Ritual and belief

by Edwin Sidney Hartland

[BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST]

[ENDNOTES]

RITUAL AND BELIEF

LEARNING TO “THINK BLACK”

Sir Edward Tylor begins the chapters on Animism in that great work which laid the foundation of the modern study of the history of civilization, by a discussion of the evidence for the existence of tribes destitute of religion. In some half-dozen pages he easily shows that the existence of such tribes, “though in theory possible, and perhaps in fact true, does not at present rest on that sufficient proof which, for an exceptional state of things, we are entitled to demand.” He convicts travellers and missionaries who have made the assertion, of contradicting themselves; and he renders probable that the denial of religion to peoples in the lower culture is begotten of a perverted judgement in theological matters, and “the use of wide words in narrow senses.”^[1.1]

Other causes are equally prolific of error in regard to savage beliefs. Sir Edward Tylor refers to haste and imperfect acquaintance by the traveller with the people whose beliefs he is professing to repeat. These are obvious causes on which it is needless to dwell. Many peoples, too, are accustomed out of mere politeness to endeavour to divine what sort of answer to his remarks will please a guest, or what sort of answer an enquirer expects to his questions, and to make it accordingly, regardless whether it has any relation to the facts or not. This courtier-like etiquette of agreement applies to every subject, and is emphasized when the enquirer is an official or social superior from whom favour may be looked for or displeasure apprehended. The Malayans, a jungle tribe of southern India, invariably say “Yes” in reply to a question by a government officer or a member of a higher caste, “believing that a negative answer might displease him.”^[2.1] In such cases it is difficult to extract the truth on the most indifferent and trivial, to say nothing of weightier, matters.

Passing over these commonplaces, let us pause for a moment on another cause mentioned by Tylor, namely, the natural reluctance of savages to reveal “to the prying and contemptuous foreigner their worship of gods who seem to shrink, like their worshippers, before the white man and his mightier Deity.”^[2.2] Very instructive is the account given by Kolben of the Hottentots. Writing in the early years of the eighteenth century, he says it is “a difficult thing to get out of the Hottentots what are really their notions concerning God and religion, or whether they have any at all. They keep all their religious opinions and ceremonies, as they do every other matter established among them, as secret as they can from Europeans, and when they are questioned concerning such matters are very shy in their answers and hide the truth as much as they can.” They take refuge from questions in “a thousand fictions,” which they excuse, when taxed with them, by alleging that “the Europeans are a crafty, designing people. They never ask a question for the sake of the answer only, but have other ends to serve, perhaps against the peace and security of the Hottentots.” From this source, we are told, have sprung most of the contradictions to be found in authors upon the religion of the Hottentots.^[3.1] More than a hundred years after Kolben’s day a British traveller, exploring Great Namaqualand under the auspices of the British Government and of the Royal Geographical Society, assembled some of the old men among the Namaqua and put them through an examination. His thirst for information was doubtless praiseworthy; and he was at least successful in proving, albeit unconsciously, the truth of the older traveller’s words. For the proceeding he adopted affords a brilliant example of “how not to do it.” I quote some of his questions: “What laws have the Namaqua?” Answer—“They have none; they only listen to their chiefs.” “Do the people know anything of the stars?” Answer—“Nothing.” “Do the Namaqua believe in lucky and unlucky days?” Answer—“They don’t know anything of these things.” “Are there rainmakers in the land?” Answer—“None.” “What do the old Namaqua think becomes of people when they die?” Answer—“They know nothing of these things; all they see is that the people die and are buried, but what becomes of them they know not; and before the missionaries came to the Great River the people had never heard of another world.”^[3.2]

