Phenomena of the Higher Civilisation: Traceable to a Rudimental Origin among

Savage Tribes

Edward B. Tylor

Anthropological Review, Vol. 5, No. 18/19. (Jul. - Oct., 1867), pp. 303-314.

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 P H E N O ~ I E N A OF THE HIGHER CIVILISATIOX, 303
ture to deny ; nevertheless, I shall not attempt to offer any theory
respecting the mental 0' socid status of the individual, or of his or her
complexion, stature, or probable appearance. I11 the present state of
the case, we have not all the materials before us. I have intention-
ally refrained from stating all the characters which some of thc other
remains present, as llI. Dupont will adequately describe them else-
~vhere. At present T shall merely propound the following conclusions,
based solely upon the evidence I have laid before you.
I. That the deposit of stratified li~no~zflzlzcviatile
~ulderstalagn~ite,in
the Trou de la Naulette, Tas due to the action of slowly operating
causes.
2. That the indis~idualThose jaw was found therein was contem-
porary tlie elephant and rhinoceros, ~vhoseremains are embedded
under like conditions.
3. That soille of the characters afforded by the jaw j~lclicatea re-
semblance to jans of the Slavoilic peoples of Eastern Europe, as espe-
cially exemplified by the Masures and Wends.
4. That the abos~e character affords a distinction between the
remaills found in the Tronde la Naulette and those fo~uldin the
Tron de Frontal, which contained during the reindeer period indi-
viduals strongly resembling the Calniuclrs of the present day.
5 . That some of the characters indicate a strong reseinbla~lceto,
and exaggeration of, the characters afforded by the melanian races of
men, and especially the Austr a1'Ian.

PHENOIIENA OF THE HIGHER CIVILISATION

TRACEABLE TO A RUDIIIENTIL ORIGIN AMONG SAVAGE TRIBES.

By EDWARD B. TYLOR, Esq., F.A.S.L., F.R.G.S.

AScs have so long felt a12 interest in the character and habits of their
own liiad, they have so long practically aclnlon ledged that nothing
human is alien to tlien~selves,that n-e are rich in inforr~~ation as to
savages and peoples whose condition lies between that of savages ailcl
our own. But the positive value of this iilfornlation is only now of
late years beginning to be apprehended. I t is only of late that n7e
have heg~ulto see how niuch a knowledge of the lower races is capable
of giving us besides a mass of elltertai~li~lgdetails and quaint stories
for our amusement, and beside the means of completing the picture of
rna~lki~ldby taking in both its higher and loKer developments. TTTe
are beginning to see that over and above all this, the study of the
lower races is capable of furnishing most important haowledge about
 ourselves, about our o m habits, customs, laws, principles, prejudices,
-and that this kno~dedgeis, to a great extent, of a kind that n-e
should have fouud it much nlore difficult to obtain had there not hap-
pened to exist a mass of tribes on the earth a t a 10%-er condition of
life than ourselves, and records collected in past ti:ne:i of nlaily laore
such peoples who 110 longer exist to be studied, for they have been
s m e ~ toff' the earth as a n iiicunlbrallce by other occupiers of the
land, or enslaved, or mixed, or cis~ilisedont of their earlier and ruder
state.
There are fen- audiences before ~ ~ h o snch i n lz sul~jectas this, of the
study of the lon-er races to explain the coilclition of the higher, can bc
brought forward with more chance of enticing neTy norlrers i11 this
field than a section of the British Association. I t is not m y purpose
to go at leugth into the details of this study, nhich ~ o u l c lbe far too
~ i d ea taslr, nor esTen to slretch it in outline ; but to talre a few
exnmples from different departments of the subject, ~ i t the h vie\\- of
showing h o v in one branch of lrllowledge after another the lw5\-erraces
are capable of showing 11s in actual existelice the state of culture out
of nhich much of our oTvn cis~ilisatioahas developed itself so far that
we live in the midst of it ~ ~ i ideas t h of its nature widely changed from
those of the early time from which we i~iheriteclit,, or simply Kith no
ideas a t all of n-hat i t means.
To begin with a branch, n-hich is, perhaps, longest and best k110~11,
the stories of uilcivilisecl races about their gods and heroes, cosmo-
gonies, transformations, and origins, show us the mythologic stage
n-hich underlies the poetry ailcl religion of the Greelis and other nations,
from among n-horn the highest nzoderil civilisation has growl. This
stage is not only represented by its effects as inherited from past
times, as it is in Homer. The sTerysayages who live a t our om11 day
show us living and ~valliingInen -whose mythologic thought and life
corresponds in a great measure n i t h that of the early myth-maliers of
our o ~ r nAryan race. Sir George Grer's Polynesicuz ~lfyth,ology,for
instance, will set before us the description of the great events of nature
~ i t ohilly the thinnest veil of personificntion, just enough to show h o ~ v
such stories pass inore aiicl more into tales of gods and heroes, hose
origin and a t t r i b ~ ~ t egronT
s Inore and inore indistinct, as one story-
teller after another \vorlrs up with nen- flourishes and graces the old
familiar tales.
TVe hare tn-o priineval ancestors, a father and a mother, says the
New Zealalld 1~1yth. They are rangi ancl heaven and earth.
The earth, out of ~ ~ h i all c h things are produced, is onr mother; the
protecting and overruling heaven is our father. Once 11po11a time the
heaven \\-as nlucll closer to the earth, aild their children toolr co~ulsel
 PHENOJICXA O F THE HIGHER CITILISATION. 305

