Introduction to the History of Religions Part 3

+102+. In the earliest stages known to us these procedures are already elaborate and distinct; they are generally conducted by the tribal leaders (old men, chiefs, magicians), by whom they are handed down from generation to generation.[208] Their precise origin is lost in the depths of antiquity. Doubtless they arose from social needs, and their precise forms were suggested by crude observation and reasoning.

Reflection on processes of nature, guided sometimes by fortunate or unfortunate accidents, may have led to the establishment of methods of procedure for gaining social and individual ends; and, as at this formative period the whole life of the community was permeated by religious conceptions, the procedures either were originally religious or speedily took on a religious coloring.

+103+. Two characteristics belong to early ceremonies: they are communal, and they are generally sacred mysteries. Whatever be the origin of the tribal and clan inst.i.tutions of society, these are practically universal in the world as it is now known. Even in the few cases where men live in the comparative isolation of individual family groups (as the Eskimo, Fuegians, and others are said to do[209]), there is a communal feeling that is shown in the ident.i.ty of customs and ideas among the isolated groups. In early man there is little individuality of thought or of religious experience,[210] and there is no observable difference between public and private religious worship. Ceremonies, like language, are the product of social thought, and are themselves essentially social. When a man performs an individual religious act (as when he recognizes an omen in an animal or bird, or chooses a guardian animal or spirit, or wards off a sickness or a noxious influence), he is aware that his act is in accordance with general usage, that it has the approval of the community, and that its potency rests on the authority of the community. It is true that such communal character belongs, in some degree, to all religious life--no person's religion is wholly independent of the thought of his community; but in the lower strata the acceptance of the common customs is unreflective and complete. When definite individualism sets in, ceremonies begin to lose their old significance, though they may be retained as mere forms or with a new interpretation.

+104+. That the ceremonial observances are usually sacred is obvious from all the descriptions we have of them. Their power is not always attributed to the action of external personal, supernatural agencies (though such agencies may have been a.s.sumed originally); in many cases, it is held to reside in themselves.[211] They are sacred in the sense that they are mysterious, acting in a way that is beyond human comprehension and with a power that is beyond human control.[212] They are efficacious only when performed by persons designated or recognized by the community. Here there is undoubtedly a dim sense of law and unity in the world, based on an interpretation of experiences. This is a mode of thought that runs through the whole history of religion--only, in the earliest stages of human life, it is superficial and narrow. The earlier ceremonial customs contain the germs and the essential features of the later more refined procedures.

+105+. Without attempting to give an exhaustive list, the princ.i.p.al early ceremonies may be divided into cla.s.ses as follows:

EMOTIONAL AND DRAMATIC CEREMONIES

+106+. The dances that are so common among savage tribes are in many instances now (and doubtless this has always been the case) simply the expression of animal joyousness.[213] They are like the caperings of young animals--only, the human feeling of rhythm a.s.serts itself, the movements are often measured and graceful. There is naturally an accompaniment of noise--shouting and beating on pieces of wood, bone, or metal, with songs or chants, the beginnings of vocal and instrumental music.

Words and melodies are simple and rude; they are the productions of individual singers, often, of course, made from a stock of material common to all members of the clan or the tribe. In Australia songs are thought to be obtained by bards during sleep from the souls of the dead (sometimes from Bunjil), or the bard is possessed by the soul of a beast; chants are employed in magical ceremonies, and there are lullabies and other children's songs.[214] The Muscogee "Song of the Sabbea" is very sacred.[215] In West Africa minstrels recite song-stories, every story being attached to an object (bone, feather, etc.).[216] Songs are chanted at festivals in Guiana (and at night men tell endless stories).[217]

+107+. The movements of the dance are sometimes in imitation of those of animals,[218] sometimes spontaneous, and sometimes from our point of view indecent. The indecency and obscenity originated and has continued in a period when no moral element entered into such performances--they simply follow animal instincts and impulses, are controlled by them, and appear usually not to affect the customs relating to marriage and chast.i.ty (so in the Areoi festivities of Tahiti, and among the Central Australians[219]).

