CHAPTER CXLVII.
OLD TREES. SHIPS. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. LIFE AND PASSIONS ASCRIBED TO INANIMATE OBJECTS. FETISH WORSHIP. A LORD CHANCELLOR AND HIS GOOSE.
Ce que j'en ay escrit, c'est pour une curiosité, qui plaira possible à aucuns: et non possible aux autres.
BRANTOME.
“Consider,” says Plutarch in that precious volume of Philemon Holland's translating, which was one of the elder Daniel's treasures, and which the Doctor valued accordingly as a relic, “consider whether our forefathers have not permitted excessive ceremonies and observations in these cases, even for an exercise and studious meditation of thankfulness; as namely, when they reverenced so highly the Oaks bearing acorns as they did. Certes the Athenians had one Fig-tree which they honoured by the name of the holy and sacred Fig-Tree; and they expressly forbade to cut down the Mulberry-tree. For these ceremonies, I assure you, do not make men inclined to superstition as some think, but frame and train us to gratitude and sociable humanity one toward another, whenas we are thus reverently affected to such things as these that have no soul nor sense.” But Plutarch knew that there were certain Trees to which something more than sense or soul was attributed by his countrymen.
There was a tradition at Corinth which gave a different account of the death of Pentheus from that in the Metamorphoses, where it is said that he was beholding the rites of the Bacchanals, from an open eminence surrounded by the woods, when his mother espied him, and in her madness led on the frantic women by whom he was torn to pieces. But the tradition at Corinth was that he climbed a tree for the purpose of seeing their mysteries, and was discovered amid its branches; and that the Pythian Oracle afterwards enjoined the Corinthians to find out this Tree, and pay divine honours to it, as to a God. The special motive here was to impress the people with an aweful respect for the Mysteries, none being felt for any part of the popular religion.
Old Trees, without the aid of an Oracle to consecrate them, seem to have been some of the most natural objects of that contemplative and melancholy regard, which easily passes into superstitious veneration. No longer ago than during the peace of Amiens a Frenchman1 describing the woods on the banks of the Senegal, says On éprouve un doux ravissement en contemplant ces nobles productions d'une nature tranquille, libre et presque vierge; car là elle est encore respectée, et la vieillesse des beaux arbres y est pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un culte. Mon ame reconnoissante des émotions qu'elle ressentait, remerciait le Créateur d'avoir fait naître ces magnifiques végétables sur un sol òu elles avaient pu croitre indépendantes et paisibles, et conserver ces formes originales et naïves que l'art sait alterer, mais qu'il ne saura jamais imiter.—
Quelques-uns des sites qu'on rencontre etalent les attraits et les grâces d'une nature virginale; dans d'autres, on admire ce que l'âge, de sa plus grande force, peut avoir de plus imposant et de plus auguste; et d'antiques forêts, dont les arbres ont une grosseur et une élévation qui attestent leur grand âge, excitent une admiration mêlée de respect; et ces prodigieux végétaux encore verts, encore beaux, après une vie de tant de siecles, semblent vouloir nous apprendre, que dans ces contrées solitaires et fertiles, la nature vit toujours, et ne vieillit jamais.
1 GOLBERRY.
There are Tribes among the various races in the Philippines who are persuaded that the souls of their ancestors use old trees as their habitations, and therefore it is deemed a sacrilege to cut one down. The Lezgis used to erect pillars under the boughs of decayed Oaks to support them as long as possible; Murlooz is the name which they give to such spurs, or stay-pillars.
The Rector of Manafon, Mr. Walter Davies, in his View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales, says, “Strangers have oftentimes listened with attention to Gentlemen of the County of Montgomery enquiring anxiously into the conduct and fate of the Windsor Castle, the Impregnable, the Brunswick and other men of war, in some particular naval engagements; and were led to imagine that they had some near and dear relations holding important commissions on board; but upon farther enquiry, found the ground of this curiosity to be no other than that such ships had been partly built of timber that had grown upon their estates; as if the inanimate material contained some magic virtue.” The good Rector might have perceived in what he censures, one indication of that attachment to our native soil, on which much of the security of states depends, much of the happiness of individuals, and not a little of their moral and intellectual character.
But indeed the same cause which renders personification a common figure not only with poets and orators, but in all empassioned and even in ordinary speech, leads men frequently both to speak and act as if they ascribed life and consciousness to inanimate things.
