Modern Mythology Part 12

CRITICISM OF FETISHISM

Mischief of Comparisons in Comparative Mythology

Not always are comparisons illuminating, it seems. Our author writes, 'It may be said--in fact, it has been said--that there can at all events be no harm in simply placing the myths and customs of savages side by side with the myths and customs of Hindus and Greeks.' (This, in fact, is the method of the science of inst.i.tutions.)

'But experience shows that this is not so' (i. 195). So we must not, should not, simply place the myths and customs of savages side by side with those of Hindus and Greeks. It is taboo.

Dr. Oldenberg

Now Dr. Oldenberg, it seems, uses such comparisons of savage and Aryan faiths. Dr. Oldenberg is (i. 209) one of several '_very thoughtful scholars_' who do so, who break Mr. Max Muller's prohibition. Yet (ii.

220) '_no true scholar_ would accept any comparison' between savage fables and the folklore of Homer and the Vedas 'as really authoritative _until fully demonstrated on both sides_.' Well, it _is_ 'fully demonstrated,' or 'a very thoughtful scholar' (like Dr. Oldenberg) would not accept it. Or it is _not_ demonstrated, and then Dr. Oldenberg, though 'a very thoughtful,' is not 'a true scholar.'

Comparisons, when odious

Once more, Mr. Max Muller deprecates the making of comparisons between savage and Vedic myths (i. 210), and then (i. 220) he deprecates the _acceptance_ of these very comparisons 'as really authoritative until fully demonstrated.' Now, how is the validity of the comparisons to be 'fully demonstrated' if we are forbidden to make them at all, because to do so is to 'obscure' the Veda 'by light from the Dark Continent'?

A Question of Logic

I am not writing 'quips and cranks;' I am dealing quite gravely with the author's processes of reasoning. 'No true scholar' does what 'very thoughtful scholars' do. No comparisons of savage and Vedic myths should be made, but yet, 'when fully demonstrated,' 'true scholars would accept them' (i 209, 220). How can comparisons be demonstrated before they are made? And made they must not be!

'Scholars'

It would be useful if Mr. Max Muller were to define 'scholar,' 'real scholar,' 'true scholar,' 'very thoughtful scholar.' The latter may err, and have erred--like General Councils, and like Dr. Oldenberg, who finds in the Veda 'remnants of the wildest and rawest essence of religion,'

totemism, and the rest (i. 210). I was wont to think that 'scholar,' as used by our learned author, meant 'philological mythologist,' as distinguished from 'not-scholar,' that is, 'anthropological mythologist.'

But now 'very thoughtful scholars,' even Dr. Oldenberg, Mr. Rhys, Dr.

Robertson Smith, and so on, use the anthropological method, so 'scholar'

needs a fresh definition. The 'not-scholars,' the anthropologists, have, in fact, converted some very thoughtful scholars. If we could only catch the _true_ scholar! But that we cannot do till we fully demonstrate comparisons which we may not make, for fear of first 'obscuring the Veda by this kind of light from the Dark Continent.'

Anthropology and the Mysteries

It is not my affair to defend Dr. Oldenberg, whose comparisons of Vedic with savage rites I have never read, I am sorry to say. One is only arguing that the _method_ of making such comparisons is legitimate. Thus (i. 232) controversy, it seems, still rages among scholars as to 'the object of the Eleusinian Mysteries.' 'Does not the scholar's conscience warn us against accepting whatever in the myths and customs of the Zulus seems to suit our purpose'--of explaining features in the Eleusinia? If Zulu customs, and they alone, contained Eleusinian parallels, even the anthropologist's conscience would whisper caution. But this is not the case. North American, Australian, African, and other tribes have mysteries very closely and minutely resembling parts of the rites of the Eleusinia, Dionysia, and Thesmophoria. Thus Lobeck, a scholar, describes the Rhombos used in the Dionysiac mysteries, citing Clemens Alexandrinus.

{114} Thanks to Dr. Tylor's researches I was able to show (what Lobeck knew not) that the Rhombos (Australian turndun, 'Bull-roarer') is also used in Australian, African, American, and other savage religious mysteries. Now should I have refrained from producing this well-attested matter of fact till I knew Australian, American, and African languages as well as I know Greek? 'What century will it be when there will be scholars who know the dialects of the Australian blacks as well as we know the dialects of Greece?' (i. 232) asks our author. And what in the name of Eleusis have dialects to do with the circ.u.mstance that savages, like Greeks, use Rhombi in their mysteries? There are abundant other material facts, visible palpable objects and practices, which savage mysteries have in common with the Greek mysteries. {115} If observed by deaf men, when used by dumb men, instead of by scores of Europeans who could talk the native languages, these illuminating rites of savages would still be evidence. They have been seen and described often, not by 'a casual native informant' (who, perhaps, casually invented Greek rites, and falsely attributed them to his tribesmen), but by educated Europeans.

