Part 12

Another and significant funeral rite of high antiquity is that of cremation or incineration. It was symbolic in character, the body being given to the flames in order that the spirit, by their purifying agency, should promptly be set free and united with the gods. This method also prevailed extensively among the American race, and was quite in consonance with their opinions of the after-life. “It is the one passion of his superstition,” writes Mr. Powers of the Californian Indian, “to think of the soul of his departed friend as set free, and purified by the flames; not bound to the mouldering body, but borne up on the soft clouds of the smoke toward the beautiful sun.”[260]

Other peoples entertained the opinion that the body as it is, in all its parts, must be preserved in order that it might be again habitable for the soul, when this ethereal essence should return to earth from its celestial wanderings. Therefore, with utmost care they sought for means to preserve the fleshly tenement. In Virginia, in some parts of South America, on the Madeira Islands, the aboriginal population dried the corpse over a slow fire into a condition that resisted decay; while elsewhere, the nitrous soil of caves offered a natural means of embalming. The Alaskan and Peruvian mummies, like those of ancient Egypt, were artificially prepared and swathed in numerous cerecloths. In all, the same faith in the literal resurrection of the flesh was the prevailing motive.

More generally, the belief was held that the soul remained attached in some way to the bones. These were carefully cleaned and either preserved in the house, or stored in ossuaries. Frequently they were kept as amulets or mascots, in the notion that the friendly spirit which animated the living person would continue to hover around his skeleton or skull, and exert its amicable power. The Peruvians held that the bones of their deceased priests were oracular, speaking good counsel, and the missionaries were obliged to break them into small fragments to dispel this superstition[261]; though they themselves continued to hold it heretical to doubt the efficacy of the bones of the saints! A tribe on the Orinoco was wont to beat the bones of their dead into powder and mix it with their cassava bread, holding that thus their friends and parents lived again in the bodies of the eaters!

After cremation, the ashes were left upon the altar, and the whole covered with earth; or they were preserved in urns with the fragments of the bones; or, as with a tribe of the Amazon, they were cast upon the waters of the great river and floated down to the limitless ocean.

Thus closed the last scene in the existence of the primitive man. From birth to death he had been surrounded and governed by the ceremonies of his religion; and on his passage out of this life, he confidently looked to another in which he should find a compensation and a consolation for the woes of his present condition.

Following these funerary functions came the customs of mourning. They were often excessively protracted and severe, involving self-mutilation, as the lopping of a finger or an ear, scarification, flagellation, fasting, and cutting the hair. These were shared by the friends and relatives of the deceased, and at the death of some famous chief “the whole tribe will prostrate themselves to their woe.”

The psychic explanation of these demonstrations is not wholly clear. By some they have been interpreted as a commutation for cannibalism, and by others as an excuse for not accompanying the corpse into the other world. One writer says: “Barbarism, abandoned to sorrow, finds physical suffering a relief from mental agony.”[262] On the other hand, a recent student of the subject claims that in these rites we perceive “the oldest evidence of active conscience in the human race; the individual laid hands on himself in order to restore the moral equilibrium.”[263] Need we go farther than to see in them merely exaggerated forms of the same emotional outbursts which lead nervous temperaments everywhere to wring the hands and tear the hair in moments of violent grief?

LECTURE VI.

The Lines of Development of Primitive Religions.

CONTENTS:—Pagan Religions not wholly Bad—Their Lines of Development as Connected with: 1. The Primitive Social Bond—The Totem, the Priesthood, and the Law; 2. The Family and the Position of Woman; 3. The Growth of Jurisprudence—The Ordeal, Trial by Battle, Oaths, and the Right of Sanctuary—Religion is Anarchic; 4. The Development of Ethics—Dualism of Primitive Ethics—Opposition of Religion to Ethics; 5. The Advance in Positive Knowledge—Religion _versus_ Science; 6. The Fostering of the Arts—The Aim for Beauty and Perfection—Colour-Symbolism, Sculpture, Metre, Music, Oratory, Graphic Methods—Useful Arts, Architecture; 7. The Independent Life of the Individual—His Freedom and Happiness—Inner Stadia of Progress: 1. From the Object to the Symbol; 2. From the Ceremonial Law to the Personal Ideal; 3. From the Tribal to the National Conception of Religion—Conclusion.

It has always been, and is now, the prevailing belief in Christendom that pagan or heathen religions cannot exert and never have exerted any good influence on their votaries.

This opinion has also been defended by some modern and eminent authorities in the science of ethnology, as, for example, the late Professor Waitz.[264] It is a favourite teaching in missionary societies and in works of travellers who are keen observers of the shortcomings of others’ faiths.

