Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system--the system,
that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of a tribe (say a CLAN)
after some ANIMAL--or sometimes--also after some plant or tree or
Nature-element, like fire or rain or thunder; but at best the subject is
a difficult one for us moderns to understand. A careful study has been
made of it by Salamon Reinach in his Cultes, Mythes et Religions, (1)
where he formulates his conclusions in twelve statements or definitions;
but even so--though his suggestions are helpful--he throws very little
light on the real origin of the system. (2)
(1) See English translation of certain chapters (published by
David Nutt in 1912) entitled Cults, Myths and Religions, pp. 1-25. The
French original is in three large volumes.
(2) The same may be said of the formulated statement of the
subject in Morris Jastrow's Handbooks of the History of Religion, vol.
iv.
There are three main difficulties. The first is to understand why
primitive Man should name his Tribe after an animal or object of nature
at all; the second, to understand on what principle he selected the
particular name (a lion, a crocodile, a lady bird, a certain tree); the
third, why he should make of the said totem a divinity, and pay honor
and worship to it. It may be worth while to pause for a moment over
these.
(1) The fact that the Tribe was one of the early things for which Man
found it necessary to have a name is interesting, because it shows
how early the solidarity and psychological actuality of the tribe
was recognized; and as to the selection of a name from some animal or
concrete object of Nature, that was inevitable, for the simple reason
that there was nothing else for the savage to choose from. Plainly to
call his tribe "The Wayfarers" or "The Pioneers" or the "Pacifists" or
the "Invincibles," or by any of the thousand and one names which modern
associations adopt, would have been impossible, since such abstract
terms had little or no existence in his mind. And again to name it after
an animal was the most obvious thing to do, simply because the animals
were by far the most important features or accompaniments of his own
life. As I am dealing in this book largely with certain psychological
conditions of human evolution, it has to be pointed out that to
primitive man the animal was the nearest and most closely related of all
objects. Being of the same order of consciousness as himself, the animal
appealed to him very closely as his mate and equal. He made with regard
to it little or no distinction from himself. We see this very clearly in
the case of children, who of course represent the savage mind, and who
regard animals simply as their mates and equals, and come quickly into
rapport with them, not differentiating themselves from them.
(2) As to the particular animal or other object selected in order to
give a name to the Tribe, this would no doubt be largely accidental. Any
unusual incident might superstitiously precipitate a name. We can hardly
imagine the Tribe scratching its congregated head in the deliberate
effort to think out a suitable emblem for itself. That is not the way in
which nicknames are invented in a school or anywhere else to-day. At the
same time the heraldic appeal of a certain object of nature, animate or
inanimate, would be deeply and widely felt. The strength of the lion,
the fleetness of the deer, the food-value of a bear, the flight of a
bird, the awful jaws of a crocodile, might easily mesmerize a whole
tribe. Reinach points out, with great justice, that many tribes placed
themselves under the protection of animals which were supposed (rightly
or wrongly) to act as guides and augurs, foretelling the future.
"Diodorus," he says, "distinctly states that the hawk, in Egypt, was
venerated because it foretold the future." (Birds generally act as
and Samoa the kangaroo, the crow and the owl premonish their fellow
clansmen of events to come. At one time the Samoan warriors went so far
as to rear owls for their prophetic qualities in war. (The jackal,
or 'pathfinder'--whose tracks sometimes lead to the remains of a
food-animal slain by a lion, and many birds and insects, have a value of
this kind.) "The use of animal totems for purposes of augury is, in all
likelihood, of great antiquity. Men must soon have realized that the
senses of animals were acuter than their own; nor is it surprising that
they should have expected their totems--that is to say, their natural
allies--to forewarn them both of unsuspected dangers and of those
provisions of nature, WELLS especially, which animals seem to scent
by instinct." (1) And again, beyond all this, I have little doubt that
there are subconscious affinities which unite certain tribes to certain
animals or plants, affinities whose origin we cannot now trace, though
they are very real--the same affinities that we recognize as existing
between individual PERSONS and certain objects of nature. W. H.
Hudson--himself in many respects having this deep and primitive relation
to nature--speaks in a very interesting and autobiographical volume (2)
of the extraordinary fascination exercised upon him as a boy, not
only by a snake, but by certain trees, and especially by a particular
flowering-plant "not more than a foot in height, with downy soft
pale green leaves, and clusters of reddish blossoms, something like
valerian." ... "One of my sacred flowers," he calls it, and insists on
the "inexplicable attraction" which it had for him. In various ways of
this kind one can perceive how particular totems came to be selected by
particular peoples.
(1) See Reinach, Eng. trans., op. cit., pp. 20, 21.
