_AMERICAN LECTURES ON THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS_
SECOND SERIES—1896-1897
RELIGIONS OF PRIMITIVE
PEOPLES
BY
DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL.D., SC.D.
Professor of American Archæology and Linguistics in the
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
_FOURTH IMPRESSION_
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
COPYRIGHT, 1897
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
ANNOUNCEMENT.
On the 24th of December, 1891, fifteen persons interested in promoting
the historical study of religions united in issuing a circular-letter,
inviting a conference in the Council Chambers of the Historical Society
of Philadelphia, on the 30th of the same month, for the purpose of
instituting “popular courses in the History of Religions, somewhat after
the style of the Hibbert lectures in England, to be delivered annually
by the best scholars of Europe and this country, in various cities, such
as Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and
others.” There participated in this conference personally or by letter
from Philadelphia, Rev. Prof. E. T. Bartlett, D.D., Rev. George Dana
Boardman, D.D., Prof. D. G. Brinton, M.D., Sc.D., Horace Howard Furness,
LL.D., Prof. E. J. James, Ph.D., Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D.,
Provost Wm. Pepper, M.D., LL.D., of the University of Pennsylvania,
Hon. Mayer Sulzberger, Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, and Talcott Williams,
LL.D.; from Baltimore, Prest. D. C. Gilman, LL.D., of the Johns Hopkins
University, and Prof. Paul Haupt, Ph.D.; from Boston and Cambridge, Rev.
E. E. Hale, D.D., Prof. C. R. Lanman, Ph.D., Prof. D. G. Lyon, Ph.D., and
Prof. C. H. Toy, LL.D.; from Brooklyn, Rev. Edward S. Braislin, D.D.,
and Prof. Franklin W. Hooper of the Brooklyn Institute; from Chicago,
Prest. W. R. Harper, Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, and Rev. Prof.
Emil G. Hirsch, Ph.D.; from New York, Rev. Prof. C. A. Briggs, D.D.,
LL.D., Rev. Prof. Francis Brown, D.D., Rev. G. Gottheil, D.D., Prof. R.
J. H. Gottheil, Ph.D., Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D., and Rev. W. Hayes
Ward, D.D., LL.D.; from Ithaca, N. Y., Prest. J. G. Schurman of Cornell
University, and Hon. Andrew D. White, LL.D.
At this conference Prof. Jastrow submitted a plan for establishing
popular lecture courses on the historical study of religions by securing
the co-operation of existing institutions and lecture associations, such
as the Lowell, Brooklyn, and Peabody Institutes, the University Lecture
Association of Philadelphia, and some of our colleges and universities.
Each course, according to this plan, was to consist of from six to eight
lectures, and the engagement of lecturers, choice of subjects, and so
forth were to be in the hands of a committee chosen from the different
cities, and representing the various institutions and associations
participating. This general scheme met with the cordial approval of the
conference, which voted the project both a timely and useful one, and
which appointed Dean Bartlett, Prof. Jastrow, and Dr. Peters a committee
to elaborate a plan of organisation and report at an adjourned meeting.
That meeting was held at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City,
February 6, 1892, and, as a result, an association was organised for the
purpose of encouraging the study of religions. The _terms_ of association
then adopted, with slight modifications introduced later, are as follows:
1.—The object of this Association shall be to provide courses
of lectures on the history of religions, to be delivered in
various cities.
2.—The Association shall be composed of delegates from
institutions agreeing to co-operate, or from local boards,
organised where such co-operation is not possible.
3.—These Delegates—one from each Institution or Local
Board—shall constitute themselves a council under the name
of the “American Committee for Lectures on the History of
Religions.”
4.—The Council shall elect out of its number a President, a
Secretary, and a Treasurer.
5.—All matters of local detail shall be left to the
Institutions or Local Boards, under whose auspices the lectures
are to be delivered.
6.—A course of lectures on some religion, or phase of religion,
from an historical point of view, or on a subject germane to
the study of religions, shall be delivered annually, or at such
intervals as may be found practicable, in the different cities
represented by this Association.
7.—The Council (_a_) shall be charged with the selection of the
lecturers, (_b_) shall have charge of the funds, (_c_) shall
assign the time for the lectures in each city, and perform such
other functions as may be necessary.
8.—Polemical subjects, as well as polemics in the treatment of
subjects, shall be positively excluded.
9.—The lecturer shall be chosen by the Council at least ten
months before the date fixed for the course of lectures.
10.—The lectures shall be delivered in the various cities
between the months of October and June.
11.—The copyright of the lectures shall be the property of the
Association.
12.—One half of the lecturer’s compensation shall be paid at
the completion of this entire course, and the second half upon
the publication of the lectures.
13.—The compensation offered to the lecturer shall be fixed in
each case by the Council.
14.—The lecturer is not to deliver elsewhere any of the
lectures for which he is engaged by the Committee, except with
the sanction of the Committee.
The Committee appointed to carry out this plan as now constituted, is as
follows:
Prof. C. H. Toy, of Harvard University, Chairman.
Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania,
Secretary.
Rev. John P. Peters, D. D., of New York, Treasurer.
Prof. Richard J. H. Gottheil, of Columbia University.
Prof. Paul Haupt, of the Johns Hopkins University.
Prof. F. W. Hooper, of the Brooklyn Institute.
Prof. J. F. Jameson, of Brown University.
Prof. F. K. Sanders, of Yale University.
President J. G. Schurman, of Cornell University.
For its first course the Committee selected as lecturer Prof. T. W.
Rhys Davids, Ph.D. LL.D., of London, England, who delivered a course
of lectures in the winter of 1894-95 on The History and Literature
of Buddhism, at the following places, with the co-operation of the
institutions named:
Baltimore, before the Johns Hopkins University.
Boston, at the Lowell Institute.
Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Institute.
Ithaca, before the Cornell University.
New York, before the Columbia University.
Philadelphia, before the University of Pennsylvania Lecture
Association.
Providence, before the Brown University Lecture Association.
Professor Davids’ lectures were published in 1896 by arrangement with
Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, the publishers to the Committee, as the
First Series of The American Lectures on the History of Religions.
As the second lecturer, the Committee chose Prof. Daniel G. Brinton,
A.M., M.D., LL.D., Sc.D., of Philadelphia; and as the subject, “The
Religions of Primitive Peoples.” Dr. Brinton, who holds the chair of
American Archæology and Linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania,
is a leading authority on the languages and customs of the American
Indians, and on Anthropology in general. His studies have led him also
into the domain of Prehistoric Archæology and Comparative Mythology. As
the product of his investigations in the latter field, he published as
early as 1868, _The Myths of The New World_, which at once attracted the
attention of scholars, and has passed through several editions since.
In 1876 he issued an important contribution to the Science of Religion,
under the title, _The Religious Sentiment_. In addition to this he has
published a large number of works on American Languages on Anthropology,
and Archæology, the most notable of which is the series Library of
Aboriginal American Literature. His papers, scattered in various
scientific periodicals of this country and Europe, number several hundred.
The lectures delivered by him under the auspices of the Committee
represent the ripe fruit of many years of study, and will, we feel
assured, be welcomed as an important contribution to a subject now
attracting much attention.
The lectures were delivered during the winter of 1896-97, at the
following places:
Boston, (Lowell Institute).
Brooklyn, (Brooklyn Institute).
Ithaca, (Cornell University).
New Haven, (Yale University).
New York, (New York University).
Philadelphia, (University of Pennsylvania).
Providence, (Brown University Lecture Association).
The object of this Association is to provide the best opportunities for
bringing to the knowledge of the public at large the methods and results
of those distinguished specialists who have devoted their lives to the
study of the religions of other countries and other ages. It is safe to
say that there is no other subject of modern research which concerns
all classes so nearly as the study of religions. It is the hope of the
Committee to provide courses at intervals of two years, or oftener, if
the encouragement which the undertaking receives warrants it, and the
practical difficulties involved in securing competent lecturers do not
make it impossible.
Arrangements have been made for a course of lectures during the winter of
1897-98, by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., Professor of Old Testament
Interpretation at Oriel College, Oxford, and Canon of Rochester;
whose subject will be Religious Thought and Life among the Hebrews in
Post-Exilic Days, to be followed in 1898-99 by a complementary course
on Religious Life and Thought among the Hebrews in Pre-Exilic Days, by
Professor Karl Budde, of the University of Strasburg, Germany.
JOHN P. PETERS,
C. H. TOY,
MORRIS JASTROW, JR.
_Committee on Publication._
_May 10, 1897._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
LECTURE I. THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS—METHODS
AND DEFINITIONS.
Ethnology Defined—The Scientific Study of Religions—It is not
Theology—Its Methods: 1. The Historic Method; 2. The Comparative
Method; 3. The Psychologic Method—Strange Coincidences in
Human Thought—Conspicuous in Primitive Religions—“Primitive”
Peoples Defined—The Savage Mind—Examples—Means of Study: 1.
Archæology; 2. Language: 3. Folk-Lore; 4. Descriptions of
Travellers—Examples: The Early Aryans, Etruscans, Semites,
Egyptians, American Tribes, Australians, Polynesians,
etc.—“Religions” Defined—Compared with “Superstitions”—No One
Belief Essential to Religion—Atheistic Religions—Fundamental
Identity of Religions—No Tribe Known Devoid of a Religion—How the
Opposite Opinion Arose—Earliest Men probably had No Religion—No
Signs of Religion in Lower Animals—Power of Religion in Primitive
Society—True Source of Religion 1
LECTURE II. THE ORIGIN AND CONTENTS OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS.
