CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 389 



that insistance on marks of subordination constituted the essential 

 part of government. A statement of Thunberg shows us that in 

 Japan, so elaborately ceremonious in its life, exactly the same theory 

 led to exactly the same result. And here we are reminded that even 

 in societies so advanced as our own there continue the traces of a 

 kindred early condition. " Indictment for felony," says Wharton, 

 " is " (for a transgression) " against the peace of our lord the king, his 

 crown and dignity in general ; " the injured individual being ignored. 

 Evidently the implication is that obedience was the primary require- 

 ment, and behavior expressing it the first modification of conduct 

 insisted on. 



Religious control, still better, perhaps, than political control, 

 shows us this general truth. When we find that rites performed at 

 graves, becoming afterward religious rites performed at altars in tem- 

 ples, were at first acts done for the benefit of the ghost, either as 

 originally conceived or as ideally expanded into a deity when we 

 find that the sacrifices and libations, the immolations and blood-offer- 

 ings and mutilations, all begun to profit or to please the double of the 

 dead man, were continued on larger scales where the double of the 

 dead man was especially feared when we find that fasting as a fu- 

 neral rite gave origin to religious fasting, that praises of the deceased 

 and prayers to him grew into religious praises and prayers we are 

 shown why primitive religion consisted almost wholly of propitiatory 

 observances. Though in certain rude societies now existing, one of the 

 pi-opitiations is the repetition of injunctions given by the departed 

 father or chief, joined in some cases with expressions of penitence for 

 breach of them, and though we are shown by this that from the first 

 there exists the germ out of which grow the sanctified precepts event- 

 ually constituting important adjuncts to religion ; yet, since the sup- 

 posed supernatural beings are at first regarded as retaining after death 

 the desires and passions that distinguished them during life, this rudi- 

 ment of a moral code is originally but an insignificant part of the 

 cult : due rendering of those offerings, and praises, and marks of sub- 

 ordination, by which the good-will of the ghost or god is to be ob- 

 tained, forming the chief part. Everywhere we meet with proofs. 

 We read of the Tahitians that " religious rites were connected with 

 almost every act of their lives ; " and we read kindred statements re- 

 specting the uncivilized and semi-civilized in general. The Sandwich- 

 Islanders, along with scarcely any of that ethical element which the 

 conception of religion includes among ourselves, had a rigorous and 

 elaborate ceremonial. Noting that tabu means literally " sacred to 

 the gods," I quote the following account of its observance in Hawaii 

 from Ellis : 



" During the season of strict tabu, every fire or light in the island or district 

 must be extinguished ; no canoe must be launched on the water, no person must 

 bathe ; and except those whose attendance was required at the temple, no indi- 



