[37] Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert, p. 188.
[38] See Westermarck, The Moorish Conception of Holiness (Baraka), passim.
[39] Idem, ‘Nature of the Arab Ğinn,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 268.
[40] Lyall, op. cit. p. 9.
The common prevalence of animal worship is no doubt due to the mysteriousness of the animal world; the most uncanny of all creatures, the serpent, is also the one most generally worshipped. Throughout India we meet with the veneration of animals which by their appearance or habits startle human beings.[41] In the Indian tribes of North America animals of an unusual size were objects of some kind of adoration.[42] In certain parts of Africa a cock crowing in the evening or a crane alighting on a house-top is regarded as supernatural.[43] White men have often been taken for spirits by red, yellow, or black savages, when seen by them for the first time.[44] Religious veneration is among various races bestowed on persons suffering from some abnormality, such as deformity, albinoism, or madness.[45] Some South American Indians “regard as divinities all phenomenal children, principally such as are born with a larger number of fingers or toes than is natural.”[46] The Hindus venerate persons remarkable for any extraordinary qualities great valour, virtue, or even vice.[47] By performing miracles men directly prove that they are supernatural beings. The Muhammedan saints, like the Christian in olden days, are believed to perform all kinds of wonders, such as flying in the air, passing unhurt through fire, walking upon water, transporting themselves in a moment of time to immense distances, or supporting themselves and others with food in desert places.[48] When Muhammed first claimed to be the Prophet of Allah, he was urged to give proof of his calling by working some miracle; and though he uniformly denied that he possessed such power, it was nevertheless ascribed to him even by his contemporaries.[49]
[41] Ibid. p. 13.
[42] Dorman, op. cit. p. 258. Harmon, op. cit. p. 364.
[43] Macdonald, Religion and Myth, p. 39.
[44] Avebury, Origin of Civilisation, pp. 272, 273, 375. Goblet d’Alviella, Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Conception of God, p. 67. Schultze, Fetischismus, p. 224. In Australia and elsewhere white people were taken for ghosts by the natives (Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 248; Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 269 sq.; Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 5 sq.; Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 170 sq.).
[45] Schultze, op. cit. p. 222. Supra, [i. 270 sq.] “Among many savage or barbarous peoples of the world albinos have been reserved for the priestly office” (Bourke, ‘Medicine-Men of the Apache,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 460).