ORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF GHOSTS, NATURE-BEINGS AND GODS
Every savage tribe known to us has already passed beyond the naturistic
stage of development. The living savages believe in ghosts, in spirits,
and all of them, perhaps, also in particular spirits elevated to the
dignity of gods. Whence these ideas of unseen personal beings? They may be
traced to four independent sources.
(1) _States of temporary loss of consciousness--trances, swoons, sleep,
etc._--seem in themselves sufficient to suggest to ignorant observers the
existence of 'doubles,' _i.e._ of beings dwelling within the body,
animating it, and able to absent themselves from it for a time or
permanently. These alleged beings have been called 'ghosts' or 'souls.'
The belief in a second life of the dead would also spring easily enough
from these observations.
(2) _Apparitions in sleep, in the hallucinations of fever, of insanity,
etc._, of persons still living or dead, seem also sufficient to lead to a
belief in ghosts and in survival after death.
These two distinct classes of facts have no doubt co-operated in the
production of the belief in ghosts, so that I shall refer to them in the
sequel as the double origin of the ghost-belief. Echos, and reflections in
water and in polished surfaces may have played a subsidiary role in
establishing, or confirming, the belief in ghosts and in spirits.
(3) When discussing animal behaviour, we saw reasons to admit that a
fleeting personification of objects moving in an unusual way might be
within the mental possibilities of the higher animals. The third
independent source of belief in unseen personal agents is _the spontaneous
personification of striking natural phenomena, storms, tornadoes, thunder,
sudden spring-vegetation, etc._ The report of Tanner[16] that one night
Picheto (a North American Chief), becoming much alarmed at the violence of
a storm, got up, offered some tobacco to the thunder and entreated it to
stop, should not excite surprise even though it should refer to the
lowest savage. There is, of course, a long way between the sudden,
temporary, and isolated personification of a natural phenomenon and the
stable and generalised belief in the existence of personal agents behind
visible nature. What we mean to assert here is merely that the
systematised belief can have arisen out of the impulsive and occasional
personification of awe-striking and frightening spectacles.
(4) Many persons have observed with surprise the apparition in young
children of the problem of creation. A child notices a curiously-shaped
stone, and asks who made it. He is told that it was formed in the stream
by the water. Then, suddenly, he throws out, in quick succession,
questions that are as much exclamations of astonishment as queries, 'Who
made the stream, who the mountain, who the earth?' _The necessity of a
Maker is, no doubt, borne in upon the savage at a very early time_, not
upon every member of a tribe, but upon some peculiarly gifted individual,
who imparts to his fellows the awe-striking idea of a mysterious,
all-powerful Creator. The form under which the Creator is imagined is, of
course, derived from the beings with which his senses have made the savage
familiar.
In what chronological order did the three kinds of unseen beings appear?
Which was first: ghosts, nature-beings, or creator? Our present knowledge
does not provide an answer to this query. But this one may venture to
affirm: they need not have appeared in the same order everywhere. It is
conceivable that among certain groups of men the idea of a creator first
attained clearness and influence, while elsewhere the idea of ghosts
implanted itself before the others.
A question of greater importance to the student of the origin of Religion
is that of the lineage of the first god or gods, _i.e._ of the first
unseen, personal agents with whom men entered into relations definite and
influential enough to deserve the name Religion. Are they descended from
ghosts, or are they nature-beings, or creators? I say, 'descended' from
ghosts, for ghosts have not, originally, all the qualities required of a
divinity. They are at first hardly greater than men, though somewhat
different. They must be magnified and differentiated from human beings if
they are to generate the religious attitude. A comparison of the
double-source of the ghost-belief with the source of the belief in
nature-beings suggests the following remarks. Phenomena belonging to
classes one and two necessarily lead to a belief in unseen _man-like_
beings. The familiar relation of ghosts with the tribe, and also the great
number of them, offer a definite resistance to the process of deification.
