THE IDEA OF SPIRITS AND GODS
When we come to the idea of the soul, we have left the circle of purely
impersonal forces. But above the soul the Australian religions already
recognize mythical personalities of a superior order: spirits,
civilizing heroes and even gods who are properly so-called. While it
will be unnecessary to enter into the detail of the mythologies, we must
at least seek the form in which these three categories of spiritual
beings are presented in Australia, and the way in which they are
connected with the whole religious system.
I
A soul is not a spirit. In fact, it is shut up in a determined organism;
though it may leave it at certain moments, it is ordinarily a prisoner
there. It definitely escapes only at death, and we have already seen the
difficulties under which the separation is accomplished. A spirit, on
the contrary, though often tied by the closest bonds to some particular
object, such as a spring, a rock, a tree, a star, etc., and though
residing there by preference, may go away at will and lead an
independent existence in free space. So it has a more extended circle of
action. It can act upon the individuals who approach it or whom it
approaches. The soul, on the contrary, has almost no influence except
over the body it animates; it is very exceptional that it succeeds in
influencing outside objects during the course of its terrestrial life.
But if the soul does not have the distinctive characteristics of the
spirit, it acquires them, at least in part, at death. In fact, when it
has been disincarnated, so long as it does not descend into a body
again, it has the same liberty of movement as a spirit. Of course, after
the rites of mourning have been accomplished, it is thought to go to the
land of souls, but before this it remains about the tomb for a rather
long time. Also, even after it has definitely departed, it is believed
to prowl about in the brush near the camp.[867] It is generally
represented as a rather beneficent being, especially for the surviving
members of its family; we have seen that the soul of the father comes to
aid the growth of his children or his grandchildren. But it also happens
sometimes that it shows signs of a veritable cruelty; everything depends
upon its humour and the manner in which it is treated by the
living.[868] So it is recommended, especially to women and children, not
to venture outside of the camp during the night so as not to expose
oneself to dangerous encounters.[869]
However, a ghost is not a real spirit. In the first place, it generally
has only a limited power of action; also, it does not have a definite
province. It is a vagabond, upon whom no determined task is incumbent,
for the effect of death has been to put it outside of all regular forms;
as regards the living, it is a sort of a exile. A spirit, on the other
hand, always has a power of a certain sort and it is by this that it is
defined; it is set over a certain order of cosmic or social phenomena;
it has a more or less precise function to fulfil in the system of the
universe.
But there are some souls which satisfy this double condition and which
are consequently spirits, in the proper sense of the word. These are the
souls of the mythical personages whom popular imagination has placed at
the beginning of time, the Altjirangamitjina or the men of the
Alcheringa among the Arunta; the Mura-mura among the tribes of Lake
Eyre; the Muk-Kurnai among the Kurnai, etc. In one sense, they are still
souls, for they are believed to have formerly animated bodies from which
they separated themselves at a certain moment. But even when they led a
terrestrial life, they already had, as we have seen, exceptional powers;
they had a mana superior to that of ordinary men, and they have kept it.
Also, they are charged with definite functions.
In the first place, whether we accept the version of Spencer and Gillen
or that of Strehlow, it is to them that the care of assuring the
periodical recruiting of the clan falls. They have charge of the
phenomena of conception.
Even when the conception has been accomplished, the task of the ancestor
is not yet completed. It is his duty to guard over the new-born child.
