and subject to modification from one generation to another it is
subject to transformation; it borrows and loses; it may be replaced
by another; it is evidently subordinate to the intelligence and
to the conditions of life. We can only, therefore, regard it as a
secondary character; a _character of race_.
From the linguistic point of view, the specific attribute of man is
not the _special language_ which he employs, it is the _faculty of
articulation_, _speech_, which has given him the power of creating
a primitive language, and to vary it infinitely by means of his
intelligence and will, more or less influenced by innumerable
circumstances.
Here, again, I am fortunate enough to be able to support opinions,
which I have long maintained, by the conclusions of Whitney upon
this point. “Now,” says this learned linguist, “to pretend, in order
to explain the variety of languages, that the power of expression
has been virtually different in different races, that one language
has contained, from its origin and in its primitive materials,
a formative principle which is not in others; that the elements
employed for a formal usage were formal by nature, and so on,—all
this is pure mythology.”
VIII. _General relations between languages and human races._
It is generally admitted that human languages may be traced to
three fundamental groups; the first, monosyllabic, or isolating
languages; the second, agglutinative, or suffix languages; the third,
inflectional languages. Thus, there are three linguistic types, as
there are also three physical types. It will not be without interest
to discover what relations are displayed by the characters drawn from
these two orders of considerations.
The monosyllabic languages represent the most rudimentary condition
of human language, which, moreover, has only arrived at inflection
after passing through the period of agglutination. Considered from
this point of view, languages have arrived at perfection by degrees,
and it is only natural to inquire if the general degree of elevation
of races corresponds with that of the development of language.
From a comparison of the results of philological and physical
studies, it is at once evident that this is not the case. Chinese,
the most monosyllabic language, is spoken by one of the earliest
civilized nations, belonging fundamentally to the yellow type. Tribes
holding the lowest place, springing from the Negro type, speak, on
the contrary, agglutinative languages, that is to say, have attained
the second stage. I have already pointed out this fact, and insisted
upon the consequences which arise from it with reference to the
relative antiquity of human groups.
Nevertheless, we must remark that the greater number of Whites
speak languages which have attained the highest degree of
perfection—inflectional languages. Allophylian Whites, alone, are
still in the agglutinative stage.
If, after having read the information which is given by philologists
upon the distribution of races, we look at the map, we shall again
meet with some very interesting general facts.
Monosyllabic languages are only found in Asia, as it were localized,
and only occupy a very limited space. They were at one time even
restricted to a kind of island, bounded by the sea on the east, and
on all other sides by agglutinative languages. It is entirely due
to the Aryan conquest that they have been placed in contact with
inflectional languages.
The latter, now universally distributed, were for a long time
confined to the old continent, of which, moreover, they were far from
occupying the greatest part. Their expansion dates from the great
modern discoveries.
Languages of intermediate development, the agglutinative languages,
occupied before this epoch, as they still do, the larger portion of
the surface of the globe. We do not know at what period they lost
ground in Europe, but we can already almost assert as a fact, that
they predominated there in former times. They probably occupied
the whole of this part of the world before the Aryan invasion or
infiltration. Perhaps they were spoken by quaternary man. However
this may be, before the great and quite recent emigrations of
European races, agglutinative languages reigned throughout the
greater part of Asia, almost the whole of Africa, and all America
and Oceania.
In pointing out approximately the areas occupied by the three
fundamental groups of languages, we find that the agglutinative
languages alone occupied but a short time ago about 22/25 of the
earth’s surface, inflectional languages 3/15, and monosyllabic
languages 1/25; or nearly 74/100, 20/100 and 6/100.
Agglutinative languages, again, have the advantage over the others in
number. Finally, the number of nations, peoples or tribes, speaking
these languages, is also superior to that of the groups which speak
monosyllabic or inflectional languages.
But it is well known how slight a relation there is between the
population of a country, and either its extent or the number of
human groups by which it is peopled. In order to gain an idea of the
importance, or of the part played upon the surface of the globe,
by one, or by a group of languages, we must calculate the number
of individuals by whom it is used. Now, in comparing statistical
and linguistic data, for which we are indebted to MM. d’Omalius
and Maury, we find that inflectional languages are spoken by
536,900,000 human beings; monosyllabic languages by 449,000,000; and
agglutinative languages only by 216,550,000.
IX. _Writing._ Writing is, so to speak, to speech what speech is
to thought. Nevertheless, by its very nature it furnishes the
anthropologist with but very few precise data. Invented in a very
limited number of places, it has been communicated from place to
place, and by initiation. In their passage from one nation to
another, the graphic representations of languages are often sensibly
modified, and, from this point of view, they may undoubtedly be of
real assistance to ethnology. But there is no real relation between
the several forms which they assume, and the human groups by which
they are employed.
We can hardly connect with writing the various arrangements of
stories which were used by the Mexican Neophytes to recall to memory
their prayers, or the purely mnemo-technical process observed by
different travellers, such as the _Wampum_ of the Red-Skins. But the
latter, and especially the Chinese, Thibetian and Peruvian _Quipos_,
were something more than this. Here the colour and the mode of
juxtaposition of straws, shells, or wood, the knots and the colour
of the threads, had a conventional value permitting the expression
of ideas, of great and multiple numbers, etc. In Peru it seems that
real books were _written_ in this manner. Unfortunately, as M. Maury
remarks, it is now impossible to decipher these singular productions.
Pictography, even, in a form as rudimentary as that which existed and
which still exists among the Red-Skins, where Schoolcraft has studied
it very thoroughly, was probably the universal starting point for
writing properly so called. It is well known that pictography bears
a strong resemblance to our _rebus_, and that it has its monuments,
which have been discovered by several travellers in Siberia, North
America, the basin of the Orinoco, and even as far as Patagonia.
When symbolism was introduced into pictography, it would seem that
a step had really been made, although grave errors may result from
this manner of representing events, when the sense of the symbol is
forgotten. The Virginians represented the Europeans, their ships and
arms, by a _white swan vomiting fire_. There was here evidently the
germ of some legend. This observation alone, enables us to comprehend
and interpret some of the traditions, fabulous in form, but having
a foundation of truth, which have been collected with reference to
the past history of certain American tribes. Nevertheless, symbolism
has the advantage of accustoming the mind to detach itself from
the material reproductions of objects. It is then an easy matter
to pass to the graphic reduction of the symbol, and afterwards to
the _idiographic sign_. At length, spurred on by the stimulus of
necessity, the _phonetic sign_ is reached.
Even when the representation of the syllable is attained, writing
has made immense progress. It seems as if certain races, in spite of
contact with more advanced nations, and though they may have before
their eyes examples of alphabetic writing, can never get beyond this.
So at least it is at the present time with the Cherokees in Florida
and the Veï on the coast of Africa. Sequoyah and Doala Bukara,
in their efforts to imitate the Yankees and Arabs, only invented
spelling-books. And yet the papers printed by the former bore, by the
side of the Cherokee text, the English alphabetic translation.
It is unnecessary to insist upon the immense superiority of
alphabetic writing. This means of fixing speech, at once so simple
and so complete, has always presented an appearance of the marvellous
to those who were unacquainted with it; and the ancients, struck with
its utility, and not knowing that man had gained the art by slow
stages, did not hesitate to regard it as a divine invention. Cicero
himself seems inclined to share this opinion. We now know that the
honour of this great discovery really belongs to the Phœnicians.
But the Phœnicians did not make this discovery at once or by their
own efforts. MM. Wuttke and Lenormand have rightly given the
honour of having prepared the way for, and of almost achieving the
discovery, to the Egyptians. Egyptian writing, with its figurative,
idiographic and phonetic signs, displays the whole course traversed
by the human mind in rising from simple pictography to the alphabet.
Unfortunately the Egyptians, fettered by the combined influences of
their past, and by the very mass of ideas and facts represented in
their complicated writing, especially perhaps by their religious
traditions, could not free themselves from the cumbersome element
in their system of writing. A strange people, free from these
restraints, could alone, as M. Maury has remarked, take this step.
The Phœnician alphabet once discovered spread rapidly. At the same
time, however, it necessarily underwent modifications to suit,
sometimes veritable necessities, sometimes simple convenience or
caprice. M. Lenormand admits five great families of writing, as
representing this filiation. These are the Semitic, Greco-Italian,
Western or Iberian, and Northern or Indo-homerite. The latter,
perhaps, owed its origin to the alphabet of Yemen, which, introduced
into India about the third or fourth century of our era, has
engendered almost all the Oriental alphabets.
Egypt and Phœnicia were not the only centres in which the art of
writing took its rise. It also came into existence in the Old
World in Mesopotamia and China, and in Mexico in the New World.
Hieroglyphic writing, itself arising out of pictography, has been the
universal starting point, but in each case writing has stopped short
at different stages.
Cuneiform writing has not attained the alphabet, and seems to consist
of a mixture of idiographic and syllabic signs. In China writing has
remained idiographic. Under the influences, however, of Buddhist
missionaries, who made known the Devânagari alphabet in the extreme
East, the Japanese and the Coreans, after having servilely imitated
the Chinese, were the first to reach syllabism, the second to attain
a veritable alphabet.
In Mexico, writing consisted of the mixture, still very confused, of
symbolic, idiographic and phonetic signs, the latter representing,
in some cases syllables, in others, simple letters. The discoveries
made by l’Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg seem to indicate that in Yucatan
greater progress had been made, and that the Palanqué inscriptions
are really alphabetic. It is much to be regretted that up to the
present time the important facts, for which we are indebted to the
aged curé of Rabinal, have not been utilized. The reading of the
inscriptions of Central America would have a very different interest
to the deciphering of a few more Egyptian tablets. However this may
be, it is evident that the multiplicity, the variety of alphabets,
and even their filiation furnish the anthropologist with characters
of great importance, and specially fitted to establish ancient
relations between human groups in some cases widely separated.
X. _Social condition._ Man is essentially a social being. “Were any
one to ascend to heaven _alone_, and listen _alone_ to the harmony of
the spheres, he would not enjoy these marvels,” a Greek philosopher
has said. Thus we find the human species everywhere collected into
more or less numerous societies. In exceptional cases, which may be
generally explained by a violent dispersion, these societies always
consist of a more or less considerable number of families, and
deserve at least the designation of _peoples_.
However limited or numerous peoples, tribes, or nations may be,
the existence of three elementary social conditions has long been
accepted as a fact, each of which is connected with the satisfaction
of the first and most imperious of all necessities, that, namely,
of nourishment. A certain gradation may, moreover, be observed in
these conditions. Man at first only depended upon daily industry for
his subsistence: he hunted either terrestrial or aquatic animals: he
became a hunter or a fisherman. He afterwards brought the herbivorous
species under his power, and found an unfailing resource in his
flocks: he became a shepherd. Finally he directed his attention to
the earth; he multiplied and cultivated certain plants which he
learnt to know by experience; he became an agriculturist. In the
latter case his diet would be fundamentally vegetables; in the two
former flesh would form the basis of his food.
It is clear that these several kinds of existence place man
under very different conditions of life, and impose upon him
certain necessities, by demanding the development of physical and
intellectual faculties which sometimes bear but a very slight
resemblance to each other. In this manner certain physical and
intellectual peculiarities are engendered, which, developed by
exercise and heredity, finally become characters of races.
The hunter and fisherman present some points of resemblance in
their manner of life. Both are obliged to display in turn, and
occasionally at the same moment, according to the animal they are
pursuing, a great amount of patience and courage; they must never
be at a loss for a resource. Both, even when placed in the most
favourable circumstances, pass alternately from extreme activity
to almost complete repose. But the fisherman’s field of action is
on the whole less extensive than that of the hunter, and he is not
like the latter, forced to exercise all his physical faculties. He
will probably never possess the same delicacy of hearing, or the
same agility. Moreover, neither of them are placed in conditions
favourable to intellectual development properly so called.
The shepherd is much more independent in certain respects, while at
the same time he is subject to greater regularity. He is always sure
of his morrow. The daily duties to his charge once fulfilled, he is
at liberty to abandon himself to reflection and revery, so that his
intellectual faculties have every facility for development.
