Introduction to the History of Religions Part 16

+627+. From all the facts known it may be concluded that the conception of taboo exists or has existed in some form in a great part of the world,[1044] though its development has differed greatly in different regions. In general its prevalence appears to have been in inverse proportion to that of totemism--it is lacking or feeble in the chief totemic centers, Australia and North America, and strongest in Polynesia, where totemism is hardly recognizable. It may be said that, while totemism appears in those forms of social life that have been created by hunting communities,[1045] taboo is the product of more settled societies, in which agriculture plays an important part. But while this is true, at least in a general way, we are not able to trace all the influences that have determined the development of totemism and taboo; some of these are lost in the obscurity of the remote past, and, unfortunately for purposes of investigation, both taboo and totemism, as we now meet them in actual operation, are in process of decay. Why, for instance, taboo has flourished in Hawaii with its fis.h.i.+ng industries and has not flourished in certain half-civilized, partly agricultural North American tribes we are unable to explain precisely. We may fall back on the vague statement that every community has accomplished that for which its genius fitted it, but how the genius of any one people has fitted it for this or that particular task it is not always possible to say.

+628+. _The disappearance of the taboo system_ in civilized nations is to be referred to the general advance in intelligence and morality.

Usually this movement is a gradual and silent one, marked by a quiet dropping of usages as they come to be held unnecessary or oppressive.

Sometimes a bold individual rebels against the established custom and successfully introduces a new era: thus in Yoruba, under an old custom, when a king died his eldest son was obliged to commit suicide; this custom was set at defiance by a certain Adelu in 1860, and has not since been observed.[1046] All the influences that tend to broaden thought go to displace taboo. The growth of clans into tribes, the promotion of voluntary organizations, secret societies, which displace the old totemistic groups, the growth of agriculture and of commercial relations--all things, in a word, that tend to make the individual prominent and to further family life lead naturally to the abrogation of oppressive taboos.

+629+. Doubtless also among lower tribes intercourse with higher communities has had the same result. One of the most remarkable episodes in the history of taboo is its complete overthrow in the Hawaiian Islands in the year 1819 by a popular movement.[1047] The movement was begun by members of the royal family, particularly by one of the queens, and was eagerly followed by almost the whole population--the result was the final overthrow of the system. This was before the arrival of Christian missionaries; but as foreigners had visited the islands many years before (Captain Cook first came in 1778), it is possible that the suggestion of the reform came from observation of the fact that the taboos were disregarded by those men without evil effects. In any case it was the acceptance of better ideas by the people that led to the revolutionary movement.

+630+. _Role of taboo in the history of religion._ The relation of taboo to morality and religion and to the general organization of society appears from the facts stated above. It has created neither the sense of obligation nor the determination of what is right or wrong in conduct.

The sense of obligation is coeval with human society--man, at the moment when he became man, was already potentially a moral being (and a religious being as well).[1048] His experience of life induced rules of conduct, and these, with the concurrence of some hardly definable instincts, became imperative for him--the conception involved in the word 'ought' gradually took shape. The practical content of the conception was determined by all sorts of experience; the decisive consideration was whether or not a given thing was advantageous. The belief arose that certain disadvantageous things were to be referred to extrahuman influences, and such things were of course to be avoided--this belief produced the taboo system.

+631+. The prohibitions of morality sprang from social relations with human beings, the prohibitions of taboo from social relations with superhuman beings--duties to both cla.s.ses of beings were defined by experience. The rule "thou shalt not kill thy clansman" was a necessity of human society; the rule "thou shalt not touch a corpse" sprang from the fear of a superhuman, malign, death-dealing Power. Avoidance of poisonous herbs was an obligation founded on common experience; avoidance of a chief's food and certain other foods arose from dread of offending a spirit or some occult Power. And so with all taboo prescriptions as contrasted with others relating to conduct.[1049]

+632+. Taboo is in essence religious, not moral. In so far as it supplies a supernatural sanction for moral conduct proper and maintains rational social relations (as when a man's wife and other property are made taboo to all but himself), it is often beneficent. On the other hand, it is antimoral when it elevates to the rank of duties actions that have no basis in human relations or are in any way antagonistic to a healthy human instinct of right. This it has often done, and there has accordingly resulted a conflict between it and morality--a conflict that has formed no small part of the ethical history of the race, its echoes remaining to the present day. In all religions it has been hard to bring about an intelligent harmony between the moral and the ritual. Taboo was not originally irrational--it sprang from the belief (rational for the early time) in the presence of the supernatural in certain objects, and this belief was held to be supported by early experience, according to which it seemed that violations of taboo were followed by sickness or death or other misfortunes. It came to be thought irrational with the progress of knowledge and reflection.

