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WOWSERS AND THEIR WAYS.
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Kinks of our Ancestors — Resemblance of the
Savage and the Wowser—Biblical Heroes
and their Capers — Moses, David,
Lot and Abraham—Poverty and Prostitution.
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No thoughtful persons doubts nowadays that the various superstitions which man is forsaking slowly are merely hereditary mental kinks transmitted to him by his savage ancestors. In parts of the Pacific the islander of to-day believes that his shadow is one of his souls, and in Africa there are places where the natives, when approaching a river, are extremely careful not to let their shadow fall on the water lest a crocodile should seize it and pull them in with it. . . . The mind of primitive man, it is fairly certain, was incapable of inventing a belief in a hereafter had the phenomenon of dreams been unknown. The medicine-men and witchdoctors who pretended to explain the strange adventures of souls in the spirit world exercised a great influence over their fellows.
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The power of the spell-binders and experts in bedevilment gradually waned as the savage advanced along the path of knowledge and finally their incantations and mumbo-jumbo were looked upon as a solemn sort of amusement. But man was ever a conservative animal, and even in primitive times was averse to disturbing ancient beliefs, and the witch-doctor was allowed to exist as a sort of heirloom. Possibly because he amused the men and kept the women and children out of mischief he occupied a privileged position. But he was no longer admitted to the councils of the tribe save on rare occasions when it was deemed advisable to relieve the monotony of a lengthy session with a little solemn foolery.
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It is a remarkable fact that while civilised man has shed most of the physical peculiarities of his primitive forbears, the mental attributes of his primal ancestors still survive. The prognathous jaw and sloping forehead of a certain type of degenerate warn all who come in contact with him that at times a cog slips in the wheels of evolution. Yet the peculiar mental outfit of the wowser is so common that it excites little remark. Every thoughtful observer must confess to a feeling of astonishment at this indifference when the beliefs of the present day wowser and the primitive savage are compared and analysed. Both believe that instead of man inventing gods, that a god, or gods, created man. Both believe that a good spirit rewards and an evil spirit punishes man according to certain rules. Both believe that all who do not see eye to eye with them are possessed with an evil spirit and have no chance of entering a variously described happy hunting ground in the hereafter. Both believe that by making noises with bells, tom-toms, and other contrivances, and by singing, supplicating and corroboreeing they can induce some unknown power to monkey with the laws of Nature. Both believe that his own particular wielder of this mysterious power regards him as the centre of the universe, and will regulate affairs according to his wish if offered sufficient inducement, such as sacrifices. burnt offerings, or smoodging.
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But while the resemblance between the beliefs of the wowser and the savage affords convincing proof that both owe their origin to the fear of the unknown that dominated the mind of primitive man, the modem wowser lacks one redeeming feature possessed by his savage co-religionist. When he has made what he considers sufficient noise to attract the attention of the power he kow-tows to, beyond expressing a wish for his enemy's discomfiture, the savage attends strictly to his own personal affairs. The morals, pleasures, or pursuits of other people, if they do not interfere with his comfort or inconvenience him, he leaves severely alone. But the heathen's wants are few and simple, and, moreover, he judges others from his own standpoint. He knows that the resentment he would feel at any interference with his affairs he must expect others to show should he meddle with their concerns. The most objectionable characteristics of the modern wowser may be set down to the utter lack of this happy knack of minding his own business. The reverend ragers and clamorous clerics of present-day civilisation are afflicted with an incurable itch for interfering in the affairs of other people. Although he holds as infallible, beliefs which were shown to be both absurd and impossible generations ago, the wowser claims to be intelligent enough to regulate the conduct of his fellow citizen
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Scientific research has always been regarded by him as a blasphemous questioning of the will of whatever particular god he happens to worship. Any departure from the established order of things is an accursed thing, and to be opposed as an attempt to flout divinely ordained laws. Such benefits to civilised humanity as education, printing, vaccination, tobacco, theatres and mixed bathing all aroused his hostility when first introduced. While professing belief in a faith the scriptures condone—by not condemning murder, slavery, incest, polygamy, and cattle-duffing, he clamors for hand guns, gaols, and gallows, to suppress these pleasant pastimes and to punish anyone who hankers for the simple life as practised by the free-and-easy patriarchs of the old testament.
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By what peculiar process of mental inversion the wowser reconciles his present-day professions of faith with the sayings and doings of Biblical heroes it is hard to imagine. Moses was a murderous and immoral savage compared with whose exploits the atrocities attributed to the Kaiser are merely the mischievous monkeyings of a boy bandit. Moses slew five kings and all their male subjects, took their women and children captive, commandeered all their cattle and other movables, and destroyed every city in the five kingdoms by fire. When he calmed down a little he killed every male child and every woman who had ever known a man by lying with him. The virgins he distributed amongst his troops.
