Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

68 The Kouretes, Thunder-Rites and Mana [en.
Here is a self-projected terror on the way to become a god. Ye*
, «"»ot even though we supply him with a capital letter and a
lersTal pronoun, eafl Kutchi really a god; KutcM > a general
TermT the ' superosual' So the Kaffir unkulunkulu is translated
as the old, old one' or 'the great, great one" and the heart
ol the orthodox anthropologist leaps up to meet a primitive
personal god, an All-Father, 'Savage Supreme Being ,
!ve are assured by those most at home in the language and
Thought of the Kaffirs that unkuluMu in its native form .mphe*
"°
Cltge, hke the chi.d, passes from the particular to the
2eneral- the mature and civilized mind well supplied with readylade
abstractions is apt to start from generalities To theravage
this stone or tree or yam has mana or arenda, that is what
concerns him; but gradually,_and this is another high road to
Zersonafon-from the multitude of things that have mana
here arises the notion of a sort of cmtinuum of «, a world
unseen power lying behind the visible universe, a world which is
The sphere, as will be seen, of magical activity and the medium of
mysticism The mystical element, the oneness and contmuousness
Tomes out very clearly in the notion ef Wa-kon'-da among the
Sim,* Indians This con*—, rather felt than formulated, is
perhaps primitive man's first effort at generalization'.
The conception of Wa-W-da has been so ««**{*-£*
and the rites connected with it recorded in detail by Miss Alice
F etcher during thirty years' residence among the Omaha Indian^
that it will be best briefiy to resume her account. The*-"
rites and beliefs are specially instructive to us becaus thunder
from the sanctity of which our enquiry began is one of the most
usual and significant manifestations of WaW-da. The Omahas
Lard all animate and inanimate forms, all phenomena as pervad d
bv°a common life, which was continuous and similar to the willp
we They were' conscious of in themselves. This mysterious
power in all things they called Wa-ko»'-da, and^H
things were related to man, and to each other. In the idea of the
continuity of life, a relation was maintained between the seen
, „ d„es no. toUo. that*.""^^M&^f S^ToTe
yet