APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A: FURTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF PRIMITIVE THOUGHT.

Primitive Credulity.—In the genesis of superstitions, a factor difficult to appreciate sufficiently, is the unquestioning faith with which statements are accepted. Here are some cases.

Of the Coast Negroes, Winterbottom says (vol. i, p. 255)—

Laird and Oldfield tell us of the Inland Negroes (vol. ii, pp. 10, 11), that a Nuffi woman—

To this absolute confidence in dogmas impressed by seniors during early life, must be ascribed the readiness with which attendants, Edition: current; Page: [778] wives, and even friends, kill themselves at a funeral that they may join the deceased in the other world. The instance named by Bancroft (vol. i, p. 288) of the Walla Walla chieftain who “caused himself to be buried alive in the grave with the last of his five sons,” reminding us of the Fijians and Tannese who go cheerfully to their voluntary deaths, vividly illustrates this trait which makes monstrous creeds possible.

No evidence shakes such beliefs. Disproofs are evaded by asserting beliefs equally absurd. Speaking of a distant stump mistaken for a man, an Australian said to Mr. Cameron—“That fellow was a gumatch [ghost], only when you came up he made himself like a stump” (Anthropol. Inst. Jour., vol. xiv, p. 363).

Natural Illusions.—In § 53, I argued that these probably aid in strengthening those conceptions of things which the primitive man forms. How they thus play a part is shown in Vámbéry’s Sketches of Central Asia, pp. 72, 73:—

This account recalls the descriptions given by the uncultured among ourselves of the northern aurora: similarly showing, as it does, that an excited imagination gives definiteness to indefinite forms; for it does not seem possible that in the remote regions indicated by Vámbéry, there can have been any such thing as a Fata Morgana derived from an actual city. Among ourselves, especially in troubled times, unusual displays of the Aurora Borealis are described by superstitious people as the conflicts of armies in the heavens.

Not only has hypothesis an effect conspicuous to all in perverting judgment, but it has an effect, less manifest but still decided, in perverting perception. Elsewhere I have given examples of this effect (Essays, first series, original edition, p. 412), and doubtless they have been observed by many. If hypothesis thus perturbs perception during states of mental calm, still more does it perturb it during states of mental excitement—especially those produced by fear. The faintest suggestion proceeding either from within or from without, then imposes Edition: current; Page: [779] itself so strongly on the mind that true perception becomes scarcely possible. It needs but to remember that recognition of a thing as such or such, is a mental act in which imagination always plays a large part, by adding to the mere visual impressions those many ideas which constitute a conception of the thing giving the impressions, to see that when, in a state of fright, imagination is put on a wrong track, association readily furnishes all those attributes which are needful to fill up the framework which the appearance yields; and consciousness once filled with the alarming conception, can with difficulty be brought back to that relatively passive state required for receiving the actual impressions, and rightly interpreting them.

Hence where there exists that primitive credulity exemplified above, the rectifying of a perception thus distorted by imagination cannot be expected. Minds having those traits set forth in the chapter entitled “The Primitive Man, Intellectual”—minds which have had no culture giving them tendencies towards criticism and scepticism—minds which have no notion of a natural order of law, of cause; are minds which can make no resistance to any suggested idea or interpretation. There is no organized experience to produce hesitation. There is no doubt taking the shape—“This cannot be,” or—“That is impossible.” Consequently, a fancy once having got possession, retains possession, and becomes an accepted fact. If we always carry with us the remembrance of this attitude of mind, we shall see how apparently reasonable to savages are explanations of things which they make.

Some Early Interpretations.—If we set out with the truth that the laws of mind are the same throughout the animal kingdom, we shall see that from the behaviour of animals in presence of unfamiliar phenomena, we may obtain some clue to the interpretations which primitive men make of such phenomena. A brute, even of great power and courage, betrays alarm in presence of a moving object the like of which it has never seen before. The assertion that a tiger has been known to show fear of a mouse in his cage, is made more credible than it would else be by watching a dog when there is placed before him some such creature as a small crab. Dread of the unknown appears to be a universal emotion—even when the unknown is not at all portentous in character.

Stranger and enemy are almost synonymous in the minds of brutes and of primitive men. By inherited effects of experiences the connexion of ideas has been made organic; as an infant in arms shows us when an unfamiliar face makes it cry, though in its own life no evil has ever followed the sight of an unfamiliar face. While “familiarity breeds contempt” even of Edition: current; Page: [780] the vast or of the powerful, unusualness breeds fear even of that which is relatively small or feeble.

On the one hand, then, a periodic event which is intrinsically very imposing, excites but little attention if no mischief has ever been joined with it; while, on the other hand, an event not intrinsically imposing, if it has never before been witnessed, and especially if it seems to show the spontaneity indicative of life, arouses a sense of insecurity. As was shown in Chapter XI of Part I, it is by the spontaneity of their acts that living objects are conspicuously distinguished from dead objects; and hence this trait becomes the sign of an ability to do various things besides that which is witnessed—to do, therefore, something which may prove injurious or fatal.

Carrying with us this conception of the attitude common to animal intelligence and uninstructed human intelligence, we shall see why certain regularly recurring phenomena of an astonishing kind, such as the daily appearance and disappearance of the Sun, excite in the primitive man neither surprise nor speculation; at the same time that a phenomenon which unexpectedly breaks the ordinary course of things by a sound or motion, produces dismay, followed by some vague suggestion of an agent: the agent thought of being one having some likeness to agents disclosed by past experiences. Hence the tendency to ascribe any irregularly recurring phenomenon to a living creature (the actions of living creatures being irregular), and, primarily, to a living creature differing in the least degree possible from living creatures of known kinds. Observe some samples of these early interpretations. Of a place in the Chippeway country, Catlin says—

Of an allied race, the Ojibways, we read:—

So, too, concerning the Western Indians of North America, Mr. H. A. Boller tells us that his companion, “the Bob-tail-Wolf”—

By a distant unallied people, the Karens, the cause of storms is said to be an animal “with bat-like wings.” “When it utters its voice, it thunders, and when it flaps its wings, fire is produced, and it lightens.” (Mason, Jour. Asiatic Socy. Bengal, xxxiv, Part 2, p. 217.)

Now a thunderstorm being one of those incidents characterized by an apparent spontaneity suggestive of living agency, the question which naturally arises is—“What is the living agent?” The sky is the region in which this sudden action is witnessed. The living agent is therefore inferred to be some creature which frequents the sky—a flying creature, bird-like or bat-like. Here let us note two things. First there is formed in the mind a simple association between this incident which by its character suggests living agency, and a living agent such as is commonly seen in the neighbourhood of its occurrence. Second, the conceived agent is not of the kind we call supernatural—does not belong to a supposed spiritual world; but is a purely natural agent. And the obvious course of thought is one that brings the actions observed into the same category with the actions of the living creatures supposed to be instrumental: wind being ascribed to the flapping of wings, sound to this cause or to a voice, and lightning to the flashing of eyes.

In a different though allied class, stand the interpretations of eclipses. Among uncultured peoples, animals are generally the assigned agents; and though they are not flying animals, yet they are animals supposed to be in the heavens. Remembering that various savages, as instance the Esquimaux, believe beasts as well as men have access to the sky from the mountain-tops—remembering the Cahroc story given in § 189, of the coyote who thus got among the stars; we may see how it happens that when imagining some living agent which produces this sudden change in the Sun by taking out a piece from his side, savages should think of a beast as the cause. Naturally enough “the Esthonians say the sun or moon ‘is being eaten’ ” (Grimm, Teutonic Myth., vol. ii, p. 707); since the being eaten accounts alike for the gradual disappearance, and for the sharp outline of the increasing gap made. We find kindred interpretations in many places. By the Guaranis “eclipses were held to be occasioned by a jaguar and a great dog, who pursued the sun and moon to devour them” (Southey, History of Brazil, vol. ii, pp. 371-2). The Norse mythology tells of “Mânagarmr (moon-dog);” and on the occasion of an eclipse the Norse “fancied the monster had already got a part of the shining orb between his jaws” (Grimm, Teutonic Myth., vol. ii, p. 706). We read of the remote Chiquitos of South America, that “during an eclipse [of the moon] they shoot arrows upward, and cry aloud to drive away the dogs, who, they believe, hunt her through Edition: current; Page: [782] heaven; and when they overtake her, the darkness of the orb is caused by the blood which runs from her wounds” (Southey, History of Brazil, vol. i, p. 335). Evidently, then, this explanation arises naturally in primitive minds. The kindred, and yet different, explanation of the Nootka-Sound people, who, on the occasion of an eclipse “pointed to the moon, and said that a great cod-fish was endeavouring to swallow her” (Jewitt, Narrative of Captivity among the Savages of Nootka Sound, p. 165), and the similar belief current among the Arabs, that a huge fish pursues the planet which is eclipsed (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 106), may possibly result from the conception of waters above the firmament in which great fish reside. But, in any case, we see in these interpretations, as in those of thunderstorms, that there is as near an assimilation as may be to the natural actions of natural agents. There is neither any thought of a deity as the cause, nor of anything to be classed as spiritual power.

