Religions of Primitive Peoples

by Daniel G. Brinton

We have seen how the religious sentiment finds expression in the Word and in the Object. It remains to consider it as revealed in the Act. This is known as the Rite or the Ritual. It is a combination of forms and ceremonies collectively known as Worship.

So important is it that one eminent German authority has declared the ritual to be “the source of all religions”[208]; and Dr. W. Robertson Smith, also a profound student of the subject, has maintained that “in the study of ancient religions we must begin, not with the myth, but with the ritual”; because, he adds, “in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth.”[209]

If I do not follow these authorities, it is because my own studies have led me to a different opinion from theirs. I believe that every rite is originally based on a myth. In later days the myth was often obscured or lost, and another coined to explain the rite; and this second growth is what has misled the authors I have quoted.

The evidence which has convinced me is, that in truly primitive condition the rite is constantly a mimicry of the supposed doings of the god; or it is a means of summoning him according to accepted statements; or it is a method of communing with the Divine, plainly drawn from the facts of suggestion and sub-conscious mentality. Occasionally it is a magical procedure to constrain the deities; but this is rare in primitive conditions.[210]

The mimicry or imitative origin of rites is well illustrated in that in use for “rain-making,” one of the commonest of all. In periods of drought, “The Indian rain-maker mounts to the roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry gourd containing pebbles to represent the thunder, scatters water through a reed on the ground beneath, as he imagines up above in the clouds do the spirits of the storm.”[211]

The Australian rite is analogous. The women of the tribe erect a hut of leaves and branches, in which are placed some stones. The men enter, and while some scatter bird’s down in the air, others scarify their arms and let the blood drop upon the stones. These are then placed high up in trees, and the hut demolished. The symbolism is, that the hut represents the firmament; the down, the light cirrus clouds which precede the storm; the stones, the heavy rain-clouds; the dropping blood, the fertilising rain.[212] This is again an imitation of their myth of the making of rain by the celestial powers.

Very many rites are of this character. Others again are of the nature of an invitation to the divinity, based on beliefs and narratives of his supposed actions or customs. The Mayas of Yucatan, for instance, had a deity doubtless of solar character, who bore the name, “The Eye of the Day.” The myth stated that his form was that of a bird of brilliant plumage, and that he was nearest the earth at high noon about the summer solstice. At that time, therefore, they constructed an altar in an open spot, built upon it a fire and placed the sacred offerings. The people then witnessed the gorgeous parrot, the sacred ara, descend through the air to take the offerings, who was none other than the god himself, responding to the invitation.[213]

The magical class of rites was common in the Orient. To this day in China it is believed that if a military camp be laid out in a particular form, and under the proper auspicious conditions, not only is it impregnable by foes, but neither gods nor demons can prevail against it. Many later rituals are thus magical, or have magical elements in them by the aid of which the celebrant claims to control the powers divine.

The Mexican Nagualist, or priest, for instance, after he has performed his magical rites and spoken the words of power, does not hesitate to shout: “Lo! I myself am here! I am most furious! I make the loudest noise! I respect no one! Even sticks and stones tremble before me! What god or mighty demon dares face me?”[214] Here, through the power of the rite, the celebrant has become as one of the gods themselves.

These examples further serve to illustrate a fundamental distinction in rites themselves. It has been well expressed by a German writer, Dr. Freihold, who has said that their tendencies point toward one of two aims, either to bring down the god to men, to have “God with us”; or, to elevate the man to God, to clothe him with supernatural powers. The one culminates in the epiphany, the other in the apotheosis. The writer quoted believes that this special culmination of one or the other of these tendencies is largely a matter of race, that it is an ethnic trait, and explains much otherwise obscure in the historical development of religions.[215]