Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
It is now necessary to pass from examples of tribes who have
superstitious respect for certain individuals, but who have no property
and no chiefs, to peoples who exhibit the phenomenon of superstitious
reverence attached to wealthy rulers or to judges. To take the example
of Ireland, as described in the Senchus Mor, we learn that the chiefs,
just like the Angakut of the Eskimos, had "power to make fair or foul
weather" in the literal sense of the words.(1) In Africa, in the same
way, as Bosman, the old traveller, says, "As to what difference there
is between one negro and another, the richest man is the most honoured,"
yet the most honoured man has the same magical power as the poor
Angakuts of the Eskimos.
(1) Early History of Institutions, p. 195.
"In the Solomon Islands," says Dr. Codrington, "there is nothing to
prevent a common man from becoming a chief, if he can show that he has
the mana (supernatural power) for it."(1)
(1) Journ. Anth. Inst., x. iii. 287, 300, 309.
Though it is anticipating a later stage of this inquiry, we must here
observe that the sacredness, and even the magical virtues of barbarous
chiefs seem to have descended to the early leaders of European races.
The children of Odin and of Zeus were "sacred kings". The Homeric
chiefs, like those of the Zulus and the Red Men, and of the early Irish
and Swedes, exercised an influence over the physical universe. Homer(1)
speaks of "a blameless king, one that fears the gods, and reigns among
many men and mighty, and the black earth bears wheat and barley, and the
sheep bring forth and fail not, and the sea gives store of fish, and all
out of his good sovereignty".
(1) Od., xix. 109.
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