Take next the interpretations given in different places of earthquakes. Kæmpfer says the Japanese “are of opinion, that the cause of earthquakes is a huge whale’s creeping underground” (History of Japan, Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. vii, pp. 684-5). Now whether or not it is true that, as Dr. Tylor suggests, the finding of large fossil bones, implying the occasional presence of great animals underground, led to this interpretation, and similarly in Siberia, led to the interpretation of earthquakes as due to motions of underground mammoths—creatures whose bones, and even undecayed bodies, are found imbedded in ice below the surface; it is clear that the same mode of thought is exhibited. This sudden and seemingly-spontaneous motion of the Earth is ascribed to an agent of the class which habitually exhibits sudden spontaneous motions—an animal. And the question—What animal? being raised, the conclusion is that it must be an animal which exists down below. Explanations elsewhere given betray like trains of ideas. Bancroft says “the Southern Californians believed that when the Creator made the world he fixed it on the back of seven giants, whose movements . . . cause earthquakes” (Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. iii, p. 122). As given by John Bell, a conception of the Lamas was that the Earth rests on a golden frog; “and whenever this prodigious frog had occasion to scratch its head, or stretch out its foot, that part of the earth immediately above was shaken” (A Journey from St. Petersburgh to Pekin in the year 1719. Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. vii, p. 369). So, too, by the Norse belief that earthquakes are caused “by the struggles of chained Loki” (Grimm, Teutonic Myth., vol. ii, p. 816); as well as by the Fijian belief that when Dengeh “turns about or trembles in his cave the Edition: current; Page: [783] earth shakes and quakes exceedingly” (Lolóma, or Two Years in Cannibal-land, by H. Britton, p. 195-6); we are shown that the hypothesis is of the naturalistic class rather than of the supernaturalistic class. The effect is ascribed to a living agent conceived as existing where the effect is produced, and operating after the same mechanical manner with known living agents. The only case I have met with in which agency of this kind is not assigned, serves still better to show that the phenomenon is classed with known natural phenomena. Concerning the Esquimaux interpretation of earthquakes, Crantz says—“they imagine that the globe of the earth rests upon pillars, which are now mouldering away by age, so that they frequently crack” (History of Greenland, i, 211).

From earthquakes we may pass to volcanic eruptions without finding any wider divergence from this form of explanation than is to be expected from the nature of the appearances. Two low races, remote in habitat and type, yield illustrations. In North America “the Koniagas, for example, held that the craters of Alaska were inhabited by beings mightier than men, and that these sent forth fire and smoke when they heated their sweat-houses, or cooked their food” (Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. iii, p. 122). And among the aborigines of Western Australia, it is a tradition that “ ‘once on a time, the In-gnas, who live underground, being very sulky, to spite the poor black fellows, who seemed to have the good-will of no one, made great fires and threw up red-hot stones, fire, etc., and thus burned the whole of that country’ ” (The Aborigines of Australia. A. Oldfield, in Tr. Eth. Socy., N.S., vol. iii, p. 232). The only noteworthy unlikeness here, is that beings of the human type are assumed: probably for the reason that they are the only known kinds of beings who can produce fire or make use of it.

For collecting together these interpretations of thunderstorms, eclipses, earthquakes, and eruptions, my motive has been to show that in primitive thought, events which are of irregular occurrence, and by this, as well as by their apparent spontaneity, suggests living agents, are ascribed to living agents deviating as little from ordinary ones as may be; and are devoid of anything like religious idea or sentiment. The beliefs held concerning these events yield no sign of that Nature-worship supposed to be innate in the uncivilized; though the portentousness of the events might be expected to arouse it, did it exist. Nor do they betray the conception of one or many invisible powers of the kind called supernatural among advanced peoples. Though we carelessly group together all absurd ideas of savages under the general name of superstitions, yet, as we here see, there is a significant distinction between these which show no recognition Edition: current; Page: [784] of alleged spiritual beings and those in which such recognition is shown. But now, how does there result transition from the one to the other? Some interpretations of intermediate kinds will prepare the way for an answer.

The ancient Peruvians fancied Thunder “to bee a man in heaven, with a sling and a mace, and that it is in his power to cause raine, haile, thunder” (Jos. de Acosta, vol. ii, p. 304). In Samoa “the chiefs were supposed to go to the heavens and send down lightning, thunder, and rain” (Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, p. 277). And describing the beliefs of the Veddahs (whose gods are the ghosts of relatives), Bailey writes:—“Of thunder they say ‘a spirit or a god has cried out’ ” (Trans. Eth. Socy. Lon., N.S., ii, p. 302, and note §). In these cases, then, the living agent conceived is a man who either retains in the heavens his original character, or is in some way transfigured. Concerning eclipses we read that “the Tlascaltecs, regarding the sun and the moon as husband and wife, believed eclipses to be domestic quarrels” (Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. iii, p. 111). Marsden says of the Sumatrans, that “during an eclipse they made a loud noise with sounding instruments, to prevent one luminary from devouring the other” (History of Sumatra, p. 194). And then among the Polynesians, “some imagined that on an eclipse, the sun and moon were swallowed by the god which they had by neglect offended. Liberal presents were offered, which were supposed to induce the god to abate his anger, and eject the luminaries of day and night from his stomach” (Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1859, vol. i, pp. 331-2).

Here then, while the appearances are explained as caused by unknown human beings acting in ways allied to those of known living beings, we have, in the introduction here of a transfigured man, and there of a god, as instrumental, a recourse to explanations no longer of the purely natural kind.

Whence comes this new order of supposed beings? How does there arise in men’s minds the idea of a species of animate power unlike the animate powers they see around them in beasts and men? What originates the conception of this supernatural agency which, once adopted, develops so largely as nearly to exclude all other agencies? There is a simple answer. By transition from the dream to the ghost, and from the ghost to the god, there is reached a conceived kind of cause capable of indefinite expansion and admitting of all adjustments; and hence serving for explanations of every kind.

Confusion of Dreams with Realities during Childhood.—Occasionally we hear it remarked of dreams that their seeming actuality affected the feelings for some time after awaking: an Edition: current; Page: [785] impression like that, say, of escape from real danger, continuing after recognition of the fact that the danger was ideal. The tendency of an extremely vivid dream thus to generate an emotion such as accompanies reality, is one factor in producing belief in its reality. I have lately met with striking proofs of this. In a company of less than a dozen persons, three testified to having in childhood had such vivid dreams of flying down stairs, and being impressed so strongly with the experiences as real, that they actually tried to fly down stairs; and one of them suffered from an injured ankle consequent on the attempt.

On writing subsequently to the lady in whose family these statements were made, to verify my recollections of them, she gave me a story which one of her daughters had subsequently narrated, showing how literally this daughter had accepted her visions in childhood. Brought up amid much talk about animals, she, on one occasion, dreamed that a gorilla, who lived near at hand, gave her something; and, she added—“When I walked up the lane, I used to wonder where the gorilla lived.”

Now if dream-experiences and waking experiences are thus confounded by the children of the civilized, notwithstanding the discriminations which they have heard made by adults, and notwithstanding the conception that has been given to them of mind as an indwelling entity distinct from body; it is obvious that primitive men, lacking this theory of mind, lacking words in which to express many perceivable distinctions, and lacking, too, instruction from the more cultivated, will inevitably confuse dream-thoughts and the thoughts of the waking state. Hence on reading of savages, as for instance the Kamschadales, that the ideas of sleeping and waking life are apt to be confounded by them, we shall see that, so far from being anomalous, a confounding of them to a greater or less extent is at first inevitable.

Especially shall we see no difficulty in recognizing the interpretations of primitive conceptions thus yielded, when we remember that even still, in some of the educated among ourselves, there survives a belief in the reality of beings seen in dreams; and that at the present moment there exists a group of highly-cultivated men having for one of their objects to collect the narratives of supernatural visitations during sleep.

