the original edition of myth, ritual and religion, published in 1887, has long been out of print. in revising the book i have brought it into line with the ideas expressed in the second part of my making of religion (1898) and have excised certain passages which, as the book first appeared, were inconsistent with its main thesis. in some cases the original passages are retained in notes, to show the nature of the development of the author’s opinions. a fragment or two of controversy has been deleted, and chapters xi. and xii., on the religion of the lowest races, have been entirely rewritten, on the strength of more recent or earlier information lately acquired. the gist of the book as it stands now and as it originally stood is contained in the following lines from the preface of 1887: “while the attempt is made to show that the wilder features of myth survive from, or were borrowed from, or were imitated from the ideas of people in the savage condition of thought, the existence — even among savages — of comparatively pure, if inarticulate, religious beliefs is insisted on throughout”. to that opinion i adhere, and i trust that it is now expressed with more consistency than in the first edition. i have seen reason, more and more, to doubt the validity of the “ghost theory,” or animistic hypothesis, as explanatory of the whole fabric of religion; and i present arguments against mr. tylor’s contention that the higher conceptions of savage faith are borrowed from missionaries.1 it is very possible, however, that mr. tylor has arguments more powerful than those contained in his paper of 1892. for our information is not yet adequate to a scientific theory of the origin of religion, and probably never will be. behind the races whom we must regard as “nearest the beginning” are their unknown ancestors from a dateless past, men as human as ourselves, but men concerning whose psychical, mental and moral condition we can only form conjectures. among them religion arose, in circumstances of which we are necessarily ignorant. thus i only venture on a surmise as to the germ of a faith in a maker (if i am not to say “creator”) and judge of men. but, as to whether the higher religious belief, or the lower mythical stories came first, we are at least certain that the christian conception of god, given pure, was presently entangled, by the popular fancy of europe, in new marchen about the deity, the madonna, her son, and the apostles. here, beyond possibility of denial, pure belief came first, fanciful legend was attached after. i am inclined to surmise that this has always been the case, and, in the pages on the legend of zeus, i show the processes of degeneration, of mythical accretions on a faith in a heaven-god, in action. that “the feeling of religious devotion” attests “high faculties” in early man (such as are often denied to men who “cannot count up to seven”), and that “the same high mental faculties . . . would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs,” was the belief of mr. darwin.2 that is also my view, and i note that the lowest savages are not yet guilty of the very worst practices, “sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god,” and ordeals by poison and fire, to which mr. darwin alludes. “the improvement of our science” has freed us from misdeeds which are unknown to the andamanese or the australians. thus there was, as regards these points in morals, degeneracy from savagery as society advanced, and i believe that there was also degeneration in religion. to say this is not to hint at a theory of supernatural revelation to the earliest men, a theory which i must, in limine disclaim.
in vol. ii. p. 19 occurs a reference, in a note, to mr. hartland’s criticism of my ideas about australian gods as set forth in the making of religion. mr. hartland, who kindly read the chapters on australian religion in this book, does not consider that my note on p. 19 meets the point of his argument. as to the australians, i mean no more than that, among endless low myths, some of them possess a belief in a “maker of everything,” a primal being, still in existence, watching conduct, punishing breaches of his laws, and, in some cases, rewarding the good in a future life. of course these are the germs of a sympathetic religion, even if the being thus regarded is mixed up with immoral or humorous contradictory myths. my position is not harmed by such myths, which occur in all old religions, and, in the middle ages, new myths were attached to the sacred figures of christianity in poetry and popular tales.
thus, if there is nothing “sacred” in a religion because wild or wicked fables about the gods also occur, there is nothing “sacred” in almost any religion on earth.
