as certainly as a knife. Among the western Indians of our country, when
a medicine-man “gathers his medicine,” that is, rises to the full height
of inspired volition, and utters a withering curse on his antagonist,
commanding him to die, the latter knows all hope is lost. Sometimes
he drops dead on the spot, or at best lingers through a few days of
misery.[98] The Australians believe that the curse of a potent magician
will kill at the distance of a hundred miles.[99]
Not only is the word thus mighty in the unseen world, but it is itself
the very efflux and medium of the divine power itself.
Thus in the drama of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis
we read: “And God said, ‘Light, be,’ and light was”; and in the
corresponding myth of the Quiche Indians of Central America, the maker of
the world calls forth, _Uleu!_ Earth! and at the word the solid land grew
forth.[100]
Sir George Grey relates a story that in New Zealand there was a huge,
carved wooden head, which could speak, and by the dreadful might of its
words slew all who approached it. But when by superior magic its voice
was reduced to a whisper, its power was gone and it was destroyed.[101]
It is to be noted that the magical influence of the word is _independent
of its meaning_. It is distinctly _not_ the idea, image, or truth which
it conveys to which is ascribed its efficacy. On the contrary, the most
potent of all words are those which have no meaning at all or of which
the sense has been lost.
This is constantly seen in the formulas of savage tribes. They preserve
archaisms of language no longer understood by those who utter them,
and in other instances they are obviously made up of syllables strung
together without regard to intelligibility.
The same fact is abundantly shown in the cabalistic jargon of classical
and mediæval diviners, and in the charms drawn from contemporary
folk-lore. Indeed, the famous cabalist, Pico de Mirandola, asserts that a
word without meaning has most influence over the demons.
Not only one or a few words may be thus unintelligible, but long
communications may be in articulate sounds conveying no thought whatever.
This is the “gift of tongues,” the power to speak in unknown languages.
It is common in savage life. Many of the important chants at the sacred
ceremonies are mere iterations of meaningless syllables. The idea would
seem to be that what men cannot understand, the gods do; or else, that
it is the god expressing himself through human organs but in a speech
unknown to human ears. Bishop Galloway says that the charm songs of the
Zulus are often quite unintelligible to themselves[102]; and this is one
of many examples.
Of all words, the most sacred is the Name. In primitive thought, the
personal name of an individual is not merely an attribute, it is an
integral part of his Self, his Ego. The Eskimos say that a man consists
of three parts, his body, his soul, and his name, and of these the
last mentioned alone achieves immortality. This seems very advanced.
Most of our ambitious men appear to think more of rendering their
names than their souls worthy of immortality. Very generally, the name
was associated with the personal guardian spirit, derived from it or
indicating it, and hence received a ceremonial sanctity.[103]
As being a part of oneself, injury or contumely heaped upon a name
reacted upon the individual who bore it, and even life could be destroyed
in this manner.
For this reason, throughout America the natives rarely disclosed their
real appellations, but were designated by nicknames. In Australia some
tribes were so cautious that the young men on entering adult life
renounced the names by which they had been known and assumed no other;
while a woman preserved indeed her appellation, but no one except her
husband was entitled to pronounce it.[104] The Dyaks take the prudent
precaution, after an attack of illness, to change their names; so that
the demon who sent the sickness may not recognise them, and continue his
malevolent pursuit.[105]
In Polynesia, where the name was not thus concealed, it could be applied,
according to the ceremonial law, only to the person, although it was
generally a common noun. Hence arose the curious custom called _tepi_.
All words which formed part of the name of the chieftain, and all
syllables of other words which had a similar sound were dropped from the
language and others substituted for them during his lifetime. Thus, forty
or fifty of the most common terms of the language would drop out of use
at once, and as many more be materially changed in sound, to the great
annoyance of missionaries and visitors.[106]
The Kamschatkans were so particular that they would not name the bear
or wolf, for these animals understood the language of men, and would be
offended at such familiarity![107]
Even if it does not hear, the power for good or evil which a being has,
can, in primitive opinion, be communicated through its name. For that
reason the priest known as the _flamen dialis_ among the Romans would
not only avoid touching a dog or bear, but he would not pronounce their
names, lest he should be contaminated! And to this day a Mohammedan, if
he pronounces the word for “hog,” will spit, that his mouth may not be
defiled by the name of the unclean beast.