how to thrust it up. Tlle god and f ~ ~ t h of e r cnltivated food, Rongo-

na-taae, tried to force n p the heaven, bnt he was not strong enoi~gh.
Then the god and father of uncultivated food, of fish, nlld of nlen, tried ;
b u t agaill in vain, till a t last there arose Tane-;\fahnta, t'he father of
the forest trees. He set his head against his mother, the earth, he
raised his feet and pnshecl against his fitther, the sky, and strained his
back allcl limbs vith migllty effort ; and so he rent apart raagi and
papa, forcing the earth c1o~r.nfrom beneath him, ~ i ~ h i lhe e pnshed np
the sky above. What, can he more trallsparellt than this story, ~vhich
embodies the illsig~lificanceof the little food-plants and the wild
vegetables and inen; ~ i ~ h ithe l e forest tree thrnsts its head, which is
its root, against its mother earth, ancl pushing with its high trualr,
rests its feet, ~ ~ h i care h its hraaches, against the clouds, and holcls
them apart from the earth below. Like so many imagined histories
of times long past, the New Zealand ~llythologyis, in great part, really
the record of the very events ~ i ~ h i chappen h day after day before our
eyes in the gron~ingof the forests, the rising and setting of the snn,
the battles of the winds and clouds. It goes on through one depart-
illellt of nature after another, telling 11s) ~ulclerthe smle transparellt
veil of personification, how the god of winds sent his four sons to the
four quarters of the world; they are the north, south, east and ivest
15-inds-hov the children of the fish god separated, and soune went in-
land to he the fish of rivers and lakes, and some took LIP their ahode
in the ocean, and so forth.
It has been well said, I think, by Grote, that the inythologic history
of the Greeks is .the history of a past \r.hich was never present. Bnt
in another sense, m ~ ~ of c h it, much of the tales of gods and heroes is
the history of a past ~ ~ h i cishever present, the history of the daily life
of nature before our eyes, only put into dim personification and as-
sullling a claim to a historical significallce which has only arisen from
a profound misu~~derstandii~g of its real nature. Now it is a great
thing to fiud the spirit of the niythology to which the ~ ~ o r o~ves l d so
m i ~ c hof its poetry, its philosophy, es7e11of its religion, alive in actutxl
being among us, ancl ready to be st,udiecl. But me shall find thnt not
only the spirit, hut the very details of mythology, such as in a differeat
stage have been taken up into the clas3ical stories of Greece, are often
to be foulld among the lower races sow, scarcely remos7ecl fro111 tlxe
original state in \ ~ h i c hthey were first engellclered in the inind. The
great sun myth, for inxtance, which recent researches have shom~lto
11as.e had so great an inflnence in shapiag the higlxer lnythologies of
India, Greece, ancl Scaadinas7ia is ndlnirably represented from the con-
t e m ~ l a t i o nof ilature in a.a early stage of its growth nillong the Polyne-
sians, and the I~lcliallsof North allrl Sollt.11 Americ~. I will bring for-.
TOT,. T'.-NO. XT'III. S
 306 ANTHROPOLOGICAL REVIEW.

