THE EVOLUTION OF THE GODS
The evolution of the idea of godhead in the mind of man is in its later
stages inalienably associated with the conception of spirit.[1]
As we have seen (pp. 58-59), Tylor considers that man first attained
the idea of spirit by reflection on experiences such as sleep, dreams,
trances, shadows, hallucinations, breath, and death, and by degrees
extended this conception of soul or ghost until he peopled all nature
with spirits, from among which one supreme being was finally raised
above all.
An outline of the animistic conception has been provided in the
introductory chapter. Here it is only necessary to apply it to the
evolution of deity. The opinion of Marett, that in an early stage of
human development pre-animistic 'powers' exist which do not partake
of the nature of spirit, does not require to be restated, as it has
but little bearing upon the question directly before us; and we will
advance to that stage in human mental development when spirit has
become fully recognized. The conception of simple personalization
could not have lasted long at any epoch, as it would sooner or later
be brought into contact with the idea of the separable soul. Thus if
gods were regarded as 'magnified non-natural men' (the very phrase
'non-natural' is against the personalization idea), or physical objects
or natural phenomena were worshipped or placated because of their
peculiarities, the idea of spirit would undoubtedly infuse and alter
these beliefs at a very early stage in their career. Thus no deity
could well escape becoming spiritualized. Why should this be so? Why
should spiritualization be necessary to deity? The point is important.
If we admit that certain physical objects were worshipped because of
their peculiarities, if we believe that the earth and sky, for example,
were personalized and conceived as without spiritual attributes in the
beginning, that only _what was seen_ was worshipped, how comes it that
among the most primitive races the god, as apart from his idol, is
invisible--that is, spiritual? The idol may, of course, be a relic of
the period when only what was beheld was worshipped, but that period
must indeed have been brief, when one takes into consideration the
probable early junction of the ideas of spirit and deity.
IDEA OF SPIRIT CONCEIVED EARLY
The conception of spirit must have been an early idea, contemporary,
one would imagine, with the dawn of reason. Man, claiming for himself
the possession of spirit, could scarcely deny it to a superior power,
and if the fear of godhead agitated him when beheld in the convulsions
of nature, as in the thunder-storm or earthquake, how much more
would the half-heard mutterings of the _unseen_ agencies dwelling in
the whistling winds and darkling woods cause terror in his breast?
Regarding the physical agencies he knew the worst, and could learn how
to avoid or mitigate their terrors, but what chance had he against
those agencies he could not perceive, and how much greater must have
been his fear of them? Thus was born that dread of the invisible, the
unseen, which even to-day chills the human heart and plays havoc with
human imagination.
The idea of the separable soul thus evolved from visions and dreams and
applied to godhead might assist in the making of several varying forms
of deity, as in fetishism, totemism, or the worship of the dead--if,
indeed, it did not originate in this latter form. The application of
spirit to deity perhaps found its first illustration in the worship of
ancestors--a low form of evolution in the line of godhead, as few gods
evolved from ancestors survive more than several generations, and few
of the great departmental deities of the higher early religions display
signs of having evolved from ancestors. Moreover, where such signs are
present they are of doubtful value. The religion of China is perhaps
the only great example of the continuity of the worship of ancestors.
But it is important to note that this form of deity _may_ have been
that to which the idea of spirit was first applied.
Fetishism forms an important link in the evolution of the mere
animistic spirit into the god. Before examining the manner in which a
fetish originates and rises to godhead, let us see exactly what class
of spirit is supposed to inhabit it.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FETISH
The fetish is pre-eminently a personal familiar--that is, a spirit
which for certain reasons (the desire for shelter and food, or because
a powerful spell has been laid upon it) becomes attached to a human
being. It is acquired by a person or a family for luck, and in return
requires a certain amount of worship or respect, sacrifice, and
feasting. It may receive good or evil treatment according as it behaves
to its votaries. It is by no means a tutelar deity, since it may be
bought or sold, loaned or inherited. It generally has its home in
some object, preferably of a peculiar shape or character, inhabiting
a figure shaped in human or animal form, a stone, bone, necklace of
fingers, a carved or painted stick, a curious fossil, a stuffed skin,
the dried hand of an enemy--in short, anything that fancy or caprice
may dictate.
