To the savage who is constantly surrounded with spiritual beings, and whose life is dependent on securing their continued favour, no actions can be performed without a religious significance. He has not arrived at the idea of natural law apart from agents which regulate phenomena. To these agents he owes allegiance, because of the benefits he receives at their hands, and according to his conceptions of their wants and wishes, their tastes and fancies, will his life and actions be ordered. At first sight it would appear as if the whole business of religion were left to its avowed professors, for these are in evidence in connection with every event which happens. But there could be no greater error that to conclude that the magician's vocation represents the domestic religious life of the people. We may take it as a general rule that the magician's services are required only in connection with what is unusual in village life, as births, marriages, deaths, accidents, evil omens or any circumstance the meaning of which may be doubtful. The religion of ordinary life, of eating and drinking, sleeping and walking, working and talking is conducted by each individual according to the approved method of the tribe. In There seems but little religion in a number of love-sick swains battering one another with slave whips, nor in a maiden running knife-blades into their thighs, but in a land where the bull is the emblem of universal life the gods rejoice to see a display of vigour and virile power. That and heroic endurance are the cardinal virtues. A free fight with bare sabres for a crown is not consistent with our ideas of succession, and the suggestion of weapons of war banishes all thoughts of devotion from our minds. But he who is to sit upon the
The King of Dahomey while doing homage to the gods would to us appear to be engaged in a profitable commercial transaction, and but for his being himself divine there would be a strong suspicion that considerations of profit influenced him. All the women of the country are his by divine right. It is an act of divine favour to bestow a wife on a subject, and when he does bestow one he expects. handsome black mail. It is he who gives to men all they possess. They must toil for the corn which Hugh was a prince of Lochlin, and was long held captive by a giant who lived in a cave overlooking the Sound of Mull, and known by his name to this day. For many years Prince Hugh lived in the dismal recess of this grotto. One night there was a violent altercation between the giant and his wife, and Hugh who lay very still listening, knowing that he would be killed and eaten if it was known that he overheard their conversation, discovered that the giant's soul was in a great pearl—literally precious gem—which he always wore on his forehead. The prince watched his opportunity, seized the pearl, and having no means of escape or concealment, hastily swallowed the gem. Like the lightning from the clouds, the giant's sword flashed from its scabbard and flew between Hugh's head and his body to Compared with it, the following Hindoo tale betrays a common origin in the days when such facts were soberly believed. The story is of a giant or magician who had held a beautiful queen captive for twelve years. At last the queen's brother came to visit her, and they both spoke the magician fair. He told them, in a moment of confidence, that he kept his soul thousands of miles away in a desolate country covered with jungle. In this jungle there was a circle of palm trees; within the circle six water tanks, piled one above another; under the lowest a birdcage with a small green parrot in it. The same form of superstition and myth is common to Teutons, Norse, Slavonians, Ancient Greeks, and Jews. The history of Samson, ‡ as recorded in the Book of Judges, is a case in point. He remained invulnerable till, through the wiles of his wife, he was shorn of his locks, and then his strength departed. The variations in this case from the Hindoo and Celtic tales is nothing more than might be expected, when the national characteristics of the Jews and their peculiar history is taken into account. This form of myth is as wide as humanity. I was on one occasion sitting in a Hlubi chief's house waiting for the appearance of the great man, who was doing his toilet, to hold a palaver. Several of his chiefs and
This form of superstition leads by an easy transition to totemism, and it is on this account I regard it as more religion than magic or witchcraft. The object where the soul dwells is sacred, and it gets its sanctity because it is the home of the soul. This may be a bird, as the tufted crane among Kaffirs; an animal, as the crocodile, among Bechuanas; an insect,
It is difficult to give an explanation of such myths as this, but when I first heard it I began to make inquiries, and discovered that there are floating traditions of shipwrecked crews having settled down among the native population, and I have thought that the Borgie mermaid may have been a cast-away maiden. If so, was she detained against her will? Did she make her escape? Were there negotiations about the custody of her child between her friends and the wild septs of the Reay country? And did local tradition weave these facts into the legend as it was current half a century ago? An
182:* Arnot, Garanganze. 182:† Ibid. 189:* Mary Frere, Old Deccan Days. 189:† Campbell. 189:‡ Judges. 190:* J. Sutton, MS. notes. 191:* Rev. A. Mackay. 193:* Rev. A. Mackay, MS. notes.ACTS OF DEVOTION—MYTHS
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