Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/279

 Revieivs. 239

the word." From this account of these jungle-dwellers it would seem rash to infer that these indeterminate beings have no form or function, because no intelligible account of their form and functions could be extracted from their worshippers : worshippers are not infrequently unwilling to reveal their mysteries to the stranger. That these beings have some function and do some- thing is clear from the fact that not only do they " abide " in " sacred groves," but their worshippers fear that they may do something, and propitiate them in order that they may abstain from doing it. Whatever they do, or have it in their power to do — for they have or are powers — 'it is presumably something in the nature of some calamity, affecting the health of the jungle- dwellers or their food supply; in a word, it is something not brought about in the ordinary way, but " supernatural." And whether they are " persons " or not, at any rate their worshippers find it possible to set up and maintain communications with them ; these beings, abiding in their sacred groves, both under- stand and are understood — they are understood to be offended and to require propitiation, and they understand that their worshippers desire to appease them.

After all, then, do these beings satisfactorily fulfil the conditions which Mr. Clodd lays down as constituting the root idea of Pre- Animism ? The root idea is that of " power everywhere," but these beings are powers having a local habitation : they are not "immanent" everywhere, they abide in sacred groves. Then, are they really " unclothed with personal attributes " ? They can be propitiated, and I think we may reasonably regard that capacity as being in its very nature an attribute of persons rather than of things. If they require propitiation, and can be ap- peased, they must have been offended, and that again is a personal quality. If they are feared, it must be on account of something they can do. Beings, with a local habitation, who can do something — disastrous and supernatural — if offended, or abstain from doing it, if propitiated, cannot fairly be said to possess no personal attributes. Nor can beings who act, or abstain from acting, according as they are offended or pro- pitiated, be fairly said to have no will. It is, therefore, I suggest, a not unreasonable view that, in the stage of religion exhibited