Chapter 21

Before alluding to the special point which Miss Harrison deals with in _Ancient Art and Ritual_, it will be as well to glance at the views which she sets forth in her previous illuminating treatise entitled _Themis_. The former is in reality a continuation of the latter work. The view heretofore generally entertained as regards the anthropomorphic gods of Greece has been that the conception of the deity preceded the adoption of the ritual. Moreover, one school of anthropologists ably represented by Professor Ridgeway, has maintained that the phenomena of vegetation spirits, totemism, etc., rose from primary elements, notably from the belief in the existence of the soul after the death of the body. Miss Harrison and those who agree with her hold that this view involves an anthropological heresy. She deprecates the use of the word "anthropomorphic," which she describes as clumsy and too narrow. She prefers the expression ἀνθρωποφυής used by Herodotus (i. 131), signifying "of human growth." She points out that the anthropomorphism of the Greeks was preceded by theriomorphism and phytomorphism, that the ritual was "prior to the God," that so long as man was engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle for bare existence his sole care was to obtain food, and that during this stage of his existence his religious observances took almost exclusively the form of magical inducements to the earth to renew that fertility which, by the periodicity of the seasons, was at times temporarily suspended. It was only at a later period, when the struggle for existence had become less arduous, that the belief in the efficacy of magical rites decayed, and that in matters of religion the primitive Greeks "shifted from a nature-god to a human-nature god."

In her more recent work Miss Harrison reverts to this theme, and subsequently carries us one step further. She maintains that the original conception of the Greek drama was in no way spectacular. The Athenians went to the theatre as we go to church. They did not attend to see players act, but to take part in certain ritualistic things done (_dromena_). The priests of Dionysos Eleuthereus, of Apollo Daphnephoros, and of other deities attended in solemn state to assist in the performance of the rites. With that keen sense of humour which enlivens all her pages, and which made her speak in her _Themis_ of the august father of gods and men as "an automatically explosive thunderstorm," Miss Harrison says, "It is as though at His Majesty's the front row of stalls was occupied by the whole bench of bishops, with the Archbishop of Canterbury enthroned in the central stall." The actual _dromenon_ performed was of the same nature as that which in more modern times has induced villagers to make Jacks-in-the-Green and to dance round maypoles. It was always connected with the recurrence of the seasons and with the death and resurrection of vegetation. In fact, the whole ritual clustered round the idea represented at a later period in the well-known and very beautiful lines of Moschus in the _Lament for Bion_, which may be freely translated thus:

Ah me! The mallows, anise, and each flower That withers at the blast of winter's breath Await the vernal, renovating hour And joyously awake from feignèd death.

The idea which impelled these ancient Greeks to perform ritualistic _dromena_ on their orchestras, which took the place of what we should call the stage, is not yet dead. Miss Harrison quotes from Mr. Lawson's work on modern Greek folklore, which is a perfect mine of knowledge on the subject of the survival of ancient religious customs in modern Greece, the story of an old woman in Euboea who was asked on Easter Eve why village society was in a state of gloom and despondency, and who replied: "Of course, I am anxious; for if Christ does not rise to-morrow, we shall have no corn this year."

It was during the fifth century that the _dromenon_ and the Dionysiac Dithyramb passed to some extent away and were merged into the drama. "Homer came to Athens, and out of Homeric stories playwrights began to make their plots." The chief agent in effecting this important change was the so-called "tyrant" Pisistratus, who was probably a free-thinker and "cared little for magic and ancestral ghosts," but who for political reasons wished to transport the Dionysia from the country to the town. "Now," Miss Harrison says, "to bring Homer to Athens was like opening the eyes of the blind." Independently of the inevitable growth of scepticism which was the natural result of increased knowledge and more acute powers of observation, it is no very hazardous conjecture to assume that the quick-witted and pleasure-loving Athenians welcomed the relief afforded to the dreary monotony of the ancient _dromena_ by the introduction of the more lively episodes drawn from the heroic sagas. "Without destroying the old, Pisistratus contrived to introduce the new, to add to the old plot of Summer and Winter the life-stories of heroes, and thereby arose the drama."

