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"have made this lake, and you have made us, your children; you can now cause that the water shall remain smooth while we pass over in safety." In this manner he continued praying for five or ten minutes; he then threw into the lake a small quantity of tobacco, in which each of the canoes followed his example.1 A Nootka Indian, preparing for war, prayed thus: "Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find the enemy, not fear him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of him."2 There is more pathos in these lines from the war-song of a Delaware:

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The following two prayers are among those recorded by Molina, from the memory of aged men who described to him the religion of Peru under the Incas, in whose rites they had themselves borne part. The first is addressed to the Sun, the second to the World-creator :

"O Sun! Thou who hast said, let there be Cuzcos and Tampus, grant that these thy children may conquer all other people. We beseech thee that thy children the Yncas may be conquerors always, for this hast thou created them."

"O conquering Uiracocha! Ever present Uiracocha! Thou who art in the ends of the earth without equal! Thou who gavest life and valour to men, saying, 'Let this be a man!' and to women, saying, 'Let this be a woman!' Thou who madest them and gavest them being! Watch over them that they may live in health and peace.

1 Tanner, 'Narrative,' p. 46.

2 Brinton, Myths of New World,' p. 297.
3 Heckewelder, Ind. Völkerschaften,' p. 354.

Thou who art in the high heavens, and among the clouds of the tempest, grant this with long life, and accept this sacrifice, O Uiracocha!" 1

In Africa, the Zulus, addressing the spirits of their ancestors, think it even enough to call upon them without saying what they want, taking it for granted that the spirits know, so that the mere utterance" People of our house!" is a prayer. When a Zulu sneezes, and is thus for the moment in close relation to the divine spirits, it is enough for him to mention what he wants ("to wish a wish," as our own folklore has it), and thus the words "A cow!" "Children!" are prayers. Fuller forms are such as these: "People of our house! Cattle!"-" People of our house! Good luck and health!"-"People of our house! Children!" On occasions of ancestral cattle-sacrifice the prayers extend to actual harangues, as when, after the feast is over, the headman speaks thus amid dead silence: "Yes, yes, our people, who did such and such noble acts, I pray to you-I pray for prosperity after having sacrificed this bullock of yours. I say, I cannot refuse to give you food, for these cattle which are here you gave me. And if you ask food of me which you have given me, is it not proper that I should give it to you? I pray for cattle, that they may fill this pen. I pray for corn, that many people may come to this village of yours, and make a noise, and glorify you. I ask also for children, that this village may have a large population, and that your name may never come to an end." So he finishes. From among the negro races near the equator, the following prayers may be cited, addressed to that Supreme Deity whose nature is, as we have seen, more or less that of the Heaven-god. The Gold Coast negro would raise his eyes to Heaven and thus address him: "God, give me to-day rice and yams, gold and agries, give me

1 'Narratives of Rites and Laws of Yncas,' tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, p. 31, 33. See also Brinton, p. 298.

2 Callaway, Religion of Amazulu,' pp. 124, 141, 174, 182. Zulu lang.' Pietermaritzburg, 1870, p. 22.

'Remarks on

slaves, riches, and health, and that I may be brisk and swift!" the fetish-man will often in the morning take water in his mouth and say, "Heaven! grant that I may have something to eat to-day;" and when giving medicine shown him by the fetish, he will hold it up to heaven first, and say, "Ata Nyongmo! (Father Heaven!) bless this medicine that I now give." The Yebu would say, "God in heaven, protect me from sickness and death. God give me happiness and wisdom!" When the Manganja of Lake Nyassa were offering to the Supreme Deity a basketful of meal and a pot of native beer, that he might give them rain, the priestess dropped the meal handful by handful on the ground, each time calling, in a high-pitched voice, "Hear thou, O God, and send rain!" and the assembled people responded, clapping their hands softly and intoning (they always intone their prayers) "Hear thou, O God!" 2