+633+. Taboo, being a religious conception, has been adopted and fostered by all popular systems of religion. It has been set aside not by religion as such but by all the influences that have tended to rationalize religion. Religious leaders have modified it so far as modification has been demanded by public opinion. So enlightened and spiritual minded a man as the apostle Paul declared that an unworthy partic.i.p.ation in the eucharistic celebration produced sickness and death.[1050] Innumerable are the taboos that have pa.s.sed silently into oblivion.

+634+. Taboo, then, is a concomitant of man's moral life that has sometimes opposed, sometimes coalesced with natural morality. Like all widely extending inst.i.tutions it has tended in part to weld men together; like all irrational restrictions it has tended also to hold men apart. Like all positive law it has fostered the sense of moral obligation, but like all arbitrary law it has weakened the power of intelligent and moral obedience. It has been not the guardian of morality, but a temporary form (useful in a primitive stage of society) in which a part of the moral law expressed itself. The real moral force of society has been sympathetic social intercourse, which, under the guidance of an implicit moral ideal, has been constantly employed in trying to spiritualize or to reject those enactments of taboo that have been proved by experience, observation, and reflection to be injurious.[1051]

CHAPTER VI

G.o.dS

+635+. The climax of the organization of external religion appears in the conception of G.o.ds proper; this conception is always a.s.sociated with more or less well-developed inst.i.tutions. Early religious life expresses itself in ceremonies; the G.o.d is the embodiment of man's ideal of the extrahuman power that rules the world. It is not always easy to distinguish the true G.o.ds from the other supernatural beings with which early man's world is peopled.[1052] As far as concerns power, the ghosts and the spirits appear to do all that the G.o.ds are credited with doing; the sphere of ghostly action is practically unlimited, and the spirit that dwells in a spring, in a river, or in a mountain, is as mighty in his sphere as Indra or Apollo in his sphere; the difference between them and G.o.ds is a difference of intellectual and moral culture and of the degree of naturalization in a human society--a G.o.d might be defined as a superhuman Being fas.h.i.+oned by the thought of a civilized people (the term 'civilized' admitting, however, of many gradations). Still, G.o.ds proper may be distinguished from other Powers by certain characteristics of person and function. Ghosts are shadowy doubles of human beings, sometimes nameless, wandering about without definite purpose except to procure food for themselves, uncertain of temper, friendly or unfriendly according to caprice or other circ.u.mstances, able to help or to harm, and requiring men to be constantly on the alert so as not in an unguarded moment to offend them. Souls of recently deceased ancestors, more highly organized ghosts, conceived of also as attenuated bodies, have powers not essentially different from those of the simpler ghosts, but are differentiated from these in function by their intimate relations with the family or clan to which they belong, and by their more definite human nature; they are as a rule permanently friendly, are capable of definite sympathetic social intercourse with living men, and are sometimes controllers and patrons, hardly to be distinguished from local or departmental G.o.ds. Spirits are ethereal beings residing in, or closely connected with, certain objects (trees, rivers, springs, stones, mountains, etc.), sometimes permanently attached to these objects, sometimes detached; roaming about, sometimes kindly, more generally inimical, authors of disease and death, to be feared and to be guarded against, but sometimes in function (though not in origin) identical with ancestral ghosts. Totems, in their developed form, are revered, but rarely if ever wors.h.i.+ped. The term 'animal-G.o.ds' may mean either living animals regarded as divine, or animals believed to be the forms a.s.sumed by G.o.ds; in the latter case they may be taken to be real G.o.ds of an inferior type.

