it is believed that if a military camp be laid out in a particular form,
and under the proper auspicious conditions, not only is it impregnable
by foes, but neither gods nor demons can prevail against it. Many later
rituals are thus magical, or have magical elements in them by the aid of
which the celebrant claims to control the powers divine.
The Mexican Nagualist, or priest, for instance, after he has performed
his magical rites and spoken the words of power, does not hesitate to
shout: “Lo! I myself am here! I am most furious! I make the loudest
noise! I respect no one! Even sticks and stones tremble before me! What
god or mighty demon dares face me?”[214] Here, through the power of the
rite, the celebrant has become as one of the gods themselves.
These examples further serve to illustrate a fundamental distinction in
rites themselves. It has been well expressed by a German writer, Dr.
Freihold, who has said that their tendencies point toward one of two
aims, either to bring down the god to men, to have “God with us”; or,
to elevate the man to God, to clothe him with supernatural powers. The
one culminates in the epiphany, the other in the apotheosis. The writer
quoted believes that this special culmination of one or the other of
these tendencies is largely a matter of race, that it is an ethnic trait,
and explains much otherwise obscure in the historical development of
religions.[215]
Without entering into this interesting but too extensive inquiry, I will
remark that these two tendencies run closely parallel to the division of
rites which I shall adopt, a division based on a comparison of the large
numbers which I have classified in the study of primitive religions.
This division is also twofold. It embraces, first, all those rites which
are primarily intended for the benefit of the community; and, second, all
those primarily intended for the benefit of the individual. The former I
shall call _communal_, the latter, _personal_ rites.
It is the more necessary that I shall insist on this distinction because
it has been overlooked and even denied by some eminent scholars. Dr.
Robertson Smith, for example, with whom I have been before compelled to
disagree, refused to recognise personal worship in primitive conditions.
He wrote thus: “It was the community and not the individual who was sure
of the help of its deity.” The individual, he adds, was obliged to have
recourse to merely magical measures for his own protection.[216]
This statement is contradicted by nearly every primitive religion known
to me; and it can be explained only by the concentration of the writer’s
mind on a faith so peculiar as that of the ancient Hebrews.[217]
I. THE COMMUNAL RITES, those for the benefit of the community, be it
large or small, may be classed under four forms: 1, the assemblage; 2,
the festal function; 3, the sacrifice; and 4, the communion with the
Divine.
_1. The Assemblage._—Of these the _assemblage_ should first be
considered, as it is the necessary condition of all communal worship. The
_ecclesia_, the meeting, the gathering together, the congregation, has a
far higher importance than for the mere purpose of unity in an outward
function. It is the means by which that most potent agent in religious
life, _collective suggestion_, is brought to bear upon the mind. It
has been instinctively recognised by every religion, and especially by
mystical teachers, as an indispensable element in the dissemination of
doctrine.
Strange, indeed, is the influence on the individual of “the crowd,”
when it is animated by deep feeling, by positive belief, by intense
activity! It is difficult even for the calmest mind not to be thrilled
with the contagious impulses of an assemblage tossed on the waves of wild
religious emotion. Its vertiginous passion whirls those who yield to it
out of themselves, beyond their senses, into some lofty, hyper-sensuous
state, where reason totters and reality fades. We have but to watch
an active “revival,” or the hysterical outbursts of an old-fashioned
“camp-meeting,” to be convinced of this.
These effects are hastened and strengthened by the Liturgy, the
responsive songs and chants, the music, the dancing hand in hand, the
touch of flesh, and the intoxication of breath with breath,—all that the
theologians class as the _anaphora_, the going back and forth of mind and
mind, through the varied forms of sensuous expression.[218]
All this is perfectly familiar to primitive religions. Among the rude
tribes of our Western plains, the Dakotas and Chipeways for instance,
thousands will gather at the annual festivals to unite in common worship
and ceremonies. The first missionaries to Mexico report it a common sight
to see six or seven thousand natives moving as one man in the swaying
figures of the sacred dances; and it were easy to multiply examples.
