Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind · Wilhelm Max Wundt
7. EARLIEST BELIEFS IN MAGIC AND DEMONS.
In entering upon a consideration of the development of primitive myths, we are at once confronted by the old question disputed by mythologists, ethnologists, and students of religion, Where and when did religion originate? For is not religion always concerned with the supernatural? Now, in certain cases, even primitive man supplements the sensuous world in which he lives and whose impressions he has not so much as elaborated into abstract concepts, with supersensuous elements, though he himself, of course, is unaware of their supersensuous character. The question, therefore, lies near at hand: Is religion already present at this stage, or is there at most a potentiality of religion, the germ of its future development? If the latter should be true, where, then, does religion begin? Now, our interest in the history of myth-formation derives largely from the very fact that the problem is intimately bound up with that of the origin of religion. Merely in itself the origin of the myth might have relatively little interest for us. The question, however, as to how religion arose acquires its great importance through its connection with the two further questions as to whether or not religion is a necessary constituent of human consciousness and whether it is an original possession or is the result of certain preconditions of mythological thought.
It is interesting to follow this ancient dispute, particularly its course during the last few decades. In 1880, Roskoff wrote a book entitled "The Religion of the Most Primitive Nature-Peoples." In this work he assembled all the available facts, and came to the conclusion that no peoples exist who have not some form of religion. About ten years ago, however, the two Sarasins, students of Ceylon and of the primitive Veddah tribes, summed up their conclusions in the proposition: The Veddahs have no religion. If, however, we compare Roskoff's facts concerning primitive peoples with those reported by the Sarasins concerning the belief of the Veddahs in demons and magic, it appears that the facts mentioned by these investigators are essentially the same. What the former calls religion, the latter call belief in magic; but in neither case is there a statement as to what is really meant by religion. Now, we cannot, of course, come to an understanding with reference to the presence or absence of anything until we are agreed as to what the thing itself really is.
Hence, the question under dispute is raised prematurely at the present stage of our discussion; it can be answered only after we have examined more of the steps in the development of myth and of the preconditions of the religion of later times. We shall therefore recur to this point in our third chapter, after we have become acquainted with such religions as may indubitably lay claim to the name. Postponing the question for the present, we will designate the various phenomena that must be discussed at this point by the specific names attaching to them on the basis of their peculiar characteristics. In this sense, there is no doubt that we may speak of ideas of magic and of demons even in the case of primitive peoples; it is generally conceded that such ideas are universally entertained at this stage of culture. But the further question at once arises as to the source of this belief in magic and in demons, and as to the influences by which it is sustained. Now, in respect to this point _two_ views prevail, even among the ethnologists who have made an intensive study of primitive peoples. The one view may briefly be called that of nature-mythology.
It assumes that even far back under early conditions the phenomena of the heavens were the objects that peculiarly fascinated the thought of man and elevated it above its immediate sensible environment. All mythology, therefore, is supposed originally to have been mythology of nature, particularly of the heavens. Doubtless this would already involve a religious element, or, at least, a religious tendency. The second view carries us even farther in the same direction. It holds that the ideas of primitive man, so far as they deal with the supersensuous, are simpler than those of the more highly developed peoples. Just for this reason, however, it regards these ideas as more perfect and as approaching more nearly the beliefs of the higher religions. As a matter of fact, if we compare, let us say, the Semangs and the Senoi, or the Veddahs, with the natives of Australia, we find a very great difference as regards this point. Even the mythology of the Australians is undoubtedly much more complex than that of these peoples of nature, and the farther we trace this myth development the greater the complexity becomes. That which is simple, however, is supposed to be also the higher and the more exalted, just as it is the more primitive.
