Part 5 (1/2)
--HOLLIS, p. 351.
Nor is it in a purely selfish spirit that the Masai women pray that their warriors may have the advantage over all their enemies:--
I
”O G.o.d of battles, break The power of the foe.
{146}
Their cattle may we take, Their mightiest lay low.
II
”Sing, O ye maidens fair, For triumph o'er the foe.
This is the time for prayer Success our arms may know.
III
”Morning and evening stars That in the heavens glow, Break, as in other wars, The power of the foe.
IV
”O dweller, where on high Flushes at dawn the snow, O Cloud G.o.d, break, we cry, The power of the foe.”
--_Ib._, p. 352.
Again, the rain that is prayed for by the Manganja of Lake Nya.s.sa is an advantage indeed, but one enjoyed by the community and prayed for by the community. They made offerings to the Supreme Deity that he might give them rain, and ”the priestess dropped the meal handful by handful on the ground, each time calling in a high-pitched voice, {147} 'Hear thou, O G.o.d, and send rain!' and the a.s.sembled people responded, clapping their hands softly and intoning (they always intone their prayers), 'Hear thou, O G.o.d'” (Tylor, p. 368).
The appeal then to facts shows that it is with the desires of the community that the G.o.d of the community is concerned, and that it is by a representative of the community that those desires are offered up in prayer, and that the community may join in. The appeal to facts shows, also, that an individual may put up individual pet.i.tions, as when a Yebu will pray: ”G.o.d in heaven protect me from sickness and death. G.o.d give me happiness and wisdom.” But we may safely infer that the only prayers that the G.o.d of the community is expected to harken to are prayers that are consistent with the interests and welfare of the community.
From that point of view we must refuse to give more than a guarded a.s.sent to the ”opinion that prayer appeared in the religion of the lower culture, but that in this its earlier stage it was unethical”
(Tylor, 364). Prayer obviously does appear in the religion of the lower culture, but to say that it there is unethical is to make a statement which requires defining. The statement means what {148} Professor Tylor expresses later on in the words: ”It scarcely appears as though any savage prayer, authentically native in its origin, were ever directed to obtain moral goodness or to ask pardon for moral sin”
(p. 373). But it might be misunderstood to mean that among savages it was customary or possible to pray for things recognised by the savage himself as wrong, and condemned by the community at large. In the first place, however, the G.o.d of the community simply as being the G.o.d of the community would not tolerate such prayers. Next, the range and extent of savage morality is less extensive than it is--or at any rate than it ought to be--in our day; and though we must recognise and at the right time insist upon the difference, that ought not to make us close our eyes to the fact that the savage does pray to do the things which savage morality holds it inc.u.mbent on him to do, for instance to fight bravely for the good of his wife, his children, and his tribe, to carry out the duty of avenging murder. And if he prays for wealth he also prays for wisdom; if he prays that his G.o.d may deliver him from sickness, that shows he is human rather than that he is a low type of humanity.
It would seem, then, that though in religions of low {149} culture we meet religion under the guise of desire, we also find that religion makes a distinction between desires; there are desires which may be expressed to the G.o.d of the community, and desires which may not.
Further, though it is in the heart of a person and an individual that desire must originate, it does not follow that prayer originates in individual desire. To say so, we must a.s.sume that the same desire cannot possibly originate simultaneously in different persons. But that is a patently erroneous a.s.sumption: in time of war, the desire for victory will spring up simultaneously in the hearts of all the tribe; in time of drought, the prayer for rain will ascend from the hearts of all the people; at the time of the sowing of seed a prayer for ”the kindly fruits of the earth” may be uttered by every member of the community. Now it is precisely these desires, which being desires must originate in individual souls, yet being desires of every individual in the community are the desires of the community, that are the desires which take the form of prayer offered by the community or its representative to the G.o.d of the community. Anti-social desires cannot be expressed by the community or sanctioned by religion. Prayer is the essential {150} expression of true socialism; and the spirit which prompts it is and has always been the moving spirit of social progress.
