Religions of Primitive Peoples

FOOTNOTES

[1] “Religion,” observes Professor Toy, “must be treated as a product of human thought, as a branch of Sociology, subject to all the laws that control general human progress.”—Judaism and Christianity, p. 1.

[2] Rev. John M. Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. i., p. 37.

[3] Granger, The Worship of the Romans, p. vii.

[4] A. H. Post, Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, Bd. i., s. 4.

[5] The Science of Fairy Tales, p. 2.

[6] Zeitschrift fÜr VÖlkerpsychologie, Bd. xi., s. 124.

[7] J. J. Honegger, Allgemeine Culturgeschichte, Bd. i., s. 332. “Similar conceptions,” observes Professor Bastian, “repeat themselves, under fixed laws, in localities wide apart, in ages far remote.”—GrundzÜge der Ethnologie, p. 73.

[8] E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, vol. i., p. 50.

[9] W. P. Clark, U. S. A., Indian Sign Language, p. 241.

[10] This subject is fully discussed by FlÜgel, Zeit. fÜr. VÖlkerpsychologie, Bd. xi.; by Prof. James Sully in his Studies of Childhood; and by Dr. Friedmann, Centralblatt fÜr Anthropologie, Bd. i. The last mentioned argues that the mind of the savage has more points of resemblance to the insane than to the child mind. The higher emotional susceptibility of savages can be illustrated by abundant examples.

[11] Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 108.

[12] The case was not exceptional. Among several tribes it was an established custom for a mother to kill and eat her first child, as it was believed to strengthen her for later births. See examples in Zeitschrift fÜr VÖlkerpsychologie, Bd. xiv., pp. 460, sq.

[13] Palmer in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., pp. 294, 399.

[14] Professor Sayce believes that the Sumerian of ancient Babylonia was genderless; and that the local gods were first endowed with sex on being adopted by the Semites.—Hibbert Lectures, p. 176.

[15] Cuoq, Lexique Algonquine, p. 21, note.

[16] The Golden Bough, Preface.

[17] Ed. Clodd, Myths and Dreams, p. 168.

[18] Besides the general works on Egyptian religion, I may note R. Pietschmann, “Aegypt. Fetischdienst und GÖtterglaube,” in Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. x., s. 153, sq. He points out that there was no unity in the ancient cults of Egypt, as the gods were those of the nomes only. The worship of Osiris did not prevail generally till after the sixth dynasty (p. 165).

[19] Some have explained superstition as “degenerate religion”; others as “religious error”; others (Pfleiderer) as “a pathological condition of normal belief”; but all such definitions depend on the view-point. As Roskoff remarks: “The man who is plunged in superstition is sure to hold it for the only true faith, and is contented with it so long as he is not troubled with doubts.”—Das Religionswesen der NaturvÖlker, p. 17.

[20] See T. Rhys Davids, Indian Buddhism, p. 29 (Hibbert Lectures), and in the first volume of the present series of lectures.

[21] Death was to the Roman the somnum eternale. Prof. Sayce remarks of the ancient Chaldeans that they had no definite belief in an after life.—Hibbert Lectures, p. 358.

[22] The question has been carefully examined by G. Roskoff in his work Das Religionswesen der Rohesten NaturvÖlker (Leipzig, 1880). He conclusively refutes the assertions that tribes have been encountered without religion.

[23] Calloway, Religious System of the Amazulus, p. 113.

[24] Rev. W. Y. Turner in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. vii., p. 492.

[25] Medicine Men of the Apache, pp. 499, 500.

[26] The question is carefully discussed by Hoernes, Urgeschichte des Menschen, p. 93, sq., who disputes Mortillet’s opinion. The latter is given in his PrÉhistorique AntiquitÉ de l’Homme, p. 603, sq.

[27] The Descent of Man, p. 95.

[28] Quoted in L’Anthropologie, vol. viii., p. 334.

[29] Granger, Religion of the Romans, p. 21; Thiele, Hist. of the Egyptian Religion, Introd.

[30] Dr. Schwaner, in H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App. p. clxii.

[31] H. Grimme, Mohammed, p. 38.

[32] In his Preface to The Revolt of Islam.

[33] O. Peschel, VÖlkerkunde, s. 255; F. Ratzel, Ethnographie, Bd. i;—Schurtz, Catechismus der VÖlkerkunde, s. 88.

[34] The eminent anthropologist Broca denied that religiosity is a distinctive trait of humanity. See further in Hovelacque et HervÉ, PrÉcis d’Anthropologie, pp. 634-636.

[35] Myth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. i., chap. xi.

[36] Hibbert Lectures, p. 328. Darwin has a parallel passage, Descent of Man, p. 95.

[37] “Everything, animate or inanimate, which has an independent being, or can be individualised, possesses a spirit, or, more properly, a shade (idahi, a shadow, or reflection).” Washington Matthews, Ethnog. of the Hidatsa, p. 48. This expresses the general Weltanschauung of the savage mind. Let it be remembered that it is also characteristic of the poetic, or personifying representation of nature, and thus belongs to the highest artistic expressions of the human mind as well as to its feeblest utterances.