+108+. In accordance with the law by which religion appropriates social customs, the dance is devoted to religious purposes and acquires a sacred character.[220] It is a common ceremony as a preparation for war: the warriors of the tribe jump about with violent gesticulations and shouts, brandishing weapons and mimicking the acts of attacking and slaying enemies.[221] Here, doubtless, the object is partly to excite the men to fury and thus prepare them for combat, but there is also the conviction that the ceremony itself has a sacred potency.[222] A similar occult power is attached to dancing in Timorlaut, where, when a ship is at sea, the girls sing and dance on the beach daily to bring the men back.[223] There are dances in commemoration of the dead[224]--apparently a combination of affection and homage, with the general purpose of conciliating the departed and procuring their aid; the belief being, apparently, that the dead see these demonstrations and are pleased with them. A Ghost Dance formerly performed in California had for its object bringing back the dead.[225]

+109+. At a later time such ceremonies were connected with the worship of G.o.ds: sometimes they were of the nature of offerings of homage to the supernatural Powers, as in the Young Dog Dance;[226] sometimes they took on a symbolic and representative or dramatic character. Among the Redmen the dramatic dances are elaborate, often representing the histories of divine persons, these latter frequently appearing in the form of animals.[227] The accompanying songs or chants relate stories that are intended to explain, wholly or in part, the details of the rite.[228]

+110+. Thus combined with other ceremonies, dances become important means of religious culture. In Greece dances were connected with many cults, among others with the Dionysiac ceremonies, out of which grew the Greek drama. Among the Hebrews the ancient ceremonial dance appears as late as the time of David,[229] though it was then, perhaps, falling into desuetude, since his wife, Michal, is disgusted at his procedures.

The violent movement of the dance excites not only warlike rage but also religious ecstasy, and has been used abundantly for this purpose by magicians, prophets, and mystics; the performer is regarded as a vehicle of divine revelation, all abnormal excitement being ascribed to possession by a spirit.[230]

+111+. With dances may be cla.s.sed processions, in which usually a G.o.d is invoked or praised. In Ashantiland, in time of war, when the men are with the army, processions of women, wives of the warriors, march through the streets, invoking the G.o.ds on behalf of the absent men.[231]

Often the performers bear a sacred object, as a stone (sometimes inclosed in a box[232]), a boat, or an image; in early times such objects not only represent the G.o.ds but actually embody them, or are themselves superhuman Powers.

+112+. A peculiar form of procession is that in which the worshipers move round a sacred object, perhaps the adoption of a natural form of play. The original design in such movements may have been simply to show respect to the object in question and secure its favor, the circular movement being a natural way of keeping in touch with it. In certain cases the circ.u.mambulation is connected with the movement of the sun in the sky--probably a later interpretation of the ceremony. Examples are found in Hindu, Greek, and Roman practices, and in some modern Christian usages (in the Greek and Roman churches). As a magical efficiency was held to attach to the ceremony, its effect was sometimes held to depend on the direction of the movement; if it was to the right--pa.s.sing from east through south to west (the worshiper facing the east)--it was good, but bad if in the opposite direction. Though traces of solemn circ.u.mambulation are found in some lower tribes, it has been, and is, practiced chiefly in the higher cults.[233]

+113+. Sacred dances and processions are natural human expressions of emotions that have been adopted by religious sentiment, and are often supposed to have potency in themselves. They tend to disappear with the progress of general refinement and of ethical conceptions of life and of deity. They continue, however, far into the civilized period, in which we find dramatic representations (as the Eleusinian rites and the medieval Mystery Plays), processions of priests bearing or conducting sacred objects, processions of devotees with music, and pilgrimages to shrines. Such ceremonies, while they are regarded by educated persons simply as expressions of reverence and accompaniments of prayer, are still believed by many to have an innate or magic potency, insuring prosperity to the partic.i.p.ants.

DECORATIVE AND CURATIVE CEREMONIES

+114+. Love of ornament is found among all savage peoples; the value they attach to beads and all colored things is well known to travelers and traders. It has been plausibly argued that the origin of clothing is to be found in the desire of each s.e.x to make itself beautiful in the eyes of the other.[234] However that may be, the employment of leaves for headdresses and waistbands is general among lower tribes.[235]

+115+. Equally popular is the adornment of the body by colored marks made with red ocher, pipe-clay, turmeric, charcoal, and such like things as are furnished by nature. Elaborate designs, of straight and curved lines, are traced on the skin, and these are gradually differentiated and become marks of rank and function. The war paint of the American Indians is governed by fixed rules, the object being to make the warrior terrible to enemies.[236] Rings, quills, sticks, and stones, worn in holes made in ears, nose, lips, and cheeks, are all originally decorative; and so also p.r.i.c.kings and gashes in the body, often in regular outlines.[237]

+116+. These latter, made according to tribal custom and law, become tribal marks (tattoo), and are then essential to one's standing in the community. This custom is general in Polynesia and in parts of North America.[238] The use of oil and other unguents early established itself as a custom of savage society. They were probably useful in a variety of ways. For the hair they made up for the absence of comb and brush; in combat they enabled the warrior to slip from the grasp of his enemy; they defended the naked body from rain, and from soiling and injury produced by contact with the earth and hard bodies; and in sickness they were regarded as curative.[239] Oil was abundantly used as an article of food.

