[18] Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 390 sqq.
[19] Burrows, Land of the Pigmies, p. 100.
[20] Thomson, Through Masai Land, p. 260.
[21] Hinde, Last of the Masai, p. 99.
The testimony of language is corroborated by kindred facts referring to the nature of those objects which are most commonly worshipped.[22] Among all the American tribes, says Mr. Dorman, “any remarkable features in natural scenery or dangerous places became objects of superstitious dread and veneration, because they were supposed to be abodes of gods.”[23] A great cataract, a difficult and dangerous ford in a river, a spring bubbling up from the ground, a volcano, a high mountain, an isolated rock, a curious or unusually large tree, the bones of the mastodon or of some other immense animal—all were looked upon by the Indians with superstitious respect or were propitiated by offerings.[24] In Fiji “every object that is specially fearful, or vicious, or injurious, or novel,” is eligible for admission to the native Pantheon.[25] It is said that when the Aëtas of the Philippines saw the first locomotive passing through their country “they all fell upon their knees in abject terror, worshipping the strange monster as some new and powerful deity.”[26] Of the shamanistic peoples in Siberia Georgi writes, “All the celestial bodies, and all terrestrial objects of a considerable magnitude, all the phenomena of nature that can do good or harm, every appearance capable of conveying terror into a weak and superstitious mind, are so many gods to whom they direct a particular adoration.”[27] Among the Samoyedes “a curiously twisted tree, a stone with an uncommon shape would receive, and in some quarters still receives, not only veneration but actual ceremonial worship.”[28] Castrén states that the Ostyaks worshipped no other objects of nature but such as were very unusual and peculiar either in shape or quality.[29] The Lapps made offerings not only to large and strange-looking objects, but to places which were difficult to pass, or where some accident had occurred, or where they had been either exceptionally unlucky or exceptionally lucky in fishing or the chase.[30] The Ainu of Japan deify all objects and phenomena which seem to them extraordinary or dreadful.[31] In China “a steep mountain, or any mountain at all remarkable, is supposed to have a special local spirit, who acts as guardian.”[32] The average middle-class Hindu, according to Sir Alfred Lyall, worships stocks or stones which are unusual or grotesque in size, shape, or position; or inanimate things which are gifted with mysterious motion; or animals which he fears; or visible things, animate or inanimate, which are directly or indirectly useful and profitable or which possess any incomprehensible function or property.[33] From all parts of Africa we hear of similar cults.[34] The Negroes of Sierra Leone dedicate to their spirits places which “inspire the spectator with awe, or are remarkable for their appearance, as immensely large trees rendered venerable by age, rocks appearing in the midst of rivers, and having something peculiar in their form, in short, whatever appears to them strange or uncommon.”[35] When Tshi-speaking natives of the Gold Coast take up their abode near any remarkable natural feature or object, they worship and seek to propitiate its indwelling spirit; whereas they do not worship any of the heavenly bodies, the regularity of whose appearance makes little impression upon their minds.[36] Throughout East Africa the people seem to attach religious sanctity to anything of extraordinary size; in the island of Zanzibar, where the hills are low, they reverence the baobab tree, which is the largest growing there, and in all parts of the country where hills are not found they worship some great stone or tall tree.[37] In Morocco places of striking appearance are generally supposed to be haunted by jnûn (jinn) or are associated with some dead saint.[38] As I have elsewhere tried to show, the Arabic jinn were probably “beings invented to explain what seems to fall outside the ordinary pale of nature, the wonderful and unexpected, the superstitious imaginations of men who fear”;[39] and the saint was in many cases only the successor of the jinn. Indeed, the superstitious dread of unusual objects is not altogether dead even among ourselves. It survives in England to this day in the habit of ascribing grotesque and striking landmarks or puzzling antiquities to the Devil, who became the residuary legatee of obsolete pagan superstitions in Christian countries.[40]
[22] See, besides the instances referred to below, Karsten, Origin of Worship, p. 14 sqq.; von Brenner, Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras, p. 220 (Bataks); Mitteil. d. Geograph. Gesellsch. zu Jena, iii. 14 (Bannavs, between Siam and Annam). In Lord Kames’s Essays on the Principles of Morality and Religion there is (p. 309 sqq.) an interesting discussion on the dread of unknown objects.
[23] Dorman, op. cit. p. 300. See also Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, i. 52; Harmon, Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 363 sq.; Smith, ‘Myths of the Iroquois,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ii. 51.
[24] Dorman, op. cit. pp. 279, 290, 291, 302, 303, 308, 313-315, 319. Chamberlain, in Jour. American Folk-Lore, i. 157 (Mississagua Indians). Georgi, Russia, iii. 237 sq. (Aleuts.)
[25] Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 183.
[26] Lala, Philippine Islands, p. 96.