The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This was suggested to me by Mr. G.A. Garfitt.

Development of Man

Estimated duration of the Cainozoic Period, assuming that the thickness of the deposits is about 63,000 feet, and that deposits accumulate at the rate of 1 foot in 100 years. Drawn to the scale of 1 mm. to 100,000 years. The estimate is given and explained by Prof. Sollas in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, LXV. (1909). The “tree” is based on that given by Dr. A. Keith in The Antiquity of Man, p. 509.

If we suppose the differentiation of the HominidÆ to have begun before the close of the Oligocene, about (say) 3,500,000 years are allowed for the evolution of the existing species of Man. All these reckonings are provisional.

[3] That Man was from the first a hunter has been suggested by several authors; but the consequences of the assumption have never (as far as I know) been worked out. A.R. Wallace, in Darwinism (p. 459), has the following passage: “The anthropoid apes, as well as most of the monkey tribe, are essentially arboreal in their structure, whereas the great distinctive character of man is his special adaptation to terrestrial locomotion. We can hardly suppose, therefore, that he originated in a forest region, where fruits to be obtained by climbing are the chief vegetable food. It is more probable that he began his existence on the open plains on high plateaux of the temperate or subtropical zone, where the seeds of indigenous cereals, numerous herbivora, rodents, game-birds, with fishes and molluscs in the lakes and rivers and seas supplied him with an abundance of varied food. In such a region he would develop skill as a hunter, trapper or fisherman, and later as a herdsman and cultivator—a succession of which we find indications in the palÆolithic and neolithic races of Europe.”

Prof. MacBride, in his popular introduction to Zoology (p. 84), also traces the specialisation of Man to the hunting life.

My friend Mr. Thomas Whittaker has sent me the following extract from Comte’s Politique Positive, I. pp. 604-5: “L’obligation de se nourrir d’une proie qu’il faut atteindre et vaincre, perfectionne À la fois tous les attributs animaux, tant intÉrieurs qu’extÉrieurs. Son influence envers les sens et les muscles est trop Évidente pour exiger ici aucun examen. Par sa rÉaction habituelle sur les plus hautes fonctions du cerveau, elle dÉveloppe Également l’intelligence et l’activitÉ, dont le premier essor lui est toujours dÛ, mÊme chez notre espÈce. A tous ces tÎtres, cette nÉcessitÉ modifie aussi les races qui en sont victimes, d’aprÈs les efforts moins Énergiques, mais plus continus, qu’elle y provoque pour leur dÉfense. Dans les deux cas, et surtout quant À l’attaque, elle dÉtermine mÊme les prÉmiÈres habitudes de co-opÉration active, au moins temporaire. BornÉes À la simple famille chez les espÈces insociables, ces ligues peuvent ailleurs embrasser quelquefois de nombreuses troupes. Ainsi commencent, parmi les animaux, des impulsions et des aptitudes qui ne pouvaient se dÉvelopper que d’aprÈs la continuitÉ propre À la race la plus sociable et la plus intelligente. Enfin, la condition carnassiÈre doit aussi Être appreciÉe dans sa rÉaction organique. Une plus forte excitation, une digestion moins laborieuse et plus rapide, une assimilation plus complÈte produisant un sang plus stimulant: telles sont ses propriÉtÉs physiologiques. Toutes concourent À dÉvelopper les fonctions supÉrieures, soit en augmentant l’Énergie de leurs organes, soit en procurant plus de temps pour leur exercice.”

[4] F. Wood Jones, Arboreal Man, pp. 117-22.

[5] On these paragraphs—(3), (4), (5), (6), (7)—see Darwin’s Descent of Man, 2nd ed., pp. 49-54: whence, of course, I have freely borrowed.

[6] Numerous references might be given, from which I select Hagenbeck, Beasts and Men, p. 63.

[7] R. L. Garner, Gorillas and Chimpanzees, ch. vi.: where mention is made of such meanings as “food,” “calling to some one,” “affection,” “good” (said, I suppose, of food), “warning cries,” “cold or discomfort,” “drink,” “illness,” “dead”: the entire vocabulary, perhaps, not more than twenty signs. The value of Garner’s work is disputed.

[8] Natural Selection, p. 193.

[9] Avebury, Prehistoric Times, 7th ed., p. 578.

[10] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 619.

[11] Turner’s Samoa, p. 285.

[12] Op. cit., p. 579.

[13] Primitive Marriage, ch. ii.

[14] Descent of Man, 2nd ed., pp. 595-604.

[15] Parerga and Paralipomena, B. II, Kap. 27.

[16] A Naturalist in Nicaragua, ch. xi.

[17] Op. cit., p. 57.

[18] Natural Selection, pp. 195-7.

[19] Naked races of dogs have also been reported to exist in China, Manila and South Africa; but I can learn no particulars of them.

[20] W. E. Ling Roth, North Queensland Ethnology, Bulletin V. § 81.

[21] A. Keith, The Antiquity of Man, p. 134.

[22] M. A. Czaplicka, My Siberian Year, p. 230.

[23] Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 76-7.

[24] Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, Pop. ed., II. p. 308.

[25] The contents of this section lie outside my own studies, and have been taken from various books of Geology and PalÆontology: I must especially mention Prof. Osborne’s Age of Mammals (1910) and Prof. Scott’s Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere (1913). I have also profited by inspecting the PalÆontological Gallery at South Kensington with the help of its excellent Guide-Book.

[26] A. Keith, The Human Body, p. 58.

[27] Travels and Researches in Western Africa, ch. vii.

[28] See The Antiquity of Man, by Arthur Keith.

[29] Malay Archipelago, pp. 46-7.