When the Cid Campeador recovered from the Infantes of Carrion, his two swords Colada and Tizona, “his whole frame,” says the Chronicler, “rejoiced, and he smiled from his heart. And he laid them upon his lap and said, ‘Ah my swords, Colada and Tizona, truly may I say of you that you are the best swords in Spain; and I won you, for I did not get you either by buying or by barter. I gave ye in keeping to the Infantes of Carrion that they might do honour to my daughters with ye. But ye were not for them! They kept ye hungry, and did not feed ye with flesh as ye were wont to be fed. Well is it for you that ye have escaped that thraldom and are come again to my hands.’”
The same strong figure occurs in the Macaronea,
Gaude, Baldus ait, mi brande! cibaberis; ecce
Carnis et sanguis tibi præsententur abunde.
The Greek Captain who purchases a vessel which he is to command himself, takes possession of it by a ceremony which is called espousing the ship; on this occasion he suspends in it a laurel crown as a symbol of the marriage, and a bag of garlic as a preservative against tempests.—In the year 1793, the ship Darius belonging to a Hindoo, or more probably, as may be inferred from the name, a Parsee owner, was run ashore off Malacca by its Commander Captain Laughton to save it from falling into the hands of a French Privateer. The Captain and his Officers when they had thus disappointed the enemy, succeeded afterwards by great exertion and great skill, in getting the vessel off, and brought it safely home to Bombay; where the grateful owner, thinking the Ship itself was entitled to some signal mark of acknowledgement, treated it with a compleat ablution, which was performed not with water, but with sugar and milk.
Our own sailors sometimes ascribe consciousness and sympathy to their ship. It is a common expression with them that “she behaves well;” and they persuade themselves that an English Man of War, by reason of its own good will, sails faster in pursuit of a Frenchman than at any other time. Poor old Captain Atkins was firmly possessed with this belief. On such occasions he would talk to his ship, as an Arabian to his horse, urge and intreat her to exert herself and put forth all her speed, and promise to reward her with a new coat of paint as soon as they should get into harbour.—“Who,” says Fuller, “can without pity or pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir Francis Drake about the World?”—So naturally are men led to impute something like vitality to so great a work of human formation, that persons connected with the shipping trade talk of the average life of a ship, which in the present state of our naval affairs is stated to be twenty-two years.
At one of the Philosophers' Yearly-Meetings it was said that every Engine-man had more or less pride in his engine, just as a sailor had in his ship. We heard then of the duty of an engine, and of how much virtue resides in a given quantity of coals. This is the language of the Mines, so easily does a figurative expression pass into common speech. The duty of an engine has been taken at raising 50 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot in an hour; some say 100 millions, some 120; but the highest duty which the reporter had ascertained was 90 millions, the lowest seventy. And the virtue in a bushel of coals is sufficient to raise 125 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot, being from 800 to 1070 at the cost of one farthing. No one will think this hard duty for the Engine, but all must allow it to be cheap virtue in the coals.
This however is merely an example of the change which words undergo in the currency of speech as their original stamp is gradually effaced: what was metaphorical becomes trivial; and this is one of the causes by which our language has been corrupted, more perhaps than any other, recourse being had both in prose and verse to forced and fantastic expressions as substitutes for the freshness and strength that have been lost. Strong feelings and strong fancy are liable to a more serious perversion.
M. de Custine, writing from Mont Anvert, in the rhapsodical part of his travels, exclaims, Qu'on ne me parle plus de nature morte; on sent ici que la Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont pénêtrées comme nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatricé! Quand on me dit que les rochers sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir que l'aiguille d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas se mouvoir.
