and missionaries, have again and again recognised our God in theirs.
The mythical details and fables about the savage God are, indeed,
different; the ethical, benevolent, admonishing, rewarding, and creative
aspects of the Gods are apt to be the same.[17]
'There is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most degraded of
these people of the existence of God, or of a future state, 'the facts
being universal y admitted.'[18]
'Intel igent men among the Bakwains have scouted the idea of any of them
ever having been without a tolerably clear conception of good and evil,
God and the future state; Nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to
them as otherwise,' except polygamy, says Livingstone.
Now we may agree with Mr. Tylor that modern theologians, familiar
with savage creeds, will scarcely argue that 'they are direct or
nearly direct products of revelation' (vol. ii. p. 356). But we may
argue that, considering their nascent ethics (denied or minimised by many
anthropologists) and the distance which separates the high gods of
savagery from the ghosts out of which they are said to have sprung;
considering too, that the relatively pure and lofty element which, _ex
hypothesi_, is most recent in evolution, is also, _not_ the most honoured, but often just the reverse; remembering, above al , that we know nothing
historically of the mental condition of the founders of religion, we may
hesitate to accept the anthropological hypothesis _en masse_. At best
it is conjectural, and the facts are such that opponents have more
justification than is commonly admitted for regarding the bulk of
savage religion as degenerate, or corrupted, from its own highest
elements. I am by no means, as yet, arguing positively in favour of that
hypothesis, but I see what its advocates mean, or ought to mean, and the
strength of their position. Mr. Tylor, with his unique fairness, says
'the degeneration theory, no doubt in some instances with justice, may
claim such beliefs as mutilated and perverted remains of higher religion'
(vol. ii. p. 336).
I do not pretend to know how the lowest savages evolved the theory of a
God who reads the heart and 'makes for righteousness,' It is as easy,
almost, for me to believe that they 'were not left without a witness,'
as to believe that this God of theirs was evolved out of the maleficent
ghost of a dirty mischievous medicine-man.
Here one may repeat that while the 'quaint or majestic foreshadowings'
of a Supreme Being, among very low savages, are only sketched lightly
by Mr. Tylor; in Mr. Herbert Spencer's system they seem to be almost
omitted. In his 'Principles of Sociology' and 'Ecclesiastical
Institutions' one looks in vain for an adequate notice; in vain for almost any notice, of this part of his topic. The watcher of conduct, the
friendly, creative being of low savage faith, whence was he evolved? The
circumstance of his existence, as far as I can see; the chastity, the
unselfishness, the pitifulness, the loyalty to plighted word, the
prohibition of even extra-tribal homicide, enjoined in various places on
his worshippers, are problems that appear somehow to have escaped
Mr. Spencer's notice. We are puzzled by endless difficulties in his
system: for example as to how savages can forget their great-grandfathers'
very names, and yet remember 'traditional persons from generation to
generation,' so that 'in time any amount of expansion and idealisation can be reached,'[19]
Again, Mr. Spencer will argue that it is a strange thing if 'primitive men had, as some think, the consciousness of a Universal Power whence they and all other things proceeded,' and yet 'spontaneously performed to that
Power an act like that performed by them to the dead body of a fellow
savage'--by offerings of food.[20]
Now, first, there would be nothing strange in the matter if the crude idea of 'Universal Power' came _earliest_, and was superseded, in part, by a
later propitiation of the dead and ghosts. The new religious idea would
soon refract back on, and influence by its ritual, the older conception.
And, secondly, it is precisely this 'Universal Power' that is _not_
propitiated by offerings of food, in Tonga, (despite Mr. Huxley)
Australia, and Africa, for example. We cannot escape the difficulty by
saying that there the old ghost of Universal Power is regarded as dead,
decrepit, or as a _roi-faineant_ not worth propitiating, for that is not
true of the punisher of sin, the teacher of generosity, and the solitary
sanction of faith between men and peoples.
It would appear then, on the whole, that the question of the plain man to
the anthropologist, 'Having got your idea of spirit into the savage's
mind, how does he develop out of it what I cal God?' has not been
answered. God cannot be a reflection from human kings where there have
been no kings; nor a president elected out of a polytheistic society of
gods where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor
where men do not worship their ancestors; while, again, the spirit of a
man who died, real or ideal, does not answer to a common savage conception of the Creator. Al this will become much more obvious as we study in
detail the highest gods of the lowest races.
