§ 4 Animism and Science
Animism is opposed to Science, as well as to Magic,577 by its rejection of uniformity. A spirit, indeed, has some character (though it may be very faintly marked); for he is, or is assimilated to, a human ghost. But although he is supposed to have reasons or motives for his actions, they are often unintelligible. Until he is brought under the control of magical rites and formulæ, he may reject offerings and prayers, as if by pure caprice or free-will. His interventions are incalculable. Hence he may be the unseen agent in anything that happens; and the habit is formed of putting upon him, or one of his kind, every occurrence whose cause is not obvious: diseases, deaths, storms, droughts, noises in the forest, unusual behaviour of animals. A spirit-being with its body of soul-stuff capable of taking any shape, a material thing exerting mechanical power, there is nothing that may not be imputed to it. But being entirely imaginary, its supposed agency can only satisfy the imagination by the assimilation of each intervention by the animistic apperceptive mass. It is never seen or known to do any one of the actions attributed to it; for the understanding, based on perception and the classification and analysis of perceptions, it is nothing. Moreover, so far as the actions of a spirit are of free-will, or motiveless, or pure caprice, there is no distinct imagination of even a spiritual cause. When a man, suffering from disease, or hearing an unfamiliar noise, refers it to a spirit, there is usually nothing in his mind but the word of vague meaning and a feeling of awe, wonder, or dread. He gets no further in the understanding of the fact, and curiosity is paralysed. To say “a spirit did it” becomes, therefore, a means of avoiding the labour of explanation; it is a good example of the “principle of least effort.” But in another direction his wits may get to work. He is full of fear, and objectless fear must invent a danger, which is easily done by supposing that the spirit has been actuated by wrath. Then something must have been done to enrage him: a taboo has been broken, his rites have been neglected, sin has been committed—according to the customary ideas of the tribe. There must be lustration, propitiation, expiation, perhaps with horrible cruelty. Again, then, shall we say the man has been diverted from the important inquiry into the causes of disease or drought? But this is laughable: how can he set about such a task? It is the tragedy of the world that for thousands of years the speculative powers of man—of some men—expanded without any power, except in the classical age, of discriminating sense from nonsense. Therefore, looking back, we see everywhere else superstition and the kingdom of darkness.
Animism can never have directly enriched Science with a single natural law; but, indirectly, it has instigated many investigations. With the development of Religion, the building of temples and the regulation of sacrifices and festivals according to their seasons, necessitated at least the empirical study of Geometry, Arithmetic and Astronomy; and the preservation of the ancient language of the sacred formulæ of ritual required a knowledge of prosody, phonetics and grammar. For thousands of years erudition was confined to the priestly orders. They also practised, or were the chief patrons of, all the fine arts, Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music and Poetry; and by their connexion with government they left in Egypt and Assyria, in monuments and inscriptions, History, or the materials of History. Indirectly, the progress of mental culture, both in learning and in æsthetics, has depended almost entirely on the development of Animism; and this in turn has depended on the aid which Animism gave to government and to the extension of law and order, however imperfect, over wide regions of the earth. This is the fundamental utility which, first, Magic and, afterwards, Animism subserve, and for the sake of which—unconsciously, of course—they arise and prevail. Mankind has been subdued through imagination; because the peoples that had the cast of imagination requisite for their political organisation and co-operation had an advantage over others.
We must qualify this by observing that other imaginations, such as devotion to the Family and Patriotism, with a much surer hold than Animism has upon experience, have had a great and growing influence upon the solidarity and civilisation of some branches of the human race, especially the Nordic.
Philosophy has derived from Animism most of her problems—free-will and predestination, final causes, creation and miracles, emanation and intuition, idealism and materialism, immortality, the being and attributes of God, eternity, infinity—in some of which, indeed, magical ideas are deeply concerned: all of them the exercise of the most eminent minds, exercise so delightful and so disappointing. Considering their source, we cannot wonder that these problems remain problems, and that philosophical discussion has, of late years, turned from them to questions concerning the theory of knowledge.
A student of human origins is under no obligation to predict the future. Fortunately: for several considerations make the task appear altogether impossible. Of these I will mention three: (a) Whereas nations have hitherto submitted to, and enforced, law and order, and undertaken costly works of utility or splendour, in large measure under the influence of animistic illusions, it is now everywhere noticeable in the more civilised countries, that these illusions are being dissipated, and it is very difficult to judge how people will behave when they are gone. It is, indeed, true that our ordinary working life has always depended chiefly on common sense, a knowledge of facts within the range of ordinary experience and memory. Animistic or magical rites and ceremonies associated with the working-life may have increased the confidence and encouraged the co-operation of labourers, but were not indispensable; although the association of Magic with industry seems sometimes to have become so close, that to forget the Magic was to destroy the industry. When, however, we turn to those conditions of social life that are beyond the purview of common sense, such as the preservation of tribal tradition and solidarity, and future prosperity, loyalty to the king and obedience to his officers, it is plain that something else than common sense was needed to reinforce the interest of the whole against the tendency of the individual’s self-assertion to overcome his social dispositions, and that this control was found chiefly in Religion. It is also true that at present, whilst some beliefs concerning supernatural things are being lost, others are being resuscitated; but the lapsing beliefs are noble and venerable and have exerted great public power and authority; whilst those now eagerly propagated, are the raw infatuation of quacks, on a level with the Animism of an Australian medicine-man and, indeed, much inferior to his, as having no moral influence or authority. What must come of this is so dubious, as to discourage one about the future of the world.
(b) Reflection on the levity with which imagination-beliefs are let slip and lost, or received and adopted, upon no evidence either way, from mere shallowness of soul, brings forward a second consideration that makes the future impredictable, namely, the low average development of mankind in both intellect and character. This is the consequence of our having depended, probably from the very beginning, on leaders. A pack or tribe needed enough variability to produce able leaders and enough average ability to follow and support them in a crowd. Natural Selection, therefore, has operated first in producing variability; and all tribes, even the lowest, produce relatively eminent men. The average intelligence or ability of the crowd, in which individuality is liable to be lost, is much less important. The result is that each nation has its military affairs, organisation of industry, science, invention, literature and art provided for it by a small number of citizens; the rest fill the ranks, and learn what they are taught. Thus arranged, the leading nations have of late years made wonderful progress in science and in everything that can be done by machinery; but there is no reason to suppose that anything has been done towards raising the average intelligence and character; and in default of that, in my judgment, nothing has been done to advance civilisation. The world is no safer against war, revolution, demagogy, despotism, degeneration. The greatest improvements have been made in means of destruction; next we may put the invention of flying machines; and their chief use has been destruction. Destruction now pauses, not because the antagonists are satiated; they are only exhausted; and there is more hatred in the world than was ever known before. How then shall we judge of things to come?
