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Book Reviews 1077
not done more to follow out its historical and functional implications. A bibliography
covering the author's publications on folklore completes the study.
ERICR. WOLF,University of Illinois
Der Ursprung der Gottesidee: Eine historisch-kritische und positive Studie. Band X I , 3.
Abteilung: Die Religionen der Hirtenvolker, V : Die asiatischen Hirtenvalker. Die
prim&-sekudUren Hirtenvolker der Jakuten und der Sojoten-Karagassen sourie der
Jenisseier und die Synthese der benachbarten Nicht-Hirtenvvdlker. P. WILHJZLM
SCHMIDT.Mtinster: Aschendorff, 1954. xxvii, 734 pp.
Volume XI of the Ursprung der Gottesidee is the last completed manuscript of the
series left behind upon the death of the great ethnologist and cultural historian,
Wilhelm Schmidt. A twelfth volume comprising a synthesis of the religions of the
Asiatic and the African pastoralists awaits h a 1 editing before its appearance in the
near future. The eleventh volume, here under review, deals in the main with the religion
of one people, the Yakuts (pp. 1-398) and in a minor way with that of the Soyon,
Karagas (together pp. 40147), and the Ret (pp. 471-564-Yeniseians in Schmidt's
terms, also called Yenisei-Cstyak). The closing chapters of this book compare the
religions of the Inner Asian pastoralists with those of the neighboring Yukagir, Tun@,
and get.
The present work, no less than the preceding volumes of the series, is marked by
a compendious scholarship and a comprehensive scope. I n keeping with the spirit of
the Ursprung series as a whole, Schmidt has set forth a major thesis and a minor.
The major thesis is the demonstration of the high-god idea among the Yakuts, the
Soyons, the Raragas, and the Ret. The minor thesis is the incorporation of the cultures
whose religions are discussed in the volume into the general framework of the Kul-
turkreis representation.
The evidence which Schmidt reviews amply develops the thesis of the high-god
worship among these peoples. I n regard to the Yakut, Schmidt has discovered two
high-god ideas, and around them he traces two religions, corresponding to two different
time-levels: the older is that of the western Yakut, whose high-god is the Best Father;
the later is the religion of the eastern Yakut, whose high-god is the White Creator.
The older religious layer comprises the magic number nine. It has a complex
hierarchy of gods distributed among the nine heavens. I n contrast, the Yakut religion
does not distribute the system of gods and spirits among the heavens, which among
these eastern Yakut are seven in number. The eastern, younger religion, on the other
hand, has a sharp opposition between the good gods and spirits and the evil, an opposi-
tion which is blurred in the western, older, nine-system. Both systems have in com-
mon a complex spirit hierarchy, a high-god, a god-wife, a birth-goddess, a god-protector '
of livestock, a god of the chase @p. 17-68).
The epic of the Yakuts corresponds to the general division of the religion. There
are two versions of the epic, the western being the earlier, the eastern the later; the
latter comprises the seven-system as well (pp. 239 ff.). The nine-system may possibly
have at its core the triple division, of the sod, for example (pp. 193 ff.).
The old concern of the Kulturkreis school with the lunar gods, their association of
the lunar gods with agriculture and the matriarchate, is propounded again (pp. 378-81).
Among the Yakut this is a later religious layer, the seven-system, and is opposed to
the nine-system typical of the Central Asiatic patriarchal pastoralists, from whom the
older layer derives. However, if the later layer is that of the East Yakuts, and is a
matter of cultural contact, Schmidt has not made clear how the agricultural religion
 15481433, 1955, 5, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1955.57.5.02a00380 by Cochrane Germany, Wiley Online Library on [09/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
1078 American Anthropologist [57, 19551
came to them, for the nearest farmers (Chinese) are far to the south, with Mongols,
Manchus, and Tungus in between.
Shamanism has been the principal concern of past writers on Yakut religion, e.g.,
Sieroszewski. Schmidt asserts (p. 69) that the cult of the high-god has been overlooked
because of the concern with shamanism; however, he avoids the opposite error of ignor-
ing shamanism. The shaman as ecstatic, soul-projecting, charismatic, is here described,
and the white (good) shamans and black (bad) shamans distinguished. I n addition, an
ambivalent white-black shaman is mentioned (p. 334) not generally found in this part
of the world.
Of the highest interest is the description of the Isyah ceremony, which is a seasonal
festival (spring and midsummer or fall), involving a thanks-offering to the high god
(pp. 79 ff.). The thanks-offering is part of the ancient Turkic horse cult, for its core
is the offering of kumys (fermented mares’ milk). This ceremony has interwoven with
it a myth of origin, with an etiology of its own. It may be noted in passing that this
kind of myth, with its explanations or demonstrations of the significance of different
parts of the ceremony, appears to be foreign in spirit to the myths of the Turkic or the
Mongol peoples, and closer to the myths of the Polar peoples.
