Тан-Богораз Владимир Германович
The Chukchee

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    Vol. 2

  

Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History.

Volume XI.

Part II. -- The Chuckchee -- Religion by W. Bogoras 1907

1904.

  

XII. -- RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

   The religious ideas of both branches of the Chukchee are so much alike, that they can be described together. {The material presented in this chapter was collected principally from shamans, and aged people versed in "old tidings" (tele'nkin pi'nilte), as the Chukchee call everything relating to their mythology or history. These data were supplemented from their folk-tales, to which, in many cases, no specific references can be given, since the larger part of them are not yet published. The tales, however, were used only so far as they yielded new details regarding the characters and mythical beings known to the Chukchee. Stories like those about the creation of the world and the part that the raven and other birds and animals played in it will be treated separately.
   The Chukchee conception of various supernatural beings treated of in this chapter is illustrated by a number of pencil-sketches which I requested several natives in various parts of the country to make for me. It seemed to me that graphic representation of things previously described merely in words would add new details which otherwise would be out of the reach of the investigator. Care was taken, in comparing details given by different men, to eliminate those differing from the general character of the description. Nevertheless, the sketches remain individual, and they are of scientific value only so far as they help to an understanding of the forms which present themselves to the mind of the Chukchee. I shall speak of them again when referring to Chukchee art; but I take up a few of them here to illustrate the religious ideas of the people.} Minor differences will be pointed out in the following discussion.
   In studying the religious ideas of the Chukchee I gradually formed a simple theory about the first development of the religious concepts of primitive man in general. I give it here, in the beginning of this chapter, in order to make what follows easier to understand. Its value for me is the help it was to me in arranging the material in a systematic way.
   Primitive man, conscious of life, which is the source of his actions, attributes similar life and inherent virtue to all surrounding objects of nature that have attracted his attention by their activity, by some striking feature of their outward appearance, or, indeed, by any other circumstance. This attribution of life similar to his own {I avoid using the term "animism," because it presupposes the conception of the human soul, which, in my opinion, belongs to a later stage. E. B. Tylor says that animism includes two great dogmas, forming parts of one consistent doctrine; first, concerning souls of individual creatures capable of continued existence after the death or destruction of the body; second, concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful deities (Primitive Culture, p. 426). According to my theory, these two dogmas belong to the last stage of development. On the whole, my plan must be considered as an attempt to outline the way in which primitive man (Chukchee) reached the stage of animism.} forms the basis of his religious concepts; and primitive mythology develops from it by gradual ramification and working-up of details.
   Stages of Development of Primitive Religious Concepts. -- The primary development of the attribution of life here described presents five stages, more or less distinct, which are as follows: --
   The first stage relates only to that qualitative similarity of man and objects which consists in the belief that life is their common property. The form of the objects and the degree of their supposed adaptation to the actions of life are not taken into consideration, and not included as yet in the field of view. A stone, a tree, a hill, or a cloud, also phenomena of nature (wind, rain, thunder), are considered simply as living, no matter what their form may be. {Daniel G. Brinton says, "To the mind of the savage, whatever displayed movement, emitted sound or odor, or by its defined limits and form indicated unity, was to him a manifestation in personality of that impersonal spiritual Power of which he felt himself but one of the expressions. All other expressions shared his powers, and did not in essence differ from him. The brute, the plant, the stone, the wandering orbs of night, the howling wind, the crackling fire, the towering hill, -- all were his fell-creatures, inspired by the same life as himself, drawing it from the same universal font of life" (Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 136).