ward one case, partly because I believe it to be new, partly because it

shows in what minute details modern savage life may illustrate the
later grown mythology of ancient Europe.
One of the great events of the voyage of the ship Argo was the pas-
sage of the Symplegades. There mere two rocks ~ i ~ h i calternatelyh
opened and shut with a swift and violent collision, and between them,
by the assistance of Athene, who held the rocks asunder for a moment
as they shot through, the good ship passed. Now what can have put
into the mind of the story-teller this strange idea ? That it is not a
record of real fact, that it is of no use to look through the maps for
the two rocks, ~i~hich, as the story relates, ceased to open and shut
when the Argo had passed through, any modern mythologist would
acknowledge. But how did the idea of such a thing enter the mind of
the myth maker? To call it a quaint poet's fancy is easy but not
satisfactory. The more ancient thought and savage thought are
studied, the less will students be disposed to take as an explanation
of the story the reply that it is a quaint fancy, for the more these
things are looked into the more it appears that even the quaintest
stories have an origin in something intelligible and definite ;that they
grew up by processes which are quite intelligible even now. The story
of the Symplegades, as it is told in the Voyage o f t l ~ eArgo, is a fragment
of a myth transplanted with many other wonders into the great
Argonautic fable; and if we knew nothing more about it than we
learn from its existence there, its meaning and origin would probably
have ever remained dark to us. But if we turn to Eastern Asia we
shall find the Symplegades no longer an isolated and unintelligible
fragment, but a part and feature of the great sun myth. TTTe know,
in the first place, that the conception of the night as a huge monster
which sm allow up the evening son, is a wide-spread and familiar one.
Bvening in Sanskrit is rajantmukha, the 4'nlouth of night". TYhat this
" mouth of night" which swallom*~up the sun nlay he like, nith what
jaws it is furnished, two Eastern peoples will tell us. hlani is the sun-
god of Polynesia-he is among the fullest and most coilsistent hearers
of the sun-myth to be found in the world. hlani is the sun, and the
night is his great ancestress, Hine-nui-te, "goddess of the night."
Of course she is his ancestress, for the night is the mother or producer
of the sun, as well as his destroyer. Nani was told, as he approached
the end of his brilliant career, that he would be conquered by his great
ancestress Hine-nui-ti-po, whom you inay see flashing, and as it were
opening and shutting there where the horizon meets the sky. Her
teeth are hard and sharp like pieces of obsidian, and her hair like the
tangles of long sea-meed, and her mouth is like that of a barracuda.
Mani undertook the venture, and, had he succeeded in getting into her
 PHESOXESA OF THE H I G I ~ E R CIVILI~ATION. 307

