Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 2, Part 1 Part 15

(vi.) In secret societies we find bodies of men grouped together with a single tutelary animal; the individual, in the same way, acquires the nagual or individual totem, sometimes by ceremonies of the nature of the bloodbond.

(vii.) Spirits of vegetation in ancient and modern Europe and in China are conceived in animal form. (See _Goat_, below.)

(viii.) The ominous animal or bird may develop into a deity. (See _Hawk_, below.)

(ix.) It is commonly a.s.sumed that the animals a.s.sociated with certain deities are sacred because the G.o.d was originally theriomorphic; this is doubtless the case in certain instances; but Apollo Smintheus, Dionysus Ba.s.sareus and other examples seem to show that the G.o.d may have been appealed to for help and thus become a.s.sociated with the animals from whom he protected the crops, &c.

(x.) The use of animals in magic may sometimes give rise to a kind of respect for them, but this is of a negative nature. See, however, articles by Preuss in _Globus_, vol. lxvii., in which he maintains that animals of magical influence are elevated into divinities.

_Animal Cults._

_Bear_.--The bear enjoys a large measure of respect from all savage races that come in contact with it, which shows itself in apologies and in festivals in its honour. The most important developments of the cult are in East Asia among the Siberian tribes; among the Ainu of Sakhalin a young bear is caught at the end of winter and fed for some nine months; then after receiving honours it is killed, and the people, who previously show marks of grief at its approaching fate, dance merrily and feast on its body. Among the Gilyaks a similar festival is found, but here it takes the form of a celebration in honour of a recently dead kinsman, to whom the spirit of the bear is sent. Whether this feature or a cult of the hunting type was the primary form, is so far an open question. There is a good deal of evidence to connect the Greek G.o.ddess Artemis with a cult of the bear; girls danced as "bears" in her honour, and might not marry before undergoing this ceremony. The bear is traditionally a.s.sociated with Bern in Switzerland, and in 1832 a statue of Artio, a bear G.o.ddess, was dug up there.

_Buffalo_.--The Todas of S. India abstain from the flesh of their domestic animal, the buffalo; but once a year they sacrifice a bull calf, which is eaten in the forest by the adult males.

_Cattle_.--Cattle are respected by many pastoral peoples; they live on milk or game, and the killing of an ox is a sacrificial function.

Conspicuous among Egyptian animal cults was that of the bull, Apis. It was distinguished by certain marks, and when the old Apis died a new one was sought; the finder was rewarded, and the bull underwent four months' education at Nilopolis. Its birthday was celebrated once a year; oxen, which had to be pure white, were sacrificed to it; women were forbidden to approach it when once its education was finished.

Oracles were obtained from it in various ways. After death it was mummified and buried in a rock-tomb. Less widespread was the cult of the Mnevis, also consecrated to Osiris. Similar observances are found in our own day on the Upper Nile; the Nuba and Nuer wors.h.i.+p the bull; the Angoni of Central Africa and the Sakalava of Madagascar keep sacred bulls. In India respect for the cow is widespread, but is of post-Vedic origin; there is little actual wors.h.i.+p, but the products of the cow are important in magic.

_Crow_.--The crow is the chief deity of the Thlinkit Indians of N.W.

America; and all over that region it is the chief figure in a group of myths, fulfilling the office of a culture hero who brings the light, gives fire to mankind, &c. Together with the eagle-hawk the crow plays a great part in the mythology of S.E. Australia.

_Dog_.--Actual dog-wors.h.i.+p is uncommon; the Nosarii of western Asia are said to wors.h.i.+p a dog; the Kalangs of Java had a cult of the red dog, each family keeping one in the house; according to one authority the dogs are images of wood which are wors.h.i.+pped after the death of a member of the family and burnt after a thousand days. In Nepal it is said that dogs are wors.h.i.+pped at the festival called Khicha Puja.

Among the Harranians dogs were sacred, but this was rather as brothers of the mystae.

_Elephant_.--In Siam it is believed that a white elephant may contain the soul of a dead person, perhaps a Buddha; when one is taken the capturer is rewarded and the animal brought to the king to be kept ever afterwards; it cannot be bought or sold. It is baptized and feted and mourned for like a human being at its death. In some parts of Indo-China the belief is that the soul of the elephant may injure people after death; it is therefore feted by a whole village. In Cambodia it is held to bring luck to the kingdom. In Sumatra the elephant is regarded as a tutelary spirit. The cult of the white elephant is also found at Ennarea, southern Abyssinia.

