CHAPTER III.

RELIGION.

In the religious systems of all primitive peoples the influence of their economic life is extremely apparent. The nature and relative authority of their deities, the ceremonials of their worship, and the organization of the worshippers, may in nearly every case be considered the direct consequents of certain economic antecedents. The savage always deifies the most conspicuous sources, direct or indirect, from which he derives his supply of economic goods, and worships these divinities with ceremonies appropriate to their nature. Moreover, the form of organization of any given people for purposes of worship, generally corresponds to their organization for purposes of production. In a word, the main features of the religious system of any society, as Professor Keasbey ably argues, are determined largely by the manner and by the method of production characteristic of their economy.

The manner of production usual in the barren and jungle environment gives rise to the lowest form of religious development, -a simple Fetishism. Here the nature of the food supply, at once so heterogeneous and so scanty, offers but small opportunity for the growth of the powers of observation and classification. The savage regards everything in nature as possessing intelligence, and therefore able to help or hinder him in his struggle for existence; hence the little family group, wandering perpetually from place to place, and dependent for subsistence on whatever it can find, simply tries to propitiate anything and everything in its immediate environment which might increase or diminish its food supply. Such a group has but little idea of any deities outside of the material objects to be seen around them, or of any specific forms of worship. Similarly, as there is no coöperation in production, so also there is none for purposes of

worship. In the conditions giving rise to the domestic economy, no organization outside of the small family is possible or desirable. Inevitably then, the religious life is carried on after the same manner, each individual having his own charms for luck, and performing whatever rites he may think advisable, at whatever time and place he wishes. The religion of the domestic economist, then, is characterized by a promiscuous fetishism, by little or no development of ceremonial, and by a purely individual, or at most family, system of worship.

Among more favorably situated hunting or pastoral tribes fetishism by no means entirely disappears; at the same time new and better conditions cause an advance in religious ideas. The life of the primitive hunter or herder is far less hap-hazard and hand to mouth than that of the inhabitant of the desert or the jungle. The former is able to depend for food-supply on one or two great, and more or less reliable sources, cattle, perhaps, as in the Old World, or the animals of the chase, as in North America.1 These conditions tend to reduce the diversity of the powers to be propitiated. Instead of worshipping everything around him, he confines his attention to animals and to whatever forces of nature hinder or help him in his pursuit or care of them. The hunter or herder, however, is not likely to worship individual animals. The homogeneity of his food supply develops to some extent the savage's power of classifying and abstracting. He therefore conceives the idea of a type to which individual members of a species conform; hence the type rather than the individual becomes the real object of worship.2

1The Plains tribes of the United States looked to the buffalo, and the eastern Indians to the deer, bear, and other forest animals, as the chief means of satisfying their wants.

2

The herder of the Old World proceeded somewhat further, worshipping not so much the type of the animal, as the procreative force which kept up his herd. The North American hunter, however, who lived on wild animals with the preservation of whose species he had nothing to do, was content with the more primitive conception; accordingly he imagined that each animal species was typified by some great progenitor or Elder Brother, and remained under this mysterious being's care. It was primarily to the latter that the Indian addressed his prayers and sacrifices; while he re

As to ceremonial observances, any mention of the rites of the herder-since pastoral life was unknown in North America-may be omitted and only those customary in hunting tribes considered. Among the latter, ceremonials of worship, though still of the simplest kind, are somewhat more regular and definite than those among the inhabitants of barren and jungle regions. Just as there is an increasing clearness in ideas of the deities, so there is manifest a corresponding development in the forms by which these supernatural powers are propitiated.

In the republican clan economy, access to the surplus is controlled mainly by the clan rather than the individual; hence the group, as such, offers prayers and sacrifices to propitiate whatever powers have influence upon its welfare. In other words, not the individual member, but the clan as a whole, under its regular leaders, attends personally to the religious rites and ceremonies deemed necessary to keep the powers in good humor. From the very nature of hunting life, no priestly intervention is needed between the clan and its gods. Ceremonies, though frequent, are not elaborate enough to confuse any clan member; furthermore, in the hunting life, no special class of learned men is needed to direct the activities of the clan: hence no set of men, on the strength of superior knowledge of this sort, can assume authority over the rest and so become the priestly class of the community. In the hunting life, then, organization for purposes of worship is identical with that formed for production.

