CHAPTER XXII: ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

§ 165. In the chapter on “Primitive Ideas,” it was pointed out that in the animal kingdom the metamorphoses which actually occur, are, at first sight, more marvellous than many which are wrongly supposed to occur—that the contrasts between a maggot and a fly, an egg and a bird, are greater than the contrasts between a child and a dog, a man and a bull.

Encouraged, then, by the changes he daily sees, and not deterred by such cognitions as long-accumulating experiences establish, the savage yields to any suggestion, however caused, that a creature has assumed a different shape. In some cases the supposed change is from one of the lower animals into another; as in Brazil, where, Burton says, “the people universally believe that the humming-bird is transmutable into the humming-bird hawk-moth.” But mostly, the transformations are of men into animals, or of animals into men.

All races furnish evidence. We will first take a number of examples, and then consider the interpretations.

§ 166. The belief that human beings disguise themselves as brutes, is in some cases specified generally; as concerning the Thlinkeets, who “will kill a bear only in case of great necessity, for the bear is supposed to be a man that has taken the shape of an animal.” And the converse idea Edition: current; Page: [330] in its general form occurs among the Karens, who think “the waters are inhabited by beings whose proper form is that of dragons [? crocodiles], but that occasionally appear as men, and who take wives of the children of men.” Usually, however, only persons distinguished by power of some kind, or believed to be so, have this ability ascribed to them.

Regarding all special skill as supernatural, sundry African peoples think the blacksmith (who ranks next to the medicine-man) works by spirit-agency; and in Abyssinia, “blacksmiths are supposed able to turn themselves into hyænas and other animals.” So strong is this belief that it infects even European residents: Wilkinson instances a traveller who asserted that he had seen the metamorphosis. More commonly it is the sorcerers exclusively of whom this power is alleged. The Khonds believe “witches have the faculty of transforming themselves into tigers.” In case of “an alligator seizing upon a child whilst bathing in the river, or a leopard carrying off a goat,” the Bulloms “are of opinion that it is not a real leopard or alligator which has committed the depredation, but a witch under one of these assumed forms.” Among the Mexicans “there were sorcerers and witches who were thought to transform themselves into animals.” In Honduras they “punish sorcerers that did mischief; and some of them are said to have ranged on the mountains like tigers or lions, killing men, till they were taken and hanged.” And the Chibchas “pretended to have great sorcerers who might be transformed into lions, bears, and tigers, and devour men like these animals.” To chiefs, as well as to sorcerers, this faculty is in some places ascribed. The Cacique Thomagata, one of the Chibcha rulers, was believed “to have had a long tail, after the manner of a lion or a tiger, which he dragged on the soil.” Africa, too, yields evidence.

In some cases this supposed power is shared by the chief’s relatives. Schweinfurth, when at Gallabat, having shot a hyæna, was reproached by the sheikh because his, the sheikh’s, mother, was a “hyæna-woman.”

Instead of change of form there is, in other cases, possession. We saw how the primitive dream-theory, with its wandering double which deserts the body and re-enters it, brings, among many sequences, the belief that wandering doubles can enter other bodies than their own; and the last chapter exhibited some wide extensions of this doctrine: representative figures, and even inanimate objects not having human shapes, being supposed permeable by human ghosts. Naturally, then, animals are included among the things men’s souls go into. At Tete, in Africa, the people believe “that while persons are still living they may enter into lions and alligators, and then return again to their own bodies;” and the Guiana tribes think some jaguars “are possessed by the spirits of men.”

Of course, along with beliefs in possession by the doubles of living persons, there go beliefs in possession by the doubles of dead persons. The Sumatrans imagine that—

Among existing American races, the Apaches “hold that every rattlesnake contains the soul of a bad man or is an emissary of the Evil Spirit;” and “the Californians round San Diego will not eat the flesh of large game, believing such animals are inhabited by the souls of generations of people that have died ages ago: ‘eater of venison!’ is a term of reproach among them.” With the ancient American Edition: current; Page: [332] races it was the same. Here is one out of many instances.

There are like beliefs among Africans. When Hutchinson doubted the assertion that men’s souls pass into monkeys and crocodiles, he was answered—“It be Kalabar ‘fash,’ and white man no saby any ting about it.”

Passing over various developments of this general notion which early civilizations show us, such as the Scripture story of the expelled devils who entered into swine, and the were-wolf legends of the middle ages; let us turn to the interpretations. We have seen that his experiences prepare the savage for supposing metamorphoses, if circumstances suggest them; but we must not assume him to suppose them without suggestive circumstances. What, then, are these? We shall find three kinds; leading to three groups of allied, but partially-different, beliefs.

