Comparative Religion

by J. Estlin Carpenter

The essence of magic lies in some kind of compulsion or constraint. Through the proper spell, or through the will of the magician, a control is exerted which produces the desired result. The power which is thus claimed implies an attitude wholly unlike that of religion. Into that attitude there enter elements of wonder and submission in the presence of energies which man cannot master, though he desires to get them on his side. But no observer was at hand to watch the first processes of feeling and thought which the interaction of man and his environment produced. The crudest forms of religion which we actually know, meet us in tribes which have possessed them from an unknown past. Here religion has a social character binding the members of a group together, and tending to maintain certain uniformities of conduct and character. Over against it stands the antisocial character of magic, at any rate when directed against individuals. Along this line it is urged that magic and religion have both issued out of common conditions. In the world around all sorts of events are continually happening. Man, in the midst of them, moves to and fro impulsively among various objects and agencies. Out of these arise various reactions for self-maintenance, for protection and defence. Certain acts tend to establish themselves as successful; they make for security and welfare. At first man's efforts have no definite direction; but some are found effective, others are futile, and attention is concentrated on those that produce satisfactory results. After many trials certain beliefs, certain processes, certain persons, gradually stand out above the rest, and through them relations of advantage are established with the environing powers.

In such experiences lie the roots of both religion and magic. In their earliest forms they may be as difficult to discriminate as the simplest types of animal and vegetable life. If it be asked what distinguishes them outwardly, when both are transmitted by tradition, both rest upon custom, it may be answered that religion is concerned with what tends to the stability of the community. Its interests are those of the group. It supplies the bond of united action for clan or tribe or people. It is pre-eminently social; it expresses itself in ceremonies, feasts, and rites in which all can join, or in commands which all can obey. Even the Australians, so poor in elements of worship, have tribal laws which have been imparted to them from on high ([Chap. VII]).

Over against the community stands the individual, object of all kinds of jealousies and enmities. All sorts of antisocial arts may be practised for his destruction. The pointing-stick of Australia provides a common magical weapon. It is carried away into a lonely spot in the bush, and the intending user plants it in the ground, crouches down over it, and mutters a curse against the object of his hatred: "May your heart be rent asunder, may your backbone be split open!" Then one evening, as the men sit round the campfire in the dark, he creeps up stealthily behind his enemy, stoops down with his back to the camp, points the stick over his shoulder, and mutters the curse again. A little while after, unless saved by a more powerful magic, the victim sickens and dies.

Of course magic may also be used for the benefit of the individual, and the practice of exorcism for the cure of diseases caused through possession by evil spirits long found shelter in some branches of the Christian Church. The kinship between Magic and Religion is clearly marked when the priest takes the place of the devil-dancer or the medicine man. Yet they are on different planes; religion is prescribed and official, and demands specific services; magic falls into the background, it becomes a secret, perhaps a forbidden, art. Nevertheless, between religion and antisocial magic lies a large group of rites, essentially magical in character, like the North American Indian rain-dances or the totem-ceremonies of the Arunta in Central Australia, designed for the general welfare. Even in much higher cultures the spell frequently mingles with the prayer, and ceremonies of sacrifice carry with them elements of compulsion or constraint.

What traces, then, do the phases of religion in the lower culture exhibit of a view of the world and its powers out of which these diverging lines of practice might emerge? In widely different regions of the globe the forces that operate in unexpected ways, or play through things beyond man's reach, or appear in natural objects of striking character—an animal, a tree—are summed up in some general term of mystery and awe. Such is the Melanesian term mana, first noted by Bishop Codrington, common to a large group of languages. It implies some supersensual power or influence; it is not itself personal, though it may dwell in persons as in things. It is known by the results which reveal its working. You find a stone of an unusual shape; it may resemble some familiar object like a fruit; you lay it at the root of the corresponding tree, or you bury it in a yam-patch; an abundant crop follows; clearly, the stone has mana. It lives in the song-words of a spell; it secures success in fighting, perhaps through the tooth of some fierce and powerful animal; it imparts speed to the canoe, brings fish into the net, enables the arrow to inflict a mortal wound. But the word has a yet wider range, in the sense of power, might, influence. By it a parent can bring a curse on a disobedient child, a man who possesses it can work miracles; it even denotes the divinity of the gods. And so mysterious is the whole range of the inner life, that mana covers thought, desire, feeling, and affection; and in Hawaian it reaches out to spirit, energy of character, majesty. Here is an immense reserve of potency pervading the world, on which man may draw for good or ill.

