The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

by Carveth Read

But it is not only chiefs and heroes whose minds are sometimes emancipated from popular superstitions. An old Australian whose duty it was to watch the bones of a dead man and to keep alight a fire near them, sold them for some tobacco and a tomahawk, in great fear lest it should be known to his tribesmen; but he “evidently suffered from no qualms of conscience”:[478] that is to say, he feared the living, but not the dead. W. Stanbridge says of the aborigines of Victoria that “there are doctors or priests of several vocations; of the rain, of rivers and of human diseases ... but there are natives who refuse to become doctors and disbelieve altogether the pretensions of those persons.”[479] John Matthew writes of the tribe with which he was best acquainted—“whilst the blacks had a term for ghosts and behind these were departed spirits, ... individual men would tell you upon inquiry that they believed that death was the last of them.”[480] Near Cape King William in New Guinea, there is a general belief in spirits and ghosts and also in one Mate; but some whisper that there is no such being.[481] The Bakongo villagers do not believe in all witchcraft; but respect some sorcerers, and regard others with more or less contempt: every man, however, must profess belief, or else “his life will be made wretched by accusations of witchcraft.”[482] Before missionaries came amongst the Baloki, many people had no faith in the medicine-men, but would not oppose them for fear of being charged with witchcraft.[483] The religious convictions of the Zulus were very shallow; belief in the spirit-world depended on prosperity: “fullness declares the Itongo exists; affliction says it does not exist.” ... “For my part, I say the Amadhlozi of our house died forever.”[484] Capt. Whiffen reports of the tribes of S. Amerinds whom he visited that, “among individuals there are sceptics of every grade.”[485] Whilst all Dakotas reverence the great, intangible, mysterious power Takoo-Wahkon, as to particular divinities, any man may worship some and despise others. “One speaks of the medicine-dance with respect; another smiles at the name.” The Assiniboin generally believe that good ghosts migrate to the south where game is abundant; whilst the wicked go northward; but some think that death ends all.[486] At Ureparapara (Banks Islands) food is buried with a corpse; and “if there be too much, some is hung above the grave, whence the bolder people take it secretly and eat it.”[487] Disbelief is expressed in actions more emphatically than in words; the plundering of tombs has been universal. An idol-maker of Maeva assured Ellis that, “although at times he thought it was all deception and only practised his trade for gain, yet at other times he really thought the gods he himself had made were powerful beings.”[488] In Tonga it was orthodox that chiefs and their retainers were immortal, doubtful whether men of the third rank were so, certain that those of the lowest rank, Tooas, were not; their souls died with the body; yet some of these Tooas ventured to think that they too would live again.[489] A sceptical Kayan could hardly believe that men continue to exist after death; for then they would return to visit those they love. “But,” he concluded, “who knows?” The traditionary lore of the Kayans answers many deep questions; but the keener intelligences inquire further—“why do the dead become visible only in dreams?” etc.[490] A Tanghul told me, says Mr. T. C. Hodson, that no one had ever seen a Lai (deity): when things happened men said a Lai had done it. “In his view clearly a Lai was a mere hypothesis.”[491]

Of such examples of the occurrence of “free-thought” in all parts of the world, no doubt, a little investigation would discover many more. Everywhere some savages think for themselves; though, like civilised folk, they cannot always venture to avow their conclusions. We must not suppose that belief is as uniform as custom or conventional doctrine: custom and convention hinder thought in dull people, but do not enslave it in the “keener intelligence.” Without the enviable advantage of personal intimacy with savages, I have, by reading about them, gained the impression that they enjoy a considerable measure of individuality—as much as the less educated Europeans—and are not mere creatures of a social environment.

The most backward savages have a large stock of common sense concerning the properties of bodies, of wind and water and fire, of plants and animals and human nature; for this is the necessary ground of their life. This common sense has certain characters which are in conflict with their superstitions; the facts known to common sense are regular, proportional, the same for all; not often failing and needing excuses, not extravagant and disconnected, not depending on the presence of some fantastic mountebank. Savages do not draw explicitly the comparisons that make this conflict apparent; but it may be felt without being defined. Some of them, especially, are (as amongst ourselves) naturally inclined to a positive way of thinking; their common sense predominates over the suggestions of Magic and Animism, and they, more than others aware of the conflict, become the proto-sceptics or rationalists. Lecky observes that beliefs and changes of belief depend not upon definite arguments, but upon habits of thought. In the seventeenth century a new habit of thought overcame the belief in witchcraft and miracles;[492] and in many other centuries it has everywhere done the same for those in whom the “apperceptive mass” of common sense became more or less clearly and steadily a standard of belief, repelling the apperceptive masses of Magic and Animism with all their contents and alliances. They had more definite ideas than others, little love of the marvellous, little subjection to fear, desire, imagination.

