Part 5 (2/2)
And they are accompanied by a prayer which is not a mere explanation or statement of the purpose with which the acts are performed, but is the expression of the heart's desire.
No _a priori_ proofs of any cogency, therefore, have been adduced by Dr. Frazer, and none therefore are likely to be produced by any one else, to show that there was ever a period in the history of man when prayers and religion were unknown to him. The question remains whether any actual instances are known to the science of religion.
Unfortunately, as I pointed out at the beginning of this lecture, so neglected by the science of religion has been the subject of prayer that even now we are scarcely {161} able to go beyond the statement made more than a quarter of a century ago by Professor Tylor that, ”at low levels of civilisation there are many races who distinctly admit the existence of spirits, but are not certainly known to pray to them even in thought” (_P. C._ II, 364). Professor Tylor's statement is properly guarded: there are races not certainly known to pray. The possibility that they may yet be discovered to make prayers is not excluded.
Now, if we turn to one of the lowest levels of culture, that of the Australian black fellows, we shall find that there is much doubt amongst students whether the ”aborigines have consciously any form of religion whatever” (Howitt, _Native Tribes of S. E. Australia_), and in southeast Australia Mr. Howitt thinks it cannot be alleged that they have, though their beliefs are such that they might easily have developed into an actual religion (p. 507). Now one of the tribes of southeast Australia is that of the Dieri. With them rain is very important, for periods of drought are frequent; and ”rain-making ceremonies are considered of much consequence” (p. 394). The ceremonies are symbolic: there is ”blood to symbolise the rain” and two large stones ”representing gathering {162} clouds presaging rain,” just as the New Caledonian sends up clouds of smoke to symbolise rain-clouds, and the Masai, we have conjectured, throw ol-kora into the fire for the same purpose. But the New Caledonian not only performs the actions prescribed for the rite, he also invokes the spirits of his ancestors; and the Masai not only go through the proper dance, but call upon the G.o.d of the rain-cloud. The Dieri, however, ought to be content with their symbolic or sympathetic magic and not offer up any prayer. But, being unaware of this fact, they do pray: they call ”upon the rain-making _Mura-muras_ to give them power to make a heavy rainfall, crying out in loud voices the impoverished state of the country, and the half-starved condition of the tribe, in consequence of the difficulty in procuring food in sufficient quant.i.ty to preserve life” (p. 394). The _Mura-muras_ seem to be ancestral spirits, like those invoked by the New Caledonian. If we turn to the Euahlayi tribe of northwestern New South Wales, we find that at the Boorah rites a prayer is offered to Byamee, ”asking him to let the blacks live long, for they have been faithful to his charge as shown by the observance of the Boorah ceremony” (L. Parker, _The Euahlayi {163} Tribe_, p. 79).
That is the prayer of the community to Byamee, and is in conformity with what we have noted before, viz. that it is with the desires of the community that the G.o.d of the community is concerned. Another prayer, the nature of which is not stated by Mrs. Parker, by whom the information is given us, is put up at funerals, presumably to Byamee by the community or its representative. Mrs. Parker adds: ”Though we say that actually these people have but two attempts at prayers, one at the grave and one at the inner Boorah ring, I think perhaps we are wrong.
When a man invokes aid on the eve of battle, or in his hour of danger and need; when a woman croons over her baby an incantation to keep him honest and true, and that he shall be spared in danger,--surely these croonings are of the nature of prayers born of the same elementary frame of mind as our more elaborate litanies.” As an instance of the croonings Mrs. Parker gives the mother's song over her baby as soon as it begins to crawl:---
”Kind be, Do not steal, Do not touch what to another belongs, Leave all such alone, Kind be.”
