husband dies the widow becomes the wife of one of his brothers; when
the wife dies the husband demands another wife from her
family.[224.2] The act of stepping over the widow or widower,
therefore, seems to symbolize the taking of possession by one of the
persons entitled to do so.
{225}
Let us turn to the Baganda, a Bantu people on the highest pitch of
civilization to which any branch of the race had attained prior to the
coming of the white man. There we find that jumping over a woman, or
stepping over her legs, is regarded as “equivalent to, or instead of,
having sexual connection with her.” “For a woman to sit with her legs
straight in front of her, or apart, was looked upon as unbecoming; and
for any man to step over her legs was equivalent to having intercourse
with her. The mere fact of stepping over a wife, or over some of her
clothing, was a method frequently followed to end a taboo which
necessitated intercourse” (_scil._, to end it).[225.1] The act is
performed on a variety of ceremonial occasions when coition would be
inconvenient. To mention only one, the king had an officer of the
court, a relative of his own, called the Kauzumu, whose duty it was to
fulfil certain rites and taboos for him, and thus to save him from
inconvenience. Among others, it was said that in former times it was
his duty to take the women who were to become the king’s wives for one
night to his bed. To the latest period of national independence, when
one of the king’s wives died and her clan sent another in her place,
the Kauzumu jumped over her before presenting her to the king.[225.2]
By this act the taboo was removed, the danger, whatever it was, was
diverted from the king to the Kauzumu. We may safely infer that the
act of stepping over the legs of the surviving spouse in the Congo
region is a symbolic coition. It is performed by one who belongs to
the class of prospective spouses, though probably after the
performance {226} of such a ceremony not the one who would actually
wed the survivor; for its object, if I am right, is to take on the
shoulders of the performer the consequences which would otherwise
light on the new consort.[226.1]
Though not by any means so conclusively as the practices just
discussed, the delay between the ending of a first marriage by the
death of one of the parties and the second marriage of the other party
seems to indicate the same dread of the deceased. The mourning
ceremonies must usually all be accomplished before the survivor, at
all events if a woman, can be married again. With the completion of
the mourning ceremonies it is a common belief, of which we have had
more than one instance, that the deceased is finally despatched to the
society of the dead; in any case, he is at rest, and is very often
speedily forgotten. Among the Namib-Bushmen of South-West Africa, a
mongrel people, the result of the intermingling of probably many
broken tribes with an original stock of Hottentots, marriage is
monogamous. That does not mean that death only can separate the
married pair. If separation between two living spouses take place,
either can marry again forthwith. But if the separation be caused by
death, something like half a year (that is to say, either a rainy or a
dry season) must elapse before re-marriage; for, we are told, the
belief prevails that, for example, the woman whom a widower marries
without waiting will soon herself die. And when the widower does
venture on a new marriage, it must be to {227} a sister of his
deceased wife if there be one at liberty.[227.1] So in the Togo
district of Atakpame, a woman who is left by her husband, even if only
for a time, may be taken by another man; and this, it seems, under
German rule renders it difficult to get men to work at the making of
roads, for his absence will cost the labourer his wife. But when a man
dies his widow must wait for three farm-years (a farm-year equals ten
months) before she marries again. The delay seems not to be popular.
In the western portion of the district, among the Akposso, the time
has been shortened to two years, while in the eastern portion, where
the people are less purely Akposso, the widow marries after eleven
months. The modern Akposso widow holds it silly to wait longer: she
has not murdered her first husband, and therefore she ought, she
thinks, to be able to marry sooner. But she must wait these eleven
months, else she would die. If, however, her husband has been hanged
for murder or some other reason, she may marry at the end of two or
three months. The ground alleged for this shortening of the period of
delay is economic. There seems to be no rule requiring the widow to be
taken by a surviving member of the husband’s family, though the
children resulting from a second marriage belong to it. If she cannot
find another husband, therefore, she must go back to her own family
and she may become a burden upon it. On marrying she must work in her
husband’s fields, for the benefit of himself and his family. But she
is entitled to a small field for herself, out of which she may make
her own profit; and there is now plenty of money in the country, and a
general desire to earn as {228} much of it and as soon as
possible.[228.1] All this may be very true; but seeing that the widow
who marries prematurely must die, she will not be likely to run so
serious a risk for the chance of making a little money. If we are
right in supposing that the death-penalty is one exacted by the
deceased, the conjecture will not be deemed unreasonable that hanging
is believed to inflict such injuries on the ghost that its
interference is not to be dreaded. The mode of death and the
mutilations (if any) inflicted on the corpse are widely held to affect
the departed in the future life.
Jealousy is a passion by no means confined to the male sex. In the
lower culture it is believed to continue to inspire women as well as
men, even after death. If not so prominent a superstition as the
belief in masculine jealousy, this is perhaps to be accounted for
partly by the generally dominant position in the household and in
society of the man, partly to the widespread habit of polygamy, and
partly to the physiological rule that the decay of sexual impulse
makes its appearance earlier in women than in men. We have already
found examples of customs pointing to posthumous feminine jealousy
among various races in both hemispheres. One or two other examples may
be given.
Among the Bantu tribes of North-Eastern Rhodesia, when a married woman
dies her husband sends to her father for another wife in her stead. A
sister or some such relative of the deceased is the proper person to
take her place. If there be none unmarried and therefore available, a
married sister of the deceased must spend one or two nights with the
widower “to take the death from off his body.”[228.2] This is so much
in harmony with {229} the Bantu practices previously considered, that
we can only suppose the deceased would acquiesce in her sister’s
succession to her rights, but would feel jealous and angry at the
intrusion of another woman. The women of these tribes are
high-spirited and jealous, those of the Awemba being proverbially
fierce. Among most of the tribes it is imperative for the bridegroom
to move into the bride’s parents’ village, where he will always be
under the eye of his mother-in-law, and where, no doubt, in case of
the wife’s death, a sister or other relation would be conveniently
handy to step into her shoes. Indeed, among the Awemba the wife often
relinquishes her position voluntarily to another member of the family.
When she “has presented her husband with two or three children she
considers that she has fulfilled her marriage obligations towards him.
With his consent, which as a rule is not difficult to obtain, she
hands over her niece as a substitute. The niece inherits her aunt’s
position, and cares for her children, while the aunt retires to the
peace of a single life, or very often finds a new partner.”[229.1]
Thus it may be presumed that a dead wife, if she returned and found a
relative of her own in her husband’s arms, would submit to a
relationship between them such as she herself might in a year or two
have voluntarily initiated, satisfied that her children, if any, would
be looked after. How long that relationship would last (and divorce is
quite an everyday occurrence) would be no concern of hers, and she
would not trouble herself further in the matter. The next woman whom
her husband married would therefore be rendered safe: the “death”
would have been taken off his body.
In India the widows of the higher castes are not allowed to marry
again. Among the aboriginal tribes {230} widows who do so often marry
“under cover of darkness, and with the aid of certain ceremonies
commonly relied upon as a protection against spirits.” If in spite of
these precautions the woman should be troubled by her departed
husband, he is placated, as among the Kolīs of Ahmadnagar, by a tiny
image of himself worn in a copper case round her neck, or set among
the household gods, and by the expenditure of money in
charity.[230.1] But the spirit of a dead wife is more troublesome.
Her character for jealousy and malice is perhaps partly due to
confusion with a woman dead in childbirth or pregnancy, or who has
never had a child. A ghost of this kind is greatly dreaded.[230.2]
The ghosts of ordinary married women are, however, not to be despised.
They perform all sorts of unpleasant tricks on the survivors, not the
least of which are the attacks they make on their successors in their
husbands’ affections. Happily these attacks can be warded off by a
judicious homage to the departed or a pretended identification of the
deceased with her successor. Thus among the Gaddis, a Hindu sect in
the Panjab, when the first wife dies the second wears a silver plate
called _saukan mora_, or crown of the rival wife. This plate
represents the deceased, and is propitiated to avert her
hostility.[230.3] Indeed, the practice is not confined to one sect:
it is common to several of the castes. The widower hangs a miniature
portrait of his former wife, or even her name engraved on a silver or
gold plate, about the new bride’s neck. The object, it has been
suggested, is to humour the spirit of the first wife by identifying
her with the second, thus proving the husband’s fidelity. In the {231}
Central Panjab, on the other hand, the bride is dressed as a milkmaid,
or a flower-seller, and given a servile nickname, apparently to
convince the spirit of the deceased that the girl being married is not
a real wife, but a slave-girl. When the death of the second wife shows
that the device has been unsuccessful, a mock-marriage of the
bridegroom to a tree or a sheep, adorned like a bride, is resorted to
before his marriage with a woman. “It is interesting to watch the
bedecked sheep sitting on the _khárás_ (reversed baskets) with a
bridegroom and being led by him round the sacrificial fire, while the
real bride sits by.” Here it is doubtless intended to fix the
attention of the deceased upon the tree or the sheep, and so leave the
real wife free from her jealousy. After the death of the third wife
the evil influence of the first is deemed to be exhausted.[231.1] The
Lets of Bengal, who are also Hindus in religion, permit their widows
to marry again, though not by the rite for a virgin-bride. The second
husband is usually a widower; and he places the iron bangle of his
former wife on his new wife’s arm.[231.2] So in Baroda a widower who
marries again has to present to his new wife a neck-ornament with
marks to represent the feet of his first wife. She will wear this to
prevent the ghost of the latter from troubling her.[231.3]
It need hardly be said that the rites and tales here discussed involve
something more than the belief in the survival of death by a bare
human personality. They could not have come into existence without the
belief that what remained after the catastrophe was still in some
degree a sentient and powerful being. It is difficult for mankind to
acquiesce in the reality of death. The imagination refuses to harbour
the thought of the cessation of conscious existence. {232} The dead,
although they appear to respond no longer to the physical and social
stimuli hitherto effective, must still be. Vanished from our ordinary
ken, they must be living somewhere, somehow; they cannot have been
annihilated. If they still live, they must live under conditions
analogous to those we know, and with affections, desires, appetites,
aversions, similar to those they had in this life, though the objects
may conceivably be changed. Hence every sort of activity known to man
is ascribed to them. In dreams, in trances, and in the phenomena of
possession they are observed to carry on these activities. But because
they are observed to carry them on only under such mysterious
conditions they repel the survivors and fill them with an undefinable
horror and awe. Among the affections and appetites of mankind those
connected with the sexual life are almost the strongest. It is natural
therefore to imagine that the dead will still endeavour, by social and
even by fleshly intercourse with the survivors, to gratify them. For
if the belief in their activity in other directions be conceded, this
cannot be denied; and perhaps the very horror that would be inspired
by the ultimate stages of such a possibility serves to attract the
thoughts, and therefore the belief, of peoples on the lower planes of
civilization.
Ill weeds grow rank in such a soil. Not only are sexual appetites and
affections almost the strongest; but, as is now well recognized, in
the complex attitude of mankind to the invisible world they have no
inconsiderable share. Marriage is a status hemmed about by many taboos
and easily lending itself to mystical presentation. It is natural that
the demise of one of the parties should cause a shock to the survivor
corresponding to the change of condition involved, and should
powerfully affect the sexual impulses. Even {233} apart from marriage
they are an object on which the thought of mankind, whether savage or
civilized, broods with a persistent endeavour to solve the mystery
surrounding them. Hints are seen in them for the solution of many a
problem other than that of the propagation of the species. The ideas
suggested by their contemplation are utilized alike for practical and
economical purposes (for example, in agricultural magic), and for
speculation on the transcendent themes of life and death and the
constitution of the universe. The tales and superstitions I have
brought together exhibit these impulses emphasizing the terror of the
dead. Many of the phenomena of dreams, and the phenomena of hysteria
and various forms of delusion are due to the sexual impulses. The
sexual impulses in turn are in many, if not all, of the cases referred
to above greatly aided by the conditions imposed on the patient. No
less than luxury and over-feeding, fasting and abstinence from the
ordinary and reasonable gratification of animal appetites, and from
social intercourse, are the parents of nightmare and delusion. Both
extremes lead through physical disturbances to disorders of the
imagination and the reason. Hermits and celibates have probably
suffered even more than rakes and gluttons and drunkards. The annals
of monasticism with tiresome and pitiful iteration record the
disastrous effects of asceticism upon body and mind. Among savage and
barbarous peoples these effects are as a rule less noxious, because
the conditions inducing and accelerating them are less continuous. But
it is precisely at the time when sexual relations are put out of
normal gear, and the sexual impulses are left without their normal
gratification, that exclusion from society and abstinence, sometimes
from sleep, always {234} from food usual in quality and amount, are
imposed. The imagination, already stimulated by the shock of the death
(rarely attributed to natural causes), the possibility of an
accusation of witchcraft hanging over the widow’s head, the certainty
in many cases (as among the tribes of British Columbia) of a long
period of hardship and even torture, all combine with the exclusion
and enforced abstinence to produce a state of unnatural excitement,
amounting at times to terror and delusion--in any case liable
powerfully to affect the dreams, and to produce hysteria.
It must be remembered that the entire community shares to the full the
underlying beliefs, and participates in varying degrees in the fears
of the bereaved spouse. We are familiar even in Europe with the effect
upon a crowd--nay, upon an entire nation--of emotions felt in common.
They are intensified. The atmosphere becomes electrical, and a spark
suffices to produce a conflagration. When the object of the emotion is
strange, imperfectly apprehended, mysterious, the effect is
heightened; it becomes a species of insanity. Things are imagined
which do not exist; eyewitnesses attest what a dispassionate observer
knows to be impossibilities. The most appalling of the tales and the
most vivid of the rites we have been considering are thus easily
accounted for. The marvel is that they are not more widely distributed
over the world than our present information enables us to affirm.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOURNING
CLOTHES
{235}
It is a commonplace among anthropologists that certain events in a
community cause a state of taboo, which affects the members of the
community in a greater or less degree, according to their nearness of
place or blood to the person principally concerned, or according to
the magnitude of the event. Among these events a death is not the
least important. In the lower culture the whole village or settlement
is often attainted by the occurrence of a death. But it is more
particularly the near relatives, and those who have been brought into
contact with the corpse, who are affected by the death-taboo (or, as
it is often called, the death-pollution), most of all the widow or
widower. We call the period of the death-taboo--mourning. The duration
of the taboo, as well as its intensity, varies among different
peoples, and not only according to the relationship of the mourners to
the deceased, but also to his rank, from a few days to many months,
and even to years. It is very rare that there is no mourning on a
death; but if our reports may be trusted, there are a few cases,
which, however, need not detain us.
Mourning garb is an essential part of the observances. Its object has
been much debated by anthropologists. There seems little doubt that
its first object is to distinguish those who are under the taboo from
other persons: it is the sign of the plague. Professor Frazer {236}
many years ago laid it down “that mourning costume is usually the
reverse of that in ordinary life.” He cited (among others) the
practice at Rome for the sons of the deceased to walk at the funeral
with their heads covered, the daughters with their heads uncovered,
and that in Greece for men and women during the period of mourning to
invert their usual habits of wearing the hair, the ordinary practice
of men being to cut it short and that of women to wear it
long.[236.1] The accuracy of the generalization might be illustrated
from examples all over the world. The Arapaho, who wear their hair
long and braided, when in mourning unbraid it and wear it unbound.
Sometimes they cut it. They wear old clothing, and do not paint
themselves as they are accustomed to do.[236.2] Among the Bangala of
the Upper Congo men sometimes wear women’s dresses instead of their
own, and shave half the hair of the head, or shave it in patches, and
they rub clay on their bodies. Widows dress in only a few leaves or go
stark naked, but with dirt or clay rubbed on the body. For three
months after the funeral and a period of retirement in the bush they
wear long, untidy-looking grass cloths.[236.3] When following a
corpse to the grave Ainu mourners wear their coats inside out and
upside down. An Ainu’s hair is never cut, except on the death of
husband or wife; and then cutting is obligatory.[236.4] Among the
Iban of Sarawak a widow’s mourning lasts until the final ceremonies,
sometimes two years after the death. During that time she may not wear
any ornament, her dress must be plain and old; and she is not allowed
to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows, nor to use soap for {237}
washing. Whatever acquaintance she may have in ordinary life with
soap, the prohibition to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows is a
prohibition of the last and most seductive touches of her toilet: no
Iban woman would think of wearing eyelashes and eyebrows if she were
not a widow in mourning.[237.1] By reversing the usual costume the
mourner is distinguished from others, notice is given to the world of
the taboo that binds him.
For this reason many of the aborigines of British Guiana lay their
trinkets aside and go entirely naked; and among the Jiraras or Ayricas
the wife, brothers and sisters of the deceased paint themselves all
over with the juice of a fruit that renders them as black as Negroes,
while relatives less near paint only their feet, legs, arms and part
of the face: they are not so deeply compromised.[237.2] So on the
Ivory Coast the Ngoulango or Pakhalla mourners put off their
ornaments, put on the head a worn-out loin-cloth and wear brown
clothing, marking different parts of the body with red earth. If
anything more were necessary to exhibit their state of taboo, it would
be the practice of widows when they went out of doors to carry a piece
of “fetish” wood, endowed with the power of causing death to anyone
who approached them and touched it.[237.3] In Australia the
relatives, especially the women, cover their heads with clay, or in
some parts of West Australia with red mud.[237.4] The Warramunga
women in the Northern Territory cover themselves from head to foot
with pipeclay.[237.5] Among the Uriyas of India, whose women are
particularly fond of gay colours, a widow wears a plain white
borderless _sari_, or cloth, as {238} the sign of her
bereavement.[238.1] The Man Cao Lan of Tonkin wear white garments not
hemmed; and those of their women who have adopted the Annamite
trousers recur to the native petticoat.[238.2]
The colours of the mourning garb vary widely. Dr Frazer has collected
a considerable list, to which it is needless to add. Let it suffice to
say that though emblematic colours are often used, the main principle,
especially in the lower culture, is that just discussed of reversing,
or wearing something quite distinctive from, the ordinary costume.
The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is
by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient
Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a
goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone
in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the
whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were
also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.[238.3] The native
tribes of Manipur lay a _genna_, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house
in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat
dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a
grave dug for it by the old women.[238.4] To the Ibo-speaking peoples
of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter
who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for
twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole
moon. At Ugwoba he may not go to {239} the Aǰana (the shrine of the
earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight
days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung
over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other
leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the
skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is
regarded as _ekwensu_, defined as the spirit of a man who has been
killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in
pregnancy.[239.1] Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost
would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but
the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his
attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the
leopards’ vengeance.
Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a
lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a
lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This
is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some
of the blood upon the earth.[239.2] The Hidatsa of the North American
prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify
themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.[239.3] The
practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be
explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be
no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the
taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.
The suggestion has been made that the change of {240} garb is intended
as a disguise to deceive the spirit of the deceased, and so to shelter
the mourner from its attacks. On the one hand, many tribes
unquestionably adopt the same costume after killing an enemy as on the
death of a friend. Among the Abarambos of Welle in the French Soudan,
when a native kills another he blackens his face, girds himself with a
grass cord and eats only raw bananas, to hinder the ghost from coming
to kill him in his turn. The same rites are observed on the death of a
husband or wife, with the addition that the survivor disappears for a
time into the woods.[240.1]
But this is by no means the universal rule. Among the Nandi of East
Africa the killing of an enemy entails quite a different garb from the
death of a friend. “When a married man dies, his widows and unmarried
daughters lay aside all their ornaments, and the eldest son wears his
garment inside out”; and more or less shaving, according to their
nearness in blood, is done by all the relatives. “On the death of a
married woman her youngest daughter wears her garment inside out,
whilst her other relations put rope on their ornaments [to hide them,
a common practice where they cannot easily be taken off] and shave
their heads. In the case of unmarried people the female relations
cover their ornaments with rope, and the male relations shave their
heads.” The killing of a Nandi, so far as appears, does not entail a
change of costume, at least if the homicide belong to a different clan
from his victim. It is merely the subject of vengeance, unless bought
off by blood-money. Curiously enough, it does not even seem to render
the guilty man “unclean,” as the killing of a member of his own {241}
clan does. The latter indeed renders him “unclean for the rest of his
life, unless he can succeed in killing two other Nandi of a different
clan, and can pay the fine himself.” In the meantime, for aught that
appears in Mr Hollis’ careful account of the Nandi, no change of
costume is necessary beyond what other members of the clan must
undergo on the death of a relation. The killing of a person belonging
to another tribe--a person who is not a Nandi,--however, entails a
stringent condition of taboo, yet it is a subject, not of blame like
the killing of a Nandi, but of praise. The slayer “paints one side of
his body, spear and sword red, and the other side white. For four days
after the murder he is considered unclean, and may not go home. He has
to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he must not
associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may only eat porridge,
beef, and goat’s flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify
himself by drinking a strong purge made from the bark of the
segetet-tree, and by drinking goat’s milk mixed with bullock’s
blood.”[241.1]
Other tribes in the east of Africa paint the man-killer. Masai
warriors (from whom possibly the Nandi have taken over the custom),
after returning victorious, paint the body in the manner just
described.[241.2] Among the Borâna Galla, the conquerors who have
slain an enemy, on returning, are washed by the women with a mixture
of fat and milk, and their faces are painted red and white. After
dirges over those who have fallen, the praises of the surviving heroes
are sung, and the young warriors’ trophies are publicly buried outside
the village. These trophies are portions of the bodies {242} of the
slaughtered foes which cannot be conveniently preserved.[242.1] The
washing is obviously a ceremonial purification. Apart from this the
entire proceeding is one of triumph, and there is no indication of an
attempt at concealment. In the Congo basin the Yaka warrior who kills
a man in battle incurs the danger of reprisals on the part of the
ghost. He can, however, escape by wearing the red tail-feathers of the
parrot in his hair and painting his forehead red. Upon this it is to
be observed that, as elsewhere, red is a favourite colour among the
Bayaka. It is used for body-painting of both living and dead. The
corpse is painted before burial; the dandy paints himself to increase
his beauty; the widow is painted in mourning. The painting of the
forehead can therefore hardly be a disguise. The tail-feathers of the
parrot are probably an amulet.[242.2]
The Lillooet or the Ntlakapamux warrior of British Columbia who has
slain a foe paints not merely his forehead but his entire face black.
If he did not do so, it was believed that he would become blind; and
in the case of the latter tribe we are told that “the spirit of {243}
the victim would cause him to become blind.” Blindness for some reason
is dreaded by these tribes after other deaths. Among the Lillooet a
widower cuts his hair very short above his eyes and ears; “for if his
hair touched the eyes he would become blind.” The cutting of the hair
is, of course, a very common rite either in or at the conclusion of
mourning. Among the Ntlakapamux, widows and widowers “rubbed four
times across their eyes a small smooth stone taken from beneath
running water, and then threw it away, praying that they might not
become blind.”[243.1] Since widows and widowers are specially subject
to the persecution of the deceased spouse, we may perhaps infer that
the blindness in such cases would be attributable to the departed. A
parity of reasoning would lead to the same conclusion in regard to the
warrior’s victim. But how the painting of the face black would prevent
such a catastrophe we are in the dark. For aught we know, it may have
been (for instance) an expression of contrition designed to mollify
the injured ghost. Mortuary ceremonies are almost everywhere so
complicated that it is difficult to disentangle their motives. In the
related tribe of the Skqomic all who follow the corpse in the burial
procession must paint the breasts of their garments with red paint,
else “a scarcity of fish would be the result at the next salmon run”;
and the widow in addition is painted with red streaks on the crown of
her head.[243.2] The fact is that painting oneself is a preparation
for the footlights by no means confined to over-civilized peoples. It
is so usual in the most varied stages of culture, from the lowest
upwards, that we cannot safely pronounce it an attempt at disguise.
{244}
A somewhat stronger case might perhaps be made for the garb of a
company of Dyak head-hunters, if we could be sure that the ceremonies
as described a few years ago by an eyewitness at the settlement of
Tandjoeng-Karang, on the river Kapoeas, were intact. But when a rite
is in decay, as head-hunting is, all sorts of variations are possible.
The British and Dutch governments, now supreme in Borneo, with little
regard for the most sacred feelings of their heathen subjects,
positively forbid a custom intended to procure blessings for the
community by the conversion of ancient foes into guardian spirits.
Hence it is often necessary, instead of taking fresh heads, to put up
with old ones and to make believe that they are new. For this purpose
an expedition is sent forth on a mock-raid, carrying skulls of former
victims with them, and bringing them back as if they were just
acquired. When the expedition returns, it is received as if it were a
successful war-party, and the ceremonies on the arrival of genuine
head-hunters are performed. At Tandjoeng-Karang, on the occasion in
question, these included dances in which both men and women took part.
The men (who had been fasting, and were still under taboo) were clad
in war-apparel. Skins of animals hung from their shoulders; feathers
adorned their caps; and all wore on their wrists, arms and legs
ornaments of withered palm-leaves, such as are distinctive of
successful raiders. In addition, some had also shaved the front of the
head and decked it with similar wreaths, so that the leaves hung down
like fringes over the face. If this were intended as a disguise, it is
curious that not all the raiders were thus shaven. Whether there was
any reason why all did not share in this treatment of the head, or
indeed what the palm-leaf ornament signified, it was not possible to
ascertain. The observer was assured, however, {245} that the shaving
was necessary in order to bring the fast to an end, and that in former
days the shorn hair was thrown into the water with invocations to the
spirits. Now it lay neglected where it fell. The day was concluded
with feasting and further dances; but the men were not yet entirely
relieved from their taboo. This was accomplished early the next
morning with a bath in the river; and the slaughter of hogs and
another feast brought the solemnity to a close.[245.1]
On the other hand, all supernatural beings are deceived and tricked
with what are to us very transparent devices. The standard of
intellect in the other world would seem to be much lower than in this.
