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Systems of Religious and Spiritual
Belief
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In the history of religions and
cultures, nature worship as a
definite and complex system of belief or as a predominant form of religion has
not been well documented. Among primitive peoples the concept of nature as a
totality is unknown; only individual natural phenomena--e.g., stars, rain, and animals--are comprehended as natural objects
or forces that influence them and are thus in some way worthy of being venerated
or placated. Nature as an entity in itself, in contrast with man, human society
and culture, or even God, is a philosophical or poetic conception that has been
developed among advanced civilizations. This concept of nature worship,
therefore, is limited primarily to scholars involved in or influenced by the
modern (especially Western) study of religion. (see also primitive religion, nature,
philosophy of) |
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To students of religion, the closest
example of what may be termed nature worship is perhaps most apparent in ancient
or nonliterate cultures in which there is a high god as the lord in heaven who
has withdrawn from the immediate details of the governing of the world. This
kind of high god -- the Deus otiosushidden, or idle, god--is one who has delegated all work on earth to what are
called " nature spirits," which are the forces or personifications of
the forces of nature. High gods exist, for example, in such indigenous religions
on Africa's west coast as that of the Dyola of Guinea. In such religions the
spiritual environment of man is functionally structured by means of personified
natural powers, or nature spirits. (see also sacred
and profane) |
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Pantheism
(a belief system in which God is equated with the forces of the universe) or deism
(a belief system based on a non-intervening creator of the universe), as was
advocated in the rationalistic philosophy of religion of western Europe of the
16th to 18th centuries, is not appropriate in studies of nature worship in
preliterate cultures. Worship of nature as an omnipotent entity, in the
pantheistic sense, has not as yet been documented anywhere. |
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The power or force within nature that
has most often been venerated, worshipped, or held in holy awe is mana.
Mana, often designated as "impersonal power" or "supernatural
power," is a term used by Polynesians
and Melanesians that 19th-century Western anthropologists appropriated to apply
to that which affected the common processes of nature. Mana was conceptually
linked to North American Indian terms that conveyed the same or similar
notions--e.g., orenda of the Iroquois,
wakan of the Dakotas, and manitou of the Algonkin. Neither the designation
"impersonal power" nor "supernatural power" implies what
mana really means, however, because mana usually issues from persons or is used
by them, and the concept of a supernatural sphere as distinct or separate from a
natural sphere is seldom recognized by preliterate peoples. |
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Thus, a better designation for mana is
"super force" or "extraordinary efficiency." A person has
mana when he is successful, fortunate, and demonstrates extraordinary skill--e.g.,
as an artisan, warrior, or chief. Mana can also be obtained from the atuas
(gods), providing that they themselves possess it. Derived from a root term
that has aristocratic connotations, mana corresponds to Polynesian social
classifications. The ariki,
or alii, the nobility of Polynesia, have more power (mana), and the
area that belongs to them and even the insignia associated with them have mana.
Besides areas and symbolic elements that are associated with the ariki,
many objects and animals having special relationships with chiefs, warriors, or
priests have mana. |
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The concept of hasina of the Indonesian Hova (or Merina)
on Madagascar is very similar to mana. It demonstrates the same aristocratic
root character as the word mana, which is derived from the Indonesian manang
("to be influential, superior"). |
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The Iroquoian term orenda,
similar to mana, designates a power that is inherent in numerous objects of
nature but that does not have essential personification or animistic (soul)
elements. Orenda, however, is not a collective omnipotence. Powerful hunters,
priests, and shamans have orenda to some degree. The wakandaor wakan, of the Sioux
Indians is described similarly, but as Wakan-Tanka it may refer to a collective
unity of gods with great power (wakan). The manitou
of the Algonkin is not merely
an impersonal power, comparable to the wakan, that is inherent in all things of
nature but is also the personification of numerous manitous (powers), with a
Great Manitou (Kitchi-Manitou) at the head. These manitous may even be
designated as protective spirits that are akin to those of other North American
Indians, such as the digi of the
Apaches, boha of the Shoshones, and maxpe
of the Crow, as well as the sila of
the Eskimos. (see also Iroquois) |
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The super forces (such as Mulungu,
Imana, Jok, and others in Africa) that Western scholars have noted outside of
the Austronesian-American circles of peoples are often wrongly interpreted as
concepts of God. Only the barakah(derived from the pre-Islamic thought world of the Berbers
and Arabs), the contagious superpower (or holiness) of the saints, and the power
Nyama in western Sudan that works as a force within large wild animals, certain
bush spirits, and physically handicapped people--appearing especially as a
contagious power of revenge--may be added with a certain justification to that
force of nature that is designated by mana. A striking similarity with mana may
also be noted in the concepts of heil (good
omen), saell (fortunate), and hamingja
(luck) of the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples. |
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Heaven
and earth, as personified
powers of nature and thus worthy of worship, are evidently not of equal age.
