RELIGION IN THE LOWER CULTURE
Religion presents itself in its most obvious form as a mode of
activity. It is seen in some kind of behaviour; it prompts a
particular sort of conduct. Behind the customs and rites which are its
visible sign lie certain thoughts and feelings, often dim, indistinct,
obscure. In the totality of its beliefs, emotions, and institutions,
it is as much the product of the human spirit as poetry, or art,
science, morals, and law. It will therefore always bear some kind of
relation to the general circumstances of the social development to
which it belongs. The interpretation of the surrounding scene which is
implied in its intellectual outlook will vary with the elements of the
scene itself. But the limits of variation are much smaller than might
be expected. The questions "why" and "how" may be answered very
differently under the Equator and within the Arctic zone, but they are
the same questions, and spring from common impulses of thought.
Moreover, while race, climate, and economic conditions may all vary, it
happens to all men to be born {73} and to die. The family must be
maintained, children must be reared, food must be procured, the tribal
group must preserve its stability and, if possible, increase. There
are universal elements in human life all over the globe; and the
manifestations of religion founded upon them exhibit in consequence
marked resemblances from land to land.
Religion always implies some kind of want. The young husband wants
male children, the hunter game, the warrior victory, the diviner the
knowledge of secrets, the saint holiness. The wants may be crude or
refined, the satisfaction of a physical appetite, protection against
some anticipated danger, the realisation of an exalted spiritual
fellowship. But religion suggests that there is some Power capable of
satisfying these wants, and undertakes to provide the means for setting
man in proper relations with it. All round him are the objects and
forces of the visible world. He learns by degrees that some help him
to gratify his desires, and others hinder them. There are many things
that he cannot understand, and some of which he dimly feels that he
must not presume to try: he is only conscious towards them of a strange
wonder and awe; they are uncanny; he cannot bring them into his
experience; he must not meddle with them, he must keep away. But other
things are more kindly, and fulfil his hopes.
Out of such vague consciousness he gradually frames a working method.
Some sort {74} of theory is at length established after many trials,
concerning what must be done to obtain what he seeks. The line of his
action is determined in part by the ideas and expectations which have
slowly emerged out of his endeavours to get into fruitful connection
with the powers by which he is encompassed. This is the element of
belief, which lies behind religion proper, and supplies the soil in
which religious feeling and action germinate and grow. What, then, is
the kind of belief which, in the sphere of the lower culture, makes
religion possible?
It is plain at once that no records remain of what is still sometimes
called "primitive religion." Even tribes that seem to be living in the
Stone Age have as long a past behind them as any European of light and
leading. Whatever the beliefs may be that belong to any given stage of
social culture, they are not new inventions, they depend on immemorial
tradition. And they are not, as now cherished, the results of
individual research or reflection. They are held in common by all the
members of the tribe, so that they have a kind of collective force. No
doubt in the long process of their formation and transmission
modifications may have been introduced, as some elder, shrewder than
his fellows, gave new emphasis to some leading idea, or suggested the
adoption of some fresh action. Trace them back into the dim realm of
conjecture, and some mind {75} a little more observant or ready than
his comrades must have started the first explanation, some will a
little more adventurous must have made the first experiments in
conduct. Thoughts do not issue from a "collective consciousness"; they
bear the stamp of personality, they are not begotten by abstractions,
and every fresh development starts from a single brain. But the
uniformity of experience within the group gives enormous weight to the
wisdom of the past; and constitutes a sanction which only some grave
shock can change or overthrow.
With religion is constantly associated, both in historical record and
in the lower forms of present-day practice, another kind of activity
known as Magic. The relation between them has been variously
interpreted. The modern anthropologist, Dr. Frazer, finds himself in
unexpected agreement with the philosopher Hegel in supposing that magic
was the first to appear upon the scene. It is represented as a kind of
primitive science, founded on certain elementary axioms, such as that
"like produces like," or that things once in contact with each other
will continue to act upon each other when the contact is broken. The
Central Australian performs elaborate ceremonies to stimulate the
multiplication of the totem which provides the supply of food for his
tribe. Suppose it is the witchetty grub. A kind of pantomime is
performed representing the emergence of the {76} fully-developed insect
out of the chrysalis, typified by a long, narrow structure made of
boughs. The totem men sit inside and chant rude songs, and then crawl
out singing of the insect coming forth.