This is still more strongly the case with the agriculturist.
Seed-time and harvest are to him times of inevitable physical
activity. Between the two he can rest at leisure, and apply the
faculties with which he is endowed to something entirely different.
These three elementary modes of human society involve immediate
consequences.
Game, in the true acceptance of the term, is nowhere so abundant
as to afford an indefinite amount of nourishment to populations,
however small, accumulated upon one spot. A great extent of country
is absolutely necessary to the hunter, so that he can only form very
limited communities. As soon as they increase in size they are forced
to separate. Fishermen may form larger communities, particularly upon
the shore of a productive sea. Even in their case, however, the size
of the population is necessarily confined within somewhat narrow
limits.
The pastoral condition allows the formation of more numerous
societies; but it also involves the existence of vast tracts entirely
given up to grazing. Like the chase, therefore, though in a less
degree, it enforces sub-divisions.
The culture of the soil permits the development of a population at
once dense and continuous.
The hunter, as a natural consequence of his warlike habits,
is inevitably a warrior; war is, in fact, nothing more than a
“man-hunt.” Any discussion about a _hunting-ground_ may easily result
in war, as the subsistence of the hunter is in question. This war
would be conducted without mercy, for every prisoner would not only
be useless, but an incumbrance to the conqueror; another mouth to
feed. The hunter would kill him, and however little may be due to
passion on the one hand, and pride on the other, he will put him to
death with torments endured with heroic firmness.
The shepherd also will often be involved in armed conflict, for he
must defend his pastures and his flocks. But, in his case, war will
be less bitter; the prisoner may be useful to him. He can be forced
to attend to the flocks, and, in return, be fed without involving any
sacrifice: he can be a slave.
Were it not for the necessity of mutual destruction, which seems to
be innate in man, and which, as yet, civilization has not been able
to extirpate, agricultural tribes would have no cause to make war
upon each other; indeed, it would be much more to their interests
to avoid it. All that can be said, however, is that in their case
it becomes by degrees less cruel. Here, again, the prisoner can be
utilized. He is first reduced to slavery. Then it becomes evident
that a certain amount of liberty might be profitable to the master,
so he passes from the condition of a slave to that of a serf.
The three conditions which I have just described still exist upon
the globe; and in each of the three great types of mankind, examples
may still be pointed out at the present day. The White tribes of the
north-west coast of America are fishers; some Arab tribes are still
in the pastoral state, through which the Aryans, the progenitors
of the present Indians, who are so essentially agricultural, have
passed. Among the Yellows, the Tunguses of Daouria, are perhaps the
most perfect type of a hunting people, as the hordes of Central Asia
are of a shepherd people, and the Chinese of an agricultural people.
Finally, among the Negroes, the Tasmanians were exclusively hunters
and fishers, the Kaffirs are essentially shepherds, and the natives
of Guinea agriculturalists.
Thus the fundamental nature of the social condition is not a
character of race. The three physical types present the three social
types.
From this fact alone we might conclude that between the three human
types, regarded from the point of view of civilization, there are
none of those radical differences which have been admitted, _à
priori_, by some authors.
This conclusion can only be distinctly shown by a detailed study of
the races. I can here merely state it, insisting upon this point
that, in spite of the assertions of M. de Gobineau to the contrary,
there still exist _Whites_ in a distinctly _savage_ state. We need
only read the details given by Cook, La Pérouse, Meares, Marchand,
Dixon, Dr. Scouler, and others, upon some Kolushes, and we shall be
forced to recognise these _fishers_, whose women besmear themselves
with grease and soot, and wear a girdle, as both _true Whites_ and
_true savages_, who in many respects must rank below the Negro of
Ardra or Juida.
On the other hand, the very names which I have just mentioned,
especially those of Ghanata, Sonrhaï and Melle, with which Barth
has made us acquainted, suffice to prove that the most strongly
characterized Negro, the _typical Negro_, has the power of raising
himself to a considerably advanced social condition. It has been
said, that, without being a _savage_, he has remained a _barbarian_,
as was the case with our German or Gaulish ancestors. This view is
not a just one; the Negro has risen much higher. The annals of Amed
Baba show that in the Middle Ages the basin of the Niger contained
empires very little inferior in many respects to European kingdoms of
the same epoch.
As to the Yellow races, it will be sufficient to remember that the
whole of the Aryan race was plunged in barbarism at the time when
China was acquainted with the calendar, had determined the form of
the earth, and recognised the flattening of the poles, had woven
materials in silk, and possessed a coinage.
XI. Ought we to conclude from these and from many analogous facts
which I cannot quote, that there exists a perfect equality between
human races, that they all possess the same aptitudes, and can
all rise, in every respect, to the same degree of intellectual
development? Not so, for this would be a departure from the truth,
and an evident exaggeration. Here, again, we must return to the
comparison of man with animals. Does it follow that, because all the
races of dogs belong to one and the same species, they all have the
same aptitudes? Will a hunter choose indifferently a setter, or a
blood-hound to use as a pointer or in the chase? Will he consider
the street-cur as of equal value with either of these _pure-breeds_?
Clearly not. Now we must never forget that, while superior to animals
and different to them in many respects, man is equally subject to
all the general laws of animal nature. The law of heredity is one of
those from which he cannot escape, and it is this law which, under
the influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes
them what they are.
When centuries have passed over a group of men, when from generation
to generation, and under the influence of certain physical,
intellectual and moral conditions, the whole being has contracted a
certain habit, we cannot form any definite idea as to what length of
time and what fresh circumstances would be necessary to efface this
impression and form the race anew. In any case, it can only rise by
undergoing modifications, and this fact alone produces a new or a
derived race.
The result of all the conditions by which races have been formed has
been to establish between them a _present_ inequality which it is
impossible to deny. Such, however, is the exaggeration into which
_negrophiles_ by profession have fallen, when they maintain that the
Negro in former ages, and _in his present condition_, is the equal of
the White. A single fact will be a sufficient answer to them.
The discoveries of Barth have placed beyond a shadow of doubt
the existence of a _political history_ among the Negroes, which
had previously been a matter of doubt. But this very fact alone
only serves to place in still stronger relief the absence of that
_intellectual history_ which is demonstrated by a general progressive
movement, by literary, architectural and artistic monuments. The
Negro race, left to itself, has produced nothing of this kind.
An attempt has been made, in order to disguise this too manifest
inferiority, to refer to the Negro race those peoples of black
colour, who can only be said to be connected with it by crosses in
which the superior blood predominates.
XII. Must we therefore pass to the opposite extreme, and admit that
there are races radically incapable of elevating themselves above the
social condition in which their ancestors have lived? This question
has often been proposed, and has been answered in two different ways.
The attempt has been made, by means of a certain number of facts
taken from America and Oceania, as well as from Africa, to show that
certain human populations were irrevocably destined to a savage
condition. The upholders of this opinion have chiefly quoted as
examples the indigenous inhabitants of North America and Australia.
Yet whoever will consider the matter from an unprejudiced point
of view, will see at once, sometimes in the very facts brought
forward by those who depreciate them, a clear proof that, _placed in
favourable conditions_, these races would be able to raise themselves
far above the condition in which we have found them, and would, in
some respects at least, very quickly reach our level.
As far as the Red-Skins and the allied groups are concerned all doubt
has been dissipated by the great work of Schoolcraft, and several
_reports_ since published.
There is, at the present day, upon the banks of the Cattaraugus, an
agricultural and laborious population, formed from the remnants of
the Iroquois, which has its schools, its printing establishments,
and its journals. It is useless to insist upon what the Kreecks,
Cherokees and Choctaws have become. We know that these nations of the
South had, of their own accord, started on the high road of settled
civilization, that they cultivated and exported cotton, and published
journals written in their own language, and printed in characters
invented by one of their own nation. The government of Washington
drove them from their lands, and transported them to the basin of the
Arkansas. They there set themselves to work again, and travellers
tell us that some of their farms even rival those of the Yankees.
But in reply to this the objection will be made that the Algonquins
and the Dacotahs have resisted every attempt which has been made to
assimilate them to Whites, and to civilization. This is an error, or
rather it is but half the truth, and for this very reason affords
important information to those who are inclined to receive it. The
Algonquins (_true Red-Skins_), and the Dacotahs (_Sioux_) separated.
Some renounced their ancient mode of life, and imitated that of the
Cherokees, others adhered to it; how variable, then, is this supposed
indelible character; how completely subordinate to a thousand
insignificant local circumstances!
In fact, nothing has taken place with regard to the American
Aborigines which could not also be observed among Whites. Side by
side with the Arab of the town, dwells the Arab of the desert and the
tent. In the same manner the natives of North America, when left to
themselves, differed upon certain points. In the basin of the Rio del
Norte, and beyond it, side by side with the urban and agricultural
inhabitants of the _pueblos_, dwelt nomad and hunting tribes. The
latter sometimes pillaged the former, but they did not the less
recognise the kinship existing between them.
What here took place spontaneously still takes place under the
pressure of the White. Is there anything strange in this? In every
case when the half of a nation transforms its social condition, we
cannot draw our conclusion from the backwardness of the other half,
and say that it would be incapable of doing so as a whole. We might,
with equal reason, maintain that a great number of Europeans were
incapable of learning to read.
There remain the Australians.
I approach this subject very unwillingly. In no part of the globe
has the White shown himself so merciless towards inferior races as
in Australia; nowhere has he so audaciously calumniated those whom
he has plundered and exterminated. In his opinion, the Australians
are not even _men_. They are beings “in whom are combined all the
worst characters which mankind could present, at many of which,
monkeys, their congeners, would blush.” (Butler Earp.) Noble minds
have doubtless protested against these terrible words, addressed to
convicts who were about to seek their fortunes in Australia; but
what could be expected of them when every evil passion was called
forth and supported by similar arguments, which, again, rested upon
assertions given as scientific? The result of these experiences in
Australia and Tasmania is well known; and those who wish for further
information have only to consult travellers of every country, Darwin
as well as Petit-Thouars.
To maintain at the present day that the Australians are what Bory
de Saint-Vincent and the anthropologists of that school endeavoured
to prove them to be, is to deny unquestionable facts established by
travellers of every description. This race has no more shown itself
to be absolutely savage than any other human race. It organised
the family and divided the tribe and nation into true _clans_, the
account of which is still extant. The Australians, more advanced
upon this point than the Tahitians, understood the division of land
amongst themselves, and the fixed limits agreed upon were religiously
respected, except in time of war. I shall speak about their religious
and moral characters at another time. We have here only to consider
their intellectual characters, and I shall only add that these
savages possessed villages of from 800 to 1000 inhabitants, that they
knew how to hollow out canoes, and made nets for hunting and fishing,
which were sometimes 80 feet long and of sufficient strength to
resist the struggles of a kangaroo.
It will, however, be objected that all this does not constitute a
well advanced social condition. Granted; but are the Australians
incapable, as it has so often been said, and as it still is asserted,
of raising themselves above this condition?
We have only to consult the writings of Dawson, who made a kind of
farmers out of these savages, those of Salvado, who found them to
be both devoted and useful workmen, those of Blosseville, declaring
that he thought himself fortunate to be able to turn to them when the
_gold fever_ robbed him of European hands, and we shall be convinced
of the inaccuracy of the assertions made on the subject of the
radical incapacity of the Australians. Finally, if we still retain
some feeling of doubt, we need only look back upon those tribes which
were settled and _civilized_ by William Buckley, the deserter, and we
shall be forced to allow that the faculty of raising themselves above
their past condition exists among the Australians as among other
human populations.
XIII. There are two causes which tend to lead us into error when
we are dealing with the question of the appreciation of the social
condition of races.
The first arises from the manner in which we regard, as a whole,
the population to which we belong. The offspring of instructed and
civilized classes, we forget that part of the nation which we left so
far behind, which doubtless profits by the work of the intelligent
classes, but does not follow them at all, or but very little, in the
path of progress. There is not a country in Europe where numbers of
facts, justifying what I have briefly stated here, may not be met
with. If Lubbock had taken more notice of the facts around him, he
would most certainly have modified many conclusions in his book.