Even more universal was the avoidance of the names of the dead. This
prevailed throughout Africa, Australia, Tasmania, Polynesia, and America.
The reason was, that the name was held to be a part of the spirit of
the departed, and to pronounce it would disturb the rest of the grave,
and probably indeed bring the perturbed spirit to the circle of
auditors.[108]
If such was the case with the names of men and beasts, how sacred must be
the names of the gods!
This is an extraordinary feature, common to the rudest superstitions of
savage and the most developed faiths of civilised lands, and it has for
its basis the conception of the name as a real attribute, a part of the
Self.
“In all the religions of ancient Asia,” writes Lenormant, “the mysterious
Name was considered a real and divine being, who had a personal existence
and exclusive power over both nature and the world of spirits.”[109]
In the name dwelt the essential power of the deity. An Egyptian magical
formula, placed in the mouth of a god, reads:
“I am the elect of millions of years.
Were my name spoken on the bank of a river, it would be consumed;
Were it uttered on earth, fire would burst from the ground.”[110]
The knowledge of this name by another enabled him to exert a power over
the god himself. That by naming a demon, he can be forced to appear,
was a cardinal principle of ancient magic. “The list of divine names
possessed by the Roman pontiffs in their _indigitamenta_ was their most
efficacious magical instrument, laying at their mercy all the forces of
the spirit world.”[111]
For this reason, the gods of ancient Egypt sedulously concealed their
names, and we cannot doubt that it was the fear of some such subjection
of their deity through the malicious use of his name, which led the early
Jews to conceal it so well that it is now lost. It was the same with
the Semitic Arabians. Instead of the true divine name, they substituted
Allah, the Mighty One, so that now the original is conjectural or unknown.
This extends to the rudest tribes. The African traveller Holub says that
the actual name of the god of the Marutse and allied tribes along the
Zambesi river is Njambe; but to avoid revealing this, they employ the
term Molemo, “He above.” Among the south-eastern Australian tribes their
leading deity is Turramulun (the One-legged), who lives in the sky. His
name is never revealed to women, nor to youths before their initiation to
manhood.[112]
The Choctaw Indians regarded the name of their highest divinity as
self-existing, essential, and unspeakable. Therefore, when it was
necessary to refer to him, they adopted a circumlocution, for, says their
historian, “according to their fixed standard of speech, had they made
any nearer approach to the beloved Name, it would have been reckoned a
profanation.”[113]
How completely this notion has survived among ourselves is shown by
the second clause of that prayer on which we have all been brought up,
“Hallowed be Thy Name.” But how few who repeat it reflect that the name
referred to, whatever it was, is now through long concealment totally
lost!
Thus we see that the doctrine of “the ineffable Name” is the common
property of savage and cultured faiths.
From the misuse of the name to compel the obedience of the god, or
to injure his dignity and worth, came the idea of profanity, sternly
forbidden by the early Jewish law,—“Take not the name of the Lord in
vain”—and by many other faiths of a primitive aspect.
Quite consistently with this idea of real existence in names, the god who
had many names had just as many powers or faculties. For that reason,
the prominent gods of ancient Egypt, especially Isis, were called upon
by so numerous epithets that the Greeks spoke of them as “myrionomous,”
ten-thousand-named. In later Babylonian times all the names of the fifty
great gods were ascribed to Êa, by which process they were themselves
absorbed into his being. “When they lost their names, they lost their
personality as well.”[114] To the Mohammedan the “One hundred names of
God” repeated in the Koran express the multitude of His powers.
