Part 19 (2/2)
Meanwhile the mythology of the G.o.d has often, in or out of the rites, nothing rational about it.
On the whole it is evident that Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, underrates the nature of Australian religion. He cites a case of addressing the ghost of a man recently dead, which is asked not to bring sickness, 'or make loud noises in the night,' and says: 'Here we may recognise the essential elements of a cult.' But Mr. Spencer does not allude to the much more essentially religious elements which he might have found in the very authority whom he cites, Mr. Brough Smyth.[19] This appears, as far as my scrutiny goes, to be Mr. Spencer's solitary reference to Australia in the work on 'Ecclesiastical Inst.i.tutions.' Yet the facts which he and Mr. Huxley ignore throw a light very different from theirs on what they consider 'the simplest condition of theology.'
Among the causes of confusion in thought upon religion, Mr. Tylor mentions 'the partial and one-sided application of the historical method of inquiry into theological doctrines.'[20] Here, perhaps, we have examples. In its highest aspect that 'simplest theology' of Australia is free from the faults of popular theology in Greece. The G.o.d discourages sin, though, in myth, he is far from impeccable. He is almost too revered to be named (except in mythology) and is not to be represented by idols. He is not moved by sacrifice; he has not the chance; like Death in Greece, 'he only, of all G.o.ds, loves not gifts.' Thus the status of theology does not correspond to what we look for in very low culture. It would scarcely be a paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is degenerate from Mungan-ngaur, or the Fuegian being who forbids the slaying of an enemy, and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's fall.'
If we knew all the mythology of Darumulun, we should probably find it (like much of the myth of Pundjel or Bunjil) on a very different level from the theology. There are two currents, the religious and the mythical, flowing together through religion. The former current, religious, even among very low savages, is pure from the magical ghost-propitiating habit.
The latter current, mythological, is full of magic, mummery, and scandalous legend. Sometimes the latter stream quite pollutes the former, sometimes they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as in Aztec ethical piety, compared with the b.l.o.o.d.y Aztec ritualism.
Anthropology has mainly kept her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the l.u.s.ts, mummeries, conjurings, and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively, or altogether, neglecting (as we have shown) what is honest and of good report.
The worse side of religion is the less sacred, and therefore the more conspicuous. Both elements are found co-existing, in almost all races, and n.o.body, in our total lack of historical information about the beginnings, can say which, if either, element is the earlier, or which, if either, is derived from the other. To suppose that propitiation of corpses and then of ghosts came first is agreeable, and seems logical, to some writers who are not without a bias against all religion as an unscientific superst.i.tion. But we know so little! The first missionaries in Greenland supposed that there was not, there, a trace of belief in a Divine Being.
'But when they came to understand their language better, they found quite the reverse to be true ... and not only so, but they could plainly gather from a free dialogue they had with some perfectly wild Greenlanders (at that time avoiding any direct application to their hearts) that their ancestors must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did render him some service, which their posterity neglected little by little...'[21] Mr.
Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Christian Scandinavian influence on the Eskimo.[22]
That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo said to a missionary, 'Thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things'
(theology). He then stated the argument from design. 'Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too...
Ah, did I but know him, how I would love and honour him.' As St. Paul writes: 'That which may be known of G.o.d is manifest in them, for G.o.d hath showed it unto them ... being understood by the things which are made ...
but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.'[23] In fact, mythology submerged religion. St. Paul's theory of the origin of religion is not that of an 'innate idea,' nor of a direct revelation. People, he says, reached the belief in a G.o.d from the Argument for Design. Science conceives herself to have annihilated teleological ideas. But they are among the probable origins of religion, and would lead to the belief in a Creator, whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and after whom he yearned. This is a very different initial step in religious development, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost.
From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic, non-monarchical, non-Manes-wors.h.i.+pping savages evolved the idea of a relatively supreme, moral, and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, watching men's lives. 'He can go everywhere, and do everything.'[24]
[Footnote 1: Fitzroy, ii. 180. Darwin. _Descent of Man_, p. 67.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid. We seem to have little information about Fuegian religion either before or after the cruise of the _Beagle_.]
[Footnote 3: _Principles of Sociology_, i. 422.]
[Footnote 4: Fitzroy, ii. 190, 191]
[Footnote 5: _Travels in West Africa_, p. 442.]
[Footnote 6: _Early Voyages to Australia_, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).]
[Footnote 7: _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, p. 846.]
[Footnote 8: _Journal of the Anthrop. Inst.i.tute_, 1884. See, for less dignified accounts, op. cit. xxiv. xxv.]
[Footnote 9: _Journal_, xiii. 193.]
[Footnote 10: _Journal_, xiii. 296.]
[Footnote 11: Op. cit. p. 450.]
[Footnote 12: P. 453.]
[Footnote 13: P. 457.]
[Footnote 14: See Brough Smyth, _Aborigines_, i. 426; Taplin, _Native Races of Australia_. According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black fellow, who died on earth. This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun. _J.A.I._, xiii. 194, xxv. 297.]
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