Everywhere was the religious value of worship in common recognised.
_2. The Festal Function._—I have already referred to the fact that
although the fear of demons and ghosts prevailed generally in early
faiths, their prevailing character was by no means always gloomy.
In early conditions the public religious ceremonies have an atmosphere
of joyousness about them. They are thanksgivings and merrymakings,
such as still exist among us in pale survivals in our harvest homes,
Christmas festivities, and Easter-tide amusements. In ancient Greek
and Roman rites this is still more visible. “Worship the gods with a
joyous heart,” prescribes Cicero; and true to the precept, the Romans
included among their acts of worship such cheering adjuncts as theatrical
performances, horse races, games, and dancing girls. No sign of mourning
was permitted, no word of lamentation was allowed, and a serene mood, a
joyous countenance and bright garments were enjoined, that the gaiety of
the occasion might not suffer diminution.[219]
There was nothing in this peculiar to the Romans. The same is well
known to be true of the Greeks; Jacob Grimm is our authority that the
religious rites of the ancient Germans were as a rule cheerful, and those
which were most cheerful were “the earliest and the commonest”; while
Robertson Smith testifies to the effect that the early Semitic ceremonies
were likewise gay and festal, passing at times into a truly orgiastic
character.[220]
Probably most of us will feel some surprise when this trait of early
and heathen religions is pressed upon our attention. We have been
accustomed to hear of their dark and cruel mysteries, their immolations
and holocausts, their cries of anguish and blood-stained altars, until
we have imagined that light-hearted gaiety was even farther from their
teachings than it is from our own faith, whose cardinal principle is the
holiness of suffering and self-abnegation.
Nothing could be wider from the truth. Probably the first of all public
rites of worship was one of joyousness, to wit, the invitation to the
god to be present and partake of the repast. To spread a meal and ask
the deity to share it, that which is called _commensality_, belongs to
the most archaic of ceremonies. Captain Clark tells us of the Western
Indians that “feasts form an essential part of every ceremony.” There is
a certain solemnity observed about them, even when not strictly religious
in character. The first mouthful is offered to the gods, and “something
in the manner of a grace” is usual when the person begins and finishes
his meal.[221]
It was but a step from this to purely religious banquets, festal
commemorations for thanksgiving, in acknowledgment of benefits received.
They were derived from the older practice of asking the god to share
the common meal, not, as some have argued, from the later custom of
offering food before the idols. Such solemn banquets occur where idols
are unknown, or form a minor element in religious expression. Sacrificial
banquets assume a different phase, to which I shall presently refer.
Next in antiquity to the commensality of God with man, was the sacred
procession, that which is known as the “ceremonial circuit.”
Jacob Grimm informs us that the ancient Germans were accustomed at
certain seasons to carry the images of the gods, Holda, Bertha, and
others, or the sacred symbols, the plough, the ship, etc., around the
borders or marches of the tribal territory, over which they were held to
exercise especial protection. Thus they bestowed the active beneficence
of their personal presence on these confines. This divine progress was
accompanied with shouts and songs and joyous acclamations.[222]
To this day in central France, when the seed is sown in the spring and
the husbandman has trusted his labour and his grain to the uncertain
season, the image of Our Lady of Mercy is solemnly carried through the
prepared fields, with song and prayer, that her blessing may rest upon
them, and the grain return a hundred-fold.