The same tendency is visible in the native religions of America. The
Mexicans applied many names to the same divinity, and in the _Popol Vuh_,
the sacred book of the Quiches, the chief deity is called by a variety of
titles, some sounding strange to us, as “the opossum-hunter,” the “green
snake,” the “calebash,” all of symbolic sense.[115]
In the South Seas, the name of a god, adopted by a chief, identified
him in the opinion of the people with the god and secured for him the
reverence and adoration ascribed to his divine namesake.[116]
This idea is that which in many early and later faiths led to what are
called the “theophorous” or god-bearing names, where the individual
is called by the proper name of a saint or god. They were especially
frequent in early Semitic religions, and are customary among Catholics
to-day.[117]
We find their origin in the custom, very general among the American
Indians, for the person to take the name of the spirit who appears
to him during the vigils and fasts which attend the ceremonies of
initiation to manhood. By assuming the name of the divinity, the two
natures or essences are believed to be united. This was precisely also
the opinion of the early Christians, as we see in the expression of St.
Ephrem, a Syrian saint of the fourth century: “Merciful was the Lord in
that He clad on our Names. His Names make us great; our Names make Him
small.”[118]
If we seek the explanation of this strange power attributed to words
and names, often apart from their signification, we shall find it in
their extreme activity as agents of mental suggestion. They are intense
psychic stimulants, stirring the soul to its depths. The Word is by odds
the most effective of all agencies to bring about altered and abnormal
mental conditions either in the individual or in the mass. Through it,
judiciously applied, the profoundest hypnotic trance, or the wildest,
maniacal nervous seizures can be produced at will.[119]
The repetition of a word greatly heightens its suggestive influence
and promotes the exclusion from the mind of all other concepts and
associations than its own. In many languages, a word repeated is
equivalent to the superlative degree, and in every tongue the repetition
has a similar effect, as in the phrase: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Sabaoth.”
No words in this relation are more efficient than names. Consider what
our own lives would be if we had to change our names every year, how it
would seem to obliterate our personality, how it would dissipate all
dreams of posthumous glory and renown. Our consciousness of Self would
suffer diminution, and the keenest interest of our lives would be lost.
Our name is really and truly a part of ourselves, and he who would rob
us of it would leave us poor indeed. Why is every point of view carved
with the names of obscure tourists, why does it give us pleasure to note
our names among the hundreds at some grand function, but that we think
it more desirable to live “as naked nominations, without desert or noble
deeds,” as Sir Thomas Browne said, than to pass away and leave not that
little which the Roman poet considered the least,—_nominis umbra_, “the
shadow of a name.”
For the practical purposes of life the name confers or creates the
personality. This fact exerted a profound influence in the earliest
development of religion. The vague sense of spiritual power first became
centred in the idea of an individual, of a personal god, when it received
a name.
The primitive words of barbaric tongues used to signifying the divine
have not the connotation of individuality. _Wakan_, _mahopa_, _manito_,
_teotl_, _huaca_, _ku_, are such words from American languages, not one
of which conveys the concept of personality. That concept was first
gained when some single expression of spiritual power was differentiated
and named.[120]
The essential religious element in the Word is its power to bring man
into relation to the gods. This is possible in three directions,—we may
address them; they may address us; or we may talk about them. These
furnish the three forms of sacred expression in speech: 1. The word _to_
the gods,—Prayer; 2. The word _from_ the gods,—Revelation; and 3. The
word _about_ the gods,—the Myth. We will consider each of these.
I. THE WORD TO THE GODS.—1. The Word to the gods is Prayer. It is a
very prominent and nigh universal element in primitive religions. The
injunction “Pray always” is nowhere else so nearly carried out. Captain
Clark, an officer of our army with the widest experience of Indian life,
writes: “It seems a startling assertion, but it is, I think, true, that
there are no people who pray more than Indians. Both superstition and
custom keep always in their minds the necessity for placating the anger
of the invisible and omnipotent power, and for supplicating the active
exercise of his faculties in their behalf.”[121]
In fact, Prayer may be said to be the life of the faith of savage tribes,
and it is so recognised by themselves. According to the legends of the
Maoris of New Zealand, when they first migrated to that island from
Hawaii, they did not bring with them their ancestral gods, but took care
to carry along the potent prayers which the gods cannot but hear and
grant.[122]
Some writers have claimed that certain tribes have been found without any
notion of an appeal to unseen agencies, and have quoted as instances the
Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, and the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands.