Former Theories of the Origin of Religions—Inadequacy of
these—Universal Postulate of Religions that Conscious
Volition is the Source of Force—How Mind was Assigned
to Nature—Communion between the Human and the Divine
Mind—Universality of “Inspiration”—Inspiration the Product of
the Sub-Conscious Mind—Known to Science as “Suggestion”—This
Explained—Examples—Illustrations from Language—No Primitive
Monotheism—The Special Stimuli of the Religious Emotions:
1. Dreaming and Allied Conditions—Life as a Dream—2. The
Apprehension of Life and Death and the Notion of the Soul—3. The
Perception of Light and Darkness; Day and Night—The Sky God as
the High God—4. The Observation of Extraordinary Exhibitions of
Force—The Thunder God—5. The Impression of Vastness—Dignity of
the Sub-Conscious Intelligence 41
LECTURE III. PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION: IN THE WORD.
An Echo Myth—The Power of Words—Their Magical Potency—The
Curse—Power Independent of Meaning—The Name as an Attribute—The
Sacred Names—The Ineffable Name—“Myrionomous” Gods—“Theophorous”
Names—Suggestion and Repetition as Stimulants—I. The Word
_to_ the gods: Prayer—Its Forms, Contents, and Aims—II. The
Word _from_ the gods: The Law and the Prophecy—The Ceremonial
Law, or _tabu_—Examples—Divination and Prediction—III. The
Word _concerning_ the gods: The Myths—Their Sources chiefly
Psychic—Some from Language—Examples—Transference—Similarities—The
Universal Mythical Cycles: 1. The Cosmical Concepts; 2. The
Sacred Numbers; 3. The Drama of the Universe; Creation and Deluge
Myths; 4. The Earthly Paradise; 5. The Conflict of Nature; 6. The
Returning Saviour; 7. The Journey of the Soul—Conclusion as to
these Identities 86
LECTURE IV. PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION: IN THE OBJECT.
Visual Ideas—Fetishism—Not Object-Worship only—Identical with
Idolatry—Modern Fetishism—Animism—Not a Stadium of Religion—The
Chief Groups of Religious Objects: 1. The Celestial Bodies—Sun
and Moon Worship—Astrolatry; 2. The Four Elements—Fire, Air (the
Winds), Water, and the Earth—Symbolism of Colours; 3. Stones
and Rocks—Thunderbolts—Memorial Stones—Divining Stones; 4. Trees
and Plants—The Tree of Life—The Sacred Pole and the Cross—The
Plant-Soul—The Tree of Knowledge; 5. Places and Sites—High Places
and Caves; 6. The Lower Animals—The Bird, the Serpent, etc.; 7.
Man—Anthropism in Religion—The Worship of Beauty; 8. Life and its
Transmission—Examples—Genesiac Cults—The Fatherhood of God—Love
as Religion’s Crown 130
LECTURE V. PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION: IN THE RITE.
The Ritual a Mimicry of the Gods—Magical Rites—Division of Rites
into I. Communal, and II. Personal. I. Communal Rites: 1. The
Assemblage—The Liturgy—2. The Festal Function—Joyous Character of
Primitive Rites—Commensality—The “Ceremonial Circuit”—Masks and
Dramas—3. The Sacrifice—Early and Later Forms—4. The Communion
with God—Pagan Eucharists. II. Personal Rites: 1. Relating
to Birth—Vows and Baptism—2. Relating to Naming—The Personal
Name—3. Relating to Puberty—Initiation of Boys and Girls—4.
Relating to Marriage—Marriage “by Capture” and “by Purchase”—5.
Relating to Death—Early Cannibalism—Sepulchral Monuments—Funerary
Ceremonies—Modes of Burial—Customs of Mourning 172
LECTURE VI. THE LINES OF DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS.
Pagan Religions not wholly Bad—Their Lines of Development as
Connected with: 1. The Primitive Social Bond—The Totem, the
Priesthood, and the Law; 2. The Family and the Position of Woman;
3. The Growth of Jurisprudence—The Ordeal, Trial by Battle,
Oaths, and the Right of Sanctuary—Religion is Anarchic; 4. The
Development of Ethics—Dualism of Primitive Ethics—Opposition of
Religion to Ethics; 5. The Advance in Positive Knowledge—Religion
_versus_ Science; 6. The Fostering of the Arts—The Aim for
Beauty and Perfection—Colour-Symbolism, Sculpture, Metre,
Music, Oratory, Graphic Methods—Useful Arts, Architecture;
7. The Independent Life of the Individual—His Freedom and
Happiness—Inner Stadia of Progress: 1. From the Object to the
Symbol; 2. From the Ceremonial Law to the Personal Ideal; 3. From
the Tribal to the National Conception of Religion—Conclusion 214
RELIGIONS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES
LECTURE I.
The Scientific Study of Primitive Religions—Methods and Definitions.
CONTENTS:—Ethnology Defined—The Scientific Study of
Religions—It is not Theology—Its Methods: 1. The Historic
Method; 2. The Comparative Method; 3. The Psychologic
Method—Strange Coincidences in Human Thought—Conspicuous in
Primitive Religions—“Primitive” Peoples Defined—The Savage
Mind—Examples—Means of Study: 1. Archæology; 2. Language;
3. Folk-Lore; 4. Descriptions of Travellers—Examples: The
Early Aryans, Etruscans, Semites, Egyptians, American
Tribes, Australians, Polynesians, etc.—“Religions”
Defined—Compared with “Superstitions”—No One Belief Essential
to Religion—Atheistic Religions—Fundamental Identity of
Religions—No Tribe Known Devoid of a Religion—How the Opposite
Opinion Arose—Earliest Men probably had No Religion—No Signs
of Religion in Lower Animals—Power of Religion in Primitive
Society—True Source of Religion.