mouth and coming out again, she mould have died and he would have
lived. But as he went in she awol~eand Billed him, and then dent11
d , she is the goddess of death ; and hacl l l a n i
came into the ~ i ~ o r lfor
passed safely through her no Inan would have (lied.
For a further description of the jaws of night we may go to the
Karians of Burmah, who tell us that a t the vest are two nlassive strata
of rocks continually opening and shutting, and there the sun goes in
a t s11nset. "At the opening and shutting of the western gates of rochs
thou goest in between; thou goest below the earth n-hen the sun
tmvels." Perhaps the most striking coincidence between these stories
and the Argonantic tale is that in both, t,he first event is to determine
the f ~ ~ t u course;
re yet this feature is not servilely copied, but the same
idea is worked out in t v o converse mays. If hIani got through he
would come out again a t the other side and live, and the jaws of death
would no more close on mankind;-if the Algo got through the
Symplegades, they would remain for ever open for others. The Aqyo
passed through, and the rocks stayed fixed open for ever ; but hfalli
mas caught, and the reign of the goddess of night ancl death began.
That fragnients of ~ v h a twas once a consistent conception of mytho-
logy often survive to be taken u p into future stories as Inere isolated
wonder-tales, is well-lrnon,a. This history of the Syn~plegadesseems
to be such an incident, only explicable me can find i t in its place
as a feature of a large and consiste~lt lllythological system. Such
another cnse is the story of the great floating tortoise nrhich the sailors
mistake for an island, and Izuld upon, and which, irritated by their
digging into its back or making fires on it, plunges down into the sea.
When n e meet with this story isolated as in the Arabian nights, we
can only treat it as another quaint fancy of the nzyth-maker, but an
acquaintance with the cosmogony of the ion-er races explains it and
throws it into its place a t once. To a niodern Polynesian, as to so
many ancient races, the n-orld he lives in is a flat plain surrno~nted
by a vaulted roof or heaven. The idea is precisely expressed by com-
paring it to a dish v i t h a dish-cover placed upon it, a l ~ dequally ~-iell
b y calling it a tortoise, the flat under shell of n~hichis explained in
the Indian boolis to hc the earth, while the arched upper shell is the
heaven. And thus n7e have the wide-spread ancl ancient myth of the
ivorld tortoise \vhich lies flonting 011 the ocean ; and thus ~ ~ h we e nfind
the idea on a snialler scale reduced to the dimensions of a mere float-
ing tortoise-island, we recognise ~ v h a twas once and is n o r in other
regions a thorough charact,eristic piece of the cosmogony of the lover
races, reduced to a nlere tale by story-tellers, ~vhosefancy was tabell
by an idea the real origin ancl meaning of nliich was lost to them.
I n using our records of the l o ~ ~ ci~ilisation
er t,n explain the plieno-
x2
308 ANTIIROPOLOGIOAL REVIEW.

mena of the higher, there is one plain rule above all things to be ob-
served. TVhen we find an opinion or a practice among the higher
races which they can only explain by saj-iqg that it is a tradition, a
ceremony, or an instinct, but which is not clearly explicable by the
circumstances among which it is found ; and then, when aniong a
lover race we find the same opinion or practice having a11 intelligible
meaning or a practical purpose belonging to their state of mind, TTe
are justified in thi~lkiilgthat we have traced these things to near their
origin. To do this is to looh through seeming nonsense till TT-efind n
solid basis of sense, and past inr~estigationproves that we may con-
tinually succeed in such search.
If we nialie ourselves fanliliar with the state of thought among lower
races, if me can see with their eyes, and judge by their canons of
reasoning, we shall find n ~ a n ythings full of sense and purpose to then1
nhich it ~vouldbe far niore clifficult to explain from the point of view
of higher races, among ~ h o n siniilar
i phenomenn are to be found. I
\rill talie as instances tvr-o of the great religious practices of the norlcl,
found in niost lino\~-ntinies ancl places-the rites of sacrifice and fasting.
Ti'hat nlenniag and intention is applied to these rites in periods of
high culture we luiom perfectly well. They are partly held as cere-
monies or ordinances to be pmctised because elljoined 11po11 Inen, and
partly as prodncing an effect on the nlilld of the 117orshipper w l ~ oplaccs
hiinself under a discipline of privation or suffering. But if we t n n l to
stndy the same rites among the lower races, TI-e shall see then1 in a
neTv light-we shall find them done for x-hat, to the lilind of these
people, are perfectly direct and matter-of-fact purposes. W e shall find a
state of thought under which it is as practical and straightfor\\-arcl a
thing to burn or LIT a sacrificial offering for a spirit, as it is to pay a
debt or give a present to a living nlan, and as practical and significant a
~roceedingto fast as to eat. A modern European, n h o llolds that he
has a sol~l,but that even his horse or dog has not, n ~ u s ttransport
hinlself into an entirely clifferent philosophical atmosphere n~henlie
Incgins to stndy savages. He mill find then that not only men and
dogs, and horses and birds, but even trees and corn, frait, hatchets,
and spearsand boats have souls. TTTllen a nlan dies, his soul, which if;
an impal~able,usually invisible something, goes ax-ay lilce his bocly,
somewhere illto n fntnre life. Therefore the slaves or ~vives who
have attended him ~~-1lerl he was alive, must go aucl attend hi111 still,
and they are, therefore, Billed that their souls nlay follom his soul.
And in precisely the sarne way, and for precisely the same reason, the
horse and the clog are liil!ed that their ~0111snlny go to serve tlleir
~ ~ i a s t;the
e r corpsc, the clothes, the )son. and arron, the pipe a~lclpo11cl1
are burnt, buried, or abandoned, nit11 tlie distinct understnailing t1i:rt
 l'HE60\IE6h O F THE H I G H E R OIVILISATION. 309