Dreams as literally accepted by Savages.—Already in §§ 70, 71, I have variously illustrated the truth that adults among savages, like many children among ourselves, regard as real the adventures gone through, and persons seen, in dreams. The Zulus furnished sundry instances, which will be recalled by this additional one:—

And I may add another somewhat different in kind furnished by the mythology of the Mangaians. They say that “Vātea, the father of gods and men . . . in his dreams several times saw a beautiful woman. On one happy occasion he succeeded in clutching her in his sleep, and thus detained the fair sprite as his wife” (W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs, &c., pp. 3, 7). But among the most specific and instructive facts exhibiting these primitive conceptions, are those recently given by Mr. Everard F. Im Thurn, concerning the Indians of British Guiana. I quote from the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xi:—

Experiences of this kind led Mr. Im Thurn to the conclusion expressed in another paragraph, that “the dreams which come in sleep to the Indian are to him as real as any of the events of his waking life.” (p. 364.)

Waking Visions.—In illustration of these, and the acceptance of them as real by the Guiana Indians, Mr. Im Thurn writes, in the above-named paper in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, as follows:—

Respecting phenomena of this kind. Mr. Im Thurn says of the Indian that “visions are to him, when awake, what dreams are to him when asleep; and the creatures of his visions seem in no way different from those of his dreams.” (p. 365.) And he then contrasts visions of two kinds:—

These last, which he distinguishes as artificial visions, he remarks are “much more frequent in Indian life, especially in one particular connection—the peaiman, or medicine man, the priest, doctor, sorcerer, and prophet of Indian society.” (p. 366.)

Waking Visions among the Civilized.—How naturally savages, accepting as real their visions during sleep, may be misled by waking visions, will be made clear by reading accounts of illusions which occur during abnormal nervous excitements among ourselves. In support of the interpretations given in the first part of this work, I received, in 1877, an account of his experiences from Mr. F. G. Fleay, the Shakspearean scholar. He kindly allows me to publish them; which I do after making some abridgments:—

The part which mere coincidence plays in causing apparent supernatural agency is far greater than is supposed. The instance given above by Mr. Fleay, which he thus accounts for, Edition: current; Page: [789] is less remarkable than two perfectly natural coincidences, and quite meaningless ones, which have occurred within my own personal experience.

Wandering of the Soul during Life.—Such illusions as those above described, which, among cultured peoples, are now regarded as subjective, are naturally, by the primitive man, regarded as objective: his interpretation of them being that they are things seen and done by his soul when it leaves his body while he is awake. Says Mr. Im Thurn respecting such illusions among the Guiana Indians—“Not only in death and in dreams, but in yet a third way the Indian sees the spirit separate from the body.” (p. 365.) The following extracts show among other peoples, partially-different forms of this primitive belief:—

Among the Hervey Islanders—

The belief held by the Karens is that—

By the Samoans—

Concerning the Andamanese we read:—

Death and Re-Animation.—Placed in the foregoing order, the extracts show the natural transition from the belief that the soul wanders away in dreams and during waking hours, to the belief that at death it takes its departure for a longer period, but will eventually come back. In his account of the Guiana Indians, Mr. Im Thurn recognizes this connexion of ideas. He says—

How little the state after death is supposed to differ from the state during life, is shown by the extent to which bodily comforts are cared for. Many instances were given in Part I, and here are some further instructive ones. In his elaborate work on the Australians, Mr. Brough Smyth quotes Senior Constable James concerning the Dieyerie tribe, as follows:—

Mr. Smyth precedes this by another case. He gives it on the authority of Mr. W. H. Wright to the effect that a native having been buried with the usual implements and comforts, his friends came back to the spot after “a great storm of wind and rain” and dug up “that poor fellow ‘Georgey,’ ” because he “was too much cold and wet and miserable where he was buried.” They exhumed the body, “wrapped an additional blanket and comforter round it,” and “placed it in a hollow tree.” (Ibid., i, 108.)

Similar ideas are implied by certain customs in Humphrey’s Island, as described by Turner.

Among the Coreans, too, there is an observance betraying a like belief that the dead retain their senses and desires.

And similar in their implications are sundry of the other funeral ceremonies, which Ross describes thus:—

With these may fitly be named the observances by which the ancient Scythians betrayed a kindred conception.

Reviving Corpses.—Of course as a sequence of the belief that death is a suspended animation, there naturally goes the belief that buried persons are from time to time resuscitated. The Eyrbyggja-Saga shows that among our Scandinavian kinsmen there prevailed the primitive notion that the material body, reanimated by its wandering double, can leave its burial-place and work mischief. Here is a note appended to the abstract of the Saga, compiled by Sir W. Scott. (Mallet, Northern Antiquities, 1847, pp. 530-1.)

Noting the implied belief, like that which we have found prevalent among the savage and semi-civilized, that destruction of the body prevents this kind of resurrection, we may also note the implied belief, illustrated in other cases, that one who gets part of a dead body thereby gets power over the deceased person; for if destruction of the whole paralyzes the ghost entirely, injury of a part must be detrimental to the ghost.

The Vampire-stories of the Russians illustrate the same belief in excursions made by the corpse. Here is one:—

Sorcery.—The relation of the foregoing beliefs to those practices by which magicians are supposed to raise the dead and control demons, was suggested in § 133. Further proofs that the more developed forms of sorcery thus originate, have since come to me. The following passage from Sir George Grey’s Polynesian Mythology, pp. 114-5, implies the anxiety of a son to rescue relics of his father from enchanters.

From pp. 34-5 of the same work, I quote another passage, similarly implying the power which possession of a relic gives:—

When with these, and other such illustrations given in § 133, we join the fact that even still in Italy the people tell of the child that is “kidnapped and buried up to the chin, while the witches torment him to death to make hell-broth of his liver” (Fortnightly Review, Feb., 1874, p. 220), we cannot doubt the origin of necromancy. Starting with the primitive belief that the spirit of the living person, inhering in all parts of his body, Edition: current; Page: [793] is affected by acting on a detached part of it, there is reached the belief that the spirit of the dead person is similarly affected by maltreating a relic; and with this goes the belief that all parts of the body will eventually be needed by the deceased, and that therefore his spirit can be commanded by one who has any part.

Evidence even more strongly confirming this view is contained in Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, by Dr. Henry Rink. The following extracts I place in an order which shows their bearings:—

Here we have the three concurrent ideas—effect on the ghost by action on the body belonging to it; protection against the ghost by incorporating part of the body, and so establishing community; and coercion of the ghost by treating part of the body injuriously.

That in the higher forms of sorcery the medicine-man, now more properly to be regarded as a priest, is supposed to get knowledge and work miraculous effects by the help of a superior spirit, might be illustrated by many cases besides those given in the text. Here is one concerning the people of Mangaia.

Sacred Places, Temples, &c.—Further illustrations of the genesis of these are yielded by the following extracts.

Among the Blantyre negroes the deceased’s house becomes his temple.

Concerning the inhabitants of the Corea, we read:—

In Humphrey’s Island—

Immolations and Sacrifices at Graves.—The instances given in § 104, showing that the motive for sacrificing wives at funerals among existing barbarous peoples, is that they may accompany their dead husbands to the other world, prove how erroneous have been the interpretations given by Europeans of suttee among the Hindus: one of the statements being that it was adopted as a remedy for the practice of poisoning their husbands, which had become common among Hindu women (!). If there needs a further illustration of the origin of wife-sacrifice, here is one.

That human victims are immolated at the tombs of great men, as well as at the altars of gods, and, indeed, sometimes on a far more extensive scale, is proved in the case of Hamilkar.

How the primitive practice of sacrificing animals at graves sometimes revives after having died out, and how it then forms Edition: current; Page: [795] part of a worship of the dead person, is exemplified among Christians by the case of St. Agnes.

Nor is this case occurring among Catholics without parallel among Protestants. Here are cases from Wales and from Scotland:—

Demons and Demon-worship.—At the outset, the ghost-theory gives origin to beliefs in ghosts that are friendly and ghosts that are malicious; of which the last, usually not ancestral, are feared more than the first, and often in a greater degree propitiated. Good illustrations occur in an essay by Mr. M. J. Walhouse, on the belief in Bhūtas among the people in Western India. Here are some extracts.

Of like nature are the beliefs of the Kanjars, as narrated in a pamphlet which Sir Alfred Lyall has been kind enough to forward me from India.