The other cause proceeds from our pride of race, from the prejudices
of our education, which altogether prevent us from going to the
root of the matter, and from recognising extreme resemblances,
almost identities, if they are in the least degree obscured by the
slightest difference of forms or words. It was a long time before the
resemblance was observed between the organisation of the Maories and
that of the ancient Scotch. And yet if we deduct anthropophagy from
the one people and from the other all that it has borrowed from the
neighbouring nations, we shall be forced to admit that at the period
when Cook visited the New Zealanders, the latter offered strange
points of resemblance to the Highlanders of Rob Roy and Mac Ivor. As
to the _Children of the Mist_, akin to the other Scotch clans, were
they much above the Australian tribes?
We must conclude, therefore, that civilization, with improvements and
learning of every kind, is an exceptional fact, even in the midst of
a most privileged people, and that upon their own territory they have
had, and still have, their savage representatives. We must add that
this fact is exhibited in different degrees among yellow and black
tribes. Lastly, in reflecting upon our past history, we must avoid
denying to other races aptitudes, which remained latent for centuries
in our ancestors before they were developed, and which are still in
the same condition in too many of our fellow-countrymen, and of our
contemporaries.
XIV. In his remarkable work upon _Origins of Civilization_, Sir John
Lubbock admits that the “primitive condition of man was a state of
_absolute barbarism_.” But he does not say what he means by this
expression. Have there indeed ever been men living for centuries in
the state depicted in Chinese traditions, men acknowledging no law,
destitute of industry, ignorant of the use of fire, abandoning their
dead without sepulture, living in trees...? There is every reason to
doubt it, for all established facts protest against this conclusion.
Whenever it has been possible to attain even a slight knowledge of
the life of savage tribes, they have been found subject to laws,
which, although not written, are still rigorously observed. This fact
is proclaimed by Lubbock himself. True, these laws may often appear
to us iniquitous or barbarous, but sometimes there is, even in their
severities towards certain classes of the population, a trace of the
most just and praiseworthy sentiments. We cannot indeed approve of
the _Australian code_ as regards the enactions which make a miserable
slave of the woman; the privileges which it reserves to the chiefs
are perhaps excessive; but how can we help being struck when we see
it grant to age the same advantages as to rank. Respect for old age
was a feature in the manners of the Spartans which met with the
admiration of the Athenians; we may well recognise its value in the
Australians.
Mention has sometimes been made of races or populations _dwelling in
trees_, such as the Orang-Kubus, certain Blacks of New Guinea, etc.
They have been described as making their homes in trees after the
manner of monkeys. Earle has reduced these exaggerations to their
true value. He has shown that upon certain coasts, lined with a belt
of mangroves, it is easier to walk upon the crowded, interlaced
branches, than to force a passage along the network of aërial roots
plunging into a bed of mud. He saw European sailors several times,
with their muskets slung, passing over marshes of this nature in
single file, in the same way as the Indians. We see, therefore, that
it is not at all necessary to be absolutely savage and nearly allied
to monkeys to travel in this manner.
The Tasmanians, as good an example of a nomad people as it would be
possible to mention, only erected temporary shelters, and yet they
burnt their dead, and raised to them mausoleums of branches and bark,
which have been described and figured by Péron. I have just remarked
that the Australians had their institutions and their industries.
Undoubtedly in Tasmania and Australia man is exhibited with the
smallest amount of human development. And yet we nowhere observe that
_absolute barbarism_ which is apparently admitted by the learned
Englishman.
However far we go back into our past history we shall meet with
similar facts. The little that we know of tertiary man shews him to
be in possession of fire and the art of cutting flints. He already
has his industries, and this fact alone proves that his mode of life
was different to that of the brute.
It could not be otherwise. Whatever the cause may have been which
determined the appearance of man upon the surface of the globe,
he has, from the first, always been in possession of his specific
nature. He has had from the outset his intelligence and his aptitudes
which, though at that time in a torpid and slumbering state, were
ready to start into life under the spur of necessity. To procure
nourishment and to defend himself against the external world, he
could only have recourse to them, and the smallest manifestations
of these superior faculties have of necessity traced from the
commencement a line of demarcation between him and the brute.
XV. The intelligence and the aptitudes of man have manifested
themselves in a thousand ways, which may be included under the
general name of _industries_. Pacific or warlike, relating to the
individual or to the whole population, they very often differ in
different races, in different peoples, sometimes almost in different
tribes. The greater number may consequently be considered as so many
_characters_ by which the different groups of the human species
may be distinguished. It will, however, at once be understood that
questions of this nature can only be discussed in a detailed history,
and I must here confine myself to stating one of those general facts
which, by themselves, are sufficient to separate man from animals.
The latter have only physical wants which they satisfy as completely
as possible. But, this end once attained, they go no further. The
animal, when left to itself, does not know, or has scarcely a
suspicion, of the superfluous. His wants are, therefore, always the
same.
Man, on the contrary, whether the mind or the body is in question,
is always seeking the superfluous, often at the expense of utility,
sometimes to the detriment of the necessary. The result is that his
wants increase from day to day. The luxury of the evening becomes the
indispensable of the morrow.
This fact is just as true with regard to the savages as to civilized
peoples. We must, then, consider it as one of those characters which
belong to the very nature of beings. Regarded systematically from
this point of view, man might be defined as an _animal requiring
the superfluous_, with just as much reason as he has been called a
_reasoning animal_.
Moralists have at all times severely blamed this tendency and
condemned those insatiable appetites which are always asking for more
and for what they do not possess. I cannot share this view. Far from
blaming in principle that which essentially is but the _desire for
the better_, I cannot but see in it one of the noblest attributes of
man. This _faculty_ is, in reality, one of the most important causes
of his greatness. When men are once fully satisfied and have no more
wants, they will come to a standstill, and _progress_, that great and
sacred law of mankind, will come to a standstill also.
In reality, it is the want of the superfluous which has developed
all our industries, which has engendered the arts and sciences
without which many races and nations, and, even among ourselves,
whole populations exist perfectly well. We must therefore, with every
reservation as to wrong applications, accept it in the first place as
a fact, in the second as a benefit.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MORAL CHARACTERS.
I. In spite of all that is exceptional and elevated in the
intellectual phenomena displayed by man, they do not, when
considered as characters, isolate us from animals. It is different
with moral and religious phenomena. The latter, as we have seen,
belong essentially to the human kingdom; they are the attributes of
our species. Let us examine them rapidly, and, at the same time,
invariably from this point of view.
Confining ourselves rigorously to the region of facts, and
carefully avoiding the territory of philosophy and theology, we
may state, without hesitation, that there is no human society or
even association in which the idea of _good_ and _evil_ is not
represented by certain acts regarded by the members of that society
or association as morally _good_ or morally _bad_. Even among robbers
and pirates theft is regarded as a misdeed, sometimes as a crime,
and severely punished, while treachery is branded with infamy; the
facts noticed by Wallace among the Kurubars and Santals shew how the
consciousness of moral good and truth is anterior to _experience_,
and independent of questions of _utility_.
Nevertheless, Sir John Lubbock, in a work with which all my readers
are doubtless acquainted, states that the moral _sense_ is wanting
in the savage. In support of this opinion he quotes some vague and
general assertions, bearing more particularly upon the Australians,
Tahitians, Red-Skins, etc. The assertions of the eminent naturalist
have been so often repeated that it will only be necessary for me to
examine them in a few words.
In the first place, I might produce numerous quotations of the same
nature in opposition to these assertions. I shall only recall the
words of Wallace, speaking of the tribes in the midst of which he had
lived. “Every individual,” he says, “scrupulously respects the rights
of his neighbour, and these rights are but rarely infringed.” Is it
possible to admit that this _respect_ does not rest upon something
analogous to that which we call morality. I shall, moreover,
presently shew that this is really the case.
Again, Lubbock seems to have contradicted himself when pointing out
in his book the small amount of real liberty enjoyed by savages. He
represents them, correctly, as being the slaves of a multitude of
customs, having the importance of laws, which rule all their actions.
Now, amongst these customs, there are a great number which are at
variance with the most natural passions, such as the instinct of
reproduction, the choice of nourishment, etc. An infringement of
these laws is followed by a punishment often terrible. Is it not
evident that the greater number of them can only be based upon the
more or less distinct idea of good and evil?
But the idea in question resembles mathematical formula. The result
of the solution of a general equation varies with the data: and
according to the latter may sometimes be represented by the sign
_plus_, sometimes by the sign _minus_. So morality varies in its
manifestations by virtue of innumerable circumstances which, again,
originate in numerous causes. The same acts are often regarded as
good, bad, or indifferent, according to the special organisation,
the religion, or the traditions of the society in which they have
occurred.
These acts do not, on this account, cease to belong to a faculty
essentially human; and, whether of themselves, or from the idea with
which they are connected in the different human groups, they furnish
the _naturalist_ with _characters_ as true as those belonging to the
intelligence.
This is still more certainly the case when _institutions_ are
produced by this order of facts and ideas. These sometimes present
such a characteristic appearance, that at the first glance they
seem to isolate a people or a race, and reflection is necessary to
discover the true relations which unite the group by which this
peculiarity is presented to other populations and races. The _tabou_
of the Polynesians was long considered by many writers as something
absolutely special, whilst in reality we meet with the _civil tabou_
in every European nation, and the Mosaic law throughout is a _tabou
code_ based upon religion.
To arrive at the truth in this study we must approach it with perfect
impartiality, with all the mental freedom which a zoologist brings
to the examination of the physical characters of a mammal or bird.
We must avoid judging foreign peoples whether civilized, barbarous,
or savage, by our own fixed ideas. If we act differently, we only
render ourselves liable to error and injustice. A momentary return
to our own case, to the history of our race and our most advanced
populations, is often useful in making us appreciate justly the
moral characters of tribes and peoples which we are far too fond of
representing to ourselves as occupying a position far below our own.
II. By using this precaution, and adhering to general facts, we can
scarcely help being struck by the intimate resemblance which moral
manifestations establish between all men, both in good and in evil;
and, melancholy though the conclusion is, especially perhaps in the
latter respect. For example, the infamous debauches of the Polynesian
areoïs, the hideous vices of some American populations, have often
been insisted upon. But let us not forget the orgies of Greece and
Rome, certain haunts in our own great cities, and the terrible
revelations which from time to time are made in the police courts of
our proudest capitals.
Fundamentally, the White, even when civilized, from the moral point
of view is scarcely better than the Negro, and too often, by his
conduct in the midst of inferior races, has justified the argument
opposed by a Malgache to a missionary, “Your soldiers seduce all our
women you come to rob us of our land, pillage the country, and make
war against us, and you wish to force your God upon us, saying that
He forbids robbery, pillage, and war! Go, you are white upon one side
and black upon the other; and if we were to cross the river, it would
not be us that the caimans would take.”
Such is the criticism of a _savage_; the following is that of an
European, of M. Rose, giving his opinion of his own countrymen: “The
people are simple and confiding when we arrive, perfidious when we
leave them. Once sober, brave and honest, we make them drunken, lazy,
and finally thieves. After having innoculated them with our vices, we
employ these very vices as an argument for their destruction.”
However severe these conclusions may appear, they are unfortunately
true, and the history of the relations of Europeans with the
populations which they have encountered in America, at the Cape, and
in Oceania, justify them only too fully. As for Africa, it seems to
me that the two words, _trade_ and _slavery_, are quite sufficient to
prevent a European from boasting too loudly of the morality of his
race.
