CHAPTER L GODS AS GUARDIANS OF MORALITY As men are concerned about the conduct of their fellow men towards their gods, so gods are in many cases concerned about men's conduct towards one another-disapproving of vice and punishing the wicked, approving of virtue and rewarding the good. But this is by no means a universal characteristic of gods. It is a quality attributed to certain deities only and, as it seems, in most instances slowly acquired. We are told by competent observers that the supernatural beings of savage belief frequently display the utmost indifference to all questions of worldly morality. According to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, the Central Australian natives, though they assume the existence of both friendly and mischievous spirits, "have not the vaguest idea of a personal individual other than an actual living member of the tribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far as anything like what we call morality is concerned." The Society Islanders maintained that "the only crimes that were visited by the displeasure of their deities were the neglect of some rite or ceremony. The religious belief of the Gonds of Central India is said to be wholly unconnected with any idea of morality; a moral deity demanding righteous conduct from his creatures, our informant adds, is a religious 2 1 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 491. 397. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. conception far beyond the present capacity either of the Indian savage or the ordinary Hindu.1 Of the Ewe-, Yoruba-, and Tshi-speaking peoples of the West African Slave and Gold Coasts Major Ellis writes :-" Religion, at the stage of growth in which we find it among these three groups of tribes, has no connection with morals, or the relations of men to one another. It consists solely of ceremonial worship, and the gods are only offended when some rite or ceremony has been neglected or omitted. Murder, theft, and all offences against the person or against property, are matters in which the gods have no immediate concern, and in which they take no interest, except in the case when, bribed by a valuable offering, they take up the quarrel in the interests of some faithful worshipper." 2 So also among the Bambala, a Bantu tribe in the Kasai, south of the River Congo, "there is no belief that the gods or spirits punish wrong-doing by afflicting the criminal or his family, nor are the acts of a man supposed to affect his condition after death." The Indians of Guiana, says Mr. Im Thurn, observe an admirable code of morality, which exists side by side with a simple animistic form of religion, but the two have absolutely no connection with one another." With reference to the Tarahumares of Mexico Dr. Lumholtz states that the only wrong towards the gods of which an Indian may consider himself guilty is that he does not dance enough. "For this offence he asks pardon. Whatever bad thoughts or actions toward man he may have on his conscience are settled between himself and the person offended." 5 "In the primitive Indian's conception of a god," Mr. Parkman observes, "the idea of moral good 1 Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, p. 145. See also Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays, i. 124 (Bodo and Dhimals); Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 36; Lyall, Asiatic Studies, p. 45; Radloff, Das Schamanenthum, p. 13 (Turkish tribes of the Altai). 2 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 293. Idem, Tshispeaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 10. 3 Torday and Joyce, Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 415. 4 Im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, P. 342. 5 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i 332. His deity does not dispense justice for this has no part. That many savage gods are so thoroughly selfish as to care about nothing else than what concerns their own interests, may also be inferred from the character attributed to them. We have seen that the altruistic sentiment is the chief source from which moral emotions spring, and of the gods of various uncivilised peoples we hear not only that they are totally destitute of benevolent feelings, but that they are of a malicious nature and mostly intent on doing harm to mankind.2 The Maoris of New Zealand regarded their deities as the causes of pain, misery, and death, as mighty enemies from whom nobody ever thought of getting any aid or good, but who were to be rendered harmless by means of charms or spells or by sacrifices offered to appease their wrath.3 The Tahitians "supposed their gods were powerful spiritual beings, in some degree acquainted with the events of this world, and generally governing its affairs; never exercising any thing like benevolence towards even their most devoted followers, but requiring homage and obedience, with constant offerings; denouncing their anger, and dispensing destruction on all who either refused or hesitated to comply." 4 The Fijians "formed no idea of any voluntary kindness on the part of their gods, except the planting of wild yams, and the wrecking of strange canoes and foreign vessels on their coast"; 5 and that some of these beings were conceived as positively wicked is indicated by the names given them "the adulterer,' "the rioter," "the murderer," and so forth.® The people of Aneiteum, in the New Hebrides, maintained that "earth and air and ocean were filled with natmasses, spiritual beings, but all malignant, who ruled over everything that affected the human race. Their deities, like themselves, were 1 Parkman, Jesuits in North America, p. lxxviii. See also Eastman, Dacotah, p. xx; Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 195 (Dacotahs). 