The Making of Religion

by Andrew Lang

X

HIGH GODS OF LOW RACES

To avoid misconception we must repeat the necessary cautions about accepting evidence as to high gods of low races. The missionary who does not see in every alien god a devil is apt to welcome traces of an original supernatural revelation, darkened by all peoples but the Jews. We shall not, however, rely much on missionary evidence, and, when we do, we must now be equally on our guard against the anthropological bias in the missionary himself. Having read Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tylor, and finding himself among ancestor-worshippers (as he sometimes does), he is apt to think that ancestor-worship explains any traces of a belief in the Supreme Being. Against each and every bias of observers we must be watchful.

It may be needful, too, to point out once again another weak point in all reasoning about savage religion, namely that we cannot always tell what may have been borrowed from Europeans. Thus, the Fuegians, in 1830-1840, were far out of the way, but one tribe, near Magellan's Straits, worshipped an image called Cristo. Fitzroy attributes this obvious trace of Catholicism to a Captain Pelippa, who visited the district some time before his own expedition. It is less probable that Spaniards established a belief in a moral Deity in regions where they left no material traces of their faith. The Fuegians are not easily proselytised. 'When discovered by strangers, the instant impulse of a Fuegian family is to run off into the woods.' Occasionally they will emerge to barter, but 'sometimes nothing will induce a single individual of the family to appear.' Fitzroy thought they had no idea of a future state, because, among other reasons not given, 'the evil spirit torments them in this world, if they do wrong, by storms, hail, snow, &c.' Why the evil spirit should punish evil deeds is not evident. 'A great black man is supposed to be always wandering about the woods and mountains, who is certain of knowing every word and every action, who cannot be escaped and who influences the weather according to men's conduct.'[1]

There are no traces of propitiation by food, or sacrifice, or anything but conduct. To regard the Deity as 'a magnified non-natural man' is not peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion. The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind, come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2]

Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no superiority of one over another … but the doctor-wizard of each party has much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of all good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of ideas, but has forgotten half of them,' says Miss Kingsley.[5]

Of all races now extant, the Australians are probably lowest in culture, and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture, nor fixed habitations; and no traces of higher culture have anywhere been found above or in the soil of the continent. This is important, for in some respects their religious conceptions are so lofty that it would be natural to explain them as the result either of European influence, or as relics of a higher civilisation in the past. The former notion is discredited by the fact that their best religious ideas are imparted in connection with their ancient and secret mysteries, while for the second idea, that they are degenerate from a loftier civilisation, there is absolutely no evidence.

It has been suggested, indeed, by Mr. Spencer that the singularly complex marriage customs of the Australian blacks point to a more polite condition in their past history. Of this stage, as we said, no material traces have ever been discovered, nor can degeneration be recent. Our earliest account of the Australians is that of Dampier, who visited New Holland in the unhappy year 1688. He found the natives 'the miserablest people in the world. The Hodmadods, of Mononamatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these: who have no houses, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth…. They have no houses, but lie in the open air.' Curiously enough, Dampier attests their unselfishness: the main ethical feature in their religious teaching. 'Be it little or be it much they get, every one has his part, as well the young and tender as the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty.' Dampier saw no metals used, nor any bows, merely boomerangs ('wooden cutlasses'), and lances with points hardened in the fire. 'Their place of dwelling was only a fire with a few boughs before it' (the gunyeh).

This description remains accurate for most of the unsophisticated Australian tribes, but Dampier appears only to have seen ichthyophagous coast blacks.

There is one more important point. In the Bora, or Australian mysteries, at which knowledge of 'The Maker' and of his commandments is imparted, the front teeth of the initiated are still knocked out. Now, Dampier observed 'the two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young.' If this is to be taken quite literally, the Bora rite, in 1688, must have included the women, at least locally. Dampier was on the north-west coast in latitude 16 degrees, longitude 122-1/4 degrees east (Dampier Land, West Australia). The natives had neither boats, canoes, nor bark logs; but it seems that they had their religious mysteries and their unselfishness, two hundred years ago.[6]