   This -- if we except the "impersonal spiritual Power" and the "universal font of life," which seem to be rather too abstract for the lowest stage of primitive religious thought -- is nearly what was said above.
   Andrew Lang says still more definitely, "The savage draws no hard line between himself and the things in the world he regards himself as literally akin to, -- animals and plants and heavenly bodies. He attributes sex and procreative powers even to stones and rocks, and human feelings to sun and moon and stars and wind, no less than to beasts, birds, and fishes" (Myth, Ritual, and Religion, I, p. 47).} The well-known instance given by Darwin, {Descent of Man, p. 67.} of the dog which barked at an open umbrella occasionally moved by a breeze, represents evidently the same state of mind. An object moves, and is alive. Likewise, primitive man will take for living the tree that rustles, the wind that passes by, the stone that waits silently lying upon the ground, but makes the passing man stumble over itself, the lake, the river, the brook, the hill that towers over the plain and throws its shadow upon it. Man may struggle with the objects, and vanquish or kill them; he may sacrifice to them, and ask them for protection; and he may pick up the smaller ones and use them as his amulets. These, carried about his body, would insure to him safety against all hostile forces. {Compare Chapter. XIII.}
   Development begins with the first effort to find points of resemblance between the forms of objects and the parts of the human body, which would make the concept of inner similarity more detailed and more plausible. Even slight resemblances of this kind are seized readily, and a mouth, a head, or arms may be recognized in the accidental forms of objects that are already believed to be endowed with life. In amulets especially, a very vague resemblance is quite sufficient to give them rank as anthropomorphous beings. A small wooden crotch, or a narrow strip of leather cut in two on the base to represent the legs, is regarded as a human-like figure. This is the second stage, which is the first attempt at transforming the primitive concept of similarity, which is amorphous and qualitative only, into a more precise objective and formal shape.
   When this vague outward resemblance ceases to give satisfaction to the mind, there arises an idea that material objects have two shapes, -- their ordinary form and a transformed form more or less human-like. Both forms are material, and the objects can at will change one for the other. Thus, stone mauls of the household transform themselves into men, and shortly afterward drop on the ground in their former shape. On the other hand, men may transform themselves at will into animals or inanimate objects. In their transfigured shape, inanimate objects acquire life and are able to perform human-like actions. This view of the subject, however, adapts itself much better to animals; and instances to be given later on contain ample evidence of the idea held by the natives regarding the double nature of the animal world. This is the third stage of development of the primitive conception of nature.
   As a natural deduction from the concept of the existence of objects in two forms, follows a surmise that one of the forms is exterior while the other is interior, hidden within its cover. Since it is hidden, it is supposed to be generally invisible, but also capable at will of casting off the outward shell and appearing as a human being. Thus arises the first hypothesis admitting the distinction between the material shape of the object and the life supposed to be contained in it. The latter becomes a spirit, or rather a "genius" of human-like form. He is invisible, and the material object is his usual abode, which, however, he may leave, and assume his own human-like shape. In this shape he may appear to shamans or to other persons of his own choice. This is the fourth stage. It presupposes the co-existence of the material object and its "genius," while in the third stage the two forms of the object could change only from one to the other. The separation of the "genius" from his material object is, however, potential in a degree. In leaving it the "genius" must not move too far away, and after a while he must re-enter his material abode. To him are attributed all the material and spiritual qualities of an ordinary man.
