Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
The last remark which has to be made about Mr. Müller's scheme of the
development of Aryan religion is that the religion, as explained by
him, does not apparently aid the growth of society, nor work with it
in any way. Let us look at a sub-barbaric society--say that of
Zululand, of New Zealand, of the Iroquois League, or at a savage
society like that of the Kanekas, or of those Australian tribes about
whom we have very many interesting and copious accounts. If we begin
with the Australians, we observe that society is based on certain laws
of marriage enforced by capital punishment. These laws of marriage
forbid the intermixing of persons belonging to the stock which
worships this or that animal, or plant. Now this rule, as already
observed, _made_ the 'gentile' system (as Mr. Morgan erroneously calls
it) the system which gradually reduces tribal hostility, by making
tribes homogeneous. The same system (with the religious sanction of a
kind of zoolatry) is in force and has worked to the same result, in
Africa, Asia, America, and Australia, while a host of minute facts
make it a reasonable conclusion that it prevailed in Europe. Among
these facts certain peculiarities of Greek and Roman and Hindoo
marriage law, Greek, Latin, and English tribal names, and a crowd of
legends are the most prominent.[204] Mr. Max Müller's doctrine of the
development of Indian religion (while admitting the existence of Snake
or Naga tribes) takes no account of the action of this universal
zoolatry on religion and society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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