derivatiYe^ and goes along with belief in the presence of a spirit originally homan^ fa.cts make clear. This extension^ becoming marked as we see it does where mental evolution has made considerable progress^ accompanies the growth and elaboration of the ghost-theory — occurs where ghosts are supposed to be ever-present causes of diseases^ cures, accidents, benefits, etc.; and exhibits the unchecked appli- cation of an hypothesis which seems to explain every- thing. Beliefs thus originating are aided by the idea that shadows are souls. As we before saw (§ 96), this idea into which primitive men are naturally betrayed, they extend to other shadows than those cast by their own bodies. As they advance, reason forces this implication on them; and acceptance of it strengthens those concep- tions of object-souls otherwise reached. Proof that the thing worshipped in the remarkable object is a ghost, is in some cases joined with proof that it is an ancestral ghost. The hudcas of the Peruvians, which were both the objects themselves and the ghosts supposed to be in them and to speak from them, were their fore- fathers. Grarcilasso tells us that " an Indian is not looked upon as honourable unless he is descended from a fountain, river, or lake (or even the sea); or from a wild animal, such as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call euntur [condor], or some other bird of prey; or from a mountain, cave, or forest ''; and, as Cieza shows us, these haacas whence they descended, they worshipped.
That idolatry and fetichism are aberrant developments of ancestor-worship, thus made, I think, abundantly evident, will become more evident still on passing to the kindred groups of facts which now follow.
CHAPTER XXIL ANIMAL-WORSHIP, § 165. Ik the chapter on "Primitive Ideas,'' it was pointed out that in the animal kingdom the metamorphoses which actually occur, are^ at first sight, more marrellona than many which are wrongly supposed to occur — that the contrasts between a maggot and a fly, an egg and a bird, a tadpole and a frog, are greater than the contrasts between a child and a pnppy^ a man and a bull.
Encouraged, then, by the changes he daily sees, and not deterred by such cognitions as have been established by ex- periences accumulating for thousands of years, the savage yields unresistingly to anything which suggests that a creature has assumed a different shape. In some cases the supposed change is from one of the lower animals into another; as in Brazil, where. Burton says, " the people universally believe that the humming-bird is transmutable into the humming-bird hawk-moth.'' But mostly, the trans- formation is of men into animals, or of animals into men.
In glancing at the evidence supplied by all races, we will first take a number of examples, and then consider the in- terpretations.
§ 166. The belief that human beings disguise themselves as brutes, is in some cases specified generally; as concern- ing the Thlinkeets of North America, who " will kill a bear AKDCAL-WOBSHIP. 849 only in case of great necessity, for the bear is sapposed to be a man that has taken the shape of an animal.'' And the converse idea is carrent in its general form among the Karens, who think '^ the waters are inhabited by beings whose proper form is that of dragons [? crocodiles], bat that occasionally appear as men, and who take wives of the children of men." Usually, however, only certain classes of men and women, distingaished by power of some kind, or believed to be so, have this ability ascribed to them.
Regarding all special skill as supernatural, sundry African peoples think the blacksmith (who ranks next to the medi- cine-man) works by spirit-agency; and in Abyssinia '^black- smiths are supposed able to turn themselves into hyaenas and other animals." So strong is this belief that it infects even European residents: Wilkinson instances a traveller who as- serted that he had seen the metamorphosis. More commonly it is the sorcerers exclusively of whom this power is alleged. Campbell tells us that the Khonds believe '' witches have the faculty of transforming them- selves into tigers." According to Winterbottom, in case of ''an alligator seizing upon a child whilst bathing in the river, or a leopard carrying off a goat," the BuUoms " are of opinion that it is not a real leopard or alligator which has committed the depredation, but a witch under one of these assumed forms." Mendieta says that among the Mexicans "there were sorcerers and witches who were thought to transform themselves into animals." Describing the people of Honduras, Herrera tells us they "punished sorcerers that did mischief; and some of them are said to have ranged on the mountains like tigers or lions, killing men, till they were taken and hanged." Both from Pied- rahita and P. Simon, we learn that the Chibchas "pretended to have gfreat sorcerers who might be transformed into lions, bears, and tigers, and devour men like these animals." To chiefs as well as to sorcerers this faculty is in some places ascribed. Of the Tunja Thomagata, one 350 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGT.
of the Chibcha ralers, Piedraliita says he Was belieyed '' ta have had a long tail^ after the manner of a lion or a tiger^ which he dragged on the soil/' Africans supply kindred illustrations. Here is one; to which^ however^ I have un- fortunately lost the reference.