And in Africa there are propitiations of demons obviously in like manner conceived as the ghosts of the malicious dead. Cameron tells us that while cruising on Lake Tanganyika, they passed a haunted headland, whereupon—

Worshipped Ghosts of Robbers in India.—Writing under date, August 1, 1884, from the N.W. Provinces of India, Sir Alfred Lyall has obliged me with some instructive instances of apotheosis in India. He says—“I enclose you herewith part of a memo. upon the religious practices of the Doms or Domras, who live on the edge of the forests under the Himalayas, and who are the most utterly degraded and irreclaimable tribe, or relic of a tribe, in all these parts. You will observe that they propitiate ghosts and worship notable thieves of bygone days, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that this practice is characteristic of all the lowest and most barbarous Indian societies.” The memorandum he encloses, from the magistrate of Gorakhpur, is as follows:—

Worship of Beneficent Spirits—Ancestors and others.—Here Edition: current; Page: [798] are examples furnished by five unallied races. The first concerns the Laplanders.

In an early account of an African people, the Quoians, we find illustrations of their necrolatry. Saying that the Quoians believe the spirits of the dead to be omniscient, and that they make offerings of rice or wine at their graves, we are told that they “hold familiar colloquies with them, telling them all troubles and adversities under which they labour. . . . The King calls upon the souls of his father and mother almost in every matter of difficulty.” (O. Dapper, Africa, by J. Ogilby, 1670, pp. 402-4.)

Concerning the Kanjars we read:—

That this god Máná was originally a man, as he is said to have been by the Kanjars, cannot well be doubted when we find cases in India of historical persons being deified, not by these inferior races only, but by the Aryans. Premising that the Portuguese were extremely cruel to the Hindus during the time that they had a monopoly of the trade in India, Hunter tells us that—

Russia, too, supplies us with an instance of kindred nature, in so far as that the worship is of an historical personage, who was reverenced during his life.

Genesis of New Cults among Hindus.—Along with the account of robber-worship among the Domras given above, Sir Alfred Lyall transmitted, from the same source, the following:—

These statements harmonize entirely with those given by Sir Alfred Lyall himself in his Asiatic Studies. To the instances he names, he adds the remark—

Fetichism.—I believe M. Comte expressed the opinion that fetichistic conceptions are formed by the higher animals. Holding, for reasons already given, that fetichism is not original but derived, I cannot, of course, coincide in this view. Nevertheless, the behaviour of intelligent animals elucidates the Edition: current; Page: [800] genesis of it. I have myself witnessed in dogs two illustrative actions.

One of these was that of a formidable beast, half mastiff, half blood-hound, belonging to friends of mine. While playing on the lawn with a walking-stick, which he had seized by the lower end, it happened that in his gambols he thrust the handle against the ground: the result being that the end he had in his mouth was forced against his palate. Giving a yelp, he droppod the stick, rushed to some distance from it, and betrayed a consternation which was particularly laughable in so large and ferocious-looking a creature. Only after cautious approaches and much hesitation was he induced again to pick it up. This behaviour showed very clearly that the stick, while displaying none but properties he was familiar with, was not regarded by him as an active agent; but when it suddenly inflicted a pain in a way never before experienced from an inanimate object, he was led for the moment to class it with animate objects, and to regard it as capable of again doing him injury. Similarly to the mind of the primitive man, the anomalous behaviour of an object previously classed as inanimate, suggests animation. The idea of voluntary action is made nascent; and there arises a tendency to regard the object with alarm lest it should act in some other unexpected and perhaps mischievous way. Obviously the vague notion of animation thus aroused, becomes a more definite notion as fast as development of the ghost-theory furnishes a specific agency to which the anomalous behaviour can be ascribed.

A very intelligent and good-tempered retriever, much petted in the house of certain other friends, had a habit which yields the second hint I have alluded to. On meeting in the morning one with whom she was on friendly terms, she joined with the usual wagging of the tail, an unusual kind of salute, made by drawing apart the lips so as to produce a sort of smile or grin; and she then, if out of doors, proceeded to make a further demonstration of loyalty. Being by her duties as a retriever led to associate the fetching of game with the pleasing of the person to whom she brought it, this had become in her mind an act of propitiation; and so, after wagging her tail and grinning, she would perform this act of propitiation as nearly as was practicable in the absence of a dead bird. Seeking about, she would pick up a dead leaf, a bit of paper, a twig, or other small object, and would bring it with renewed manifestations of friendliness. Some kindred state of mind it is which, I believe, prompts the savage to certain fetichistic observances. Occasionally, when seeking supernatural aid, the savage will pick up perhaps the first stone he sees, paint it red, and make offerings to it. Anxious to please some ghostly agent, he feels the need for displaying his Edition: current; Page: [801] anxiety; and he adopts this as the nearest fulfilment of a propitiatory act which circumstances permit. Ghosts are all about, and one may be present in anything—perhaps in this stone—very likely in this stone. And so the primitive man, with whom fancy passes easily into belief, adopts this method of expressing his subordination. Daily occurrences among ourselves prove that the desire to do something in presence of an emergency, leads to the most irrelevant actions. “It may do good, and it can’t harm,” is the plea for many proceedings which have scarcely more rationality than worship of a painted stone.

The Fetich-ghost.—The evidence given in §§ 159-163, that the supernatural agent supposed to be contained in an inanimate object, was originally a human ghost, is, I think, tolerably conclusive. I have, however, met with still more conclusive evidence, in the work of Dr. Rink on the Eskimo. In the passage which I here extract, the two are identified by name.

The supposed possessing agent to which the powers of an object are ascribed, is thus called its man; the man in it—that is, the man’s ghost in it. The “inue” of certain celestial objects were persons known by name; and the implication is that the “inue” of other objects are thought of as persons, but not individually identified.

And now observe that in a work published since that of Dr. Rink, concerning an unallied people in the remote region of Polynesia, we find a kindred conception joined with an interpretation of it. Describing the superstitions of the Hervey Islanders, Mr. Gill says:—

Ghosts in Stones.—The genesis of that form of fetichism which ascribes supernatural powers to shapeless inanimate objects, is very clearly exhibited in the following passages from a letter, for which I am indebted to Commander W. H. Henderson, R.N., who dates from H.M.S. “Nelson,” Australian Station, October 9th, 1884:—

With such evidence before us, we can scarcely doubt that in other places where stones are worshipped, or regarded as sacred, human ghosts are or were believed to be present in them; and that the stones supposed to be possessed by powerful ghosts, thus became the shrines of gods. Hence the interpretation of such facts as this told us about the Karens:—

And this told us about the Bowditch Islanders:—

And this told us about the Fijians:—

And here we are once more shown how baseless is the belief of those who, in aid of their theories, theological or mythological, assert that the noble types of man—the Aryan and Semitic—displayed from the beginning, higher religious ideas than men of inferior types. For besides having various other beliefs and rites like those of existing savages, both of them agreed with savages in exhibiting this lowest form of fetichism. In their early days, the Greeks believed that ghosts dwelt in Edition: current; Page: [803] stones; and stones were the shrines of their gods. Pausanias gives various instances; and shows that these inhabited stones, anointed with oil in propitiation, continued even in late days to be regarded as sacred and to be occasionally honoured. So was it, too, with the Hebrews; as witness this passage:—

Let us observe, too, how completely Jacob’s conception of his dream as caused by a god in the stone, corresponds with the conceptions of existing savages. In his account of the Blantyre negroes, the Rev. Duff Macdonald writes:—

I may add that Jacob’s act of pouring oil on the stone in propitiation of the indwelling spirits (thus employing an established mode of honouring living persons) points the way to an interpretation of another usage of stone-worshippers. A Dakotah, before praying to a stone for succour, paints it with some red pigment, such as red ochre. Now when we read that along with offerings of milk, honey, eggs, fruit, flour, etc., the Bodo and Dhimáls offer “red lead or cochineal,” we may suspect that these three colouring matters, having red as their common character, are substitutes for blood. The supposed resident ghost was at first propitiated by anointing the stone with human blood; and then, in default of this, red pigment was used: ghosts and gods being supposed by primitive men to be easily deceived by shams.

Animal-naming among the Semites.—In vol. i, p. 126, Palgrave, referring to an Arab, writes:—“ ’Obeyd, ‘the wolf,’ to give him the name by which he is commonly known, a name well earned by his unrelenting cruelty and deep deceit.” Now read the following from the Book of Judges, vii, 25:—“And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb [raven] and Zeeb [wolf], and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the wine-press of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.” Edition: current; Page: [804] Thus we have proof that Semitic chiefs bore animal names; doubtless given, as we see they are still given, as nicknames. With this we may join the fact that at the present time “the Cabyles are said to distinguish their different tribes by figures of animals tatooed on forehead, nose, temples, or cheeks:” implying descent from founders identified by name with these animals (L. Geiger, Zeitschr. D. M. G., 1869, p. 169). When we put this evidence side by side with that given in §§ 170-4, showing how animal-naming among savages leads to belief in animal-ancestors and to the propitiation of animals, it becomes still more manifest that among Mesopotamian peoples, animal-gods and gods half-man half-brute, originated in the way alleged.