The manner of making a fetish is almost universally the same. Says Mr
Davenport Adams of the Samoyede image-makers[2]: "The bleak and lonely
island of Waigatz is still, as in the days of the Dutch adventurer,
Barentz, supposed to be the residence of the chief of these minor
divinities. There a block of stone, pointed at the summit, bears a
certain resemblance to a human head, having been wrought into this
likeness by a freak of nature. The Samoyede image-makers have taken
it for their model, and multiplied it in wood and stone; and the idols
thus easily manufactured they call _sjadaei_, because they wear a human
(or semi-human) countenance (_sja_). They attire them in reindeer
skins, and embellish them with innumerable coloured rags. In addition
to the _sjadaei_, they adopt as idols any curiously contorted tree or
irregularly shapen stone; and the household idol (_Hahe_) they carry
about with them, carefully wrapped up, in a sledge reserved for the
purpose, the _hahengan_. One of the said Penates is supposed to be the
guardian of wedded happiness, another of the fishery, a third of the
health of his worshippers, a fourth of their herds of reindeer. When
his services are needed, the _Hahe_ is removed from its resting-place,
and erected in the tent or on the pasture-ground, in the wood, or
on the river's bank. Then his mouth is smeared with oil or blood,
and before him is set a dish of fish or flesh, in return for which
repast it is expected that he will use his power on behalf of his
entertainers. When his aid is no longer needed, he is returned to the
_hahengan_."
PAYNE ON THE FETISH
Mr Payne in his _History of the New World called America_ has an
admirable passage about the fetish. He says: "The spirits, then, whom
the savage believes to share the world with him, are considered to be
substantial beings, consisting of flesh and blood like man himself; and
like him nourished by food and drink. They are therefore not immortal:
like man, they are liable to death by violence or starvation. They are
also subject to that alternation of want and abundance which occupies
so large a space in human experience. In this circumstance, coupled
with the fact that some of these spirits are conceived as injurious
or evil, others as benevolent or good, we have the key of primitive
theology. Man seeks to keep the good or benevolent spirits alive,
to satisfy their wants, and to give them pleasure, in the hope of
interesting them by this means in the success of his own enterprises:
and for this purpose he provides them with food and drink. Hunting
peoples, who have no gods, occasionally sacrifice food to the
spirits, in order to obtain success in the chase: thus the Veddah of
Ceylon place on the ground offerings of blood and burnt flesh for
the Vedde-Yakko (spirit of the chase), promising further offerings
of the same kind when the game is caught If the spirit accepts these
offerings, he is understood to appear to them in dreams, telling them
where to hunt. Some low agricultural and cattle-keeping tribes, who
have not attained the conception of gods, place pieces of manioc-root
and ears of maize on branches of trees, to propitiate the spirits.
These sacrifices of the Veddah illustrate in its simplest form the
principle which lies at the root of all. The spirits for whom they are
intended are beings of animal nature, chiefly differing from other
animals in that they are naturally invisible, but have the power of
assuming various forms, and of moving swiftly through the air from
place to place. Air, perhaps, rather than earth, is conceived to be
their proper element: it is at any rate certain that food-offerings,
in order to reach them, must be committed to the air. There are only
two methods of doing this, libation and combustion: the former adapted
to liquids, the latter to solids. Liquids are poured on the ground,
on a stone, or into a bowl or other receptacle, and pass into the
air by simple evaporation. Solids are burnt, and pass into the air
in the form of smoke. In offering to the spirits food in the form of
blood, the Veddah follows the universal logic of primitive savagery.
Man once consumed his game warm and raw. Fatigued with the chase,
emaciated perhaps by previous fasting, the savage slays his victim,
drinks of the hot blood, feels himself at once invigorated, and makes
his meal upon its flesh at leisure. The rest of the blood, spilled on
the ground, quickly dries up. The savage, who has but one solution for
most physical phenomena, concludes that the spirits have drunk it.
Blood, therefore, is their natural food. In this, repugnant as it is
to modern prejudices, the savage sees nothing revolting or unnatural.
