What did the ancient people believe in? What did primitive people believe? Who did primitive people believe in? What did primitive people believe in?

What did ancient people believe?

As a result, ancient people logically associated any natural phenomenon or disaster with humans. The night sky, stars, the rustle of leaves, the sound of the sea, rustling sounds - in all this our ancestors saw fantastic images fueled by creative imagination. Trying to protect themselves from the “evil spirits” living in every pebble, tree, and plant, they created defenders for themselves. These guardian assistants were amulets and talismans.

So, the most ancient magic is based on the law of universal involvement and affinity: in the world around a person, everything is interconnected with everything, and the whole world, in turn, is connected with a person, just as a person himself is connected with his family. It is not for nothing that the most ancient myths describe the origin of the world from parts of the body of a person or, like the ancient Scandinavians, a giant.

On his website “Occult Seasonal Rituals,” the English researcher William Gray wrote that talismans and amulets can only be compared to mountains, hills, lakes: they are as old, majestic and invincible as nature itself, which was worshiped, feared and praised in ancient peoples in their songs.

The most ancient amulets were practically unprocessed objects that their owners endowed with magical powers. They can be divided into two groups:

1) amulets of animal and plant origin;

How to survive a forest fire caused by random lightning striking a tree? How to become so strong that there is no game in your family and not a single wild animal can defeat you in single combat? How to learn to run so fast that neither an enemy nor a wild animal can catch up with you? All the issues that ancient man solved for himself every day with the help of his own strength or primitive magic were naturally related to survival in harsh conditions. So how? The law of universal participation offers a simple solution: you need to borrow strength, agility, speed from those creatures that are superior to humans in these qualities - from animals.

Since ancient times, various parts of the body of animals - pieces of fur, claws, teeth, bones - have served as wonderful amulets. They gave the owner qualities inherent in the previous “owner”. Bear fangs and claws spoke of the strength of a warrior and hunter, because a bear killed during a hunt shared its wild power and rage with its more successful opponent. The claws of fleet-footed wild cats, which were used as amulets, gave people speed and dexterity of movement. Pieces of skins allowed hunters to become as invisible in the forest as animals. Such amulets had another very important property, according to their manufacturers and owners. The fact is that primitive people, who animated all living things around, believed that animals were close relatives to them. Each tribe had its own totem - an animal, bird or plant - which protected its human relatives, protected them from dangers, warned of troubles, and gave wise advice. And wearing a piece of some animal or totemic plant on one’s body made a person closer to the world of nature, showed kinship with its natural representatives, and granted protection in forests and steppes.

Another group of primitive amulets is not of animal origin at all. These are stones. Much more will be said about the stones, because since ancient times they have been used by people as amulets against troubles and misfortunes, as talismans that bring good luck and love, and simply as beautiful decorations. Of the stones that people used as amulets, perhaps the first to be named are meteorites. Solid bodies that fell from the sky were endowed with the strongest magical properties: the possession of such an object put a person on the same level as the powerful forces of nature, making it possible to control fire, water, and vibrations of the earth. Such amulets, which were simply unprocessed meteorite iron, were kept by people who were believed to have a connection with spirits: shamans, tribal magicians or powerful leaders.

Some of these sacred objects have existed for centuries. Many famous amulets of later times (the Middle Ages, for example) were recognized by them in ancient times, at a time when any piece of stone that suddenly fell off a rock was endowed with mind, soul, memory and magical power. Later it was processed - forged, encrusted with precious stones, set in precious metals and used as a powerful amulet.

Such an amulet is described, for example, in the famous “alchemical” novel by Gustav Meyrink “The Angel of the Western Window”, where it appears under the name “Spear of Hoel Data”: the hero encounters this ancient artifact, since he is the last representative of the family of the ancient commander and leader . A spear (more precisely, the tip of a spear) is a dagger made of an alloy unknown on earth and mounted on a hilt by craftsmen of later eras. Where does metal come from? This is a piece of meteorite iron, which took the form of a dagger in the hands of skilled blacksmiths. What did ancient people believe?

The Origin of Primitive Religions

Simplest forms religious beliefs existed already 40 thousand years ago. It was at this time that the appearance of the modern type (homo sapiens) dates back, which differed significantly from its supposed predecessors in physical structure, physiological and psychological characteristics. But his most important difference was that he was a reasonable person, capable of abstract thinking.

