CHAPTER VI: THE RISE OF A PRIESTHOOD.

§ 606. In §§ 480 and 504, I have drawn conclusions from the fact, obvious a priori and illustrated everywhere, that with increase of a chief’s territory, there comes an accumulation of business which necessitates the employment of assistants; whence follows the habit of frequently, and at length permanently, deputing one or other of his functions, such as general, judge, etc. Among the functions thus deputed, more or less frequently, is that of priest.

That such deputation takes place under pressure of affairs, civil or military, we see in the case of the Romans. As the kings could not always attend to the sacrifices, having often to make war, Numa (who performed, according to Livy, the majority of the sacerdotal offices) “instituted flamens to replace the kings when the latter were absent;” and, adds M. Coulanges, “thus the Roman priesthood was only an emanation from the primitive royalty.” How causes of this kind operate in simple societies, we are shown by a sentence in Mr. MacDonald’s account of the Blantyre negroes. He says:—“If the chief is from home his wife will act [as priest], and if both are absent, his younger brother.” As occurring in a ruder society where the blood-relationship of the chief to the god is still recognized, this case shows us, better than that of the Romans, how a priesthood normally originates.

This vicarious priest-ship of the younger brother, here arising temporarily, in other cases becomes permanent. Of the New Zealanders, who have in many cases chiefs who are Edition: current; Page: [62] at the same time priests, we read that in other cases the brother of the chief is priest. In the Mexican empire “the high-priest in the kingdom of Acolhuacan [and in that of Tlacupan] was, according to some historians, always the second son of the king.” So, too, in ancient Peru “they had a high priest, who was an uncle or brother of the king, or at least a legitimate member of the royal family.” As this last case shows, when the ruling man, still exercising the priestly function on great occasions, does not invariably make his younger brother his deputy on ordinary occasions, the office of high-priest still habitually falls to some blood-relation. Thus of the Khonds we read that “the chief civil and sacerdotal offices appear originally to have been united, or, at least, to have been always held by members of the chief patriarchal family.” In Tahiti, where the king frequently personified the god, receiving the offerings brought to the temple and the prayers of the supplicants, and where he was sometimes the priest of the nation, “the highest sacerdotal dignity was often possessed by some member of the reigning family.” Dupuis tells us that one of the priests of Ashantee belonged to the “king’s own family.” Among the Maya nations of America “the high-priests were members of the royal families.” And in ancient Egypt there existed a kindred connexion. The king himself being high-priest, it was natural that the priesthood should include some of his relatives; and Brugsch, speaking of the high-priests of Ptah, says—“We find among their number princes of the blood royal. As an example we may name the prince Khamus, a favourite son of Ramses II.”

In some cases the priestly functions of the head man are performed by a female relative. Among the Damaras the chief’s daughter is priestess; and, “besides attending to the sacrifices, it is her duty to keep up the ‘holy fire.’ ” On appointed occasions among the Dahomans, sacrifices are brought to the tomb (presumably of a king) and “before the tomb, a Tansi-no priestess, of blood-royal, offers up to the Ghost a prayer.” Similarly in ancient Peru, a chief priestess Edition: current; Page: [63] who was one of the virgins of the Sun, and who was regarded as his principal wife, “was either the sister or the daughter of the ruler.” On reading that among the Chibchas, with the priests “as with the caziques, the sister’s son inherited,” we may suspect that usages of this kind were consequent on descent in the female line. Among the Damaras this law of descent is still in force; it was manifestly at one time the law among the Peruvians; and the high political position of women among the Dahomans suggests that it was once the law with them also. Further reason for assuming this cause is supplied by the fact that in Dahomey and Peru, the priestly organization in general is largely officered by women; and that in Madagascar too, where descent is in the female line, there are women-priests. Obviously the transition from the usage of tracing descent through females to that of tracing descent through males, or the mixture of peoples respectively recognizing these unlike laws of descent, will cause anomalies; as instance that shown us by the Karens, whose village priests are males, but who, in their family ancestor-worship, “require that the officiating priest shall be a woman, the oldest of the family.”

This deputation of priestly functions to members of a ruling family, usual in early stages, may be considered the normal differentiation; since the god being the apotheosized ancestor, the sacrifices made to him continue to be the sacrifices made by descendants. Even where descent is not real, or has ceased to be believed, it is still pretended; as in Egypt, here the king habitually claimed kinship with a god, and where, by consequence, members of his family were hypothetically of divine descent.

§ 607. But while this is distinguishable as the usual origin of a priesthood, there are other origins. In a preceding chapter we saw that there is at the outset no clear distinction between the medicine-man and the priest. Though the one is a driver away of spirits rather than a propitiator of them, while the other treats them as friends rather than enemies, Edition: current; Page: [64] yet either occasionally adopts the policy of the other. The priest sometimes plays the part of exorcisor and the medicine-man endeavours to appease: instance the Australian medicine-man described in § 584. Among the Ostyaks the shamans, who are medicine-men, are also “intermediators between the people and their gods.” The business of a Gond medicine-man is “to exorcise evil spirits, to interpret the wishes of the fetish, to compel rain, and so on.” And the same men who, among the Kukis, have to pacify a god who is angry and has caused disease, are often supposed to abuse “the influence they possess with supernatural agents.” Evidently there is here indicated another origin of a priesthood.

