h The uncivilized man is everywhere incapable of grasping
the idea of death as it is apprehended by civilized people. He cannot
understand that a man should pass away so as to be no longer capable of
communicating with his fellows. The image of his dead chief or comrade
remains in his mind, and the savage's philosophic realism far surpasses
that of the most extravagant mediaeval schoolmen; to him the persistence
of the idea implies the persistence of the reality. The dead man,
accordingly, is not really dead; he has thrown off his body like a husk,
yet still retains his old appearance, and often shows himself to his old
friends, especially after nightfall. He is no doubt possessed of more
extensive powers than before his transformation, [72] and may very
likely have a share in regulating the weather, granting or withholding
rain. Therefore, argues the uncivilized mind, he is to be cajoled and
propitiated more sedulously now than before his strange transformation.

This kind of worship still maintains a languid existence as the state
religion of China, and it still exists as a portion of Brahmanism; but
in the Vedic religion it is to be seen in all its vigour and in all
its naive simplicity. According to the ancient Aryan, the pitris, or
"Fathers" (Lat. patres), live in the sky along with Yama, the great
original Pitri of mankind. This first man came down from heaven in the
lightning, and back to heaven both himself and all his offspring must
have gone. There they distribute light unto men below, and they shine
themselves as stars; and hence the Christianized German peasant, fifty
centuries later, tells his children that the stars are angels' eyes, and
the English cottager impresses it on the youthful mind that it is wicked
to point at the stars, though why he cannot tell. But the Pitris are not
stars only, nor do they content themselves with idly looking down on
the affairs of men, after the fashion of the laissez-faire divinities of
Lucretius. They are, on the contrary, very busy with the weather;
they send rain, thunder, and lightning; and they especially delight
in rushing over the housetops in a great gale of wind, led on by their
chief, the mysterious huntsman, Hermes or Odin.

It has been elsewhere shown that the howling dog, or wish-hound of
Hermes, whose appearance under the windows of a sick person is such
an alarming portent, is merely the tempest personified. Throughout
all Aryan mythology the souls of the de