CHAPTER III
EARLY RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES
[101]. The earliest known forms of social life are characterized by the performance of public ceremonies, which are almost always religious. Religion in some form enters into all the details of early life—there is no event that is not supposed to be caused or affected by a supernatural Power or influence. A vaguely conceived force (mana), an attribute of life, is believed to reside in all things, and under certain circumstances has to be reckoned with. Mysterious potencies in the shape of souls, spirits, gods, or mana are held to preside over and control all affairs—birth, sickness, death, hate and love, hunting and war, sowing and reaping. There is no dogma except belief in this extrahuman influence—no conception of moral effort as based on and sanctioned by a definite moral ideal, no struggle of the sort that we call spiritual. Religion consists of a body of practices whose authority rests on precedent; as it is supposed they have existed from time immemorial, they are held to be necessary to secure the well-being of the tribe (a sufficient supply of food, or victory over enemies); to the question why such and such things are done, the common reply of the savage is that without them the thing desired could not be got.
[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 institutions 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 identity 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 assumed 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 principal early ceremonies may be divided into classes 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 asserts 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 chastity (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 gods: 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 classed processions, in which usually a god 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 gods 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 gods 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 circumambulation 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—passing 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 circumambulation 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 participants.
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 sex 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 prickings 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 pricking, 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 masses 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 assume a social relation between man and beasts and plants; in some cases there is assumed a recognition by animals of the necessities of the case and a spirit of friendly coöperation; 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 assumed.
[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 principal 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 Pawnee 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 rôle—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 assembles the men, recites spells addressed to ancestors, and passing 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 space of time, constitute 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 identity 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 Pawnees, and others[267]), sometimes bestial (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 gods, 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 assuring 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-god, into a stream.[275] Certain American tribes assign 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 massed at stated seasons, as at the beginning of the year or in connection with some agricultural festival.
[139]. Man's defensive attitude 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, Japan, 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 association with the men's ceremony of expulsion, a supernatural potency—it removes the injurious mana of the hostile spirits.
[141]. Less violent methods of riddance may be employed. Evil, being a physical thing, may be embodied in some object, nonhuman or human, which is then carried forth or sent away to some distant point, or destroyed. With this principle of transference may be compared the conception of solidarity of persons and things in a tribe or other community: what one unit does or suffers affects all—the presence of an accursed thing with one person brings a curse on his nation,[284] and conversely, the removal of the evil thing or person removes the curse, which may, under certain circumstances, be shifted to some other place or person.
[142]. The particular method of expulsion or transference is immaterial.[285] The troublesome evil may be carted or boated away according to local convenience, or it may depart in the person of an animal. Leprous taint is transferred to a bird, which, having been dipped in the blood of a sacred animal, is allowed to fly away carrying the taint off from the community.[286] Even moral evils (sin) may thus be got rid of. In the great Hebrew annual ceremony of atonement not only the ritual impurity of the sanctuary and the altar, but also the sin of the nation, is laid on a goat and sent away to the wilderness demon, Azazel.[287]
[143]. Examples of human apotropaic vehicles occur in the ancient civilized world. In the Athenian Thargelia the Pharmakos was supposed to bear in his person crimes and evils, and was driven forth from the city.[288] The same conception is found, perhaps, in the Roman Mamuralia and Lupercalia. In the first of these Mamertius is driven forth from the city and consigned to the keeping of hostile persons;[289] in the second, young men ran about the streets beating the women with strips of goatskin, the skin being that of a sacred animal—a proceeding that was regarded as purificatory, and seems to be naturally explicable as an expulsion of evil spirits or injurious mana.[290]
[144]. In another direction expulsion of evil, or protection against it, is effected by the blood of a sacrificed (and therefore sacred) animal. A well-known example of this sort of ceremony is the Hebrew pesah (the old lamb ceremony, later combined with the agricultural festival of unleavened bread, at the time of the first harvest, the two together then constituting the passover); here the doorposts and lintel of every house were sprinkled with the blood of a slain lamb by the master of the house,[291] and the hostile spirits hovering in the air were thus prevented from entering. The sacred blood seems to have been conceived of as carrying with it the power of the family god (who was also the clan god), which overbore that of the demons (in the earliest period, however, the efficacy was doubtless held to reside simply in the blood itself). The ceremony belonged to each family, but it belonged also to the clan since it was performed by every family, and ultimately it became a national usage.