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These instances may suffice to show that it would not have been safe to infer, a year or two ago, from the fact that the Australians were not known to pray, that therefore prayer was unknown to them. Indeed, we may safely go farther and surmise that other instances besides those noted really exist, though they have not been observed or if observed have not been understood. Among the northern tribes of central Australia rites are performed to secure food, just as they are performed by the Dieri to avert drought. The Dieri rites are accompanied by a prayer, as we have seen. The Kaitish rites to promote the growth of gra.s.s are accompanied by the singing of words, which ”have no meaning known to the natives of the present day” (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 292). Amongst the Mara tribe the rain-making rite consists simply in ”singing” the water, drinking it and spitting it out in all directions. In the Anula tribe ”dugongs are a favourite article of food,” and if the natives desire to bring them out from the rocks, they ”can do so by 'singing' and throwing sticks at the rocks” (_ib._, pp. 313, 314). It is reasonable to suppose that in all these cases the ”singing” is now merely a charm. But if we remember that prayers, when {165} their meaning is forgotten, pa.s.s by vain repet.i.tions into mere charms, we may also reasonably suppose that these Australian charms are degraded prayers; and we shall be confirmed in this supposition to some extent by the fact that in the Kaitish tribes the words sung ”have no meaning known to the natives of the present day.” If the meaning has evaporated, the religion may have evaporated with it. That the rites, of which the ”singing” is an essential part, have now become magical and are used and understood to be practised purely to promote the supply of dugongs and other articles of food, may be freely admitted; but it is unsafe to infer that the purpose with which the rites continue to be practised is the whole of the purpose with which they were originally performed. If the meaning of the ”singing” has pa.s.sed entirely away, the meaning of the rites may have suffered a change. At the present day the rite is understood to increase the supply of dugongs or other articles of food. But it may have been used originally for other purposes. Presumably rites of a similar kind, certainly of some kind, are practised by the Australians who have for their totem the blow-fly, the water-beetle, or the evening star. But they do not {166} eat flies or beetles. Their original purpose in choosing the evening star cannot have been to increase its number. Nor can that have been the object of choosing the mosquito for a totem. But if the object of the rites is not to increase the number of mosquitoes, flies, and beetles, it need not in the first instance have been the object with which the rites were celebrated in the case of other totems.
Let us now return to Professor Tylor's statement that ”at low levels of civilisation there are many races who distinctly admit the existence of spirits, but are not certainly known to pray to them even in thought.”
The number of those races who are not known to pray is being reduced, as we have seen. And I think we may go even farther than that and say that where the existence of spirits is not merely believed in, but is utilised for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng permanent relations between a community and a spirit, we may safely infer that the community offers prayer to the spirit, even though the fact may have escaped the notice of travellers. The reason why we may infer it is that at the lower levels of civilisation we meet with religion, in Hoffding's words, ”in the guise of desire.” We may put the same truth in other words and say that religion is {167} from the beginning practical. Such prayers as are known to us to be put up by the lowest races are always practical: they may be definite pet.i.tions for definite goods such as harvest or rain or victory in time of war; or they may be general pet.i.tions such as that of the Khonds: ”We are ignorant of what it is good for us to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it us.” But in any case what the G.o.d of a community is there for is to promote the good of the community. It is because the savage has pet.i.tions to put up that he believes there are powers who can grant his pet.i.tions. Prayer is the very root of religion. When the savage has taken every measure he knows of to produce the result he desires, he then goes on to pray for the rainfall he desires, crying out in a loud voice ”the impoverished state of the country and the half-starved condition of the tribe.” It is true that it is in moments of stress particularly, if not solely, that the savage turns to his G.o.d--and the same may be said of many of us--but it is with confidence and hope that he turns to him. If he had no confidence and no hope, he would offer no prayers. But he has hope, he has faith; and every time he prays his heart says, if his words do not, ”in Thee, Lord, do we put our trust.”
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That prayer is the essence, the very breath, of religion, without which it dies, is shown by the fact that amongst the very lowest races of mankind we find frequent traditions of the existence of a high G.o.d or supreme being, the creator of the world and the father of mankind. The numerous traces of this dying tradition have been collected by the untiring energy and the unrivalled knowledge of Mr. Andrew Lang in his book, _The Making of Religion_. In West Africa Dr. Na.s.sau (_Fetichism in West Africa_, pp. 36 ff.) ”hundreds of times” (p. 37) has found that ”they know of a Being superior to themselves, of whom they themselves,”
he says, ”inform me that he is the Maker and the Father.” What is characteristic of the belief of the savages in this G.o.d is that, in Dr.
Na.s.sau's words, ”it is an accepted belief, but it does not often influence their life. 'G.o.d is not in all their thought.' In practice they give Him no wors.h.i.+p.” The belief is in fact a dying tradition; and it is dying because prayer is not offered to this remote and traditional G.o.d. I say that the belief is a dying tradition, and I say so because its elements, which are all found present and active where a community believes in, prays to, and wors.h.i.+ps the G.o.d of the community, {169} are found partially, but only partially, present where the belief survives but as a tradition. Thus, for instance, where the belief is fully operative, the G.o.d of the community sanctions the morality of the community; but sometimes where the belief has become merely traditional, this traditional G.o.d is supposed to take no interest in the community and exercises no ethical influence over the community.