   The conception of the "genius" is very well expressed by the American-Eskimo term inua, "its man" (in Asiatic-Eskimo, yu'wa). It clearly implies that a human-like spirit is supposed to live within the object. Animals, in accordance with this idea, are supposed to be men covered with skin garments, and able to lay them aside at will. Men, on the other hand, may transform themselves into animals or inanimate objects by covering themselves with skins or with garments resembling the outward appearance of the objects. Then, by casting aside their mask, they may re-assume their human shape. To this stage belongs the origin of the conception of the human soul, which is distinct from the body, and is able to leave it temporarily in sleep. In the more primitive stages, man, probably, was unable to analyze his dreams, and simply considered them as a peculiar mode of life of his person as it existed in its entirety.
   In the fifth stage the "genii" gradually become free from their objects, acquire freedom of motion, and thus become actually spirits. Their human characteristics become more accentuated and acquire new details. Many of them receive individual features and enter into varied relations with one another. Thus grows up the first mythology, which forms a series of stories about spirits endowed with special power, invisible, and able to fly, but, on the whole, quite similar to men, even in their need of food and susceptibility to death. The origin of the belief that the deceased, after their bodies are destroyed, continue to exist, invisible to us, belongs to this last stage. It develops from the conception of the human soul abiding in the body, just as naturally as the conception of free-moving spirits evolves from the idea of the "genii" of the objects.
   Thus gradually arises the idea of the deceased living in the "other world," in the "world beyond," having there villages, houses, families, hunting game, etc. The parallelism between the development of the conceptions of spirits and deceased men gives rise to the idea that the deceased live in one world and the spirits in another, or that there are several worlds situated at regular intervals above and below the earth, and inhabited alternately by deceased men and spirits. From another point of view the conception of the deceased is different from that of the human soul. The latter is represented as small, timid, helpless, liable to persecution by hostile spirits, and asking for the protection of those well disposed to men. The deceased one, on the contrary, is represented as an invisible spirit, great and powerful, with more power than man has. He is considered dangerous, capable of doing harm to the living, or, on the other hand, as benevolent, and willing to protect his mortal descendants. Thus the ancestral cult arises, which, however, supposes several stages of development to have supervened, and the ability to form more complicate and specialized ideas to have been acquired. {Even Herbert Spencer, who, on the whole, considers ancestor-worship to be the principal source of religion, admits in his Principles of Sociology (I, p. 305) that it arises only when the notion of ghosts passes from its first vagueness and variability into a definite and avowed faith.
   The tendency to follow the example of the forefathers, which has contributed so much to the consolidation of primitive institutions, seems to have originated from ancestor-worship. I mention it here because it plays a very important part in the religious life of the Chukchee, and, other explanations lacking, is always brought forward as an explanation of various rites and performances.}
   The characteristics of the five stages of primitive religious thought were necessarily given in a schematic shape. In reality, all five stages, being very elementary, spring up almost simultaneously, and co-exist side by side. Nevertheless, on a more careful study of primitive mythology, one may notice that the earlier stages gradually become extinct, while the later stages develop more fully, down to the last, which, in the present period, prevails among the most primitive tribes.
   In arranging, according to the plan proposed, the material collected in connection with the religious ideas of the Chukchee, we find that the whole background is occupied by conceptions belonging to the first stage, where the attribution of life, to nature is simple, and devoid of personal form.
   Material Objects considered as Alive. -- Generally speaking, the Chukchee believe that all nature is animated, and that every material object can act, speak, and walk by itself. Of such objects the Chukchee sometimes say that they are geti'nvilenat ("having a master"), but more often they call them gequli'linet ("having a voice"), implying that they are endowed with life, which, however, is not separable from them. Objects "having a voice" will keep some, at least, of their material qualities and features. For instance, a stone endowed with a voice would simply roll down and crush a man against whom it had a grudge, or it would induce another man to pick it up in order to become his amulet.
