perfect-of which I shall say more in a following chapter -gradually led to the notion that materiality is a quality which is not becoming to a god; hence men endeavoured, to the best of their ability, to grasp the idea of a purely spiritual being, endowed with a will and even with human emotions, but without a material body. Like Xenophanes in Greece, the Inca Yupangui in Peru protested against the prevailing anthropomorphism, declaring that purely spiritual service was befitting the almighty creator, not tributes or sacrifices.1 In the Bible we notice a successive transformation of the nature of the deity, from crude sensuousness to pure spirituality. According to the oldest traditions, Yahveh works and rests, he plants the garden of Eden, he walks in it in the cool of the day, and Adam and Eve hear his voice. In a great part of the Old Testament he is expressly bound by conditions of time and space. He is attached in an especial manner to the Jerusalem temple or some other shrine, and his favour is gained by definite modes of sacrifice. At the time of the Prophets the cruder anthropomorphisms of the earlier religion have been overcome; Yahveh is no longer seen in person, and by a prophet like Isaiah his residence. in Zion is almost wholly dematerialised. Yet, as Professor Robertson Smith observes, not even Isaiah has risen to the full height of the New Testament conception that God, who is spirit and who is to be worshipped spiritually, makes no distinction of spot with regard to worship, and is equally near to receive. men's prayers in every place. Moslem theologians take pains to point out that God neither is begotten nor begets, and that he is without figure, form, colour, and parts. He hears all sounds, whether low or loud; but he hears without an ear. He sees all things, even the steps of a black ant on a black stone in a dark night; but he has no eyes, as men have. He speaks; but not 1 Brinton, American Hero-Myths, p. 236. 2 Goblet d'Alviella, op. cit. p. 216. Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 87. 2 with a tongue, as men do.1 He is endowed with knowledge, feelings, and a will. Thus the dematerialised god still retains a mental constitution modelled upon the human soul, with all its bodily desires and imperfections. removed, with its higher qualities indefinitely increased, and, above all, endowed with a supernatural power of action. In following chapters we shall see how the moral ideas of men have been influenced by the attributes they ascribe to supernatural beings. 1 Risalah-i-Berkevi, quoted by Sell, op. cit. p. 166 sq. 2 Sell, op. cit. p. 185. the first place looked upon as a supernatural being, and that a person's attitude towards it depends on the degree of dread or veneration which he feels for it. Such sacred animals as are not conceived to be of one stock with their devotees are equally tabooed; in ancient Egypt, we are told, offences against holy animals were punished even with death. On the other hand, so little respect is not seldom felt for the totem that it is treated in a way to which there is no parallel in the treatment of human relatives. Speaking of the native tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe, "That the totemic animal or plant is not regarded exactly as a close relative, whom it would be wrong to kill, or to assist anyone else to kill, is very evident; on the contrary, the members of one totem not only, as it were, give their permission to those who are not of the totem to kill and eat the totemic animal or plant, but . . . they will actually help in the destruction of their totems." The South Australian Narrinyeri kill their totemic animals if they are good for food. A Bechuana will kill his totem if it be a hurtful animal, for instance a lion; the slayer then only makes an apology to the beast and goes through a form of purification for the sacrilege. Among the Menomini Indians a man belonging to the Bear clan may kill a bear, although he must first address himself to his victim and apologise for depriving it of life." The Indian tribes in the South-Eastern States had no respect for their totems and would kill them when they got the chance. Among the Thlinkets a Wolf man will hunt wolves without hesitation, although he calls them his relatives when praying them not to hurt him.7 In certain cases divine animals are killed as a religious 1 Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, p. 279. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 207. 3 Taplin, Narrinyeri,' in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 63. Casalis, Basutos, p. 211. 5 Hoffman, Menomini Indians,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xiv. 44. 6 Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 16. 7 Boas, in Fifth Report on the NorthWestern Tribes of Canada, p. 23. For some other instances see Frazer, Totemism, p. 19. or magical ceremony. Several instances of this have been pointed out by Dr. Frazer.1 Sometimes, when the revered animal is habitually spared, it is nevertheless killed on rare and solemn occasions. In other cases, when the revered animal is habitually killed, there is a special annual atonement, at which a select individual of the species is slain with extraordinary marks of respect and devotion. Dr. Frazer has offered ingenious explanations of both customs. As regards the former one he argues that the savage apparently thinks that a species. left to itself will grow old and die like an individual, and that the only means he can think of to avert the catastrophe is to kill a member of the species in whose veins the tide of life is still running strong and has not yet stagnated among the fens of old age; "the life thus diverted from one channel will flow, he fancies, more freshly and freely in a new one." 2 The latter custom, again, is explained by Dr. Frazer as a kind of atonement; by showing marked deference to a few chosen individuals. of a species the savage thinks himself entitled to exterminate with impunity all the remainder upon which he can lay hands. These explanations, as Dr. Frazer himself is the first to admit, are only hypothetical, but, so far as I know, they are the only ones yet offered. However, it is worth noticing that certain acts accompanying the slaughter of divine animals sometimes clearly indicate a desire in the worshippers to transfer to themselves supernatural benefits-as when they eat the flesh of the animal, or sprinkle themselves with its blood, or by other means place themselves in contact with it; and it may be that in such cases the animal is killed for the express purpose of communicating to the people the sanctity, or beneficial magic energy, with which it is endowed. The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa furnish an instructive example. Once a year, as it seems, a very choice lamb is killed by a man belonging to a kind of priestly order, who sprinkles some sqq. 1 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 366 2 Ibid. ii. 368. 3 Ibid. ii. 435. of the blood four times over the assembled people and then smears each individual with the same fluid. But this ceremony is also observed on a small scale at other times if a family is in any great trouble, through illness or bereavement, their friends and neighbours come together and a lamb is killed with a view to averting further evil. Among the Arunta and some other tribes in Central Australia, as we have noticed above, at the time of Intichiuma, totemic animals are killed with the object of being eaten. But here the sacramental meal is a magical ceremony intended to multiply the species, so as to increase the food supply for other totemic groups; the fundamental idea being that the members of each totemic group are responsible for providing other individuals with a supply of their totem.2 Dr. Frazer has also called attention to various instances in which a man-god or divine king is put to death by his worshippers, and has suggested the following explanation of this custom :-Primitive people sometimes believe that their own safety and even that of the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men or human incarnations of the divinity. They therefore take the utmost care of his life, out of a regard for their own. But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the divine king from growing old and feeble and at last dying. And in order to avert the catastrophes which may be expected from the enfeeblement of his powers and their final extinction in death, they kill him as soon as he shows symptoms of weakness, and his soul is transferred to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously impaired by the threatened decay. But some peoples appear to have thought it unsafe to wait for even the slightest symptom of decay and have preferred to kill the divine king while he is still in the full vigour of life. cordingly, they have fixed a Ac term beyond which he Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, ch. vi. Iidem, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, ch. ix. sq. |