BELIQION AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 7 



ever, it is dreaded and mysterious animate things — the glooaiy, awe- 

 inspiring forest, the venomous serpent, the terrible lion — that most 

 agitate man's heart, there we see, as in Africa, e. g., and among the 

 American aborigines, tree-worship and beast-worship abounding. 



There are certain great natural phenomena that are common to 

 all countries, familiar with all tribes and nations, such as sun, moon, 

 stars, earth, rain, wind, etc. These are, therefore, the objects univer- 

 sally divinized. In some countries, where the scenery is very slightly 

 diversified, these few objects, personified over and over again, in 

 varied aspects and under various symbols, seem to constitute the 

 whole pantheon, the whole mythology. It was thus in Egypt, e. g., 

 whose numberless gods represent, after all, but about half a dozen 

 great natural objects. But when we pass out of the level plains of 

 such countries as Egypt and Babylon, to countries where the moun- 

 tains rise to stupendous and frowning heights, and bowlders and cliffs 

 abound, we have a new class of divinities added to the objects that 

 man worships. The mountaineer, gazing aloft to the white peak, saw, 

 far up, the shining morn strike the cheek of virgin snow, and in his 

 guileless faith it became an abode of the gods ; or a deity itself, hold- 

 ing aloft the heavenly dome. If on the soft sandstone of a hill, be- 

 fore petrifaction, bird or beast had left its tracks, then the place, like 

 the Enchanted Mountain of Georgia, was deemed haunted. If the 

 mount, like Kineo, in the north of Maine, happens to have the shape 

 of a moose, then it is reputed to be the queen and progenitor of the 

 moose-tribe turned to stone. 



When the barbarian cries out in joy or pain beneath the rocky 

 wall, he hears a mysterious voice answering him back — a voice that 

 belongs to no material creature, and that must, therefore, belong to 

 some divinity or departed spirit. So the sounds that come from cav- 

 erns, or the roar of the billows on the sea-shore, are thought to be 

 produced by the spirits that have their haunt there ; and the kobolds 

 and water-nixies are accordingly added to the lists of the gods popu- 

 larly believed in. The strange phenomena of volcanoes, or the explo- 

 sion of confined gases in certain rocks, in their ebullition through 

 springs, would suggest the idea of mighty superhuman beings wbo 

 lived beneath the earth, and to whose activity the volcano's eruptions 

 were due. The Koniagas think that, when the craters of Alaska send 

 forth fire and smoke, the gods are cooking their food and heating their 

 sweat-houses. So among the Australians, the volcanic rocks found in 

 various places suggest the belief that sulky demons, the igna, have 

 made great fires and thrown out red-hot stones ; and the Nicaraguans 

 offered vessels of food and even human victims to Popogatipec, i. e., 

 smoking mountain, to appease her when there was a storm or an earth- 

 quake. 



Wave and frost are great sculptors of rude images, bearing near 

 enough likeness to man or beast to impress profoundly the imagina- 