Though from earliest times heaven was believed to be the residence of a high
being or a prominent god, the earth as a personified entity is much rarer; it
probably first occurred among archaic agrarian civilizations, and it continues
to occur in some primitive societies in which agriculture is practiced. Gods of
heaven, however, are characteristic spiritual beings of early and contemporary
hunter and collector cultures and are found in almost all cultures. (see also myth) |
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Primitive world views generally assume
the earth to be simply given (i.e., as
continuously existing). Sometimes the earth is believed to have emerged out of
chaos or a primal sea or to have come into existence by the act of a heavenly
god, transformer, or demiurge (creator). Even in such world views, however, the
earth usually remains without a divine owner, unless through agriculture and the
cult of the dead the earth is conceived as the underworld or as the source of
the renewing powers of nature. The fact that heaven is animated by rain-giving
clouds (with lightning and thunder) and by a regular chorus of warming and
illuminating celestial bodies (sun, moon, and stars) led to concepts of the
personification of heaven from earliest times. (see also hunting and gathering society, creation
myth) |
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Heavenly deities, as the personification
of the physical aspects of the sky, appear in variations that are adapted to the
types of cultures concerned. The listing offered below does not represent a
unilinear development that is applicable everywhere. |
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The god of heaven is often viewed as an
ever-active father of the family, often called upon but rarely the recipient of
sacrifices. He is able to intervene in human and natural affairs without the aid
of an intermediary (e.g., priest,
medicine man, or ancestors). As a numinous (spiritual) being, he is closer to
man than other spiritual powers. He sends lightning and rain and rules the stars
that are at most essential aspects of himself or are members of his family
subject to him. He is the creator and the receiver of the dead. Modern scholars
have designated such a being as the "high god," "supreme
god," the "highest being" of the "original monotheism"
(according to the theories of a German scholar, P.W. Schmidt), the idealized god
of heaven (according to the views of an Italian historian of religion, Raffaele
Pettazzoni), or the familiar father deity (according to the views of a British
anthropologist, Andrew Lang). Very human, often comical, or even unethical and
repulsive traits of such deities are often represented in myths that also
sometimes include legends of animal or human ancestors. |
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This type of deity is generally found in
its most developed form among the old hunter and collector peoples of the
temperate and arid areas (e.g., forest
Indians of North America, Indians of California and of Tierra del Fuego in South
America, Australian Aborigines, and African Bushmen) and of the tropic primeval
forests, where he is usually conceived as a storm and thunder being (e.g.,
Tore of the Ituri Pygmies or Karei of the Semang of the Andaman Islands). He
is also worshipped among the pastoral peoples as the "blue" or
"white" sky of the wide pastures in the steppes of northeastern Africa
(e.g., Waka of the Galla) and of
Central and North Asia (e.g., Torem, Num, and Tengri of the Ugrians, Samoyeds, and Mongols). |
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Among such peoples, heaven is often
merged with an old hunting deity, the Lord of the Animals, or it allows the
latter to exist as a hypostasis by his side. |
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The god of heaven may be a Deus
otiosuswho has,
after completing the creation, withdrawn into heaven and abandoned the
government of the world to the ancestors of men or to nature spirits that are
dependent on him and act as mediators between him and men. This type of the god,
who is able to intervene directly only when there are widespread existential
necessities or needs (e.g., drought,
pestilence, or war), can be found primarily where worship of the dead or worship
of individual local "earth spirits"--not yet integrated into an
all-inclusive earth deity--obscures everything else. This type of god occurs
especially in areas of so-called primitive agriculture (e.g., large parts of Africa, Melanesia, and South America). |
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The god of heaven also may be the head
of a pantheon of gods, the first among equals, or the absolute ruler in a
hierarchy of gods. This occurs in polytheism
(belief in many gods) in its purest form. The deities associated with him are
often related to him by family ties (genealogies of gods). Occasionally, the
heavenly phenomena are distributed among members of the clan of gods, the god of
heaven himself thus becoming rather vague. The divine pair heaven-earth
represents only one among many possible combinations--e.g., Dyaus-pitri (= heaven, male) and Prthivi
(= earth, female) in Vedic India or, with an unusual distribution of the sexes,
Nut (= heaven, woman) and Geb (= earth, man) in ancient Egypt. |
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Occasionally, generations of gods
succeed each other (e.g., Greece,
western Asia). In such instances, the more universal god of heaven is often
replaced by the younger god of thunderstorms (e.g.,
Zeus of the Greeks, Teshub of the Hittites, or Hadad of the Semites) or is
even relegated to the background by a goddess, such as Inanna-Ishtar (the love
or fertility goddess in Babylonia) or Amaterasu, the sun goddess of Japan. |
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In ancient China, Heaven (T'ien,
or Shang Ti, the highest lord)
ruled over the many more popular gods and was even closely related to the
representatives of the Imperial household. Deification of the celestial emperor
is a cultic practice that extends from Korea to Annam (part of Vietnam). The
roots of the worship of heaven in Asia are probably the beliefs of central and
northern Asiatic nomadic peoples in a solitary god of heaven. Gods of heaven,
above or behind a pantheon (grouping of gods), probably originated in areas
where a theocratic stratified bureaucracy existed or where sacral kingdoms exist
or have existed--e.g., in The Sudan or
northeastern Africa (Akan-Baule, Dahomey, Yoruba-Benin, Jukun, Buganda, and
neighbouring states), western Indonesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, and in the
advanced civilizations of pre-Columbian Meso-America and South America (see also
Polytheism below). (see also Chinese
religion, East Asia, sacred
kingship) |
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The god of heaven in many areas is a
partner of an earth deity. In such cases, other numina (spirits) are missing or
are subject to one of the two as spirits of nature or ancestors. Myths depicting
the heaven-earth partnership usually describe the foundations or origins of the
partnership in terms of a separation of a primeval chaos into heaven and earth
or in terms of a later separation of heaven and earth that originally lay close
together, and they describe the impregnation of the earth by the seed of the god
(e.g., Hieros gamos, or the sacred
marriage). This partnership of the god of heaven and the goddess of earth may be
found in areas of Africa that have been influenced by advanced civilizations
(especially The Sudan and northeastern Africa), in eastern Indonesia, and in
some areas of America under the influence of advanced civilizations. |
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Not infrequently the god of heaven and
the goddess of earth are fused into a hermaphroditic higher deity. This accords
with certain traits of ancient civilizations which try to show in customs and
myths that the dichotomies, for example, of heaven and earth, day and night, or
man and woman, need to be surmounted in a kind of bisexual spiritual force.
Certain myths express the loss of an original bisexuality of the world and
people. In a creation myth found in the Vedas,
for example, it was Purusa, an
androgynous primal man, who separated into man and woman and from whom the world
was created with all its contrasts. Another such creation myth is the cosmic
egg, which was separated into the male sky and the female earth. |
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In several religions the god of heaven
has an antagonistic evil adversary who delights in destroying completely or
partially the good creative deeds of the god of heaven. This helps to explain
the insecurity of existence and concepts of ethical dualism.