Many European casuists justify one who is questioned concerning matters he desires to keep secret, and who meets the inquisitive person with a falsehood. It cannot therefore be surprising that these poor Hottentots thus took advantage of the only defence open to them when they found their most cherished beliefs and customs the subject of impertinent and bungling interrogations by an unsympathetic intruder into their country. Their Bantu neighbours do the same. The Kaffir, we are told, “dislikes to find Europeans investigating his customs, and he usually hides all he can from them and takes a sportive pleasure in baffling and misleading them.”^[4.1] When questioned by Andersson, the Ovambo denied that they had any belief, or abruptly stopped him with a “Hush!”^[4.2] Prying of this kind is rarely welcomed even among peoples on a much higher plane of civilization. Not to appeal to our own feelings, we may take as an illustration a people of the Far East. To question a native of Korea concerning custom or belief at once arouses his suspicions. Indeed, for a stranger to enquire the number of houses in a village, or what the land produces, needs much tact if bad feeling is to be avoided. A missionary who lived for many years in the country was of opinion that people are unconscious of their customs. At any rate a Korean asked suddenly about a certain custom will in all likelihood deny that such a thing exists; and yet he may be absolutely free from dishonesty in the matter: he is simply unconscious, he has never thought about it.^[4.3]

To this point we will return directly: our present point is the conscious refusal of information. And here it should be noted that savages, as well as others, do not hide their beliefs only because they do not understand the motive of enquiry, or because they are afraid of ridicule or of the denunciations of the missionary, even where the Christian priest can call down the thunderbolt of the magistrate. These reasons operate, but not alone. From all quarters of the world comes the report that the native is uncommunicative. The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco are quite aware that their “superstition is regarded with disfavour by the missionaries”; but they are naturally “very reticent in these matters,” and their reticence is only heightened—not caused—by this knowledge.^[5.1] An excellent illustration of the difficulty of discovering the beliefs and even the practices of savages is afforded by Mr Batchelor, a missionary who, having resided among the Ainu of Japan for more than twelve years, wrote an interesting book upon them. He naturally supposed that so long a residence and intimacy with them entitled him to think he knew practically all that could be told about them. Alas for the fallibility of even a careful observer! There was one chamber in the mind of every Ainu which he had not explored. When another twelve years had elapsed he wrote that “when writing that book I must frankly confess that I had no idea, nor had I for many years after, that ophiolatry was practised at all by this people.” And all the while the Ainu whom he knew so well were holding beliefs, relating myths, and practising rites of which he had not the least suspicion.^[5.2] Nor is there any reason to suggest that they were concealing those things from him out of fear of ridicule or clerical reproofs.

Deeper reasons exist. German missionaries have been labouring for a number of years among the tribes on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea. In view of the various difficulties attending the investigation of the beliefs of these tribes the latest scientific explorer of the country called in the aid of some of the more experienced of the missionaries. He thus sums up the position: “The heathen Papuan is a reticent fellow, and no power in the world can move him to disclose the secrets of his fathers. He has too much fear of the vengeance of the spirits and of the sorcerers, who would infallibly kill him if he betrayed the smallest thing. Long years of work accomplished with endless patience have been necessary to convince the Black that sorcery is powerless,—that it is all lies and deceit. Only if he is about to be baptized will he voluntarily deliver up to his teacher his knowledge of witchcraft and its methods. In plain terms, he feels the need on this point to lighten both his conscience and his pocket.”^[6.1] Reasons of this order have never been better put than by an eminent French anthropologist whose untimely death a few years ago was a serious blow to the cause of science. Reviewing the work of a lady for whom English colleagues yet mourn, he says: “The savage does not like to speak of his belief; he fears the contemptuous mockery of the Whites. Perhaps, too, he fears to give an advantage over himself, in allowing more to be known than is fitting of the rites by which he tries to conciliate the benevolence of the spirits, or to turn away their disfavour from his hut and his plantations. To make known his resources for the fight would be to half-disarm him; surrounded with supernatural dangers, he does not willingly indicate the supernatural means by which he guarantees himself against them.”^[6.2] One other reason may be added to these: a reason probably operative in many more cases than enquirers have been aware of. The things after which they ask are often revealed only to the initiate. An outsider, one who is not known to be, or at least treated as, an initiate, will seek in vain by means direct or indirect for information on these matters. A stony silence or repeated lies are all he will get. This has been the cause of much mystification and many contradictory statements about tribes in various parts of the world, not the least in Australia.^[7.1]