[30] According to R. L. Garner, however, both gorillas and chimpanzees are polygamous. See Gorillas and Chimpanzees, pp. 54 and 214.

[31] This view is not opposed to the suggestion I have somewhere seen that the collecting activities of women, whilst men hunted, may, at some stage, have led to property and domestication of plants and animals. Again, the pastoral and agricultural states are not necessarily successive: it depends upon local conditions. For an excellent survey of the gradual rise of primitive culture and the difficulties it encountered, see H. Spencer’s Industrial Institutions, Principles of Sociology, Vol. III.

[32] It is certainly believed by fox-hunters that a fox feeds his vixen when she is occupied with their family, and that “if the vixen is killed he will bring up the family by himself.”—Thomas F. Dale, The Fox, pp. 12, 13.

Nothing incredible in this—nor of wolves. Can the vixen provide for herself and litter alone? If not, the dog must do it: else there could be no foxes or wolves.

However, de Canteleu denies that the he-wolf takes any part in rearing the young (La Chasse du Loup, p. 30).

[33] W. P. Pycraft, in his entertaining Courtship of Animals, after assuming that Man became a hunter for the sake of the excitement such a life afforded, goes on (p. 23): “A little later the advantages of neighbourliness were borne in on him, largely for the sake of the greater ease wherewith the animals of the chase could be captured by their combined efforts; but this begat comradeship and some of the graces that follow therefrom.”

[34] Descent of Man, ch. xx.

[35] See above, footnote on p. 32.

[36] Avebury, Prehistoric Times, 7th ed., p. 580.

[37] Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 262.

[38] Hunting Trips in North America, p. 349.

[39] G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 91.

[40] The Arctic Prairies, p. 20.

[41] La Chasse du Loup, p. 21.

[42] Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 755.

[43] Wild Beasts of India, pp. 275-6. Cf. Casserly, Life on an Indian Outpost, pp. 94-5. Brehm says, in Thierleben, that in Russia wolves attack and kill the bear.

[44] Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 754.

[45] Naturalist in La Plata, p. 346.

[46] Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, p. 70.

[47] Op. cit., pp. 336-7.

[48] Hiram S. Maxim, My Life, p. 57.

[49] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 388.

[50] Op. cit., pp. 6-7.

[51] Op. cit., p. 78.

[52] Malay Archipelago, p. 43.

[53] See the Report of the British Association, 1900, pp. 711-30. The author has since then revised his estimates, assigning much greater depth to the Pliocene and Miocene deposits and proportionally more time for their formation. See the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, LXV. (1909).

[54] Dr. Smith Woodward’s reconstruction gives the skull of Eoanthropus a capacity of about 1300 c.c.

[55] See Ray Lankester’s Description of the Test-Specimen. R.A.I., Occasional Papers, No. 4.

[56] Book VII. chs. 69, 71, 74.

[57] E. Thompson Seton, The Arctic Prairies, pp. 304 and 352.

[58] Op. cit., pp. 151, 239, 476.

[59] Antiquity of Man, p. 268.

[60] A. Keith, op. cit., p. 408.

[61] Op. cit., p. 452.

[62] Op. cit., p. 414.

[63] Cultes, Mythes et Religion, III. p. 430.

[64] Primitive Marriage, ch. iii.

[65] Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 757.

[66] See above, § 3 (4), footnote, p. 37.

[67] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 198.

[68] G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 33.

[69] Descent of Man, ch. iii.

[70] E. Thompson Seton, Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 769.

[71] E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. p. 52.

[72] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Northern Territory of Australia, p. 27.

[73] Royal Natural History, I. pp. 72-3.

[74] Descent of Man, ch. iii.

[75] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 200.

[76] Principles of Sociology, Vol. II.

[77] Anthropoid Apes, pp. 294-5.

[78] Descent of Man, ch. iv.

[79] Sermons on Human Nature.

[80] The Herd Instinct.

[81] Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 89.

[82] A. Keith, op. cit., p. 429.

[83] G. M. Theal, History and Ethnology of South Africa, p. 11.

[84] G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 76.

[85] Treatise of Human Nature, Part III. § 7. For the recent psychology of Belief see James Sully’s The Human Mind, ch. xiii., and James Ward’s Psychological Principles, ch. xiv.

[86] See below, ch. viii. § 5.

[87] Logique des Sentiments, II. § 4.

[88] Les Fonctions Mentales dans les SociÉtÉs InfÉrieures, p. 40.

[89] British Journal of Psychology, Vol. I. p. 393.

[90] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 462.

[91] The Melanesians, p. 247.

[92] Below, ch. viii. § 4.

[93] Ch. iv. § 8.

[94] In assuming that there are no magical powers I do not mean that the magician has no professional powers, but that such real powers as he has are not magical.

[95] Czaplicka, My Siberian Year, p. 94. Other examples in Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man, pp. 351-3.

[96] The Mind of Primitive Man, V. pp. 150-52.

[97] Sociological Review, January 1910, p. 9.

[98] Quoted by Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I. p. 105.

[99] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, II. p. 216

[100] F. M. Cornford in Miss Jane Harrison’s Themis, ch. vii.

[101] History of the Kingship, p. 38; cf. also The Magic Art, I. p. 235, and footnote: “faith in magic is probably older than a belief in spirits.”

[102] Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 417.

[103] In the American Journal of Psychology, p. 83 (1919), E.S. Conkling has an instructive article on Superstitious Belief and Practice among College Students. Of a large group examined 53 per cent. entertained some superstition (40 per cent. M., 66 per cent. F.). At some time, now or formerly, 82 per cent. had been so affected (73 per cent. M., 90 per cent. F.). Half assigned their former superstitions to the age from twelve to sixteen. Twenty-two per cent. attributed the disposition to the suggestion of elders, 47 per cent. to social suggestion, 15 per cent. to social inheritance, and 15 per cent. to emotions and feelings beyond the control of reason.