Since the above was published in the first edition of this work, there has appeared an interesting essay on “Animal Worship and Animal Tribes,” by Professor Robertson Smith (see Journal of Philology, vol. ix), in which he shows how extensive is animal-naming, and the consequent rise of animal-tribes, among existing Arabs. Here is a part of a list given by him:—

And continuing the list, Professor Smith gives us other animal-names of tribes, lizard, eagle, she-goat, raven, hedgehog, dog, whelp, jerboa, panthers, little panther, etc. He goes on to say that—

Rejecting this interpretation in favour of the interpretation of Mr. M‘Lennan, Professor Smith says—

And he thereupon contends that since kinship through females is the primitive form, the system of tribal naming could not have thus arisen. But, as I have elsewhere shown (§ 293), this is not a necessary implication. Remarking that the system of kinship through females evidently does not exclude the knowledge of male parentage (since in the rudest tribe there is a Edition: current; Page: [805] name for father as well as for mother) I have pointed out that in the same way among ourselves, the tracing of kinship through males does not exclude a perfect recognition of motherhood. And here I have to add that descent from a distinguished man will naturally survive in tradition, notwithstanding the system of kinship through females, and the male genealogy, regarded with pride, will supplant the female; just as among ourselves the posterity of a woman of rank who married a man of low degree, will preserve the record of their ancestress while dropping that of their ancestor, notwithstanding the system of descent through males. [On considering, after writing the above, where I should be likely to find proof, there occurred to me the case of Lord Clyde, of whom I had heard that his mother, a woman of good family, had married a man of inferior origin. Whether the name Campbell was that of his father or his mother, I did not know; but inquiry proved my suspicion to be well founded. His father’s name was John Macliver, and his mother’s Agnes Campbell. By successive steps the maternal name displaced the paternal name; and his daughter is now called Miss Campbell. This, I think, makes it clear that notwithstanding descent in the female line, the name of a distinguished chief, usurping the place of the previous name, will readily become a tribal name.]

But there is a co-operative cause. A tribe from time to time divides, and the migrating part attaches itself to some leader: a man of strength, or courage, or cunning, or resource. How are members of the migrating part to be distinguished by the remainder, and by adjacent tribes? Evidently by the name of their leader or chief. They become known as followers of the Snake, the Wolf, or the Bear, as the case may be. It needs but to recall the case of a Highland clan, all members of which habitually acquired the clan-name, whether related by blood to its head or not, to show how the tendency to speak generally of the followers of the Snake as Snakes will conflict with recognition of their maternally-derived relationships. Especially when there grows up a new generation, having individual names unknown to adjacent tribes, there will arise an established practice of calling them Snakes—a practice ending in the story of descent from an ancestral snake who was the founder of the tribe. Hence the origin of the Snake Indians of North America, or the Nagas (snakes) of the Indian Hills, who are worshippers of the snake.

Animal-naming in Great Britain.—Anyone who upon occasion speaks of a keen and merciless man as “a hawk,” or of another as “a pig” because of his dirtiness, ought to have no difficulty in understanding how in rude times animal-names are acquired.

While recognizing the exceptional cases of birth-naming after some animal visible at the time of birth, he will the less doubt that animal-names usually result from nicknaming, on finding among ourselves cases in which the animal nickname becomes substituted for the conventional surname previously current. Two cases, one dating some centuries back, and the other belonging to our own time, may be here given. Doubtless there still exists, as there existed some years since when I saw it, the remnant of an old castle built on an island in Loch-an-Eilean in Rothiemurchus, which was, according to tradition, a stronghold of the “Wolf of Badenoch.” Who was he? Mr. Cosmo Innes, in his Sketches of Early Scotch History (p. 424), speaks of “the harrying of the country and burning of the church by the Wolf of Badenoch;” and in his Scotland in the Middle Ages (p. 297), says:—“The magnificent cathedral of Elgin [was] . . . . so roughly handled by the Wolf of Badenoch in the end of the fourteenth century, that the bishops called their restoration a rebuilding.” Mr. Innes does not give the Christian name or surname of this robber chief. Further inquiry, however, disclosed it. In Burton’s History of Scotland (vol. iii, p. 97), he is referred to as “King Robert’s brother, Alexander.” Evidently, then, the original proper name had become less familiar than the substantiated nickname; which supplanted it not only in popular speech, but partially in literature. We have but to suppose times still ruder than those in which he lived, and times in which Christianity had in no degree undermined primitive superstitions, to see that just as Earl Siward, of Northumbria, was said to be the grandson of an actual bear, so the descendants of the Wolf of Badenoch would have been described in tradition as derived from an actual wolf. A further significant fact remains. It is stated in Jervise’s Land of the Lindsays (p. 350) that Countess Isabella “was the wife of the Wolf of Badenoch.” Here, in this very statement, the nickname has replaced the pre-established name of the man, while the name of the woman remains unchanged. It needs but that this statement should be accepted literally, as such statements are among the uncivilized, to understand how it happens that here and there a family traces back its origin to a woman identified by name, who was married to an animal; as in “the story of the origin of the Dikokamenni Kirghiz . . . from a red greyhound and a certain queen with her forty handmaidens,” quoted by Mr. M‘Lennan from the Michells.

The other instance comes from the Forest of Dean, a region little visited, and retaining old usages. There the surname “James” is so common that nicknames are required to distinguish among those bearing it. A gentleman known to me, Mr. Keeling, C.E., of Cheltenham, having to find a man thus named, Edition: current; Page: [807] discovered that he was nicknamed “hoont,” that is “mole.” Moreover he was one of a number who had inherited the nickname, and who had their respective Christian names—John Hoont, Henry Hoont, etc. Clearly, among savages a few generations would have established the tradition of descent from an actual mole: memory of the original bearer of the nickname having died out. When we find that even where there are established surnames of the civilized kind, nicknames derived from animals usurp their places and become inherited, it seems to me scarcely questionable that in the absence of established surnames, animal-names will eventually become the names of gentes and tribes, supposed to be descended from the animals they are named after—supposed, that is, by the uncivilized man, who is without our general ideas of law, order, cause; who has no notions of possible and impossible; who, without capacity for criticizing, accepts blindly the statements made to him by his seniors; and who, indeed, were he critical, might reasonably conclude that these metamorphoses of animals into men were of the same nature as those animal metamorphoses which really take place, and which he has observed. Strong reason should be given before rejecting this interpretation in face of the fact that savages themselves thus explain their tribal names; as instance the Arawâks, most of whom “assert that each family is descended—their fathers knew how, but they themselves have forgotten—from its eponymous animal, bird, or plant.” Once more, if it be admitted that the conception of an animal-ancestor thus originates, it can hardly be doubted that, going along with the ideas and feelings respecting ancestors entertained by primitive men, it will originate a special regard for the animal which gives the tribal name—a regard which here results in making the animal a sacred totem, and here in producing worship of it.

That our relatives the Scandinavians exemplified in their ideas of the alliance between men and animals, certain further results of animal-naming, is made tolerably clear by the following passage:—

Animal-worship.—One of the causes assigned in the text (§ 168) for the worship of animals, was the belief, illustrated in sundry ways, that a creature found in the neighbourhood of the dead body is a new form assumed by the double, or otherwise a re-incarnation of the ghost. Here are further examples of this belief: the first of them supplied by the people of Bank’s Island.

Here is another which the Samoans furnish.

Along with this belief respecting ordinary ghosts, the Samoans have an allied, and to all appearance resulting, belief, respecting extraordinary ghosts.

Concerning these same people I may add that they furnish a striking example of the way in which unlimited credulity causes that literal acceptance of traditions, which in many cases ends in the belief in animal-ancestors and resulting worship of them. Turner tells us that the Samoans have traditions of battles between trees, birds, fish, and beasts; and after giving some examples, he says:—

Snake-Ancestors in North America.—A recently published work, The Snake-Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, by John G. Bourke, gives some interesting facts illustrative of the belief in snake-ancestors. Giving his inferences from the evidence, the writer says—

These conclusions were based upon statements elicited from one of the Indians who took part in the snake-dance, of which the following are the most significant ones:—

In another chapter the writer refers to a large amount of confirmatory evidence showing the prevalence elsewhere of kindred ideas.

The Snake-Spirit among the Ancients.—A verification of the view set forth in §§ 167-8, is furnished by the following passage from the Æneid, Bk. v, 75.