" There are also a great many lions and hysnas, and there is no oheok upon the increase of the former, for the people, beUeving that the Bonis of their chiefs enter into them, never attempt to kill them; they even believe that a chief may metamorphose himself into a lion, kill any one he chooses, and then retnrn to the hnman form; therefore, when they see one they commence clapping their hands, which is the nsnal mode of salntation."
In some cases this supposed power extends to the chiefs relatives. Schweinfurth narrates how^ when at Gallabat^ having shot a hyssna^ he was reproached by the sheik because his, the sheik's, mother, was a '' hyaena-woman.*' Instead of a change of form there is, in other cases, possession. We saw how the primitive dream- theory, with its wandering double which deserts the body and re- enters it, brings, among many sequences, the belief that wandering doubles can enter other bodies than their own; and the last chapter exhibited some wide extensions of this doctrine: representative figures, and even inanimate objects not having human shapes, being supposed permeable by human ghosts. Naturally, then, animals are included among the things men's souls go into. Livingstone tells us that at Tete, the people believe '^that while persons are still living they may enter into lions and alligators, and then return again to their own bodies." Brett says the Guiana tribes think jaguars '^ are possessed by the spirits of men."
Of course, along with beliefs in possession by the doubles of living persons, there go beliefs in possession by the doubles of dead persons. Marsden says the Sumatrans imagine that ** tigers in general are actuated with the spirits of departed men, and no AimCAL-WOBSHIP. 351 eonsidBnilioii wilL prevail on a eonntiTman to eatch or to woimd one, but in self-defence, or immediately after the act of destroying a friend."
Among existing American races the Apaches^ according to Bancroft^ '^liold that every rattlesnake contains the soul of a bad man or is an emissary of the Eril Spirit "; and the same writer gives testimony that '' the Calif omians round San Diego will not eat the flesh of large game^ believing such animals are inhabited by the souls of generations of people that have died ages ago: 'eater of venison I ' is a term of reproach among them.*' With the ancient American races it was the same. As one out of many statements^ may be given this made by Olavigero: — " The people of Tlascala believed that the sonls of persons of rank went, after their death, to inhabit the bodies of beautiful and sweet singing birds, and those of the nobler quadrupeds; while the souls of inferior persons were supposed to pass into weazles, beetles," etc.
There are like beliefs among Africans. When Hutchinson doubted the assertion that men's souls pass into monkeys and crocodiles^ he was answered — " It be Calabar f ash^ and white man no saby anyting about it.''
Passing over many modifications and developments of this general notion — ^passing over, too, those filiations upon it which early civilizations show us, such as the Scripture story of the expelled devils who entered into the swine, and the were-wolf legends of the middle ages; let us turn to the interpretations. We have seen that his experiences prepare the savage for supposing metamorphoses, if circumstances suggest, them; but we must not assume him to suppose them without suggestive circumstances. What, then, are these? We shall find three kinds/ leading to three groups of allied, but partially-difEerent, beliefs.
§ 167. ''The Amatongo are snakes," say the Zulus; and, as we have repeatedly seeu, Amatongo is their name for ancestral ghosts. But now why have these people fixed on snakes as being transformed ancestors? Some extracts S52 THX DATA OF SOCIOLOOT.
from Canon Callaway's cross-examination^ I place in an order that will prepare the reader for the answer.
" The snakes into which men torn are not many; they are distinct and well known. They are the black Imamba, and the green Imamba, which is called Inyandezulu. Chiefs turn into these. Common people turn into the Umthlwazi."
" These snakes are known to be human beings when they enter a hut; they do not usually enter by the doorway. Perhaps they enter when no one is there, and go to the upper part of the hut» and stay there coiled up."