their souls or spirits are to go for the use of the spirits of the deceased.
Thus, arnong the Indians of North A~llerica,fisliing and boating tribes
bury tlieir dead with canoe and paddles ready to launch in the next
T\-orld;the dead man's soul accoimpanies the soul of liis canoe, with the
souls of the paddle and the fishing spear within his grasp. Or if he
belongs to a h ~ n ~ t i ntribe
g he will hasre his bow ancl arrow, his gull, or
his horse, ready for his soul to mount in the h a p l ~ yh~ultiiig-grotmdsof
the next \170rld. It woulcl he quite tedious to give a detailed account
of these f ~ ~ n e r erites-the
d lover races who do not practise them are
t h e exception, not the rule. R e find sacrificed for tlie use of the de-
ceased every part of his possessions, -rives, slaves, relatives, horses,
house, food, weapons, boats, clothes, ornaments, provisions for tlie
journey, the dog to guicle the dead along the difficult road to the other
world, the coin to pay the ferry over the gulf ~vhichseparates this life
from the next, or for the toll to pass the heaven-bridge. ,4nd there is
not the least break in the purpose for which these thiiiga are sacrificed-
it is not that the wives or slas~esare sent to accompany the clead, and
the horses, canoes, or weapons destroyed for some other purpose. The
philosophy of tlze l o ~ e races
r is distinct and unbroken tliroughout ;
~vhenthe slave or tlie horse, or the bow and arro\T are burnt to ascend
in slnolie to the sky, or buried to rot in the gro~uld,the souls of these
things are sent to follow the soul of their possessor. The n-ife of
Eukrates comes back for her slipper. It had been left behind a ward-
robe, and thus not bnrat n-ith her ot,her things, and so slie ~ v a sin the
other wol.ld witl~outit. So the ghost of Melissa appeared shivering
to her husband, for lier clothes had not been burnt for her to wear in
the other life. So in the East of our O T T ~times the natis~eof the Sulu
Archil~elagobnys for a great price the criminal condenlned to death,
that he may kill him hilnself and so secure the service of his soul as
a slave to his o~viiin the next existence; ancl so the soul of the
Emperor of Cooliin-China is provided with every article of furniture
and luxury which belonged to him when alive, and is sent to him by
burning it after his death, while supplies of food go 011 being preparecl
for him as usual for his spiritual sustenance.
When we find that in parts of South Anlerica these practices ac-
tually stop the rise of civilisation, because hen a man dies everything
he has, house, trees, weapons, all must he sent after him, and so nc-
curnulatioii of property is impossible-or when me find it specified
among the customs of some North Slnericnn tribes that the polished
stones or bowls used i11 the llational game are the property of the
community, and so stre exempted from being buried with the dead
like other things ; we may gain some idea of the strength of this
opinion as esenlplifiecl in thousands of recorded accounts from early
 and late times in most distant portions of the ~ ~ o r l c lThe
. sacrifice to
the clead is, indeed, the leacling branch of sacrifice among the lon-er
races.
TTe follow it up into sylnbolisin and cereniony a t last, after the
manner of rites in general, hen they are talcell u p into the religion
of the nlore advanced mces.
TVe are all fa~niliarwith the silvered paper dollars, the pnper clothes
and presents which the Chinese Isurn with their clead ; and the like
transition froin1 practical purpose to fading symbolism is \\-ell lnarliecl
in the offerings to the dead lrept up as a mere cereniony a t Rome, in
the models of toys and ornaments in early Christian graves, and the
flon-ers thrown into graves or hung in garlaads abos~ethen1 in our own
times.
Bnt sacrifice to other spiritnal beings, to elves, wood-spirits, gods
inferior or superior, is conducted in the same way and on the saine
priilci~leas that to the spirits of the dead ; though it is, perhaps,
oftener f o ~ u ~passed
d into a ceremonial ordinance among the higher
races than as a matter of practical purpose among the lower. lTet we
shall find no clistinct demarcation bet~veenthe sonls of tlie dead, ~ v h o
are held to become spirits, demons, or gocls, and spiritual beings in
general ; and n7e may fincl jast the same explanation of the intention
of sacrifice laid down with reference to thenl as to the ghosts. The
Chilla~nansets out his feast of tlie clead, n~nitsawhile till the ghosts hasre
eaten their fill of t,he soul food, and then falls to himself on the corpse.
Exactly so the Fijian sets out feasts to satisfy the enormous hunger of
his gods ; but they are spiritual beings, and what they eat is not the
risible substance of the food, but its soul which is capable of separating
from it. So a sacrifice of Ineat and rice is set out by the Rajil~ahal
tribes under n tent, and when the god has had time to eat his fill t h e
worshippers uncosTerthe tent. and eat the rest themselves. This is,
indeed, a most ooniinon practice throughout the worlcl, that when a n
offering has been made to a god the worshippers themselves inay feast
on it ; and this idea is perfectly reasonable ~vhenwe understand the
theory of souls to which it belongs.
Thus we may see among the loTer races that the rite of sacrifice is
not the ceremonial observance, or even the act of abnegzatioa, that it is
among the higher races who have carried it on into their religious
system ; but n plaili and practical action done to produce what is, t o
their state of opinion, a plain and practical result-that of giving to
the ghosts of the dead, or other spiritual beings the spirits of men
allinlals and things acceptable to them, just ns they mould give a gift
to a living man, or pay tribute t o a king.
With the philosophy of these lo~verraces a e fincl associated another
 PHCN03IEXA O F THE HIGHER CIVILISATIOS. 311
widely spread rite. To the savage philosopher the 71711ole ~vo'ld is
smanning with spiritual beings. Every Inan and animal has a
