Ancestor worship was inspired by quite different motives. If it were true that the dead lived on, then it must be possible for them to work one's weal or woe. If the dead were cared for and ministered unto, they would be appeased and would have no desire to bring trouble or misfortune upon the survivor.
The taboo held an important place in early religious beliefs and practices. A taboo is a prohibition laid upon some object or some performance, with the superstitious idea that injury will follow if the object be used or the performance done. Some of the tribes of Central Australia, today in the Smooth Stone stage of development, hold the idea that the meat of the emu may be eaten only by the elders of the tribe. For women, therefore, there is a taboo on this meat, and its use by them would be regarded as a great sacrilege. The early Hebrews had a similar taboo, recorded in the earliest set of commandments preserved by them. It was "Thou shalt not seethe the kid in its mother's milk." This does not mean one of many foolish meanings worked into it, but rather that the early Hebrews for some reason had placed this taboo on kid cooked in milk. The use of beans was similarly tabooed by Pythagoras and forbidden to his followers. A study of the taboo is interesting indeed.
The totem was important to the primitive man. A totem is an animal or species of animal from which a social circle derives its origin. One clan owed its being to a black hawk, another to an eagle, and so on. No one of a clan would kill its totem, or in other words, there was a taboo placed upon the totem. Of course this taboo affected only the one clan.
Early religion consisted for the most part in certain observances—not so much in formulated beliefs. To be sure, the primeval man believed that harm would overtake him if he failed to perform certain ceremonies, but it was the performance or the refraining from the performance that was important.
Among the earliest people associated into tribes there were distinct moral requirements. There were some people who were not to be killed, except upon due provocation, while to kill those of other tribes brought great glory. Again, it was not right to lie to those of one's own tribe, but to others one might lie at all times. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," was the primitive way of viewing injury, and yet when history sheds its light upon certain nations of antiquity, some of them had already come into the transition state, where damages might be given if satisfactory to the injured. The Babylonians afford an excellent example of this condition.
Conclusion.
Each individual passes through many of the stages through which the race has come. A child may pass in a week or a month through a stage covering centuries in the development of the race, but nevertheless he experiences it clearly for the time being. The savage personified everything around him. If he struck himself against a tree, he was angry with the tree that had hurt him, and he tried to hurt the tree in revenge. The child today falls against a chair and hits the chair that hurt him. Now just as the child by such experiences, scarcely noted by others, realized far less by himself, comes into the clear vision of manhood, so by similar experiences the whole race has come to its present development. We are too prone to smile at the conceptions of the primitive world, and, grown wise with the flight of centuries, cast aside the beliefs of early ages when men adjusted themselves to life. Let us reflect then upon the attainments of prehistoric man and attempt to fathom how great a debt historic peoples owe him. In view of his achievements, we must grant that by his efforts civilization was greatly aided. The stepping stones on which he rose from abject savagery to higher things stand out sharply in spite of absence of records and scant remains. The rough pioneering had been done, in a great measure, and not alone the rudiments of civilization but evidences of culture were plainly visible at the dawn of history, properly so-called.
ABORIGINAL ROCK-CARVINGS.
[1] Starr: Some First Steps in Human Progress, p. 28.