The contrary of this has been asserted by various modern writers of weight, for example by Herbert Spencer and Sir John Lubbock, not from their own observation, for neither ever saw a savage tribe, but from the reports of travellers and missionaries.
I speak advisedly when I say that every assertion to this effect when tested by careful examination has proved erroneous.[22]
What led to such a mistaken opinion is easily seen. The missionaries would not recognise as religion the beliefs which were so different from and inferior to their own. The god of the heathens was to them no god whatever. When they heard stories of ghosts, magic, and charms, they spurned these as old wives’ fables, and confidently proclaimed that the tribe had no religion. Thus it was with those who first worked in South Africa. They returned and proclaimed that atheism was “endemic” among the tribes of that region. Later observers, acquainting themselves with the languages of the Blacks, found an ample mythology and an extensive ritual of worship.[23]
Another example may be quoted from a recent description of the Motu tribe of New Guinea. The writer, a missionary, denies that they have any religion whatever; but immediately proceeds to describe their numerous “superstitious” rites, their belief in spirits, their ceremonial law, etc.![24]
Another and potent cause of error was the unwillingness of the natives to speak to foreigners of the sacred mysteries. This is not peculiar to them, but obtains everywhere. In the polite society of our own cities, it is held to be an infraction of etiquette to question a person about his religious opinions and practices. Greater repugnance would be felt were it known that the questioner could have no sympathy with one’s opinions, and would probably hold them up to derision and contempt.
Even a stronger deterrent motive closes the mouth of most savages giving such information. It is tabu, prohibited under severe penalties, to impart it to any stranger, or even to another tribesman. The tendency to secrecy, to the esoteric, belongs to all religions, and especially to those in which the emotions are predominant, as is the case with primitive cults.
Even with a willing narrator, it is impossible to acquire a true understanding of a religion without a knowledge of the language in which its myths and precepts are couched. Ordinary interpreters are worse than useless. Captain Bourke tells us that time and again he was assured by Mexican interpreters who had lived for years among the Apaches that this tribe had no religion and no sacred ceremonies.
“These interpreters,” he adds, “had no intention to deceive; they were simply unable to disengage themselves from their own prejudices; they could not credit the existence of any such thing as religion save and except that taught them at their mother’s knees.”[25] If these Spanish-Mexicans, who had passed half their lives among the natives, denied them religion, what can we expect the ordinary traveller to learn in a few weeks’ visit?
Religion, therefore, is and has been, so far as history informs us, universal in the human race. Can we go farther back in time than history leads us, and say that it has ever been an element of humanity?