+117+. All these materials of decoration are transferred to the service of religion. The headdress becomes a mask to represent an animal in a sacred ceremony,[240] or a priestly tiara. In such ceremonies (especially in those of initiation) the painting of the body plays an important part, the traceries varying according to the thing represented and the symbolism of the action.[241] It is often difficult to see the precise significance of the paintings, but in certain cases they are totemic marks, and represent whatever is sacred in totemic belief.[242]

+118+. It is possible to construe the development in two ways: the paintings may be regarded as originally totemic or other clan marks, and as afterwards employed as ornaments, or the order of movement may be taken to be in the reverse direction; but when we consider the primitive character of decoration, the second suggestion seems the more probable.

The same remark applies to the practice of p.r.i.c.king, scarring, and tattooing.[243] For the body-markings blood is sometimes employed, perhaps in part on account of its decorative color, but also probably with a religious significance.[244]

+119+. Decoration has been and is largely employed in structures and dress connected with religious life. Posts and beams of houses, totem posts and masts of vessels are covered with figures in which artistic feeling is discernible;[245] and in late periods all the resources of art are devoted to the form and adornments of temples, altars, and images. The designs are taken from familiar objects, mostly from plants and animals. The ultimate motive is love of ornament, which, while it finds abundant expression in ordinary social life, has its greatest development in religion--a natural result of the fact that in a large part of human history religion has been the chief organizing factor of society.

+120+. The tendency has been to make the dress of ministers of religion ornate.[246] This tendency has arisen partly from love of ornament, and partly, doubtless, it is the transference of court customs to religious ceremonial.[247]

+121+. Symbolism has entered largely into religious decoration. In very early times figures of animals, plants, and human beings were used as records of current events, and were sometimes supposed to have magical power, the picture being identified with the thing represented. In a more advanced stage of culture the transition was easy to the conception of the figures as representing ideas, but the older conception is often found alongside of the later--a symbolical signification is attached to pictures of historical things. These then have a spiritual meaning for higher minds, while for the ma.s.ses they may be of the nature of fetishes.[248] In both cases they may serve a good purpose in worship by fixing the mind on sacred things.

ECONOMIC CEREMONIES

+122+. The first necessity of savages is a sufficient supply of food, and this, they hold, is to be procured either by the application of what they conceive to be natural laws, or by appeal to superhuman Powers.

Among economic ceremonies, therefore, we may distinguish those which may be loosely described as natural, those in which a supernatural element enters, and those in which the two orders of procedure appear to be combined.

+123+. Savages are generally skillful hunters. They know how to track game, to prepare nets and pits, and to make destructive weapons. The African pygmies have poisoned arrows, with which they are able to kill the largest animals.[249] The people of British New Guinea organize hunts on a large scale.[250] In Australia, Polynesia, and America there is no tribe that is not able to secure food by the use of natural means.

+124+. But such means are often supplemented by ceremonies that involve some sort of supernatural influence. These ceremonies appear to a.s.sume a social relation between man and beasts and plants; in some cases there is a.s.sumed a recognition by animals of the necessities of the case and a spirit of friendly cooperation; in other cases a magical power is called into play.

+125+. Desire to propitiate the hunted animal, in order not only to avert the anger of its kin but also to obtain its aid, appears in the numerous cases in which excuses are made for the killing, and the animal is implored to make a friendly report of the man to its friends and to return in order that it may be killed.[251] Formal prayer is sometimes made to the animal in important tribal ceremonies, as in British Columbia a boy is ordered by the chief to pray to the first salmon sighted for a good catch;[252] here the good will of the salmon tribe and the quasi-human intelligence of the fish are a.s.sumed.

+126+. Precautions are taken to guard against antagonistic extrahuman influences; there are taboos and rules of purification in preparation for hunting. In New Guinea hunters are required to abstain from certain sorts of food and to perform purificatory ceremonies.[253] Among the Nandi some men are forbidden to hunt, make traps, or dig pits for game;[254] these men, it would seem, are supposed to be, for ceremonial reasons, antipathetic to the animals to be hunted, as, on the other hand, there are men who attract game.[255] The taboos of food and other things imposed are doubtless intended to guard against malefic spirits or mana. The particular rules are determined by local conditions.