[38] This was the universal opinion of classical antiquity. See Payne Knight, Ancient Art, p. 45. It was also the orthodox theory of the early Church concerning the redeemed soul. It “will know all things as God doth. Whatsoever is in Heaven and whatsoever is in earth, everything will he see with that veritable knowledge which nothing escapeth.”—Select Works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, translated by Rev. J. B. Morris, p. 353.

[39] Ridley, in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. ii., p. 269.

[40] Mr. A. E. Gough gives reasons for the opinion that the yogin, who practises the yoga, is a lineal follower of the ancient local shaman.—Philosophy of the Upanishads, p. 221.

[41] This curious recent development of most ancient experience is described by Dr. M. Bucke in the work, In Re Walt Whitman.

[42] The phenomena of “demoniac possession” are so remarkable, and so frequent in lower conditions of culture that they have been defended as the actual influence of evil spirits by intelligent modern observers (see the work of Rev. Dr. Nevins, Demoniac Possession in China, etc.). Bishop Calloway says most of the negro converts in Natal have such attacks after embracing Christianity (Jour. Anthrop. Society, vol. i., p. 171). Brough Smith describes such attacks among the Australians. Strong men are suddenly seized with violent convulsions. They dance wildly, scream at the top of their voices, foam at the mouth, and continue until utterly exhausted. They are homicidal when in this condition, and their companions fear to approach them (The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 466).

[43] The most complete study of this subject in connection with the development of religions is the work of Dr. Otto Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der VÖlkerpsychologie (Leipzig, 1894).

[44] Bishop Calloway, in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, i., p. 177; and in his Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 232. The Bushmen explain it as “a kind of beating of the flesh,” which tells them the future, and where lost things may be found. They add: “Those who are stupid do not understand this teaching.”—Bleek, Bushman Folk-lore, p. 17.

[45] A. E. Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, p. 243.

[46] Klemm, Allgemeine Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 337; A. M. Curr, The Australian Race, vol. i., p. 48.

[47] Curr notes this among the Australians, ubi supra, vol. i., p. 48; and it is general among American Indians.

[48] W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, p. 35.

[49] Middendorf, Keshua WÖrterbuch, s. v.

[50] Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1896. Sect. H.

[51] On the meaning of huaca see von Tschudi, BeitrÄge zur Kennt. des alten Peru, p. 156; Bertonio, Vocab. de la Lengua Aymara, s. v.

[52] The probable identity of Heb. Iah with Chald. Iah is acknowledged by Pinches, Sayce, and other eminent Assyriologists (see an article by the former, in the Proc. of the Victorian Institute for 1895). That the Greek Iachus is from the Chaldeo-Syrian (as his myth claims, referring to him as “The Assyrian stranger,” etc., L. Dyer The Gods in Greece, p. 165) was maintained by Herodotus, Macrobius, and Plutarch, among the ancients, and by various modern authors. It can be shown, however, that Yah as a name of God was derived from a sacred interjection or cry of the same phonetic value, which recurs repeatedly in the cults of America, Polynesia, and Australia. This is also true of hua or wa, the radical of the English “God.” They are both what have been called “universal” radicals.

[53] Codrington in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. x., p. 279; Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. iii., pp. 225-7. In some dialects mana has the special meanings, omen; the thunder; the breath; the belly (i.e., the interior), etc. Hale gives the definition “power” as common to all dialects (Polynesian Lexicon, s. v.). Fornander notes the similarity to Sanscrit, mana, manu, mind, thought.

[54] I have dwelt on the absence of monotheism among the American tribes in Myths of the New World, p. 75. Dr. Washington Matthews, a most competent, authority, expresses the universally correct view, when, speaking of Mahopa, the divine conception of the Hidatsa Indians, he says: “It refers to an influence or power above all things, but not attaching to it any ideas of personality.”—Ethnography of the Hidatsa Indians, p. 48.

[55] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 338; L. M. Turner, The Hudson Bay Eskimos, p. 272; von den Steinen, Die NaturvÖlker Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 340. Among the Australians, both men and women become “doctors” or shamans by dreaming.—Curr, The Australian Race, vol., ii., p. 74.

[56] These are called “hypnogogic hallucinations.” They have been studied by Maury, Annales Medico-psychologiques, tome xi., p. 252, sq.

[57] This point is discussed by Professor Granger, Worship of the Romans, pp. 28, sq.

[58] Bishop Calloway describes the regimen adopted to become inspired among the Zulus, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. i., p. 175. Among the Dyaks of Borneo the ceremony is called nampok, and its conditions are: 1. To be alone; 2. To pass the night on a mountain top; 3. To offer a sacrifice and call for the god. Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., p. 185.

[59] I have treated this question at some length in my Myths of the New World, p. 314, and Nagualism, p. 7, sq.

[60] I have given a translation of it in Essays of an Americanist, p. 293.

[61] A. E. Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, p. 237. The Mexican adjurations referred to are given by Sahagun, Historia de Nueva EspaÑa, lib. x., cap. 29.

[62] W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, pp. 28, 34. The concrete meaning of both words is pith, kernel, core, centre, etc.

[63] Hale, Ethnography of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, p. 55; Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 315; after Stoll. The Algonkian myth relates that the hero-god Nanabojou could converse with the spirits of all things, with trees, flowers, butterflies, the thunder, etc. (Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 113).