The existence of religious beliefs in this remote period of human history is evidenced by the burial practices of primitive people. Archaeologists have established that they were buried in specially prepared places. At the same time, certain rituals were previously carried out to prepare the dead for the afterlife. Their bodies were covered with a layer of ocher, weapons, household items, jewelry, etc. were placed next to them. Obviously, at that time religious and magical ideas were already taking shape that the deceased continues to live, that Along with the real world there is another world where the dead live.

Religious beliefs of primitive man reflected in the works rock and cave paintings, which were discovered in the 19th-20th centuries. in Southern France and Northern Italy. Most ancient rock paintings are scenes of hunting, images of people and animals. Analysis of the drawings allowed scientists to conclude that primitive man believed in a special kind of connection between people and animals, as well as in the ability to influence the behavior of animals using some magical techniques.

Finally, it was found that among primitive people there was widespread veneration of various objects that were supposed to bring good luck and ward off danger.

Nature Worship

Religious beliefs and cults of primitive people developed gradually. The primary form of religion was the worship of nature. The primitive peoples did not know the concept of “nature”; the object of their worship was the impersonal natural force, designated by the concept of “mana”.

Totemism

Totemism should be considered an early form of religious views.

Totemism- belief in a fantastic, supernatural relationship between a tribe or clan and a totem (plant, animal, object).

Totemism is the belief in the existence of a family connection between a group of people (tribe, clan) and a certain species of animals or plants. Totemism was the first form of awareness of the unity of the human collective and its connection with the outside world. The life of the clan was closely connected with certain types of animals that its members hunted.

Subsequently, within the framework of totemism, a whole system of prohibitions arose, which were called taboo. They represented an important mechanism for regulating social relations. Thus, the gender and age taboo excluded sexual relations between close relatives. Food taboos strictly regulated the nature of the food that was supposed to go to the leader, warriors, women, old people and children. A number of other taboos were intended to guarantee the inviolability of the home or hearth, regulate the rules of burial, and fix positions in the group, the rights and responsibilities of members of the primitive collective.

Magic

Magic is one of the earliest forms of religion.

Magic- the belief that a person has supernatural power, which is manifested in magical rituals.

Magic is a belief that arose among primitive people in the ability to influence any natural phenomena through certain symbolic actions (incantations, spells, etc.).

Having originated in ancient times, magic was preserved and continued to develop over many millennia. If initially magical ideas and rituals were of a general nature, then gradually their differentiation occurred. Modern experts classify magic according to the methods and purposes of influence.

Types of magic

Types of magic by methods of influence:

• contact (direct contact of the bearer of magical power with the object at which the action is directed), initial (magical act directed at an object that is inaccessible to the subject of magical activity);
• partial (indirect influence through cut hair, legs, leftover food, which in one way or another reaches the owner of the mating power);
• imitative (impact on some semblance of a specific subject).

Types of magic socially oriented and impact goals:

• harmful (causing damage);
• military (a system of rituals aimed at ensuring victory over the enemy);
• love (aimed at invoking or destroying sexual desire: lapel, love spell);
• medicinal;
• commercial (aimed at achieving success in the process of hunting or fishing);
• meteorological (weather changes in the desired direction);

Magic is sometimes called primitive science or pre-science because it contained elementary knowledge about the surrounding world and natural phenomena.

Fetishism

Among primitive people, the veneration of various objects that were supposed to bring good luck and ward off danger was of particular importance. This form of religious belief is called "fetishism".

Fetishism- the belief that a certain object has supernatural powers.

Any object that captured a person’s imagination could become a fetish: a stone of an unusual shape, a piece of wood, an animal skull, a metal or clay product. This object was attributed properties that were not inherent to it (the ability to heal, protect from danger, help in hunting, etc.).

Most often, the object that became a fetish was chosen by trial and error. If after this choice a person managed to achieve success in practical activities, he believed that the fetish helped him in this, and kept it for himself. If a person suffered any misfortune, then the fetish was thrown out, destroyed or replaced by another. This treatment of fetishes suggests that primitive people did not always treat the object they chose with due respect.

Animism

Speaking about early forms of religion, one cannot fail to mention Obanimism.

Animism- belief in the existence of souls and spirits.

Being at a fairly low level of development, primitive people tried to find protection from various diseases and natural disasters, endowing nature and surrounding objects on which existence depended with supernatural powers and worshiping them, personifying them as the spirits of these objects.