mr. hartland’s point, however, seems to be that, in the making of religion, i had selected certain australian beliefs as especially “sacred” and to be distinguished from others, because they are inculcated at the religious mysteries of some tribes. his aim, then, is to discover low, wild, immoral myths, inculcated at the mysteries, and thus to destroy my line drawn between religion on one hand and myth or mere folk-lore on the other. thus there is a being named daramulun, of whose rites, among the coast murring, i condensed the account of mr. howitt.3 from a statement by mr. greenway4 mr. hartland learned that daramulun’s name is said to mean “leg on one side” or “lame”. he, therefore, with fine humour, speaks of daramulun as “a creator with a game leg,” though when “baiame” is derived by two excellent linguists, mr. ridley and mr. greenway, from kamilaroi baia, “to make,” mr. hartland is by no means so sure of the sense of the name. it happens to be inconvenient to him! let the names mean what they may, mr. hartland finds, in an obiter dictum of mr. howitt (before he was initiated), that daramulun is said to have “died,” and that his spirit is now aloft. who says so, and where, we are not informed,5 and the question is important.
for the wiraijuri, in their mysteries, tell a myth of cannibal conduct of daramulun’s, and of deceit and failure of knowledge in baiame.6 of this i was unaware, or neglected it, for i explicitly said that i followed mr. howitt’s account, where no such matter is mentioned. mr. howitt, in fact, described the mysteries of the coast murring, while the narrator of the low myths, mr. matthews, described those of a remote tribe, the wiraijuri, with whom daramulun is not the chief, but a subordinate person. how mr. matthews’ friends can at once hold that daramulun was “destroyed” by baiame (their chief deity), and also that daramulun’s voice is heard at their rites, i don’t know.7 nor do i know why mr. hartland takes the myth of a tribe where daramulun is “the evil spirit who rules the night,”8 and introduces it as an argument against the belief of a distant tribe, where, by mr. howitt’s account, daramulun is not an evil spirit, but “the master” of all, whose abode is above the sky, and to whom are attributed powers of omnipotence and omnipresence, or, at any rate, the power “to do anything and to go anywhere. . . . to his direct ordinances are attributed the social and moral laws of the community.”9 this is not “an evil spirit”! when mr. hartland goes for scandals to a remote tribe of a different creed that he may discredit the creed of the coast murring, he might as well attribute to the free kirk “the errors of rome”. but mr. hartland does it!10 being “cunning of fence” he may reply that i also spoke loosely of wiraijuri and coast murring as, indifferently, daramulunites. i did, and i was wrong, and my critic ought not to accept but to expose my error. the wiraijuri daramulun, who was annihilated, yet who is “an evil spirit that rules the night,” is not the murring guardian and founder of recognised ethics.
but, in the wiraijuri mysteries, the master, baiame, deceives the women as to the mysteries! shocking to us, but to deceive the women as to these arcana, is, to the australian mind in general, necessary for the safety of the world. moreover, we have heard of a lying spirit sent to deceive prophets in a much higher creed. finally, in a myth of the mystery of the wiraijuri, baiame is not omniscient. indeed, even civilised races cannot keep on the level of these religious conceptions, and not to keep on that level is — mythology. apollo, in the hymn to hermes, sung on a sacred occasion, needs to ask an old vine-dresser for intelligence. hyperion “sees all and hears all,” but needs to be informed, by his daughters, of the slaughter of his kine. the lord, in the book of job, has to ask satan, “whence comest thou?” now for the sake of dramatic effect, now from pure inability to live on the level of his highest thought, man mythologises and anthropomorphises, in greece or israel, as in australia.
it does not follow that there is “nothing sacred” in his religion. mr. hartland offers me a case in point. in mrs. langloh parker’s australian legendary tales (pp. 11, 94), are myths of low adventures of baiame. in her more australian legendary tales (pp. 84-99), is a very poetical and charming aspect of the baiame belief. mr. hartland says that i will “seek to put” the first set of stories out of court, as “a kind of joke with no sacredness about it”. not i, but the noongahburrah tribe themselves make this essential distinction. mrs. langloh parker says:11 “the former series” (with the low baiame myths) “were all such legends as are told to the black picaninnies; among the present are some they would not be allowed to hear, touching as they do on sacred things, taboo to the young”. the blacks draw the line which i am said to seek to draw.