§ 167. “There are Amatongo who are snakes,” say the Zulus; and, as we have repeatedly seen, Amatongo is their name for ancestral ghosts. But why do these people think that snakes are transformed ancestors? Some extracts from Bp. Callaway’s cross-examination, I place in an order which will prepare the reader for the answer.

Now join with these statements the facts set forth in §§ 110, 137, and the genesis of this belief becomes manifest. All over the world there prevails the idea that the ghost of the dead man haunts the old home. What, then, is meant by the coming of these snakes into the huts? Are they not returned relations? Do not the individual marks they sometimes bear yield proof? Just as an Australian settler who had a bent arm, was concluded to be the other-self of a dead native who had a bent arm (§ 92); so here, the scar common to the man and the snake proves identity. When, therefore, the Zulus say—“Neither does a snake that is an Itongo excite fear in men. . . . When men see it, it is as though it said as they look at it, ‘Be not afraid. It is I’;” we are shown that recognition of the snake as a human being, come back in another shape, is suggested by several circumstances: frequentation of the house being the chief. This recognition is utilized and confirmed by the diviners. Some persons who, through them, sought supernatural aid, remarked—“We wondered that we should continually hear the spirits, which we could not see, speaking in the wattles, and telling us many things without our seeing them.” Elsewhere a man says—“The voice was like that of a very little child; it cannot speak aloud, for it speaks above, among the wattles of the hut.” The trick is obvious. Practising ventriloquism, the diviner makes the replies of the ancestral ghost seem to come from places in which these house-haunting snakes conceal themselves.

Though most men are supposed to turn into the harmless snakes which frequent huts, some turn into the “imamba which frequents open places.” “The imamba is said especially to be chiefs;” it is “a poisonous snake,” and has “the stare of an enemy, which makes one afraid.” Whence it Edition: current; Page: [334] appears that as special bodily marks suggest identity with persons who bore kindred marks, so traits of character in snakes of a certain species, lead to identification with a class of persons. This conclusion we shall presently find verified by facts coming from another place in Africa.

Among the Amazulu, belief in the return of ancestors disguised as serpents, has not led to worship of serpents as such: propitiation of them is mingled with propitiation of ancestral ghosts in an indefinite way. Other peoples, too, present us with kindred ideas, probably generated in like manner, which have not assumed distinctly religious forms; as witness the fact that “in the province of Culiacan tamed serpents were found in the dwellings of the natives, which they feared and venerated.” But, carrying with us the clue thus given, we find that along with a developed cult and advanced arts, a definite serpent-worship results. Ophiolatry prevails especially in hot countries; and in hot countries certain kinds of ophidia secrete themselves in dark corners of rooms, and even in beds. India supplies us with a clear case. Serpent-gods are there common; and the serpent habitually sculptured as a god, is the cobra. Either in its natural form or united to a human body, the cobra with expanded hood in attitude to strike, is adored in numerous temples. And then, on inquiry, we learn that the cobra is one of the commonest intruders in houses. Yet another instance is furnished by the Egyptian asp, a species of cobra. Figuring everywhere as this does in their sacred paintings and sculptures, we find that, greatly reverenced throughout Egypt, it was a frequenter of gardens and houses, and was so far domesticated that it came at a signal to be fed from the table.*

The like happens with other house-haunting creatures. In many countries lizards are often found indoors; and among the Amazulu, the “Isalukazana, a kind of lizard,” is the form supposed to be taken by old women. The New Zealanders believe that the spirits of their ancestors re-visit them as lizards; and I learn from a colonist that these are lizards which enter houses. Certain Russian foresters, again, “cherish, as a kind of household gods, a species of reptile, which has four short feet like a lizard, with a black flat body. . . . These animals are called ‘givoites,’ and on certain days are allowed to crawl about the house in search of the food which is placed for them. They are looked upon with great superstition.” Then, too, we have the wasp, which is one of the animal-shapes supposed to be assumed by the dead among the Amazulu; and the wasp is an insect which often joins the domestic circle to share the food on the table. Alongside this belief I may place a curious passage from the flood-legend of the Babylonians. Hasisadra, describing his sacrifice after the deluge, says—“The gods collected at its burning, the gods collected at its good burning; the gods, like flies, over the sacrifice gathered.” Once more, of house-haunting creatures similarly regarded, we have the dove. Describing animal-worship among the ancients, Mr. M‘Lennan remarks that “the dove, in fact . . . was almost as great a god as the serpent.” The still-extant symbolism of Christianity shows us the surviving effect of this belief in the ghostly character of the dove.

§ 168. By most peoples the ghost is believed now to revisit the old home, and now to be where the body lies. If, Edition: current; Page: [336] then, creatures which frequent houses are supposed to be metamorphosed ancestors, will not creatures habitually found with corpses be also considered as animal-forms assumed by the dead? That they will, we may conclude; and that they are, we have proofs.

