a cupola. Two Councils of the Church, in 680 and 692, were held in
it, and obtained their designation _in Trullo_ from this fact. From
the royal palace the cupola passed to the church, as the crown of the
House of the King of Kings; and a dome was erected over the church of
the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine, and over the church of the Eternal
Wisdom by Justinian. But it had already been employed as the crown of a
temple, not only in the Pantheon at Rome, but in the Tholos, the temple
of Marnas or Dagon at Gaza.
The great dome or umbrella by no means excluded the lesser one beneath
it, and kings’ thrones under cupolas were also over-canopied by
structures of wood, or marble, or metal. Such a _baldacchino_ is seen
over the sun-god in a bas-relief at Sippar. It became common, and
when of wood or metal, was sculptured, or when of textile work, was
embroidered with leaf and flower-work, retaining a reminiscence of the
original tree beneath which the king sat and held court. It also passed
to the church, and became a subsidiary umbrella over the altar. Paul
the Silentiary in the sixth century describes that in the Church of
St. Sophia at Constantinople as a dome resting on four silver pillars.
Constantine erected much the same sort of domed covering above the tomb
of the Apostles in Rome.
In the catacombs, the vaulted chapels and the over-arched recessed
tombs are all attributable to the same idea; nor has the original
notion been lost in them, for they are frescoed over with vines, bays,
and other foliage. The most beautiful instance is also the earliest,
the squire crypt in the cemetery of Prætextatus, which dates from the
second century. Here the entire vault is covered with trailing tendrils
and leaves with birds perched on them. A couple of centuries later the
original idea was gone, and we find, instead of a growing tree, only
bunches and sprigs of flowers.
So!--the umbrellas that pass in the rain under the shadow of the mighty
dome of St. Paul’s are its poor relations, and my flower-wreathed
_regenschirm_ preserves in its leafage a reminiscence of the original
tree; and the old German woman sits and vends carrots under what
was once the prerogative of the sovereign. Is this not a token that
sovereignty has passed from the despot to the democracy?[25]
VII.
Dolls.
A white marble sarcophagus occupies the centre of one of the rooms on
the basement of the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The cover has been taken
off and a sheet of glass fastened over the coffin, so that one can
look in. The sarcophagus contains the bones and dust of a little girl.
Her ornaments, the flowers that wreathed the poor little head, are all
there, and by the side is the child’s wooden doll, precisely like the
dolls made and sold to-day.
[Illustration: _Fig. 33._--DOLL OF IVORY, FROM THE CATACOMB OF ST.
AGNESE.]
In the catacomb of St. Agnes one end of a passage is given up to form a
museum of the objects found in the tombs of the early Christians, and
among these are some very similar dolls, taken out of the graves of
Christian children. It was very natural that the parents, whether Pagan
or Christian, should put the toys of their dear ones into the last
resting-place with them, not with the idea that they would want them
to play with in the world beyond the veil, but because the sight of
these dolls would rouse painful thoughts, and bring tears into the eyes
of the mourners whenever come across in some old cupboard or on some
shelf.
Of the greatest interest to the student of mankind are the deposits
some 40 ft. deep at La Laugerie on the banks of the Vézère in Dordogne.
Here at the close of the glacial period lived the primeval inhabitants
of France, at the time of the cave lion, reindeer, and mammoth. That
race knew nothing of the potter’s art. The reindeer hunter was,
however, rarely endowed with the artistic faculty, and numerous
sketches by him on ivory and bone remain to testify to his appreciation
of beauty of animal form. One day a workman turned up a doll carved in
ivory beside one of the hearths of this primeval man. He secreted and
sold it, being under a bond to deliver all such finds to the proprietor
of the land. A fellow-workman betrayed him, and he was obliged to pay
back the money he had received and take the doll to M. de Vibraye,
to whom it was due. In a rage he said, “Anyhow, he shall not have it
perfect,” and he knocked off the head. In the accompanying sketch
the head is conjecturally restored. The arms were broken off when
discovered, if there ever had been arms, which is uncertain.
[Illustration: _Fig. 34._--DOLL OF IVORY FROM LAUGERIE HAUTE.
(The head restored.)]
Was this a child’s toy or an idol of adults? Probably the former. On
some of the engraved bones of the reindeer have been found sketches of
singular objects which bear more resemblance to fetishes, or the images
made and venerated by Ostjaks and Samojeds, than any thing else. With
the savage, as with the child, that doll receives most regard which
is most inartistic, for it allows greater scope for the imagination
to play about it. The favourite miraculous images are invariably the
rudest.
