[129] Other forms are tapui, to make sacred; tabui, to keep from; tabuaki, to bless. Here, as elsewhere, there is a synonomy between “sacred” or “holy” and “accursed,” because it is accursed to defile that which is holy. Another, and less probable, derivation is given by Frazer, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, s. v. “Taboo.” He is perfectly right, however, in saying that the original form of the tabu is due, not to its civil, but to its religious element.

[130] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, vol. ii., pp. 368, sq., after Steller, who visited Kamschatka about 1740.

[131] Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Society, vol. xii., pp. 159, 173.

[132] Authorities above quoted, and Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 95.

[133] For abundant examples of the tabu in various nations see Frazer’s article in the Encyc. Britannica above referred to.

[134] Religion of the Semites, p. 18.

[135] Filling in manuscript, he says, seventy-seven quarto volumes, and far from exhausting the supply! Bushman Folk-lore, p. 6. (London, 1875.)

[136] Man, ubi supra, p. 172.

[137] Morice, Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1892, p. 125.

[138] This branch of the subject has been fully discussed by Keary, Outlines of Prim. Belief, Preface and chapter i.; and Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim.

[139] See Myths of the New World, chap. iii.; also, an article on symbolism in ancient American art, by Prof. Putnam and Mr. Willoughby in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Science, vol. xliv., p. 302.

[140] I have presented this subject with greater detail in an article “On the Origin of Sacred Numbers” in the American Anthropologist, April, 1894. The contrast of symbolism of the three and the four is familiar to students. Such a popular text-book as Keil’s Manual of Biblical Archæology states that four was the predominating number in the temples, altars, and rites of the ancient world, it being, “according to an idea common to all antiquity, the symbol of the cosmos”; while the three was “the mark of the Divine Being in His various manifestations” (pp. 127, 128).

[141] Westcott, Symbolism of Numbers, p. 7. I have given several examples of triple or triune deities in America in Myths of the New World, pp. 84, 187, 188. From other fields I may note the triad Kane, Ku, and Lono of Hawaii (Fornander, Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 61); that on the Marquesas objectively represented by three sticks tied together (Dr. Tautain, in L’Anthropologie, tom. vii., p. 544); the triad of Tangaloa, Creator, Maui, Sustainer, and Tiki, Revealer, elsewhere in Polynesia (Hale, Ethnog. and Philol., p. 24).

[142] Numerous examples are collected in L. L. Conant, The Number Concept, chap. ii.

[143] In the Quiche and Tzental dialects.

[144] From the verb tumpa, to forge. Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. i., p. 165.

[145] The Tinné of British America have the word Nayéweri, he who creates by thought (Petitot, Les Dené Dindjie, p. 63); the Algonquian Kitché Manito created the world “by an act of his will” (Schoolcraft, Oneóta, p. 342). For the Zuñians, see Cushing, Zuñi Creation Myths, p. 379; for the Polynesians, Hale, Ethnography of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, p. 399, and Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 62.

There is no distinction between these opinions and that of the Christian church, so beautifully expressed by St. Ephrem the Syrian: “At the nod of His will, noiseless and gentle, out of nothing He created all.” (Select Works, Translated by Rev. J. B. Morris, p. 185.)

[146] Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 67; Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 13.

[147] In Myths of the New World, ch. vii. (first ed., 1868). Numerous writers, Klee, Andree, Lucas, etc., have treated the deluge myth with fulness. It is found even among the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands (Man, u. s.) and is quite common throughout Polynesia (Fornander, u. s., vol. i., pp. 88, sq.). Various Australian tribes record it in detail, Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 430.

[148] Fornander (u. s., vol. i., p. 79, sq.) discusses it in Polynesia. Their “tree of life” was a sacred “tabooed” bread-fruit tree. For America, see Myths of the New World, pp. 103-106.

[149] For this reason the works of Delitsch, Haupt, etc., on the question, Wo lag das Paradies?, are much less to the point than if their writers had studied the comparative mythology of the subject.

[150] This mythical cycle, as it arose among the native tribes of America, was made by me the special subject of a volume, American Hero-Myths (pp. 251, Philadelphia, 1882).

[151] See my Essays of an Americanist, pp. 135-147; J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. ii., p. 832; Schrader and Jevons, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 424.

[152] Codrington in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. x., p. 285.