Our study, of course, does not pretend to embrace the religion of all the
savages in the world. We are content with typical, and, as a rule,
wel -observed examples. We range from the creeds of the most backward and
worst-equipped nomad races, to those of peoples with an aristocracy,
hereditary kings, houses and agriculture, ending with the Supreme Being of the highly civilised Incas, and with the Jehovah of the Hebrews.
[Footnote 1: _Journal Anthrop. Inst._ xi. 874. We shal return to this
passage.]
[Footnote 2: Vol. i. p. 389, 1892.]
[Footnote 3: Payne, i. 458.]
[Footnote 4: _Prim. Cult._ vol. ii. p. 381; _Science and Hebrew
Tradition_, pp. 346, 372.]
[Footnote 5: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 109.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 110.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113.]
[Footnote 8: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, citing Callaway and
others.]
[Footnote 9: The Zulu religion will be analysed later.]
[Footnote 10: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 130-144.]
[Footnote 11: Ibid. vol. ii. p. 248.]
[Footnote 12: And very few civilised populations, if any, are monotheistic in this sense.]
[Footnote 13: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 332, 333.]
[Footnote 14: _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. pp. 335, 336.]
[Footnote 15: _Myths of the New World_, 1868, p. 47.]
[Footnote 16: I observed this point in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, while I did not see the implication, that the idea of 'spirit' was not
necessarily present in the savage conception of the primal Beings,
Creators, or Makers.]
[Footnote 17: See one or two cases in _Prim. Cult_. vol. ii. p. 340.]
[Footnote 18: Livingstone, speaking of the Bakwain, _Missionary Travels_,
p. 168.]
[Footnote 19: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 450.]
[Footnote 20: Op. cit. vol. i. p. 302.]
X
HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES
To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about
accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does
not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original supernatural revelation, darkened by al peoples but the Jews. We shal
not, however, rely much on missionary evidence, and, when we do, we must
now be equally on our guard against the anthropological bias in the
missionary himself. Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tylor, and finding
himself among ancestor-worshippers (as he sometimes does), he is apt to
think that ancestor-worship explains any traces of a belief in the Supreme Being. Against each and every bias of observers we must be watchful.
It may be needful, too, to point out once again another weak point in al
reasoning about savage religion, namely that we cannot always tel what
may have been borrowed from Europeans. Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840,
were far out of the way, but one tribe, near Magel an's Straits,
worshipped an image cal ed Cristo. Fitzroy attributes this obvious trace
of Catholicism to a Captain Pelippa, who visited the district some time
before his own expedition. It is less probable that Spaniards established
a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no material traces of their faith. The Fuegians are not easily proselytised. 'When discovered by strangers, the instant impulse of a Fuegian family is to run off into the
woods.' Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but 'sometimes nothing
will induce a single individual of the family to appear.' Fitzroy thought
they had no idea of a future state, because, among other reasons not
given, 'the evil spirit torments them in _this_ world, if they do wrong,
by storms, hail, snow, &c.' Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds is not evident. 'A great black man is supposed to be always wandering
about the woods and mountains, who is certain of knowing every word and
every action, who cannot be escaped and who influences the weather
according to men's conduct.'[1]
There are no traces of propitiation by food, or sacrifice, or anything but conduct. To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not
peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the
reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest
savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is
so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of
a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's
brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild
man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail
come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man
in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion.
The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind,
come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2]
Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no
superiority of one over another ... but the doctor-wizard of each party has much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the
Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is
not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not
think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were
medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the
neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule
everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be
called, is the worst and wickedest of al ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the
malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good
spirit, whom they cal Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of al
good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not
touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the
praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are
given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this
level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one
accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of
ideas, _but has forgotten half of them_,' says Miss Kingsley.[5]
Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture,
and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive
model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed
habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found
above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some
respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics
of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited
by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection
with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that
they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no
evidence.
It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex
marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have
ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the
unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the
world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for
wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and
fruits of the earth.... They have no houses, but lie in the open air.'
Curiously enough, Dampier attests their _unselfishness_: the main ethical
feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get, every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and
feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier
saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'),
and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwel ing was
only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the _gunyeh_).
This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated
Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous
coast blacks.