Having established her case so far, Miss Harrison makes what she herself terms "a great leap." She passes from the thing _done_, whether _dromenon_ or drama, to the thing _made_. She holds that as it was the god who arose from the rite, similarly it was the ritual connected with the worship of the god which gave birth to his representation in sculpture. Art, she says, is not, as is commonly supposed, the "handmaid of religion." "She springs straight out of the rite, and her first outward leap is the image of the god." Miss Harrison gives two examples to substantiate her contention. In the first place, she states at some length arguments of irrefutable validity to show that the Panathenaic frieze, which originally surrounded the Parthenon, represents a great ritual procession, and she adds, "Practically the whole of the reliefs that remain to us from the archaic period, and a very large proportion of those of later date, when they do not represent heroic mythology, are ritual reliefs, 'votive' reliefs, as we call them; that is, prayers or praises translated into stone."

Miss Harrison's second example is eminently calculated to give a shock to the conventional ideas generally entertained, for, as she herself says, if there is a statue in the world which apparently represents "art for art's sake" it is that of the Apollo Belvedere. Much discussion has taken place as to what Apollo is supposed to be doing in this famous statue. "There is only one answer. We do not know." Miss Harrison, however, thinks that as he is poised on tiptoe he may be in the act of taking flight from the earth. Eventually, after discussing the matter at some little length, she appears to come to the audacious conclusion which, in spite of its hardy irreverence, may very probably be true, that as Apollo was, after all, only an early Jack-in-the-Green, he has been artistically represented in marble by some sculptor of genius in that capacity.

Finally, before leaving this very interesting and instructive work, it may be noted that Miss Harrison quotes a remarkable passage from Athenaeus (xiv. 26), which certainly affords strong confirmation of her view that in the eyes of ancient authors there was an intimate connection between art and dancing, and therefore, inasmuch as dancing was ritualistic, between art and ritual. "The statues of the craftsmen of old times," Athenaeus says, "are the relics of ancient dancing."

It is greatly to be hoped that Miss Harrison will continue the study of this subject, and that she will eventually give to the world the results of her further inquiries.

[Footnote 104: _Ancient Art and Ritual._ By Miss Jane Harrison. London: Williams and Norgate. 1s.]

XXIV

PORTUGUESE SLAVERY

_"The Spectator," August 16, 23, 30, 1913_

It is impossible to read the White Paper recently published on the subject of slavery in the West African dominions of Portugal without coming to the conclusion that the discussion has been allowed to degenerate into a rather unseemly wrangle between the Foreign Office officials and the Anti-Slavery Society. There is always a considerable risk that this will happen when enthusiasts and officials are brought into contact with each other. On the one hand, the enthusiasts in any great cause are rather prone to let their emotions dominate their reason, to generalise on somewhat imperfect data, and occasionally to fall unwittingly into making statements of fact which, if not altogether incorrect, are exaggerated or partial. On the other hand, there is a disposition on the part of officials to push to an excess Sir Arthur Helps's dictum that most of the evils of the world arise from inaccuracy, and to surround all enthusiasts with one general atmosphere of profound mistrust. An old official may perhaps be allowed to say, without giving offence, that, quite apart from the nobility and moral worth of the issue at stake, it is, from the point of view of mere worldly wisdom, a very great error to adopt this latter attitude. There are enthusiasts and enthusiasts. It is probably quite useless for an anti-suffragist or a supporter of vivisection to endeavour to meet half-way a militant suffragist or a whole-hearted anti-vivisectionist. In these cases the line of cleavage is too marked to admit of compromise, and still less of co-operation. But the case is very different if the matter under discussion is the suppression of slavery. Here it may readily be admitted that both the enthusiasts and the officials, although they may differ in opinion as to the methods which should be adopted, are honestly striving to attain the same objects. The Anti-Slavery Society, and those who habitually work with them, have performed work of which their countrymen are very justly proud. But they are not infallible. It is quite right that the accuracy of any statements which they make should be carefully tested by whatever means exist for testing them. For instance, when the Society of Friends[105] say that they are in possession of "first-hand information" to show that "atrocities" are being committed in the Portuguese dominions, the Foreign Office is obviously justified in asking them to state on what evidence this formidable accusation is founded, and when it appears that they cannot produce "exactly the kind of evidence as to 'atrocities' which would strengthen your (_i.e._ the British Government's) hands in any protest made by you to the Portuguese Government," it is not unnatural that the officials should be somewhat hardened in their belief that humanitarian testimony has to be accepted with caution. It would obviously be much wiser for the humanitarians to recognise that incorrect statements, or sweeping generalisations which are incapable of proof, do their cause more harm than good.