(c) Speaking of the average man, we usually think of the European and North American average; but in considering what changes may be expected in the world, the people of India (800,000,000), China (350,000,000), and the millions of the rest of Asia, the Eastern Archipelago, Africa and South America cannot be left out; and to include them does not raise the average. What will be their contribution to history? There are two rational proposals for raising the average, namely, eugenics and deliberate elimination of the unfit; and there are 1,600,000,000 on whom to operate.
Any one who anxiously desires to foresee the future of our race is in a position to sympathise with the ancients. Go, inquire at Delphi or Dodona; or sleep in Stonehenge, or at the tomb of Merlin, or by the barrows at Upsala, and dream of things to come; or consult the stars, cast the nativity of Lycopithecus, and read in heaven the fate of his posterity. If these methods are not very hopeful, any one of them is as good as guessing. The only safe reflection is that he who lives longest will see most.
Footnotes
1 This was suggested to me by Mr. G. A. Garfitt.
2 Estimated duration of the Cainozoic Period, assuming that the thickness of the deposits is about 63,000 feet, and that deposits accumulate at the rate of 1 foot in 100 years. Drawn to the scale of 1 mm. to 100,000 years. The estimate is given and explained by Prof. Sollas in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, LXV. (1909). The “tree” is based on that given by Dr. A. Keith in The Antiquity of Man, p. 509.
If we suppose the differentiation of the Hominidæ to have begun before the close of the Oligocene, about (say) 3,500,000 years are allowed for the evolution of the existing species of Man. All these reckonings are provisional.
3 That Man was from the first a hunter has been suggested by several authors; but the consequences of the assumption have never (as far as I know) been worked out. A. R. Wallace, in Darwinism (p. 459), has the following passage: “The anthropoid apes, as well as most of the monkey tribe, are essentially arboreal in their structure, whereas the great distinctive character of man is his special adaptation to terrestrial locomotion. We can hardly suppose, therefore, that he originated in a forest region, where fruits to be obtained by climbing are the chief vegetable food. It is more probable that he began his existence on the open plains on high plateaux of the temperate or subtropical zone, where the seeds of indigenous cereals, numerous herbivora, rodents, game-birds, with fishes and molluscs in the lakes and rivers and seas supplied him with an abundance of varied food. In such a region he would develop skill as a hunter, trapper or fisherman, and later as a herdsman and cultivator—a succession of which we find indications in the palæolithic and neolithic races of Europe.”
Prof. MacBride, in his popular introduction to Zoology (p. 84), also traces the specialisation of Man to the hunting life.
My friend Mr. Thomas Whittaker has sent me the following extract from Comte’s Politique Positive, I. pp. 604-5: “L’obligation de se nourrir d’une proie qu’il faut atteindre et vaincre, perfectionne à la fois tous les attributs animaux, tant intérieurs qu’extérieurs. Son influence envers les sens et les muscles est trop évidente pour exiger ici aucun examen. Par sa réaction habituelle sur les plus hautes fonctions du cerveau, elle développe également l’intelligence et l’activité, dont le premier essor lui est toujours dû, même chez notre espèce. A tous ces tîtres, cette nécessité modifie aussi les races qui en sont victimes, d’après les efforts moins énergiques, mais plus continus, qu’elle y provoque pour leur défense. Dans les deux cas, et surtout quant à l’attaque, elle détermine même les prémières habitudes de co-opération active, au moins temporaire. Bornées à la simple famille chez les espèces insociables, ces ligues peuvent ailleurs embrasser quelquefois de nombreuses troupes. Ainsi commencent, parmi les animaux, des impulsions et des aptitudes qui ne pouvaient se développer que d’après la continuité propre à la race la plus sociable et la plus intelligente. Enfin, la condition carnassière doit aussi être appreciée dans sa réaction organique. Une plus forte excitation, une digestion moins laborieuse et plus rapide, une assimilation plus complète produisant un sang plus stimulant: telles sont ses propriétés physiologiques. Toutes concourent à développer les fonctions supérieures, soit en augmentant l’énergie de leurs organes, soit en procurant plus de temps pour leur exercice.”
4 F. Wood Jones, Arboreal Man, pp. 117-22.
5 On these paragraphs—(3), (4), (5), (6), (7)—see Darwin’s Descent of Man, 2nd ed., pp. 49-54: whence, of course, I have freely borrowed.
6 Numerous references might be given, from which I select Hagenbeck, Beasts and Men, p. 63.
7 R. L. Garner, Gorillas and Chimpanzees, ch. vi.: where mention is made of such meanings as “food,” “calling to some one,” “affection,” “good” (said, I suppose, of food), “warning cries,” “cold or discomfort,” “drink,” “illness,” “dead”: the entire vocabulary, perhaps, not more than twenty signs. The value of Garner’s work is disputed.
8 Natural Selection, p. 193.
9 Avebury, Prehistoric Times, 7th ed., p. 578.
10 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 619.
11 Turner’s Samoa, p. 285.
12 Op. cit., p. 579.
13 Primitive Marriage, ch. ii.
14 Descent of Man, 2nd ed., pp. 595-604.
15 Parerga and Paralipomena, B. II, Kap. 27.
16 A Naturalist in Nicaragua, ch. xi.
17 Op. cit., p. 57.
18 Natural Selection, pp. 195-7.
19 Naked races of dogs have also been reported to exist in China, Manila and South Africa; but I can learn no particulars of them.
20 W. E. Ling Roth, North Queensland Ethnology, Bulletin V. § 81.
21 A. Keith, The Antiquity of Man, p. 134.
22 M. A. Czaplicka, My Siberian Year, p. 230.
23 Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 76-7.
24 Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, Pop. ed., II. p. 308.
25 The contents of this section lie outside my own studies, and have been taken from various books of Geology and Palæontology: I must especially mention Prof. Osborne’s Age of Mammals (1910) and Prof. Scott’s Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere (1913). I have also profited by inspecting the Palæontological Gallery at South Kensington with the help of its excellent Guide-Book.