Among the North American Indians similar conceptions may be traced. The Algonquin manitou represents a subtle property believed to exist everywhere in nature, though some persons and objects possess more of it than others. Among the Sioux the sun, the moon, the stars, thunder, wind, are all wakanda. So are certain trees and animals, the cedar, the snake, the grey elephant; and mystery-places like a particular lake in North Dakota, or some peculiar rocks on the Yellowstone River. The term carries with it power and sacredness; it belongs to what is ancient, grand, and animate. The Iroquoian tribes designate this mysterious force orenda. It expresses an incalculable energy, manifested in rocks and streams and tides; in plants and trees, in animals and man; it belongs to the earth and its mountains; it breathes in the winds and is heard in the thunder; the clouds move by it, day and night follow each other through it; it dwells in sun, moon, and stars. The shy bird or quadruped which it is difficult to snare or kill, possesses it; so does the skilful hunter; it gives victory in intertribal games of skill, and is the secret force of endurance or speed of foot. The prophet or the soothsayer discloses the future by its aid; and whatever is believed to have been instrumental in accomplishing some purpose or obtaining some good, finds in orenda the source of its effectiveness.

Not dissimilar is the conception of mulungu among the Yaos, east of Lake Nyassa. The term is wide-spread through the eastern group of Bantu tongues, and is said to have the meaning of "Old One" or "Great One"; and in this sense it has been employed as equivalent to God. But we are expressly told that in its native use and form it does not imply personality. Etymologically it ranks with the leg, arm, heart, head, of the human frame. Yet it denotes rather a state or property inhering in something, like life or health in the body, than any single object. It indicates a kind of supernormal energy, displayed in actual experience, but not to be detected by any physical sense. It is the agent of wonder and mystery; the rainbow is mulungu; and it sums up at once the creative energy which made the earth and animals and man, and the powers which operate in human life. At the foot of a tree in the village courtyard, where men sit and talk, a small offering of flour or beer is placed on any distinctive occasion in the communal life; at a meal, or on a journey at cross roads, a little flour is set aside. It is "for Mulungu"; sometimes dimly conceived as a spirit within; sometimes regarded as a universal agency in nature and affairs, impalpable, impersonal; sometimes rising into distinctness as God.

Such terms are, of course, generalisations from many separate experiences. Out of this sense of mystery grow more definite ideas. The dark and solemn forest, the rushing river, the precipitous rock, the lofty cloud-crowned mountain, the winds and storms, all manifest a common power;[[1]] it lives in the snake or the bull, in the tiger or the bear. This may be conceived in a highly complex and abstract form. Thus the Zuñis of Mexico, we are told, suppose the sun and moon, the stars, the sky, the earth and sea, with all their various changes, and all inanimate objects, as well as plants, animals, and men, to belong to one great system of all-conscious and interrelated life. One term includes them all: hâi, "being" or "life." With the prefix â, "all," the whole field of nature is summed up as âhâi, "life" or "the Beings." This comprehensive term includes the objects of sensible experience regarded as personal existences, and supersensual beings who are known as "Finishers or Makers of the paths of life," the most exalted of all being designated "the Holder of the paths of our lives." So in Annam life is regarded as a universal phenomenon. It belongs not only to men and animals and plants, but to stones and stars, to earth, fire, and wind. But it is seen in groups and kinds rather than individuals, and the limits of its forms are not sharply drawn; it can pass through many transformations, and possesses indefinite possibilities of change. Such conceptions have a long history behind them.

[[1]] M. Durkheim has recently applied conceptions of the mana order to the explanation of totemism.