The fact that erroneous statements are frequently made in controversial matters, and that the data on which generalisations are based are often imperfect, should not, however, beget the error of attaching undue importance to matters of this sort, and thus failing to see the wood by reason of the trees. What object, for instance, is to be gained by addressing to the Anti-Slavery Society a remonstrance because they only quote a portion and not the whole of a conversation between Sir Edward Grey and the Portuguese Minister (M. de Bocage) when, on reference to the account of that conversation, it would appear that the passages omitted were not very material to the point under discussion? Again, considering that the manner in which the so-called "contracts" with slaves are concluded is notorious, is it not rather begging the question and falling back on a legal quibble to say that there would "be no reason for insisting on the repatriation (of a British subject) if he were working under a contract which could not be shown to be illegal"? Can it be expected, moreover, that Sir Eyre Crowe's contention that the slaves "are now legally free" should carry much conviction when it is abundantly clear from the testimony of all independent and also official witnesses that this legal freedom does not constitute freedom in the sense in which we generally employ the term, but that it has, in fact, up to the present time been little more than an euphemism for slavery?

Every allowance should, of course, be made for the embarrassing position in which the present Government of Portugal, from no fault of its own, is placed. The fact, however, remains that at this moment the criticisms of those who are interested in the cause of anti-slavery are not solely directed against the Portuguese Government. They also demur to the attitude taken up by the British Government. It is, indeed, impossible to read the papers presented to Parliament without feeling that the Archbishop of Canterbury was justified in saying, during a recent debate in the House of Lords, that the Foreign Office and its subordinates have shown some excess of zeal in apologising for the Portuguese. After all, it should not be forgotten that the voice of civilised humanity calls loudly on the Portuguese Government and nation to purge themselves, and that speedily, of a very heinous offence against civilisation, namely, that of placing their black fellow-creatures much on the same footing as the oxen that plough their fields and the horses which draw their carts, in order that the white man may acquire wealth. It is only fair to remember that at no very remote period of their history the Anglo-Saxon race were also guilty of this offence; but the facts that one branch of that race purged itself of crime by the expenditure of huge sums of money, and that the other branch shed its best blood in order to ensure the black man's freedom, give them a moral right, based on very substantial title-deeds, to plead the cause of freedom. Neither should it be forgotten that, whatever mistakes those interested in the Anti-Slavery cause may make in dealing with points of detail, they are right on the chief issue--right, that is to say, not merely in intention, but also on the main fact, viz. that virtual slavery still exists in the Portuguese dominions. Any one who has had practical experience of dealing with these matters, and can read between the lines of the official correspondence, cannot fail to see that if the Foreign Office authorities, instead of dwelling with somewhat unnecessary insistence on controversial points and only half-accepting the realities of the situation, had candidly admitted the main facts and had confined themselves to a discussion of the means available for arriving at the object which they, in common with the Anti-Slavery Society, wished to attain, much useless recrimination might have been avoided and the interests of the cause would, to a far greater extent, have been served.

The writer of the present article has had a good deal to do with the Anti-Slavery and other similar societies, such, for instance, as that which, until recently, dealt with the affairs of the Congo. He has not always agreed with their proposals, but, being in thorough sympathy with the objects which they wished to attain, he was fortunately able to establish the mutual confidence which that bond of sympathy connoted. He can, moreover, from his own experience, testify to the fact that, although there may occasionally be exceptions, the humanitarians generally, however enthusiastic, are by no means unreasonable. On the contrary, if once they are thoroughly convinced that the officials are honestly and energetically striving to do their best to remove the abuses of which they complain, they are quite prepared to make due allowance for practical difficulties, and to abstain from causing unnecessary and hurtful embarrassment. They are not open to the suspicion which often attaches itself to Parliamentarians who take up some special cause, viz. that they may be seeking to acquire personal notoriety or to gain some party advantage. The righteousness and disinterestedness of their motives cannot be doubted. The question of the abolition of slavery in the Soudan presented many and great difficulties, which might easily have formed the subject of acrimonious correspondence and of agitation in Parliament and in the press. Any such agitation would very probably have led to the adoption of measures whose value would have been illusory rather than real, and which might well have endangered both public security and the economic welfare of the country. The main reason why no such agitation took place was that a mutual feeling of confidence was established. Sir Reginald Wingate and his very able staff of officials were left to deal with the matter after their own fashion. The result has been that, without the adoption of any very sensational measures calculated to attract public attention, it may be said, with truth, that for all practical purposes slavery has quietly disappeared from the Soudan. But if once this confidence is conspicuous by its absence, a state of more or less latent warfare between the humanitarians and the official world, such as that revealed in the papers recently laid before Parliament, is almost certain to be created, with the results that the public interests suffer, that rather heated arguments and counter-arguments are bandied about in the columns of the newspapers, and that the differences of opinion on minor points between those who ought to be allies tend to obscure the main issue, and preclude that co-operation which should be secured, and which in itself would be no slight earnest of success.