26 A. Keith, The Human Body, p. 58.
27 Travels and Researches in Western Africa, ch. vii.
28 See The Antiquity of Man, by Arthur Keith.
29 Malay Archipelago, pp. 46-7.
30 According to R. L. Garner, however, both gorillas and chimpanzees are polygamous. See Gorillas and Chimpanzees, pp. 54 and 214.
31 This view is not opposed to the suggestion I have somewhere seen that the collecting activities of women, whilst men hunted, may, at some stage, have led to property and domestication of plants and animals. Again, the pastoral and agricultural states are not necessarily successive: it depends upon local conditions. For an excellent survey of the gradual rise of primitive culture and the difficulties it encountered, see H. Spencer’s Industrial Institutions, Principles of Sociology, Vol. III.
32 It is certainly believed by fox-hunters that a fox feeds his vixen when she is occupied with their family, and that “if the vixen is killed he will bring up the family by himself.”—Thomas F. Dale, The Fox, pp. 12, 13.
Nothing incredible in this—nor of wolves. Can the vixen provide for herself and litter alone? If not, the dog must do it: else there could be no foxes or wolves.
However, de Canteleu denies that the he-wolf takes any part in rearing the young (La Chasse du Loup, p. 30).
33 W. P. Pycraft, in his entertaining Courtship of Animals, after assuming that Man became a hunter for the sake of the excitement such a life afforded, goes on (p. 23): “A little later the advantages of neighbourliness were borne in on him, largely for the sake of the greater ease wherewith the animals of the chase could be captured by their combined efforts; but this begat comradeship and some of the graces that follow therefrom.”
34 Descent of Man, ch. xx.
35 See above, footnote on p. 32.
36 Avebury, Prehistoric Times, 7th ed., p. 580.
37 Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 262.
38 Hunting Trips in North America, p. 349.
39 G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 91.
40 The Arctic Prairies, p. 20.
41 La Chasse du Loup, p. 21.
42 Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 755.
43 Wild Beasts of India, pp. 275-6. Cf. Casserly, Life on an Indian Outpost, pp. 94-5. Brehm says, in Thierleben, that in Russia wolves attack and kill the bear.
44 Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 754.
45 Naturalist in La Plata, p. 346.
46 Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, p. 70.
47 Op. cit., pp. 336-7.
48 Hiram S. Maxim, My Life, p. 57.
49 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 388.
50 Op. cit., pp. 6-7.
51 Op. cit., p. 78.
52 Malay Archipelago, p. 43.
53 See the Report of the British Association, 1900, pp. 711-30. The author has since then revised his estimates, assigning much greater depth to the Pliocene and Miocene deposits and proportionally more time for their formation. See the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, LXV. (1909).
54 Dr. Smith Woodward’s reconstruction gives the skull of Eoanthropus a capacity of about 1300 c.c.
55 See Ray Lankester’s Description of the Test-Specimen. R.A.I., Occasional Papers, No. 4.
56 Book VII. chs. 69, 71, 74.
57 E. Thompson Seton, The Arctic Prairies, pp. 304 and 352.
58 Op. cit., pp. 151, 239, 476.
59 Antiquity of Man, p. 268.
60 A. Keith, op. cit., p. 408.
61 Op. cit., p. 452.
62 Op. cit., p. 414.
63 Cultes, Mythes et Religion, III. p. 430.
64 Primitive Marriage, ch. iii.
65 Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 757.
66 See above, § 3 (4), footnote, p. 37.
67 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 198.
68 G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 33.
69 Descent of Man, ch. iii.
70 E. Thompson Seton, Life Histories of Northern Animals, p. 769.
71 E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. p. 52.
72 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Northern Territory of Australia, p. 27.
73 Royal Natural History, I. pp. 72-3.
74 Descent of Man, ch. iii.
75 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 200.
76 Principles of Sociology, Vol. II.
77 Anthropoid Apes, pp. 294-5.
78 Descent of Man, ch. iv.
79 Sermons on Human Nature.
80 The Herd Instinct.
81 Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 89.
82 A. Keith, op. cit., p. 429.
83 G. M. Theal, History and Ethnology of South Africa, p. 11.
84 G. W. Stone, Native Races of South Africa, p. 76.
85 Treatise of Human Nature, Part III. § 7. For the recent psychology of Belief see James Sully’s The Human Mind, ch. xiii., and James Ward’s Psychological Principles, ch. xiv.
86 See below, ch. viii. § 5.
87 Logique des Sentiments, II. § 4.
88 Les Fonctions Mentales dans les Sociétés Inférieures, p. 40.
89 British Journal of Psychology, Vol. I. p. 393.
90 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 462.
91 The Melanesians, p. 247.
92 Below, ch. viii. § 4.
94 In assuming that there are no magical powers I do not mean that the magician has no professional powers, but that such real powers as he has are not magical.
95 Czaplicka, My Siberian Year, p. 94. Other examples in Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man, pp. 351-3.
96 The Mind of Primitive Man, V. pp. 150-52.
97 Sociological Review, January 1910, p. 9.
98 Quoted by Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I. p. 105.
99 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, II. p. 216
100 F. M. Cornford in Miss Jane Harrison’s Themis, ch. vii.
101 History of the Kingship, p. 38; cf. also The Magic Art, I. p. 235, and footnote: “faith in magic is probably older than a belief in spirits.”
102 Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 417.
103 In the American Journal of Psychology, p. 83 (1919), E. S. Conkling has an instructive article on Superstitious Belief and Practice among College Students. Of a large group examined 53 per cent. entertained some superstition (40 per cent. M., 66 per cent. F.). At some time, now or formerly, 82 per cent. had been so affected (73 per cent. M., 90 per cent. F.). Half assigned their former superstitions to the age from twelve to sixteen. Twenty-two per cent. attributed the disposition to the suggestion of elders, 47 per cent. to social suggestion, 15 per cent. to social inheritance, and 15 per cent. to emotions and feelings beyond the control of reason.
104 Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 354.
105 Quoted by Ames, Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 60.
106 Charms (and possibly rites and spells) are sometimes revealed in dreams (Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 378; and Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 110). But this can only happen either where the belief in charms already exists (as in the cases cited), or by the coincidence of the dream with good or bad fortune. The connexion of events must first of all present itself as something observed: whether waking or dreaming is indifferent.