Sometimes the dictates of common sense are imposed by necessity. The Motu (Papuasian) were accustomed to rub spears with ginger to make them fly straight. It had, however, been discovered that no amount of Magic would turn a poor spearman into an accurate thrower.[493] Spear-throwing is too serious a concern not to be judged of upon its merits, however interesting the properties of ginger. A whole tribe may in some vital matter, whilst practising a superstitious rite, disregard its significance: like the Kalims, who hold a crop-festival in January, and afterwards take the omens as to what ground shall be cultivated for next harvest; “but this seems a relic of old times, for the circle of cultivation is never broken, let the omens be what they may.”[494] That is a tacit triumph of common sense.

The bearing of all this on the character of the wizard is as follows: since everywhere sceptics occur, and some individuals go further than others in openly or secretly rejecting superstitions, why should not the wizard or sorcerer, who is amongst the most intelligent and daring of his tribe, be himself a rationalist and, therefore, a conscious impostor? That much of his art is imposture no one disputes; and so far as it is so, he sees it as part of the ordinary course of experience. The sorcerer on the Congo who drove a spirit into the dark corner of a hut, stabbed it there, and showed the blood upon his spear, having produced the blood (as his son confessed to Mr. Weeks) by scratching his own gums, was by that action himself instructed in common sense.[495] He saw in it quite plainly an ordinary course of events, the “routine of experience”; whilst the spectators were mystified. Must he not, then, have more common sense than other people?

In fact, he recognises the course of nature and his own impotence, whenever an attempt to conjure would endanger his reputation. The Arunta medicine-men exhibit great dramatic action in curing various diseases; but waste no antics on recognisable senile decay.[496] The medicine-man of Torres Straits admits that he cannot make a “big wind” from the south-east during the north-west season.[497] The Polynesian sorcerers confessed their practices harmless to Europeans;[498]—who were not suggestible on that plane of ideas. Shamans amongst the Yakuts would not try to cure diarrhœa, small-pox, syphilis, scrofula or leprosy, and would not shamanise in a house where small-pox had been.[499] These miracle-mongers sometimes know a hawk from a handsaw. It seems reasonable, then, to assume that wizards have more common sense than other people; since, besides the instruction of common experience, they know in their professional practice (at least in a superficial way) the real course of events, which is concealed from the laity. And, no doubt, of those whose art is deliberate imposture, this is true. But the infatuation of those who are wizards by vocation may be incorrigible by any kind of evidence: especially as to the genuineness of another’s performance. Dr. Rivers speaks of the blindness of the man of rude culture to deceitful proceedings on the part of others with which he is familiar in his own actions.[500] For the wizard there are established prejudices, professional and personal interest, fear of trusting his own judgment, supernatural responsibility, desire of superhuman power, sometimes even a passionate desire to alleviate the sufferings of his tribesmen, and everything else that confirms the will to believe.

§ 5. The Wizard’s Persuasion

Many practices of wizards involve a representation of the course of events as something very different from the reality; and there is no doubt that frequently, or even in most cases, wizards are aware of this, as in performing the sucking cure or visiting the man in the moon. But some anthropologists dislike to hear such practices described as “fraud,” “imposture” or “deceit”; and for certain classes of wizards it seems (as I shall show) unjust to speak in these terms of their profession. Still, taking the profession and its actions on the whole, it is difficult to find in popular language terms more fairly descriptive. We meet here the inconvenience that other social or moral sciences find when they try to use common words in a specially restricted sense. In Economics, e. g., “rent,” “wages,” “profits” have definite meanings very different from their popular acceptance. In Ethics, what controversy, what confusion in the defining of “virtue” and “the good”! In Metaphysics, what is the meaning of “cause”; what is the meaning of “intuition”? The terms must be defined in each system. If then, in these pages, the conduct of a man who, on his way to cure a sufferer of “stitch in the side,” conceals in his mouth a piece of bone or pebble, and after dancing, and sucking hard enough at the patient’s belly, produces that bone or pebble as the cause of pain—is described as “fraud,” or “imposture,” or “deceit,” the words are used to describe the fact only, without any such imputation upon the man’s character as they convey in popular usage. Scientifically considered, the man and his circumstances being such as they are, his actions are a necessary consequence; in this limited region of thought moral censure is irrelevant.

There are some wizards, as it were in minor orders, such as Professor Seligman calls “departmental experts,” especially the man who blesses gardens, so earnest and harmless that no one will abuse them. They visit the garden at the owner’s request, practise a little hocus-pocus, mutter a few spells, take a small fee and go peaceably home. The owner indeed supposes himself to buy fertility, and obtains only peace of mind—a greater good say the moralists. The wizard has done what he learnt of his father, what respectable neighbours approve of; there is always some crop to justify his ministry, and many an evil power to excuse occasional blight or drought. If he is convinced of being a really indispensable man, it is easily intelligible.