ith Animism):

'The fear of unwittingly offending the countless visible and invisible
beings ... kept the Indians very strictly within their own rights and from
offending against the rights of others.'

This remark dropped out at a discussion of Mr. Im Thurn's paper, and
clearly demonstrated that even a very low creed 'makes for
righteousness.'[30]

Probably few who have followed the facts given here will agree with Mr. Im
Thurn's theory that 'Our Maker,' 'Our Father,' 'The Ancient One of the
Heaven,' is merely an idealised human ancestor. He falls naturally into
his place with the other high gods of low savages. But we need much more
information on the subject than Mr. Im Thurn was able to give.

His evidence is all the better, because he is a loyal follower of Mr.
Tylor. And Mr. Tylor says: 'Savage Animism is almost devoid of that
ethical element which to the educated modern mind is the very mainspring
of practical religion.'[31] 'Yet it keeps the Indians very strictly
within their own rights and from offending the rights of others.' Our own
religion is rarely so successful.[32]

In the Indians of Guiana we have an alleged case of a people still deep in
the animistic or ghost-worshipping case, who, by the hypothesis, have not
yet evolved the idea of a god at all.

When the familiar names for God, such as Maker, Father, Ancient of Days,
occur in the Indian language, Mr. Im Thurn explains the neglected Being
who bears these titles as a remote deified ancestor. Of course, when a
Being with similar titles occurs where ancestors are not worshipped, as in
Australia and the Andaman Islands, the explanation suggested by Mr. Im
Thurn for the problem of religion in Guiana, will not fit the facts.

It is plain that, _a priori_, another explanation is conceivable. If a
people like the Andamanese, or the Australian tribes whom we have studied,
had such a conception as that of Puluga, or Baiame, or Mungan-ngaur and
then, _later_, developed ancestor-worship with its propitiatory sacrifices
and ceremonies, ancestor-worship, as the newest evolved and infinitely the
most practical form of cult, would gradually thrust the belief in a
Puluga, or Mungan-ngaur, or Cagn into the shade. The ancestral spirit, to
speak quite plainly, can be 'squared' by the people in whom he takes a
special interest for family reasons. The equal Father of all men cannot
be 'squared,' and declines (till corrupted by the bad example of ancestral
ghosts) t