Though here, along with the conceptions of a higher stage than that described in §§ 167-8, there is not distinct identification of the snake with the ancestral ghost, some connexion between them is assumed. That among the possible relations between the tomb-haunting animal and the deceased person, metamorphosis will be supposed by early peoples, is clear. And that hence results the identification of owls and bats (and possibly scarabæi) with souls, can no longer be doubted.

A striking verification of the foregoing inference has come to me quite recently (1884) in an essay entitled A Sepulchral Relief from Tarentum, by Mr. Percy Gardner (reprinted from the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. v). Discussing the reasons assigned for the not infrequent presence of sculptured snakes on sepulchral tablets, representing ministrations to deceased persons, Mr. Gardner says:—

Here then we find further support for the conclusion drawn in § 167, that a house-haunting animal is liable to be identified with a returned ancestor; at the same time that we get an illustration of the supposed mode of metamorphosis—a mode supposed in sundry cases of kindred superstitions; as in the belief that gods take the shape of flies—a belief of the Accadians, of the Philistines, and of some extant North American Indians.

I may add that certain incidents attending the worship of Asklepios, while they serve in one way to verify the above inferences, serve to show how, under some circumstances, snake-worship arises in a partially-different way. Originally referred to by Homer as a physician (i.e., a medicine-man), among whose sources of influence, skill as a snake-charmer may naturally have been one (giving origin to the habitual representation of him as holding a staff round which a serpent is coiled), Asklepios, in the later periods of his worship, is himself represented as a serpent. Speaking of certain Roman coins, Mr. Warwick Wroth, of the British Museum, says:—

Lotus-worship.—I have not included in the chapter on plant-worship, the case of the lotus; because I did not wish to endanger the general argument by a doubtful support. The evidence is, however, sufficient to raise the suspicion that lotus-worship arose in the same way as did soma-worship.

Clearly some plant, or the product of some plant, called lotus, was eaten as a nervous stimulant, producing a state of blissful indifference; though among sundry plants which have gone by the name, it is not decided which was the one. Further, there was in the East the belief in a divinity residing in a water-plant known as the lotus; and at present in Thibet, worship of this divinity in the lotus is the dominant religion. As is stated in Mr. Wilson’s Abode of Snow, pp. 304-6, the daily and hourly prayer is “Om mani padme haun,” which literally rendered means, “O God! the jewel in the lotus. Amen.” The word mani, here translated jewel, and meaning more generally a precious thing, is variously applied to sacred objects—to the long stone tumuli, to the prayer-mills, etc. So that Edition: current; Page: [812] reading through the figurative expression to the original thought, it would seem to be—“O God! the precious or sacred power in the lotus.” Difficulties in explaining the ancient legend about lotus-eating, as well as this existing superstition, arise from the fact that the plant now known as the lotus has no toxic qualities. There is, however, a possible solution. The lotus has a sweet root; and at the present time in Cashmere, this root is hooked up from the bottoms of the lakes and used as food. But a sweet root contains fermentable matters—both the saccharine and the amylaceous: even now, alcohol is made from beet-root. Possibly, then, in early times the juice and starch of the lotus-root were used, just as the sap of the palm is in some places used still, for making an intoxicating beverage; and the beliefs concerning the lotus may have survived in times when this beverage was replaced by others more easily produced. The fact that in the early days of soma-worship the juice was fermented, while in later days it was not (other kinds of intoxicating liquors having come into use), yields additional reason for thinking so. Be this as it may, however, we have this evidence:—some plant yielding a product causing a pleasurable mental state, was identical in name with a plant regarded as sacred because of an indwelling god.

It is, indeed, alleged that in Egypt the lotus was sacred as a symbol of the Nile, and that the Indian lotus stood in like relation to the Ganges. I notice this interpretation for the purpose of remarking that I do not believe any early usage arose through symbolization. This is one of the many erroneous interpretations which result from ascribing developed ideas to undeveloped minds. No one who, instead of fancying how primitive usages could have arisen, observes how they do arise, will believe that the primitive man ever deliberately adopted a symbol, or ever even conceived of a symbol as such. All symbolic actions are modifications of actions which originally had practical ends—were not invented but grew. The case of mutilations sufficiently exemplifies the process.

Other-Worlds.—The speculation ventured in § 113, that conquest of one race by another introduces beliefs in different other worlds, to which the superior and inferior go, is supported by this passage which I have since met with:—

Superstitions of the Russians.—Under foregoing heads the examples of each form of superstition resulting from the ghost-theory, are taken from divers societies. Here it will be instructive to present an entire series of these several forms of such superstitions as exhibited in the same society. This is done in the following extracts from Mr. Ralston’s Songs of the Russian People.

There is good evidence that “the Domovoy or house-spirit” (p. 119) is an ancestor. “The Ruthenians reverence in the person of the Domovoy the original constructor of the family hearth” (p. 122). “In some districts tradition expressly refers to the spirits of the dead the functions which are generally attributed to the Domovoy, and they are supposed to keep watch over the house of a descendant who honours them and provides them with due offerings.” (p. 121.)

Many instructive passages might be added. The dead are said to complain of the pressure of the earth on them; describe themselves as cold; and at festivals to which they are invited, are sympathized with as tired and hungry. Ancestral spirits are carried to new homes; diseases are evil spirits often with bodily shapes; there are wizards who control the weather; they ride in dust-whirlwinds. But the above suffice to show how completely the ghost-theory has developed into an ancestor-worship, betraying, notwithstanding the repressive influences of Christianity, all the essentials of a religion—sacrifices, prayers, praises, festivals.

Apotheosis in Polynesia.—The more the evidence furnished by every race is looked into, the more irresistible becomes the conclusion that gods were originally men: sometimes even ordinary men, but usually men in some way superior, belonging either to the tribe or to a conquering tribe. That which the traditions of the Egyptians tell us, namely, that Egypt was originally ruled by a dynasty of gods; that which we see in Greek beliefs as set down by Herodotus, who distinguishes Minos as preceding the generations of men, and belonging to the dynasty of the gods; that which is implied by the Japanese story that Jimmu, “the fifth ruler in descent from the sun goddess,” was “considered to have been the first mortal ruler” (Adams’ History of Japan, vol. i, p. 7); is shown us by the uncivilized. These now entertaín ideas like those entertained by the progenitors of the civilized. Here are a few instances:—

Concerning the natives of San Christoval, Solomon Islands, we are told that:—

But perhaps the clearest evidence, as well as the most abundant, is that furnished by the Fijians. Since writing the comparison made in § 201, between the Greek pantheon and the pantheon of the Fijians, an unknown friend has been good enough to forward me a statement which bears, in an interesting way, on the question. It is contained in a parliamentary paper, Correspondence respecting the Cession of Fiji, presented February 6, 1875, p. 57. This document concerns the native ownership of land; and the passage I refer to appears to be appended for the purpose of showing how the native idea of ownership is affected by the associated creed:—

This account agrees completely with the indications given by earlier voyagers and missionaries; as witness the following extracts:—

Nature-Gods.—Here are a few further facts supporting the conclusion that after the rise of the ghost-theory, the various kinds of objects which irregularly appear, disappear, and reappear, in the heavens, are frequently regarded as ghosts. Says Gill, concerning the fates of the Mangaians after death:—

Mountain Deities.—In § 114, I suggested two ways in which ancestor-worship originates beliefs in gods who reside on the highest peaks and have access to the heavens. Burial of the dead on mountain crags, I indicated as one origin; and the occupation of mountain strongholds by conquering races, as probably another origin. I have since met with verifications of both suggestions.

The first of them is contained in the Travels in the Philippines, by F. Jagor. Giving proof that before the Spanish settlement the people had the ordinary ideas and customs of ancestor-worshippers, he describes the sacred burial caves; and shows the survival of the religious awe with which these caves were originally regarded. He visited some of these caves at Nipa-Nipa; and says (p. 259) that “the numerous coffins, implements, arms, and trinkets, protected by superstitious terrors, continued to be undisturbed for centuries. No boat ventured to cross over without the observance of a religious ceremony, derived from heathen times, to propitiate the spirits of the caverns, who were believed to punish the omission of it with storm and shipwreck.” Moreover he tells us that the boatmen who went with the pastor of Edition: current; Page: [818] Basey to the cave to get remains, regarded a thunderstorm which broke on their way back, as “a punishment for their outrage.” After thus exhibiting the popular beliefs as they still exist, notwithstanding Catholic teaching, he proves, from early writers, what these beliefs originally were. It appears that men when dying often chose their burial-places; and he quotes one authority to the effect that “those who were of note” sometimes had their coffins deposited “on an elevated place or rock on the bank of a river, where they might be venerated by the pious.” (p. 262.) He says that Thévenot describes them as worshipping “those of their ancestors who had most distinguished themselves by courage and genius, whom they regarded as deities. . . . Even the aged died under this conceit, choosing particular places, such as one on the island of Leyté, which allowed of their being interred at the edge of the sea, in order that the mariners who crossed over might acknowledge them as deities, and pay them respect.” (p. 263.) And he also quotes Gemelli Careri, who says that “the oldest of them chose some remarkable spot in the mountains, and particularly on headlands projecting into the sea, in order to be worshipped by the sailors.” (p. 263.) This combination of facts is, I think, amply significant. We have distinguished persons becoming gods after death; we see them providing for this apotheosis, and in a sense demanding worship; we find them choosing high and conspicuous burial-places to facilitate the worship; we see that approach to burial-places is regarded as sacrilege; and we see that the ghosts of the dead have become deified to the extent that they are supposed to vent their anger in thunderstorms. Here are all the elements from which might result a Philippine Sinai.