in yet another case12 grotesque hunting adventures of baiame are told in the mysteries, and illustrated by the sacred temporary representations in raised earth. i did not know it; i merely followed mr. howitt. but i do not doubt it. my reply is, that there was “something sacred” in greek mysteries, something purifying, ennobling, consoling. for this lobeck has collected (and disparaged) the evidence of pindar, sophocles, cicero and many others, while even aristophanes, as prof. campbell remarks, says: “we only have bright sun and cheerful life who have been initiated and lived piously in regard to strangers and to private citizens”.13 security and peace of mind, in this world and for the next, were, we know not how, borne into the hearts of pindar and sophocles in the mysteries. yet, if we may at all trust the fathers, there were scenes of debauchery, as at the mysteries of the fijians (nanga) there was buffoonery (“to amuse the boys,” mr. howitt says of some australian rites), the story of baubo is only one example, and, in other mysteries than the eleusinian, we know of mummeries in which an absurd tale of zeus is related in connection with an oak log. yet surely there was “something sacred” in the faith of zeus! let us judge the australians as we judge greeks. the precepts as to “speaking the straightforward truth,” as to unselfishness, avoidance of quarrels, of wrongs to “unprotected women,” of unnatural vices, are certainly communicated in the mysteries of some tribes, with, in another, knowledge of the name and nature of “our father,” munganngaur. that a totemistic dance, or medicine-dance of emu hunting, is also displayed14 at certain mysteries of a given tribe, and that baiame is spoken of as the hero of this ballet, no more deprives the australian moral and religious teaching (at the mysteries) of sacred value, than the stupid indecency whereby baubo made demeter laugh destroys the sacredness of the eleusinia, on which pindar, sophocles and cicero eloquently dwell. if the australian mystae, at the most solemn moment of their lives, are shown a dull or dirty divine ballet d’action, what did sophocles see, after taking a swim with his pig? many things far from edifying, yet the sacred element of religious hope and faith was also represented. so it is in australia.
these studies ought to be comparative, otherwise they are worthless. as mr. hartland calls daramulun “an eternal creator with a game leg” who “died,” he may call zeus an “eternal father, who swallowed his wife, lay with his mother and sister, made love as a swan, and died, nay, was buried, in crete”. i do not think that mr. hartland would call zeus “a ghost-god” (my own phrase), or think that he was scoring a point against me, if i spoke of the sacred and ethical characteristics of the zeus adored by eumaeus in the odyssey. he would not be so humorous about zeus, nor fall into an ignoratio elenchi. for my point never was that any australian tribe had a pure theistic conception unsoiled and unobliterated by myth and buffoonery. my argument was that among their ideas is that of a superhuman being, unceasing (if i may not say eternal), a maker (if i may not say a creator), a guardian of certain by no means despicable ethics, which i never proclaimed as supernormally inspired! it is no reply to me to say that, in or out of mysteries, low fables about that being are told, and buffooneries are enacted. for, though i say that certain high ideas are taught in mysteries, i do not think i say that in mysteries no low myths are told.
i take this opportunity, as the earliest, to apologise for an error in my making of religion concerning a passage in the primitive culture of my friend mr. e. b. tylor. mr. tylor quoted15 a passage from captain john smith’s history of virginia, as given in pinkerton, xiii. pp. 13-39, 1632. in this passage no mention occurs of a virginian deity named ahone but “okee,” another and more truculent god, is named. i observed that, if mr. tylor had used strachey’s historie of travaile (1612), he would have found “a slightly varying copy” of smith’s text of 1632, with ahone as superior to okee. i added in a note (p. 253): “there is a description of virginia, by w. strachey, including smith’s remarks published in 1612. strachey interwove some of this work with his own ms. in the british museum.” here, as presently will be shown, i erred, in company with strachey’s editor of 1849, and with the writer on strachey in the dictionary of national biography. what mr. tylor quoted from an edition of smith in 1632 had already appeared, in 1612, in a book (map of virginia, with a description of the countrey) described on the title-page as “written by captain smith,” though, in my opinion, smith may have had a collaborator. there is no evidence whatever that strachey had anything to do with this book of 1612, in which there is no mention of ahone. mr. arber dates strachey’s own ms. (in which ahone occurs) as of 1610-1615.16 i myself, for reasons presently to be alleged, date the ms. mainly in 1611-1612. if mr. arber and i are right, strachey must have had access to smith’s ms. before it was published in 1612, and we shall see how he used it. my point here is that strachey mentioned ahone (in ms.) before smith’s book of 1612 was published. this could not be gathered from the dedication to bacon prefixed to strachey’s ms., for that dedication cannot be earlier that 1618.17 i now ask leave to discuss the evidence for an early pre-christian belief in a primal creator, held by the indian tribes from plymouth, in new england, to roanoke island, off southern virginia.