One of the commonest illustrations is the attempt to compass the death
of an enemy by injuring or destroying an image or figure supposed to
correspond to him. Such images were made in ancient Babylonia, Egypt,
Greece, and Rome. One North American Indian will draw a figure of his
adversary in the sand, or in ashes, and prick it with a sharp stick.
Another will make a wooden image, and insert a needle into the head or
the heart. Clay is used for the purpose by the African Matabele, wax
in Arabia, the guelder rose in Japan, materials of all kinds in India.
In Scotland the _corp chre_, as it was called, was a clay body, which
was stuck full of pins, nails, and broken bits of glass, and set in a
running stream with its head to the current; a modern specimen from
Inverness-shire may be seen in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Is
all this really as Dr. Frazer supposes, prior to the birth of religion,
and does man only turn to the propitiation of superior powers when he
cannot get what he wants through magic? Of that process no evidence
can be offered.
The essence of magic lies in some kind of compulsion or constraint.
Through the proper spell, or through the will of the magician, {77} a
control is exerted which produces the desired result. The power which
is thus claimed implies an attitude wholly unlike that of religion.
Into that attitude there enter elements of wonder and submission in the
presence of energies which man cannot master, though he desires to get
them on his side. But no observer was at hand to watch the first
processes of feeling and thought which the interaction of man and his
environment produced. The crudest forms of religion which we actually
know, meet us in tribes which have possessed them from an unknown past.
Here religion has a social character binding the members of a group
together, and tending to maintain certain uniformities of conduct and
character. Over against it stands the antisocial character of magic,
at any rate when directed against individuals. Along this line it is
urged that magic and religion have both issued out of common
conditions. In the world around all sorts of events are continually
happening. Man, in the midst of them, moves to and fro impulsively
among various objects and agencies. Out of these arise various
reactions for self-maintenance, for protection and defence. Certain
acts tend to establish themselves as successful; they make for security
and welfare. At first man's efforts have no definite direction; but
some are found effective, others are futile, and attention is
concentrated on those that produce satisfactory results. After {78}
many trials certain beliefs, certain processes, certain persons,
gradually stand out above the rest, and through them relations of
advantage are established with the environing powers.
In such experiences lie the roots of both religion and magic. In their
earliest forms they may be as difficult to discriminate as the simplest
types of animal and vegetable life. If it be asked what distinguishes
them outwardly, when both are transmitted by tradition, both rest upon
custom, it may be answered that religion is concerned with what tends
to the stability of the community. Its interests are those of the
group. It supplies the bond of united action for clan or tribe or
people. It is pre-eminently social; it expresses itself in ceremonies,
feasts, and rites in which all can join, or in commands which all can
obey. Even the Australians, so poor in elements of worship, have
tribal laws which have been imparted to them from on high (Chap. VII).
Over against the community stands the individual, object of all kinds
of jealousies and enmities. All sorts of antisocial arts may be
practised for his destruction. The pointing-stick of Australia
provides a common magical weapon. It is carried away into a lonely
spot in the bush, and the intending user plants it in the ground,
crouches down over it, and mutters a curse against the object of his
hatred: "May your heart be rent asunder, may your backbone be split
open!" Then {79} one evening, as the men sit round the campfire in the
dark, he creeps up stealthily behind his enemy, stoops down with his
back to the camp, points the stick over his shoulder, and mutters the
curse again. A little while after, unless saved by a more powerful
magic, the victim sickens and dies.
Of course magic may also be used for the benefit of the individual, and
the practice of exorcism for the cure of diseases caused through
possession by evil spirits long found shelter in some branches of the
Christian Church. The kinship between Magic and Religion is clearly
marked when the priest takes the place of the devil-dancer or the
medicine man. Yet they are on different planes; religion is prescribed
and official, and demands specific services; magic falls into the
background, it becomes a secret, perhaps a forbidden, art.