Abstract Ideas of Savages

Mr. Max Muller defends, with perfect justice, the existence of abstract ideas among contemporary savages. It appears that somebody or other has said--'we have been told' (i. 291)--'that all this' (the Mangaian theory of the universe) 'must have come from missionaries.' The ideas are as likely to have come from Hegel as from a missionary! Therefore, 'instead of looking for idols, or for totems and fetishes, we must learn and accept what the savages themselves are able to tell us. . . . ' Yes, we _must_ learn and accept it; so I have always urged. But if the savages tell us about totems, are they not then 'casual native informants'? If a Maori tells you, as he does, of traditional hymns containing ideas worthy of Herac.l.i.tus, is _that_ quite trustworthy; whereas, if he tells you about his idols and taboos, _that_ cannot possibly be worthy of attention?

Perception of the Infinite

From these extraordinary examples of abstract thought in savages, our author goes on to say that his theory of 'the perception of the Infinite'

as the origin of religion was received 'with a storm of unfounded obloquy' (i. 292). I myself criticised the Hibbert Lectures, in Mind; {116} on reading the essay over, I find no obloquy and no storm. I find, however, that I deny, what our author says that I a.s.sert, the primitiveness of contemporary savages.

In that essay, which, of course, our author had no reason to read, much was said about fetishism, a topic discussed by Mr. Max Muller in his Hibbert Lectures. Fetishism is, as he says, an ill word, and has caused much confusion.

Fetishism and Anthropological Method

Throughout much of his work our author's object is to invalidate the anthropological method. That method sets side by side the customs, ideas, fables, myths, proverbs, riddles, rites, of different races. Of their _languages_ it does not necessarily take account in this process.

n.o.body (as we shall see) knows the languages of all, or of most, of the races whose ideas he compares. Now the learned professor establishes the 'harm done' by our method in a given instance. He seems to think that, if a method has been misapplied, therefore the method itself is necessarily erroneous. The case stands thus: De Brosses {117a} first compared 'the so-called fetishes' of the Gold Coast with Greek and Roman amulets and other material objects of old religions. But he did this, we learn, without trying to find out _why_ a negro made a fetish of a pebble, sh.e.l.l, or tiger's tail, and without endeavouring to discover whether the negro's motives really were the motives of his 'postulated fetish worship' in Greece, Rome, or Palestine.

Origin of Fetishes

If so, tant pis pour monsieur le President. But how does the unscientific conduct attributed to De Brosses implicate the modern anthropologist? Do _we_ not try to find out, and really succeed sometimes in finding out, _why_ a savage cherishes this or that sc.r.a.p as a 'fetish'? I give a string of explanations in Custom and Myth (pp. 229- 230). Sometimes the so-called fetish had an accidental, which was taken to be a causal, connection with a stroke of good luck. Sometimes the thing--an odd-shaped stone, say--had a superficial resemblance to a desirable object, and so was thought likely to aid in the acquisition of such objects by 'sympathetic magic.' {117b}

Other 'fetishes' are revealed in dreams, or by ghosts, or by spirits appearing in semblance of animals. {118a}

'Telekinetic' Origin of Fetishism

As I write comes in Melusine, viii. 7, with an essay by M. Lefebure on Les Origines du Fetichisme. He derives some fetishistic practices from what the Melanesians call Mana, which, says Mr. Max Muller, 'may often be rendered by supernatural or magic power, present in an individual, a stone, or in formulas or charms' (i. 294). How, asks Mr. Lefebure, did men come to attribute this vis vivida to persons and things? Because, in fact, he says, such an unexplored force does really exist and display itself. He then cites Mr. Crookes' observations on scientifically registered 'telekinetic' performances by Daniel Dunglas Home, he cites Despine on Madame Schmitz-Baud, {118b} with examples from Dr. Tylor, P.

de la Rissachere, Dr. Gibier, {118c} and other authorities, good or bad.

Grouping, then, his facts under the dubious t.i.tle of le magnetisme, M.

Lefebure finds in savage observation of such facts 'the chief cause of fetishism.'

Some of M. Lefebure's 'facts' (of objects moving untouched) were certainly frauds, like the tricks of Eusapia. But, even if all the facts recorded were frauds, such impostures, performed by savage conjurers, who certainly profess {118d} to produce the phenomena, might originate, or help to originate, the respect paid to 'fetishes' and the belief in Mana.

But probably Major Ellis's researches into the religion of the Tshi-speaking races throw most light on the real ideas of African fetishists. The subject is vast and complex. I am content to show that, whatever De Brosses did, _we_ do not abandon a search for the motives of the savage fetishist. Indeed, De Brosses himself did seek and find at least one African motive, 'The conjurers (jongleurs) persuade them that little instruments in their possession are endowed with a living spirit.'