The youngest in the sisterhood of the sciences is that which deals with
Man. In its widest scope it is called Anthropology, and as such includes
both the physical and mental life of the species, from the beginning
until now. That branch of it which especially concerns itself with the
development of man as indicated by his advance in civilisation, is known
as Ethnology.
When we analyse the directive forces which have brought about this
advance, and whose study therefore makes up Ethnology, they can be
reduced to four, to wit, Language, Laws, Arts, and Religion. Do not
imagine, however, that these are separable, independent forces. On the
contrary, they are inseparable, constituent elements of an organic unity,
each working through the others, and on the symmetrical adjustment of all
of them to the needs of a community depend its prosperity and growth. No
one of them can be omitted or exaggerated without stunting or distorting
the national expansion. This lesson, taught by all ages and confirmed by
every example, warns us to be cautious in giving precedence to one over
the others in any general scheme; but we can profitably separate one from
the others, and study its origins and influence.
On this occasion I invite your attention to Religion, and especially as
displayed in its earliest and simplest forms, in the faiths and rites of
primitive peoples. I shall present these to you in accordance with the
principles and methods of Ethnology.
There is what has been called the “science of religion.” The expression
seems to me a little presumptuous—or, at least, premature. We do not yet
speak of a “science of jurisprudence,” although we have better materials
for it than for a science of religion. I shall content myself, therefore,
in calling what I have to offer a study of early religions according to
scientific methods.
I need not remind you that such a method is absolutely without bias or
partisanship; that it looks upon all religions alike as more or less
enlightened expressions of mental traits common to all mankind in every
known age.[1] It concedes the exclusive possession of truth to none, and
still less does it aim to set up any other standard than past experience
by which to measure the claims of any. It brings no new canons of faith
or doctrine, and lays no other foundation than that which has been laid
even from the beginning until now.
But just there its immediate utility and practical bearings are
manifested. It seeks to lay bare those eternal foundations on which the
sacred edifices of religion have ever been and must ever be erected. It
aims to accomplish this by clearing away the incidental and adventitious
in religions so as to discover what in them is permanent and universal.
Those sacred ideas and institutions which we find repeated among all the
early peoples of the earth, often developing in after ages along parallel
lines, will form the special objects of our investigation. The departures
from these universal forms, we shall see, can be traced to local or
temporary causes, they turn on questions of environment, and serve merely
to define the limits of variability of the ubiquitous principles of
religion as a psychic phenomenon, wherever we find it.
This is not “theology.” That branch of learning aims to measure the
objective reality, the concrete truth, of some one or another opinion
concerning God and divine things; while the scientific study of religions
confines itself exclusively to examining such opinions as phases of human
mental activity, and ascertaining what influence they have exerted on the
development of the species or of some branch of it. Therefore it is never
“polemic.” It neither attacks nor defends the beliefs which it studies.
It confines itself to examining their character and influence by the
lights of reason and history.
The methods which we employ in this process of reduction are three in
number: 1. The Historic Method; 2. The Comparative Method; 3. The
Psychologic Method. A few words will explain the scope of each of these.
The Historic Method studies the history of beliefs and the development of
worship. It seeks to discover what influences have been exerted on them
by environment, transmission, heredity, and conquest, and to bring into
full relief what is peculiar to the tribe or group under consideration,
and what is exotic. For in one sense it is true that every nation and
tribe, even every man, has his own religion.
Such ethnic traits merit the closest scrutiny. They are so marked
and constant as to modify profoundly the history of even the ripest
religions. It is quite true, as has been observed by an historian of
Christianity, that “there is in every people an hereditary disposition to
some particular heresy,”[2] that is, to altering any religion which they
accept in accordance with the special constitution of their own minds.
The Comparative Method notes the similarities and differences between the
religions of different tribes or groups, and, gradually extending its
field to embrace the whole species, endeavors, by excluding what is local
or temporal, to define those forms of religious thought and expression
which are common to humanity at large.
The Psychologic Method takes the results of both the previous methods
and aims to explain them by referring the local manifestations to the
special mental traits of the tribe or group, and the universal features
to equally universal characteristics of the human mind.
The last, the Psychologic Method, is the crown and completion of the
quest; for every advanced student of religion will subscribe to the
declaration of Professor Granger, that “all mythology and all history
of beliefs must finally turn to psychology for their satisfactory
elucidation.”[3] In other words, the laws of human thought can alone
explain its own products.