Even the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton, when conjured up in a
spiritualistic _séance_, are found stripped of all their supreme
qualities, and hardly the equals of the silly persons who have flocked
to their manifestations. In Borneo it is recorded that “some Madang [a
sub-tribe of the Kenyahs], who had crossed over from the Baram to the
Rejang on a visit, appeared each with a cross marked in charcoal on
his forehead. They supposed that by this means they were disguised
beyond all recognition by evil spirits.” And Tama Bulan, a Kenyah
chief, when on a visit to Kuching, discarded for the same reason the
leopard’s teeth which he habitually wore at home through the upper
part of his ears.[245.2] In the same island also the Kayans protect a
child from an evil-disposed Toh, or inferior spirit, by a sooty mark
on the forehead, consisting of a vertical median line and a horizontal
band above the eyebrows, which is thought to render it difficult for
the Toh to recognize his victim.[245.3]
{246}
This facility of deception, it may be observed, extends to other
senses than that of sight. It is accountable for the taboo of words
and the use of euphemisms in hunting and on other occasions. The poor
silly spirits will not be able to penetrate the disguise. In the
north-east of Scotland the fishermen when at sea never pronounced the
words _minister_, _kirk_, _swine_, _salmon_, _trout_, _dog_, and so
on, but used other words or phrases instead, such as “bell-hoose” for
_kirk_, or “the man wi’ the black quyte” for _minister_.[246.1] The
people of Mulera-Ruanda in German East Africa have a definite theory
to account for such a practice. They hold that the spirits have indeed
ears and can hear what is said, but they have no eyes. Consequently
when a householder proposes on some solemn occasion, as a betrothal,
to sacrifice an animal, he directs the slave to go to the hill and
fetch the thickest sweet potato for a feast, meaning a fat goat from
the herd. This goat he then offers to his ancestors, calling it an ox;
for the spirits will not be able to detect the cheat.[246.2] Like
Isaac in the Hebrew story, they are blind, and “what the eye doesn’t
see, the heart doesn’t grieve at,” as our English proverb has it: they
can be thus deceived into giving their blessing in return for a
trifling gratification.
Yet it may be doubted whether the cases alleged by Professor Frazer in
the important paper to which reference has been made, as favouring the
opinion that mourning clothes are a disguise, are not susceptible of a
different interpretation. So inconclusive did he himself think the
evidence that he refrained from definitely committing himself to the
opinion in question, though others have since done so. The custom of
painting the face and body in mourning is so common that it is at
least remarkable that the tribes of Borneo, who disguise {247}
themselves, as we have seen, from hostile spirits with charcoal, do
not seem to attempt this defence against the peevish ghost of a newly
deceased person. They content themselves with wearing bark-cloth or
clothes stained yellow with clay, with allowing the hair to grow where
it is usually shaved, or shaving it where it usually grows, and with
laying aside personal ornaments or substituting for the metal earrings
commonly worn by the women a wooden makeshift.[247.1] In this way
they may be said to conform to the rule already discussed of reversing
the ordinary costume.
A Bohemian custom required the mourners to put on masks and to
practise strange behaviour on their return from the funeral. It may be
conjectured that this was a dance or devil-drive, intended to expel,
not to deceive. Such dances are not uncommon, both at periodical
purification ceremonies[247.2] and on the occasion of a death. The
use of masks at funeral dances of this kind has been reported, for
example, in recent years among the Bantu-speaking peoples of the
prairie-land in the interior of the Kamerun. At these dances wooden
masks in the likeness of lower animals as well as of human beings are
worn; and two of the latter, hideous enough to horrify any respectable
ghost, are figured by the German explorer who discovered them.[247.3]
More recently another German explorer has found, on the Upper Aiary in
the interior of Brazil, mourning-dances of a similar character, in
which masks were used representing various animals and demons, and has
given figures from photographs of the dancers, as well as a lively
description of one of the dances which he witnessed. This dance began
with an attack on the {248} Maloka, or community-house, by a troop of
evil spirits, who eventually succeeded in storming it. The mother and
widow of the dead man wailed. The attacking party, having forced an
entrance, sang. The women were terrified, but the scene ended in
weeping and laughter. It was followed by dances and songs by the
various animals; and the performance was concluded by a phallic
dance--a pantomime of the process of reproduction. The meaning of the
masque, the explorer declares, was clear. It was a magic ritual
intended to propitiate the angry ghost of the deceased, that he might
not return and carry off any of the survivors. The evil demons, to
whose charge perhaps the death was laid, and from whose spite mankind
is never safe, would by the performance be hindered from further
mischief. Mákukö (the forest-demon) and the jaguar, foes of the
hunter, the spoilers of the crops (worms, larvæ, and other vermin),
and likewise the game itself were meant, by the mimicry of their
various proceedings, to be magically influenced and rendered
favourable to men, so that rich booty, large harvests, and every sort
of fertility and blessing would result.[248.1]
If it be objected that a mask is by its very nature intended to
deceive, we must not forget that that is very often not its primary
object. A nurse in play with a child will sometimes put on a mask for
an instant. She does so not to deceive the child as to her identity,
but to cause a momentary terror. So the horrible distortions of the
human countenance, the wild, the grotesque, the impossible mingling of
human and bestial features characteristic of many of the masks used in
these dances, are often intended rather to terrify than to deceive the
supernatural beings against whom the performance is directed. {249} A
warrior going to battle decks himself out with paint and feathers,
with helmet and grinning crest, in order to strike fear into the heart
of his foe. Spirits are as easily frightened as human beings. Indeed,
happily for the comfort of mankind, they are possessed of uncommonly
weak nerves which fail them, with all their malevolence, at every
turn. All that is necessary is for the man who knows how to deal with
them to put on a bold front, and they will flee before him.
Professor de Groot, writing of the war against spectres in China,
says: “A courageous man while boldly fighting, or trying to terrify by
aggressive gestures, easily gets his hair disordered. Therefore
flowing hair intimates intrepidity, and cannot fail to inspire the
spectral world with fear.… This idea has not only formed the text of
old traditions, but as early as the Han dynasty had created the custom
of setting up long-haired heads, in order to drive away spectres. No
wonder that to this day long-haired exorcists assuming this terrifying
aspect, and enhancing it by weapons brandished with vigour, are
everyday appearances also in spectre-expelling processions.
Accoutrements,” he goes on to say, “have been worn with the same
object since early times. Before the Christian era, the _fang-siang_,
while purifying grave-pits, houses, and streets, were dressed with
bearskins and masked with grotesque caps; and under the Han dynasty
persons masked as animals, feathered, haired and horned, accompanied
them in exorcising processions, jumping about and screaming. Probably
such exorcists have appeared in all ages at funerals. Even to this
day… _fang-siang_ are seen therein in the shape of
effigies.”[249.1]
But masked personages in many mourning-dances represent the ghosts
themselves. In the islands of Torres {250} Straits, for example, such
representations are an indispensable part of the funeral ceremonies,
and the identity of the ghost is “indicated by a pantomimic
representation of characteristic traits of the deceased. The idea,”
says Dr Haddon, “evidently was to convey to the mourners the assurance
that the ghost was alive and that in the person of the dancer he
visited his friends; the assurance of his life after death comforted
the bereaved ones.”[250.1] The identification of the performer with
the deceased is among some peoples complete. Thirty days after the
death of an adult Musquakie Indian the dead man is personated by a
friend, who in this character attends a farewell feast preparatory to
the final departure of the ghost for the Happy Hunting Grounds. He is
called the ghost-carrier. When the sun goes down he departs toward the
west, convoyed by a number of the friends of the deceased, all of
whom, like himself, are painted but not masked. After nightfall they
return and are welcomed as from a long journey. The ghost-carrier is
by everyone addressed by the name of the deceased. In a few days he
visits the parents of the deceased, if they survive, announcing
himself as their dead son, who would care for them in their old age.
He is henceforth looked upon as their son, called by that son’s name,
and pledged to a son’s duty to them, though his own parents do not
necessarily give him up and still call him by his own name. Similar
ceremonies are performed for women by women.[250.2] In fact the
performer who represents a supernatural being in a religious dance of
any kind is quite commonly regarded not as a representative, but as
the supernatural personage himself, so long as he wears the mask and
bears his attributes. So an author already quoted, writing of the
{251} Indians of North-Western Brazil, says: “The demon is involved in
the mask, is incorporated in it; the mask is for the Indian the demon
himself.… The demon of the mask passes over into the masquer for the
time being.”[251.1] The masked dances of these Indians are performed
especially in honour of the dead. The masks therefore are intended to
deceive nobody, not even the recently deceased, who as a new arrival
in the other world may be “a babe in these things.” The masquers are
the demons _in propriis personis_ without any deceit.
A different case is that of a Myoro woman cited by Dr Frazer from
Captain Speke’s _Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile_.
Her child had died. She smeared herself with butter and ashes and ran
frantically about, “while the men abused her in foul language for the
express purpose of frightening away the demons” who had carried off
her child. And Dr Frazer asks: “If curses are meant to frighten, are
not the ashes meant to deceive the demon?”[251.2] From the
description of the scene, however, it seems probable that the demon
was conceived as actually in possession of the woman, and that it was
intended to drive him out of her. In that event again there would be
no deception of the demon--it was open war; while the ashes may be
referable to quite another cause, as will be suggested below.
A third possible example is the custom in Calabria, whereby the women
cease wailing at night and put off the black veils they donned at the
moment of death.[251.3] Here it may be, as Professor Frazer suggests,
a sufficient explanation that disguise is superfluous in the dark. The
custom of wearing veils or hoods to conceal the face in {252} mourning
is not confined to Europe, though widely spread there. The “weepers”
and other crape trappings still in use in France, but for the most
part abandoned in this country, are probably relics of it. It is found
among nations sundered as far as the Eskimo on the shores of the
frozen ocean from the tribes of the Eastern Archipelago and Melanesia.
The veil is sometimes worn without intermission. Among the Minuanes of
South America the widow carefully covers her face with her hair,
notwithstanding she remains for several days in the hut.[252.1] About
Bering Strait the housemates of a deceased Eskimo must remain in their
accustomed places in the house during the four days following the
death, while the ghost is believed to be still about. During this time
all of them must keep their fur hoods drawn over their heads, not to
deceive the dead man, but “to prevent the influence of the shade from
entering their heads and killing them.”[252.2] Where the mourners are
confined more or less to the house, however, the custom of veiling is
often, perhaps usually, more stringent on going out of doors than when
they are inside in the dark. In the lower culture the women at least
are frequently confined to the house, and only go out in case of
necessity at night, or at early morning and evening to weep at the
grave. But the Calabrian women would more naturally go out of doors,
if at all, by day; hence they would be more closely veiled by day; and
at night, when they would not go out, they might wear their ordinary
head-dress of a white handkerchief. It is at least curious that they
themselves assume that they would be recognized at night through the
disguise by “_il demonio_,” who has doubtless succeeded to the
pre-Christian terrors of the other world; and they declare it is lest
he should rejoice {253} over their sorrow--to deceive him as to that,
and not as to their identity--that they doff the discomfort of the
veil. For the same reason they take the opportunity to suspend their
wailing, which to be sure is not as a rule anywhere absolutely
continuous: human nature could not endure it.
Taboo is the most contagious of diseases. Mourning garb is its outward
and visible sign, and a warning to all who would otherwise come into
contact with the mourner. The veil in particular may be compared with
the head-coverings and seclusion required of girls arriving at
maturity. At that period they also are under taboo. Among the Eskimo,
the tribes of British Columbia, many of the South American tribes and
the Bantu tribes of Africa, and over a considerable area in the south
of Asia, the Indian Ocean and Melanesia, adolescent girls are confined
for a longer or shorter time where they cannot be seen, or kept
covered if they go out of doors. They are very sensitive to the
influence of the sun.[253.1] But it is not merely that the sun would
affect them; their very glance is deleterious. A Thlinkit girl wears a
hat with long flaps, that her glance may not pollute the sky. Among
the Tsetsaut it is believed that if she were to expose her face to the
sun or the sky, rain would fall.[253.2] So the Hupa grave-digger in
California is under a taboo. He has come into contact with death, and
is required after the funeral to carry a bough of Douglas spruce over
his head, “that he may not by any chance glance at the sky or at any
human being, thereby contaminating them.”[253.3] On the island of
Mabuiag, if a maturing girl’s own father see her, he will have bad
luck in fishing, and probably {254} smash his canoe the next time he
goes in it.[254.1] So far as I am aware, there is no intention in
veiling a girl at puberty to disguise her so as to delude any
spiritual foe. It is true that both she and the mourners at a death
(including all who take part in the death-rites) are exposed to
special dangers. That is because they are alike in a state of taboo.
They are thus also dangerous to others. They must be secluded; or if
they venture abroad they must be either covered or so garbed as to
keep other persons at a distance.
That the same reasons apply, at all events among some tribes, to the
veiling of the faces of widows and widowers appears from the customs
of the Lkungen of Vancouver Island. After a burial “the whole tribe go
down to the sea, wash their heads, bathe, and cut their hair. The
nearer related a person is to the deceased, the shorter he cuts his
hair. Those who do not belong to the deceased’s family merely clip the
ends of their hair.… Widow and widower, after the death of wife or
husband, are forbidden to cut their hair, as they would gain too great
power over the souls and the welfare of others. They must remain alone
at their fire for a long time, and are forbidden to mingle with other
people. When they eat, nobody must see them. They must keep their
faces covered for ten days. They fast for two days after burial and
are not allowed to speak. After two days they may speak a little; but
before addressing anyone they must go into the woods and clean
themselves in ponds and with cedar-branches. If they wish to harm an
enemy they call his name when taking their first meal after the fast,
and bite very hard in eating. It is believed that this will kill him.
They must not go near the water, or eat fresh salmon, as the latter
might be driven away. {255} They must not eat warm food, else their
teeth would fall out.”[255.1] This account shows that the widow or
widower is dangerous to other people, and consequently in a state of
taboo. It further shows that the fast and privation of society and
comfort that such a mourner undergoes materially increase his
_orenda_, giving him power to kill his enemy by sympathetic magic, or
even rendering him a peril to his own community if he add to the
severity of his penance by cutting his hair, as a mourner who is not
so nearly related to the deceased does. All this is in accord with the
principles underlying the taboo and fast of girls and boys at puberty.
There can be very little doubt that it is dictated by similar motives.
If so, the covering of the face is, here at least, not intended to
disguise the mourner and conceal him from the ghost. It is an integral
portion of his taboo. It helps to safeguard the well-being of the
surviving members of his community, and to make his own _orenda_ more
powerful.
It is no part of my case to deny that mourning garb is ever intended
to deceive the ghost. Customs differ so much in different cultural
areas that it is quite possible there may be some instances in which
the intention is to disguise the mourner by way of precaution against
the deceased. Professor Frazer has brought forward two cases, and only
two, so far as I am aware, in which this object is avowed. The first
is found in the western districts of the island of Timor. When a man
dies and before his body is put into a coffin, his wives stand weeping
over it with their village gossips, “all with loosened hair, in order
to make themselves unrecognizable by the _nitu_ (spirit) of the
dead.”[255.2] I have not seen the authority {256} he cites; therefore
I do not know whether we are given any information how a widow in
these districts habitually wears her hair. For aught that appears
here, the hair is loosened only for this ceremony, which comes to an
end with the enclosure of the corpse in the coffin, and may not last
for more than an hour or two. If so, whatever be the reason for
hindering the ghost from identifying the participants, the loosening
of the hair may not be, strictly speaking, part of the mourning garb.
The other case is a practice occasionally in use among the Herero.
When a dying man intimates to one of his relatives and friends, who
crowd around him at such a time, that he has “decided upon taking him
away after his death,” that is to say, that he will kill him (fetch
him to the other world), the person so threatened has recourse to an
_onganga_, or witch-doctor. This functionary strips him, washes and
greases him afresh, and dresses him in other clothes. “He is now quite
at his ease about the threatening of death caused by the deceased;
for, says he: ‘Now, our father does not know me.’” The survivors,
however, may fulfil the threat.[256.1] This certainly does appear to
be a case of disguise, or at least a change of clothes in order to
deceive the deceased; but the substituted clothes do not appear to be
mourning garb, and the problem of mourning garb is what we are
endeavouring to solve.
That protection is needed against the ghost of the recently dead is
clear. All over the world there is fear of ghosts. Protection,
however, is not commonly sought in disguise, even in extreme cases. It
is frequently sought, as against other supernatural foes, in fire. The
custom is so well known that it need not now detain us.[256.2] {257}
The Ewhe widow provides herself with a club, burns pungent powders and
takes other precautions from assault, or even approach, by the
deceased. A widower does the same. In both cases the event to be
dreaded is the attempt by the deceased to renew conjugal relations.
This danger assumes recognition by the ghost. So far from seeking to
elude it, she goes entirely naked. The lot, whether of widow or
widower, is not happy, though here, as elsewhere, the woman gets the
worst of it: she must be defended for six weeks, while seven or eight
days suffice for him.[257.1] The Charrua mourner in South America
went forth into the wilderness armed with a stick.[257.2] The Eskimo
of Bering Strait indeed wear fur hoods, but, as we have seen, they are
a direct defence against the penetrative influence of the ghost, not a
disguise. The Koryak, the Timorlaut islanders, the Ngoulango of the
Ivory Coast seek refuge in a talisman or amulet.[257.3]
The amulet preserved by the son of the deceased Timorlaut islander is
a piece of his father’s nail. According to the rules of sympathetic
magic he preserves in this way his corporal union with the deceased,
and thereby ensures his protection. The widow or widower does not take
a portion of the body, but wears a piece of the clothing. This
obviously is intended to have the same effect. The practice is not
unknown elsewhere. In Syria when a man dies his wife puts on one of
his garments and sings funeral songs.[257.4] Dr Junker relates that
he witnessed the ceremonies on the death of the ruler of Kabajendi,
who had lived almost all his life {258} among the A-sande and was
mourned according to their rites. His wives, after wailing beside the
coffin, marched through the zeriba and pretended to search in every
hole and corner, crying out to him, creeping in and out on hands and
knees under the overhanging thatch of the roofs, then gathering and
starting again on further explorations, all the while howling,
shrieking, and lamenting. The next morning those of them who could
manage to possess themselves of any article of his clothing put it on,
marching round the village thus attired in a continual procession or
dance, while others carried sword, lances, clubs, climbing plants,
maize-cobs, and so forth, their heads strewn with ashes. This
performance lasted for a fortnight, despite the tropical rain.[258.1]
Some light on this fantastic promenade may be thrown by the
proceedings of the Bangala women. In the Boloki district, “when a man
of any position died his wives would throw off their dresses and wear
old rags (sometimes they would go absolutely naked), pick up anything
belonging to him--his chair, spear, pipe, mug, knife, shield or
blanket--anything that came first to hand; and having covered their
bodies with a coating of clay, they would parade the town in ones, or
twos, or threes, crying bitterly and calling upon him to return to
them. They would stop at times in their crying and say: ‘He is gone to
So-and-so; we will go and find him’; and away they would start off in
a business-like fashion in their pretended search for him. This
parading they would keep up for a day or two, and then women of the
town would bedeck themselves with climbing plants, vines, {259}
leaves, and bunches of twigs; and, forming themselves into a
procession, they would march through the town chanting the praises of
the deceased. Men would paint and arm themselves as for a fight, and
would imitate the daring acts of the departed as a warrior; and if he
had been remarkable for fighting on the river, they would arrange a
sham canoe-fight in his honour.… It was an amusing and interesting
sight, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed both by actors and
spectators alike. They called this praising or honouring the
dead.”[259.1]
It has been suggested that the wearing of a portion of the clothing of
the dead is intended to delude him into the belief that those who do
so are themselves dead, and so to turn aside his attack.[259.2] No
proof, so far as I am aware, has been offered for the suggestion.
Whatever the exact intention of the A-sande rite (and its equivalence
with the Boloki rite is obvious), it can hardly be tortured into this.
The ghost must be stupid indeed who cannot distinguish his own
clothing and personal chattels when carried about by his wives. To
wear the clothing of the deceased identifies the mourner with him,
sometimes for the purpose of protection by means of sympathetic magic,
sometimes for the presentation of the dead man in funeral ceremonies
like those of the Torres Straits islanders or the Musquakie
Indians.[259.3] Where this is not the object, to put on his coat and
to carry his mug or his spear in procession may be due, as it seems to
be here, to some vague idea of honouring him, or perhaps of inducing
him to return. The supposition that it is intended to deceive the
ghost may be safely discarded.
In more general terms it has been conjectured that {260} mourning
rites are intended to express union with the departed by obligatory,
if partial, participation of his state, that by virtue of the
contagion of death the mourners have become really changed and are for
a time as if they were dead, hence they must eat, clothe, and conduct
themselves as far as possible like the dead.[260.1] Lastly, it has
been pointed out that many of the observances imposed on mourners are
a return to more primitive and savage conditions--such as sitting on
the bare earth, going naked or wearing only the roughest and coarsest
stuffs, and abstaining from good food in favour of wild berries and
roots;--and the question has been put whether this may not be the
essence of mourning.[260.2] There is probably some measure of truth
in both these suggestions; but they must not be pressed too far. Many
of the rites and usages are intended beyond question to express
sympathy for the deceased, and a temporary segregation with him from
ordinary life.
But they go further: in all the greater degrees of mourning at least
they indicate grief at his loss that is calculated to call down the
pity and compassion of every beholder, and to deprecate the wrath or
ill-humour of the deceased. It is very striking that while coarse and
scanty garments (sackcloth or bark-cloths among peoples who usually
wear cotton or wool, and mere loin-cloths or nothing at all among
peoples usually clad) are worn in place of more luxurious stuffs, a
frequently recurring prescription is old worn-out clothes. In the
Tonga Islands the mourners (who are always women) are “habited in
large old ragged mats--the more ragged, the more fit for the occasion,
as being more emblematical of a spirit broken down, or, as it were,
torn to pieces by {261} grief.”[261.1] In the hinterland of the
Sherbro in West Africa, on the mourning for a chief’s death, the
people most closely connected with him “presented an unkempt and
slovenly appearance, their bodies draped in the oldest and dirtiest of
their cloths.”[261.2] Among the Baganda on the other side of the
continent the mourning garb for an ordinary man is “old bark-cloths
and a girdle of dry plantain leaves: the hair is unkempt, the nails
are allowed to grow long like birds’ claws, and on the chest is a
white patch, a mixture of water and ashes.”[261.3] The custom of
strewing ashes on the person is very widely practised: more than one
example has been incidentally given. Among the Hebrews its use was not
confined to mourning for the dead; repentance in dust and ashes is a
familiar figure in English speech, and is derived from the Bible. The
general air of neglect and misery produced by these practices might be
paralleled in the mourning customs of most countries. Even in our own
island little more than a hundred years ago it was noted that the
chief mourner at a funeral in the parish of Llanvetherine,
Monmouthshire, and elsewhere wore a dirty cloth about his
head.[261.4] And of many peoples the description by a French writer
of the mourning garb among the Agni of Sanwi on the Ivory Coast would
hold literally true: “Old black loin-cloths, unwashed for a long time.