[64] ElysÉe Reclus, Le Primitif d’Australie, p. 232.

[65] The Greeks had but vague notions of an after life, and Professor Schrader remarks: “The cult of the dead has no place in the Homeric world.” Prehist. Antiqs. of the Aryan Peoples, p. 424. The “indigetes dii” of the Romans were rather heroes than divinities, though Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, lib. i., cap. 64, asserts that they were worshipped.

[66] The most satisfactory recent study on the worship of ancestors and of the dead, is that by Dr. S. R. Steinmetz in his Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, Bd. i., ss. 141-287 (Leiden, 1894).

[67] Clark, Indian Sign Language, pp. 121, 165, 199, 207, etc.; Howitt in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. xiii., p. 186. If one wakes a sleeper suddenly, he may die, as his vagrant soul may not get back in time. Von den Steinen, NaturvÖlker Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 510. In all these primitive views the real soul is regarded as merely a tenant of the body (not a function or the result of functions), as it is to-day in the popular religions of civilised lands.

[68] The fear of ghosts in civilised countries is the survival of a wide-spread, ancient belief in the malevolence of souls. I have found no instance of this more striking than among the Finns. They believed that the souls of the dead lie in wait for the living, in order to kill and eat them, especially their hearts and lungs, so that the slain could not live again. The ghosts did not spare their nearest relatives, and the story is told of an old man, who warned his beloved young wife not to follow his corpse to the grave, or his ghost would eat her. She disobeyed, and saved herself only by pronouncing the name of God. Cong. Internat. d’ArchÉologie de Moscou, Tom. ii., p. 316. In about one third of known savage tribes, the ghosts are considered kind and friendly to the survivors. See Steinmetz’s analysis in his Entwicklung der Strafe, Bd. i., s. 142, sq.

[69] Friedrich Freihold, Die Lebensgeschichte der Menschheit, Bd. i., s. 35.

[70] Baiame is from the verb bhai. Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. viii., p. 242. The “Nurali” of the Murray River tribes is also an embodiment of light. B. B. Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 423.

[71] Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 13; Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. iii., p. 153.

[72] Gill, ubi supra, pp. 3, 17, 44.

[73] E. W. Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. xii., p. 166.

[74] Th. Hahn, Tsuni ?Goam, pp. 124, 126.

[75] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 186; Jour. Anthrop. Institute, vol. x., p. 285.

[76] Myths of the New World, pp. 97, 165, etc.

[77] Fornander, Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 78; Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 18.

[78] Musters, Among the Patagonians, ch. v.; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App., p. clxx.; Hahn, Tsuni ?Goam, p. 37.

[79] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 189.

[80] Castren observes: “Es hat innerhalb der weitgestreckten GrÄnzen Asiens kaum ein einziges Volk gegeben, welches nicht den Himmel verehrt hÄtte.”—Finnische Mythologie, p. 14. He might as well have said, “the habitable globe” instead of Asia only.

[81] Matthew, v., 34.

[82] Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 62, seq.

[83] Gill, ubi supra, pp. 10-14; Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology, ch. i.

[84] B. Brough Smith, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 457.

[85] Notably by Prof. F. L. W. Schwartz in his numerous works, and in his contributions to the Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, etc.

[86] The Hebrew name Jahve (Jehovah) is derived by some from the verb “to thunder.” In the Vedas, Parjanja, the Thunderer, is a conspicuous figure. Mumpal, the Thunder, say the Australians, created all things. (Reise der Fregatte Novara, Anthrop. Theil, s. ix.) Among the Bechuanas, “When it thunders, every one trembles, and each asks the other, ‘Is there anyone among us who has devoured the wealth of others?’” (Calloway, Relig. System of the Amazulu, p. 117). Any number of other examples could be added.

[87] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. i., s. 64; Honegger, Culturgeschichte, Bd. i., s. 332.

[88] Castren, Finnische Mythologie, p. 17.

[89] Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, p. 17.

[90] I refer especially to the results of the physical investigations of Helmholtz, and to their logical application to mental science, by George J. Romanes, in his Mind and Motion; to the position of Prof. Paulsen in his Introduction to Philosophy; and to such lines of thought as are presented in Professor Dolbear’s Matter, Ether, and Motion.

[91] Related in Gill’s Myths and Songs of the South Pacific. M. van Ende, in his Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance, p. 83, sq., has some suggestive remarks on sound as regarded by primitive nations as a mark of life. Hence, their myths of brooks, trees, etc., as conscious beings.

[92] A Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 96.

[93] E. F. Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 60. “Nothing more colors Hindu life,” writes Mr. Walhouse, “than the belief in the efficacy of mantras—forms of prayer or powerful words, by which all the relations of life may be influenced, and even the gods may be bound.”—Jour. Anthrop, Inst., vol. xiv., p. 189.

[94] Curr, The Australian Race, vol. i., p. 48.

[95] Report of Com. of N. South Wales to the Columbian Exposition, p. 7.

[96] Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 309.

[97] Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 63.

[98] Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 318.

[99] The appropriate rite thus to destroy an enemy is described by Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., p. 610.

[100] Popol Vuh, le Livre SacrÉ des Quiches, p. 10.

