Mr. H. H. Johnstone says that the tribes on the Lower Congo bury with any one of consequence bales of cloth, plates, beads, knives, and other things required to set the deceased up in the spirit-life on which he has entered. The plates are broken, the beads are crushed, and the knives bent, so as to kill them, that they too may “die,” and go to the spirit-land with their owner.[56]
This is a valuable confirmation of the doctrine of animism.
As Mr. Herbert Spencer says:[57] “It is absurd to suppose that uncivilized man possesses at the outset the idea of ‘natural explanation.’” At a great price has civilized man purchased the power of giving a natural explanation to the phenomena by which he is surrounded. As societies grow, as the arts flourish, as painfully, little by little, his experiences accumulate, so does man learn to correct his earlier impressions, and to construct the foundations of science. It is the natural, or it would not be the universal, process for primitive man to explain phenomena by the simplest methods, and these always lead him to his superstitions. It is the only process open to him. The activity which he sees all around him is controlled by the spirits of the dead, and by spirits more or less like those which animate his fellow-men.
Clement of Alexandria says that all superstition arises from the inveterate habit of mankind to make gods like themselves. The deities have like passions with their worshippers, “and some say that plagues, and hailstorms, and tempests, and the like, are wont to take place, not alone in consequence of material disturbance, but also through the anger of demons and bad angels. These can only be appeased by sacrifice and incantations. Yet some of them are easily satisfied, for when animals failed, it sufficed for the magi at Cleone to bleed their own fingers.”[58]
“The prophetess Diotima, by the Athenians offering sacrifice previous to the pestilence, effected a delay of the plague for ten years.”[59]
CHAPTER IV.
MAGIC AND SORCERY IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE.
These originated partly in the Desire to cover Ignorance.—Medicine-men.—Sucking out Diseases.—Origin of Exorcism.—Ingenuity of the Priests.—Blowing Disease away.—Beelzebub cast out by Beelzebub.—Menders of Souls.—”Bringing up the Devil.“—Diseases and Medicines.—Fever Puppets.—Amulets.—Totemism and Medicine.
Dr. Robertson tells us that the ignorant pretenders to medical skill amongst the North American Indians were compelled to cover their ignorance concerning the structure of the human body, and the causes of its diseases, by imputing the origin of the maladies which they failed to cure to supernatural influences of a baleful sort. They therefore “prescribed or performed a variety of mysterious rites, which they gave out to be of such efficacy as to remove the most dangerous and inveterate malice. The credulity and love of the marvellous natural to uninformed men favoured the deception, and prepared them to be the dupes of those impostors. Among savages, their first physicians are a kind of conjurers, or wizards, who boast that they know what is past, and can foretell what is to come. Thus, superstition, in its earliest form, flowed from the solicitude of man to be delivered from present distress, not from his dread of evils awaiting him in a future life, and was originally ingrafted on medicine, not on religion. One of the first and most intelligent historians of America was struck with this alliance between the art of divination and that of physic among the people of Hispaniola. But this was not peculiar to them. The Alexis, the Piayas, the Autmoins, or whatever was the distinguishing name of the diviners and charmers in other parts of America, were all physicians of their respective tribes, in the same manner as the Buhitos of Hispaniola. As their function led them to apply to the human mind when enfeebled by sickness, and as they found it, in that season of dejection, prone to be alarmed with imaginary fears, or assured with vain hopes, they easily induced it to rely with implicit confidence on the virtue of their spells and the certainty of their predictions.”[60]
The aborigines of the Amazon have a kind of priests called Pagés, like the medicine-men of the North American Indians. They attribute all diseases either to poison or to the charms of some enemy. Of course, diseases caused by magic can only be cured by magic, so these powerful priest-physicians cure their patients by strong blowing and breathing upon them, accompanied by the singing of songs and by incantations. They are believed to have the power to kill enemies, and to afflict with various diseases. As they are much believed in, these pagés are well paid for their services. They are acquainted with the properties of many poisonous plants. One of their poisons most frequently used is terrible in its effects, causing the tongue and throat, as well as the intestines, to putrefy and rot away, leaving the sufferer to linger in torment for several days.[61]