The beginning is supposed to anticipate the end, as a revelation not yet distorted by human error. For, the highest form of religion is not a mythology including a multitude of gods, but the belief in _one_ God--that is, monotheism. It was believed, therefore, that the very discovery of primitive man offered new support for this view. This theory, however, is bound up with an important anthropological consideration--the question concerning the place of the so-called _Pygmies_ in the history of human development. It was on the basis of their physical characteristics that these dwarf peoples of Africa and Asia, of whom it is only in comparatively recent times that we have gained any considerable knowledge, were first declared by Julius Kollman to be the childhood peoples of humanity, who everywhere preceded the races of larger stature. Such childhood characteristics, indeed, are revealed not only in their small stature but in other traits as well. Schweinfurth observed that the entire skin of the Pygmies of Central Africa is covered with fine, downy hair, much as is that of the newly born child. It is by means of these downy hairs that the Monbuttu negro of that region distinguishes the Pygmy from a youth of his own tribe.
The Negrito is primitive also in that his dermal glands are abnormally active, causing a bodily odour which is far greater than that of the negro, and which, just as in the case of some animals, increases noticeably under the stress of emotion. If, in addition to these physical characteristics, we consider the low cultural level of all these dwarf peoples, the hypothesis that the Pygmies are a primitive people does not, indeed, seem altogether strange. Starting with this hypothesis, therefore, William Schmidt, in his work, "The Place of the Pygmies in the Development of Mankind" (1910), attempted to prove the proposition that the Pygmies are the childhood peoples of humanity in their mental culture no less than in their physical development. This being their nature, they are, of course, limited intellectually; morally, however, they are in a state of innocence, as is demonstrated among other things by the pure monogamy prevailing among them, as well as by their highest possession, their monotheistic belief.
Now, the supposition of moral innocence rests essentially on the twofold assumption of the identity of primitive man with the Pygmy and of the legitimacy of holding that what has been observed of _one_ tribe of Pygmies is true of the primitive condition generally. But this identity of primitive man with the Pygmy cannot be maintained. The most typical traits of primitive mental culture are doubtless to be found among the Veddahs of Ceylon. The Veddahs, however, are not really Pygmies, but are of large stature. Moreover, there are primitive people who are so far from being Pygmies that they belong rather to the tall races. We might cite the extinct Tasmanians, whose culture was probably a stage lower than that of the modern Australians. In most respects, many of the tribes of Central Australia exhibit traits of primitive culture, even though their social organization is of a far more complicated nature. Finally, all the peoples whose remains have been found in the oldest diluvial deposits of Europe belong to the tall races. On the other hand, there are peoples of small stature, the Chinese and the Japanese, who must be counted in the first ranks of cultured peoples. Thus, mental culture certainly cannot be measured in terms of physical size but only in terms of itself.
Mental values can never be determined except by mental characteristics. It is true that W. Schmidt has sought to support his theory regarding the Pygmies by reference to the reports of E.H. Man, a reliable English observer. According to these reports, the Andamanese, one of these dwarf peoples, possess some remarkable legends that are doubtless indicative of monotheistic ideas. Since the Andamans are a group of islands in the Sea of Bengal and the inhabitants are therefore separated from other peoples by an expanse of sea, Schmidt regarded as justifiable the assumption that these legends were autochthonous; since, moreover, the legends centre about the belief in a supreme god, he contended that we here finally had proof of the theory of an original monotheism. The main outlines of the Andamanese legends as given by E.H. Man are as follows: The supreme god, Puluga, first created man and subsequently (though with regard to this there are various versions) he created woman. She was either created directly, as was man, or man himself created her out of a piece of wood, possibly a reminiscence of Adam's rib. Then God gave man laws forbidding theft, murder, adultery, etc., forbidding him, furthermore, to eat of the fruits of the first rainy season. But man did not keep the Divine commandments.