Blood, which is in truth only the material of flesh, is to him a
perfectly natural food; scarcely less so, perhaps, than milk, which is
nothing but blood filtered through a gland. Henceforth, a part of the
blood of all animals that man slays, wild or domestic, will be poured
out for the spirits, or for the gods who succeed them. Ultimately,
when man abandons the practice, once universal, of feeding on blood,
all the blood of a slaughtered animal is poured out as the share of
the invisible powers. Sometimes, in a later stage, when sacrifice is
more fully developed, clotted blood is collected when the carcase
is cold, and wrapped in a cloth; this is placed in a basket and
suspended in the air. Such was the practice of the advanced Indians of
Nicaragua, between the lake and the ocean, emigrants from Mexico, when
sacrificing, after the chase, to the _teomazat_ and _teotoste_, or gods
of the deer and rabbit respectively. It is equally in accordance with
primitive logic to offer to the spirits a portion of the flesh. The
invisible powers must have their share of all that man delights in: at
a later period offerings are made them of fermented liquors, narcotics,
perfumes, and the material of clothing and ornaments. From the solid
parts of the slain animal those are selected which are most easily
volatilised. A portion of the fat, ultimately all the fat which adheres
to the internal organs of the slain animal, is therefore burnt, and
reaches the nostrils of the spirits in the form of a grateful savour.
At a later period, when man depends for flesh food on domesticated
animals, such offerings are reserved for gods of the first rank: and
hence in Peru the chief deities, who alone were thus honoured, obtained
the distinctive name of _huira-cocha_ (fat sacrifices)."
THE 'SUCCESSFUL' FETISH
Such fetishes as are 'successful'--that is, such of them as survive the
test of domestic use and prove luck-bringers--may by their miraculous
acts or the power and policy of their immediate devotees become gods.
But it must be borne in mind that a fetish-object is the place of
imprisonment or residence, manufactured by human agency, of a spirit
which has concluded a bargain with its devotees to act for their mutual
benefit. Only a series of marvels of a protective or fortune-making
nature can raise it to the rank of godhead, or, as has been said, the
policy of its owners, who thus constitute themselves its priesthood.
Says Mr Payne: "Before the gods are thus permanently established they
have usually passed through a period of probation. Only the fittest
survive: if the god proves useless for the purpose for which he exists,
whether of securing success in the chase, abundant crops, or fortune
in war, he is forthwith abandoned. Where game and fish abound, and
agriculture remains in its rudiments, the gods are chiefly required
to render assistance in hunting, fishing, and war, though some are
employed to secure success in cultivation. Such was the condition of
the tribes throughout the vast region of the Amazon river who had
gods for each of these purposes. On an expedition of war one of the
war-gods was placed in the prow of the boat; on a fishing expedition
this place was occupied by a god holding a fish. When out of use the
gods were stowed away in baskets; in case these expeditions proved
unsuccessful the gods were thrown aside and replaced by others. But
those which survive the test of experience are cherished in families
as possessions of the highest value. These are the _t'raphim_ of the
Hebrews, the _penates_ of the Latins, the _cconopa_ of the Peruvians:
words in each case meaning precisely the 'nourishers' or 'food-givers'
of the household. According to the Biblical narrative, the daughter
of an Aramæan sheikh considered herself entitled to take with her
some of these family gods when she crossed the Euphrates with her
Hebrew husband: an incident which recalls the Turcoman legend of
Sekedschet, whose Chinese wife brought household gods with her as
part of her dowry. These gods, it is clear, were regarded as mere
chattels, existing for the benefit of their owners: in Bokhara, indeed,
they were commonly bought and sold at markets or fairs. So long as
man worshipped only these merely factitious gods, this essential
instability obviously prevented his religious ideas from gaining force
and permanence: qualities which first appear when he begins to worship
the distinguished dead, and only become conspicuous when he adopts as
objects of veneration the permanent objects and forces of nature."
TOTEMS AS GODS
A totem spirit achieves godhead in much the same way as the fetish.
That the totem develops into the god is abundantly proven by the
animal likenesses and attributes of many deities in lands widely
separated. The animal-headed gods of Egypt, the bovine deities of
Assyria, the animal gods of many pantheons are, very many of them,
totemic in origin. These frequently attained a human semblance at
a later stage of their history, but in many instances the original
totem animal or a portion of its insignia remained. Thus the Grecian
Pallas Athene was attended by an owl; Apollo was accompanied by a
mouse ('Apollo Smintheus'); the Mexican god of war, Uitzilopochtli,
was frequently disguised in a cloak made of humming-birds' feathers;
and Prometheus must have possessed wings to enable him to steal the
fire from heaven. Many gods, as Lang says, exhibit traces of "fur and
feather," but all of these are not necessarily totemic. Where the act
of devouring the deity symbolically by means of the substitution of an
animal or man for the eponym or god is indulged in at certain stated
intervals, the origin of the god so communed with is totemic, and this
fact often serves to determine the nature of a deity.