For further illustrations of the influence of coincidences in establishing a belief in Magic, see ch. viii. § 5.
107 R. R. Marett, Preanimistic Religion, Folk-Lore, 1900.
108 A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 371.
109 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 472.
110 A. C. Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 361.
111 Coddrington, The Melanesians, pp. 118-19.
112 For a comparison of these allied notions see E. S. Hartland’s Ritual and Belief, pp. 36-51.
113 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 548.
114 W. McDougall, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, II. p. 199.
115 Vol. II. p. 2.
116 Vol. II. p. 124.
117 Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 311.
118 Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 79.
119 Tends to be assimilated—for if the presentation have some special character of Animism, it will be assimilated to the animistic system; or if Animism be the more active and fashionable theory in a man’s social group.
120 It has been thought strange that such a thing as a whirlwind may excite in the savage either fear or anger. To explain this we must consider the nature of wonder: it is an imaginative expansion of surprise, temporary paralysis of the imagination, with emotional disturbance, but no progressive instinct of its own. It either subsides helplessly, or gives place to curiosity, or passes into some other emotion that is connected with an instinct. Accordingly, it usually passes into curiosity or else fear, but sometimes into anger: which of these emotions shall be aroused depends, partly, upon the character of the person who wonders, partly, upon circumstances.
121 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 321.
122 W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 52.
123 One may trace this process in the interesting collection of spells in Skeat’s Malay Magic.
124 Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 397.
125 Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 376.
126 Turner, Samoa, p. 138. For further development of the spell, see (besides Skeat, op. cit.) the collected examples at the end of Sayce’s Religion of the Ancient Babylonians.
127 Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 26.
128 Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 173-5.
129 The Melanesians, pp. 118-19.
130 Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District, Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 201; and Murdoch, Ethnology of Point Barrow, Am. B. of Ethn., IX. p. 434.
131 W.M. Newton, On Palæological Figures of Flint, Journ. of B. Arch. Ass., March 1913.
132 The Song of Roland, done into English by C. Scott Moncrieff, CLXXIII.
133 T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 88.
134 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, V. p. 271.
135 A. E. Crawley, J.A.I., XXIV. p. 123.
136 Development of Moral Ideas, I, c. 26.
137 Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico, p. 350.
138 Life of a South African Tribe, p. 528.
139 See the exhaustive treatment of this subject in Frazer’s Taboo and the Perils of the Soul.
140 A “barn” is a small spindle-shaped stick, supposed to be thrown in a magical attack by wizards. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 377.
141 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 110.
142 Quoted by Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I. p. 105.
143 The Sacred Shrine, pp. 33-9.
144 Life of a South African Tribe, p. 340.
145 Sioux Cults, Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 484.
146 New Trails in Mexico, p. 61.
147 Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 48.
148 Quoted by Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 268.
149 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, V. p. 325.
150 W. Grube, Rel. u. K. d. Chinese, p. 153.
151 In the B. of Am. Ethn., XIII. p. 374, F. H. Cushing, describing “Zuñi Creation Myths,” says the dramaturgic tendency is to suppose that Nature can be made to act by men, if “they do first what they wish the elements to do,” according “as these things were done or made to be done by the ancestral gods of creation.” The last clause is, perhaps, an animistic gloss of the Zuñis’, who were, of course, very far from primitive thought.
152 The Psychological Study of Religion, p. 165.
153 Cf. S. H. Ray, “People and Language of Lifu,” J.R.A.I. (XLVII.), p. 296, who says, a woman whose son or husband was away at war would place a piece of coral to represent him on a mat, move it about with her right hand as he might move in fight, and with her left brush away imaginary evils. This protected him (evidently by exemplary Magic).
154 W. H. R. Rivers, The Disappearance of Useful Arts, also History of Melanesian Society, II. p. 445; and in Turner’s Samoa (p. 145) we are told that the practice of embalming died out with the family of embalmers.
155 The Veddas, pp. 126-7.
156 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 170.
157 The Land of Zing, p. 219.
158 J. O. Dorsey, American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 419.
159 Mariner’s Tonga, p. 105.
160 Myth, Ritual and Religion, p. 48.
161 African Game Trails, p. 333.
162 Outdoor Pastimes, p. 77.
163 Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, I. p. 183.
164 The Melanesians, pp. 249 and 356.
165 Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. p. 222.
166 Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 3.
167 Camp and Tramp in African Wilds, p. 174.
168 The Primitive Bakongo, p. 283.
169 Among Congo Cannibals, p. 275.
170 Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 355.
171 Two Years with the Natives of the West Pacific, p. 199. As to waterspouts and shooting stars, see the Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 252.
172 J. Hernell in the Quarterly Journal of the Mythical Society (Bangalore), IV. No. 4, p. 158.
173 A. A. Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, p. 112.
174 J. Mooney in Reports of the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1885-6, VII. p. 341.
175 J. E. Bourke in the Reports of the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-8, IX. pp. 499-507.
176 E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, pp. 288, 354.
177 Principles of Sociology, Vol. I. chs. viii.-xii.
178 Primitive Culture, chs. xi., xii.
179 J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, pp. 262-3. My friend, Mr. Torday, tells me this belief is very common in Africa.
180 See, e. g., A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 406; and P. A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, pp. 83-8.
181 Indians of Guiana, p. 344.
182 S. H. C. Hawtrey, “The Lengua Indians,” J.A.I., 1901.
183 J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Am. B. of Ethn., VII. p. 352.
184 C. G. Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 190-91.
185 S. H. Ray, “People and Language of Lifu,” J.R.A.I., LXVII. p. 296.
186 Turner, Samoa, p. 277.
187 A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 358.
188 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, § 53.
189 J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 238.
190 J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 233.
191 T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 160.
192 Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 269.
193 V. Stefànson, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 57.
194 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 3.
195 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 403.
196 Polynesian Researches, I. p. 523.
197 The Primitive Bakongo, p. 371.
198 E. im Thurn, op. cit., p. 363.
199 Principles of Sociology, §§ 165-93.
200 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 220.
201 Franz Boas, American Bureau of Ethnology, VI. 1884-5, p. 583.
202 Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, pp. 1 and 40. Cf. Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 150: Koevasi, a spirit, was never human, yet in some way the originator of the human race.
