The Making of Religion | Page 3

among the
primitive Arunta, 'a bogle of the nursery,' in the phrase repudiated by Maitland of
Lethington. Though not otherwise conspicuously more civilised than the Arunta (except,
perhaps, in marriage relations), Mr. Howitt's South Eastern natives will have improved
the Arunta confessed 'bogle' into a beneficent and moral Father and Maker. Religion will
have its origin in a tribal joke, and will have become not '_diablement_,' but
'_divinement_,' '_changée en route_.' Readers of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen will see that
the Arunta philosophy, primitive or not, is of a high ingenuity, and so artfully composed
that it contains no room either for a Supreme Being or for the doctrine of the survival of
the soul, with a future of rewards and punishments; opinions declared to be extant among
other Australian tribes. There is no creator, and every soul, after death, is reincarnated in
a new member of the tribe. On the other hand (granting that the brief note on Twanyirika
is exhaustive), the Arunta, in their isolation, may have degenerated in religion, and may
have dropped, in the case of Twanyirika, the moral attributes of Baiame. It may be
noticed that, in South Eastern Australia, the Being who presides, like Twanyirika, over
initiations is not the supreme being, but a son or deputy of his, such as the Kurnai Tundun.
We do not know whether the Arunta have, or have had and lost, or never possessed, a
being superior to Twanyirika.
With regard, to all such moral, and, in certain versions, creative Beings as Baiame,
criticism has taken various lines. There is the high a priori line that savage minds are
incapable of originating the notion of a moral Maker. I have already said that the notion,
in an early form, seems to be well within the range of any minds deserving to be called
human. Next, the facts are disputed. I can only refer readers to the authorities cited. They
speak for tribes in many quarters of the world, and the witnesses are laymen as well as
missionaries. I am accused, again, of using a misleading rhetoric, and of thereby covertly
introducing Christian or philosophical ideas into my account of "savages guiltless of
Christian teaching." As to the latter point, I am also accused of mistaking for native
opinions the results of "Christian teaching." One or other charge must fall to the ground.
As to my rhetoric, in the use of such words as 'Creator,' 'Eternal,' and the like, I shall later
qualify and explain it. For a long discussion between myself and Mr. Sidney Hartland,
involving minute detail, I may refer the reader to _Folk-Lore_, the last number of 1898
and the first of 1899, and to the Introduction to the new edition of my 'Myth, Ritual, and
Religion' (1899).
Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have called the result
'Religion;' where the same Being acts like Zeus in Greek fable, plays silly or obscene
tricks, is lustful and false, I have spoken of 'Myth.'[3] These distinctions of Myth and
Religion may be, and indeed are, called arbitrary. The whole complex set of statements
about the Being, good or bad, sublime or silly, are equally Myths, it may be urged. Very
well; but one set, the loftier set, is fitter to survive, and does survive, in what we still
commonly call Religion; while the other set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to

extinction, and is usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree:
the other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe.
I am arguing that the two classes of ideas arise from two separate human moods; moods
as different and distinct as lust and love. I am arguing that, as far as our information goes,
the nobler set of ideas is as ancient as the lower. Personally (though we cannot have
direct evidence) I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man
began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, then I can see
how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of Power, and attributed to a
potent being just such tricks as a waggish and libidinous savage would like to play if he
could. Moreover, I have actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible
processes of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, but
scientific, in its way. It embraced the idea of Evolution as well as the idea of Creation. To
one mood a Maker seemed to exist. But the institution of Totemism (whatever its origin)
suggested the idea of Evolution; for men, it was held, developed out of their
Totems-animals and plants. But then, on the other hand, Zeus, or