[Footnote 29: A critical reader may raise an objection. If
animal-worship is to be rationally interpreted, how can the
interpretation set out by assuming a belief in the spirits of dead
ancestors--a belief which just as much requires explanation? Doubtless
there is here a wide gap in the argument. I hope eventually to fill it
up. Here, out of many experiences which conspire to generate this
belief, I can but briefly indicate the leading ones: 1. It is not
impossible that his shadow, following him everywhere, and moving as he
moves, may have some small share in giving to the savage a vague idea of
his duality. It needs but to watch a child's interest in the movements
of its shadow, and to remember that at first a shadow cannot be
interpreted as a negation of light, but is looked upon as an entity, to
perceive that the savage may very possibly consider it as a specific
something which forms part of him. 2. A much more decided suggestion of
the same kind is likely to result from the reflection of his face and
figure in water: imitating him as it does in his form, colours, motions,
grimaces. When we remember that not unfrequently a savage objects to
have his portrait taken, because he thinks whoever carries away a
representation of him carries away some part of his being, we see how
probable it is that he thinks his double in the water is a reality in
some way belonging to him. 3. Echoes must greatly tend to confirm the
idea of duality otherwise arrived at. Incapable as he is of
understanding their natural origin, the primitive man necessarily
ascribes them to living beings--beings who mock him and elude his
search. 4. The suggestions resulting from these and other physical
phenomena are, however, secondary in importance. The root of this belief
in another self lies in the experience of dreams. The distinction so
easily made by us between our life in dreams and our real life, is one
which the savage recognizes in but a vague way; and he cannot express
even that distinction which he perceives. When he awakes, and to those
who have seen him lying quietly asleep, describes where he has been, and
what he has done, his rude language fails to state the difference
between seeing and dreaming that he saw, doing and dreaming that he did.
From this inadequacy of his language it not only results that he cannot
truly represent this difference to others, but also that he cannot truly
represent it to himself. Hence, in the absence of an alternative
interpretation, his belief, and that of those to whom he tells his
adventures, is that his other self has been away, and came back when he
awoke. And this belief, which we find among various existing savage
tribes, we equally find in the traditions of the early civilized races.
5. The conception of another self capable of going away and returning,
receives what to the savage must seem conclusive verifications from the
abnormal suspensions of consciousness, and derangements of
consciousness, that occasionally occur in members of his tribe. One who
has fainted, and cannot be immediately brought back to himself (note the
significance of our own phrases "returning to himself," etc.) as a
sleeper can, shows him a state in which the other self has been away for
a time beyond recall. Still more is this prolonged absence of the other
self shown him in cases of apoplexy, catalepsy, and other forms of
suspended animation. Here for hours the other self persists in remaining
away, and on returning refuses to say where he has been. Further
verification is afforded by every epileptic subject, into whose body,
during the absence of the other self, some enemy has entered; for how
else does it happen that the other self, on returning, denies all
knowledge of what his body has been doing? And this supposition that the
body has been "possessed" by some other being, is confirmed by the
phenomena of somnambulism and insanity. 6. What, then, is the
interpretation inevitably put upon death? The other self has habitually
returned after sleep, which simulates death. It has returned, too, after
fainting, which simulates death much more. It has even returned after
the rigid state of catalepsy, which simulates death very greatly. Will
it not return also after this still more prolonged quiescence and
rigidity? Clearly it is quite possible--quite probable even. The dead
man's other self is gone away for a long time, but it still exists
somewhere, far or near, and may at any moment come back to do all he
said he would do. Hence the various burial-rites--the placing of weapons
and valuables along with the body, the daily bringing of food to it,
etc. I hope hereafter to show that, with such knowledge of the facts as
he has, this interpretation is the most reasonable the savage can arrive
at. Let me here, however, by way of showing how clearly the facts bear
out this view, give one illustration out of many. "The ceremonies with
which they [the Veddahs] invoke them [the shades of the dead] are few as
they are simple. The most common is the following. An arrow is fixed
upright in the ground, and the Veddah dances slowly round it, chanting
this invocation, which is almost musical in its rhythm:"
"Ma miya, ma miy, ma deya,
Topang koyihetti mittigan yandah?"
"My departed one, my departed one, my God!
Where art thou wandering?"
"This invocation appears to be used on all occasions when the
intervention of the guardian spirits is required, in sickness,
preparatory to hunting, etc. Sometimes, in the latter case, a portion of
the flesh of the game is promised as a votive offering, in the event of
the chase being successful; and they believe that the spirits will
appear to them in dreams and tell them where to hunt. Sometimes they
cook food and place it in the dry bed of a river, or some other secluded
spot, and then call on their deceased ancestors by name. 'Come and
partake of this! Give us maintenance as you did when living! Come,
wheresoever you may be; on a tree, on a rock, in the forest, come!' And
they dance round the food, half chanting, half shouting, the
invocation."--Bailey, in _Transactions of the Ethnological Society_,
London, N. S., ii., p. 301-2.]
[Footnote 30: Since the foregoing pages were written, my attention has
been drawn by Sir John Lubbock to a passage in the appendix to the
second edition of _Prehistoric Times_, in which he has indicated this
derivation of tribal names. He says: "In endeavouring to account for the
worship of animals, we must remember that names are very frequently
taken from them. The children and followers of a man called the Bear or
the Lion would make that a tribal name. Hence the animal itself would be
first respected, at last worshipped." Of the genesis of this worship,
however, Sir John Lubbock does not give any specific explanation.
Apparently he inclines to the belief, tacitly adopted also by Mr.
McLennan, that animal-worship is derived from an original Fetichism, of
which it is a more developed form. As will shortly be seen, I take a
different view of its origin.]
[Footnote 31: _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania_, iii., p.
280-81.]
[Footnote 32: I have since found, however, that the name Dawn, which
occurs in various places, seems more frequently a birth-name, given
because the birth took place at dawn.]