It was believed that all natural phenomena, objects and people have a soul. Souls could be evil and benevolent. Sacrifice was practiced in favor of these spirits. Belief in spirits and the existence of the soul continues in all modern religions.

Animistic beliefs are a very significant part of almost everyone. Belief in spirits, evil spirits, an immortal soul - all these are modifications of the animistic ideas of the primitive era. The same can be said of other early forms of religious belief. Some of them were assimilated by the religions that replaced them, others were pushed into the sphere of everyday superstitions and prejudices.

Shamanism

Shamanism- the belief that an individual (shaman) has supernatural abilities.

Shamanism arises at a later stage of development, when people with a special social status appear. Shamans were the keepers of information that was of great importance for a given clan or tribe. The shaman performed a ritual called ritual (a ritual with dances and songs, during which the shaman communicated with spirits). During the ritual, the shaman allegedly received instructions from the spirits about ways to solve a problem or treat the sick.

Elements of shamanism are present in modern religions. For example, priests are credited with a special power that allows them to turn to God.

In the early stages of the development of society, primitive forms of religious beliefs did not exist in their pure form. They intertwined with each other in the most bizarre way. Therefore, it is hardly possible to raise the question of which form arose earlier and which later.

The considered forms of religious beliefs can be found among all peoples at the primitive stage of development. As social life becomes more complex, forms of cult become more diverse and require closer study.

What religion was preached in those ancient times when Christianity was still unheard of? The religion of the ancient Slavs, which is commonly called paganism, included a huge number of cults, beliefs and views. It coexisted both archaic primitive elements and more developed ideas about the existence of gods and the human soul.

The religion of the Slavs originated more than 2-3 thousand years ago. The most ancient religious view of the Slavic peoples is animism. According to this belief, every person has a disembodied double, a shadow, a spirit. This is where the concept of the soul originated. According to the ancient ancestors, not only people, but also animals, as well as all natural phenomena, have a soul.
The Slavic religion is also rich in totemic beliefs. Totems of animals - elk, wild boar, bear, as sacred animals, were objects of worship. Subsequently, each became a symbol of a Slavic god. For example, a boar is a sacred animal and a bear is Veles. There were also plant totems: birches, oaks, willows. Many were held near isolated sacred trees.

Gods in Slavic religion.

The Slavs did not have one god for everyone. Each tribe worshiped something different. The religion of the ancient Slavs includes such characters as Perun, Veles, Lada, Svarog and Makosh as common gods.

• Perun - the thunderer, patronized princes and warriors. Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich of Kiev revered this god as supreme.
• Veles - the god of wealth, the “cattle-breeding” god, patronized the merchants. Less commonly considered the god of the dead.
• Svarog is the god of fire and sky, considered the father of other divine creatures, the supreme deity of the early Slavs.
• Makosh is the goddess of fate, water and fertility, the patroness of expectant mothers. She was considered the personification of the feminine principle.
• Lada is the goddess of love and beauty. She was considered the goddess of the “woman in labor”, patron of the summer harvest.

Idols of the ancient Slavs.

The religion of the ancient Slavs had not only its gods, but also its idols - statues conveying the image of one or another deity, who was revered more than others in the tribe. These were wooden or stone statues that were worshiped during religious ceremonies. Most often, idols were installed on the banks of rivers, in groves, and on hillocks. They were very often dressed, holding a cup or horns in their hands, and rich weapons could be seen next to them. There were also smaller household idols that were hidden in homes. The ancient Slavs identified idols with the deity himself, so it was a great sin to damage the statue of an idol.

Ancient “temples” and wise men in the Slavic religion.

Those who lived on the territory of modern Russia never built temples: they carried out all ritual actions and prayers in the open air. Instead of a temple, they equipped a so-called “temple” - a place where idols were placed, an altar was located and sacrifices were made. Moreover, the religion of the ancient Slavs allowed any of the believers to approach the idols, bow to them and make some kind of offering. As a rule, various animals were used as sacrifices; the ancient Slavs did not practice human sacrifices.

The ancient Slavs had magi as guardians of knowledge, seers and healers. They kept and passed on ancient myths from generation to generation, compiled calendars, predicted the weather, and performed the functions of sorcerers and magicians. The Magi had great influence on the Kyiv princes, who consulted with them on all important state issues.