[104] Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 354.

[105] Quoted by Ames, Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 60.

[106] Charms (and possibly rites and spells) are sometimes revealed in dreams (Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 378; and Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 110). But this can only happen either where the belief in charms already exists (as in the cases cited), or by the coincidence of the dream with good or bad fortune. The connexion of events must first of all present itself as something observed: whether waking or dreaming is indifferent.

For further illustrations of the influence of coincidences in establishing a belief in Magic, see ch. viii. § 5.

[107] R. R. Marett, Preanimistic Religion, Folk-Lore, 1900.

[108] A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 371.

[109] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 472.

[110] A. C. Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 361.

[111] Coddrington, The Melanesians, pp. 118-19.

[112] For a comparison of these allied notions see E.S. Hartland’s Ritual and Belief, pp. 36-51.

[113] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 548.

[114] W. McDougall, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, II. p. 199.

[115] Vol. II. p. 2.

[116] Vol. II. p. 124.

[117] Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 311.

[118] Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 79.

[119] Tends to be assimilated—for if the presentation have some special character of Animism, it will be assimilated to the animistic system; or if Animism be the more active and fashionable theory in a man’s social group.

[120] It has been thought strange that such a thing as a whirlwind may excite in the savage either fear or anger. To explain this we must consider the nature of wonder: it is an imaginative expansion of surprise, temporary paralysis of the imagination, with emotional disturbance, but no progressive instinct of its own. It either subsides helplessly, or gives place to curiosity, or passes into some other emotion that is connected with an instinct. Accordingly, it usually passes into curiosity or else fear, but sometimes into anger: which of these emotions shall be aroused depends, partly, upon the character of the person who wonders, partly, upon circumstances.

[121] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 321.

[122] W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 52.

[123] One may trace this process in the interesting collection of spells in Skeat’s Malay Magic.

[124] Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 397.

[125] Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 376.

[126] Turner, Samoa, p. 138. For further development of the spell, see (besides Skeat, op. cit.) the collected examples at the end of Sayce’s Religion of the Ancient Babylonians.

[127] Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 26.

[128] Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 173-5.

[129] The Melanesians, pp. 118-19.

[130] Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District, Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 201; and Murdoch, Ethnology of Point Barrow, Am. B. of Ethn., IX. p. 434.

[131] W.M. Newton, On PalÆological Figures of Flint, Journ. of B. Arch. Ass., March 1913.

[132] The Song of Roland, done into English by C. Scott Moncrieff, CLXXIII.

[133] T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 88.

[134] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, V. p. 271.

[135] A. E. Crawley, J.A.I., XXIV. p. 123.

[136] Development of Moral Ideas, I, c. 26.

[137] Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico, p. 350.

[138] Life of a South African Tribe, p. 528.

[139] See the exhaustive treatment of this subject in Frazer’s Taboo and the Perils of the Soul.

[140] A “barn” is a small spindle-shaped stick, supposed to be thrown in a magical attack by wizards. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 377.

[141] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 110.

[142] Quoted by Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I. p. 105.

[143] The Sacred Shrine, pp. 33-9.

[144] Life of a South African Tribe, p. 340.

[145] Sioux Cults, Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 484.

[146] New Trails in Mexico, p. 61.

[147] Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 48.

[148] Quoted by Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 268.

[149] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, V. p. 325.

[150] W. Grube, Rel. u. K. d. Chinese, p. 153.

[151] In the B. of Am. Ethn., XIII. p. 374, F.H. Cushing, describing “ZuÑi Creation Myths,” says the dramaturgic tendency is to suppose that Nature can be made to act by men, if “they do first what they wish the elements to do,” according “as these things were done or made to be done by the ancestral gods of creation.” The last clause is, perhaps, an animistic gloss of the ZuÑis’, who were, of course, very far from primitive thought.

[152] The Psychological Study of Religion, p. 165.

[153] Cf. S. H. Ray, “People and Language of Lifu,” J.R.A.I. (XLVII.), p. 296, who says, a woman whose son or husband was away at war would place a piece of coral to represent him on a mat, move it about with her right hand as he might move in fight, and with her left brush away imaginary evils. This protected him (evidently by exemplary Magic).

[154] W. H. R. Rivers, The Disappearance of Useful Arts, also History of Melanesian Society, II. p. 445; and in Turner’s Samoa (p. 145) we are told that the practice of embalming died out with the family of embalmers.

[155] The Veddas, pp. 126-7.

[156] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 170.

[157] The Land of Zing, p. 219.

[158] J. O. Dorsey, American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 419.

[159] Mariner’s Tonga, p. 105.

[160] Myth, Ritual and Religion, p. 48.

[161] African Game Trails, p. 333.

[162] Outdoor Pastimes, p. 77.

[163] Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, I. p. 183.

[164] The Melanesians, pp. 249 and 356.

[165] Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. p. 222.

[166] Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 3.

[167] Camp and Tramp in African Wilds, p. 174.

[168] The Primitive Bakongo, p. 283.

[169] Among Congo Cannibals, p. 275.

[170] Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 355.

[171] Two Years with the Natives of the West Pacific, p. 199. As to waterspouts and shooting stars, see the Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 252.

[172] J. Hernell in the Quarterly Journal of the Mythical Society (Bangalore), IV. No. 4, p. 158.

[173] A. A. Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, p. 112.

[174] J. Mooney in Reports of the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1885-6, VII. p. 341.

[175] J. E. Bourke in the Reports of the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-8, IX. pp. 499-507.

[176] E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, pp. 288, 354.