Thus, in West Africa, Nyankupon is ”ignored rather than wors.h.i.+pped.”
In the Andaman Islands, on the other hand, where the G.o.d Puluga is still angered by sin or wrong-doing, he is pitiful to those in pain or distress and ”sometimes deigns to afford relief” (Lang p. 212 quoting _Man_, _J. A._ I., XII, 158). Again, where the belief in the G.o.d of the community is fully operative, the occasions on which the prayers of the community are offered are also the occasions on which sacrifice is made. Where sacrifice and prayers are not offered, the belief may still for a time survive, at it does among the Fuegians. They make no sacrifice and, as far as is known, offer no prayers; but to kill a man brings down the wrath of their G.o.d, the big man in the woods: ”Rain come down, snow come down, hail come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. {170} Very bad to kill man. Big man in woods no like it, he very angry” (Lang, p. 188, quoting Fitzroy, II, 180). But when sacrifice and prayer cease, the ultimate outcome is that which is found amongst the West African natives, who, as Dr. Na.s.sau tells us (p. 38), say with regard to Anzam, whom they admit to be their Creator and Father, ”Why should we care for him? He does not help nor harm us. It is the spirits who can harm us whom we fear and wors.h.i.+p, and for whom we care.” Who the spirits are Dr. Na.s.sau does not say, but they must be either the other G.o.ds of the place or the fetich spirits. And the reason why Anzam is no longer believed to help or harm the natives is obviously that, from some cause or other, there is now no longer any established form of wors.h.i.+p of him. The community of which he was originally the G.o.d may have broken up, or more probably may have been broken up, with the result that the congregation which met to offer prayer and sacrifice to Anzam was scattered; and the memory of him alone survives. Nothing would be more natural, then, than that the natives, when asked by Dr. Na.s.sau, ”Why do you not wors.h.i.+p him?” (p.
38), should invent a reason, viz. that it is no use wors.h.i.+pping {171} him now--the truth being that the form of wors.h.i.+p has perished for reasons now no longer present to the natives' mind. In any case, when prayers cease to be offered--whether because the community is broken up or because some new quarter is discovered to which prayers can be offered with greater hope of success--when prayers, for any reason, do cease to be offered to a G.o.d, the wors.h.i.+p of him begins to cease also, for the breath of life has departed from it.
In this lecture, as my subject is primitive religion, I have made no attempt to trace the history of prayer farther than the highest point which it reaches in the lower levels of religion. That is the point reached by the Khond prayer: ”We are ignorant of what it is good to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it us.” That is also the highest point reached by the most religious mind amongst the ancient Greeks: Socrates prayed the G.o.ds simply for things good, because the G.o.ds knew best what is good (Xen., _Mem._, I, iii, 2). The general impression left on one's mind by the prayers offered in this stage of religious development is that man is here and the G.o.ds are--there. But ”there” is such a long way off. And yet, far off as it is, man {172} never came to think it was so far off that the G.o.ds could not hear.
The possibility of man's entering into some sort of communication with them was always present. Nay! more, a community of interests between him and them was postulated: the G.o.ds were to promote the interests of the community, and man was to serve the G.o.ds. On occasions when sacrifice was made and prayer was offered, the wors.h.i.+ppers entered into the presence of G.o.d, and communion with Him was sought; but stress was laid rather on the sacrifice offered than on the prayers sent up. The communion at which animal sacrifice aimed may have been gross at times, and at others mystic; but it was the sacrifice rather than the prayer which accompanied it that was regarded as essential to the communion desired, as the means of bridging the gap between man here and the G.o.ds there. If, however, the gap was to be bridged, a new revelation was necessary, one revealing the real nature of the sacrifice required by G.o.d, and of the communion desired by man. And that revelation is made in Our Lord's Prayer. With the most earnest and unfeigned desire to use the theory of evolution as a means of ordering the facts of the history of religion and of enabling {173} us--so far as it can enable us--to understand them, one is bound to notice as a fact that the theory of evolution is unable to account for or explain the revelation, made in Our Lord's Prayer, of the spirit which is both human and divine. It is the beam of light which, when turned on the darkness of the past, enables us to see whither man with his prayers and his sacrifices had been blindly striving, the place where he fain would be.