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David, one of the greatest kings of Biblical history, was a ferocious and licentious savage who lived by bushranging. He robbed even those who gave him shelter, and when he tried to Blackmail Nabal was diverted from his purpose by that gentleman's wife. Less than a fortnight later Nabal died and David married the newly-made widow. When one of David's soldiers was away "winning the war" his wife was seduced by David, who stayed at home "sooling." To avoid his baseness becoming known the seducer arranged affairs with his Minister of Defence, and had the cuckholded husband placed in a position where he stood a good chance of being killed. The soldier duly lost his life, and David led the widow to the altar. During one of his numerous "fights for the preservation of civilisation," David captured a city named Rahbah. He then "brought forth all the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through a brick kiln, and thus he did unto all the cities of the children of Ammon."
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Jacob was a trickster and liar who robbed his brother, and lied to his father while doing so. He married two of his cousins, robbed his uncle, and persuaded one of his wives to rob her father. Abraham used one of his servant girls to satisfy his lust, and when she bore a child to him he threw both mother and child out to starve. He twice passed his wife off as his sister that he might reap profit by allowing other men to have sexual intercourse with her. Of the amazing capers cut by the concupiscent children of the Lord it is impossible to enumerate more than a few. Reuben committed incest by sleeping with one of his father's wives. Judah was guilty of a similar sin with his son's wife, and rewarded her for her complaisance by presents of jewellery. Lot offered his two daughters to a rowdy mob who threatened him. While the crowd was rampaging outside his house and demanding that they should be allowed to commit an unnatural offence upon two men who were camping there for the night, Lot offered to allow the bestial brawlers to sate their lust with the bodies of his girls, saying, "Behold, now; I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them to you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." It is small wonder that these two virgins shortly afterwards should be smitten by the incestuous itch which seemed to be as common in those days as ratting is among Labor politicians at the present time. After considering ways and means these fascinating flappers filled their old man up with the ancient equivalent for beer, and while he was on the spree took turn about at sleeping with him. To remove all doubts concerning the outcome of their nocturnal naughtiness the Bible baldly states, "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the elder one bore a son and called his name Moab, and the younger she also bore a son and called his name Benammi."
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That a belief in such "divinely-inspired" records of lust, brutality, and bloodshed gives any section of the community any right to determine, say, when people shall, or rather shall not, be allowed to drink beer before or after certain hours is almost incredible. Yet by bleating and braying about a beneficent Being they banish legitimate amusements and recreation from the lives of the people. It was in the seedling brain of a weeping and wailing wowser that the idea of bowdlerising the works of Shakespeare originated—the holy hypocrites of today claim the right to censor plays, picture shows and literature. Less than a century ago the wowser conscience was responsible for the burning of women and mutilation of children—to-day it is less merciful and fills brothels and orphanages.
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While cackling complacently of the goodness of God, and rejoicing in the sense of holy communion with him, the modern wowser amiably condones shocking scenes of poverty and filth, and excuses preventable diseases, moral and physical, by pleading "the will of God." While whooping about salvation he entirely ignores moral development and "goes nap" on crosses, tombs, and resurrections. Nineteen hundred years of wowser influence has given the world the greatest war known in history with the wowser as the most enthusiastic recruiting agent —for both contending armies. Poverty racks and degrades the greater part of the population of all Christian countries. Unnatural vice and prostitution flourish within the sound of the bells of every church in Christendom. The idle rich arrogantly fatten on the labor of the poor, and receive the sanctimonious plaudits of the men of God for doing so. Is it not time that the Canon Moores, the Rev. Wheatleys, the Coxs, Corly Butlers, Ross's and all the brawling band of blood-drunken bigots were asked to justify their existence? They and their baneful breed have had a long opportunity to ameliorate some of the evils of the social system. And if they cannot organise any better scheme to relieve the pangs of poverty and lighten the burden of industrial slavery than reliance on the goodness of God, what is wrong with telling them to "get work" and endeavoring to cultivate the virtue of self-reliance.
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It may give pleasure to imaginative people to dream and sing of a better land beyond the tomb, yet if the opportunity for speedy translation comes, even to an elderly wowser, he doesn't leap joyfully at the chance. He sends at once for a doctor. Although all his life he has asserted that man is the offspring of God he is in no-wise anxious to interview his tender-hearted Father. Can the creed responsible for this illogical attitude be accepted as a belief for rational beings, or should it be regarded as the blind prejudice and ignorant superstition of a primitive mind?
Truth (Perth, WA : 1903 - 1931), Saturday 12 May 1917, page 8
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