2 See Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen, i. 405; Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 329; Avebury, Origin of Civilisation, p. 232 sqq.; Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, i. 20 sq.; Frazer, Golden Bough, iii. 40 sqq.; Karsten, Origin of Worship, p. 46 sqq. 336. 5 Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 195. 6 Ibid. p. 185. all selfish and malignant; they breathed no spirit of benevolence." 1 The Santal of India believes in no god from whose benignity he may expect favour, but in "a multitude of demons and evil spirits, whose spite he endeavours by supplications to avert.' Even his family god "represents the secret principle of evil, which no bolts can shut out, and which dwells in unseen but eternally malignant presence beside every hearth." The Kamchadales do not seem to have hoped for anything good from their deities; Kutka himself, the creator of the universe and the greatest of the gods, was once caught in adultery and castrated.3 According to the beliefs of the Koksoagmyut, or Hudson Bay Eskimo, all the minor spirits are under the control of the great spirit whose name is Tung ak, and this being "is nothing more or less than death, which ever seeks to torment and harass the lives of people that their spirits may go to dwell with him." Nay, even the special guardian spirit by which each person is supposed to be attended is malignant in character and ever ready to seize upon the least occasion to work harm upon the individual whom it accompanies; its good offices can be obtained by propitiation only. Among the Nenenot, or Indians of Hudson Bay, "the rule seems to be that all spirits are by nature bad, and must be propitiated to secure their favour." "6 Of various Brazilian tribes we are likewise told that they do not believe in the existence of any benevolent spirits. Thus the Coroado Indian acknowledges only an evil principle, which sometimes meets him in the form of a lizard or a crocodile or an ounce or a man with the feet of a stag, sometimes transforms itself into a swamp, and leads him astray, vexes him, brings him into difficulty and danger, and even kills him. The Mundrucus of the Cuparí have no notion of a good supreme being, but believe in an evil spirit, regarded merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all their little failures and gives them troubles in fishing, hunting, and so forth. The Uaupés, says Mr. Wallace, "appear to have no definite idea of a God. . . . They have much more definite ideas of a bad spirit, 'Juruparí,' or Devil, whom they fear and 1 Inglis, In the New Hebrides, pp. 30, 32. 2 Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 181 sq. 3 Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit, ii. 318 sq. Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 264. • Turner, 'Ethnology of the Un gava District,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 272. 5 Ibid. p. 194. 6 Ibid. p. 193 sq. 7 von Spix and von Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. 243. 8 Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 137. endeavour through their pagés [or medicine men] to propitiate. When it thunders, they say the 'Juruparí' is angry, and their idea of natural death is that the 'Jurupari' kills them."1 In Eastern Africa, according to Burton, "the sentiment generally elicited by a discourse upon the subject of the existence of a Deity is a desire to see him, in order to revenge upon him the deaths of relatives, friends, and cattle.”2 The only quality of a moral character which the Wanika are said to ascribe to the supreme being, Mulungu, is that of vindictiveness and cruelty. To the Matabele the idea of a benevolent deity is utterly foreign, but they have a vague notion of a number of evil spirits always ready to do harm, and the chief among these are the spirits of their ancestors. All the good the Bechuanas enjoy they ascribe to rainmakers, but "all the evil that comes they attribute to a supernatural being"; 5 of their principal god, Morimo, Mr. Moffat never once, in the course of twenty-five years spent in missionary labour, heard that he did good or was capable of doing so." Among various other African peoples, travellers assure us, supernatural beings are supposed to exercise a potent influence for evil rather than for good, or beneficent spirits are, at any rate, almost unknown. On the Gold Coast, according to Major Ellis, the majority of spirits are malignant, and every misfortune is ascribed to their action. "I believe," he adds, "that originally all were conceived as malignant, and that the indifference, or the beneficence (when propitiated by sacrifice and flattery), which are now believed to be characteristics of some of these beings, are later modifications of the original idea." 8 Of many savages it is reported that they have notions. of good, as well as of evil spirits, but that they chiefly or exclusively worship the evil ones, since the others are supposed to be so good that they require no offerings or homage." But adoration of supernatural beings which are 1 Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. 500. 2 Burton, Lake Regions of Central Africa, ii. 348. 3 New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 103 sq. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 153. Campbell, Second Journey in the Interior of South Africa, ii. 204. 6 Moffat, Missionary Labours in Southern Africa (ed. 1842), p. 262. 7 Rowley, Religion of the Africans, P. 55. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 443. Mockler-Ferryman, British Nigeria, p. 255 sq. 8 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, pp. 12, 18, 20. Cf. Cruickshank, Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast, ii. 134. 9 Wilken, Het Animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel, p. 207 sq. Perham, Sea Dyak Religion,' in Jour. Straits Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc. no. 10, p. 220; St. John, Life in |