_On ne se peigne pas--on ne fait pas de toilette--on reste
modeste._”[261.5]
This is not all. Mourners fast, abstaining altogether from food or
indulging only in restricted diet, and that of an inferior kind. On
the island of Aurora all who are in mourning refrain from certain
food. The immediate relatives may not eat any cultivated food. {262}
They are limited to gigantic caladium, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts,
mallow, and other things which must be sought in the bush where they
grow.[262.1] The ancient Hurons were forbidden, even in cold weather,
to eat warm food.[262.2] Among the Charruas of South America the
adult sons of a dead man remain for two days entirely naked in their
huts and almost without food.[262.3] In Togoland the Ewhe widow is
forbidden beans, flesh, fish, palm-wine and rum; any infringement of
these prohibitions would cost her life.[262.4]
Many nations add to their other rites that of laceration or even
mutilation of the body. In Central Australia the Warramunga women
fight with one another and cut one another’s scalps, and all who stand
in any near relation to the deceased, reckoned according to the
classificatory system--which greatly widens the area of
relationship--also cut their own scalps open with yam-sticks, the
actual widows even searing the wound with red-hot fire-sticks.[262.5]
It was forbidden to the ancient Hebrews, by what was evidently a
reform of a pre-existing custom, to make a baldness between the eyes
for the dead--in other words, to cut themselves on the brow.[262.6]
Among the Arawaks a drinking-feast is held, at which all the men of
the village assemble and scourge one another with whips made of a
climbing plant, until the blood runs in streams and strips of skin and
muscle hang down. Those who participate in the rite often die of their
wounds.[262.7] As if mere wounding were not enough, {263}
finger-joints are frequently cut off. In the Fiji Islands the
amputation of a finger-joint is a common sign of mourning. In one case
in Tonga when a king died orders were issued that one hundred fingers
should be cut off.[263.1] In Montana, one of the north-western states
of America, on the execution of four aborigines for murder in December
1890, they were mourned by two squaws, who scalped their children. One
of them gashed her own face, while the other cut off two of her
fingers and threw them into the grave.[263.2] When a Charrua dies his
widow and his married daughters and sisters amputate each of them a
finger-joint, besides inflicting other wounds on themselves.[263.3]
The illustration of practices like these might be multiplied
indefinitely. The same reason holds good for them all. In the lower
culture grief at a death is often intensified by fear--on the one
hand, of an accusation of witchcraft--on the other hand, of the
ill-will of the deceased himself, who is naturally disgusted to find
himself dead. Against the latter danger at any rate the forlorn
condition of the survivors, stiff with wounds, thrust like him from
the company of their friends and fellow-tribesmen, made to wear a
distinctive garb, often in rags or dirt, wailing, watching, fasting,
would constitute an appeal that even the ghost of a savage would feel
hard to resist. That this is actually the effect intended, in some
instances at least, is certain. A widow among the Salivas of South
America cuts her hair, and is not allowed to anoint herself as usual,
nor to wear any ornament, in order, we are expressly told, not to
irritate the departed, but to humble herself before him.[263.4] {264}
Nor must it be overlooked that wailing and lamenting, so usually part
of the rites practised especially by the chief mourners, such as
widows and near relations, would not favour concealment. On the
contrary, they would draw attention to the grief, and help even the
simplest and most easily deluded of ghosts to identify the mourner,
which they would seem indeed to be meant to do. But they would
powerfully deprecate his malice or revenge. In this connection the
belief of the Bañarwanda on the east of Lake Kivu, in German East
Africa, is interesting. To them the _bazimu_ (plural of _muzimu_) or
souls of the departed are by no means always kindly disposed, even the
best of them. They must be continually propitiated with offerings, or
they will cause calamities, either of themselves directly, or
indirectly by setting in motion the _imandwa_, semi-apotheosized
heroes. But the _muzimu_ does not begin his mischievous activities
until the mourning ceremonies are at an end. So long as they last the
survivors are quite safe from him, for he will not during that period
attack the living.[264.1]
Many customs, sometimes born of widely differing motives, converge in
a similarity of expression. Hence it is impossible in the present
state of our knowledge dogmatically to assert a single origin for
practices of a like character extending over so wide an area as those
we have just passed in review. They are the expression of the
psychological reaction caused by the shock of death and the consequent
breach of the circle of kinship or other social bonds. The taboo
results from the bewilderment and terror caused by the entry of death
into the circle. The conduct and garb of the mourners are the outcome
of grief and sympathy, but also of fear. That fear has for its object
survivors who have it in their {265} power to involve the mourners in
even a more terrible doom by an accusation of witchcraft. Even more,
it has regard to death itself, and to the inimical designs of him
whose earthly life has been severed, and who has thereby been
converted into an envious, and if not a malicious, at least a peevish
and easily angered, being, armed by his death with greater, because
more mysterious, powers. Mourning garb is often a device to secure his
compassion; it is often a defence against his overt attacks; but on
the whole tangible proof is lacking that it is a disguise to deceive
him.
THE RITE AT THE TEMPLE
OF MYLITTA
{266}
Among the religious rites of antiquity there was none more alien to
modern feeling than the sacrifice of chastity by every Babylonian
woman at the temple of Mylitta. It is described first and in most
detail by Herodotus, whose denunciation of it shows that to the Greeks
of the fifth century B.C. it was as abhorrent as it is to us.
According to this account, every woman once in her life was required
to sit down in the precincts of the temple of Mylitta wearing a wreath
of cord about her head, and there to wait until a stranger should
throw a silver coin into her lap and summon her with ritual words in
the name of the goddess to follow him. She was not allowed to refuse,
but was compelled to follow the first man who threw, and to have
sexual intercourse with him outside the temple. She might then depart
to her home, her duty to the goddess being fulfilled.[266.1] The
historian lets fall the observation that there was a similar custom in
some places in Cyprus. This has been supposed to be referred to by
Justin, who wrote probably after the establishment of Christianity,
but whose work consists of selections from Trogus Pompeius, a lost
writer of the Augustan age. He reports that it was the Cypriote custom
to send maidens before their marriage on certain days to seek their
dowry by prostitution on the seashore, {267} and to pay the offerings
to Venus for their future chastity. Dido on her way to Carthage
touched at the island at the very time, and took on board her fleet
eighty of these damsels, to be wives to her followers and assist in
peopling the city she was going to found.[267.1] We shall further
consider Justin’s statement hereafter. For the moment we pass on to
Heliopolis (Baalbec), where, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates
affirms, virgins were offered in prostitution to strangers.[267.2] He
does not, any more than Justin, connect this with a temple or a
divinity; but from Sozomen we gather that it was a religious
observance, inasmuch as the prostitution of virgins prior to their
marriage is stated to have been abolished by Constantine when he
destroyed the temple of Aphrodite.[267.3] A similar custom, according
to Ælian, was followed by the Lydians. And he expressly says that
when once the rite had been performed the woman remained ever
afterwards chaste, nor would a repetition be forgiven her on any
plea.[267.4] Herodotus, however, states that the daughters of the
common people in Lydia earned their dowries by a life of
prostitution.[267.5] The two writers are obviously referring to two
different customs. A third custom distinct from either is mentioned by
Strabo as practised by the Armenians, among whom even the highest
families of the nation consecrated their virgin daughters to the
service of the goddess Anaitis, to remain as prostitutes at her temple
before their marriage.[267.6]
{268}
What is the relation of these three customs? They have usually been
considered as closely connected. It may be, as Dr Frazer suspects,
that the real motive for the custom described as that of earning
dowries by prostitution was religious, rather than economical,
although my own suspicions point in another direction. But putting
that custom aside for further examination, both the others are
certainly portrayed as religious. As practised by the nations of
Western Asia for a thousand years prior to the fall of paganism they
were annexed to the cult of certain divinities. There is, however, a
broad distinction to be drawn between a custom requiring every woman
once in her lifetime to submit to the embraces of a stranger, and one
which consecrated a life of prostitution. Such a life was one of
devotion to the goddess as a more or less permanent servant. The other
custom demanded a single act which freed the worshipper for the rest
of her days. It may be freely conceded that the goddess at whose
temple, or on whose feast-day, the act was performed was endowed with
similar characteristics to those of the goddess in whose service the
life of prostitution was lived. It may even have been that sometimes
the same goddess had bands of harlots attached to her shrine, and also
required the sacrifice of the virginity of all other women in the
manner described. This perhaps, as we shall see, was the case in
Lydia. We should still need to investigate separately the two customs.
One of the most fertile sources of error in the interpretation of
custom is the fatal tendency of rites distinct, or even altogether
different in origin and intention, but similar in expression, to
converge. This convergence is accelerated by a variety of causes. The
natural vagueness of tradition, the forgetfulness of the exact
original meaning, the gradual predominance of one idea over another
owing {269} to circumstances which, for want of knowledge, we call
accidental, the tendency to repeat by way of precaution in one rite
acts which essentially belong to another, are all causes of the kind
referred to. Moreover, we have so often found in the similarity of
rite the real key to a common interpretation, that where convergence
does not in fact occur there is a temptation to read identity of
meaning into two rites having a superficial likeness. It behoves us,
therefore, to be on our guard, and to scrutinize with some scepticism
all cases where the identity both of act and intention is not
demonstrably complete.
The practices I have enumerated have all been interpreted as
expiations for marriage. Marriage, it is said,--the appropriation of
one or more women to one man--is an evolution from the primeval
condition of promiscuity. Religious prostitution, the _jus primæ
noctis_ and other customs are expiations exacted by society from women
who are thus appropriated. They witness to the primeval common rights
of the male sex, thus asserted for the last time by one or more on
behalf of all on abandoning the woman to the exclusive possession of
one of their number.
Now, if the interpretation in question be suitable for any of these
customs, it is more suitable for the single rite such as that at the
temple of Mylitta than for the exercise of prostitution over an
extended period; and it is to this rite that I desire more
particularly to call attention. I need hardly observe that the
explanation of the rite as an expiation for marriage does not by any
means follow of necessity from the theory of primitive promiscuity. On
the contrary it overlooks one of the peculiar features of the rite.
Alike at Babylon, at Heliopolis, and apparently at Cyprus (if Cyprus
be a case in point) the act has to be accomplished with a stranger. If
it were {270} a forfeit rendered to the general body of men, who might
have had a claim to temporary union but for the institution of
marriage, or if it were a formal witness of that claim, it would seem,
_prima facie_, more natural that it should be accomplished with some
one or more of the claimants, that is to say, with a member or members
of the same community. A similar rite of intercourse with a stranger
was practised, as Lucian relates, at Byblus. There it was the custom
at the mourning for Adonis to perform the well-known mourning rite of
cutting off the hair. Any woman who refused to do this was required to
exhibit herself on one day of the festival and undergo prostitution to
one of the strangers who resorted thither, handing over the price to
the goddess called by Lucian the Byblian Aphrodite.[270.1] The rite
as there practised therefore was, at all events in the second century
A.D., an alternative to the dedication of hair: it was a redemption
for the tresses that should have been sacrificed. Thus the woman would
repeat the expiation once a year, whether married or single, so long
as she was unwilling to shear her locks, or preferred the alternative
sacrifice of her chastity. There is no evidence that it ever had
anything to do with marriage; it certainly had not when Lucian wrote.
The rite at Byblus must, however, be distinguished from those we are
considering. They were performed by every woman without alternative,
but they were performed only once. If they were an expiation for
marriage we should expect to find them described as part of the
marriage rites. The Balearic islanders, the Nasamonians and the
Auziles in antiquity had, as well as many modern savages, such rites,
whether or not they can be properly explained as an expiation for
marriage. But at the most the rites with which we are now concerned
were a {271} preliminary to marriage--a necessary preliminary,
perhaps, but one that might have been accomplished at any period
before it. Indeed, so far as appears from Herodotus, the victim, if we
may call her so, of the Babylonian rite was not necessarily unmarried.
But comparison of the accounts of the practice at Heliopolis, in Lydia
and in Cyprus renders it fairly certain that it was only unmarried
women who were subjected to it, and that it was essentially a
sacrifice of maidenhood. A passing reference by Eusebius has been
interpreted to imply that at Heliopolis both married women and girls
were prostituted in the service of the goddess.[271.1] But Eusebius
says nothing about the goddess. His reference must be construed in the
light of Socrates’ statement that women were by the law of the country
required to be common, and hence the offspring was doubtful, for there
was no distinction between fathers and children.[271.2] Whatever else
those phrases may mean, they entirely negative the theory of expiation
for marriage. But they do not refer to the custom of prostituting
virgins to strangers, which the historian expressly distinguishes.
It may be objected to this reading of Herodotus that while he uses the
generic term women (γυναῖκες) in speaking of the victims, on the other
hand, in a previous chapter referring to the Babylonian marriage
customs, he {272} reports that once a year in every village the
marriageable maidens (παρθένοι) were all put up to auction, the
respective purchasers being required to give security that they would
marry them; and it was unlawful to give them in marriage in any other
way. The objection is of little weight. It is needless to consider
whether we are to understand the specific term παρθένοι literally.
Even if so, there would doubtless be ample time for the performance of
the rite at the temple of Mylitta between the auction and the
marriage. It does not appear that marriage followed the auction
immediately. Had that been contemplated, security would hardly have
been necessary. When the anniversary came round all the maidens who
had during the preceding year attained puberty and thus become ripe
for marriage (γάμων ὡραῖαι) were probably put up. Those who had not
previously undergone the rite would, if my interpretation be correct,
be required to submit to it before marriage.
It is superfluous to discuss other and obvious objections to the
theory of expiation for marriage. But the appearance of prostitution
which the rite presents demands further consideration. At Babylon,
although a piece of money passed, the payment seems to have been
merely _pro forma_. It mattered not how small the coin was, it could
not be refused. Whatever it was, Strabo tells us it was considered as
consecrated to the goddess. Lastly, the rite once performed, no gift,
were it ever so great, would be accepted to repeat it. The details of
the rite at Heliopolis and among the Lydians have not been preserved
to us; but we may with probability infer that they were similar. In
Lydia, indeed, if we are to trust both Ælian and Herodotus, two
distinct customs are traceable, namely, the sacrifice of virginity and
the life of prostitution to earn a dowry. A Greek inscription {273} of
the second century A.D., found at Tralles and referred to by Dr
Frazer, discloses also the existence of religious prostitution by
girls expressly chosen by the god and set apart for that end.[273.1]
This is a similar custom to that of the Armenian girls already
mentioned, and is not to be confounded with the prostitution mentioned
by the Father of History as practised by all the daughters of the
common people. Whatever may have been the origin of the latter, the
other two in the time of Ælian were connected with religion. On the
island of Cyprus we seem to find much the same state of things. If we
may believe Justin, the maidens earned their dowry by prostitution.
From other sources we learn that there were mysteries of the Cypriote
Aphrodite, which were said to have been instituted by Cinyras, king of
Paphos and father of Adonis. Into these mysteries there was a regular
initiation. Sexual matters no doubt formed their staple teaching; and
what classical and especially apologetic writers would call
prostitution would be practised. The legend ran that the daughters of
Cinyras, through the wrath of Aphrodite, united themselves with
strangers.[273.2] Probably it was believed to be in imitation of them
that the maidens of Cyprus sought prostitution on the seashore. In any
case the story indicates, as Dr Frazer has pointed out, “that the
princesses of Paphos had to conform to the custom as well as the women
of humble birth.” But if this be so, the object of the harlotry
alleged by Justin falls to the ground, since it would be unnecessary
for princesses to earn their dowry. It may be suspected, therefore,
that Justin or his authority has confounded two disparate customs,
that of earning the {274} dowry by prostitution, and that of a
religious sacrifice of virginity in connection with the mysteries of
Aphrodite, in which the other party to the rite was a stranger. Only
thus can we satisfactorily explain the limitation of the practice to
stated days, probably festivals of Aphrodite, and the phrase about
paying the offerings to her for future chastity.
The money payment, whether large or small, was in the Byblian rite, as
in the Babylonian and (if I interpret correctly) in the Cypriote
rites, consecrated to the goddess. We may infer that the same was the
case wherever else the rite was performed. At Byblus it was the
alternative to the consecration of the woman’s hair.
Prostitution--that is, sexual intercourse for hire--is not a primitive
practice. The appearance of prostitution in connection with religion
may be accounted for by the influence upon the religious practice of
the general practice of harlots. Analogy would suggest that
intercourse other than conjugal or the satisfaction of the genuine
passion of love demanded a monetary consideration. But when that
intercourse was the performance of a religious duty the money was not
kept as gain by the woman. It was not earned for herself, but devoted
to the goddess. Where bands of “harlots” were attached to a temple
their earnings probably went to swell the temple funds out of which
they were supported.[274.1] It may accordingly be suggested that the
hire was not an essential part of the rite, but merely an aftergrowth
in the process of adapting an older custom to the changing manners and
religious ideas of a growing civilization.[274.2]
{275}
Assuming, therefore, that the rite was a sacrifice of virginity to
which every woman was subjected, it would probably be performed either
on the attainment of puberty or as a preliminary to the marriage
ceremonies. But we gather from the historian’s account of the sale of
the village maidens around Babylon that the auction followed almost
immediately after the attainment of puberty, or within (say) a year at
the furthest. The practice of most ancient nations, as of nearly all
barbarous and savage peoples, and indeed of many in a high stage of
civilization, would lead us to expect that marriage would be entered
into within a very short time of the bride’s puberty. Sometimes
marriage even precedes puberty. Where, as more usual, it follows that
epoch of life, the rites incident to puberty must first be completed.
Among such rites defloration is not infrequently found. In this
respect the Australian tribes are notorious. In the Boulia district of
Northern Queensland the girl is compelled to intercourse with a number
of men.[275.1] Among the Dieri of South Australia a ceremony called
Wilpadrina is performed on the young women when they come to maturity,
in which the elder men claim and exercise a right to them, and that in
the presence of the other women.[275.2] The Arunta and Ilpirra tribes
in the centre of the continent perform a ceremony on every girl when
she arrives at a marriageable age, but before she has been taken over
by the husband to whom she has been allotted. As part of that ceremony
a number of men have access to her in ritual order; and the
intercourse {276} is often repeated the following day.[276.1]
Analogous proceedings are known in other parts of the world. The
central tribes of New Ireland have a women’s house in every village.
When a girl attains puberty she withdraws into a small house, called
_mbak_, built inside it. There it is said she has to remain for ten
months, only going outside at night. During this period she is waited
upon by the old women, and through their intervention every man who
chooses has access to her. On leaving the _mbak_ she belongs only to
the husband to whom she has probably been betrothed since
infancy.[276.2] In the west of the island of Serang between Celebes
and New Guinea, a girl after ceremonial bathing goes round clothed
with a sarong woven of the fibre of the _Pandanus repens_, at the
service of every man until her family have collected the necessary
materials for a feast. In certain districts, however, before actual
puberty the teeth are filed. When this operation is completed, a feast
is prepared of which the novice must taste everything. Further, an
earthen pot filled with spring-water is covered with a fresh
pisang-leaf. One of the old women then taking the index-finger of the
girl’s right hand thrusts it through the leaf as “a symbol of the
rupture of the hymen, or to show that the possession of virginity
means nothing for her.” The leaf is then displayed on the ridge of the
roof. This done, the women fall to eating and drinking. When they have
finished they begin singing to the accompaniment of drums. The men are
then admitted to the house. In some villages the old men have free
access that evening to the room of the girl in whose honour the feast
is given, while the other guests amuse themselves with {277} singing
outside. After this celebration the girl is entitled to free
intercourse with men, even before puberty.[277.1] In East-Central
Africa the Azimba maiden is artificially deflowered during a period of
retirement and instruction in the forest. When the retirement is over
she celebrates her attainment of puberty by a dance in which only
women take part. That night a man, hired by her father for the
purpose, sleeps with her, and once this is done she is supposed to
have no further intercourse with him. Often, however, she is already
married before puberty, and consequently no longer a maiden. None the
less is she taken from her husband that the puberty customs may be
performed. When she is brought back he himself sleeps with her
apparently as a ritual act, without the necessity of hiring a man for
the purpose.[277.2] Among the Wanyasa, or Mang’anja, at the southern
end of Lake Nyasa, ceremonies are performed similar to those of the
_Intonjane_ (girls’ puberty ceremonies) of South Africa, and every
girl on her return after the initiation must find some man “to be with
her,” otherwise she will die.[277.3] The _Intonjane_ among the
Kaffirs is well known to be an occasion of sexual indulgence. It may
be surmised that the ceremonies of the Suahili on the east coast were
originally similar to those just mentioned. But the Suahili have
become partially Arabized, though their Mohammedanism is little more
than a veneer over their heathen customs and belief. Among them now a
girl returns from her seclusion in silence and gives her hand to every
man she meets, receiving from him in return a few small coins.[277.4]
It is said that the girls of {278} the Wamegi, also a tribe near the
coast, are artificially deflowered at puberty by certain old
women.[278.1] Artificial defloration at puberty is also practised by
the Sawu Islanders. The Sakalava girls in Madagascar perform it on
themselves in case their parents have not previously taken the
trouble.[278.2] Other examples could be cited, but the subject need
not be pursued.
I would venture to suggest then that the Babylonian rite was a puberty
rite, and that a maiden was not admitted to the status and privileges
of adult life until she had thus been ceremonially deflowered. Among
those privileges, and the chief of them, was the gratification of the
sexual instinct. It was, therefore, a prerequisite to marriage.
Ceremonial defloration of the bride by others than her husband has
prevailed in many places. When marriage follows closely after puberty
it is difficult to determine whether the custom really belongs to the
puberty rites, or to those of marriage. I am not concerned here to
deny that among many peoples who practise it as part of the marriage
rites it may have been such _ab initio_. The determination of this
question would involve an examination of marriage customs extending
far beyond the space at my disposal. But it will be admitted that as
puberty rites gradually {279} became simplified or altogether obsolete
such a custom could only maintain existence as part of the marriage
rites. It is then usually (but, as we shall see, not always) performed
by one or more of the bridegroom’s friends or by an appointed
official, and ultimately degenerates into the _jus primæ noctis_
vested in some powerful personage, as a lord or priest. Nothing of the
sort appears in the accounts which have come down to us of the ancient
rite in Western Asia. In all of them (save among the Lydians) emphasis
is laid on the performance by a stranger. At Babylon our information
does not connect the rite with marriage at all. Elsewhere it is
referred to not as part of the marriage rites, but as a preliminary to
marriage.
That such a rite should be found annexed to the temple and worship of
a luxurious goddess causes no surprise; on the contrary, it is what
might have been anticipated. Every reader will call to mind numerous
examples of archaic rites which have become attached to Christian
festivals, and of Christian shrines which are simply shrines of an
earlier religion adapted and consecrated afresh under Christian names.
The difficulty of uprooting old customs, and their consequent
incorporation and adaptation by advancing culture or a new religion,
are phenomena too well known to be insisted on here. Probably the
Cypriote mysteries were adapted to the worship of Aphrodite from a
ruder stage in which no divinity was invoked. And if this could happen
once in Western Asia, it might have happened also at Babylon, at
Heliopolis and elsewhere. It is possible that other practices, such as
the prostitution of the Armenian girls at the temple of Anaitis, or
that of the Lydian and Paphian girls to earn their dowries, are no
more than the adaptation of a custom common enough in the lower {280}
barbarism, by which unmarried girls have unfettered liberty in their
sexual relations. The Armenian maidens, at all events, though spoken
of as harlots by Strabo, do not seem to have exercised their calling
for money, nor to have admitted indiscriminately to their favours all
who offered. They reserved themselves for their equals in rank, and
entertained them in their dwellings with more hospitality than in a
spinsters’ house in the Pacific Islands. The surmise may be indulged
that it was in fact originally, if not in later times, their way of
choosing husbands. The Lydian girls are expressly said to have
bestowed themselves in marriage.
Mannhardt contended (and his opinion is so far endorsed by Dr Frazer)
that the maidens who surrendered their virginity in connection with
the cult of a goddess like Aphrodite did so in imitation of their
divinity, as her representatives, the human players of her
part.[280.1] This may have been the mode by which the ancient custom
was adapted to the newer order of things. But it is submitted that it
is a very insufficient account of it. The custom must have been older
than any definite belief in the goddess’s habits or any story of her
various intrigues. Are we then to suppose that it was a magical rite
designed to promote the fertility of animal and vegetable life? Such
rites are known in both hemispheres. The great goddess worshipped
under different names throughout Western Asia personified, we may
concede, the reproductive energies of Nature. Many of the rites
employed in her cult are in the last analysis magical, and had for
their purpose to assist those energies. By a well-known mental process
magical efficacy is often ascribed to acts and usages not essentially
of a magical, nor indeed of a {281} ritual, character. Thus the
general prostitution of young girls to earn their dowries, and that of
widows--customs which are probably of quite a different origin--are
among certain tribes of Morocco held to be not without their effect on
the abundance of the crops.[281.1] Such a belief may have consecrated
lives of habitual harlotry in Armenia, in Lydia, and in Cyprus. It by
no means follows that every rite performed in the name of the goddess
acquired that meaning, still less that that was its primitive meaning.
Many such rites would be wholly personal. They would be intended to
secure personal blessings to the worshipper, and nothing more, though
everyone might have been required to perform them. It is needless to
suppose without express evidence that the rite described by Herodotus
as taking place at the temple of Mylitta had more than a personal
reference. The most obvious personal blessing to be secured from such
a goddess would be fertility. It is possible that this was the
intention here. Puberty customs are doubtless performed for the good
of the individual, and of the tribe or nationality through the
individual. We must not infer, however, that the personal blessing of
fertility was held to be the natural and direct outcome of the
sacrifice of virginity. That was not the way in which it would be
envisaged, however logical such an outcome may seem to us. The savage
would not expect the natural result, but one that we call magical. At
the stage represented by the Babylonian custom the blessing was
invoked from the goddess, and was her gift. In other words, it was not
that specific ritual act of coition, but future acts rendered licit
and consecrated by it which were expected to bear fruit. {282} This
interpretation is perhaps strengthened by a rite said to have been
regularly performed in the Troad. “Every maiden on the approach of her
marriage was required to go and bathe in the Skamandros, and standing
in the water to pronounce the sacred formula: ‘Skamandros, take my
maidenhood as a gift.’” Dr Farnell, citing the fictitious letter of
Aischines on which the evidence for the custom rests, observes: “The
letter narrates how a mortal assumed the human form of the god and
took a treacherous advantage; but originally, we may suppose, the rite
of consecration was not associated with any anthropomorphic divinity,
but was performed in the hope that the spirit of the river might enter
into the maiden, and that the child she might afterwards bear to her
wedded husband might thus be mystically akin to the guardian of the
land. The many early myths concerning heroines and princesses being
made pregnant by river-gods suggest that the ritual just described was
once prevalent in primitive Greece; for such myths could arise
naturally from such a custom.”[282.1] But the ritual itself suggests
that it is a relic of a still older rite parallel with the rite at the
temple of Mylitta.