In distinction from the four cla.s.ses of Powers just mentioned, a true G.o.d is a supernatural being with distinct anthropomorphic personality, with a proper name or a distinctive t.i.tle, exercising authority over a certain land or people or over a department of nature or a cla.s.s of phenomena, dwelling generally in a sanctuary on the earth, or in the sky, or in the other world, and in general sympathetic with men. G.o.ds have rational human qualities, human modes of procedure, and are human beings in all things except power.[1053]

+636+. The G.o.d appears to have been at the outset a well-formed anthropomorphic being. His genesis is different from that of the ghost, spirit, ancestor, or totem. These, except the spirit, are all given by experience: totems are familiar objects plainly visible to the eye; ghosts and ancestors are known through dreams and appearances by day, and by tradition; and the conception of the spirit is closely allied to that of the ghost, though it is in part a scientific inference rather than a fact of experience. In distinction from these a G.o.d is a larger product of imagination, springing from the necessity of accounting for the existence of things in a relatively refined way. The creator is a beast only in low tribes, and in process of time, if the tribe continues to grow in culture, is absorbed in the cult of a true G.o.d. It is rarely, if ever, that a beast, whether a totem or only a sacred thing, becomes a G.o.d proper.

The best apparent examples of such a growth are the Egyptian bull Apis, who had his temple and ministers, the Hindu monkey-G.o.d Hanuman, and the divine snake of the Nagas of India.[1054] But, though in these cases the beast forms receive divine wors.h.i.+p, it is not clear whether it is the beast that is wors.h.i.+ped or a G.o.d incarnate in the beast; the question is difficult, the data being meager. The myths in which G.o.ds appear in beast forms do not prove a development of the former out of the latter.

It is not necessary to suppose that Zeus was once a bull, Artemis a bear or a sow, Adonis a boar, and Aphrodite a sow or a dove. The myths may be naturally explained as arising from the coalescence of cults, the local sacred beast becoming attached to a local deity who had a different birth.

The G.o.d is a figure of slow growth. Beginning as a sort of headman, identified sometimes with an ancestor, sometimes with a beast, his character is shaped by all the influences that go to form the tribal life, and he thus embodies from generation to generation the tribe's ideals of virtue.

+637+. The list of cla.s.ses of supernatural Powers given above must be regarded, as is there intimated, as a general one. One cla.s.s appears sometimes to shade into another; in the theistic schemes of low tribes it is often difficult to define the conceptions of supernatural beings with precision.

_Early mythical founders of culture._ Before proceeding to a consideration of true G.o.ds, a cla.s.s of beings must be mentioned that appears to stand on the borderland between divine animals, spirits, and G.o.ds. There are various sorts of beings that appear sometimes in animal form, sometimes in human form, their function being the arranging of the affairs of the world, the origination of inst.i.tutions, and sometimes a definite creation of various things. The t.i.tle "founders" or "transformers" or "culture-heroes" has been given them. They arise, just as the true G.o.ds do, from the necessity of accounting for the beginnings of things,[1055] and, from a comparison of the ideas of various tribes, a certain growth in the conception may be recognized.

+638+. In some cases the figure is that of a mere trickster, a mischievous being, the hero of countless stories, who acts from caprice or malice, though his actions may result in advantage to men. Such are many of the animal forms of the North American Indians: the coyote of the Thompson River Indians,[1056] the raven of North British Columbia,[1057] the mink and the blue jay of the North Pacific Coast.[1058] In other cases, as also to some extent in the Thompson River region, he appears in a more dignified form as a benevolent organizer.

This growth of the trickster into the real culture-hero may be referred to a progress in thought and refinement.[1059] Among the Northern Maidu of California there is a sharp distinction between the two characters: the coyote is tricky and mischievous in the bad sense, with no desire to do anything profitable to men; the benevolent and useful work of the world is ascribed to a personage called "the creator," who is always dignified and regardful of the interests of man.[1060] This sort of distinction, intended to account for the presence of both good and evil elements of life, is found in inchoate form among other low peoples (as, for example, the Masai and the Australians[1061]), but reaches its full proportions only in the great civilized religions.