1

Typical forms of prayer may be selected in Asia near the junction-line of savage and barbaric culture. Among the Karens of Birma, the Harvest-goddess has offerings made to her in a little house in the paddy-field, in which two strings are put for her to bind the spirits of any persons who may enter her field. Then they entreat her on this wise: "Grandmother, thou guardest my field, thou watchest over my plantation. Look out for men entering; look sharp for people coming in. If they come, bind them with this string, tie them with this rope, do not let them go!" And at the threshing of the rice they say: "Shake thyself, Grandmother, shake thyself. Let the paddy ascend till it equals a hill, equals a mountain. Shake thyself, Grandmother, shake thyself!" The following are extracts from the long-drawn prayers of the Khonds of Orissa: "O Boora Pennu! and O Tari Pennu, and all other gods! (naming them). You, O Boora Pennu! created us, giving us the attribute of hunger; thence corn food was necessary to us,

1 Waitz, vol. ii. p. 169. Steinhauser, 1. c. p. 129.

2 Rowley, Universities' Mission to Central Africa,' p. 226.
3 Mason, 'Karens,' 1. c. p. 215.

and thence were necessary producing fields. You gave us every seed, and ordered us to use bullocks, and to make ploughs, and to plough. Had we not received this art, we might still indeed have existed upon the natural fruits of the jungle and the plain, but, in our destitution, we could not have performed your worship. Do you, remembering this-the connexion betwixt our wealth and your honourgrant the prayers which we now offer. In the morning, we rise before the light to our labour, carrying the seed. Save us from the tiger, and the snake, and from stumblingblocks. Let the seed appear earth to the eating birds, and stones to the eating animals of the earth. Let the grain spring up suddenly like a dry stream that is swelled in a night. Let the earth yield to our ploughshares as wax melts before hot iron. Let the baked clods melt like hailstones. Let our ploughs spring through the furrows with a force like the recoil of a bent tree. Let there be such a return from our seed, that so much shall fall and be neglected in the fields, and so much on the roads in carrying it home, that, when we shall go out next year to sow, the paths and the fields shall look like a young corn-field. From the first times we have lived by your favour. Let us continue to receive it. Remember that the increase of our produce is the increase of your worship, and that its diminution must be the diminution of your rites." The following is the conclusion of a prayer to the Earth-goddess: "Let our herds be so numerous that they cannot be housed; let children so abound that the care of them shall overcome their parents—as shall be seen by their burned hands; let our heads ever strike against brass pots innumerable hanging from our roofs; let the rats form their nests of shreds of scarlet cloth and silk; let all the kites in the country be seen in the trees of our village, from beasts being killed there every day. We are ignorant of what it is good to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it to us!"1

1 Macpherson, 'India,' pp. 110, 128. See also Hunter, 'Rural Bengal,' p

182 (Santals).

VOL. II.

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Such are types of prayer in the lower levels of culture, and in no small degree they remain characteristic of the higher nations. If, in long-past ages, the Chinese raised themselves from the condition of rude Siberian tribes to their peculiar culture, at any rate their conservative religion. has scarce changed the matter-of-fact prayers for rain and good harvest, wealth and long life, addressed to manes and nature-spirits and merciful Heaven. In other great national religions of the world, not the whole of prayer, but a smaller or larger part of it, holds closely to the savage definition. This is a Vedic prayer: "What, Indra, has not yet been given me by thee, Lightning-hurler, all good things bring us hither with both hands

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with mighty riches.

fill me, with wealth of cattle, for thou art great!" This is Moslem: "O Allah! unloose the captivity of the captives, and annul the debts of the debtors: and make this town to be safe and secure, and blessed with wealth and plenty, and all the towns of the Moslems, O Lord of all creatures! and decree safety and health to us and to all travellers, and pilgrims, and warriors, and wanderers, upon thy earth, and upon thy sea, such as are Moslems, O Lord of all creatures!" Thus also, throughout the rituals of Christendom, stand an endless array of supplications unaltered in principle from savage times-that the weather may be adjusted to our local needs, that we may have the victory over all our enemies, that life and health and wealth and happiness may be ours.

So far, then, is permanence in culture: but now let us glance at the not less marked lines of modification and new formation. The vast political effect of a common faith in developing the idea of exclusive nationality, a process scarcely expanding beyond the germ among savage tribes, but reaching its full growth in the barbaric world, is apt to have its outward manifestation in hostility to those of another 1 Plath, 'Religion der Chinesen,' part ii. p. 2; Doolittle, vol. ii. p. 116. 'Sama-Veda,' i. 4, 2. Wuttke, 'Gesch. des Heidenthums,' part ii. p.

Lane, Modern Egyptians,' vol. i. p. 128.

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