The prevalence of cave-burial among early peoples everywhere, has been shown. What animals commonly occur in caves? Above all others, those which shun the light—bats and owls. Where there are no hollow trees, crevices and caverns are the most available places for these night-flying creatures; and often in such places they are numerous. An explorer of the Egyptian cave known from its embalmed contents as “Crocodilopolis,” tells me that he was nearly suffocated with the dust raised by bats, the swarms of which nearly put out the torches. Now join with these statements the following passage from the Izdubar legend translated by Mr. Smith:—

In Mr. Talbot’s rendering of the legend of the descent of Ishtar, Hades, described as “a cavern of great rocks,” is again said to be “the abode of darkness and famine, where earth is their food: their nourishment clay: light is not seen: in darkness they dwell: ghosts, like birds, flutter their wings.” Amid minor differences, the agreement respecting the cavernous nature of the place, its gloom, its lack of food, its dust, and the winged structure of its inhabitants, clearly points to the development of the burial-cave with its tenanting creatures, into Hades with its inhabiting spirits. In the same way that, as we before saw, Sheol, primarily a cave, expanded into an under-world; so here we see that the winged creatures habitually found along with the corpses in the cave, and supposed to be the transformed dead, originated Edition: current; Page: [337] the winged ghosts who inhabit the under-world. Verification is yielded by an already-quoted passage from the Bible, in which sorcerers are said to chirp like bats when consulting the dead: the explanation being that their arts, akin to those of the Zulu diviners lately named, had a like aim. The ventriloquists, says Delitzsch, “imitated the chirping of bats, which was supposed to proceed from the shades of Hades.” Further verification comes to us from the legends of the Greeks. The spirits of the dead are said in the Odyssey to twitter like bats and clamour “as it were fowls flying every way in fear.” The far East yields confirmatory evidence. In past times the Philippine Islanders had the ideas and customs of ancestor-worship highly developed; and they buried in caves, which were held sacred. Mr. Jagor narrates his visit to a cavern “tenanted by multitudes of bats.” The few natives who dared enter, “were in a state of great agitation, and were careful first to enjoin upon each other the respect to be observed by them towards Calapnitan”—literally “lord of the bats.”

The experience that bats are commonly found in caves, while owls more generally frequent the dark corners of deserted houses, may have tended to differentiate the associated conceptions. “Mother of ruins” is an Arabian name for the owl. Mr. Talbot, in translations embodying the religious beliefs of the Assyrians, has the following prayer uttered on a man’s death:—“Like a bird may it [the soul] fly to a lofty place!” With this we may join the fact that, in common with modern Arabs, their ancient kindred preferred to bury in high places. We may also join with it the following passage from M. Caussin de Perceval:—

The Egyptians also, along with familiar knowledge of these cave-hiding and ruin-haunting creatures, had a belief in winged souls. One of their wall-paintings given by Wilkinson, Edition: current; Page: [338] represents, over the face of a corpse, a human-headed bird about to fly away, carrying with it the sign of life and the symbol of transmigration. Moreover, on their mummy cases they figured either a bird with out-stretched wings, or such a bird with a human head, or a winged symbol. Thus it seems likely that by them, too, the creatures often found in the places of the dead were supposed to be forms assumed by the dead.

Possibly these ancient peoples had not enough knowledge of insect metamorphoses to be struck by the illusive analogy on which modern theologians dwell; but, if they observed them, one kind must have seemed to furnish a complete parallel. I refer to that of various moths: the larva buries itself in the earth, and after a time there is found near the chrysalis-case a winged creature. Why, then, should not the winged creature found along with the human body which has been buried in a cave, be concluded to have come out of it?*

§ 169. Before dealing with supposed transformations of a third kind, like the above as identifying animals with deceased men, but unlike them as being otherwise suggested, two explanatory descriptions are needed: one of primitive language and the other of primitive naming.