The last of the problems connected with the rite is to explain why it
must be accomplished with a stranger. If, as has been alleged, the act
of defloration of a maiden were held to be in itself dangerous, it is
not easy to say why anyone, even a stranger, should undertake it,
unless he were strangely ignorant of the risk or strangely careless.
In some places, indeed, a maiden who had come to submit to the rite
may have been outwardly indistinguishable from one of the _hierai_;
and hence the man may have been unconscious {283} of his risk, or may
have been willing to undertake a risk thus diminished. But at Babylon
the women who came thus to offer themselves wore a distinctive
head-dress of cords, the emblem, perhaps, of their condition of
virginity. Moreover, they seem to have been penned in enclosures
divided from each other by ropes, which were broken to let them out
for the accomplishment of the rite. There was therefore no mistake as
to their status or object.[283.1] On the other hand, if the
defloration simply involved ritual impurity such as could be removed
by the proper ceremonies, it must be asked why the task was left to a
stranger. None of our ancient authorities have condescended to define
a stranger. We are probably to understand by that term one who was not
an inhabitant of the town or who was not a member of the community.
The analogy of certain Australian rites already referred to, and of
rites of marriage in some other parts of the world, would lead us to
suppose that what was really intended in the first instance was one
who was not eligible for sexual relations with the woman in the
ordinary course. Thus in Peru and New Granada “the nearest relations
of the bride and her most intimate friends” are said to have performed
the corresponding rite[283.2]; and even her father is credited {284}
with the labour among the Orang-Sakai of the Malay Peninsula, the
Battas of Sumatra, the Alfoers of Celebes, and on the Island of Ceylon
and the eastern Moluccas.[284.1] From this the more developed
morality of the Babylonians would recoil. Mr Crawley, commenting on
the Australian rite, surmises that in it “initiation” and marriage are
one, and that “initiation” ceremonies (that is to say, puberty
ceremonies) “of this kind are marriages to the other sex in
abstract.”[284.2] The surmise follows from his theory of the danger
of human contact, and especially of marriage, and the importance of
ceremonies to avert the peril. The theory itself--at all events pushed
to the length to which Mr Crawley pushes it--is very questionable. But
defloration at puberty, whether natural or artificial, is undoubtedly
(whatever else it may be) a formal introduction to sexual life. Such
introduction might be the more authoritative and emphatic if given by
one (or more) with whom sexual relations would not in future be
sustained. It is a ritual act. Ritual acts are acts out of the
ordinary course--often clean contrary to the ordinary course. Therein
consists their essence, their virtue. But in the growth of
civilization, with the emergence of a new religion or different
customs, the real meaning of a traditional rite is obscured, the rite
itself becomes decadent, and a new meaning is assigned to it. Hence a
puberty rite might easily become part of the cult of a goddess like
Mylitta.
Moreover, at the stage of decay which the rite had reached at Babylon
and elsewhere in Western Asia, the proviso that the person with whom
the act was performed must be a stranger might be intended to prevent
an {285} assignation. When the act had to be performed as a sacrifice
in honour of the goddess it might be regarded as a profanation to
perform it as an act of inclination with a favoured lover. The best
way to prevent this would be to require that it should be performed
with a chance stranger, who might further be looked upon, if
Mannhardt’s interpretation be correct, as a representative sent by the
goddess to play Adonis to the maiden’s Aphrodite. The rite at Byblus
lends countenance to this conjecture. It is supported also by the
artificial defloration enacted only in symbol by Roman brides, but in
grim earnest at the temples of Siva by brides in Southern India.
But we are able to carry the conjecture a step beyond this. Here I am
glad to avail myself of the criticism of Professor Westermarck, who
has pointed out that a semi-supernatural character is very generally
ascribed to strangers, and that intercourse with a stranger would thus
be productive of blessings--especially the blessing of fertility--to
the woman.[285.1] From the large collections on the subject of
relations with strangers brought together by Professor Frazer and
Professor Westermarck himself it results that a stranger is regarded
as uncanny. He is a being possessed of unknown powers for good or ill.
His _orenda_, as we have seen, is incalculable.[285.2] He must
therefore be either repulsed at once as a foe or received and treated
with extraordinary respect. The former course is not usually adopted
unless the strangers come in force or there are other circumstances
that suggest hostile intent. The latter course has given birth to laws
of hospitality recognized all over the world, however the exact
procedure may differ among different peoples. {286} But even in this
case the stranger is looked upon with suspicion until he has undergone
what M. van Gennep calls rites of aggregation to the group or society
to which he has come. These rites may be of the most simple character,
such as spitting upon his host or drinking a cup of water or coffee
from his host’s hand; or they may involve a trial of strength, an
exchange of gifts, the offering of sacrifices or entry into a
blood-covenant.[286.1]
The uncanny character thus attributed to a stranger includes not
merely the possession of magical powers. In a society where everyone,
or at least a large and unknown number of persons, is believed to be
endowed more or less with magical powers, this is a matter of course.
But a halo of still more mysterious possibility encircles a stranger:
he may be a superhuman Power, a dead man, or even a god. Hence arise
the numerous stories, many of which have been collected by Mr Gerould
in his monograph on _The Grateful Dead_, published by the Folk-Lore
Society in 1908. These stories usually represent the stranger as a
dead man to whom the hero has rendered some service, such as that of
burying his corpse. But perhaps the best known, and among the most
ancient is that found in the book of Tobit, where the stranger is the
angel Raphael. A tale even older and more widespread is preserved
among the Hebrew traditions as that of Lot and the two angels who
visited him in Sodom. Probably it was part of the common Semitic
stock, and as such would have been known at Babylon. Substantially the
same story is that of Baucis and Philemon reported by Ovid; and the
tale of Demeter’s wanderings and many another in Greek legend rest on
a common basis of belief. Continental folklore down to modern days
{287} identifies the unknown beggar as Jesus Christ Himself or, if a
woman, his Mother. The Bantu of South-West Africa tell of the great
goddess Nzambi who begs in disguise for a little palm-wine to slake
the thirst of her child. Refusal is followed in the night by
punishment; the smiling valley, like that of Sodom, is covered by the
waters of a lake; and the only person saved is he who had taken
compassion and granted the poor old mendicant’s request.[287.1] Lest
this be thought a tale imported from Europe, let me add that in Annam
a similar tale is told to account for three lakes in the province of
Thay Nguyen. There a beggar-woman is repulsed by all save an old widow
and her son, who give of their poverty food and a night’s lodging to
the miserable and unattractive creature. She turns out to be a
supernatural personage. She has come down to test the hearts of the
devotees who have flocked to a great religious festival periodically
held in the place. The hypocrites who repulsed her are all overwhelmed
in a deluge of waters; only the widow and her son are saved.[287.2]
To labour the proof is unnecessary. It is abundantly clear that a
stranger may be far more than mortal, and that this possibility has
deeply affected the evolution of hospitality. The stranger must be
conciliated. He must be bound by sacred ties to the host--ties which
he cannot break so long as he remains under the host’s protection.
Among the rites of aggregation--the rites effecting this union--M. van
Gennep reckons the use of the women frequently accorded to visitors in
the lower culture; and he suggests that the rite at the temple of
Mylitta was such a rite of aggregation. It may have been so. It may
have been expected of all masculine strangers at Babylon to unite
themselves with the natives by means {288} of this homage to the
goddess. All that can be said is that Herodotus gives no hint of it.
According to him it was only on the women that the duty lay--and that
no more than once in their lives--of submitting to the rite. The
mystery attaching to a stranger and involving the expectation of
divine blessing is a sufficient reason for the performance of the rite
with one who might be a god in person, and in any event must have been
held to be divinely sent; for chance is the servant of the gods.
Thence it is but a step (and the step was taken elsewhere, if not at
Babylon) to the substitution of the priest for the stranger or the
god; and the way is opened to the abuses of the _jus primæ
noctis_.[288.1]
Before dismissing the subject reference may be made to Professor
Cumont’s note on the subject of religious prostitution in _Les
Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain_ (Paris, 1907), pp. 143,
286, as showing the facility with which a learned and highly
distinguished scholar may fail to appreciate the complexity of the
problem. He makes no distinction between the three customs of
sacrifice of virginity, prostitution to earn a dowry, and a life of
religious prostitution in the service of the goddess. He refers them
all to the primitive constitution of the Semitic tribe, and explains
them as a modified form, become utilitarian, of an ancient exogamy.
Mating with a virgin, he holds, resulted in defilement; therefore she
was given first to a stranger; only after that could she be married to
a man of her own race. I pass by the confusion between the three
customs in question, to all of which his explanation will not equally
{289} apply. But if the explanation be correct for any of them, either
the ancient exogamy of the Semites must have been quite different from
exogamy as generally understood, or it must have been not merely
modified but transformed. Exogamy, as generally understood, has
nothing to do with race or nationality. It is simply the savage rule
corresponding to our table of prohibited degrees.[289.1] A man may
not marry or have sexual relations with one who is akin to him; every
member of his clan (not of his tribe or his race) is akin to him;
therefore, he cannot marry or have sexual relations with any member of
his clan. The origin of this rule is still disputed by
anthropologists, and we need not here discuss it. But since exogamy
bars a man from sexual relations with every member of his kin, it is
obvious that it cannot be merely a preliminary to marriage within the
kin. Where exogamy is the law, the bar is absolute; it is the law for
the whole of life; it is not intended to provide for a temporary union
outside the kin in order to prepare the way for a permanent union
within the kin. Exogamy, therefore, I submit, cannot explain these
customs.
THE VOICE OF THE STONE OF
DESTINY
{290}
In the following pages I propose to consider some of the auguries
which have been deemed necessary to the choice of a king. Kingship is
not found in the most archaic forms of society known to us. But where
the community is organized on the basis of monarchy the king tends to
be regarded as something more than ordinary humanity. He has powers
and privileges denied to other mortals. These very powers and
privileges and the sanctity of which they are the appanage entail,
however, taboos and penalties of the most burdensome description.
Professor Frazer has abundantly illustrated this side of royalty, and
has also fully discussed some of the means whereby pretensions to the
throne are enforced. But there remain others witnessing not less than
those he has described to the extraordinary position of a king. Some
of these and their echoes in folk-tale and romance will repay a little
attention.
The famous Coronation Stone has an authentic history of six hundred
years. At the time of the conquest of Scotland by Edward I., it was
the stone on which the kings of the Scots were, according to
immemorial custom, installed. Regarded by the Scots as sacred, it was
therefore removed by Edward’s order from Scone, where it stood, to
Westminster, and was enclosed in what is now, {291} and has been ever
since, the Coronation Chair. Its earlier history, as distinguished
from conjecture and legend, goes no further back than the middle of
the thirteenth century, or something less than half a century before
its removal to Westminster, when it is recorded by Fordun that
Alexander III. was solemnly placed upon it and hallowed to king by the
Bishop of St. Andrews (1249). But what is wanting in authentic history
has been abundantly made up in legend. The tale, of which there are
two versions, is the creation of a literary age. The Irish version
brings it, with the Tuatha Dé Danann, from Lochlann, or Scandinavia,
to Ireland. The Scottish version traces it on the other hand from
Egypt, whence it was carried by the Milesians. This was improved upon,
to the extent of identifying the stone with that used by Jacob as a
pillow on his journey from Beersheba to Haran. The attempt was thus
made, by connecting the ruling race in Scotland with the legends of
the Hebrew patriarchs, to confer upon the stone the united sanctity of
religion, of antiquity, and of patriotism.
In the course of its wanderings the stone is said to have reached
Tara; and it is declared to be the famous _Lia Fáil_, or Stone of
Destiny, one of the two wonders of Tara celebrated in Irish sagas. We
are indebted to the _Book of Lismore_, a fifteenth-century manuscript,
for an enumeration of the wonderful properties of the _Lia Fáil_. The
Colloquy with the Ancients, which is comprised in this precious
manuscript, records a number of Irish traditions, some of which would
else in all probability have perished beyond recovery. There we
learn--the account is put into the mouth of no less a personage than
Ossian himself--that “Anyone of all Ireland on whom an _ex parte_
imputation rested was set upon that stone: {292} then if the truth
were in him he would turn pink and white; but if otherwise, it was a
black spot that in some conspicuous place would appear on him.
Further, when Ireland’s monarch stepped on to it the stone would cry
out under him, and her three arch-waves would boom in answer: as the
wave of Cleena, the wave of Ballintoy, and the wave of Loch Rury; when
a provincial king went on it the flag would rumble under him; when a
barren woman trod it, it was a dew of dusky blood that broke out on
it; when one that would bear children tried it, it was a ‘nursing
drop’”--that is, says Mr Standish O’Grady, from whose translation I
quote, semblance of milk--“that it sweated.”[292.1] The Colloquy is
imperfect, the legible portion of the manuscript ceasing a line or two
further on, just as we are about to be told how it was that the stone
left Ireland.[292.2] Its subsequent adventures are related by
Keating, who says that it was sent to Feargus the Great, “to sit upon,
for the purpose of being proclaimed king of Scotland.” However, it is
not to the adventures of the stone, but to its properties that I wish
now to direct attention. With regard to the former, all that I need
add is that the legend has been subjected by Skene, and more recently
by Mr P. J. O’Reilly, to an exhaustive analysis, which renders it
clear that there is no trustworthy evidence that the stone of Tara is
the Coronation Stone. The antecedent improbability is great; and even
if it were indisputable that the stone in question was no longer at
Tara in the eleventh century, the chasm between that period and
Fergus, whose very existence only rested on legend, {293} would still
have to be bridged, and the variants of the story would need to be
reconciled.[293.1]
The properties of the stone of Tara were oracular; and the stone
itself was one of a large class of stones endowed in popular opinion
with divining powers, and actually resorted to for the purpose of
enquiry. When the reputation of an oracle is once established, it is
consulted for many purposes. Not only political, but juridical and
domestic purposes are enumerated by the author of the Colloquy in
regard to the _Lia Fáil_. Among these functions is the recognition of
the monarch. The phrase used in the Colloquy is ambiguous. It is not
stated why, or on what occasion, the stone was expected to make its
voice heard. In practice the only object of obtaining such a
recognition would be that of determining the succession to the throne.
Keating supplies the missing explanation. “It was a stone,” he says,
“on which were enchantments, for it used to roar under the person who
had the best right to obtain the sovereignty of Ireland at the time of
the men of Ireland being in assembly at Tara to choose a king over
them.”[293.2] Whether as a matter of fact the stone ever was
consulted with this object is another question. It is enough at {294}
present to know that Irish tradition asserted this use of the oracle.
In a semi-civilized community a disputed succession is of frequent
occurrence. To prevent a dispute, and to settle it when it arises,
various means are adopted. The usual Irish plan seems to have been the
custom of Tanistry. “During the lifetime of a chief,” Sullivan tells
us, “his successor was elected under the name of _Tanaiste_; and on
the death of the former the latter succeeded him. The _Tanaiste_ was
not necessarily the son of the chief: he might be his brother or
nephew; but he should belong to his _Fine_,” or family.[294.1]
That this mode of election was not always successful we may easily
believe. That it was the gradual outcome of the experience of a long
series of generations is probable. Where for one cause or another it
failed, how would the succession be determined? The most obvious means
would be either conflict or divination. According to the legends,
divination was sometimes actually used to determine the appointment of
king. On one occasion in the days of Conchobar, the famous King of
Ulster, the monarchy of Ireland had been vacant for seven years. This
state of things being found intolerable, a general assembly was held
at Tara to choose a king. The royal houses of Connaught, South
Munster, North Munster, and Leinster were there, but the Ulstermen
were absent; for there was bitter feud between Ulster and the rest of
Ireland, and they would not hold kingly counsel together. The mode of
election adopted was divination by means of a dream induced by certain
ceremonies. The ceremonies began with a bull-feast. A bull was killed,
and a man was gorged with its flesh and {295} broth. We are told “he
slept under that meal.” It is not incredible. Then “a true oration,”
which I understand to mean an incantation, was pronounced over him by
four Druids. He dreamed, and screamed out of his sleep, and related to
the assembled kings that he had seen in his dream “a soft youth,
noble, and powerfully made, with two red stripes on his skin around
his body, and he standing at the pillow of a man who was lying in a
decline at Emain Macha,” the royal palace of Ulster. Messengers were
accordingly sent thither, and the description was found to correspond
with that of Lugaidh Reo-derg, the pupil of Cuchulainn, who was then
lying ill. Lugaidh was brought to Tara, recognized as the subject of
the vision, and proclaimed as monarch of Ireland.[295.1]
This is not the only instance in Irish legend of election to the
throne by _incubatio_, or divination by means of a dream. Conaire,
whose tale is filled with incidents explicable only by the comparative
studies of ethnologists, was thus elected. Though really begotten by a
supernatural bird-man, he was regarded as the son of his predecessor,
Eterscéle. But this does not seem to have given him any title to
succeed. A bull-feast was accordingly given; and the bull-feaster in
his sleep at the end of the night beheld a man stark-naked, passing
along the road of Tara with a stone in his sling. Warned and
counselled by his bird-relatives, Conaire fulfilled these
requirements. He found three kings (doubtless of the under-kings of
Ireland) awaiting him, with royal raiment to clothe his nakedness, and
a chariot to convey him to Tara. It was a disappointment to the folk
of Tara to {296} find that their bull-feast and their spell of truth
chanted over the feaster had resulted in the selection of a beardless
lad. But he convinced them that he was the true successor, and was
admitted to the kingship.[296.1]
A traditional story is not a record of fact. It is a record only of
what is believed. Probably both Lugaidh Reo-derg and Conaire are
mythical personages, but their stories certainly embody what was
thought to be possible. The description of the election by divination
is substantially the same in both. It may therefore be taken, if not
as approximately correct, at least as showing that election by
divination was regarded among the ancient Irish as in the last resort
a reasonable and proper manner of ascertaining and appointing a king.
In this the Irish were by no means singular. The traditions of other
nations point to the same result, and the customs in various parts of
the world confirm it. The incident of election by divination is so
picturesque and so suitable for the purposes of a story-teller that it
is to be expected far more often in a tale than in real life. But that
the story-incident is based on actual practice, I think there is
sufficient ground for believing.
We will first shortly review a few stories of election by divination.
The Saxons of Transylvania tell of a peasant who had three sons, of
whom the youngest was despised by the others because he was weak and
small while they were tall and strong. In that kingdom God Himself
chose the king from time to time. The mode of ascertaining the divine
will was to call a general assembly of the people on the king’s meadow
in the largest commune of the country, and there to lay the crown at a
certain hour on a hillock or mound. All the bells in the {297} town
pealed forth together; and the crown slowly raised itself in the air,
floated round over the heads of the assembly, and finally alighted on
that of the destined sovereign. The two elder brothers made ready to
attend the ceremony, but bade the youngest remain at home in the
ashes, where his place was. However, he slipped out after them, and,
for fear they would see him, crept into a pigsty that stood at the end
of the town abutting on the meadow. The crown, passing over all the
people present, sank down upon the pigsty. Surprised and curious to
know what this strange proceeding meant, the people ran to the pigsty,
there found the trembling boy, and drawing him forth bowed the knee
and saluted him as the new king, called by God to occupy the
throne.[297.1]
In this Transylvanian _märchen_ the crown is the instrument of
divination. Going next to the dim and distant East we find other
emblems of royalty thus represented. In the _Jātaka_, the great book
of Buddhist Birth-stories, the supposititious child of a merchant’s
wife of Maghada is the hero of a similar adventure. He is, however, no
ordinary child but the Bodhisatta, the future Buddha in an earlier
birth. He was called Banyan, from having been found under a banyan
tree, where his own mother had forsaken him at his birth. Travelling
with two faithful companions who had been born on the same day as
himself, he came to Benares, and entering the royal park lay down upon
a slab of stone with his two companions beside it. The previous night
they had slept in the city under a tree at a temple. One of the youths
had awakened at dawn and heard some cocks quarrelling in the branches.
He listened, and learnt that whoever killed a certain one of these
birds and ate of his fat would become king that very day, he who ate
the middle flesh {298} would become commander-in-chief, and he who ate
the flesh about the bones would become treasurer. He killed the bird,
gave the fat to Banyan, the middle flesh to his other friend, and
gnawed the bones himself. Now the king of Benares was dead, and that
day the festal car was going forth with the five symbols of royalty,
the sword, the parasol, the diadem, the slippers, and the fan, within
it, to choose the king’s successor. As the three youths lay in the
royal park, the ceremonial chariot rolled up and stopped before them.
The chaplain (presumably a Brahman) followed. Removing the cloth from
Banyan’s feet he examined the marks upon them. “Why!” he exclaimed,
“he is destined to be king of all India, let alone Benares!” and he
ordered the gongs and the cymbals to strike up. This awoke Banyan, who
sat up. The chaplain fell down before him, saying: “Divine being, the
kingdom is thine.” “So be it,” quietly answered the youth; the
chaplain placed him upon the heap of precious jewels and sprinkled him
to be king.[298.1]
In a Calmuck tale the instrument of divination is not one of the royal
insignia, but a sacrificial cake. An assembly of the people is held to
choose a new khan; and it is decided to appeal to the judgement of
heaven by throwing a sacrificial cake, called _Baling_, apparently a
figure of dough, into the air, at the time of the sacrifice
(_Streuopfer_). On whosesoever head the cake fell, he should be
khan.[298.2]
A tale of the Teleut Tartars tells of a father who was enraged with
his son because he interpreted the cry of some birds, declaring that
they foretold that he himself would become emperor, and his father
would drink his urine. The father, in his anger, struck off his son’s
head. {299} He then killed his horse, skinned it, rolled his son’s
body in the hide and flung it into the sea. The waves carried the
package to a village, where an old woman found it. She opened the
leather, and the youth came out alive. The prince of that land had
died, leaving no son. His subjects took two golden posts, and fastened
on their tops two tapers. They then set up the posts in the middle of
the village. Everyone was required to jump through them, and the
tapers would fall on him who was to be the prince. But they
obstinately remained standing until the destined youth came, when they
both fell on his neck and burst into flame. If he had not become an
emperor, at least he was now a prince: and with that variation, the
whole of the bird’s prophecy was in due course fulfilled.[299.1] But
we need not follow it further. The hero of a Balochi tale likewise
falls under his father’s displeasure. His father was a king, and the
son took advantage of his royalty to break the crockery of his
father’s subjects. When the people complained, his father drove him
away. In the course of his wanderings, he came to a town where the
king had just died. The palace door was shut, and upon it was written:
“He whose hand shall open this door, shall be king of this city.” The
wandering prince, reading this, said: “Bismillah.” He pushed the door:
it opened. He entered, seated himself on the throne, and became
king.[299.2]
The _Kah-gyur_, a sacred work of Tibetan Buddhism dating back to the
eleventh century or thereabouts, contains a story of king Ánanda. The
name Ánanda is famous in the literature of Buddhism as that of a
favourite disciple of the master; but it is here used in the
indiscriminate way in which the mediæval friars used {300} the names
of Pompey, Titus, Pliny, and other famous Romans, in the _Gesta
Romanorum_. This king had five sons, of whom the youngest was endowed
with qualities better suited to a ruler than the others, and to whom
accordingly he desired to leave the kingdom. But he feared that if he
invested his youngest son with sovereign power, his kinsmen would
reproach him for having passed over his elder sons. As a way of escape
from the difficulty he decreed that after his death his sons should be
tested, and that he should be made king whom the jewel-shoes should
fit, under whom the throne should remain steadfast, and on whose head
the diadem should rest unshaken, whom the women should recognize, and
who should guess six objects to be divined by insight.[300.1] There
is a triple test here--divination by the royal insignia, the choice of
the harem, and the solution of a riddle. I shall return to the two
former tests. But before passing to another type of story I may note
that in the _Bakhtyár-Náma_, a Persian romance translated by Sir
William Ouseley, who brought it from the East in the early part of the
last century, there is a story in which the succession to the throne
is made to depend upon the solution of three riddles. The king having
died without issue, it was resolved to go to the prison and propound
three questions to the criminals confined there. He who answered best
was recognized as king.[300.2] Riddles are regarded in certain stages
of civilization as a test of more than ordinary wisdom. Their position
in the evolution of thought and custom is well worth investigation. It
is too large a subject for discussion here.