Far away from France and Germany, up in the chilly valleys of the
Peruvian Andes, when the natives used to fear, for their crops, killing
frost or withering drought, the sacred _huaca_, the divine guardian of
the village, was brought forth and carried in solemn procession around
the fields, and its intercession beseeched in moving cries and with
abundant gifts.[223]
Numberless other examples of this universal rite might be mentioned, a
rite the shadow of which still falls among us in the processional and
recessional of high Protestant churches. Among primitive peoples and in
the folk-lore of modern nations, it develops into the forms which are
known as “the sinistral and dextral circuits,” depending on whether the
procession is from right to left or the reverse, connected doubtless with
the motion of the celestial bodies, and with the reverse of that motion,
each appropriate to certain forms of worship. Throughout the American
tribes this is always a point of the greatest importance, and constantly
appears, not merely in their religious exercises, but in their social
customs, their arts, and their habits of life.[224]
I mentioned that the old Romans used to consider theatrical
entertainments a proper part of a religious ceremony. They were not alone
in that. In fact, the opinion was so universal that students of literary
origins are agreed that the beginning of the drama, both comedy and
tragedy, was in sacred scenic representations of the supposed doings of
the gods. We may recognise the earliest form of the drama in the masked
actors of the American Indian medicine dances. They usually take the
part of some lower animal, comic or serious, the face concealed either
with a part of its hide, or with a wooden mask, on which is painted
some semblance or symbol of the animal. The language of the actor is
appropriate to his rôle, and often involves curious modifications of the
customary tongue, to suit the creature he represents.[225]
Long before the discovery of America by Columbus the native tribes of
Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru had developed from this source a dramatic
literature, which, like that of the early Greek classic period, had
thrown off its first, purely religious garb, and had developed into an
independent art, devoted equally to Melpomene and Thalia, the tragic and
the comic muses.
These latter, of which a few specimens survive, were exotic plants
compared to the indigenous growth of the American sacred dramas. So
essential, indeed had these become to the native notions of worship of
any sort, that the Christian missionaries were fain to compromise the
situation, and permit them to remain, merely changing the names of the
heathen gods to those of Christian saints, and modifying where necessary
the wording of the older text and its heathen _scenario_.
The extreme of these festal rejoicings is seen in the orgiastic
ceremonies so widely prevalent in early cults, the Bacchanalia, the
Saturnalia, the “Witches’ Sabbath” of the Middle Ages, and the like. They
are nowise peculiar to primitive religions, although in them they hold a
more conspicuous place. Within a year, the “angel-dancers” of Hoboken,
New Jersey, have reproduced them in their true original colours, and they
are always ready to crop out under the influence of the proper stimuli to
the religious emotions.
In their earliest forms, they are far from deserving the odium which
attached to them later. The Bacchantes of Greece were, at first, not a
rout of dissolute women, but an inspired train of devout virgins and
chaste matrons. No man was permitted in the ranks under pain of death.
This was true also in Rome, in the Orient, and in many tribes of America.
It was a later and an evil innovation which sanctioned the unrestrained
mingling of the sexes in these wild processions of intoxicated fanatics.
Their intoxication was, however, with the divine spirit, not the purple
grape-juice. They were, as the Greeks said, “theoleptic,” possessed or
infuriated with the maddening joy of the gods, drunk with the celestial
ambrosia.
To our cold observation, they were in hysterical mania, with minds
disordered by religious excitement, worked up to a high contagious pitch
through collective suggestion, following crazily the disordered fancies
of their sub-conscious selves, mistaking them for the inspiration of
divine emanations.
_3. The Sacrifice._—In the custom of offering to the divine visitant a
portion of the food and drink, we discover the origin of sacrifice. The
word has acquired sad associations, seen in our common expression “to
make a sacrifice,” which signifies some painful self-surrender.
This was foreign to its original meaning. The sacrifice at first was a
free-will offering, a pleasing and grateful recognition of the kindness
of the deity. The first-fruits, the young kid, the earliest ear of corn
to mature, were offered to the beneficent being who had sent them for the
good of man. It was the willing acknowledgment we pay to a kind friend.
The earliest species of sacrifice is in the nature of a thank-offering.
