An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

Similar evidence is given by Acosta in reference to Peru. In that country there existed a highly-developed and elaborated worship of the dead. The bodies of the Incas, or governors of Peru, were kept and worshiped. Regular ministers were devoted to their service. Living Incas had images of themselves constructed, termed brothers, to which, both during the life-time of their original and after his death, as much honor was shown as to the Incas themselves. These images were carried in procession designed to obtain rain, and fair weather, and in time of war. They were also the objects of feasting and of sacrifices (H. I., b. 5, ch. vi). But the adoration of the dead was not of such exclusive importance in Peru as in some countries of inferior culture, and the most prominent positions in their system were occupied by the Sun and the soul of the world, Pachacamac, who was in fact their highest God (C. R. b. 2, ch. iii).

These last examples introduce us to the more general conception of deity which, in all religions but the very lowest, is found along with the belief in supernatural beings of an inferior class, and in some of them overshadows and expels it. The Peruvians, as just stated, assigned the first rank to him whom they conceived to have created and to animate the universe. The Fijians adored a supreme Being Degei or Tangaroa. Lastly, the "Great-Great," mentioned in the above quotation from Shooter, is a being who seems from the somewhat contradictory evidence of travelers to have been regarded as God by some of the Kafirs, but to have been wholly neglected by others. Thus, in a passage quoted from a work of Captain Gardiner's by Canon Callaway, we find a conversation of the writer's with a native, in which the latter denies all knowledge of deity whatever, and expresses a vague notion that the things in the world may "come of themselves." Of another tribe the same writer asserts that "they acknowledged, indeed, a traditionary account of a Supreme Being, whom they called Ookoolukoolu (literally the Great-Great), but knew nothing further respecting him, than that he originally issued from the reeds, created men and cattle, and taught them the use of the assagai." Canon Callaway is apparently of opinion that the word Unkulunkulu was not in use among the natives of South Africa in the sense of God until it was introduced by Captain Gardiner (R. S. A., vol. i. pp. 54, 55). Considerable suspicion is thus thrown upon any statements in which this name is employed for the Creator. If, however, we may accept a statement of Shooter's, "the Kafirs of Natal have preserved the tradition of a Being whom they call the Great-Great and the First Appearer or Exister." According to this writer "he is represented as having made all things," but this tradition "is not universally known among the people." A chief who was asked about Unkulunkulu, the Great-Great, knew nothing about him, but one of his old men, when a child, "had been told by women stooping with age that there was a great being above." There is also "a tribe in Natal which still worships the Great-Great, though its recollection of him is very dim." This tribe calls upon Unkulunkulu in the act of sacrifice and in sickness (K. N., pp. 159, 160). While this testimony leaves it doubtful whether Unkulunkulu is worshiped at all, except by this single tribe, the traditions collected by Canon Callaway in the first volume of his valuable work point to the presence of a well-marked legend of creation in which that deity figures as the originator of human life. True, he is also spoken of as the first man, and in this fact we have the probable reconciliation of the view which treats him as the Supreme Being, with that which denies that his name was used with this signification. Unkulunkulu was the primæval ancestor of mankind, but he was also the Creator. Ancestor-worship finds its culmination in him. But he has been much neglected in comparison with minor deities, and the word Unkulunkulu has been applied to the ancestor of special tribes instead of to the ancestor of all mankind.

The general result seems to be that some, though not all of the Zulus, have in their minds a more or less definite idea of a First Cause of existence, but that this First Cause is not worshiped and is but little spoken of. Thus, an old woman questioned by an emissary of Canon Callaway's related this:—

"When we spoke of the origin of corn, asking, 'Whence came this?' the old people said, 'It came from the Creator who created all things. But we do not know him.' When we asked continually, 'Where is the Creator? for our chiefs we see?' the old men denied, saying, 'And those chiefs too whom we see, they were created by the Creator.' And when we asked, 'Where is he? for he is not visible at all. Where is he then?' we heard our fathers pointing towards heaven and saying, 'The Creator of all things is in heaven. And there is a nation of people there too'" (R. S. A., vol. i. p. 52).

But while Unkulunkulu is generally considered as the Creator by the Zulus, it would appear that a neighboring people, called the Amakxosa, had heard of a "lord in heaven" even greater than him, whom they called Utikxo. According to the evidence of an old native the word Utikxo is not of foreign origin. Utikxo was appealed to when a man sneezed, and "as regards the use of Utikxo, we used to say it when it thundered, and we thus knew that there is a power which is in heaven; and at length we adopted the custom of saying, Utikxo is he who is above all. But it was not said that he was in a certain place in heaven; it was said he filled the whole heaven. No distinction of place was made" (Ib., vol. i. p. 65). In the opinion of this authority, Utikxo had been in a manner superseded by Unkulunkulu, who, because he was visible while the original power was invisible, was mistaken for the Creator and for God (Ib., vol. i. p. 67).

Testimony of a similar nature is given in regard to other regions of Africa. In Juda it is stated that the most intellectual of the great men had a confused idea of the existence and unity of a God (V. G., vol. ii. p. 160). Oldendorp states broadly that "all negro peoples believe that there is a God, whom they represent to themselves as very powerful and beneficent." He adds that among all the black nations he has known, there is none that has not this belief in God and that does not regard him as the author of the world. They call him by the same name as heaven, and it is even doubtful whether they do not take heaven for the supreme Being. "But perhaps," he adds, "they do not even think so definitely" (G. d. M., p. 318). So that the conception of the Highest God in the regions visited by this missionary is still vague and indefinite, like that we have found in Juda and in Natal.

