Volume 1

Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars.

Date:
1908-1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Encyclopædia of religion and ethics / edited by James Hastings ; with the assistance of John A. Selbie ... and other scholars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the superficial Buddhism is everywhere intimately associated with the never-dying animism, east- wards to the Malay lands, where analogous associations crop out everywhere between Islam and the still rampant heathenism of Borneo, Celebes, Gilolo, and Mindanao. Much light has recently been thrown on this religious syncretism in Celebes by the brothers F. and P. Sarasin, in whose Reisen (Berlin, 1905) the reader will find much instructive matter. The prevalent relations in the hitherto almost absolutely unknown island of Mindanao have also been revealed by N. M. Saleeby in his Studies in Moro History, Law, and Religion, vol. iv. of the Philippine Ethnological Survey Publications (Manila, 1905). Here the ‘authentic’ genealogies of the Moro (Muhamma- dan) dynastic families are interwoven with curious agan elements, and we read of orthodox Sultans escended from unions not only with houris sent down from heaven, but also with a native princess found inside a bamboo stalk. This occurred at the time Tabunaway and Mamalu were cutting bamboo to build their fish corral. When the last tree was felled, out came a child who was called Putri Tunina, and whose little finger was wounded, the holo having cut through the bamboo, and from her sprang Malang-sa-Ingud, third datu (king) of the Bwayan dynasty. The Mindanao Muslims have also assimilated some of the pagan folk-lore, and firmly believe in the Balbal vampire, a huge night bird, whose screech is supposed to be dis- tinctly heard after sunset. It is really ‘ a human being who transforms at night into an evil spirit which devours dead people,’ in this differing from other vampires, which come out of the dead and prey on the living. But so detested is the creature, that in the local Muhammadan code, here pub- lished in full, anyone calling another balbal is fined one slave or his value (p. 68). Thus in Mindanao it is again the higher Muslim system that is affected by the lower ideals of the abori- gines, many of whom have withdrawn to the uplands of the interior, where interesting discoveries await future explorers in primitive psychologies. 6. Once more the balance is redressed in Oceania, where the more civilized Eastern Polynesians have inoculated the Western Melanesian cannibal head-hunters with their mana and other subtle religious essences. But in the process modi- fications naturally take place, and the Maori or Samoan mana is not, perhaps, quite the same thing as that of the New Hebrides savages. The Maori mana, brought from Hawaiki (Samoa?) to New Zealand by the kaka bird, is not easily dis- tinguished from the forest, the human, and the other local mauri, and is generally defined as ‘power, authority, influence, prestige’ (A. Hamil- ton, Maori Art, p. 396). But the Melanesian mana is more spiritual, analogous to the Augus- tinian ‘grace,’ without which no works avail, but with which all things superhuman can be achieved. Thus a person may have mana, but is not himself mana,—a force which ‘is present in the atmo- sphere of life, attaches itself to persons and to things, and is manifested by results which can only be ascribed to its operation ’; and again : ‘ a force altogether distinct from physical power, Avhich acts in all kinds of ways for good and evil, and which it is of the greatest advantage to possess or control’ (Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 118- 119). But however homologous with, or diver- gent from, the Maori mana, this impersonal essence permeates the whole religious thought of the Melanesians, whose religion ‘ consists, in fact, in getting this mana for oneself, or getting it used for one’s benefit—all religion, that is, as far as religious practices go, prayers and sacrifices’ {ib.). And as the principle is admittedly derived from the more highly cultured Polynesians, we have here again a primitive system influenced, and, in this instance, somewhat elevated, by a more ad- vanced line of thought. How primitive in other respects is the Melanesian system, may be seen from the belief current in the Banks’ Islands that peoj)le may become talamaur, a kind of vampire which prowls about at night, and, like the Min- danao balbal, devours the bodies of the dead. In this and several other Melanesian groups lyc- anthropy also (see Ethnology) is widely prevalent, only here the non-existent wolf is replaced by sharks, owls, eagles, and blow-flies. These last are perhaps the most dreaded, since magicians assuming such minute forms can buzz about, penetrate unseen into the houses, and torment their victims with im- punity. How such childish notions can persist side by side with the subtleties of the mana doctrine is a psychological puzzle awaiting solution. j. Perhaps even more inexplicable is the pure animism of the crudest type still everywhere sur- viving amongst the cool-headed and practical Chinese, beneath, or rather almost above, several layers of higher forms, such as ancestor-worship. Buddhism, Taoism, and the common-sense ethical teachings of Confucius. It is impossible here to dwell on these different systems which are else- where fully described (see art. CHINA [Religion OF]). It will suffice for our purpose to point out that in China the various religions, or so-called reli- gions, are, so to say, stratified or superimposed one on the other rather than intermingled, as mostly elsewhere. Hence the curious phenomenon that the Government recognizes three official reli- gions,—Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism,—to all of which, in virtue of his position, the Emperor himself belongs, and whose observances he scru- pulously fulfils, while millions of his subjects simultaneously profess these, and perhaps others, without any sense of incongruity. The several beliefs do not contradict each other, but lie peacefully side by side; and the devout Buddhist, after duly burning his tapers and incense to the innumerable idols of the joss-house, proceeds as an incurable Animist to take active measures to bafile the Feng-shui (evil spirits) by effacing the straight lines aflected by them, and to encourage the Fung-shui (good spirits) by developing the curves along which they prefer to travel. 8. Coming westwards, we find the early and the late again amalgamated, and indeed so inextri- cably that only in recent years have folk-lorists and classical students begun to distinguish between the coarse chthonic gods of the Pelasgians and the bright Aryan deities of the Hellenes, which have so long been merged together in the Greek mytho- logies, as typified, for instance, by the marriage of the Uranian Aphrodite with the hirsute and deformed cave - dwelling Hephaestus. But the fusion of the pre - Aryan Pelasgians with the proto-Aryan Hellenes was a slow process, lasting for many generations, as is evident from the differ- ent social and religious institutions prevailing in various parts of Greece during the early historic period. Thus, of fetishism we find no trace in Homer, who represents the Achaean (Hellenic) side, whereas fetish worship long persisted in Arcadia, Attica, and other distinctly Pelasgic lands. So also with totemism and the dark Poseidon of the Pelasgians, who was finally eclipsed by the fair Apollo, Zeus, and the other Aryan gods of the Achaioi. After, or perhaps during, the fusion, other religious contacts took place, as shown by the Greek Adonis borrowed with another Aphro- dite (Astarte) from the Semites. _ The conflicting accounts of these and other deities are but the results of the unconscious efforts of the ancient folk-lorists to harmonize the various legends of