They were of the class which has been termed “honorific,” and were little
more than “meals offered to the deity.”[226]
I may illustrate it from a custom of the Papuans of New Guinea. They
believe, being ancestral worshippers, that the good things of life are
mainly owing to the continuing solicitude of their departed progenitors.
Therefore, to testify their gratitude, once in several years they dig up
the skulls of those deceased relations, paint them with chalk, decorate
them with feathers and flowers, and placing them on a scaffold, offer to
them food and trinkets.[227]
There is nothing of fear in this rite, and nothing fearful, for it is
made the occasion of a merry festival.
Soon, however, in the development of the cult it was perceived that loss
and affliction abounded and increased; the gods grew careless of their
votaries, or angry with them. They must be pacified and propitiated.
Hence arose the second form of sacrifices, those which are called
“conciliatory” or “piacular.”[228] They were atoning in significance,
mystic in their symbolism, expiatory in their aims. The gods were
displeased at what man had done or had left undone, and they must be
reconciled by humility and self-abnegation.
In this the primitive worshipper acted towards his deity just as he would
toward an earthly superior whose displeasure he had incurred. There was
no new sentiment or line of action introduced. The rite of sacrifice
in any of its phases offers nothing apart from the general motives of
mankind.
The most common reason for early sacrifice was to expiate breaches of the
ceremonial law. Whether this occurred intentionally or not of purpose, it
was deemed requisite to make amends by some painful act, to pacify the
demonic power behind the law.
Naturally, the greater the self-denial displayed in the offering, the
higher its merit and the more efficacious its character. The ancient
Germans laid it down that in time of famine beasts should first be
slain and offered to the gods. Did these bring no relief, then men must
be slaughtered; and if still there was no aid from on high, then the
chieftain of the tribe himself must mount the altar[229]; for the nobler
and dearer the victim, the more pleased were the gods!
The same doctrine prevailed practically through most primitive religions,
and was carried to a like extent. Painful mutilations of oneself, the
lopping of a finger, scarification, driving thorns through the tongue or
the flesh elsewhere, burning with hot coals, scourging, and supporting
crushing weights: these are but a few of the many terrible sufferings
which the individual inflicted on himself.
Thus steeled to pain in his own person, he knew no limit to its
infliction on others. The tortures of captives or of slaves dedicated to
the gods, common in American religions, formed part of the religious
value of the ceremony. Not merely captives and slaves, but those of his
own household and blood, his nearest and his dearest, must the true
worshipper be prepared to surrender, were it his first-born son or the
wife of his bosom. It was not heartlessness or cruelty which prompted
him, but obedience to that law of the supernatural, which ever claims for
itself supremacy over all laws and all passions of the natural man.
Traces of human sacrifice are discovered in the early history of even the
noblest religions, and the rite extended so widely that scarce a cult can
be named in which it did not exist.
What rendered them the more general was the underlying belief that, let
the sacrifice be sufficiently exalted, the gods _could not_ resist it.
They were constrained by its magical power, and whatever was desired
could be extorted from them, with or without their volition. So to this
day teach the Hindu priests, and so believed the ancient Romans and
various primitive nations.
_4. The Communion with God._—The idea of atonement in the piacular
sacrifice is in reality that of being _one with the god_, that of
entering into union or communion with him. This, indeed, lies largely at
the base of all the forms of ritualistic worship. Its purpose, more or
less clearly avowed, is to bring into spiritual unison the worshipper and
the worshipped.
A few examples from American rites will illustrate this.