+639+. In this cla.s.s of vaguely conceived creators or transformers we may place the Central Australian Arunta ancestors, who embodied the idea of the ident.i.ty of beasts and human beings, and are the originators of all the arts and inst.i.tutions of the tribes; they established the totemic groups and the ceremonies, and, in the developed myth, perpetuate their existence by entering the bodies of women and being born as human beings.[1062] The relative antiquity of this conception of the origin of things is uncertain; in one point of view it is crude, but in another it is an elaborate and well-considered attempt to explain the world. These Arunta ancestors, notwithstanding their half-b.e.s.t.i.a.l forms, are represented as acting in all regards like human beings, and as having planned a complete system of tribal organization, but no religious wors.h.i.+p is offered them--they figure only in sociogonic myths and in the determination of the totemic status of newborn children.

Among the Navahos we find a combination of beast and man in the work of creation.[1063] In their elaborate cosmogonic myth the first actors are Coyote, First Man, and First Woman, and there is discord between Coyote and his human coworkers. Here again the object seems to be to account for the diverse elements of the tribal life.

+640+. Many such personages, originators or introducers of the arts of life and the distribution of territory, are described in the folk-tales and myths of the North American tribes. The conception, it may be concluded, existed all over the world, though for many communities the details have not yet been brought to light.[1064] A noteworthy personage of this cla.s.s is the Melanesian Qat (especially prominent in the Banks Islands), a being credited with almost plenary power, the creator or arranger of seasons, the introducer of night, therefore an important cultural power, yet mischievous, the hero of numerous folk-stories; he does not appear in animal form but lives an ordinary family life. He is not wors.h.i.+ped--he is regarded rather as the explanation of phenomena, a genuine product of early cosmogonic science. He appears to be the nearest approach in Melanesia to a real creator (with the exception perhaps of a somewhat uncertain female being called Koevasi); but alongside of him stand a number of spirits and ancestral ghosts who play an important part in the organization of society.[1065] For the Koryaks of Northeastern Siberia the "Big Grandfather" is an arranger of all things out of preexisting material;[1066] the Chukchee, on the other hand, regard as creator a benevolent being residing in the zenith. Vague stories of simitar arrangers are found among the East African Nandi, and the South African Zulus.[1067]

+641+. Traces of this function of organizing society appear in the mythical figures of some higher religions. Among such figures may be reckoned the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Old Testament Cainides, the Greek Heracles, Theseus, Orpheus, and others.[1068] But these personages generally take on human form and are treated as factors in the regular social development.

+642+. The "culture-hero" thus seems to be a natural product of incipient civilization. He represents the vague feeling that the inst.i.tutions of society arose out of human needs and that the origination of these inst.i.tutions demanded more than human wisdom and power.[1069] He partakes of the nature of both men and G.o.ds--he is all-powerful, yet a creature of caprice and a slave of accident. To him society is supposed to owe an incalculable debt; but his mixed nature affords a wide field for bizarre myths and folk-stories, and he of necessity gives way to more symmetrical divine figures.

+643+. The G.o.d, in the true sense of the word, is the highest generalization of the constructive religious imagination. In his simplest and earliest form he appears as a venerable supernatural man, wise according to the wisdom of his place and time--such is the natural conception of the lower tribes. His position is described by the t.i.tles "the old one," "the father," "the grandfather";[1070] he is a superhuman headman or chief, caring for his people, giving them what they need, sharing their ethical ideas and enforcing their ethical rules. He is an all-sufficient local ruler or overseer, his functions touching the whole life of his people and of no other people. In the progress of myth-making (that is, in the construction of early scientific theology) such G.o.ds are not infrequently represented as men who have gone up to the sky; this is a natural way of accounting for their superterrestrial abode. Savage conceptions of the origin and history of such figures are usually vague, and their theologies fluctuating and self-contradictory; but there are two points as to which opinion is firm: the G.o.d is like men in everything except power, and his functions are universal. He represents not a monotheistic creed (which takes the whole world as the domain of G.o.d), but a narrow tribal acceptance of the sufficiency of the local divine patron.[1071]

CLAN G.o.dS

+644+. The character just described is that of the earliest known G.o.ds; it is embodied in certain figures found in various parts of the world.