And here I must mention a startling discovery, the most startling, it
seems to me, of recent times. It is that these laws of human thought are
frightfully rigid, are indeed automatic and inflexible. The human mind
seems to be a machine; give it the same materials, and it will infallibly
grind out the same product. So deeply impressed by this is an eminent
modern writer that he lays it down as “a fundamental maxim of ethnology”
that, “we do not think; thinking merely goes on within us.”[4]
These strange coincidences find their explanation in experimental
psychology. This science, in its modern developments, establishes the
fact that the origin of ideas is due to impressions on the nerves of
sense. The five senses give rise to five classes of ideas, the most
numerous of which are those from the sense of sight, visual ideas, and
those from the sense of hearing, auditory ideas. The former yield the
conceptions of space, motion, and lustre (colour, brightness, etc.),
the latter that of time. From the sense of touch arise the “tactual”
impressions, which yield the ideas of power and might, through the
sensations of resistance and pressure, pleasure and pain. From these
primary ideas (or perceptions), drawn directly from impressions,
are derived secondary, abstract, and general ideas (apperceptions)
by comparison and association (the laws of Identity, Diversity, and
Similarity).
Under ordinary conditions of human life there are many more impressions
on the senses which are everywhere the same or similar, than the
reverse. Hence, the ideas, both primary and secondary (perceptions and
apperceptions), drawn from them are much more likely to resemble than to
differ.
The consequence of this is that the same laws of growth which develop the
physical man everywhere into the traits of the species, act also on his
psychical powers, and not less absolutely, to bring their products into
conformity.
This is true not only of his logical faculties, but of his lightest
fancies and wildest vagaries. “Man’s imagination,” observes Mr. Hartland,
“like every other known power, works by fixed laws, the existence and
operation of which it is possible to trace; and it works upon the same
material,—the external universe, the mental and moral constitution of
man, and his social relations.”[5]
In reference to my particular subject, Professor Buchmann expressed some
years ago what I believe to be the correct result of modern research
in these words: “It is easy to prove that the striking similarity
in primitive religious ideas comes not from tradition nor from the
relationship or historic connections of early peoples, but from the
identity in the mental construction of the individual man, wherever he is
found.”[6]
We can scarcely escape a painful shock to discover that we are bound by
such adamantine chains. As the primitive man could not conceive that
inflexible mechanical laws control the processes of nature, so are we
slow to acknowledge that others, not less rigid, rule our thoughts and
fancies.
Nowhere, however, is the truth of it more clearly demonstrated than in
primitive religions. Without a full appreciation of this fact, it is
impossible to comprehend them; and for the lack of it, much that has
been written upon them is worthless. The astonishing similarity, the
absolute identities, which constantly present themselves in myths and
cults separated by oceans and continents, have been construed as evidence
of common descent or of distant transmission; whereas they are the
proofs of a fundamental unity of the human mind and of its processes,
“before which,” as a German writer says, “the differences in individual,
national, or even racial divisions sink into insignificance.”[7] Wherever
we turn, in time or in space, to the earliest and simplest religions of
the world, we find them dealing with nearly the same objective facts in
nearly the same subjective fashion, the differences being due to local
and temporal causes.
This cardinal and basic truth of the unity of action of man’s
intelligence, which is established just as much for the arts, the laws,
and the institutions of men as for their religions, enables me to
present to you broadly the faiths of primitive peoples as one coherent
whole, the product of a common humanity, a mirror reflecting the deepest
thoughts of the whole species on the mighty questions of religious life
and hope, not the isolated or borrowed opinions of one or another tribe
or people.
Of course, the recognition of this principle does not diminish the
attention to be paid to the ethnic or local developments of culture and
to the borrowing or transference of myths and rites. Wherever this can be
shown to have occurred, it is an adequate explanation of identities; but
in tribes geographically remote, the presumption is that such identities
are due to the common element of humanity in the species.
Such similarities are by no means confined to the primitive forms of
religion; but in them they are more obvious, and their causes are
more apparent; so for that reason, a study of such primitive forms is
peculiarly remunerative to one who would acquaint himself with the
elements of religion in general. No one, in fact, can pretend to a
thorough knowledge of the great historic religions of the world who has
not traced their outlines back to the humble faiths of early tribes from
which they emerged.
He must have recourse to them for like reasons that the biologist, who
would learn the morphology of a mammal, betakes himself to the study of
the cells and fibres of the simplest living organisms; for in their
uncomplicated forms he can discover the basic activities which animate
the highest structures.
I must define, however, more closely what ethnologists mean by “primitive
peoples”; because the word is not used in the sense of “first” or
“earliest,” as its derivation would indicate. We know little, if
anything, about the earliest men, and their religion would make a short
chapter. “Primitive” to the ethnologist means the earliest of a given
race or tribe of whom he has trusty information. It has reference to a
stage of culture, rather than to time. Peoples who are in a savage or
barbarous condition, with slight knowledge of the arts, lax governments,
and feeble institutions, are spoken of as “primitive,” although they may
be our contemporaries. They are very far from being the earliest men or
resembling them. Hundreds of generations have toiled to produce even
their low stage of culture up through others, far inferior, of which we
can form some idea by the aid of language and prehistoric archæology.
