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first existed and then religion was developed out of it. Be that as it may, even those who maintain that man started by considering himself and his own magical powers capable of coercing the gods, admit that finally facts corrected that vain opinion-in other words, that hostility towards the supernatural was not a permanently possible attitude for man.

Whether man's attitude towards the supernatural has or has not ever at any period been one of complete hostility, at anyrate there came a time when he established friendly relations with some of the supernatural powers by which he was surrounded; and the business of this chapter is to conjecture what may have suggested to him the idea of forming an alliance with the particular supernatural spirit whose help and favour he desired. For, desirable as such an alliance must have appeared, the question how to effect it cannot have been easy to answer. The idea of alliance at all, like most other ideas, is more likely to have been suggested to man by some fact in his experience than to have been manufactured by him either à priori or ex nihilo. We have therefore to seek amongst the familiar facts of primitive man's experience for something capable of suggesting to his mind the possibility and the mode of gaining the friendship and favour of a supernatural spirit. To do this, it will be well to examine his views on spirits.

As

Hitherto all that it has been necessary to assume for the purpose of the previous chapters has been that man believed the gliding streams, the swaying trees, etc., to be living things like himself, and having the same kind of personality as himself. How he conceived that personality we have not yet considered, but must consider now. Professor Tylor has demonstrated with abundant illustrations in his Primitive Culture, dreams supply the principal factor in the formation of the savage's conception of his own spirit. His dream - experiences are to him real in exactly the same way and degree as anything he does or suffers in hist waking moments: the places he visits are the real places, the persons he sees the real persons. Hence a dilemma and

its solution. The dilemma is that at the time when he knows from actual experience (in a dream) that he was in a far country, his friends can testify that he was in his own

bed. The solution is that both he and his friends were right his body was in bed, but his spirit was away. As for the appearance of his spirit, it is the counterpart or double of himself (his body), for he has himself in dreams met the spirits of friends who (in the flesh) were far away, and has recognised them. As for the nature or constitution of the spirit, it is essentially unsubstantial, and hence it is commonly called by some word which means "breath" (spirit, spiritus, animus, soul, etc.), or "shade" (umbra, oxía, etc.). Or, as its usual place of abode is inside the man, it may be identified with one of the internal organs and called the "heart" or "midriff." Or, again, it is the "life," because in its merely temporary absence the sleeping body presents the appearance of an almost lifeless body; or it is the blood, because "the blood is the life," and when blood is shed, life departs. Or, finally, it may at one and the same time be all these things; and so a man may have, as amongst the Romans, four souls, or, as amongst savages, even more.

The savage is thus equipped with an explanation of sleep, death, and disease. Sleep is due to the temporary absence of the spirit from the body-hence the belief that it is dangerous to wake a sleeper suddenly and before his spirit has had time to return to his body. Death is caused by, or consists in, the permanent absence from the body of the spirit. Illness is the threatened departure of the spirit. Hence the remedy for illness is to tempt the wavering, and as yet hesitating, spirit to return to its body. This may be done in various ways, as, for instance, by making a display of all the patient's best clothes, or by rehearsing the pains and penalties incurred by spirits who wilfully desert their true and lawful bodies. On the Congo, "health is identified with the word 'Moyo' (spirit, Lower Congo), and in cases of wasting sickness, the Moyo is supposed to have wandered away from the sufferer. In these cases a search party is sometimes led by a charm doctor, and branches, land-shells, or stones are collected. The charm doctor will then perform a series of passes between the sick man and the collected articles. This ceremony is called vutulanga moyo (the returning of the spirit)."1

1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. 287. The method by which, among the Burats, a shaman restores a sick man his soul is described, ibid. 128.

In Celebes, the Topantunuasu whip the patient soundly, in order that the spirit may feel sorry for its poor body, and return to it to save it from further castigation. In Ambon and the Uliase Islands the medicine-man flaps a branch about, calling out the sick man's name, until he has caught the wandering soul in the branch; he then strikes the patient's body and head with the branch, and thus restores his soul to him. In Nias, the departing soul is visible to the medicine-man alone; he catches it with a cloth, then with the cloth rubs the forehead and breast of the patient, and thus saves him. The Haidah Indians have soul-catchers, bone implements for catching the patient's soul when it tries to fly away, specimens of which may be seen in the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde.1 Where, as in Sarawak, the spirit or life is believed to reside, not in the blood or the heart, but in the head or the hair, and the soul has deserted the patient, he is cured by the restoration of his soul in the shape of a bundle of hair. So, too, in Ceram, the hair may not be cut because it is the seat of the man's strength; the Gaboon negroes, for the same reason, will not allow any of their hair to pass into the possession of a stranger; and the same belief apparently prevailed in Rome, "unguium Dialis et capilli segmina subter arborem felicem terra operiuntur." 2