[177] Principles of Sociology, Vol. I. chs. viii.-xii.

[178] Primitive Culture, chs. xi., xii.

[179] J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, pp. 262-3. My friend, Mr. Torday, tells me this belief is very common in Africa.

[180] See, e.g., A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 406; and P.A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, pp. 83-8.

[181] Indians of Guiana, p. 344.

[182] S. H. C. Hawtrey, “The Lengua Indians,” J.A.I., 1901.

[183] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Am. B. of Ethn., VII. p. 352.

[184] C. G. Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 190-91.

[185] S. H. Ray, “People and Language of Lifu,” J.R.A.I., LXVII. p. 296.

[186] Turner, Samoa, p. 277.

[187] A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 358.

[188] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, § 53.

[189] J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 238.

[190] J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 233.

[191] T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 160.

[192] Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 269.

[193] V. StefÀnson, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 57.

[194] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 3.

[195] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 403.

[196] Polynesian Researches, I. p. 523.

[197] The Primitive Bakongo, p. 371.

[198] E. im Thurn, op. cit., p. 363.

[199] Principles of Sociology, §§ 165-93.

[200] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 220.

[201] Franz Boas, American Bureau of Ethnology, VI. 1884-5, p. 583.

[202] Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, pp. 1 and 40. Cf. Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 150: Koevasi, a spirit, was never human, yet in some way the originator of the human race.

[203] E. Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, p. 343.

[204] J.R.A.I., 1909, p. 163.

[205] See his ingenious speculations in The Evolution of the Idea of God, ch. xiii.

[206] Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. iii. ch. vi.

[207] Among Congo Cannibals, p. 272.

[208] G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 236.

[209] A. A. Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, p. 44.

[210] T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 126.

[211] P. A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 73.

[212] Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 437.

[213] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 483.

[214] Grettir Saga, ch. xxxv.

[215] Pausanias, VI. p. 6.

[216] G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 217.

[217] First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 52 note.

[218] American Bureau of Ethnology, I. p. 200.

[219] Mythus und Religion, 2º ed., p. 78.

[220] Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 194.

[221] Malay Magic, p. 47.

[222] Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, I. p. 183.

[223] W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 50.

[224] In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 230.

[225] J. O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults” in the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 512.

[226] West African Studies, p. 200.

[227] J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, II. pp. 196-208; where are reported other beliefs in a plurality of souls; in one case thirty, in another thirty-six.

[228] M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 282.

[229] Malay Magic, p. 48.

[230] Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, ch. ix.

[231] Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 194.

[232] Monadologie, 47.

[233] The Primitive Bakongo, p. 115.

[234] Republic, 611a.

[235] Haddon, Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, Vol. V. p. 355.

[236] C. G. Seligman, The Veddas, p. 133.

[237] R. W. Williamson, The Mafulu, p. 266.

[238] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 396.

[239] C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians, p. 658.

[240] J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 224.

[241] Ling Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania, pp. 57-61.

[242] Herodotus, V. p. 93.

[243] On the mortality of gods, see Frazer, The Dying God, ch. i.

[244] Primitive Culture, II. pp. 75-96.

[245] Treatise, B. I., Part III. § 9.

[246] Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 450.

[247] Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. pp. 95-9. For similar formulÆ of dismission (which, of course, are constraining spells) see W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, I. p. 522; and J.O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults,” American Bureau of Ethnology, X. p. 420.

[248] Stigand, The Land of Zing, p. 250.

[249] For the practice of appointing certain seasons at which the whole tribe or nation unites in driving out ghosts or demons by force of arms (sometimes with the help of cannon and elephants), as obtaining at all levels of culture, from Australian savagery to the enlightenment of China and Peru, and with more decorum at Athens and Rome, see Frazer, The Scapegoat, ch. iii. § 2.

[250] C. G. Seligman, The Veddas, p. 131.

[251] Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 253.

[252] Vigfussen and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I. p. 417. For further examples of affectionate interest in ghosts, see Primitive Culture, II. pp. 31-3.

[253] Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 100.

[254] The Todas, p. 363.

[255] E. R. Smith, The Araucanians, p. 172.

[256] Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 177.

[257] Miss M. C. Stevenson, “The Sia” in American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 121.

[258] StefÀnson, My Life among the Eskimo, p. 397.

[259] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 497.

[260] Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 259.

[261] Mythus und Religion, pp. 78, 79.

[262] Op. cit., p. 125 et seq.

[263] Op. cit., p. 202 et seq.

[264] This was also Spencer’s opinion, op. cit., § 133.

[265] Op. cit., p. 263.

[266] Op. cit., p. 267.

[267] See above, pp. 100 and 119-24.

[268] Hume, Inquiry, § vii.

[269] A. H. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 398.

[270] Book II. p. 82; Rawlinson’s Translation.

[271] Vol. I. ch. iv.

[272] But see the footnote at p. 235 of The Magic Art, I.: “faith in magic is probably older than the belief in spirits.” In the same note, a passage in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion is referred to as anticipating the doctrine of the priority of Magic to Religion. The passage, as translated in an appendix (pp. 423-6), shows, however, no conception of Magic as akin to natural law, as it is described in several passages of The Golden Bough, but treats it as a belief in any human being “as the ruling power over nature in virtue of his own will.” This is rather an anticipation of Prof. Wundt’s doctrine concerning Sorcery; which Hegel seems not to have distinguished from Magic. I need hardly add that a belief in any human being as the ruling power over nature in virtue of his own will has never been discovered in any part of the world.

[273] Op. cit., pp. 237-9.

[274] Primitive Culture, I. 116.

[275] R. H. Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 125.

[276] H. A. Giles, Chinese Literature, p. 202.