The savage has a small vocabulary. Consequently of, the things and acts around, either but few can have signs, or those signs must be indiscriminately applicable to different things and acts: whence inevitable misunderstandings. If, as Burton says of the Dacotahs, “colours are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight,” an intended Edition: current; Page: [339] assertion about a colour must often be taken for an assertion about the illustrative object. If, as Schweinfurth tells us of the Bongo dialect, one word means either “shadow” or “cloud,” another “rain” or “the sky,” another “night” or “to-day;” the interpretations of statements must be in part guessed at, and the guesses must often be wrong. Indefiniteness, implied by this paucity of words, is further implied by the want of terms expressing degree. A Damara cannot understand the question whether of two stages the next is longer than the last. The question must be—“The last stage is little; the next, is it great?” and the only reply is—“It is so,” or “It is not so.” In some cases, as among the Abipones, superlatives are expressed by raising the voice. And then the uncertainties of meaning which such indefinitenesses cause, are made greater by the rapid changes in primitive dialects. Superstitions lead to frequent substitutions of new words for those previously in use; and hence statements current in one generation, otherwise expressed in the next, are misconstrued. Incoherence adds to the confusion. In the aboriginal languages of South Brazil, “there are no such things as declensions and conjugations, and still less a regular construction of the sentences. They always speak in the infinitive, with, or mostly without, pronouns or substantives. The accent, which is chiefly on the second syllable, the slowness or quickness of pronunciation, certain signs with the hand, the mouth, or other gestures, are necessary to complete the sense of the sentence. If the Indian, for instance, means to say, ‘I will go into the wood,’ he says ‘Wood-go:’ pushing out his mouth to indicate the quarter which he intends to visit.” Clearly, no propositions that involve even moderate degrees of discrimination, can be communicated by such people. The relative homogeneity of early speech, thus implied by the absence of modifying terminations to words or the auxiliaries serving in place of them, is further implied by the absence of general Edition: current; Page: [340] and abstract words. Even the first grades of generality and abstractness are inexpressible. Both the Abipones and the Guaranis “want the verb substantive to be. They want the verb to have. They have no words whereby to express man, body, God, place, time, never, ever, everywhere.” Similarly, the Koossa language has “no proper article, no auxiliary verbs, no inflections either of their verbs or substantives. . . . The simple abstract proposition, I am, cannot be expressed in their language.”

Having these a posteriori verifications of the a priori inference, that early speech is meagre, incoherent, indefinite, we may anticipate countless erroneous beliefs caused by misapprehensions. Dobrizhoffer says that among the Guaranis, “Aba che has three meanings—I am a Guarani, I am a man, or I am a husband; which of these is meant must be gathered from the tenor of the conversation.” On asking ourselves what will happen with traditions narrated in such speech, we must answer that the distortions will be extreme and multitudinous.

§ 170. Proper names were not always possessed by men: they are growths. It never occurred to the uninventive savage to distinguish this person from that by vocal marks. An individual was at first signified by something connected with him, which, when mentioned, called him to mind—an incident, a juxta-position, a personal trait.

A descriptive name is commonly assumed to be the earliest. We suppose that just as objects and places in our own island acquire their names by the establishment of what was originally an impromptu description; so, names of savages, such as “Broad face,” “Head without hair,” “Curly head,” “Horse-tail,” are the significant sobriquets with which naming begins. But it is not so. Under pressure of the need for indicating a child while yet it has no peculiarities, it is referred to in connexion with some circumstance attending its birth. The Lower Murray Australians derive their Edition: current; Page: [341] names either from some trivial occurrence, from the spot where they were born, or from a natural object seen by the mother soon after the birth of the child. This is typical. Damara “children are named after great public incidents.” “Most Bodo and Dhimáls bear meaningless designations, or any passing event of the moment may suggest a significant term.” The name given to a Kaffir child soon after birth, “usually refers to some circumstance connected with that event, or happening about the same time.” Among the Comanches, “the children are named from some circumstance in tender years;” and the names of the Chippewayan boys are “generally derived from some place, season, or animal.” Even with so superior a type as the Bedouins, the like happens: “a name is given to the infant immediately on his birth. The name is derived from some trifling accident, or from some object which has struck the fancy of the mother or any of the women present at the child’s birth. Thus, if the dog happened to be near on this occasion, the infant is probably named Kelab (from Kelb, a dog).”

This vague mode of identification, which arises first in the history of the race, and long survives as a birth-naming, is by-and-by habitually followed by a re-naming of a more specific kind: a personal trait that becomes decided in the course of growth, a strange accident, or a remarkable achievement, furnishing the second name. Among the peoples above mentioned, the Comanches, the Damaras, the Kaffirs illustrate this. Speaking of the Kaffirs, Mann says—“Thus ‘Umgodi’ is simply ‘the boy who was born in a hole.’ That is a birth name. ‘Umginqisago’ is ‘the hunter who made the game roll over.’ That is a name of renown.” Omitting multitudinous illustrations, let us note some which immediately concern us. Of the additional names gained by the Tupis after successes in battle, we read—“They selected their appellations from visible objects, pride or ferocity influencing their choice:” whence obviously results naming after savage animals. Among animal-names Edition: current; Page: [342] used by the Karens are—‘Tiger,’ ‘Yellow-Tiger,’ ‘Fierce-Tiger,’ ‘Gaur,’ ‘Goat-antelope,’ ‘Horn-bill,’ ‘Heron,’ ‘Prince-bird,’ and ‘Mango-fish:’ the preference for the formidable beast being obvious. In New Zealand a native swift of foot is called ‘Kawaw,’ a bird or fowl; and the Dacotah women have such names as the ‘White Martin,’ the ‘Young Mink,’ the ‘Musk-rat’s Paw.’ All over the world this nicknaming after animals is habitual. Lander speaks of it among the Yorubans; Thunberg, among the Hottentots; and that it prevails throughout North America every one knows. As implied in cases above given, self-exaltation is sometimes the cause, and sometimes exaltation by others. When a Makololo chief arrives at a village, the people salute him with the title, ‘Great Lion.’ King Koffi’s attendants exclaim—“Look before thee, O Lion.” In the Harris papyrus, King Mencheper-ra (Tothmes III) is called ‘the Furious Lion;’ and the name of one of the kings of the second Egyptian dynasty, Kakau, means “the bull of bulls.” In early Assyrian inscriptions we read—“Like a bull thou shalt rule over the chiefs:” a simile which, as is shown in another case, readily passes into metaphor. Thus in the third Sallier papyrus it is said of Rameses—“As a bull, terrible with pointed horns he rose;” and then in a subsequent passage the defeated address him—“Horus, conquering bull.”