[145]. Apotropaic ceremonies appear to have been performed originally at various times during the year as occasions arose; the increasing pressure of occupations,[292] the necessity of consulting people's convenience, and the demand for order and precision led here (as in other cases) to the massing of the observances. When so massed they begin to lose their original significance, to yield to the knowledge of natural law, to be reinterpreted from time to time, and finally to become mere social events or to be dropped altogether. Apotropaism has hardly survived at all in the higher religions.[293] In popular customs it appears in the reliance placed on horseshoes and other objects as means of keeping witches and similar demonic things out of houses.[294]
Ceremonies of Puberty and Initiation
[146]. Ceremonies in connection with the arrival of young persons, male and female, at the age of maturity appear to be universal, and they yield in importance to no other class of social procedures. The basis of most of these is civil; their object is to prepare young persons for entering on the active duties of what may be called citizenship. They involve a distinct idea of the importance of the clan, the necessity of maintaining its life unimpaired, and, to that end, preparing with the utmost care the younger portion of the community to take up the duties of the older. The boys are to be trained to be the hunters and rulers of the clan, the girls are to be fitted to become the wives and mothers of the next generation. But while the ceremonies in question have their foundation in the needs of civil life, they inevitably receive a religious coloring, since religion is intimately connected with all the details of early life.
[147]. Among the details of the initiation of boys, tests of endurance occupy a prominent place. In various ways the capacity of the lad to endure physical pain or to face apparent dangers is tested,[295] and in some cases one who fails to stand such tests is refused admission into the clan and forever after occupies an inferior and despised position. Such persons are sometimes treated as women; they are required to wear women's dress and to do menial work.[296]
[148]. The seclusion of girls on arriving at the age of puberty, with imposition of various taboos (of food, etc.), is a widespread custom. The mysterious change in the girl is supposed to be produced by some supernatural and dangerous Power, and she is therefore to be shielded from contact with all injurious things. The details of the procedure depend on local ideas, but the principle is the same everywhere. The object is the preparation of the girl for civic life, and the ceremony inevitably becomes connected with tribal cults of the supernatural Powers.[297]
[149]. A rearrangement of taboos is a frequent feature in ceremonies of puberty and initiation. Certain taboos, no longer needed, are removed and others are imposed; these latter refer, in the case of boys, to intercourse with the men and women of the clan or tribe—they are instructed not to speak to certain persons, and in general they are made acquainted with the somewhat elaborate social system that prevails in many early tribes. These taboos are intended to prepare the boys to understand their position as members of the tribe, responsible for the maintenance of its customs. The taboos relating to food have arisen from conditions whose origins belong to a remote and unrecorded past, and remain obscure.[298]
[150]. When the ceremony of initiation is elaborate and secret, it becomes mysterious to boys, is looked forward to by them with apprehension, and appeals to their imagination. Supernatural terrors are provided by the leaders—noises are heard (made by the bull-roarer or some similar device), and the report is circulated that the initiate is in danger of death at the hands of a supernatural being. These methods testify to the importance attached by early societies to the introduction of the young into social and political life, and they furnish an early example of the employment of the supernatural for the government of the masses. The old men do not believe in their supernatural machinery, and the boys, after initiation, are let into the secret.
[151]. Mutilation of the body is a widespread custom in connection with initiation and arrival at the age of puberty.[299] In most cases the origin of mutilating customs is obscure. Imitation of the form or appearance of a sacred animal, embellishment of the initiate, or consecration of a part of the body to a deity have been suggested as motives; but there is no clear evidence of such designs. The knocking out of a tooth may be for convenience in taking food; it seems not to have religious significance except in so far as all tribal marks become religiously important.[300] Boring through the septum of the nose is perhaps for decorative purposes. The cutting of the hair is possibly for convenience, possibly for dedication to a deity.[301]
[152]. Among the most important of the customs of initiation are those connected with the organs of generation, excluding, as is remarked above, complete excision, which belongs to conceptions of religious asceticism (consecration to a deity, preservation against temptation) in the higher cults, and is not found among savages.[302] Partial excision occurs in circumcision, for males, and in similar operations for females.