_Fish_.--Dagon seems to have been a fish-G.o.d with human head and hands; his wors.h.i.+ppers wore fish-skins. In the temples of Apollo and Aphrodite were sacred fish, which may point to a fish cult. Atargatis is said to have had sacred fish at Askelon, and from Xenophon we read that the fish of the Chalus were regarded as G.o.ds.

_Goat_.--Dionysus was believed to take the form of a goat, probably as a divinity of vegetation. Pan, Silenus, the Satyrs and the Fauns were either capriform or had some part of their bodies shaped like that of a goat. In northern Europe the wood spirit, Ljesche, is believed to have a goat's horns, ears and legs. In Africa the Bijagos are said to have a goat as their princ.i.p.al divinity.

_Hare_.--In North America the Algonquin tribes had as their chief deity a "mighty great hare" to whom they went at death. According to one account he lived in the east, according to another in the north.

In his anthropomorphized form he was known as Menabosho or Michabo.

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_Hawk_.--In North Borneo we seem to see the evolution of a G.o.d in the three stages of the cult of the hawk among the Kenyahs, the Kayans and the sea Dyaks. The Kenyahs will not kill it, address to it thanks for a.s.sistance, and formally consult it before leaving home on an expedition; it seems, however, to be regarded as the messenger of the supreme G.o.d Balli Penyalong. The Kayans have a hawk-G.o.d, Laki Neho, but seem to regard the hawk as the servant of the chief G.o.d, Laki Tenangan. Singalang Burong, the hawk-G.o.d of the Dyaks, is completely anthropomorphized. He is G.o.d of omens and ruler of the omen birds; but the hawk is not his messenger, for he never leaves his house; stories are, however, told of his attending feasts in human form and flying away in hawk form when all was over.

_Horse_.--There is some reason to believe that Poseidon, like other water G.o.ds, was originally conceived under the form of a horse. In the cave of Phigalia Demeter was, according to popular tradition, represented with the head and mane of a horse, possibly a relic of the time when a non-specialized corn-spirit bore this form. Her priests were called Poloi (colts) in Laconia. In Gaul we find a horse-G.o.ddess, Epona; there are also traces of a horse-G.o.d, Rudiobus. The Gonds in India wors.h.i.+p a horse-G.o.d, Koda Pen, in the form of a shapeless stone; but it is not clear that the horse is regarded as divine. The horse or mare is a common form of the corn-spirit in Europe.

_Leopard_.--The cult of the leopard is widely found in West Africa.

Among the Ewe a man who kills one is liable to be put to death; no leopard skin may be exposed to view, but a stuffed leopard is wors.h.i.+pped. On the Gold Coast a leopard hunter who has killed his victim is carried round the town behind the body of the leopard; he may not speak, must besmear himself so as to look like a leopard and imitate its movements. In Loango a prince's cap is put upon the head of a dead leopard, and dances are held in its honour.

_Lion_.--The lion was a.s.sociated with the Egyptian G.o.ds R[=e] and Horus; there was a lion-G.o.d at Baalbek and a lion-headed G.o.ddess Sekhet. The Arabs had a lion-G.o.d, Yaghuth. In modern Africa we find a lion-idol among the Balonda.

_Lizard_.--The cult of the lizard is most prominent in the Pacific, where it appears as an incarnation of Tangaloa. In Easter Island a form of the house-G.o.d is the lizard; it is also a tutelary deity in Madagascar.

_Mantis_.--Cagn is a prominent figure in Bushman mythology; the mantis and the caterpillar, Ngo, are his incarnations. It was called the "Hottentots' G.o.d" by early settlers.

_Monkey_.--In India the monkey-G.o.d, Hanuman, is a prominent figure; in orthodox villages monkeys are safe from harm. Monkeys are said to be wors.h.i.+pped in Togo. At Porto Novo, in French West Africa, twins have tutelary spirits in the shape of small monkeys.