Nevertheless, between religion and antisocial magic lies a large group
of rites, essentially magical in character, like the North American
Indian rain-dances or the totem-ceremonies of the Arunta in Central
Australia, designed for the general welfare. Even in much higher
cultures the spell frequently mingles with the prayer, and ceremonies
of sacrifice carry with them elements of compulsion or constraint.
What traces, then, do the phases of religion in the lower culture
exhibit of a view of the world and its powers out of which these
diverging lines of practice might emerge? {80} In widely different
regions of the globe the forces that operate in unexpected ways, or
play through things beyond man's reach, or appear in natural objects of
striking character--an animal, a tree--are summed up in some general
term of mystery and awe. Such is the Melanesian term _mana_, first
noted by Bishop Codrington, common to a large group of languages. It
implies some supersensual power or influence; it is not itself
personal, though it may dwell in persons as in things. It is known by
the results which reveal its working. You find a stone of an unusual
shape; it may resemble some familiar object like a fruit; you lay it at
the root of the corresponding tree, or you bury it in a yam-patch; an
abundant crop follows; clearly, the stone has _mana_. It lives in the
song-words of a spell; it secures success in fighting, perhaps through
the tooth of some fierce and powerful animal; it imparts speed to the
canoe, brings fish into the net, enables the arrow to inflict a mortal
wound. But the word has a yet wider range, in the sense of power,
might, influence. By it a parent can bring a curse on a disobedient
child, a man who possesses it can work miracles; it even denotes the
divinity of the gods. And so mysterious is the whole range of the
inner life, that _mana_ covers thought, desire, feeling, and affection;
and in Hawaian it reaches out to spirit, energy of character, majesty.
Here is an immense reserve of potency pervading {81} the world, on
which man may draw for good or ill.
Among the North American Indians similar conceptions may be traced.
The Algonquin _manitou_ represents a subtle property believed to exist
everywhere in nature, though some persons and objects possess more of
it than others. Among the Sioux the sun, the moon, the stars, thunder,
wind, are all _wakanda_. So are certain trees and animals, the cedar,
the snake, the grey elephant; and mystery-places like a particular lake
in North Dakota, or some peculiar rocks on the Yellowstone River. The
term carries with it power and sacredness; it belongs to what is
ancient, grand, and animate. The Iroquoian tribes designate this
mysterious force _orenda_. It expresses an incalculable energy,
manifested in rocks and streams and tides; in plants and trees, in
animals and man; it belongs to the earth and its mountains; it breathes
in the winds and is heard in the thunder; the clouds move by it, day
and night follow each other through it; it dwells in sun, moon, and
stars. The shy bird or quadruped which it is difficult to snare or
kill, possesses it; so does the skilful hunter; it gives victory in
intertribal games of skill, and is the secret force of endurance or
speed of foot. The prophet or the soothsayer discloses the future by
its aid; and whatever is believed to have been instrumental in
accomplishing some purpose or obtaining some good, finds in _orenda_
the source of its effectiveness.
{82}
Not dissimilar is the conception of _mulungu_ among the Yaos, east of
Lake Nyassa. The term is wide-spread through the eastern group of
Bantu tongues, and is said to have the meaning of "Old One" or "Great
One"; and in this sense it has been employed as equivalent to God. But
we are expressly told that in its native use and form it does not imply
personality. Etymologically it ranks with the leg, arm, heart, head,
of the human frame. Yet it denotes rather a state or property inhering
in something, like life or health in the body, than any single object.
It indicates a kind of supernormal energy, displayed in actual
experience, but not to be detected by any physical sense. It is the
agent of wonder and mystery; the rainbow is _mulungu_; and it sums up
at once the creative energy which made the earth and animals and man,
and the powers which operate in human life. At the foot of a tree in
the village courtyard, where men sit and talk, a small offering of
flour or beer is placed on any distinctive occasion in the communal
life; at a meal, or on a journey at cross roads, a little flour is set
aside. It is "for Mulungu"; sometimes dimly conceived as a spirit
within; sometimes regarded as a universal agency in nature and affairs,
impalpable, impersonal; sometimes rising into distinctness as God.