[153] Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, Bd. ii., p. 188.

[154] Von Hasselt, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Bd. viii., p. 196.

[155] J. G. Pfleiderer, Die Genesis des Mythus der Indogermanischen Völker, p. 48.

[156] References in Pietschmann, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Bd. x., p. 159, who points out that fetishism should be, as a term, confined to the cult and not applied to the content of a religion.

[157] Rialle, La Mythologie Comparée, ch. i.

[158] Prof. Granger remarks that “the influence of the fetish is interpreted as a kind of life of which the fetish is the seat.”—Worship of the Romans, p. 201. Bastian defines it as “an incorporation of a subjective emotional state,” and his disciple Achelis recognises that it is not a stadium of religious development. See his Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 366.

[159] The insufficiency of animism as a theory of primitive religions has been previously urged by Van Ende, Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance, p. 21. Like fetishism and shamanism, animism should be regarded, not as a form or stadium of religion, but, to use Castren’s excellent expression, “nur ein Moment in der Götterlehre.” Finnische Mythologie, Einleitung.

[160] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 433; the Popol Vuh, passim.

[161] Hale, Ethnog. and Philol. of the U. S. Exploring Expd., p. 55.

[162] E. T. Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 258.

[163] See remarks of W. W. Newell in his introduction to Fanny D. Bergen, Current Superstitions (Mems. Amer. Folk-lore Society, vol. iv.).

[164] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 316; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App., p. cxcviii.; Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 154; Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., p. 48. The moon was sacred to Tina, the chief god of the Etruscans. Müller, Die Etrusker, Bd. ii., p. 43. Ně dîdâ, better known as Dido, has been identified with the moon as the leading deity of the Carthaginians and Phœnicians. Otto Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager, Bd. i., s. 128. Danu, the goddess who presided over the Irish pantheon, the tuatha de Danann, was the moon (from daon, to rise).

[165] Montesinos, Ancien Perou, p. 17; Venegas, Hist of California, p. 107; Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. i., p. 459.

[166] Brincker in Globus, Bd. lxviii., p. 97.

[167] Martin de Leon, Camino del Cielo, fol. 101.

[168] Montesinos, Ancien Perou, pp. 14-16; Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 157.

[169] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 5; Egede, Nachrichten von Grönland, s. 137.

[170] Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Bd. ix. The Eskimo called it Sillam Eipane, winds-house. Egede, u. s.

[171] The urn or vase was, in classical antiquity, the emblem of the fecundating waters (Guigniaut, Religions de l’Antiquité, tom. i., p. 509). Vases full of water were interred with the dead in Peru to symbolise the life beyond. Meyen, Die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29.

[172] Kalewala, Runa iv.

[173] Probably for this reason the ceremonial law of the Bushmen, especially that relating to puberty and marriage, enjoins “to avoid the wrath of the Water.” Bleek, Bushman Folk-lore, p. 18.

[174] Compare Klemm, Culturgeschichte, Bd. ii., s. 315 (after Steller), with Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc., vol. xii., p. 163.

[175] The specific effect of certain colours on the sub-consciousness, and thus on the religious emotions, is practically recognised in sacred art; but so far as I know this has not been made a subject of study by the experimental psychologist. Allowance must always be made for association of ideas; as when the Mozambique negroes paint the images of their bad spirits white, on account of their hatred of Europeans!

[176] Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, lib. vii., cap. 49.

[177] Fornander, The Polynesian Race, u. s.; Hale, Ethnog. and Philol., p. 25.

[178] Calloway, Relig. System of the Amazulus, p. 34; Hahn, Tsuni ǁGoam, p. 91; Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv., cap. 26.

[179] Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vols. v., p. 412, x., p. 280.

[180] They were called huacanqui. Montesinos, Mems. Hist. sur l’ancien Perou, p. 161.

[181] Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. iv., cap. 26; Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi., cap. 41.

[182] Hale, Ethnog. and Philol. of the U. S. Explor. Exped., p. 97.

[183] Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 97.

[184] Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 241; Matthews, Ethnog. of the Hidatsa, p. 48, etc.

[185] See Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim.

[186] See, for illustrative examples, my Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics, p. 49, etc.; and comp. Keary, Outlines of Primitive Belief, p. 63, sq.

[187] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, tome ii., p. 365.