But closer examination proves that the priests of the Yahgans call upon a
mysterious being, Aiapakal,[123] and other invisible existences, and the
Mincopies are acknowledged to have prayers at the present time.
The earliest hymns and prayers do not, as a rule, contain definite
requests, but are general appeals to the god to be present, to partake
of the feast which is spread, or to join the dance and to continue his
good offices toward those who call upon him. Such are the hymns of
the Rig Veda, and those of ancient Mexico, which I have collected and
published.[124] They are like the _evocatio deorum_ of the Romans.
The three forms of “the Word to the gods,” or Prayer, are those of
thanksgiving, by praise or laudation; of petition for assistance or
protection; and of penitence or contrition for neglect of duty. All
these are common in the most primitive faiths. In all of them you
will find the deity appealed to as great, mighty, a lord, a king,
terror-inspiring, loving his followers, and by hundreds of such epithets
of amplification and flattery. He is addressed endearingly as father or
grandfather; not at all implying a physical relationship, as some modern
writers have erroneously stated; but with reference to the loving care he
is supposed to extend to his worshippers.
As we might expect, most of the petitions in primitive prayers are for
material benefits. The burden of most of them is well expressed by one in
the Rig Veda: “O God, prosper us in getting and in keeping!” They ask for
increase of goods, abundant food, success in war, and fine weather.
Yet among the rudest there are signs of an appreciation of something
higher. A prayer of the Khonds, a Dravidian tribe of Northern India,
reads: “O Lord, we know not what is good for us. Thou knowest what it is.
For it we pray.”
It is strange to find among the Navahoes, a rude hunting tribe of our
western territories, an intense longing for the beautiful. One of their
prayers runs: “O Lord on high, whose youth is immortal, ruler above, I
have made you the offering, preserve my body and members, preserve it in
beauty, make all things beautiful, let all be completed in beauty.”[125]
At other times the prayer is for moral control, as in this of a Sioux
Indian: “O my grandfather, the Earth, I ask that thou givest me a long
life and strength of body. When I go to war, let me capture many horses
and kill many enemies. But in peace, let not anger enter my heart.”[126]
Penitential prayers are uttered when one has broken the ceremonial law or
_tabu_; and in general, when misfortune and defeat seem to indicate that
the gods are irritated at some insult offered them, though the worshipper
may not be clear what it is.
“O merciful Lord,” says an Aztec prayer, “let this chastisement with
which thou hast visited us give us freedom from evil and follies.”[127]
In many prayers we find formulas preserved which are no longer
understood; and very frequently the power of the prayer is believed to
be increased by repeating it a number of times. The prayer choruses of
nearly all savage tribes offer endless examples of this. The notion
of increased force by repetition, a notion founded on the augmented
suggestive power of the Word through its iteration, to which I have
already referred, is so common that it was especially noted and condemned
by Jesus as of no spiritual value.
This form of prayer, indeed, degenerated into a mere magical formula,
as we see was the case with the apostolic benediction of the Christian
church during the middle ages, which became a charm in use by
necromancers and sorcerers.
In its sublimest essence, however, prayer has been recognised as
something far beyond any form of suppliancy. It is, as an orthodox
authority says, “the habitual state of a being who constantly lives in
relation to God, and cultivates a constant exchange with Him.”[128]
So understood, it is even more than inspiration; it is a communion of
spiritual life, a dwelling in God. This is the precise mental condition
of many of the mystics and devotees of primitive religions. They are with
the god, the god with and in them.
II. THE WORD FROM THE GODS.—If the mere name of the god was thus mighty
and thus venerated, how much more the words he himself uttered! The “Word
of God,” as understood by the worshippers, is the kernel and core of
every faith on earth. Every religion is, to its votaries, a revelation.
None is so material, none so primitive, as to claim any other foundation
than the expressed will of divinity. None is so devoid of ritual as to
lack some means of ascertaining this will.
The word from the gods is clothed under two forms, the Law and the
Prophets,—in other terms, Precept and Prediction. In every religion, from
the most primitive to the highest, we find these two modes of divine
utterance.
