ural man' is not
peculiar to Fuegian theologians, and does not imply Animism, but the
reverse. But the point is that this ethical judge of perhaps the lowest
savages 'makes for righteousness' and searches the heart. His morality is
so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the slaying of
a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in robbery, as a sin. York's
brother (York was a Fuegian brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wild
man' who was stealing his birds. 'Rain come down, snow come down, hail
come down, wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man
in woods no like it, he very angry.' Here be ethics in savage religion.
The Sixth Commandment is in force. The Being also prohibits the slaying of
flappers before they can fly. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come wind,
come rain, blow, very much blow.'[2]

Now this big man is not a deified chief, for the Fuegians 'have no
superiority of one over another ... but the doctor-wizard of each party has
much influence.' Mr. Spencer disposes of this moral 'big man' of the
Fuegians as 'evidently a deceased weather-doctor.'[3] But, first, there is
no evidence that the being is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is
not shown that Fuegians are ancestor-worshippers. Next, Fitzroy did not
think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were
medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the
neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule
everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be
called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians,
who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the
malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one
does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great faith in a good
spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to be the author of all
good; him they invoke in distress or danger.' However starved they do not
touch food till a short prayer has been muttered over each portion, 'the
praying man looking upward.'[4] They have magicians, but no details are
given as to spirits or ghosts. If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this
level, and if this be the earliest, then the theology of many other higher
savages (as of the Zulus) is decidedly degenerate. 'The Bantu gives one
accustomed to the negro the impression that he once had the same set of
ideas, _but has forgotten half