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SERPENT-WORSHIP,
AND OTHER ESSAYS
WITH A CHAPTER ON
TOTEMISM
BY
C. STANILAND WAKE
LONDON
GEORGE REDWAY
YORK STREET COVENT GARDEN
1888.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
RIVERS OF LIFE 1
CHAPTER II.
PHALLISM IN ANCIENT RELIGIONS 8
CHAPTER III.
THE ORIGIN OF SERPENT-WORSHIP 81
CHAPTER IV.
THE ADAMITES 107
CHAPTER V.
THE DESCENDANTS OF CAIN 128
CHAPTER VI.
SACRED PROSTITUTION 149
CHAPTER VII.
MARRIAGE AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES 165
CHAPTER VIII.
MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE 180
CHAPTER IX.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE “FAMILY” 192
CHAPTER X.
THE SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMAN AS AFFECTED BY
“CIVILISATION” 219
CHAPTER XI.
SPIRITISM AND MODERN SPIRITUALISM 233
CHAPTER XII.
TOTEMS AND TOTEMISM 247
CHAPTER XIII.
MAN AND THE APE 278
CHAPTER I.
RIVERS OF LIFE.
The lines of development of the religious faiths of mankind have been
aptly termed by Major-General Forlong “Rivers of Life.” The streams
of faiths are marvellously depicted by this writer in a chart which
shows “the rise and fall of the various religious ideas, mythologies,
and rites which have at any time prevailed among nations.” This chart
ingeniously shows, moreover, “the degrees of intensity manifested at
stated periods by any particular wave of doctrine or worship, and the
mode in which the tributary streams of mythological or theological
thought become in turn absorbed in the central River of Life.” The
views adopted by General Forlong have much in common with those
embodied in the works of Godfrey Higgins and some later writers, but
they have a special value as being based on personal observation. The
author of “Rivers of Life” had the inestimable advantage of being
admitted to shrines and of receiving instructions in sacred mysteries
which are generally closed to European inquirers, and of having made
“a diligent exploration of ruined temples, pillars, and mounds, and
all such traces of a primitive symbolism, which lie scattered over the
East and West, as religious fossils underlying the superficial crust of
theological strata.”
Rivers of religious life have a beginning, like other streams, and what
are the sources to which man’s primitive faiths may be traced? The early
“symbolic objects of man’s adoration” are arranged by General Forlong
in the following order: First, Tree; 2nd, Phallic; 3rd, Serpent; 4th,
Fire; 5th, Sun; 6th, Ancestral. The first “breathings of the human
soul” were manifested under the sacred tree or grove, whose refreshing
shade is so highly valued in the East. All nations, particularly the
Aryan peoples, have considered tree-planting a sacred duty, and the
grove was man’s first temple, “and became a sanctuary, asylum, or
place of refuge, and as time passed on, temples came to be built in
the sacred groves.” If tree-worship had such an origin as this, its
origin ought to be shown in the ideas associated with it. What, then,
are those ideas? General Forlong, after referring to Dr. Fergusson’s
statement that the tree and serpent are symbolised in every religious
system which the world has known, says that the two together are
typical of the reproductive powers of vegetable and animal life. The
connection between tree and serpent-worship is often so intimate that
we may expect one to throw light on the other. The Aryans generally
may be called “tree-worshippers,” and according to Fergusson they as a
rule destroyed serpents and serpent-worshipping races. Yet at Athens
and near Rome both those faiths flourished together, as they appear
to have done also in many parts of Western Asia. They are intimately
associated with religious notions of many Buddhist peoples. This is
shown curiously in the early legends of Kambodia. These are said by
General Forlong to present two striking features. First, a holy tree,
which the kingly race, who came to this serpent country, reposed under,
or descended from heaven by; secondly, that this tree-loving race are
captivated by the dragon princess of the land. It is the serpent king,
however, who builds the city of _Nakon Thom_ for his daughter and her
stranger husband. It is not improbable that Buddhism originated among a
people who were both tree and serpent-worshippers, although the former
became more intimately and at an earlier period associated with its
founder.
Let us now see what ideas are symbolised by the serpent. We are told
that he is “an emblem of the Sun, Time, Kronos, and Eternity.” The
serpent was, indeed, the Sun-God, or spirit of the sun, and therefore
Power, Wisdom, Light, and a fit type of creation and generative power.
Dr. Donaldson came to the conclusion that the serpent has always a
Phallic significance, a remark which exactly accords with General
Forlong’s experience, “founded simply upon _close observation_ in
Eastern lands, and conclusions drawn by himself, unaided by books or
teachers, from thousands of stories and conversations with Eastern
priests and people.” The testimony of a competent and honest observer
is all important, and we must believe when we are told that the
serpent, or the constant early attendant on the Lingam, is the special
symbol which veils the actual God. The same may be said, indeed, of
Tree Worship, and as tree-worship and serpent-worship embrace the
Phallic faith, the first three streams of faiths are represented by
them. It is evident, however, that Phallic ideas are at the foundation
of both tree and serpent-worship, and the Phallic stream of faith
should be given the first place as the actual source of the Rivers of
Life. General Forlong does, indeed, affirm that Phallic worship enters
so closely into union with _all_ faiths to the present hour that it
is impossible to keep it out of view. We can well understand how this
should be as to the tree, serpent, and solar cults, but it is not
so evident at first sight in relation to fire-worship. If fire was,
however, regarded as the servant of Siva, and all creating gods, there
is no difficulty in accepting the position. The object of the worship
offered to the sacred fire is consistent with that view. Thus Greeks,
Romans, and Hindoos “besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of
flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for wisdom
and pardon from sin.” General Forlong appears to see in the worship
of fire essentially a household faith, and this was undoubtedly so if
his explanation of the Lares and Penates is correct. These symbols
represented “the _past_ vital fire or energy of the tribe, as the
patriarch, his stalwart sons and daughters did that of the _present_
living fire the sacred hearth.” General Forlong states, indeed, that
everything relating to blood used to be connected with fire, and he
supposed, therefore, that _agnatio_ may have been _relation by fire_,
for the _agnati_ can only be those of the fire or father’s side.