Thus, we can confidently say that the religious ideas of the ancient Slavs are a well-developed system, which includes a huge number of different pagan beliefs professed by the Slavs before the adoption of the Christian religion. She played a huge role in shaping the worldview, worldview and culture of the Slavic peoples. Its echoes are still present in our lives.

At the initial stages of development, people had no religion. For a long period in the history of human life there was no religion. The beginnings of religion appear only among paleoanthropes - ancient people who lived 80-50 thousand years ago. These people lived during the Ice Age, in harsh climatic conditions. Their main occupation was hunting large animals: mammoths, rhinoceroses, cave bears, wild horses. Paleoanthropes hunted in groups, since it was impossible to defeat a large beast alone. Weapons were made from stone, bone and wood. Animal skins served as clothing, providing good protection from wind and cold. Speaking about the beginnings of religion, scientists point to their burials, which were located in caves and also served as housing. For example, in the Kiik-Koba and Teshik-Tash caves, small depressions were found, which were burial places. The skeletons in them lay in an unusual position: on their sides with their knees slightly bent. Meanwhile, it is known that some tribes of the globe (for example, the Papuans of the Maclay Coast in New Guinea) buried their dead tied: the hands and feet of the deceased were tied with a vine to the body, and then placed in a small wicker basket. In a similar way, people wanted to protect themselves from the dead. The top of the burial was covered with earth and stones. In the Teshik-Tash cave, the skull of a Neanderthal boy was surrounded by ten goat horns stuck into the ground. In the Peterschele cave (Germany), bear skulls were found in special boxes made of stone slabs. Apparently, by preserving bear skulls, people believed that this would allow the killed animals to come back to life. This custom (preserving the bones of killed animals) existed for a long time among the peoples of the North and Siberia.

During the Late Stone Age (40-10 thousand years ago), society became more developed, and religious ideas became more complex. Not only remains were found in Cro-Magnon burials, but also tools and household items. The dead were rubbed with ocher and jewelry was put on them - this suggests that the Cro-Magnons had a belief in the afterlife. Everything that a person used on earth and that they believed would be useful in the afterlife was placed in the grave. Thus, a funeral cult arose in the ancient world.

Man's life was spent in a stubborn struggle with the surrounding nature, before which he felt powerless and fearful. The powerlessness of primitive man is the reason that gave birth to religion.

Man did not know the true causes of the phenomena of the surrounding nature, and everything in it seemed mysterious and enigmatic to him - thunder, earthquake, forest fire and torrential rain. He was constantly threatened by various disasters: cold, hunger, attacks by predatory animals. He felt like a weak and defenseless creature, completely dependent on the world around him. Epidemics carried away many of his relatives every year, but he did not know the cause of their death. The hunt was successful and unsuccessful, but he did not know why. He developed a feeling of anxiety and fear.

Consequently, religion arose because primitive man was powerless over nature. But the most ancient people were even more helpless. Why didn't they have a religion? The fact is that religion could not arise before human consciousness had reached a certain level of development.

There has long been a dispute between scientists and theologians about what early religious rituals were. Theologians say that man has had faith in God from the very beginning. They declare monotheism (monotheism) to be the first, earliest form of religion. Scientists say the opposite. Let us turn to the facts created on the basis of excavations and the study of ancient manuscripts.

Totemism

belief in the kinship of members of each genus with a certain species of animals, plants, and plants. Australian clan groups were called: "Kangaroo People", "Water Lily People" and so on. The totem was considered the ancestor, the ancestor of the group; a number of prohibitions were associated with it: it was forbidden to kill the totem, eat it, or harm it.

In a clan where the totem was a larva, the ritual of worship was performed as follows: all adult men, secretly from women and children, left the camp and headed to a remote cave. There was a huge block of quartzite in it, and around it there were small round stones. The large block represented an insect, and the small pebbles around it represented larvae. All participants in the ritual sang a song, begging the insect to lay eggs. Then the eldest in the group took one of the small stones and, rubbing it on the stomach of each participant in the ritual, said: “You ate a lot!” There were about ten such caves with stones in total. The men walked around them all in turn and performed the same ceremony in each. During the entire ceremony, none of the men had the right to eat anything. None of the participants took weapons or clothing with them.