Remembering that this habit survives among ourselves, so that the cunning person is called a fox, the rude a bear, the hypocritical a crocodile, the dirty a pig, the keen a hawk, and so on—observing that in those ancient races who had proper names of a developed kind, animal-nicknaming still prevailed; let us ask what resulted from it in the earliest stages.

§ 171. Verbal signs being at first so inadequate that gesture-signs are needful to eke them out, the distinction between metaphor and fact cannot be expressed, much less Edition: current; Page: [343] preserved in tradition. If, as shown by instances Mr. Tylor gives, even the higher races confound the metaphorical with the literal—if the statement in the Koran that God opened and cleansed Mahomet’s heart, originates a belief that his heart was actually taken out, washed, and replaced—if from accounts of tribes without governors, described as without heads, there has arisen among civilized people the belief that there are races of headless men; we cannot wonder if the savage, lacking knowledge and speaking a rude language, gets the idea that an ancestor named “the Tiger” was an actual tiger. From childhood upwards he hears his father’s father spoken of by this name. No one suspects he will misinterpret it: error being, indeed, a general notion the savage has scarcely reached. And there are no words serving to convey a correction, even if the need is perceived. Inevitably, then, he grows up believing that his father descended from a tiger—thinking of himself as one of the tiger stock. Everywhere the results of such mistakes meet us.

“A characteristic feature in Central Asiatic traditions,” say the Michells, “is the derivation of their origin from some animal.” According to Brooke, the Sea-Dyaks shrink superstitiously from eating certain animals; because “they suppose these animals bear a proximity to some of their forefathers, who were begotten by them or begot them.” Among the Bechuana tribes “the term Bakatla means, ‘they of the monkey;’ Bakuena, ‘they of the alligator;’ Batlápi, ‘they of the fish:’ each tribe having a superstitious dread of the animal after which it is called.” The Patagonians possess “a multiplicity of these deities; each of whom they believe to preside over one particular caste or family of Indians, of which he is supposed to have been the creator. Some make themselves of the caste of the tiger, some of the lion, some of the guanaco, and others of the ostrich.” Leaving the many illustrations supplied by other regions, we will look more nearly at those coming Edition: current; Page: [344] from North America. The tribes north of the Columbia “pretend to be derived from the musk-rat.” “All the aboriginal inhabitants of California, without exception, believe that their first ancestors were created directly from the earth of their respective present dwelling-places, and, in very many cases, that these ancestors were coyotes” [prairie-wolves]. Of the Zapotecs we read that “some, to boast of their valour, made themselves out the sons of lions and divers wild beasts.” By the Haidahs, “descent from the crows is quite gravely affirmed and steadfastly maintained.” “Among the Ahts of Vancouver Island, perhaps the commonest notion of origin is that men at first existed as birds, animals, and fishes.” The Chippewayans “derive their origin from a dog. At one time they were so strongly imbued with respect for their canine ancestry, that they entirely ceased to employ dogs in drawing their sledges.” The Koniagas “have their legendary Bird and Dog,—the latter taking the place occupied in the mythology of many other tribes by the wolf or coyote.”

In some cases, accounts are given of the transmutations. Californian Indians descending from the prairie-wolf, explain the loss of their tails: they say, “an acquired habit of sitting upright, has utterly erased and destroyed that beautiful member.” Those North Californians who ascribe their origin in part to grizzly bears, asert that in old times these walked “on their hind legs like men, and talked, and carried clubs, using the fore-limbs as men use their arms.” Even more strangely are these ideas of relationship shown by Franklin’s account of the Dog-rib Indians:—

§ 172. This last illustration introduces us to various sequences from the conception of animal-ancestry, thus arising by misinterpretation of nicknames.