It is the surest beacon the missionary can hold out to those who are still in darkness and who show by the fact that they pray--if only for rain, for harvest, and victory over all their enemies--that they are battling with the darkness and that they have not turned entirely away from the light of His countenance who is never at any time far from any one of us. Their heart within them is ready to bear witness. Religion is present in them, if only under ”the guise of desire”; but it is ”the desire of all nations” for which they yearn.
There are, Hoffding says, ”two tendencies in the nature of religious feeling: on the one hand there is the need to collect and concentrate ourselves, to resign ourselves, to feel ourselves supported and carried by a power raised above all {174} struggle and opposition and beyond all change. But within the religious consciousness another need makes itself felt, the need of feeling that in the midst of the struggle we have a fellow-struggler at our side, a fellow-struggler who knows from his own experience what it is to suffer and meet resistance” (_The Philosophy of Religion_, -- 54). Between these two tendencies Hoffding discovers an opposition or contradiction, an ”antinomy of religious feeling.” But it is precisely because Christianity alone of all religions recognises both needs that it transcends the antinomy. The antinomy is indeed purely intellectual. Hoffding himself says, ”only when recollection, collation, and comparison are possible do we discover the opposition or the contradiction between the two tendencies.” And in saying that, inasmuch as recollection, collation, and comparison are intellectual processes, he admits that the antinomy is intellectual. That it is not an antinomy of religious feeling is shown by the fact that the two needs exist, that is to say, are both felt. To say _a priori_ that both cannot be satisfied is useless in face of the fact that those who feel them find that Christianity satisfies them.
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SACRIFICE
In my last lecture I called attention to the fact that the subject of prayer has been strangely neglected by the science of religion.
Religion, in whatever form it manifests itself, is essentially practical; man desires to enter into communication or into communion with his G.o.d, and in so doing he has a practical purpose in view. That purpose may be to secure a material blessing of a particular kind, such as victory in war or the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth in their due season, or the purpose may be to offer thanks for a harvest and to pray for a continuance of prosperity generally. Or the purpose of prayer may be to ask for deliverance from material evils, such as famine or plague. Or it may be to ask for deliverance from moral evils and for power to do G.o.d's will. In a word, if man had no prayer to make, the most powerful, if not the only, motive inciting him to seek communion would be wanting. Now, to some of us it may seem _a priori_ that there is no reason why the communion thus sought in {176} prayer should require any external rite to sanction or condition it. If that is our _a priori_ view, we shall be the more surprised to find that in actual fact an external rite has always been felt to be essential; and that rite has always been and still is sacrifice, in one or other of its forms. Or, to put the same fact in another way, public wors.h.i.+p has been from the beginning the condition without which private wors.h.i.+p could not begin and without which private wors.h.i.+p cannot continue. To any form of religion, whatever it be, it is essential, if it is to be religion, that there shall be a community of wors.h.i.+ppers and a G.o.d wors.h.i.+pped. The bond which unites the wors.h.i.+ppers with one another and with their G.o.d is religion. From the beginning the public wors.h.i.+p in which the wors.h.i.+ppers have united has expressed itself in rites--rites of sacrifice--and in the prayers of the community. To the end, the prayers offered are prayers to ”Our Father”; and if the wors.h.i.+pper is spatially separated from, he is spiritually united to, his fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers even in private prayer.