   In the cosmogonical statements of the Chukchee shamans (so-called eñe'ñilina lo'зo, "things seen by a shaman"), we find that the life which they believe to be diffused throughout nature is described in its' relation to the shamanistic spirits in the following manner: --
   "On the steep bank of a river there exists life. A voice is there, and speaks aloud. I saw the 'master' of the voice and spoke with him. He subjected himself to me and sacrificed to me. He came yesterday and answered my questions. The small gray bird with the blue breast sings shaman-songs in the hollow of the bough, calls her spirits, and practises shamanism. The woodpecker strikes his drum in the tree with his drumming nose. Under the axe the tree trembles and wails as a drum under the baton. All these come at my call.
   "All that exists lives. The lamp walks around. The walls of the house have voices of their own. Even the chamber-vessel has a separate land and house. The skins sleeping in the bags talk at night. The antlers lying on the tombs arise at night and walk in procession around the mounds, while the deceased get up and visit the living." {Bogoras, Chukchee Materials, p. 385.}
   In another statement of a similar kind a small bird is practising in the hollow of the bough on a drum of grass. His sacrifice is small beetles or worms, the best of his food. The thievish raven, alighting on the top of the tree, listens to the bird's songs, and takes possession of them by drawing them in with his breath.
   In still another statement of this character, everything has its own voice (ge'mge-kuli'lm) or its own master (ga'mga-êti'nvilin). Skins ready for sale have a "master" of their own. In the night-time they turn into reindeer and walk to and fro. The trees in the forest talk to one another. Even the shadows on the wall constitute definite tribes and have their own country, where they live in huts and subsist by hunting. The rainbow and sun-rays have "masters," who live above on the highest part of the rainbow and at the place where the sun's rays emanate, and descend to earth along these paths of light.
   In one Chukchee story the evil spirit (ke'lE) puts his chamber-vessel near the body of a captive boy who pretends to be dead. The evil spirit defecates into the vessel, and bids it keep watch over the body. After a while the boy moves, and the chamber-vessel immediately gives alarm by its cries. The spirit, who was asleep, awakes and comes to inspect the prisoner; but the boy is again quite motionless. The spirit, angered, reproves the vessel, and urinates into it. The next time the vessel gives an alarm, its cries, coming from under the water, are quite faint. The boy gets up quickly and fills the vessel with his own excrement, smothering the remnant of the voice. {Bogoras, Chukchee Materials, p. 193.} Here we have a very vivid description of a chamber-vessel as being alive without change of its material form.
   The application of this simple idea to inanimate objects, however, presents many difficulties, because those objects have not the limbs and organs necessary for the actions of life. In surmounting these difficulties, the religious concept of the Chukchee passes to the second stage, and tries to point out every accidental resemblance between the outer forms of objects and the limbs of the human body.
   Thus, for instance, the intoxicating mushrooms of the species fly-agaric {Compare p. 205.} are a "separate tribe" (ya'nřa-va'rat). They are very strong, and when growing up they lift upon their soft heads the heavy trunks of trees, and split them in two. A mushroom of this species grows through the heart of a stone and breaks it into minute fragments. Mushrooms appear to intoxicated men in strange forms somewhat related to their real shapes. One, for example, will be a man with one hand and one foot; another will have a shapeless body. These are not spirits, but the mushrooms themselves. The number of them seen depends on the number of mushrooms consumed. If a man has eaten one mushroom, he will see one mushroom-man; if he has eaten two or three, he will see a corresponding number of mushroom-men. They will grasp him under his arms, and lead him through the entire world, showing him some real things, and deluding him with many unreal apparitions. The paths they follow are very intricate. They delight in visiting the places where the dead live. These ideas are illustrated in a sketch (Fig. 200) drawn by a Chukchee.

