Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/298

294 Closely allied to fetishism, yet indicating some advance in the evolution of religious belief s, is ancestor-worship. This easily arises when man has developed far enough to begin to meditate upon the phenomena of death. At the very outset it is likely that death did not arouse much more interest than it does now among brutes. Britton asserts that

The evidence is mountain-high that in the earliest and rudest period of human history the corpse inspired so little terror that it was nearly always eaten by the surviving friends.

But even this custom was probably of a religious origin. A traveler (D'Orbigny) in Bolivia tells us of an old Indian he met there whose only regret in giving up his old religion and adopting Christianity was that his body would now be devoured by worms, instead of being eaten by his relatives.

At all events, it early became an elaborate and solemn religious rite to provide the body with carefully prepared viands for its last long journey. Any neglect on the part of the survivors would be severely punished. For the soul of the departed would continue to roam about without a home, unless it was properly attended to its final resting place. Hence it became the world-wide custom among savage tribes to place in the tomb or on the funeral pyre such articles as the weapons, the clothing and ornaments of the deceased. In many cases the wives or slaves or companion-in-arms were slain or slew themselves to accompany a chieftain to his long home. Often among the American Indians they were interred in the same mound, and many such mounds exist in different parts of the country.

When a tribe had survived so long as to have a history, and to trace its descent through the male head of the family, a decided change in their religious views usually followed. As Giddings describes it:

While the household may continue to regard natural objects and forces and miscellaneous spirits with superstitious feelings, they entertain for the soul of the departed founder of the house the strongest feeling of veneration. They think of the ancestral spirit as their protector in the land of shades. To the ancestral spirit, therefore, they pay their principal devotions.

We find it generally true that the family tomb was near the house and not far from the entrance. The children were brought up under its shadow, and constantly addressed to it their prayers. Within the house on the family altar burned the sacred fire that went out only with the extinction of the family. Around this fire all the household dead were supposed frequently to assemble to hear their mighty deeds narrated and to be reverenced and adored.

All the ancient Semitic tribes were ancestor-worshippers, and so were the Aryans when they first appeared on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Egyptians carried the cult to a high state of perfection, and the manes-worship which long held sway among the Eomans is an