I have never been able to share such a view. The lowest religions seem to have in them the elements which exist in the ripest and the noblest; and these elements work for good wherever they exist. However rude the form of belief in agencies above those of the material world, in a higher law than that confessedly of solely human enactment, and in a standard of duty prescribed by something loftier than immediate advantage,—such a belief must prompt the individual, anywhere, to a salutary self-discipline which will steadily raise him above his merely animal instincts, and imbue him with nobler conceptions of the aims of life.

When he feels himself under the protection of some unseen, but ever near, beneficent power, his emotions of gratitude and love will be stimulated; and when he recognises in the ceremonial law a divine prescription for his own welfare and that of his tribe, he will cheerfully submit to the rigours of its discipline.

The various lines of development which were thus marked out and pursued through the influence of early religious thought, and which reacted to develop it, deserve to be pointed out in detail, since they have so generally been overlooked or misunderstood.

For convenience of presentation they may be examined under seven headings, as they were connected with: 1. The primitive social bond; 2. The family and the position of woman; 3. The growth of jurisprudence; 4. The development of ethics; 5. The advance in positive knowledge; 6. The fostering of the arts; and 7. The independent life of the individual.

These are the main elements of ethnology; and as they progressed to higher forms and finer specialisations, partly through the influence of religion, they in turn reflected back to it their brighter lustre, and the symmetrical growth of a richer culture was thus secured.

1. The first to be named should be the construction of the primitive society. This was essentially religious. I have already emphasised how completely the savage is bound up in his faith, how it enters into nigh every act and thought of his daily life. This may be illustrated by its part in four very early and widely existing forms of social ties—the totem, the sacred society, the priesthood, and the ceremonial law.

The totemic bond I have previously explained. It existed in many American and Australian tribes and relics of it can be discerned in the early peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its constitution was avowedly religious. The supposed or “eponymous” ancestor of the totem was a mythical existence, a sort of deity. He was known only through a revelation, either in visions, or, through the assertions of the elders of the clan, in which latter case the myth was the origin of the relationship. Theoretically, all members of the totem were kinfolk, “of one blood,” and the numerous rites connected with the letting of blood were generally to symbolise this teaching.[265]

In various tribes, as among the Sioux and in Polynesia, the totem did not prevail. Its place was taken by societies, sacred in character, the members of which were bound closely together by some supernatural tie. As our Indians say, all the members “had the same medicine.” The relation these societies bear to the tribe is not dissimilar to that elsewhere held by totems.

In nearly all primitive peoples the priesthood exerts a powerful influence in preserving the unity of the tribe, in presenting an immovable opposition to external control. This is well known to the Christian missionaries and bitterly resented by them. These shamans and “medicine-men” are the most persistent opponents of civilisation and Christianity; but it must be remembered that the same conservatism on their part has for centuries been the chief preventive of tribal dissolution and decay. While we regret that they should resist what is good, we must recognise the value of their services to their people in the past.[266]

The ceremonial law belongs, as I have elsewhere said, to the primary forms of religion. It is in full force, as among the Mincopies and Yahgans, where it is difficult to perceive any other form of religious expression. It is deemed by all to be divine in origin, imparted in dreams or visions by supernatural visitors, transcending therefore all human enactments. It defines the proper conduct of the individual, and prescribes what is allowed and what is forbidden to him. Obedience to it is constantly inculcated under the threat of the severest penalties.

These are the main forces which moulded the earliest human societies known to us, and may be said to have first created society itself. They are all distinctly religious, and their consideration obliges us to acknowledge the correctness of the statement of a distinguished Italian, Professor Tito Vignoli,—“There is no society, however rude and primitive, in which all the relations, both of the individual and of the society itself, are not visibly based on superstitions and mythical beliefs.”[267]

2. Earlier, perhaps, than any definite social organisation was the family bond which united together those of one kinship. This rested upon marriage, the religious character of which in even the rudest tribes I dwelt upon in the last lecture. I then explained the matriarchal system prevalent in so many savage peoples. Necessarily, this exalted the position of woman, by conferring upon her the titular position of head of the house, and often the actual ownership of the family property.

It is a general truth in sociology that we may gauge the tendencies of a given society towards progressive growth by the position it assigns to woman, by the amount of freedom it gives her, and by the respect it pays to her peculiar faculties. Religions which, like Mohammedanism, reduce her to a very subordinate place in life, wholly secondary to that of the male, have worked detrimentally to the advancement of the peoples who have adopted them.