They are therefore not degenerates, ruins fallen from some former high
estate, some condition of pristine nobility. That is an ancient error,
now, I hope, exploded and dismissed from sane teaching. Even the rudest
of savages is a creation of steady, long-continued advancement from the
primeval man. We have the evidence of what he was, in his implements
and weapons preserved in pre-glacial strata and in the mud-floors of the
caves he inhabited.
These announce to us a law of progressive advancement for all races, over
all the earth, on the same lines of progress, toward the same goals of
culture, extremely slow at the outset, and unequal especially in later
ages, but vindicating the unity of the species and the identity of its
hopes and aims everywhere.
You will understand, therefore, that by “primitive peoples,” I mean
savage or barbarous tribes, wherever they are or have been, and that I
claim for them brotherhood with ourselves in all the traits that go to
make up oneness of species. A few hundred years ago the ancestors of the
English-speaking nations were as savage as the savagest, without temples
to their gods, in perpetual and bloody war, untamed cannibals; add a few
thousand years to the perspective, and man over the whole globe was in
the same condition.
The savage state was the childhood of the race, and by some the mind of
the savage has been likened to that of the child. But the resemblance
is merely superficial. It rather resembles that of the uncultivated and
ignorant adult among ourselves. The same inaccurate observation and
illogical modes of thought characterise both. These depend on certain
mental traits, which it is well to define, because they explain most of
the absurdities of primitive religions.
The first is, that the idea is accepted as true, without the process of
logical reasoning or inductive observation. In other words, what appears
true to the individual is accepted by him as true, without further
question. His dreams seem real to him; therefore they are real. What the
tribe believes, he believes, no matter what his senses tell him.
When an Australian Black is on a journey and fears being overtaken by the
night, he will place a lump of clay in the forks of a tree, believing
that thus he can arrest the motion of the sun and prolong the day. It is
not a religious act, but a piece of natural science current in the tribe,
which no experience will refute in their minds.[8]
Just such a notion recurs among the Mandan Indians. Captain Clark
observed near their villages upright poles fifteen or twenty feet
long with bundles of female clothing tied to them. He asked what they
signified, and one of the old men explained thus: “If you watch the sun
closely, you will see that he stops for a short time just as he rises,
and again at midday, and as he sets. The reason is that he rests a few
moments to smoke in the lodges of three immortal women, and we offer them
this clothing that they may be induced to say a kind word to him in our
behalf. We were told by our ancestors not to forget this.”[9] The fact
that the orb does not stop was of no consequence in the face of this
tradition.
The second trait is the extreme nervous susceptibility of savages. It
is much higher than ours, although the contrary is often taught. Their
emotions or feelings control their reasoning powers, and direct their
actions. Neurotic diseases, especially of a contagious character, are
very frequent among them, and they are far more prone than ourselves to
yield to impressions upon their sensory organs. The traveller Castren
relates that a sudden blow on the outside of a tent of the Samoyeds will
sometimes throw the occupants into spasms; and the missionary Livingstone
draws a touching picture of young slaves dying of “a broken heart,” when
they heard the song and music of the villagers and could not join in the
revelry.[10]
These two traits, therefore, the acceptance of the idea as subjectively
true, and the subordination of reason to the feelings, are the main
features of the undeveloped mind. They are common in civilised
conditions, but are universal in savagery.
The question has often been considered whether the mental powers of the
savage are distinctly inferior. This has been answered by taking the
children of savages when quite young and bringing them up in civilised
surroundings. The verdict is unanimous that they display as much aptitude
for the acquisition of knowledge, and as much respect for the precepts
of morality, as the average English or German boy or girl; but with less
originality or “initiative.”
I have been in close relations to several full-blood American Indians,
who had been removed from an aboriginal environment and instructed in
this manner; and I could not perceive that they were either in intellect
or sympathies inferior to the usual type of the American gentleman.
One of them notably had a refined sense of humour, as well as uncommon
acuteness of observation.
The assertion, however, is frequently advanced that in their savage state
they are of the earth earthy, that their whole time is taken up with the
gratification of sensuous desires, and that they neither think nor care
for speculations of a super-sensuous or spiritual character.
The investigation of this point is desirable in a study of their
religions, for upon it depends the decision whether we can assign to
their myths and rites a meaning deeper than that of deception, or
passion, or frivolity.
To reach a decision, I take the most unfavourable example which can
be suggested,—the Australian Blacks. Considering their number and the
extent of their territory, they were, when discovered, the most degraded
people on the globe. They had nothing which could be called a government,
and some dialects have no word for chief. None of them could count the
fingers on one hand, for none of the dialects had any words for numerals
beyond _three_ or _four_. Mr. Hale, the eminent ethnographer, who was
among them in 1843, says that they evinced “an almost brutal stupidity,”
“downright childishness and imbecility.”[11]
Their natural feelings and moral perceptions seem incredibly blunted. I
can best illustrate this by narrating an incident which happened at a
frontier station, one of many of the same character.