(2) Far away and Long ago (1918) chs. xvi and xvii.
(3) As to the tendency to divinize these totems, this arises no doubt
partly out of question (2). The animal or other object admired on
account of its strength or swiftness, or adopted as guardian of the
tribe because of its keen sight or prophetic quality, or infinitely
prized on account of its food-value, or felt for any other reason to
have a peculiar relation and affinity to the tribe, is by that fact SET
APART. It becomes taboo. It must not be killed--except under necessity
and by sanction of the whole tribe--nor injured; and all dealings with
it must be fenced round with regulations. It is out of this taboo or
system of taboos that, according to Reinach, religion arose. "I propose
(he says) to define religion as: A SUM OF SCRUPLES (TABOOS) WHICH IMPEDE
THE FREE EXERCISE OF OUR FACULTIES." (1) Obviously this definition is
gravely deficient, simply because it is purely negative, and leaves
out of account the positive aspect of the subject. In Man, the positive
content of religion is the instinctive sense--whether conscious or
subconscious--of an inner unity and continuity with the world around.
This is the stuff out of which religion is made. The scruples or taboos
which "impede the freedom" of this relation are the negative forces
which give outline and form to the relation. These are the things which
generate the RITES AND CEREMONIALS of religion; and as far as Reinach
means by religion MERELY rites and ceremonies he is correct; but clearly
he only covers half the subject. The tendency to divinize the totem is
at least as much dependent on the positive sense of unity with it, as on
the negative scruples which limit the relation in each particular case.
But I shall return to this subject presently, and more than once, with
the view of clarifying it. Just now it will be best to illustrate the
nature of Totems generally, and in some detail.
(1) See Orpheus by S. Reinach, p. 3.
As would be gathered from what I have just said, there is found among
all the more primitive peoples, and in all parts of the world, an
immense variety of totem-names. The Dinkas, for instance, are a rather
intelligent well-grown people inhabiting the upper reaches of the Nile
in the vicinity of the great swamps. According to Dr. Seligman their
clans have for totems the lion, the elephant, the crocodile, the
hippopotamus, the fox, and the hyena, as well as certain birds which
infest and damage the corn, some plants and trees, and such things as
rain, fire, etc. "Each clan speaks of its totem as its ancestor, and
refrains (as a rule) from injuring or eating it." (1) The members of the
Crocodile clan call themselves "brothers of the crocodile." The tribes
of Bechuana-land have a very similar list of totem-names--the buffalo,
the fish, the porcupine, the wild vine, etc. They too have a Crocodile
clan, but they call the crocodile their FATHER! The tribes of Australia
much the same again, with the differences suitable to their country; and
the Red Indians of North America the same. Garcilasso, della Vega,
the Spanish historian, son of an Inca princess by one of the Spanish
conquerors of Peru and author of the well-known book Commentarias
Reales, says in that book (i, 57), speaking of the pre-Inca period, "An
Indian (of Peru) was not considered honorable unless he was descended
from a fountain, river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild
animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call cuntur
(condor), or some other bird of prey." (2) According to Lewis Morgan,
the North American Indians of various tribes had for totems the wolf,
bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey,
muskrat; pike, catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare,
rabbit, snake; reed-grass, sand, rock, and tobacco-plant.
(1) See The Golden Bough, vol. iv, p. 31.
(2) See Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 104, also Myth, Ritual
and Religion, vol. i, pp. 71, 76, etc.
So we might go on rather indefinitely. I need hardly say that in more
modern and civilized life, relics of the totem system are still to be
found in the forms of the heraldic creatures adopted for their crests by
different families, and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and
stars and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are flaunted as the
insignia of the various nations. The names may not have been ORIGINALLY
adopted from any definite belief in blood-relationship with the animal
or other object in question; but when, as Robertson says (Pagan Christs,
p. 104), a "savage learned that he was 'a Bear' and that his father
and grandfather and forefathers were so before him, it was really
impossible, after ages in which totem-names thus passed current, that he
should fail to assume that his folk were DESCENDED from a bear."
As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman will on no account
EAT his tribal totem-animal. Such would naturally be deemed a kind of
sacrilege. Also it must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable
for eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasionally, and
guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it has been an almost
universal custom for the tribal elders to call a feast at which
an animal (either the totem or some other) IS killed and commonly
eaten--and this in order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue
belonging to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with
each other. The eating of the bear or other animal, the sprinkling with
its blood, and the general ritual in which the participants shared its
flesh, or dressed and disguised themselves in its skin, or otherwise
identified themselves with it, was to them a symbol of their community
of life with each other, and a means of their renewal and salvation in
the holy emblem. And this custom, as the reader will perceive, became
the origin of the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions.
Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords an instance of
this. (1) It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century) has left a detailed
account of the occasional sacrifice in his time of a spotless white
camel among the Arabs of the Sinai region, which closely resembles a
totemic communion-feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had
to be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak. "The slaughter
of the victim, the sacramental drinking of the blood, and devouring in
wild haste of the pieces of still quivering flesh, recall the details
of the Dionysiac and other festivals." (2) Robertson-Smith himself
says:--"The plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before its
life had left the still warm blood and flesh... and that thus in the
most literal way, all those who shared in the ceremony absorbed part of
the victim's life into themselves. One sees how much more forcibly
than any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment or
confirmation of a bond of common life between the worshipers, and also,
since the blood is shed upon the altar itself, between the worshipers
and their god. In this sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two:
the conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the absorption of
the living flesh and blood into the flesh and blood of the worshippers.
Each of these is effected in the simplest and most direct manner, so
that the meaning of the ritual is perfectly transparent."
(1) See his Religion of the Semites, p. 320.
(2) They also recall the rites of the Passover--though in this
latter the blood was no longer drunk, nor the flesh eaten raw.
It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their totems; and
it must not by any means be supposed that this practice is (or was)
universal; but it undoubtedly obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison
says (Themis, p. 123); "you do not as a rule eat your relations," and as
a rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but (Miss Harrison
continues) "at certain times and under certain restrictions a man not
only may, but MUST, eat of his totem, though only sparingly, as of a
thing sacrosanct." The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the
tribe not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), but is
held, according to early magical ideas, and when the animal is desired
for food, to favor its manipulation. The human tribe partakes of the
mana or life-force of the animal, and is strengthened; the animal tribe
is sympathetically renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceedingly.
The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) the simultaneous
outpouring of human blood seals the compact and confirms the magic. This
is well illustrated by a ceremony of the 'Emu' tribe referred to by Dr.
Frazer:--
"In order to multiply Emus which are an important article of food, the
men of the Emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed as follows: They clear
a small spot of level ground, and opening veins in their arms they let
the blood stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of
about three square yards is soaked with it. When the blood has dried
and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable surface, on which they
paint the sacred design of the emu totem, especially the parts of the
bird which they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round
this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers wearing long
head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the emu, mimic
the appearance of the bird as it stands aimlessly peering about in all
directions." (1)
(1) The Golden Bough i, 85--with reference to Spencer and
Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 179, 189.
Thus blood sacrifice comes in; and--(whether this has ever actually
happened in the case of the Central Australians I know not)--we can
easily imagine a member of the Emu tribe, and disguised as an actual
emu, having been ceremonially slaughtered as a firstfruits and promise
of the expected and prayed-for emu-crop; just as the same certainly
HAS happened in the case of men wearing beast-masks of Bulls or Rams
or Bears being sacrificed in propitiation of Bull-gods, Ram-gods or
Bear-gods or simply in pursuance of some kind of magic to favor the
multiplication of these food-animals.
"In the light of totemistic ways of thinking we see plainly enough the
relation of man to food-animals. You need or at least desire flesh food,
yet you shrink from slaughtering 'your brother the ox'; you desire his
mana, yet you respect his tabu, for in you and him alike runs the common
life-blood. On your own individual responsibility you would never kill
him; but for the common weal, on great occasions, and in a fashion
conducted with scrupulous care, it is expedient that he die for his
people, and that they feast upon his flesh." (1)
(1) Themis, p. 140.
In her little book Ancient Art and Ritual (1) Jane Harrison describes
the dedication of a holy Bull, as conducted in Greece at Elis, and at
Magnesia and other cities. "There at the annual fair year by year the
stewards of the city bought a Bull 'the finest that could be got,' and
at the new moon of the month at the beginning of seed-time (? April)
Bull was led in procession at the head of which went the chief priest
and priestess of the city. With them went a herald and sacrificer,
and two bands of youths and maidens. So holy was the Bull that nothing
unlucky might come near him. The herald pronounced aloud a prayer for
'the safety of the city and the land, and the citizens, and the women
and children, for peace and wealth, and for the bringing forth of grain
and all other fruits, and of cattle.' All this longing for fertility,
for food and children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose holiness is
his strength and fruitfulness." The Bull is sacrificed. The flesh is
divided in solemn feast among those who take part in the procession.
"The holy flesh is not offered to a god, it is eaten--to every man his
portion--by each and every citizen, that he may get his share of the
strength of the Bull, of the luck of the State." But at Athens the
Bouphonia, as it was called, was followed by a curious ceremony. "The
hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up, and next the stuffed animal
was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as though it were ploughing.
