Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/182

 172 abstain from killing young ducks on the ground that if they do, "Rain come down, snow come down, hail come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow." The storm is sent by a "big man" who lives in the woods. Now is this Animism? I think not. What maybe called a "coincidental marvel" is explained by a myth, and Mythology need be no more than a sort of Animatism grown picturesque. When, however, a Point Barrow Esquimaux, in order to persuade the river to yield him fish, throws tobacco, not into the river but into the air, and cries out "Tuana, Tuana" (spirit), then here is full-fledged Animism. Meanwhile, whatever view be taken of the parts respectively played by Animatism, Mythology, Animism, or what not, in investing these observances with meaning and colour, my main point is that the quality of religiousness attaches to them far less in virtue of any one of these ideal constructions than in virtue of that basic feeling of Awe, which drives a man, ere he can think or theorise upon it, into personal relations with the Supernatural.

In order to establish the thesis that the attitude of Supernaturalism towards what we should call Inanimate Nature may be independent of animistic interpretations, much more is required in the way of evidence than what I have the space to bring forward here. In the case of matters so indirectly ascertainable as the first beginnings of human thought, the cumulative testimony of very numerous and varied data affords the only available substitute for crucial proof. As it is, however, I must content myself with citing but two more sets of instances bearing on this part of my subject.

The first of these may be of interest to those who have lent their attention to Mr. Lang's recent discovery of "Pure"—that is to say, Ethical—Religion in the wilds of