Introduction to the History of Religions Part 5

+181+. The marriage ceremonies mentioned above appear to be all social in their nature. Into them the supernatural is introduced in proportion as the conception of a divine control of society obtains.[335] On the other hand, those customs which are intended to ward off evil spirits or general evil influences from the married pair are religious or magical.

+182+. Mr. Crawley[336] holds that all marriage ceremonies are essentially religious, as involving the conception of something strange and dangerous in the contact of men and women; they are intended, he thinks, to neutralize dangers by reversing taboos and by a.s.similating the two persons each to the other, the dangers in question being not merely distinctly s.e.xual but those of contact in general. Though he carries his application of the principle of taboo too far, he has collected a large number of examples which ill.u.s.trate the separation between the s.e.xes in early society, and the taboos which hold in their social intercourse. The separation of the s.e.xes in early times seems to have resulted largely from the difference in their occupations and the consequent isolation of each from the other. Possibly one result of this isolation was that each saw something strange and wonderful in the other; but it must be remembered that the taboo laws were made by men and are therefore directed particularly against women. The belief in the sacredness of life would act more particularly on the ideas concerning birth.

+183+. Among many half-civilized peoples and generally in Christian communities marriage is regarded both as a religious ceremony and as a civil contract, and is controlled in the one case by the religious authorities, in the other case by the civil authorities. In Mohammedan communities marriage is simply a civil contract, but religious ceremonies are often connected with it.[337]

CEREMONIES AT BIRTH

+184+. It is possible that early man was so impressed by the fact of life and the wonderfulness of the birth of a human being that he included this latter fact in the sphere of the supernatural, and that the taboos connected with it arose from his dread of supernatural, dangerous influence.[338] Many of the ceremonies connected with the birth of a child may be explained easily as resulting from the natural care for mother and child. Both of these are, in the modern sense of the term, sacred; and even in very early times ordinary humane feeling would seek to protect them from injury.[339]

+185+. Thus the curious custom of the couvade,[340] in which the husband, and not the wife, goes to bed on the birth of the child, may be an effort on the man's part to share in the labor of the occasion, since he has to take care of the child; or it may be primarily an economical procedure--the woman must go out to work and the man must therefore stay at home to take care of the house and the child. But probably something more than this is involved--there seems to be fear of supernatural danger. It is not necessary to suppose that the man takes the woman's place in order to attract to himself the malevolent spirits that figure on such occasions; but the belief in the intimate vital connection between father and child may induce the desire to guard the former against injury. Similar precautions are taken in regard to the mother;[341] some of these have a natural basis in her physical condition which necessitates a certain carefulness. Where such customs connected with birth prevail, departure from them is thought to be dangerous or fatal; but such a feeling exists in regard to all social customs.

+186+. The belief that the newborn child is the reincarnation of an ancestor is scientific rather than religious. In Central Australia every child is held to be the reincarnation of a spirit ancestor; a similar idea is found in North America, in Western Africa, and in Orissa.[342]

In searching for the cause of birth it is not unnatural that it should be ascribed to a preexistent being who desires to enter again into human life.[343]

+187+. The ablutions or sprinklings of water practiced in some places appear to be merely the expression of welcome into the community.[344]

The choice of a name for the child is frequently connected with religious ideas. Among many tribes the custom is to seek for some hint from the child itself, as by repeating a number of names and observing which of them the child seems to recognize or accept. The help of a deity is sometimes invoked, as in Borneo, where a pig is killed and its spirit thus sent as messenger to a particular G.o.d, who is asked to approve.[345] In Samoa a tutelary spirit is sometimes chosen for the infant;[346] during childhood the child bears the name of a G.o.d, who seems to be regarded as its protector. The identification of person and name, common among savages, is also scientific rather than religious. At the entrance into a secret society the novitiate may receive a new name.[347] The adoption of a child's name by the father (teknonymy) may be simply the expression of paternal pride, or possibly it is the expression of the father's protection or of his identification with the child. The adoption of a secret name that involves the man's personality and is therefore to be withheld from enemies belongs to adult life.