the god ahone.
an insertion by a manifest plagiary into the work of a detected liar is not, usually, good evidence. yet this is all the evidence, it may be urged, which we have for the existence of a belief, in early virginia, as to a good creator, named ahone. the matter stands thus: in 1607-1609 the famed captain john smith endured and achieved in virginia sufferings and adventures. in 1608 he sent to the council at home a ms. map and description of the colony. in 1609 he returned to england (october). in may, 1610, william strachey, gent., arrived in virginia, where he was “secretary of state” to lord de la warr. in 1612 strachey and smith were both in england. in that year barnes of oxford published a map of virginia, with a description, etc., “written by captain smith,” according to the title-page. there was annexed a compilation from various sources, edited by “w. s.,” that is, not william strachey, but dr. william symonds. in the same year, 1612, or in 1611, william strachey wrote his historie of travaile into virginia britannia, at least as far as page 124 of the hakluyt edition of 1849.18
if strachey, who went out with lord de la warr as secretary in 1610, returned with him (as is likely), he sailed for england on 28th march, 1611. in that case, he was in england in 1611, and the passages cited leave it dubious whether he wrote his book in 1611, 1612, or in both years.19
strachey embodies in his work considerable pieces of smith’s map of virginia and description, written in 1608, and published in 1612. he continually deserts smith, however, adding more recent information, reflections and references to the ancient classics, with allusions to his own travels in the levant. his glossary is much more extensive than smith’s, and he inserts a native song of triumph over the english in the original.20 now, when strachey comes to the religion of the natives21 he gives eighteen pages (much of it verbiage) to five of smith’s.22 what smith (1612) says of their chief god i quote, setting strachey’s version (1611-1612) beside it.
smith (published, 1612).
but their chiefe god they worship is the diuell. him they call oke, and serue him more of feare than loue. they say they have conference with him, and fashion themselues as near to his shape as they can imagine. in their temples, they have his image euile favouredly carved, and then painted, and adorned with chaines, copper, and beades; and covered with a skin, in such manner as the deformity may well suit with such a god. by him is commonly the sepulcher of their kings.
strachey (written, 1611-12).
but their chief god they worship is no other, indeed, then the divell, whome they make presentments of, and shadow under the forme of an idoll, which they entitle okeus, and whome they worship as the romans did their hurtful god vejovis, more for feare of harme then for hope of any good; they saie they have conference with him, and fashion themselves in their disguisments as neere to his shape as they can imagyn. in every territory of a weroance is a temple and a priest, peradventure two or thrie; yet happie doth that weroance accompt himself who can detayne with him a quiyough-quisock, of the best, grave, lucky, well instructed in their misteryes, and beloved of their god; and such a one is noe lesse honoured then was dianae’s priest at ephesus, for whome they have their more private temples, with oratories and chauneells therein, according as is the dignity and reverence of the quiyough-quisock, which the weroance wilbe at charge to build upon purpose, sometyme twenty foote broad and a hundred in length, fashioned arbour wyse after their buylding, having comonly the dore opening into the east, and at the west end a spence or chauncell from the body of the temple, with hollow wyndings and pillers, whereon stand divers black imagies, fashioned to the shoulders, with their faces looking down the church, and where within their weroances, upon a kind of biere of reedes, lye buryed; and under them, apart, in a vault low in the ground (as a more secrett thing), vailed with a matt, sitts their okeus, an image ill-favouredly carved, all black dressed, with chaynes of perle, the presentment and figure of that god (say the priests unto the laity, and who religiously believe what the priests saie) which doth them all the harme they suffer, be yt in their bodies or goods, within doores or abroad; and true yt is many of them are divers tymes (especyally offendors) shrewdly scratched as they walke alone in the woods, yt may well be by the subtyle spirit, the malitious enemy to mankind, whome, therefore, to pacefie and worke to doe them good (at least no harme) the priests tell them they must do these and these sacrifices unto (them) of these and these things, and thus and thus often, by which meanes not only their owne children, but straungers, are sometimes sacrificed unto him: whilst the great god (the priests tell them) who governes all the world, and makes the sun to shine, creating the moone and stars his companyons, great powers, and which dwell with him, and by whose virtues and influences the under earth is tempered, and brings forth her fruiets according to her seasons, they calling ahone; the good and peaceable god requires no such dutyes, nor needes be sacrificed unto, for he intendeth all good unto them, and will doe noe harme, only the displeased okeus, looking into all men’s accions, and examining the same according to the severe scale of justice, punisheth them with sicknesse, beats them, and strikes their ripe corn with blastings, stormes, and thunder clapps, stirrs up warre, and makes their women falce unto them. such is the misery and thraldome under which sathan hath bound these wretched miscreants.
