Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/186

 176 Prc-anhnistic Religion.

theme, the worship of plants and animals. Now to a large extent this coincides with the subject of Totemism, about which I shall say little, if only because it teems with con- troversial matter. This much, however, I take to be now relatively certain with regard to it, that in their origin tote- mistic observances had a magical rather than a strictly re- ligious import. That is to say, their object was not so much to conciliate powers in plant or animal form, as to establish sympathetic control over classes of serviceable plants and animals regarded simply as such, namely as clans or tribes very much on a par with the human ones. Now I am ready to suppose that sympathetic magic in the eyes of the savage is, primarily, no exclusive instrument of religion, but a means of causation on a level with his other methods of exerting force — just as with him talking is not confined exclusively to praying. On the other hand, I believe that the abnormal, and mysterious element in magical causation is bound to strike him sooner or later, and to call for explanation in the terms most familiar and most satisfying to primitive mysticism. Thus, in the case of Totemism, the conception of an affinity between the spirits of the plants and animals and their human clients, as effected by Transmigration or some other animistic contrivance, is sure to arise, with the result that the plants and animals by reason of their " spiritualisation " forthwith assume the plenary rank and attributes of Powers. Meanwhile, in order to show how this may come about, I shall bring forward one or two illustra- tions that have no direct connection with Totemism, as they will then at the same time serve to call attention to the qualities that constitute an intrinsic as opposed to a merely derivatory right to be revered as Supernatural and Awful. There are many animals that are propitiated by primitive man neither because they are merely useful nor merely dangerous, but because they are, in a word, uncanny. White animals (for example, white elephants or white buffaloes), birds of night (notably the owl), monkeys, mice, frogs, crabs,