203 E. Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, p. 343.
204 J.R.A.I., 1909, p. 163.
205 See his ingenious speculations in The Evolution of the Idea of God, ch. xiii.
206 Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. iii. ch. vi.
207 Among Congo Cannibals, p. 272.
208 G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 236.
209 A. A. Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, p. 44.
210 T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 126.
211 P. A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 73.
212 Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 437.
213 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 483.
214 Grettir Saga, ch. xxxv.
215 Pausanias, VI. p. 6.
216 G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 217.
217 First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 52 note.
218 American Bureau of Ethnology, I. p. 200.
219 Mythus und Religion, 2º ed., p. 78.
220 Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 194.
221 Malay Magic, p. 47.
222 Spirits of the Corn and the Wild, I. p. 183.
223 W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 50.
224 In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 230.
225 J. O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults” in the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 512.
226 West African Studies, p. 200.
227 J. G. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, II. pp. 196-208; where are reported other beliefs in a plurality of souls; in one case thirty, in another thirty-six.
228 M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 282.
229 Malay Magic, p. 48.
230 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, ch. ix.
231 Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 194.
232 Monadologie, 47.
233 The Primitive Bakongo, p. 115.
234 Republic, 611a.
235 Haddon, Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits, Vol. V. p. 355.
236 C. G. Seligman, The Veddas, p. 133.
237 R. W. Williamson, The Mafulu, p. 266.
238 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 396.
239 C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians, p. 658.
240 J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 224.
241 Ling Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania, pp. 57-61.
242 Herodotus, V. p. 93.
243 On the mortality of gods, see Frazer, The Dying God, ch. i.
244 Primitive Culture, II. pp. 75-96.
245 Treatise, B. I., Part III. § 9.
246 Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 450.
247 Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, II. pp. 95-9. For similar formulæ of dismission (which, of course, are constraining spells) see W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, I. p. 522; and J. O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults,” American Bureau of Ethnology, X. p. 420.
248 Stigand, The Land of Zing, p. 250.
249 For the practice of appointing certain seasons at which the whole tribe or nation unites in driving out ghosts or demons by force of arms (sometimes with the help of cannon and elephants), as obtaining at all levels of culture, from Australian savagery to the enlightenment of China and Peru, and with more decorum at Athens and Rome, see Frazer, The Scapegoat, ch. iii. § 2.
250 C. G. Seligman, The Veddas, p. 131.
251 Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 253.
252 Vigfussen and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I. p. 417. For further examples of affectionate interest in ghosts, see Primitive Culture, II. pp. 31-3.
253 Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 100.
254 The Todas, p. 363.
255 E. R. Smith, The Araucanians, p. 172.
256 Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 177.
257 Miss M. C. Stevenson, “The Sia” in American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90, XI. p. 121.
258 Stefànson, My Life among the Eskimo, p. 397.
259 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 497.
260 Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 259.
261 Mythus und Religion, pp. 78, 79.
262 Op. cit., p. 125 et seq.
263 Op. cit., p. 202 et seq.
264 This was also Spencer’s opinion, op. cit., § 133.
265 Op. cit., p. 263.
266 Op. cit., p. 267.
267 See above, pp. 100 and 119-24.
268 Hume, Inquiry, § vii.
269 A. H. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 398.
270 Book II. p. 82; Rawlinson’s Translation.
271 Vol. I. ch. iv.
272 But see the footnote at p. 235 of The Magic Art, I.: “faith in magic is probably older than the belief in spirits.” In the same note, a passage in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion is referred to as anticipating the doctrine of the priority of Magic to Religion. The passage, as translated in an appendix (pp. 423-6), shows, however, no conception of Magic as akin to natural law, as it is described in several passages of The Golden Bough, but treats it as a belief in any human being “as the ruling power over nature in virtue of his own will.” This is rather an anticipation of Prof. Wundt’s doctrine concerning Sorcery; which Hegel seems not to have distinguished from Magic. I need hardly add that a belief in any human being as the ruling power over nature in virtue of his own will has never been discovered in any part of the world.
273 Op. cit., pp. 237-9.
274 Primitive Culture, I. 116.
275 R. H. Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 125.
276 H. A. Giles, Chinese Literature, p. 202.
277 Animism gave the priest another excuse for the failure of rites (besides those enjoyed by a mere magician), namely, that during, or since, the celebration some fresh offence against the gods had been committed.
278 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 453, 463.
279 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 359-361-367.
280 Howitt, op. cit., p. 378.
281 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 148.
282 The Mafulu, p. 193.
283 Op. cit., p. 272.
284 Extract from a spell in Skeat’s Malay Magic, p. 571.
285 Howitt, op. cit., p. 397.
286 J. G. Frazer, The Belief in Immortality, p. 288. For similar instances see the same work, pp. 335 and 375.
287 Sarat Chandra Roy, “Magic and Witchcraft on the Chota Nagpur Plateau,” J.R.A.I., XLIV. p. 330. I have slightly altered the last sentence, which seems to have been misprinted.
288 Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 215.
289 The Todas, pp. 30, 213.
290 Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 286. But whether we should expect the idea to weaken with advancing civilisation must depend upon whether intelligent belief in the gods was increasing. Perhaps this was not the case at Rome.
291 Polynesian Researches, II. pp. 144 and 157 (1st ed.).
292 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 199.
293 Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 209.
294 J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees” in Am. B. of Ethn., VII. p. 314 (1885-6).
295 Heimskringla, St. Olaf’s Saga, chs. cciv. and ccxl.
296 Primitive Culture, II. p. 273 (2nd ed.).
297 Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 145.
298 S. H. C. Hawtrey, “The Lengua Indians,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1901.
299 “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXIV. (1894-5).
300 Comparetti, The Traditionary Poetry of the Finns, p. 184.
301 Howitt, op. cit., p. 404. Is this type of the neophyte’s behaviour, which is conformed to on certain occasions by magicians and inspired priests in every age and country, itself conformed to the natural type of insanity or epilepsy; and, if so, consciously or unconsciously?
302 J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, pp. 145 and 276.
303 Grey, Polynesian Mythology, chs. i. and vii.
304 Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom, p. 225.
305 Corpus Poeticum Boreale, pp. 24, 34, 181, 196.
306 Heimskringla Saga, Yuglingasaga, chs. xvii.-xviii.
307 “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, X., XIV. p. 85.
