[141] Burton, Lake Regions of Central Africa, ii. 320.
[142] ʿAbdssalam Shabeeny, Account of Timbuctoo and Housa, p. 49.
The idea that derangement of the mind is due to spiritual possession, often makes the idiot or the insane an object of religious reverence.[143] The Macusis regard lunatics as holy.[144] The Brazilian Paravilhana believe that idiots are inspired.[145] According to Schoolcraft, “regard for lunatics, or the demented members of the human race, is a universal trait among the American tribes.”[146] So, also, the African Barolong give a kind of worship to deranged persons, who are said to be under the direct influence of a deity.[147] A certain kind of madness was regarded by the ancient Greeks as a divine gift, and consequently as “superior to a sane mind.”[148] Lane states that, among the modern Egyptians, an idiot or a fool is vulgarly regarded “as a being whose mind is in heaven, while his grosser part mingles among ordinary mortals; consequently he is considered an especial favourite of heaven. Whatever enormities a reputed saint may commit (and there are many who are constantly infringing precepts of their religion), such acts do not affect his fame for sanctity; for they are considered as the results of the abstraction of his mind from worldly things—his soul, or reasoning faculties, being wholly absorbed in devotion—so that his passions are left without control. Lunatics who are dangerous to society are kept in confinement, but those who are harmless are generally regarded as saints.”[149] The same holds good of Morocco. Lunatics are not even obliged to observe the Ramadan fast, the most imperative of all religious duties; of a person who, instead of abstaining from all food till sunset, was taking his meal in broad daylight in the open street, I heard the people forgivingly say, “The poor fellow does not know what he is doing, his mind is with God.”[150]
[143] Cf. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 128.
[144] Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen, Neue Folge, p. 3.
[145] von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, i. 633.
[146] Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, iv. 49.
[147] Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 130.
[148] Plato, Phædrus, p. 244.
[149] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 237.