In most such cases, the contrasts experienced in the relationship between heaven
and earth deities have been re-evaluated along ethical lines by means of
exalting the heavenly elements at the expense of the earthly ones (especially in
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sects in Europe, west central and northern
Asia, and certain areas in the northern half of Africa). The figure of an
antagonistic trickster or demiurge that has a somewhat ethical component may be
the result of diffusion and is rather rare in primitive cultures--e.g.,
African Bushmen, Australian Aborigines, and North American Indians (see also
Religious
dualism below). (see also trickster tale) |
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The god of heaven, viewed in his ethical
aspect, is always an active, single god--e.g.,
Christian, Jewish, and Islamic monotheism (see also Monotheism
below). |
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Although in polytheistic religions the
earth is usually represented as a goddess and associated with the god of heaven
as her spouse, only rarely is there an elaborate or intensive cult of earth
worship. There are in many religions mother
goddesses who have elaborate cults and who have assumed the function of
fertility for land and man, but they hardly have a chthonic (earth) basis. Some
mother goddesses, such as Inanna-Ishtar, instead have a heavenly, astral origin.
There are, however, subordinate figures of various pantheons, such as Nerthus (Jörd)
in Germanic religion or Demeter and Persephone (earth mother and corn girl) in
Greek religion, who have played greater roles than the world mother (Gaea).
Among Indo-Europeans, western Asiatics (despite their various fertility
deities), Chinese, and Japanese, the gods of heaven, sun, and thunderstorms have
held a paramount interest. |
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When the common people have displayed
intensive attention to "mother earth" (such as the practice of laying
down newborn babies on the earth and many other rites), this partially reflects
older cults that have remained relatively free from warrior and nation-building
peoples with their emphasis on war (as in western Sudan, pre-Aryan India, and
the Indian agrarian area of northern Mexico). The Andean earth-mother figure, Pacha-Mama,
worshipped by the Peruvians, stands in sharp contrast to the sun religion of the
Inca (the conquering lord of the Andes region). Earth deities are most actively
venerated in areas in which people are closely bound to ancestors and to the
cultivation of grain. |
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Especially prominent mountains
are favourite places for cults of high places, particularly when they are
isolated as island mountains, mountains with snowcaps, or uninhabited high
mountain ranges. The psychological roots of the cults of high places lie in the
belief that mountains are close to the sky (as heavenly ladders), that clouds
surrounding the mountaintops are givers of rain, and that mountains with
volcanoes form approaches to the fiery insides of the earth. (see also sacred
place) |
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Mountains, therefore, serve as the
abodes of the gods, as the centres of the dead who live underground, as burial
places for rainmakers (medicine men), and as places of oracles for soothsayers.
In cosmogenic ( origin of the world) myths, mountains are the first land to
emerge from the primeval water. They frequently become the cosmic mountain (i.e.,
the world conceived as a mountain) that is symbolically represented by a
small hill on which a king stands at the inauguration. Pilgrimages to mountain
altars or shrines are favourite practices of cults of high places. (see also creation
myth) |
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The larger mountain ranges and canyons
between volcanic mountains--especially in Eurasia from the Pyrenees to the Alps,
the Carpathian Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Himalayas, the mountainous
areas of northern China and Japan, and the mountainous areas of North and South
America (the Rocky Mountains, the Andes)--are most often centres of cults of
high places. Elevations of the East African Rift Valley (Kenya, Tanzania,
Uganda), volcanic islands of the Pacific Ocean (e.g.,
Hawaii), and the mountains of the Indian Deccan have also served as centres
of the cult of high places. |
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In the early civilizations, the cult of
high places was closely combined with that of the earth; e.g., Olympus of the Greeks, the mountains of Enlil or of the
Mountain Mother Cybele in western Asia, and the Meru mountain of India were
believed to bring heaven and earth into a close relationship and were often
viewed as the middle pillar of the world pillars upholding the sky. Bush and
wild spirits ( Lord of the Animals)
of the cultures of the hunters and collectors were often believed to reside in
inaccessible mountainous areas (e.g., the Caucasus). |
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In addition to other mountain deities of
a more recent date (e.g., God of the
Twelve Mountains and the One-Legged Mountain God), the mountain deity Yama-no-kami
has been demonstrated to be a deity of the hunt (i.e.,
god of the forest, Lord of the Animals) of ancient Japan. Through the
worship of farmers, Yama-no-kami assumed the elements of a goddess of vegetation
and agriculture. The mountain goddesses (earth mothers) of non-Aryan India still
incorporate numerous features of hunt deities, and, because of indigenous
influences, the Vedic (early Aryan scriptural) gods and their wives (e.g.,
Parvati, Uma, and Durga) have their abodes on
mountains. The isolated mountains of East Africa, surrounded by clouds, are
believed to be the dwelling places of the heaven and rain gods, and in the area
of Zimbabwe there are pilgrimages to mountain sanctuaries that are viewed as the
seats of the gods. (see also Japanese religion, Indian
religion) |
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Pre-Islamic peoples of North
Africa and the extinct inhabitants of the Canary Islands ( Guanches)
associated mountain worship with a cult of goats (and sheep), which, when
practiced in rituals, was believed to secure rain and thunderstorms in the often
arid landscape. Similar cults are also found on the Balkans and in the valleys
of the southern Alps. (see also animal) |
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According to the beliefs of many
peoples, earthquakes originate
in mountains. In areas of Africa where the concept of mana is particularly
strong, many believe that the dead in the underworld are the causes of
earthquakes, though in the Upper Nile, the Sudan, and East Africa an earth deity
is sometimes blamed. In some areas a bearer who holds the world up--a concept
that probably came from Arabia, Persia, India--is believed to cause an
earthquake when he changes his position or when he moves his burden from one
shoulder to the other. In the Arab world, on the east coast of Africa and in
North Africa, an ox generally is viewed as the bearer, sometimes standing on a
fish in the water. World bearers often are giants or heroes, such as Atlas, but
they also may be animals: an elephant (India), a boar (Indonesia), a buffalo
(Indonesia), a fish (Arabia, Georgia, and Japan), a turtle (America), or the
serpent god Ndengei (Fiji). Generators of earthquakes also may be the gods of
the underworld, such as Tuil, the earthquake god of the inhabitants of Kamchatka
(a peninsula in eastern Siberia), who rides on a sleigh under the earth. The
earthquake is driven away by noise, loud shouting, or poking with the pestle of
a mortar. Among peoples with eschatological (last times) views, earthquakes
announce the end of the world (Europe, western Asia). |
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The view that the tides
are caused by the moon can be found over almost all the earth.