The Death is followed by a Resurrection. Now this is all important. We
are accustomed to think of sacrifice as the death, the giving up, the
renouncing of something. But SACRIFICE does not mean 'death' at all. It
means MAKING HOLY, sanctifying; and holiness was to primitive man just
special strength and life. What they wanted from the Bull was just that
special life and strength which all the year long they had put into him,
and nourished and fostered. That life was in his blood. They could not
eat that flesh nor drink that blood unless they killed him. So he must
die. But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed him,
not to 'sacrifice' him in our sense, but to have him, keep him, eat him,
live BY him and through him, by his grace."
(1) Home University Library, p. 87.
We have already had to deal with instances of the ceremonial eating of
the sacred he-Lamb or Ram, immolated in the Spring season of the year,
and partaken of in a kind of communal feast--not without reference (at
any rate in later times) to a supposed Lamb-god. Among the Ainos in the
North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks in Eastern Siberia, the Bear
is the great food-animal, and is worshipped as the supreme giver of
health and strength. There also a similar ritual of sacrifice occurs. A
perfect Bear is caught and caged. He is fed up and even pampered to the
day of his death. "Fish, brandy and other delicacies are offered to him.
Some of the people prostrate themselves before him; his coming into
a house brings a blessing, and if he sniffs at the food that brings a
blessing too." Then he is led out and slain. A great feast takes place,
the flesh is divided, cupfuls of the blood are drunk by the men;
the tribe is united and strengthened, and the Bear-god blesses the
ceremony--the ideal Bear that has given its life for the people. (1)
(1) See Art and Ritual, pp. 92-98; The Golden Bough, ii, 375
seq.; Themis, pp. 140, 141; etc.
That the eating of the flesh of an animal or a man conveys to you some
of the qualities, the life-force, the mana, of that animal or man, is an
idea which one often meets with among primitive folk. Hence the common
tendency to eat enemy warriors slain in battle against your tribe. By
doing so you absorb some of their valor and strength. Even the enemy
scalps which an Apache Indian might hang from his belt were something
magical to add to the Apache's power. As Gilbert Murray says, (1) "you
devoured the holy animal to get its mana, its swiftness, its strength,
its great endurance, just as the savage now will eat his enemy's brain
or heart or hands to get some particular quality residing there."
Even--as he explains on the earlier page--mere CONTACT was often
considered sufficient--"we have holy pillars whose holiness consists
in the fact that they have been touched by the blood of a bull." And in
this connection we may note that nearly all the Christian Churches have
a great belief in the virtue imparted by the mere 'laying on of hands.'
(1) Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 36.
In quite a different connection--we read (1) that among the Spartans a
warrior-boy would often beg for the love of the elder warrior whom he
admired (i. e. the contact with his body) in order to obtain in that
way a portion of the latter's courage and prowess. That through the
mediation of the lips one's spirit may be united to the spirit of
another person is an idea not unfamiliar to the modern mind; while the
exchange of blood, clothes, locks of hair, etc., by lovers is a custom
known all over the world. (2)
(1) Aelian VII, iii, 12: [gr autoi goun (oi paides) deontai twn
erastwn] [gr eispnein autois]. See also E. Bethe on "Die Dorische
Knabenliebe" in the Rheinisches Museum, vol. 26, iii, 461.
(2) See Crawley's Mystic Rose, pp. 238, 242.
To suppose that by eating another you absorb his or her soul is somewhat
naive certainly. Perhaps it IS more native, more primitive. Yet there
may be SOME truth even in that idea. Certainly the food that one eats
has a psychological effect, and the flesh-eaters among the human race
have a different temperament as a rule from the fruit and vegetable
eaters, while among the animals (though other causes may come in
here) the Carnivora are decidedly more cruel and less gentle than the
Herbivora.
To return to the rites of Dionysus, Gilbert Murray, speaking of
Orphism--a great wave of religious reform which swept over Greece and
South Italy in the sixth century B.C.--says: (1) "A curious relic of
primitive superstition and cruelty remained firmly imbedded in Orphism,
a doctrine irrational and unintelligible, and for that very reason
wrapped in the deepest and most sacred mystery: a belief in the
SACRIFICE OF DIONYSUS HIMSELF, AND THE PURIFICATION OF MAN BY HIS
BLOOD. It seems possible that the savage Thracians, in the fury of their
worship on the mountains, when they were possessed by the god and became
'wild beasts,' actually tore with their teeth and hands any hares,
goats, fawns or the like that they came across.... The Orphic
congregations of later times, in their most holy gatherings, solemnly
partook of the blood of a bull, which was by a mystery the blood of
Dionysus-Zagreus himself, the Bull of God, slain in sacrifice for the
purification of man." (2)
(1) See Notes to his translation of the Bacch[ae] of Euripides.