I n analyzing the significance of the Isyah ceremony, Schmidt on several occasions
(pp. 80 and 124) presents formulations which could have come from the pen of Durk-
heim. Schmidt’s concern in these passages is with the economic, social, and political
relations involved in the festival, which in turn endows the complete tribal life with a
religious character. The festival establishes and enforces the relationship of all social
forms to each other and of the individuals to the social forms, and thereby the Isyah
becomes a common national occasion of the first order.
Schmidt finds that there is little material on the religion of the Soyons and the
Raragas and devotes no more than some seventy pages to both. These two peoples,
largely hunters, reindeer herders with some cattle raising and agriculture, are few in
number, whereas the Yakuts are a numerous (and growing) people. While they were
originally of Uralic origin, they have become almost entirely Turkicized.
The Yeniseians or Ket are a tribe of western Siberia, few in number, primarily
hunters, primitive in social forms as compared to their neighbors, and generally lumped
in that convenient catch-all of languages, the Paleo-Asiatic group. Despite vast dif-
ferences in linguistic affiliation and degree of social complexity, the Ket, too, have a
high god, an opposing underworld earth-goddess, a shamanist hierarchy a t the head of
which is a chief-shaman.
I n the summary chapters, Schmidt contrasts the religions of the Yukagir and the
Yakut. While both have shamans, the Yakut shaman is dedicated to his calling in a
complex, mystic ceremony; the Yukagir shaman is inducted into the mysteries by his
father. The Yukagir shaman is a clan shaman, not a hysteric-nervous type, but rather
a priest of a cult (pp. 582 ff.). Again we see Schmidt’s close interest in the relation
between religious life and social organization. Thus in the analysis of Yakut religion
Schmidt comprised a broader set of problems than those involved in the direct state-
ment of the Kdturkreis position and the high-god idea, which was the case in previous
volumes, e.g., Vol. X on the Buryats.
Schmidt in general belongs to that school which does not regard shamanism as a
special religion but rather an aspect of religious experience of a people whose religion
is centered around the worship of a high-god as in the case of the Inner Asiatic pas-
toralists.
The author pursued the highest level of scholarship through the closing hours of
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Book Reviews 1079
his life. I should like to enter a mild protest against the lack of careful preparation of
the volume for publication and express the hope that the future posthumous works of
an avid pursuer of knowledge will be more carefully edited.
LAWRENCE RRADER, American University
Science an.d Civilizafion in China, Vol. 1: Introductory Orientations. JOSEPH NEEDHAM,
with the research assistance of WANGLING. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1954. xxxviii, 318 pp., 36 figs., 13 plates. $10.00.
The difficulties with which anybody who wants to write a history of science and
technology in China has to contend are so tremendous that to this date we have only
a few monographical treatments of limited topics, such as the development of firearms
and paper-making and of certain techniques of textile production and weaving. On the
other hand, we have a good number of detailed studies limited to certain aspects or
periods of development of a given invention. I n view of this situation the time seems
right for making a prelimi?ary summary of the state of knowledge. But as soon as
one begins to do this one becomes aware of the gaps which still exist. Thus, original
research, and a great deal of it, is necessary. To be able to do research one has to be
able to read original sources in all periods, not just one, and has to have training in
the special field of science with which one wants to deal. There is, for instance, an
abundance of texts dealing with the theory of music in China covering more than two
thousand years; it is fairly easy to read, but only a trained musicologist who is willing
to think in Chinese technical concepts can understand these texts. Needham is one
of those few exceptional persons qualified to write a history of science in China: as a
biologist with special interests in biochemistry and niorphogenesis, he has a broader
scientific interest and training than most other scientists. In years of travel and work
in China he acquired a first-hand knowledge of the country and its inhabitants; he
learned Chinese to the degree that he can handle original texts; he was fortunate
enough to get an excellent Chinese scholar to work with him; and he got advice and help
from many other scholars.
The first of the seven volumes is almost entirely devoted to the necessary introduc-
tions: the system of romanization of Chinese characters, the characteristics of Chinese
language, a survey of existing sources and reference works (Chapter 3), followed by
a geographical (Chapter 4) and a longer historical introduction (Chapters 5-6). If one
leaves aside the bibliography for this volume (pp. 249-98) and the general index,
there remain only a hundred original pages (Chapter 7), in which the problem of
diffusion, mainly the possibilities of the exchange of ideas and techniques between
East and West, are discussed, and in which some results of work to be published in the
later volumes are anticipated. It has to be admitted, however, that the general intro-
duction is necessary for the nonspecialist reader, who would feel lost in space and
time without it.
The fourth chapter on geography relies heavily upon Cressey, Li Ssii-kuang, and
Winfield, while in Chapters 5 and 6 on history the author relies in most cases mainly
upon one authority for a specific period, but stresses cultural and scientific develop-
ments more than political changes. It is natural that by this method he occasionally
misses making important corrections of established theories, as in the question of
Chinese bronzes (pp. 160-61), the recent work done by G. Ecke, B. Rarlgren, and
mainly M. Lohr. I n other cases he accepts interpretations which are acknowledged by
few scholars, such as the theory of oriental society (p. 114) or the theory of “key eco-
nomic areas” (pp. 112 ff.). Needham himself became aware of the difficulty of explain-