Later, when the child has become a man, he accompanies him in the hunt,
brings game to him, warns him by dreams of the dangers he may run,
protects him against his enemies, etc. On this point, Strehlow is
entirely in accord with Spencer and Gillen.[870] It is true that someone
may ask how it is possible, according to the version of these latter,
for the ancestor to fulfil this function; for, since he reincarnates
himself at the moment of conception, it seems as though he should be
confounded with the soul of the child and should therefore be unable to
protect it from without. But the fact is that he does not reincarnate
himself entirely; he merely duplicates himself. One part of him enters
the body of the woman and fertilizes her; another part continues to
exist outside and, under the special name of Arumburinga, fulfils the
office of guardian genius.[871]
Thus we see how great a kinship there is between this ancestral spirit
and the _genius_ of the Latins or the [Greek: daimôn] of the
Greeks.[872] The identification of function is complete. In fact, at
first the genius is the one who begets, _qui gignit_; he expresses and
personifies the powers of generation.[873] But at the same time, he is
the protector and director of the particular individual to whose person
he is attached.[874] He is finally confused with the personality itself
of this individual; he represents the totality of the proclivities and
tendencies which characterize him and give him a distinctive appearance
among other men.[875] Hence come the well-known expressions _indulgere
genio_, _defraudere genium_ with the sense of _to follow one's natural
temperament_. At bottom, the _genius_ is another form or double of the
soul of the individual. This is proved by the partial synonomy of
_genius_ and _manes_.[876] The manes is the genius after death; but it
is also all that survives of the dead man, that is to say, his soul. In
the same way, the soul of the Arunta and the ancestral spirit which
serves as his genius are only two different aspects of one and the same
being.
But it is not only in relation to persons that the ancestor has a
definite situation; he also has one in relation to things. Though he is
believed to have his real residence under the ground, they think that he
is always haunting the place where his nanja-tree or rock is, or the
water-hole which was spontaneously formed at the exact spot where he
disappeared into the ground, having terminated his first existence. As
this tree or rock is believed to represent the body of the hero, they
imagine that the soul itself is constantly coming back there, and lives
there more or less permanently; it is by the presence of this soul that
they explain the religious respect inspired by these localities. No one
can break the branch of a nanja-tree without a risk of falling
sick.[877] "Formerly the act of breaking it down or injuring it was
punished with death. An animal or bird taking refuge there could not be
killed. Even the surrounding bushes had to be respected: the grass could
not be burned, the rocks also had to be treated with respect. It was
forbidden to remove them or break them."[878] As this sacred character
is attributed to the ancestor, he appears as the spirit of this tree or
rock, of this water-hole or spring.[879] If the spring is thought of as
having some connection with rain,[880] he will become a spirit of rain.
Thus, the same souls which serve as protecting geniuses for men also
fulfil cosmic functions at the same time. It is undoubtedly in this
sense that we must understand the text of Roth where he says that in
northern Queensland, the spirits of nature are the souls of the dead who
have chosen to live in the forests or caves.[881]
So we have here some spiritual beings that are different from the
wandering souls with no definite powers. Strehlow calls them gods;[882]
but this expression is inexact, at least in the great majority of cases.
If it were true, then in a society like the Arunta where each one has
his protecting ancestor, there would be as many or more gods than there
are individuals. It would merely introduce confusion into our
terminology to give the name of god to a sacred being with only one
worshipper. It may be, of course, that the figure of the ancestor grows
to a point where it resembles a real divinity. Among the Warramunga, as
we have already pointed out,[883] the clan as a whole is thought to be
descended from one sole and unique ancestor. It is easily seen how this
collective ancestor might, under certain circumstances, become the
object of a collective devotion. To choose a notable example, this is
what has happened to the snake Wollunqua.[884] This mythical beast, from
whom the clan of the same name is held to be descended, continues to
live, they believe, in water-holes which are therefore surrounded with
a religious respect. Thus it becomes the object of a cult which the clan
celebrates collectively: through determined rites, they attempt to
please him and to win his favours, and they address to him all sorts of
prayers, etc. So we may say that he is like a god of the clan. But this
is a very exceptional case, or even, according to Spencer and Gillen, a
unique one. Normally, the word "spirits" is the only one suitable for
designating these ancestral personages.
As to the manner in which this conception has been formed, we may say
that it is evident from what has preceded.
As we have already shown, the existence of individual souls, when once
admitted, cannot be understood unless one imagines an original supply of
fundamental souls at the origin of things, from which all the others
were derived. Now these architype souls had to be conceived as
containing within them the source of all religious efficacy; for, since
the imagination does not go beyond them, it is from them and only from
them that all sacred things are believed to come, both the instruments
of the cult, the members of the clan and the animals of the totemic
species. They incarnate all the sacredness diffused in the whole tribe
and the whole world, and so they are attributed powers noticeably
superior to those enjoyed by the simple souls of men. Moreover, time by
itself increases and reinforces the sacred character of things. A very
ancient churinga inspires much more respect than a new one, and is
supposed to have more virtues.[885] The sentiments of veneration of
which it has been the object during the series of successive generations
who have handled it are, as it were, accumulated in it. For the same
reason, the personages who for centuries have been the subject of myths
respectfully passed on from mouth to mouth, and periodically put into
action by the rites, could not fail to take a very especial place in the
popular imagination.
