The genus Homo, emerging from genera of animals, most of which were timorous and bodily weak, inherited from them a wonder and fear at anything unusual or uncanny. This dawning intelligence, influenced by such sentiments as wonder, fear, hope, and love, reached that mental condition when, as pointed out by King, it ascribed all happenings about itself to luck.[[3]] His heritage was a mind unable to separate the normal from the abnormal, and everything to such a mind is mysterious, and all nature is regarded as living, but we can hardly suppose that in that condition it deified or saw gods in everything. Man understood the causes of few of the mysteries about him, and felt himself at the caprice of chance. He was a consistent fatalist, overlooking good, for that was normal, but associating the bad with chance. In this early condition a stage of supernaturalism called fetishism, or the use of charms, spells, amulets, mascots of various kinds to control chance, arose. As far as I know, no race has wholly outgrown this condition, and the lower we descend in the scale of humanity, either historically in our own race, or ethnographically among savages, the relative predominance of fetishism increases. There is no more constant element, none following the same law of increase; the present forms of monotheism have the least, the lowest savage the most. While at present there survives no people so degraded that fetishism is the only cult, those nearest that stage are the lowest in mental, moral, and social attainments. I need not remind you that at that early stage a fetish was not an idol, it may or may not have had a regular form; a stone, a root, an amulet may serve as a fetish. In this stage of development every individual came to believe that he had a certain protective charm. We can hardly believe he had a system of gods or that he recognized such. Later in its evolution fetishism became incorporated with other higher elements, especially symbolism, but in its archaic conception this was impossible.
[3]. I find myself in accord with Mr. J. H. King, who has discussed this subject at length in his work, The Supernatural; its Origin, Nature, and Evolution. While there are several points in his discussion where I can not see my way clear to accept his interpretations, I have in others found my views almost coinciding with his. He has discussed the subject in so scholarly a manner that the small space I can give to this great subject might have been better occupied with quotations from his volumes. His work should be thoughtfully studied by everyone interested in this subject.
The highest outgrowth of pure fetishism was the shaman or medicine man. It was recognized that certain men were gifted with occult powers beyond their fellows, and were more potent to control happenings. But this medicine man made use of impersonal amulets, not personal spirits.
The second stage in the growth of the supernatural was a belief in a spirit[[4]] or double of man, the concept of animism. When through dreams and other psychical phenomena man recognized his soul, he immediately extended his concept to animals, plants, stones, all things, and thus everything was thought to have an intangible double, soul. Man sought to ally himself with some one of these souls; if a hunter, some animal spirit, for instance, as an aid. This became his totem, and everything came to be a totem of power depending on needs of man. As fetishism was the archaic condition in the groping of the human mind, totemism was the following, and both evolved together, mutually reacting on each other and interdigitating in their development.
[4]. The recognition of spirit was of very early date, and is regarded by Sir J. Lubbock, Dr. Tylor, and Herbert Spencer as characteristic of all supernaturalism. Mr. King, however, seems to me to have advanced strong reasons to show that fetishism may have antedated animism. Although I have adopted his view, I am sure there is much to be said on the other side.
As the inevitable outgrowth of animism and its twin brother totemism came ancestor worship. Totemism and animism are sometimes limited to animal worship, from the fact that zoomorphic totems naturally were chosen by hunters, but especially among agricultural people totems of corn, rain, and the like replaced zoomorphic forms. The forces of nature thus became totems—sun, moon, earth—some with animal, others with human personalities. A totem of a family became a tutelary god, and groups of tutelary gods with a regal head became a council of gods as among the old Greeks.
Political and religious conceptions kept pace, a patriarchal head of the family was reflected in the mythology. A king suggested a monotheism. Isolated phratries living in groups like the prehistoric pueblos recognized no supreme political chief; their system was feudal; they were too low for monotheism. I believe there is no good evidence to prove that they ever advanced higher in the evolution of mythology than a form of totemism, in which powers of nature under anthropomorphic or animal disguises were worshiped.
I have said that the ritual of man can not be separated from his beliefs; it is incomprehensible alone. Let us, therefore, glance at the mythology of the Tusayan Indians. These people had never, when unmodified by European influences, advanced higher than the worship of anthropomorphic powers of nature, although all lower forms of worship, as of animals, ancestors, and fetishism, were prevalent. As far as I have studied the beliefs of the Tusayan Indians, I find no evidence that they recognized monotheism or the existence of a Great Spirit, creator of all things. With them as elsewhere among American Indians whenever we find a knowledge of a Great Spirit we see, as pointed out by Mr. R. Dorman,[[5]] “Nothing more than a figure of European origin reflected and transformed almost beyond recognition in the mirror of the Indian mind.” It is suggestive that the Indian knows only the name, he has no stories pertaining to him, but when you inquire about creation you elicit myths of the works of a spider woman or the birth of men from the caverns of the earth. A conception of a Great Spirit, wherever reported from savage people of North America, is the work of missionaries, soldiers, or traders.[[6]]
[5]. Anthropological Institute, Journal, Vol. XI, page 361.
[6]. Considerable evidence has been adduced, mainly from documentary sources, that the more civilized people of Central America attained in Precolombian times the monotheistic stage of supernatural concepts, and if that evidence is unimpeachable it would not be improbable that traces of the same should be found among pueblos. Unfortunately, however, the evidences on this point are none too strong, the probabilities that the writers and the documents did not eliminate their own interpretation too great. The pueblos at present have an idea of a supreme spirit, but there is every reason to believe it is of exotic derivation in the time since Coronado. However honest may be the modern priest who may say that he learned from his grandfather certain current beliefs, the crucial test of their prehistoric character must come from proof that the grandfather’s testimony is correct. The sources of error in stories passed down by word of mouth through many generations are too many to permit us to pin much faith to traditions reputed to be of great age.