Says Salomon Reinach (_Cultes, mythes, et religions_, p. 7): "The
distribution of the clan totems among the tribal and national gods was
not the work of a day: it must have been conditioned by a whole mass
of circumstances--alliances, wars, local amalgamations--the clue to
which is obviously lost forever. One factor of the first importance
seems to have been the ritual of sacrifice; which, like all rituals,
is eminently conservative. Take the case of a clan owning the bull as
its totem, and sacrificing it at intervals. In time the era of personal
deities is ushered in; the bull is converted into an attribute of the
chief god, and offered up to him in sacrifice: yet there lingers a more
or less distinct recollection of the victim's own divinity."
It has been well said that man cannot realize the gods _as_ gods
until he becomes aware of his own humanity. Before that they must
appear to him as what Marett calls 'powers.' That is where animism
with its branches, totemism and fetishism, may be distinguished from
the religions of the higher cultus, the polytheisms which possess
definite pantheons, and the monotheisms. It is noticeable that in
early myth _animals often take the place of gods_, a sure sign that
the race which regarded the animal as occupying the place of a creator
or hero had not yet 'found itself' as human, had not yet realized the
enormous nature of the gulf which separates animal and human nature,
was yet totally in the dark regarding the great things of which man was
capable, his marvellous adaptability and wondrous destiny. When man
realizes his superiority, then the totem-gods take on his own image,
retaining only the symbols or insignia of the beast, or perhaps part
of their ancient animal appearance. Thus the Egyptian sun-goddess,
Bast, from being represented in early times as a cat pure and simple,
was later figured as a woman having a cat's head. Uitzilopochtli, the
Aztec war-god, evolved from humming-bird shape to man-like similitude,
retaining, however, the colibri-feather cloak. The Mayan maize-spirit,
when he attained god-like proportions, was represented as a young
man wearing on his head-dress the graceful waving plumes of the
maize-plant. These instances are illustrative of the different manner
in which various peoples free their minds of the old beast-god ideas
handed down for untold generations. Thus the strongly conservative
Egyptians, probably because of fusion with other races, adopt the
anthropomorphic form, but still retain the animal appearance in its
most significant item--the head; the symbol-loving Aztecs preserve the
humming-bird's feathers on their war-god's dress, while the still more
anthropomorphic Greeks content themselves with placing the animal image
beside the man-like god, instead of in any way amalgamating the two
conceptions.
ANCESTOR-WORSHIP
The process of manufacturing a god from a dead man, although at first
sight apparently less involved than that of the evolution of a deity
through fetishistic or totemic media, is found on close examination to
be even more complex. Among many primitive races, and some that are not
primitive, it is the bounden duty of the dead man's son to see that
his _manes_, his spirit, wants for nothing. Even as he cherished his
son during the first years of the infant's life, so his heir is now
bound by all he holds sacred to cherish his ghost and guard it against
hunger, thirst, and cold. Woe betide the unfilial wretch who neglected
the tomb of his father! Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Chinese
such a dereliction of duty was regarded with the utmost abhorrence.
Dreadful was the lot of the uncared-for dead. Says the Gilgamesh epic,
the greatest literary product of ancient Babylonia:
The man whose spirit has none to care for it--
Thou and I have often seen such an one--
The dregs of the vessel, the leavings of the feast,
And that which is cast out upon the street are his food.
Great care was bestowed by Egyptian sons upon the _post-mortem_
welfare of their parents, and the most solemn duty of a Chinaman is
that of tending the spirits of his dead forefathers. This attention
in course of time evolves into a very deep reverence, which greatly
exalts the dead in the estimation of their descendants. In India and
elsewhere critical observers have watched the progress of the evolution
into godhead of innumerable dead men. A holy ascetic dies, famous
throughout the neighbourhood for his piety and the rigour of his life.