It is otherwise with the personified nature-powers, for they are not
necessarily, like ghosts, mere dead men in another life. In conceiving of
an agent animating nature, the imagination is not limited to the thought
of a particular human being, not even of a human being at all. The thunder
might be the voice of some monstrous animal. The surpassing variety, the
magnitude and magnificence of nature, stimulate the imagination into more
original activity than the apparitions of men and women in dreams or in
trances. For these reasons, if the choice was between ghosts and
nature-beings, it would be advisable to favour the hypothesis that the
first gods were derived from the spontaneous personification of striking
natural events. But the idea of a creator must take precedence of ghosts
and nature-beings in the making of Religion, for a world-creator possesses
from the first the greatness necessary to the object of a cult, and the
creature who recognises a creator can hardly fail to feel his relationship
to him. A Maker cannot, moreover, be an enemy to those who issue from
him, but must, it seems, appear as the Great Ancestor, benevolently
inclined towards his offspring. Incomparable greatness, creative power,
benevolence, are as many attributes favourable to the appearance of a
Religion in the high sense which, as we shall see, W. Robertson Smith
gives to the word.
The order in which appeared the three kinds of unseen agents is of
considerable importance, for if, for instance, the ghost-belief was first,
it seems unavoidable that ghosts should have been projected into natural
objects and used to explain natural phenomena. It is a task for the
historian of Religion to trace the rise of the idea of God in its several
possible sources, and to indicate in each particular case the contribution
of each source to the making of the earliest gods.
* * * * *
_Belief in the existence of unseen, anthropopathic beings is not
Religion._ It is only when man enters into relation with them that
Religion comes into existence. The passage from the animistic
interpretation of nature, or from the mere belief in ghosts, or in a
creator, to Active Religion is not to be taken as a matter of course, for
it may require on the one hand, as we have said, a transformation of the
man-like or animal-like unseen beings, such as will make entering into
relation with them possible and worth while, and, on the other, the
invention of ways and means to that end, or, at least, the adaptation of
old habits of behaviour to the requirements of the new relation. The
slowness with which our modern ritual has been envolved should be
sufficient to undeceive any one inclined to think that the establishment
of the initial religious rites presented no difficulty.
That a belief in ghosts may coincide with only a pre-religious stage of
culture is not a mere supposition. There are tribes in South-East
Australia among which it is customary to make fires in the graves, and to
place in them water, food, and weapons. Yet we are told that these people
have no system of propitiation or of worship. It appears probable that in
certain instances of this sort, the only motive of action is benevolence.
They wish the ghost to be able to warm himself, eat, drink, and defend
himself against enemies. At times, however, the promptings of fear are
discernible, as, for instance, when the legs of the corpse are broken in
order that he may not roam at night. It seems that originally ghosts are
not endowed with sufficient mischievous or benevolent power to cause the
appearance and the organisation of propitiatory reactions. But even when
some particular ghost or spirit has been fabled into awe-striking
magnitude, systematic worship is not necessarily present. How far the
deification process can go without bringing with it active relations, is
well shown in the case of the 'Father' of the tribes of South-East
Australia. Different tribes call him by different names, _Daramulun_,
_Baiame_, etc. Howitt tells us that Daramulun is an anthropomorphic,
supernatural being who used to dwell upon the earth, but now lives in a
land beyond the sky. He can make himself visible, and then appears in the
form of an old man of the Australian race. 'He is imagined as the ideal of
those qualities which are, according to their standard, virtues worthy of
being imitated. Such would be a man who is skilful in the use of weapons
of offence and defence, all-powerful in magic, but generous and liberal to
his people; who does no injury nor violence to any one, yet treats with
severity any breaches of custom or of morality. Such is, according to my
knowledge of the Australian tribes, their ideal of the Head-man, and
naturally it is that of the Biamban, the master of the sky-country.' Now,
despite their belief in this definite, powerful, and benevolent Father,
'there is not any worship of him'; but 'the dances round the figure of
clay and the invocating of his name by the medicine-men, certainly might
have led up to it.'[17] For my part, I see here an instance of what I have
called _Passive Religion_. The point of special interest to us is that
nothing more than these simplest of rites co-exists with the belief in a
being so definite and elevated so high above ordinary spirits and above
man as is this All-Father of the Australians.
It seems highly probable that for generations the relations maintained
with ghosts, nature-beings, and creators, by primitive man were too
occasional and unofficial to permit of our regarding them as anything more
than steps preliminary to the formation of Positive Religion.
Rites and ceremonies serve, in addition to their ostensible purpose, to
complete the work of fixation begun by language. It is only when a belief
has become embodied in a system of actions that it has attained the full
measure of reality and durability of which it is capable.