Professor Tylor, noticing the ”extreme development of mechanical religion, the prayer-mill of the Tibetan Buddhists,” suggests that it ”may perhaps lead us to form an opinion of large application in the study of religion and superst.i.tion; namely, that the theory of prayers may explain the origin of charms. Charm-formulae,” he says, ”are in very many cases actual prayers, and as such are intelligible. Where they are mere verbal forms, producing their effect on nature and man by some unexplained process, may not they or the types they have been modelled on have been originally prayers, since dwindled into mystic sentences?” (_P. C._ II, 372-373). Now, if this suggestion of Professor Tylor's be correct, it will follow that as charms and spells are degraded survivals of prayer, so magic generally--of which charms and spells are but one department--is a degradation of religion. That in many cases charms and spells are survivals of prayer--formulae from which all spirit of religion has entirely evaporated--all students of the science of religion would now admit. That prayers may {151} stiffen into traditional formulae, and then become vain repet.i.tions which may actually be unintelligible to those who utter them, and so be conceived to have a force which is purely magical and a ”nature practically a.s.similated more or less to that of charms” (_l.c._), is a fact which cannot be denied. But when once the truth has been admitted that prayers may pa.s.s into spells, the possibility is suggested that it is out of spells that prayer has originated. Mercury raised to a high temperature becomes red precipitate; and red precipitate exposed to a still greater heat becomes mercury again. Spells may be the origin of prayers, if prayers show a tendency to relapse into spells. That possibility fits in either with the theory that magic preceded religion or still more exactly with the theory that religion simply is magic raised, so to speak, to a higher moral temperature. We have therefore to consider the possibility that the process of evolution has been from spell to prayer (R. R. Marett, _Folk-Lore_ XV, 2, pp. 132-166); and let us begin the consideration by observing that the reverse pa.s.sage--from prayer to spell--is only possible on the condition that religion evaporates entirely in the process. The prayer does not become a charm until the {152} religion has disappeared entirely from it: a charm therefore is that in which no religion is, and out of which consequently no religion can be extracted. If then, _per impossibile_, it could be demonstrated that there was a period in the history of mankind, when charms and magic existed, and religion was utterly unknown; if it be argued that the spirit of religion, when at length it breathed upon mankind, transformed spells into prayers--still all that would then be maintained is that spoken formulae which were spells were followed by other formulae which are the very opposite of spells. Must we not, however, go one step further and admit that one and the same form of words may be prayer and religion when breathed in one spirit, and vain repet.i.tion and mere magic when uttered in another? Let us admit that the difference between prayer and spell lies in the difference of the spirit inspiring them; and then we shall see that the difference is essential, fundamental, as little to be ignored as it is impossible to bridge.
The formula used by the person employing it to express his desire may or may not in itself suffice to show whether it is religious in intent and value. Thus in West Africa the women of Framin dance {153} and sing, ”Our husbands have gone to Ashantee land; may they sweep their enemies off the face of the earth” (Frazer, _Golden Bough_,^2 I, 34).
We may compare the song sung in time of war by the Masai women: ”O G.o.d, to whom I pray for offspring, may our children return hither” (Hollis, p. 351); and there seems no reason why, since the Masai song is religious, the Framin song may not be regarded as religious also. But we have to remember that both prayers and spells have a setting of their own: the desires which they express manifest themselves not only in what is said but in what is done; and, when we enquire what the Framin women do whilst they sing the words quoted above, we find that they dance with brushes in their hands. The brushes are quite as essential as the words. It is therefore suggested that the whole ceremony is magical, that the sweeping is sympathetic magic and the song is a spell. The words explain what the action is intended to effect, just as in New Caledonia when a man has kindled a smoky fire and has performed certain acts, he ”invokes his ancestors and says, 'Sun! I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds in the sky'” (Frazer, _ib._, 116). Again, amongst the Masai in time of {154} drought a charm called ol-kora is thrown into a fire; the old men encircle the fire and sing:--
”G.o.d of the rain-cloud, slake our thirst, We know thy far-extending powers, As herdsmen lead their kine to drink, Refresh us with thy cooling showers.”
--HOLLIS, p. 348.
If the ol-kora which is thrown into the fire makes it rise in clouds of smoke, resembling the rain-clouds which are desired, then here too the ceremony taken as a whole presents the appearance of a magical rite accompanied by a spoken spell. It is true that in this case the ceremony is reenforced by an appeal to a G.o.d, just as in the New Caledonian case it is reenforced by an appeal to ancestor wors.h.i.+p. But this may be explained as showing that here we have magic and charms being gradually superseded by religion and prayer; the old formula and the old rite are in process of being suffused by a new spirit, the spirit of religion, which is the very negation and ultimately the destruction of the old spirit of magic. Before accepting this interpretation, however, which is intended to show the priority of magic to religion, we may notice that it is not the only interpretation of which the facts are susceptible. It is {155} based on the a.s.sumption that the words uttered are intended as an explanation of the meaning of the acts performed. If that a.s.sumption is correct, then the performer of the ceremony is explaining its meaning and intention to somebody. To whom? In the case of the New Caledonian ceremony, to the ancestral spirits; in the case of the Masai old men, to the G.o.d. Thus, the religious aspect of the ceremony appears after all to be an essential part of the ceremony, and not a new element in an old rite.