[188] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, pp. 390, 455; Alice C. Fletcher in Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1895 and 1896; Brinton, Myths of New World, pp. 118, 119, and Nagualism, pp. 42, 47, 48.

[189] As suggested by E. Bonavia, Flora of the Assyrian Monuments (1894). This is a more likely interpretation than that of Dr. Tylor, that the conical object is the inflorescence of the male date palm; as it is in some bas-reliefs shown presented toward a city gate, a person, etc.

[190] Fechner, Nana, oder das Seelenleben der Pflanze.

[191] Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., p. 199; Palmer in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., p. 292.

[192] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, tom. i., p. 240.

[193] A careful discussion of “Höhencultus,” by Baron von Andrian, may be found in the Bericht der Deutschen Anthrop. Gesellschaft, August, 1889. He believes the earliest form to have been that of the individualised height; later, that of its cosmic relations.

[194] On the Mexican cave-god, Oztoteotl, see my Nagualism, pp. 38-41.

[195] Walcott, Sacred Archæology, pp. 233, 236, etc.

[196] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 59; Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, vol. ii., App., p. clxx.

[197] M. d’Estrey, in L’Anthropologie, tom. iii., pp. 712, sq., has made an interesting study of the lizard symbol in Polynesia, to which much could be added from other fields of primitive life.

[198] As Keary well says: “The essence of primitive belief lies not in any likeness to humanity, but in differences from it.” Outlines of Prim. Belief, p. 26. The Neo-Platonic doctrine of “emanation” led to the belief that a man might become so filled with the divine essence as to become divine himself. This was the claim of Simon the Magician, who “became confessedly a god to his silly followers,” says Hippolytus in his Refutation of all Heresies, bk. vi., cap. 13.

[199] Die Etrusker, Bd. ii., s. 111.

[200] Speaking of Jupiter, this fiery preacher exclaims: “Nor is there any kind of baseness in which you do not associate his name with passionate lusts.”—Adversus Gentes, lib. v., cap. 22.

[201] Howitt, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., pp. 192, 194; vol. xiv., p. 313.

[202] Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 41; Herzog und Plitt, Real-Encyclopädie für Prot. Theologie, s. v. Gebet, etc.

[203] Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 412.

[204] Calloway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 34.

[205] As examples, I may name Unkululu, among the Zulus (Calloway, Relig. System of the Amazulu, pp. 40, 43); Singbonga, of the Munga-Kohls (Jellinghaus, in Zeit. für Ethnologie, Bd. iii., p. 330); the Hunahpu of the Quiches (Popol Vuh, p. 1); the Ahsonnuth of the Navahoes (8th Rep. Bur. Ethnol., p. 275); etc. I have discussed the psychic origin of androgynous deities in The Religious Sentiment, pp. 66, sqq. It was also strong in the early Christian Church, Origen and others of the fathers teaching that the Holy Ghost was the feminine principle in God (C. J. Wood, Survivals in Christianity, p. 63).

[206] These were frequent in quite primitive faiths. Some of the priests of ancient Mexico, for example, wholly extirpated the genitalia.—Davila Padilla, Hist. de la Prov. de Mexico, lib. ii., cap. 88. Comp. Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 350.

[207] I have pointed out that in various American dialects, as the Chipeway and Cree, the Maya, Quichua, etc., there are words of native origin, which were used to convey the notion of the love of the gods in pure and high senses. See the article on “The Conception of Love in American Languages,” in Essays of an Americanist, pp. 416, 421, 428, etc.

[208] Otto Gruppe, quoted by Schrader.

[209] Religion of the Semites, p. 18.

[210] The idea of mimicry survived long, and indeed still exists, in what is called “sympathetic magic”; when, for instance, to produce blindness in an enemy, an image is made of him and its eyes transfixed with thorns. Compare Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 12.

[211] Myths of the New World, p. 17.

[212] Curr, The Australian Race, vol. ii., pp. 66, 67.

[213] Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, lib. iv., cap. viii.

[214] Brinton, Nagualism, p. 53.

[215] Freihold, Die Lebensgeschichte der Menschheit, p. 134. His expressions are: 1. Das Menschenwerden des Göttlichen; and, 2. Die Vergötterung des Menschen.

[216] Religion of the Semites, p. 263. This statement will also be considered in the sixth lecture of this series.

