FIG. 71.—Detail of construction of the “gora.”
(After Wood.)
Religion.—For a considerable time now the question has been discussed by ethnographers, theologians, and moralists, whether or not there exist peoples without a religion. The answer to this question depends entirely on the meaning we give to religion. If by this word is meant an acknowledged revealed doctrine, accompanied by a well-ordered ritual and a strongly organised priesthood, as implied in current speech, or even if it simply means the belief in “beings superior to man” and in “a future beyond the tomb,” as Quatrefages would use it,[236] there are certainly peoples who have nothing of this kind. If, on the contrary, we content ourselves with the minimum definition of religion, given by E. B. Tylor,[237] “belief in spiritual beings,” it is difficult to find a tribe on the earth which has not this belief. I should like to modify a little this definition of Tylor’s by substituting “imaginary beings” for “spiritual,” to indicate clearly their psychological origin, for it is in beings entirely created out of their imagination that savages believe.
This belief originates chiefly in the fear of unusual or extraordinary events, and especially of disease and death. Sometimes the idea of a “spiritual being” is so inseparable from the sensation of fear that it only presents itself when the latter occurs. Thus the Fuegian Yahgan have no clear idea of “spirits,” and it is only at dusk under the influence of fear that they imagine themselves to be attacked by the “savages of the west,” by the “Walapatu,” which some of them regard as ghosts, and others quite simply as individuals of a neighbouring tribe, that of the Alakalufs.[238]
But cases of this kind are rare, and most uncivilised peoples have the rudiments of natural religion a little more developed, a belief in spirits less vague. We may, with the eminent ethnologist Tylor, give the name of “Animism” to this primitive religion.
Animism in the most primitive forms consists in believing that the body of a man contains another more subtle being, a “soul,” capable of being temporarily separated from its envelope, and admitting further that everything that exists, beasts, plants, stones, down to objects fashioned by hand, have equally a soul which is endowed with corresponding qualities. Thus the Shans of the Kieng-Tung (upper Burma) believe that the soul leaves the body of a man asleep in the form of an iridescent butterfly;[239] the Malays have the same ideas, and take care on that account not to awaken a man asleep. His observation of the shadow which exactly repeats every movement of a man, of reflections in the water, may confirm a savage in his animistic beliefs, but what especially establishes them are the dreams and visions during which he lives another life and is “another man.” Death is considered as a separation of man from his shadow or his soul, something like the separation which is effected during sleep. Most frequently it is the breath, the air breathed out, which represents the immaterial being that forsakes the body. Thus, among the natives of Nias Island, the one to become chief is he who succeeds, sometimes not without a desperate struggle with his rivals, in swallowing the last breath of the dying chief.[240] Besides, for the most part uncivilised people think that death is only a prolonged sleep, and it is on that account that some are accustomed to keep the corpse as long as possible, sometimes until putrefaction sets in, in their huts or in the immediate neighbourhood (see p. [243]). They imagine that the soul seeks to re-enter the body, and if it does not find it, wanders restlessly around the dwellings, and is angry with the living who have hidden the body from it. Cases of lethargy, of hypnotic sleep, of fainting-fits, which strike the imagination the more forcibly because more rare than ordinary sleep, confirm the belief in the separation of man and his double. In fine, the mind of a savage does not regard death as a natural phenomenon, but as a violent and very prolonged separation of man and his soul.
But what is the cause of this separation? Here comes in the second element of animism, the belief in “spirits,” imaginary beings who take the most diverse forms, like the soul itself. Sometimes the “soul” of a dead man is also a “spirit”; there are here no subtle distinctions. However, what especially differentiates “spirits” from “souls” is this, that the former are more active, that they constantly take part in human affairs, so that the whole life of a savage is passed in compromises or continual struggles with spirits. Every disease, every misfortune, every death, comes from the angry “spirit.” Happily, side by side with wicked spirits, who are legion, there are encountered from time to time benevolent ones, who become protectors, or “patrons” of men. Most frequently these are the “souls” of the old men of the tribe, of the “ancestors.” As these old men have ordinarily endowed the tribe or the family with some material advantage by giving during life counsels dictated by their long experience, they are laid under contribution after death. Their memory is recalled in times of misfortune, and advice is asked of them. This is the origin of ancestor worship.
The number of spirits is infinite, there is a whole world of them. Every object, sometimes every category of objects, has its spirit, and as objects may be made so spirits may be created, or at least may be made to communicate to objects a portion of their power. This circumstance gives birth to fetichism,[241] which is only one of the sides of animism, one of the grossest forms. Fetichistic peoples consider certain objects called fetiches, gris-gris, etc., as beings endowed with an inherent will and power. Every object, a piece of wood, a bundle of grass, a stone, a nail, a claw, a lock of hair, a horn, a rag, a bit of string, may become fetiches; the material value of the object bears no relation to its power as a fetich; the most insignificant things may be the greatest fetiches.[242] As to the relations which exist between spirits and objects, they are of a twofold character: either the fetich is regarded as an animated being, as the material envelope of a spirit, or it is only an instrument by which the existence of the spirit is manifested, a vehicle in some way of part of its power. It must be remarked, however, that the two forms of connection between the spirit and the material object are frequently interblended, and a fetich to which sacrifices are offered as to a living being, may become a simple amulet preserving its possessor from wounds or any other misfortune. Fetichism is the first step towards idolatry, but it is essentially distinguished from it in that idols are only images, representations of certain supernatural beings, whilst fetiches are these beings themselves, or at least the direct vehicles of a portion of their power. The boundary line between idolatry and fetichism is, however, often difficult to define exactly.
Animism with its variants, more or less developed, is the religion of all uncivilised peoples untouched by international or universal religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Mahomedanism, etc., and even among those who have accepted one of these religions, animistic ideas persist with great obstinacy.