The white family employed a native girl named Mattie about fifteen years
old. She had a baby, which one day disappeared. On inquiry she stated
that her mother had said that she was too young to take care of a baby,
and had therefore cooked and eaten it with some of her cronies. Mattie
cried in telling this. Because her baby had been killed? Oh no! but
because her mother had given her none of the tidbits, but only the bones
to pick![12]
Yet even these seemingly hopeless brutes have an intricate system of
kinship and marriage laws, the most rigid of any known. Marriage with
sisters or first cousins is not only forbidden, “It is not conceived as
possible.” The prohibitions about food are so absolute that the natives
would perish of hunger rather than break them. Some of their religious
ceremonies entail voluntary mutilations of the most dreadful description.
Their mythology is extensive, and I shall have frequent occasion to quote
it. And so far are they from an obtuse indifference to the future and the
past, an accurate observer who lived among them says: “They wonder among
themselves and talk at night about these things, and the past existence
of their race, and how they came here.”[13]
Savage tribes are distinctly unlettered. They belong in a stage of
culture where the art of writing, as we understand it, is unknown. They
have no bibles, no sacred books, by which to teach their religions. What
means have we, therefore, to learn their opinions about holy things?
The question is one which demands an answer, the more because I shall
often refer to the religions of tribes long since extinct, and whose very
names are forgotten. How do we dare to speak with confidence of what they
thought about the gods?
We can do so, and it is one of the marvels of modern scientific research,
quite as admirable as its more familiar and practical results.
Our sources of information regarding primitive peoples may be classed
under four titles, Archæology, Language, Folk-lore, and Ethnographic
descriptions.
By the first of these, archæology, we become acquainted with the
objective remains of beliefs long since extinguished. The temples, idols,
and altars of dead gods reveal to us the attributes assigned to them by
their votaries and the influences they were believed to exert. We can
interpret their symbols, and from rude carvings re-construct the story of
their divine struggles. Especially, from ancient sepulchres and the modes
of disposal of the dead which they reveal, can we discern what hopes
vanished nations held of a life to come.
In this direction, we are powerfully aided by that close similarity of
mental products in like stages of culture, to which I have referred,
and shall often refer. By comparing a living tribe with one which ten
thousand years ago was in a similar condition as shown by its relics, we
can with the highest probability interpret the use and motives of the
latter’s remains.
We are further assisted in such research by the critical analysis of
the early forms of language, which is one of the achievements of modern
linguistics. By establishing the identities of names, we can trace the
diffusion of myths, and by tracing such names to their proper dialect and
original meaning, we can locate geographically and psychologically the
origin of given forms of religions. In fact, the value of linguistics
to the study of religions cannot be overestimated. No one is competent
to describe the sacred beliefs of a nation, its myths and adjurations,
unless he has a sufficient knowledge of its tongue to ascertain the true
sense of the terms employed in its liturgies.
But these so obvious applications are the least that language can
furnish. Its impress on religions goes much deeper. It was well remarked
by the Chevalier Bunsen that in primitive conditions the two poles of
human life, around which all else centres, are language and religion,
and that each conditions the other, that is, imparts to it special forms
and limits.
For instance, those languages which have grammatic gender almost
necessarily divide their deities according to sex[14]; those in which the
passive voice is absent or feebly developed, will be led to associate
with their deities higher conceptions of activity than where the passive
is a favourite form: those which have no substantive verb cannot express
God as pure being, but must associate with Him either position, action,
or suffering.
In the speech of the Algonquin Indians, there is no grammatic distinction
of sex; but there is broad discrimination between objects which are
animate and those which are inanimate. When the Catholic missionaries
brought to them the rosary, the natives at first spoke of it as
inanimate; but as their reverence for it grew, it was transferred to the
animate gender, and was thus on its way to a personification.[15]
The third source of information is that which is called folk-lore. Its
field of research is to collect the relics and survivals of primitive
modes of thought and expression, beliefs, customs, and notions, in the
present conditions of culture. It is, therefore, especially useful in
a study like the present, the more so on account of the extraordinary
permanence and conservative character of religious sentiments and
ceremonies. Among the peasantry of Europe, the paganism of the days of
Julius Cæsar flourishes with scarcely abated vigour, though it may be
under new names. “The primitive Aryan,” writes Professor Frazer,[16] “is
not extinct; he is with us to-day.” And another English writer does not
go too far when he says: “There is not a rite or ceremony yet practised
and revered among us that is not the lineal descendant of barbaric
thought and usage.”[17] It is this which gives to folk-lore its extremely
instructive character for the student of early religion.
The fourth source of information is the description of native religions
by travellers. You might expect this to be the most accurate and
therefore valuable of all the sources; but it is just the reverse.
Omitting the ordinary tourist and globe-trotter, who is not expected
to know anything thoroughly, and never deceives the expectation, even
painstaking observers, who have lived long with savage tribes, sometimes
mastering their languages, are, for reasons I shall presently state,
constantly at fault about the native religions. We must always take their
narratives with hesitation, and weigh them against others by persons of
a different nationality and education. Indeed, of all elements of native
life, this of religion is the most liable to be misunderstood by the
foreign visitor.