*' If the snake has a soar on the side, some one who knew a certain dead man of that place who also had such a scar, comes forward and says, ' It is So-and-so. Do you not see the scar on his side?' It is left alone, and they go to sleep."
*' Those which are men are known by their frequenting huts, and by their not eating mice, and by their not being frightened at the noise of men."
Now join with these statements the facts set forth in §§ 110^ 137^ and the genesis of this belief becomes manifest. All over the world there prevails the idea that the ghost of the dead man haonts the old home. What^ then^ is meant by the coming of these snakes into the huts f Are they not returned relations f Do not the individual marks they sometimes bear yield proof f Just as the Australian settler who had a bent arm^ was concluded to be the other-self of the dead native who had a bent arm (§ 92); so here^ the scar common to the man and the snake proves identity. When, therefore, the Zulus say—" Neither does a snake that is an Itongo excite fear in men. * * * When men see it, it is as though it said as they look at it, ' Be not afraid. It is I '; '' we are shown that recognition of the snake as a human being come back in another shape, is suggested by several circumstances: frequentation of the house being the chief. This recognition is utilized and confirmed by the diviners. As was said by some who, through them, sought supernatural aid — "We wondered that we should continually hear the spirits, which we could not see, speaking in the wattles, and telling us many things without our ANIMAL-WORSHIP. 853 seKing £hem/' And elsewhere we read — "The voice was like that of a very little child; it cannot speak aloud^ for it speaks above, among the wattles of the hut/' The trick is obvious. Practising ventriloquism, the diviner makes the replies of the ancestral ghost seem to come from places in which these house-haunting snakes conceal themselves.
Though most men are supposed to turn into the harm- less snakes which frequent huts, some turn into the ''im- amba which frequents open places." Concerning this we are told — " The imamba is said especially to be chiefs "; it is "a poisonous snake,'' and has "the stare of an enemy^ which makes one afraid." Whence we may conclude that as special bodily marks suggest identity with individual men who bore kindred marks, so traits of behaviour and character in snakes of a certain species, lead to identification with a class of individuals. This conclusion we shall pre- sently find verified elsewhere in Africa, Among the Amazulu, belief in the return of ancestors disguised as serpents, has not led to worship of serpents as such: propitiation of them is mingled with propitiation of ancestral ghosts in an indefinite way. Other peoples, too, present us with kindred ideas, probably generated in like manner, which have not assumed distinctly religious forms; as witness the statement of Nunc de Guzman, that " in the province of Culiacan tamed serpents were found in the dwellings of the natives, which they feared and venerated." But, carrying with us the clue thus given, we find that along with a developed cult and advanced arts, a definite ser- pent-worship results. Ophiolatry prevails especially in hot coantries; and in hot countries certain kinds of ophidia secrete themselves in dark comers of rooms, and even in beds. India supplies us with a clear case. Serpent-gods are there common; and the serpent habitually sculptured as a god, is the cobra. Either in its natural form or united to a human body, the cobra with expanded hood in attitude to strike, is adored in numerous temples. And then, on A A 854 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
ihqttiryi vre learn that the cobhi is one of the commonest Intruders in houses. Yet another instance is furnished by the Egyptian asp> a species of cobra. Figuring everywhere as this does in theil* sacred paintings and sculptures, we find that, greatly reverenced throughout Egypt, it was a fre- quienter of gardens and houses, and was so far domesticated that it tsame at a signal to be fed from the table.* Tlie like happens with some other house-haunting crea- tui'es. In many countries lizards are often found indoors; and among the Amazulu, the " Isalukazana, a kind of liiard," is the form supposed to be taken by old women. Whether the belief of the New Zealanders that the spirits of their ancestors re-visit them as lizards, refers to lizards which enter houses, I haVe failed to learn. Then, too, ^e have the wasp, Ivhich is one of the animate shapes supposed to be taken by the dead among the Amazulu; and the wasp is an insect Which often joins the domestic circle to share the food on the table. Alongside this belief I may place i eiiriouS passage from the flood-legend of the Baby- loniiins. Hasisadra, describing his sacrifice after the deluge, says — '^ The gods collected at its burning, the gods collected at its good burning; the gods, like flies, over the sacrifice gathered.*' Once inore, of house-haunting creatures similarly regarded, we have the dove. Describing animal-worship Among the ancients, Mr. McLennan remarks that ** the dove, in fact * * * is almost as great a god as the serpent/^ The still-extant symbolism of Christianity * Since writing tbe above I have re-read Mr. M'Leunan's essay on Animal- worship, and in it find a fact Which confirms this view. I have italicized the significant words. '' To support the superstition there are two ai'tides in the treaty made and sanctioned by Her Britannic Majesty's Consul for the Bight of Biafra and the Island of Fernando Po, on November 17, 1856, one of which runa thus: — ' Article 12. That long detention having heretofore occurred in trade, and much aDg^*y feeling having been excited in the natives from the destruction by white men, in their ignorance, of a certain species of boa- constrictor that vfiiiis ^ houses, tcad which ift jH-Jtt, or sacred, to the Brassmen, it is hereby forbiddcta to ail British subjects to harm or destroy any such snake.' " shows US the sai'viving effect of tliis belief m the ghostly characttjr of the dove.