[101] Polynesian Mythology, p. 284.

[102] Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 413.

[103] The expression in the Algonkin tongue for a person of the same name is nind owiawina, “He is another myself” (Cuoq, Lexique Algonquine, p. 113).

[104] Curr, ubi supra, p. 246.

[105] Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., p. 288.

[106] H. Hale, Ethnography of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, p. 288.

[107] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., p. 329.

[108] This subject has been discussed by Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen, pp. 165-184, and other writers. On the “name soul” among the American Indians I have collected material in Myths of the New World, p. 277, sq. Most American and Australian tribes would not name the dead. On the other hand, in the robust religion of the ancient Germans, the names of the loved departed and of great chiefs were shouted out at the banquets, and a horn drained to their minni, affectionate memory. J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 59.

[109] Chaldean Magic, p. 104.

[110] The original is in the Turin papyrus.

[111] Granger, Worship of the Romans, p. 277.

[112] Howitt, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., xiii., p. 192.

[113] James Adair, Hist. of the North Am. Indians, p. 54.

[114] Prof. Sayce in Hibbert Lectures, p. 305.

[115] Sahagun, Historia de Nueva EspaÑa, lib. i., passim; Popol Vuh, cap. i.; Stoll, Ethnographie der Rep. Guatemala, p. 118.

[116] Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 6.

[117] Comp. W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 41.

[118] Select Works of St. Ephrem, p. 122. (Trans. by the Rev. J. B. Morris.) The name of Jesus was regarded by the early church as magical in itself. Arnobius says of him, “whose Name, when heard, puts to flight evil spirits, imposes silence on soothsayers, prevents men from consulting the augurs, and frustrates the efforts of magicians.”—Adversus Gentes, lib. i., cap. 46.

[119] See Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnotismus, p. 14, seq.

[120] The petara of the Borneans is at times used as a personal name of the chief divine being, at others in the vague sense of “duty” or “supernatural.” Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., 179. Analogous instances have already been mentioned.

[121] Indian Sign Language, p. 309.

[122] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 164.

[123] Hyades et Deniker, Mission Scientifique au Cap Horn, p. 376. Earlier voyagers write: “They certainly have ideas of a spiritual existence.”—Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. ii., p. 179.

[124] Ancient Nahuatl Poetry (Philadelphia, 1890); Rig Veda Americanus (Philadelphia, 1890).

[125] Dr. W. Matthews, The Mountain Chant of the Navahoes, p. 465.

[126] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 309.

[127] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva EspaÑa, lib. vi. Other examples are given by this writer.

[128] EncyclopÉdie des Sciences Religieuses, s. v. PriÈre.

[129] Other forms are tapui, to make sacred; tabui, to keep from; tabuaki, to bless. Here, as elsewhere, there is a synonomy between “sacred” or “holy” and “accursed,” because it is accursed to defile that which is holy. Another, and less probable, derivation is given by Frazer, in the EncyclopÆdia Britannica, s. v. “Taboo.” He is perfectly right, however, in saying that the original form of the tabu is due, not to its civil, but to its religious element.

[130] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, vol. ii., pp. 368, sq., after Steller, who visited Kamschatka about 1740.

[131] Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Society, vol. xii., pp. 159, 173.

[132] Authorities above quoted, and Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 95.

[133] For abundant examples of the tabu in various nations see Frazer’s article in the Encyc. Britannica above referred to.

[134] Religion of the Semites, p. 18.

[135] Filling in manuscript, he says, seventy-seven quarto volumes, and far from exhausting the supply! Bushman Folk-lore, p. 6. (London, 1875.)

[136] Man, ubi supra, p. 172.

[137] Morice, Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1892, p. 125.

[138] This branch of the subject has been fully discussed by Keary, Outlines of Prim. Belief, Preface and chapter i.; and Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim.

[139] See Myths of the New World, chap. iii.; also, an article on symbolism in ancient American art, by Prof. Putnam and Mr. Willoughby in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Science, vol. xliv., p. 302.

[140] I have presented this subject with greater detail in an article “On the Origin of Sacred Numbers” in the American Anthropologist, April, 1894. The contrast of symbolism of the three and the four is familiar to students. Such a popular text-book as Keil’s Manual of Biblical ArchÆology states that four was the predominating number in the temples, altars, and rites of the ancient world, it being, “according to an idea common to all antiquity, the symbol of the cosmos”; while the three was “the mark of the Divine Being in His various manifestations” (pp. 127, 128).

[141] Westcott, Symbolism of Numbers, p. 7. I have given several examples of triple or triune deities in America in Myths of the New World, pp. 84, 187, 188. From other fields I may note the triad Kane, Ku, and Lono of Hawaii (Fornander, Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 61); that on the Marquesas objectively represented by three sticks tied together (Dr. Tautain, in L’Anthropologie, tom. vii., p. 544); the triad of Tangaloa, Creator, Maui, Sustainer, and Tiki, Revealer, elsewhere in Polynesia (Hale, Ethnog. and Philol., p. 24).

[142] Numerous examples are collected in L. L. Conant, The Number Concept, chap. ii.

[143] In the Quiche and Tzental dialects.

[144] From the verb tumpa, to forge. Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., p. 165.

