In fact, the creation of “etiological” or justificatory history and mythology is by no means limited to the department of religious ritualism. Even more trivial actions, such as games and pastimes, will, amongst tribes with developed historical tendencies, be connected with imaginary occurrences, which latter will be found to account for every detail in such games and pastimes. With the Cherokee Indians, for example, we find a most intricate animal story, in which the action of the bat, the eagle, and other creatures closely correspond to the movements of the different participators in the national ball-play.[236] Although much may be said in favour of the ingenious hypothesis of Professor Groos, who suggests that military games, such as chess and draughts, may have been developed from dramatic narratives of real battles, supplemented perhaps with maps drawn in the sand and simple symbols—stones, pebbles, etc.—representing the various armies and soldiers;[237] and although it may reasonably be assumed that the beasts in the animal story of the Cherokees represents the totems of some old Indian chiefs,—a story like this must be considered as secondary, in its details at least, to the play. More artificial still it sounds when the Moondahs in Bengal affirm that their popular Easter-game of pushing eggs the one against the other in reality serves as a means of commemorating the feats of Sing Bonga, who, with a single hen’s egg, crushed the iron globes of his rivals.[238]
Unfortunately, it is but seldom that the commemorative motive shows its fictitious nature with so much evidence as in this game. In most cases there will always be a doubt as to whether the religious drama, poem, or design was originally intended as a means of conveying knowledge of some real or legendary event, or whether the idea of these events was derived from a simple game, a propitiative poem, or a magical design. We have quoted some instances in which the historical interpretation is secondary only. But there could easily be adduced other instances in which the opposite is the case. Ancient poems, whose historical and legendary character is quite incontestable, may often be used as charms in magical ceremonies.[239] It seems quite impossible therefore to pronounce any definite judgment as to priority between myth and ceremony without special investigation of every single case. In the department of pictorial art it is scarcely less difficult to separate the genuinely commemorative elements from the close interweaving of different motives, which call into existence a work of art.
Foremost in rank amongst all the works of design and sculpture that have influenced artistic evolution stand the likenesses of a deceased person which are placed by the relatives on his grave or in his home. To civilised man it is most natural to look upon these effigies as tokens of loving remembrance by which the survivors endeavour to keep fresh the memory of the departed. It is also easy for us to understand that the pious feelings extended towards such effigies may acquire an almost religious character. There is something to be said therefore on behalf of the view that commemorative monuments have been the predecessors of idols proper. Lubbock, who interprets Erman’s description of the Ostyak religion[240] in this way, quotes in further corroboration The Wisdom of Solomon, in which work there is to be found a detailed account of the evolution of idolatry from memorial images.[241] The probability, however, is that in pictorial as well as in dramatic art the purely commemorative intention belongs to the latter stages of culture. It seems in most cases to be beyond doubt that among the lowest tribes the images serve as paraphernalia in the animistic rites. They are either taken to be embodiments of the ancestors’ soul, or receptacles in which this soul, if properly invoked, might take up its abode for the occasion. And similar superstitious notions are entertained, not only with regard to the monuments proper erected on the graves of powerful ancestors, but also with regard to such minor works as, e.g., the dolls which are often prepared by West African mothers when they have lost a favourite child.[242] The vague and indistinct character of these images shows us also that no intellectual record of the individual has been aimed at. No more than the poetic effusions of regret with which the pious survivors endeavour to propitiate the names of the deceased, do these formative works of “pietas” give us any information as to the personality of him whom they pretend to represent.
This general notion, however, must not be allowed to prevent us from admitting that among sundry tribes of mankind the images may be historical. This is asserted with regard to the Bongos by Schweinfurth, and with regard to the Gold Coast negroes by Cruickshank. The wooden effigies on the Marquesas Islands are described by Herr Schmeltz as “constructed in memory of celebrated members of the tribe.”[243] The Melanesian sculptures also, according to Codrington, are chiefly commemorative. It must be observed, however, that according to his own description a sort of religious respect is paid at least to some of them.[244] More undeniably commemorative examples are to be found in New Zealand. Although no attempt to reproduce likenesses is made in these colossal wooden statues, they nevertheless more nearly approach the idea of monumental commemorative portraiture than any similar works of primitive art. The patterns of tattooing, that infallible means of identification amongst the Maoris, render it possible to preserve the memories of the individual ancestors through pictorial representation.[245]
Not less problematic than ancestral sculptures are the much-debated rock-paintings and engravings that can be found in every part of the world. Herr Andree finds a sort of learned bias in the general tendency to look for some serious, sacred, or historical meaning in every petroglyph. He points, very sensibly as it seems, to the prevailing impulse of the idle hand to scratch some figures, however meaningless, on every inviting and empty surface. Especially at much frequented localities—such as meeting-places, common thoroughfares, and places of rest for travellers—where the drawings of previous visitors call for imitation, this temptation must be looked upon as a very strong one.[246] There is no reason for regarding the savage and the prehistoric man as devoid of an impulse, which, as we all know, shows its strength among the very lowest and most primitive layers of civilised society. It is unnecessary, therefore, to find anything more remarkable in the petroglyphs than is to be found in the familiar pictures on walls, trees, and rocks which have been wantonly decorated by the modern vandal. This common-sense explanation is undoubtedly sufficient to account for the origin of many much-debated works of glyphic art. But however sound within its proper limits it cannot be extended so as to give a general solution of the petroglyph problem. It is not likely, as Mr. Im Thurn observes, that pictures such as the rock-engravings in Guiana, to produce which must have cost so much time and trouble, should have their origin in mere caprice and idleness.[247]
But even if the serious aspect of the petroglyphs is granted there still remains the difficulty of determining their special purpose. The historical explanation, although it would appear the most natural for us to adopt, is not to be taken unreservedly with regard to tribes on a low degree of development. What to us seems a sort of picture-writing might possibly serve a purpose anything but communicative. The so-called ideograms of the Nicobarese have, for example, according to Herr Svoboda, for their object the distraction of the attention of the malevolent demons from their houses and implements[248]. When investigating the ritual, especially the funeral ceremonies, one meets with various specimens of similar ideography, the thought-conveying purpose of which is deceptive.
