Shinto as an exemplar of development The general dynamics of the origin and development of household deities over a considerable span may be traced and exemplified by the historically attested origins and current practices of the
Shinto belief system in Japan. As the
Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn put it: Drawing the picture with broader strokes, he continues: Furthermore, Many Japanese houses still have a shrine (
kamidana,
kami shelf) where offerings are made to ancestral kami, as well as to other kami.
Cultural evolution and survival Edward Burnett Tylor, one of the main founders of the discipline of cultural anthropology, spoke of
survivals, vestiges of earlier evolutionary stages in a culture's development. He also coined the term
animism. Tylor disagreed with
Herbert Spencer, another founder of anthropology, as well as of sociology, about the innateness of the human tendency towards animistic explanations, but both agreed that ancestor worship was the root of religion and that domestic deities were survivals from such an early stage.
Animism and totemism In contradistinction to both
Herbert Spencer and
Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship,
Émile Durkheim saw its genesis in
totemism. This distinction is somewhat academic since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by
Sigmund Freud. In Freud's
Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.
Domestic deities and ancestor worship Jacob Grimm (1835) '' in
Pompeii, showing the offering altar and a niche for votive images European folklorist
Jacob Grimm did not hesitate to equate the Roman
lar familiaris to the
brownie. He explains in some detail in his
Deutsche Mythologie:
Thomas Keightley (1870) To underscore the equivalence of brownie, kobold, and goblin, consider the words of the English historian and folklorist
Thomas Keightley:
MacMichael (1907) MacMichael elaborated his views on the folkloric belief complex as follows:
New International Encyclopaedia Demonstrating that this evolution and functional equivalence has generally come to be accepted and that their nature is indeed that proposed by Grimm, one may refer to the early twentieth century
New International Encyclopaedia: and also
Origin of ancestor worship in animism Hearn (1878) William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the
Neolithic and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II, "The House Spirit", Section 1, he states: In Section 2, he proceeds to elaborate:
George Henderson (1911) George Henderson elaborated on the presumed origin of ancestor worship in
animism: == List ==