Such divine figures belong to the simplest form of social organization, the clan; it is in the clan that they are shaped, and they reflect the conceptions, political and ethical, of the clan. In Southeast Australia the personages called Daramulun, Baiame, Bunjil, correspond to this description: they are supernatural old men who have always existed; they are taken for granted without inquiry into their origin; they direct the affairs of the tribe in a general way in accordance with the moral ideas of the place and time.[1072] The Australians have other beings with vaguely expressed characters and functions, but our information regarding these is so meager that it is not possible to form a distinct judgment of their character. Similar figures are the Klamath Indian "Old Man"[1073] and the Zulu Unkulunkulu, an old man, the father of the people, only dimly understood by the natives who have been questioned on this point; they are uncertain whether he is dead or alive, but in any case he is revered as a great personage.[1074]

+645+. Other such deities are reported in South Africa, as the Qamata of the Xosa, Morimo of the Bakuana, and farther north Molungu.[1075] On the West Coast also, in Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba, a number of deities exist which were in all probability originally local.[1076] Such appears to be the character of certain G.o.ds of the non-Aryan tribes of India, as the Kolarian Sunthals and Koles.[1077] Perhaps also the G.o.d Vetala was originally such a local deity with the savage characteristics proper to the time and place, though later he was half Brahmanized and became a fiend.[1078] Among the Todas every clan has its G.o.d, who was the creator and instructor of the people. The large number of G.o.ds now recognized by the various Toda communities are essentially the same in character and function, and the existing system has doubtless been formed by the coalition of the clans.[1079] In North America the Navahos have a number of local deities, the _yei_ (Zuni, _yeyi_), some of which are called by terms that mean 'venerable.'[1080] The Koryak guardians of occupations and houses may be of the nature of such objects of wors.h.i.+p in the clans,[1081] and so also the Patagonian family-G.o.ds. Cf. the Greek ?????t??f??. In j.a.pan the early system of supernatural beings has been obscured by the great religions of the later time--s.h.i.+nto in its developed form, and Buddhism--but the indications are that the general term _kami_, a designation of all supernatural things, included local deities.[1082]

+646+. It is not clear how early the practice began of giving these beings proper names. In the lowest known tribes we meet descriptive t.i.tles such as "old one," "grandfather," "grandmother"; and so among some civilized peoples, as the Semites, whose local deities are often known simply as _baals_ ('possessors,' 'lords'), sometimes as lords of particular places, as, for example, the Arabic Dhu ash-Shara (Dusares), 'lord of the Shara.' A G.o.d identified with a particular object may be called by its name; so 'Heaven' is said to have become the proper name of a Huron deity (cf. Zeus, Tien, Shangti).[1083] Names of p.a.w.nee G.o.ds are Bright Star (Evening Star), Great Star (Morning Star), Motionless One (North Star), and many other such; the Navahos have The Woman Who Changes (apparently the changing year), White Sh.e.l.l Woman, Child of Water;[1084] the Kolarian Sunthals, Great Mountain;[1085] the Brazilian Arawaks, River-born.[1086] A proper name becomes necessary as soon as definite social relations with a G.o.d are established. Divine names in civilized religions, of remote origin, are often inexplicable.

+647+. Among the simple clan G.o.ds divinized men should be included. In many parts of the world, as is remarked above, chiefs and other great personages are regarded as divine; this attribution of divinity is a part of that general early conception according to which there was an element of power in all things, naturally embodied in a special way in important men. This sort of divinization is particularly prominent in Melanesia and parts of Polynesia; it exists also in j.a.pan and in West Africa. As a rule it is only the recently dead that are thus regarded as divine objects of wors.h.i.+p, and the cult would thus be substantially a part of the wors.h.i.+p of ancestors; but such divinized men frequently bore a peculiarly intimate relation to the clan or community and became specific protectors.[1087] So far as their origin is concerned, this cla.s.s of divine patrons differs essentially from the old clan G.o.d, whose genesis probably belongs to a remote antiquity and is based on the general consciousness of some powerful influence in nature.[1088]

+648+. Clan G.o.ds are found abundantly among the ancient civilized peoples, Egyptian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Arabian, Greek, Roman, and probably existed among other peoples as to whom we have no exact information. In Old Egypt every hamlet had its protecting deity; these continued to be the objects of popular wors.h.i.+p down to a very late time, the form of the deity being usually that of a living animal.[1089]