Such terms are, of course, generalisations from many separate
experiences. Out of this sense of mystery grow more definite ideas.
{83} The dark and solemn forest, the rushing river, the precipitous
rock, the lofty cloud-crowned mountain, the winds and storms, all
manifest a common power;[1] it lives in the snake or the bull, in the
tiger or the bear. This may be conceived in a highly complex and
abstract form. Thus the Zuñis of Mexico, we are told, suppose the sun
and moon, the stars, the sky, the earth and sea, with all their various
changes, and all inanimate objects, as well as plants, animals, and
men, to belong to one great system of all-conscious and interrelated
life. One term includes them all: _hâi_, "being" or "life." With the
prefix _â_, "all," the whole field of nature is summed up as _âhâi_,
"life" or "the Beings." This comprehensive term includes the objects
of sensible experience regarded as personal existences, and
supersensual beings who are known as "Finishers or Makers of the paths
of life," the most exalted of all being designated "the Holder of the
paths of our lives." So in Annam life is regarded as a universal
phenomenon. It belongs not only to men and animals and plants, but to
stones and stars, to earth, fire, and wind. But it is seen in groups
and kinds rather than individuals, and the limits of its forms are not
sharply drawn; it can pass through many transformations, and possesses
indefinite possibilities of change. {84} Such conceptions have a long
history behind them.
[1] M. Durkheim has recently applied conceptions of the _mana_ order to
the explanation of totemism.
The poets of the ancient Vedic hymns beheld everything around them full
of energy. The names by which they designated what they saw all
denoted action or agency. The swift flow of the stream gained it the
title of the "runner"; as it cut away the banks or furrowed its course
deep between the rocks, it was the "plougher"; when it nourished the
fields it was the "mother"; when it marked off one territory from
another it was the "defender" or "protector." So the seers addressed
their invocations to the dawn or the sun, to the winds and the fire, to
the river or the mountain, to the earth-mother or the sky-father, as
living powers, capable of responding to the prayers of their
worshippers. Similar energy dwelt in the horse or the cow, the bird of
omen and the guardian dog. It was even shared by ritual implements
such as the stones by which the sacred soma-juice was squeezed out, or
by the products of human handiwork, the war-car, the weapon, the drum,
and the peaceful plough.
At the present day the Batak in the north-west of Sumatra interpret the
world about them in terms of a soul-stuff or life-power called _tondi_.
A vast reservoir of this exists in the world above, and flows down upon
men and animals and plants. The biggest animal, like the tiger, the
most important of plants, like rice (chief source of food), have most
{85} _tondi_, but it is not confined to living things; the smith
attributes it to his iron, the fisherman to his boat, the tiller of the
ground to his hoe, the householder to his hearth and home. But a
further analysis is beginning. What is the relation of a man's _tondi_
to himself? When he dies, it passes into some fresh organism. But the
rest of him, his shadow, his double, or his self, becomes a _begu_. In
life, it is the body that thinks and feels, that fears and hopes and
wills, though the presence of the _tondi_ supplies the needful energy.
But the _tondi_ also has the functions of consciousness, for it can go
away in dreams and meet the _begus_ of parents and ancestors. And the
apprehension that it may depart begets reverence and even offerings to
the _tondi_, rather than to distant gods for whom man can feel neither
fear nor love.
We touch here another root of religious belief, which produces growths
so wide-spreading that some interpreters bring the whole range of
objects of worship within their shade. How, after all, does man
explain himself to himself? At first he does not think about thinking.
