To judge by the enormous quantity of spirits consumed by the Moï I should have said that this form of ordeal was the most frequent incident of daily life. My flask of ammonia was in perpetual requisition after I had, in an evil moment, revealed to them the peculiar property of ammonia gas, which dissipates the fumes of alcohol.
Perhaps I am doing my friends an injustice. Perhaps there was a more edifying explanation of the run on my flask. May it not be that it furnished a magic potion to some lover of the "bottle" with which to renew his stock of dreams?
A psychologist friend of mine once said that man cannot do without his "dream-world."
The Moï is no exception. He, too, needs an artificial paradise and finds it in the bottle. He drinks to see life rosy!
CHAPTER V
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND RITES
Similarity between the philosophical conceptions of uncivilized races—Most of the ritual derived from magic—Dualism—Private and public talismans—The Pi—The Legend of the Dog-King—Totemism—Sorcery—Rebel Moï.
A study of the general history of mankind reveals many striking resemblances between the crude ideas which pass for philosophical conceptions among nations in their infancy.
Whether the Moï is considered as an undeveloped or a degenerate being (and the consideration will be determined by the school of thought to which the inquirer adheres) it is beyond dispute that he must be classed among the half-civilized portion of mankind, if only because his ideas of the supernatural are those which the brain of the savage has evolved at all times and in all places. Unlike the civilized races, he has never been able to distinguish the natural from the supernatural. He still believes that the world is controlled by invisible forces set in motion by Spirits constituted like himself, susceptible to emotions and passions like his own, and ready to shape their actions at the dictates of humour or caprice.
This belief is the foundation of the multifarious rites which accompany the most trivial daily act of the group which we are now studying.