[277] Animism gave the priest another excuse for the failure of rites (besides those enjoyed by a mere magician), namely, that during, or since, the celebration some fresh offence against the gods had been committed.

[278] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 453, 463.

[279] A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 359-361-367.

[280] Howitt, op. cit., p. 378.

[281] E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 148.

[282] The Mafulu, p. 193.

[283] Op. cit., p. 272.

[284] Extract from a spell in Skeat’s Malay Magic, p. 571.

[285] Howitt, op. cit., p. 397.

[286] J. G. Frazer, The Belief in Immortality, p. 288. For similar instances see the same work, pp. 335 and 375.

[287] Sarat Chandra Roy, “Magic and Witchcraft on the Chota Nagpur Plateau,” J.R.A.I., XLIV. p. 330. I have slightly altered the last sentence, which seems to have been misprinted.

[288] Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 215.

[289] The Todas, pp. 30, 213.

[290] Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 286. But whether we should expect the idea to weaken with advancing civilisation must depend upon whether intelligent belief in the gods was increasing. Perhaps this was not the case at Rome.

[291] Polynesian Researches, II. pp. 144 and 157 (1st ed.).

[292] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 199.

[293] Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 209.

[294] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees” in Am. B. of Ethn., VII. p. 314 (1885-6).

[295] Heimskringla, St. Olaf’s Saga, chs. cciv. and ccxl.

[296] Primitive Culture, II. p. 273 (2nd ed.).

[297] Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 145.

[298] S. H. C. Hawtrey, “The Lengua Indians,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1901.

[299] “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXIV. (1894-5).

[300] Comparetti, The Traditionary Poetry of the Finns, p. 184.

[301] Howitt, op. cit., p. 404. Is this type of the neophyte’s behaviour, which is conformed to on certain occasions by magicians and inspired priests in every age and country, itself conformed to the natural type of insanity or epilepsy; and, if so, consciously or unconsciously?

[302] J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, pp. 145 and 276.

[303] Grey, Polynesian Mythology, chs. i. and vii.

[304] Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom, p. 225.

[305] Corpus Poeticum Boreale, pp. 24, 34, 181, 196.

[306] Heimskringla Saga, Yuglingasaga, chs. xvii.-xviii.

[307] “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, X., XIV. p. 85.

[308] Weeks, Congo Cannibals, p. 265.

[309] The fullest and most dramatic account of such possession may be found in Williams’ Fiji and the Fijians, p. 190. See below, p. 243.

[310] Weeks, Primitive Bokongo, p. 215.

[311] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 480-8.

[312] “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXIV. p. 130.

[313] Howitt, op. cit., p. 374.

[314] Ibid., p. 437.

[315] P. A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 230.

[316] G. Borrow, Wild Wales, ch. lxxxviii.

[317] Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., p. 388.

[318] H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, § 55.

[319] E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 308 et seq.

[320] In a paper on Leopard Men of the Naga Hills, read at a meeting of the R.A.I. (December 9, 1919), Mr. J.J.H. Hutton reported that such men do not change into leopards; but sometimes their souls involuntarily pass into them. If the leopard be injured or killed he whose soul was in it suffers or dies—when he hears of it. Such men are not feared, because their leopards do very little harm.

For this reason (I suppose) the belief is not exploited by wizards, who have no use for innocent superstition, and it remains pure folklore. There may not be any connexion between this animistic doctrine of human souls possessing animals and the magical doctrine of shape-changing. If they are connected, it is easy to see that in a certain atmosphere of popular philosophy, if shape-changing were believed in, the possession theory might be accepted as the true explanation upon merely being proposed. Indeed, it would make intelligible such a case as this: a man’s leopard is seen on the skirts of the village; but he himself is known to be in his hut.

Animistic explanation does not always follow culture: Europe adheres to shape-changing. Yet in the Volsung Saga the superstition is already degenerate: Sigmund and his son change into wolves by putting on wolf-skins belonging to two were-wolves whom they find asleep. This is a rationalisation—disguise as a step toward change. An earlier step is to say a man who would change must put on a belt of wolf-skin.

[321] Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 329.

[322] Grey, op. cit., “Legends of Maui and Tawhaki.”

[323] Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 54-8.

[324] M. C. Stevenson, “The Sia,” Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 118.

[325] W. Grube, Rel. u. K. d. Chinese, p. 132.

[326] “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, ch. xxiv. p. 133.

[327] StephÁnsen, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 391.

[328] D. Comparetti, The Traditional Poetry of the Finns, p. 26.

[329] Natural and Social Morals, ch. ii. § 4.

[330] See many examples in J. G. Frazer’s Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, ch. i.

[331] Ch. vi.

[332] III. p. 31.

[333] Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, pp. 73 and 183.

[334] Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 124.

[335] A. H. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 319.

[336] Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 202.

[337] Alfred Lyall, Asiatic Studies, essays on The State and Religion in China. In a milder form this system has been adopted by Japan; W.E. Aston, Shinto, p. 237.

[338] Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion.

[339] VI. c. 27 (Rawlinson’s Translation).

[340] Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 152.

[341] De Acosta, History of the Indies, VII. c. 23 (translated by C.R. Markham).

[342] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 220.

[343] Book I. cc. 7-10.

[344] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 260.

[345] W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination, p. 15.

[346] Historia Naturalis, XXVII. p. 4.

[347] Suetonius: Julius, c. 59.

[348] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 56-64.

[349] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 266.

[350] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 361; VI. p. 259.

[351] Seligman, Mel. of B. N. G., p. 309.

[352] De Divinatione, I. c. 19.