[153]. Circumcision of males.[303] The most widely diffused of such customs of initiation is the gashing or the complete removal of the prepuce. It existed in ancient times among the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Hebrews (for the Arabs, the Syrians, and the Babylonians and Assyrians we have no information), not, so far as the records go, among the Greeks, Romans, and Hindus. At the present time it is found among all Moslems and most Jewish communities, throughout Africa, Australia, Polynesia and Melanesia, and, it is said, in Eastern Mexico. It is hardly possible to say what its original distribution was, and whether or not there was a single center of distribution. As to its origin many theories have been advanced. Its character as initiatory is not an explanation—all customs of initiation need to have their origins explained. It may be said at the outset that a usage prevalent in low tribes and clearly beginning under savage conditions of life must, probably, have sprung from some simple physical need, not from advanced scientific or religious conceptions. We may briefly examine the principal explanations of its origin that have been offered.
[154]. It cannot be regarded as a test of endurance, for it involves no great suffering, and neither it nor the severer operation of subincision[304] (practiced in Australia) is ever spoken of as an official test.
[155]. A hygienic ground is out of the question for early society. The requisite medical observation is then lacking, and there is no hint of such a motive in the material bearing on the subject. Circumcision is employed in modern surgery for certain diseases and as a generally helpful operation, but such employment appears to be modern and of limited extent. The exact meaning of Herodotus's statement that the Egyptians were circumcised for the sake of cleanliness, preferring it to beauty,[305] is not clear; but in any case so late an idea throws no light on the beginnings.
[156]. Somewhat more to the point is Crawley's view that the object of the removal of the prepuce is to get rid of the dangerous emanation from the physical secretion therewith connected.[306] Such an object would issue from savage ideas of magic, the secretions of the human body (as urine and dung) being often supposed to contain the power resident in all life. But this view, though conceivably correct, is without support from known facts. There is no trace of fear of the secretion in question, and the belief in power, when such a belief appears, attaches rather to the oblated prepuce (which is sometimes preserved as a sort of charm, or hidden, or swallowed by the boy or by some other person) than to the secretion. Nor does this theory account for the custom of subincision.
[157]. As circumcision is often performed shortly before marriage it has been suggested that its object is to increase procreative power by preventing phimosis.[307] The opinion that such is its effect, though it has no scientific support, has been and is held by not a few persons. Such an object, however, is improbable for low stages of society—it implies an extent of observation that is not to be assumed for savages; and there is, besides, the fact that certain tribes (in Australia and elsewhere) that practice circumcision do not connect the birth of children with sexual intercourse. In general it is not to be supposed that savages make well-considered physical preparation for marriage in the interests of procreation. The choice of mates is determined by tribal law, but in other respects the individual is generally left free before marriage to satisfy his appetite—it is instinct that controls the relations between the sexes.
[158]. There is no clear evidence that the origin of circumcision is to be traced to religious conceptions. It has been held that it is connected with the cult of the generative organs (phallic worship).[308] It is true that a certain sacredness often attached to these organs; this appears, for example, in the oath taken by laying the hands upon or under the thigh, as in the story of Abraham.[309] In some parts of Africa circumcision is directly connected or combined with the worship of the phallus.[310] But, on the other hand, each of these customs is found frequently without the other: in India we have phallic worship without circumcision, in Australia circumcision without phallic worship; and this separateness of the two may be said to be the rule. The cult of the phallus seems not to exist among the lowest peoples.
[159]. The view that circumcision is of the nature of a sacrifice or dedication to a deity, particularly to a deity of fertility, appears to be derived from late usages in times when more refined ideas have been attached to early customs. The Phrygian practice of excision was regarded, probably, as a sacrifice. But elsewhere, in Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan, where the worship of gods and goddesses of fertility was prominent, we do not find circumcision connected therewith. In the writings of the Old Testament prophets it is treated as a symbol of moral purification. Among the lower peoples there is no trace of the conception of it as a sacrifice. It is not circumcision that makes the phallus sacred—it is sacred in itself, and all procedures of savage veneration for the prepuce assume its inherent potency.
