[249] Vide Sir George Grey’s “Polynesian Mythology,” p. xiii.; F. A. Weld’s (Governor of Western Australia) “Notes on New Zealand,” pp. 15, 60.
[250] This was a recognition on Tasman’s part that there was a violation of the law of nations, which he evidently considered ought to have been recognised by these people. For killing unarmed men he does not stigmatise them as savages, but as murderers, which name has clung to the spot and to the transaction to this day.
[251] I am aware that what I have opposed to Sir J. Lubbock is only the contrary and not the contradictory of his proposition. I find, however, that a very competent authority, Wilson, “Archæology and Pre-historic Annals of Scotland,” p. 42, says: “No people, however rude or debased be their state, have yet been met with so degraded to the level of the brutes as to entertain no notion of a Supreme Being, or no anticipation of a future state.” “All polytheism is based on monotheism; idolatry implies religious feeling.”—Bunsen’s Egypt, iv. 69. But in truth it was not a priest or a missionary who first enunciated the contradictory of Sir John Lubbock’s proposition—it was Cicero. “Itaque ex tot generibus nullum est animal, præter hominem, quod habeat notitiam aliquam dei: ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est, neque tam immansueta, neque tam fera, quæ non etiam si ignoret qualem habere deum deceat, tamen habendum sciat.” De Legibus; i. 8.
[252] I should not have considered it necessary to have entered so elaborately into this argument, if I had previously read the chapter on Animism in Mr Tylor’s “Primitive Culture.” The instances, however, which follow will stand as supplementary.
[253] Sir J. Lubbock says (p. 370) of the Feegee islanders: “They did not worship idols, but many of the priests seem to have really thought that they had been in actual communication with the Atona; and some of the early missionaries were inclined to believe that Satan may have been permitted to practise a deception upon them, in order to strengthen his power. However extraordinary this may appear, the same was the case in Tahiti.”
[254] After all, is there not something in their mode of prayer which recalls the language of Psalm cxl., “Dirigatur oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo: elevatio manuum mearum sacrificium vespertinum.”
If the reader will refer to Bunsen’s “Egypt,” &c. vol. i. p. 497, he will find “a man with uplifted arms” as the ideographic sign (19) for “to praise, glorification,” which is in evidence not only that it was the natural but the traditional mode.
[255] Garcilasso de la Vega’s authority is so unimpeachable, and at the same time his testimony is so unmistakable on this point, that it will be as well to give his own words, as he was well acquainted with the Peruvian traditions, through his mother, who was one of the Yncas. He adds: “When the Indians were asked who Pachacamac was, they replied that he it was who gave life to the universe, and supported it; but that they knew him not, for they had never seen him, and that for this reason they did not build temples to him, nor offer him sacrifices; but that they worshipped him in their hearts (mentally), and considered him to be an unknown God.... From this it is clear, that these Indians considered him to be the maker of all things.” Hakluyt ed. of Garcil. de la Vega’s “Royal Commentaries of the Yncas,” ed. C. Markham, 1869, i. 107. He further remarks that, whereas they hesitated to pronounce the name of Pachacamac, “they spoke of the sun on every occasion.”
Compare the accounts we have of the Guanches. M. Pegot Ogier, “The Fortunate Isles” (Canaries), 1871, says (p. 283), that a comparison of the Chronicles of the Conquest shows that, “far from being idolaters, the Guanches worshipped one God, the Creator and Preserver of the world,” and that (p. 282), “in their worship, they raised their hands to heaven, and sacrificed on the mountains by pouring milk on the ground from a height; their milk was carried in a sacred vase called ganigo.” The name of their god, “Achoron Achaman” = “He who upholds the heaven and earth,” and “Achuhuyahan Achuhucanac” = “He who sustains every one,” has resemblances with “Pachacamac” = “Pacha,” the earth; and “camac” participle of “camani,” “I create.”—(C. Markham, Hakluyt ed. of Garcil. de la Vega, i. 101.)