Instead of being at the
very dawn of human development, these people are at the end-as
far as they themselves are concerned.
The original racial impulse
that started them down the years toward development has fulfilled
its duty and spent its force. They have worked out all their
problems, established all their customs, arranged the world and
its phenomena in a philosophy to their complete satisfaction.
They have lived, ethnologists tell us, for thousands, perhaps
hundreds of thousands of years, just as we find them to-day. From
our standpoint that is in a hopeless intellectual darkness, for
they know absolutely nothing of the most elementary subjects of
knowledge. From their standpoint, however, they have reached the
highest DESIRABLE pinnacle of human development. Nothing remains
to be changed. Their customs, religions, and duties have been
worked out and immutably established long ago; and nobody dreams
of questioning either their wisdom or their imperative necessity.
They are the conservatives of the world.
Nor must we conclude-looking at them with the eyes of our own
civilization-that the savage is, from his standpoint, lazy and
idle. His life is laid out more rigidly than ours will be for a
great many thousands of years. From childhood to old age he
performs his every act in accord with prohibitions and
requirements. He must remember them all; for ignorance does not
divert consequences. He must observe them all; in pain of
terrible punishments. For example, never may he cultivate on the
site of a grave; and the plants that spring up from it must never
be cut.* He must make certain complicated offerings before
venturing to harvest a crop. On crossing the first stream of a
journey he must touch his lips with the end of his wetted bow,
wade across, drop a stone on the far side, and then drink. If he
cuts his nails, he must throw the parings into a thicket. If he
drink from a stream, and also cross it, he must eject a mouthful
of water back into the stream. He must be particularly careful
not to look his mother-in-law in the face. Hundreds of omens by
the manner of their happening may modify actions, as, on what
side of the road a woodpecker calls, or in which direction a hyena
or jackal crosses the path, how the ground hornbill flies or
alights, and the like. He must notice these things, and change
his plans according to their occurrence. If he does not notice
them, they exercise their influence just the same. This does not
encourage a distrait mental attitude. Also it goes far to explain
otherwise unexplainable visitations. Truly, as Hobley says in his
unexcelled work on the A-Kamba, "the life of a savage native is a
complex matter, and he is hedged round by all sorts of rules and
prohibitions, the infringement of which will probably cause his
death, if only by the intense belief he has in the rules which
guide his life."
*Customs are not universal among the different tribes.
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