It may, however, be objected that these crimes were perpetrated long
ago, and will never be repeated, that slavery has been abolished in
our colonies never to reappear. The answer is but too simple, and
will, I am sure, be confirmed by the reminiscences of more than one
of my readers. In every case this allegation only applies to the
_Aryan_ White. The _Semitic_ Whites have preserved slavery, and the
accounts of all travellers, especially those of Barth, Livingstone,
Nachtigall, and Schweinfurth, show us but too clearly that it is
still the trade of Central Africa. But is the _Aryan White_ himself
free from all blame upon this point? As an answer to this question,
I shall confine myself to mentioning some facts, which happened,
so to speak, only the other day. However melancholy the narration
may be, it will at least serve the purpose of proving that the
_savage element_ still exists in the most _civilized nations_. I
have borrowed them from A. H. Markham, commander of the _Rosario_,
which was sent out by the English government to cruise among the
archipelagoes of Santa Cruz and the New Hebrides, for the purpose
of putting a stop to the practices in question. The truth and
accuracy of this testimony, which was given in 1873, are therefore
unfortunately indisputable.
Forty years ago the sandal-wood trade reached a development which is
accounted for by the high value attached to this wood by the Chinese.
Speculators fitted out ships, and cut down the forests of the
Melanesian Islands. The natives naturally resisted this devastation:
they were answered by the rifle. In 1842 the crews of two English
vessels landed at Sandwich Island, one of the most luxuriant in the
archipelago of the New Hebrides. The islanders, when resisting the
destruction of their woods, were set upon by the Whites, who killed
twenty-six, and, driving a great number into a cave, suffocated them
with smoke till not one remained.
The atrocities committed by the sandal-wood robbers have been
surpassed by those of the pirates, who devoted themselves to the
_labour traffic_, or _labour trade_, which arose and increased with
the cotton plantations which the Civil War in the United States
multiplied in the English colonies, not only in Australia, but even
in the Fiji Islands, and as far as some of the New Hebrides.
The want of hands being felt, the idea struck Captain Towns of having
recourse to the indigenous Blacks of the South Sea, offering them the
inducement of wages. Success crowned the enterprise, and the Captain
soon had imitators. The original plan was to engage the islanders for
a fixed time, with the understanding that they should then be sent
home. But the considerable gains thus obtained excited cupidity, and
_slave-dealers_ began to carry off Papuans in order to transport them
to plantations where veritable slavery awaited them. This _trade_
became so extensive that it acquired a name which was also bestowed
upon _child-stealing_. It is called _kidnapping_, an expression which
been authorised by official documents.
All means were legitimate to the _kidnappers_ in order to procure
their human cargo without cost. I might here borrow many horrible
details from Markham, but I will only quote one. A brig had just
anchored at some little distance from the coast of Florida, one
of the Solomon Islands. A canoe filled with natives coming close
alongside was upset by a manœuvre, apparently accidental. The
boats were immediately lowered as if to render assistance to the
shipwrecked natives. But the spectators on the rocks, or in other
canoes saw European sailors seize the wretched men, and with a long
knife cut off their heads on the gunwale of the boat. This done,
the sailors returned to the brig which immediately set sail. The
heads thus obtained were destined to pay for the engagement of a
certain number of labourers. In many of those Melanesian Islands
the victorious warrior decapitates and carries off the head of his
vanquished enemy, and the respect which he gains increases with the
number of these trophies in his possession. Now it had been agreed
between certain chiefs and captains of vessels, that the latter
should procure heads, and, in exchange, receive a certain number of
living individuals, engaged for one or two years.
It need hardly be said that at the expiration of their engagement
the unfortunate Papuans did not regain their liberty. In 1867, for
example, there is proof that, of 382 islanders who ought to have been
sent home, only 78 had been allowed to go.
It will easily be understood that these ships, laden with unfortunate
creatures, carried off by force or by stratagem, were necessarily the
theatre of terrible scenes. Here again the commander of the _Rosario_
quotes many facts. I shall only borrow the account of what happened
on board the _Carl_, for the history of this slave-ship seems to me
to present a summary of all the atrocities of _kidnapping_.
The _Carl_ quitted Melbourne in 1871, with the avowed intention of
engaging black labourers. With her, under the title of passenger,
went a certain Dr. James Patrick Murray, who was interested in the
enterprise, and who seems to have played the part of leader. When
they arrived at the New Hebrides, the kidnappers seem to have made
ineffectual efforts to obtain labourers by legitimate means. They
soon had recourse to others. At Palmer Island one of them dressed
himself as a missionary, hoping thus to attract the islanders on
board, who fortunately discovered the trap. From this moment the
slave-dealers had recourse to violence alone. Their method was to
approach the canoes manned by Papuans, and to destroy or capsize them
by throwing into them some of those large bars of iron which are used
as ballast. The crews were then easily captured.
Eighty blacks had been collected in this manner. During the day
they were allowed to come on deck, but in the evening they were
thrust into the hold. During the night of the 12th of September, the
prisoners made some noise. They were silenced by firing a pistol
over their heads. During the following night the noise began again,
and the same means were employed to stop it. But the blacks had set
to work to break up the camp-beds, and thus armed they attacked the
hatchway. The whole crew, sailors and passengers, then began to fire
into the crowd. The firing lasted eight hours. It stopped perhaps for
a few moments, but began again at the least noise.
Day broke, and all seemed quiet; the hatchways were opened wide, and
those who could were invited to come up There were _five_; all the
rest were either dead or wounded. The corpses were hastily thrown
into the sea, and at the same time _six living individuals_ who were
badly wounded.
Could we find among savages many _industries_ more infamous than
kidnapping, many deeds more atrocious than those of which Dr. Murray
and his accomplices were guilty?
Let us hasten to do justice to the local legislature and the
English Parliament, which promulgated severe laws and rules for the
prevention and punishment of the crimes of kidnapping. Unfortunately,
the colonists, more or less interested in procuring labourers at a
cheap rate, show themselves remarkably indulgent towards those whose
business it is to provide them with _coolies_. Some officers of the
English navy have learnt this to their cost. Captain Montgomery,
commander of the _Blanche_, had seized, and sent to Sydney, the
schooner _Challenge_ as a slave-ship. It was proved that on two
occasions the _Challenge_ had imprisoned blacks in her hold, who had
been fraudulently enticed on to the ship; that two of them had been
taken, under circumstances of violence, to the Fijis; that the others
had only been released, because in their despair they had set to
work to make a leak in the side of the vessel with a hatchet; and,
finally, that these wretched creatures were obliged to swim back to
their island, from which the _Challenge_ already lay at a distance of
about 6¾ miles. In spite of these grave facts, the _Challenge_ was
acquitted. On the other hand, Captain Montgomery was condemned to pay
£900 sterling damages, and interest to the owners of the ship.
III. If it is only too easy to detect amongst ourselves the evil
deeds of savages, it is, happily, easy to point out among these
people, whom we are so ready to accuse and despise, the feelings
upon which our own societies are founded, the good which, as a
whole, predominates in them, and the virtues which we most honour.
My readers will, however, understand that I cannot here enter into
details incompatible with the nature of this work. We must confine
ourselves to a rapid glance at the opinions held by men in general
upon _property_, _respect of human life_, and _self-respect_, and
compare what travellers have told us of some of the most inferior
races with what we know of our own and of ourselves.
It has often been said, in speaking of certain races and peoples,
that they have no idea of property. Those who look a little closer
into the matter will see that this is an error. Among tribes of
warriors, hunters, or fishers, however low a position they may hold
in the scale of humanity, arms and tools are looked upon as personal
property, and the testimony of travellers, who have taken but little
interest in the question, is very explicit upon this point. In the
Paris Museum there is a boomerang upon which some signs are roughly
carved. M. Thozet, the donor, was showing it on some occasion to an
Australian from the neighbourhood, when the latter at once discovered
from the signs to whom it had belonged. But there is another form
which property assumes among savage or barbarous populations. If
it is a question of land, it will often be found to be under the
jurisdiction of the clan, tribe, or nation. The _hunting-grounds_
of the Red-Skins are met with in every place where civilization has
stopped at the level which they represented at the epoch of their
discovery. This species of property exists in New Holland among
peoples, supposed by some to be _degenerate monkeys_, and the right
which rules it is so rigorous that the Australian never enters the
property of a neighbouring tribe without express permission. To
act otherwise is equivalent to a declaration of war. Our common
lands, and the annual conflicts which took place formerly, and
which, perhaps, still take place, in spite of official settlements,
between French and Spanish shepherds, will give some idea of such
a state of things. Among certain Australian tribes, territorial
property is still more divided and definite; every family has its
hunting-grounds, which are inherited by the sons to the exclusion of
the daughters.
Among the most savage peoples, when we have been able to gain
definite information as to their manners, we find that theft is
regarded as something wrong, and punished. Among the Australians,
poaching is punished with death.
But theft is only a crime when it is committed under certain
circumstances. When under others it is, on the contrary, regarded
as meritorious. To rob an enemy of his horses or cattle is a
praiseworthy act of cunning. It is no longer theft, but an act of
hostility. Now, to the savage the stranger is almost always an enemy.
The case is the same with a great many Aryan and Semitic peoples.
Was it not so among the classic nations from which we derive our
civilization?
Nothing is more common than to hear travellers accuse entire races
of an incorrigible propensity for theft. The insular populations
of the South Sea have, amongst others, been reproached with it.
These people, it is indignantly affirmed, stole even the nails of
the ships! But these nails were _iron_, and in these islands, which
are devoid of metal, a little iron was, with good cause, regarded
as a treasure. Now, I ask any of my readers, supposing a ship with
_sheathing_ and _bolts_ of gold, and nails of diamonds and rubies,
were to sail into any European port, would its sheathing or its nails
be safe? And would not numbers of people be found ready to reason
like the Negroes, who make no scruple of robbing a White? “You are so
rich,” they say, when reproached with any misdeed of this kind.
These same Negroes, however, have a great respect for property among
themselves. Theft does not appear to be more frequent with them than
it is with us between Europeans, and the thief is punished upon the
coast of Guinea precisely in the same manner as in Europe.
We ought, perhaps, to refer to the idea of property the manner in
which adultery is regarded by some peoples. In countries where the
woman may be bought, it is evidently a violation of the rights of
the proprietor. Nevertheless, even amongst the most savage tribes,
a more elevated feeling, and one which is connected with moral or
social ideas, as we ourselves understand them, may be proved, often
in the clearest manner. The gravity of the punishment incurred by the
culprit scarcely permits of a doubt that it is so. The Australian,
uncorrupted by the vicinity of the White and brandy, never forgives
one who has destroyed the purity of his wife, and kills him on the
first occasion. With the Hottentots, death again is the punishment
for adultery. It is the custom among the Negroes of the Gold Coast
for the culprit, as a general rule, to make an arrangement with the
injured party, if it is a question of one of the women of the third
order, who are merely concubines. But if it is a question of the
_great wife_ or the _Fetish wife_, then death, or at least the ruin
of the culprit, will alone suffice to avenge the injury.
Yet Negresses are not Penelopes. I do not for a moment think of
challenging the unanimous evidence of travellers on this point,
and the husbands, as we have just remarked, do not always invoke
the rigour of the local code. What may we legitimately infer from
this fact? Merely that the customs and the law of these races are
at variance. But is it not often so amongst ourselves. Is adultery
practised with impunity only among Negroes? Do complaisant husbands
exist only among Australians?
IV. Respect for human life is universal. The murderer is everywhere
punished. But, amongst ourselves, murder supposes certain conditions.
In spite of the law, he who kills his adversary in a fair duel is
regarded by no one as a murderer; he who kills or causes the death of
a great number of enemies in pitched battle is a hero.
With the savage the formula is still more elastic. As I have just
remarked, he regards a stranger in almost every case as an enemy, and
to kill him is no crime; it is often a title of honour. Moreover,
among the greater number of savage or barbarous peoples, blood
demands blood, and for vengeance to be complete, it is not necessary
that the true culprit should be overtaken. Every individual of the
same family, tribe, or nation, _can_, and _must_ pay for his crime
if occasion offers. When Takouri _treacherously_ massacred Captain
Marion du Fresne and his sixteen sailors, he only obeyed the laws of
his country. He had avenged his relative Nagui Noui, _treacherously_
carried off three years previously by Surville, who wished to punish
the theft of a canoe. In this manner many Europeans have fallen
victims to the misdeeds of their countrymen, and certain peoples have
acquired an unmerited reputation for ferocity.