Occasionally the instrument of divination is wholly wanting, and the
first man met with is taken for king. {301} Among a tribe in Morocco
is told a tale of which the hero is made king, because he is the first
man found outside the city-gate when it is opened in the
morning.[301.1] Another of these stories is that of Ali Shar and
Zumurrud in the _Arabian Nights_. Ali Shar was a prodigal, and
Zumurrud was his favourite female slave. By a series of diverting
adventures which do not concern us, they are separated. After much
suffering, Zumurrud contrives to possess herself of a man’s clothes,
horse and sword. In the course of her wanderings she draws nigh to a
city-gate, where she finds the emirs and nobles with the troops drawn
up and waiting, as Conaire found the three kings waiting on the way to
Tara. The soldiery, on seeing her, dash forward. They dismount and
prostrate themselves before her, saluting her as lord and sultan. On
enquiry she learns that the sultan of the city is dead; and on such
occasions it is the custom that the troops sally forth to the suburbs,
there to sojourn for three days. Whoever comes during that time from
the quarter whence she has come is made king. Being a lady of
resource, she accepts the position, administers the kingdom with
efficiency, and ultimately finds means to avenge herself on her
enemies and to be reunited with her master, Ali Shar.[301.2] An
Indian folk-tale relates that in a certain city “it was the custom
that when the rája died the nobles of the kingdom used to take their
seats at the gate of the city, and the first man who appeared before
them they made their rája.”[301.3]
The same tale is told by the Taranchi Tartars, an {302} agricultural
people who are now settled in the valley of the Ili, a large river
flowing into Lake Balkash, in Central Asia. But it is told with this
difference. When the hero draws nigh to the gate of the city, all the
people cry out “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” On enquiring why they do this, they
reply: “Our ruler has been dead for three days. He had a magical bird,
which has been let fly, and on whosesoever head the bird settles, him
we raise to be our prince.” Here the augury is drawn from a
bird.[302.1]
In another Tartar _märchen_, this time from the west of Siberia, the
ruler of the town has grown old, and is desirous of retiring. He has a
bird which is let fly and chooses a woman. She is immediately accepted
as prince and installed in the place of the old man.[302.2] In a
Kurdish _märchen_ a special bird called “the bird of dominion” is
fetched, it is not said whence, for the purpose of the
divination.[302.3]
An animal of some kind is, in fact, the agent in most of these tales.
A Buddhist tale from Cambodia tells us that, the royal family having
become extinct, it was the custom to ask the royal family of another
kingdom to furnish a king. The council of mandarins determined to take
this course. Under the advice of an old astrologer horses were
harnessed to the carriage--we must understand, no doubt, the royal
carriage--and then allowed to go in any direction they pleased,
without a driver. This is described as consulting the horses. The
first day the horses re-entered the palace. The next day they drew the
carriage in the direction of a neighbouring kingdom. Twice, thrice the
carriage was turned back; but the {303} horses persisted in drawing it
again in the same direction. It was accordingly decided to demand a
prince from that kingdom.[303.1]
In the East, however, as might be expected, it is usually the royal
animal, the elephant, which thus confers the kingdom. I have already
cited one great collection of Indian tales. There is another, only
second to the _Jātaka_ in extent, the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, or
Ocean of the Streams of Story, translated a few years ago by Dr
Tawney. It contains a _märchen_, perhaps derived from that older and
more famous collection, the _Panchatantra_, of a man who retired with
his wife to the forest, to practise austerities. While there he
rescued from the river a wretch whose hands and feet had been cut off,
and who had been thrown by his enemies into the stream to die. His
wife, probably sick of austerities, falls in love with the cripple
thus rescued, and plots her husband’s death. She succeeds in
precipitating him into the river; but instead of being drowned he is
thrown on the bank near a city. “Now it happened that at that time the
king of that city had just died, and in that country there was an
immemorial custom, that an auspicious elephant was driven about by the
citizens, and any man that he took up with his trunk and placed on his
back, was anointed king.” The hero of the story, who is “an
incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva,” is of course chosen; and
when he gets the chance he inflicts condign punishment on his
wife.[303.2] The elephant is here described as “an auspicious
elephant.” Sometimes he is called the “crown-elephant,” the special
property and symbol of royalty. So in a Tamil story we learn that the
king of {304} a certain city dying childless, on his death-bed called
his ministers together and directed them “to send his crown-elephant
with a flower-wreath in his trunk, and to choose him on whom the
elephant throws the garland, as his successor.”[304.1] In a folk-tale
from the far north of India it is “the sacred elephant” before whom
all the inhabitants are required to pass in file, and the animal is
expected to elect one of them to the vacant throne “by kneeling down
and saluting the favoured individual as he passed by, for in this
manner kings were elected in that country.”[304.2] In a story which
appears to come from Gujerat, the king dies without an heir, and the
astrologers prophesy that his heir would be the first who entered the
gates of the city on the morrow of the king’s decease, and around
whose neck the sacred elephant would throw a garland of
flowers.[304.3]
At other times the elephant alone does not make the choice. With him
is conjoined some other animal or symbol of royalty. A tale from
Kashmir speaks of a land where, when the king died, his elephant “was
driven all over the country and his hawk was made to fly here, there
and everywhere in search of a successor; and it came to pass that
before whomsoever the elephant bowed and on whosesoever hand the hawk
alighted, he was supposed to be the divinely chosen one.”[304.4] In
the _Kathákoça_, a collection of stories illustrating the tenets and
practice of Jainism, five ordeals, as they are expressly called, are
invoked. “The mighty elephant came into the garden outside the city.
There the elephant sprinkled Prince {305} Amaradatta [we have already
heard of sprinkling as a means of hallowing to kingship], and put him
on its back. Then the horse neighed. The two chowries fanned the
prince. An umbrella was held over his head. A divine voice was heard
in the air: ‘Long live King Amaradatta.’”[305.1]
In most of these cases the decision is clearly regarded as the
judgement of Heaven; and in every case the judgement of Heaven may at
least be inferred. The incident is hardly less a favourite in the West
than in the East. In the West, too, it is an appeal to the judgement
of Heaven. All the European stories, however, in which it occurs have
been recorded within the last century; consequently the incident in
question appears only in a very late form. Now an appeal to the
judgement of Heaven in the selection of a ruler is familiar to the
peasant mind of the continent in one solitary instance--that of the
choice of a pope. Accordingly this is the favourite, if not the only
form of the story as it is told in France, Italy, and Switzerland. The
charming collection by the late M. Luzel of religious and
quasi-religious tales of Lower Brittany contains one entitled “Pope
Innocent.” The hero is a son of the King of France cast off by his
parents, who attempt to put him to death. He sets out for Rome to be
present at the election of a new pope. On the way he falls in with two
Capuchin monks. The elder of them is gentle to him, the other
suspicious and hostile. The youth is a bit of a prig. Perhaps this is
not to be wondered at, seeing that he is endowed with supernatural
knowledge and power. These qualities make his conduct throughout the
journey enigmatical to the point of excusing, if not justifying, the
attitude of his unfriendly companion. {306} Everyone takes him for a
sorcerer; and the younger monk says in so many words to the other,
that they will be lucky if he do not bring them to the gallows or the
stake before reaching Rome. As they draw near the holy city, the boy
hears some birds in a hedge foretell that one of the three will be
made pope, just as the cocks were overheard in the story I have cited
from the _Jātaka_. Thereupon he enquires of each of his companions
what office he will give him if he (the monk) attain this dignity. The
elder monk promises to make him his first cardinal, the younger
contemptuously says he will make him beadle in his cathedral. Arrived
at Rome, they find that the choice of a pope proceeds in this way:
There are to be three days’ processions. Every pilgrim has to carry a
candle, not lighted, in his hand; and he whose candle lights of itself
is the person designated by God to the office of pope. The youth,
however, has no money to buy candles. So he carries merely a white
wand which he has cut in the hedge where the birds sang; and people,
seeing him, shrug their shoulders and exclaim: “Look at that poor
innocent!” It is, however, not the candle of an archbishop, or bishop,
or of any great dignitary of the church; it is not that of an abbot,
or a monk, or even of a simple priest, which lights; it is the boy
Innocent’s white wand. The omen is refused on the first day; nor is it
accepted until it has been repeated on the second and third days of
the ceremony. At last the premier cardinal kneels before him,
acknowledges him as pope and asks for his benediction. Thus Innocent
becomes pope at Rome, by the will of God.[306.1]
The story of Pope Innocent belongs to the cycle of the Outcast Child,
a well-known group of folk-tales, of which {307} the examples most
familiar to us are the story of King Lear and that of Joseph and his
brethren. The hero (or heroine) of these tales is cast off by his
relatives for reasons at the least excusable. Sometimes, as in the
Teleut tale already mentioned, his life is attempted. But in the end
he attains a place and dignity which enable him to compel recognition
of his wrongs, and, after the infliction of retributive humiliation,
to pardon the offenders. In these _märchen_ the pope is not always
chosen by the burning of a taper. In the Italian variants the
favourite method is by a dove which alights on the hero’s head. In a
Swiss story from the Upper Valais two snow-white doves settle on his
shoulders. In a Basque story, as the travellers approach Rome the
bells begin to ring of themselves. In a story from Upper Brittany the
will of Heaven is declared by a bell, which rings of itself when the
destined pope passes beneath it. In a story from Normandy the new pope
is indicated by “a portion of Heaven stooping upon him whom Jesus
would choose to govern His Church.” The collector, while faithfully
recording this singular phrase, is puzzled by it, and suggests that it
must mean a cloud resting on him.[307.1] In all cases it is quite
clear that the falling of the lot, however it may be accomplished, is
regarded as a direct expression of the divine will. The sacred
character of the Papacy, and the names of historical popes, as
Innocent and Gregory, given to the heroes, raise the suspicion that
these tales are something more than _märchen_, and lead directly to
the enquiry, not whether such prodigies have in fact been the means of
determining the succession to the popedom, but whether they have been
believed to have occurred.
Now it happens that this very event was reported in {308} connection
with the election of the great Pope Innocent III., in the year 1198.
Three doves, it was said, flew about the church during the
proceedings, and at last one of them, a white one, came and perched on
his right side, which was held to be a favourable omen.[308.1] In the
atmosphere of the Middle Ages an occurrence of the kind, if it
happened, could not fail to make a great impression on the popular
mind. The dove would be regarded as no less than the embodiment of the
Holy Spirit. Long before Innocent’s day--indeed before the Middle Ages
began--something like this would seem to have happened. It is recorded
by Eusebius that in the reign of the Emperor Gordian, who ruled from
A.D. 238 to 244, when all the brethren were assembled in the church
for the purpose of electing a successor to Anteros, Bishop of Rome,
suddenly a dove flew down from on high and sat on the head of Fabian.
Thereupon the assembly with one voice acclaimed him bishop and seated
him on the episcopal throne.[308.2]
Nor were popes alone thus honoured. Dr Conyers Middleton, in his once
famous _Letter from Rome_, records that “in the cathedral church of
Ravenna I saw, in mosaic work, the pictures of those archbishops of
the place who, as all their historians affirm, were chosen for several
ages successively by the special designation of the Holy Ghost, who in
a full assembly of the clergy and people, used to descend visibly on
the person elect in the shape of a dove.”[308.3] Among the apocryphal
stories in _The Book of Sir John Maundeville_ we are told that in the
convent on Mount Sinai are many lamps burning. The author, {309}
whoever he may have been, writes rather a muddled account of the
election of “prelate of the abbey.” I gather from it that each monk
has a lamp, and that when a prelate is chosen his lamp will light of
itself, if he be a good man and worthy of the office; if otherwise,
the lamp, though lighted, will go out. An inconsistent tradition ran
that the priest who sang mass for the deceased dignitary found written
upon the altar the name of him who was to be chosen in his place. But
though the miracle-monger who writes under the name of Sir John
Maundeville professes to have been at the monastery and questioned the
monks, he admits that he could not induce them to tell him the
facts.[309.1]
The marvels reported of the election of Christian bishops are told
with little variation of the election of other rulers. Paulus Diaconus
relates that when Liutprand, king of the Lombards, a contemporary of
Charles Martel, was thought to be dying, his subjects met outside the
walls of his capital, Pavia, at the church of St Mary ad
Perticas,[309.2] to choose a successor. Their choice fell on the
king’s nephew, Hildeprand, in whose hand they formally placed the
royal spear. Immediately a cuckoo flew down and settled on the point
of the spear, as it will be remembered a cuckoo in the Tartar story
settled on the kalender’s head. This, however, was reckoned by {310}
Lombard wiseacres as an evil omen. Their augury was so far justified,
that King Liutprand did not die after all, but recovered from his
sickness and was not well pleased that his subjects had been in such a
hurry to find a successor. Yet he did not refuse to recognize his
nephew as co-ruler; and when he at last died, Hildeprand succeeded
him.[310.1] Of another king of the Lombards, Desiderius, a
contemporary of Charles the Great, the story is told that the Lombard
nobles were meeting to choose a king at Pavia, and Desiderius, a pious
man of noble lineage who dwelt at Brescia, journeyed thither to be
present, accompanied by a serving man. At Leno, between Brescia and
Cremona, being weary, he lay down under a tree to sleep. As he slept
his servant beheld a snake crawl forth and wind itself round his head
like a crown. The servant was afraid to move, lest the snake might
injure his master; but after a while it uncoiled and crept away.
Desiderius meanwhile had dreamt that the crown of the Lombards was
placed on his head. When he reached Pavia, the dream was
fulfilled.[310.2]
It is said that in Senjero, a petty kingdom in the south of Abyssinia,
when the king dies the nobles assemble outside the city in the open
plain, and wait until a vulture or an insect settles on one of them,
who is then saluted as king.[310.3] Everyone is familiar with the
story told by {311} Herodotus concerning the election of a successor
to Smerdis the Magian, usurper of the throne of Persia, how it was
agreed that the successful conspirators should meet at sunrise, and
that he whose horse first neighed should be king. According to
Herodotus, Darius won by a trick of his groom. That may or may not
have been. What interests us in the story is that it was believed that
the succession on this occasion to the throne of Persia was determined
by an augury drawn from horses, and that the neighing of Darius’ horse
was instantly followed by the further manifestation of the will of
Heaven in thunder and lightning from a clear sky.[311.1] The
elephant, the horse and the divine voice of Indian _märchen_ here
find their counterpart, if not in actual fact, at least in the serious
belief of the venerable historian, and the people whose tradition he
reports. In this connection it must not be forgotten that among many
peoples, horses were sacred animals. They were sacrificed to the gods;
they were looked upon as in the counsels of the gods; their neighing
was a favourable omen. It is therefore not at all improbable that
Herodotus is here recording the mode of choice actually
adopted.[311.2]
Similarly in the annals of Kedda, a portion of the Malay Peninsula,
there is a story of the rajah who was dethroned and fled. His nobles
and queen sent to the King of Siam for a new ruler. He, having
consulted his astrologers, was advised that the true heir to the
throne could only be discovered by a supernaturally intelligent
elephant, named Kamala Jauhari, which was wandering about on the
confines of Kedda and Patani. When the envoys brought back the message
to the Kedda chiefs, {312} they decked the palace for a fête. “Then
all the people held a fast for seven days and nights.… On the night
of the seventh day the _dupa_ and incense were burned, and all sorts
of perfumes were diffused around, and at the same time the name of the
super-intelligent elephant was invoked to attend upon the four
_mantris_ [ministers]. Immediately almost there was a sound, like the
rushing of a coming tempest, from the East, with earthquakes,
agitations and terrific sounds. In the midst of all this uproar the
terrified spectators were delighted to see Kamala Jauhari standing at
the hall, and thrusting up her trunk into it. The four mantris
instantly rubbed her with cosmetics and bathed her with lime-juice,
while others applied cosmetics and sweet-smelling oils, rubbing these
over its whole body. Then a meal was served up to it, and put into its
mouth. The state howdah was now placed on its back, along with all its
appurtenances, curtains and hangings. Then one of the mantris read the
King of Siam’s letter close to the ear of Kamala Jauhari, acquainting
her that she was expected to assist in finding out a rajah for Kedda
by all means. When Jauhari heard all this, she bowed her head and
played her trunk, and then set forth in the direction of the East,
followed and attended by from three to four hundred men, having
banners and flags streaming in the wind, and being supplied with all
necessaries, and armed with various kinds of spears, held in hand.” It
is needless to say that the expedition thus pompously described was
successful in discovering the boy. The elephant caught him up in her
trunk, and, placing him on her back in the howdah, carried him off in
triumph to the palace, where he was forthwith clad in royal robes and
crowned.[312.1]
In Indian belief it is not only super-intelligent {313} elephants
which can discover the future occupant of a throne. The elephant is
the possession and symbol of royalty. But in the stories, other royal
properties are also instruments of divination for that purpose. That
these stories were founded on current superstitions is shown by the
fact that among the ornaments of the throne of the famous Tippoo,
conquered by the British at the end of the eighteenth century, was a
bird of paradise made of gold and covered with diamonds, rubies and
emeralds, and represented in the act of fluttering. Of this bird it
was believed that every head it overshadowed would, in time, wear a
crown. When Tippoo was defeated and slain, the Marquis Wellesley, at
that time governor-general, sent it home to the Court of Directors of
the East India Company.[313.1] It is now at Windsor.
Coming back to Europe, we find the succession to the throne of one of
the Scythian tribes determined by the possession of a certain stone.
The author of the work on the names of rivers and mountains attributed
to Plutarch relates that in the river Tanais a stone like a crystal
grows. It resembles in shape a man wearing a crown. When the king
dies, whosoever finds it, and can produce it in the assembly held on
the banks of the river to elect a new sovereign, is recognized as the
rightful successor.[313.2] For this statement Ctesiphon on Plants and
Aristobulus on Stones are cited, authors whose works are lost and who
are unknown by any other citations. It is, therefore, impossible for
us to judge how far they are likely to have known, or with what
accuracy they may have presented, the practice of the barbarous tribe
referred to. There can, however, be no doubt that election by
divination has been resorted to by peoples in many parts of the world.
The succession of Grand Lamas of Lhasa {314} supplies examples of both
story and custom. The custom used to be to write on slips of paper the
names of all likely male children born under miraculous portents (of
which anon) just after the death of the preceding Lama, to put these
slips into a golden urn and thus ballot for his successor (or, as it
is believed, his new incarnation) amid constant prayer. But the
Chinese court, which has a considerable stake in the decision, was
thought to influence the selection. The state-oracle has therefore
predicted disaster by the appearance of a monster as the Dalai or
Grand Lama, if the ancient practice were continued; and on a recent
vacancy, in 1876, he foretold the discovery, by a pious monk, of the
future Grand Lama, announcing that his discovery would be accompanied
by horse-neighings. He sent this monk to Chukorgye, where he dreamed
that he was to look in a certain lake for the future Dalai. There,
pictured in the bosom of the lake, the monk saw the child with his
parents in the house where he was born, and at the same instant his
horse neighed. In due course the child himself was found, and
successfully encountered the usual test, by recognizing the articles
which had belonged to him in his previous life. Every child who is a
candidate has to pass this test. He is confronted with a duplicate
collection of various sacred objects, and he is required to point out
among them the genuine possessions of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama
is not the only Grand Lama. The head of every lamasery, or convent of
lamas, bears this title. When the Grand Lama of such a lamasery dies,
his successor, or new incarnation, is sought first of all by
divination. A diviner is called in, who, after consulting his books,
directs the lamas where to look for the boy. When they have found him,
he has to pass a similar test to that just described. In addition he
has to submit to cross-examination {315} on the name and situation of
the lamasery, and how many lamas reside there, and on the habits of
the deceased Grand Lama, and the manner of his death.
The portents at the birth of a Dalai Lama are magnificent. It is not
irrelevant to mention them here, as they may be regarded as part of
the auguries which decide the succession. An official report from the
Chinese Commissioner to the Emperor, on such an occasion in the year
1839, declares, among other things, that it was ascertained that on
the night before the boy was born, a brilliant radiance of many
colours was manifested in the air, and the water in the well of the
temple courtyard changed to a milk-white colour. Seven days later a
flame appeared on the rock behind the post-station. When the rock was
examined, no trace of fire remained, but a sacred image and characters
were found, together with the print of footsteps. Moreover, on the
night when the child was born, the sound of music was heard, and milk
dropped upon the pillars of the house.[315.1]
The Buddhists are not the only sect in the Chinese Empire which has a
supreme head appointed by religious divination. The arch-abbot of
Taouism dwells in a princely residence on the Dragon and Tiger
Mountains, in the province of Kiang-si. “The power of this dignitary,”
we are told, “is immense, and is acknowledged by all the priests of
his sect throughout the empire.” The office has been confined for
centuries to one family or clan. When the arch-abbot dies, all the
male members of his clan are cited to appear at the official
residence. The name of each one is engraved on a separate piece of
lead, and deposited in a large earthenware vase filled with water.
Standing round this vase are priests who invoke the three persons of
the Taouist Trinity to cause the piece {316} of lead bearing the name
of the person on whom the choice of the gods has fallen, to come to
the surface of the water.[316.1]
The Taouist dignitary seems to possess only spiritual power, except
probably in his own monastery. The Dalai Lama, on the other hand,
retains some portion of civil rule. In both cases the person of the
ruler is looked upon as sacred. Among savage and barbarous nations the
office of priest or medicine-man is often not clearly distinguished
from that of temporal ruler. The instances in which the chief or king
is looked upon as divine, in which he is responsible for the weather,
in which he causes the crops to grow, and performs other superhuman
functions, are too numerous, and too well-known to be mentioned here.
Since the publication of _The Golden Bough_ they have been among the
commonplaces of folklore. I need only remind you that “the divinity
that doth hedge a king” is not confined to savagery and barbarism. It
has lasted far into civilization, and been sedulously cultivated for
political purposes by royalty in every age. A Roman Emperor was Divus
Augustus. When the dignity of king becomes hereditary, the monarch is
held to be at least descended from the gods. The Mikado traces his
descent from the Sun-goddess. King George V. traces his from Woden,
the war-god of the Anglo-Saxon tribes which colonized Britain in the
fifth and sixth centuries. It is true that this genealogy, at one time
seriously credited, is now treated as fable; but even yet the
coronation ceremonies of “His Sacred Majesty,” though not directly of
pagan origin, witness to the mysterious sanctity that surrounds him.
A view of kingship thus exalted renders it easy to understand why,
when circumstances compelled the choice {317} of a king, the divine
will must have been most anxiously consulted. It was not merely that
the qualities of a leader in battle, a wise judge and administrator,
and a prudent politician were needed. Luck and the favour of the gods
were more than these, to say nothing of the marks of godhead, which in
many cases it was necessary to discover in his person, conduct or
knowledge. Hence the choice of the people, or rather the recognition
by the people, would depend upon the auguries, or upon more direct
indications of the decision of Heaven. When Dagara, the King of
Karagwe, on the western shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza, died, he left
behind him three sons, any of whom was eligible to the throne. The
officers of state put before them a small mystic drum. It was of
trifling weight, but, being loaded with charms, no one could lift it,
save he to whom the ancestral spirits were inclined as the successor.
Nor was this enough. The victor in this contest was required to
undergo a further trial of his right. He was made to sit, as he
himself informed Captain Speke, on the ground at a certain spot where
the land would gradually rise up under him, like a telescope, until it
reached the skies. The aspirant who was approved by the spirits was
then gradually lowered in safety; whereas, if not approved, the
elastic hill would suddenly collapse, and he would be dashed to
pieces. It is needless to add, that Rumanika, Captain Speke’s
informant, claimed to have gone through the ordeal with
success.[317.1]
{318}
Light is perhaps thrown on the matter by the final test actually
imposed on the successor elected to the throne of Ukerewe, an island
in the lake, and therefore adjacent to the kingdom of Karagwe. He is
taken to Kitale, the burial-place of the kings, about two kilometres
from the capital. There lies an immense stone rising like a donkey’s
back from the soil, beginning a few centimetres only above the earth,
and gently swelling until it attains the height of a little more than
a metre. It is called the _ruswa_. The provisionally proclaimed king,
with both hands laden with lances, bows and arrows, and wearing
gigantic native sandals, is required to climb it slowly and with short
steps to the top. If he be so unfortunate as to slip and fall on the
way, he is unworthy of the drum (the symbol of sovereignty), and is
driven away without pity. If, on the other hand, he successfully reach
the platform, or highest point of the rock, he is acclaimed in a
frenzy of excitement, the men breaking forth into a sham fight, the
women joyfully shouting “Yu, yu!” The test is over; he is definitely
king.[318.1] It is not impossible that, reduced to its final terms,
some such ordeal as this was what the candidate for the throne of
Karagwe actually underwent.
These are barbarous auguries. But all auguries and oracles are
barbarous. We do not know how Melchizedek was appointed King of Salem.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to him as “without
father, without mother, without genealogy,” as if there were something
peculiar in the omission of his pedigree, though in this respect he
did not differ from the other kings mentioned in the narrative.
However, the discovery at Tel-el-Amarna of letters from Ebed-tob, King
of Salem in the fifteenth century B.C., to his suzerain the {319} King
of Egypt, has rendered it possible to suppose that Melchizedek did not
come to the throne by inheritance, and consequently that his parentage
was unimportant. Ebed-tob, protesting his loyalty as an ally and a
tributary of the King of Egypt, says: “Neither my father, nor my
mother, (but) the oracle of the mighty king, established (me) in the
house of (my) father.” In other words, he states, as Professor Sayce
interprets the expression, “that his authority was not based on the
right of inheritance; he had been called to exercise it by a divine
voice.”[319.1] We must beware of drawing too large an inference from
a single phrase. Assuming that “the mighty king” is the god ’Shalim,
and not the suzerain whom he is addressing, there remains the question
what is meant by “the house of his father.” Evidently it is the royal
office; but is it not the royal office previously filled by his
ancestors? The correct view, I would suggest, is that the kingship
was, like that of Karagwe, descendible to any scion of the royal
house, subject to the decision of the oracle. The pedigree then would
be important, but not all-important. The god would decide among the
candidates. Some such arrangement would seem to have been recognized
in the heroic age of Greece, if we may trust the somewhat obscure
expressions of the _Odyssey_. There are examples in the Homeric poems
of kings who have succeeded to the inheritance of their sires.