[145] The TinnÉ of British America have the word NayÉweri, he who creates by thought (Petitot, Les DenÉ Dindjie, p. 63); the Algonquian KitchÉ Manito created the world “by an act of his will” (Schoolcraft, OneÓta, p. 342). For the ZuÑians, see Cushing, ZuÑi Creation Myths, p. 379; for the Polynesians, Hale, Ethnography of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, p. 399, and Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 62.

There is no distinction between these opinions and that of the Christian church, so beautifully expressed by St. Ephrem the Syrian: “At the nod of His will, noiseless and gentle, out of nothing He created all.” (Select Works, Translated by Rev. J. B. Morris, p. 185.)

[146] Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 67; Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 13.

[147] In Myths of the New World, ch. vii. (first ed., 1868). Numerous writers, Klee, Andree, Lucas, etc., have treated the deluge myth with fulness. It is found even among the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands (Man, u. s.) and is quite common throughout Polynesia (Fornander, u. s., vol. i., pp. 88, sq.). Various Australian tribes record it in detail, Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 430.

[148] Fornander (u. s., vol. i., p. 79, sq.) discusses it in Polynesia. Their “tree of life” was a sacred “tabooed” bread-fruit tree. For America, see Myths of the New World, pp. 103-106.

[149] For this reason the works of Delitsch, Haupt, etc., on the question, Wo lag das Paradies?, are much less to the point than if their writers had studied the comparative mythology of the subject.

[150] This mythical cycle, as it arose among the native tribes of America, was made by me the special subject of a volume, American Hero-Myths (pp. 251, Philadelphia, 1882).

[151] See my Essays of an Americanist, pp. 135-147; J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. ii., p. 832; Schrader and Jevons, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 424.

[152] Codrington in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. x., p. 285.

[153] Waitz, Anthropologie der NaturvÖlker, Bd. ii., p. 188.

[154] Von Hasselt, in Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. viii., p. 196.

[155] J. G. Pfleiderer, Die Genesis des Mythus der Indogermanischen VÖlker, p. 48.

[156] References in Pietschmann, Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. x., p. 159, who points out that fetishism should be, as a term, confined to the cult and not applied to the content of a religion.

[157] Rialle, La Mythologie ComparÉe, ch. i.

[158] Prof. Granger remarks that “the influence of the fetish is interpreted as a kind of life of which the fetish is the seat.”—Worship of the Romans, p. 201. Bastian defines it as “an incorporation of a subjective emotional state,” and his disciple Achelis recognises that it is not a stadium of religious development. See his Moderne VÖlkerkunde, p. 366.

[159] The insufficiency of animism as a theory of primitive religions has been previously urged by Van Ende, Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance, p. 21. Like fetishism and shamanism, animism should be regarded, not as a form or stadium of religion, but, to use Castren’s excellent expression, “nur ein Moment in der GÖtterlehre.” Finnische Mythologie, Einleitung.

[160] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 433; the Popol Vuh, passim.

[161] Hale, Ethnog. and Philol. of the U. S. Exploring Expd., p. 55.

[162] E. T. Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 258.

[163] See remarks of W. W. Newell in his introduction to Fanny D. Bergen, Current Superstitions (Mems. Amer. Folk-lore Society, vol. iv.).

[164] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 316; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App., p. cxcviii.; Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 154; Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., p. 48. The moon was sacred to Tina, the chief god of the Etruscans. MÜller, Die Etrusker, Bd. ii., p. 43. Ne dÎdÂ, better known as Dido, has been identified with the moon as the leading deity of the Carthaginians and Phoenicians. Otto Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager, Bd. i., s. 128. Danu, the goddess who presided over the Irish pantheon, the tuatha de Danann, was the moon (from daon, to rise).

[165] Montesinos, Ancien Perou, p. 17; Venegas, Hist of California, p. 107; Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 459.

[166] Brincker in Globus, Bd. lxviii., p. 97.

[167] Martin de Leon, Camino del Cielo, fol. 101.

[168] Montesinos, Ancien Perou, pp. 14-16; Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 157.

[169] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 5; Egede, Nachrichten von GrÖnland, s. 137.

[170] Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. ix. The Eskimo called it Sillam Eipane, winds-house. Egede, u. s.

[171] The urn or vase was, in classical antiquity, the emblem of the fecundating waters (Guigniaut, Religions de l’AntiquitÉ, tom. i., p. 509). Vases full of water were interred with the dead in Peru to symbolise the life beyond. Meyen, Die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29.

[172] Kalewala, Runa iv.

[173] Probably for this reason the ceremonial law of the Bushmen, especially that relating to puberty and marriage, enjoins “to avoid the wrath of the Water.” Bleek, Bushman Folk-lore, p. 18.

[174] Compare Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 315 (after Steller), with Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. xii., p. 163.

[175] The specific effect of certain colours on the sub-consciousness, and thus on the religious emotions, is practically recognised in sacred art; but so far as I know this has not been made a subject of study by the experimental psychologist. Allowance must always be made for association of ideas; as when the Mozambique negroes paint the images of their bad spirits white, on account of their hatred of Europeans!

[176] Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, lib. vii., cap. 49.

[177] Fornander, The Polynesian Race, u. s.; Hale, Ethnog. and Philol., p. 25.