In one of the Bruges churches is a beautiful Virgin and Child in white
marble, one of the few refined and beautiful things that Michael
Angelo’s hand turned out. But this lovely group does not attract
worshippers, who will be found clustered about, offering their candles,
hanging up silver hearts about a little monstrosity with a black face,
and neither shape nor limbs.
Whosoever has little children of his own can learn a great deal from
them relative to the early stages of civilisation of mankind. Every
race of men that has not been given revelation from above has passed
through a period of intellectual and spiritual infancy, and though
men grew to be adults, they never grew out of the thoughts of a child
relative to what was beyond their immediate sensible appreciation.
I knew a case of a woman of fifty who insisted that a certain river
changed the colour of its water as it flowed in one place under the
shadow of a wood, there it turned black, in another part of its course
it was white. To the intelligent mind it was obvious enough that the
water remained unaltered, but that it looked dark where the shadows cut
off the light from the sky. No amount of reasoning could convince the
woman that the water itself did not change its colour from black to
white. She thought as a child, and was incapable of thinking otherwise.
Now observe a little child playing with a doll. It does not regard the
doll as a symbol, a representation of a man or babe, it treats it as a
creature endowed with an individuality and a life of its own. It talks
to it, it feeds it, it puts it to bed, it conjures up a whole world of
history connected with it. It believes the doll to be sensible to pain,
and will cry to see it beaten. The doll is to it as real a person as
one of its playmates.
[Illustration: _Fig. 35._--MIRACULOUS IMAGE AT HAL, BELGIUM.]
Now take a savage and his idol. The idol to him is precisely what the
doll is to the child. It thinks, it eats, it suffers, it is happy. It
requires clothes, it is subject to the same passions as the savage.
When a heathen people has advanced to regard an image as the symbol
of a deity, it has mounted to a higher intellectual plane; it has
stepped from the mental condition of a child of five to that of one of
twelve. If we want to see what are the thoughts of a savage, who is
in the earliest stage relative to his idol, we must go to the Ostjak
or Samojed on the Siberian tundra, or to the negro in Central Africa.
The Greek, the Roman, the Egyptian were long past that stage when
they become known to us through history and their monumental remains.
Their images were symbols, and not properly idols, though there always
remained among them individuals, perhaps whole strata of people, whose
intellectual appreciation of the images was that of babes. This is not
marvellous, for human progress is always subject to this check, that
every individual born into the world enters, as to his intellectual
state, in the condition of the earliest savage, and has to run through
in a few years what races have taken centuries to accomplish. Where
this is the case, and it is the case everywhere, there will ever be
individuals, perhaps whole classes, whose mental development will
suffer arrest at points lower than that attained by the general bulk of
the men and women among whom they move.
Even in our own country, the most low and to us inconceivable ideas
relative to God may be found among the ignorant. If I tell a story it
is not to raise a laugh, but to lift a corner of the veil which covers
these dull minds, to show how little they have reached the level to
which we have ascended.
A middle-aged man declared to the parson of his parish that he had seen
and spoken with the Almighty. He was asked what He was like. He replied
that He was dressed in a black swallow-tailed coat of the very best
broadcloth and wore a white tie. This was said with perfect gravity,
and with intense earnestness of conviction. His highest conception of
the Deity was that of a gentleman dressed for a dinner party. Anyone
who has had dealings in spiritual matters with the ignorant will be
able to cap such a story. This is not to be taken as laughing matter,
but as a revelation of a condition of mind to us scarcely intelligible.
I feel some hesitation in repeating the incident, but do so because
I do not see in what other way I can make those who have not been in
communication with the very ignorant understand the full depth of their
ignorance.
Now let us look at the ideas that those of a low mental condition
among the savage races have relative to their idols. I will take the
instance of the Ostjaks and Samojeds. The latter have their _Hakes_.
They are figures--sometimes only bits of root of tree or wood that have
a distant resemblance to the human form, or some unusual shape. Every
family has its _Hake_--sometimes has several. These are wrapped up in
coloured rags, given necklaces and bangles, and a tent or apartment to
themselves. They have their own sledge, the _haken-gan_, and following
after a Samojed family, on its journey from one camping place to
another, may be seen a load of these unsightly dolls in their sledge.
If some figure out of the usual, in wood or stone, attracts general
attention, and is too big to be carried about, it is regarded as the
_hake_ of a whole tribe. These images are provided with food. Family
affairs are communicated to them, and they are supposed to rejoice with
domestic joys, and lament family losses.
When their help is required, offerings are made to them, but if the
desired help be not given, the _hake_ gets scolded, refused his food,
and sometimes is kicked out into the snow. The face of the _hake_, or
what serves as face, is smeared with reindeer blood. It is the same
with the Ostjaks. Their idols are dressed in scarlet, furnished with
weapons, and their faces smeared with ochre. They are called _Jitjan_.