i began by calling strachey a plagiary. the reader will now observe that he gives far more than he takes. for example, his account of the temples is much more full than that of smith, and he adds to smith’s version the character and being of ahone, as what “the priests tell them”. i submit, therefore, that strachey’s additions, if valid for temples, are not discredited for ahone, merely because they are inserted in the framework of smith. as far as i understand the matter, smith’s map of virginia (1612) is an amended copy, with additions, by smith or another writer of that description, which he sent home to the council of virginia, in november, 1608.23 to the book of 1612 was added a portion of “relations” by different hands, edited by w. s., namely, dr. symonds. strachey’s editor, in 1849, regarded w. s. as strachey, and supposed that strachey was the real author of smith’s map of virginia, so that, in his historie of travaile, strachey merely took back his own. he did not take back his own; he made use of smith’s ms., not yet published, if mr. arber and i rightly date strachey’s ms. at 1610-15, or 1611-12. why strachey acted thus it is possible to conjecture. as a scholar well acquainted with virginia, and as secretary for the colony, he would have access to smith’s ms. of 1608 among the papers of the council, before its publication. smith professes himself “no scholer”.24 on the other hand, strachey likes to show off his latin and greek. he has a curious, if inaccurate, knowledge of esoteric greek and roman religious antiquities, and in writing of religion aims at a comparative method. strachey, however, took the trouble to copy bits of smith into his own larger work, which he never gave to the printers.
now as to ahone. it suits my argument to suppose that strachey’s account is no less genuine than his description of the temples (illustrated by a picture by john white, who had been in virginia in 1589), and the account of the great hare of american mythology.25 this view of a virginian creator, “our chief god” “who takes upon him this shape of a hare,” was got, says strachey, “last year, 1610,” from a brother of the potomac king, by a boy named spilman, who says that smith “sold” him to powhattan.26 in his own brief narrative spelman (or spilman) says nothing about the cosmogonic legend of the great hare. the story came up when captain argoll was telling powhattan’s brother the account of creation in genesis (1610).