By the above examples the ambiguous character of primitive art-works has been proved almost ad nauseam. It appears that every single conclusion based upon isolated ethnological examples only is liable to be upset after a closer study of the facts. In order, therefore, to make any positive assertions as to the commemorative element in art we need some safer and more reliable grounds of argument than the inconsistent stories of travellers. We have, in other words, to investigate the social and psychological conditions which, in the respective cases, speak for or against the assumption of a commemorative impulse as a motive for art-production. Owing to our deficient knowledge of primitive life we are not able to rely upon these social and psychological data in every individual case. But we may nevertheless arrive at some broad results which in the main tally with, and corroborate the evidence afforded by, the majority of ethnological facts.
It is easy to understand why historical art holds no high place among the lower—that is, the hunting and fishing—tribes. Even if, as is the case in Australia, every unusual occurrence is represented in art with a view of keeping up its memory,[249] these accidental interruptions in a monotonous life cannot possibly contribute to the development of an historical interest—that is to say, a commemorative attention in the people. When, on the other hand, we meet, in barbaric and semi-barbaric tribes, with a flourishing traditional art, we can also, in most cases, point to some peculiar features in their life which have called for commemoration. In a general survey of traditional poetry one cannot but be struck by the great prevalence of legends about migrations.[250] As travels and incidents of travel were found to provide a favourite subject for the pantomimes and poems described in the preceding chapter, so these experiences have also exercised an important influence on the songs that have been preserved by oral tradition. And as we meet with numerous instances of improvised drama and poetry called forth by so eminently interesting an occurrence as the visit of some white people, so we can also trace the same theme in manifestations of historical art from dim and distorted narrations up to richly detailed descriptions like those of the Hawajian songs or of the Mangaian “Drama of Cook.”[251] The influence which these motives have exercised on the history of art is only in accordance with the universal laws of psychology. Tribal memory, no less than individual memory, is dependent for its development on some favourable external influences that stimulate the attention.
It must not surprise us, therefore, that the varying experiences of war have everywhere acted as a strong incentive on the commemorative impulse. In this case, however, we have to count with a factor of still greater importance in the directly utilitarian advantage which military nations derive from historical art. Through recounting or representing the exploits of earlier generations, the descendants acquire that healthy feeling of pride which is the most important factor of success in all brutal forms of the struggle for life. So it has come about that historic art has everywhere reached its highest state of development amongst nations who have had to hold their own vi et armis against neighbouring tribes, or in the midst of which antagonistic families have fought for supremacy. The more the social institutions have been influenced by the customs of war, the more important is usually the part which commemoration plays in public life. It is highly prominent in semi-feudal Polynesia,[252] where domestic warfare was at all times of regular occurrence; it has developed to some extent in warlike Fiji,[253] notwithstanding the Melanesian indifference for the past; and it has obtained the position of a state function in military despotisms, such as the barbaric kingdoms of Central and South America and Western Africa.[254] In isolated tribes, on the other hand, whose whole struggle has been one against nature, historical art is generally to be found at a very low ebb.
That bygone events have been preserved in history and art chiefly for the sake of their effect in enhancing the national pride can also be concluded from the way in which humiliating incidents are treated. There are, it is true, a few isolated and unhappy tribes which keep up some dim traditions of their inglorious past.[255] Generally, however, defeats are totally ignored in the earliest chronicles. If, however, an unsuccessful battle should have provoked artistic manifestations, these aim at masking the humiliation.[256] The ancient history of Greece affords the most curious examples of myths and inventions by means of which the popular imagination contrived to conceal disagreeable truths. The fate of Phrynichos, who was fined for having revived the memory of the defeat at Miletus, shows that Greece, even at a much later period, preserved the same primitive ideas as to the raison d’être of historic art. It is needless to point out to how great an extent similar conceptions still prevail amongst all warlike nations, civilised and barbarous alike.