But how does it happen that, instead of remaining outside of the
organized society, they have become regular members of it?
This is because each individual is the double of an ancestor. Now when
two beings are related as closely as this, they are naturally conceived
as incorporated together; since they participate in the same nature, it
seems as though that which affects one ought to affect the other as
well. Thus the group of mythical ancestors became attached to the
society of the living; the same interests and the same passions were
attributed to each; they were regarded as associates. However, as the
former had a higher dignity than the latter, this association takes, in
the public mind, the form of an agreement between superiors and
inferiors, between patrons and clients, benefactors and recipients. Thus
comes this curious idea of a protecting genius who is attached to each
individual.
The question of how this ancestor came to have relations not only with
men, but also with things, may appear more embarrassing; for, at the
first glance, we do not see what connection there can be between a
personage of this sort and a rock or tree. But a fact which we owe to
Strehlow furnishes us with a solution of this problem, which is at least
probable.
These trees and rocks are not situated at any point in the tribal
territory, but, for the most part, they are grouped around the
sanctuaries, called ertnatulunga by Spencer and Gillen and arknanaua by
Strehlow, where the churinga of the clan is kept.[886] We know the
respect with which these localities are enhaloed from the mere fact that
the most precious instruments of the cult are there. Each of these
spreads sanctity all about it. It is for this reason that the
neighbouring trees and rocks appear sacred, that it is forbidden to
destroy or harm them, and that all violence used against them is a
sacrilege. This sacred character is really due to a simple phenomenon of
psychic contagiousness; but in order to explain it, the native must
admit that these different objects have relations with the different
beings in whom he sees the source of all religious power, that is to
say, with the ancestors of the Alcheringa. Hence comes the system of
myths of which we have spoken. They imagined that each ertnatulunga
marked the spot where a group of ancestors entered into the ground. The
mounds or trees which covered the ground were believed to represent
their bodies. But as the soul retains, in a general way, a sort of
affinity for the body in which it dwelt, they were naturally led to
believe that these ancestral souls continued to frequent these places
where their material envelope remained. So they were located in the
rocks, the trees or the water-holes. Thus each of them, though remaining
attached to some determined individual, became transformed into a sort
of _genius loci_ and fulfilled its functions.[887]
The conceptions thus elucidated enable us to understand a form of
totemism which we have left unexplained up to the present: this is
individual totemism.
An individual totem is defined, in its essence, by the two following
characteristics: (1) it is a being in an animal or vegetable form whose
function is to protect an individual; (2) the fate of this individual
and that of his patron are closely united: all that touches the latter
is sympathetically communicated to the former. Now the ancestral spirits
of which we have just been speaking answer to this same definition. They
also belong, at least in part, to the animal or vegetable kingdoms.
They, too, are protecting geniuses. Finally, a sympathetic bond unites
each individual to his protecting ancestor. In fact, the nanja-tree,
representing the mystical body of this ancestor, cannot be destroyed
without the man's feeling himself menaced. It is true that this belief
is losing its force to-day, but Spencer and Gillen have observed it, and
in any case, they are of the opinion that formerly it was quite
general.[888]
The identity of these two conceptions is found even in their details.
The ancestral souls reside in trees or rocks which are considered
sacred. Likewise, among the Euahlayi, the spirit of the animal serving
as individual totem is believed to inhabit a tree or stone.[889] This
tree or stone is sacred; no one may touch it except the proprietor of
the totem; when it is a stone or rock, this interdiction is still
absolute.[890] The result is that they are veritable places of refuge.