_Serpent_.--The cult of the serpent is found in many parts of the Old World; it is also not unknown in America; in Australia, on the other hand, though many species of serpent are found, there does not appear to be any species of cult unless we include the Warramunga cult of the mythical Wollunqua totem animal, whom they seek to placate by rites.

In Africa the chief centre of serpent wors.h.i.+p was Dahomey; but the cult of the python seems to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of Whydah the Dahomeyans were brought in contact with a people of serpent wors.h.i.+ppers, and ended by adopting from them the cult which they at first despised. At Whydah, the chief centre, there is a serpent temple, tenanted by some fifty snakes; every python of the danh-gbi kind must be treated with respect, and death is the penalty for killing one, even by accident. Danh-gbi has numerous wives, who until 1857 took part in a public procession from which the profane crowd was excluded; a python was carried round the town in a hammock, perhaps as a ceremony for the expulsion of evils. The rainbow-G.o.d of the Ewe was also conceived to have the form of a snake; his messenger was said to be a small variety of boa; but only certain individuals, not the whole species, were sacred. In many parts of Africa the serpent is looked upon as the incarnation of deceased relatives; among the Amazulu, as among the Betsileo of Madagascar, certain species are a.s.signed as the abode of certain cla.s.ses; the Masai, on the other hand, regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.

In America some of the Amerindian tribes reverence the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi (Moqui) of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was wors.h.i.+pped in the Natchez temple of the sun; and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a serpent-G.o.d.

The tribes of Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days; and in Chile the Araucanians made a serpent figure in their deluge myth.

Over a large part of India there are carved representations of cobras (N[=a]gas) or stones as subst.i.tutes; to these human food and flowers are offered and lights are burned before the shrines. Among the Dravidians a cobra which is accidentally killed is burned like a human being; no one would kill one intentionally; the serpent-G.o.d's image is carried in an annual procession by a celibate priestess.

Serpent cults were well known in ancient Europe; there does not, it is true, appear to be much ground for supposing that Aesculapius was a serpent-G.o.d in spite of his connexion with serpents. On the other hand, we learn from Herodotus of the great serpent which defended the citadel of Athens; the Roman _genius loci_ took the form of a serpent; a snake was kept and fed with milk in the temple of Potrimpos, an old Slavonic G.o.d. To this day there are numerous traces in popular belief, especially in Germany, of respect for the snake, which seems to be a survival of ancestor wors.h.i.+p, such as still exists among the Zulus and other savage tribes; the "house-snake," as it is called, cares for the cows and the children, and its appearance is an omen of death, and the life of a pair of house-snakes is often held to be bound up with that of the master and mistress themselves. Tradition says that one of the Gnostic sects known as the Ophites caused a tame serpent to coil round the sacramental bread and wors.h.i.+pped it as the representative of the Saviour. See also SERPENT-WORs.h.i.+P.

_Sheep_.--Only in Africa do we find a sheep-G.o.d proper; Ammon was the G.o.d of Thebes; he was represented as ram-headed; his wors.h.i.+ppers held the ram to be sacred; it was, however, sacrificed once a year, and its fleece formed the clothing of the idol.

_Tiger_.--The tiger is a.s.sociated with Siva and Durga, but its cult is confined to the wilder tribes; in Nepal the tiger festival is known as Bagh Jatra, and the wors.h.i.+ppers dance disguised as tigers. The Waralis wors.h.i.+p Waghia the lord of tigers in the form of a shapeless stone. In Hanoi and Manchuria tiger-G.o.ds are also found.

_Wolf_.--Both Zeus and Apollo were a.s.sociated with the wolf by the Greeks; but it is not clear that this implies a previous cult of the wolf. It is frequently found among the tutelary deities of North American dancing or secret societies. The Thlinkits had a G.o.d, Khanukh, whose name means "wolf," and wors.h.i.+pped a wolf-headed image.

AUTHORITIES.--For a fuller discussion and full references to these and other cults, that of the serpent excepted, see N.W. Thomas in Hastings' _Dictionary of Religions_; Frazer, _Golden Bough_; Campbell's _Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom_; Maclennan's _Studies_ (series 2); V. Gennep, _Tabou et totemisme a Madagascar_. For the serpent, see Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, p. 54; _Internat. Archiv_, xvii. 113; Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 239; Fergusson, _Tree and Serpent Wors.h.i.+p_; Mahly,_Die Schlange im Mythus_; Staniland Wake, _Serpent Wors.h.i.+p, &c._; _16th Annual Report of the American Bureau of Ethnology_, p. 273, and bibliography, p. 312. For the bull, &c., in Egypt, see EGYPT: _Religion_.