There is one more important point. In the _Bora_, or Australian
mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is
imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now,
Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in al
of them, men and women, old and young.' If this is to be taken quite
literal y, the Bora rite, in 1688, must have included the women, at least
local y. Dampier was on the north-west coast in latitude 16 degrees,
longitude 122-1/4 degrees east (Dampier Land, West Australia). The natives had neither boats, canoes, nor bark logs; but it seems that they had their religious mysteries and their unselfishness, two hundred years ago.[6]
The Australians have been very careful y studied by many observers, and
the results entirely overthrow Mr. Huxley's bold statement that 'in its
simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian savages,
theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and dispositions
(usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be propitiated or
scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. And in this stage
theology is whol y independent of ethics.'
Remarks more crudely in defiance of known facts could not be made. The
Australians, assuredly, believe in 'spirits,' often malicious, and
probably in most cases regarded as ghosts of men. These aid the wizard,
and occasional y inspire him. That these ghosts are _worshipped_ does not
appear, and is denied by Waitz. Again, in the matter of cult, 'there is
none' in the way of _sacrifice_ to higher gods, as there should be if
these gods were hungry ghosts. The cult among the Australians is the
keeping of certain 'laws,' expressed in moral teaching, supposed to be in
conformity with the institutes of their God. Worship takes the form, as at Eleusis, of tribal mysteries, original y instituted, as at Eleusis, by
the God. The young men are initiated with many ceremonies, some of which
are cruel and farcical, but the initiation includes ethical instruction,
in conformity with the supposed commands of a God who watches over
conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological
sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary
practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain,
but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the
statement of Mr. Huxley. He was whol y in the wrong when he said: 'The
moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from theological dogmas,'[7] It reposes, for its origin and sanction, on such
dogmas.
The evidence as to Australian religion is abundant, and is being added to
yearly. I shall here content myself with Mr. Howitt's accounts.[8]
As regards the possible evolution of the Australian God from
ancestor-worship, it must be noted that Mr. Howitt credits the groups with possessing 'headmen,' a kind of chiefs, whereas some inquirers, in Brough
Smyth's col ection, disbelieve in regular chiefs. Mr. Howitt writes:--
'The Supreme Spirit, who is believed in by all the tribes I refer to here
[in South-Eastern Australia], either as a benevolent, or more frequently
as a malevolent being, it seems to me represents the defunct headman.'
Now, the traces of 'headmanship' among the tribes are extremely faint; no
such headman rules large areas of country, none is known to be worshipped
after death, and the malevolence of the Supreme Spirit is not illustrated
by the details of Mr. Howitt's own statement, but the reverse. Indeed, he
goes on at once to remark that '_Darumulun_ was not, it seems to me,
everywhere thought a malevolent being, but he was dreaded as one who could severely punish the trespasses committed against these tribal ordinances
and customs whose first institution is ascribed to him.'
To punish transgressions of his law is not the essence of a malevolent
being. Darumulun 'watched the youths from the sky, prompt to punish, by
disease or death, the breach of his ordinances,' moral or ritual. His name is too sacred to be spoken except in whispers, and the anthropologist will observe that the names of the human dead are also often tabooed. But the
divine name is not thus tabooed and sacred when the mere folklore about
him is narrated. The informants of Mr. Howitt instinctively distinguished
between the mythology and the religion of Darumulun.[9] This distinction--
the secrecy about the religion, the candour about the mythology--is
essential, and accounts for our ignorance about the inner religious
beliefs of early races. Mr. Howitt himself knew little till he was
initiated. The grandfather of Mr. Howitt's friend, _before the white men
came to Melbourne_, took him out at night, and, pointing to a star, said:
'You will soon be a man; you see _Bunjil_ [Supreme Being of certain
tribes] up there, and he can see you, and all you do down here.' Mr.
Palmer, speaking of the Mysteries of Northern Australians (mysteries under divine sanction), mentions the nature of the moral instruction. Each lad
is given, 'by one of the elders, advice so kindly, fatherly, and
impressive, as often to soften the heart, and draw tears from the youth.'
He is to avoid adultery, not to take advantage of a woman if he finds her
alone, he is not to be quarrelsome.[10]
At the Mysteries Darumulun's real name may be uttered, at other times he
is 'Master' (_Biamban_) or 'Father' (_Papang_), exactly as we say 'Lord'
and 'Father.'
It is known that al these things are not due to missionaries, whose
instructions would certainly not be conveyed in the _Bora_, or tribal
mysteries, which, again, are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, and must have been practised in 1688. Mr. Howitt mentions, among moral
lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age, abstinence from lawless
love, and avoidance of the sins so popular, poetic, and sanctioned by the
example of Gods, in classical Greece.[11] A representation is made of the
Master, Biamban; and to make such idols, except at the Mysteries, is
forbidden 'under pain of death.' Those which are made are destroyed as
soon as the rites are ended.[12] The future life (apparently) is then
illustrated by the burial of a living elder, who rises from a grave.