Stress has been laid on this point because of its practical importance, and also in the hope that, in connection with this question, it may be found possible ere long to establish better relations between the Foreign Office officials and the Anti-Slavery Society than those which apparently exist at present. There ought to be no great difficulty in effecting an improvement in those relations, for it cannot for one moment be doubted that both sides are honestly endeavouring to perform what they consider to be their duty according to their respective lights.

Turning now to the consideration of the question on its own merits, it is obvious that, before discussing any remedies, it is essential to arrive at a correct diagnosis of the disease. Is the trade in slaves still carried on, and does slavery still exist in the Portuguese dominions? The two points deserve separate treatment, for although slavery is bad, the slave trade is infinitely worse.

It is not denied that until very recently the trade in slaves between the mainland and the Portuguese islands was carried on upon an extensive scale. The Anti-Slavery Society state that within the last twenty-five years sixty-three thousand slaves, constituting "a human cargo worth something over £2,500,000," have been shipped to the islands. Moreover, it appears that, as was to be expected, this trade was, and perhaps to a certain extent still is, in the hands of individuals who constitute the dregs of society, and who, it may confidently be assumed, have not allowed their operations to be hampered by any kind of moral or humane scruples. Colonel Freire d'Andrade informed Sir Arthur Hardinge that "many of the Portuguese slave-traders at Angola had been convicts sentenced to transportation," who had been allowed to settle in the colony. "It was from among these old convicts or ex-convict settlers and their half-caste progeny that the slave-trading element, denounced by the Belgian Government, was largely recruited; they at least were its most direct agents." Since the accession to power of the Republican Government in Portugal the trade in slaves has been absolutely prohibited. No Government which professes to follow the dictates of civilisation, and especially of Liberalism, could indeed tolerate for a day the continuance of such a practice. The question which remains for consideration is whether the efforts of the Portuguese Government, in the sincerity of which there can be no doubt, have been successful or the reverse. Has the cessation of the traffic been real and complete or, as the Anti-Slavery Society appear disposed to think, only partial and "nominal"? On this point the evidence is somewhat conflicting. On the one hand, M. Ramaix, writing on behalf of the Belgian Government on May 1, 1912, says, "It is well known that the slave trade is still carried on to a certain extent in the neighbourhood of the sources of the Zambesi and Kasai, in a region which extends over the frontiers of the Congo, Angola, and North-Western Rhodesia," and on June 8, 1912, Baron Lalaing, the Belgian Minister in London, said, "At the instigation of the traders the population living on the two slopes of the watershed, from Lake Dilolo to the meridian of Kayoyo, are actively engaged in smuggling, arms traffic, and slave trade." On the other hand, Mr. Wallace, writing from Livingstone, in Northern Rhodesia, on June 25, 1912, says that "active slave-trading does not now exist along our borders." On December 6 of the same year he confirmed this statement, but added, "occasional cases may occur, for the status of slave exists, but they cannot be many." Looking to all the circumstances of the case--to the great extent and, in some cases, to the remoteness of the Portuguese dominions, the ruthless character of the slave-traders, the pecuniary inducements which exist for engaging in a very lucrative traffic, the helplessness of the slaves themselves, and the fact that traffic in slaves is apparently a common inter-tribal practice in Central Africa, it would be unreasonable to expect that the Portuguese Government should be able at once to put a complete stop to these infamous proceedings. It may well be that, in spite of every effort, the slave trade may still linger on for a while. All that can be reasonably expected is that the Portuguese authorities should do their utmost to stop it. That they are doing a good deal cannot be doubted, but it is somewhat of a shock to read (_Africa_, No. 2 of 1912, p. 59) that Senhor Vasconcellos rather prided himself on the fact that certain "Europeans who were found guilty of acts of slave traffic" had merely been "immediately expelled from the region," and were "not allowed to return to the colonies." Surely, considering the nature of the offence, a punishment of this sort errs somewhat on the side of leniency. Had these men been residing in Egypt or the Soudan they would have been condemned to penal servitude for a term of years. It is more satisfactory to learn, on the authority of Colonel Freire d'Andrade, that the convicts to whom allusion has already been made are "no longer permitted to roam at large about the colony, but are, save a very few who are allowed to live outside on giving a security, kept in the forts of Loanda."