308 Weeks, Congo Cannibals, p. 265.
309 The fullest and most dramatic account of such possession may be found in Williams’ Fiji and the Fijians, p. 190. See below, p. 243.
310 Weeks, Primitive Bokongo, p. 215.
311 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 480-8.
312 “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXIV. p. 130.
313 Howitt, op. cit., p. 374.
314 Ibid., p. 437.
315 P. A. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, p. 230.
316 G. Borrow, Wild Wales, ch. lxxxviii.
317 Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., p. 388.
318 H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, § 55.
319 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 308 et seq.
320 In a paper on Leopard Men of the Naga Hills, read at a meeting of the R.A.I. (December 9, 1919), Mr. J. J. H. Hutton reported that such men do not change into leopards; but sometimes their souls involuntarily pass into them. If the leopard be injured or killed he whose soul was in it suffers or dies—when he hears of it. Such men are not feared, because their leopards do very little harm.
For this reason (I suppose) the belief is not exploited by wizards, who have no use for innocent superstition, and it remains pure folklore. There may not be any connexion between this animistic doctrine of human souls possessing animals and the magical doctrine of shape-changing. If they are connected, it is easy to see that in a certain atmosphere of popular philosophy, if shape-changing were believed in, the possession theory might be accepted as the true explanation upon merely being proposed. Indeed, it would make intelligible such a case as this: a man’s leopard is seen on the skirts of the village; but he himself is known to be in his hut.
Animistic explanation does not always follow culture: Europe adheres to shape-changing. Yet in the Volsung Saga the superstition is already degenerate: Sigmund and his son change into wolves by putting on wolf-skins belonging to two were-wolves whom they find asleep. This is a rationalisation—disguise as a step toward change. An earlier step is to say a man who would change must put on a belt of wolf-skin.
321 Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 329.
322 Grey, op. cit., “Legends of Maui and Tawhaki.”
323 Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 54-8.
324 M. C. Stevenson, “The Sia,” Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 118.
325 W. Grube, Rel. u. K. d. Chinese, p. 132.
326 “Shamanism,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, ch. xxiv. p. 133.
327 Stephánsen, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 391.
328 D. Comparetti, The Traditional Poetry of the Finns, p. 26.
329 Natural and Social Morals, ch. ii. § 4.
330 See many examples in J. G. Frazer’s Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, ch. i.
331 Ch. vi.
332 III. p. 31.
333 Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, pp. 73 and 183.
334 Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 124.
335 A. H. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 319.
336 Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 202.
337 Alfred Lyall, Asiatic Studies, essays on The State and Religion in China. In a milder form this system has been adopted by Japan; W. E. Aston, Shinto, p. 237.
338 Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion.
339 VI. c. 27 (Rawlinson’s Translation).
340 Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 152.
341 De Acosta, History of the Indies, VII. c. 23 (translated by C. R. Markham).
342 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 220.
343 Book I. cc. 7-10.
344 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 260.
345 W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination, p. 15.
346 Historia Naturalis, XXVII. p. 4.
347 Suetonius: Julius, c. 59.
348 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 56-64.
349 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 266.
350 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 361; VI. p. 259.
351 Seligman, Mel. of B. N. G., p. 309.
352 De Divinatione, I. c. 19.
353 An infallible sign is, in Formal Logic, the same as a cause, according to the scheme If A, then B; and it is conceivable that, with strict thinking, a belief in an Omen may give rise to a magical practice. “For,” says Lord Avebury, “granted that the fall of a stick certainly preludes that of the person it represents, it follows that by upsetting the stick his death can be caused” (Origin of Civilisation, p. 166). I do not see why such an inference should not be drawn, but can give no example of it. The possibility shows how much community there is between Magic and the lore of Omens; but as to this particular case, the magical cast of mind is already implied in the original setting up of the stick whose fall should prelude that of a given individual.
354 Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 123.
355 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 401.
356 Quoted by Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, I. pp. 489 and 495.
357 A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 389.
358 C. G. Seligman, op. cit., p. 188.
359 VII. c. 16.
360 The poet is closely allied at first to the wizard; for (besides that the greatest spells and oracles are versified) the poet is inspired. In Australia poets are sometimes carried by ghosts into skyland, where they learn songs and dances. Some compose awake; but the belief prevails that they are inspired in dreams by dead and kindred spirits. Their songs travel far amongst tribes that no longer understand the language. (Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 389 and 413.) Similarly in Fiji (Fiji and the Fijians, p. 98). “The poem is too wonderful for me”—such is the poet’s humility; “it was made by the gods”—such is his arrogance.
361 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 526.
362 Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. p. 125.
363 Casalis, Les Bassoutos, pp. 299 and 340.
364 Jounod, Life of a South African Tribe, I. 361. This “medicine” is the chief’s great store of magical force: its principal ingredients are the nails and hair of chiefs deceased, fixed together by a kind of wax.
365 Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, p. 417.
366 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, II. p. 235.
367 De Div., II. c. 57.
368 Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 190.
369 Pausanias, IX. c. 10 (Frazer’s Translation).
370 Pausanias, I. p. 34.
371 Ibid., IX. p. 30.
372 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 523.
373 A. W. Howitt, op. cit., p. 404.
374 Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 25.
375 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 181.
376 Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 367.
377 This is unjust to the Australians. Amongst the Dieri (L. Eyre) wizards with renewed entrails communicate with supernatural beings, interpret dreams and discover murderers; but they also recognise spiritual communication with ordinary men in visions; not ordinary dreams, which are mere fancies, but those that are repeated; and these come from Kutchi, an evil spirit (Howitt, op. cit., p. 358). We may be sure the Greeks were mistaken in supposing that it was Amphiaraus who instituted divination by dreams.
378 Herodotus, I. cc. 107, 28.
379 W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies, p. 154.
380 Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 193.
381 De Div., II. cc. 33, 35.
382 Polybius, VI. c. 2.
383 Discourses, II. c. 7.
384 De Div., II. c. 17; cf. c. 49.
385 Life of a South African Tribe, p. 521.
386 Questiones Naturales, II. c. 32.
387 De Div., I. c. 15.
388 Les Bassoutos, p. 248.
389 Ling Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania, p. 65.
390 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 336.
391 Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 177.
392 The political importance of the wizard seems to have been first noticed by Spencer, Principles of Sociology, II. p. 178 (§ 474).