But let us remember that the Scotch and the Corsicans scarcely acted
differently in their vendetta. With them, as with the Red-Skin, the
Maori, and the Fijian, the blood of every member of the family or
clan might atone for the blood spilt by another. Again, that which
we now call _wilful murder_, was no more considered by the European
as an act of cowardice or treason than it is by the savage. Let
us remember, moreover, that in the Middle Ages, chiefs occupying
the highest positions in European society, did not hesitate to act
in this manner; let us remember that the commanders of our ships,
when punishing savages for some attack, bombard and burn the first
villages that they meet without any scruple, although they may be
almost sure that many innocent will pay for the guilty; and perhaps
we shall be less severe.
As to a want of respect for human life, the white European race
cannot reproach the most barbarous. Let us look back upon our own
history, and recall some of those wars, those pages written in
letters of blood in our own annals. Let us not, above all, forget our
conduct towards our inferior brethren; the depopulation which marks
every step through the world; the massacres committed in cold blood,
and often for amusement; the man-hunts organized after the manner
of stag-hunts; the extermination of entire populations to make room
for European colonies, and we shall be forced to acknowledge that
if respect for human life is a moral and universal law, no race has
violated it oftener, or in a more terrible manner than our own.
V. Modesty and sense of honour are undoubtedly two of the principal
manifestations of self-respect. Neither the one nor the other are
wanting among savage peoples. But the former, especially, often
shows itself in customs and practices widely opposed to our own, or
bearing no resemblance whatever to them. This has given rise to many
misconceptions, such as that which, among certain Polynesians, has
been considered as a refinement of immodest sensuality, what in their
opinion is only an act of elementary modesty.
I might multiply examples of this nature, but for what purpose? Is it
not the same in matters of politeness? We rise and uncover the head
before a stranger or a superior; in a similar case the Turk remains
covered, and the Polynesian sits down. Though differing so entirely
in form, are they not inspired by the same sentiments? Is not the
faculty by which they are called into play everywhere the same?
It is the same also with the sense of honour. Here, however, more
than in any other case, we meet with conceptions remarkably in
accordance with our own. The history of savage nations abounds with
traits of warlike heroism, and nothing is more common than to see
savages prefer torture and death to shame. The Algonquin and the
Iroquois challenge their executioners to invent fresh tortures. The
Kaffir chief asks as a favour to be thrown to the crocodiles rather
than lose the feather, which to him represents the epaulette, and
serve as a common soldier after having been an officer. The duel of
the Australian is more logical than ours, and always in earnest.
That which we call chivalrous generosity in speaking of Europeans, is
by no means wanting in savages. In the struggles at Tahiti several
officers owed their lives to this feeling. After peace had been
concluded, Admiral Bruat asked a Tahitian chief, to whose fire he had
been exposed for an hour while he bathed, why he had not fired: “I
should have been dishonoured in the eyes of my people if I had killed
such a chief as you, naked, and by surprise,” replied the savage.
Could the most civilized man have acted or spoken better?
We might quote various actions of Red-Skins and Australians, arising
from sentiments of the same nature.
VI. In conclusion, if it is sad to be forced to recognise _moral
evil_ in races and in nations which have carried social civilization
to the highest degree of perfection, it is consoling to acknowledge
the _good_ in the most backward tribes, and to find it there in its
most elevated and refined form. The fundamental identity of human
nature is nowhere displayed in a more striking manner.
Does this assertion lead to the inference that all human groups
are upon the same moral level? By no means. From this, as from
the intellectual point of view, they may hold a higher or lower
position of the scale, without any of them falling to zero. It is
precisely this moral inequality which has for the anthropologist an
interest at once scientific and practical. The very development of
the faculty, the acts which it inspires, the institutions of which it
is the foundation, present differences sufficiently great to make it
possible to discover characters in this order of facts.
CHAPTER XXXV.
RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS.
I. If scientific impartiality and calm judgment are necessary in
the study of moral phenomena, they are much more indispensable when
we have to account for facts depending upon religious feeling.
Unfortunately this condition is too rarely fulfilled. Passion,
with lamentable facility, becomes involved in whatever resembles a
religious question. Many other causes, easy to mention, join passion
in leading our judgment astray, and it is not difficult to explain
how, under these several influences, it has been possible, honestly
to ignore manifestations of religion in the more or less important
divisions of mankind.
The most frequent cause of error to which I feel myself bound to call
attention, has its origin in the high opinion which the European
has of himself, in the habitual contempt which is the most striking
feature of his relation with other populations, and especially to
those which, with greater or less reason, he treats as barbarians or
savages. For example, a traveller who, as a general rule, speaks the
language of the country very badly, interrogates a few individuals
upon the delicate questions of the Deity, future life, etc., and his
interlocutors, not understanding him, make a few signs of doubt or
denial, which have no reference to the questions asked. The European
in his turn mistakes their meaning. Having, in the first instance,
merely regarded them as beings of the lowest type, incapable of
any conception however trifling, he concludes without hesitation
that these peoples have no idea either of God or of another life;
and his assertion, soon repeated, is at once accepted as true by
readers who share his opinions about populations unacquainted with
our civilization. The history of travel would furnish us with many
examples of this fact. Kaffirs, Hottentots, etc., have often been
spoken of as atheists, while we now know that this is by no means the
case.
Should the traveller, moreover, speak the language of the country
with ease, he is still liable to fall into error. Religious belief
forms part of the most hidden depths of our nature; the savage
does not willingly expose his heart to a stranger whom he fears,
whose superiority he feels, and whom he has often seen ready to
ignore or ridicule what he has always regarded as most worthy of
veneration. The difficulty which a Parisian experiences in France
in understanding the superstitions of the Basque sailor, or of the
Bas-Breton peasant, should make him able to appreciate those which he
would find in giving an explanation of similar subjects in connection
with Kaffirs or Australians. Campbell had great trouble in obtaining
from Makoum the avowal that the Bosjesman admitted the existence of
a male god and of a female god, of a good and evil principle. He
left many other, and much more important discoveries to be made by
MM. Arbousset and Daumas. Wallis, after a month’s intimacy with the
Tahitians, declared that they possessed no form of worship, whilst it
entered, so to speak, into their most trivial actions. He had seen
nothing beyond a cemetery in the Moraï, those venerated temples, of
which no woman might even touch the sacred ground.
The lively faith of a missionary is, again, often a cause of error.
Whatever the Christian communion may be to which he belongs, he
generally arrives in the midst of the people whom he wishes to
convert, with a hatred of their objects of belief, which are to
him works of the devil. Too often he neither seeks to account for
them, nor even to become acquainted with them; his sole endeavour
is to destroy them. I could here mention one of these too zealous
apostles, who sees nothing in the Brahminical religion but the utmost
barbarism united with the utmost absurdity. It is clear that the
much more rudimentary belief of a Kaffir or of an Australian could
not be a _religion_ in the opinion of such a judge as this. He
expresses and publishes his ideas, and another name is added to the
list of atheist populations.
Fortunately amongst lay Europeans there are some who, permanently
settled in the midst of these populations, become initiated into
their customs and manners, so as to understand them and to fathom
mysteries, which would by others be passed over on account of
offensive or curious forms. Among missionaries there are some who,
more indulgent, because they are more enlightened, can recognise
the religious conception, however feeble it may be, or however
it may have been transformed. Little by little the light has
appeared, and the result has been that Australians, Melanesians,
Bosjesmans, Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Bechuanas, have, in their turn,
been withdrawn from the list of atheist nations and recognised as
_religious_.
II. Can the justice of this conclusion be denied? Can anyone
refuse to allow a religion, properly so called, to these peoples,
to recognise as true divinities beings who receive a tribute of
affection or terror, homage and prayers on the part of populations,
who either fear or trust in them? It is possible. Here again our
European pride seems to me to have often led to false conclusions.
Believers or unbelievers, freethinkers or zealous Christians, savants
and philosophers have been too much under the influence of the idea
of the Deity as conceived by our most cultivated classes. Often when
this idea is even slightly degraded or modified, they no longer
acknowledge its existence; when the conclusions drawn from it upon
the origin, nature, and destiny of man or of the universe, differ
even slightly from those which they admit themselves, or have been
accustomed to hear, they refuse them the name of _religion_.
I can only explain in this manner the judgment passed upon a very
considerable portion of mankind by a number of savants and eminent
thinkers, amongst whom we must reckon the illustrious Orientalist
Burnouf. In his opinion Buddhism is true atheism. In a work which has
been deservedly successful, M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire has supported
this view with incontestable talent and learning. He has, moreover,
placed on an equality with Buddhist beliefs, and perhaps even below
them, those which had preceded them among the Mongols, Chinese, and
Japanese. Thus, in the opinion of this eminent writer, nearly all the
yellow races, much more than the third of mankind, are _atheists_.
But, in formulating this conclusion, the learned author of _Buddah_
chiefly consulted his own reason and conceptions. “Buddhists,” he
says, “may without any injustice be regarded as atheists. I do not
mean that they profess atheism, that they glory in their incredulity
with that boasting of which more than one example might be quoted
amongst ourselves; I only mean that these nations have not been able
to rise in their noblest thoughts to the conception of God.”
In these few lines the idea of the book and the cause of the
disagreement which separates me from M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire is
clearly evident. The Buddhists, who everywhere give a place to _gods_
in their legends, who have everywhere raised temples consecrated to
these deities, who fear and worship them, who have made prayer an
institution, who admit the dogma of future life and of remuneration,
have not formed that idea of _God_ to which we have all more or
less attained; they are therefore atheists. This is evidently the
prepossession under the influence of which this work has been
written, which, however, should be read by all who are desirous of
gaining correct impressions concerning some of the grave questions so
hotly disputed at the present day.
The savant who considered Buddhism as atheism would with still
greater reason make the same estimate of the ancient beliefs of
Japan, China, and Mongolia. Nevertheless, there was in this case
also a belief in numerous divinities, always subordinated to one
supreme, uncreated and creating God. In Japan, we are told by
Siebolt, there were counted no less than seven celestial gods, and
eight million kamis, or spirits, of which 492 were superior gods. The
inferior Kamis, to the number of 2640, were deified men. In China,
the aim of the reform of Lao-tseu and of Khoung-tseu was, partly, the
destruction of idolatry, and idolatry is not atheism. The populations
of northern and central Asia have in almost all cases been accused by
travellers especially of superstition, and not of atheism. They also
have their idols. The case is similar with all northern populations.
In the sacred island of Waygatz, near to the straits of the same
name, the missionaries burnt, in 1827, 420 images collected upon
the promontory of Haye-Salye alone. Throughout this vast area, the
inhabitants believed, or still believe, in _spirits_ dwelling in
rocks, trees, mountains, or the celestial bodies, and offered to them
an interested homage.
Still, however, there was an universal belief in a _Supreme God_, who
had created these very spirits, and was the Preserver of all living
things. The Lapps and Samoyedes had, or still have on this point, the
same conceptions as the ancient Chinese. Their _Jubmel_, and their
_Num_ answer exactly to the _Chang-ti_ of Khoung-tseu himself, while
popular idioms show that they regard him as the first dispenser of
all good. _Num tad_ (may Num grant), and _Num arka_ (thanks be to
Num), are apparently of frequent occurrence in the language of the
Samoyedes. This belief in a Supreme God and in secondary _spirits_,
of vast number, but still presenting a kind of hierarchy, is a very
ancient one in China, for we find the emperor Chun 2225 years before
our era “offering sacrifices to the Supreme Sovereign of Heaven,
and the usual ceremonies to the six great spirits, as those usually
offered to mountains, streams, and spirits in general.”
Possessing beliefs of this kind, attested and sanctioned by public
acts, can they be regarded as atheists? If so, we must at least
allow that this is a very different atheism from that which has been
professed, and is still professed, by certain European schools of
philosophy.
