Part 2

Under ordinary conditions of human life there are many more impressions on the senses which are everywhere the same or similar, than the reverse. Hence, the ideas, both primary and secondary (perceptions and apperceptions), drawn from them are much more likely to resemble than to differ.

The consequence of this is that the same laws of growth which develop the physical man everywhere into the traits of the species, act also on his psychical powers, and not less absolutely, to bring their products into conformity.

This is true not only of his logical faculties, but of his lightest fancies and wildest vagaries. “Man’s imagination,” observes Mr. Hartland, “like every other known power, works by fixed laws, the existence and operation of which it is possible to trace; and it works upon the same material,—the external universe, the mental and moral constitution of man, and his social relations.”[5]

In reference to my particular subject, Professor Buchmann expressed some years ago what I believe to be the correct result of modern research in these words: “It is easy to prove that the striking similarity in primitive religious ideas comes not from tradition nor from the relationship or historic connections of early peoples, but from the identity in the mental construction of the individual man, wherever he is found.”[6]

We can scarcely escape a painful shock to discover that we are bound by such adamantine chains. As the primitive man could not conceive that inflexible mechanical laws control the processes of nature, so are we slow to acknowledge that others, not less rigid, rule our thoughts and fancies.

Nowhere, however, is the truth of it more clearly demonstrated than in primitive religions. Without a full appreciation of this fact, it is impossible to comprehend them; and for the lack of it, much that has been written upon them is worthless. The astonishing similarity, the absolute identities, which constantly present themselves in myths and cults separated by oceans and continents, have been construed as evidence of common descent or of distant transmission; whereas they are the proofs of a fundamental unity of the human mind and of its processes, “before which,” as a German writer says, “the differences in individual, national, or even racial divisions sink into insignificance.”[7] Wherever we turn, in time or in space, to the earliest and simplest religions of the world, we find them dealing with nearly the same objective facts in nearly the same subjective fashion, the differences being due to local and temporal causes.

This cardinal and basic truth of the unity of action of man’s intelligence, which is established just as much for the arts, the laws, and the institutions of men as for their religions, enables me to present to you broadly the faiths of primitive peoples as one coherent whole, the product of a common humanity, a mirror reflecting the deepest thoughts of the whole species on the mighty questions of religious life and hope, not the isolated or borrowed opinions of one or another tribe or people.

Of course, the recognition of this principle does not diminish the attention to be paid to the ethnic or local developments of culture and to the borrowing or transference of myths and rites. Wherever this can be shown to have occurred, it is an adequate explanation of identities; but in tribes geographically remote, the presumption is that such identities are due to the common element of humanity in the species.

Such similarities are by no means confined to the primitive forms of religion; but in them they are more obvious, and their causes are more apparent; so for that reason, a study of such primitive forms is peculiarly remunerative to one who would acquaint himself with the elements of religion in general. No one, in fact, can pretend to a thorough knowledge of the great historic religions of the world who has not traced their outlines back to the humble faiths of early tribes from which they emerged.

He must have recourse to them for like reasons that the biologist, who would learn the morphology of a mammal, betakes himself to the study of the cells and fibres of the simplest living organisms; for in their uncomplicated forms he can discover the basic activities which animate the highest structures.

I must define, however, more closely what ethnologists mean by “primitive peoples”; because the word is not used in the sense of “first” or “earliest,” as its derivation would indicate. We know little, if anything, about the earliest men, and their religion would make a short chapter. “Primitive” to the ethnologist means the earliest of a given race or tribe of whom he has trusty information. It has reference to a stage of culture, rather than to time. Peoples who are in a savage or barbarous condition, with slight knowledge of the arts, lax governments, and feeble institutions, are spoken of as “primitive,” although they may be our contemporaries. They are very far from being the earliest men or resembling them. Hundreds of generations have toiled to produce even their low stage of culture up through others, far inferior, of which we can form some idea by the aid of language and prehistoric archæology.

They are therefore not degenerates, ruins fallen from some former high estate, some condition of pristine nobility. That is an ancient error, now, I hope, exploded and dismissed from sane teaching. Even the rudest of savages is a creation of steady, long-continued advancement from the primeval man. We have the evidence of what he was, in his implements and weapons preserved in pre-glacial strata and in the mud-floors of the caves he inhabited.

These announce to us a law of progressive advancement for all races, over all the earth, on the same lines of progress, toward the same goals of culture, extremely slow at the outset, and unequal especially in later ages, but vindicating the unity of the species and the identity of its hopes and aims everywhere.