The natives of Nicaragua at the time of maize gathering were accustomed
to sacrifice a man to the gods of the harvest. Around the altar were
strewn grains of corn. Over these the worshippers stood and with flint
knives let blood from the most sensitive parts of their bodies, the drops
falling on the grains. These were then eaten as holy food, part of the
sacrifice.[230]
Something very similar obtained in Peru. At the time of the vernal
equinox, all strangers were bidden to leave the sacred city of Cuzco,
where the Inca resided. A human victim was immolated, and the spotless
“Virgins of the Sun” were deputed to mingle his blood with meal and bake
it into small cakes. These were distributed among the people and eaten,
and one was sent to every holy shrine and temple in the kingdom.[231]
Precisely such a rite prevailed among the ancient Germans. At the harvest
supper the spirit of the corn, represented latterly under the form of an
animal but in earlier days as a child, was slain and eaten by those who
had aided in the harvest. It was the literal and corporeal union of man
and the god.[232]
Still clearer was the similar ceremony of the Aztecs. A youth was chosen
and named for the god. For months his every wish was gratified. Then he
was slain on the altar and his fresh blood was mixed with dough which was
divided among the worshippers and eaten. Thus they became partakers of
the Divine Nature.[233]
The fearful similarity of this ceremony both in its form and in its
intention to that of the Christian Eucharist could not escape the
notice of the Spanish missionaries. They attributed it to the malicious
suggestions of the Devil, thus parodying in cruel and debased traits the
sacred mysteries of the Church. But the psychologist sees in them all the
same inherent tendency, the same yearning of the feeble human soul to
reach out towards and make itself a part of the Divine Mind.
II. THE PERSONAL RITES, those for the benefit of the individual, will
next occupy us.
I have already observed that while the tribe or gens in primitive
conditions worships in common one or several divinities, most of the
religious acts of the individual are directed toward a deity whom he may
claim as his own special guardian and friend. This is his tutelary god,
his personal δαίμων, his “mystagogue,” who will not merely look after the
welfare of his human ward, but introduce him into the higher and occult
knowledge and power.
This personal deity reveals himself at birth, or may await some later
year or incident of life to manifest his name and nature. He may be the
spirit of some ancestor or great chieftain or mighty shaman; or he may
belong to those deities who never assume mortal habiliments. The teachers
of early faiths differed on these points; but nearly all agreed that to
each person some such guardian angel or genius was assigned. From these
spirits the personal names were frequently received, and, lest these
should be misused, they were usually kept secret.
These beliefs are too wide-spread to require support from examples.
Probably every American tribe shared them. They are familiar in classic
Greece and Rome. The Finns and the ancient Celtic peoples possessed them
in marked forms; and they survive in the tutelary Saints of the Roman
Church.
Principally to these the adults paid their devotions and offered their
vows for what concerned their personal welfare; and many of the rites
which I am about to describe, derive their meaning from their connection
with this belief. I shall classify them as relating: 1, to birth; 2, to
naming; 3, to puberty; 4, to marriage; and 5, to death and the disposal
of the corpse.
_1. Rites Relating to Birth._—Although the immediate act of childbirth
may not cause the savage mother severe suffering, the appearance of a new
human being in the world is not considered of light importance. In her
description of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, Mrs. Stevenson remarks
that some “of their most sacred and exclusive rites are connected with
childbirth,” and her full and accurate account of them reveals in a
strong light how solemn the event was considered.[234]
In many tribes the child was considered bound to its father by some
mysterious tie closer than connected it with its mother. Among the
Northern Indians, the father will not bridle a horse or perform sundry
other acts for a fixed period after the birth of his child, for if he
did it would die![235] In the rites of Mexico and South America, this
refraining from certain labours passed into the strange custom of the
_couvade_. This was, that upon the birth of the child, the _father_ took
to his bed and remained there for a number of days. Did he neglect this,
it was believed that the child would die or have bad luck. For the same
reason he had to be extremely careful of his own health and guarded in
his actions during his wife’s pregnancy, or otherwise the unborn babe
would suffer.[236]
Not less strange are the wide-spread rites and opinions connected with
the umbilical cord. As it united the unborn infant to the life of the
mother, it was generally held to retain that power in a mystical sense.
Among the American Indians, it was a frequent custom to carry it to a
distance and bury it, and it became the duty of the individual, in his
later life, to visit alone from time to time that spot, and perform
certain ceremonies.[237]