Such words as he uses are vague and elastic, like the Polynesian
_mana_, which covers a multitude of facts without and within. Only
through long dim processes does any idea corresponding to our
conception of personality come into his consciousness. He is as
confused about the objects round him as he is about himself. {86} Yet
he has some sort of initiative. Whence comes it? Little by little a
variety of experiences force on him the belief that beside the body and
its limbs he possesses something which he cannot ordinarily see, but
which is essential to his activity. He falls asleep, and lies still
upon the ground; he wakes, full of remembrance of adventure, the
localities which he has visited, the animals that he has hunted, the
dead kinsmen whom he has met. The Australians explain their dreams by
the supposition that the _yambo_, the mūrup, or the _boolabong_, can
quit the body and return. "I asked one of the Kurnai" (of Gippsland),
relates Mr. Howitt, "whether he really thought his _yambo_ could go out
during sleep." "It must be so," was the answer, "for when I sleep, I
go to distant places, I see distant people, I even see and speak with
those that are dead." The great apostle of the East in the sixteenth
century, the devoted Francis Xavier, wrote home from India to the
Society of Jesus in Europe--
"I find that the arguments which are to convince these ignorant people
must be by no means subtle, such as those which are found in the books
of learned schoolmen, but such as their minds can understand. They
asked me again and again how the soul of a dying person goes out of the
body, how it was, whether it was as happens to us in dreams, when we
seem to be conversing with our {87} friends and acquaintances. Ah, how
often this happens to me, dearest brethren, when I dream of you! Was
this because the soul then leaves the body?"
This explanation is found all round the globe.
Many other experiences confirm the impression of some kind of dual
existence. The shadow or shade which follows a man repeats his
movements, and appears as a sort of double. It is even widely believed
in the face of the simplest evidence that a dead body casts no shadow
(of course, as it lies upon the ground the shadow may almost
disappear). Your reflection in river, pool, or lake, actually
reproduces your colour as well as your form: beware lest a crocodile
seizes it and drags you in. From ancient times down to Shelley and
Walt Whitman, poetry has designated Sleep and Death as "brothers"; in
death that which was temporarily absent in sleep has gone away for
good. It may have rushed out with the blood from a gaping wound; it
may have quietly departed with the last faint breath. So it may be
summoned back, as in Chinese custom, on the housetop, in the garden or
the field. Ghostly sounds may be heard in the forest, among the rocks,
borne along the wind; the clairvoyant may discern dimly strange faces,
vanished forms; the dead can sometimes make themselves seen in their
old haunts; {88} the world is full of unexpected indications of
presences beyond our sense.
Such presences are grouped, for the modern student, under the general
title "spirits." But the explanations which lead to these beliefs are
not concerned with human beings only. Animals share in the incidents
of life and death; plants, even, grow and blossom and decay; and
animals, plants, and inanimate objects of all sorts may be seen in
dreams. Hence the analysis which is applied to man can be readily
extended; and another world is called into existence, strangely blended
with this, a realm of immaterial counterparts and impalpable forces. A
Fiji native, placed before a mirror, recognising himself and object
after object, whispered softly, "Now I can see into the world of
spirits."
With the help of this elementary philosophy a vast machinery of
causation is always at hand for explaining untoward events. The
Tshi-speaking negro on the West Coast of Africa has inside him a kind
of life-power named _kra_. It existed long before his birth, for it
served in the same capacity a whole series of predecessors; and it will
continue its career after his death, when the man himself becomes a
_srahman_ or ghost. The adjoining Ga-speaking tribes modify the _kra_
into two _kla_, one male and one female, the first of a bad
disposition, the second good, who give advice and prompt to actions
according {89} to their respective characters. Yet a third inmate
dwells in the neighbouring Yoruba-speaking folk, one in the head, one
in the stomach, and one in the great toe. Offerings are made to the
first by rubbing fowl's blood and palm oil on the forehead. The second
needs none, for it shares whatever the stomach receives. The third is
propitiated as an agent of locomotion before starting on a journey.
But the curious theme of the plurality of souls must not beguile us.
Meantime the original _kra_ is set behind all the activities of nature,
and extended to the whole sphere of material objects. Each town or
village or district has its own local spirits, rulers of river and
valley, rock and forest and hill. Sometimes they take human shape, and
colour, white or black, for transformations of all kinds are always
possible. They are not all of equal rank; the broad lake, the
mountain, the sea where the surf breaks heavily and the frail craft are
upset--the lightning, the storm, and the earthquake--the leopard, the
crocodile, the shark, and the devastating smallpox--such are among the
dreaded manifestations of these dangerous and mysterious powers. But
the actual dead must not be forgotten; they must be provided with
ghostly counterparts of food and weapons and utensils, with cloth and
gold-dust, just as a departed chief must be accompanied into the next
life by the wives and slaves who adorned his household state in this.
