CHAPTER VII. 



POLYTHEISTIC AND MONOTHEISTIC PRIESTHOODS. 



610. ALREADY in the preceding chapters the rudimentary 

 form of a polytheistic priesthood has been exhibited. For 

 wherever, with the worship of an apotheosized founder of 

 the tribe, there co-exist in the component families of the 

 tribe, worships of their respective ancestors, there is an 

 undeveloped polytheism and an incipient priesthood appro 

 priate to it. In the minds of the people there is no contrast 

 in kind between the undistinguished ghosts and the distin 

 guished ghosts ; but only a contrast in power. In the first 

 stage, as in later ,and higher stages, we have a greater super 

 natural being amid a number of lesser supernatural beings; 

 all of them propitiated by like observances. 



The rise of that which is commonly distinguished as 

 polytheism, appears to result in several ways ; of which two 

 may be named as the more important. 



The first of them is a concomitant of the division and 

 spreading of tribes which outgrow their means of subsistence. 

 Within each separated sub-tribe eventually arises some dis 

 tinguished chief or medicine-man, whose greatly-feared 

 ghost, propitiated not by his descendants only but by other 

 members of the sub-tribe, becomes a new local god; and 

 where there survives the cult which the sub-tribe brought 

 with it, there will, in addition to the worship of the more 

 ancient god common to the spreading cluster of sub-tribes, 

 grow up in each sub-tribe the worship of a more modern god 



