Magic and Religion

by Andrew Lang

Some say the Deil's deid,
The Deil's deid, the Deil's deid,
Some say the Deil's deid,
And buried in Kirkcaldy:
Some say he's risen again,
Risen again, risen again,
Some say he's risen again,
To dance the Hieland Laddie.

'Risen again' he was, and did dance the Hieland Laddie at Gledsmuir and Falkirk. The 'Volkslied' scientifically represents the conflict of opinion as unsettled, despite the testimony of the grave of Satan at the lang toun of Kirkcaldy; like the grave of Zeus in Crete.

Mr. Frazer, then, ought not, I think, to assume a general belief in the mortality of Greenland gods in face of contradictory but uncited evidence.

1. A North American Indian told Colonel Dodge that 'the Great Spirit that made the world is dead long ago. He could not possibly have lived so long as this.'[14] Now this was the ipse dixit and personal inference of a vague modern 'North American Indian,' living in an age which, as Mr. Frazer remarks, must 'breach those venerable walls' of belief. To prove his case, Mr. Frazer needs to find examples of the opinion that the 'Great Spirit' was believed to be dead (if he grants that there ever existed an American belief in a Great Spirit) among the American Indians as first studied by Europeans. I have elsewhere argued that the supreme being of most barbaric races is regarded as otiose, inactive, and so may come to be a mere name and by-word, like the Huron Atahocan,[15] 'who made everything,' and the Unkulunkulu of the Zulus, who has been so thrust into the background by the competition of ancestral spirits that his very existence is doubted. 'In process of time we have come to worship the spirits only, because we know not what to say about Unkulunkulu.' 'We seek out for ourselves the spirits that we may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.'[16] In the same way, throughout the beliefs of barbaric races, the competition of friendly and helpful spirits pushes back such beings as the Australian Baiame and Mungan-ngaur, who exist where sacrifice to ancestral spirits has not yet been developed; and the Canadian Andouagni of 1558.[17] Thus a modern North American Indian may infer, and may tell Colonel Dodge, that the creator is dead, because he is not in receipt of sacrifice or prayer. But the cult of such high beings, where it existed and still exists, in North America, the cult of Ti-ra-wá with whom the Pawnees expect to live after death, of the Blackfoot Ná-pi of Ahone, Okeus, Kiehtan, and the rest, proves belief in gods who are alive, and who are not said to be in any danger of death.

2. A tribe of Philippine Islanders told the Spanish conquerors that the grave of the Creator was on the top of Mount Cabunian. So the Philippine Islanders did believe in a Creator. The grave may have been the result of the usual neglect of the supreme being already explained, or may have meant no more than the grave of Zeus in Crete, while Zeus was being worshipped all over the Greek world.

3. Heitsi Eibib, of the Hottentots, had a number of graves, accounted for by the theory of successive lives and deaths. But so had Tammuz and Adonis yearly lives and deaths, yet the god was en permanence.

The graves of Greek gods maybe due to Euhemerism, a theory much more ancient than Euhemerus. People who worship ancestral spirits sometimes argue, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, that the gods were once spirits of living men, and show the men's graves as proofs; 'the bricks are alive to testify to it.' But that the Greeks regarded their gods as mortal cannot be seriously argued, while they are always styled 'the immortals' in contrast to mortal men; and while Apollo (who had a grave) daily inspired the Pythia. Her death did not hurt Apollo. She was not sacrificed for the benefit of Apollo. The grave of Zeus 'was shown to visitors in Crete as late as about the beginning of our era.' But was it shown as early as the time of Homer? Euhemerus was prior to our era.

4. The Egyptian gods were kings over death and the dead, with tombs and mummies in every province. But they were also deathless rulers of the world and of men.

'If Ra rises in the heavens it is by the will of Osiris; if he sets it is at the sight of his glory.' 'King of eternity, great god ... whoso knoweth humility and reckoneth deeds of righteousness, thereby knows he Osiris.'[18]