separable soul r h i c h can go out and come baclc-everything has its
spirit as well as its body-every tree and river, and star and wind is
anilnated by a presiding spirit, vhich is not llecessarily always 1.esident
in it, but conies and goes. These spirits are niostly invisible to him
in his waking hours, but in his dreams he call see then1 far apart from
where tlieir material bodies are : eitlier the spirits of Inen and things
come to visit him, or his own spirit goes forth from his body and sees
them. He lives among those spiritual beings in a 17-ay which only a
few iliodern E ~ ~ r o n e a ncan -
s a t all realize,, he goes to them for infornia-
tion as to R-hat he is to do, and for 1nlo-n-ledge as to what has been
anrl is. And especially n-hen he desires to hold intercourse n-it11 the
spirit world, he has learnt by experience to adopt a practice n-hich ia-
fallibly brings hini into their presence-he goes for a time ~ ~ i t h o n t
food. I11 a short time he becomes v h a t n-e shonld call "light-headed,"
and begins to see visions. \Vliea he has stayed long enough in this
spiritual company, he eats, and r e t ~ w n sto the ordinary state of x
~valiiagwan. I will quote one or two accounts of this proceeding to
remove all doubt as to mhether this is the real purpose of savage
fasting. The follon-ing details were taken donn by Schoolcrs~ft,per-
haps the best authority on the habits and opinions of the North
American Indians, from the mouth of a11 Algonquin chief :-
" Chingn-aulc began by saying that the ancient Indians made a great
inerit of fasting. They fasted sol~~etiines six or seven days, till both
their bodies and minds became free and light, which prepared them to
dream. Tlle object of the ancient seers was to dream of the s u n ; as
it n-as believed that such a dream n-ould enable them to see everything
on the earth. And by fasting long and thinking much 011 the subject,
they generally succeeded. Fasts and dreams were at first atten~pted
a t an early age. What a young man sees and experiences during these
clreams and fasts, is adopted by him as t m t h , and it becolnes a prin-
ciple to regulate his future life. He relies for success on these revela-
tions. If he has been much favoured in his fasts, and the people
believe that he has the art of loolcing into futurity, the path is open
to the highest honours. The prophet, he continued, begins to try his
~ o w e r isn secret, with only one assistant, whose testimony is necessary
should be succeed. As he goes on, he puts down the figures of his
dreams or revelations, by symbols on bark, or other material, till a
mhole r i n t e r is sometimes passed in pursuing the subject, and he thus
l ~ n sa record of his pri~lcipalrevelations. If ~ v h a he t predicts is veri-
fied, the assistant mentions it, and the record is then appealed to as
proof of his prophetic povier and skill. Time increases his fame. 1 3 s
Ice-Bee-wins, or records, are finally shon-n to the old people ~ v h omeet
together ancl consult upon them, for the whole nation believe in these
revelntions. They in tllc elld give their approval, and cleolare that he
is gifted as a prophet-is inspired mith n isdom, and is fit to lead the
opinions of the nation. Such he concluded n-as the ancient custom,
and the celebrated old ~ ~ n r - c a p t a i nrose
s to their power in this
manner. "
I n many North American tribes every man ta,lces to himself a
guardian spirit, generally some animal. And the n-ay he finds out
vhat aninla1 is to be his guardian spirit, his nledinm, as v e often call
it, is to h s t till it appears to him in vision. I n lilie manner
Charlevoix tells us of the practice of malcing children fast n7hile the
fathers are avay on hunting expeditions, for they then see in dreams
the souls of the animals, and divine what has happened.
I11 lilce lnanner n-e are told of the Abipoaes of South An~erica,how
their conjurors fast for days till they come into a state in which they
seem to see into futurity. To the Hindoo mind nothing is better
l i n o ~ ~than
n the art of bringing on religious ecstacy ancl snpenlatural
kno~~~ledge, and comniunication ~ v i t hthe higher powers by fasting ;
and the practice is lcnon-n as a 'ite in many higher religions. I11
Islam, for instance, it is a strongly-marked feature ; but the g e n t fast
belonged to the time before Nohammed, ancl was only continued by
him.
Nor is the purpose for which it is practised hy the North Ame-
ricans or the Hincloos entirely changed ;-its effects in producing
nlental exaltation and supposed conlmunication \vith supernatural
beings are still to some degree aulmo~~~ledged, or a t least acted upon in
Europe. I t s great adversary, under n-hose persistent attaclrs i t is,
indeed, losing its influence, is the doctor, whose systenl teaches hi111
to treat what the Anierican Inclian believes to be a state of intercourse
with supernatural beings, as a morbid state of nlind removable by
proper food. 1x1like manner, n~henhe finds a civilized patient seeing
visions ancl holding intercourse with spirits, he prescribes good food
and amusement, port n~ineand tonics. But this new state of opinion
does not alter the fact that to inankind in a lower state of culture the
practice of fasting is a most intelligible ancl matter-of-fact proceeding.
An Indian goes without food that he may see spirits, n-ith as distinct
n purpose as when he eats to satisfy his hunger.
Another of the sets of practices which, prevailing widely in different
states of culture, find their reacly and direct explanation in the chilcl-
lilie nlental state of the savage, is magic. Such of its proceeclings as
still exist among us are mere remnants of the more serious arts of
ancient times, though mith, perhaps, a larger proportioil of mere
knavery. The astrology of Zaclkiel's Almanac does not appear to
me to (lifer from the old rules ; the ordeal of the lrey ancl bible is very
nlcl and widely-spread; c o ~ m t r ypeople still niake a heart and run
 PHESOJIENA OF THE HIGHER CIVILISATIOX. 313

