[32] Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 8.
As the right to life, generally granted to gods, is thus in certain circumstances abrogated for the benefit of their worshippers, so their right to bodily integrity may be suspended if their behaviour does not answer the expectations of their devotees. Men punish their gods as they punish their fellow men. Among the Amazulu, when it thunders or, as they say, “the heaven is coming badly,” the doctors go out and scold it; “they take a stick and say they are going to beat the lightning of heaven.”[33] The negro cudgels his fetish unmercifully to make it submissive.[34] The Samoyede flogs his idol or throws it away if he does not succeed in his doings.[35] The idols of the Typees, in the Marquesas Islands, “received more hard knocks than supplications.”[36] When his guardian spirit proves stubborn, the Hudson Bay Eskimo deprives it of food, or strips it of its garments.[37]
[33] Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 404.
[34] Bastian, Afrikanische Reisen, p. 61.
[35] von Struve, in Ausland, 1880 p. 795.
[36] Melville, Typee, p. 261.
[37] Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 194.
In normal circumstances men regard it as a duty, not only to refrain from killing or injuring their gods, but positively to promote their existence and comfort. According to early beliefs, supernatural beings are subject to human needs. The gods of the heathen Siberians laboured for their subsistence, engaged in hunting and fishing, and laid up provisions of roots against times of dearth.[38] When the heavens appear checkered with white clouds on a blue surface, the Maoris of New Zealand say that the god is planting his potatoes and other divine edibles.[39] The Fijian gods are described as enormous eaters.[40] The Vedic gods wore clothes, were great drunkards, and suffered from constant hunger;[41] I need only refer to the numerous passages in the Rig-Veda where mention is made of the appetite or thirst of Indra and the pleasure he has in filling his belly.[42] An Egyptian god cannot be conceived without his house in which he lives, in which his festivals are solemnised, and which he never leaves except on professional days. His dwelling has to be cleaned, and he is assisted at his toilet by his attendants; the priest has to dress and serve his god, and places every day on his table offerings of food and drink.[43] So also the Chaldean gods had to be nourished, clothed, and amused; and the stone or wooden statues erected to them in the sanctuaries furnished them with bodies which they animated with their breath.[44]
[38] Georgi, Russia, iii. 259.