The instance to which I refer as showing that invaders, or dominant men, seizing a high stronghold (see § 114), may give origin to a celestial hierarchy, whose residence is a mountain-top, I take from Bancroft’s version of the Quiché legend. It begins with a time when as yet there was no Sun (possibly a fragment of some still more ancient story brought southwards by dwellers in the Arctic regions); and in the first place narrates a migration in search of the Sun.

Men in the Sky.—Already the Esquimaux have furnished in the text an illustration of the primitive belief that stars, etc., were originally men and animals who lived on the Earth (§ 190). In the work of Dr. Rink, I find a detailed account of Esquimaux ideas concerning the physical connexion between the upper and lower worlds, and the routes joining them:—

There could scarcely be better proof that the personalization of heavenly bodies has resulted from the supposed translation of terrestrial beings—men and animals—to the sky. Here we have the upper world regarded as physically continuous with the lower world as well as like it in character; and the migration to it after death parallels those migrations to distant parts of the Earth’s surface after death, which primitive races in general show us. While we have no evidence of Nature-worship, we have clear evidence of identification of celestial bodies with traditional persons. That is to say, personalization of the heavenly bodies, precedes worship of them, instead of succeeding it, as mythologists allege. Joining these facts with those given in the text, the origin of names for constellations and the genesis of astrology, are made, I think, sufficiently clear.

Star-Gods.—While the proofs of these pages are under correction [this refers to the first edition], I am enabled to add an important piece of evidence, harmonizing with the above, and supporting sundry of the conclusions drawn in the text. It is furnished by a Babylonian inscription (Rawlinson’s Cuneiform Inscriptions, etc., iii, 53, No. 2, lines 36, etc.), which, as translated by Prof. Schrader, runs thus:—

• “The star Venus at sunrise is Ishtar among the gods,
• The star Venus at sunset is Baaltis among the gods.”

We have thus another case of multiple personality in a heavenly body, analogous to the cases of the Sun and Moon before pointed out (§ 191), but differing in definiteness. For whereas, before, the belief in two or more personalities was inferred, we here have it directly stated. This belief, inexplicable on any current theory, we see to be perfectly explicable as a result of birth-naming.

Religion of the Iranians.—Dr. Scheppig has translated for me Edition: current; Page: [821] some important passages from the work of Fr. Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, vol. ii (1873), pp. 91, etc. While this work brings clearly into view the many and various indications of ancestor-worship in the Zend-Avesta, it contains highly significant evidence concerning the ideas of ghosts (fravashis) and of ghost-mechanism throughout creation, which were held by the Persian branch of the Aryans.

Nature of the Fravashi.—(p. 92.) “The fravashi is in the first place a part . . . of the human soul. In this sense the word is used in the Avesta. . . . Later works of the Parsees give us more exact information about the activity of the fravashi. The frohar or fravashi—so it is stated in one of those works, the Sadder Bundehesh—has the task of making useful what a man eats, and removing the heavier parts. Accordingly, the fravashi is the part intermediating between body and soul; but it is conceived as a person, independent in general, and particularly from the body. The Sadder Bundehesh recognizes other psychic powers besides: the vital power (jân), the conscience (akho), the soul (revân), the consciousness (bôi). [This recalls the theory of the Egyptians, by whom also each man was supposed to unite within himself four or five different entities. These seemingly-strange beliefs are not difficult to account for. As shown in §§ 56, 57, 94, 95, shadow, reflexion, breath, and heart are all regarded as partially-independent components of the individual, sometimes spoken of as separable during life, and as going to different places after death.] Of these the vital power is so intimately connected with the body that the latter perishes as soon as the former has vanished. In a body thus doomed to perish the other psychic powers cannot stay either: they leave it; the conscience, because it has not done anything wrong, makes straightway for heaven, while soul, consciousness, and fravashi remaining together, have to answer for the deeds of the man, and are rewarded or punished.”

Fravashis of Gods and Men.—(p. 94.) “Every living being has a fravashi, not only in the terrestrial but in the spiritual world. Not even Ahura-Mazda [the chief god] is excepted; his fravashi is frequently alluded to (Vd. 19, 46, Yt. 13, 80) as well as the fravashis of the Amesha-çpentas and the other Yazatas (Yç. 23, 3, Yt. 13, 82). Most frequently the fravashis of the Paoiryâ-tkaeshas are invoked, i. e., those of the pious men who lived before the appearance of the law. To them, generally, the fravashis of the nearest relations, and the fravashi of the person himself, are added. . . . It may appear surprising that the fravashis of the ‘born and unborn’ are invoked (Yç. 26, 20). The clue may be found in Yt. 13, 17, where it is stated that the fravashis of the pious who lived before the law, and of the beings who will appear in future, are more powerful than those of other Edition: current; Page: [822] people, living or dead. Here worship of manes and of heroes is mixed up. Among these fravashis the ancestors of the particular family, and of the particular clan or tribe, were worshipped.”

Powers of the Fravashis.—(p. 95.) “The fravashis were not deficient in power. Their chief task was the protection of living beings. It is by their splendour and majesty that Ahura-Mazda is enabled to protect the Ardvíçûra Anâhita (Yt. 13, 4) [a certain spring and a goddess], and the earth on which the water runs and the trees grow. The fravashis protect, as well, the children in the womb. . . . They are very important for the right distribution of terrestrial benefits. It is by their assistance that cattle and draught beasts can walk on the earth; and but for their help sun, moon, and star, as well as the water, would not find their way, nor would the trees grow (Yt. 13, 53, etc.).” (p. 95-6.) “Accordingly, the peasant will do well to secure the assistance of these important deities. The same holds true for the warrior; for the fravashis are helpers in battles, . . . Mithra, Rashun, and the victorious wind are in their company. . . . It is of great importance that the fravashis remain in close connection with their families. They demand water for their clans, each one for his kin, when it is taken out of the Lake Vourukasha; . . . each of them fights on the spot where he has got to defend a homestead, and kings and generals who want their help against tormenting enemies, must specially call on them; they then come and render assistance, provided they have been satisfied and not offended (Yt. 13, 69-72). The fravashis give assistance not only as warriors; they may be invoked against any thing alarming, . . . against bad men and bad spirits.” . . .

Fravashis and Stars.—(p. 94.) We read in the Mînô-khired: “ ‘All the innumerable stars which are visible are called the fravashis of the terrestrial ones [men?]; because for the whole creation created by the creator Ormuzd, for the born and the unborn, a fravashi of the same essence is manifest.’ Hence it appears that the fravashis, or the stars, form the host that . . . fights against the demons.” . . .

Worship of the Fravashis.—(p. 97.) “As in the case of other genii of the Zoroastrian religion, much depends on the satisfactory propitiation of the fravashis; for their power, and consequent activity, depends on the sacrifices. Probably they were worshipped upon the 19th day of each month: their chief feasts, however, were on the . . . intercalatory days added to the year at its termination. About that time the fravashis descend to the earth, and stay there for ten nights, expecting to be met with appropriate sacrifices of meat and clothes. (Yt. 13, 49.) [Compare with the German and Sclavonian superstitions.] . . . There cannot be any doubt that the worship of the fravashis played an important part with the Iranians, though perhaps more in private Edition: current; Page: [823] than in public. It would appear that there were two different sorts of it. General, certainly, was the hero-worship—the veneration of the Paoiryô-tkaeshas [pious men before the law]. With this, in some ages perhaps, the worship of fravashis of the royal family was combined. The ancestor-worship, on the other hand, was of a strictly private character.”