Totemism is one of the earliest forms of religion. In honor of the totem, religious dances were performed, during which participants wore totem masks and imitated it in actions. The purpose of such dances is to strengthen the connection with the totem. In the buffalo family, the dying person was wrapped in buffalo skin, his face was painted as a sign of the totem, and they said: “You are going to the buffaloes! You are going to your ancestors! Be strong!

Magic

Along with totemism, magic occupied a significant place in human life. According to the purposes of influence, magic was: harmful, healing and commercial. Thus, before hunting a bear or deer, magical rehearsal actions were performed, during which the hunters shot at a stuffed animal or other image of this animal. And if they successfully shot at this image, they believed that in a real hunt they would have a positive result. During these rehearsal actions, ritual dances were performed and special spells were shouted. In magic, specific actions of people were endowed with mysterious power. But primitive people also believed that specific objects - fetishes - could be carriers of this mysterious power. This is where such a form of primitive religion as fetishism comes from.

Fetishism

Any object that for some reason captured a person’s imagination could become a fetish: a stone of an unusual shape or color, an animal tooth, or a piece of wood. It doesn’t matter what kind of object it is - it can be an ordinary cobblestone. It is important that the action of some force is noticed behind it. For example, a man was walking, tripped over a cobblestone, fell and found something valuable. He connected this find with the effect of the cobblestone and will keep and protect this cobblestone. One type of fetishism is idolatry. An idol is an object given the shape of a person or an animal. This item is endowed with a mysterious power of influence.

Animism

Another early form of religious ideas and beliefs should be called animism - belief in the existence of spirits, the spiritualization of the forces of nature, animals, plants and inanimate objects, attributing to them intelligence and supernatural power. If totemism is focused on the internal needs of a given clan group, on its differences from others, then animistic ideas have a broader and more universal character, are understandable and accessible to everyone and are perceived quite unambiguously. This is natural, for primitive people deified and spiritualized heaven and earth, the sun and moon, rain and wind, thunder and lightning, mountains and rivers, hills and forests, stones and streams. All of them, in the imagination of primitive people, had a soul, a mind, could feel and act, cause benefit or harm. Consequently, all these natural phenomena must be treated with attention - certain sacrifices must be made, prayer rituals and religious ceremonies performed in their honor.

Animism expressed the fact that primitive man was capable of creating abstract concepts, including the concept of the soul, that in the minds of the people of that time the idea of ​​the existence of a real, earthly world and, along with it, the other world appeared.

Conclusion

Primitive beliefs are the product of the initial stage of the formation of human culture, a reflection of emerging societies, family and industrial relations, a primitive state of mind, sensitive mind and knowledge of ancient man about himself and the world around him. The main objects of worship in these religions were natural objects. Spiritual beings were mostly impersonal in nature. Totemism, animism, fetishism, magic, entering as elements into one religion or another, never and nowhere each separately constituted an entire religion, but they characterize the beliefs and rituals of ancient people. This does not mean that they existed only in primitive society. In this society they just arose and were the dominant forms of the religious side of the life of primitive man. But they have always existed, throughout the history of human culture. We can clearly detect various forms of their manifestations in all subsequent religious systems, including modern religions.

Paganism of the ancient Slavs

The religion of the Eastern Slavs was paganism. Its origins lie many millennia before the beginning of our era, and echoes persist to this day. The ideas of some scholars of the past that East Slavic paganism was a poor, colorless religion must now be abandoned. In East Slavic paganism one can find all those stages that were characteristic of other pagan cults that existed among other peoples. The oldest layer is the worship of objects and phenomena of the immediate environment that were woven into human life. Sources have reached our time testifying to the worship of such objects and phenomena by the ancient Slavs. These are the so-called fetishism and animism. Echoes of such beliefs were the worship, for example, of stones, trees, and groves. The cult of stone fetishes is very ancient. The object of worship was not only trees, but also the forest.

Totemism was also widespread - this is the belief in the origin of the human race from some species of animal. Along with the veneration of oak, the Dnieper Slavs, for example, worshiped sacred animals - wild boars. The question of the totemic cult among the Eastern Slavs is quite complex. It is possible that in a number of cases we are faced with the transformation of totemism into the cult of ancestors in the form of animals. Archaic layers of Russian folk tales indicate the existence of totemism among the Eastern Slavs.