[353] An infallible sign is, in Formal Logic, the same as a cause, according to the scheme If A, then B; and it is conceivable that, with strict thinking, a belief in an Omen may give rise to a magical practice. “For,” says Lord Avebury, “granted that the fall of a stick certainly preludes that of the person it represents, it follows that by upsetting the stick his death can be caused” (Origin of Civilisation, p. 166). I do not see why such an inference should not be drawn, but can give no example of it. The possibility shows how much community there is between Magic and the lore of Omens; but as to this particular case, the magical cast of mind is already implied in the original setting up of the stick whose fall should prelude that of a given individual.

[354] Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 123.

[355] A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 401.

[356] Quoted by Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, I. pp. 489 and 495.

[357] A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 389.

[358] C. G. Seligman, op. cit., p. 188.

[359] VII. c. 16.

[360] The poet is closely allied at first to the wizard; for (besides that the greatest spells and oracles are versified) the poet is inspired. In Australia poets are sometimes carried by ghosts into skyland, where they learn songs and dances. Some compose awake; but the belief prevails that they are inspired in dreams by dead and kindred spirits. Their songs travel far amongst tribes that no longer understand the language. (Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 389 and 413.) Similarly in Fiji (Fiji and the Fijians, p. 98). “The poem is too wonderful for me”—such is the poet’s humility; “it was made by the gods”—such is his arrogance.

[361] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 526.

[362] Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. p. 125.

[363] Casalis, Les Bassoutos, pp. 299 and 340.

[364] Jounod, Life of a South African Tribe, I. 361. This “medicine” is the chief’s great store of magical force: its principal ingredients are the nails and hair of chiefs deceased, fixed together by a kind of wax.

[365] Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, p. 417.

[366] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, II. p. 235.

[367] De Div., II. c. 57.

[368] Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 190.

[369] Pausanias, IX. c. 10 (Frazer’s Translation).

[370] Pausanias, I. p. 34.

[371] Ibid., IX. p. 30.

[372] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 523.

[373] A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 404.

[374] Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 25.

[375] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 181.

[376] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 367.

[377] This is unjust to the Australians. Amongst the Dieri (L. Eyre) wizards with renewed entrails communicate with supernatural beings, interpret dreams and discover murderers; but they also recognise spiritual communication with ordinary men in visions; not ordinary dreams, which are mere fancies, but those that are repeated; and these come from Kutchi, an evil spirit (Howitt, op. cit., p. 358). We may be sure the Greeks were mistaken in supposing that it was Amphiaraus who instituted divination by dreams.

[378] Herodotus, I. cc. 107, 28.

[379] W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies, p. 154.

[380] Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 193.

[381] De Div., II. cc. 33, 35.

[382] Polybius, VI. c. 2.

[383] Discourses, II. c. 7.

[384] De Div., II. c. 17; cf. c. 49.

[385] Life of a South African Tribe, p. 521.

[386] Questiones Naturales, II. c. 32.

[387] De Div., I. c. 15.

[388] Les Bassoutos, p. 248.

[389] Ling Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania, p. 65.

[390] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 336.

[391] Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 177.

[392] The political importance of the wizard seems to have been first noticed by Spencer, Principles of Sociology, II. p. 178 (§ 474).

[393] Bellamy, quoted by Seligman, Melanesians of British North Guinea, p. 694.

[394] Religion of the Amazulu, p. 40.

[395] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 114.

[396] Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 191.

[397] E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, ch. xlix.

[398] The Sacred Shrine.

[399] Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. pp. 322-3.

[400] Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology.

[401] Am. B. of Ethn., VII., “Ojibway Medicine,” by W.J. Hoffman; XI., “The Sia,” by M.C. Stevenson; XIV., “The Menomini Indians,” by W. Hoffman. For a collection of the facts see Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, IV. ch. xix; and Hutton Webster, Primitive Secret Societies.

[402] Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 200.

[403] Op. cit., p. 278.

[404] Among Congo Cannibals, p. 251.

[405] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 326.

[406] Book VII. The witch, imitated from Circe and Medea by Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, became a traditionary, romantic motive.

[407] Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 388.

[408] StefÁnson, op. cit., p. 403.

[409] Czaplicka, op. cit., p. 240.

[410] Across Australia, p. 51.

[411] Op. cit., p. 184.

[412] Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, II. p. 178.

[413] The Primitive Bakongo, p. 216.

[414] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV., “Shamanism,” p. 144.

[415] Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 335.

[416] Am. B. of Ethn., “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” by J. Mooney, p. 323.

[417] W. Mariner’s Account of the Tonga Islands, ch. xxi.

[418] Am. B. of Ethn., IX., “Medicine Men of the Apache,” by J.E. Bourke, p. 471.

[419] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 135.

[420] Travels and Researches in South Africa, ch. i.

[421] J. Shakespeare, The Lushai Kuki Clans, p. 80.

[422] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, p. 120, and Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 417; XIV. pp. 97, 148.

[423] D. Comparetti, The Traditional Poetry of the Finns, pp. 27 and 25.

[424] Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, pp. 548-50.

[425] The crystals forced into a wizard’s body, whether by spirits or by other wizards, are essential to his profession, and if they leave him his power is lost. “It is the possession of these stones which gives his virtue to the medicine-man” (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 480 note). John Mathew says that, according to the belief of the Kabi (Queensland): “A man’s power in the occult art would appear to be proportioned to his vitality, and the degree of vitality which he possessed depended upon the number of sacred pebbles and the quantity of yurru (rope) which he carried within him” (Eagle-hawk and Crow, p. 143). “Rope” was the property of the higher grade of medicine-men (substitute for snakes?), who had obtained it from the Rainbow in exchange for some of their pebbles. Certain pebbles, especially crystals, are independent magic-powers throughout Australasia and elsewhere, probably of much older repute than the profession of wizardry; and the wizard gets his personal power by having them inside him. Similarly, Jounod describes Bantu wizards as “endowed with magical power, or rather possessing enchanted drugs” (Life of a South African Tribe, p. 293): whereas we are often told that the occult art begins with the extraordinary personality of the wizard.