[178] Calloway, Relig. System of the Amazulus, p. 34; Hahn, Tsuni ?Goam, p. 91; Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv., cap. 26.

[179] Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vols. v., p. 412, x., p. 280.

[180] They were called huacanqui. Montesinos, Mems. Hist. sur l’ancien Perou, p. 161.

[181] Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv., cap. 26; Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi., cap. 41.

[182] Hale, Ethnog. and Philol. of the U. S. Explor. Exped., p. 97.

[183] Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 97.

[184] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 241; Matthews, Ethnog. of the Hidatsa, p. 48, etc.

[185] See Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim.

[186] See, for illustrative examples, my Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics, p. 49, etc.; and comp. Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 63, sq.

[187] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme AmÉricain, tome ii., p. 365.

[188] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, pp. 390, 455; Alice C. Fletcher in Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1895 and 1896; Brinton, Myths of New World, pp. 118, 119, and Nagualism, pp. 42, 47, 48.

[189] As suggested by E. Bonavia, Flora of the Assyrian Monuments (1894). This is a more likely interpretation than that of Dr. Tylor, that the conical object is the inflorescence of the male date palm; as it is in some bas-reliefs shown presented toward a city gate, a person, etc.

[190] Fechner, Nana, oder das Seelenleben der Pflanze.

[191] Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., p. 199; Palmer in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., p. 292.

[192] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme AmÉricain, tom. i., p. 240.

[193] A careful discussion of “HÖhencultus,” by Baron von Andrian, may be found in the Bericht der Deutschen Anthrop. Gesellschaft, August, 1889. He believes the earliest form to have been that of the individualised height; later, that of its cosmic relations.

[194] On the Mexican cave-god, Oztoteotl, see my Nagualism, pp. 38-41.

[195] Walcott, Sacred ArchÆology, pp. 233, 236, etc.

[196] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 59; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App., p. clxx.

[197] M. d’Estrey, in L’Anthropologie, tom. iii., pp. 712, sq., has made an interesting study of the lizard symbol in Polynesia, to which much could be added from other fields of primitive life.

[198] As Keary well says: “The essence of primitive belief lies not in any likeness to humanity, but in differences from it.” Outlines of Prim. Belief, p. 26. The Neo-Platonic doctrine of “emanation” led to the belief that a man might become so filled with the divine essence as to become divine himself. This was the claim of Simon the Magician, who “became confessedly a god to his silly followers,” says Hippolytus in his Refutation of all Heresies, bk. vi., cap. 13.

[199] Die Etrusker, Bd. ii., s. 111.

[200] Speaking of Jupiter, this fiery preacher exclaims: “Nor is there any kind of baseness in which you do not associate his name with passionate lusts.”—Adversus Gentes, lib. v., cap. 22.

[201] Howitt, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., pp. 192, 194; vol. xiv., p. 313.

[202] Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 41; Herzog und Plitt, Real-EncyclopÄdie fÜr Prot. Theologie, s. v. Gebet, etc.

[203] Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 412.

[204] Calloway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 34.

[205] As examples, I may name Unkululu, among the Zulus (Calloway, Relig. System of the Amazulu, pp. 40, 43); Singbonga, of the Munga-Kohls (Jellinghaus, in Zeit. fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. iii., p. 330); the Hunahpu of the Quiches (Popol Vuh, p. 1); the Ahsonnuth of the Navahoes (8th Rep. Bur. Ethnol., p. 275); etc. I have discussed the psychic origin of androgynous deities in The Religious Sentiment, pp. 66, sqq. It was also strong in the early Christian Church, Origen and others of the fathers teaching that the Holy Ghost was the feminine principle in God (C. J. Wood, Survivals in Christianity, p. 63).

[206] These were frequent in quite primitive faiths. Some of the priests of ancient Mexico, for example, wholly extirpated the genitalia.—Davila Padilla, Hist. de la Prov. de Mexico, lib. ii., cap. 88. Comp. Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 350.

[207] I have pointed out that in various American dialects, as the Chipeway and Cree, the Maya, Quichua, etc., there are words of native origin, which were used to convey the notion of the love of the gods in pure and high senses. See the article on “The Conception of Love in American Languages,” in Essays of an Americanist, pp. 416, 421, 428, etc.

[208] Otto Gruppe, quoted by Schrader.

[209] Religion of the Semites, p. 18.

[210] The idea of mimicry survived long, and indeed still exists, in what is called “sympathetic magic”; when, for instance, to produce blindness in an enemy, an image is made of him and its eyes transfixed with thorns. Compare Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 12.

[211] Myths of the New World, p. 17.

[212] Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., pp. 66, 67.

[213] Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, lib. iv., cap. viii.

[214] Brinton, Nagualism, p. 53.

[215] Freihold, Die Lebensgeschichte der Menschheit, p. 134. His expressions are: 1. Das Menschenwerden des GÖttlichen; and, 2. Die VergÖtterung des Menschen.

[216] Religion of the Semites, p. 263. This statement will also be considered in the sixth lecture of this series.

[217] Indeed, among the Patagonian Indians, according to a competent observer, there are no fixed religious ceremonies whatever, except those of a personal character, referring to births, marriages, deaths etc.—George C. Musters, Among the Patagonians, chap. v.