A type of ancestor cult in the form of animals is werewolfism. Thus, in Russian epics Volga hunts in the form of a falcon and turns into an ant. Russian fairy tales widely use the motif of the transformation of a beautiful girl-bride into a swan, duck, and frog. The separation of the spirit-double from the object to which it is inherent, along with totemism, gives rise to belief in the souls of the dead as well as the cult of ancestors. Invisible spirits - the souls of ancestors and relatives, doubles of fetishized objects and phenomena, objects of totemic cult gradually inhabit the world surrounding the ancient Slav. It is no longer the object itself that is the object of veneration. Worship refers to the spirit living within him, the demon. It is not the object itself, but the spirit (demon) that has a positive or negative influence on the course of events and on the destinies of people.

Paganism is ascending to a new stage - the stage of polydemonism. The spirits, which originally represented a homogeneous mass, become isolated. First of all, in terms of habitat, becoming the owner of the place. In the water element lived mermen and bereginii, the forest was the kingdom of the goblin or woodsman, and in the fields in the tall grass live field workers. The owner of the house is a small, hunchbacked old man.

Demonic beliefs brought the Eastern Slavs closer to the next stage - polytheism, i.e. faith in gods. Among the gods that were known in Rus', Perun stands out - the god of thunder, lightning and thunder. They also believed in Volos or Veles - the god of livestock, trade and wealth. His cult is very ancient.

There were also Dazhbog and Khors - various hypostases of the solar deity. Stribog is the god of wind, whirlwind and blizzard. Mokosh, apparently, is the earthly wife of the thunderer - Perun, who originates from the mother of the damp earth. In ancient Russian times, she was the goddess of fertility, water, and later the patroness of women's work and maiden destiny.

Finally, Simargl is the only zoomorphic creature of the pantheon of ancient Russian gods (a sacred winged dog, possibly of Iranian origin). Simargl is a lower-order deity who protected seeds and crops.

Shifts in East Slavic society, discussed below, led to pagan reforms. Archaeological research in Kyiv indicates that the pagan temple with the idol of Perun, originally located within the city fortifications, was moved to a place accessible to all those arriving in the land of the glades.

Thus, Kyiv, being a political capital, also turns into a religious center. Perun is nominated for the role of the main deity of all Eastern Slavs. However, in 980, a new religious reform was undertaken - a pagan pantheon was built from deities already known to us. The installation of idols is an ideological action with the help of which the Kiev prince hoped to maintain power over the conquered tribes.

Old Russian paganism was so widespread that Ancient Rus', even after the adoption of Christianity, in ideological terms and in practical actions, was a pagan society with the formal existence in it of elements of the Christian faith and cult. Most pagan beliefs and customs continued to be observed without or with little introduction of Christian norms into them in subsequent times.

For many hundreds of thousands of years, primitive man did not know religion. The beginnings of religious beliefs appeared among people only at the end of the Old Stone Age, that is, no earlier than 50-40 thousand years ago. Scientists learned about this from archaeological sites: sites and burials of primitive man, preserved cave paintings. Scientists have not found any traces of religion dating back to an earlier period in the history of primitive mankind. Religion could only arise when human consciousness had already developed so much that he began to attempt to explain the causes of those natural phenomena that he encountered in his everyday life. Observing various natural phenomena: the change of day and night, seasons, the growth of plants, the reproduction of animals and much more, man could not give them a correct explanation. His knowledge was still insignificant. The tools of labor are imperfect. Man in those days was helpless before nature and its elements. Incomprehensible and menacing phenomena, illness, death instilled anxiety and horror in the minds of our distant ancestors. Gradually, people began to develop faith in supernatural forces supposedly capable of causing these phenomena. This was the beginning of the formation of religious ideas.

“Religion arose in the most primitive times from the most ignorant, dark, primitive ideas of people about their own and about the external nature around them,” wrote Engels.

One of the earliest forms of religion was totemism - the idea that all members of one genus descend from a specific animal - the totem. Sometimes a plant or some object was considered a totem. At that time, the main source of food was hunting. This was reflected in the beliefs of primitive people. People believed that they were related to their totem by blood. According to them, a totem animal, if it wants, can turn into a person. The cause of death was seen as the reincarnation of a person into a totem. The animal, which was considered a totem, was sacred - it could not be killed. Subsequently, the totem animal was allowed to be killed and eaten, but the head, heart and liver were prohibited from being eaten. When killing a totem, people asked him for forgiveness or tried to blame him on someone else. Remnants of totemism are found in the religions of many peoples of the ancient East. In ancient Egypt, for example, they worshiped the bull, jackal, goat, crocodile and other animals. From ancient times to the present day, tigers, monkeys, and cows have been considered sacred animals in India. The indigenous people of Australia at the time of its discovery by Europeans also believed in the kinship of each tribe with some animal, which was considered a totem. If an Australian belonged to the kangaroo totem, then he would say about this animal: “This is my brother.” The genus that belonged to the totem of the bat or frog was called the “genus of the Bat”, “the genus of the Frog”.