Animals must think and understand as men do; for are they not derived from the same progenitors? Hence the belief of the Papagos, that in primeval days “men and beasts talked together: a common language made all brethren.” Hence the practice of the Kamschadales, who, when fishing, “entreat the whales or sea-horses not to overthrow their boats; and in hunting, beseech the bears and wolves not to hurt them.” Hence the habit of the Dacotahs, who ask snakes to be friendly; and of whom Schoolcraft says—“I have heard Indians talk and reason with a horse, the same as with a person.” Hence the notion betrayed by the negro attendants of Livingstone, who tells us—“I asked my men what the hyænas were laughing at; as they usually give animals credit for a share of intelligence. They said they were laughing because we could not take the whole [of the elephant], and that they would have plenty to eat as well as we.”

A second sequence is that animals, thus conceived as akin to men, are often treated with consideration. The Chippewas, thinking they will have to encounter in the other world the spirits of slain animals, apologized to a bear for killing him, asked forgiveness, and pretended that an American was to blame; and, similarly, the Ostyaks, after destroying a bear, cut off his head, and paying it “the profoundest respect,” tell the bear that the Russians were his murderers. Among the Kookies, “the capture of an elephant, tiger, bear, wild hog, or any savage wild beast, is followed by a feast in propitiation of its manes.” Kindred ceremonies are performed by the Stiens of Cambodia, the Sumatrans, the Dyaks, the Kaffirs, the Siamese, and even the Arabs.

Naturally, as a further sequence, there comes a special regard for the animal which gives the tribal name, and is Edition: current; Page: [346] considered a relative. As the ancestor conceived under the human form is thought able to work good or ill to his descendants, so, too, is the ancestor conceived under the brute-form. Hence “no Indian tracing his descent from the spirit mother and the grizzly . . . will kill a grizzly bear.” The Osages will not destroy the beaver: believing themselves derived from it. “A tribe never eats of the animal which is its namesake,” among the Bechuanas. Like ideas and practices occur in Australia in a less settled form. “A member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to which his kobong [animal-namesake] belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed, he always kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance of escape.” Joined with this regard for the animal-namesake considered as a relative, there goes belief in its guardianship; and hence arises the faith in omens derived from birds and quadrupeds. The ancestor under the brute form, is supposed to be solicitous for the welfare of his kindred; and tells them by signs or sounds of their danger.

§ 173. Do we not in these observances see the beginnings of a worship? If the East Africans think the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions and render them sacred; we may conclude that sacredness will equally attach to the animals whose human souls were ancestral. If the Congo people, holding this belief about lions, think “the lion spares those whom he meets, when he is courteously saluted;” the implication is that there will arise propitiations of the beast-chief who was the progenitor of the tribe. Prayers and offerings may be expected to develop into a cult, and the animal-namesake into a deity.

When, therefore, among American Indians, whose habit of naming after animals still continues, and whose legends of animal-progenitors are so specific, we find animals taking rank as creators and divinities—when we read that “ ‘raven’ and ‘wolf’ are the names of the two gods of the Thlinkeets, Edition: current; Page: [347] who are supposed to be the founders of the Indian race;” we have just the result to be anticipated. And when of this tribe we further read that “the Raven trunk is again divided into sub-clans, called the Frog, the Goose, the Sea-Lion, the Owl, and the Salmon,” while “the Wolf family comprises the Bear, Eagle, Dolphin, Shark, and Alca;” we see that apotheosis under the animal form, follows the same course as apotheosis under the human form. In either case, more recent progenitors of sub-tribes are subordinate to the ancient progenitors of the entire tribe.

Guided by these various clues we may, I think, infer that much of the developed animal-worship of the ancient historic races, grew out of this misinterpretation of nicknames. Even now, among partially-civilized peoples, the re-genesis of such worship is shown us. In Ashantee certain of the king’s attendants, whose duty it is to praise him, or “give him names,” cry out among other titles—“Bore,” (the name of a venomous serpent) “you are most beautiful, but your bite is deadly.” As these African kings ordinarily undergo apotheosis—as this laudatory title “Bore,” may be expected to survive in tradition along with other titles, and to be used in propitiations—as the Zulus, who, led by another suggestion, think dead men become snakes, distinguish certain venomous snakes as chiefs; we must admit that from this complimentary nickname of a king who became a god, may naturally grow up the worship of a serpent: a serpent who, nevertheless, had a human history. Similarly when we ask what is likely to happen from the animal-name by which the king is honoured in Madagascar. “God is gone to the west—Radama is a mighty bull,” were expressions used by the Malagasy women in their songs in praise of their king, who was absent on a warlike expedition. Here we have the three titles simultaneously applied—the god, the king, the bull. If, then, the like occurred in ancient Egypt—if the same papyrus which shows us Rameses II invoking his divine ancestor, also contains the title “conquering bull,” Edition: current; Page: [348] given to Rameses by the subjugated—if we find another Egyptian king called “a resolute Bull, he went forward, being a Bull king, a god manifest the day of combats;” can we doubt that from like occurrences in earlier times arose the worship of Apis? Can we doubt that Osiris-Apis was an ancient hero-king, who became a god, when, according to Brugsch, the Step-pyramid, built during the first dynasty, “concealed the bleached bones of bulls and the inscriptions chiselled in the stone relating to the royal names of the Apis,” and, as he infers, “was a common sepulchre of the holy bulls:” re-incarnations of this apotheosized hero-king? Can we doubt that the bovine deities of the Hindus and Assyrians similarly originated?