pins into it to hurt the heart of some person with whom they choose
t o associate it, as any savage might do. B a t in the tnind even of the
modern savage these things take a different position. To his mind
they are perfectly intelligible; they belong to a crucle ancl early system
of philosophy, out of which he has not growl. His theory of icleas is
soniething much inore ancl deeper than ours ; he has arrived a t the
lnlowleclge that an idea is son~ethingbelonging to an object, and thence
he reasons, as a e have learnt not to do, that ~ v h a tinfluences the idea
in his mind acts in a corresponding way 011 the object out of it.
If a Kew Zealallel mar-party ~vishto linow who of thein will fall in
battle, they set up a sticlr for each, and the onrner of the sticlr which
h l l s will fa,ll too. The ordeal of the lrey ancl bible is perfectly under-
stood by the 1o~~;er mces, who comnlonly have some plan of picking
out an offender which acts on just the same principle, as, for instance,
the suspellclecl siclrle of the Iihollcls of Orissa.
There is in the worlcl a widely spread belief that men with tails
exist ancl are a lo\rer lrind of men, allel TI-ehare ail account of a South
Anlericail tribe, a t whose n~arriagesit was customary for the father of
briclegroom or bride to chop a piece of woocl, by ~vhichsyrnbolic pro-
ceecling he --as snpposed to reinove the tails of any granclchildren n h o
might be born. This is just as intelligible a proceeding as the
inedizeval, or perhaps nlodern custonl of talring a saint elon-11 to the
vater ancl wetting him, that the ground may in like manner be netted
with abundance of We are apt to call these proceeclings by the
current name of syn~bolism,ancl to think y e thereby explain them.
But the study of savage tribes teaches us that hat we call synlbolisln
and treat as a light half-sincere fanc,y of the inincl, is really part of the
opinion of the savage in his most serious moments, ancl in the midst
of his highest flights of philosophy :~ndreligion. He has a cloctrine of
ideas out of which all these magical practices quite consistently arise ;
and, tho~lghwe no longer hold this theory, it is, nevertheless, present
among us in its effects on our customs and ol~inionsto a degree which
only careful and extended study will ellable us to realize.
Of one way in which the value of the study of the lower races has
been lately t~lrnedto account as a lneans of explainiag matters which
have usually been treated in that clogmatic a p ~ i o r imay which is so
intensely unsatisfactory to the modern schools of llatllral science, I
may mention an important instance in &Ir.X'Lennan's researches
containecl in his boulr on primitive marriage, in which, talring his stand
simply on such facts as he could fincl on record, he has treated the
q ~ e s t i o nof the lav-s of marriage ancl inheritance as belonging to a
connected anrl consistent development from the conditions of savage
t o that of civilized life througt~the cliferent stages of esogainy, or the
 314 A ~ ~ T H R O P O L O G I C A LREVIEW.