And, then, we may consistently argue that the Framin women who sing, ”Our husbands have gone to Ashantee land; may they sweep their enemies off the face of the earth,” are either still conscious that they are addressing a prayer to their native G.o.d; or that, if they are no longer conscious of the fact, they once were, and what was originally prayer has become by vain repet.i.tion a mere spell. All this is on the a.s.sumption that in these ceremonies, the words are intended to explain the meaning of the acts performed, and therefore to explain it to somebody, peradventure he will understand and grant the performer of the ceremony his heart's desire. But, as the consequences of the a.s.sumption do not favour the theory that prayer must be {156} preceded by spell, let us discard the a.s.sumption that the words explain the meaning of the acts performed. Let us consider the possibility that perhaps the actions which are gone through are meant to explain the words and make them more forcible. It is undeniable that in moments of emotion we express ourselves by gesture and the play of our features as well as by our words; indeed, in reading a play we are apt to miss the full meaning of the words simply because they are not a.s.sisted and interpreted by the actor's gestures and features. If we take up this position, that the things done are explanatory of the words uttered and reenforce them, then the sweeping which is acted by the Framin women again is not magical; it simply emphasises the words, ”may they sweep their enemies off the face of the earth,” and shows to the power appealed to what it is that is desired. The smoke sent up by the New Caledonian ancestor wors.h.i.+pper or the Masai old men is a way of indicating the clouds which they wish to attract or avert respectively.
An equally clear case comes from the Kei Islands: ”When the warriors have departed, the women return indoors and bring out certain baskets containing fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they anoint and place on a board, {157} murmuring as they do so, 'O lord sun, moon, let the bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and other relations, just as raindrops rebound from these objects which are smeared with oil'” (Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 33). It is, I think, perfectly reasonable to regard the act performed as explanatory of the words uttered and of the thing desired; the women themselves explain to their lords, the sun and moon,--with the precision natural to women when explaining what they want,--exactly how they want the bullets to bounce off, just like raindrops. Dr. Frazer, however, from whom I have quoted this ill.u.s.tration, not having perhaps considered the possibility that the acts performed may be explanatory of the words, is compelled to explain the action as magical: ”in this custom the ceremony of anointing stones in order that the bullets may recoil from the men like raindrops from the stones is a piece of pure sympathetic or imitative magic.” He is therefore compelled to suggest that the prayer to the sun is a prayer that he will give effect to the charm, and is perhaps a later addition. But independently of the possibility that the actions performed are explanatory of the words, or rather that words and actions both are intended to make clear to the sun precisely {158} what the pet.i.tion is, what tells against Dr. Frazer's suggestion is that the women want the bullets to bounce off, and it is the power of the G.o.d to which they appeal and on which they rely for the fulfilment of their prayer.
There is, however, a further consideration which we should perhaps take into account. Man, when he has a desire which he wishes to realise,--and the whole of our life is spent in trying to realise what we wish,--takes all the steps which experience shows to be necessary or reason suggests; and, when he has done everything that he can do, he may still feel that nothing is certain in this life, and the thing may not come off. Under those circ.u.mstances he may, and often does, pray that success may attend his efforts. Now Dr. Frazer, in the second edition of his _Golden Bough_, wis.h.i.+ng to show that the period of religion was preceded by a non-religious period in the history of mankind, suggests that at first man had no idea that his attempts to realise his desires could fail, and that it was his ”tardy recognition”
of the fact that led him to religion. This tardy recognition, he says, probably ”proceeded very slowly, and required long ages for its more or less perfect accomplishment. For the recognition of man's powerlessness to influence the course of {159} nature on a grand scale must have been gradual” (I, 78). I would suggest, however, that it cannot have taken ”long ages” for savage man to discover that his wishes and his plans did not always come off. It is, I think, going too far to imagine that for long ages man had no idea that his attempts to realise his desires could fail. If religion arises, as Dr. Frazer suggests, when man recognises his own weakness and his own powerlessness, often, to effect what he most desires, then man in his most primitive and most helpless condition must have been most ready to recognise that there were powers other than himself, and to desire, that is to pray for, their a.s.sistance. Doubtless it would be at the greater crises, times of pestilence, drought, famine and war, that his prayers would be most insistent; but it is in the period of savagery that famine is most frequent and drought most to be feared. Against them he takes all the measures known to him, all the practical steps which natural science, as understood by him, can suggest. Now his theory and practice include many things which, though they are in later days regarded as uncanny and magical, are to him the ordinary natural means of producing the effects which he desires. But when he has taken all {160} the steps which practical reason suggests, and experience of the past approves, savage man, hara.s.sed by the dread of approaching drought or famine, may still breathe out the Manganja prayer, ”Hear thou, O G.o.d, and send rain.” When, however, he does so, it is, I suggest, doubly erroneous to infer that this prayer takes the place of a spell or that apart from the prayer the acts performed are, and originally were, magical. These acts may be based on the principle that like produces like and may be performed as the ordinary, natural means for producing the effect, which have nothing magical about them.