Parallelisms.—(p. 98.) “The custom of honouring the memory of ancestors by sacrifices would appear to have been characteristic of the Indo-Germans from the very first. It is for this reason that quite striking similarities are found in the cult, which no doubt refer to very old times. . . . It has been justly pointed out that, as the fravashis are conceived as stars, so, in the opinion of the ancient Hindoos, the blessed men beam in form of stars (see Justi, Handbuch, s.v., fravashi, p. 200). Nor should it be overlooked that this star-worship is very like the worship of the heavenly host mentioned in the Old Testament.”

Here, then, concerning these ancient Aryans of Persia, we have, on high authority, statements proving a dominant ancestor-worship; and also yielding support to various of the doctrines set forth in Part I. While it is only one of several souls possessed by each individual, the fravashi is the predominant and propitiated soul. It is supposed to need food, like the other-self of the dead savage. Not ordinary men only, but deities, up to the supreme one, have each his ghost; implying that he was originally a man. We see, too, that these fravashis which are ancestral ghosts, become the agents to whom the powers of surrounding objects are ascribed—fetich ghosts. We see that they have peopled the heavens—have become the in-dwelling spirits of sun, moon, and stars. And we see that worship of them, beginning with worship of those of the family and the clan, originates in time the worship of conspicuous traditional persons, as ancient heroes and gods; just as among the Fijians and others at the present day.

Aryan Ancestor-worship.—The more I have looked into the evidence, the more I have marvelled at those who, in the interests of the mythological theory, assert that the Aryans have been distinguished from inferior races by not being ancestor-worshippers; and who ascribe such ancestor-worship as cannot be overlooked, to imitation of inferior races. If the American fillibuster Ward, now apotheosized in China, has a temple erected to him there, the fact is accepted as not unnatural among the ancestor-worshipping Chinese. But in India, among Aryans, we must ascribe to the bad example of lower peoples, the erection of a temple at Benares to the English fillibuster Warren Hastings.—(Parl. Hist., xxvi, pp. 773-7.)

I find nothing but such unwarranted assumption to place Edition: current; Page: [824] against the clear evidence that ancestor-worship was dominant among primitive Aryans, long remained dominant among civilized Aryans, survived in considerable strength in mediæval Christendom, and has not yet died away. When we learn that the Avesta describes sacrifices for the dead, and contains prayers calling upon them—when we read in the Institutes of Menu (Sir W. Jones’s translation, vol. iii, p. 147) that “an oblation by Bráhmens to their ancestors transcends an oblation to the deities; because that to the deities is considered as the opening and completion of that to ancestors”—when, turning to the Aryans who migrated West, we remember how active was their propitiation of the dead, calling from Grote the words “sepulchral duties, sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek”—when we are reminded how the early Romans, ascribing to their manes-gods a love of human blood, duly administered to it; our boldness of assumption must be great if we can say that Aryan ancestor-worship was not indigenous but adopted.

Were it true that necrolatry was not rooted in the primitive Aryan mind, as in other primitive minds (a marvellous difference, did it exist), it would be strange that though superficial it was so difficult to extirpate. Christianity spread without extinguishing it. In a capitulary of 742, Karloman prohibits “sacrifices to the dead” (Baluzius, i, 148). Nor has it been extinguished by modern Christianity, as was shown in § 152. Here is further evidence from Hanusch, Die Wissenschaft des Slawischen Mythus, p. 408:—

I may close with the conclusive testimony of one who has had unusual opportunities of studying Aryan superstitions as now being generated, and whose papers in the Fortnightly Review show how competent he is both as observer and reasoner—Sir A. C. Lyall. In a letter to me he says:—“I do not know who may be the author of the statement which you quote [in § 150], that ‘No Indo-European nation seems to have made a religion of the worship of the dead;’ but it is a generalization entirely untenable. Here in Rajputana, among the purest Aryan tribes, the worship of famous ancestors is most prevalent; and all their heroes are more or less deified.”

Ancestor-worship among the Greeks.—The foregoing evidence, published in the first edition, I can now re-inforce. The already-quoted essay A Sepulchral Relief from Tarentum, by Mr. Percy Gardner, contains clear proofs, brought to light by recent investigations, that ancestor-worship was no less dominant among the Greeks than among inferior peoples. The first two of the following extracts, concerning Lycians and Etrurians, I prefix to show that the Greeks had identical conceptions and usages:—

Origin of Egyptian Gods.—Amid incongruities, the general meaning of the passages which follow is sufficiently clear. Brugsch writes:—

The continuity of the series from these early divine personages, some of them figured as animals and half-animals, down to gods who were unquestionably deified men, is implied by the fact that to the worship of those earliest rulers whose vague personalities, surviving from remote times, had become gods proper, there was joined a worship of early historic kings, which, similar in nature, similarly lasted through many ages. Here is a passage from Maspero’s Une Enquête Judiciaire à Thèbes (Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, t. viii), pp. 62-3:—

To which passage, showing that the permanent worship of the dead kings was a more developed form of the ordinary ancestor-worship, I may add a confirmatory passage from E. de Rougé:—

And yet in face of such evidence, harmonizing with all the other evidences we have found, it is alleged that the early Egyptian gods were personalized powers of nature!

“Gods and men” in Hebrew Legend.—Further grounds for taking the view expressed in § 200, respecting the “gods and men” of the Hebrew legend, have since been disclosed in the Chaldean Account of Genesis, by George Smith. Here is a passage from the new edition edited by Prof. Sayce, published in 1880:—

Verification is also hereby afforded of the suggestion made in § 178 (note), that the forbidden fruit was the inspiriting and illuminating product of a plant which the conquering race forbade the subject race to consume. The objection, not unlikely to be raised, that the words “fruit” and “eating” do not countenance this interpretation, would be sufficiently met by cases of our own metaphorical uses of these words (“fruit of the womb,” “opium-eating”); but it may be met more directly. Of the Zulus, Bp. Callaway says—“The natives speak of beer as food—and of eating it. They also call snuff food, and speak of eating it.”

Theology of the Accadians.—The distinguished Assyriologist, Prof. A. H. Sayce, in his article on “Babylonia” in the new Edition: current; Page: [828] edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (iii, 192-3), writes as follows:—

This account of Accadian beliefs harmonizes with the numerous foregoing facts illustrating the genesis of religion from the ghost-theory. The first stage above described is one in which spirits, originally human, have become identified with, or inhabitants of, surrounding objects, as we saw they everywhere tend to do. Just as among the Esquimaux and others, Sun and Moon thus come to be residences of particular ghosts, so with the Accadians. Prof. Sayce has just pointed out to me (June, 1885) that he had in 1874 expressed the belief that “the worship of dead ancestors” is the primitive form of religion.

As given by M. Lenormant, in his La Magie chez les Chaldéens, the following is part of an incantation against pestilence:—

Here, then, the address is uniformly made to ghosts; and these are the ghosts of beings allied by name to traditional human beings—the ghosts of beings who have come to be called gods and goddesses: ghosts regarded as lords and spirits of stars, mountains, fire. And this too, as we saw above, was the creed of the Iranians. The fravashis were the ghosts or spirits possessed alike by men and by gods—even by the chief god.

Moreover, little as the fact is recognized, the Hebrew god is habitually spoken of in a parallel way and with the same implication. “The Spirit of the Lord” is a consistent expression if, as in the Accadian belief, and in the beliefs of existing Bedouins, the original conception of a god was that of a powerful terrestrial Edition: current; Page: [829] ruler—a ruler such as the one hospitably entertained by Abraham, with whom he covenanted to yield allegiance in return for territory. But the expression “Spirit of the Lord,” reasonably applied to the double of a potentate after his death, is nonsense if otherwise applied; since, as every critical reader must have observed, if the Lord was originally conceived as a Spirit, then the Spirit of the Lord must have been conceived as the spirit of a spirit. Such an expression as that in Isaiah xlviii, 16, “The Lord God, and His Spirit, hath sent me,” which is reconcilable with the primitive idea that every human being, whether king or subject, includes at least two individualities, is irreconcilable with the current theology; for the word spirit, whether interpreted in the sense accepted alike by savage and civilized, or whether referred back to its derivation as meaning breath (which it does in Hebrew as in various other languages), inevitably connotes a body of which it is the spirit.

Thus all three of the widely unlike types of men inhabiting these eastern regions—the so-called Turanians, the Aryans, and the Semites—had the same theory of supernatural beings. However otherwise different, deities, like men, were conceived by them as having doubles. The notion is perfectly congruous with the conclusion everywhere else forced upon us, that deities are the expanded ghosts of dead men, and is utterly incongruous with any other theory.

It was pointed out in § 202 that in various essential respects the Hebrew conception of god was at one with all other conceptions of gods; and here we see this unity implied even in the descriptive phrases used by the Hebrews in speaking of their god.