393 Bellamy, quoted by Seligman, Melanesians of British North Guinea, p. 694.
394 Religion of the Amazulu, p. 40.
395 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 114.
396 Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 191.
397 E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, ch. xlix.
398 The Sacred Shrine.
399 Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. pp. 322-3.
400 Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology.
401 Am. B. of Ethn., VII., “Ojibway Medicine,” by W. J. Hoffman; XI., “The Sia,” by M. C. Stevenson; XIV., “The Menomini Indians,” by W. Hoffman. For a collection of the facts see Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, IV. ch. xix; and Hutton Webster, Primitive Secret Societies.
402 Report of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 200.
403 Op. cit., p. 278.
404 Among Congo Cannibals, p. 251.
405 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 326.
406 Book VII. The witch, imitated from Circe and Medea by Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, became a traditionary, romantic motive.
407 Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 388.
408 Stefánson, op. cit., p. 403.
409 Czaplicka, op. cit., p. 240.
410 Across Australia, p. 51.
411 Op. cit., p. 184.
412 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, II. p. 178.
413 The Primitive Bakongo, p. 216.
414 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV., “Shamanism,” p. 144.
415 Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 335.
416 Am. B. of Ethn., “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” by J. Mooney, p. 323.
417 W. Mariner’s Account of the Tonga Islands, ch. xxi.
418 Am. B. of Ethn., IX., “Medicine Men of the Apache,” by J. E. Bourke, p. 471.
419 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 135.
420 Travels and Researches in South Africa, ch. i.
421 J. Shakespeare, The Lushai Kuki Clans, p. 80.
422 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, p. 120, and Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 417; XIV. pp. 97, 148.
423 D. Comparetti, The Traditional Poetry of the Finns, pp. 27 and 25.
424 Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, pp. 548-50.
425 The crystals forced into a wizard’s body, whether by spirits or by other wizards, are essential to his profession, and if they leave him his power is lost. “It is the possession of these stones which gives his virtue to the medicine-man” (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 480 note). John Mathew says that, according to the belief of the Kabi (Queensland): “A man’s power in the occult art would appear to be proportioned to his vitality, and the degree of vitality which he possessed depended upon the number of sacred pebbles and the quantity of yurru (rope) which he carried within him” (Eagle-hawk and Crow, p. 143). “Rope” was the property of the higher grade of medicine-men (substitute for snakes?), who had obtained it from the Rainbow in exchange for some of their pebbles. Certain pebbles, especially crystals, are independent magic-powers throughout Australasia and elsewhere, probably of much older repute than the profession of wizardry; and the wizard gets his personal power by having them inside him. Similarly, Jounod describes Bantu wizards as “endowed with magical power, or rather possessing enchanted drugs” (Life of a South African Tribe, p. 293): whereas we are often told that the occult art begins with the extraordinary personality of the wizard.
426 Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 522-9.
427 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 485.
428 Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 321.
429 E. im Thurn, The Indians of Guiana, p. 334.
430 Thomas Whiffen, The North-West Amazons, p. 181.
431 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 156.
432 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV., “Shamanism,” pp. 87-90.
433 Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, V. p. 322.
434 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 334.
435 W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, pp. 256-7.
436 Belief in Immortality, pp. 249, 269.
437 For examples see Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, p. 204; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 149; Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, p. 391; Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. p. 115; Turner, Samoa, p. 342; Shamanism, p. 130; Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico, p. 24; T. A. Joyce, South American Archæology, p. 245; E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. pp. 650-2.
438 Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, pp. 384-6 and 404.
439 Franz Boas, “The Central Esquimo,” Am. B. of Ethn., VI. (1884-5), p. 603.
440 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 571.
441 A. Wiedemann, The Religion of the Egyptians, pp. 273-4.
442 A. M. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 178.
443 J. G. Frazer, Psyche’s Task.
444 Pp. 138-9.
445 Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology, II. p. 156.
446 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia.
447 im Thurn, op. cit., p. 339.
448 J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 145.
449 Across Australia, p. 350.
450 Primitive Bakongo, p. 285.
451 Skeat, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. p. 563.
452 Rivers, The Todas, p. 263.
453 Abbot, Macedonian Folk-Lore, p. 225.
454 Op. cit., p. 203.
455 Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 387-8.
456 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, pp. 334-5.
457 Whiffen, op. cit., pp. 182-3.
458 Jounod, Life of a South African Tribe, II. p. 456.
459 Whiffen, op. cit., pp. 64 and 168.
460 Primitive Bakongo, p. 216.
461 Aboriginal Siberia, pp. 230, 240.
462 Paradoxe sur le comédien. Mr. William Archer, some years ago, published Masks and Faces, an entertaining and very instructive book, in which he (as a genuine though unprofessional psychologist) discusses this paradox in the light of evidence obtained, by questionnaire and otherwise, from actors then living.
463 Man, September 1817, p. 144.
464 Aboriginal Siberia, p. 197.
465 Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Völkerpsychologie.
466 Meiners, Briefe über die Schweiz (quoted by Carlyle in essay on Count Cagliostro).
467 Aboriginal Siberia, pp. 169, 172.
468 Text-book of Insanity, pp. 281 and 79.
469 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 497.
470 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, pp. 250-60.
471 For another example see Rivers, History of Melanesian Sociology, II. p. 411.
472 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 346.
473 For the most elaborate of all such performances, see the initiation into the Ghost Society of the Kwakintle Indians, in Frazer’s Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 538.
474 Casalis, My Life in Basuto Land, p. 185.
475 Basil Thompson, The Fijians, p. 158.
476 Basil Thompson, Diversions of a Prime Minister, pp. 201 and 346.
477 The Heroic Age, p. 413.
478 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, pp. 374-5.
479 “Aborigines of Victoria,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society, New Series, I. p. 300.
480 Eagle-hawk and Crow, p. 146.
481 J. G. Frazer, Belief in Immortality, p. 239.
482 J. H. Weeks, The Primitive Bakongo, pp. 284 and 285.
483 J. H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 293.
484 Callaway, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
485 The North-West Amazons, p. 218.
486 J. O. Dorsey, “Siouan Cults,” pp. 431-2 and 485, Am. B. of Ethn., XI.
487 Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 270.
488 Polynesian Researches, II. p. 204.
489 John Martin, W. Mariner’s Account of the Tonga Islands, II. pp. 105 and 137.
490 Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 48 and 214.