This may, however, symbolise the 'new life' of the Mystae, 'Worse have I
fled; better have I found,' as was sung in an Athenian rite. The whole
result is, by what Mr. Howitt calls 'a quasi-religious element,' to
'impress upon the mind of the youth, in an indelible manner, those rules
of conduct which form the moral law of the tribe.'[13]
Many other authorities could be adduced for the religious sanction of
morals in Australia. A watchful being observes and rewards the conduct or
men; he is named with reverence, if named at al ; his abode is the
heavens; he is the Master and Lord of things; his lessons 'soften the
heart,'[14]
'What wants this Knave
That a _God_ should have?'
I shal now demonstrate that the religion patronised by the Australian
Supreme Being, and inculcated in his Mysteries, is actually used to
counteract the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with Anglo-Saxon Christians.[15]
Mr. Howitt[16] gives an account of the Jeraeil, or Mysteries of the
Kurnai. The old men deemed that through intercourse with whites 'the lads
had become selfish and no longer inclined to share that which they
obtained by their own exertions, or had given them, with their friends.'
One need not say that selflessness is the very essence of goodness, and
the central moral doctrine of Christianity. So it is in the religious
Mysteries of the African Yao; a selfish man, we shal see, is spoken of as
'uninitiated.' So it is with the Australian Kurnai, whose mysteries and
ethical teaching are under the sanction of their Supreme Being. So much
for the anthropological dogma that early theology has no ethics.
The Kurnai began by kneading the stomachs of the lads about to be
initiated (that is, if they have been associating with Christians), to
expel selfishness and greed. The chief rite, later, is to blindfold every
lad, with a blanket closely drawn over his head, to make whirring sounds
with the _tundun_, or Greek _rhombos_, then to pluck off the blankets, and bid the initiate raise their faces to the sky. The initiator points to it, calling out, 'Look there, look there, look there!' They have seen in this
solemn way the home of the Supreme Being, 'Our Father,' Mungan-ngaur
(Mungan = 'Father,' ngaur = 'our'), whose doctrine is then unfolded by the old initiator ('headman') 'in an impressive manner.'[17] 'Long ago there
was a great Being, Mungan-ngaur, who lived on the earth.' His son Tundun
is _direct ancestor_ of the Kurnai. Mungan initiated the rites, and
destroyed earth by water when they were impiously revealed. 'Mungan left
the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still remains.'
Here Mungan-ngaur, a Being not defined as spirit, but immortal, and
dwel ing in heaven, is Father, or rather grandfather, not maker,
of the Kurnai. This _may_ be interpreted as ancestor-worship, but the
opposite myth, of making or creating, is of frequent occurrence in many
widely-severed Australian districts, and co-exists with evolutionary
myths. Mungan-ngaur's precepts are:
1. _To listen to and obey the old men_.
2. _To share everything they have with their friends_.
3. _To live peaceably with their friends_.
4. _Not to interfere with girls or married women_.
5. _To obey the food restrictions until they are released from them by
the old men_.
Mr. Howitt concludes: 'I venture to assert that it can no longer be
maintained that the Australians have no belief which can be called
religious, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and
individual morality under a supernatural sanction.' On this topic
Mr. Hewitt's opinion became more affirmative the more deeply he was
initiated.[18]
The Australians are the lowest, most primitive savages, yet no
propitiation by food is made to their moral Ruler, in heaven, as if he
were a ghost.
The laws of these Australian divine beings apply to ritual as wel as to
ethics, as might naturally be expected. But the moral element is
conspicuous, the reverence is conspicuous: we have here no mere ghost,
propitiated by food or sacrifice, or by purely magical rites. His very
image (modelled on a large scale in earth) is no vulgar idol: to make such a thing, except on the rare sacred occasions, is a capital offence.
Meanwhile the mythology of the God has often, in or out of the rites,
nothing rational about it.
On the whole it is evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example,
underrates the nature of Australian religion. He cites a case of
addressing the ghost of a man recently dead, which is asked not to bring
sickness, 'or make loud noises in the night,' and says: 'Here we may
recognise the essential elements of a cult.' But Mr. Spencer does not
allude to the much more ess