SUPERSTITION AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3117, 10 December 1913, Page 75

SUPERSTITION AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

THE RESEARCHES OF DR FRAZER INTO THE MYSTERIES OF GOOD AND EVIL. How far‘are our chief institutions based in superstition? That is the question Dr J. G." Frazer, author of “The Golden Boucrh,” answers in his famous discourse, published under the title “Psyche’s Task” (Macmillan, 5s net). The answer, in an age like ours, which prides itself on its freedom from superstition, might appear obvious. But Mr Frazer shows us, by a careful examination, bow four of the most permanent of civilisation’s institutions— Private Property, Government, Marriage, and Respect for Human Life—have each accepted the support of superstitions ranging from simple folly to revolting cruelty. “If it should turn out, however, that these institutions have been built on rotten foundations,” he says, “it would be rash to conclude that they must all come down.” For; Man is a very curious animal, and the more we know of hie habits the more

curious does he appeat. He max.be the most rational of the beasts, but certainly he is the most absurd.> Even the saturnine wit of Swift, unaided by a knowledge of savages, fell-far-short of the reality in his attempt to set human folly in a strong light. Yet the odd thing is, that in spite, or perhaps by virtue, of his absurdities, man moves steadily upwards; the more we learn, of his past history the more groundless does the old theory of his degeneracy prove to be. From false premises he ofjten arrives at sound conclusions; if dm chimerical theory he deduces a salutary practice. And so the learned anthropologist set* out to show how folly often mysteriously deviates into wisdom, and good comes out of evil. —Taboo and Private Property.— It is generally admitted by anthropologists that the far-spreading and powerful system of taboo was no more effectively used than in defence of property. “It converted the privileged classes of the Marquesas Islands into landed proprietors,” says Dr Frazer, and he gives innumerable instances and references in proof of its power to elevate them “by a sort of divine right into a position of affluence and luxury above the" vulgar,” throughout the South Seas. Among the Samoans the system was particularly effective. , Here are a few instances in which it w r as used for the protection of property in those islands : 1. The Sea-pike Taboo.—To prevent his bread-fruits from being stolen a man would plait some cocoauut leaflet* in the form of a sea pike and hang one or more such effigies from the trees which he wished to protect. Any ordinary thief would be afraid to touch a tree thus guarded, for he believed that if he stole the fruit a sea pike would mortally wound him the next time ha went to sea. 2. The White-shark Taboo.—A man would plait a cocoa-nut leaf in the shape of a shark and hang it on a tree. This was equivalent to an imprecation that the thief might be devoured by a shark the next time he went to fish. 3. The Cross-stick Taboo.—This waa a stick hung horizontally on the tree. It expressed a wish that whoever stole fruit from the tree might be afflicted with a sore running right across his 1 body till he died. 4. The Ulcer Taboo.—This was mad® by burying some pieces of clam-shell in the ground and setting up at the spot several reeds tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. By this the owner signified his wish that the thief might be laid low with ulcerous sores all over his body. If the thief happened thereafter to be troubled with swellings or sores, he confessed his fault and sent a present to the owner of the land, who in return sent to the culprit a herb both as a medicine and as a pledge of forgiveness. 5. The Thunder Taboo. —A man would plait cocoauut leaflets in the form of a small square mat and suspend it from a tree, adding some white streamers of native doth. A thief believed that for trespassing on such a tree he or his children might be struck by lightning, or perhaps that lightning might strike his own trees. These were quite as effective as the English taboo, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.’’ One cannot be prosecuted for trespass, but only for damage done. The right to roam exists, but it is marred by the right to forcibly eject. —The Last 'English Kingly Superstition.— Equally curious were the superstitious methods of convinfeing people of the divinity of kings and other great folk. The last relic of such superstition in this country was tho ancient belief that the touch of a king would cure scrofula. Tho disease was accordingly known as King’s Evil. Tire belief in the king’s power to heal by touch is known to have been held in France and England from the eleventh century onward. The first French king to touch the sick appears to have been Robert the Pious; the first English king, Edward the Confessor. In England the belief that the king could heal scrofula by his touch survived into the eighteenth century. Dr Johnson was touched in his childhood for scrofula by Queen Anne. It is curious that so typical a representative of robust common-senso as Dr Johnson should in his childhood and old age have thus been brought into contact with these- ancient superstitions about royalty both in England and. Scotland. In France the superstition lingered a good deal longer, for whereas Queen Anne was the last reigning monarch in England to touch for scrofula, both Louis XV and Louis XVI at their coronation touched thousands of patients, and as late as 1824 Charles X at his coi’onation went through the same solemn farce. —Terrorism and Chastity.— But by far the most startling chapter in the book is the long account of superstitions established as to tho marriage system. Every ingenious device of folly and cruelty is- found to be in use among various savage tribes and races throughout the world. And the catalogue proves at least one thing: that savage races are a great deal more fanatical in their sense of morality than those that are civilised. Here, for instance, is a carefu!!y-thought-out cruelty used by way of punishing a guilty couple; it occurred in Sumatra: Tho guilty pair 'were bound back to back and buried in a deep hole, but from the mouth of each a hollow bamboo communicated with the upper air; and if when the grave was opened after seven days the wretches were found to have survived a prolonged agony far worse than death, they were granted their life. The good folks who invented this punishment wore quitq under the conviction that

there was a humane touch in thus granting the moral delinquents a sporting chance of living a new and better life! Burying alive without this chance of reprieve is very common among other barbarians, as is also drowning in wicker cages, and almost every other cruelty short of those mechanical instruments of torture used by more civilised inquisitors. —A Eajah’s Vengeance.— Even trivial misdemeanours or acts which we should deem innocent may, says Dr Frazer, draw condign punishment on the thoughtless and the imprudent and tiie light-hearted in the Indian Archipelago. And he quotes Dr Alfred Russel Wallace in proof of the strict sense of husbandly jealousy even in reference to so innocent an act as a wife’s acceptance of a cigar or a flower from a man friend : I was informed that some years ago an English trader had a Balinese woman of good family living with him—the connection being considered quite honourable by the natives. During some festival this girl offended against the law by accepting a flower or some such trifle from another man. This was reported to the Rajah (to some oi whose wives the girl was related), and he immediately sent to the Englishman's house ordering him to give the woman up, as she must be “krissed.” In vain he begged and prayed, and offered to pay any fine the Rajah might impose, and finally refused to give her up unless forced to do so. This the Rajah did not wish to resort to, as he no doubt thought ha was acting as much for the Englishman’s honour as for hie own; so he appeared to let the matter drop. But some time afterwards he sent one of his followers to the house, who beckoned the girl to the door, and then saying ‘‘The Rajah sends you this,” stabbed her to the heart. Thus does Dr Frazer fill the dry bones of anthropology with an interest akin to romance. The while he proves with an impressive array of facts that, although no institution founded on falsehood can be permanent, falsehood and superstition have contributed to the maintenance of institutions founded in truth.