law of marriage out of one's trihe ; enclogamy, or the law of marriage

within one's trihe, inheritance and family relationship on the female
nncl on the niale side. I clo not enter here into Mr. &I'Leiman's argu-
ment, nor treat it as settling and solving this great probleni once for
all, but rather call attention to it as a goocl case, where ground has
been broken for the introduction of the scientific method of induction
from observecl facts into a district lying before alniost entirely outside
the range of science.
Everj-one loolcs upon things with regarcl to their bearing on himself
ur his particular craft. Lilce the engineer who considered the use of
rivers i ~ sbeing to feed navigable canals, I inay venture to account
teleologically for the existeilce of sayage tribes. Among the uses of
savages one great one is, I believe, that of enabling civilized men to
understancl theinselves ancl their own positio~lin the worlcl, to work
out the problem hon- far their own custonis, laws, opinions, prejudices
are the result of inheritance, ancl t h ~ to
s learn how to separate what
is good ancl vnluable in itself from what is only held so because Tve
have carried on t,he results of early states of culture into our own Inore
advancecl age.
Instead of ~vorlringo r ~ in
t detail any particular department of this
I have thought it more profitable to lay before
course of in-\~estigat~ion,
the British Bssocintion some saiilplea of its general worlring ancl
character, trusting to awalien an increased interest in a liind of in-
vestigation so important, and so lilcely to pi-odnce ininlecliate fruit, and
villich, I ventare to prophesy, will, before many more years are past,
have assulnecl the position of a great and po~verfiildepartment of
natural science.

ENGLISH SUPERSTITIONS.'+

l v 1 - 1would
~ ~ our grandfathers haye saicl to a boolr of this sort being
published by the state as a contribution to English llistory ? To inen
like Warburton, who reviled Tom Hearne for printing our early
chronicles and laughed a t Bishop Percy because he was the conlpiler
of a song-boolc, it would have been silnply inconiprehensible thdt any-
one coulcl clerive instruction from a niass of botanical and astrological
blundering as scientifically worthless as Sihly's Astr.ologly or Culpep-
per's Herbc~l. The same sort of inen laughed a t JYoodward for being
* Leechdonzs, FTro~tczcnninyand Starwaft of E a ~ l yEngland. Edited by t h e
12ev. Oswalcl Cockayne, 11.A. (Master of the Bolls' series.)