{90}
The ritual of the dead belongs, as we have seen (p. 20), to the
earliest-known activities of European man. It is found in some form or
other in every country under the sun. Sometimes it is prompted by
fear, and has for its object to keep the dead imprisoned in the grave,
or to prevent their spirits from returning to their old haunts (p.
228). Sometimes it is warmed by affection, as the departed are
recalled to the homes where they were loved. In ancient Egypt it was
developed with the utmost elaboration, and created a literature
describing a kind of "pilgrim's progress" through the scenes of the
next world (p. 237); while in Greece and Rome the cultus of the dead
acquired, as in India and China, immense social significance. The
question that arises in the study of religion in the lower culture is
concerned with the probable connection between the two groups of
spirits, which may be broadly distinguished as spirits of nature and
spirits of the dead. That the latter are constantly propitiated in
various forms is well known. They are to be found everywhere, lurking
in the trees, flying through the air, sojourning in caves, haunting the
promontories on the rivers or hidden in the forest-depths. With them
lie the causes of disease and madness; they are malevolent and hurtful,
as well as kindly and good. What differences are to be discerned
between them and the powers of nature? Are we to suppose, with some
{91} students, that all the higher forms of religion have been
developed out of the worship of the dead, and that for gods we must
everywhere read originally ghosts?
Consider, for example, the ancient religion of Japan, which we know by
an adaptation of two Chinese words as Shin-To, the "spirits' way," or
in its native form _kami-no-michi_.[2] Who are the _kami_, or
"spirits"? The title of "religion" has sometimes been denied to their
cultus on the ground that it contains "no set of dogmas, no sacred
book, and no moral code." Greece and Rome might, on the same plea, be
described as having no religion. The term _kami_ has for its root-idea
the significance of "that which is above." It may be applied in the
widest range of relations from the hair which is on the top of the head
to the government which rules the people. The _kami_ are, as it were,
the "highnesses"; the word is used of big things by land and sea, great
rivers, mighty mountains, roaring winds and rolling thunder; then of
rocks and trees, of animals like the tiger and the wolf, of metals, and
so of innumerable objects in earth and sky. It is not always clear
whether these were originally conceived as themselves living, or
whether they had been resolved into material body and controlling
spirit. The {92} functions of the _kami_, however, are extended and
distributed by a kind of fission; the _kami_ of food split into the
produce of trees and the parent of grasses; they preside over guilds
and crafts, the weavers, the potters, the carpenters, the swordsmen,
the boatbuilders; they guide the operations of agriculture; they
superintend the household, and watch over the kitchen range, the
saucepan, the ricepot, the well, the pond, the garden, and the
scarecrow.
[2] Chinese culture has probably exerted considerable influence on the
exponents of the Shinto revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Very different aspects are reflected in the ancient
chronicles.
But in this vast assembly are included also the spirits of the dead.
They likewise become _kami_ of varying rank and power. Some dwell in
temples built in their honour; some hover near their tombs; some are
kindly, and some malevolent. They mingle in the immense multiplicity
of agencies which makes every event in the universe, in the language of
the Shinto writer Motowori (1730-1801), "the act of the Kami." They
direct the changing seasons, the wind and the rain; and the good and
bad fortunes of individuals, families, and States, are due to them.
From birth to death the entire life of man is encompassed and guided by
the Kami.