III. I might make similar observations upon the subject of the
opinions published by Sir John Lubbock in the two works which have
gained for him in anthropology a reputation equal to that which he
already enjoyed as a naturalist. “It is difficult,” he says, “to
suppose that savages so rude as not to be able to count their own
fingers, should have acquired intellectual conceptions sufficiently
advanced to possess a system of belief worthy of the name of
religion.”
Leaving on one side what the author here says about numeration, which
rests, I think, upon a false assumption, do not these words, “worthy
of the name of religion,” show us that, like M. B. Saint-Hilaire,
Sir John Lubbock takes his own conceptions in religious matters as a
criterion of those of savages?
In the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, atheism is not “the negation of
the existence of a God, but the absence of definite ideas upon this
subject.” Here, like M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, the English savant
gives to the word _atheism_ a very different sense to that which it
has held hitherto. Moreover, he quotes elsewhere without comment
several passages, the sense of which clearly implies a negation of
all divinity, and sometimes himself makes use of expressions which
seem to prove that such is his conviction, at least with regard to
certain savages. Thus, the testimony which he makes use of, and his
own words, are often employed in the support of the opinion which
denies any religion to certain human groups.
The choice, moreover, of the quotations in question seems to me
liable to a serious objection. When the writers, against whom I am
now arguing, have to choose between two evidences, the one attesting,
the other denying the existence of religious belief in a population,
it is always the latter which they seem to think should be accepted.
More often than not, they do not even mention the contrary evidences,
however definite, however authentic they may be.
Now it is evidently much _easier not to see_ than to _discover_ that
which may be in so many ways rendered inappreciable to our eyes.
When a traveller states that he has proved the existence of religious
sentiments in a population, which by others had been declared to be
destitute of them, when he gives precise details upon such a delicate
question, he has unquestionably at least probability in his favour.
I see nothing to authorize this rejection of _positive evidence_ and
unconditional acceptance of _negative evidence_. This, however, is
too often the case.
I might justify this imputation by taking, one by one, almost all the
examples of so-called atheist populations pointed out by different
authors. I shall confine myself to some of the most striking.
With reference to the Americans, Robertson is quoted, who states
that several tribes have been discovered in America possessing no
conception of a Supreme Being and no religious ceremonies. No mention
is made of the information, for which we are indebted to D’Orbigny,
although it is very precise. The author of _l’Homme Américain_
deserves this neglect the less, since he directly contradicts the
opinions held upon this subject by several writers, and by Robertson
himself. “Although several authors,” he says, “have denied all
religion to certain Americans, it is evident in our opinion that all
the nations, even the most barbarous, possessed one of some kind.”
D’Orbigny develops this opinion by giving details of the dogmas
accepted by all the races of South America, and he proves in all the
belief in another life, as attested by their funeral ceremonies.
Is not this of more importance than the simple negative assertion
borrowed from a traveller?
It may be objected that D’Orbigny spoke only of the tribes of
South America, and that the atheist populations must be sought in
the northern portion of this continent. The Californians have, in
fact, been quoted, upon the authority of P. Baegert, as having
neither government, religion, idols, temples, nor form of worship.
But nothing is said of the facts observed by M. de Mofras, which
directly contradict this assertion. The Californians, this traveller
tells us, believe in a superior God. “This God has had neither
father nor mother. His origin is entirely unknown; they believe
that He is omnipresent; that He sees everything, even in the middle
of the darkest nights; that He is invisible to all eyes; that He
is the Friend of the good, and that He punishes the wicked.” The
Californians build oval _temples_, or, perhaps, rather _chapels_,
from 10 to 12 ft. in diameter, which are regarded as asylums, even
in case of murder. Clearly, the Californians must be erased from the
list of atheist populations, the conception which they have formed of
their superior God being, on the contrary, a remarkably elevated one.
In this respect these poor savages greatly surpassed the Greeks and
Romans.
The Californians rank amongst those human tribes which are least
elevated in the social scale; but there are some which are considered
to stand far below them, the Mincopies, for example. Some writers,
adopting the ideas of Mouat, regard them as atheists. They make
no mention of the evidence of Major Michael Symes and Mr. Day.
The former relates the information which he received from Captain
Stocker, who lived for several years in the midst of these islanders;
the latter relates what he saw. From their combined evidence, it
appears that the Mincopies worshipped the sun as the primal source
of all good; the moon as a secondary power; the genii of the woods,
rivers, and mountains as agents of the first divinities. They
believe that a malevolent spirit raises tempests, and they sometimes
endeavour to pacify it by songs, sometimes menace it with their
arrows. These Mincopies believe in another life, and keep a lighted
fire under the platform which bears the corpse of a chief to appease
his _powerful spirit_.
The evidence of Le Vaillant is accepted with reference to the absence
of all religion in the Hottentots. No notice is taken of the contrary
opinion held by Kolben, the accuracy and truth of which, though
formerly doubted, are now placed above suspicion by the inquiry
instituted by Walkenaer. Kolben, moreover, only confirmed the
statements of his predecessors Saar, Tachard, and Boeving. He had
also the advantage of having studied the aborigines before they were
subdued and dispersed by the Europeans. Now Kolben tells us that the
Hottentots believed in a God, the creator of all existing things,
doing no harm to anyone, and living beyond the moon. They called Him
_Gounja Ticquoa_, that is to say, God of Gods. They also recognized
an evil divinity, called _Touquôa_. The moon was, in their opinion,
an inferior gounja. They believed, moreover, in another life, for
they were afraid of ghosts, and rendered a sort of adoration to their
great men, by dedicating to them a field, a mountain, or a river, to
which they made, in passing, some sign of respect. These details,
given by the old Prussian traveller, agree with those which Campbell
received from the lips of a Hottentot chief.
Burchell, it is stated, could discover no religion in the Bachapine
Kaffirs. Nevertheless, and Lubbock allows it himself elsewhere, we
find in the writings of this traveller that the Bachapines believed
in a malevolent being called _Mouliimo_, to whom they attribute
everything of an unpleasant nature which happens to them. To defend
themselves against him they cover themselves with amulets, and they
hold many other superstitions. It is evident that Burchell was not
acquainted with everything which the Bachapines believed, either
because he did not attach great importance to the investigation,
or because he was prevented by the difficulty which Kolben has
mentioned, and which I have pointed out above.
Thus the Bachapines believe in a superior, but evil being, in a _kind
of devil_. It would be very singular if they did not believe in a
_species of God_. Schweinfurth believes he has discovered something
similar among the Bongos; but he himself insists several times upon
the difficulty of determining exactly what to believe in questions
of this kind. Let us admit, however, that this may be true in the
case of these Negroes as also in that of the Bachapines. We can only
regard it as an accidental and local phenomenon, and in no way as a
character of race. I shall return later to the Negroes; I will now
only add a few words with reference to the Bachapines.
This population is only a portion of the Bechuana Kaffir race. Now,
thanks to Livingstone, M. Cazalis, and others, we have, upon the
subject of the religious beliefs of these tribes in general, details
which are very minute and of incontestable authenticity. The Basutos
have their legends, their cosmogony, and their rudimentary mythology.
They admit the existence of a being who _destroys by thunder_, they
give to him the name of _Morena_, literally, _Intelligent Being who
is above_, they have, moreover, _Molimos_, a kind of household gods,
to whom they offer prayers and sacrifices, and in whose honour they
purify themselves; they believe in another life, in another world
situated in the centre of the earth, which they call _the abyss which
is never filled_. The Bechuanas believe so strongly in ghosts that
the fierce Dingan dare not go out in the evening, for fear of meeting
the spectre of Chaka, whom he had assassinated.
IV. The result of my investigations is exactly the opposite of that
to which Sir John Lubbock and M. Saint-Hilaire have arrived. Obliged,
in my course of instruction, to review all human races, I have sought
atheism in the lowest as well as in the highest. I have nowhere met
with it, except in individuals, or in more or less limited schools,
such as those which existed in Europe in the last century, or which
may still be seen at the present day.
Can it be that analogous facts have occurred elsewhere, and that
some American tribes, some Polynesian or Melanesian populations,
some hordes of Bedouins may have entirely lost the conception of
the divinity and another life? It is certainly possible that it may
be so. But side by side with these tribes dwell other tribes, other
populations, of _precisely the same race_, which still possess a
religious faith. Such is indeed the result of the examples quoted by
Lubbock.
This is the great point. We nowhere meet, with atheism except in an
_erratic condition_. In every place, and at all times, the mass of
populations have escaped it; we nowhere find either a great human
race, or even a division however unimportant of that race, professing
atheism.
Such is the result of an inquiry which I am justified in
calling conscientious, and which commenced before I assumed the
anthropological professorship. It is true that in these researches
I have proceeded and have formed my conclusions, not as a thinker,
a believer, or as a philosopher, who are all more or less under the
influence of an ideal which they accept or oppose, but exclusively
_as a naturalist_, whose chief aim is to seek for and state _facts_.
In the scientific study of religions we must avoid acting in the
manner of the physiologist, who, having experimented upon the
vertebrata alone, refused to recognise the characteristic functions
of animal life in the lower animals, because they were in those cases
simpler and more obscure. Here, more perhaps than elsewhere, we
should imitate modern naturalists, who have traced the fundamental
functions even in the lowest molluscs and zoophytes, where all
special organization is often wanting.
The physiologist does not deny the existence of a phenomenon
because it occurs in a place, and by methods, different to those to
which he is accustomed. In almost all animals, even to the lowest,
chymification takes place in the interior of the body. In the
Physalia the same physiological act is performed externally, by the
numerous appendages which serve for both arms and mouth to these
singular zoophytes. In spite of the strangeness of the process, the
function has neither disappeared, nor changed its nature in the eyes
of the scientific man.
The naturalist who studies the history of man, that is to say, the
anthropologist, should neither act nor judge otherwise. However
simple or incomplete, however naïve and childish, however absurd it
may be, a belief should not lose its character in his eyes, if it has
any connection with that element which is common and essential to all
religions.
Now, whatever the dogmas and doctrines of the latter may be, we
may accept as a general formula, which embraces them all, the two
following points: a belief in beings superior to man and capable
of exercising a good or evil influence upon his destiny; and the
conviction that the existence of man is not limited to the present
life, but that there remains for him a future beyond the grave.
Every people, every man, believing these two things, is _religious_,
and observation shows more and more clearly every day the
universality of this character.
Like intelligence and morality, religious feeling has, moreover, its
several degrees and manifestations. To seek for these manifestations,
to determine their nature and intensity in the various human groups,
must be the task of the anthropologist. In order to be faithful
to the modern method, he must neglect nothing. Sometimes the most
rudimentary religion will have for him a greater interest than
one which is fully developed, because it exposes more clearly the
primary religious elements. In their progressive development, in the
harmony or discord existing between this development and that of the
intelligence or morality, he will find many characteristic features
suitable for distinguishing races, and sometimes their sub-divisions.
V. The point of view taken by the naturalist differs, then, in
certain respects, from that which has hitherto been adopted by the
greater number of eminent men, who have endeavoured to establish the
_Science of religions_. Even M. Émile Burnouf, who has so clearly
characterised this new science, who has shown so admirably in what
respects it differs from theology, who has so justly insisted upon
the necessity of enlarging the area of studies of this kind, and of
no longer confining ourselves to the beliefs of ancient and modern
Europeans, seems to me to have yielded to the prejudices which he
opposes.
In fact, this author divides religions into _great_ and _small_.
The former in his opinion are: Christianity, Judaism, Mahomedanism,
Brahmanism, and Buddhism. He turns his attention to these only,
leaving all others in the background. M. Burnouf may, it is true,
argue from the relative number of adherents.
The following are, in fact, from the latest researches of M. Hubner,
the general religious statistics of the globe.
{ Catholics 200 millions.
Christians, { Protestants 110 ”
400 millions. { Greeks 80 ”
{ Various sects 10 ”
{ Buddhists 500 ”
{ Brahminists 150 ”
Non-Christians, { Mahomedans 80 ”
992½ millions. { Israelites 6½ ”
{ Known different religions 240 ”
{ Unknown religions 16 ”
-----
Total 1392½ ”
The same author gives about one thousand as the number of the
religions or sects into which mankind is divided. The majority is
unquestionably greatly on the side of the small religions, which
present, at least in certain respects, a variety of conception
equal, if not superior, to all that has been observed in the great.