We may then recognise that prayer logically and ultimately implies sacrifice in one or other of its senses; and that sacrifice as a rite is meaningless and impossible without prayer. But if we recognise {177} that sacrifice wherever it occurs implies prayer, then the fact that the observers of savage or barbarous rites have described the ritual acts of sacrifice, but have not observed or have neglected to report the prayers implied, will not lead us into the error of imagining that sacrifice is a rite which can exist--that it can have a religious existence--without prayer. We may attend to either, the sacrifice or to the prayer, as we may attend either to the concavity or the convexity of a curve, but we may not deny the existence and presence of the one because our attention happens to be concentrated on the other. The relation in primitive religion of the one to the other we may express by saying that prayer states the motive with which the sacrifice is made, and that sacrifice is essential to the prayer, which would not be efficacious without the sacrifice. The reason why a community can address the G.o.d which it wors.h.i.+ps is that the G.o.d is felt to be identified in some way with the community and to have its interests in his charge and care. And the rite of sacrifice is felt to make the identification more real. Prayer, again, is possible only to the G.o.d to whom the community is known; with whom it is identified, more or less; and with whom, when his help is required, the {178} community seeks to identify itself more effectually. The means of that identification without which the prayers of the community would be ineffectual is sacrifice. The earliest form of sacrifice may probably be taken to be the sacrifice of an animal, followed by a sacrificial meal. Later, when the G.o.d has a stated place in which he is believed to manifest himself,--tree or temple,--then the identification may be effected by attaching offerings to the tree or temple. But in either case what is sought by the offering dedicated or the meal of sacrifice is in a word ”incorporation.” The wors.h.i.+ppers desire to feel that they are at one with the spirit whom they wors.h.i.+p. And the desire to experience this sense of union is particularly strong when plague or famine makes it evident that some estrangement has taken place between the G.o.d and the community which is normally in his care and under his protection. The sacrifices and prayers that are offered in such a case obviously do not open up communication for the first time between the G.o.d and his tribe: they revive and reenforce a communion which is felt to exist already, even though temporal misfortunes, such as drought or famine, testify that it has been allowed by the tribe to become less close than it ought to be, or that {179} it has been strained by transgressions on the part of individual members of the community. But it is not only in times of public distress that the community approaches its G.o.d with sacrifice and prayer. It so happens that the prayers offered for victory in war or for rain or for deliverance from famine are instances of prayer of so marked a character that they have forced themselves on the notice of travellers in all parts of the world, from the Eskimo to the Australian black fellows or the negroes of Africa. And it was to this cla.s.s of prayers that I called your attention princ.i.p.ally in the last lecture. But they are, when we come to think of it, essentially occasional prayers, prayers that are offered at the great crises of tribal life, when the very existence of the tribe is at stake. Such crises, however, by their very nature are not regular or normal; and it would be an error to suppose that it is only on these occasions that prayers are made by savage or barbarous peoples. If we wish to discover the earliest form of regularly recurring public wors.h.i.+p, we must look for some regularly recurring occasion for it. One such regularly recurring occasion is harvest time, another is seed time, another is the annual ceremonial at which the boys who {180} attain in the course of the year to the age of manhood are initiated into the secrets or ”mysteries” of the tribe.
These are the chief and perhaps the only regularly recurring occasions of public wors.h.i.+p as distinguished from the irregular crises of war, pestilence, drought, and famine which affect the community as a whole, and from the irregular occasions when the individual member of the community prays for offspring or for delivery from sickness or for success in the private undertaking in which he happens to be engaged.
Of the regularly recurring occasions of public wors.h.i.+p I will select, to begin with, the rites which are a.s.sociated with harvest time. And I will do so partly because the science of religion provides us with very definite particulars both as to the sacrifices and as to the prayers which are usually made on these occasions; and partly because the prayers that are made are of a special kind and throw a fresh light on the nature of the communion that the tribe seeks to effect by means of the sacrificial offering.
At Saa, in the Solomon Islands, yams are offered, and the person offering them cries in a loud voice, ”This is yours to eat” (Frazer, _G. B._^2, II, 465). In {181} the Society Islands the formula is, ”Here, Tari, I have brought you something to eat” (_ib._, 469). In Indo-China, the invitation is the same: ”Taste, O G.o.ddess, these first-fruits which have just been reaped” (_ib._, 325). There are no actually expressed words of thanks in these instances; but we may safely conjecture that the offerings are thank-offerings and that the feeling with which the offerings are made is one of grat.i.tude and thankfulness. Thus in Ceram we are told that first-fruits are offered ”as a token of grat.i.tude” (_ib._, 463). On the Niger the Onitsha formula is explicit: ”I thank G.o.d for being permitted to eat the new yam” (_ib._, 325). At Tjumba in the East Indies, ”vessels filled with rice are presented as a thank-offering to the G.o.ds” (_ib._, 462). The people of Nias on these occasions offer thanks for the blessings bestowed on them (_ib._, 463). By a very natural transition of thought and feeling, thankfulness for past favours leads to prayer for the continuance of favour in the future. Thus in Tana, in the New Hebrides, the formula is: ”Compa.s.sionate father! here is some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of it” (_ib._, 464); while the Basutos say: ”Thank you, G.o.ds; give us bread to-morrow also” (_ib._, 459); and in Tonga the prayers {182} made at the offering of first-fruits implore the protection of the G.o.ds, and beseech them for welfare generally, though in especial for the fruits of the earth (_ib._, 466).
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