is love of ornament, which, while it
finds abundant expression in ordinary social life, has its greatest
development in religion--a natural result of the fact that in a large
part of human history religion has been the chief organizing factor of
society.

+120+. The tendency has been to make the dress of ministers of religion
ornate.[246] This tendency has arisen partly from love of ornament, and
partly, doubtless, it is the transference of court customs to religious
ceremonial.[247]

+121+. Symbolism has entered largely into religious decoration. In very
early times figures of animals, plants, and human beings were used as
records of current events, and were sometimes supposed to have magical
power, the picture being identified with the thing represented. In a
more advanced stage of culture the transition was easy to the conception
of the figures as representing ideas, but the older conception is often
found alongside of the later--a symbolical signification is attached to
pictures of historical things. These then have a spiritual meaning for
higher minds, while for the masses they may be of the nature of
fetishes.[248] In both cases they may serve a good purpose in worship by
fixing the mind on sacred things.

ECONOMIC CEREMONIES

+122+. The first necessity of savages is a sufficient supply of food,
and this, they hold, is to be procured either by the application of what
they conceive to be natural laws, or by appeal to superhuman Powers.
Among economic ceremonies, therefore, we may distinguish those which may
be loosely described as natural, those in which a supernatural element
enters, and those in which the two orders of procedure appear to be
combined.

+123+. Savages are generally skillful hunters. They know how to track
game, to prepare nets and pits, and to make destructive weapons. The
African pygmies have poisoned arrows, with which they are able to kill
the largest animals.[249] The people of British New Guinea organize
hunts on a large scale.[250] In Australia, Polynesia, and America there
is no tribe that is not able to secure food by the use of natural means.

+124+. But such means are often supplemented by ceremonies that involve
some sort of supernatural influence. These ceremonies appear to assume a
social relation between man and beasts and plants; in some cases there
is assumed a recognition by animals of the necessities of the case and a
spirit of friendly cooeperation; in other cases a ma