+188+. The taboos imposed on the mother during pregnancy and after the birth of the child, often numerous and oppressive, are derived from local conditions, and are generally regulated by religion. With the growth of refinement they tend to disappear, while the attendant ceremonies take on a moral and spiritual character, culminating, in the great religions, in the conception that the babe, as a child of G.o.d, is to be taken into the religious fellowship of the community and trained for a good life.

BURIAL CEREMONIES[348]

+189+. Among savage peoples grief for the dead expresses itself in a variety of violent ceremonies of mourning, such as wailing, and cutting and gashing the body. These are partly expressions of natural sorrow,[349] but may be intended in part to propitiate the dead, who thus sees that honor is paid him.

+190+. The belief that the dead person is powerful expresses itself in the care with which the grave is guarded, it being held that injury to the grave is an injury to the dead, and likely, therefore, to excite his anger. Further, savage science as a rule does not recognize natural causes of death. It regards death as murder, and there is accordingly search for the murderer, often by protracted ceremonies with the aid of a magician. The well-being of the dead man is provided for by placing food and drink, utensils and weapons in his grave, that he may have the means of enjoyment in the other world.[350] To a.s.sure him proper service his wives and slaves are sometimes slain, that their souls may accompany his; but this custom is not found among the lowest tribes--it belongs to a relatively advanced conception of the other life.[351] In many cases blood is sprinkled on the ground near the grave of the corpse, as in Borneo (the blood of a fowl);[352] the blood may be meant to be food for the dead, or its supernatural power may be supposed to guard against injury from him to the living.

+191+. A ban of silence is often imposed--the name of the dead person is not to be mentioned except by certain privileged men;[353] among certain North American tribes on the death of a child there is a ban of silence on the father.[354] The reason for this prohibition of the dead person's name is not certain. It may be respect for him, or it may be merely an expression of sorrow at his loss. More probably, however, it comes from the belief that the dead man is powerful and may be hurtful, and that therefore his name, which is identical with himself, is dangerous.[355]

+192+. In the cases mentioned above, the dead person is generally regarded as dangerous--to be feared and appeased. Among some tribes, indeed, precautions are taken to prevent his coming back to his house.

Very generally the presence of the corpse is held to cause a certain pollution.[356] There is, however, another side to the att.i.tude toward the dead. As he is regarded as powerful, parts of his body are preserved as amulets; wives wear parts of the bones of the dead husband, and the skulls of the deceased are supposed to be especially powerful, in some cases to give oracular responses.[357]

+193+. In general, early burial ceremonies appear to be designed to a.s.sure the comfort of the deceased in the other world with a view to securing his friendship and aid for the members of his family and clan in this life. As he is of the nature of a divine person, the ceremonies in question are naturally religious. Socially they are effective in binding the members of a community together--a large sense of solidarity is produced by the communal recognition of kinship with the dead.

Special stress is laid on this conception in China.[358]

CEREMONIES OF PURIFICATION AND CONSECRATION[359]

+194+. The essence of religion is a helpful relation to the supernatural, but in early stages of culture man frequently finds himself exposed to conditions, either resident in himself or induced from without, that destroy this relation and disqualify him for the performance of sacred acts. The result is a state of ritual impurity or uncleanness, conceived of at first as purely physical, but tending to become gradually moralized. The removal of the disqualification const.i.tutes purification; the positive preparation for the performance of a sacred act const.i.tutes consecration; the two procedures represent two sides of the same idea, and they are related in a general way to ceremonies of initiation and atonement.

+195+. The occasions for purification are numerous, including all contacts or possibilities of contact with dangerous (sacred) things, and thus often coinciding with taboo conceptions.[360] All acts connected with procreation and birth; contact with a corpse, or with a sacred person or thing, or with an object belonging to a sacred person; return from a journey (in the course of which the traveler may have been exposed to some injurious supernatural influence)[361]--such things as these call for cleansing. Inanimate objects also, especially such as are connected with religious worship (altars, vessels, and instruments), require purification; these are thought of originally as having souls, and as incurring defilement by the transmission of neighboring impurities. A moral conception may seem to be involved in the requirement of purification after the committal of a murder; certainly, in the more advanced stages of society, the feeling in this case is moral, but it is doubtful whether in earlier stages anything more is involved than the recognition of ritual defilement by contact with blood; homicide, as a social crime, is dealt with by the civil law, and is generally excluded from the benefits of acts of ritual atonement,[362] and so also all violations of tribal law.