In the earliest phases of religion, the law is essentially prohibitory.
It is in the form of the negative, “Thou shalt not——.” Ethnologists have
adopted for this a word from Polynesian dialects, _tabu_, or _tapu_, akin
to _tapa_, to name,[129] that which was solemnly named or announced being
sacred, and hence forbidden to the _profanum vulgus_.
The _tabu_ extends its veto into every department of primitive life.
It forbids the use of certain articles of food or raiment; it hallows
the sacred areas; it lays restrictions on marriage, and thus originates
what is known as the totemic bond; it denounces various actions, often
the most trivial and innocent, and thus lays the foundation for the
ceremonial law.
The penalty for the infraction of the _tabu_ includes all that flows from
the anger of the gods, reaching to death itself. A few examples, from the
very rudest religions, will serve to illustrate this.
The Kamschatkans in the beginning of the last century were very low in
the scale of humanity and curiously pessimistic. They had a hero-god,
Kutka, their mythic progenitor, of whom they told many strange and
disgusting stories. They cursed him oftener than they blessed him, and
refused to believe that anything good could come from the gods. But to
escape the ill-will of these malevolent beings they practised various
ceremonies and refrained from sundry actions calculated to displease
those capricious spirits. Thus, one must not cook fish and flesh in the
same pot, or he would be punished with sores; he must not step in the
tracks of a bear, or he would be visited with a skin disease; he must not
scrape the snow from his shoes with a knife, or there would be violent
storms; and so on, through a long law of prohibitions.[130]
The Mincopies of the Andaman Islands have no forms of worship, they have
no invocations to the gods, their language, indeed, has no original word
for “prayer.” They believe firmly, however, in the existence of numerous
spirits, not the souls of the deceased, but self-created and undying,
who will injure them if they commit certain transgressions, such as to
cook turtle or fish by burning a particular kind of wood; to roast a pig
instead of boiling it, and so on.[131]
The Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego have been often, though erroneously,
quoted as a tribe devoid of religion. Their ceremonial law was rigid. The
hairs that fell from the head must be burned, or the individual would
fall ill; the name of the dead must not be mentioned, or the ghost would
return and plague them; the young ducklings must not be killed, or bad
weather would follow.[132]
The _tabu_ in Polynesia, whence it derives its name, was carried to an
incredible degree of stringency. The dread of its violation was so vivid,
that in itself it was often the cause of the death of the offender.[133]
The second form of the “Word from God” was when it was uttered as
a prophecy, a prediction of the future. In this form it appears
throughout the world under the innumerable aspects of divination, as
oracles, prophetic utterances, forecasts of time to come, second-sight,
clairvoyance, and the like.
The essence of every religious rite may be said to be divinatory,
inasmuch as its final aim is either to learn or to modify the Will of
God, and thus to influence the future of the individual or society by
extra-natural agencies.
There is nothing in this derogatory to religion as an element of mind.
The constant effort of the reason is to banish the idea of chance from
the universe; and he who regards the Will of God as a law of the universe
does exclude chance from its events just in proportion as he learns that
Will and acts in conformity to it.
Prediction in primitive religions is by two widely different methods,
Divination and Prophecy.
The diviner, relying on his own sense and reasoning powers, foretells
the future by observation of certain trains of events which he believes
reveal the intentions of the gods; the prophet is one inspired by the
divine mind itself to speak its own words and to convey directly the
thoughts and wishes of deity.
This distinction is visible in early religions. Any one can learn the
“signs” and “omens” which will be auspicious or inauspicious for his
undertakings; though, of course, to read their full significance one must
have made special studies in the art of augury. To become an inspired
prophet requires a much more serious preparation, and some form of
communion direct with the gods must be established.
III.—THE WORD CONCERNING THE GODS. A brilliant French writer (E. Scherer)
has said: “It was the Word that made the gods,” “_Le mot, c’est l’artisan
des idoles_.” He but expressed in a pointed apothegm what the profound
German mythologist Kuhn stated in more formal terms when he wrote: “The
foundation of mythology is to be looked for in the domain of language.”