If now we turn to another quarter of the globe we find the peculiarly degraded and ignorant Greenlanders asserting that, although they knew nothing of God before the arrival of the missionaries, yet that those of them who had reflected on the subject had perceived the necessity of creative power, and had inferred that there must be a being far superior to the cleverest man. They had, in fact, used the argument from design, and thus prepared, they had gladly believed in the God preached by the missionaries, for they found that it was he whom they had in their hearts desired to know (H. G., p. 240). A similar conviction of the existence of a supreme God prevailed in the new world when it was discovered by Europeans. Such a God was acknowledged in Mexico and Peru, as also in the less civilized regions of the North. Speaking of the American Indians, Charlevoix observes that nothing is more certain, yet nothing more obscure, than the idea which these savages have of a primæval Being. All agree in regarding him as the first Spirit, the Ruler and the Creator of the world; but when further pressed, they have nothing to offer but grotesque fancies, ill-considered fables, and undigested systems. Nearly all the Algonquin nations (he adds) call the first Spirit the Great Hare; some term him Michabou, and others Atahocan. He was apparently supposed by some to have been a kind of quadruped, and to have created the earth from a grain of sand drawn from the bottom of the ocean, and men from the dead bodies of animals (N. F., vol. iii. p. 343).

The great religions of the world have all of them (Buddhism alone excepted) acknowledged a God, whom they pictured to their minds in various ways according to the degree of their development and their powers of abstract thought. Dimly shadowed forth in the Confucian system under the title of Heaven, plainly acknowledged, yet mystically described by the Hindoos under many titles, whereof Brahma is one of the most usual, celebrated in plainer language by the classical heathens as Zeus or Jupiter, this great being appears in the three kindred creeds of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, as Jehovah, as Allah, and as God. In Buddhism, however, there is no article of faith corresponding to the belief in God. The Buddha is himself the most exalted being in the universe, and he is neither almighty nor eternal. The creation of matter as also of man appears to be unaccounted for. There is no single being who can be regarded as the ruler of all things, and the highest object of Buddhist worship. But it must not be supposed that Buddhism has escaped the universal necessity of admitting spiritual powers superior to human beings. In the first place it retained the Indian deities, such as Brahma, Indra, and others, and though, subordinating all of them to Buddha, yet left them in possession of enormous capacities. In the second place, the Buddha in fact, though not in name, assumed the rank of a God. Practically, he is far more than human. He himself determines the place, time, and manner of his incarnation. He delivers infallible doctrine. He becomes an object of adoration, receiving divine honors from his followers. And although the reigning Buddha (having entered Nirvâna) is non-existent, and cannot aid his disciples, the future Buddha, or Bodhisattva, can do so, and he is addressed in prayer for the same purposes for which a Christian would invoke the intercession of his Savior. Thirdly, it is to be remarked that Buddhism, free from the single idea of God, is not free from the multitudinous idea of supernatural essences. Its theology, so to speak, is quite full of celestial beings of various ranks and functions, who swarm around the terrestrial believers and perform all kinds of wonders. To these remarks it may be added that in Nepaul, one of the countries where Buddhism prevails, the non-theistic form has been superseded by a theistic form, in which there are divine Buddhas corresponding to the human Buddhas; the highest of these, Adi-Buddha, being equivalent to the highest God of other creeds. And it is at least noteworthy, that in Ceylon, where the non-theistic form prevails in all its purity, the people have a habit of invoking demons to their aid, and of employing the priests of these demons, in all the more important emergencies of their domestic lives.

It must not be imagined, however, that I wish to undervalue the importance of the exception which Buddhism presents to the general rule. Far from it. It ought, in my opinion, to be always borne in mind as a refutation of the statement that belief in a personal God is a necessary element of all religion. Europeans are apt to carry with them throughout the world their clear-cut notions of deity as a powerful being who created the world, put man into it, governs it in a certain manner, and assigns punishments and rewards to the souls of men in a future state. This belief appears to them so necessary and so natural that they expect to find it universally prevailing, and regard it as the indispensable foundation on which all religion must be built. Buddhism, however, the creed which, after Christianity, has probably exerted the greatest and most wide-spread influence on human affairs, knows no such article of faith; and our general ideas of the universal constituents of religion must needs be modified to embrace this fact.

Some superhuman power must, however, be recognized in every religion, and it is the manner in which this superhuman power is described, the qualities ascribed to it, its unity or plurality, its relation towards man, and similar distinctions, which serve to differentiate one form of religion from another. The degree of definiteness is one of the most important features in this differentiation. Generally speaking, the definiteness of this idea and the development of the religion vary inversely as one another. This law, however, is obscured by the continual tendency to put forward, to worship, and to speak about in ordinary cases, some inferior deity or deities, while there is lurking behind the vague idea of a higher entity who is seldom mentioned, little or never worshiped, and who possibly has no name in the language. So that the gods or idols who are worshiped by the people must not be taken as embodying the best expression of their religious thoughts. Some instances of the occurrence of this phenomenon will serve as illustrations of the foregoing statement.