§ 168. Au allied group of ideas will now be ^adily under- stood. Where house-burial prevails, the ghost has but one place to haunt; but otherwise it is believed now to re-visit the habitation it has left, and now to be where the body lies. If, then, creatures which frequent houses are supposed to bo metamorphosed ancestors, will not creatures habitually found with corpses be also considered as animal forms assumed by the dead? That they will, we may conclude; and that they are, we have proofs.
The prevalence of cave-burial among early peoples every- where, has been shown. What animals habitually occm* in these dark recesses? Above all others, those which shun the light — ^bats and owls. Where th^re are ho forests with hollow trees, etc., crevices and caverns are the most available places for these night-flyiiig creatures; and often in such places they are very numerous. An explorer of the Egyp- tian cave known from its embalmed contents as "Cfoco- dilopolis," tells me that he was nearly fetiflEocated with the dust raised by the bats, whose flight nearly put out the totches. Now join with these facts the following passage from the Izdnbar legend translated by M^. Smith: — " Retam we from Hades, the land of my knofdedg^; from the honse of the d^arted, the seat of the god Irkalla; from ihe house within which is no exit; from the road the course oi which never returns; from the place within which they long for light — the place where dust is their nourishment and their food mud. Its chiefis also, like birds, are clothed ^vith ^vings."
In Mr. Talbot's rendering of the legend of the descent of Ishtar, Hades, described as ^' a cavern of great rocks,'' is again said to be '^ the abode of darkness and famine, where earth is their food: their nourishment clay: light is not soon: in darkness they dwell: ghosts, like birds, flutter tkfjir wings/' Amid minor difierences, the agreement respecting the cavernous nature of the place, its gloom, AA 2 856 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
its lack of food, its dust, and the winged structore of its inhabitants, clearly points to the development of the bnrial- cave with its tenanting creatures, into Hades with its in- habiting spirits. In the same way that, as we before saw, Sheol, meaning primarily a cave, expanded into an under- world; so here we see that the winged creatures habitually found along with the corpses in the cave, and supposed to bo the transformed dead, originated the winged ghosts who inhabit the imder-world. Verification is yielded by an already-quoted passage from the Bible, where sorcerers, referred to as consulting the dead, are said to chirp like bats: the explanation being that their arts, akin to those of the Zulu diviners lately named, had a like aim. '* These ventriloquists,'' says Delitzsch, ''imitated the chirping of bats, which was supposed to proceed from the shades of Hades/' Further verification comes to us from the legends of the Greeks, which grew up in adjacent regions under like conditions. The spirits of the dead are said in the Od/ysaey to twitter like bats and scream like frightened birds.* The experience that bats were found in caves with great constancy and in large numbers, while owls more generally frequented the dark comers of deserted houses, may have tended to differentiate the associated conceptions. '' Mother of ruins " is an Arabian name for the owL Mr. Talbot, in translations embodying the religious beliefs of the Assyrians, has the following prayer uttered on a man's death: — '' Like a bird may it [the soul] fly to a lofty place!" With this we may join the fact that, in common with modem Arabs, * Since tbe above was put in t^pc I hare met with a confirmatory fact in the Travels in the Philippines of Mr. F. Jagor. Before Europeans conquered them, the people had the ideas and customs of ancestor* worship highly developed; and they anciently buried in caves, which were held sacred. Mr. Jagor nar- rates his visit to a cavern " tenanted by multitudes of bats." The few natives who dared enter, " were in a state of great agitation, and were careful first to enjoin upon each other the respect to be obsen'ed by them towards CalapnUun " —literally " lord of the bats."— P. 169.
