Herbert Spencer - The Complete Essays by Herbert Spencer (Vol. 1-3)

"Mâ miya, mâ miy, mâ deyâ,

Topang koyihetti mittigan yandâh?"

"My departed one, my departed one, my God!

Where art thou wandering?"

"This invocation appears to be used on all occasions when the intervention of the guardian spirits is required, in sickness, preparatory to hunting, etc. Sometimes, in the latter case, a portion of the flesh of the game is promised as a votive offering, in the event of the chase being successful; and they believe that the spirits will appear to them in dreams and tell them where to hunt. Sometimes they cook food and place it in the dry bed of a river, or some other secluded spot, and then call on their deceased ancestors by name. 'Come and partake of this! Give us maintenance as you did when living! Come, wheresoever you may be; on a tree, on a rock, in the forest, come!' And they dance round the food, half chanting, half shouting, the invocation."—Bailey, in Transactions of the Ethnological Society , London, N. S., ii., p. 301–2.

[30]Since the foregoing pages were written, my attention has been drawn by Sir John Lubbock to a passage in the appendix to the second edition of Prehistoric Times , in which he has indicated this derivation of tribal names. He says: "In endeavouring to account for the worship of animals, we must remember that names are very frequently taken from them. The children and followers of a man called the Bear or the Lion would make that a tribal name. Hence the animal itself would be first respected, at last worshipped." Of the genesis of this worship, however, Sir John Lubbock does not give any specific explanation. Apparently he inclines to the belief, tacitly adopted also by Mr. McLennan, that animal-worship is derived from an original Fetichism, of which it is a more developed form. As will shortly be seen, I take a different view of its origin.

[31] Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania , iii., p. 280–81.

[32]I have since found, however, that the name Dawn, which occurs in various places, seems more frequently a birth-name, given because the birth took place at dawn.

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