Especially in cases where the medicine-man is supposed to obtain for the tribe certain benefits by controlling the weather through the agency of supernatural beings, does he participate in the character of priest. On recalling the case of Samuel, who while a judge over Israel also offered sacrifice to Jahveh as a priest and also controlled the weather by his influence with Jahveh (thus uniting the offices of ruler, priest and weather-doctor), we are shown how a kindred union of functions may in other cases similarly arise. Such facts as that among the Obbo the chief is also the rain-maker, and that Sechele, king of the Bechuanas, practises “rain-magic,” besides re-inforcing the evidence given in § 474 that supposed power over supernatural beings strengthens the hands of political heads, shows also that, as having the function of obtaining from the supernatural beings benefits for the society, they in so far fulfil the priestly office.

In other cases there arise within the tribe the worships of apotheosized persons who were not related to the apotheosized chief; but who, for some reason or other, have left behind awe-inspiring reputations. Hislop tells us of a Gond who boasts of miraculous powers, and who “has erected a sacred mound to the manes of his father, who was similarly gifted, and he uses the awe which attaches to this spot as a Edition: current; Page: [65] means of extorting money from the deluded Queen”—money partly spent in offerings to “his deified ancestor:” the rest being appropriated by himself. And Sir Alfred Lyall in his Asiatic Studies variously illustrates this sporadic origin of new deities severally apt to originate priesthoods.

Hence it seems inferable that in early stages there occasionally arise men not descended from the chief’s ancestor, who acquire quasi-priestly characters, and may even succeed in supplanting priests of normal origin. Especially is such usurpation likely to happen where by migration or by war, there have been produced fragments of the society which do not contain within themselves descendants of the traditional god.

§ 608. So long as there continues undivided, a community of which the deceased founder has become the village god, propitiated on behalf of his descendants by the nearest of kin among them, who also serves as intermediator for other heads of families respectively worshipping their ancestors, no advance in the development of a priesthood is likely to take place. But when increase of numbers necessitates parting, there comes a further differentiation. How this arises we are well shown by a statement of Andersson concerning the Damaras:—“A portion of such fire [sacred fire] is also given to the head man of a kraal, when about to remove from that of the chief. The duties of a vestal then devolves upon the daughter of the emigrant.” Evidently where a dead ruler, or other remarkable member of the tribe, has become a traditional god, so well established that propitiation of him has become imperative, migrating portions of the tribe, carrying their cult with them, must have someone to perform the rites on their behalf. Always the probability is that the detached group contains men akin to the chief of the parent tribe, and therefore descendants, direct or collateral, of the worshipped god; and on one of these, in virtue of greatest age or nearest relationship, the function Edition: current; Page: [66] is likely to fall. And since the reasons which determine this choice tend also to determine inheritance of the function, the genesis of a priestly caste becomes intelligible. Light is thrown on the matter by Hislop’s statement that though the Gonds are without priests, there are “some men who, from supposed superior powers, or in consequence of their hereditary connection with a sacred spot, are held to be entitled to take the lead in worship.” The course which change in some cases takes is shown us by the Santals. Hunter says—

Not only by the spread of a growing tribe into new habitats, are there thus produced conditions which further the growth of a priesthood; but kindred conditions are produced by the spread of a conquering tribe, and the establishment of its members as rulers over subordinate tribes. While it has to establish local governments, it has also to establish local ministrations of the cult it brings with it. The case of the Peruvians may be taken as typical. The Ynca-race, over-running indigenous races and leaving their religions intact, simply superposed their own religion. Hence the need for dispersed representatives of it. “The principal priest (or bishop) in each province was an Ynca, who took care that the sacrifices and ceremonies should be in conformity with those of the metropolitan.” Now since the Ynca-religion was a worship of the Sun, regarded as ancestor; and since his supposed most direct descendant, the king himself, was high-priest on important occasions, while the other chief priests were “all Yncas of the blood royal;” it becomes clear that this establishment of a local priesthood Edition: current; Page: [67] of Ynca-blood, illustrates the development of a priestly caste from the ancestor-worshipping members of a conqueror’s family.

§ 609. In verification of the foregoing conclusions, some evidence might be added showing that in tribes which lead peaceful lives, and in which considerable advances have been made without the establishment of strong personal governments, and therefore without the rise of apotheosized chiefs serving as village gods, there is but a feeble marking off of the priest-class. Among the Bodo and Dhimáls, for example, the priestly office is not hereditary, and is participated in by the elders of the people.

It is scarcely practicable, however, and would not be very profitable, to trace further this rise of a priesthood. Influences of sundry kinds tend everywhere to complicate, in one way or other, the primitive course of development. While we see that worshipping the spirit of the dead chief, at first carried on by his heir, is in his heir’s absence deputed to a younger brother—while we see that temporary assumption of the function by a brother or other member of the family, tends to become permanent where the business of the chief increases—while we see that migrating parts of a tribe, are habitually accompanied by some of the village god’s direct or collateral descendants, who carry with them the cult and perform its rites, and that where conquest of adjacent communities leads to an extension of rule, political and ecclesiastical, members of the ruling family become local priests; we find at work sundry causes which render this process irregular. Besides the influence which the chief or his priestly relative is supposed to have with powerful supernatural beings, there is the competing influence ascribed to the sorcerer or rain-maker. Occasionally, too, the tribe is joined by an immigrant stranger, who, in virtue of superior knowledge or arts, excites awe; and an additional cult may result either from his teachings, or from his own apotheosis. Moreover, a leader of a migrating portion of the tribe, if Edition: current; Page: [68] in some way specially distinguished, is likely at death to become himself the object of a worship competing with the traditional worship, and perhaps initiating another priesthood. Fluctuating conditions are thus apt, even in early stages, to produce various modifications in ecclesiastical organization.

But the complications thus resulting are small compared with others which they foreshadow, and to which we may now turn our attention.