ANIMAL-WOBSHIP. 357 ANIMAL-WOBSHIP. 357 their anoient kindred preferred to bury in high places when they could. We may also join with it the following passage from M. de Perceval's Esaai aur I'histoire des Arabes: — " In their opinion the soul, when leaving the body, fled away in the form of a certain bird called H&ma or 8ada (a sort of owlj, and did not cease flying round the tomb and crying pitifully."
The Egyptians also, along with kindred experiences of these cave-hiding and ruin-haunting creatures, had a belief in winged souls. One of their wall-paintings given, by Wilkinson, represents, over the face of a corpse, a human- headed bird about to fly away, carrying with it the sign of life and the symbol of transmigration. Moreover, on their mummy cases they figured either a bird with out-stretched wings, or such a bird with a human head, or a winged symbol. Thus it seems likely that by them, too, the crea- tures frequently found in the places of the dead were supposed to be forms assumed by the dead.
It may be that these ancient peoples of the East had not enough knowledge of insect-metamorphoses to be struck by the illusive analogy on which modem theologians dwell; but there is one variety of those metamorphoses which, if they observed it, must have seemed to furnish a complete parallel. With moths of many kinds, it is the habit of the lurva to bury itself in the earth, and after a time there is found near the chrysalis-case a winged creature. Why, then, should not the winged creature found along with the human body which has been buried in a Ciive, be concluded to have come out of it? * § 169. Before dealing with supposed transformations of a * As originally ghosts, not classed as good and bad» were indiscriminatelj spokc!! of as gods, demons, angels; and as the differentiation which even- tually arose was naturally nocompanicd by specialized beliefs respecting these Hying forms nsiumed by them; it seems not improbable that while from the owl with its feathered wings, came the conception of the good spirit or nngcl, there cainc from the hnt with its membranous wings, the conception of the bad spirit or devil.
358 THE DATA 09 SOCIOLOGY.
third kinciA like the i^boye aa identifying aniinaU with deceased men^ bat unlike them as being otherwise suggested^ two explanatory descriptions are needed: one of primitive language and the other of primitive naming.
The group of words used as signs of ideas by a savage^ is very small. Hence of the many things and acts around, either but few can have signs, or those signs must be indis- criminately applicable to different things and acts: whence inevitable misunderstandings. If, as Burton says of the Dacotahs, '^ colours are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight,'' an intended assertion about a colour must often be taken for an assertion about the illustrative object. If, as Schweinfurth tells us of the Bongo dialect, oneVord means either " shadow" or "cloud,*' another ''rain" or ''the sky," another "night" or "to-day"; the interpretations of statements must be in part guessed at, and the guesses must often be wrong. Indefiniteness, implied by this paucity of words, is farther implied by the want of terms expressing degree. A Damara cannot understand the ques- tion whether of two stages the next is longer than the last. The question must be — "The last is little; the next, is it great?" and the only reply is — " It is so," or " It is not so." In some cases, as among the Abipones, the only mode of ex- pressing superlatives is that of raising the voice. And then the uncertainties of meaning resulting from such indefinite- nesses, dre made greater by the rapid changes in primitive dialects. Superstitions lead to frequent substitutions of new words for those previously in use; and hence statements current in one generation, otherwise expressed in the next, are misconstrued. Incoherence is an additional cause of confusion. Spix and Martins tell us that, in the aboriginal languages of South Brazil, " there are no such tilings as declensions and conjugations, and still less a regular construction of the sentences. They always speak iu the infinitive, with, or mostly without, pronouns or sub- stantives. The accent, which is chiefly on the second syllable^ the slowne&s or quiokAaaa of pronuneiation^ ^^r- tain signs with the handj the mouthy or other gestures^ ara neceesary to domplete the senae of the sentence. If the Indian, for instance, means to say, <I will go into the wood/ he says ' Wood-go: ' pushing out