966 



MYTHOLOGY 



[b. a. a. 



they exercise derivative powers or are 

 joined in mysterious kinship groups, al- 

 ways combining the symboUsm of per- 

 sonified objective phenomena with im- 

 ■puted Ufe, mind, and voHtion, and with 

 the exercise of attributed orenda, or magic 

 power, of diverse function and potency. 

 Moreover, the size and the muscular power 

 of the objective reality i)ersonified have 

 little, if any, relation to the strength of 

 the orenda exercised by the man-being. 

 To explain in part the multiform 

 phenomena of different and successive 

 environments, the philosophic ancestors 

 of the Indians of to-day subconsciously 

 imputed mind and immortal life to every 

 object and phenomenon in nature, and 

 to nearly every faculty and affection of 

 the human mind and body. (Concomi- 

 tantly with this endowment of lifeless 

 things with life and mind was the addi- 

 tional endowment with orenda, which 

 differed in strength and function with 

 the individual. These dogmas underlie 

 the mythology and religion of all the 

 Indians, as they supplied to the latter's 

 inchoate reasoning satisfactory explana- 

 tions of the phenomena of nature — life 

 and death, dreams and disease, floral and 

 faunal growth and reproduction, light 

 and darkness, cold and heat, winter and 

 summer, rain and snow, frost and ice, 

 wind and storm. The term "animism" 

 has been applied by some to this doctrine 

 of the possession of immortal life and mind 

 by lifeless and mindless things, but with 

 an insufficient definition of the objective 

 for which it stands. The uses and defini- 

 tions of this term are now so numerous 

 and contradictory that the critical student 

 can not afford to employ it without an 

 exact objective definition. Primarily, 

 animism, or the imputation of life to life- 

 less things, was selected to express what 

 was considered the sole essential charac- 

 teristic basis of the complex institutions 

 called mythology and religion. But if 

 the ascription of life to lifeless things is 

 animism, then it becomes of fundamental 

 importance to know exactly what kind 

 of life is thus ascribed. If there is one 

 difference between things which should 

 l)e carefully distinguished, it is that be- 

 tween the alleged ghosts of dead human 

 beings and those other alleged spiritual 

 t)eings which never have been real hu- 

 man beings— the animal and the primal 

 spirits. Does animism denote the ascrip 

 tion of only one or of all these.three classes 

 of spirits? Definite explanation is here 

 lacking. So, as a key to the satisfactory 

 interpretation of what constitutes mythol- 

 ogy and religion, animism as heretofore 

 defined has failed to meet the criticism of 

 such A'holars as Spencer, Max Midler, 

 and Brinton, and so has fallen into that 

 long category of equivocal words of which 



fetishism, shamanism, solarism, ancestor- 

 worship, personification, and totemism 

 are other members. Every one of these 

 terms, as commonly emjjloyed, denotes 

 some important phase or element in re- 

 ligion or mythology which, variously de- 

 fined by different students, does not, how- 

 ever, form the characteristic basis of 

 mythology and religion. 



The great apostle of ancestor-worship, 

 Lippert, makes animism a mere sub- 

 division of the worship of ancestral spirits, 

 or ghosts. But Gruppe, adding to the 

 confusion of ideas, makesanimism synony- 

 mous with fetishism, and describes a fetish 

 as the tenement of a disembodied human 

 spirit or ghost, and erroneously holds 

 that fetishism is the result of a widely 

 prevalent belief inthepow erof the human 

 ghost to take possession of any object 

 whatsoever, to leave its ordinary dwell- 

 ing, the remains of the human body, to 

 enter some other object, such as the sky, 

 the sun, the moon, the earth, a star, or 

 what not. Even the chief gods of Greece, 

 Rome, and India are by some regarded 

 as fetishes developed through the exalta- 

 tion of ancestral ghosts to this state. 

 Their cult is regarded as a development 

 of fetishism, which is an outgrowth of 

 animism, which is, in turn, a development 

 of ancestor-worship. To add to this array 

 of conflicting definitions. Max Miiller de- 

 claresthatfetishism is really the "very last 

 stage in the downward course of religion. ' ' 

 Gruppe further holds that when a sky 

 fetish or a star fetish becomes a totem, 

 then the idea of "sons of heaven," or 

 "children of the sun," is developed in 

 the human mind, and so, according to 

 this doctrine, every religion, ancient and 

 modern, may be explained by animism, 

 fetishism, and totemism. Moved by this 

 array of conflicting definitions. Max Mid- 

 ler declares that, to secure clear thinking 

 and sober reasoning, these three terms 

 should be entirely discarded, or, if used, 

 then let animism be defined as a belief in 

 and worship of ancestral spirits, whence 

 arises in the* mind the simplest and most 

 primitive ideas of immortality; let fetish- 

 ism be defined as a worship of chance 

 objects having miraculous powers; and, 

 finally, let totemism be defined as the 

 custom of choosing some emblem as the 

 family or tribal mark to which worship 

 is paid and which is regarded as the 

 human or superhuman ancestor. Miiller 

 has failed to grasp the facts clearly, for 

 no one of these excludes the others. 



Stahl (1737), adopting and developing 

 into, modern scientific form the classical 

 theory of the identity of life and soul, 

 employed the term "animism" to desig- 

 nate this doctine. 



Tylor (1871), adopting the term 

 "animism" from Stahl, defines it as "the 



