The Making of Religion | Page 2

But I do not give anecdotes of such savage successes as evidence to
_facts;_ they are only illustrations, and evidence to beliefs and methods (as of crystal

gazing and automatic utterances of "secondary personality"), which, among the savages,
correspond to the supposed facts examined by Psychical Research among the civilised. I
only point out, as Bastian had already pointed out, the existence of a field that deserves
closer study by anthropologists who can observe savages in their homes. We need
persons trained in the psychological laboratories of Europe and America, as members of
anthropological expeditions. It may be noted that, in his "Letters from the South Seas,"
Mr. Louis Stevenson makes some curious observations, especially on a singular form of
hypnotism applied to himself with fortunate results. The method, used in native medicine,
was novel; and the results were entirely inexplicable to Mr. Stevenson, who had not been
amenable to European hypnotic practice. But he was not a trained expert.
Anthropology must remain incomplete while it neglects this field, whether among wild or
civilised men. In the course of time this will come to be acknowledged. It will be seen
that we cannot really account for the origin of the belief in spirits while we neglect the
scientific study of those psychical conditions, as of hallucination and the hypnotic trance,
in which that belief must probably have had some, at least, of its origins.
As to the second part of the book, I have argued that the first dim surmises as to a
Supreme Being need not have arisen (as on the current anthropological theory) in the
notion of spirits at all. (See chapter xi.) Here I have been said to draw a mere "verbal
distinction" but no distinction can be more essential. If such a Supreme Being as many
savages acknowledge is not envisaged by them as a "spirit," then the theories and
processes by which he is derived from a ghost of a dead man are invalid, and remote from
the point. As to the origin of a belief in a kind of germinal Supreme Being (say the
Australian Baiame), I do not, in this book, offer any opinion. I again and again decline to
offer an opinion. Critics, none the less, have said that I attribute the belief to revelation! I
shall therefore here indicate what I think probable in so obscure a field.
As soon as man had the idea of "making" things, he might conjecture as to a Maker of
things which he himself had not made, and could not make. He would regard this
unknown Maker as a "magnified non-natural man." These speculations appear to me to
need less reflection than the long and complicated processes of thought by which Mr.
Tylor believes, and probably believes with justice, the theory of "spirits" to have been
evolved. (See chapter iii.) This conception of a magnified non-natural man, who is a
Maker, being given; his Power would be recognised, and fancy would clothe one who
had made such useful things with certain other moral attributes, as of Fatherhood,
goodness, and regard for the ethics of his children; these ethics having been developed
naturally in the evolution of social life. In all this there is nothing "mystical," nor
anything, as far as I can see, beyond the limited mental powers of any beings that deserve
to be called human.
But I hasten to add that another theory may be entertained. Since this book was written
there appeared "The Native Tribes of Central Australia," by Professor Spencer and Mr.
Gillen, a most valuable study.[1] The authors, closely scrutinising the esoteric rites of the
Arunta and other tribes in Central Australia, found none of the moral precepts and
attributes which (according to Mr. Howitt, to whom their work is dedicated), prevail in
the mysteries of the natives of New South Wales and Victoria. (See chapter x.) What they
found was a belief in 'the great spirit, _Twanyirika_,' who is believed 'by uninitiated boys
and women' (but, apparently, not by adults) to preside over the cruel rites of tribal
initiation.[2] No more is said, no myths about 'the great spirit' are given. He is dismissed

in a brief note. Now if these ten lines contain all the native lore of Twanyirika, he is a
mere bugbear, not believed in (apparently) by adults, but invented by them to terrorise the
women and boys. Next, granting that the information of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is
exhaustive, and granting that (as Mr. J.G. Frazer holds, in his essays in the 'Fortnightly
Review,' April and May, 1899) the Arunta are the most primitive of mortals, it will seem
to follow that the moral attributes of Baiame and other gods of other Australian regions
are later accretions round the form of an original and confessed bugbear, as