+649+. A similar religious const.i.tution obtained among the old Semitic peoples. This is obvious in the case of the Canaanites (including the Phoenicians), where every clan or community had its divine lord (the Baal), who was a universal deity sufficient for all the needs of the living, though particularly connected with the dominant interests of his people.[1090] Such, probably, was the original form of the Hebrew Yahweh (Jehovah); in his Sinaitic home he was naturally connected with the phenomena of desert and mountain, and in Canaan, whither the Israelites brought his cult, he was after a while recognized as the giver of crops also, and gradually became a universal G.o.d in the larger sense of the term.[1091] The Phoenician Baals--such as the Tyrian Melkart, 'the king of the city'--are obviously local deities.[1092] The same thing is true of the various G.o.ds that appear in pre-Mohammedan Arabia; the deity of any particular clan or tribe was known to the people as "the G.o.d" (Arabic _Allah_, that is, _al-Ilahu_), and the t.i.tle "Allah,"

adopted by Mohammed as the name of the supreme and only G.o.d, thus in so far fitted in with the usage of the people.[1093]

+650+. In Babylonia also a very large part of the divine names found in the inscriptions must be understood to refer ultimately to local deities, each supreme in his own territory; the later theologians (probably priests) endeavored to organize these into a sort of pantheon, but never succeeded in differentiating the various deities distinctly.

In general it may be said that all these old Semitic G.o.ds had one and the same character; each in his place was supreme, and it is difficult to find any difference in real character and function among the great G.o.ds, as Ea, Bel, Marduk, Sin, Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu, Ashur, Eshmun, and others.[1094]

+651+. The same remark will probably hold good of the popular wors.h.i.+p of the old Greeks. When Pausanias traveled through Greece he found everywhere local cults which bore evidence of primitiveness, and obviously pertained to the clan G.o.ds of the various regions. In many cases these had been identified with old animal-G.o.ds or had been interwoven into the general later scheme and had been merged with the great G.o.ds of the developed pantheon.[1095] The functions ascribed to various deities in the Veda suggest a similar origin for them. When we find that many of them are credited with the same larger or smaller acts of creation, protection, or blessing, we may suspect that they were originally clan G.o.ds that have been incorporated in the great theologic system, and that "henotheism" is mainly a survival from this earlier scheme or an extension of it.[1096] Similar local G.o.ds appear in Peru[1097] and Mexico.[1098]

+652+. One cla.s.s of _Greek "heroes"_ may be considered as belonging in the category of clan G.o.ds.[1099] When the hero appears to be originally a G.o.d his wors.h.i.+p is identical in character with that offered to local deities; so in the case of Achilles and many others.[1100] Such an one is often a divine patron of a definite (usually small) territory, has his sacred shrine with its ministers, and his specific sacrificial cult.

A trace of this type may perhaps be recognized in Hesiod's "halfG.o.ds,"[1101] the heroes of the Trojan war and others, whom he places just after the age of bronze and just before his modern age of iron; their origin is thus made relatively late, as was natural if they descended culturally from old G.o.ds.

+653+. A similar view appears in the fact that a hero is sometimes of mixed parentage--his father or his mother is divine: a local G.o.d, standing in close cultic connection with a greater deity, is easily made into a son of the latter. In general, in the popular wors.h.i.+p there seems to be no distinction between old heroes and G.o.ds. Where such a hero stood in close relations with a community--if, for example, as was sometimes the case, he was the patron or tutelary divinity of a family, or a mythical ancestor--there was doubtless a peculiar tenderness in the feeling for him. But his general function probably was simply that of local patron.[1102]

+654+. Clan G.o.ds are specially important in the history of wors.h.i.+p--they form the real basis of the great theistic development. Ghosts and spirits continue to be recognized and revered or dreaded, but they are not powerful social bonds--it is the local deity about whose person organized public wors.h.i.+p grows up, and it is he whose functions are gradually enlarged till he becomes a universal G.o.d. The initial forms of religion are everywhere limited locally and intellectually; it is only by loyalty to the home as a center and standing-place that man's religious affections and ideals have expanded so as to embrace the world, and reach a high standard of ethical purity and logical consistency.