[426] Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 522-9.

[427] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 485.

[428] Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 321.

[429] E. im Thurn, The Indians of Guiana, p. 334.

[430] Thomas Whiffen, The North-West Amazons, p. 181.

[431] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 156.

[432] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV., “Shamanism,” pp. 87-90.

[433] Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 322.

[434] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 334.

[435] W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, pp. 256-7.

[436] Belief in Immortality, pp. 249, 269.

[437] For examples see Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 204; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 149; Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, p. 391; Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 115; Turner, Samoa, p. 342; Shamanism, p. 130; Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico, p. 24; T.A. Joyce, South American ArchÆology, p. 245; E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. pp. 650-2.

[438] Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, pp. 384-6 and 404.

[439] Franz Boas, “The Central Esquimo,” Am. B. of Ethn., VI. (1884-5), p. 603.

[440] W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 571.

[441] A. Wiedemann, The Religion of the Egyptians, pp. 273-4.

[442] A. M. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 178.

[443] J. G. Frazer, Psyche’s Task.

[444] Pp. 138-9.

[445] Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology, II. p. 156.

[446] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia.

[447] im Thurn, op. cit., p. 339.

[448] J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 145.

[449] Across Australia, p. 350.

[450] Primitive Bakongo, p. 285.

[451] Skeat, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 563.

[452] Rivers, The Todas, p. 263.

[453] Abbot, Macedonian Folk-Lore, p. 225.

[454] Op. cit., p. 203.

[455] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 387-8.

[456] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, pp. 334-5.

[457] Whiffen, op. cit., pp. 182-3.

[458] Jounod, Life of a South African Tribe, II. p. 456.

[459] Whiffen, op. cit., pp. 64 and 168.

[460] Primitive Bakongo, p. 216.

[461] Aboriginal Siberia, pp. 230, 240.

[462] Paradoxe sur le comÉdien. Mr. William Archer, some years ago, published Masks and Faces, an entertaining and very instructive book, in which he (as a genuine though unprofessional psychologist) discusses this paradox in the light of evidence obtained, by questionnaire and otherwise, from actors then living.

[463] Man, September 1817, p. 144.

[464] Aboriginal Siberia, p. 197.

[465] Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der VÖlkerpsychologie.

[466] Meiners, Briefe Über die Schweiz (quoted by Carlyle in essay on Count Cagliostro).

[467] Aboriginal Siberia, pp. 169, 172.

[468] Text-book of Insanity, pp. 281 and 79.

[469] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 497.

[470] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, pp. 250-60.

[471] For another example see Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology, II. p. 411.

[472] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 346.

[473] For the most elaborate of all such performances, see the initiation into the Ghost Society of the Kwakintle Indians, in Frazer’s Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 538.

[474] Casalis, My Life in Basuto Land, p. 185.

[475] Basil Thompson, The Fijians, p. 158.

[476] Basil Thompson, Diversions of a Prime Minister, pp. 201 and 346.

[477] The Heroic Age, p. 413.

[478] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, pp. 374-5.

[479] “Aborigines of Victoria,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society, New Series, I. p. 300.

[480] Eagle-hawk and Crow, p. 146.

[481] J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 239.

[482] J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, pp. 284 and 285.

[483] J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 293.

[484] Callaway, op. cit., pp. 29-30.

[485] The North-West Amazons, p. 218.

[486] J. O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults,” pp. 431-2 and 485, Am. B. of Ethn., XI.

[487] Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 270.

[488] Polynesian Researches, II. p. 204.

[489] John Martin, W. Mariner’s Account of the Tonga Islands, II. pp. 105 and 137.

[490] Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 48 and 214.

[491] The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 126.

[492] Introduction to The Rise of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.

[493] C. G. Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 179.

[494] T. C. Hodson, op. cit., p. 171.

[495] Among Congo Cannibals, p. 284.

[496] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 531-2.

[497] Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 201.

[498] Ellis, op. cit., II. p. 232.

[499] Shamanism, p. 92.

[500] History of Melanesian Society, II. p. 107.

[501] A. M. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 180.

[502] Across Australia, p. 326.

[503] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 481.

[504] Decline and Fall, ch. xvii—discussing the character of Julian.

[505] Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 398.

[506] Across Australia, pp. 14, 326, 366.

[507] See Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 210; StefÁnson, My Life with the Esquimo, p. 88; Murdoch, Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition, in Ninth Ann. Report of Am. Bureau of Eth., p. 431; Frazer, Psyche’s Task, p. 55; Risley, The People of India, p. 77; Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 48, 49, 82, 90; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 116; E. Casalis, Les Bassoutos (2nd ed.), pp. 302-3; W.E. Roth, Ethnological Studies in North-West Central Queensland, p. 154.

[508] Diversions of a Prime Minister, p. 245.

[509] “Shamanism,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV. p. 154.

[510] Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 3. The definition occurs in a reprint of an earlier essay. A later definition (IV. p. 3) runs: “Totemism is an intimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of kindred people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects on the other side, which objects are called the totems of the human group.” The relation appears to be one of friendship and kinship, on a footing of equality, not religious in Australia. I have, in this chapter, drawn freely upon the great mass of facts and speculations collected in Totemism and Exogamy; believing that in that work the author not only intended to present the evidence for his own conclusions, but had also the benevolent purpose of assisting the labours of those who might come after him. A heavy debt of gratitude is due; which, indeed, causes some embarrassment if ever one feels obliged to differ from him in opinion.