Even when the sick man is really dead, there is uncertainty whether the soul is for ever fled; there is the possibility that it may return. "It is in consequence of the belief," amongst the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "that the soul does occasionally return after leaving the body, that appeals to the dead to come back are always made immediately after death; and, generally speaking, it is only when the corpse begins to become corrupt, and the relatives thereby become certain that the soul does not intend to return, that it is buried." So, too, on the Gold Coast, "all the most valuable articles belonging to the deceased are placed round the corpse, and the dish that was most preferred in life is prepared and placed before it; the wailing being interrupted every now and then, to allow the widows to

3

1 Bartels, Medicin der Naturvölker, 201-3.

2 Bastian, Allerlei, i. 401. Cf. Num. vi. 5, 18, and Judg. xvi. 17.

3 Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, 156.

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entreat the deceased to eat or drink," the idea evidently being that the soul may be tempted by these delicacies to return. In Eastern Asia, again, the Arafuas tie the deceased to an upright ladder, and invite him to join in the funeral feast; and it is only when they have placed food in his mouth in vain that they bury him.2 On the Slave Coast, too, "the corpse is washed, attired in the best clothes, bedecked with ornaments, and placed in a chair, before which a small table with food and drink is set out . . . the deceased is implored to eat, and portions of food are put to his lips." 3 In China, too, according to the Li Yun, “when one died they went upon the house-top and called out his name in a prolonged note, saying, 'Come back, So-and-So.' After this they filled the mouth (of the dead) with uncooked rice, and (set forth as offerings to him) packets of raw flesh."4

At this point perhaps it is fitting that I should frankly state to the reader what is my object in making these quotations and those which I am about to make. Many learned, and many unlearned, anthropologists hold that the original, and, so to speak, the "natural" sentiment of man towards his dead, is that of fear. So, too, many writers have seen in fear the sole source of religion. So, too, again, many moral philosophers, from the time of Thrasymachus or earlier, have regarded selfishness, the selfish desires, personal fear, and the baser passions, as the only natural impulses to action. In this book the opposite view-that of Bishop Butler—is maintained, namely, that love, gratitude, affection, are just as "natural" as their opposites. Now, as regards the family affections, there can be no possibility of doubt; the infancy of man is longer than that of any of the animals, most of which can walk and take care of themselves almost, if not quite, as soon as they are born. Man's infancy, on the other hand, is so long that the human race could not have survived in the struggle for existence, had not the parental instincts and family affections been strong in primitive man. Existing savages are in this respect "men, so to speak." In Samoa, for instance," whenever the eye is fixed in death, the house

1 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 238.

3 Ewe-speaking Peoples, 157-8.

2

Bastian, Oest. Asien, v. 83.

4 Legge, The Li Ki, 369 (Sacred Books of the East).

becomes an indescribable scene of lamentation and wailing. 'Oh, my father, why did you not let me die, and you live here still!' 'Oh, my child, had I known you were going to die! of what use is it for me to survive you? would that I had died for you!' . . . These and other doleful cries . are accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief."" Among the negroes of the Slave Coast, "the widows and daughters lament their lonely and unprotected state, somewhat as follows:-'I go to the market, it is crowded. There are

many people there, but he is not among them. I wait, but he comes not. Ah me! I am alone. Never more shall I see him. It is over; he is gone. I shall see him no more. Ah me! I am alone. I go into the street. The people pass, but he is not there. Night falls, but he comes not. Ah me! I am alone. Alas! I am alone. Alone in the dayalone in the darkness of the night. Alas! my father (or husband) is dead. Who will take care of me?'" 2 Amongst

the negroes of the Gold Coast, "no sooner has the breath left the body than a loud wailing cry bursts forth from the house, and the women rush into the streets with disordered clothes and dishevelled hair, uttering the most acute and mournful cries." 3 Amongst the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "a death in a family is announced by an outbreak of shrieks and lamentations on the part of the women, who throw themselves on the ground, strike their heads against the walls, and commit a variety of extravagances; calling upon the deceased meanwhile not to desert them, and endeavouring, by all kinds of supplications, to induce the soul to return and reanimate the body." It not unfrequently happens that what, in its origin, was spontaneous, comes in time to be conventional; and in Bonny (as in China) there is a regular ceremony entitled "recalling the soul to the house." Perhaps also in the feast which is spread with the dead man's favourite delicacies, to tempt his soul to return, we may have the origin of the funeral feasts and wakes, which are universal, and therefore need not be illustrated.

5

The natural affection which makes the relatives of the

1 G. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, 227.

2 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples, 157.

3 Tshi-speaking Peoples, 237.

+ Ellis, 157.

5 Bastian, Expedition an der Loango Küste, i. 114.

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