SAVAGE MODES OF PRAYER.
Difficulties in the study of natural religions—Importance of
prayer in savage life—Examples of savage prayers—Are they
limited to temporal interests?—Baptismal rites equivalent to
prayers—Prayers in the form of toasts—The worship of evil
spirits—Doubtful distinction between good and bad divinities
among savages—Treatment of obdurate gods—Relation of sacrifice
to prayer—Tendency of sacrifices to become more numerous and
severe—Pantomimic dances possibly acted petitions—The African
gorilla-dance, the Mandan buffalo-dance, the Sioux bear-dance,
the Australian kangaroo-dance—A similar idea in prayers for
rain—War-dances—Fetichistic practices perhaps extinct forms of
prayer—Prayers to animals, to the moon, to trees, and their
survival in modern folk-lore 41-77