2

13

other world have to suffer from the hands of those whom they injured in this. Some of the Nagas of Central India maintain that "a murdered man's soul receives that of his murderer in the spirit world and makes him his slave." The Chippewas think that in the land of the dead "the souls of bad men are haunted by the phantoms of the persons or things they have injured. In Aurora, in the New Hebrides, the belief prevails that the ghosts of those whom a man has wronged in this world take a full revenge upon him after death. According to the Banks' Islanders, if a person has killed a good man without cause, the good man's ghost withstands his murderer, when the latter after death wants to enter into Panoi, the good place; but if one man has killed another in fair fight he will not be withstood by the person whom he slew. And not only the offended party but the other dead as well may, from dislike or fear, be anxious to refuse the souls. of bad people admittance to their company. In the belief of the Pentecost Islanders, when the soul of a murdered man comes to the land of ghosts with the instrument of death upon him, he tells who killed him, and when the murderer arrives the ghostly people will not receive him, but he has to stay apart with other murderers. Iroquois allot separate villages even to the souls of those who have died in war and of those who have committed suicide, because the other dead are afraid of their presence. Among the Negroes of Northern Guinea, according to Mr. Wilson," the only idea of a future state of retribution is implied in the use of a separate burial-place for those who have died by the red-water ordeal' or who have been guilty of grossly wicked deeds"; and if a person's body is buried apart, his soul will naturally remain equally isolated. That the frequent idea of the bad being separ

The

passé dans le pays des Hurons,' in Relations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 104 sq. Hewitt, The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul,' in Jour, of American FolkLore, viii. 109.

8 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 210. 9 See supra, ii. 236 sqq.

ated from the good after death is largely due to the assumed unwillingness of the latter to associate with dangerous or disreputable souls, seems probable from the fact that, in the beliefs of the lower races, paradise generally plays a much more prominent part than hell, the lot of the wicked being to suffer want rather than to be subjected to torments.1 But, finally, it must also be remembered that the other world is a creation of men's fancy, and may therefore be formed in accordance with their hopes and wishes. Beyond the gloom of death they imagine a paradise where life is much happier than here on earth. Why, then, might not their moral feelings, only too often ungratified in the reality of the present, occasionally seek satisfaction in the dreams of the future?

The belief in a moral retribution after death may thus originate in various ways, quite independently of any notion of a god who acts as a judge of human conduct. When such a belief is said to prevail among a savage people it is by no means the rule that the rewards or punishments are associated with the activity of a divine being. And when, as is sometimes the case, the fate of the dead is supposed to depend upon the will of a high god, the notions held about the other world, and especially about the place reserved for the wicked, in several instances suggest influence from a more advanced religion. But on the other hand it is not an idea which seems incompatible with genuine savage thought that, in cases where the souls of men are believed to go to live with gods, the latter select their companions and, like the human inhabitants of the other world, refuse admittance to undesirable individuals. Religious ideas have no doubt already at the savage

1 This is especially the case among the Indians of North America (cf. Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 242 sq.; Dorman, op. cit. p. 33; Steinmetz, in Archiv f. Anthrop. xxiv. 591). See also Codrington, op. cit. p. 274 sq. (Banks' Islanders).

2 Dove,

Aborigines of Tasmania,'

in Tasmanian Jour. Natural Science, i. 253. Polack, Manners and Customs

of the New Zealanders, i. 254; Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 118. Percy Smith, Futuna,' in Jour. Foly nesian Soc. i. 39. Batchelor, Ainu of Japan, p. 225. Steller, op. cit. p. 269 (Kamchadales). Cranz, op. cit. i. 186 (Greenlanders). Robertson, History

of America, ii. 202. Arbousset and Daumas, op. cit. p. 343 (Bechuanas).

2

stage begun to influence the moral consciousness even in points which have no direct bearing upon the personal interests of gods; but this influence is not known to have been so great as it has often been represented to be. I can find no solid foundation for the statements made by recent writers, that "the historical beginning of all morality is to be found in religion "; that even in the earliest period of human history "religion and morality are necessary correlates of each other ; that "all moral commandments originally have the character of religious commandments that in ancient society "all morality-as morality was then understood-was consecrated and enforced by religious motives and sanctions"; that the clan-god was the guardian of the tribal morality. From various facts stated in this and earlier chapters I have been led to the conclusion that among uncivilised races the moral ideas relating to men's conduct towards one another have been much more influenced by the belief in magic forces which may be utilised by man, than by the belief in the free activity of gods.

3

1 Pfleiderer, Philosophy and Develop ment of Religion, iv. 230.

2 Caird, Evolution of Religion, i.

237

3 Wundt, Ethik, p. 99.

4 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 267. Cf. ibid. p. 53.

5 Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, pp. 112, 177.

CHAPTER LI

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF MORALITY (continued)

FROM the gods of savage races we shall now pass to consider the attitudes of more civilised gods towards matters of worldly morality.

The deities of ancient Mexico were generally clothed with terror, and delighted in vengeance and human sacrifices. But there was also the god Quetzalcoatl, generous of gifts, mild and gentle, and so averse from such sacrifices that he shut his ears with both hands. when they were mentioned.1 The god Tezcatlipoca, again, was looked upon as the austere guardian of law and morals; but, as Professor Tylor observes, the remarkable Aztec formulas collected by Sahagun, in which this deity is so prominent a figure, show traces of Christian admixture in their material, as well as of Christian influence in their style. It seems that the Mexicans had reached no fixed or systematic conclusions as to the relation of the moral to the religious life.3 They held that departed souls attained different degrees of felicity or of wretchedness according to their different modes of death. Warriors who died on the battle-field or in the hands of the enemy's priests, and merchants who died on their journey, went to the house of the sun; those who were killed by lightning, who were drowned,

1 Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 294 sq. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, iii. 259.

2

Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 344.

3 Réville, Hibbert Lectures on the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 104 sq.

or who died from some incurable disease went terrestrial paradise; and those who died of old age or any ordinary disease went to a land of darkness and desolation, where they after a time sunk in a sleep which knew no waking.'

2

Among the ancient Peruvians morality obtained a religious sanction through the divinity ascribed to their rulers. They considered every mere order of the king to be a divine decree," says Garcilasso de la Vega; "how much more would they venerate the special laws instituted for the common good. They said that the sun had ordered these laws to be made, and had revealed them to his child the Ynca; and hence a man who broke them was held to be guilty of sacrilege.' According to the beliefs of the higher classes, the Incas were after death transported to the mansion of the Sun, their father, where they still lived together as his family. The nobles would either follow them there or would live beneath the earth under the sceptre of Supay, the god of the dead. There was no idea of positive suffering inflicted on the wicked under his direction, but the subterranean abode was gloomy and dismal. Exceptional considerations of birth, rank, or valour in war determined the passage of chosen souls to heaven, where their lot would be far happier than that of the souls who remained in the regions below. The common people, on the other hand, thought of the future life as a continuation, pure and simple, of the present existence.3

The great gods of ancient Egypt were mostly conceived as friendly beings. Amon Râ, "the king of the gods," was, in his character of the sun god, the creator, preserver, and supporter of all living things. He it is who makes pasture for the herds and fruit trees for men, on his account the Nile comes and mankind lives. He is verily of kindly heart: "when men call to him he delivers the

1 Bancroft, op. cit. iii. 532 sqq. Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 242 sq. 2 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part

of the Royal Commentaries of the Yucas, i. 148.

3 Réville, op. cit. p. 236 sqq.