xternal apparatus of religion._ Along with the growth
of sacrifice there has been a natural development of everything that was
necessary to give permanent form to public worship--ritual, priests,
temples, idols, and whatever was connected with the later church
organizations.

RITUAL

Apart from magical procedures the earliest known public religious
worship consisted simply in the offering of an animal, a vegetable, a
fluid, or other object to a superhuman being, the offering being
performed by any prominent person and without elaborate ceremonies.
Inevitably, however, as the social organization grew more complex and
the conception of sanctity more definite, the ceremonial procedure
became more elaborate. The selection and the handling of the victim came
to be objects of anxious care, and the details increased in importance
as they increased in number. It was believed that minute accuracy in
every ritual act was necessary for the success of the offering. Various
elements doubtless entered into this belief: often a magical power was
attributed to the act of sacrifice; and there was a feeling, it may be
surmised, that the deity was exacting in the matter of ceremonies--these
were marks of respect, such as was paid to human potentates, and
well-defined court rituals (on which the religious ritual was probably
based) appear in early forms of society. Thus ritual tended to become
the predominant element in worship, serving first the interests of unity
and order in religion, and later always in danger of becoming a
mechanical and religiously degrading influence.

+1056+. In most savage and half-civilized communities sacrifice is a
simple affair, and the details of the ceremonies of worship are rarely
reported by travelers and other observers.[1908] An exception exists in
the case of the Todas of Southern India, who have elaborate ceremonies
connected with the milking of buffaloes.[1909] The ordinary buffaloes of
a village are cared for by some prominent man (never by a woman), who is
sometimes a sacred person and while carrying on his operations performs
devotional acts (prayer and so forth), but without a fixed ritual. A
higher degree of sanctity attaches to the institution called _ti_, which
comprises a herd of buffaloes belonging to a clan and provided with
dairies and grazing-grounds; each dairy has appropriate buildings, and
the _ti_ is presided over by a sort of priest called a _palol_. The
migration of the buffaloe