Finally, we have seen that the individual soul is only another aspect of
the ancestral spirit, according to Strehlow, this serves after a
fashion, as a second self.[891] Likewise, following an expression of
Mrs. Parker, the individual totem of the Euahlayi, called Yunbeai, is
the _alter ego_ of the individual: "The soul of a man is in his Yunbeai
and the soul of his Yunbeai is in him."[892] So at bottom, it is one
soul in two bodies. The kinship of these two notions is so close that
they are sometimes expressed by one and the same word. This is the case
in Melanesia and in Polynesia: _atai_ in the island Mota, _tamaniu_ in
the island Aurora, and _talegia_ in Motlaw all designate both the soul
of the individual and his personal totem.[893] It is the same with
_aitu_ in Samoa.[894] This is because the individual totem is merely
the outward and visible form of the ego or the personality, of which the
soul is the inward and invisible form.[895]
Thus the individual totem has all the essential characteristics of the
protecting ancestor and fills the same rôle: this is because it has the
same origin and proceeds from the same idea.
Each of them, in fact, consists in a duplication of the soul. The totem,
as the ancestor, is the soul of the individual, but externalized and
invested with powers superior to those it is believed to possess while
within the organism. Now this duplication is the result of a
psychological necessity; for it only expresses the nature of the soul
which, as we have seen, is double. In one sense, it is ours: it
expresses our personality. But at the same time, it is outside of us,
for it is only the reaching into us of a religious force which is
outside of us. We cannot confound ourselves with it completely, for we
attribute to it an excellence and a dignity by which it rises far above
us and our empirical individuality. So there is a whole part of
ourselves which we tend to project into the outside. This way of
thinking of ourselves is so well established in our nature that we
cannot escape it, even when we attempt to regard ourselves without
having recourse to any religious symbols. Our moral consciousness is
like a nucleus about which the idea of the soul forms itself; yet when
it speaks to us, it gives the effect of an outside power, superior to
us, which gives us our law and judges us, but which also aids and
sustains us. When we have it on our side, we feel ourselves to be
stronger against the trials of life, and better assured of triumphing
over them, just as the Australian who, when trusting in his ancestor or
his personal totem, feels himself more valiant against his enemies.[896]
So there is something objective at the basis of these conceptions,
whether we have in mind the Roman _genius_, the individual totem, or the
Alcheringa ancestor; and this is why they have survived, in various
forms, up to the present day. Everything goes just as if we really had
two souls; one which is within us, or rather, which is us; the other
which is above us, and whose function it is to control and assist the
first one. Frazer thought that the individual totem was an external
soul; but he believed that this exteriority was the result of an
artifice and a magic ruse. In reality, it is implied in the very
constitution of the idea of the soul.[897]
II
The spirits of which we have just been speaking are essentially
benefactors. Of course they punish a man if he does not treat them in a
fitting manner;[898] but it is not their function to work evil.
However, a spirit is in itself just as capable of doing evil as good.
This is why we find a class of evil geniuses forming itself naturally,
in opposition to these auxiliary and protecting spirits, which enables
men to explain the permanent evils that they have to suffer, their
nightmares[899] and illnesses,[900] whirlwinds and tempests,[901] etc.
Of course this is not saying that all these human miseries have appeared
as things too abnormal to be explained in any way except by supernatural
forces; but it is saying that these forces are thought of under a
religious form. As it is a religious principle which is considered the
source of life, so, all the events which disturb or destroy life ought
logically to be traced to a principle of the same sort.
These harmful spirits seem to have been conceived on the same model as
the good spirits of which we have just been speaking. They are
represented in an animal form, or one that is half-animal,
half-man;[902] but men are naturally inclined to give them enormous
dimensions and a repulsive aspect.[903] Like the souls of the ancestors,
they are believed to inhabit trees, rocks, water-holes and subterranean
caverns.[904] Taking the Arunta as a particular example, Spencer and
Gillen say expressly that these evil geniuses, known under the name of
Oruncha, are beings of the Alcheringa.[905] Many are represented as the
souls of persons who had led a terrestrial life.[906] Among the
personages of the fabulous epoch, there were, in fact, many different
temperaments: some had cruel and evil instincts which they
retained;[907] others were naturally of a bad constitution; they were
thin and emaciated; so after they had entered into the ground, the nanja
rocks to which they gave birth were considered the homes of dangerous
influences.[908]
Yet they are distinguished by special characteristics from their
confrères, the heroes of the Alcheringa. They do not reincarnate
themselves; among living men, there is no one who represents them; they
are without human posterity.[909] When, judging from certain signs, they
believe that a child is the result of their work, it is put to death as
soon as born.[910] Also, these belong to no determined totemic group;
they are outside the social organization.[911] By all these traits, they
are recognized as magic powers rather than religious ones. And in fact,
it is especially with the magician that they have relations; very
frequently it is from them that he gets his powers.[912] So we have now
arrived at the point where the world of religion stops and that of magic
commences; and as this latter is outside the field of our research, we
need not push our researches further.[913]
III
The appearance of the notion of spirits marks an important step in
advance in the individualization of religious forces.