You will understand, therefore, that by “primitive peoples,” I mean savage or barbarous tribes, wherever they are or have been, and that I claim for them brotherhood with ourselves in all the traits that go to make up oneness of species. A few hundred years ago the ancestors of the English-speaking nations were as savage as the savagest, without temples to their gods, in perpetual and bloody war, untamed cannibals; add a few thousand years to the perspective, and man over the whole globe was in the same condition.

The savage state was the childhood of the race, and by some the mind of the savage has been likened to that of the child. But the resemblance is merely superficial. It rather resembles that of the uncultivated and ignorant adult among ourselves. The same inaccurate observation and illogical modes of thought characterise both. These depend on certain mental traits, which it is well to define, because they explain most of the absurdities of primitive religions.

The first is, that the idea is accepted as true, without the process of logical reasoning or inductive observation. In other words, what appears true to the individual is accepted by him as true, without further question. His dreams seem real to him; therefore they are real. What the tribe believes, he believes, no matter what his senses tell him.

When an Australian Black is on a journey and fears being overtaken by the night, he will place a lump of clay in the forks of a tree, believing that thus he can arrest the motion of the sun and prolong the day. It is not a religious act, but a piece of natural science current in the tribe, which no experience will refute in their minds.[8]

Just such a notion recurs among the Mandan Indians. Captain Clark observed near their villages upright poles fifteen or twenty feet long with bundles of female clothing tied to them. He asked what they signified, and one of the old men explained thus: “If you watch the sun closely, you will see that he stops for a short time just as he rises, and again at midday, and as he sets. The reason is that he rests a few moments to smoke in the lodges of three immortal women, and we offer them this clothing that they may be induced to say a kind word to him in our behalf. We were told by our ancestors not to forget this.”[9] The fact that the orb does not stop was of no consequence in the face of this tradition.

The second trait is the extreme nervous susceptibility of savages. It is much higher than ours, although the contrary is often taught. Their emotions or feelings control their reasoning powers, and direct their actions. Neurotic diseases, especially of a contagious character, are very frequent among them, and they are far more prone than ourselves to yield to impressions upon their sensory organs. The traveller Castren relates that a sudden blow on the outside of a tent of the Samoyeds will sometimes throw the occupants into spasms; and the missionary Livingstone draws a touching picture of young slaves dying of “a broken heart,” when they heard the song and music of the villagers and could not join in the revelry.[10]

These two traits, therefore, the acceptance of the idea as subjectively true, and the subordination of reason to the feelings, are the main features of the undeveloped mind. They are common in civilised conditions, but are universal in savagery.

The question has often been considered whether the mental powers of the savage are distinctly inferior. This has been answered by taking the children of savages when quite young and bringing them up in civilised surroundings. The verdict is unanimous that they display as much aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge, and as much respect for the precepts of morality, as the average English or German boy or girl; but with less originality or “initiative.”

I have been in close relations to several full-blood American Indians, who had been removed from an aboriginal environment and instructed in this manner; and I could not perceive that they were either in intellect or sympathies inferior to the usual type of the American gentleman. One of them notably had a refined sense of humour, as well as uncommon acuteness of observation.

The assertion, however, is frequently advanced that in their savage state they are of the earth earthy, that their whole time is taken up with the gratification of sensuous desires, and that they neither think nor care for speculations of a super-sensuous or spiritual character.

The investigation of this point is desirable in a study of their religions, for upon it depends the decision whether we can assign to their myths and rites a meaning deeper than that of deception, or passion, or frivolity.

To reach a decision, I take the most unfavourable example which can be suggested,—the Australian Blacks. Considering their number and the extent of their territory, they were, when discovered, the most degraded people on the globe. They had nothing which could be called a government, and some dialects have no word for chief. None of them could count the fingers on one hand, for none of the dialects had any words for numerals beyond _three_ or _four_. Mr. Hale, the eminent ethnographer, who was among them in 1843, says that they evinced “an almost brutal stupidity,” “downright childishness and imbecility.”[11]

Their natural feelings and moral perceptions seem incredibly blunted. I can best illustrate this by narrating an incident which happened at a frontier station, one of many of the same character.