So that misinterpretations of metaphorical titles, which inevitably occur in early speech, being given, the rise of animal-worship is a natural sequence. Mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, all yield nicknames; are all in one place or other regarded as progenitors; all acquire, among this or that people, a sacredness rising in many cases to adoration. Even where the nickname is one of reproach—even where the creature is of a kind to inspire contempt rather than respect, we see that identification with the ancestor explains worship of it. The Veddahs, who are predominantly ancestor-worshippers, also worship a tortoise. Though among them the reason is not traceable, we find an indication of it elsewhere. Mr. Bates, during his Amazon explorations, had two attendants surnamed Tortoise; and their surname had descended to them from a father whose slowness had suggested this nickname. Here we see the first step towards the formation of a tortoise tribe; having the tortoise for ancestor, totem, deity.

§ 174. Some strange facts, completely explicable on the hypothesis above set forth, may be added. I refer to the worship of beings represented as half man half brute.

If, in the genealogy of future Ashantee kings, tradition Edition: current; Page: [349] preserves the statement that their ancestor was the venomous serpent “Bore”—if there goes down to posterity the fact that “Bore” was a ruler, a law-maker, an articulate speaking person—if legend says both that he was a snake and that he was a man; what is likely to happen? Implicitly believing his seniors, the savage will accept both these assertions. In some cases he will sit down contentedly under the contradiction; in others he will attempt a compromise. Especially if he makes a graphic or sculptured effigy, will he be led to unite the incongruous characters as best he can—will produce a figure partly human, partly reptilian. It may be reasonably anticipated that if Malagasy stories and songs tell of the conquering Radama as “a mighty bull,” as a king, as a god, development of the resulting cult, joined with development of the plastic arts, will end in a representation of the god Radama either as a man, or as a bull, or as a bull-headed man, or as a creature having a bovine body with a human head.

In another manner does misinterpretation of metaphors suggest this type of deity. Ancestors who survive in legends under their animal-names, and of whom the legends also say that they took to wife certain ancestors bearing either different animal-names or human names, will be supposed to have had offspring combining the attributes of both parents. A passage from Bancroft’s account of the Aleutians shows us the initial stage of such a belief.

Now such a legend, or such a one as that of the Quichés concerning the descent of mankind from a cave-dwelling woman and a dog who could transform himself into a handsome Edition: current; Page: [350] youth, or such a one as that of the Dikokamenni Kirghiz, who say they are descended “from a red greyhound and a certain queen with her forty handmaidens,” can hardly fail to initiate ideas of compound gods. Peoples who advance far enough to develop their rude effigies of ancestors placed on graves, into idols inclosed in temples, will, if they have traditions of this kind, be likely to represent the creators of their tribes as dog-headed men or human-faced dogs.

In these two allied ways, then, the hybrid deities of semi-civilized peoples are explicable. The Chaldeans and Babylonians had in common their god Nergal, the winged man-lion, and also Nin, the fish-god—a fish out of which grew near its head a human head, and near its tail human feet. The adjacent Philistines, too, had their kindred god Dagon, shown with the face and hands of a man and the tail of a fish. Then in Assyria there was the winged man-bull, representative of Nin; and in Phœnicia there was Astarte, sometimes represented as partially human and partially bovine. Egypt had a great variety of these compound supernatural beings. In addition to the god Ammon, figured as a man with a ram’s head, Horus, with the head of a hawk, the goddesses Muth and Hathor with that of a lion and that of a cow, Thoth with that of an ibis, Typhon with that of an ass, and brute-headed demons too numerous to mention; we have the various sphinxes, which to a lion’s body unite the heads of men, of rams, of hawks, of snakes, etc. We have also more involved compounds; as winged mammals with hawks’ heads, and winged crocodiles with hawks’ heads. Nay, there was one named Sak, which, says Wilkinson, “united a bird, a quadruped, and a vegetable production in its own person.” The explanation is evident. We have seen that to the late king of Ashantee both “Lion” and “Snake” were given as names of honour; and the multiplication of names of honour was carried to a great extent by the Egyptians.

