. The history of mankind . n that they had scarcely any inklingof religious matters. Certainly in the soul of a Namaqua there is no intelligiblewriting to be read, clearly proclaiming any religious message ; but survivals of anintelligible writing, in many places obliterated, are not lacking. And so indeedTindall presently qualifies his own statement by saying that the fact of theirlanguage containing appellations for God, spirits, the evil one, seems to indicatethat they were not wholly ignorant of these matters ; even though nothing furtherappears in the terms of the language or in ceremonia
. The history of mankind . n that they had scarcely any inklingof religious matters. Certainly in the soul of a Namaqua there is no intelligiblewriting to be read, clearly proclaiming any religious message ; but survivals of anintelligible writing, in many places obliterated, are not lacking. And so indeedTindall presently qualifies his own statement by saying that the fact of theirlanguage containing appellations for God, spirits, the evil one, seems to indicatethat they were not wholly ignorant of these matters ; even though nothing furtherappears in the terms of the language or in ceremonial usages and superstitions togive evidence of anything more than a crude conception of a spiritual believes that the superstitious tales which travellers have picked up from themand narrated as religious reminiscences, were regarded by the natives themselvesas mere fables, related only with a view to entertain, or in order to give someinsight into the habits and peculiarities of wild beasts. This expresses far too. Melanesian sea deity, from San Christoval. (After Codrington. 4o THE HISTORY OF MANKIND narrow an apprehension of the idea of religion ; if these usages and tales are notreligion, at least they are of the elements from which, as civilization progresses todevelopment, the crystal of a purified belief is built up. When we find ourselvesin the course of our description in presence of the question : Is religion to be seenin usages, views, legends ? we shall put the counter-question : Is religion to beapprehended only as a cut-and-dried conception, or is not the truer and fairer wayof looking at it to hold that the elements of religion are to be recognised in everydepartment of human thought and feeling which can rise above the affairs of dailylife, and above this corporeal existence, into the realm of unknown causes ?Rarely, no doubt, among natural races shall we meet with religion in thatnarrow sense ; but, on the other hand, we shall not analyse a single race
Size: 1801px × 1388px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectethnology, bookyear18