(2) For a description of this orgy see Theocritus, Idyll xxvi;
also for explanations of it, Lang's Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii,
pp, 241-260, on Dionysus. The Encyclop[ae]dia Brit., article "Orpheus,"
says:--"Orpheus, in the manner of his death, was considered to personate
the god Dionysus, and was thus representative of the god torn to pieces
every year--a ceremony enacted by the Bacchae in the earliest times with
a human victim, and afterwards with a bull, to represent the bull-formed
god. A distinct feature of this ritual was [gr wmofagia] (eating the
flesh of the victim raw), whereby the communicants imagined that they
consumed and assimilated the god represented by the victim, and thus
became filled with the divine ecstasy." Compare also the Hindu doctrine
of Praj[pati, the dismembered Lord of Creation.
Such instances of early communal feasts, which fulfilled the double part
of confirming on the one hand the solidarity of the tribe, and on the
other of bringing the tribe, by the shedding of the blood of a divine
Victim into close relationship with the very source of its life,
are plentiful to find. "The sacramental rite," says Professor
Robertson-Smith, (1) "is also an atoning rite, which brings the
community again into harmony with its alienated god--atonement being
simply an act of communion designed to wipe out all memory of previous
estrangement." With this subject I shall deal more specially in chapter
vii below. Meanwhile as instances of early Eucharists we may mention the
following cases, remembering always that as the blood is regarded as the
Life, the drinking or partaking of, or sprinkling with, blood is always
an acknowledgment of the common life; and that the juice of the grape
being regarded as the blood of the Vine, wine in the later ceremonials
quite easily and naturally takes the place of the blood in the early
sacrifices.
(1) Religion of the Semites, p. 302.
Thus P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first
Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his History of India:
"Their Grand Lama celebrates a species of sacrifice with BREAD and WINE,
in which, after taking a small quantity himself, he distributes the
rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony." (1) "The old Egyptians
celebrated the resurrection of Osiris by a sacrament, eating the sacred
cake or wafer after it had been consecrated by the priest, and thereby
becoming veritable flesh of his flesh." (2) As is well known, the eating
of bread or dough sacramentally (sometimes mixed with blood or seed)
as an emblem of community of life with the divinity, is an extremely
ancient practice or ritual. Dr. Frazer (3) says of the Aztecs,
that "twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great god
Huitzilopochtli was made of dough, then broken in pieces and solemnly
eaten by his worshipers." And Lord Kingsborough in his Mexican
Antiquities (vol. vi, p. 220) gives a record of a "most Holy Supper"
in which these people ate the flesh of their god. It was a cake made of
certain seeds, "and having made it, they blessed it in their manner, and
broke it into pieces, which the high priest put into certain very clean
vessels, and took a thorn of maguey which resembles a very thick needle,
with which he took up with the utmost reverence single morsels, which
he put into the mouth of each individual in the manner of a communion."
Acostas (4) confirms this and similar accounts. The Peruvians partook of
a sacrament consisting of a pudding of coarsely ground maize, of which
a portion had been smeared on the idol. The priest sprinkled it with the
blood of the victim before distributing it to the people. Priest and
people then all took their shares in turn, "with great care that no
particle should be allowed to fall to the ground--this being looked upon
as a great sin." (5)
(1) See Doane's Bible Myths, p. 306.
(2) From The Great Law, of religious origins: by W. Williamson
(1899), p. 177.
(3) The Golden Bough, vol. ii, p. 79.
(4) Natural and Moral History of the Indies. London (1604).
(5) See Markham's Rites and laws of the Incas, p. 27.
Moving from Peru to China (instead of 'from China to Peru') we find that
"the Chinese pour wine (a very general substitute for blood) on a straw
image of Confucius, and then all present drink of it, and taste the
sacrificial victim, in order to participate in the grace of Confucius."
(Here again the Corn and Wine are blended in one rite.) And of Tartary
Father Grueber thus testifies: "This only I do affirm, that the devil so
mimics the Catholic Church there, that although no European or Christian
has ever been there, still in all essential things they agree so
completely with the Roman Church, as even to celebrate the Host with
bread and wine: with my own eyes I have seen it." (1) These few
instances are sufficient to show the extraordinarily wide diffusion of
Totem-sacraments and Eucharistic rites all over the world.
(1) For these two quotations see Jevons' Introduction to the
History of Religion, pp. 148 and 219.