Myth, Ritual and Religion (Vol. 1&2). Andrew Lang

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      CHAPTER IV. THE MENTAL CONDITION OF SAVAGES—MAGIC—METAMORPHOSIS—METAPHYSIC—PSYCHOLOGY.

       Table of Contents

      Claims of sorcerers—Savage scientific speculation—Theory of causation—Credulity, except as to new religious ideas—"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc"—Fundamental ideas of magic—Examples: incantations, ghosts, spirits—Evidence of rank and other institutions in proof of confusions of mind exhibited in magical beliefs.

      "I mean eftsoons to have a fling at magicians for their abominable lies and monstrous vanities."—PLINY, ap. Phil. Holland.

      "Quoy de ceux qui naturellement se changent en loups, en juments, et puis encores en hommes?"—MONTAIGNE, Apologie pour Raymond de Sebonde.

      The second feature in the savage intellectual condition which we promised to investigate was the belief in magic and sorcery. The world and all the things in it being conceived of vaguely as sensible and rational, are supposed to obey the commands of certain members of each tribe, such as chiefs, jugglers, or conjurors. These conjurors, like Zeus or Indra, can affect the weather, work miracles, assume what shapes, animal, vegetable, or inorganic, they please, and can metamorphose other persons into similar shapes. It has already been shown that savage man has regarded all THINGS as PERSONS much on a level with himself. It has now to be shown WHAT KIND OF PERSON HE CONCEIVES HIMSELF TO BE. He does not look on men as civilised races regard them, that is, as beings with strict limitations. On the other hand, he thinks of certain members of his tribe as exempt from most of the limitations, and capable of working every miracle that tradition has ever attributed to prophets or gods. Nor are such miraculous powers, such practical omnipotence, supposed by savages to be at all rare among themselves. Though highly valued, miraculous attainments are not believed to be unusual. This must be kept steadily in mind. When myth-making man regards the sky or sun or wind as a person, he does not mean merely a person with the limitations recognised by modern races. He means a person with the miraculous powers of the medicine-man. The sky, sun, wind or other elemental personage can converse with the dead, and can turn himself and his neighbours into animals, stones and trees.

      To understand these functions and their exercise, it is necessary to examine what may be called savage science, savage metaphysics, and the savage theory of the state of the dead. The medicine-man's supernatural claims are rooted in the general savage view of the world, of what is possible, and of what (if anything) is impossible. The savage, even more than the civilised man, may be described as a creature "moving about in worlds not realised". He feels, no less than civilised man, the need of making the world intelligible, and he is active in his search for causes and effects. There is much "speculation in these eyes that he doth glare withal". This is a statement which has been denied by some persons who have lived with savages. Thus Mr. Bates, in his Naturalist on the Amazon,(1) writes: "Their want of curiosity is extreme. … Vicente (an Indian companion) did not know the cause of thunder and lightning. I asked him who made the sun, the stars, the trees. He didn't know, and had never heard the subject mentioned in his tribe." But Mr. Bates admits that even Vicente had a theory of the configuration of the world. "The necessity of a theory of the earth and water had been felt, and a theory had been suggested." Again, Mr. Bates says about a certain Brazilian tribe, "Their sluggish minds seem unable to conceive or feel the want of a theory of the soul"; and he thinks the cause of this indolence is the lack "of a written language or a leisured class". Now savages, as a rule, are all in the "leisured class," all sportsmen. Mr. Herbert Spencer, too, has expressed scepticism about the curiosity attributed to savages. The point is important, because, in our view, the medicine-man's powers are rooted in the savage theory of things, and if the savage is too sluggish to invent or half consciously evolve a theory of things, our hypothesis is baseless. Again, we expect to find in savage myths the answer given by savages to their own questions. But this view is impossible if savages do not ask themselves, and never have asked themselves, any questions at all about the world. On this topic Mr. Spencer writes: "Along with absence of surprise there naturally goes absence of intelligent curiosity".(2) Yet Mr. Spencer admits that, according to some witnesses, "the Dyaks have an insatiable curiosity," the Samoans "are usually very inquisitive," and "the Tahitians are remarkably curious and inquisitive". Nothing is more common than to find travellers complaining that savages, in their ardently inquiring curiosity, will not leave the European for a moment to his own undisturbed devices. Mr. Spencer's savages, who showed no curiosity, displayed this impassiveness when Europeans were trying to make them exhibit signs of surprise. Impassivity is a point of honour with many uncivilised races, and we cannot infer that a savage has no curiosity because he does not excite himself over a mirror, or when his European visitors try to swagger with their mechanical appliances. Mr. Herbert Spencer founds, on the statements of Mr. Bates already quoted, a notion that "the savage, lacking ability to think and the accompanying desire to know, is without tendency to speculate". He backs Mr. Bates's experience with Mungo Park's failure to "draw" the negroes about the causes of day and night. They had never indulged a conjecture nor formed an hypothesis on the matter. Yet Park avers that "the belief in one God is entire and universal among them". This he "pronounces without the smallest shadow of doubt". As to "primitive man," according to Mr. Spencer, "the need for explanations about surrounding appearances does not occur to him". We have disclaimed all knowledge about "primitive man," but it is easy to show that Mr. Spencer grounds his belief in the lack of speculation among savages on a frail foundation of evidence.

      (1) Vol. ii. p. 162.

      (2) Sociology, p. 98.

      Mr. Spencer has admitted speculation, or at least curiosity, among New Caledonians, New Guinea people, Dyaks, Samoans and Tahitians. Even where he denies its existence, as among the Amazon tribes СКАЧАТЬ