The white family employed a native girl named Mattie about fifteen years old. She had a baby, which one day disappeared. On inquiry she stated that her mother had said that she was too young to take care of a baby, and had therefore cooked and eaten it with some of her cronies. Mattie cried in telling this. Because her baby had been killed? Oh no! but because her mother had given her none of the tidbits, but only the bones to pick![12]

Yet even these seemingly hopeless brutes have an intricate system of kinship and marriage laws, the most rigid of any known. Marriage with sisters or first cousins is not only forbidden, “It is not conceived as possible.” The prohibitions about food are so absolute that the natives would perish of hunger rather than break them. Some of their religious ceremonies entail voluntary mutilations of the most dreadful description. Their mythology is extensive, and I shall have frequent occasion to quote it. And so far are they from an obtuse indifference to the future and the past, an accurate observer who lived among them says: “They wonder among themselves and talk at night about these things, and the past existence of their race, and how they came here.”[13]

Savage tribes are distinctly unlettered. They belong in a stage of culture where the art of writing, as we understand it, is unknown. They have no bibles, no sacred books, by which to teach their religions. What means have we, therefore, to learn their opinions about holy things?

The question is one which demands an answer, the more because I shall often refer to the religions of tribes long since extinct, and whose very names are forgotten. How do we dare to speak with confidence of what they thought about the gods?

We can do so, and it is one of the marvels of modern scientific research, quite as admirable as its more familiar and practical results.

Our sources of information regarding primitive peoples may be classed under four titles, Archæology, Language, Folk-lore, and Ethnographic descriptions.

By the first of these, archæology, we become acquainted with the objective remains of beliefs long since extinguished. The temples, idols, and altars of dead gods reveal to us the attributes assigned to them by their votaries and the influences they were believed to exert. We can interpret their symbols, and from rude carvings re-construct the story of their divine struggles. Especially, from ancient sepulchres and the modes of disposal of the dead which they reveal, can we discern what hopes vanished nations held of a life to come.

In this direction, we are powerfully aided by that close similarity of mental products in like stages of culture, to which I have referred, and shall often refer. By comparing a living tribe with one which ten thousand years ago was in a similar condition as shown by its relics, we can with the highest probability interpret the use and motives of the latter’s remains.

We are further assisted in such research by the critical analysis of the early forms of language, which is one of the achievements of modern linguistics. By establishing the identities of names, we can trace the diffusion of myths, and by tracing such names to their proper dialect and original meaning, we can locate geographically and psychologically the origin of given forms of religions. In fact, the value of linguistics to the study of religions cannot be overestimated. No one is competent to describe the sacred beliefs of a nation, its myths and adjurations, unless he has a sufficient knowledge of its tongue to ascertain the true sense of the terms employed in its liturgies.

But these so obvious applications are the least that language can furnish. Its impress on religions goes much deeper. It was well remarked by the Chevalier Bunsen that in primitive conditions the two poles of human life, around which all else centres, are language and religion, and that each conditions the other, that is, imparts to it special forms and limits.

For instance, those languages which have grammatic gender almost necessarily divide their deities according to sex[14]; those in which the passive voice is absent or feebly developed, will be led to associate with their deities higher conceptions of activity than where the passive is a favourite form: those which have no substantive verb cannot express God as pure being, but must associate with Him either position, action, or suffering.

In the speech of the Algonquin Indians, there is no grammatic distinction of sex; but there is broad discrimination between objects which are animate and those which are inanimate. When the Catholic missionaries brought to them the rosary, the natives at first spoke of it as inanimate; but as their reverence for it grew, it was transferred to the animate gender, and was thus on its way to a personification.[15]

The third source of information is that which is called folk-lore. Its field of research is to collect the relics and survivals of primitive modes of thought and expression, beliefs, customs, and notions, in the present conditions of culture. It is, therefore, especially useful in a study like the present, the more so on account of the extraordinary permanence and conservative character of religious sentiments and ceremonies. Among the peasantry of Europe, the paganism of the days of Julius Cæsar flourishes with scarcely abated vigour, though it may be under new names. “The primitive Aryan,” writes Professor Frazer,[16] “is not extinct; he is with us to-day.” And another English writer does not go too far when he says: “There is not a rite or ceremony yet practised and revered among us that is not the lineal descendant of barbaric thought and usage.”[17] It is this which gives to folk-lore its extremely instructive character for the student of early religion.

The fourth source of information is the description of native religions by travellers. You might expect this to be the most accurate and therefore valuable of all the sources; but it is just the reverse. Omitting the ordinary tourist and globe-trotter, who is not expected to know anything thoroughly, and never deceives the expectation, even painstaking observers, who have lived long with savage tribes, sometimes mastering their languages, are, for reasons I shall presently state, constantly at fault about the native religions. We must always take their narratives with hesitation, and weigh them against others by persons of a different nationality and education. Indeed, of all elements of native life, this of religion is the most liable to be misunderstood by the foreign visitor.

