Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/63



the reward of its impertinent existence. When a chief died it was an occasion of universal notice. From the dwelling of the dead commenced the mournful auwe, which taken up from dwelling after dwelling, was carried on by all the people, at first in subdued tones, then prolonged and increasing in sound, till the monotonous cry was borne upon the air from hillside unto hillside over the land. The ceremonies of his burial were characteristic of the most dissolute and degraded people, none of either sex venturing into the presence of the dead except in a state of complete nudity, and there pursuing a round of beastly dissipation, tearing the hair with mournful howls, drinking awa till in a state of insensate drunkenness, knocking out the front teeth, carrying to their greatest height licentiousness, rioting, revelling, murder and every form of dissoluteness known to the savage mind. And this was continued for days together, and did not finally cease from any sense

of completeness of the ceremony, but only when nature, over-taxed and exhausted, could execute no further devil

ish intent. It was a time when no man's life or property was in the slightest degree regarded, when all pretense to decency was thrown aside—an era of unrestrained riot and wanton debauchery.

It may be to some minds almost a palliation of the somewhat unpleasant and continuous barbarity to know that they were a religious people. Throughout the land were seen the Aetaus (temples) which they had erected to the gods, consecrated with many ceremonies and frequented for religious offerings, and whose ruins are to-day visible in various localities. The priestly office was hereditary and they who filled it numerous, and of very powerful influence. The gods they worshipped were as numerous as the sources of danger to the barbaric mind. Every high chief had his family priest, who went always with him into

battle carrying the image of the chieftian's god. The essence of their religion was only the fear they entertained lest some calamity should come upon them. Their gods were in all things that could bring them misfortune; in nothing that brought to them any favor or benefit. To them was a special god in every volcano, in» every earthquake, in every singular and unusual appearance of nature. There were gods of war, of the sea, of the winds; in every dangerous cavern lurked a divinity and over every precipitous cliff, and for their protection they placed in those localities images of the presiding deities.

But to call any belief which could prevail among such a people religion, is to give dignity and character to the common expression of a gigantic selfishness and slavish fear, with which was never allied anything noble or elevating, nor with whose existence was ever any sentiment or feeling of duty or obligation, of love or gratitude. They appealed to the gods that their enemies might be destroyed; they prayed that the tempest and the earthquake might be averted; they offered sacrifices of animals in the building of a temple, and whenever a house had been built, before entering it to dwell in, they performed mysterious ceremonies to exorcise the evil spirits that might lurk about. They prayed in sickness to the little gods of the mountains, the hills, the streams, to turn away misfortune and disease. Sacrifices of some living thing accompanied every religious rite of importance. Held ina state of degraded serfdom, and bearing the burdens imposed by cruel and exacting chiefs whom they knew to be their superiors, what else could a god be but a great chief of temper and character like theirs, only vastly superior in size and strength, and a disposition more savage and more exacting? Their religious idea could be nothing more than a scheme of appeasing this over-wrathful spirit, that was ever waiting for an