DEPARTMENTAL G.o.dS

+655+. It must be regarded as an advance in religious conceptions and religious life when natural phenomena are divided into cla.s.ses and a.s.signed each to its special deity; such a scheme brings men into more intimate and sympathetic relations with the G.o.ds. It presupposes a relatively advanced observation of nature and some power of coordination and generalization, and seems to be found only in communities that have some well-organized communal life. In general it belongs to the agricultural stage and to the higher civilizations that have grown out of this stage. Care for food appears to be the starting-point; later, all sorts of social interests demand consideration.

+656+. This specialization of functions is possibly in part an elevation of the old scheme of spirits according to which every object in the world was conceived of as inhabited or controlled by some spiritlike being. It is not probable that the departmental G.o.ds are always developed directly out of spirits--they appear sometimes to belong rather in the clan system, are anthropomorphic, human, lending themselves more readily than spirits do to human intercourse.[1103] It is true that the lower cults of animals and spirits persist alongside of the higher religious forms, and the various groups often appear to blend with one another, as is generally the case in transitions from one system of thought to another.

+657+. Deities with this sort of specialized functions appear in all parts of the world and at various periods of culture. The particular sort of specialization differs according to climatic conditions and social organization--that is, it depends in any community on the nature of the phenomena that touch the life of the community closely. But the general principle remains the same--it is the effort to penetrate more deeply into the nature of the supernatural Powers, and to enter into more intimate and helpful relations with them; it is the beginning of a more practical study of theology proper.

+658+. A somewhat low and vague form of specialization of function is found in Melanesia, where certain beings appear as patrons of work.[1104] These are said by Codrington to be ghosts, yet to be prayed to just as if they were G.o.ds; and in fact, being men with indefinitely great powers, they can hardly be distinguished from such deities as Daramulun and Unkulunkulu, except in the fact that their function is specific. In Australia the published reports do not describe departmental G.o.ds proper, with the possible exception of an undefined being in the North. A more developed scheme exists in Polynesia. In New Zealand there were deities of food-planting and of forests.[1105] The highest point of Polynesian civilization seems to have been reached in the Hawaiian Islands, where, besides several great G.o.ds, there were deities of the sky, the sea, winds, and lightning, of agriculture, and of various occupations and professions, such as fis.h.i.+ng, and even robbing.[1106]

+659+. The Sea Dyaks have a G.o.d of rice-farming and one of war.[1107] In the Malay Peninsula there is a confused mingling of supernatural beings of various sorts, with a great development of magic; the determination of the functions of the better-developed G.o.ds is rendered difficult by the fact that the Malays have been much affected by Hindu influence.[1108] Such influence is possibly to be recognized also in the systems of the Dravidian and Kolarian tribes, though in them there seems to be a native non-Aryan element. The Khonds have G.o.ds of rain, fruit, hunting, and boundaries. Among all these tribes the chief deity is the sun-G.o.d, by whose side stands the earth-G.o.d; these may well be primitive, though their present form may be due to Hindu influence.[1109]

+660+. The Masai of Eastern Africa have two chief G.o.ds--one black, said to be good; the other red, said to be bad.[1110] The only trace of a recognition of cosmic powers appears in their myth that the sky and the earth were once united in one embrace;[1111] but it is not clear that they recognize a G.o.d of the sky and one of the earth. Among the Bantu, who are largely, though not wholly, pastoral, there appears to be no trace of an apportionment of natural phenomena among supernatural beings.[1112] On the West Coast of Africa there is a somewhat elaborate scheme of departmental deities. The sky is the chief G.o.d, but in Dahomi and Ashanti there are G.o.ds of lightning, fire, the ocean, the rainbow, war, markets, silk, cotton, and poison trees, smallpox, sensual desire, discord, and wisdom; in Dahomi there is a tutelary G.o.d of the royal family. The Yorubans have a similar system, embracing G.o.ds of the Niger, nightmare, wealth, gardens, and divination.[1113] This more elaborate system corresponds to their more highly developed scheme of social organization.