[160]. Nor can circumcision be explained as an attenuated survival of human sacrifice. The practice (in Peru and elsewhere) of drawing blood from the heads or hands of children on solemn occasions may be a softening of an old savage custom, and the blood of circumcision is sacred. But this quality attaches to all blood, and the essential thing in circumcision is not the blood but the removal of the prepuce.
[161]. The suggestion that the object of detaching and preserving the foreskin (a vital part of one's self) is to lay up a stock of vital energy, and thus secure reincarnation for the disembodied spirit,[311] is putting an afterthought for origin. The existence of the practice in question is doubtful, and it must have arisen, if it existed, after circumcision had become an established custom. Savages and other peoples, when they feel the need of providing for reincarnation, commonly preserve the bones or the whole body of the deceased.
[162]. Circumcision and other operations performed on females. Circumcision of girls is practiced by many African savage tribes (Nandi, Masai, Mandingos, and others), by Malays and Arabs, Gallas and Abessinians and others. Introcision appears to be confined to Australia. Infibulation is practiced in Northeastern Africa and by the Mohammedan Malays.[312] The effect, and doubtless the purpose, of the first and second of these operations is to facilitate coition; the object of the third is to prevent coition until the proper time for it arrives. They are all connected more or less with initiation or with arrival at the age of puberty, and they are, naturally, sometimes associated with other ceremonies.
[163]. Origin of circumcision. The preceding review may be taken to make it probable that the origin of circumcision is not to be referred to reflection or to religious ideas. We must look for a cruder motive, and several considerations point to the desire to facilitate coition as the starting-point of the custom (so also R. F. Burton). Reports from all over the savage world testify to the prominence of sexual intercourse in the lower forms of human life. Folk-stories are full of coarse details of the practice. Popular festivals are often characterized by gross license. To lend a wife to a guest is in many places a recognized rule of hospitality.[313] In all this there is nothing immoral—it is permitted by the existing law and is in accord with the current ideas of propriety. Early man seems in this regard to have obeyed his animal appetite without reflection. This form of pleasure occupied (and occupies) a great part of his life, and it was not unnatural that he should seek to remove all hindrances from it. It is quite conceivable that early observation led him to regard the prepuce as a hindrance.
[164]. About the motives of early man in the adoption of these customs of excision we have, of course, no direct information; but some later usages favor the explanation suggested above. The operations performed on females are obviously dictated by considerations of convenience or propriety in coition. Various means are adopted of increasing the pleasure of sexual intercourse (in Indonesia and elsewhere).[314] These procedures are purely animal, nonmoral, and without ulterior design; there is no thought of progeny or, in general, of preparation for marriage—the frame of mind is appropriate to the lowest grade of life.
[165]. In the course of time, however, all such customs tend to become sanctified and to take on new meanings. When the importance of circumcision was generally felt, it was natural that it should be performed at puberty and at initiation.[315] It would thus come to be regarded as an introduction to the tribal life—not as preparation, but as a custom established by unwritten law. Its origination would be put far back in the past and sometimes ascribed to supernatural personages—the Central Australians refer it to the mythical ancestors, the later Jews to the command of the national deity issued to the legendary or mythical ancestor Abram.[316] Under certain circumstances it might become a tribal mark; the Hebrews thus distinguished themselves from their neighbors the Philistines, and "uncircumcised" was a term of reproach.[317]
[166]. Apart from its use in initiation the cultic rôle of circumcision has been small. It does not appear as an element in the worship of any deity, neither in that of such gods as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, nor in that of any other. It is not represented in ancient records as a devotion of one's self or an assimilation of one's self or of a child to the tribal or national god. Its performance is generally a religious duty, as is true of every established custom, but this fact throws no light on its origin. The prepuce is sometimes treated as an amulet or in general as a magically powerful or sacred thing; but many other parts of the body (hair, finger nails, etc.) are so treated.
[167]. In the higher religions circumcision is generally viewed as an act of physical purification or as a symbol of moral purification. The former view, perhaps, prevailed in Egypt, though on this point the records appear to be silent.[318] The latter view is that of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament.[319] It has now ceased to have any effective religious significance, and is retained in some communities merely as a national social tradition or as an ancient divine ordinance.