This regular natural phenomenon seldom gives rise to cults, but the ebb and flow
of the coastal waters has stimulated mythological concepts. Not infrequently the
moon acquires the status of a water deity because of this phenomenon. The Tlingit
(of northwestern America) view the moon as an old woman, the mistress of the
tides. The animal hero and trickster Yetl, the raven, is successful in
conquering (with the aid of the mink) the seashore from the moon at low tide,
and thus an extended area is gained for nourishment with small sea animals. |
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Generally, the sun is worshipped
more in colder regions and the moon in warm regions. Also, the sun is usually
considered as male and the moon as female. Exceptions to these generalizations,
however, are notable: the prevalent worship of the sun in hot, arid ancient
Egypt and in parts of western Asia; the conception of the moon as a man (who
frequently is believed to be the cause of menstruation) among primitive hunter
peoples (African Bushmen, Australian Aborigines, and hunters of South America)
and among certain pastoral and royal cultures of Africa (e.g., the Masai and the Khoikhoi); and the conception of the female
sun ruling northern Eurasia from the Northern Sea to Japan and parts of North
America. (see also moon
worship, Egyptian religion) |
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In many state cults of ancient
civilizations, the sun plays a special role, particularly where it has replaced
an old god of heaven (e.g., Egypt,
Ethiopia, South India, and the Andes) and especially where it is viewed as a
marker of time. |
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In Africa ancient Egypt was the main
centre from which solar deity concepts emanated. The solar religion, promoted by
the state, was concerned with the sun god Re
(Atum-Re, Amon-Re, Chnum-Re), the sun falcon Horus,
the scarab (Chepre), and a divine kingdom that was determined by the sun (e.g.,
pharaoh Akhenaton's solar monotheism c.
1350 BC). The sun religion reached, by way of Meroe (a sun sanctuary until
the 6th century AD) and the Upper Nile, as far as western Ethiopia (e.g., the Hego cult in Kefa and the sun kings in Limmu) and Nigeria
(e.g., Jukun). In the Orient the sun
cult culminated in the religion of Mithra
of Persia. Mithra was transported by Roman legionnaires to western Europe and
became the Unconquerable Sun of the Roman military emperors. In Japan the
Imperial deity in state Shinto is
Amaterasu, the sun goddess
from whom Jimmu Tenno, the first human emperor, descended. In Indonesia,
where the descent of the princes from the sun also is a feature, the sun often
replaces the deity of heaven as a partner of the earth. In Peru the ruling Inca
was believed to be the sun incarnate ( Inti)
and his wife the moon. A sun temple in Cuzco contains a representation of Inti
as the oldest son of the creator god. The Natchez
Indians of southeastern United States, who are culturally connected with Central
America, called their king "Great Sun," and the noblemen were called
"the Suns." (see also Inca
religion) |
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The sun, within a polytheistic pantheon,
often is revered as a special deity who is subordinate to the highest deity,
usually the god of heaven. This may be observed in the great civilizations of
ancient Europe and Asia: Helios (Greece); Sol (Rome); Mithra (Persia); Surya,
Savitr, and Mitra (India); Utu (Sumer); and Shamash (Babylonian and other
Semitic areas). |
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The sun not infrequently is considered
female (Shams of some Arabs, Shaph of ancient Ugarit in Palestine, Sun of Arinna
of the Hittites, as well as the female Sun of the Germans). Siberian people such
as the Taimyr Samoyed (whose women pray in spring to the sun goddess in order to
receive fertility or a rich calving of the reindeer) or the Tungus
worship sun goddesses. They sacrifice to the sun goddess, and her symbols are
embroidered on women's clothes. |
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A sun god is often related to a moon
goddess as one member of a divine pair (in the place of heaven and earth as
"world parents"). A sun-moon god exists among the Munda-Dravida in
India (Singbonga); a sun-moon (earth) pair, partially seen as bisexual, exists
in eastern Indonesia; and Nyambe (the sun) among the Rotse in Zambia is
represented as united with the moon goddess as the ruling pair. |
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The sun sometimes is viewed as a
coordinated or subordinate attribute, or hypostasis, of the highest being. This
may possibly occur because of a partially weakened influence of a stronger
solarism in areas of older primitive peoples, such as in The Sudan, Upper Volta,
Nigeria, northern East Africa, and Australia. |
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The sun, in some religions, is conceived
as a purely mythical being, who is cultically recognized in sun dances (e.g.,
prairie Indians) and in celebrations of the solstice, with jumps over fires,
sports festivals, and other events. These rites may be either survivals of an
earlier local cult of a sun deity or influences of such a cult. |
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The moon is often personified in
different ways and worshipped with ritual customs; nevertheless, in contrast to
the sun, the moon is less frequently viewed as a powerful deity. It appears to
be of great importance as the basis of a lunar calendar but not in the higher
agrarian civilizations. The moon, infrequently associated with the highest god,
is usually placed below heaven and the sun. When the moon with the sun together
(instead of "heaven and earth") constitute an important pair of gods
(world parents), it frequently assumes the features of an earth deity. In
tropical South America, the sun and moon are usually purely mythical figures. |
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Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the
Tropic of Cancer, the moon is predominantly female. Only some remainders of
ancient peoples (hunter peoples) view the moon as a male being (e.g.,
African Bushmen, Australian Aborigines, Congo Pygmies, Semang, Andamans,
Chaco Indians, Ona, and some Brazilian tribes). In the few significant moon gods
of the Oriental civilizations (Khons in Egypt, Sin-Nanna in Babylonia, Candra in
India)--in contrast with the female Selene and Luna in the Greek-Roman culture,
a more ancient substratum may possibly be present. Where the moon is considered
as male, he often determines the sexual life of the woman, especially among the
Aborigines of Australia. |
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The phenomenon of the moon that attracts
all people is the sequence of its phases. The waxing and waning of the moon
crescent is often interpreted as gaining or losing weight (eating, dieting).
