212 EELIGIOUS FEELING 



Samoyedes of tlie present day, inhabiting the Kanim Penin- 

 sula or living in the neighbourhood of Archangel or other 

 towns within the pale, therefore, of European civilisation 

 worship, as ' nournea,' or deities, gods or idols, bleached rein- 

 deer skulls, stuck upon sticks and fenced round with reindeer 

 horns, as do also the Lapps. A Samoyede worshipper 'went 

 down on hands and knees .... approaching the idol by 

 crawling, prostrating his face and kissing the ground in 

 supplication, exactly as the Laplanders approached their god 

 Jumala.' 1 



'Any natural object different from the common run of 

 those which come before him is to the Siberian an object of 

 worship, which not only the families in the neighbourhood, 

 but tribes from a distance, will visit and make offerings to. 

 A stone, a tree of irregular shape, a curious rock, may all be 

 looked to by the shaman istic worshipper as material for his 

 adoration ' (Brown). 



As regards the Chinese, ' they possess a kind of philo- 

 sophical pantheism, an adoration of certain natural objects ; 

 but it is a mere ceremonial and associated with no theological 

 doctrines.' 2 'Eespect for their ancestors seems, as Davis 

 long ago remarked, about the only thing that approaches to 

 the character of a religious sense among them, for through- 

 out their idolatrous superstition there is a remarkable absence 

 of reverence towards the idols and priests of the Buddhist 

 and Taonist sects' (Brown). 



The worship of living animals is so extensive a subject 

 that we cannot here enter upon it further than to illustrate 

 the feelings which give rise to it and the ceremonies by which 

 it is attended in a single case. The poor natives of India look 

 upon the man-eating tiger c as a superior being, to be propi- 

 tiated by prayer ; and offerings of rice and fruit are left at the 

 entrances of their cottages when its approach is dreaded. 

 . . . Several natives came unexpectedly into the presence 

 of a tiger. Being unarmed, they addressed a prayer to it for 

 mercy.' Here, as in so many other cases of human worship, 



1 < The Land of the North Wind ; or, Travels among- the Laplanders and 

 the Samoj^edes,' 1875, pp. 25G-7. 



2 Chambers^ Encyclopedia.' 