his mouth to indicate the quarter which he intends to visit/' Qlearly^ oo propositions implying even moderate degrees of discrimination, can be communicated by such people. The relative homo* geneity of early speech, thus implied by the absence of modifying terminations to words or the auxiliaries serving in place of them, is further implied by the ab;3ence of general and abstract words. Eve|\ the first grades of generality and abstractness are inwpressible. Dobria-. hoffer says that both the Abipones and the Quaranis "want the verb substantive to be. They want the verb to have. They have no words whereby to express man, body, God, place, time, never, ever, everywhere.'' Simi- ' larly, Lichtenstein describes the K^affir language as having " no proper article, no auxiliary verbs, no inflections either of their verbs or substantives. The simple^ abstract propor sition, I am, cannot be expressed in their language.'^ With these a posteriori verifications of the a priori expectation, that early speech is meagre, incoherent, indefi* nite, we may anticipate countless erroneous beliefs caused by misapprehensions. We read in DobrizhofEer that among the Guaranis, "Abache lias three meanings — I am a Quaraniy I am a rawn, or I am a hiishand; which of these is meant must be gathered from the tenor of the conversa- tion.*' On asking what will happen with traditions narrated in such speech, we must answer that the resulting distor- tions will be extreme and multitudinous.
§ 170. Proper names were not always possessed by men: they are growths. It never occurred to the uninventive savage to distinguish this person from that by special sounds. An individual was at first signified by something 360 THE DATA OP BOCIOLOOT.
connected with Iiim^ wliich^ when mentioned^ called him to mind — an incident, a joxta-position, a personal trait.
A descriptive name is commonly assumed to be the earliest. We suppose that just as objects and places in our own island acquired their names by the establishment of what was originally an impromptu description; so, names of savages, such as "Broad face/' "Head without hair/' "Curly head/' "Horse-tail/' are the significant sobriquets with which naming begins. But it is not so. Under pressure of the need for indicating a child while yet it has no peculiarities, it is referred to in connexion with some circumstance at- tending its birth. Angas tells us that the Lower Murray Australians derive their names either from some trivial occurrence, from the spot where they were bom, or from a natural object seen by the mother soon after the birth of the child. This is typical. According to Andersson, Damara " children are named after great public incidents." Hodg- son states that " most of the Bodo and Dhim^ bear mean- ingless designations, or any passing event of the moment may suggest a significant term." The name given to a Kaffir child soon after birth, says Shooter, " usually refers to some circumstance connected with that event, or happen- ing about the same time"; and concerning the Mandingoes we learn the like from Park. By Schoolcraft we are told that among the Comanches, " the children are named from some circumstance in tender years "; and Heame describes the names of the Chippewayan boys as "generally de- rived from some place, season, or animal." Even with so superior a type as the Bedouins, the like happens. "A name/' says Burckhardt, " is given to the infant imme- diately on his birth. The name is derived from some trifling accident, or from some object which has struck the fancy of the mother or any of the women present at the child's birth. Thus, if the dog happened to be near on this occa- sion, the infant is probably named Kelab (from Kelb^ a dog)."
This vague mode of identification, which arises first in the ANDIAL-WORSHIF. 361 histoiy of the race, and long sorviyes as a birth-naming in the life of each individual^ is by-and-by habitually followed by a re-naming of a more specific kind: a personal trait that becomes decided in the course of growth, a strange accident, or a remarkable achievement, furnishing the second name. Among the peoples above mentioned, the Comanches, the Damaras, the Kaffirs^ illustrate this. Speak- ing of the Kaffirs, Mann says — " Thus ' Umgodi' is simply ' the boy who was bom in a hole.' That is a birth name. ' XJmginqisago' is 'the hunter who made the game roll over.' That is a name of renown.'^ Omitting multitudinous illastrations, let us note some which immediately concern us. Speaking of the additional names gained