Hence came the duty of worship on which Hirata (1776-1843) lays great
stress. The heaven-descended Ninigi, progenitor of the imperial line,
was taught by his divine forefathers that "everything in the world
depends on the spirits of the _kami_ of heaven and earth, and therefore
the worship of the _kami_ is a {93} matter of primary importance. The
_kami_ who do harm are to be appeased, so that they may not punish
those who have offended them; and all the _kami_ are to be worshipped
so that they may be induced to increase their favours." Accordingly
Hirata's morning prayer before the _kami-dana_, the wooden shelf fixed
against the wall in a Shinto home about six feet from the floor,
bearing a small model of a temple or "august spirit-house," ran thus--
"Reverently adoring the great God of the two palaces of Isé (the
Sun-goddess) in the first place, the 800 myriads of celestial _kami_,
the 800 myriads of ancestral _kami_, all the 1500 myriads to whom are
consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands
and all places in the great land of 8 islands, the 1500 myriads of
_kami_ whom they cause to serve them.... I pray with awe that they
will deign to correct the unwitting faults which, heard and seen by
them, I have committed, and, blessing and favouring me according to the
powers which they severally wield, cause me to follow the divine
example, and to perform good works in the way."
Here, the spirits of the dead are blended with those of nature, without
any definite attempt to assign them to different ranks or functions.
Among the dead themselves there are such distinctions, which do not,
however, concern us here; there are "spirits of crookedness," {94} and
there are spirits of the clans and of the imperial line. But above the
multitudinous groups of nameless _kami_, whether once human or attached
to the physical scene, rise certain great powers which it seems very
difficult to identify with departed ghosts. The earliest traditions of
the divine evolution in the ancient chronicles contain no hint pointing
in that direction; and the comparison of the Japanese deities of earth,
fire, wind, sea, and similar great elemental forces elsewhere, is not
favourable to their derivation from the hosts of the dead.
The student of the hymns to Fire in the Rig-Veda (_Agni_ = Latin
_ignis_) cannot fail to notice the emphasis laid upon the birth of the
god out of the wood, as the fire-drill kindles the first sparks, and
the flame leaps forth. Here is something quick-moving, vital; the fire
is the god; he may rise into cosmic significance as a pervading energy
sustaining the whole world; but he never loses his physical character,
any more than the solid earth or the encompassing sky. These are again
and again the chief co-ordinating powers of the higher animism. Their
separation out of the primeval mass of obscure and indiscriminate chaos
has been the theme of myth from Egypt to New Zealand; just as their
"bridal" has served to express the union and co-operation of the forces
of nature all around the world.
Of this the ancient Chinese religion, still the {95} formal basis of
the national worship as performed by the Emperor, supplies perhaps the
best example. The cultus of the dead is practised in every home, and
around the incidents of life and death have gathered various Buddhist
and Taoist rites. Moreover, a rampant demonology environs the entire
field of existence; but this disordered multitude of noxious spirits
has no recognition in the imperial homage. From immemorial generations
the Chinese practice made religion a department of the State, and the
venerable book of the Rites of the great dynasty of Chow requires the
Grand Superior of Sacrifices to superintend the worship due to three
orders of _Shin_ or spirits, celestial, terrestrial, and human. Under
the sovereignty of the sky the first includes the spirits of the sun,
moon, stars, clouds, wind, rain, thunder, and the changes of the
atmosphere. In the sphere of earth are reckoned the spirits of the
mountains, rivers, plains, seas, lakes, woods, fields, and grains.
Taken together Heaven and Earth thus include all the energies of the
universe. The world, as we see it, is, indeed, full of opposing
powers, one group (_yang_) representing light and warmth and life, the
contrary (_yin_) manifesting themselves in cold and darkness and
death.[3] But these are both encompassed by {96} the "Path" or _Tao_,
the daily course of the universe, the abiding guarantee of justice in
the distribution of good and evil in the human lot. Heaven and earth
are thus regarded as themselves active or living; they constantly
maintain the order of nature for the welfare of man. In the ancient
Odes (which Confucius was supposed to have edited) "heaven" is called
great and wide and blue. This is plainly the visible firmament; it is
addressed as parent, and sky and earth together are father and mother
of the world. They are not spirits, but are themselves animate.
"Why," laments Dr. Edkins of his Chinese hearers, "they have been often
asked, should you speak of these things which are dead matter,
fashioned from nothing by the hand of God, as living beings?" "And why
not?" they have replied. "The sky pours down rain and sunshine, the
earth produces corn and grass, we see them in perpetual movement, and
we therefore say they are living."
