Читать книгу The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1 - Robert Vane Russell - Страница 55

In order to render clear the manner in which the clan named after a totem animal (or, less frequently, a plant) came to hold its members akin both to each other and their totem animals, an attempt may be made to indicate, however briefly and imperfectly, some features of primitive man’s conception of nature and life. Apparently when they began dimly to observe and form conscious mental impressions of the world around them, our first ancestors made some cardinal, though natural and inevitable, mistakes. In the first place they thought that the whole of nature was animate, and that every animal, plant, or natural object which they saw around them, was alive and self-conscious like themselves. They had, of course, no words or ideas connoting life or consciousness, or distinguishing animals, vegetables or lifeless objects, and they were naturally quite incapable of distinguishing them. They merely thought that everything they saw was like themselves, would feel hurt and resentment if injured, and would know what was done to it, and by whom; whenever they saw the movement of an animal, plant, or other object, they thought it was volitional and self-conscious like their own movements. If they saw a tree waving in the wind, having no idea or conception of the wind, they thought the tree was moving its branches about of its own accord; if a stone fell, they, knowing nothing of the force of gravity, thought the stone projected itself from one place to another because it wished to do so. This is exactly the point of view taken by children when they first begin to observe. They also think that everything they see is alive like themselves, and that animals exercise volition and have a self-conscious intelligence like their own. But they quickly learn their mistakes and adopt the point of view of their elders because they are taught. Primitive man had no one to teach him, and as he did not co-ordinate or test his observations, the traces of this first conception of the natural world remain clearly indicated by a vast assortment of primitive customs and beliefs to the present day. All the most prominent natural objects, the sun and moon, the sky, the sea, high mountains, rivers and springs, the earth, the fire, became objects of veneration and were worshipped as gods, and this could not possibly have happened unless they had been believed to have life. Stone images and idols are considered as living gods. In India girls are married to flowers, trees, arrows, swords, and so on. A bachelor is married to a ring or a plant before wedding a widow, and the first ceremony is considered as his true marriage. The Saligrām, or ammonite stone, is held to represent the god Vishnu, perhaps because it was thought to be a thunderbolt and to have fallen from heaven. Its marriage is celebrated with the tulsi or basil-plant, which is considered the consort of Vishnu. Trees are held to be animate and possessed by spirits, and before a man climbs a tree he begs its pardon for the injury he is about to inflict on it. When a tank is dug, its marriage is celebrated. To the ancient Roman his hearth was a god; the walls and doors and threshold of his house were gods; the boundaries of his field were also gods.100 It is precisely the same with the modern Hindu; he also venerates the threshold of his house, the cooking-hearth, the grinding-mill, and the boundaries of his field. The Jains still think that all animals, plants and inanimate objects have souls or spirits like human beings. The belief in a soul or spirit is naturally not primitive, as man could not at first conceive of anything he did not see or hear, but plants and inanimate objects could not subsequently have been credited with the possession of souls or spirits unless they had previously been thought to be alive. “The Fijians consider that if an animal or a plant dies its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men and hogs and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of the gods. If a house is taken down or any way destroyed, its immortal part will find a situation on the plains of Bolotoo. The Finns believed that all inanimate objects had their haltia or soul.”101 The Malays think that animals, vegetables and minerals, as well as human beings, have souls.102 The Kawar tribe are reported to believe that all articles of furniture and property have souls or spirits, and if any such is stolen the spirit will punish the thief. Theft is consequently almost unknown among them. All the fables about animals and plants speaking and exercising volition; the practice of ordeals, resting on the belief that the sacred living elements, fire and water, will of themselves discriminate between the innocent and guilty; the propitiatory offerings to the sea and to rivers, such incidents as Xerxes binding the sea with fetters, Ajax defying the lightning, Aaron’s rod that budded, the superstitions of sailors about ships: all result from the same primitive belief. Many other instances of self-conscious life and volition being attributed to animals, plants and natural objects are given by Lord Avebury in Origin of Civilisation, by Dr. Westermarck in The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas,103 and by Sir J.G. Frazer in The Golden Bough104

Thus primitive man had no conception of inanimate matter, and it seems probable that he did not either realise the idea of death. Though it may be doubtful whether any race exists at present which does not understand that death is the cessation of life in the body, indications remain that this view was not primary and may not have been acquired for some time. The Gonds apparently once thought that people would not die unless they were killed by magic, and similar beliefs are held by the Australian and African savages. Several customs also point to the belief in the survival of some degree of life in the body after death, apart from the idea of the soul.