If the father derived his authority in the household from the sacred
hearth-fire, we can understand why General Forlong has assigned to
ancestor-worship the last place in his scheme. He says, moreover, that
ancestor-worship is “a development and sequence of that idiosyncracy
of man which has led him to worship and deify even the living—that
which, according to the teaching of Euemerus, accounts for all the
mythological tales of the gods and god-like men of Greece.” The
ancestor was worshipped in the great chief, the Father of Fathers, each
of whom was worshipped in the _Dii Gentiles_ of his own class, and this
not only during the comparatively modern Roman sway, but during the
ages of serpent, fire, and solar faiths. In the still earlier faiths
he was represented in the rude pillar, as well as in the little Lares
and Penates of the hearths. In this case, however, ancestor-worship
would seem to be entitled to stand on the same level as tree-worship
and serpent-worship as a phase of the Phallic faith. In fact, it is
in a sense identified with serpent-worship. General Forlong remarks
that among the Greeks and Romans “the ancestor came to be honoured
and worshipped only as the Generator, and so also the serpent as his
symbol.” This agrees with the conclusion I have elsewhere endeavoured
to establish, that the serpent is really regarded as the representative
of the ancestor, in which case ancestor-worship is a very primitive
faith, although, in a specialised form, it may possibly, as asserted by
General Forlong, come later than fire-worship.
It can hardly now be doubted that the same ideas underlie all the early
faiths. This view is entertained by General Forlong, who says: “So
imperceptibly arose the serpent on pure Phallic faiths, fire on these,
and sun on all, and so intimately did all blend with one another, that
even in the ages of true history it was often impossible to descry the
exact God alluded to.” The foundations of all those faiths, and of
ancestor-worship as allied to them, must therefore be sought in the
ideas entertained by mankind in the earliest times, “when the races
lived untaught, herded with their cattle, and had as their sole object
in life the multiplication of these and of themselves.” The question
arises, however, whether the simple faith which man then entertained
was the earliest he had evolved. General Forlong answers this question
in the negative, for he says, then referring to the serpent Buddhism
of Kambodia, that “Fetish worship was the _first_ worship, and to a
great extent is still the _real_ faith of the ignorant, especially
about these parts.” He finds that nearly one quarter of the world yet
deifies, or at least reverences, sticks and stones, rams’ horns and
charms, a practice not unknown even to later faiths. The fundamental
belief which furnishes the key to those phenomena, as well as to the
animal-worship which is so closely associated with one or other of the
great faith streams, should not be lost sight of. Jacob Grimm pointed
out, in his “Teutonic Mythology,”[1] that all nature was thought of by
the heathen Germans as living. Gods and men transformed themselves into
trees, plants, or beasts; spirits and elements attained animal forms;
and therefore we cannot wonder at the heavenly bodies, and even day and
night, summer and winter, being actually personified. These ideas lend
themselves as well to fetishism as to sun-worship, and all the ancient
faiths alike may justly, therefore, be regarded as phases of one
universal nature-worship. Mankind prays only for that which is thought
good, and if one man seeks to obtain his desire through the agency of
a stick or a stone, and another through a serpent or planetary god, the
difference between them is purely objective. The prayers which were
offered to the Vedic gods would be equally appropriate in the mouth of
a native of Western Africa. They had relation simply to temporal needs,
and were, says Mr. Talboys Wheeler,[2] for plenty of rain, abundant
harvests, and prolific cattle, for bodily vigour, long life, numerous
offspring, and protection against all foes and robbers. Moreover,
the observances of the more advanced faiths have little practical
difference from the fetishist. All alike have for their object the
compelling the good countenance, or counteracting the evil designs,
of the gods or spirits, and the real difference is to be sought in
the symbols under which they are represented. Thus the Vedic Aryans
regarded their deified abstractions as personified with human wants,
and invoked them with rites which “may have formed an accompaniment
to every meal, and may have been regarded almost as a part of the
cooking.” Mr. Wheeler adds[3] that “Sometimes a deity is supposed to
be attracted by the grateful sound of the stone and mortar by which
the _soma_ juice was expressed from the plant, or by the musical noise
of the churning sticks by which the wine was apparently stirred up and
mixed with curds; and the eager invokers implore the god not to turn
aside to the dwelling of any other worshipper, but to come to them
only, and drink the libation which they had prepared, and reserve for
them all his favours and benefits.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Eng. Trans., vol. ii., p. 647.
[2] “The History of India,” vol. i., p. 8.
[3] Ditto, p. 13.