[217] Indeed, among the Patagonian Indians, according to a competent observer, there are no fixed religious ceremonies whatever, except those of a personal character, referring to births, marriages, deaths etc.—George C. Musters, Among the Patagonians, chap. v.

[218] The anaphora, remarks the Rev. John M. Neale, in his History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. ii., chap, i., has always been “by far the most important part” of the Christian liturgies. It recurs in nearly all primitive worship.

[219] Granger, Worship of the Romans, pp. 272, 303, etc.

[220] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 42; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 260; Payne Knight, Ancient Art, p. 50.

[221] Indian Sign Language, pp. 167-70.

[222] Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 42.

[223] Von Tschudi, Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Alten Peru, p. 156.

[224] See Myths of the New World, pp. 112, sq.

[225] See Richard Andree’s remarks on “die Masken im Kultus,” in his Ethnographische Parallelen, Neue Folge, p. 109, sq.

[226] Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. i., p. 48, sq.

[227] A. B. Meyer, in Globus, Bd. lxvii., p. 334.

[228] The terms “honorific” and “piacular” were, I believe, first suggested by Dr. W. Robertson Smith. They are very appropriate.

[229] Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 232.

[230] Oviedo, Historia de las Indias, lib. x., cap. xi.

[231] Balboa, Histoire du Perou, pp. 125-7.

[232] Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. ii., p. 31.

[233] Sahagun, Historia de la Nueva España, lib. i.

[234] Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, in An. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, vol. xi., p. 132.

[235] Dorsey, Siouan Cults, p. 511.

[236] A. d’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, tom. i., p. 237.

[237] Examples in my Native Calendar of Central America, p. 18. It was a favourite amulet among the Crees (Mackenzie, Hist. of the Fur Trade, p. 86).

[238] Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 370; Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xii., p. 172.

[239] Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, ch. vi. Sprinkling the new-born child as a religious ceremony prevailed in New Zealand and throughout Polynesia. (Fornander, The Polynesian Race, vol. i., p. 236.)

[240] Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatan, lib. iv., cap. vi. The same belief prevailed in some African tribes; see Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 393.

[241] H. R. Schoolcraft, Oneóta, pp. 331, 456.

[242] Notices of East Florida by a Recent Traveller, p. 79.

[243] Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, vol. ii., p. 271.

[244] Examples in E. S. Hartland’s Science of Fairy Tales, p. 309.

[245] R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen, p. 177.

[246] The Bora has been often described, by no one better than Mr. A. W. Howitt in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. vii., p. 242, sq., and vol. xiv., p. 306, sq.

[247] J. G. Kohl, Kitchi Gami, p. 228.

[248] Captain Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 254. D’Orbigny describes the bloody ordeals through which girls in South American tribes were obliged to pass. L’Homme Américain, tom. i., pp. 193, 237.

[249] Curr, The Australian Race vol. i., pp. 45-50; Palmer, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xiii., p. 301.

[250] See Post, in Globus, B. lxvii., s. 274.

[251] Palmer, ubi supra, p. 301.

[252] Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages Américains, lib. ii., ch. vi.

[253] Musters asserts this positively of the Tehuelche and other tribes (Among the Patagonians, chap. v.); Captain Clark, whose long experience among our Western tribes constituted him an authority of the first rank, takes pains to correct the notion that among the natives wives are bought, although they are by white men (Indian Sign Language, pp. 245-6). It would be easy to multiply references to the same effect.

[254] Bleek, Bushman Folk-lore, p. 13.

[255] Worship of the Romans, p. 67.

[256] This has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by Dr. S. K. Steinmetz in a remarkable study of “Endo-cannibalismus,” in the Archiv für Anthropologie, 1896.

[257] Granger, ubi supra, p. 37. The word “burial” in ethnology is used to denote all modes of disposal of the corpse. This is etymologically correct. See Yarrow, Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians, p. 5.

[258] Navarrete, Viages, tom. iii., p. 401; Dumont, Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, tom. i., p. 178; Gumilla, Hist. del Orinoco, p. 201. Coréal says, the widows esteemed it a privilege to be buried with the corpse and disputed among themselves for the honour, Voiages, tom. ii., pp. 93, 94. The Taenzas had the same customs as the Natchez, Tonty, Mémoire, in French, Hist. Colls. of Louisiana, p. 61.

[259] Arthur J. Evans, in Proc. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1896, Sect. H.