The Lord therefore sent a universal flood, in which perished all living things with the exception of two men and two women who happened to be in a boat. In this story, much is naturally distorted, confused, and adapted to the medium into which the legend is transplanted. But that it points to the Biblical accounts of the Creation, Paradise, and the Flood, there cannot, in my opinion, be the slightest doubt. If it is objected that the Andamans are altogether too far separated from the rest of the world by the sea, and also that no missionaries have ever been seen on these islands, our answer would be: Whatever may be the 'when' and the 'how,' the _fact that_ the Biblical tradition at some time did come to the Andamanese is proven by the legend itself. This conclusion is just as incontestable as is the inference, for example, that the correspondence of certain South American and Asiatic myths is proof of a transmission. Indeed, the two latter regions are separated by an incomparably wider expanse of sea than that which divides the Andamans from Indo-China and its neighbouring islands.
It should also be added that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands have obviously progressed far beyond the condition in which we find the inland tribes of Malacca, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Negritos of the Philippines. They practise the art of making pottery--an art never found among peoples who are properly called primitive; they have a social organization, with chiefs. These phenomena all characterize a fairly advanced culture. When, therefore, we are concerned with the beliefs of peoples who are really primitive, the Andamanese must be left out of consideration. According to the available proofs, however, these people possess a belief neither in one god nor in many gods. Moreover, even far beyond the most primitive stage, no coherent celestial mythology may be found, such as could possibly be regarded as an incipient polytheism. No doubt, there are ideas concerning single heavenly phenomena, but these always betray an association with terrestrial objects, particularly with human beings or animals. And, to all appearances, these ideas change with great rapidity. Nowhere have they led to the actual formation of myths.
Among the Indians of the Brazilian forests, for example, the sun and moon are called leaves or feather-balls; by several of the Soudan tribes they are conceived as balls that have been thrown to the sky by human beings and have stuck there. Such ideas alternate with others in which the sun and moon are regarded as brothers or as brother and sister, or the sun is said to be chasing the moon--images influenced particularly by the phenomena of the moon's phases. As a matter of fact, this whole field of ideas reveals only _one_ belief that is practically universal, appearing among peoples of nature and recurring even among civilized peoples. Because of the rare occurrence of the phenomenon, however, it has never led to a real mythology. I refer to the belief that in an eclipse of the sun, the sun is swallowed by a dark demon. This belief, obviously, is very readily suggested to the primitive imagination; it occurs in Central Africa, in Australia, and in America, and is found even in Indian mythology. Taken by itself, however, the notion is incapable of engendering a myth. It is to be regarded merely as an isolated case to be classed with a more richly developed set of demon-ideas that dominate the daily life of primitive man. At this stage, these ideas are the only elements of an incipient mythology that are clearly discernible and that at the same time exercise an important influence upon life. In so far as the mythology of primitive man gains a permanent foothold and influence, it consists of a _belief in magic and demons_. There are, however, two motives which engender this belief and give form and colour to the ideas and emotions springing from them. These are _death_ and _sickness_.
Death! There are doubtless few impressions that have so powerful an effect upon the man of nature; indeed, civilized man as well is still very greatly stirred by the phenomenon of death. Let his companion meet with death, and even the outward actions of a primitive man are significant. The moment a person dies, the immediate impulse of primitive man is to leave him lying where he is and to flee. The dead person is abandoned, and the place where he died continues to be avoided for a long time--if possible, until animals have devoured the corpse. Obviously the emotion of _fear_ is regnant. Its immediate cause is apparently the unusual and fear-inspiring changes which death makes in the appearance of a man. The suspension of movements, the pallor of death, the sudden cessation of breathing--these are phenomena sufficient to cause the most extreme terror. But what is the nature of the ideas that associate themselves with this fearsome impression? The flight from the corpse is evidence that man's fears are primarily for himself. To tarry in the presence of a dead person exposes the living man to the danger of being himself overtaken by death. The source of this danger is evidently identical with that which has brought death to the recently deceased person himself.