(N.W.T.)

ANIMe, an oleo-resin (said to be so called because in its natural state it is infested with insects) which is exuded from the locust tree, _Hymenaea coumaril_, and other species of _Hymenaea_ growing in tropical South America. It is of a pale brown colour, transparent, brittle, and in consequence of its agreeable odour is used for fumigation and in perfumery. Its specific gravity varies from 1.054 to 1.057. It melts readily over the fire, and softens even with the heat of the mouth; it is insoluble in water, and nearly so in cold alcohol.

It is allied to copal in its nature and appearance, and is much used by varnish-makers. The name is also given to Zanzibar copal (_q.v._).

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ANIMISM (from _animus_, or _anima_, mind or soul), according to the definition of Dr. E.B. Tylor, the doctrine of spiritual beings, including human souls; in practice, however, the term is often extended to include panthelism or animatism, the doctrine that a great part, if not the whole, of the inanimate kingdom, as well as all animated beings, are endowed with reason, intelligence and volition, identical with that of man. This latter theory, which in many cases is equivalent to personification, though it may be, like animism, a feature of the philosophy of peoples of low culture, should not be confused with it. But it is difficult in practice to distinguish the two phases of thought and no clear account of animatism can yet be given, largely on the ground that no people has yet been discovered which has not already developed to a greater or less extent an animistic philosophy. On theoretical grounds it is probable that animatism preceded animism; but savage thought is no more consistent than that of civilized man; and it may well be that animistic and panthelistic doctrines are held simultaneously by the same person. In like manner one portion of the savage explanation of nature may have been originally animistic, another part animatistic.

_Origin_.--Animism may have arisen out of or simultaneously with animatism as a primitive explanation of many different phenomena; if animatism was originally applied to non-human or inanimate objects, animism may from the outset have been in vogue as a theory of the nature of man. Lists of phenomena from the contemplation of which the savage was led to believe in animism have been given by Dr. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Andrew Lang and others; an animated controversy arose between the former as to the priority of their respective lists. Among these phenomena are: trance (_q.v._) and unconsciousness, sickness, death, clairvoyance (_q.v._), dreams (_q.v._), apparitions (_q.v._) of the dead, wraiths, hallucinations (_q.v._), echoes, shadows and reflections.

Primitive ideas on the subject of the soul, and at the same time the origin of them, are best ill.u.s.trated by an a.n.a.lysis of the terms applied to it. Readers of Dante know the idea that the dead have no shadows; this was no invention of the poet's but a piece of traditionary lore; at the present day among the Basutos it is held that a man walking by the brink of a river may lose his life if his shadow falls on the water, for a crocodile may seize it and draw him in; in Tasmania, North and South America and cla.s.sical Europe is found the conception that the soul--[Greek: skia], _umbra_--is somehow identical with the shadow of a man. More familiar to the Anglo-Saxon race is the connexion between the soul and the breath; this identification is found both in Aryan and Semitic languages; in Latin we have _spiritus_, in Greek _pneuma_, in Hebrew _ruach_; and the idea is found extending downwards to the lowest planes of culture in Australia, America and Asia. For some of the Red Indians the Roman custom of receiving the breath of a dying man was no mere pious duty but a means of ensuring that his soul was transferred to a new body.