+127+. Certain rules about eating the food secured by hunting appear to have come from the desire to act in an orderly manner and with due respect to the animal. When it is prescribed that a bone shall not be broken this may be for fear of giving offense to the animal kin and thus insuring failure in further hunting.[256] The provision that each man shall gather of a fruit or vegetable only so much as will suffice for a single day may have had an economic ground, the desire to avoid waste; or it may have been made also partly in the interest of orderliness, and so have had originally no reference to any superhuman being.[257]

Naturally it was taken up into religion and given a religious sanction.

+128+. In Central Australia, where every clan is charged with the duty of procuring a particular food (its totem) for the tribe, the custom is that when the product of hunting or gathering is brought in to be thrown into the tribal store, the princ.i.p.al men of the hunting group begin by eating a little of the food, after which the food is licit for the rest of the tribe but illicit for the hunters.[258] This custom has been held to have a sacramental significance; it has been suggested that the food is sanctified by the touch of the elders and thus made lawful for the tribe, or that, as naturally sacred, it secures, when eaten, union between the eater and a superhuman Power. But there is no hint of such a conception in the Australian ceremony or elsewhere. The procedure is obligatory and solemn--to omit it would be, in the feeling of the people, to imperil the life of the tribe; but all such usages are sanctified by time. We should rather seek for the origin of the custom in some simple early idea. It is not unusual, in parts of Australia and in other lands, that a man, though he may not eat his totem, may kill it for others; the eating in this case is the important thing--there is magical power in it--and the economic obligation to provide food overbears the sense of reverence for the totem. The only obscure point in the ceremony under consideration is the obligation on the killer or gatherer to taste the food before he gives it to his fellows. This may be a survival of the rule, known to exist among some tribes, that in a hunting party he who kills an animal has the first right to it. The Australian hunter cannot eat his totem, but he may hold to his traditional right; the result will be the custom as it now exists. With our present knowledge no quite satisfactory explanation of the origin of this particular rule can be given.

+129+. The employment of magical means for procuring food appears in the performance of ceremonial dances, in the use of charms, the imitation of animals, and other procedures. In California the supply of acorns and animals is supposed to be increased by dances.[259] The New Guinea Koita give their hunting dogs decoctions of sago and other food into which are put pieces of odoriferous bark;[260] these charms are said to have been got from the Papuans, the lowest race of the region. A p.a.w.nee folk-story (which doubtless reflects a current idea) tells how a boy by his songs (that is, magic songs or charms) brought the buffalo within reach of his people.[261] Among the Melanesians of New Guinea the hunting expert plays a great role--his presence is necessary for the success of an expedition.[262] He fixes the date of the hunt, prepares himself by a series of abstinences,[263] and at the appointed time a.s.sembles the men, recites spells addressed to ancestors, and pa.s.sing along the lines of the hunters imitates the movements of the animal sought.[264]

+130+. Very elaborate ceremonies including imitations of animals (imitative or sympathetic magic) are found in Central Australia.[265]

When any animal is to be hunted the old men of the appropriate totemic group, dressed to imitate the totem and accompanied by some of the young men, repair to a spot regarded as sacred, and, along with other ceremonies, trace on the sacred rock, with blood drawn from the young men, a picture of the animal, or figures representing its growth--in general, something that sets forth its personality. These ceremonies, very numerous and extending over a long s.p.a.ce of time, const.i.tute the main business of the elders, as, in fact, the procuring of food is the chief concern of the people.

+131+. There is no perceptible religious element in these Australian ceremonies--no utterance of charms or prayers, no mention of any supernatural being. The acts appear to be simply procedures of imitative magic, customs sanctified by long usage. They relate to the life of the tribe; this life, like all life, is mysterious and therefore sacred.[266] The belief in the potency of the ceremonies appears to come from belief in the vital ident.i.ty of the two groups, human and nonhuman--the latter is supposed to respond, in some occult way, to the expression of kinship involved in the official proceedings.

+132+. The employment of blood (considered as the locus of life) may indicate more definitely a sense of the unity of life-force; the human blood is, perhaps, supposed to stimulate life in the kindred animal group, and so to produce a large supply of individuals. In the published accounts there is no hint that the blood is supposed to have atoning power. There is no sense of wrongdoing or unworthiness on the part of the performers, or of any relation to a deity. The theology of Central Australia is still obscure--the general religious situation in that region has much that is enigmatical.

+133+. A more advanced ritual occurs among certain agricultural tribes, among whom is found a more elaborate use of blood and a definite recognition of superhuman beings. In these communities it is regarded as necessary to profitable tilling to fertilize the soil with the blood of a slain victim, sometimes human (as among the Khonds of Orissa, the p.a.w.nees, and others[267]), sometimes b.e.s.t.i.a.l (as in Southern India[268]); parts of the victim's flesh are buried, or blood is sprinkled on the seed, and homage is paid to a sacred stone or some similar object.