[218] The anaphora, remarks the Rev. John M. Neale, in his History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. ii., chap, i., has always been “by far the most important part” of the Christian liturgies. It recurs in nearly all primitive worship.

[219] Granger, Worship of the Romans, pp. 272, 303, etc.

[220] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 42; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 260; Payne Knight, Ancient Art, p. 50.

[221] Indian Sign Language, pp. 167-70.

[222] Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 42.

[223] Von Tschudi, BeitrÄge zur Kenntniss des Alten Peru, p. 156.

[224] See Myths of the New World, pp. 112, sq.

[225] See Richard Andree’s remarks on “die Masken im Kultus,” in his Ethnographische Parallelen, Neue Folge, p. 109, sq.

[226] Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 48, sq.

[227] A. B. Meyer, in Globus, Bd. lxvii., p. 334.

[228] The terms “honorific” and “piacular” were, I believe, first suggested by Dr. W. Robertson Smith. They are very appropriate.

[229] Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 232.

[230] Oviedo, Historia de las Indias, lib. x., cap. xi.

[231] Balboa, Histoire du Perou, pp. 125-7.

[232] Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. ii., p. 31.

[233] Sahagun, Historia de la Nueva EspaÑa, lib. i.

[234] Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, in An. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, vol. xi., p. 132.

[235] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 511.

[236] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme AmÉricain, tom. i., p. 237.

[237] Examples in my Native Calendar of Central America, p. 18. It was a favourite amulet among the Crees (Mackenzie, Hist. of the Fur Trade, p. 86).

[238] Achelis, Moderne VÖlkerkunde, p. 370; Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xii., p. 172.

[239] Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, ch. vi. Sprinkling the new-born child as a religious ceremony prevailed in New Zealand and throughout Polynesia. (Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 236.)

[240] Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, lib. iv., cap. vi. The same belief prevailed in some African tribes; see Achelis, Moderne VÖlkerkunde, p. 393.

[241] H. R. Schoolcraft, OneÓta, pp. 331, 456.

[242] Notices of East Florida by a Recent Traveller, p. 79.

[243] Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, vol. ii., p. 271.

[244] Examples in E. S. Hartland’s Science of Fairy Tales, p. 309.

[245] R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen, p. 177.

[246] The Bora has been often described, by no one better than Mr. A. W. Howitt in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. vii., p. 242, sq., and vol. xiv., p. 306, sq.

[247] J. G. Kohl, Kitchi Gami, p. 228.

[248] Captain Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 254. D’Orbigny describes the bloody ordeals through which girls in South American tribes were obliged to pass. L’Homme AmÉricain, tom. i., pp. 193, 237.

[249] Curr, The Australian Race vol. i., pp. 45-50; Palmer, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., p. 301.

[250] See Post, in Globus, B. lxvii., s. 274.

[251] Palmer, ubi supra, p. 301.

[252] Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages AmÉricains, lib. ii., ch. vi.

[253] Musters asserts this positively of the Tehuelche and other tribes (Among the Patagonians, chap. v.); Captain Clark, whose long experience among our Western tribes constituted him an authority of the first rank, takes pains to correct the notion that among the natives wives are bought, although they are by white men (Indian Sign Language, pp. 245-6). It would be easy to multiply references to the same effect.

[254] Bleek, Bushman Folk-lore, p. 13.

[255] Worship of the Romans, p. 67.

[256] This has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by Dr. S. K. Steinmetz in a remarkable study of “Endo-cannibalismus,” in the Archiv fÜr Anthropologie, 1896.

[257] Granger, ubi supra, p. 37. The word “burial” in ethnology is used to denote all modes of disposal of the corpse. This is etymologically correct. See Yarrow, Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians, p. 5.

[258] Navarrete, Viages, tom. iii., p. 401; Dumont, Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, tom. i., p. 178; Gumilla, Hist. del Orinoco, p. 201. CorÉal says, the widows esteemed it a privilege to be buried with the corpse and disputed among themselves for the honour, Voiages, tom. ii., pp. 93, 94. The Taenzas had the same customs as the Natchez, Tonty, MÉmoire, in French, Hist. Colls. of Louisiana, p. 61.

[259] Arthur J. Evans, in Proc. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1896, Sect. H.

[260] Stephen Powers, Indians of California, pp. 181, 207. The Tasmanians and Fuegians, probably the lowest of known tribes, burned their dead. Hyades et Deniker, Mission Scientifique, p. 379; Fenton, History of Tasmania, p. 95. Some tribes gave as a reason for burning their dead that otherwise bears and wolves would eat the corpse, and the soul would be obliged to take on their forms.—Pres. Message and Ac. Docs., 1851, pt. iii., p. 506.

[261] Alonso de la PeÑa Montenegro, Itinerario para Parrocos de Indios, p. 185 (Madrid, 1771).

[262] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 263.

[263] K. T. Preuss, in the Bastian Festschrift.

[264] Anthropologie des NaturvÖlker, Bd. i., p. 459.

[265] The application of the blood, observes Professor Granger, “bound together in some way those who were present at the rite” (Worship of the Romans, p. 210). This subject is fully discussed by Dr. H. C. Trumbull in his works, The Blood Covenant, and The Threshold Covenant.