“Often,” says Castrén, “each of these figures has its special office.
One is supposed to protect the reindeers, another to help in the
fishery, another to care for the health of the family, etc. When need
arrives, the figures are drawn forth and set up in a tent at the
reindeer pastures, the hunting or fishing grounds. They are presented
with sacrifices now and then, which consist in smearing their lips
with train oil or blood, and putting before them a vessel with fish or
meat.”[26]
It is very much the same thing with the negro, who stands on the same
intellectual level as the Siberian savage. His fetish is anything
out of the way--a strangely-shaped stone or bit of bone, a bunch of
feathers, a doll, anything about which his imagination may work, and
his reason remain torpid.
I have watched a little boy of six play with a piece of ash twig. I
drew it, and noted what his proceedings were. He had picked up this
twig, and suddenly exclaimed, “I have found a horse. It is lying down.
Get up, horse! Get up!” He took it to some grass to make it eat, then
went with it to a pond, and made it drink. There the twig fell in, and
he cried out that the horse was swimming. I picked out the twig for
him. Presently, by throwing it into the air, he found that his horse
could fly. Finally, he set to work to build a stable, and furnish it
for his horse.
[Illustration: _Fig. 36._--THE HORSE.]
I had been reading Castrén’s account of the _hakes_ and _jitjan_ at the
time, and under my eyes was a child doing with a bit of stick exactly
what a Turanian nomad of full age does now, and has done for thousands
of years. In two or three years this boy’s mind will have expanded,
and his reason have got in the saddle, and will hold in the imaginative
faculty with bit and bridle, and then he will cease to see horses in
ash twigs; but the wanderers on the Asiatic tundras have never got
beyond the stage of an English child of six and never will.
I quote a passage from “The Beggynhof; or, City of the Single,” to show
how that it is possible for a tolerably-educated, religious Belgian of
the present day to stand at the same point as that of a child of six,
and of an Ostjak savage.
“St. Anthony is a favourite saint with the good, holy, simple-minded
Beguines; but woe betide him if he refuse his powerful intercession. I
once saw a poor little statuette of this domestic saint left outside
on the window-sill when the snow lay deep on the ground. On inquiring
why it did not occupy its place on the mantelshelf, I was told that
the saint had been refractory; that the Beguine who occupied that room
had been very patient and forbearing for some days, but that, finding
gentleness had no effect in obtaining what she wanted, she now thought
herself justified in trying what effect punishment would have, so she
had turned the effigy of the rebellious saint out into the snow, and
sat with her back towards it, that her patron might understand she did
not intend to address him again until he granted her his protection and
influence.”[27] Precisely in like manner, when Germanicus died, did the
rabble of Rome pelt the temples and statues of the gods with mud and
stones, because they had failed to hear their prayers for the recovery
of their beloved prince.
We all of us pass through this stage of intellectual and spiritual
growth, except a few who never get beyond it. It is said of the negro
that as a child he is clever and bright, but that he never attains the
mental condition of an European of fifteen. But there are men and women
among us who, in certain matters, never get beyond the condition of
mind of a child of six. We may be shocked at this, but we cannot help
it; they are so constituted--something in their cranial structure, or
some natural deficiency in mental vigour is the occasion of this. In
religious matters they cannot get beyond Fetishism; and if we deny
them that, we deny them all religious comfort and worship. Sometimes,
through some accident, a leg or an arm gets diseased, whereas the
rest of the body grows; so is it with the mind--certain faculties get
diseased, perhaps the reasoning power, and then the imagination runs
riot.
To an ordinary cultured Pagan of Rome, or Greece, or Egypt, idolatry
was impossible. The gods, figured in marble and bronze, were to them
symbols and nothing else, precisely as to us the letters of the
alphabet are symbols of certain sounds, and the pictographic characters
of cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing were anciently symbols of certain
ideas. So also idolatry is absolutely impossible to anyone who has
gone through the elements of modern education. Religious statues and
pictures are historic representations of personages and events in
the sacred story, but to look upon them with the eyes of an Ostjak
or a child of six is a psychological impossibility, except only
for such as are mentally stunted like the Beguine of Ghent. It is,
therefore, without the smallest scruple that we can employ imagery
in our churches, knowing that the possibility of misusing it is gone
past reversion to it in nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of
a thousand, and that the thousandth person who would misuse it is
incapable of any other religious exercise, and it were better that he
had some religious conceptions, however low these were, than none at
all.
To draw this moral has not been my object in penning this article, but
to direct the attention of the intelligent to the nursery, and show
them how that the elements for the study of primitive culture, the
means of following the development of ideas in man are to be found
wherever there are little children.
VIII.
Revivals.
