DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0325
CHAPTER XII.
Worship of Animals, Trees, and Inanimate Objects.
Sir John Lubbock in his work on the ' Origin of Civiliza-
tion ' has some interesting remarks on the subject of animal-
worship, and shows that zoolatry has always prevailed among
uncivilized and half-civilized races in every part of the globe.
Mr. E. B. Tylor in the second volume of his 'Primitive
Culture' and Mr. Fergusson in his ' Tree and Serpent Wor-
ship ' go ably into the same subject. All three writers give
abundant instances.
It is found, for example, that serpents either have been
or still are objects of worship in Egypt1, Persia, Kashmir,
India, China, Thibet, Ceylon, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Greece,
Italy, Lithuania, and among the Kalmucks and many un-
cultured tribes of Africa and America.
My remarks in the present chapter must of course be
limited to India, but a difficult question meets us at the
very threshold:—Can any satisfactory account be given of
the origin of zoolatry in that country and its continued
prevalence there to this very day?
I need scarcely point out that because animal-worship
is common among numerous races in other parts of the
world, it does not follow that it may not have originated
1 The Egyptians, who were the first educators of the world, adored,
as every one knows, the bull Apis, the bird Ibis, the hawk, the crocodile,
and many other animals. The mummified cat is a familiar object in
the British Museum.
Worship of Animals, Trees, and Inanimate Objects.
Sir John Lubbock in his work on the ' Origin of Civiliza-
tion ' has some interesting remarks on the subject of animal-
worship, and shows that zoolatry has always prevailed among
uncivilized and half-civilized races in every part of the globe.
Mr. E. B. Tylor in the second volume of his 'Primitive
Culture' and Mr. Fergusson in his ' Tree and Serpent Wor-
ship ' go ably into the same subject. All three writers give
abundant instances.
It is found, for example, that serpents either have been
or still are objects of worship in Egypt1, Persia, Kashmir,
India, China, Thibet, Ceylon, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Greece,
Italy, Lithuania, and among the Kalmucks and many un-
cultured tribes of Africa and America.
My remarks in the present chapter must of course be
limited to India, but a difficult question meets us at the
very threshold:—Can any satisfactory account be given of
the origin of zoolatry in that country and its continued
prevalence there to this very day?
I need scarcely point out that because animal-worship
is common among numerous races in other parts of the
world, it does not follow that it may not have originated
1 The Egyptians, who were the first educators of the world, adored,
as every one knows, the bull Apis, the bird Ibis, the hawk, the crocodile,
and many other animals. The mummified cat is a familiar object in
the British Museum.