Agamemnon is one. On the other hand, the position of Ulysses is
enigmatical. It is enigmatical in regard to Laertes, his father, who
was still alive; while, if Ulysses were dead, it would seem that
Telemachus, his son, would only have the first, but by no means an
indefeasible, claim. As Mr Crooke has pointed out, it results from
{320} the interview between Telemachus and the wooers in the first
book of the _Odyssey_, that some kind of divine nomination should
appoint the king, and that the choice might fall, not on Telemachus,
but on another of the Achæans in sea-girt Ithaca.[320.1] It is
dangerous to read into the poem what is not expressed. The poet is
describing an age already mythical, though no doubt he has embodied
considerable fragments of actual custom in the representation. He does
not detail the process of appointment of king. Consequently, all we
can safely say (and that on the assumption that here we have one of
the fragments of actual custom) is that the manners and whole
atmosphere of the poem correspond with a stage of culture in which the
will of the gods would be ascertained by augury. In this connection it
may not be irrelevant to refer to the early traditions of Rome. The
quarrel between Romulus and Remus concerned not merely the site of the
city, but also the founder after whose name it should be called--in
other words, the royal dignity. It was settled by an augury taken from
the flight of vultures. Numa, the successor of Romulus, though
elected, took care to assure himself by auguries that the gods
approved of the choice. It must be remembered that the legends, as we
have them, took shape under the republic when the ordinary human
process of election had been long established. The habit thus formed
probably affected them; and I think we are warranted in suspecting
that if we could recover them at a prior stage, we should find the
appointment of king resting on the will of the gods and ascertained by
divination.
{321}
No argument is needed to show that the form of tradition is affected,
even where the substance remains, by external changes. Customs
referred to in a legend may become obsolete and consequently
unintelligible; and the reference to them must of necessity be
modified into something which is understood, or it will be dropped
into oblivion. The tradition of the _Lia Fáil_, with which I started,
is an example. To step on the stone was to put one’s claim to
sovereignty to proof. As Keating relates, doubtless from some older
author, on it “were enchantments, for it used to roar under the person
who had the best right to obtain the sovereignty of Ireland.” But this
is the latest form of the tradition. We can, however, reconstruct the
earlier form by comparison with custom and tradition elsewhere. They
render it clear that the stone was once held to declare the divine
will as to the succession. Further back still, it may have been
regarded as itself endowed with power of choice.[321.1] Strictly
speaking, this is not augury, for augury is the ascertainment and
declaration of a higher will. But some such animistic belief may have
been the seed-plot out of which augury grew as gods properly so-called
were evolved. At the stage at which the tradition reaches us the _Lia
Fáil_ no longer either chooses on its own account or makes known the
choice of Heaven. At this stage, not only is it enchanted,
consequently diabolic rather than divine in the source of its power,
but also it merely points out him who has “the best right.” The
principle of {322} heredity is now firmly established; its application
alone is uncertain. When the principle is established and the
application certain, it is not necessary to consult an oracle.
The changes I thus venture to postulate are steps in the
disintegration of the myth. A Welsh tale now to be cited has taken a
further step in that it simply credits the instrument of divination
with the diagnosis of blood royal, the practical purpose of
determining the succession to the kingdom having disappeared.
According to Giraldus Cambrensis, it happened that in the time of
Henry I. Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Tudor, who, although he only held of the
king one commote, namely, a fourth part of the cantref of Caio, yet
was reputed as lord in Deheubarth, was returning from court by way of
Llangorse Lake, in Brecknockshire, with Milo, Earl of Hereford and
Lord of Brecknock, and Payn FitzJohn, who then held Ewyas, two of the
king’s secretaries and privy councillors. It was winter, and the lake
was covered with water-fowl of various kinds. Seeing them, Milo,
partly in joke, said to Gruffydd: “It is an old saying in Wales that
if the natural prince of Wales, coming to this lake, command the birds
upon it to sing, they will all immediately sing.” Gruffydd replied:
“Do you, therefore, who now bear sway in this country, command them
first.” Both Milo and Payn having made the attempt in vain, Gruffydd
dismounted from his horse, fell on his knees with his face to the
East, and after devout prayers to God, stood up, and making the sign
of the cross on his forehead and face, cried aloud: “Almighty and
all-knowing God, Lord Jesus Christ, show forth here to-day Thy power!
If Thou hast made me lineally to descend from the natural princes of
Wales, I command these birds in Thy name to declare it.” {323}
Forthwith all the birds, according to their kind, beating the water
with outstretched wings, began altogether to sing and proclaim it. No
wonder that all who were present were amazed and confounded, and that
Milo and Payn reported it to the king, who is said to have taken it
philosophically enough. “By the death of Christ!” (his customary
oath), he replied, “it is not so much to be wondered at. For although
by our great power we may impose injustice and violence upon those
people, yet they are none the less known to have the hereditary right
to the country.”[323.1]
In the same manner, in India snakes are supposed to be specially
gifted with the faculty of distinguishing persons of royal race or
born to rule.[323.2] One example will be enough. The Gandharbs of
Benares, a caste of singers and prostitutes, ascribe their origin to
Doman Deo, the second Raghubansi Râjput king of Chandrâvati. He had
a groom named Shîru, who one day went into the jungle to cut grass,
and fell asleep. While he slept, a cobra raised its hood over his
head, and a wagtail kept flying above him. In that condition his
master saw him, and afterwards asked him what he would do for him if
he became king. Shîru promised to make him his prime minister. Going
subsequently to Delhi, the throne of which was vacant, Shîru was
chosen emperor, in the manner with which we are already acquainted, by
an elephant laying a garland on his neck; and he redeemed his word by
making Doman Deo his wazîr.[323.3] In Further India a saga of the
Chams relates that Klong Garay, who plays a great part in their
legendary history, {324} was found by a companion of his wanderings,
after a temporary absence, sleeping and watched by two dragons, which
were licking his body. Then he knew, we are told, that Klong Garay was
of royal race.[324.1] The child of a king of Siam by a Naga, or
divine snake, being exposed, was found and adopted by a hunter. The
king’s subjects were compelled by law to work in turn for the king.
The hunter, when summoned, took with him his adopted child and laid it
in the shadow of the palace, to protect it from the rays of the sun
while he performed his task. But the spire of the palace inclined
before the child, and the shadow appeared to fly. This prodigy put the
king upon enquiry, and he identified his son by means of the ring and
mantle which he had given to the lady, and which had been found with
the child.[324.2] In the old English metrical romance of _Havelok the
Dane_, the hero is identified by means of a royal mark, “a croiz ful
gent,” shining brighter than gold on his right shoulder.
“It sparkede, and ful brith shon,
So doth the gode charbucle ston,
That men mouthe se by the lith
A peni chesen, so was it brith.”[324.3]
The romance in which the incident is found is a literary version of
the local tradition of Grimsby, still commemorated in the seal of the
corporation. The poem dates from the end of the thirteenth century.
There are two French versions which I have not seen. Professor Skeat
has epitomized the longer in the preface to his edition of the English
romance. In it a flame issues from Havelok’s mouth when he sleeps.
This is {325} a personal peculiarity, also found in the English lay.
His heirship to the throne of Denmark is determined by his ability to
blow a horn which none but the true heir could sound. Thus we are
brought back to the succession by divination from which we started,
and of which the simple diagnosis of royal descent is a corruption and
a weakening. It is preserved here, we know not by what cause, after
its true meaning had been forgotten. Adopted first of all into
tradition from living custom, when the custom was superseded by other
means of determining the succession it survived as a tradition until,
its true intent being gradually lost, while the hereditary principle
was strengthened and fenced about with sanctity, the incident faded
into a merely picturesque presentation, in some places of prophecy, in
other places of the claims of birth.
The study of folk-tales is often despised as mere trifling. But
traditional narratives must always occupy an important place in the
study of the past. Rightly used they have much to tell us of human
history, of human thought and the evolution of human institutions. It
may safely be said that of all the incidents that compose them there
is none which is not a concrete presentation either of human
institutions or of human belief. They are all thus in a sense the
outcome of actual human experiences. The stories of election by augury
are not wilder than the authentic facts. The telescopic mountain of
Karagwe, which Rumanika averred himself to have experienced, is at
least as wonderful as the groaning of the _Lia Fáil_, or the lighting
of a dry twig. Even if we may be allowed to rationalize it in the
manner suggested by the ordeal required of the chosen candidate for
the throne of the neighbouring Bakerewe, it remains evidence of the
belief imposed by the power of imagination in a moment {326} of
excitement. Analogous performances are averred by the votaries of what
is called spiritualism to have been exhibited in our own day by
mediums, and were solemnly recorded long ago in the witch-trials of
various European countries. In one of the stories I have cited we
found the dying monarch laying down among the conditions to be
fulfilled by his successor, that the women of the royal household
should recognize him. Secret intrigues of the harem are believed to
determine the devolution of many an Eastern crown. But that the formal
and ceremonial choice of the heir should be made by the wives of the
deceased ruler seems too grotesque to be known outside a fairy tale.
Yet this was the law a hundred years ago in the kingdom of Quiteve, on
the south-eastern coast of Africa. When a king died the queens (that
is to say, his legitimate wives) named the person who was to accompany
his body to the burial-place, and the person thus named became the
successor.[326.1] In an adjoining kingdom a similar law prevailed. It
was forbidden to any prince to enter the palace where the women were,
or to take possession of the kingdom without their consent, and
whoever entered by violence and took possession against their will,
lost his right of succession. The Portuguese friar, to whom we are
indebted for the information, records a case which happened while he
was in Sofala, and in which the claimant would have entered and
formally seated himself in the royal hall with the royal widows. They,
however, were unwilling to acknowledge him as their king and husband.
Accordingly they secretly summoned another member of the royal family,
seated him with them in the public {327} place, and sent officers
through the town to proclaim the new sovereign and call his subjects
to do homage. The pretender fled. This instance is the more remarkable
because the unsuccessful claimant had in his favour the nomination of
the previous monarch. Though this constituted not an indefeasible
title, it afforded at least a strong presumption in his favour. Yet it
was defeated, in accordance with established and publicly acknowledged
custom, by the choice of the harem.
Nor was the rule requiring the choice, or at any rate the recognition,
by the harem so redolent of the comic opera as it may seem, since the
women all became the wives of the new king.[327.1] This is usual in
Africa, and not in Africa only, but in other regions where a similar
type of polygamous monarchical society exists. It is most familiar to
us among the ancient Hebrews. Absalom, by taking possession of his
father’s harem, made a final and unqualified assertion of his
succession to the throne. Solomon evidently regarded Adonijah’s
request for Abishag the Shunammite as a pretension inconsistent with
his own sovereignty; for she had been part of King David’s harem,
though in fact no more than his nurse.[327.2] In these cases the
women had probably little to say in the matter. But by the customs of
the South-Eastern Bantu a man’s widows, though they are bound to the
family of the deceased, are allowed some latitude in the choice of the
individual man with whom they will mate. Among the Thonga, for
example, at the final distribution of the estate, any of the widows
who refuses to take the husband {328} to whom she has been
provisionally allotted will be permitted to exercise her own
preference.[328.1] The power accorded to the widowed queens of
Quiteve to choose their new husband was hardly an extension of this
liberty. That it drew with it incidentally the right to the kingdom
was a consequence which did not affect the principle.
[The End]
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ENDNOTES
[1.1]
_Prim. Cul._, i. 378 _sqq._
[2.1]
Anantha Krishna, i. 29.
[2.2]
Tylor, _Prim. Cul._, i. 382.
[3.1]
Kolben, 91.
[3.2]
Alexander, i. 170 _sqq._ Similar answers were more recently given to a
missionary by one of the neighbouring Bergdamara, a people mainly of
Bantu blood (_Globus_, xcvi. 173).
[4.1]
Kidd, 65. Amusing illustrations of the Kaffir’s cleverness at the
game are given.
[4.2]
Andersson, 200. _Cf._ Pogge on the Bashilange, _Mittheil. d. Afrik.
Gesellsch._, iv. 254.
[4.3]
Rev. J. S. Gale, _F. L._, xi. 325.
[5.1]
S. H. C. Hawtry, _J. A. I._, xxxi. 290. _Cf._ Grubb, 114. Similar
statements are made concerning other South American tribes (_J. A.
I._, xiii. 209, 253).
[5.2]
Batchelor, 357.
[6.1]
Neuhauss, iii. 448 note. _Cf._ Introduction and pp. 154, 507.
[6.2]
Marillier, reviewing Miss Kingsley’s _Travels_; _Rev. Hist. Rel._,
xxxix. 137.
[7.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, 139 note.
[7.2]
Rev. J. Macdonald, _J. A. I._, xx. 120. _Cf._ Junod, _S. A. Tribe_,
ii. 278. Dr Theal says that it is only since European ideas have been
disseminated among these peoples that the question of the place of the
dead has arisen; and he points to the similarity in mental condition
between them and the peasantry of Europe (_Yellow and Dark-skinned
People_, 185).
[8.1]
_Journ. Am. F. L._, xxi. 233, 236.
[9.1]
Wilson, _Peasant Life_, 6.
[11.1]
Sproat, 120.
[11.2]
Boas, _Mind_, 111.
[12.1]
Boas, Sixth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada, _Rep. Brit.
Ass._, 1890, 582.
[13.1]
Rev. Father J. Jetté, S.J., _Anthropos_, vi. 242, 95.
[14.1]
R. C. Phillips, _J. A. I._, xvii. 220.
[15.1]
Jaussen, 287, 294, 332, 334. _Cf._ Hanauer, 234.
[16.1]
_J. A. I._, x. 262.
[18.1]
_Bull. Soc. Neuch. Géog._, ix. 96.
[19.1]
J. Smith, 77, 373.
[20.1]
_J. A. I._, xii. 163 note.
[22.1]
Similar classifications of nouns have now been discovered among the
Negroes, see _R. E. S._, iii. 241.
[26.1]
Tylor, _Prim. Cul._, i. 385.
[31.1]
Kingsley, _Trav._, 493.
[32.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 175, 358 n., 530.
[32.2]
_F. L. Journ._, iv. 30.
[32.3]
I have collected the evidence in _The Legend of Perseus_, vol. i., and
in some directions more fully in _Primitive Paternity_, vol. i.
[33.1]
Farnell, _Cults_, i. 195.
[37.1]
J. N. B. Hewitt, _Amer. Anthr._, N.S., iv. 38.
[41.1]
W. Jones, _Journ. Am. F. L._, xviii. 183 _sqq._ As used by Dr Jones
here, the word Algonkin only includes the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo
tribes.
[41.2]
_Amer. Anthr._, N.S., iv. 36; _cf._ 33.
[42.1]
_R. B. E._, xxvii. 134. _Wakonda_ in its various forms is pronounced
with an _n_ somewhat like the French nasal.
[43.1]
_R. B. E._, xxvii. 597 _sqq._
[44.1]
Fletcher, _Am. Anthr._, xiv. 106; J. O. Dorsey, _R. B. E._, xi. 366;
Riggs, _Contrib. N. Am. Ethnol._, vii. 507 _sqq._
[45.1]
Swanson, _R. B. E._, xxvi. 451 n., 452 _sqq._
[48.1]
The analysis of the philosophy (if it may be so called) of the Bafiote
which I have tried to summarize above is by Dr Pechuël-Loesche, the
most acute and profound of enquirers into the civilization and
mentality of the peoples of Loango, and will be found in his
_Volksk._, chaps. iii. and iv.
[48.2]
De Groot, _Rel. Syst._, iv. chap. i.
[48.3]
Giran, 21 _sqq._
[48.4]
Batchelor, _Encyc. Rel._, i. 239, 240 (_cf. Id._, _Ainu F. L._, 580);
Aston, _Shinto_, 7 _sqq._
[50.1]
Codrington, 118 _sqq._
[51.1]
Is this really the original belief? Dr Marett cites Dr Seligmann’s
(verbal?) authority for the statement that in New Guinea (among the
tribes of Melanesian culture and descent?) “a yam-stone would be
held capable of making the yams grow miraculously, quite apart from
the agency of spirits” (_Arch. Rel._, xii. 190).
[51.2]
Codrington, 120, 191.
[51.3]
Codrington, 124-5. Father Joseph Meier denies that the Melanesian
population of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain possesses the
concept of _mana_ in the sense of a universal impersonal, magical
power. Yet he goes on to say: “The sorcerer (_Zauberer_) himself
derives the inherent power of his spells (_Zauber-mitteln_) from two
different sources of energy. First, he relies on the might of the
spirits to whom he is indebted for his spells, or on the might of his
forefathers who have practised magic before him, and have handed down
to him their spells. In his incantation therefore the magician
(_Hexenmeister_) will always name a spirit, or the name of a deceased
sorcerer, or at least silently presume his assistance. A second source
of energy for the sorcerer is his own soul. By associating this with
natural objects he enhances their powers. Everything the sorcerer does
he conceives under the aspect of these two sources of energy. The
originator of an enchantment (_Zauberei_)--be it an unembodied spirit,
or the ghost of a deceased person, or a spirit residing in a living
being (for example, a bird)--operates in his spell and makes it always
and everywhere effective. Or else only the sorcerer’s own soul is
considered for magical purposes. Beyond this there is no other
power” (_Anthropos_, viii. 8, 9). This seems to resemble the concept
of _mana_, as set forth by Dr Codrington. Later Father Meier remarks:
“The enquiry into the witchcraft (_Zauberwesen_) of the
coast-dwellers of the Gazelle Peninsula is not yet closed. So far we
only know a small fragment of all their enchantments” (_ibid._, 11).
Our knowledge of the social elements and cultural history of Melanesia
as a whole, and of New Britain in particular, is still very imperfect.
[54.1]
E. Tregear, _The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, Wellington,
N.Z., 1891, 203-6, _s.vv._ _Cf._ Marett, _Trans. Oxford Cong._, i. 48
_sqq._ It is perhaps worth while to note “that the Samoan New
Testament was translated from the Greek and uses _mana_ as the
equivalent of the Greek δύναμις, whilst _pule_ is used for the Greek
ἐξουσία” (Haddon, _Torres Str. Rep._, v. 329, quoting communication
from S. H. Ray).
[55.1]
Ellis, _Polyn. Res._, iii. 108. A specimen of the girdle was sent by
John Williams, the missionary afterwards killed at Eramanga, to
England, probably to the London Missionary Society. See his _Miss.
Enterprises_, 144.
[56.1]
Ellis, _op. cit._, i. 338.
[57.1]
Taylor, 164 _sqq._
[58.1]
De Acosta, 378.
[58.2]
Sébillot, _F. L. France_, ii. 235.
[58.3]
Ploss, _Weib_, i. 504, quoting Bonnemère, but as usual without the
exact reference.
[59.1]
Seligmann, _Veddas_, 207.
[60.1]
Tozer, i. 216.
[60.2]
Dr M. Hoefler, _Am Urquell_, ii. 101.
[60.3]
Rev. H. E. Mabille, _Journ. Afr. Soc._, v. 352.
[62.1]
Van Gennep, _Tabou_, 184.
[62.2]
Turner, _Samoa_, 186. Compare a number of similar taboos on the
previous and subsequent pages.
[62.3]
Codrington, 215.
[63.1]
W. Bogoras, _Amer. Anthr._, N.S., iii. 97.
[64.1]
See _Golden Bough_3, _passim_, especially the volume on Taboo. It is
needless to say that Professor Frazer does not write from the point of
view here adopted, and that his interpretations frequently diverge
from those which I should be inclined to.
[65.1]
_F. L._, xii. 186. Elsewhere Mr Weeks says: “No stigma attaches to
the man who is proved guilty [of witchcraft] by the ordeal, for ‘one
can have witchcraft without knowing it’” (_Cannibals_, 189).
Presumably _likundu_ is here included under the general term of
witchcraft. In another place he says: “The general belief is that
only one in the family can bewitch a member of the family” (_ibid._,
311). Hence the evil influence of the possessor of _likundu_ extends
no further.
[67.1]
Jevons, _Introd._, 178, 7, 390 _sqq._
[67.2]
Tylor, _Prim. Cul._, i. 383.
[67.3]
Avebury, _Marriage_, 142. I cannot find that he commits himself to a
definition of religion, though his view may perhaps be inferred from
the above quotation (_cf._ his _Origin of Civilization_, 205 _sqq._).
[68.1]
Frazer, _Magic Art_, i. 222, 223.
[68.2]
Durkheim, _Formes Élémentaires_, 65. M. Salomon Reinach in a recent
brilliant work on the history of religions proposes as a definition:
“An assemblage (_ensemble_) of scruples which stand in the way of
the free exercise of our faculties.” This reduces religion to a
system of taboos. But he subsequently qualifies it by saying:
“Animism on one side, taboos on the other, these are the essential
factors of religions” (_Orpheus_, 4, 10). Thus qualified, however,
it excludes Buddhism; and with or without the qualification it does
not express the social side of religion. M. Reinach is quite conscious
of these omissions. They are an illustration of the extreme difficulty
found by the most able and learned enquirers in formulating an
adequate definition of religion, a definition at once all-embracing
and exact.
[69.1]
Durkheim, 323.
[69.2]
Frazer, _Magic Art_, i. 220.
[70.1]
Frazer, _op. cit._, 52.
[70.2]
_Ibid._, 221, 237 _sqq._
[70.3]
_Ibid._, 233. Frazer has worked out the theory more completely than
anyone else; but it has been more or less anticipated, or shared, by
others, such as Sir Edward Tylor, Sir Alfred Lyall, and Professor
Jevons.
[72.1]
The above is a brief summary (partly borrowed from my review in _F.
L._, xv. 359) of a portion of the argument elaborated by MM. Hubert
and Mauss in their “Esquisse d’une Théorie Générale de la
Magie,” _L’Année Soc._, vii. 1-146.
[76.1]
Durkheim, _op. cit._, 61.
[77.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, 549, 476.
[77.2]
_Ante_, p. 50.
[77.3]
Codrington, 133. Another example is cited subsequently, p. 144, from
Borneo.
[78.1]
Weeks, 189; see _ante_, p. 65 note.
[78.2]
Junod, _S. A. Tribe_, ii. 467; i. 441.
[78.3]
Durkheim, _op. cit._, 63 note.
[79.1]
All this indictment holds good in a lesser degree of the witch-hunts
of Europe and New England.
[80.1]
Gregor, 197.
[80.2]
This, however, is not exactly what Marillier says. “A ‘natural’
act (and that is its sole difference from a magical act) only reaches
bodies, or at least it only reaches the soul through the object it
animates. A magical practice, which may, however, be a purely material
act, acts in some way from within outwards (_agit en quelque sorte du
dedans au dehors_); it only kills or fecundates the man, animal, or
plant to which it is applied, by exercising first of all its
beneficent or calamitous action on the soul, which, like that of the
sorcerer, is the principle of his life” (_Rev. Hist. Rel._, xxxvi.
343).
[80.3]
Doutté, 328, 330.
[81.1]
Doutté, 340, 334, 343, 338. Compare what the schoolboy called their
“conjuring tricks,” performed before Pharaoh by Moses and Aaron,
and by the magicians (Ex. vii. 8 _sqq._).
[82.1]
Marett, _Anthrop._, 209. Dr Marett might have omitted the words “of
evil” after “supernormal powers.” They do not strengthen his
argument. In savage communities a hard and fast line is not usually
drawn between supernormal powers of evil and supernormal powers of
good.
[82.2]
_Ibid._, 210.
[83.1]
Marett, _Anthrop._, 211.
[84.1]
P. E. Goddard, _Univ. Cal. Pub._, i. 87.
[84.2]
Marett, _Anthrop._, 213.
[84.3]
Westermarck, _Ceremonies_, 67 note, quoting Destaing.
[85.1]
Reference may be made here to Mr Ernest Crawley, who writes like
Professor Jevons from a distinctly theological standpoint. I can find
no formal definition of religion in his book on the subject. He says:
“The vital instinct, the feeling of life, the will to live, the
instinct to preserve it, is the source of, or rather is identical
with, the religious impulse, and is the origin of religion” (_Tree
of Life_, 214). But, as Professor Leuba has rightly observed, “the
love and lust of life is the source of all human conduct and not of
religion alone” (_Psychol. Study_, 48). Elsewhere Mr Crawley
observes that religion is not a department, like law or science,
having a special subject-matter; it is “a tone or spirit.” It
“chiefly concerns itself with elemental interests--life and death,
birth and marriage are typical cases” (_op. cit._, 204 _sq._). Nor
can I find any definition of magic, though he maintains in opposition
to Professor Frazer that “it seems impossible to separate magic and
religion in their early forms.” “Indeed,” he adds, “the
practical meaning of magic, when worked in connection with religion,
is control of the supernatural, which is thus not superior to man”
(186). What is magic when not “worked in connection with
religion”? He identifies _mana_ with the force “which underlies
magical processes generally,” but apparently not religious
processes. A religious process he defines as “that of making a thing
sacred” (231 _sq._). He opposes magic to sacredness. “Sacredness
is a result of the application of religious impulse and of nothing
else” (208 _sq._). Compare Professor Durkheim’s definition of
religion (_supra_, p. 68). Mr Crawley takes insufficient account of
the social aspect of religion.
[87.1]
Southey, _The Curse of Kehama_, preface.
[87.2]
Augustine, _Civ. Dei_, x. 11, citing Porphyry.