+196+. The religious preparation for the performance of a sacred act usually concerns official persons (see below, under _consecration_, -- 202), but sometimes involves the purification of others. The largest act of purification is that which includes a whole community or people;[363] the social ma.s.s is then regarded as a unit, and there is no reason, according to early thought, why such a ma.s.s should not, by a ceremony, be freed from all ritual disabilities, the idea of moral purification being, of course, absent or latent. Finally, ritual purification is sometimes a preliminary to pleasing and influencing the deity, who, as the most sacred and most dangerous object, must be approached with the greatest precautions.[364]

+197+. The various methods of purification may be included under a few heads, the princ.i.p.al of which are: the application of water (bathing, sprinkling); the application of sand, dung, bark, and similar things; exposure to fire; incantation and sacrifice; and fasting. In all these cases the virtue lies either in a sacred thing or act that has the quality of dissipating the mysterious defilement present, or in the removal or avoidance of the defiling thing; it is frequently required that the application of the cleansing substance be made by a sacred person, whose character adds potency to the act. The use of water for ceremonial purification has been, and is, practiced all over the world, alike by savages and by civilized peoples:[365] the newborn child, ritually impure by reason of the mystery of birth, is bathed or sprinkled; before the performance of a sacred act the officiator must bathe;[366] numerous ablutions are prescribed in the Old Testament; similar usages obtained among the Egyptians, the Hindus and the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, the Chinese and the j.a.panese, the Mexicans and the Peruvians, and other peoples.

+198+. These usages have arisen doubtless from observation of the natural cleansing power of water and other things in conjunction with the belief in their sacred character. Adopted by the higher religions they have been more or less spiritualized by the infusion into them of ideas of penitence, forgiveness of sin, and regeneration--so in India, Persia, and Peru. Christian baptism seems to have come from Jewish proselyte baptism:[367] the proselyte was by immersion in water symbolically cleansed from sin and introduced into a new religious life, and such was the significance of the rite practiced by John, though his surname "the Baptizer" probably indicates that he gave it a broader and deeper meaning; he overstepped national bounds, receiving Jews as well as non-Jews.[368] Moslem ritual requires ablutions before the stated prayers and at certain other times; every mosque has its tank of water for the convenience of worshipers.

+199+. Where water cannot be had, usage in Islam and in some forms of Christianity permits the subst.i.tution of sand or dust--both thought to have cleansing power. Similar power is ascribed to urine and dung of domestic animals.[369] Such usages may originate in a belief in the physical cleansing efficacy of those substances (the Toda women employ dried buffalo's dung in household cleaning), or they may be supposed to derive their efficacy from the sacredness of the animals. The Todas also make much use of a certain bark for purification.[370] The origin of these customs is obscure; they go back to times and conditions for a knowledge of which data are lacking--possibly to the early conception of the sacredness of all natural objects.[371] It is less difficult to explain the belief in the purifying power of fire. Its splendor and utility caused it to be regarded as a G.o.d in India and Persia, and if it was also destructive, it often consumed hurtful things. It was sacred, and might, therefore, be a remover of impurity. Its employment for this purpose is, however, not frequent;[372] it is oftener used to consume corpses and other unclean things.

+200+. In the more developed religious rituals, sacrifice is a common accompaniment of purifying ceremonies, the object being to procure the forgiveness of the deity for the offense held to be involved in the impurity; the conception of sin in such cases is sometimes physical, sometimes moral, and the ceremony is always nearly allied to one of atonement. In the Hebrew ritual a human bodily impurity and the apparatus of the temple alike require a sin-offering.[373] In India the bath of purification stood in close relation with a sacrifice.[374] In Greece the two were a.s.sociated in the cults of Apollo and Dionysos and in ordinary worship in general.[375] Thus, men and G.o.ds take part in the process of freeing the worshiper from the impure elements of life: the man obeys the law of the ritual, and the G.o.d receives him into a.s.sociation with the divine.