now strachey’s great hare is accepted by mythologists, while ahone is regarded with suspicion. ahone does not happen to suit anthropological ideas, the hare suits them rather better. moreover, and more important, there is abundant corroborative evidence for oke and for the hare, michabo, who, says dr. brinton, “was originally the highest divinity recognised by them, powerful and beneficent beyond all others, maker of the heavens and the world,” just like ahone, in fact. and dr. brinton instructs us that michabo originally meant not great hare, but “the spirit of light”.27 thus, originally, the red men adored “the spirit of light, maker of the heavens and the world”. strachey claims no more than this for ahone. now, of course, dr. brinton may be right. but i have already expressed my extreme distrust of the philological processes by which he extracts “the great light; spirit of light,” from michabo, “beyond a doubt!” in my poor opinion, whatever claims michabo may have as an unique creator of earth and heaven —“god is light,”— he owes his mythical aspect as a hare to something other than an unconscious pun. in any case, according to dr. brinton, michabo, regarded as a creator, is equivalent to strachey’s ahone. this amount of corroboration, valeat quantum, i may claim, from the potomac indians, for the belief in ahone on the james river. dr. brinton is notoriously not a believer in american “monotheism”.28
the opponents of the authenticity of ahone, however, will certainly argue: “for oke, or oki, as a redoubted being or spirit, or general name for such personages, we have plentiful evidence, corroborating that of smith. but what evidence as to ahone corroborates that of strachey?” i must confess that i have no explicit corroborative evidence for ahone, but then i have no accessible library of early books on virginia. now it is clear that if i found and produced evidence for ahone as late as 1625, i would be met at once with the retort that, between 1610 and 1625, christian ideas had contaminated the native beliefs. thus if i find ahone, or a deity of like attributes, after a very early date, he is of no use for my purpose. nor do i much expect to find him. but do we find winslow’s massachusetts god, kiehtan, named after 1622 (“i only ask for information”), and if we don’t, does that prevent mr. tylor from citing kiehtan, with apparent reliance on the evidence?29
again, ahone, though primal and creative, is, by strachey’s account, a sleeping partner. he has no sacrifice, and no temple or idol is recorded. therefore the belief in ahone could only be discovered as a result of inquiry, whereas figures of oke or okeus, and his services, were common and conspicuous.30 as to oke, i cannot quite understand mr. tylor’s attitude. summarising lafitau, a late writer of 1724, mr. tylor writes: “the whole class of spirits or demons, known to the caribs by the name of cemi, in algonkin as manitu, in huron as oki, lafitau now spells with capital letters, and converts them each into a supreme being”.31 yet in primitive culture, ii., 342, 1891, mr. tylor had cited smith’s okee (with a capital letter) as the “chief god” of the virginians in 1612. how can lafitau be said to have elevated oki into oki, and so to have made a god out of “a class of spirits or demons,” in 1724, when mr. tylor had already cited smith’s okee, with a capital letter and as a “chief god,” in 1612? smith, rebuked for the same by mr. tylor, had even identified okee with the devil. lafitau certainly did not begin this erroneous view of oki as a “chief god” among the virginians. if i cannot to-day produce corroboration for a god named ahone, i can at least show that, from the north of new england to the south of virginia, there is early evidence, cited by mr. tylor, for a belief in a primal creative being, closely analogous to ahone. and this evidence, i think, distinctly proves that such a being as ahone was within the capacity of the indians in these latitudes. mr. tylor must have thought in 1891 that the natives were competent to a belief in a supreme deity, for he said, “another famous native american name for the supreme deity is oki”.32 in the essay of 1892, however, oki does not appear to exist as a god’s name till 1724. we may now, for earlier evidence, turn to master thomas heriot, “that learned mathematician” “who spoke the indian language,” and was with the company which abandoned virginia on 18th june, 1586. they ranged 130 miles north and 130 miles north-west of roanoke island, which brings them into the neighbourhood of smith’s and strachey’s country. heriot writes as to the native creeds: “they believe that there are many gods which they call mantoac, but of different sorts and degrees. also that there is one chiefe god that hath beene from all eternitie, who, as they say, when he purposed first to make the world, made first other gods of a principall order, to be as instruments to be used in the creation and government to follow, and after the sunne, moone and starres as pettie gods, and the instruments of the other order more principall. . . . they thinke that all the gods are of humane shape,” and represent them by anthropomorphic idols. an idol, or image, “kewasa” (the plural is “kewasowok”), is placed in the temples, “where they worship, pray and make many offerings”. good souls go to be happy with the gods, the bad burn in popogusso, a great pit, “where the sun sets”. the evidence for this theory of a future life, as usual, is that of men who died and revived again, a story found in a score of widely separated regions, down to our day, when the death, revival and revelation occurred to the founder of the arapahoe new religion of the ghost dance. the belief “works for righteousness”. “the common sort . . . have great care to avoyde torment after death, and to enjoy blesse,” also they have “great respect to their governors”.