Thus, the Taulipang in Guayaná
believe that the moon is first nourished well and then inadequately by his two
wives, Venus and Jupiter. Where the moon is viewed as female, the phases
represent pregnancy and delivery. Elsewhere, people see childhood, maturity, and
dying as the phases of the moon: the first crescent is thus the rebirth or the
replacement of the old by a new moon. |
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The appearance of the crescent or the
full moon is sometimes celebrated by a rest from work, and some attempt to
participate in the waxing and waning of the moon by analogous magical rites.
Girls with small breasts stand in the full moonlight (in the Salzburg, Austria,
area); persons who desire a tumor to decrease point to the waning moon; and
newborn children often are exposed to the waning moonlight, or they and
everything else that is desired to be healthy and permanent are dyed white; i.e.,
they are made "moonlike." Nearly everywhere, connections between
the moon phases and the rhythm of nature (the tides) and humans (menstruation)
are recognized. |
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The three dark days of the
"death" of the moon are believed by many to be dangerous. During this
period the moon is believed to be defeated in a battle with monsters who eat and
later regurgitate the moon; or the moon is viewed as having been killed by other
heavenly beings and later revived. The period is a time in which people, if
possible, do not engage in a new enterprise. |
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The halo of the moon is also viewed as a
bad omen among many peoples. Moon spots are regarded as testimonies of a battle
with heavenly opponents. In addition to the popular Man in the Moon, there are
also other figures represented: "the woman with the basket on her
back," "the spinning woman," or "the weaving woman" (in
Polynesia the woman who pounds tapa). The most popular animal figure recognized
in the features of the moon, the rabbit (from Europe to America), presumably
earned this role because of its fertility. |
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Eclipses of the sun or the moon--usually
interpreted as a battle, as the dying, or the devouring of one of the two
heavenly bodies--in many religions are met with anxiety, shouting, drum beating,
shooting, and other noises. Many North American Indian tribes, Hottentots in
Africa, Ainu in Japan, and the Minangkabau in Sumatra interpret the eclipses as
fainting, sickness, or the death of the darkened heavenly body. In Arctic
America, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Tlingits believe that the sun and moon have moved
from their places in order to see that things are going right on earth. The
explanation that heavenly monsters and beasts pursue the stars and attempt to
injure and to kill them, however, is a view found over a larger area. Noise and
shooting are believed to deter the monsters from their pursuit or to force them
to return the celestial bodies if they have already been captured. In China and
Thailand the monster is the heavenly dragon; in China, among the Germanic
tribes, and among northern American Indians, dogs and wolves (coyotes) are the
culprits; in Africa and Indonesia, they are snakes; in South America, the beast
is the jaguar; and in India they are the star monsters Rahu and Ketu. The
belief in the darkening of one star by the other in a battle--e.g.,
between the sun god Lisa and the moon goddess Gleti in Dahomey--is about as
widespread. An eclipse may also be interpreted (as in Tahiti) as the lovemaking
of sun and moon, who thus beget the stars and obscure each other in the process. |
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Worship of the stars and constellations
in the modern world survives only in a very corrupt or hidden manner. True star
worship existed only among some ancient civilizations associated with
Mesopotamia, where star worship was practiced. Mesopotamia, where both astronomy
and astrology reached a high
degree of refinement--especially after a Hellenizing renaissance of
astronomy--was the origin of astral religions and myths that affected religions
all over the world. Though the view is controversial, Mesopotamian astral
worship and influence may have reached as far as Central and Andean America (by
way of China or Polynesia). Sumerian, Elamite, and Hurrian contemplation of the
stars influenced not only Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Egypt, Iran, and India but
also other areas. Knowledge of the zodiac, the planets, and observation of
precession extended from the West to south Asia--e.g.,
the Pythagoreans and Orphics (mystical philosophers) in the Mediterranean
area and astrological mystical thinkers in India, Indonesia, China, and
Polynesia. West Sudan, for example, was deeply influenced by the spirit of
ancient Mediterranean and Oriental knowledge of the stars. (see also Mesopotamian
religion) |
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Apart from areas in The Sudan, northeast
Africa, and Rhodesia (Mwene
Matapa, or Monomotapa), not much of Africa has had any considerable knowledge of
the stars. That knowledge of the stars is relatively limited among forest
peoples, unless old hunting cultures survived, is explained by an Ekoi tribesman
in southeast Nigeria, as follows: "Ekoi people do not trouble themselves
about the stars, because the trees always hide them." Hunting pygmies
likewise have never achieved any significant knowledge of the stars, which the
Bushmen on the steppe have. |
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Knowledge of the stars in the areas of
the true primitive peoples rarely leads to a worship of the stars. True star
gods are rare, for example, in large parts of Africa. In Polynesia, where
significant knowledge of the stars by the seafaring people and fishermen was
learned in regular schools of astronomy, there seldom occurred what can be
called true religious worship of the stars. Knowledge of the stars, however, is
still relatively significant among the hunting peoples in the Southern
Hemisphere, especially among the African Bushmen and Australian Aborigines, who
were formerly untouched by the high civilizations. Economic considerations
connected with the rising and setting of the stars, however, surpasses their
mythological significance by far. The stars are usually considered to be living
beings, particularly animals that have been transferred to the sky. They
evidently are taken seriously primarily because they indicate by their rising
and setting the appearance of game to be hunted or fruits to be collected. |
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The widespread African interpretation of
the constellation Orion as a
hunter, as game, or as a dog (from East Africa to the lower Congo and in the
area of the Niger) is most likely a vestige from an earlier hunting period that
has survived in agricultural civilizations. In a different form, the
constellation Orion is still known in Europe as a hunter, in north Asia as a
hunter of reindeer and elk, and in North America as a hunter of bears. In South
America--outside the Andean empires--a whole series of astral beliefs of the
ancient hunting culture has been preserved: the concepts of stars and
constellations as Lords of the Animals, as helpers of the hunter, or as animals
themselves. |
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Venus,
the best known planet, has probably experienced its most significant
personification in the figure of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna-Ishtar. She was
viewed as a being, sometimes female and at other times bisexual. Through her
identification with the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, Inanna-Ishtar, the
queen of heaven, still survives in Roman Catholic iconography--e.g.,
as the Virgin Mary standing on the moon. African cultures also have been
significantly impressed by this planet, not only in the rare figure of a Zulu
heavenly goddess who determines the agricultural work of the women but even more
as the evening and morning star, who are the wives of the moon. In the royal
culture of Mwene Monomotapa
(Rhodesia) and its influences in Buganda and southern Congo, the king is related
to the moon, and his wedding with the Venus women is a type of hieros gamos ("sacred wedding"). In large areas of Africa
the concept of "Venus wives of the moon" is preserved, although the
moon is usually considered as the wife (or sister) of the sun. This concept was
most likely prevalent at a time when the moon-king ideology was widespread in
the eastern half of Africa from the Nile to South Africa, perhaps indicating
south Arabian influences. (see also Ishtar) |
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The Pleiades,
a group in the constellation of Taurus (six to seven adjacent stars), is viewed
in many parts of the world as maidens who are pursued by men (e.g.,
hunters). The Pleiades is also interpreted as a mother hen with her
chickens, especially in Eurasia, where the star Aldebaran, which is located
close to the Pleiades, is often included as a part of the constellation. In
Africa the Pleiades designates the beginning of the agricultural year.