Miracles occur at his shrine. His surviving relatives foster the cult
of his fame. His human "personality becomes misty, his origin grows
mysterious, his career takes a legendary hue, his birth and death
were both supernatural; in the next generation the names of the elder
gods get introduced into the story, and so the marvellous tradition
works itself into a myth, until nothing but a personal incarnation can
account for such a series of prodigies. The man was an avatar of Vishnu
or Siva; his supreme apotheosis is now complete, and the Brahmins feel
warranted in providing for him a niche in the orthodox pantheon."[3]
This, of course, is an instance where the memory of his sanctity
helps to turn a man into a god. No such idea enters into the earliest
ancestor-worship. Among primitive savages the dead man would be
worshipped because of the memory of his personal might when alive, the
number of his clansmen and adherents, and for similar reasons. But
'human' gods, ancestors and others, seldom reach any great altitude of
deity.
THE COMPACT WITH THE GODS
At a very early epoch in the relations of man with the gods we
find him entering into a tacit understanding which develops into a
well-recognized pact. Even when the gods are in the fetish state we
find the hunter smearing blood upon their mouths and imploring their
assistance in return. It is a case, as the old proverb says, of 'Ka
me, ka thee.' Man undoubtedly possesses an instinctive belief in the
existence of a superior being or beings. He may twist this fundamental
belief into any shape he pleases, but basically it remains the same.
This belief in gods is not in itself religion. Inalienably possessing
the idea of the existence of deity, and shaping it as his intelligence
permits, man has yet to make religion, which consists in the worship
and cult of supernatural beings, for his comfort, uplifting, assurance,
and help. Man says to himself, "If He be with us who shall be against
us?" and with the god for him feels secure against every adversary.
The 'comfort' derived from faith, of which all must have greater or
less experience, the assurance that man is watched over, guided,
and tended by a being to whom he is an object of solicitude, was
probably experienced at a much earlier stage of human history than is
generally admitted, but the bargain, the compact by which both man
and god dwell together to mutual advantage, is obviously antecedent
to these feelings, and is dictated by calculation as opposed to pure
love. "Feed us, send us plenteous game, O Divine One, and we shall in
turn maintain thee with sacrifice." Such is the compact. A similar
bargain is made when man quits his hunter's life and begins to live an
agricultural existence; nor does the nature of the pabulum offered to
the gods differ with the adoption of an agricultural existence. Blood
is the food of the gods when man sacrifices to them in his capacity
of hunter, and continues to be so when he adopts cereals, although
instances do occur of cereal and vegetable sacrifices. Vegetarian gods
are few, and the majority of savages favour the cult of Abel, not
that of the brother who angered Yahweh by the agricultural nature
of his sacrifices. The most complete instance on record of a compact
in which a markedly agricultural community rigidly maintained the
blood-sacrifice to the gods is that of ancient Mexico, where thousands
of prisoners of war were annually immolated, and where an annual strife
between the states of Mexico and Tlaxcala was upheld for the purpose of
furnishing the altars of one or other with human victims.
THE CORN-SPIRIT AS GOD
These considerations lead to the question: In what manner are the
gods of the agricultural community evolved? Does the corn-spirit,
the genius of the wheat or maize, triumph over and banish the older
animistic deities of the chase? These certainly sink into a secondary
position, although some gods of totemic origin continue to flourish,
despite their new agricultural surroundings, and even survive and hold
high positions in the pantheon, perhaps altered by later political and
abstract ideas out of all semblance to their original condition. Old
tribal gods, too, may become agricultural.
In what manner, then, does the triumphant corn-spirit evolve into the
god? And, firstly, what is the nature of a corn-spirit? In animistic
belief everything natural possesses life and so, probably, 'soul,'
'ghost,' or 'spirit,' the corn-plant no less than any other object.
Representations of corn-and maize-gods almost invariably show them as
symbolically decorated with the plant they were supposed to inhabit.
The genius, spirit, or informing soul of the grain would in an
agricultural community attain such prime importance that within a short
time it would undoubtedly receive divine honours.