[168]. The origin of circumcision suggested above seems to account sufficiently for all usages and ideas connected with it; the possibility of several different origins need not be denied, but the practical identity of the customs in all parts of the world in which the institution exists, makes the simpler hypothesis the more probable.
[169]. Certain features of ceremonies of initiation appear to be designed to secure union between the initiate and the clan. Such, for example, is the custom found in New South Wales of the initiate's drinking the blood of his companions. In other cases there is a union with other parts of the body. Such usages arise from the idea that physical union is essential to social union—a conception which elsewhere takes the form of blood-brotherhood.[320] This is a scientific rather than a religious idea, depending on the belief that the body is an essential part of the personality.[321]
[170]. Another noteworthy custom is the feigned resurrection of the initiate. In Australia the women are informed that the youth during the process of initiation is slain by a supernatural being and brought to life again. Elsewhere the initiate is supposed to forget his former life completely and to be obliged, on emerging from the ceremony, to recover slowly his knowledge of things.[322] The origin of this custom is obscure, but it appears to express the idea that the youth now enters on an entirely new life, and having come into new relations and responsibilities, is to forget what he was and what he did before—a profound conception which has been taken up into some of the most advanced religions (as, for example, in baptism and confirmation).
[171]. In certain half-civilized tribes a higher type of initiatory ceremonies is found. The youth must perform a lonely vigil, going into the forest or some other solitary place, and there wait for the vision or revelation of a supernatural protector.[323] This procedure is connected with the advance of individualism, the old totemic or other relation being superseded by an individual relation to a guardian spirit. The development of this higher religious conception will be discussed below.[324]
[172]. Finally, instruction forms a part of most initiation ceremonies. The youth is told the secrets of the tribe, and is thus inducted into its higher and more intimate life.[325] This confiding of tribal secrets (the tradition and the knowledge of sacred things) to the young man about to enter on public life is a political necessity, but in the nature of the case connects itself with religious conceptions. Generally, also, moral instruction is given.[326] The ethical code is usually good so far as intratribal relations are concerned (foreigners are not considered): the youth is told that he must obey his elders, respect the rights of his fellow clansmen, and especially be careful in his attitude toward women. In some cases a supernatural sanction for such instructions is added; it is impressed on the youth that some supernatural being will punish him if he disobeys these instructions. The moral code in question is one which springs naturally and necessarily from the relations of men in society, and the supernatural sanction affixed to it is a consequence of the belief that the tribal deity is the lord of the tribe and the natural and most effective guardian of its rights.
[173]. From this brief statement of initiation ceremonies it appears that they rest substantially on social ideas and necessities. Religion enters into them, as is pointed out above, when a superhuman being is represented as the patron of the clan and the protector of its ceremonies, or when the moral teaching is referred to such a being, or when the initiate seeks a supernatural patron with whom to enter into relations, or when, as in some North Australian tribes, the supernatural being is believed to be angry at the omission of the ceremonies. This last case might recall the displeasure of the Greek gods when sacrifices to them were withheld or diminished; but more probably it involves simply the belief that all important ceremonies and affairs are under the control of the being in question, who demands obedience to him as lord.
[174]. In later stages of savage or semicivilized life the clan constitution as a rule has been succeeded by the formation of secret societies, and then initiation into a society takes the place of the old initiation into the clan.[327] Initiation into such a society is often elaborate and solemn—it is carried out in great detail in many Polynesian, African, and North American tribes—but its general features are the same as those of the earlier procedure. Savage societies and civilized mysteries all have their secrets and their moral instruction, and they all represent an advance in individualism. Still later the church takes the place of the mysteries, and here the process of initiation, though more refined, is still in essence identical with the earlier forms.[328] Naturally in the increasing refinement of the ceremonies there is an increasing prominence of the supernatural element, for the reason that the special care of religion recedes more and more from general society (which tends to occupy itself with civil and political questions solely), and is intrusted to special voluntary organizations.
