CHAPTER III.

HOLY OBJECTS.

While a highly-exalted conception of the First cause of nature would see him equally in everything, and believe the whole world to be alike natural and divine, no actual religion, believed by any considerable number of persons, has ever reached so abstract an idea. To all of them some things are more sacred than others; in the more primitive forms of faith these things are either a species of divinities themselves, or they are the abode of some divinity; in the more advanced types, they are held to be sanctified by the power of God, or to be the earthly representatives of his invisible majesty. To the class of holy objects belong all charms, amulets, fetishes, sacred animals, and other things of whatever kind, which are believed in any country to possess a different order of powers from those which scientific investigation discovers in them.

The theory underlying the use of such objects among the negroes—and it is practically the same as that of more civilized nations—is well explained by a German missionary. "Fetishes, or Shambu," according to him, "are holy things, which are supposed to have received a particular power from God, both to drive away evil spirits, as also to be useful in all illnesses and dangers, especially against sorcery." They cover both themselves and their gods with fetishes. These descend from father to son, and are preserved with the greatest care. Some are kept in sanctuaries of their own. There exists among these negroes (the Mavu) a class of professional fetish-makers, who are mostly old women, and who wear a peculiar dress. A man, who had fetishes at the bottom of his staircase, informed the writer that their use was to keep the devil from getting into his house. Another tribe of negroes prefer to take things which have been struck by lightning for their fetishes: the lightning-stroke being, as the missionary justly concludes, an indication that a divine power has united itself to these objects (G. d. M., pp. 322, 323).

The natives of Sierra Leone are described as placing unlimited faith in "griggories," or charms. These are made of goats' skin; texts of the Koran are written upon them, and they are worn upon various parts of the person. They have distinct functions, each one being designed to preserve the wearer from a certain kind of evil or danger (S. L., p. 132).

Numerous objects were holy in Peru. Rivers, fountains, large stones, hills, the tops of mountains, are mentioned by Acosta as having been adored by the Peruvians; indeed, he says that they adored whatever natural object appeared very different from the rest, recognizing therein some peculiar deity.

A certain tree, for instance, which was cut down by the Spaniards, had long been an object of adoration to the Indians, on account of its antiquity and size (H. I., b. 5, ch. 5). In another part of the American continent, the neighborhood of Acadia, a traveler tells us of a venerable tree which was likewise holy. Many marvels were recounted of it, and it was always loaded with offerings. The sea having washed the soil from about its roots, it maintained itself a long time "almost in the air," which confirmed the savages in their notion that it was "the seat of some great spirit;" and even after it had fallen, its branches, so long as they were visible above the surface of the water, continued to receive the worship of the people (N. F., vol. iii. p. 349).

Not unfrequently the holy object is an animal, and then it may be regarded either as itself a god, or as sacred to some god, who either makes it in some sense his abode, or regards it with favor and takes it under his care. Among animals, there is none more frequently worshiped than the serpent; and it has been supposed, with some plausibility, that the Hebrew legend of the fall was directed against serpent-worship. However this may be, that worship is clearly discernible in the story of the brazen serpent which healed the sickness of the Israelites in the wilderness (Num. xxi. 8). This would seem to be a dim tradition of a time at which the adoration of the serpent was still practiced by the people of Jehovah. Many other countries afford examples of the same worship. To take a single case; the Chevalier des Marchais, who traveled in the last century, relates that serpents of a certain kind were worshiped in Guinea. There was one, however, which was called the father of these gods, and was reputed to be of prodigious size. It was kept in a place of its own, where it had "secret apartments," and none but the chief sacrificer was permitted to enter this holy of holies. The king himself might only see it once, when, three months after his coronation, he went to present his offerings (V. G., vol. ii. p. 169).

Even Christianity did not entirely put an end to the worship of the serpent; for an early Christian writer, in a treatise against all heresies, makes mention of a sect of Ophites who (he says) "magnify the serpent to such a degree, that they prefer him even to Christ himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of the knowledge of good and evil. His power and majesty (they say) Moses perceiving, set up the brazen serpent; and whoever gazed upon him obtained health. Christ himself (they say further) imitates Moses' serpent's sacred power in saying: 'And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared.' Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic [elements]" (Adv. omn. haereses., II.—A. N. L., vol. 18, p. 262).

Holy objects are very often connected with some eminent man, from whose relation to them they derive their sanctity. Such are all the innumerable relics of saints to which so much importance is attached in Catholic countries. Such is that pre-eminently sacred relic, the tooth of Buddha, so carefully preserved and guarded in Ceylon. When Major Forbes witnessed the tooth festival at Kandy, fifty-three years had passed since the last exhibition of this deeply revered member of the founder of the faith. It was kept in its temple within six cases; of which the three larger ones having been first removed, the three inner ones, containing it, were placed "on the back of an elephant richly caparisoned." It was shown to the people on a temporary altar, surrounded with rich hangings; the festival being attended by crowds of pious worshipers, who thought that the privilege of seeing the tooth, so rarely exhibited to the public, was a sufficient proof of the merits they had obtained in former lives (E. Y, vol. i. p. 290-293).

Mussulmans have their holy objects, consisting of verses of the Koran, suspended or written on their dwellings, which are supposed to insure their protection. Such verses, or short Suras, are sometimes carried on the person engraved on stones (Dervishes, p. 313).

Conspicuous among holy objects for the extraordinary virtues ascribed to them, are the bread and wine of the Lord's supper. These are believed by Christians either to be or to represent (according to their several doctrines) the actual flesh and blood of Jesus; and the mere fact of eating and drinking them, in faith, is held to exercise a mystic efficacy over the life of the communicant. A more singular instance of the holiness attributed by an act of the imagination to material things can scarcely be produced. Another curious case of the same notion is the belief in holy water; which enjoys so great a power, that some drops of it dashed upon an infant's forehead contribute to ensure its eternal happiness; while it has also the gift of conferring some kind of advantage upon the worshipers who, on entering a church, sprinkle it upon their persons.

Images of the gods or saints worshiped in a country form a large and important class of holy objects. Such were the "teraphim" or "gods" stolen by Rachel from her father, and which she concealed in the furniture of her camel (Gen. xxxi. 19, 30-35). Similar images are employed by the Tartars, who place them at the heads and feet of their beds in certain fixed positions, and who carry them about with them wherever they go (Bergeron, Voyage de Rubruquis, ch. 3, p. 9).