[Footnote 134: Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River_, i. 127.] [Footnote 135: Charlevoix, _Voyage to North America_, ii. 24 _sq._] [Footnote 136: Hennepin, _Description de la Louisiane_, Les M[oe]urs des Sauvages, p. 71 _sq._] [Footnote 137: Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 218.] [Footnote 138: Dennett, in _Jour. African Society_, i. 276.] [Footnote 139: Merker, quoted by Kohler, in _Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ xv. 64.] [Footnote 140: Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 154.] [Footnote 141: Burton, _Lake Regions of Central Africa_, ii. 320.] [Footnote 142: [(]Abdssalam Shabeeny, _Account of Timbuctoo and Housa_, p. 49.] The idea that derangement of the mind is due to spiritual possession, often makes the idiot or the insane an object of religious reverence.[143] The Macusis regard lunatics as holy.[144] The Brazilian Paravilhana believe that idiots are inspired.[145] According to Schoolcraft, "regard for lunatics, or the demented members of the human race, is a universal trait among the American tribes."[146] So, also, the African Barolong give a kind of worship to deranged persons, who are said to be under the direct influence of a deity.[147] A certain kind of madness was regarded by the ancient Greeks as a divine gift, and consequently as "superior to a sane mind."[148] Lane states that, among the modern {271} Egyptians, an idiot or a fool is vulgarly regarded "as a being whose mind is in heaven, while his grosser part mingles among ordinary mortals; consequently he is considered an especial favourite of heaven. Whatever enormities a reputed saint may commit (and there are many who are constantly infringing precepts of their religion), such acts do not affect his fame for sanctity; for they are considered as the results of the abstraction of his mind from worldly things--his soul, or reasoning faculties, being wholly absorbed in devotion--so that his passions are left without control. Lunatics who are dangerous to society are kept in confinement, but those who are harmless are generally regarded as saints."[149] The same holds good of Morocco. Lunatics are not even obliged to observe the Ramadan fast, the most imperative of all religious duties; of a person who, instead of abstaining from all food till sunset, was taking his meal in broad daylight in the open street, I heard the people forgivingly say, "The poor fellow does not know what he is doing, his mind is with God."[150] [Footnote 143: _Cf._ Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 128.] [Footnote 144: Andree, _Ethnographische Parallelen_, _Neue Folge_, p. 3.] [Footnote 145: von Martius, _Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's_, i. 633.] [Footnote 146: Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, iv. 49.] [Footnote 147: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 130.] [Footnote 148: Plato, _Phædrus_, p. 244.] [Footnote 149: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, p. 237.]