Therefore, in many Bantu languages the verb kulima
("to hoe") furnishes the basis for their designation kilimia, the Pleiades. In addition to East and South Africa there is
still a smaller area in the western Sudan that retains this belief. |
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Polaris
(the north star) enjoys a central significance among the Finno-Ugric and Turkish
Tatars as "nail of the world" or "pillar of heaven." Among
Altai Tatars Polaris is viewed as the negotiator of the god of heaven Ülgan;
in Japan, Polaris is a god of heaven above the ninth layer of clouds. |
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The Milky Way, depending on a group's
economy and life style, is often simply named after hunting or domestic animals:
way of the tapir, the donkey, or the camel. It also is called the seam of the
heavenly tent or a water stream. As the footsteps of God or the way of God, as
the way of the dead, or as a deserted way of the gods, the Milky Way reveals
older mythical conceptions, among which is that of the world (cosmic) tree. (see
also Milky
Way Galaxy) |
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Aurora
borealis, the northern lights of the polar regions, is frequently interpreted by
Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples (e.g., Eskimo, Athapascan, Tlingit) as the reflection of the dance
fire of the ghosts or of the peoples further in the north, as the "cooking
of meat," or the ball game of these peoples. Northern Germanic tribes saw
in it the splendor of the shields of Valkyrie
(warrior women). |
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The natural forces of fire and water,
which evidently exclude each other, are brought together in a unity of opposites
in the worldviews of early archaic civilizations. Both forces are purifying as
well as protective, and are viewed by many as being connected with the cosmic
powers of the sun and moon. Where they are truly combined, often genetically,
fire (as the sun) is usually male, and water (as the moon), female. Where the
fire is included more into the chthonic (earthly) sphere it may also receive a
feminine character (e.g., fire in the
earth, preserved in the womb); where rain is viewed as the semen of heaven,
which is usually personified as male, it takes on a male character. |
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Many of the qualities of water make it
appear to be animated; on this basis it is psychologically understandable that
water (e.g., rain, sea, lakes, and
rivers) might become a natural phenomenon worthy of worship. Water is always in
motion, changes color in the light of the stars, reflects the world and man,
"speaks" with murmuring and roaring, brings new life to dried out
vegetation, refreshes men and animals, the tired and the ill, and heals. Because
it dissolves dirt it is also most suitable for purifying the soul (e.g.,
after the violation or the commission of a sin of any kind). Under certain
circumstances, even pictures (icons) of gods have to be washed. Water also
demonstrates destructive forces (seaquakes, floods, and storms). The most
important mythical-religious facts symbolized by water are the following: the
primal matter; the instrument of the purification and expiation; a vivifying
force, a fructifying force; and a revealing and judging instrument. |
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The conception of a primal body of water
from which everything is derived is especially prevalent among peoples living
close to coasts or in river areas--e.g., the
Egyptian Nu (the primordial ocean) and the Mesopotamian Apsu (the primeval
watery abyss) and Tiamat (the primeval chaos dragon). The earth may be fished
out or emerges from the primeval water; heavenly beings (e.g., Ataentsik, ancestress of the North American Iroquois) appear
on the emerged earth; and birds lay an egg that is later divided into two halves
(heaven and earth) on the chaotic sea. Thus, water is viewed as the foundation
of all things. A survival of the original primeval sea, in such myths, is the
water that flows around the earth's disk (e.g., Oceanus). |
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Water is viewed as an instrument for
purification and expiation, especially in arid areas. Cultic acts, in such
areas, generally take place only after lustrations, sprinkling, or immersion in
water. The same view holds true for entry into new communities or into life (e.g.,
baptism). Water lustration is especially necessary after touching the dead,
and as a purificatory washing for priests and kings. Pictures of the gods also
have had water poured over them. (see also purification
rite) |
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Myths of a great flood (the Deluge) are
widespread over Eurasia and America. This flood, which destroys with a few
exceptions a disobedient original population, is an expiation by the water,
after which a new type of world is created. (see also flood myth) |
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Water is viewed as vivifying, like the
heavenly rainwater that moistens the earth. Water also is equated with the
flowing life forces of the body (e.g., blood,
sweat, and semen). In order to replace the lost liquids, water was added to the
mummified dead in Egypt. The African Ashanti designate their patrilinear groups
as ntoro, which means water, river,
and semen, and the Wogeo of Papua call their patrilinear clans dan;
i.e., both water and semen. The myth of the Kasuar ancestress of the But of
Papua related how Kasuar's blood became sea (and salt). |
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Wherever early archaic culture spread
the myth of the world parents heaven and earth, there also was a belief that
heaven fructifies the earth with heaven's seed. The springs, pools, and rivers
on the earth, therefore, may bring not only healing and expiation, but also fertility.
