Strange Survivals: Some Chapters in the History of Man

by S. Baring-Gould

Whosoever has little children of his own can learn a great deal from them relative to the early stages of civilisation of mankind. Every race of men that has not been given revelation from above has passed through a period of intellectual and spiritual infancy, and though men grew to be adults, they never grew out of the thoughts of a child relative to what was beyond their immediate sensible appreciation.

I knew a case of a woman of fifty who insisted that a certain river changed the colour of its water as it flowed in one place under the shadow of a wood, there it turned black, in another part of its course it was white. To the intelligent mind it was obvious enough that the water remained unaltered, but that it looked dark where the shadows cut off the light from the sky. No amount of reasoning could convince the woman that the water itself did not change its colour from black to white. She thought as a child, and was incapable of thinking otherwise.

Now observe a little child playing with a doll. It does not regard the doll as a symbol, a representation of a man or babe, it treats it as a creature endowed with an individuality and a life of its own. It talks to it, it feeds it, it puts it to bed, it conjures up a whole world of history connected with it. It believes the doll to be sensible to pain, and will cry to see it beaten. The doll is to it as real a person as one of its playmates.

Fig. 35.—MIRACULOUS IMAGE AT HAL, BELGIUM.

Now take a savage and his idol. The idol to him is precisely what the doll is to the child. It thinks, it eats, it suffers, it is happy. It requires clothes, it is subject to the same passions as the savage. When a heathen people has advanced to regard an image as the symbol of a deity, it has mounted to a higher intellectual plane; it has stepped from the mental condition of a child of five to that of one of twelve. If we want to see what are the thoughts of a savage, who is in the earliest stage relative to his idol, we must go to the Ostjak or Samojed on the Siberian tundra, or to the negro in Central Africa. The Greek, the Roman, the Egyptian were long past that stage when they become known to us through history and their monumental remains. Their images were symbols, and not properly idols, though there always remained among them individuals, perhaps whole strata of people, whose intellectual appreciation of the images was that of babes. This is not marvellous, for human progress is always subject to this check, that every individual born into the world enters, as to his intellectual state, in the condition of the earliest savage, and has to run through in a few years what races have taken centuries to accomplish. Where this is the case, and it is the case everywhere, there will ever be individuals, perhaps whole classes, whose mental development will suffer arrest at points lower than that attained by the general bulk of the men and women among whom they move.

Even in our own country, the most low and to us inconceivable ideas relative to God may be found among the ignorant. If I tell a story it is not to raise a laugh, but to lift a corner of the veil which covers these dull minds, to show how little they have reached the level to which we have ascended.

A middle-aged man declared to the parson of his parish that he had seen and spoken with the Almighty. He was asked what He was like. He replied that He was dressed in a black swallow-tailed coat of the very best broadcloth and wore a white tie. This was said with perfect gravity, and with intense earnestness of conviction. His highest conception of the Deity was that of a gentleman dressed for a dinner party. Anyone who has had dealings in spiritual matters with the ignorant will be able to cap such a story. This is not to be taken as laughing matter, but as a revelation of a condition of mind to us scarcely intelligible. I feel some hesitation in repeating the incident, but do so because I do not see in what other way I can make those who have not been in communication with the very ignorant understand the full depth of their ignorance.

Now let us look at the ideas that those of a low mental condition among the savage races have relative to their idols. I will take the instance of the Ostjaks and Samojeds. The latter have their Hakes. They are figures—sometimes only bits of root of tree or wood that have a distant resemblance to the human form, or some unusual shape. Every family has its Hake—sometimes has several. These are wrapped up in coloured rags, given necklaces and bangles, and a tent or apartment to themselves. They have their own sledge, the haken-gan, and following after a Samojed family, on its journey from one camping place to another, may be seen a load of these unsightly dolls in their sledge. If some figure out of the usual, in wood or stone, attracts general attention, and is too big to be carried about, it is regarded as the hake of a whole tribe. These images are provided with food. Family affairs are communicated to them, and they are supposed to rejoice with domestic joys, and lament family losses.

When their help is required, offerings are made to them, but if the desired help be not given, the hake gets scolded, refused his food, and sometimes is kicked out into the snow. The face of the hake, or what serves as face, is smeared with reindeer blood. It is the same with the Ostjaks. Their idols are dressed in scarlet, furnished with weapons, and their faces smeared with ochre. They are called Jitjan. “Often,” says Castrén, “each of these figures has its special office. One is supposed to protect the reindeers, another to help in the fishery, another to care for the health of the family, etc. When need arrives, the figures are drawn forth and set up in a tent at the reindeer pastures, the hunting or fishing grounds. They are presented with sacrifices now and then, which consist in smearing their lips with train oil or blood, and putting before them a vessel with fish or meat.”[26]