It is easy to perceive that feelings of this kind may imperceptibly have led to the worship of any remarkable natural objects, such as Trees, Forests, Mountains, Springs, and Rivers, as kindred feelings have led to the adoration of Images and of Relics. Court de Gebelin has even endeavoured to show that Fetish worship was not without some reasonable cause in its origin. The author of a treatise Du Culte des Dieux Fétiches, ou Parallèle de l'ancienne Religion de l'Egypte avec la Religion actuelle de la Nigritie, had asserted that this absurd superstition originated in fear. But Court de Gebelin asks, “why not from gratitude and admiration as well? Are not these passions as capable of making Gods as Fear? Is not experience itself in accord with us here? Do not all savage nations admit of Two Principles, the one Good who ought not to be feared, the other Evil to whom sacrifices must be offered in order to avert the mischief in which he delights? If fear makes them address their homage to the one, it has no part in the feeling which produces it toward the other. Which then of these sentiments has led to Fetish-worship? Not fear, considered as the sentiment which moves us to do nothing that might displease a Being whom we regard as our superior, and as the source of our happiness; for Fétishes cannot be regarded in this light. Will it then be fear considered as the sentiment of our own weakness, filling us with terror, and forcing us to seek the protection of a being more powerful than ourselves and capable of protecting us? But how could any such fear have led to the worship of Fetishes? How could a Savage, seized with terror, ever have believed that an onion, a stone, a flower, water, a tree, a mouse, a cat, &. could be his protector and secure him against all that he apprehended? I know that fear does not reason, but it is not to be understood in this sense; we frequently fear something without knowing why; but when we address ourselves to a Protector we always know why, it is in the persuasion that he can defend us, a persuasion which has always a foundation,—a basis. But in Fetish worship where is the motive? What is there to afford confidence against alarm? Who has said that the Fetish is superior to man?—It is impossible to conceive any one so blockish, so stupid, so terrified as to imagine that inanimate things like these are infinitely above him, much more powerful than himself, in a state to understand his wants, his evils, his fears, his sufferings, and to deliver him from all in acknowledgement of the offering which he makes to them.
“Moreover the Fetish is not used till it has been consecrated by the Priest: this proves an opinion in the savage, that the Fetish of itself cannot protect him; but that he may be made by other influence to do so, and that influence is exercised by the Priest in the act of consecration.” Court de Gebelin argues therefore that this superstition arose from the primary belief in a Supreme Being on whom we are altogether dependent, who was to be honoured by certain ceremonies directed by the Priest, and who was to be propitiated by revering these things whereby it had pleased him to benefit mankind; and by consecrating some of them as pledges of future benefits to be received from him, and of his presence among his Creatures who serve him and implore his protection. But in process of time it was forgotten that this was only a symbolic allegory of the Divine Presence, and ignorant nations who could no longer give a reason for their belief, continued the practice from imitation and habit.
This is ascribing too much to system, too little to superstition and priestcraft. The name Fetish though used by the Negroes themselves is known to be a corrupt application of the Portugueze word for Witchcraft, feitiço; the vernacular name is Bossum or Bossifoe. Upon the Gold Coast every nation has its own, every village, every family and every individual. A great hill, a rock anyway remarkable for its size or shape, or a large Tree, is generally the national Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They who chuse or change one take the first thing they happen to see however worthless. A stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird or fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better appearance and chuses a horn or the tooth of some large animal. The ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family, washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the water. He has thus a household or personal God in which he has as much faith as the Papist in his relics, and with as much reason. Barbot says that some of the Europeans on that coast not only encouraged their slaves in this superstition, but believed in it, and practised it themselves.
Thus low has man sunk in his fall. The debasement began with the worship of the Heavenly Bodies. When he had once departed from that of his Creator, his religious instinct became more and more corrupted, till at length no object was too vile for his adoration; as in a certain state of disease the appetite turns from wholesome food, and longs for what would at other times be loathsome.
The Negro Fetishes are just such objects as, according to the French Jesuits, the Devil used to present to the Canadian Indians, to bring them good luck in fishing, hunting, gaming, and such traffic as they carried on. This may probably mean that they dreamt of such things; for in dreams many superstitions have originated, and great use has been made of them in Priestcraft.
The same kind of superstition has appeared in different ages and in different parts of the World, among the most civilized nations and the rudest savages, and among the educated as well as the ignorant. The belief in Omens prevails among us still, and will long continue to prevail, notwithstanding national schools, cheap literature and Societies for promoting knowledge.
A late Lord Chancellor used to travel with a Goose in his carriage, and consult it on all occasions; whether according to the rules of Roman augury I know not, nor whether he decided causes by it; but the causes might have been as well decided if he did. The Goose was his Fetish. It was not Lord Brougham,—Lord Brougham was his own Goose while he held the Seals; but it was the only Lord Chancellor in our times who resembled him in extraordinary genius, and as extraordinary an unfitness for his office. One of the most distinguished men of the age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is great, was when a boy in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful schoolmaster; and in the state of mind which that constant fear produced he fixed upon a great Spider for his Fetish, and used every day to pray to it that he might not be flogged.