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   The concepts characteristic of the third stage are also numerous. In this stage, as said before, objects are supposed to have two shapes, -- their ordinary form and their anthropomorphous form, in which they are suscepof human-like life. Thus, wooden amulets that lie motionless in leather bags suddenly transform themselves into herdsmen and go out in the night-time to protect the herd from the wolves. Early in the morning they return to their former places and again become pieces of wood. Such transformation does not prevent the objects from keeping some of their essential features and qualities. "People of wood" (u'tti-re'mkin) personify trees. They appear in a multitude at the call of a shaman, and while they are in his presence they continually protest that they are afraid of the fire, lest it might burn some of them. Excrement appears as a boastful old man clad in a garment of sleek brown fur. He is, however, afraid of dogs, because they may eat him. {In some Chukchee tales, even the sun, the sea, and the sky figure as beings who retain accessories of their material nature. In one tale, the Sun, while taking part in a shamanistic match with other competitors, appears with his luminary, and burns those present; the Sea drowns them (in another tale, he crushes them with ice); and the Sky also crushes them by the falling of his upper crust. It is worthy of note that such incidents occur only in shamanistic performances, while at all other times the sun, the sky, and the sea appear as actual men. They also have a double nature, which they may change at will. Compare Bogoras, Chukchee Materials, p. 285.}
   The concepts of the second and third stages, however, are much better adapted to animals than to inanimate objects.
   Animals as Men. -- All kinds of wild animals are supposed to have a country and to keep households of their own. I have mentioned the fact that the hunters on the Chukchee Peninsula are unwilling to dig out young foxes, because foxes "have a household of their own" (geni'mlinet), and might take vengeance by means of their household charms.
   Black and polar bears are also supposed to have households. Black bears live in underground houses, and polar bears have a country of their own on the ice in the open sea. They live by hunting seal and walrus, and engage in quite extended expeditions for this purpose. They also build snow houses, which are lighted by oil-lamps, and have other human-like pursuits.
   Eagles have a separate country. One family of eagles has a slave called Riru'ltet, whom they stole from the earth a long time ago. He prepares food for all of them, and his face has become blackened with soot.
   The smallest birds also have a country of their own, from which they go out in small toy-like skin boats to hunt worms and mussels. {Krasheninnikoff (I, p. 228) mentions a similar idea among the Kamchadal. They believe that, when no mice are to be seen, they have gone into the open sea for seal-hunting. Their boats are certain shells which resemble in shape human ears. These are therefore called mice-boats.}
   Sea-mammals have a large country of their own far away in the open sea. It is located on both sides of the earth, and is separated from the land by a long narrow strip of water, which, they say, constantly "quakes like a bottomless mire." This is impassable for all beings that come from the land.
   Animals, when personating human beings, can change their shape and size quite as easily as spirits do. The ermine, for example, appears as a stately warrior clad in white armor, while the legs of mice he has killed turn into reindeer-hams. The owl, also, becomes a warrior. Mice are people living in underground houses, who use the root of Polygonum viviparum or Polygonum polymorphum as their reindeer, and have sledges of grass. By a sudden transformation they become real hunters with regular sledges, and hunt polar bears. When they want to carry the dead bear home, the sledge returns to its former size, and the bear turns into a lemming. Some of these details, it will be observed, are the same in regard to the owner of game (Pičvu'čin). {Compare p. 286.}
   A shaman who visits the land of mice finds that their ways of life are quite human. He is requested to help a woman who is suffering from a severe cold and sharp pain in her throat. When looking at her, he notices on her neck a thin noose of grass, such as Chukchee children make to catch mice. He destroys the noose, and the Mouse-Woman recovers. In return for his services, the Mouse-People give him the choicest fawn-skins. On his return to our world, however, these prove to be dry leaves and pieces of bark.
   In most cases, animals, while personating human beings, retain some of their former qualities, which identify them as beings of a special class acting in a human way, but different from mankind. For instance, a whale, when carrying away a young woman, continues to be a whale, and even makes her pick out the barnacles from his skin; polar bears have diving-matches, and catch seals with their paws; Fox-Woman keeps her strong smell, and Goose-Woman, her aversion to animal food, which may soil her clean white dress.
   Amulets of animal origin -- for instance, a dried skin, a head or a skull, a claw or a feather -- are also considered susceptible of like sudden transformation, in which they acquire the qualities of living animals of a corresponding species, and perform certain tasks. Afterward they return to their former shape. In one tale, a dried skin of an ermine transforms itself into a living ermine, which, in turn, transforms itself into a large polar bear. In this shape the amulet is sent by its "owner" across the sea to harm an enemy. When unable to do this, it comes back, and is blamed by its "owner." {Bogoras, Chukchee Materials, p. 219.}