Other familiar conceptions identify the soul with the liver (see OMEN) or the heart, with the reflected figure seen in the pupil of the eye, and with the blood. Although the soul is often distinguished from the vital principle, there are many cases in which a state of unconsciousness is explained as due to the absence of the soul; in South Australia _wilyamarraba_ (without soul) is the word used for insensible. So too the autohypnotic trance of the magician or _shaman_ is regarded as due to his visit to distant regions or the nether world, of which he brings back an account. Telepathy or clairvoyance (_q.v._), with or without trance, must have operated powerfully to produce a conviction of the dual nature of man, for it seems probable that facts unknown to the automatist are sometimes discovered by means of crystal-gazing (_q.v._), which is widely found among savages, as among civilized peoples. Sickness is often explained as due to the absence of the soul; and means are sometimes taken to lure back the wandering soul; when a Chinese is at the point of death and his soul is supposed to have already left his body, the patient's coat is held up on a long bamboo while a priest endeavours to bring the departed spirit back into the coat by means of incantations. If the bamboo begins to turn round in the hands of the relative who is deputed to hold it, it is regarded as a sign that the soul of the moribund has returned (see AUTOMATISM). More important perhaps than all these phenomena, because more regular and normal, was the daily period of sleep with its frequent concomitant of fitful and incoherent ideas and images. The mere immobility of the body was sufficient to show that its state was not identical with that of waking; when, in addition, the sleeper awoke to give an account of visits to distant lands, from which, as modern psychical investigations suggest, he may even have brought back veridical details, the conclusion must have been irresistible that in sleep something journeyed forth, which was not the body. In a minor degree revival of memory during sleep and similar phenomena of the sub-conscious life may have contributed to the same result. Dreams are sometimes explained by savages as journeys performed by the sleeper, sometimes as visits paid by other persons, by animals or objects to him; hallucinations, possibly more frequent in the lower stages of culture, must have contributed to fortify this interpretation, and the animistic theory in general. Seeing the phantasmic figures of friends at the moment when they were, whether at the point of death or in good health, many miles distant, must have led the savage irresistibly to the dualistic theory. But hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living; from the reappearance of dead friends or enemies primitive man was inevitably led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man which survived the dissolution of the body. The soul was conceived to be a facsimile of the body, sometimes no less material, sometimes more subtle but yet material, sometimes altogether impalpable and intangible.

_Animism and Eschatology_.--The psychological side of animism has already been dealt with; almost equally important in primitive creeds is the eschatological aspect. In many parts of the world it is held that the human body is the seat of more than one soul; in the island of Nias four are distinguished, the shadow and the intelligence, which die with the body, a tutelary spirit, termed _begoe_, and a second which is carried on the head. Similar ideas are found among the Euahlayi of S.E. Australia, the Dakotas and many other tribes. Just as in Europe the ghost of a dead person is held to haunt the churchyard or the place of death, although more orthodox ideas may be held and enunciated by the same person as to the nature of a future life, so the savage, more consistently, a.s.signs different abodes to the multiple souls with which he credits man. Of the four souls of a Dakota, one is held to stay with the corpse, another in the village, a third goes into the air, while the fourth goes to the land of souls, where its lot may depend on its rank in this life, its s.e.x, mode of death or sepulture, on the due observance of funeral ritual, or many other points (see ESCHATOLOGY). From the belief in the survival of the dead arose the practice of offering food, lighting fires, &c., at the grave, at first, maybe, as an act of friends.h.i.+p or filial piety, later as an act of wors.h.i.+p (see ANCESTOR WORs.h.i.+P). The simple offering of food or shedding of blood at the grave develops into an elaborate system of sacrifice; even where ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is not found, the desire to provide the dead with comforts in the future life may lead to the sacrifice of wives, slaves, animals, &c., to the breaking or burning of objects at the grave or to the provision of the ferryman's toll, a coin put in the mouth of the corpse to pay the travelling expenses of the soul. But all is not finished with the pa.s.sage of the soul to the land of the dead; the soul may return to avenge its death by helping to discover the murderer, or to wreak vengeance for itself; there is a widespread belief that those who die a violent death become malignant spirits and endanger the lives of those who come near the haunted spot; the woman who dies in child-birth becomes a _pontianak_, and threatens the life of human beings; and man resorts to magical or religious means of repelling his spiritual dangers.

_Development of Animism_.--If the phenomena of dreams were, as suggested above, of great importance for the development of animism, the belief, which must originally have been a doctrine of human psychology, cannot have failed to expand speedily into a general philosophy of nature. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams; and the conclusion would be that they too have souls; the same conclusion may have been reached by another line of argument; primitive psychology posited a spirit in a man to account, amongst other things, for his actions; a natural explanation of the changes in the external world would be that they are due to the operations and volitions of spirits.

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