Marriage Ceremonies
[175]. Marriage is so important a fact for the communal life that it has always been regulated to a greater or less extent by the community, which defines its methods, rights, and obligations.[329]
[176]. In the lowest known tribes the ceremony of marriage is simple: the woman is given to the man by the constituted authorities—that is, the relatives of the parties and the elders of the clan or tribe—and by that act the two become husband and wife. At this stage of social growth the stress is laid on preparation for marriage in the ceremonies of puberty and initiation. The members of the tribe being thus prepared for union, marriage is merely the assignment of a given woman to a given man. The wife is selected according to established custom; that is, in accordance with customary law, which in most cases defines precisely from what group of the tribe the woman proper to a given man shall be taken.
[177]. Though the origin of this law goes back to a remote antiquity and is involved in obscurity, it seems to have been originally simply a matter of social agreement. It came to be, however, connected with systems of totemism and taboo, and thus to have acquired a certain religious character; and, as being important for the tribal life, it would come under the control of the tribal god when there is such a god. A similar remark may be made in regard to exogamy. Why marriage between members of the same tribe, clan, or phratry should be prohibited is not clear.[330] The rule arose, doubtless, from some social feature of ancient society, and only later was involved in the general religious atmosphere.[331]
[178]. Gradually greater freedom of choice was allowed men and women, and the ceremonies of marriage became more elaborate. Certain of these seem intended to secure the complete union of husband and wife; such, for example, are the customs of eating together, of the inoculation of each party with the blood of the other or with some bodily part of the other, and the giving of presents by each to the other. All these rest on the conception that union between two persons is effected by each taking something that belongs to the other; each thus acquires something of the other's personality. This is a scientific biological idea; and though it had its origin doubtless in some very crude notion of life, it has maintained itself in one form or another up to the present time.
[179]. Among many communities the custom is for the bride to hide herself and to be pursued and taken by the bridegroom. This custom, again, is in its origin obscure. Almost certainly it does not point to original marriage by capture, for of such a customary method of acquiring wives there is no trace in savage communities (though in particular cases women may have been captured and married). Possibly it reflects merely the coyness of the woman; or it may be simply a festive procedure, an occasion of fun for the young people, as indeed a wedding now commonly is. In many cases, however, it appears to represent the transference of the woman from her own tribe to that of her husband. Though she was thus transferred bodily and brought into civic relations with the latter, certain taboos, arising from her original tribal position, often clung to her. The right to dwell in her own house in her own tribe, and to receive there her foreign husband, belongs to a relatively late social stage.[332]
[180]. The defloration of the woman before marriage is rather a preparation for marriage than a marriage ceremony; or it may represent the social right of the elders of the tribe and the relatives of the bride to the possession of her, perhaps symbolizing her entrance into a family.[333] The hypothesis that such a custom points to primitive promiscuity is ably combated by Westermarck, and is involved in great difficulties; it is, however, maintained by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in their two works on Australian tribes, whose customs seem to them to be inexplicable except on the supposition of primitive promiscuity, in spite of Westermarck's arguments; and in support of this view the sexual license granted in many tribes to unmarried girls may be adduced. However this may be, the custom in question appears to be civil and not religious. The same thing is true of the ceremonies in which bridegroom and bride are hailed as king and queen—a very natural form of merrymaking.[334] The purchase of wives is probably a simple commercial act.
