Religions of Primitive Peoples

by Daniel G. Brinton

This is the doctrine of souls, the source of those innumerable beliefs and rites which are centred around the sepulchre, so solemn, so profoundly significant, that many writers have maintained that “religion began, when the living thought seriously of the dead”; that “all religions have crystallised around the tomb”; and that in the propitiation of departed souls, in the worship of the spirits of ancestors, and in the preparation in this life for another beyond the grave, the whole aim and essence of religion are embraced.[64]

I have already said that this is a hasty assertion, for there are religions which recognise a soul scarcely or at all; but they are not of a primitive character.[65] In the latter, some such belief is universally shown either by the treatment of the corpse, or the modes of mourning for the dead, or by myths concerning the life and actions of the departed.

It is generally held that the soul is multiple, two, three, or four being assigned to a person. One or more of these may perish with the body, or shortly afterwards; but one at least survives indefinitely, and concerns itself with the doings of those it has left behind in life. Its powers for good and evil are increased by its translation to another sphere of existence; and to secure its assistance, or at least its neutrality, is the aim of that cult of the departed souls and of the spirits of ancestors which is so widely defined in primitive conditions.

They are not identical, and we find in many tribes much attention paid to conciliating the souls of the dead where ancestor worship is unknown. In fact, the former is the older and more general observance. The aim is to get rid of the soul, to put it to rest or send it on its journey to a better land, otherwise it will annoy the survivors.[66]

In many primitive tribes, therefore, there is little fear of death. The soul leaves the body in sleep to wander over the earth, and the only difference of death is that it does not return in time. More than this, the soul of the living can visit the realms of the dead. The Comanches knew of men who had spent two days looking at the white tents of the encampment of souls far west under the setting sun; and the Zuñi mothers who had lost their little darlings are reconciled by being cast into a deep sleep, during which they go and see them in the mystic world beyond. So also believe the Australians and numberless other tribes.[67]

We need not look for any definiteness of statement as to what the soul is. In many tribes the word for it is akin to that for breath, as in our own expression, “the breath of life.” Frequently it is identified with the shadow, as among the Zulus of Africa, and the Eskimos, Algonquins, and Quiches of America. Others, as the Mincopies (Andaman Islands), think they see it in the reflection of the body in still water or a mirror. The Australians assert that it is a mist, fog, or smoke, etc.

These ideas are, of course, material. They impute to the soul similar wants to that of the corporeal man. It desires a dwelling, needs food, takes visible forms, and the like; but also it is endowed with faculties transcending those it possessed in the flesh, and these may be directed to the benefit or the injury of the survivors. Therefore its wants should be gratified, and its temper conciliated by offerings and appropriate funeral rites.[68]

3. I turn now to a perception of the primitive man, a contrast of impressions on his senses, more potent, I believe, than even the immeasurable one of Life and Death. It is Light and Darkness. This universal, ever recurring change in nature controlled all his actions, and reacted as a powerful stimulus on his religious emotions. I could almost be willing to subscribe to the expression of a German writer that “the adoration of Light was the foundation of all religion.”[69] The rude litanies of paganism all over the world seem to join in the solemn chant of the Evangelist—“God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

We may begin with the Australian Blacks, who averred the supreme divinity lives in keladi, eternal brightness, up above the sky. His name is Baiame, meaning “the maker” or “the cutter out,” as one cuts out patterns from a skin. He sees and knows all things.[70]