In some savage tribes, the woman is a mere chattel or slave, denied actual participation in religious rites. But that is by no means the case with all. Among the Hottentots, for example,—who were, when first discovered, a people of respectable culture,—a man can take no higher oath than to swear by his eldest sister; and such is the respect inculcated through his religion, that he never speaks to her unless she addresses him first.[268]

The more delicate nervous organisation of women adapts them peculiarly to the perception of those sub-conscious states which are the psychic sources of inspiration and revelation. Very widely, therefore, in primitive religions they occupied the position of seeresses and priestesses, and were reverenced in accordance therewith. Among the Dyaks of Borneo, in former days, all the recognised priestly class were women. Their bodies were supposed to be the chosen residence of the Sangsangs, beautiful beings, friendly to men. These inspired women, called Bilians or Borich, were subject to theoleptic fits, in which they gave advice, foretold the future, recited rhythmic songs, etc. They were under no restraint of conduct, as what they did, it was held, was the prompting of the god. So firm was their influence that, when, in modern days, the men also became priests, they were obliged to wear the garb of women.[269]

The Siamese also entertain this opinion. Their gods speak through the mouth of some chosen woman. When she feels the visit of the spirit to be near, she arrays herself in a handsome red silk garment, and as the deity enters her, she discourses of the other world, tells where lost objects are to be found, and the like. The assembled company worship her, or rather the god in her. On recovering from her theopneustic trance, she professes entire unconsciousness of what has taken place.[270]

The American Indians very generally concede to their women an exalted rank in their religious mysteries. The Algonquins had quite as famous “medicine-women” as medicine-men, and the same was true generally. Mr. Cushing tells me that there is only one person among the Zuñis who is a member of all the sacred societies and thus knows the secrets of all, and that person is a woman.

When Votan, the legendary hero of the Tzentals of Chiapas, left them for his long journey, he placed his sacred apparatus and his magical scrolls in a cave under the charge of a high priestess, who was to appoint her successor of the same sex until his return. The secret was faithfully kept and the successors appointed for more than a hundred and fifty years after their conversion to Christianity; until, in 1692, on the occasion of the visit of the Bishop to the hamlet where the priestess lived, she disclosed the story, and the holy relics were burned.[271]

Twenty years later, as if to avenge this, the Tzentals revolted in a body, their leader being an inspired prophetess of their tribe, a girl of twenty, fired with enthusiasm to drive the Spaniards from the land and restore the worship of the ancient gods.[272]

It is quite usual to find in early religions many rites, such as dances and sacrifices, which women alone carry out, and to which it is _tabu_ for any man to be admitted. This naturally arises in those cults where the deities are divided sexually into male and female. Such in their origin were the Bacchanals of ancient Greece, participated in at first by women and girls only, celebrated in devotion to the productive powers of nature, which were held to belong more especially to the female sex.[273] The “wise women” of many primitive faiths formed a close caste by themselves, no male being admitted, in imitation of their mythological prototypes in the heavens. The “witches” of the Middle Ages were lineal successors of the Teutonic priestesses, who took as their model the “swan-maidens” or “wish-women” of Odin.[274]

Another form of early institutions was that of the societies of virgins, such as that which from primitive Italic times kept alive the holy fire of Vesta, goddess of the hearth and home. Extensive associations of a similar nature were found by the European explorers in Mexico, Yucatan, Peru, and elsewhere.

A curious teaching of several wide-spread cults was that women alone were endowed with immortality. Such was the opinion of the natives of the Marquesas Islands, and in Samoa the myth related that the god Supa (paralysis) ordained in the council of creation that the life of a man should be like a torch, which, when blown out, cannot be again lighted by blowing; but that a woman’s soul should live always.[275]

No one can doubt that in thus assigning a high and often the highest place in the religious mysteries to woman, many primitive religions surrounded her with a sacredness which was constantly recognised, and thus aided in the improvement of her social relations. The value of virtue and purity was increased, mere animal desires were subjected to religious restraint, and the relations of sex came increasingly to be regarded as instituted by divine wisdom for special purposes.

3. Although the specifications of the ceremonial law were often capricious and absurd, and sometimes positively hurtful, yet it developed the habit of obedience and the respect for authority. In this manner it potently aided the evolution of jurisprudence—that is, of those rules of conduct which grow out of the habit of men living together and which are necessary to preserve amicable relations. These had their origin in other than religious considerations, but when once consciously recognised as beneficial, the religion of the tribe generally adopted them, claimed their creation, and threw around them the garb of its own protective power. Religion then actively aided in the fulfilment of purely social duties, as these were understood by the tribe.

In primitive conditions, all laws are God’s laws. As we would say, there is no separation of the civil and criminal from the canon law. To the Mohammedan, the Koran is the source of all jurisprudence. This is a survival from early thought.