The Scamander River in ancient
Greece evidently was so personified; according to Aeschines, a 4th-century-BC
Greek orator, girls bathed in it before marrying and said: "Scamander,
accept my virginity." Magical rites in which water serves as a substitute
for semen or the fertility of men are numerous. |
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At the corn festival Nsiä of the
Bamessing (in Cameroon), which is celebrated in the dry season, the festival
begins with the mourning of the dead vegetation. Reminiscent of the Egyptian
Osiris and the Mesopotamian Tammuz festivals, the Nsiä festival emphasizes
that the god who gave the nourishment has died and is being mourned like a
chieftain. The chief, dying symbolically with the god, has to be strengthened
with a miraculous "chieftain water," which has to be fetched by
virgins of the chieftain's clan. For two weeks the chieftain drinks from the
gourds of all the maidens after the women of the tribe have drunk from the holy
water place. |
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Battles of gods and heroes with mythical
beings, beasts, and monsters that hold back the fructifying water are widespread
in mythology. The liberation of water during the mythical battle is equivalent
to the end of the dry season or a drought, to the reviving of vegetation. In
Indian mythology Indra slays Urtra; in Syrian and Palestinian mythology Baal
battles with Leviathan; and in Huron (North American Indian) mythology Joskeha,
the spring hero, kills the frog that attempted to restrain the water from
flowing freely. |
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Water also serves as an instrument that
reveals and judges. Reflections in the water led to a whole series of oracles
originating from an alleged prophetic or divinatory power of water. A visionary
look into the water surface was believed to reveal the future as well as past
misdeeds. This ancient custom may have been preserved in the use of crystal
balls by modern fortune tellers. The custom of water divination
is found in ancient Europe, North Africa, the Near East (e.g.,
Babylonian fortune telling by means of cups), eastern and northern Asia
(where the use of metal mirrors by the shamans often replaces the water as a
divining means), and in Southeast Asia and Polynesia. Where such means of
divination were severely repressed, as in sub-Saharan Africa, these methods of
mirror and water gazing were changed into manipulated water ordeals. |
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Water is also used as a judging element:
in ordeals believed to
demonstrate the judgment of the gods, water ordeals (e.g., immersion in water), as well as the more frequent fire
ordeals, appear. Here also the purifying character of the water plays a role. |
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Worship of fire is widespread,
especially in areas where the earthly fire is believed to be the image of the
heavenly fire. |
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Because of various psychological
reasons, fire is considered to be a personified animated or living power: it
moves vehemently, devours, and becomes hungrier; it spreads fast into a giant
blaze and is red like human blood and warm like the human body. It makes the
plants that it has devoured suitable for fertilizing the earth; it shines
brightly in the night and, by transference, may have "eternal life" or
by constant rekindling can be made into a "perpetual fire." In
cremation it separates the body from the soul; it drives away predatory animals
and insects that cause pestilence. |
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Its chief functions are similar to those
of its main adversary, water: to purify and to ward off evil, especially from
home and hearth. Fire magically drives away rain, but with its smoke it also
attracts rain clouds during a period of drought. Fire is believed to have both
heavenly and earthly origins: it is brought by lightning, and it lives in the
volcano of the underworld. |
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Stories are told of ancestors, heroes,
or animals of primeval times who purloined the fire from the higher numina
(spiritual powers). Bringers of civilization, similar to the Greek god Prometheus,
fetch it--often together with fruits of the field, iron, or musical
instruments--from heaven. Like Prometheus, Nommo,
the primal being among the Dogon in Mali, brings fire and the first fruits of
the field down to the earth. Prometheus steals the fire from the blacksmith
Hephaestus, but Nommo himself is the first blacksmith. In both areas this
cultural achievement is celebrated with annual torchlight parades (in Greece,
called Promethea festivals). Elsewhere, birds, or animals, such as the dog
(especially in Africa), who is closely allied to the hearth fire of man, are the
bringers of fire. Animals often fetch the fire from the Lord
of the Animals in the bush. (see also animal
worship) |
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Where geysers and volcanos indicate that
the oldest fire is beneath the surface of the earth, fire is brought forth by
animals and heroes. The Maori
hero Maui seizes it from his
ancestress Mahuike in the depth of the earth and puts it into a tree. Since that
time it has been possible to get fire from the wood of the trees (e.g.,
the fire borer). In areas practicing a definite ancestor
worship, hunters obtained the fire from the subterranean world of the
dead (as in East Africa). Previous to the Iron Age (15th century-2nd century
BC), the generating of fire with the aid of fire borers, or fire saws, was
viewed as a sexual act (male and female fire wood), especially in East and South
Africa, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. In the creation myths of the Dayak
of Borneo, fire is produced by rubbing a liana (male) on a tree (female) and is
interpreted as coitus. The Tlingit (of northwest America) tell a story of the
magical conception of a girl by the sawdust of the fire borer. The boring for
the new state fire in the Loango empire (West Africa) coincides with the public
coitus of a young couple. (see also phallic
symbol) |
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This conceptual framework seems to be a
late consequence of earlier ideas of fire in the body of humans, especially of
women, as a centre of sexual life. Such views are probably most pronounced among
the Aborigines of Papua and Australia. The Marind
in New Guinea, who, in their myth of the origin of fire view it as being derived
from the sexual act, undertake the new boring of fire in connection with a
cultic act in which the raping of a girl is the central rite. Elsewhere in New
Guinea, there is a concept that fire lies in the genitals of women, especially
of the first woman. |
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When iron-smelting techniques by means
of fire became common among Neolithic (New Stone Age) peoples of similar
mentality, as in Indonesia and Africa, the making of iron in shaft furnaces
(considered as female) and bellows (male) has been interpreted as coitus with a
subsequent birth (especially among the Bantu). |
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In archaic civilizations with sacral
kings, the sacred perpetual fire (i.e., the
state fire) of the residences and temples of the royal ancestors was believed to
have a phallic element. It was cared for by virgins, who were viewed as wives of
the fire. Vestal virgins of
this kind are documented in ancient Rome, Mwene Matapa (Africa), and
pre-Columbian America. Among the Maya of Central America, an order of fire
caretakers was founded by a deified "virgin of the fire."
