'This son of Zeus is believed to be the only god who really knows the
future and the will of his father. There is another son, Hermes, one of
whose duties is to conduct the souls of the dead into the presence of
their judge, who is not Zeus, but another god.
'There is also a son of Apollo, whom I take to be only a kind of double
of that god; he sometimes appears to his worshippers as a serpent: his
name is Asclepius.
'This reminds us of what Winslow writes about the Red Indians of New
England. They have a supreme being, Kiehtan, whose son, Hobamok,
appears in their assemblies as a serpent. Ridley has the same story
about the blacks of Australia. I infer, then, that the natives of this
island have inherited or been taught some elements of Christianity, as
in the case of Apollo, the mediator between Zeus and men; and Hermes,
the Guide of Souls as they call him, _psychopompos_ in their language.
But they have mixed up all this with degrading superstitions.'
Of course our traveller has arrived among Greeks, and quotes the
Homeric hymn to Apollo. But the Greeks, being prior to Christianity,
did not borrow from it, as our traveller supposes. On the other hand,
the Greek beliefs which he describes resemble Australian and American
beliefs more closely than Australian and American beliefs resemble
the creed taught by missionaries. Yet neither Mr. Tylor nor any
other friend of the borrowing theory asserts that the Australians or
Americans borrowed their tenets from Greece.
The truth seems to be that where a supreme being is regarded as too
remote and impassive, he is naturally supplied with a deputy. Ahone has
Oki, Kiehtan has Hobamok, Boyma has Grogoragally, Baiame has Tundun,
or in places Daramulun; Nyankupon, in West Africa, has Bobowissi.
Sometimes, as in the Australian Noorele's case, these active deputies
are sons of the supreme being. No borrowing is needed to explain ideas
so natural to early men, believing in a supreme being remote and
retired, little concerned with mundane affairs, and acting through a
deputy or deputies. In other cases, as of the Finnish Num, or the Zulu
Unkulunkulu, or the Algonquin Atahocan, the being is quite neglected in
favour of spirits who receive sacrifices of meat or grease. Human minds
work on similar lines, without borrowing, which is only alleged in the
case of Christianity to account for the beliefs which do not fit the
'ghost theory' of modern speculators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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