+201+. Ancient examples of the purification of a whole community are the Hebrew ceremony on the annual day of atonement[376] (which is called in the text a purification), and the Roman Lupercalia.[377] An elaborate festival of this sort was observed every year by the Creeks;[378] it lasted eight days, included various cathartic observances, and ended in a physical and moral reconstruction of the nation. Among the Todas a similar ceremony for the purification of a village exists.[379]

+202+. Ceremonies of _consecration_ are similar to those of purification, only usually more formal and solemn. Entrance on a sacred function, which involves special direct contact with a deity, requires special preparation. Even before a simple act of prayer it was felt to be proper to cleanse one's person;[380] how much more important was bodily cleansing and other preparation for one who was chosen by the community to represent it in its relations with the supernatural Powers!

The preparation for such an office is in earlier times ritual and external, and becomes gradually moralized. Magicians must submit to purificatory restrictions, and prove their fitness by various deeds.[381] Initiation into secret societies (whose members had a certain official character) was, and is, often elaborate.[382] Priests in Egypt, Babylonia and a.s.syria, Canaan, India, Greece and Rome, were subject to conditions of purity, always physical and sometimes moral, that secured a daily consecration.

+203+. Methods of initial consecration were, probably, of the general character of those prescribed in the Hebrew ritual law.[383] Authority is often conferred by a high official, whose consecrating act is then generally regarded as essential.[384] The priest becomes invested with a quasi-divine authority. The consecration of kings follows the same general lines as that of priests. In both cases the desire is to have some visible form of the deity whose relations with men may be felt to be direct.

+204+. No purificatory and consecrative usage has been more widespread than fasting.[385] It is found throughout religious history in the lowest tribes and in the most highly civilized peoples, has been practiced in a great variety of circ.u.mstances, and has been invested with a special sanct.i.ty and efficacy. It has been regarded as necessary before partaking of sacred food, before the performance of a sacred ceremony, after a death, in the presence of a great occurrence (as an eclipse or a thunderstorm, regarded as supernatural), as a part of the training of magicians, as a preparation for the search after a guardian spirit, as a part of ceremonies in honor of G.o.ds, as an act of abstinence in connection with a calamity (or in general as a self-denial proper to sinful man and pleasing to the deity as an act of humility), and, finally, as a retirement from fleshly conditions in preparation for spiritual exercises.

+205+. A great number of explanations of the origin of the custom have been proposed, and it is obvious that the particular usages come from somewhat different conceptions. Apparently, however, all these usages of purification by fasting go back to the idea that the body, which is identified with the human personality, is in its ordinary state nonsacred[386] and therefore unfit for the performance of a sacred act, and that it is rendered especially unfit by contact with a ritually unclean thing. Ordinary food, nourishing the body and becoming a part of it, thus maintains it in its nonsacred character. This point of view appears in the practice of administering a purge as a means of ceremonial purification; the Nandi, for example, give a purge to a girl before her circ.u.mcision, and in some cases to any one who has touched a taboo object.[387]

+206+. The essence of fasting is the avoiding of defiling food; this conception may be traced in all instances of the practice, though it may be in some cases reenforced by other considerations, and is sometimes spiritualized. The efficacy of sacred food would be destroyed if it came in contact with common food, or it might itself become destructive.[388] A sacred ceremony demands a sacred performer, one who has not taken a defiling substance into his being. Death diffuses defilement, and makes the food in the house of the deceased dangerous.

+207+. Other ideas may here come in: abstinence may be a sign or a result of grief, though this does not seem likely except in refined communities; or its ground may be fear of eating the ghost, which is believed to be hovering about the dead body;[389] it is hardly the result of "making excessive provision for the dead."[390] Special communion with supernatural Powers, by magicians and others (including conditions of ecstasy), requires ritual purity, and similar preparation of the body is proper when it is desired to avert the anger of a deity or to do him honor.