M. Burnouf acts, therefore, like the naturalist, who would form his
judgment upon the animal kingdom from the vertebrata alone, and
would neglect all the rest, that is to say, three-fourths of the
fundamental, and a very considerable number of the secondary types.
Without even mentioning Christianity, the great religions of M.
Burnouf are doubtless of interest to us in many respects, on account
of the relations which many of them present with the beliefs of
almost all Europeans, and also from the historical, social, and
political importance of the nations by whom they are professed. But
considerations of this kind are far from being everything in science.
Mammifers are of much more use to us than worms or zoophytes: yet
the zoologist takes as much interest in the latter as in the former;
and it becomes more evident every day how useful, and often how
necessary the study of these simplified organisms is, for the better
understanding of the more complex organisms of higher animals.
The examination of the _small religions_ will render an analogous
service to the science of the _great_ religions. It will be, perhaps,
amongst the former that we shall be forced to seek the origin of
those beliefs which now include so many millions of men; under one
form or another, we shall, doubtless, often meet with traces of them
side by side with, or even in the midst of the most fully developed
religions, and those which are apparently most widely separated from
them. Upon these two points our opinions will not I think clash with
those of M. Burnouf and Sir John Lubbock.
VI. The latter, in his _Origins of Civilization_, has, in fact,
endeavoured to trace the gradual development of religion in the
inferior human races. Unfortunately, he seems to me to have, as
a rule, undervalued the greater number of these conceptions, and
to have ignored the remarkably elevated character which many of
them exhibit. This alone may have led him to consider religion as
proportional to civilization, and developing only with the latter.
I cannot share this view; and the disagreement between Lubbock and
myself is also due in a great measure to the importance which I have
attached to certain evidences which seem to have escaped the notice
of the English savant. A few examples will justify these observations.
Of all the peoples, concerning whose beliefs we possess an almost
sufficient amount of information, the Australians certainly take
the first place. Upon this point I am entirely agreed with Sir John
Lubbock. But I cannot hold with him, that these populations do not
believe in a god of any kind; that they never offer prayers; that
they have no form of worship at all.
In support of his opinion my eminent colleague quotes Eyre, Collins,
and MacGillivray; but he forgets Cunningham, Dawson, Wilkes, Salvado,
and Stanbridge. In comparing the information obtained by these
travellers in different parts of New Holland, we everywhere observe
a similar foundation in the beliefs, which well deserve to be termed
_religious_.
The Australians admit a good principle, called, according to the
locality, _Coyan, Motogon, Pupperimbul_, who is sometimes spoken of
by them as a kind of giant, at others as a kind of spirit. Coyan is
beneficent, and regards the recovery of lost children as almost his
special duty. To obtain his favour, darts are offered to him. If the
child is not found, it is supposed that he is angry. In New-Nursie,
Motogon is the creator. He had only to cry: Earth, appear! Water,
appear! and to breathe in order to give birth to all things that
exist. Without being so precise, the natives of Tyrril Lake ascribe
the creation of the sun to Pupperimbul, who belonged to a class of
beings resembling men, but who had been transported to heaven before
the appearance of the present race. In south-east Australia, Coyan
watches over the _evil principle_, called _Potoyan, Wandong, Cienga_,
who roams about at night to devour men as well as children, and
against whom they protect themselves by fire. The moon, again, is,
in the opinion of the Australians, a malevolent being, whose evil
influence is counteracted by the sun. Several good and evil genii,
_Balumbals_ and _Wanguls_, complete this rudimentary mythology,
which has also its fabulous monsters, its great serpents hidden in
deep rivers, etc. The Australians believe, moreover, in a kind of
immortality of the soul, which passes successively from one body to
another. But before finding a new abode, the spirits of the dead
wander for a certain length of time in the forests, and the natives
very often affirm that they have been seen or heard.
True, these are not very noble beliefs. There is, however, here
something of a very different nature from what Sir John Lubbock’s
view of the matter would lead us to expect. The idea of creation
by the word and breath of a powerful being is a noble conception,
and appears distinctly in several tribes: oblations and prayer have
been proved in others. In all we observe the germ of that belief in
_dualism_, that antagonism of benevolent and malevolent super-human
powers, which is found in _the greatest religions_, and which is
the basis even of Christianity. As to the belief in another life,
no one has of late, I believe, denied the possession of it to the
Australians.
In treating of the religion of the Polynesians, Lubbock quotes
chiefly Mariner, Williams, and Sir George Grey. These authorities
are unexceptional as regards their statement upon what they have
discovered. But their silence upon certain points does not justify
us in concluding that there are real gaps in those cases. Other
travellers have gone much further than they went, known what they
were ignorant of, and have imparted the knowledge to us. Moerenhout
was the first, I believe, to publish original documents upon the
most ancient Tahitian traditions. Others followed; and, thanks
to favourable circumstances, I have been able to profit by these
researches. In the work which I published eight years before that of
Lubbock, I reviewed and discussed the principal documents for which
we are indebted to Captain Lavaud, General Ribourt, the missionary
Orsmond, M. Gaussin, and others. All these documents, obtained from
chiefs belonging to the most ancient families and well versed in the
traditions of their ancestors, have the appearance of incontestable
authenticity, and throw an entirely fresh light upon the early
history of religion, at least in Tahiti. I believe I have defined
with sufficient clearness what these religious beliefs were, and
established beyond a doubt that, side by side with notions arising
entirely from superstition, the Tahitians had attained conceptions
remarkable for their purity and elevation.
Let us first prove that in the island where Wallis declared he had
not been able to discover the least trace of religious worship, this
worship was, on the contrary, mixed up with the most trivial acts of
life. It was even productive of melancholy consequences. _Formalism_
reigned supreme-Trusting in his religious observances, in the prayers
of his priests, and in the indulgence of his gods, the Tahitian
thought himself at liberty to do almost anything. He combined the
strongest and most simple faith with manners remarkable for their
violence and licentiousness. But does not all Europe of the Middle
Ages, and, even at the present time, do not many provinces, which in
other respects are by no means behind the age, present phenomena of a
similar nature.
Yet the Tahitians believed in another life, in rewards and punishment
after death. Their paradise, of which they gave an enticing
description, was reserved for the chiefs, and for those who had made
sufficient offerings to the gods, that is to say, to the priests. Was
not, and is not this still, the object of pious donations?
The souls of the remainder, whose life had been regular, went at
once into Po, into obscurity, a kind of _limbo_, where there seems
to have been neither pain nor pleasure of a very decided nature. But
guilty souls were condemned to undergo a certain number of times,
_a scratching of the flesh upon every bone_. Their sins expiated,
they too were admitted into Po. The Tahitians thus admit a kind of
purgatory and no hell. It should also be observed that the punishment
inflicted upon the guilty supposes a kind of materiality of the soul.
But is not this also the case with those torments which nearly all
our Christian populations still believe to be reserved for the sinner
cast into the _flames of hell_.
We find in the pantheon of the Tahitians a hierarchy equal to, but
much exceeding in number that of the Greeks and Romans. At the
lowest extremity of the scale we find innumerable _Tiis_, whose
duty it was to preside in every place over the smallest actions,
the smallest movements of the soul, even to the _wishes of day and
night_. Above the latter come the _Oromotouas_, who represented the
domestic gods, the Lares and Manes of the ancients. The _inferior
Atouas_, dwelling upon the earth, inhabiting rivers, woods,
valleys, and mountains, answer very fairly to the Fauns, Sylvans,
Dryads, Oreads, &c. Moreover, it is from among the divinities of
this class that the various professions choose their patrons. The
singers, choreographers, and doctors had four, sailors twelve, and
agriculturists thirteen. The gods of the first rank were _Atouas
properly so called_. They also were equally numerous. But nine of
them, created (_oriori_) directly by Taaroa, before the formation of
man, composed, correctly speaking, the _divine family_.
Finally, above all those divinities, stood the Supreme God. There
can be no doubt as to the conception which the Tahitians formed of
the latter. Traditions, collected at different times by different
persons, and from equally different sources, agree perfectly upon
this point. The song received by Moerenhout from the lips of a
_harepo_ began thus: “He was; Taaroa was his name; he existed in
space; no earth, no heaven, no men.” The manuscript of General
Ribourt describes him as _toïvi_, having had no parents, and existing
from time immemorial. The sacred song translated by M. Goussin begins
with the following declaration: “Taaroa the great orderer, is the
origin of the earth. Taaroa is toïvi; he has no father, no posterity.”
The Tahitians regarded this uncreated God, moreover, as almost a
pure spirit, and he was undoubtedly so in the estimation of the
more enlightened islanders. Certain traditions represent him with
_a body_; but, says General Ribourt’s manuscript, this body is
_invisible_, and further it is merely, “a shell which is frequently
renewed, and which the God loses, as a bird its feathers.” In
Moerenhout’s song, it is he who changes himself into the universe;
but “the great and sacred universe is only the shell of Taaroa.” In
that of M. Gaussin, Taaroa raises his head out of his covering, which
disappears and becomes the earth. In the magnificent dialogue, also
translated by M. Gaussin, and in which Taaroa calls, so to speak,
upon all the different parts of the universe, who in turn answer him,
it is said: “The soul of Taaroa remained God.” Unfortunately, after
the creation was finished, this God seems to have reassumed his state
of repose, and to have left to the inferior deities the government of
this world.
We see here, again, that as far as the first conception is
concerned, we are far above the Zeus of the Greeks, or the Jupiter
of the Romans. And yet who would dream of comparing the Tahitian
civilization with the civilization or the intellectual productions of
the Greeks? It is one of the many facts which show the independence
of the phenomena of the intelligence and those of the religious
feeling.
It is not in Tahiti alone that this elevated spiritualism has been
observed, though concealed under very different appearances. The rude
images, the _toos_ placed in the _moraï_ have been regarded by almost
all travellers as statues of atouas. They are, in reality, nothing
more than _tabernacles_ hollow within, and destined to receive
different objects, oblations, etc. A priest of the Sandwich Islands
told Byron that, when a child, it happened that he eat something
which had been deposited in the sacred images. Surprised and
reprimanded by his father, he excused himself by saying that he had
found out by various experiments that these gods of wood neither saw
nor heard. The old priest then said to him in a severe tone: “My son,
the wood, it is true, neither sees nor hears; but the spirit which is
above sees and hears all, and punishes wicked actions.”
Do many among ourselves draw such a clear distinction between the
_spirit_ and the _wood_?
A remarkable feature of the Tahitian religion is, that we find in
it no trace of Manicheism. They have, in fact, only _gods_, and
no _devils_. It is true that the priests spoke in the name of the
Atouas, and that the _sorcerers_, hated and feared in Tahiti as
elsewhere, addressed themselves solely to the Tiis. But the latter
were not in any way considered as antagonistic to the Atouas.
Moerenhout tells us that their images might be seen as guardians at
the entrance of the moraï and sacred enclosures.
Although not so clearly defined as those of the Tahitians, the
religious beliefs of the Algonquin and Mingwe Red-Skins are very
superior in some respects. Their _Great Spirit_, the _Michabou_ of
the Algonquins, the _Agrescoue_ of the Iroquois, is the Father of all
existing things. To him alone true worship is rendered in smoking
the sacred calumet towards the four points of the horizon and the
zenith. The Creator of all that exists, he is not so disinterested
in his work as Taaroa. He himself, or his messengers, watch over
children, and direct the events of the world. Again, it is to him,
before all others, that the Red-Skin addressed his prayers when
he asks, and his thanks when he has gained his demands. I might
here multiply examples and quotations. I shall confine myself to
reproducing in part the song of the Lenapes on the eve of their
departure for war, as it has been preserved for us by Heckewelder.
It is a national song, and of itself refutes many strange assertions
frequently made with regard to the populations who once occupied the
territory of the United States.
“Oh, poor me—who am just about to depart to fight the enemy—and know
not if I shall return—to enjoy the embraces of my children and wife.”