[511] Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 4; cf. IV. pp. 3, 4. Perhaps the author no longer approves of the word “reverenced.” Totem and clan are rather on a footing of equality.

[512] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, App. B.

[513] The animals are: Human 2, other Mammalia 31, Birds 46, Reptiles 51, Amphibia 1, Fishes 8, Insects 24, Mollusca 1.

[514] Totemism and Exogamy, II. p. 535.

[515] Totemism and Exogamy, III. pp. 90-100.

[516] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 96-110.

[517] Contributions to the Science of Mythology, I. p. 201.

[518] Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 101.

[519] Secret of the Totem and Social Origins.

[520] Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 330.

[521] Native Tribes of Northern Territory of Australia, p. 263.

[522] Totemism and Exogamy, IV. pp. 57-63.

[523] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1909, p. 173.

[524] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1909, p. 175.

[525] In the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, a man applies the name of “mother” to his real mother and also to his maternal aunts, who accept the relationship and may assert: “We all three of us bore him” (Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 305 note). Is this what they believe, or what (following their system of class-nomenclature) they are accustomed to say?

[526] Page 125.

[527] See above, ch. ii. § 3.

[528] It is reasonable to suppose that a group named other groups to distinguish those around them, before needing to name itself. It follows that probably each group sometimes bore a different name when spoken of by each of several neighbours. How amidst such confusion could single names be fixed? Perhaps because the group designated adopted one of them; or by the elimination of the other names through many causes in course of time, in generations, in hundreds of years. The march of progress was leisurely in those days.

[529] Chs. iv., v., vi.

[530] Chs. xiv., xv., Prohibition of Marriage between Kindred.

[531] Ch. xl., Marriage.

[532] Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, p. 21.

[533] Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 489.

[534] Ibid., IV. p. 54.

[535] Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 254.

[536] Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 388.

[537] Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 13.

[538] Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 22.

[539] Native Tribes of Central Australia, ch. vi.; Northern Tribes of Central Australia, ch. ix.

[540] There is, however, another possible reason for the eating by the clan or by its Headman of some portion of the food which they profess to supply to the rest of the tribe—namely, that it expresses a prior claim to some sort of proprietorship, which is then waived.

[541] Totemism and Exogamy, IV. pp. 55-7.

[542] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes North. Ter. Aust., p. 324.

[543] Totemism and Exogamy, III. pp. 104-5.

[544] The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, II. ch. ix.

[545] Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 458, 478, etc. In Eleanbah Wundah, they hold their right hands pressed against their sides, which A. Lang thought a remarkable image. It is, W.E. Roth tells us, gesture-language for sickness. (Ethnological Studies in North-West Central Queensland, p. 90.)

[546] The Euahlayi, pp. 4 to 8, and 78.

[547] North. Ts. of C. Aust., p. 253.

[548] Howitt, Northern Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 435.

[549] Haddon, Reports of the Expedition to Torres Straits, V. pp. 37, 38.

[550] W. H. R. Rivers, J. A. I., 1909, p. 158.

[551] J. A. I., 1909, p. 163.

[552] Samoa, chs. iv., v.; especially pp. 28, 48, 62-3, 70, 75. Fiji had in some way deeply impressed the Samoan imagination.

[553] The Melanesians, p. 31.

[554] Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. p. 590.

[555] Totemism and Exogamy, III.

[556] Quoted by Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 244.

[557] Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 311.

[558] On species-gods see Tylor’s Primitive Culture, II. pp. 242-6.

[559] Totemism and Exogamy, II. p. 574.

[560] “Ethnology of the Ungava District,” Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 195. Other examples ante, ch. viii. § 3.

[561] Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II. Sec. IV. Mem. 1, Subsec. 3.

[562] Pliny, XXV. c. 6.

[563] J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Am. B. of Ethn., VII. pp. 323-39.

[564] J. Mooney, op. cit.

[565] Pliny, XXV. c. 11.

[566] Ibid., XXV. c. 59.

[567] A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 384.

[568] Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 339.

[569] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 381.

[570] The Melanesians, p. 199.

[571] For Proclus’ defence of Astrology see Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, Book IV. ch. iii., 1st ed., pp. 298-300.

[572] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 114.

[573] A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 397-9.

[574] I do not mean that Magic is always a direct derivative of Common-sense: we have seen (ch. vi. § 5) that it sometimes comes from Animism by retrogradation, and (elsewhere) often from coincidences.

[575] Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, pp. 134-5.

[576] Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 106.

[577] Ante, ch. vi. § 3.

Transcriber’s note

Footnotes were renumbered and moved to the end of this this book. An alphabetic jump table was added to the index. Pagenumbers in the index with a “n.” after it, link directly to the footnote originally on that page. Links might not work in some reading devices.

Some minor corrections were made without note, such as missing punctuation and missing page numbers in the index. Also the following corrections were made, on page
13 “probaby” changed to “probably” (probably very much earlier)
93 “critisism” changed to “criticism” (incapable of comparison and criticism)
224 “shephered” changed to “shepherd” (and a shepherd, sleeping by the grave of Orpheus)
348 “McDougal” changed to “McDougall” (See also Hose and McDougall)
350 “unscupulousness” changed to “unscrupulousness” (medicine-man’s unscrupulousness)
350 “Wiedermann” changed to “Wiedemann” (Wiedemann on Religion of Ancient Egyptian).

Otherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, and possible errors in foreign words. Additional: The names of some of the quoted authors were spelled inconsistently in the original, for example Codrington was spelled most of the time with two d’s. Also the name of VilhjÁlmur StefÁnsson (who was born as William Stephenson) was spelled in several different ways. These have not been corrected. The also mentioned Stevenson is somebody else. Also: The index has not been checked for errors, besides the ones in the list above.

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