Of the three factors that go to make up man--body, intellect, and the
spiritual faculty, the last has been allowed somewhat to fall into
neglect in the present age, when special stress has been laid on the
education and development of the intellect. Nevertheless it is a factor
that must not be ignored, and it is one that is likely to revenge
itself for neglect by abnormal action.
In the Middle Ages it was the reverse; under the preponderating
influence of the Church, the spiritual faculty was cultivated to
extreme of mysticism, and the intellect on one side, and the body on
the other, hardly received sufficient recognition. When an ascetic
would neither think out a problem nor keep himself clean, he exhibited
a monstrosity, not as repulsive, but as certainly a monstrosity,
as one of the gladiators depicted on the pavement of the Baths of
Caracalla--this latter, a man cultivated to the highest point of
animal strength and physical activity. It is probable that a purely
intellectual man without idealism, without religiosity, is as much a
monster as either of the other, though not in the nineteenth century as
repugnant to us as they are.
A religion that is good for anything must not only be one that is
intelligible and reasonable, but must satisfy the spiritual cravings,
and also exercise moral control over the animal nature. At the same
time, it is liable to undue stress in each direction; it may become a
mere theological speculation, mere mysticism, or resolve itself into
exterior formalism. Whenever it manifests a preponderating tendency in
one or other of these directions--the element in man that is not given
its adequate scope will revolt, and fling itself into an opposite scale.
The function of the reason in religion is to act as the balance wheel
of the spirit. Reason is not the mainspring, not the motive power of
religion; it is its controlling, moderating faculty.
Throughout the history of mankind we are coming continually upon
phenomena of a spiritual nature, outbursts of the spiritual faculty in
strange and often in very repulsive manifestations, and it may not be
amiss to look at some of these and to learn what is their real nature.
Among the primitive races which at this day represent the earliest
phases of psychological development, the savage man has a vague
apprehension of the existence of a spiritual world, haunted by the
souls of the dead which have not been absorbed into the universal
spirit from which they emanated. He has no definite belief, he has
only an apprehension. In the spiritual world, the existence of which
he suspects, there is no system; concerning it he has no doctrine. Its
existence implies no responsibilities.
Even the idea of an all-pervading spirit is inchoate. All that man
is confident about is that he is surrounded by and subject to the
influences of spirits, now beneficent, then malevolent, always
capricious, that have to be humoured and propitiated, and that allow
themselves to be consulted.
There is but one, so to speak, natural mode of holding intercourse with
the spirits, and that is by ecstasy, whether natural or superinduced by
narcotics. The man who falls into hysterics, the man who is cataleptic,
is the natural priest. An hysterical, a cataleptic condition, is not
understood, and just as the unusual and contorted bit of wood or stone
receives reverence as a fetish, so does the man subject to unusual fits
become a priest. To him the man of less nervous organism applies when
he desires to hold intercourse with the unseen world. Incantation,
whereby the hysterical work themselves into hysteria, and religious
rite are one. The Shaman or Medicine-man is the only priest.
Indeed, there is not a people, at a low stage of mental and moral
development, among which this phase of religion is not found, before
the spirit world coagulates into distinct beings, the rudiments of a
theology appear, the priesthood emerges as a caste, and worship is
fixed in ceremonial observance.
As man advances in the scale of general culture, and thinks more of the
unseen world, his reason or fancy, or reason and fancy acting together,
become creative; in the protoplastic, nebulous spirit-world points of
light appear, the light is divided from the darkness, and the spiritual
entities take rank, and assume characteristics. Religion enters on the
polytheistic phase.
At the same time the moral sense has advanced; it has seen that there
is some relation between the two worlds determined by good and bad. An
ethic code is evolved, imposed on man by the superior beings in the
world unseen.
But whilst some of the more gifted in a generation attain to this
religious and moral conception, there remain others, at the same time,
unable to rise, who still occupy the same low level as the earlier men,
who are conscious of spiritual forces, but unable to differentiate
them, who are lost in a vague dream, incapable of accepting a theologic
system, and unwilling to submit to moral restraint. Such men will
always turn away from a definite creed, view a priestly caste with
suspicion, and kick against an ethical code. To them the Schaman is
still the only priest, and delirious ecstasy the only sacrament that
unites the worlds. Their psychic development is so rudimentary, that
they are ready to accept as consecrated whatever utterance is vented,
whatever act is performed in the transport of temporary delirium.
Before proceeding any further with the account of the growth of
religion, it will be well here to give an account of Schamanism as
it at present exists. For this I will quote a description given by
Lieutenant Matjuschin who accompanied Baron Wrangel on his Polar
Expedition in 1820-3. Lieutenant Matjuschin visited a Tungu Schaman
near the Lena, in 1820.