Note 190.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

An alternative to driving away the supernatural being is to threaten and insult him. Of this I have in previous pages given some examples. The ancient Greeks had a technical term for formulæ of this kind. They called them θεῶν ἀνάγκαι, compulsions of the gods. It will be sufficient to refer to a few cases of insult employed by different peoples in all seriousness, and often in the sacred ritual. When a sacrifice is offered to the ancestral manes by the Thonga of South-Eastern Africa on the occasion of sickness in the family, they are told: “You are useless, you gods; you only give us trouble! For although we give you offerings, you do not listen to us! We are deprived of everything! You [naming the ancestral spirit who is addressed as the cause of the evil] are full of hatred! You do not enrich us! All those who succeed do so by the help of their gods!” We are informed that when some great misfortune is the occasion for a special sacrifice, the request presented in the prayer is preceded or followed by a ritual insulting of the gods (manes). “There are two words used to designate this curious part of the prayer: holobela, to scold the gods, or rukatela, the real word for to insult.”190.1 Here it must not be forgotten that the personages addressed are members of the family. It is true that they have been divinized by death, but their family relationship has not been dissolved. They have still their duties to perform, as well as the survivors; and if they neglect them a family quarrel may reasonably be the consequence, as it might in their lifetime.