+208+. Once established, the custom has maintained itself in the higher religions[391] in connection with more or less definite spiritual aims and with other exercises, particularly prayer. The dominant feeling is then self-denial, at the bottom of which the conviction appears to be that the deity demands complete subordination in the worshiper and is displeased when he a.s.serts himself. This conviction, which is a fundamental element in all religious thought, pertains properly only to inward experience, but naturally tends to annex nonspiritual acts of self-abnegation like fasting. As a moral discipline, a training in the government of self and a preparation for enduring times of real privation, fasting is regarded by many persons as valuable. Its power to isolate the man from the world and thus minister to religious communion differs in different persons. The Islamic fast of Ramadan is said to produce irritability and lead to quarrels. In general, fasting tends to induce a nonnatural condition of body and mind, favorable to ecstatic experiences, and favorable or not, as the case may be, to a genuine religious life.[392]

+209+. As with other religious observances, so with purificatory ceremonies the tendency is to ma.s.s and organize them--they are made to occur at regular times and under fixed conditions, as in the Christian Lent, the Moslem Ramadan, and the Creek Busk. Such arrangements give orderliness to outward religious life, but are likely to diminish or destroy spontaneity in observances. Ceremonies of this sort have great vitality--they are handed on from age to age, the later religion adopting and modifying and reinterpreting the forms of the earlier. In such cases the lower conceptions survive in the minds of the ma.s.ses, and are moralized by the more spiritual natures, and their influence on society is therefore of a mixed character.

CEREMONIES CONNECTED WITH SEASONS AND PERIODS

+210+. Some of these have already been mentioned under "Economic Ceremonies." We may here take a general survey of festivals the times of whose celebration are determined by the divisions of the year, and thus const.i.tute calendars.[393] The earliest calendars appear to have been fixed by observation of the times when it was proper to gather the various sorts of food--to hunt animals and gather grubs and plants (as in Central Australia), or this or that species of fish (as in Hawaii).

The year was thus divided according to the necessities of life--seasons were fixed by experience.

+211+. At a comparatively early period, however, the phases of the moon attracted attention, and became the basis of calendars. Lunar calendars are found among savage and half-civilized tribes of various grades of culture in Polynesia, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and were retained for a time by most ancient civilized peoples. Later observation included the movements of the sun; it is only among advanced peoples that festivals are connected with equinoxes and solstices. The more scientific calendars gradually absorbed the earlier, and it is probable that simple ceremonies that were originally neither agricultural nor astral were taken up into the later systems and reinterpreted.[394]

+212+. When, from observation of climatic conditions and lunar changes, a general division of the year came to be made into spring, summer, autumn, and winter, or several similar seasons (sometimes with intermediate points), festivals gradually arranged themselves in the various periods. The terms designating the four seasons are, however, somewhat indefinite in regard to position in the year and duration, varying in these points in different places, and it is better, in considering agricultural ceremonies, to make a general division into times of planting and times of harvesting. It is not certain whether lunar or agricultural festivals came first in the development of public religious life, but as (omitting the lowest tribes) the former are found where there is no well-organized agricultural system, we may begin with them.

+213+. The new moon, as marking the beginning of the month, and other phases of the moon are frequently accompanied by observances of a more or less definitely religious character, with great variety of detail in different places. The Nandi[395] have two seasons (the wet and the dry) and twelve months named from meteorological phenomena, and each day in the month receives a name from the attendant phase of the moon. The great ceremonies are conducted in the period of the waxing of the moon, and its waning is an occasion of mourning. The new moon is greeted with a prayer that it may bring blessing. A similar custom exists among the Masai.[396] On the other hand the Todas, though the times of their festivals are all regulated by the moon, appear to have no lunar ceremony;[397] if there was ever any such ceremony, it has been absorbed by the buffalo cult. The South American Arawaks have six ceremonies in the year that seem to be fixed by the appearance of the new moon.[398]

The Hebrew first day of the (lunar) month was observed with special religious ceremonies.[399] The full moon, the last phase of growth, is less prominent; where it marks a festival day it is generally in connection with an agricultural event, as among the non-Aryan Bhils of India[400] and in the later Hebrew calendar;[401] in both these cases the observance occurs only once in the year.