Another form of primitive religion was magic, or witchcraft. This was the belief that a person could allegedly influence nature with various “miraculous” techniques and spells. Paintings on cave walls and stucco figures have reached us, often depicting animals pierced with spears and bleeding. Sometimes spears, spear throwers, hunting fences and nets are drawn next to the animals. Obviously, primitive people believed that the image of a wounded animal helps in a successful hunt. In the Montespan cave, discovered by the outstanding cave explorer N. Casteret in 1923 in the Pyrenees, a headless figure of a bear sculpted from clay was discovered. The figure is riddled with round holes, probably marks from darts. Around the bear there are prints of human feet on the clay floor. A similar discovery was made in the Tuc d’Auduber cave (France). Two clay sculptures of bison were discovered there, and around them, prints of bare feet also survived.

Scientists suggest that in these caves, primitive hunters performed magical dances and spells to bewitch the animal. They believed that the enchanted animal would allow itself to be killed. The same magical rituals were performed by the North American Indians of the Mandan tribe. Before hunting for bison, for several days they performed magical dances - the “buffalo dance”. The dance participants, holding weapons in their hands, wore buffalo skins and masks. The dance depicted hunting. From time to time one of the dancers pretended to fall, then the others shot an arrow or threw spears in his direction.

When a bison was “hit” in this way, everyone surrounded it and, waving knives, pretended to skin it and dismember the carcass.

“Let the living beast be pierced with a spear in the same way as this image of him was pierced or as this skull of his was pierced” - this is the essence of primitive magic.

Painted pebbles of the Mae d'Azil cave.

A new form of religion gradually developed - the cult of nature. Man's superstitious fear of formidable nature evoked a desire to somehow appease it. Man began to worship the sun, earth, water, and fire. In his imagination, man has populated all nature with “spirits.” This form of religious ideas is called animism (from the Latin word “animus” - spirit). Primitive people explained sleep, fainting, and death by the departure of the “spirit” (“soul”) from the body. Associated with animism is the belief in an afterlife and the cult of ancestors. The burials speak about this: along with the deceased, his things were placed in the grave - jewelry, weapons, as well as food supplies. According to primitive people, all this should have been useful to the deceased in his “afterlife.”

An interesting discovery was made by archaeologists in 1887 during excavations in the Mae d'Azil cave in the foothills of the Pyrenees. They discovered a large number of ordinary river pebbles covered with designs made with red paint. The drawings were simple, but varied. These are combinations of dots, ovals, dashes, crosses, herringbones, zigzags, lattices, etc. Some designs resembled letters of the Latin and Greek alphabets.

It is unlikely that archaeologists would have unraveled the mystery of the pebbles if they had not found similarities with similar drawings on stones of the Australian Arunta tribe, which was at a very low stage of development. The Arunta had warehouses of painted pebbles or pieces of wood called churingas. The Arunta believed that after a person dies, his “soul” moves into stone. Each Arunta had his own churinga, the seat of the soul of his ancestor, whose properties he inherited. The people of this tribe believed that every person from birth to death is connected with his churinga. The churingas of the living and dead Australians of the Arunta tribe were kept in caves with a walled entrance, known only to the old people, who treated the churinga with special attention. From time to time they counted the churingas, rubbed them with red ocher - the color of life, in a word, treated them as objects of religious worship.

The words “spirit” or “soul” in the minds of primitive people were associated with the animation of all nature. Gradually, religious ideas about the spirits of the earth, sun, thunder, lightning, and vegetation developed. Later, on this basis, the myth of dying and resurrecting gods arose.

With the disintegration of the primitive community, the emergence of classes and slave states, new forms of religious ideas appeared. Among the spirits and deities, people began to identify the main ones, to whom the rest obey. Myths arose about the kinship of kings with the gods. Professional priests and ministers of worship appeared in the ruling elite of society, who used religion in the interests of the exploiters as a weapon of oppression of the working people.

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