The threshold of religion / by R.R. Marett.

  • Robert Ranulph Marett
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The threshold of religion / by R.R. Marett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bring it to a standstill.1 Here the advanced char- acter of the propitiatory rite probably presumes acquaintance with some form of the animistic theory. It may very well be, however, that sacrifice is here resorted to as a general religious panacea, without involving any distinct recognition of a particular glacier spirit. And now let us take a couple of instances where the theory behind the religious observance is more explicit. The Fuegians abstain from killing young ducks on the ground that, if they do, “ Rain come down, snow come down, hail come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow.” The storm is sent by a “ big man ” who lives in the woods.2 Now is this animism? I think not. What may be called a “ coincidental marvel ” is explained by a myth, and mythology need be no more than a sort of animatism grown picturesque. When, however, a Point Barrow Eskimo, in order to persuade the river to yield him fish, throws tobacco, not into the river, but into the air, and cries out “ Tuana, Tuana ” (spirit),3 then here is a full-fledged animism. Mean- while, whatever view be taken of the parts respec- tively played by animatism, mythology, animism, or what not, in investing these observances with meaning and colour, my main point is that the quality of religiousness attaches to them far less in virtue of any one of these ideal constructions than in virtue of that basic feeling of awe, which drives a man, ere he can think or theorize upon it, into personal relations with the supernatural. 1 Peet, Am. Antiq., ix. 327 ; an instance, however, that might be better authenticated. 2 Fitzroy, ii. 180. 3 Murdoch, ib433.
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