From this it followed that the punishment of crime and the decisions between litigants were, properly, judgments of God. This universal opinion is reflected in a number of traits in jurisprudence, some of which are still in vogue in civilised lands. The most noteworthy are the ordeal, trial by battle, oaths, and the privilege of sanctuary.

Ordeals were universal. They all rested on the belief that the gods would rescue the innocent man from danger. He might be required to hold red-hot iron in his hands; he might be plunged long under water; swallow poison; or in any other way expose himself to pain or death; if he were unjustly accused, the invisible powers would protect him.[276]

The trial by battle involved the same opinion. “If the Lord is on my side, why should I fear?” is the confident belief at the basis of every such test of skill and strength.[277]

These forms of decision have disappeared, but the oath remains as vigorous as ever in our law courts. It is, however, as has been pointed out by the able ethnologist and lawyer, Dr. Post, originally and in spirit nothing else than an ordeal. The false witness, the perjurer, is believed to expose himself to the wrath of God and to suffer the consequences in this or another life.[278]

The rite of sanctuary was distinctly religious. The criminal among the Hebrews, who could escape to the temple and cling to the horns of the altar, must not be seized by the officers of justice. The Cherokee Indians, like the Israelites, had “cities of refuge,” which they called “white towns.” With the Acagchemem, a Californian tribe, the temples were so purifying that the evil-doer, were he guilty even of murder, who could reach them before he was caught, was cleansed of his sin and absolved ever after from any punishment for it.[279]

In these vital relations we see how religion entered deeply into civil life, and became a guide and director of its most essential procedures. Its development grew with its responsibilities and with the intimacy it cultivated with practical affairs.

The codes of statutes instituted by ancient legislators, usually personified under some one famous name, as Moses, Manu, Menes, or the like, obtained general adoption through the belief that they emanated directly from divinity, and were part of the ceremonial law. Under favour of this disguise, they worked for the good of those who followed them, and gained a credence which would not have been conceded to them, had it been thought that they were of human manufacture.

Toward merely human law the religious sentiment is in its nature and derivation in frequent opposition. It claims a nobler lineage and a higher title. In theory, the Church must always be above the State, as God is superior to man. Religion, when vital and active, is ever revolutionary and anarchic. It ever aims at substituting divine for human ordinances.

This has been from earliest times its constant tendency. It has been a potent dissolvent of states and governments and of such older religious expressions as have become humanised by usage and formality.

In this manner it has been the most powerful of all levers in stimulating the human mind to active enterprise and the use of all its faculties. Man owes less to his conscious than to his sub-conscious intelligence, and of this religion has been the chief interpreter.

4. The severest blows have been dealt at primitive or pagan religions on account of the inferiority of their ethics. It has often been asserted that they do not cultivate the moral faculties and benevolent emotions, but stifle and pervert them. They are, therefore, considered to be distinctly evil in tendency.

This important criticism cannot be disposed of by a mere denial. There is no doubt that the ethics of barbarism is not that of a high civilisation. But if we understand the necessary conditions of tribal life in the unending conflicts of the savage state, we can see that the highest moral code would find no place there.

All tribal religions preach a dualism of ethics, one for the members of the tribe, who are bound together by ties of kinship and by union to preserve existence; and the other, for the rest of the world. To the former are due aid, kindness, justice, truth and fair dealing; to the latter, enmity, hatred, injury, falsehood, and deceit. The latter is just as much a duty as the former, and is just as positively enjoined by both religion and tribal law.[280]

The state of barbarism is one of perpetual war, in which each petty tribe is striving to conquer, rob, and destroy its neighbours. The Patagonians and Australians wander about their sterile lands in small bands, naked and shelterless, owning nothing but the barest necessities. But whenever two of these bands approach each other, it is the signal for a murderous struggle, in order to obtain possession of the wretched rags and trumperies of the opponent.

For this reason, the development of ethics must be studied on inclusive lines, as to what extent they were cultivated between members of the same social unit, the totem or the tribe. The duty of kindness to others extended to a very limited distance, but, within that area, may have been, and generally was, punctually observed. The devotion of members of the same gens to each other, even to the sacrifice of life, has been often noted among savages. The duties involved by this connection were frequently onerous and dangerous, as in the common custom of blood revenge, where a man, at the imminent peril and often at the loss of his own life, felt constrained to slay the murderer of a fellow-clansman.

The character of the early gods was, as a rule, non-ethical. They were generally neither wholly good nor wholly bad. They were more or less friendly toward men, but rarely constantly either beneficent or malignant. They were too human for that.[281]

Hence the religions which were founded upon such conceptions were not in their prescriptions of conduct chiefly ethical, but rather ceremonial. Moral conduct was of less importance than the performance of the rites, the recitation of the formulas, and the respect for the _tabu_.[282]