[91.1]
Marett, _Threshold_, 44 _sqq._
[92.1]
J. M. M. van der Burgt, 55.
[92.2]
Hewitt, _Am. Anthr._, N.S., iv., 40.
[93.1]
E. H. Man, _J. A. I._, xii. 161, 163, 353, etc.
[95.1]
Codrington, 192.
[98.1]
The primary authority on the Arunta and neighbouring tribes is Messrs
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._ and _N. T._, and _Rep. Horn Exped._, but
Strehlow’s researches (_Aranda- und Loritja-stämme_) are important.
The results of the latter are divergent to some extent from those of
the former, but in most respects are not irreconcilable. See, _e.g._,
Professor Durkheim’s valuable discussion of the different versions
of reincarnation, _op. cit._, 357 _sqq._ I have stated above in a
summary manner what seems to be the result of the criticism of both
authorities.
[99.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 498; Strehlow, ii. 1. _Cf._ _Rep. Horn
Exped._, iv. 183.
[99.2]
Strehlow, i. 1.
[100.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 227, 232, 238.
[100.2]
_Ibid._, 227.
[100.3]
_Ibid._, 252.
[101.1]
For the Mongolian practice see _Amer. Anthr._, N.S., xv. 370. The
Pueblo Indian practice has been recorded by every scientific enquirer
among the tribes.
[102.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, 249. Note also the threat which follows.
[102.2]
M. Durkheim contends, and I think with justice, that the association
of the _churinga_ with individual ancestors, and therefore with their
descendants, or rather reincarnations, is secondary (_op. cit._, 173).
But _cf._ Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 281.
[102.3]
Strehlow, ii. 78. He resisted the temptation and avoided the mistake
made so often by missionaries of translating by native words Christian
terms of fundamentally different content.
[103.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 259 _sqq._
[103.2]
_Ibid._, 293.
[104.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, chaps. v. and vi. _passim_; _N. T._,
chap. viii. _passim_; Strehlow, ii. 75 _sqq._
[105.1]
Strehlow, iii. 6.
[105.2]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, chap. xvi.; _N. T._, chap. xv.; _Rep.
Horn Exped._, 180.
[106.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, 534, 553. _Cf._ 480, 538.
[107.1]
_Arch. Rel._, viii. 463, 467. Compare the account of the initiation by
the Devil of a Lapp wizard quoted from Tornæus, Scheffer, 136.
[107.2]
_Jesup. Exped._, vi. 47.
[109.1]
Junod, _S. A. Tribe_, ii. 450, 471, 473. M. Junod’s work is
concerned with the Thonga, but it is true in general terms of other
tribes.
[109.2]
Merensky, 135; Shooter, 191; Callaway, _Rel. Syst._, 259 _sqq._
[109.3]
Johnston, _Grenfell_, ii. 659 note, quoting Rev. W. H. Stapleton. He
is obviously reporting a statement by a native.
[110.1]
Jones, _Ojebway_, 269.
[110.2]
A. L. Kroeber, _Univ. Cal. Pub._, iv. 328.
[110.3]
G. A. Dorsey, _Trad. Skidi Pawnee_, 185, 189, 194, 199, 206, 210, 219,
221, 231.
[110.4]
Roth, _Sarawak_, i. 266.
[111.1]
Skeat, _Magic_, 60.
[113.1]
Seligmann, _Veddas_, 128 _sqq._, 190 _sqq._, 207. See _supra_, p. 59.
[114.1]
E. H. Man, _J. A. I._, xii. 96.
[115.1]
Kolben, 97.
[116.1]
Dorsey, _Wichita_, 99.
[116.2]
_R. B. E._, xxvii. 197.
[117.1]
There appears to be no detailed account of the Buffalo Dance of the
Pawnees. See Dorsey, _Skidi Pawnees_, xxi. 46; Grinnell, 369. The
latest stage, perhaps contaminated with European notions, is in part
described, _Id._, 270.
[121.1]
W. J. M‘Gee, _R. B. E._, xvii. 168* _sqq._
[121.2]
Durkheim, 295.
[124.1]
Durkheim, 305.
[124.2]
_Ibid._, 134, 135.
[124.3]
_Ibid._, 343, 355, 378.
[125.1]
Seligmann, 30, 126, 130, 170 _sqq._, 149.
[126.1]
_Cens. Ind. Rep._, 1901, iii. 62. _Cf._ the papers by E. H. Man, _J.
A. I._, xii.
[127.1]
Koch-Grünberg, _passim_; von den Steinen, _passim_, especially 350
_sqq._
[130.1]
Westermarck, _Moral Ideas_, ii. 585.
[132.1]
Marten, _Ind. Cens. Rep._, 1911, x. 80.
[132.2]
Laws of Manu, _Sac. Bks._, xxv. 5. I am indebted for this reference
and the further explanation above to my friend Mr William Crooke.
[132.3]
_Supra_, p. 62.
[132.4]
Dr Frazer, _Psyche’s Task_, 25 _sqq._, has made a collection of
these rites and signs. See also Westermarck, _Moral Ideas_, ii. 63
_sqq._
[133.1]
F. B. Jevons, _Oxford Cong. Rep._, ii. 131; _Id._, Græco-Italian
Magic, _Anthrop. Class._, 106. See also Rouse, _Greek V. O._, 337.
[133.2]
I described one such leaden tablet, found at Dymock, Gloucestershire,
in _Reliquary_, N.S., iii. 140. Another was subsequently found at
Lincoln’s Inn, and reported on by Mr W. Paley Baildon to the Society
of Antiquaries (_Proc. Soc. Anti._, 2nd ser., xviii. 141). Others have
also been found elsewhere, among them two on Gatherley Moor in
Yorkshire. If the identification of the persons against whom the
tablets on Gatherley Moor and at Lincoln’s Inn were directed be
conclusively established, they antedate by more than half a century
the translation above referred to of Agrippa’s book. This of course
is by no means impossible, or indeed improbable, for the practitioners
of occult science in the reign of Queen Elizabeth were frequently men
of learning.
[134.1]
_Fasc. Malay_, ii. 41.
[135.1]
Alan H. Gardiner, _Oxford Cong. Rep._, i. 210.
[135.2]
Budge, _Archæologia_, lii. 421 _sqq._, transliterating, translating,
and commenting on a papyrus in the British Museum, which belonged to a
priest of Ra about the year B.C. 305, and contains the ritual for the
purpose.
[135.3]
Wiedemann, 94.
[136.1]
Wiedemann, 279.
[136.2]
_Ibid._, 99.
[136.3]
Budge, _Archæologia_, lii. 425, 440, 539 _sqq._ The Egyptian gods
merged into one another like the dissolving pictures of a lantern.
This was probably in part the result of the union in one kingdom of a
number of petty states, which were centres of worship of disparate
though cognate divinities, and the consequent effort to synthesize
these divinities and their worship, and in part the issue of
philosophical speculation, itself doubtless influenced by political
events.
[136.4]
Wiedemann, 54; Budge, _Egypt. Magic_, 137. Dr Frazer’s version,
_Taboo_, 387, is formed on a comparison of these and other texts.
[137.1]
Wiedemann, 273. More personal threats are often employed. See, for
examples, _Arch. Rel._, xvi. 85.
[137.2]
Plato, _Rep._, ii. 364.
[137.3]
There are of course plenty of magical Greek texts, but they are much
later. The papyri unearthed in such numbers during recent years
contain many; and they often imply that the deity invoked is compelled
to perform his votary’s wishes. He is addressed in terms of command,
adjured by names of power and bidden to be quick about his work. Such
spells, however, are not purely Greek. They are produced under foreign
influence, and the gods or demons invoked bear alien names. The texts
are frequently _defixiones_. Simaitha’s incantation in the second
idyll of Theocritus, so far as it is addressed to the Moon, to Hecate
or Artemis, is not couched in terms of command. The goddesses, if they
grant the damsel’s desires, are accomplices who cannot plead _vis
major_. Yet threats and insults to the gods were, it seems, sometimes
made use of, probably in the hope of driving them by taunts to do what
was wanted (see below, p. 190). The dividing line here is very
thin.
[139.1]
Hodson, _Naga_, 139, 141; _cf._ 102, 164.
[139.2]
Parker, _Tales_, i. 97.
[140.1]
Brett, _Ind. Tribes_, 401.
[140.2]
_Anthropos_, viii. 3. For the belief in and cult of the Kaya, see
_ibid._, iii. 1005; and of the Inal, _ibid._, v. 95.
[140.3]
Shakespear, _Lushai_, 109 (_cf._ 61).
[141.1]
W. G. Aston, _F. L._, xxiii. 187 _sq._
[141.2]
Wiedemann, 227. On Thoth as magician and the words of power which he
uttered and wrote down compare Budge, _Egypt. Magic_, 128 _sqq._
[142.1]
Morris, _Heimskringla_, i. 18, 19.
[143.1]
Levit. xvi. 8. On the Scapegoat in general see Dr Frazer’s volume
bearing that title.
[144.1]
Hose, ii. 29 note.
[145.1]
Hose, 56, 117.
[146.1]
Rivers, _Todas_, 257, 450. For an alternative translation of the third
clause of the spell, see pp. 195, 271. For another form of the spell,
see p. 259.
[147.1]
J. H. Weeks, _J. A. I._, xl. 377, 378.
[148.1]
J. H. Weeks, _J. A. I._, xl. 383. Surely in the face of these examples
Mr Weeks’ statement--“Nor did we find any form of prayer among
them, no worship and no sacrifices” (_ibid._, 376)--needs some
qualification. As to the _mongoli_, see _ibid._, 368.
[149.1]
Werner, 56, 76.
[151.1]
A. M. Tozzer, _Putnam Vol._, 304. _Cf._ Matthews, _Navaho Leg._, 40.
[151.2]
Tozzer, _op. cit._, 303. On the rites and beliefs of the Dene, see
Father Jetté, _J. A. I._, xxxvii. 157 _sqq._
[154.1]
Exod. xxii. 18.
[154.2]
Deut. xviii. 9 _sqq._
[154.3]
Num. v. 11 _sqq._
[155.1]
Hos. iii. 4, 5. _Cf._ T. W. Davies, _Magic_, 36; and _Encyc. Bibl._,
_s.v._
[159.1]
Weeks 177.
[161.1]
Ælian, _Var. Hist._, xii. 23. Philo (_Dreams_, ii. 17) attributes the
same practice to the Germans.
[161.2]
O’Grady, ii. 518. Professor Whitley Stokes also gives it, _F. L._,
iv. 488, from an Edinburgh MS. I quote his translation, which is to
the same effect as Mr O’Grady’s.
[162.1]
Skeat, _Magic_, 10.
[163.1]
Vinson, 20. According to this story there were two cabin-boys, one of
whom overheard the plot and the other struck the blow, but this
appears to be a literary embellishment.
[163.2]
Strackerjan, i. 324, 325; Hansen, 38. The Norse tale (by Asbjoernsen)
is referred to, _Mélusine_, ii. 201. I have not seen it. Analogous
tale in Ireland, _Ant._, xlv. 371.
[163.3]
_Tylor Essays_, 138. Roscher (_Ephialtes_, 38) thinks it was “a
quite obvious nightmare.”
[164.1]
Gregor, 66.
[164.2]
Gregor, _loc. cit._
[166.1]
Thorpe, _N. Myth._, ii. 78.
[167.1]
Hibbert, _A Description of the Shetland Islands_ (Edinburgh, 1822),
569; _Zeits. des Ver._, ii. 15, 17; Rogers, 218; Lehmann-Filhés, ii.
16; Maurer, 173.
[168.1]
Natesa Sastri, 148.
[168.2]
_Bibl. Trad. Pop. Espan._, i. 187
[168.3]
Castrén, 172.
[168.4]
Boas, _Ind. Sagen_, 86.
[169.1]
Miller, _Scenes and Leg._, 287.
[170.1]
Shakespear, _Lushei_, 66.
[170.2]
Grimm, _Teut. Myth._, iii. 924.
[171.1]
Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 285.
[171.2]
Pausanias, i. 4, 5; Ovid, _Metam._, xi. 90; Herod., viii. 138; Ælian,
_Var. Hist._, iii. 18.
[171.3]
_Iliad_, v. 370 _sqq._
[172.1]
_R. E. E. S._, i. 338.
[172.2]
As an example the Nattu Malayans of Cochin in the south of India may
be cited. “When questioned as to their ideas of gods, they say that
they are like men themselves, but invisible, yet all-powerful”
(Anantha Krishna, i. 34).
[173.1]
Herod., ii. 122. Gods, like men, were addicted to gambling. According
to Plutarch (_De Iside_), Hermes in Egyptian legend played with the
moon and won the seventieth part of each of her light periods,
wherewith he made the last five days of the year and added them to the
calendar.
[173.2]
Herod., vii. 35.
[173.3]
Bérenger-Feraud, _Superst._, i. 473. The author has collected in the
chapter from which this is cited numerous other instances of the
punishment of the recalcitrant god.
[173.4]
Herod., ii. 111.
[174.1]
Williams, _Burmah_, 91.
[174.2]
_Ind. Cens. Rep._, 1911, x. 61.
[174.3]
Herod., iv. 94. Rohde (_Psyche_, ii. 28 note) suggests that the
personage against whom the arrows and threats were aimed was not
strictly a god, but an evil spirit or a magician. This, however, does
not follow. Philo (_l.c._) states that Xerxes, when his bridge across
the Hellespont was destroyed, aimed his arrows at the sun, and regards
the action with pious horror as a symptom of insanity.
[175.1]
Herod., iv. 184.
[175.2]
_J. A. I._, xxxvi. 51.
[175.3]
Moffat, 261, 265.
[175.4]
Chapman, i. 213. The word translated by Chapman as “God” is
doubtless Morimo. _Cf._ _ibid._, 46, “All Bechuanas believe in God
(Morimo), whom they laud or execrate as good or bad luck attends
them.”
[176.1]
Callaway, _Rel. Syst._, 404.
[176.2]
Hahn, 46, 51, 59, 94. _Cf._ 99, where the practice of the Urjangkut, a
tribe of Black Tartars, to scold the thunder and lightning is cited
from Bastian.
[177.1]
Lloyd, 397. According to another account, “when it thunders the
Bushmen are very angry and curse bitterly, thinking that the storm is
occasioned by some evil being” (Thunberg, ii., 163).
[177.2]
Hollis, _Nandi_, 9, 99.
[177.3]
_J. A. I._, xliii. 49.
[177.4]
_Jes. Rel._, xii. 25.
[177.5]
J. A. Mason, _Univ. Cal. Pub._, x. 185.
[178.1]
Lozano, _Desc. Chorographica del Gran Chaco_ (1733), 71, quoted Payne,
i. 391 note.
[178.2]
Payne, _l.c._
[178.3]
_Int. Arch._, Suppl., xiii. 88.
[179.1]
Neuhauss, iii. 157. I may refer also to the account of a young Kayan
brave in Borneo taking his arms and sallying forth to fight the
Thunder-god (_Int. Arch._, xxi. 139). But further examples are
unnecessary.
[180.1]
Frazer, _Magic Art_, i. 327 _sqq._
[180.2]
Von Alpenburg, 262, 365. Many such knives are to be found in
peasants’ houses in the Lower Inn valley. In the Netherlands these
whirlwinds are held to be “the Travailing Mother,” who seems to be
a woman dead in childbirth unconfessed of mortal sin. She cannot be
received into heaven. She is equally denied a place in hell, since her
sufferings and death have already provided a sufficient penance. Hence
she wanders about, seeking an abiding-place (Wolf, _Niederl. Sag._,
616). Women who die in childbirth are commonly considered very
dangerous ghosts. See below, p. 213.
[181.1]
Farnell, _Evol._, 43. _Cf._ Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena_, 101.
[181.2]
I have discussed similar practices, _Prim. Pat._, i. 102. See also
Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._, 113 _sqq._; Frazer, _Scapegoat_, 255.
These contain a large collection of examples, which put the magical
and purificatory purpose beyond doubt.
[182.1]
_Mélusine_, ii. 187, quoting the passage.
[182.2]
_Journ. Am. F. L._, xxiii. 416, 418.
[182.3]
Lumholtz, ii. 342, 422.
[183.1]
_Rev. Trad. Pop._, xi. 663. Vâlmiki, the Indian epic poet, author of
the _Rámáyana_, is said to have owed his birth to a similar blunder
by a saint who was the object of prayers by two sisters-in-law, and
mistook the maiden for the married woman (Harikishan Kaul, _Ind. Cens.
Rep._, 1911, xiv. 131, citing Vaman Shiva Ram Apte’s _Sanskrit
Dictionary_).
[184.1]
Turner, _R. B. E._, xi. 194.
[184.2]
M. Friedrich, _Anthropos_, ii. 101.
[185.1]
_Anthropos_, vii. 74.
[185.2]
Thurston, _Castes_, vi. 85.
[186.1]
Dr H. ten Kate, _Anthropos_, vii. 396. _Cf._ Aston, _Shinto_, 189.
[186.2]
Wiedemann, _op. cit._, 178. Bérenger-Feraud, _Superst._, i. 451
_sqq._, gives a long list of examples of punishments inflicted on the
obdurate divinity. See also Frazer, _Magic Art_, i. 296; Tylor, _Prim.
Cul._, ii. 155-7, and the numerous authorities there referred to;
Grimm, _Teut. Myth._, ii. 767 note.
[187.1]
_F. L._, viii. 349.
[187.2]
Weeks, 271.
[187.3]
Frazer, _Scapegoat_, _passim._
[188.1]
Morris, _Ere_, 151.
[190.1]
Junod, _S. A. Tribe_, ii. 368, 384. If Lactantius and the other
writers of antiquity who have mentioned the sacrifice to Hercules
referred to by Dr Frazer (_Magic Art_, i. 281) had given us the exact
words and occasion of the rite, we might perhaps find a similar
explanation for it. Both that and the rite addressed at Cranganore in
Southern India (_ibid._, 280) to the goddess Bhagavati are at present
very obscure.
[191.1]
Anantha Krishna, i. 53, 76.
[191.2]
Temple, _Leg. Panj._, ii. 425. _Cf._ _F. L._, x. 406.
[191.3]
Grimm, _Teut. Myth._, i. 20, where other instances are also cited.
[192.1]
Rev. J. H. Weeks, _J. A. I._, xxxix. 134, reproduced in the same
author’s _Congo Cannibals_, 176.
[194.1]
Plutarch, _De Iside_. Wiedemann (213) suggests that the Greeks
misunderstood the myth. But the text of the hymn which he quotes
appears to prove the accuracy of Plutarch’s interpretation. This is
in effect the view taken by Dr Wallis Budge (_Gods_, i. 487).
Harpocrates (Heru-p-khart) is Horus the younger.
[195.1]
De Groot, _Rel. Syst._, iv. 429, 421, 342; Giles, ii. 276.
[196.1]
Dalton, 232.
[197.1]
_N. Ind. N. and Q._, iii. 97, par. 205.
[197.2]
Jülg, 96 (Story No. 9). Compare children’s tales from various parts
of India, where the hero or heroine’s life is dependent on a
necklace which is stolen. The owner of the necklace dies when it is
worn by the thief, and revives when it is taken off. The birth of a
child follows visits by the other spouse. By the child’s help the
necklace is recovered, and permanent life is thus restored to the
half-dead, half-living hero or heroine (Frere, 230 (Story No. 20);
Day, 1 (Story No. 1); Steel and Temple, 85).
[197.3]
Kruijt, 398, 509; _cf._ 230.
[198.1]
Petitot, 262.
[199.1]
Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 283.
[199.2]
Maurer, 300 (_cf._ 192). A Protestant version is given,
Lehmann-Filhés, i. 132.
[200.1]
Le Braz, 321, Story No. 60.
[201.1]
Boas, _Ind. Sag._, 267. Compare a curious Tlingit story of a girl who
married a dead man (ghost), who in consequence came to life again
(Swanton, _Tlingit Myths_, 247).
[202.1]
The ghostly visitant might be of either sex, though the masculine was
perhaps more common. The visit was generally attended in either case
with fatal effects. See below as to _Lamiæ_.
[203.1]
Herodotus, vi. 68, 69.
[203.2]
Augustine, _Civ. Dei_, xv. 23.
[203.3]
Malleolus, De Credul. Dæmon. adhibenda, _Malleus Maleficarum_
(Frankfurt, 1582), 428. See also Bodin, _De Magorum Dæmonomania_
(Frankfurt, 1603), ii. 7. By this time, however, there began to be
sceptics. _Cf._ Wierus, _De Præstigiis Dæmonum_ (Basel, 1577), 358;
Ulr. Molitor, De Pythonicis Mulieribus, _Malleus Mal._, 83. The
extensive information possessed for many centuries by these learned
men was not limited to the _incubus_. There were also corresponding
female demons commonly known as _Succubi_, or _Lamiæ_, whose ravages
were almost equally great. Awful tales were related by way of warning
against their temptation. Compare the _putiana_ of the Moluccas, cited
below. See also Lecky, _Rationalism_, i. 26 note. Among the ancient
Assyrians and the modern Arabs the possibility of cohabitation by a
man with a spirit or non-human supernatural being, who may even bear
him children, was and is believed. But they are very jealous (_Encyc.
Rel._, iv. 571; _F. L._, xi. 388).
[204.1]
Strausz, 454.
[204.2]
Bartels, quoting Wladimir Bugiel, _Zeit. des Vereins_, x. 121.
Apparently the throwing of the poppy-seed imposed on the ghostly
visitant the necessity of counting the grains before proceeding to his
attack. See Andree, i. 81; Wilken, iii. 226 note, citing Mannhardt.
[205.1]
Scott goes on to refer to the old Scottish ballad of Sweet William’s
Ghost, founded, like that of Bürger’s poem, on the same
superstition. It is reprinted, with an account of the literature on
the subject, in Child, _Ballads_, ii. 199 _sqq._, 226 _sqq._; v. 293,
294.
[205.2]
Black, 113.
[208.1]
Maurer, 111.
[208.2]
For example, the notable case of the foundress of a new and popular
religion, who was said to be haunted after the manner of Herdis, to
her great annoyance and terror. But even her deluded followers felt
bound to draw the line somewhere, and they seem to have drawn it at
this obsession.
[209.1]
_Daily Chronicle_, 17th February 1912.
[210.1]
Among the Ngoulango or Pakhalla of the Ivory Coast a widow carries a
piece of fetish wood which has the power to cause death to anyone who,
attempting to approach her, is touched with it (Clozel, 363). It is
probably effectual also against the ghost.
[210.2]
_Globus_, lxxii. 22; lxxxi. 190. Compare a custom of the Minas of the
Slave Coast, Frazer, _J. A. I._, xv. 85 note. The Kagoro of Northern
Nigeria are also reported to believe in the possibility of sexual
connection by ghosts with women (_J. A. I._, xlii. 159). Major
Tremearne marks this belief as doubtful; but it accords with that of
other peoples. The pungent smoke of red pepper is used in exorcisms by
the Tigre of Abyssinia (Littmann, 310, 311).
[211.1]
_Zeits. v. Rechtsw._, xxvii. 85. A widow remains four months in her
hut, subject to a corresponding taboo. Among the Negroes of Surinam,
before a widow or widower marries again, an offering of food and drink
must be made to the ghost in order to obtain permission for the new
marriage. The new spouse will be considered as belonging, even if not
actually so belonging, to the family of the deceased. The widow or
widower may not leave the house for three months, nor do any work
(_ibid._, 395, 394).
[211.2]
_Ibid._, xxv. 99 _sqq._
[212.1]
_Zeits. v. Rechtsw._, xxv. 107. The Fõ Negresses in Togoland also
fear to be haunted by their deceased husbands, who may kill them, or
at least drive them mad. But this is said to be only when they have
neglected them during life (_Anthropos_, vii. 307).
[213.1]
Pechuël-Loesche, 308 _sqq._ The ghosts of women who have died in
childbed are frequently the objects of dread in areas far apart. The
belief is common in the East Indian Archipelago (see Wilken, iii. 224
_sqq._). Such a ghost is called by the inhabitants of the Island of
Serang, in the Moluccas, _Putiana_. She appears after death as a great
white bird, or else as a beautiful woman with fragrant clothing, who
attacks pregnant women, or seduces and then with her long nails
emasculates men. The most elaborate precautions are taken against her
(Riedel, 112). Among the Shans of the Upper Chindwin Valley, Burma,
the husband feigns madness, and undergoes a special purification (_F.
L._, xxiii. 470).
[214.1]
Bastian, _San Salvador_, 100. Among the Fans, further to the north, as
Frazer notes (Balder, ii. 18, quoting W. L. Priklonsky in Bastian’s
_Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde_), at the end of the mourning
ceremonies the widows are purified by passing over a lighted brazier
and sitting down with leaves still burning under their feet. Their
heads are then shaved, and they are shared between the heirs of the
deceased.
[215.1]
Rev. J. H. Weeks, _Folk-Lore_, xix. 430; xxi. 463.
[216.1]
Junod, _R. E. S._, i. 162; _id._, _The Fate of the Widows amongst the
Ba-Ronga_, reprinted from the report of the South African Association
for the Advancement of Science, 1908 (Grahamstown, Cape Colony, 1909),
5. It is fair to say that another and somewhat more popular account by
M. Junod states: “The night [after the burial] has come. All the
widows sleep in the open, their huts, which belonged to the deceased,
being taboo. If it rains, they sleep in other huts of the village”
(_S. A. Tribe_, i. 145). I do not know how to reconcile these two
statements. I have adopted that which M. Junod has twice affirmed, the
articles in the _R. E. S._ being particularly detailed and precise.