Bearing in mind these various sources of information, what tribes,
about which we have sufficient knowledge, could fairly be considered as
examples of primitive conditions?
Beginning with those remotest in time, I believe we know enough about
the early Aryans to claim it for them. The acute researches of recent
scholars, so admirably summed up in the work of Professor Schrader,
have thrown a flood of light on the domestic, cultural, and religious
condition of the pristine epoch of Aryan society from the side of
language; while the tireless prosecution of prehistoric archæology in
Europe has put us into possession of thousands of objects illustrating
the religious arts and usages then in vogue. Classical mythology and
ritual, as well as modern folk-lore, lend further efficient aid toward
reconstructing the modes and expressions of their sacred thought.
A very ancient people, possibly of Aryan blood, but more likely, I
believe, to have come from North Africa and to be of Libyan affinities,
were the Etruscans. They were extremely religious, and their theological
opinions deeply coloured the worship of the Romans. We know the general
outlines of their doctrine of the gods, and its simplicity and grandeur
bespeak our admiration. I shall draw from this venerable “Etruscan
discipline” from time to time for illustrations.
Quite as much may be said of the diligence of the explorers and scholars
in the field of Semitic antiquity. We can without room for doubt trace
the stream of Semitic religious thought through the Hebrew Bible and
the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets to a possibly non-Semitic
source among the Accadian or Sumerian population, which ten thousand
years ago had already begun to develop an artistic and agricultural life
on the Babylonian plain. Numerous students have restored the outlines and
motives of this ancient faith, whose forms and doctrines bind and shape
our lives in America to-day.
Of the possibly still older culture of Egypt, so much cannot be said. The
original creeds of its religion have been less successfully divined. Like
its early inscriptions, they were erased and overlaid so often by the
caprice or prejudice of successive dynasties, and so profoundly modified
by foreign influences, that with our present knowledge they are no
longer legible.[18]
Turning to the religions which have preserved their primitive forms to
modern times, the first place should be conceded to those of America. Up
to four hundred years ago, all of them, throughout the continent, had
developed from an unknown antiquity untouched by the teachings of Asian
or European instructors; for no really sane scholar nowadays believes
either that St. Thomas preached Christianity in the New World in the
first century, or that Buddhist monks in the seventh or any other century
carried their tenets into Mexico and Guatemala.
Many of the American tribes, moreover, lived in the rudest stages of
social life, ignorant of agriculture, without fixed abodes, naked
or nearly so, in constant bloody strife, destitute even of tribal
government. Here, if anywhere, we should find the religious sentiment, if
it exists at all, in its simplest elements.
On the other hand, the first European explorers found in Peru, Yucatan,
and Mexico numerous tribes in almost a civilised condition, builders
of huge edifices of carved stones, cultivating the soil, and acquainted
with a partly phonetic system of writing. Their mythology was ample and
their ritual elaborate, so that it could scarcely be called primitive in
appearance; but in all these instances, myth and ritual were so obviously
identical in character with those of the vagrant tribes elsewhere, that
we shall make no mistake in classifying them together.
Equally isolated and surely as rude as the rudest were the native
Australians, the wavy-haired, bearded, black people who sparsely
inhabited that huge island, two thousand miles wide by two thousand five
hundred miles long. Isolated by arid stretches of desert, the struggle
for life was incessant, and there is little wonder that we find them
in an incredibly debased condition associated with unending war and
cannibalism. For these very reasons, their religious notions deserve our
closest scrutiny.
The vast island-world of Polynesia was peopled by related tribes, usually
of limited cultivation, but with a rich mythology, of which we have
many strange and beautiful fragments. They are primitive in form and
expression, with singular differences as well as analogies to the beliefs
of continental tribes.
Africa, with its countless dusky hordes, offers a less promising field
to the student of the earliest phases of religion than we might expect.
The conditions of the arts, and the ruins of foreign-built cities unite
with the classic historians to show that in remote ages the influence
of distant nations, from Egypt, Arabia, and India, on the typical black
population was profound and far-reaching. The white Hamites of the north
crossed the Sahara and extended their arms far into the Soudan; while
on the east coast, the black Hamites and Arabic Ethiopians drove the
aborigines far to the South. Later, Arabic influences penetrated into the
interior, dissolving the older faiths or discolouring them. Thus, little
of the independent development of religious thought remains in Africa.
Its most primitive features are probably best preserved in the extreme
South, among the Hottentots, Bushmen, and Zulus.
On the Asian continent, some of the Sibiric tribes in the north and some
of those of Dravidian descent in the mountains of Hindoostan preserved
to a late day their primitive traits; while the fading remnants of the
Veddahs in Ceylon and the black islanders of Melanesia still continue in
the simple faiths of their ancestors.
These hints will indicate the chief sources from which I shall draw the
material to illustrate the rudimentary stages of religious thought and
act, the embryonic period, as it were, of those emotions and beliefs
which to us, in riper forms, are so dear and so holy.