File:Handbook to the ethnographical collections (1910) (14803147563).jpg

Identifier: handbooktoethnog00brit (find matches)
Title: Handbook to the ethnographical collections
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock), 1866-1945
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Publisher: (London) : Printed by order of the Trustees
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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finds its expression in forms of worship atfirst simple and not entirely controlled by a single class, after-wards more elaborate and regulated by a priesthood. Themost important means of religious expression are by word,giving rise to prayer and to myth, and by action, giving riseto rites and ceremonies. It is natural that to spirits con-ceived on the model of man, verbal requests should be INTRODUCTION 37 addressed, and that deeds should Ije attributed to themworthy of being recounted in tales or imitated in rites. Bothmyths and rites are of very great antiquity : the Bushmenand the Andamanese, who have few forms of worship, had in-vented stories about their gods; and it may well be thatceremonies and myths had a common origin in the desire tokeep the gods always vividly Ijefore the memory. The formsin which they are embodied naturally vary with the stage ofcivilization, rising from the l>east-fable of the Hottentot to thepoetical mjth of the Polynesian, from the rude ceremony of
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Fig. 38.—Wooden ceremonial masks from Vancouver Island, rei^resentingresijectively a Ijeaver, an eagle, and a cannibal spirit. the Eskimo to the elal)orate ritual of Ancient Peru. Among thecommonest motives of primitive ritual is the desire of pleasingthe gods or spirits of the dead, and so bringing about theirpresence. By the solenni performance of rites and ceremoniessupposed to imitate divine actions the gods are gratifiedand their presence is invited hy their worshippers: a veryearly stage in the development of the drama in Greece is to befound in the games or actions performed at the tombs ofheroes. The dances of the savage are religious in this sense,so are some of his games, so also is his music, for it seemsprobable that music was developed as an accompaniment tothe cereiiKjiiiul dance. The rliythiuic songs which accompany 38 IXTRODUCTTON the (lance are intended to lieiohten the relif^ions feehn<r, whileinstruments of music emphasize the rhythm. The masks wornupon the fac

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