this belief in a chief god “from all eternitie” (that is, of unexplained origin), may not be convenient to some speculators, but it exactly corroborates strachey’s account of ahone as creator with subordinates. the evidence is of 1586 (twenty-six years before strachey), and, like strachey, heriot attributes the whole scheme of belief to “the priestes”. “this is the sum of their religion, which i learned by having speciall familiaritie with some of their priests.”33 i see no escape from the conclusion that the virginians believed as heriot says they did, except the device of alleging that they promptly borrowed some of heriot’s ideas and maintained that these ideas had ever been their own. heriot certainly did not recognise the identity. “through conversing with us they were brought into great doubts of their owne (religion), and no small admiration of ours; of which many desired to learne more than we had the meanes for want of utterance in their language to expresse.” so heriot could not be subtle in the native tongue. heriot did what he could to convert them: “i did my best to make his immortall glory knowne”. his efforts were chiefly successful by virtue of the savage admiration of our guns, mathematical instruments, and so forth. these sources of an awakened interest in christianity would vanish with the total destruction and discomfiture of the colony, unless a few captives, later massacred, taught our religion to the natives.34
i shall cite another early example of a new england deity akin to ahone, with a deputy, a friend of sorcerers, like okee. this account is in smith’s general history of new england, 1606-1624. we sent out a colony in 1607; “they all returned in the yeere 1608,” esteeming the country “a cold, barren, mountainous rocky desart”. i am apt to believe that they did not plant the fructifying seeds of grace among the natives in 1607-1608. but the missionary efforts of french traders may, of course, have been blessed; nor can i deny that a yellow-haired man, whose corpse was found in 1620 with some objects of iron, may have converted the natives to such beliefs as they possessed. we are told, however, that these tenets were of ancestral antiquity. i cite e. winslow, as edited by smith (1623-24):—
“those where in this plantation (new plymouth) say kiehtan35 made all the other gods: also one man and one woman, and with them all mankinde, but how they became so dispersed they know not. they say that at first there was no king but kiehtan, that dwelleth far westerly above the heavens, whither all good men go when they die, and have plentie of all things. the bad go thither also and knock at the door, but (‘the door is shut’) he bids them go wander in endless want and misery, for they shall not stay there. they never saw kiehtan,36 but they hold it a great charge and dutie that one race teach another; and to him they make feasts and cry and sing for plenty and victory, or anything that is good.
“they have another power they call hobamock, which we conceive the devill, and upon him they call to cure their wounds and diseases; when they are curable he persuades them he sent them, because they have displeased him; but, if they be mortal, then he saith, ‘kiehtan sent them’; which makes them never call on him in their sickness. they say this hobamock appears to them sometimes like a man, a deer, or an eagle, but most commonly like a snake; not to all but to their powahs to cure diseases, and undeses . . . and these are such as conjure in virginia, and cause the people to do what they list.” winslow (or rather smith editing winslow here), had already said, “they believe, as do the virginians, of many divine powers, yet of one above all the rest, as the southern virginians call their chief god kewassa (an error), and that we now inhabit oke. . . . the massachusetts call their great god kiehtan.”37
here, then, in heriot (1586), strachey (1611-12) and winslow (1622), we find fairly harmonious accounts of a polydaemonism with a chief, primal, creative being above and behind it; a being unnamed, and ahone and kiehtan.
is all this invention? or was all this derived from europeans before 1586, and, if so, from what europeans? mr. tylor, in 1873, wrote, “after due allowance made for misrendering of savage answers, and importation of white men’s thoughts, it can hardly be judged that a divine being, whose characteristics are often so unlike what european intercourse would have suggested, and who is heard of by such early explorers among such distant tribes, could be a deity of foreign origin”. now, he “can hardly be altogether a deity of foreign origin”.38 i agree with mr. tylor’s earlier statement. in my opinion ahone — okeus, kiehtan — hobamock, correspond, the first pair to the usually unseen australian baiame (a crystal or hypnotic vision of baiame scarcely counts), while the second pair, okeus and hobamock, answer to the australian familiars of sorcerers, koin and brewin; the american “powers” being those of peoples on a higher level of culture. like tharramulun where baiame is supreme, hobamock appears as a snake (asclepius).