+214+. The new moon of the first month marks the beginning of the year, and new year's day is celebrated, particularly in the more advanced communities, with special observances. The Hindu _pongol_ and similar festivals are seasons of merriment, with giving of presents, and religious exercises.[402] Though these occasions now include agricultural epochs, we may recognize in them an interest in the beginning of a new era in life. A like character attaches to the celebration of the j.a.panese new year's day.[403] Of a.s.syrian observances of the day little is known, but at Babylon it was celebrated with great pomp, and with it was connected the conception of the determination of human fortunes for the year by Marduk, the chief deity of the city.[404]

The late Old Testament ritual makes it a taboo day (first day of the seventh month, September-October); no servile work is to be done, trumpets are to be blown (apparently to mark its solemnity), and a special sacrifice is to be offered;[405] in post-Biblical times the feature of the divine a.s.signment of fates (probably adopted from the Babylonians) appears. The old Roman religious year began with the kalends of March, when the sacred fire of Vesta was renewed, a procedure obviously intended to introduce a new era; on the later civil new year's day (kalends of January) presents were exchanged,[406] a custom everywhere relatively late, a feature in the gradual secularization of ceremonies.

+215+. Solar festivals, as such, are less prominent than the lunar in religious ritual. Though the sun was a great G.o.d widely worshiped, it was little used in the construction of early calendars. Primitive astronomy knew hardly anything of solstices and equinoxes, and where these are noted in the more advanced rituals, they appear to be attachments to observances founded on other considerations--so the Roman Saturnalia, celebrated near the winter solstice, and apparently the plebeian festival of the summer solstice attached to the worship of Fortuna; and the same thing is probably true of the Semitic and Greek festivals that occurred near the equinoxes and solstices.[407]

+216+. Elaborate solst.i.tial ceremonies are practiced by the North American Pueblos.[408] A well-developed solar system of festivals existed in Peru, where the sun was the central object of worship; equinoxes and solstices were observed with great ceremonies, and especially at the summer solstice the rising of the sun was hailed with popular rejoicing as a sign that the favor of the deity would be extended to the nation.[409] Similar ceremonies may have existed in Mexico and elsewhere, but in general, as is remarked above, the astronomical feature at solar epochs yielded to other a.s.sociations.

Occasional festivals occur in connection with the worship of stars (especially the morning star);[410] the Pleiades are objects of observation among some low tribes, and in some cases (Society Islands, Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand) the year began with the rising of these stars, but apparently no festivals are dedicated to them.[411] In the later theistic development various deities are brought into connection with heavenly bodies, and their cults absorb earlier observances.[412]

+217+. Socially the agricultural festivals are the most important of the early festival ceremonies;[413] they unite the people in public observances, thus furthering the communal life, and they satisfy the popular demand for amus.e.m.e.nt. Doubtless under any social conditions gatherings for merrymaking would have arisen, but, by reason of the const.i.tution of early society, they necessarily a.s.sume a religious character. Whether for planting or for reaping, the local G.o.d must be considered; it is he whose aid must be invoked for coming crops, and he must be thanked for successful seasons. The festivals occur at various times in the year among various peoples, but the tone of merriment is the predominant one--it is only in a few cases that a touch of seriousness or sadness is found. Early festal calendars are largely agricultural. In Greece, Rome, and Peru there was a succession of festivals, connected with planting and reaping, running substantially through the year; other ceremonies, of course, stood side by side with them, but these were relatively few.

+218+. Joyous festivals occur especially at the time of the ripening of crops and harvest. The old Canaanite autumn feasts, adopted by the Hebrews, were seasons of good cheer.[414] In Greece the Panathenaea fell in July-August, the Thesmophoria in October, and the Anthesteria in February,--all agricultural, with joyous features;[415] of the similar Roman festivals the Feriae Latinae fell in April, the Feriae Jovi in August, the Saturnalia in December, and with these should perhaps be included the Ambarvalia (in May) and the festival of the horse sacrifice (in October).[416] Other ceremonies of this nature occur in India, New Zealand, Torres Straits islands, and in the old Peruvian cult.

+219+. Popular festivities easily pa.s.s into license; examples are the Roman Saturnalia and the Hindu Holi[417]; the harvest festival of the Hos of Northeastern India is a debauch,[418] and with it is connected the expulsion of evil spirits--an example of the coalescence of festivals. A peculiar feature in certain of these ceremonies is the exchange of places between masters and servants; this abandonment of ordinary social distinctions is an expression of the desire for freedom from all restraints, and is found in carnivals generally (in the Saturnalia and elsewhere).[419]