FROM CORN-SPIRIT TO GOD
The corn-spirit was capable of attaining a high rank of godhead, as we
may see from the myth of the Egyptian god Osiris. Osiris was the first
to instruct men how to plant the corn-seed, and his annual festival
began with the tillage of the soil. In one of the chambers dedicated to
him in the great temple of Isis at Philæ his dead body is represented
with stalks of corn springing from it. These are being watered by a
priest, and the accompanying inscription reads that this is "Osiris of
the mysteries who springs from the returning waters" (of the Nile).
Surely such a painting can only illustrate Osiris as a corn-deity.
And were not, according to legend, his mangled remains scattered up
and down the land of Egypt?--perhaps a mythical way of expressing the
sowing or winnowing of the grain, an interpretation supported by the
tale that Isis placed the severed limbs of Osiris on a corn-sieve.
Granted, then, that Osiris was a corn-spirit in one of his
manifestations, we have now to judge from his tale how far it is
possible for the corn-spirit to evolve in the line of godhead--to
what altitude of deity it is possible for him to soar and what divine
honours he is capable of reaching.
At an early stage of Egyptian history we find Osiris the deity of an
agricultural religion, plainly the god of a grain-growing people. His
cult persisted through all the exigencies and changes of Egyptian
theology and occupied a prominent place in the affections of the
people, who, although they acknowledged the worship of Ra and Amen
at various epochs, continued faithful to Osiris. His worship by
reason of its antiquity and popularity triumphed in the end over more
aristocratic and perhaps alien forms. But the early conception of
Osiris as the spirit of the corn-plant and afterward as a guardian
deity of agriculture, although maintained in essence, was greatly
modified and overshadowed by the attributes which were bestowed upon
him at a later period. Thus, like Persephone and other corn-deities,
he was regarded as a god of the Underworld, or place of the dead, and
consequently as judge of the departed. In his history we observe the
process of evolution from an animistic spirit inhabiting the corn-plant
to a god embodying divine justice, and holding in his hands both reward
and punishment.
A great deal has been written concerning the supposed non-ethical
and non-moral character of mythological figures. In early times it
is probable that the gods were no less savage and immoral than their
worshippers; but when we encounter well-known deities for the first
time in the pages of classical authors, we have little difficulty in
discovering that although the attributes of savagery still cling to
them, they are also informed by a spirit of justice and wisdom, if
not of mercy or compassion. Such qualities, indeed, as man desired in
the gods, he endowed them with. Again, the existence of collegiate
or monastic institutions in such countries as Egypt, India, Mexico,
and Babylonia did much to foster contemplation and piety, and greatly
assisted the evolution of the ethical spirit. When we first meet
with Osiris, Ra, Thoth, Ptah, and other Egyptian gods, they are the
repositories of justice and wisdom, if not of love and compassion.
The same holds good of many Hindu deities, notably of Brahma. The
Greek gods were, perhaps, unfortunate in the circumstance that the age
of their first literary presentment preceded that of their ethical
evolution. Accounts of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico lead us to
believe that at least one Mexican deity, Tezcatlipoca, possessed
a sense of justice, and that another, Tlazolteotl, forgave sin;
and the traditions of many modern savage peoples are not without
god-like figures whose ethical standpoint is superior to that of their
worshippers.
With the material now to our hand it is important that we fully employ
every possible rational method of interpretation. The folly of adopting
one key to open all mythological doors has been illustrated by the
fate of such systems as attempted to interpret the nature of the gods
by theories of a 'disease of language' or the solar nature of all
deities. The 'vegetable' school, as Lang dubbed it, possesses almost
as many pitfalls for the unwary. Let no method, linguistic, solar,
anthropological, dominate our conclusions, but let none be absent from
our counsels.
[1] The general theory of this work, though, as already stated,
eclectic, is, so far as its opinions upon the evolution of the idea of
spirit or soul is concerned, in sympathy with the animistic hypothesis
of Tylor, an hypothesis subjected to a certain amount of criticism from
the younger generation of students of comparative religion. But as
these students have not yet erected a worthy rival explanation of the
evolution of godhead, and as what they have accomplished is of the most
fragmentary nature, we will refrain from reviewing their work, and will
content ourselves with an examination of the animistic idea, bringing
to bear upon it only such criticism as seems really necessary.
[2] _Curiosities of Superstition_, pp. 155, 156.
[3] A. C. Lyall, _Asiatic Studies_, p. 19 (London, 1907).