for all these reasons i am inclined to accept strachey’s ahone as a veritable element in virginian belief. without temple or service, such a being was not conspicuous, like okee and other gods which had idols and sacrifices.
as far as i see, strachey has no theory to serve by inventing ahone. he asks how any races “if descended from the people of the first creation, should maintain so general and gross a defection from the true knowledge of god”. he is reduced to suppose that, as descendants of ham, they inherit “the ignorance of true godliness.” (p. 45). the children of shem and japheth alone “retained, until the coming of the messias, the only knowledge of the eternal and never-changing trinity”. the virginians, on the other hand, fell heir to the ignorance, and “fearful and superstitious instinct of nature” of ham (p. 40). ahone, therefore, is not invented by strachey to bolster up a theory (held by strachey), of an inherited revelation, or of a sensus numinis which could not go wrong. unless a proof be given that strachey had a theory, or any other purpose, to serve by inventing ahone, i cannot at present come into the opinion that he gratuitously fabled, though he may have unconsciously exaggerated.
what were strachey’s sources? he was for nine months, if not more, in the colony: he had travelled at least 115 miles up the james river, he occasionally suggests modifications of smith’s map, he refers to smith’s adventures, and his glossary is very much larger than smith’s; its accuracy i leave to american linguists. such a witness, despite his admitted use of smith’s text (if it is really all by smith throughout) is not to be despised, and he is not despised in america.39 strachey, it is true, had not, like smith, been captured by indians and either treated with perfect kindness and consideration (as smith reported at the time), or tied to a tree and threatened with arrows, and laid out to have his head knocked in with a stone; as he alleged sixteen years later! strachey, not being captured, did not owe his release (1) to the magnanimity of powhattan, (2) to his own ingenious lies, (3) to the intercession of pocahontas, as smith, and his friends for him, at various dates inconsistently declared. smith certainly saw more of the natives at home: strachey brought a more studious mind to what he could learn of their customs and ideas; and is not a convicted braggart. i conjecture that one of strachey’s sources was a native named kemps. smith had seized kemps and kinsock in 1609. unknown authorities (powell? and todkill?) represent these two savages as “the most exact villaines in the country”.40 they were made to labour in fetters, then were set at liberty, but “little desired it”.41 some “souldiers” ran away to the liberated kemps, who brought them back to smith.42 why kemps and his friend are called “two of the most exact villains in the country” does not appear. kemps died “of the surveye” (scurvey, probably) at jamestown, in 1610-11. he was much made of by lord de la warr, “could speak a pretty deal of our english, and came orderly to church every day to prayers”. he gave strachey the names of powhattan’s wives, and told him, truly or not, that pocahontas was married, about 1610, to an indian named kocoum.43 i offer the guess that kemps and machumps, who came and went from pocahontas, and recited an indian prayer which strachey neglected to copy out, may have been among strachey’s authorities. i shall, of course, be told that kemps picked up ahone at church. this did not strike strachey as being the fact; he had no opinion of the creed in which ahone was a factor, “the misery and thraldome under which sathan has bound these wretched miscreants”. according to strachey, the priests, far from borrowing any part of our faith, “feare and tremble lest the knowledge of god, and of our saviour jesus christ be taught in these parts”.
strachey is therefore for putting down the priests, and, like smith (indeed here borrowing from smith), accuses them of sacrificing children. to smith’s statement that such a rite was worked at quiyough-cohanock, strachey adds that sir george percy (who was with smith) “was at, and observed” a similar mystery at kecoughtan. it is plain that the rite was not a sacrifice, but a bora, or initiation, and the parallel of the spartan flogging of boys, with the retreat of the boys and their instructors, is very close, and, of course, unnoted by classical scholars except mr. frazer. strachey ends with the critical remark that we shall not know all the certainty of the religion and mysteries till we can capture some of the priests, or quiyough-quisocks.
students who have access to a good library of americana may do more to elucidate ahone. i regard him as in a line with kiehtan and the god spoken of by heriot, and do not believe (1) that strachey lied; (2) that natives deceived strachey; (3) that ahone was borrowed from “the god of captain smith”.