Bearing in mind these various sources of information, what tribes, about which we have sufficient knowledge, could fairly be considered as examples of primitive conditions?

Beginning with those remotest in time, I believe we know enough about the early Aryans to claim it for them. The acute researches of recent scholars, so admirably summed up in the work of Professor Schrader, have thrown a flood of light on the domestic, cultural, and religious condition of the pristine epoch of Aryan society from the side of language; while the tireless prosecution of prehistoric archæology in Europe has put us into possession of thousands of objects illustrating the religious arts and usages then in vogue. Classical mythology and ritual, as well as modern folk-lore, lend further efficient aid toward reconstructing the modes and expressions of their sacred thought.

A very ancient people, possibly of Aryan blood, but more likely, I believe, to have come from North Africa and to be of Libyan affinities, were the Etruscans. They were extremely religious, and their theological opinions deeply coloured the worship of the Romans. We know the general outlines of their doctrine of the gods, and its simplicity and grandeur bespeak our admiration. I shall draw from this venerable “Etruscan discipline” from time to time for illustrations.

Quite as much may be said of the diligence of the explorers and scholars in the field of Semitic antiquity. We can without room for doubt trace the stream of Semitic religious thought through the Hebrew Bible and the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets to a possibly non-Semitic source among the Accadian or Sumerian population, which ten thousand years ago had already begun to develop an artistic and agricultural life on the Babylonian plain. Numerous students have restored the outlines and motives of this ancient faith, whose forms and doctrines bind and shape our lives in America to-day.

Of the possibly still older culture of Egypt, so much cannot be said. The original creeds of its religion have been less successfully divined. Like its early inscriptions, they were erased and overlaid so often by the caprice or prejudice of successive dynasties, and so profoundly modified by foreign influences, that with our present knowledge they are no longer legible.[18]

Turning to the religions which have preserved their primitive forms to modern times, the first place should be conceded to those of America. Up to four hundred years ago, all of them, throughout the continent, had developed from an unknown antiquity untouched by the teachings of Asian or European instructors; for no really sane scholar nowadays believes either that St. Thomas preached Christianity in the New World in the first century, or that Buddhist monks in the seventh or any other century carried their tenets into Mexico and Guatemala.

Many of the American tribes, moreover, lived in the rudest stages of social life, ignorant of agriculture, without fixed abodes, naked or nearly so, in constant bloody strife, destitute even of tribal government. Here, if anywhere, we should find the religious sentiment, if it exists at all, in its simplest elements.

On the other hand, the first European explorers found in Peru, Yucatan, and Mexico numerous tribes in almost a civilised condition, builders of huge edifices of carved stones, cultivating the soil, and acquainted with a partly phonetic system of writing. Their mythology was ample and their ritual elaborate, so that it could scarcely be called primitive in appearance; but in all these instances, myth and ritual were so obviously identical in character with those of the vagrant tribes elsewhere, that we shall make no mistake in classifying them together.

Equally isolated and surely as rude as the rudest were the native Australians, the wavy-haired, bearded, black people who sparsely inhabited that huge island, two thousand miles wide by two thousand five hundred miles long. Isolated by arid stretches of desert, the struggle for life was incessant, and there is little wonder that we find them in an incredibly debased condition associated with unending war and cannibalism. For these very reasons, their religious notions deserve our closest scrutiny.

The vast island-world of Polynesia was peopled by related tribes, usually of limited cultivation, but with a rich mythology, of which we have many strange and beautiful fragments. They are primitive in form and expression, with singular differences as well as analogies to the beliefs of continental tribes.

Africa, with its countless dusky hordes, offers a less promising field to the student of the earliest phases of religion than we might expect. The conditions of the arts, and the ruins of foreign-built cities unite with the classic historians to show that in remote ages the influence of distant nations, from Egypt, Arabia, and India, on the typical black population was profound and far-reaching. The white Hamites of the north crossed the Sahara and extended their arms far into the Soudan; while on the east coast, the black Hamites and Arabic Ethiopians drove the aborigines far to the South. Later, Arabic influences penetrated into the interior, dissolving the older faiths or discolouring them. Thus, little of the independent development of religious thought remains in Africa. Its most primitive features are probably best preserved in the extreme South, among the Hottentots, Bushmen, and Zulus.

On the Asian continent, some of the Sibiric tribes in the north and some of those of Dravidian descent in the mountains of Hindoostan preserved to a late day their primitive traits; while the fading remnants of the Veddahs in Ceylon and the black islanders of Melanesia still continue in the simple faiths of their ancestors.