“Oh, poor creature—who cannot order his own life—who has no power
over his own body—but who tries to do his duty—for the happiness of
his nation.”
“Oh, thou Great Spirit above—take pity upon my children—and upon my
wife—keep them from sorrowing on my account—grant that I may succeed
in my enterprise—that I may kill my enemy—and bring back trophies of
war.”
“Give me strength and courage to fight my enemy—grant that I may
return and see my children again—see my wife and my relations—have
pity upon me and preserve my life—and I will offer to thee a
sacrifice.”
It is true that, after the Great Spirit, we find the Red-Skins
believing in an immense number of _Manitous_, one of whom, inhabiting
the centre of the earth, is a kind of demon. But these beings,
whether good or evil, although possessing an influence over the
destiny of man, have nothing of the divine character. They are
nothing more than a kind of genii, fairies, ogres, etc., more or less
resembling those mentioned in Oriental tales, and all absolutely
dependent upon the Great Spirit. The latter alone is omnipotent,
while the evil spirit is weak and his power is limited.
The belief in another life was, moreover, universal amongst these
populations. Their ideas upon the other world, the transmigration
of souls, the multiplicity of existences were vague enough; but in
several legends, collected either by the first travellers, or in the
present century by Schoolcraft, we find, given in the most explicit
manner, the doctrine of recompense promised to the good, and the
torments which await the wicked.
The Algonquins and Mingwes deserve to be regarded as monotheists
as much as any other people we can mention, much more so than the
Arabs before Mahomet. There is, moreover, no reason to think that
these spiritual beliefs were due to the exceptional intelligence
of an isolated individual who played the part of prophet after the
manner of Mahomet. They have all the characters of a spontaneous
manifestation of the instincts of the race itself. Now this fact is
the more remarkable, as these Red-Skins, almost exclusively hunters,
had scarcely advanced beyond the lowest stages of the social scale.
The Negroes of Guinea, much superior to the Algonquins and Mingwes,
from a civilized point of view, are far inferior to them in religion.
Still, to speak only of their _fetishism_, would be doing them a
great injustice. This is, in reality, only a form of superstition
more or less intimately associated with a basis of far nobler
beliefs. Here, again, the greater number of observers have stopped
at what was immediately presented to the eye; others, however,
have fortunately been found who have looked beneath these first
appearances.
Numerous evidences, too unanimous to admit of doubt, prove that from
Cape Verd to Cape Lopez the inhabitants believe in a Supreme God, who
has created all existing things. The natives of Dahomey hold that
this God is himself subject to a more elevated being, who, say these
Negroes, is perhaps the God of the Whites. In most cases, it is true,
this supreme Deity is regarded as governing the universe through
the agency of his ministers; but often, also, direct intervention is
attributed to him. Petitions, thanks, and prayers, are then addressed
to him, with the formula of some of which we are acquainted. In that
which D’Avezac received from the lips of Oche Fecoue, the Yebous
request Obbâ-el-Orum (_King of Heaven_) to preserve them from illness
and death. They add: “Orissa (_God_) give me prosperity and wisdom.”
We find that almost all the natives of Guinea, besides their _good
God_, had their _evil spirit_, also very powerful. Oblations are
offered to appease him. The Negroes often think that they see or
hear him in the night. We know too well, however, that the shores of
Guinea are not the only place where such visions have been seen in
imagination.
Then come the inferior gods, very numerous, and sometimes arranged in
a hierarchy. It is they who are sent into _Fetishes_ to watch over
and protect man. The Fetish, according to the evidence of devout
priests and Negroes, is not the _God himself_, but only the _abode of
the God_.
The natives of Guinea all believe in another life, but have very
different ideas upon this subject. In general they regard it
as almost similar to the present. Some have a confused idea of
metempsychosis, or think they are born again in a child. The Issinois
believe in the immortality of the soul, which, on leaving this earth,
is born again in another world, situated in the centre of the globe,
and _vice versa_. This is almost the _alternating life_, as conceived
by Hyppolyte Renaud, a distinguished artillery officer, and one
of those thinkers who have felt the want of an explanation of the
destiny of man.
The idea of retribution is clearly defined by many Guinean tribes.
In the opinion of many, the wise and the intelligent become the
messengers of the gods; the wicked are drowned in passing a certain
stream, and die for ever or become demons. Others hold that the souls
of those who have led evil lives go to the evil spirit, but can
be redeemed by oblations offered to the gods. Here, then, we find
the Negro possessing the idea of _purgatory_ and of _redemption_,
together with that of _hell_.
VII. I think I have said enough thoroughly to establish a fact
independent of all hypothesis, and which seems to me to be of
serious importance. It is that we often find ideas of an extremely
elevated nature, and resembling in a singular manner those which
distinguish the _great religions_, existing in the _small_, though
obscured by other notions of an inferior nature. Again, that we must
almost everywhere, probably everywhere, distinguish _religion_ from
_superstition_. But before we can, in this case, recognise the gold
in the midst of the surrounding dross, time is required, serious
study, and a mind entirely free from prejudice.
I grant that religion and superstition are often, as it were, fused
into the creeds of certain races, so that the priest and the sorcerer
are confounded in one person. But this is not always the case; and,
even where the connection forms an apparent confusion, we should
unquestionably endeavour to distinguish the two elements. Now this
task has been too often neglected in dealing with inferior races.
Here again.
I remark at each step the prejudicial influence of European
pride. The most careless writer would certainly not connect with
Christianity, as it is understood at the present day in France, the
dismal or ludicrous tales collected in the country districts by
Villemarqué, Souvestre, and others. He would place them, with all
their accompanying practices, in what may be called the _popular
mythology_. Should not also the man of science make a similar
distinction, when trying to form a true estimation of the religion,
properly so called, of barbarous or savage nations?
To those who ask how Fetishism came to be implanted in Guinea side
by side with the conception of a Supreme Being, the creator and
governor of all that exists? how northern populations could reconcile
Shamanism with the belief in that God of whom Ghengis Khan had
formed such a great and elevated idea? I ask again how the strangest
superstitions came to be accepted in former times by all Christian
sects? how it is that they still exist amongst us? True, in our
enlightened classes, neither Protestant nor Catholic would enter upon
a course of sorcery, of which there were so many instances but two or
three centuries ago, and which were so often followed by condemnation
and capital punishment. In our more remote country districts,
however, the belief in sorcery is as strong as it was universal
in the Middle Ages. The newspapers inform us from time to time of
actions, proving that, if left to themselves, these populations would
willingly burn the unfortunate victims suspected of having _told
fortunes_; protect themselves against _witchcraft_, the _evil eye_,
etc., these same populations have often had recourse to practices
strongly resembling those signalized by travellers as the proof of
inferiority in certain races. In reality, the amulets of our peasants
are identical with the _grisgris_ of the Negroes.
In all these respects and in many others, all Aryan Christians have
believed in that which we proudly reproach the Negroes and Mongols
with believing. All Christian communities have sanctioned, and
sometimes _sanctified_, these absurd superstitions.
The anthropologist, who has to do with science and not with theology,
who has to seek the pure element in the inferior religions, ought
not, on the other hand, to hesitate in pointing out that singular
admixture of alloy in the superior religions, of which I have just
quoted a familiar example.
From this double form of investigation, a general fact, to which
I have often called attention, will, I think, be established in
the minds of all, a fact which may be formulated in the following
terms; great or small, religions are principally connected by the
most elevated and the lowest element possessed by each; they are
principally separated by intermediary forms and conceptions.
VIII. The following fact has, in several instances, been remarked,
that a religion when replaced by another, leaves upon the latter
more or less evident traces. Often also, the divinities of the
former, without entirely disappearing, will undergo a singular
process of degradation, and find a place only in the region of
popular superstition. Which of our readers will not call to mind the
articles, at once so charming and so impressive, of M. Heine upon
the poor gods of the Greek and Roman Olympus, passed into legendary
characters? These representatives of classical mythology have, in
the heart of popular beliefs, become associated with Germanic and
Scandinavian divinities; but have not both had predecessors?
From Quaternary ages to the present time, many races have inhabited
Europe. None, undoubtedly, have entirely passed away. They have been
successively subjugated, and more or less absorbed. Can the beliefs
even of our most remote ancestors be entirely lost? I think not.
Undoubtedly, a portion has been forgotten, but very probable also
a large part has survived, more or less modified by the additions
of each fresh immigration. In this manner would be formed, little
by little, that popular mythology which has resisted all official
doctrines, and even found a place by their side.
What has happened in our own case cannot but have happened elsewhere.
Future research will perhaps show this to be the cause of the
common element of the religious beliefs of peoples, separated by
their different degrees of civilization, as well as by geographical
position.
IX. M. Burnouf has remarked that the _science of religion_ does not
as yet exist. This is true, especially from the point of view to
which I have just called attention. All general classification is,
then, premature. Before attempting one, let us wait till we are at
least fairly acquainted, not only with the great mass of doctrines
supported by profound metaphysics, which have been accepted by
civilized nations, but also with the simpler, more artless beliefs
which preceded them, some of which are still in existence. Then
only shall we be in a position to trace the general form and the
sub-divisions of the several manifestations of the religious faculty
common to all human beings. Then, also, we shall be in a position
to follow the development of this faculty, and to mark its stages,
by a process similar to that of the embryogenist, who studies the
different phases undergone by the same being before attaining its
state of perfection.
Such as it is however, consisting at present of isolated facts
only, or of facts merely collected into groups, the science of
religions has already acquired a marked importance in anthropology.
It leaves no doubt as to one of the fundamental characters of the
human species; it furnishes facts of so independent a nature as to
serve for the characterization of races; it reveals relations; it
adds its testimony to that of philology in throwing light upon the
filiation of certain races, in attesting the existence of ancient
communications between nations long regarded as entirely separate. In
these various aspects it should not be neglected by those who wish to
consider the natural history of man as a whole.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 16: ‘Athough the preceding’ replaced by ‘Although the preceding’.
Pg 57: ‘protruberance of the’ replaced by ‘protuberance of the’.
Pg 67: ‘Koebreuter showed’ replaced by ‘Koelreuter showed’.
Pg 85: ‘Colombus commenced’ replaced by ‘Columbus commenced’.
Pg 111: ‘recal the normal’ replaced by ‘recall the normal’.
Pg 121: ‘Claperède has only’ replaced by ‘Claparède has only’.
Pg 133: ‘in the skormoses’ replaced by ‘in the skovmoses’.
Pg 138: ‘the Eskimas are’ replaced by ‘the Esquimaux are’.
Pg 161: ‘Frabricius’ replaced by ‘Fabricius’.
Pg 185: ‘the Salomon Islands’ replaced by ‘the Solomon Islands’.
Pg 194: ‘of the Tahitans’ replaced by ‘of the Tahitians’.
Pg 207: ‘that the Alonquins’ replaced by ‘that the Algonquins’.
Pg 231: ‘the Caribean race’ replaced by ‘the Caribbean race’.
Pg 234: ‘of the Semetic’ replaced by ‘of the Semitic’.
Pg 268: ‘Giron de Buzareingue’ replaced by ‘Girou de Buzareingue’.
Pg 291: ‘discovered by Witney’ replaced by ‘discovered by Whitney’.
Pg 292: ‘sanatarium’ replaced by ‘sanitarium’.
Pg 297: ‘S. Nilson, Retzius’ replaced by ‘S. Nilsson, Retzius’.
Pg 300: ‘have, morever, only’ replaced by ‘have, moreover, only’.
Pg 325: ‘The fosail shells’ replaced by ‘The fossil shells’.
Pg 364: ‘the Kiavas, etc.’ replaced by ‘the Kiawas, etc.’.
Pg 412: ‘small brain, Haussman’ replaced by ‘small brain, Haussmann’.
Pg 442: ‘and 6/300’ replaced by ‘and 6/100’.
Pg 464: ‘the Salomon Islands’ replaced by ‘the Solomon Islands’.
Pg 489: ‘singers, chorographers’ replaced by
‘singers, choreographers’.