+134+. In more civilized agricultural communities these ceremonies persist in attenuated form. There is a sacrifice of first-born animals to a deity and an offering of the first fruits of the field; and as children, no less than crops, are the gift of the G.o.ds, whose bounty must be recognized, it is not surprising to find that, along with the first fruits of the field, first-born children are sometimes sacrificed to the deity. Such a custom is reported as existing or having existed in New South Wales, Florida, East Africa, heathen Russia, the Fiji Islands, and Northern India.[269] A trace of the custom among the early Hebrews is, probably, to be recognized in the provision of the Old Testament code that the first-born children are to be redeemed by an animal sacrifice.[270]

+135+. In the course of time many ceremonies grew up in connection with the procuring and housing of crops and other supplies. In Australia the men of the clan charged with a.s.suring any sort of food were unarmed and fasted during their ceremony.[271] Among the Kondyan plowing and sowing are solemn seasons, an auspicious day is chosen, and there are religious songs and choruses.[272] For the Hos of Northeastern India the harvest home is a great festival, held with sacrifice and prayer (though also with great license of manners).[273] A dim conception of law underlies all these procedures. The law is sometimes natural, as in imitative processes, sometimes religious, as when blood is employed or the agency of religious official persons is called in.

+136+. The economical importance of rain has led to various quasi-scientific and magical devices for securing it, and to the rise of professional rain makers. The methods commonly employed are mimic representations of rainfall or of a storm.[274] The Australian Arunta have a rain clan whose function is to bring the desired supply by nonsacred dancing festivals and sacred ceremonies. A more advanced method is to dip a stone, as rain-G.o.d, into a stream.[275] Certain American tribes a.s.sign the duty of rain making to secret societies or to priests.

+137+. All such economical ceremonies disappear with the progress of knowledge, though traces of them linger long in civilized communities.

Messrs. Spencer and Gillen note the gradual disappearance of the economical and magical aspect of ceremonies in parts of Australia, and a similar process is to be observed elsewhere.[276]

APOTROPAIC CEREMONIES

+138+. The savage and half-civilized belief (a belief that has survived to some extent in civilized communities) is that the ills that afflict or threaten a community (such as epidemics and shortage of crops) are due not to natural causes but to supernatural agencies. But man, it is held, may control the hostile supernatural agents--they are subject to fear and other emotions, and though powerful are not omnipotent; they may be expelled or otherwise got rid of--violence may be used against them, or the aid of stronger supernatural Powers may be called in. In pursuance of these ends ceremonies have been devised in many parts of the world; though differing in details they are alike in principle; the question is how man may become the master of the demons. The ceremonies are sometimes performed on the occasion of particular afflictions, sometimes are ma.s.sed at stated seasons, as at the beginning of the year or in connection with some agricultural festival.

+139+. Man's defensive att.i.tude toward the supernatural world appears in many usages connected with ordinary life. Fear of the hostility of ghosts has led surviving friends to take precautions against their return--their own houses are closed to them and they are driven away with blows.[277] They are too near akin to be trusted, and they are believed to be able and willing to do harm.[278] At the other extreme of life, when the child comes into the world, mother and child must be guarded against hostile demonic influences.[279] When a demon is known to have entered into a human being, producing sickness or madness, exorcism must be resorted to; magicians, prophets, and saints are able by ceremonies or by prayer to expel the intruder and restore the afflicted to health. Ritual taint (which is supernatural), incurred, for example, by touching a dead body, is removed by sprinkling with sacred water.[280]

+140+. But the term "apotropaic" is generally used of expulsive ceremonies in which a whole community takes part. In the simplest forms of procedure the hostile spirits are driven out of the village by shouts and blows; crowds of men rush through the streets, searching houses, expelling spirits at every possible point of ingress, and finally forcing them outside the limits of the community. Examples of such a custom are found in the Pacific Islands, Australia, j.a.pan, Indonesia, West Africa, Cambodia, India, North America (Eskimo), South America (Peru),[281] and there are survivals in modern Europe. In China this wholesale expulsion is still practiced in a very elaborate form.[282]

Among the Ainu, it is said, on the occasion of any accident the "spirit of accidents" (a useful generalization) is driven away by the community.[283] In these cases the spirits are thought of as being in a sort corporeal, sensitive to blows, and also as afraid of noise. There is sometimes a combination of natural and supernatural conceptions: while the violent expulsive process is going on the household utensils are vigorously washed by the women; washing, known to cleanse from mere physical dirt, here also takes on, from its a.s.sociation with the men's ceremony of expulsion, a supernatural potency--it removes the injurious mana of the hostile spirits.