Primitive man cannot think of death except as the sudden departure from the dying person of that which originally brought life. Nevertheless, there is evidently bound up with this conception the further idea that powers of life are still resident in the body; the latter remains firmly associated in the mind of primitive man with the impression of life. Here, then, we have the original source of the contradictory idea of a something that generates life and is therefore independent of the body, while nevertheless being connected with it. So far as we can gain knowledge of the impression which death makes on the mind of primitive man, two disparate motives are indissolubly united. He regards life as something that, in part, continues in some mysterious manner to dwell within the corpse, and, in part, hovers about, invisible, in its vicinity. For this reason, the dead person becomes to him a _demon_, an invisible being capable of seizing upon man, of overpowering or killing him, or of bringing sickness upon him. In addition to this primitive idea of demons, we also find the conception of a _corporeal soul_, meaning by this the belief that the body is the vehicle of life, and that, so long as it has not itself disappeared, it continues to harbour the life within itself.
The corporeal soul is here still regarded as a unit which may, by separating itself from the body, become a demon and pass over into another person. No certain traces are as yet to be found of belief in a breath or shadow-like soul. As will appear later, this is a characteristic feature of the transition from primitive to totemic culture. When some investigators report that the soul is occasionally referred to by the Semangs of Malacca as a small bird that soars into the air at the death of a person, it is not improbable that we here have to do either with the Semangs of culture, who have undergone marked changes under Malayan influence, or with the presence of an isolated idea that belongs to a different cultural circle. For in no other case are ideas similar to that of the psyche to be found on the level of primitive culture. On the other hand, the burial customs of the Malays and of the mixed races living in the immediate vicinity of the primitive peoples of the Malay Peninsula, already exhibit a striking contrast to the flight of primitive man from the corpse.
The next group of ideas, those arising from the impression made by _sickness_, particularly by such sicknesses as attack man suddenly, are also restricted to the conception of a corporeal soul. For, one of the most characteristic marks of this conception is that magical, demoniacal powers are believed to issue from the body of the dead person. These powers, however, are not, as occurs in the above case, regarded as embodied in any visible thing--such as the exhalations of the breath or an escaping animal--that separates itself from the person. On the contrary, the demon that leaves the corpse and attacks another person in the form of a fatal sickness, is invisible. He is purely the result of an association between the fear aroused by the occurrence of death and the fright caused by an unexpected attack of sickness. The dead person, therefore, continues to remain the seat of demoniacal powers; these he can repeatedly direct against the living persons who approach him. Primitive man believes that the demon may assume any form whatsoever within the body, and deceitful medicine-men take advantage of this in ostensibly removing the sickness in the form of a piece of wood or of a stone. But it is precisely these ideas that are totally unrelated to that of a psyche and its embodiments.
Though the corpse is perhaps the earliest object that suggests sickness-demons, it is in no wise the only one. Indeed, the attack of sickness is in itself sufficient to arouse fear of a demon. Thus, the Semangs and Senoi distinguish a vast number of different sickness-demons. Such ideas of demons, however, as we find among the Malays and the Singhalese, where demons are regarded as counter-agents to sickness-magic and usually take the form of fantastical animal monsters, never occur except at a later cultural stage. Any resemblance of these demons to 'soul animals,' which, as we shall find in our next chapter, are always actual animals, is confined to the fact that they have some similarity to animals. Obviously they are creations of the imagination, due to fear and terror. Their only difference from the monsters of similar origin that are projected into the outward world is that they are reduced to proportions which fit the dimensions of the human body.
Closely connected with the magic of sickness is counter-magic, an agency by which disease is removed or the attack of sickness-demons warded off. Even primitive man seeks for such modes of relief. Hence, probably, the original formation of a special group of men, which, though not, of course, at the very first a fixed professional class, was nevertheless the precursor of the latter. Among the American Indians, these were the 'medicine-men'; the peoples of northern Asia called them 'shamans'--more generally expressed, they were magicians. The name 'medicine-man,' indeed, is not inappropriate. The medicine-man of the savages is, in truth, the predecessor of the modern physician, and also, in a certain sense, of the modern priest. He not only ministers to the individual whom he restores to health by means of his counter-magic, but he can himself directly practise magic. Since he has power over demons, he can exorcise them from the body; but he can also magically cause them to enter it. Thus, the medicine-man has a twofold calling. He is feared, but he is also valued as a helper in need. His position differs according as the one or the other emotion predominates. He was the first to investigate the effect of herbs on man.