§ 175. To abridge what remains of this exposition, I will merely indicate the additional groups of supporting facts.

The Egyptians, whose customs were so persistent and whose ancestor-worship was so elaborate, show us, just where we might expect them, all the results of this misinterpretation. They had clans whose sacred animals differed, and who regarded each other’s sacred animals with abhorrence: a fact pointing to an early stage when these animals gave the names to chiefs of antagonistic tribes. Animal-naming continued down to late periods in their history: after their kings had human proper names, they still had animal-names joined with these. The names of some of their sacred animals were identical with those given in honour. They embalmed animals as they embalmed men. They had animal-gods; they had many kinds of hybrid gods.

Where we find most dominant the practice of naming after animals, and where there result these legends of descent from animals and regard for them as divinities, we also find developed to the greatest extent, the legends about animal-agency in human affairs. As Bancroft says concerning the Indians of the Pacific States—“Beasts and birds and fishes fetch and carry, talk and act, in a way that leaves even Æsop’s heroes in the shade.” Numerous such facts answer to the hypothesis.

The hypothesis explains, also, the cases in which the order of genesis is inverted. “The Salish, the Nisquallies, and the Yakimas . . . all hold that beasts, fishes, and even edible roots are descended from human originals.” Clearly this is a conception which the misinterpretation of nicknames may originate. If “the Bear” was the founder of a tribe whose deeds were preserved in tradition, the alternative interpretations might be that he was the bear from whom men descended, or that he was the man from whom bears descended. Many of the metamorphoses of classic mythology probably thus originated, when the human antecedents, Edition: current; Page: [352] either of parentage or adventures, were so distinct as to negative the opposite view.

Of course the doctrine of metempsychosis becomes comprehensible; and its developments no longer look so grotesque. Where a man who had several animal-names was spoken of in this legend as the eagle and in that as the wolf, there would result the idea that he was now one and now the other; and from this suggestion, unchecked credulity might not unnaturally elaborate the belief in successive transformations.

Stories of women who have borne animals, similarly fall into their places. The Land-Dyaks of Lundu consider it wrong to kill the cobra, because “one of their female ancestors was pregnant for seven years, and ultimately brought forth twins—one a human being, the other a cobra.” The Batavians “believe that women, when they are delivered of a child, are frequently at the same time delivered of a young crocodile as a twin.” May we not conclude that twins of whom one gained the nickname of the crocodile, gave rise to a legend which originated this monstrous belief?

If the use of animal-names preceded the use of human proper names—if, when there arose such proper names, these did not at first displace the animal-names but were joined with them—if, at a still later stage, animal-names fell into disuse and the conventional surnames became predominant; then it seems inferable that the brute-god arises first, that the god half-brute and half-human belongs to a later stage, and that the anthropomorphic god comes latest. Amid the entanglements due to the mixtures of mythologies, it is difficult to show this; but there seems reason for suspecting that it has been so among peoples who originally practised animal-naming extensively.

§ 176. We conclude, then, that in three ways is the primitive man led to identify the animal with the ancestor.

The other-self of the dead relative is supposed to come Edition: current; Page: [353] back occasionally to his old abode; how else is it possible for the survivors, sleeping there, to see him in their dreams? Here are creatures which commonly, unlike wild creatures in general, come into houses—come in, too, secretly in the night. The implication is clear. That snakes, which especially do this, are the returned dead, is inferred by peoples in Africa, Asia, and America: the haunting of houses being the common trait of the kinds of snakes reverenced or worshipped; and also the trait of certain lizards, insects, and birds similarly regarded.

The ghost, sometimes re-visiting the house, is thought also to linger in the neighbourhood of the corpse. Creatures found in caves used for burials, hence come to be taken for the new shapes assumed by departed souls. Bats and owls are conceived to be winged spirits; and from them arise the ideas of devils and angels.

Lastly, and chiefly, comes that identification of the animal with the ancestor, which is caused by interpreting metaphorical names literally. Primitive speech is unable to transmit to posterity the distinction between an animal and a person named after that animal. Hence the confusion of the two; hence the regard for the animal as progenitor; hence the growth of a worship. Besides explaining animal-gods, this hypothesis accounts for sundry anomalous beliefs—the divinities half-brute, half-human; the animals that talk, and play active parts in human affairs; the doctrine of metempsychosis, etc.

By modification upon modification, leading to complications and divergences without limit, evolution brings into being products extremely unlike their germs; and we here have an instance in this derivation of animal-worship from the propitiation of ghosts.