491 The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 126.
492 Introduction to The Rise of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.
493 C. G. Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 179.
494 T. C. Hodson, op. cit., p. 171.
495 Among Congo Cannibals, p. 284.
496 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 531-2.
497 Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 201.
498 Ellis, op. cit., II. p. 232.
499 Shamanism, p. 92.
500 History of Melanesian Society, II. p. 107.
501 A. M. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, p. 180.
502 Across Australia, p. 326.
503 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 481.
504 Decline and Fall, ch. xvii—discussing the character of Julian.
505 Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 398.
506 Across Australia, pp. 14, 326, 366.
507 See Haddon, Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI. p. 210; Stefánson, My Life with the Esquimo, p. 88; Murdoch, Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition, in Ninth Ann. Report of Am. Bureau of Eth., p. 431; Frazer, Psyche’s Task, p. 55; Risley, The People of India, p. 77; Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 48, 49, 82, 90; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 116; E. Casalis, Les Bassoutos (2nd ed.), pp. 302-3; W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies in North-West Central Queensland, p. 154.
508 Diversions of a Prime Minister, p. 245.
509 “Shamanism,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXIV. p. 154.
510 Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 3. The definition occurs in a reprint of an earlier essay. A later definition (IV. p. 3) runs: “Totemism is an intimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of kindred people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects on the other side, which objects are called the totems of the human group.” The relation appears to be one of friendship and kinship, on a footing of equality, not religious in Australia. I have, in this chapter, drawn freely upon the great mass of facts and speculations collected in Totemism and Exogamy; believing that in that work the author not only intended to present the evidence for his own conclusions, but had also the benevolent purpose of assisting the labours of those who might come after him. A heavy debt of gratitude is due; which, indeed, causes some embarrassment if ever one feels obliged to differ from him in opinion.
511 Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 4; cf. IV. pp. 3, 4. Perhaps the author no longer approves of the word “reverenced.” Totem and clan are rather on a footing of equality.
512 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, App. B.
513 The animals are: Human 2, other Mammalia 31, Birds 46, Reptiles 51, Amphibia 1, Fishes 8, Insects 24, Mollusca 1.
514 Totemism and Exogamy, II. p. 535.
515 Totemism and Exogamy, III. pp. 90-100.
516 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. pp. 96-110.
517 Contributions to the Science of Mythology, I. p. 201.
518 Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 101.
519 Secret of the Totem and Social Origins.
520 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 330.
521 Native Tribes of Northern Territory of Australia, p. 263.
522 Totemism and Exogamy, IV. pp. 57-63.
523 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1909, p. 173.
524 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1909, p. 175.
525 In the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, a man applies the name of “mother” to his real mother and also to his maternal aunts, who accept the relationship and may assert: “We all three of us bore him” (Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 305 note). Is this what they believe, or what (following their system of class-nomenclature) they are accustomed to say?
526 Page 125.
527 See above, ch. ii. § 3.
528 It is reasonable to suppose that a group named other groups to distinguish those around them, before needing to name itself. It follows that probably each group sometimes bore a different name when spoken of by each of several neighbours. How amidst such confusion could single names be fixed? Perhaps because the group designated adopted one of them; or by the elimination of the other names through many causes in course of time, in generations, in hundreds of years. The march of progress was leisurely in those days.
529 Chs. iv., v., vi.
530 Chs. xiv., xv., Prohibition of Marriage between Kindred.
531 Ch. xl., Marriage.
532 Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, p. 21.
533 Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 489.
534 Ibid., IV. p. 54.
535 Totemism and Exogamy, I. p. 254.
536 Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 388.
537 Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 13.
538 Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 22.
539 Native Tribes of Central Australia, ch. vi.; Northern Tribes of Central Australia, ch. ix.
540 There is, however, another possible reason for the eating by the clan or by its Headman of some portion of the food which they profess to supply to the rest of the tribe—namely, that it expresses a prior claim to some sort of proprietorship, which is then waived.
541 Totemism and Exogamy, IV. pp. 55-7.
542 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes North. Ter. Aust., p. 324.
543 Totemism and Exogamy, III. pp. 104-5.
544 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, II. ch. ix.
545 Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 458, 478, etc. In Eleanbah Wundah, they hold their right hands pressed against their sides, which A. Lang thought a remarkable image. It is, W. E. Roth tells us, gesture-language for sickness. (Ethnological Studies in North-West Central Queensland, p. 90.)
546 The Euahlayi, pp. 4 to 8, and 78.
547 North. Ts. of C. Aust., p. 253.
548 Howitt, Northern Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 435.
549 Haddon, Reports of the Expedition to Torres Straits, V. pp. 37, 38.
550 W. H. R. Rivers, J. A. I., 1909, p. 158.
551 J. A. I., 1909, p. 163.
552 Samoa, chs. iv., v.; especially pp. 28, 48, 62-3, 70, 75. Fiji had in some way deeply impressed the Samoan imagination.
553 The Melanesians, p. 31.
554 Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, II. p. 590.
555 Totemism and Exogamy, III.
556 Quoted by Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. p. 244.
557 Totemism and Exogamy, III. p. 311.
558 On species-gods see Tylor’s Primitive Culture, II. pp. 242-6.
559 Totemism and Exogamy, II. p. 574.
560 “Ethnology of the Ungava District,” Am. B. of Ethn., XI. p. 195. Other examples ante, ch. viii. § 3.
561 Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II. Sec. IV. Mem. 1, Subsec. 3.
562 Pliny, XXV. c. 6.
563 J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Am. B. of Ethn., VII. pp. 323-39.
564 J. Mooney, op. cit.
565 Pliny, XXV. c. 11.
566 Ibid., XXV. c. 59.
567 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 384.
568 Spencer and Gillen, Across Australia, p. 339.
569 Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 381.
570 The Melanesians, p. 199.
571 For Proclus’ defence of Astrology see Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, Book IV. ch. iii., 1st ed., pp. 298-300.
572 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 114.
573 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 397-9.
574 I do not mean that Magic is always a direct derivative of Common-sense: we have seen (ch. vi. § 5) that it sometimes comes from Animism by retrogradation, and (elsewhere) often from coincidences.
575 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir, pp. 134-5.
576 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, I. p. 106.
577 Ante, ch. vi. § 3.