He probably discovered the poisons, and, by rendering the arrow poisonous, gained a still higher authority in the eyes of the savage. For the arrow, too, is a means of magic. But he also discovered methods of removing poisons, and thereby transformed poisonous plants into articles of food. His calling, then, is a supremely important one, though also at all times dangerous for the one who practises it. He is not only exposed to persecution if he fails to accomplish what is expected of him, or if he is suspected of evil magic, but the magician, when pressed by need, also becomes a deceiver. The deception of the medicine-man, indeed, apparently dates back to the very earliest times. Koch-Grünberg tells us that among the Central Brazilians the medicine-men expel disease by carrying about with them a piece of wood, which they bring forth, after various manipulations, as the alleged seat of the demon. If the suggestion thus given is effective, the patient may, of course, feel himself improved. At any rate, we must not think that the mass of the people is led to lose belief in magic; in most cases, perhaps, the medicine-man himself remains a deceived deceiver. Nevertheless, on the primitive stage, death and sickness are the main sources of belief in magic and in demons. From this as a centre, the belief radiates far out into all departments of life. The belief in magic, for example, assumes the form of _protective magic_, of magical defence against demoniacal influences. In this form, it probably determines the original modes of dress, and, more obviously and permanently still, the adornment of the body. In fact, in its beginnings, this adornment was really designed less for decoration than for purposes of magic.
In connection with the external culture of primitive man we have already noted his meagre dress, which frequently consisted merely of a cord of bast about the loins, with leaves suspended from it. What was the origin of this dress? In the tropical regions, where primitive man lives, it was surely not the result of need for protection; nor can we truthfully ascribe it to modesty, as is generally done on the ground that it is the genital parts that are most frequently covered. In estimating the causes, the questions of primary importance are rather those as to where the very first traces of dress appear and of what its most permanent parts consist. The answer to the latter question, however, is to be found not in the apron but in the _loin-cord_, which is occasionally girt about the hips without any further attempt at dress. Obviously this was not a means of protection against storm and cold; nor can modesty be said to have factored in the development of this article, which serves the purposes both of dress and of adornment. But what was its real meaning? An incident from the life of the Veddahs may perhaps furnish the answer to this question.
When the Veddah enters into marriage, he binds a cord about the loins of his prospective wife. Obviously this is nothing else than a form of the widely current 'cord-magic,' which plays a not inconsiderable rôle even in present-day superstition. Cord-magic aims to bring about certain results by means of a firmly fastened cord. This cord is not a symbol, but is, as all symbols originally were, a means of magic. When a cord is fastened about a diseased part of the body and then transferred to a tree, it is commonly believed that the sickness is magically transplanted into the tree. If the tree is regarded as representing an enemy, moreover, this act, by a further association, is believed to transfer sickness or death to the enemy through the agency of the tree. The cord-magic of the Veddah is obviously of a simpler nature than this. By means of the cord which he has himself fastened, the Veddah endeavours to secure the faithfulness of his wife. The further parts of primitive dress were developments of the loin-cord, and were worn suspended from it. Coincidentally with this, the original means of adornment make their appearance. Necklaces and bracelets, which have remained favourite articles of feminine adornment even within our present culture, and fillets about the head which, among some of the peoples of nature, are likewise worn chiefly by the women, are further developments of the loin-cord, transferred, as it were, to other parts of the body. And, as the first clothing was attached to the loin-cord, so also were the bracelet and fillet, and particularly the necklace, employed to carry other early means of protective magic, namely, amulets. Gradually the latter also developed into articles of adornment, preferably worn, even to-day, about the neck.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.