APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.

Cardinal Wiseman (“Lectures on Science and Religion,” ii. 228–232), in speaking of what was characteristic of most Oriental religions—a belief “in the existence of emanated influences intermediate between the divine and earthly natures,” is led on to give an account of the curious Gnostic sect, the Nazarians—“The first of these errors was common, perhaps, to other Gnostic sects; but in the Codex Nasaræus we have the two especially distinguished as different beings—light and life. In it the first emanation from God is the king of light; the second, fire; the third, water; the fourth, life.” I wish to note that, whether or not their notions as to emanations originally meant more than the act of creation, a tradition as to the successive order of the creation seems clearly embodied in the text. God created first of all light; then the sun (the firmament) is fire (the distinct creation of the light and the sun in Genesis is so marked as to create a special difficulty in the cosmogony); then water; then life, in beasts, birds, reptiles, &c; lastly, man. Comp. with supra, p. 138, and with the above legend of Michabo.

“A Slavonian account of Creation.—The current issue of the Literary Society of Prague includes a volume of popular tales collected in all the Slavonian countries, and translated by M. Erben into Czech. We extract the shortest—‘In the beginning there was only God, and He lay asleep and dreamed. At last it was time for Him to wake and look at the world. Wherever He looked through the sky, a star came out. He wondered what it was, and got up and began to walk. At last He came to our earth; He was very tired; the sweat ran down His forehead, and a drop fell on the ground. We are all made of this drop, and that is why we are the sons of God. Man was not made for pleasure; he was born of the sweat of God’s face, and now he must live by the sweat of his own: that is why men have no rest.’”—The Academy, Feb. 12, 1870.

I wish also to examine, in greater detail than I should have had space for in a note, how far the case of the Samoyeds bears out Mr Baring Gould’s theory of the development of idolatry from its grosser to its more refined manifestations, or of the progress of the human race from barbarism to the light of religion and of civilisation.

Mr Baring Gould says, p. 136—

“‘When a Schaman is aware that I have no household god,’ said a Samoyed to M. Castren, the linguist, ‘he comes to me, and I give him a squirrel, or an ermine skin.’ This skin he brings back moulded ‘into a human shape.’ ... ‘This Los is a fetish; it is not altogether an idol; it is a spirit entangled in a material object. What that object is matters little; a stump of a tree, a stone, a rag, or an animal, serves the purpose of condensing the impalpable deity into a tangible reality.’ Through this coarse superstition glimmers an intelligent conception. It is that of an all-pervading Deity, who is focussed, so to speak, in the fetish. This deity is called Num. ‘I have heard some Samoyeds declare that the earth, the sea—all nature, in short—are Num.’ ‘Where is Num? asked Castren of a Samoyed, and the man pointed to the blue sea: but an old woman told him that the sun was Num. The Siethas, worshipped by the Lapps, had no certain figure or shape formed by nature or art; they were either trees or rough stones, much worn by water. Tomæus says they were often mere tree stumps with the roots upwards.”[125]

It is curious to contrast this recent account of the Samoides with an account, apparently well informed and discriminating, in 1762. Pinkerton, i. 522—“The religion of the Samoides is very simple.... They admit the existence of a Supreme Being, Creator of all things, eminently good and beneficent; a quality which, according to their mode of thinking, dispenses them from any adoration of Him, or addressing their prayers to Him, because they suppose this Being takes no interest in mundane affairs; and consequently, does not exact nor need the worship of man. They join to this idea that of a being eternal and invisible, very powerful, though subordinate to the first, and disposed to evil. It is to this being that they ascribe all the misfortunes which befall them in this life. Nevertheless, they do not worship, although much in fear of him. If they place any reliance in the counsels of Koedesnicks or Tadebes (the ‘Schamans’ referred to above), it is only on account of the connection which they esteem these people to have with this evil being; otherwise they submit themselves with perfect apathy to all the misfortunes which can befall them.” “The sun and moon, as well, hold the place of subaltern deities. It is by their intervention, they imagine, that the Supreme Being dispenses His favours; but they worship them as little as the idols or fitches (fetishes) which they carry about them according to the recommendation of their Koedesnicks.” gives a similar account of the Lepchas), have lapsed, apparently through sun-worship, to a state of Pantheism, if not Fetishism.

Of the Tongusy, a people who, if not kin to the Samoides, have an analogous worship—(“They are altogether unacquainted with any kind of literature, and worship the sun and moon. They have many Shamans among them, who differ little from those I formerly described.”—Bell’s “Travels in Asia, Siberia”)—Bell, travelling in Siberia, 1720, says—“Although I have observed that the Tongusy in general worship the sun and moon, there are many exceptions to this observation. I have found intelligent people among them who believed there was a Being superior to both sun and moon, and who created them and all the world.” If, then, we may connect the Tongusy with the Samoides, it would appear that whereas Mr Baring Gould (i.e., Castren) finds the latter sunk in Fetishism, they were, the one in 1762, the other in 1720, the worshippers of the sun and moon, joined with the knowledge and tradition of the true God still subsisting amongst them.

F. Schlegel (“Phil. of History,” p. 138) says—“The Greeks, who described India in the time of Alexander the Great, divided the Indian religious sects into Brachmans and Samaneans.... But by the Greek denomination of Samaneans we must certainly understand the Buddhists, as among the rude nations of Central Asia, as in other countries, the priests of the religion of Fo bear at this day the name of Schamans.” Compare Professor Rawlinson, “Ancient Monarchies,” i. 139, 172. (Vide infra, p. 163, 164, 205.)