Nevertheless, the existence of jugglers or medicine-men must not be ignored. In the worship of the deities, it is true, no priestly class has as yet arisen. On the other hand, the clan does not pretend to have any special means of communicating with supernatural beings, or of finding out their will; this task is left to the jugglers, each one of whom claims to have some special friend among the gods over whom he has influence; and hence these men in the last resort, by controlling the clan's access to the surplus, form a class above the clan, and gain great power over it.

In the typical agricultural community, a difference in manner garded individual animals merely as intelligent beings on a par with himself.

and a development in method of production cause a corresponding change in religious life. Plants and vegetables are now the chief source of the surplus; therefore plant, rather than animal deities are characteristic of agricultural polytheism. Moreover, the opportunity of the agriculturist to observe the phenomena of production and growth causes an exaltation of the idea of fertility hence as the herder of the Old World worshipped the procreative power that kept up his herd, so the agriculturist adores the productive and rejuvenating force that gives him his yearly crop of corn. At the same time, the extremely close relation between climatic conditions and vegetable life causes the primitive agriculturist to feel the deepest veneration for atmospheric phenomena, and consequently his conceptions of the weather gods become much clearer and more definite than those of the hunter. The fact that agricultural operations are carried on in regular succession at certain fixed seasons of the year causes a corresponding regularity and fixedness in the performance of religious rites and ceremonies. It is in spring and fall, the seasons of planting and harvesting, that the chief religious festivals take place. With decreasing frequency and increasing regularity of occurrence comes at the same time an increase in elaborateness of form. Where in a hunting group the favor of the gods is sought by means of a feast differing little from the ordinary social gatherings of friends, in the agricultural community the same end must be sought through a comparatively elaborate religious festival, marked by a considerable amount of form and ritual.

In connection with the religious observances of the typical communal clan, there arises a special class of persons charged with the management of the seasonal festivals. This body, in arranging the calendar of the year, grows comparatively learned in such simple scientific laws as are of importance to the agriculturist; thus there comes into existence a distinct priesthood, whose recognized function is to carry on the religious life of the community, and to direct to a certain extent the conduct of economic operations. As time goes on, these men are regarded not only as knowing, but also as controlling the workings of natural forces. In the hunting tribe, each medicine-man obtains a certain power

over the clan, as a result of his supposed influence with some special divinity; but the priesthood in the agricultural society forms an organized body, arrogating to itself the power of controlling natural forces in general: as a consequence, the claim of the jugglers, though temporarily it may stand side by side with that of the priesthood, finally goes down before the latter, and the priestly body stands forth as an autocratic power in the community.

To recapitulate: the hunter's religion is a polytheism in which the chief gods are animal types and such natural forces as are most manifestly of influence upon animal and human life: in an agricultural society plant deities take the chief place, and at the same time there is a more developed worship of the productive powers of nature and of atmospheric phenomena: among hunters, religious ceremonies are frequent, but exceedingly simple; among agriculturists, they are less frequent, but more regular and formal : the republican clan carries on its own worship without the intervention of a third party, although it may look to the sorcerers for information in certain emergencies: the communal clan is characterized by the presence of a priesthood which takes upon itself the general direction of all religious and even of economic activities.

In each of the culture stages outlined above, the natural conservatism of religious feeling may cause the preservation of many deities and ceremonies whose genesis is to be traced to economic conditions long since past. A study of a people whose religion is characterized by such features gives much satisfactory evidence of the truth of the theory postulating the economic antecedents of religion. There is other proof, however, which is even more convincing. This proof is to be found in the analysis of the religion of a people whose economy is in a transitional state. In such a society, if the hypothesis is correct, religious thought will be found undergoing a transitional process corresponding to that taking place in the manner and methods of production; and hence features of religion characteristic of both the older and newer economy, will sometimes stand forth with almost equal prominence. That the Iroquois economy was in such a transitional state is a