[3] The sky is the home of the _yang_; the _yin_ are referred to the
earth; in curious contrast to its powers of production and nourishment.
The Chinese genius was ethical rather than metaphysical. It was not
concerned with the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Absolute. But it was
deeply impressed with the moral aspects of the sky, its universality,
its comprehensive embrace of all objects and powers beneath its
far-stretching dome, its all-seeing view, its inflexible impartiality.
Its decrees are steadfast, and proceeded from its sovereign sway; and
in this capacity it bore the {97} august title of Shang Tî, "Supreme
Ruler." The scholastic philosophers of a later day analysed "Heaven"
in this capacity into the actual sky and its controlling personality,
and Shang Tî became the Moral Governor of the Universe, the equivalent
of the western God.
Beneath the sky lay the earth, receptive of the energies descending
upon it from on high; "Heaven and Earth, Father and Mother," are
conjoined in common speech. Together they guided the changes of the
year, in steadfast tread along the annual round. Folded in their wide
compass were the Shin, charged with the regulation of the elemental
powers. Under Heaven's control were the Shin of sun and moon, planets,
stars, meteors, comets; of clouds and winds, thunder and rain; of the
seasons, months, and days. Those of the earth were organised in
territorial divisions, representing the dominions of the vassal princes
down to the district areas. The higher were graded according to the
political rank of the several provinces; beneath them were reckoned the
spirits of the mountains, forests, seas, rivers, and grains. The
privileges of worship granted to the various officials were part of the
State order, and helped to maintain political and civic stability.
The imperial sacrifices to Heaven and Earth were performed at the
winter and the summer solstices. The great altar to Heaven {98} stands
in a large park in the southern division of Peking, a vast marble
structure in three stages, the lowest being 210 feet across. It is the
largest altar in the world. Its white colour symbolises the light
principle of the Yang. The upper stage, ninety feet in diameter, has
for its centre a round blue jade stone, the symbol of the vault above.
Here is placed the tablet to Heaven, inscribed "Throne of Sovereign
Heaven," and associated with it are tablets to deceased emperors as
well as to the Sun and Moon, the seven stars of the Great Bear, the
five Planets, the twenty-eight Constellations, and the Stars. On the
second stage, beneath the richly carved balustrade above, are the
tablets to the Clouds and Rain, to Wind and Thunder. At the
corresponding altar to the Earth on the north side of the city, square
in shape, and dark-yellow in hue, the imperial worship at the summer
solstice embraces also the five lofty Mountains, the three Hills of
Perpetual Peace, the four Seas, the five celebrated Mountains, and the
four great Rivers.[4]
[4] It is stated by the _North China Herald_ for July 13, that the
present Chinese Government proposes to convert the Temple of Heaven
into a model farm, and the Temple of Earth into a horse-breeding
establishment.
Splendid processions of princes and dignitaries, musicians and singers,
accompany the Emperor to the great ceremonial. The recent Manchu
sovereigns employed the prayers of the Ming dynasty which preceded
them: here {99} are one or two stanzas of a psalm in which the Emperor
Kia-tsing in the sixteenth century announced to Shang Tî that he would
be addressed as "dwelling in the sovereign heavens":--
"O Tî, when thou hadst separated the Yin and the Yang (_i.e._ the earth
and the sky), thy creative work proceeded.
"Thou didst produce the sun and moon and the five planets, and pure and
beautiful was their light.
"The vault of heaven was spread out like a curtain, and the square
earth supported all upon it, and all things were happy.
"I thy servant venture reverently to thank thee, and while I worship,
present the notice to thee, calling thee Sovereign.
* * * * *
"All the numerous tribes of animated beings are indebted to thy favour
for their beginning.
"Men and things are all emparadised in thy love, O Tî.
"All living things are indebted to thy goodness, but who knows from
whom his blessings come to him.
"It is thou alone, O Lord, who art the true parent of all things."
Here the ancient view of the living sky has given place under the
influences of {100} philosophy to a creative monotheism. No image is
made of Shang Tî. As he stands at the head of the manifold ranks of
the _Shin_, he represents the last word of animism in providing an
intellectual form for religion.
{101}