[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 assimilating the two persons each to the other, the dangers in question being not merely distinctly sexual 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 illustrate the separation between the sexes in early society, and the taboos which hold in their social intercourse. The separation of the sexes 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 preëxistent 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 god, 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 god, 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 God, 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 assure 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 attitude 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 assure 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 constitutes purification; the positive preparation for the performance of a sacred act constitutes 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 mass is then regarded as a unit, and there is no reason, according to early thought, why such a mass 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 principal 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 Japanese, 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 substitution 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 god 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 associated in the cults of Apollo and Dionysos and in ordinary worship in general.[375] Thus, men and gods 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 god receives him into association 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 Assyria, 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 circumstances, and has been invested with a special sanctity 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 gods, 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 circumcision, 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 reënforced 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 asserts 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 mass 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 masses, 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 constitute 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 Japanese new year's day.[403] Of Assyrian 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 assignment 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 god 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 solstitial 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 associations. 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 amusement. Doubtless under any social conditions gatherings for merrymaking would have arisen, but, by reason of the constitution of early society, they necessarily assume a religious character. Whether for planting or for reaping, the local god 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 Panathenæa 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 Feriæ Latinæ fell in April, the Feriæ 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 pass 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]
[220]. Ceremonies of a serious character occur in connection with the eating of the first fruits of the year. In developed cults (as in the Hebrew) the deity is recognized as the giver by the presentation of a portion of the new crop.[420] In very early cults there are other procedures, the origin and significance of which are not always clear. So far as the ceremonial eating, a preliminary to general use, is concerned, this may be understood as a recognition, more or less distinct, of some supernatural Power to whom (or to which) the supply of food is due. The obscurest form of such recognition is found among the Australian Arunta.[421] The Nandi practice is clearer—the god is invoked to bless the grain.[422] In the Creek Puskita (Busk) there is perhaps a worship of the sun as the source of fertility.[423] Probably the element of recognition of extrahuman power (the object being to secure its favor) is to be found in all first-fruits ceremonies. A natural result of this recognition is that it is unlawful (that is, dangerous) to partake of the new food till it has been properly offered to the deity. The ceremonial features (such as the choice of the persons to make the offering) are simply the carrying over of general social arrangements into religious observances—the ministrant is the father of the family, or the chief of the tribe, or the priest or other elected person, according to the particular local customs.
[221]. The sadness or gloom that sometimes attaches to these ceremonies has been variously explained, and is due doubtless to various orders of ideas; it comes probably from the coalescence of other cults with the agricultural cults proper. The remembrance of ancestors is not unnatural at such a time, and sorrow may be expressed for their death; such is perhaps the case in the Nandi usage mentioned above—the women sorrowfully take home baskets of elusine grain, and the bits that drop in the house are left to the souls of the deceased. Sorrow appears also in other agricultural seasons, as in the Roman Vestalia (in June) and the Greek Thesmophoria (in the autumn), in which cases more likely it is connected with the fear of evil influences.[424] So the great tribal purification of the Creeks, at the beginning of a new year, naturally coincides with the gathering of the new crop.
[222]. A further extension of the conception of the sacredness of food (whether or not of the first eating) appears in the Mexican custom (in May and December) of making dough images of gods, the eating of which sanctifies the worshiper;[425] here the god dwells in the bread of which he is the giver.
[223]. In addition to the astral and agricultural festivals above described there has been the observance of long periods to which a religious significance was sometimes attached. The Egyptian Sothis period[426] (of 1461 years), the Greek period of eight years (oktaeteris), and the Mexican period of fifty-two years were calendary—attempts to harmonize the lunar and solar years; in Mexico the new cycle introduced a new religious era—a great ceremony was held in which domestic fires were rekindled from the sacred fires. The Hebrew jubilee period (of fifty years), apparently a late development from the sabbatical year, was intended, among other things, to maintain the division of landed property among the people—all alienated land was to return finally to its original owner—participation in the blessings bestowed by the national deity being conditioned on having a share in the land, of which he was held to be the proprietor; the proposed arrangement turned out, however, owing to changed social conditions, to be impracticable.
[224]. It thus appears that ceremonies of various sorts have played a very important part in religious life. They have been the most popularly effective presentation of religious ideas, and they have preserved for us religious conceptions that without them would have remained unknown. Their social character has insured their persistence[427]—ceremonies of to-day contain features that go back to the earliest known stratum of organized religious life. While the motives that underlie them (desire to propitiate supernatural Powers, demand for an objective presentation of ideas, and love of amusement) are the same throughout the world, their forms reflect the various climatic, economic, and general cultural conditions of clans, tribes, and nations. They acquire consistency with the organization of society; they tend to become more and more elaborate, just as in other points social intercourse tends to produce formal definiteness; they grow decrepit and have to be artificially strengthened and revived; they lose their original meanings and must be constantly reinterpreted to bring them into accord with new ideas, social, moral, and religious. Their history, in a word, is the history of the development of human ideas, and it sets forth the religious unity of the race. The selections given above are only a small part of the known material, a full treatment of which would require a separate volume.