The Tusayan ritual : a study of the influence of environment on aboriginal cults / by J. Walter Fewkes.

  • Jesse Walter Fewkes
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Tusayan ritual : a study of the influence of environment on aboriginal cults / by J. Walter Fewkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were timorous and bodily weak, inherited from them a wonder and fear at anything unusual or uncanny. This dawning intelligence, influenced by such sentiments as wonder, fear, hope, and love, reached that mental condition when, as pointed out by King, it ascribed all happen¬ ings about itself to luck.1 His heritage was a mind unable to separate the normal from the abnormal, and everything to such a mind is mys¬ terious, and all nature is regarded as living, but we can hardly sup¬ pose that in that condition it deified or saw gods in everything. Man understood the causes of few of the mysteries about him, and felt him¬ self at the caprice of chance. He was a consistent fatalist, overlooking good, for that was normal, but associating the bad with chance. In this early condition a stage of super naturalism called fetishism, or the use of charms, spells, amulets, mascots of various kinds to control chance, arose. As far as I know, no race has wholly outgrown this condition, and the lower we descend in the scale of humanity, either historically in our own race, or ethnograpliically among savages, the relative predominance of fetishism increases. There is no more con¬ stant element, none following the same law of increase; the present forms of monotheism have the least, the lowest savage the most. While at present there survives no people so degraded that fetishism is the only cult, those nearest that stage are the lowest in mental, moral, and social attainments. I need not remind you that at that early stage a fetish was not an idol, it may or may not have had a regular form 5 a stone, a root, an amulet may serve as a fetish. In this stage of development every individual came to believe that he had a certain protective charm. We can hardly believe he had a system of gods or that he recognized such. Later in its evolution fetishism became incorporated with other higher elements, especially symbolism, but in its archaic conception this was impossible. The highest outgrowth of pure fetishism was the shaman or medi¬ cine man. It was recognized that certain men were gifted with occult powers beyond their fellows, and were more potent to control happen¬ ings. But this medicine man made use of impersonal amulets, not personal spirits. The second stage in the growth of the supernatural was a belief in a spirit2 or double of man, the concept of animism. When through JI find myself in accord with Mr. J. H. King, who has discussed this subject at length in his work, The Supernatural; its Origin, Nature, and Evolution. While there are several points in his discussion where I can not see my way clear to accept his interpretations, 1 have in others found my views almost coinciding with his. He has discussed the subject in so scholarly a manner that the small space I can give to this great subject might have been better occupied with quotations from his volumes. His work should be thoughtfully studied by everyone interested in this subject. 'The recognition of spirit was of very early date, and is regarded by Sir J. Lub¬ bock, Dr. Tylor, and Herbert Spencer as characteristic of all supernaturalism. Mr. King, however, seems to me to have advanced strong reasons to show that fetishism may have antedated animism. Although I have adopted his view, I am sure there is much to be said on the other side.
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