Extinguishing and rekindling of fire at the inauguration of a prince points to
the idea of a spirit of the princes in the state fire and also to the cyclical renewal
of the state in the purifying fire, which signifies the beginning of a new era. |
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Fire gods are found less frequently in
primitive cultures than in archaic civilizations. That fire gods are not yet
known in some ancient Oriental areas is probably because of the advanced
development of a sun deity. |
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Iranian fire worship was derived from
the cult of the god Atar, but
it was made a central act in Zoroastrianism
(a religion founded by the 6th-century-BC Iranian prophet Zoroaster). Fire
worship continues to be practiced among the Parsis
(modern Zoroastrians) of India: in temples the sacred fire is maintained by a
priest using sandalwood, while his mouth is bound with a purifying shawl; fire
in new temples is kindled from the fire of the old temples; household fires are
not permitted to go out and are greeted in the morning by the members of the
household and offered sandalwood; and Aryan cremation practices are renounced
because the fire would be contaminated, and the dead are thus deposited in the
"temples of silence." |
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The worship of atmospheric powers can
only with difficulty be separated from the worship of heaven. In most cases the
high god in heaven is also the god of thunderstorms
and rain. Specific gods of wind and storm are found especially in countries with
tornadoes and hurricanes (e.g., the
Maya deity Huracan). People (e.g., the
Tuareg and Arabs) in arid countries and deserts, dried out by the wind, speak of
sand funnel spirits or of a desert god, such as the "boneless Kon" of
the Peruvians. (see also climate) |
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From northern Europe to the tropical
forests, thunderstorm deities rule heaven and earth. The most famous group of
these numina (spiritual beings) are the Indo-European thunder gods (Thor-Donar
of the Germans, Taranis of the Celts, Perkunis of the Slavs, Indra of the
Indians, Zeus-Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans), who throw their thunderbolts or
bundles of lightning. The Finnish god Ukko and the Basque god Orko probably stem
from the same root; these gods still continue in the popular beliefs of Eastern
Europe or Latin America today, such as St. Elijah or Santiago. These deities are
related to the west Asiatic gods Teshub and Hadad (associated with the steer and
with lightning) but also to the thunder god Shango of the Nigerian Yoruba, who
is accompanied by a ram (as Thor uses a he-goat for pulling his wagon). Shango,
as Yakuta, throws thunderbolts (i.e., stone
axes) to the earth, as does the Mayan rain god, Chac. |
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The goat, the ram, or horses appear as
companions of weather gods or as animals that pull the thundering sky vehicle.
In other cultures thunderbirds
are the companions of the thunder gods or are the lightning itself. The
lightning bird Zu, or Imdugud, occurs in ancient Mesopotamia, and the Garuda
(with Wadjra) in Vedic India. Thunderbirds are represented (sometimes with
arrows or spears in their bill or fangs) on archaeological artifacts of the
Bronze Age in Dodona, Minussinsk in Siberia, Dong Son in Vietnam, and on pots in
north Peru; they are described in myths of the Pueblo and prairie Indians and
among East and South Africans. |
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Where prayers or sacrifices to gods and
ancestors in the religious cult are not effective in producing rain, rain magic,
which is practiced universally in similar rites, is often able to accomplish it.
Trained magicians usually perform such rites, but ancestral priests or
"persons holding power" also may do so. In rain magic, sprinkling,
spitting, or immersion of people or things is often used to call down heavenly
moisture. Smoke clouds to attract the rain accomplish the same purpose. There
also must be suitable vestments (fresh greens, skins or pelts of water animals),
body painting (representing clouds), or adornment with bird down. The colour
black in the clothing or on a killed or exposed animal is believed to be
especially effective. Animals held responsible for holding the rain or water
back (frogs, snakes, or mythological dragons) must be challenged. The sound of
rain or thunder is produced with "bull-roarers," whistling, noise
pots, rattles, and chains. If excessive rain is to be stopped, the injunction to
perform or refrain from certain acts (e.g.,
the prohibition of washing, boiling water, burning objects, making noise,
and whistling) must be observed. (see also rainmaking) |
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The rainbow
often is considered a being, generally in the form of an animal, who swallows
and holds back rain or water. The rainbow serpent (as a double bow also
conceived as bisexual) is a figure that is found especially in the tropics of
Africa, south Asia, north Australia ("ungud" snake), and Brazil.
Elsewhere, the rainbow is viewed as a heavenly bridge that connects the worlds
of gods and men: the Bifröst bridge in the Edda (a Norse saga); the bridge
of the soul boats in Indonesia or of the creator god in Africa; and the path of
the Greek goddess Iris. In Christian iconography, the rainbow is the throne of
Christ; among Arabs and some Bantu of Central Africa it is the bow of god, and
among the Nandi, Masai, and the Californian Yuki it is the robe of god. |
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Among the numerous animals that are
prominent in religion and magic, the wild animals of the forests, the sea, and
the air that are most important for the hunter are the most significant. Hunters
and collectors, rooted in the earliest cultures of man, believed that they not
only had to kill animals--which were important for their economy as nourishment
and raw materials--but also that they had to avoid their revenge. The feeling of
a close connection between men and animals that has been lost to the highly
civilized people (broadly speaking) led to an anthropomorphizing of animals.
They were not only considered as living beings but were humanized to such an
extent that the borderline between man and animal became virtually nonexistent
and animals were held responsible for crises. (see also animalism) |
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The religious magical attitude by which
primitive peoples confront animals may be called animalism, regardless of
whether the animal is thought to have life (animatism) or to have a soul
(animism). See below, Animism
. |
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The best known form of what may be
called animal worship is totemism.
An anthropologist, Sir James Frazer,
defined totemism as "an intimate relation which is supposed to exist
between a group of kindred people on one side and a species of natural or
artificial objects on the other side, which objects are called the totems of the
human group" (Totemism and Exogamy, 1910).
Frazer added that the mentioned "species" generally is more
"natural" than "artificial." In this "intimate
relation" the animal has the prerogative and in true totemism this
relationship represents a more or less reverent attitude of man toward his
animal partner. In totemism the relationship with the animal has not only merged
into the realm of religion but has at the same time become a phenomenon of
social life. See below, Totemism
. (Ed.) |
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