Among the northern clans of the Thonga, he tells us (_S. A. Tribe_, i.
150) that the first night of mourning “everyone [_scil._ in the
village] sleeps in the open.”
[217.1]
C. S. Myers and A. C. Haddon, _Torres Str. Rep._, vi. 153, 158, 160;
Haddon, _ibid._ (1912), iv. 60. In the Murray Islands “the ghost of
a recently deceased person is particularly feared; it haunts the
neighbourhood for two or three months.” But whether it specially
attacks the widow the members of the expedition do not seem to have
learned (_ibid._, vi. 253). The peculiarity of the dress, however,
speaks for itself.
[218.1]
Frazer, _Taboo_, 144, citing Father Guis, _Les Missions Catholiques_
(1902), xxxiv, 208. Among the Abarambo of the Congo basin, north of
the Wele, the husband or wife disappears in the bush for a time, the
latter until she finds a new husband. The widow or widower blackens
the face, binds a cord round the waist, wears nothing but an old
garment and only eats raw food (Johnston, _Grenfell_, ii. 650).
[219.1]
Teit, _Jes. Exped._, i. 332. Compare the Bella Coola tale cited above
(p. 200).
[219.2]
Peter Martyr, _The Decades of the New World_, in Arber, 100.
[219.3]
Lumholtz, _Unk. Mexico_, i. 384 _sqq._ Four feasts are given for a
woman. “She cannot run so fast, and it is therefore harder to chase
her off.”
[221.1]
Hobley, _J. A. I._, xli. 418. Among the neighbouring Atharaka and
Akamba the duty of sleeping with the widow on the fifth night after
the death is performed by a brother of the deceased (Champion,
_ibid._, xlii. 84).
[222.1]
Stannus, _J. A. I._, xl. 315.
[222.2]
Compare the accounts of Anyanja funerals in Rattray, 92 (this account
is by a native), and Werner, 165. In neither of these is the custom in
question referred to.
[223.1]
Rattray, 187.
[223.2]
Georgi, iii. 89. The information is perhaps derived from the old
travellers, Steller and Krasheninnikoff, both of whom mention the
custom. See _Jesup. Exped._, vi. 752.
[224.1]
Pechuël-Loesche, 330. _Cf._ Weeks, 300.
[224.2]
_F. L._, xix. 413.
[225.1]
Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), 357 n., 48. Of the King of Nri
in Nigeria we are told: “No man is allowed to step over his wives’
legs, nor may anyone commit adultery with them” (Thomas, _Ibo_, i.
53). This collocation of prohibitions is hardly accidental.
[225.2]
Roscoe, 205.
[226.1]
I suspect that the requirement mentioned by Professor Frazer (_Dying
God_, 183), of some of the Kaffir tribes, not specified, that the
first child born after the second marriage of a widow of a man killed
in battle, whether by her first or her second husband, must be put to
death, is to be referred to the same cycle of ideas. But I have no
access to the authority he cites, which is partly unpublished.
[227.1]
Lieut. Hans Kaufmann, _Mitteil. aus den Deutschen Schutzgeb_. (Berlin,
1910), xxiii. 168.
[228.1]
_Zeits. v. Rechtsw._, xxv. 101, 97, 105.
[228.2]
Gouldsbury and Sheane, 171.
[229.1]
Gouldsbury and Sheane, 168 _sqq._
[230.1]
_Cens. Ind. Rep._, 1901, ix. 208; W. Crooke, _Encyc. Rel._, iv. 603.
[230.2]
W. Crooke, _l.c._ See _supra_, p. 213 note. _Cf._ also _Cens. Ind.
Rep._, 1901, xvii. 120.
[230.3]
_Cens. Ind. Rep._, 1901, xvii. 121.
[231.1]
_Cens. Ind. Rep._, 1911, xiv. 283.
[231.2]
_Ibid._, 1901, vi. 421.
[231.3]
_Ibid._, 1911, xvi. 176.
[236.1]
_J. A. I._, xv. 73, 98.
[236.2]
A. L. Kroeber, _Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. History_, xviii. 17.
[236.3]
Weeks, 320, 321; _J. A. I._, xxxix. 453.
[236.4]
Batchelor, 106, 167.
[237.1]
_Anthropos_, i. 172.
[237.2]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl., 77.
[237.3]
Clozel, 363.
[237.4]
Brough Smyth, ii. 297; _F. L._, xiv. 325, 338.
[237.5]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 521.
[238.1]
Rice, 56, 57.
[238.2]
Lunet de Lajonquière, 282.
[238.3]
Herod., ii. 46, 66, 67. They were all no doubt sacred animals.
[238.4]
T. C. Hodson, _J. A. I._, xxxi. 306.
[239.1]
Thomas, _Ibo_, i. 45, 39.
[239.2]
Meyer, 83.
[239.3]
Pepper and Wilson, _Mem. Am. Anthrop. Assoc._, ii. 313.
[240.1]
_Bull. de Folklore_, iii. 74.
[241.1]
Hollis, _Nandi_, 71, 73, 74.
[241.2]
_Id._, _Masai_, 353.
[242.1]
Paulitschke, i. 258. _Cf._ the customs of the Kavirondo and Ja-Luo,
where no painting is recorded (Johnston, _Uganda_, ii. 743, 794).
[242.2]
Torday and Joyce, _J. A. I._, xxxvi. 50 (_cf._ 41). Professor Frazer
has mentioned (_Taboo_, 186 n.) some other African cases in which the
custom of painting the man-slayer may be intended as a disguise. None
of them seem to be stronger than the above. He goes on to mention the
Yabim of German New Guinea, among whom the relations of a murdered
man, on accepting a bloodwit instead of avenging his death, must allow
the family of the murderer to mark them with chalk on the brow. “If
this is not done, the ghost of their murdered kinsman may come and
trouble them; for example, he may drive away their swine or loosen
their teeth.” I have no access to the German authority he cites; but
I may suggest for what it may be worth that the chalk-mark is a
certificate to the ghost that his relatives have done their duty by
exacting a fine for his death, and that he has no cause to feel
aggrieved with them--in fact, that he may feel well satisfied. Dr
Frazer himself indeed once took this view, or something like it
(_Tylor Essays_, 107).
[243.1]
Teit, _Jesup Exped._, ii. 271, 235; i. 357, 332.
[243.2]
Hill-Tout, Notes on the Skqomic, _Brit. Ass. Reb._, 1900, 478 _sq._
[245.1]
_Bijdragen_, xxxix. 37. _Cf._ Furness, 91.
[245.2]
_J. A. I._, xxxvi. 83 note; Hose, i. 271 note.
[245.3]
Hose, ii. 24.
[246.1]
Gregor, 199.
[246.2]
_Anthropos_, iv. 859, 860.
[247.1]
Hose, ii. 37.
[247.2]
Frazer, _J. A. I._, xv. 73; _Id._, _Scapegoat_, chaps. i. iii. iv. vi.
[247.3]
Hutter, 442.
[248.1]
Koch-Grünberg, i. 130-140.
[249.1]
De Groot, _Rel. Syst._, vi. 1151.
[250.1]
_Torres Str. Exped._, v. 256; _cf._ vi. 140 _sqq._
[250.2]
Owen, _Musquakie_, 81. _Cf._ _Arch. Rel._, xiv. 257.
[251.1]
Koch-Grünberg, ii. 173.
[251.2]
Frazer, _J. A. I._, xv. 99, citing Speke, _Journal_, 542.
[251.3]
Dorsa, 91.
[252.1]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl., 76.
[252.2]
_Rep. B. E._, xviii. 315.
[253.1]
Frazer, _Balder_, i. 22 _sqq._; Hartland, _Prim. Pat._, i. 89 _sqq._
[253.2]
Frazer, _l.c._, 45, 46.
[253.3]
Goddard, _Univ. Cal. Pub._, i. 72.
[254.1]
Frazer, _Balder_, i. 36.
[255.1]
Boaz, _Brit. Ass. Rep._, 1890, 575.
[255.2]
_Tylor Essays_, 110, citing Riedel, _Deutsche Geographische Blätter_,
x. 286.
[256.1]
_S. Afr. F. L. Journ._, i. 51.
[256.2]
See for example the cases collected by Dr Frazer, _J. A. I._, xv. 84,
85
[257.1]
_Supra_, p. 209.
[257.2]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl. 72.
[257.3]
_Jesup. Exped._, vi. 113; Riedel, 307; Clozel, 363.
[257.4]
_Journ. Am. F. L._, xvi. 137.
[258.1]
Frobenius, _Heiden-Neger_, 408. Compare the widows’ dance among the
Wawanga in the Elgon District, British East Africa (_J. A. I._, xliii.
36). Among the Ibo-speaking people of Nigeria, at Aguku, the women of
the quarter in which a death has occurred march round at midnight and
sing (Thomas, _Ibo_, i. 80).
[259.1]
Weeks, 104, 321.
[259.2]
Kruijt, 272.
[259.3]
Striking examples will be found in von den Steinen, 506; and Smirnov,
i. 143, 366.
[260.1]
_Rev. Hist. Rel._, lx. 358.
[260.2]
Prof. E. Monseur, _ibid._, liii. 290 _sqq._
[261.1]
Mariner, i. 311.
[261.2]
Alldridge, 119.
[261.3]
_J. A. I._, xxxii. 47.
[261.4]
Brand and Ellis, ii. 187 note.
[261.5]
Clozel, 179.
[262.1]
Codrington, 281.
[262.2]
_Rep. B. E._, v. 111, translating _Jesuit Relations_.
[262.3]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl. 72.
[262.4]
_Globus_, lxxii. 22.
[262.5]
Spencer and Gillen, _N. T._, 521.
[262.6]
Deut. xiv. 1.
[262.7]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl. 71. Sir Everard im Thurn throws doubt upon
this as a funeral rite (_F. L._, xii. 141).
[263.1]
Williams, _Fiji_, 169.
[263.2]
_Dix-neuvième Siècle_, 26th December 1890.
[263.3]
_Int. Arch._, xiii., Suppl. 72.
[263.4]
_Ibid._, 77.
[264.1]
Father Alex. Arnoux, _Anthropos_, vii. 288.
[266.1]
Herod., i. 199; Strabo, xvi. 1, 20. Further details are supplied by
the Epistle of Jeremy appended to the apocryphal Book of Baruch.
[267.1]
Justin, xviii. 5.
[267.2]
Socrates, _Hist. Eccl._, i. 18.
[267.3]
Sozomen, _Hist. Eccl._, v. 10.
[267.4]
Ælian, _Var. Hist._, iv. 1. Dr Farnell (_Greece and Bab._, 271 note,
273 _sqq._) considers that the Lydian practice was identical with that
of the Armenians, referred to just below. This is possible. The lady
who commemorated at Tralles her dedication for this purpose (see
below, p. 273) seems to have been a Lydian. In either case it was a
religious practice, though Ælian does not explicitly say so. His
account in fact is vague.
[267.5]
Herod., i. 93.
[267.6]
Strabo, xi. 14, 16.
[270.1]
Lucian, _De Dea Syria_, 6.
[271.1]
Eusebius, _Vita Const._, iii. 58; Frazer, _Adonis_, 1906, 22 note 2. I
am uncertain how far Professor Frazer adheres to this interpretation
(see _Adonis_3, 33 note). Eusebius, it is true, was a contemporary;
but he was a bitter partizan, and wrote in a rhetorical style,
exaggerating everything that could bring glory to his hero
Constantine. Socrates, on the other hand, was a lawyer, a man of wider
and more liberal views, and of fairer judgement. Sozomen too was a
lawyer. They wrote a century later; but they wrote at Constantinople,
and probably had access to official documents. To my mind, if their
statements be irreconcilable, these qualifications entitle them to
greater credit than the not-too-scrupulous ecclesiastic.
[271.2]
Socrates, _loc. cit._
[273.1]
Ramsay, i. 94, 115; Frazer, _Adonis_, 34. Such religious prostitutes
were, of course, common in Western Asia. _Cf._ Strabo, xii. 3, 36.
[273.2]
Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._, ii; Arnobius, _Adv. Gentes_, v.
19; Firmicus Maternus, _De Errore Prof. Rel._, x; Apollodorus,
_Bibl._, iii. 14, 3.
[274.1]
The service of the _hierai_ is discussed by Ramsay, _op. cit._, 135-7.
See also below, p. 279.
[274.2]
On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that at a marriage among
the Auziles and the Nasamonians the guests who enjoyed the bride’s
favours were expected to reward her with a gift. Similarly, in modern
Europe, a gift is also found as the return for a kiss or a dance with
the bride. I have collected several cases, _Leg. Perseus_, ii. 361,
355-8, and many more might be added. Compare the Suahili custom
mentioned below, p. 277.
[275.1]
Roth, _Ethnol. Studies_, 174.
[275.2]
Howitt, 664; _J. A. I._, xx. 87. See also Ploss, i. 308.
[276.1]
Spencer and Gillen, _C. T._, 92.
[276.2]
_Globus_, xci. 313.
[277.1]
Riedel, 138, 137.
[277.2]
H. Crawford Angus in _Zeits. f. Ethnol._, xxx., Verhandl., 479.
[277.3]
Duff Macdonald, i. 126; Jas. Macdonald, in _J. A. I._, xxii. 101.
[277.4]
H. Zache, in _Zeits. f. Ethnol._, xxxi. 76. More than thirty years ago
a French writer cited by Hertz (_Giftmädchen_, 41) reported that
among the Bafiote of the Loango Coast the girls were led round the
village and their virginity put up to auction. This looks like a
puberty rite of a similar character. I have not seen the book,
however, and think it not impossible that the writer may have
misunderstood the ceremony usual on emerging from the
“paint-house.”
[278.1]
_J. A. I._, xxxi. 121.
[278.2]
Ploss, i. 307, 308. Puberty ceremonies to which girls are subjected
are by no means confined to “initiation-mysteries”--that is to
say, collective rites performed on a number of candidates at the same
time. Several of the above-cited ceremonies are performed on
individual girls as they reach puberty; and examples might very easily
be multiplied. In Cyprus, on the other hand, there seem to have been
collective rites, with the sacrifice of virginity.
[280.1]
Mannhardt, _Wald- und Feldkulte_, ii. 284; Frazer, _Adonis_, 32 note.
[281.1]
_Rev. Hist. Rel._, xli. 315.
[282.1]
Farnell, _Cults_, v. 423.
[283.1]
We are reminded of the risk incurred in relieving Kamtchadal widows of
their “sins” (_supra_, p. 223). There, however, the Russian
soldiers who assisted them belonged to a totally different mental and
social environment. They contemned the native superstition. It is
improbable that any strangers at Babylon or Heliopolis could have been
on a plane of civilization so far removed from that of the natives
that they were either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the native
ideas. Rather, they are likely to have shared them. Among the Baronga,
when a similar service is required to be rendered, the man must be
inveigled by a trick: he would not knowingly incur the risk (Junod,
_R. E. S._, i. 163).
[283.2]
Garcilasso, i. 59.
[284.1]
Ploss, i. 406; Hertz, _loc. cit._, citing authorities.
[284.2]
Crawley, _Mystic Rose_ (1902), 348.
[285.1]
Westermarck, _Moral Ideas_, ii. 445.
[285.2]
Above, p. 63.
[286.1]
Van Gennep, _Rites_, 39 _sqq._ As to trials of strength, see _Jesup
Exped._, vii. 582.
[287.1]
Dennett, 121.
[287.2]
Dumoutier, 182.
[288.1]
Since this essay was published in its original form the whole position
of women in the temple-ritual of Western Asia has been carefully
discussed by Dr Farnell (_Greece and Bab._, 268 _sqq._), to whose
criticisms I have been greatly indebted during the process of
revision.
[289.1]
Among many savages additional prohibited degrees exist side by side
with exogamy strictly so called. In my view these, where they exist,
are supplementary rules of subsequent growth. In any case exogamy
operates in the same way as our prohibited degrees.
[292.1]
O’Grady, ii. 264.
[292.2]
There are other manuscripts of the Colloquy, but none of them contain
the sequel of the adventures of the _Lia Fáil_. See the preface to
Stokes’ edition, _Irische Texte_, 4th ser. (Leipzig, 1900).
[293.1]
Skene’s paper is in _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, viii. 68; Mr O’Reilly’s in _Journal of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland_, xxxii. 77. The stone now called
the _Lia Fáil_ at Tara is clearly not the stone of tradition.
[293.2]
Keating, i. 101. See also 207, 209. On the latter page “a poem from
a certain book of invasion” is quoted at length. It contains an
enumeration of the four jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann, among them
the Lia Fáil, “which used to roar under the king of Ireland.” In
the _Baile an Scail_ (The Champion’s Ecstasy) Conna of the Hundred
Fights steps on the stone accidentally, and is told by the Druid who
accompanies him, “Fál has screamed under thy feet. The number of
its screams is the number of kings that shall come of thy seed for
ever; but I may not name them.” In this passage the stone is said to
have come from the Island of Foal to abide for ever in the land of
Tailtin (Nutt, i. 187, summarizing O’Curry’s translation).
[294.1]
O’Curry, _On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_ (three
vols., London, 1873), vol. i. (Sullivan’s Introduction), p.
clxxxiii. Spencer, _View of the State of Ireland_, says that the
Tanist is “the eldest of the kinne.” _Ancient Irish Histories_
(Dublin, Hibernia Press, 1809), i. 12.
[295.1]
O’Curry, ii. 199. From a reference in an Irish text translated by
Professor Windisch from the _Lebor na hUidre_, it seems that the bull
was required to be white. _Irische Texte_, ser. i. 200.
[296.1]
_Revue Celtique_, xxii. 22, in the story of the Sack of Dá Derga’s
Hostel translated by Whitley Stokes.
[297.1]
Haltrich, 195.
[298.1]
_Jātaka_, iv. 23, Story No. 445.
[298.2]
Jülg, 60, Story No. 2.
[299.1]
Radloff, i. 208.
[299.2]
_Folk-Lore_, iv. 202.
[300.1]
Ralston, _Tibetan Tales_, p. 29.
[300.2]
_Bakhtyár Náma_, 51.
[301.1]
Stumme, 123, Story No. 15.
[301.2]
Burton, _Nights_, iv. 210.
[301.3]
_N. Ind. N. and Q._, iv. 66. Similarly in a story from Mirzapur, the
first man met in the forest is made king. _Ibid._, ii. 81. In another
story from Mirzapur a trained elephant is let loose to choose the
king’s bride. _Ibid._, iii. 103.
[302.1]
Radloff, vi. 157.
[302.2]
_Ibid._, iv. 143.
[302.3]
Prym und Socin, _Kurdische Sammlungen_, Erste Abteil. (St Petersburg,
1887); übersetz., 32.
[303.1]
Leclère, 16. “Tous ceux qui étaient presents à ce conseil…
decidèrent qu’on consulterait immédiatement les chevaux.”
[303.2]
_Kathá_, ii. 102.
[304.1]
Natesa Sastri, 126.
[304.2]
Steel and Temple, 140. In other stories from Kashmir, it is “an
elephant” (Knowles, 169, 309).
[304.3]
_Rev. Trad. Pop._, iv. 442.
[304.4]
Knowles, 158. Other stories, _Ibid._, 17, 309; _Bakhtyár Náma_, 169
(notes by the Editor); Day, 99, Story No. 5.
[305.1]
_Kathákoça_, 155.
[306.1]
Luzel, _Lég. Chrét._, i. 282 (pt. iii., Story No. 11); a variant,
_Mélusine_, i. 300.
[307.1]
_F.-L. Journ._, iv. 338 _sqq._, including the references at foot of
348.
[308.1]
Friedrich von Raumer, _Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit_
(Leipzig, 1824), iii. 74.
[308.2]
Eusebius, _Eccles. Hist._, vi. 29.
[308.3]
Middleton, _Works_ (2nd ed. London, 1755), vol. v., p. 153, citing
“Hist. Raven., etc. Aring [hus], Rom[a] Subt[erranea], l. vi., c.
48.”
[309.1]
_Early Trav._, 158. The casting of lots is divination--an appeal to
supernatural powers to decide the event. Such divination (frequently
glossed as the ballot) took place at the election of Matthias to
succeed Judas Iscariot in the apostolate (Acts i. 23). It seems to
have been a not uncommon practice in the Middle Ages for the election
of ecclesiastical dignitaries. It is expressly reprehended in a tract
_De decem præceptis_, published in the year 1439, by Thomas
Ebendorfer of Haselbach, Court Chaplain and Privy Councillor of the
Emperor Frederick III (_Zeit. des Vereins_, xii. 11).
[309.2]
The church derived its name from having been erected in a Lombard
burial-ground. Poles were set up on the graves, and on each pole the
wooden figure of a dove. It is suggestive that the scene of the story
is placed in such surroundings.
[310.1]
Paulus Diaconus, _Gesta Longobard._, vi. 55. See also Soldan, 145,
148. Hildeprand did not reign long. He was deprived of the throne a
few months later by Ratchis, who reigned for five years, 744-749.
[310.2]
Soldan, 150.
[310.3]
Post, _Afr. Juris._, i. 138, citing Harris, _The Highlands of
Ethiopia_. Post notes that Krapf contests the accuracy of this account
and states the succession was hereditary. The two statements are
perhaps not irreconcilable. The succession to the throne of Businza,
south of Lake Victoria Nyanza, was hereditary, but among the
candidates an animal omen was decisive. Father van Thiel, who says
this, however, omits to tell us exactly how (_Anthropos_, vi. 502).
See also, as to other tribes, below, pp. 317 _sqq._
[311.1]
Herod., iii. 84 _sqq._
[311.2]
Grimm has collected instances, _Teut. Myth._, i. 47; ii. 658; iv.
1301, 1481. Also von Negelein, _Zeits. des Ver._, xi. 406 _sqq._
[312.1]
_Journ. Ind. Archip._, iii. 316.
[313.1]
Forbes, ii. 465.
[313.2]
Plutarch, _De Fluv._, xiv.
[315.1]
Huc, ii. 343; i. 278; Waddell, 245 _sqq._
[316.1]
Gray, i. 103.
[317.1]
Speke, _Journ._, 221. A less astonishing species of augury, and one
reminding us of English Hallowe’en practices, is that adopted by the
Shilluk on the Upper Nile. On choosing a king a small stone for
everyone of the royal princes is thrown into the fire. The stones of
the rejected candidates fly out again; he whose stone remains in the
fire becomes king (_Anthropos_, v. 333).
[318.1]
_Anthropos_, vi. 70.
[319.1]
_Records of the Past_, 2nd series [1891] v. 68, 62.
[320.1]
_Folk-Lore_, ix. 114. Mr Crooke does not refer to the speech of
Eurymachus immediately following that of Telemachus, which confirms
what has been said on this subject by Antinous and Telemachus.
[321.1]
I am indebted to Miss Burne for suggesting that something like this is
the true interpretation of the use alike of the _Lia Fáil_ and of the
various regal paraphernalia employed in the stories. As she puts it,
they would know their rightful owner. This, however, is to assume the
principle of heredity as already established. The animistic belief
involved in the interpretation suggested was perhaps applied even
before then.
[323.1]
Girald. Cambr., _Itinerarium Kambriæ_, l. i., c. 2.
[323.2]
Crooke, _Pop. Rel._, ii. 142.
[323.3]
Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, ii. 380. _Cf._ the Legend of Dhatu Sena,
King of Ceylon (Tennent, _Ceylon_, i. 389).
[324.1]
A. Landes, _Contes Tjames_, 104.
[324.2]
_Journal of the Indian Archipelago_, iii. 571.
[324.3]
_Havelok_, ll. 602 _sqq._, 2139 _sqq._
[326.1]
Owen, _Narrative_, ii. 418, translating a MS., of Sr. Ferão, a
Portuguese governor of the coast. This translation is reprinted by
Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. 371 _sqq._
[327.1]
Theal, _Records_, vii. 191 _sqq._
[327.2]
2 Sam., ch. 16; 1 Kings, ch. 2. There is some reason to think that the
same custom obtained among the ancient Teutonic peoples, and even in
England. Both this and succession by marrying a daughter are frequent
incidents in historical traditions as well as in _märchen_ (see
Frazer, _Magic Art_, ii., ch. xviii., and _Scapegoat_, 368).
[328.1]
Junod, _S. A. Tribe_, i. 199, 206.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page numbers are given in in {curly} brackets. Endnote markers are
given in [square] brackets in the plain text version.
Alterations to the text:
Convert footnotes to endnotes. Relabel note markers: append the
original note number to the page number.
Omit the Index.
[Preface]
“published _Myth Ritual and Religion_, in which he attacked” add comma
after _Myth_.
[The relations of religion and magic]
(“If a man,” writes Bishop Codrington, has been successful…) add
quotation mark before _has_.
Change “It is substantially that of _Professer_ Frazer” to _Professor_.
[The boldness of the Celts]
“There is a remarkable story in the _Eyrbyggja_ Saga” to _Eyrbyggia_.
[Endnotes]
Two punctuation corrections (missing periods).
[End of text]
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