[266] Castren, in the Introduction to his Finnische Mythologie, has some excellent remarks on the beneficial effects of shamanism. It is an effort to free the human mind from the shackles of blind natural forces; it recognises the dependence of the subjective on an objective will, etc.

[267] Myth and Science, p. 41.

[268] Hahn, Tsuni ?Goam, p. 21.

[269] Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., pp. 259, 271, 282; vol. ii., App., p. clxxv.

[270] Walthouse, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. v., p. 415.

[271] NuÑez de la Vega, Constituciones Diocesanas de Chiapas, fol. 9.

[272] The locally famous Maria Candelaria. At the head of fifteen thousand warriors, she defied the Spanish army for nearly a year, and, though defeated, was never captured. Her story is scantily recorded by Vicente Pineda, in his Historia de las Sublevaciones Indigenas en el Estado de Chiapas, pp. 38-70.

[273] Otfried MÜller, Die Etrusker, Bd. ii., ss. 77, 78.

[274] Compare Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 60; and Maury, La Magie et Astrologie, p. 386, sq.

[275] Geo. Turner, Samoa, p. 9; Dr. Tautain, in L’Anthropologie, tome vii., p. 548.

[276] On the ordeal, see Post, Ethnologisches Jurisprudenz, Bd. ii., ss. 459, sq., 479; Waitz, Anthropologie der NaturvÖlker, Bd. i., s. 461. The assertion by some writers that the ordeal was not known to the American Indians is incorrect. For example, Captain Clark recounts those to test the virtue of women who have been accused. Indian Sign Language, pp. 45, 208.

[277] See S. K. Steinmetz on “Der Zweikampf als Ordal” in his Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, Bd. ii., s. 76, sq.

[278] Post, ubi supra, Bd. ii., s. 478.

[279] Adair, Hist. of the N. American Indians, p. 158; Boscana, Acc. of the Indians of California, p. 262.

[280] This is presented admirably and at length by M. Kulischer in an article “Der Dualismus der Ethik bei den primitiven VÖlkern,” in the Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Bd. xvii., pp. 205, sqq. He also sees clearly enough that the same principle, masked and denied though it be, reigns to-day. The “categorical imperative” of Kant, is as far from realisation as is “the golden rule.”

[281] There were, of course, some hobgoblins always ready to eat up or injure man; but not for any moral or ethical reason. “They afflict men, not out of anger or to punish sin, but because it is their nature to do so,” as Dalton says of the devils of the Oraons. Ethnology of Bengal, p. 256.

[282] This explains what Dr. Robertson Smith, in his Religion of the Semites, p. 140, says is so difficult to grasp,—that the primitive idea of holiness is apart from personal character, and even shameful wretches could lay claim to it. Entirely parallel instances are found in the history of Christian heresies, as the Anomians and Anabaptists, who were so holy that they could commit no sin, and hence allowed themselves the wildest licence.

[283] It is in this sense that Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote: “Wahre Tugend ist unvertrÄglich mit auf AutoritÄt geglaubter Religion.” (Gesammelte Werke, Bd. vii., p. 72.) This is a cardinal principle in studying the history of ethics.

[284] Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., p. 271; Hoffman, Secret Societies of the Ojibway, passim.

[285] They were called the Abecedarians, because they distrusted even the ABC. Some learned scholars actually threw away their books and joined them.

[286] Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 607.

[287] The Descent of Man, p. 581.

[288] As Wilhelm von Humboldt remarked: “Das Streben der Natur ist auf etwas UnbeschrÄnktes gerichtet.” The meaning of this profound observation is ably discussed by Steinthal, Die sprachphilosophischen Werke W. von Humboldt’s, p. 178.

[289] Bull. Amer. Museum Nat. History, vol. viii., p. 227.

[290] They were preserved in the original tongue by the first missionaries, Sahagun, Olmos, Bautista, etc., and have, in part, been published.

[291] This is further set forth in Rostock, Das Religionswesen der rohesten NaturvÖlker, p. 145, sq.; and Curr, The Australian Race, vol. i., pp. 51-54.

[292] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 309.

[293] Walthouse, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. xiv., p. 189.

[294] The amok of the Malays, the mali-mali of the Tagalese, etc., is a maniacal religious psychosis in which the subject will rush violently through a street, killing or wounding any one he meets. See Dr. Rasch’s discussion of it in Centralblatt fÜr Anthropologie, vol. i., p. 54, who considers it a “suggestive influence.” Similar examples are common among American Indians.

[295] Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, bk. ii., cap. 62.

[296] Worship of the Romans, p. 211. This was, of course, but one side of it, though usually the most important.

[297] Professor Lazarus observes: “In der Religion zeigt sich der ganze Mensch” (Zeitschrift fÜr VÖlkerpsychologie, Bd. i., s. 47). That is, that the individual in no other condition of mind realises and reveals his full personality so completely as in that which is created by the religious sentiment.

[298] Judaism and Christianity, pp. 5-7.

[299] The literature relating to these august characters in American legendary literature is presented in my American Hero-Myths, passim; also, Myths of the New World, pp. 336, 337.

[300] Ancient Egyptian Religion, Introduction.

THE END.

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