   The next stage (the fourth), as said before, supposes a complete distinction between the two forms of the object; and the idea of the transfigured form is replaced by the conception of a certain anthropomorphous "genius," who co-exists with the object, and lives within its material shape, but may at will leave it, and appear separately. In studying this stage we must, however, distinguish between the smaller material objects (such as stones, trees, etc.) and the larger unities, as forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, and other localities.
   In the development of the religious ideas of the Chukchee, the conception of smaller material objects belonged to the more primitive stages (first or second), and separable "genii" were not attached to them: at least, the development in this direction is not very clear. Thus, as mentioned before, smaller material objects are sometimes called gêti'nvilên ("having a master"); but, as will be shown, the Chukchee conception of a "master" coincides with the Eskimo "its man" (inua), and represents the "genius." In reference to smaller objects, this idea remained undeveloped, and the objects were more frequently called simply gequli'lin ("having a voice"), which corresponds to a more primitive conception.
   It seems that the ideas of the American Eskimo are clearer about "masters" living within material objects. Thus among the Central Eskimo, according to Professor Boas, {Boas, Central Eskimo, p. 591.} large bowlders scattered over the country are considered to have spirits of their own. Such a spirit is represented as a woman with a single eye in the middle of her forehead. Others live in stones that roll down the hill in spring. When, however, a stone like that is met by a native, and is asked to become his supernatural assistant, it simply has to accompany him, wobbling along because it has no legs.
   The idea of bowlders being the habitation of spirits of human form is foreign to the mind of the Chukchee. {In a story of Alaskan Eskimo (Nelson, p. 465), a whale has a "master" living inside its body, and controlling its motions. The whale is a female, and so is its "master," a point of similarity between the two. The idea of an animal having an "owner" spirit within its body, however, does not occur among the Chukchee.} The bowlders of their own country, numbers of which are to be met with everywhere in the mountains, are considered by the Chukchee as beings which were formerly alive, but were subsequently turned into stone. They were the first attempts of the Creator to form living beings, but they proved so clumsy in shape that he transformed them into stone, and then created actual men and animals. Those bowlders are called pê'rkat (pl. of pêrka'pêr). Some of them represent petrified houses or tents: others are animals or men (pêrka3'la'ul, "bowlder-man"). The latter are supposed to have preserved a mysterious life of their own. For instance, in one tale a shaman wants to try a wrestling-match with a Bowlder-Man, and comes very badly out of his stony embrace. In another tale a group of Bowlder-Men become alive and talk among themselves. The difference between this view and the Eskimo idea of "masters" in bowlders is very apparent.
   The second Eskimo detail about stones wobbling down after a man in order to become his supernatural assistants resembles more closely the Chukchee presentation of the subject.
   Owners or Masters. -- Larger material unities, such as forests, rivers, lakes, etc., have special "owners" (êti'nvit, pl. of ê'tin), who are also called "masters" (aunra'lit, pi. of aunra'lin, literally, "chief [in the] house").
   Various classes of animals and trees also have their "masters," who live in the forest with them. Each species of tree has a separate "master." The birch alone has none, and for that reason, men handle it without precaution, as "their equal." The latter conception is clearly connected with the yearly expeditions of the Reindeer Chukchee into the woods to procure birch, of which they make their sledges, the shafts of spears, etc. Each species of wild animal -- fox, wolf, reindeer -- has a "master" of its own. {This latter conception has developed, perhaps, from the idea of the "master" of the forest, who owns all game living within the limits of his dominions. Thus, according to the Russo-Yukaghir belief, the "master" of the forest has absolute power over his animals. He may give them away as presents, lose them in card-playing, make them gather in herds and depart from the country, etc. Compare p. 287.}
   The Chukchee often call all these "masters" simply "spirits" (ke'let). This latter term is specially applied to spirits of a harmful kind, of which I shall treat farther on in this chapter; but the Chukchee apply it also to the "masters," implying that these "spirits" are harmless.

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   I obtained several sketches of "spirits" of this kind. Fig. 201, я, is the "lake-spirit" (hitha'-kal) of one small lake lying near the seacoast in Anadyr Bay. He has the shape of a seal and the hands of a man. His head is shaggy, and he comes out of the lake bolt upright. Fig. 201, b, is the "spirit" of Holy Cross Bay. He has one hand with only three fingers. Fig. 201, c, is