However, the spiritual beings of whom we have been speaking up to the
present are as yet only secondary personages. They are either
evil-working geniuses who belong to magic rather than religion, or else,
being attached to determined individuals or places, they cannot make
their influence felt except within a circle of a very limited radius. So
they can only be the objects of private and local rites. But after the
idea has once been established, it naturally spreads to the higher
spheres of the religious life, and thus mythical personalities of a
superior order are born.
Though the ceremonies of the different clans differ from one another,
they all belong to the same religion, none the less; also, a certain
number of essential similarities exist between them. Since all the clans
are only parts of one and the same tribe, the unity of the tribe cannot
fail to make itself felt through this diversity of particular cults. In
fact, there is no totemic group that does not have churinga and
bull-roarers, and these are used everywhere in the same way. The
organization of the tribe into phratries, matrimonial classes and clans,
and the exogamic interdictions attached to them, are veritable tribal
institutions. The initiation celebrations all include certain
fundamental practices, the extraction of a tooth, circumcision,
subincision, etc., which do not vary with the totems within a single
tribe. The uniformity on this point is the more easily established as
the initiation always takes place in the presence of the tribe, or at
least, before an assembly to which the different clans have been
summoned. The reason for this is that the object of the initiation is to
introduce the neophyte into the religious life, not merely of the clan
into which he was born, but of the tribe as a whole; so it is necessary
that the various aspects of the tribal religion be represented before
him and take place, in a way, under his very eyes. It is on this
occasion that the moral and religious unity of the tribe is affirmed the
best.
Thus, in each society there are a certain number of rites which are
distinguished from all the others by their homogeneity and their
generality. So noticeably a harmony seemed to be explicable only by a
unity of origin. So they imagined that each group of similar rites had
been founded by one and the same ancestor, who came to reveal them to
the tribe as a whole. Thus, among the Arunta, it was an ancestor of the
Wild Cat clan, named Putiaputia,[914] who is thought to have taught men
the way of making churinga and using it ritually; among the Warramunga,
it was Murtu-murtu;[915] among the Urabunna, Witurna;[916] it was Atnatu
among the Kaitish[917] and Tendun among the Kurnai.[918] Likewise, the
practice of circumcision is attributed by the eastern Dieri and many
other tribes[919] to two special Muramura, and by the Arunta to a hero
of the Alcheringa, of the Lizard totem, named Mangarkunjerkunja.[920] To
this same personage are ascribed the foundation of the matrimonial
institutions and the social organization they imply, the discovery of
fire, the invention of the spear, the buckler, the boomerang, etc. It
also happens very frequently that the inventor of the bull-roarer is
also considered the founder of the rites of initiation.[921]
These special ancestors cannot be put in the same rank as the others. On
the one hand, the sentiments of veneration which they inspire are not
limited to one clan, but are common to the whole tribe. On the other
hand, it is to them that men ascribe all that is most esteemed in the
tribal civilization. For this double reason, they became the object of a
special consideration. For example, they say of Atnatu that he was born
in heaven at an epoch even prior to the times of the Alcheringa, that he
made himself and that he gave himself the name he bears. The stars are
his wives and daughters. Beyond the heaven where he lives, there is
another one with another sun. His name is sacred, and should never be
pronounced before women or non-initiated persons.[922]
Yet, howsoever great the prestige enjoyed by these personages may be,
there was no occasion for founding special rites in their honour; for
they themselves are only rites personified. They have no other reason
for existence than to explain existing practices; they are only another
aspect of these. The churinga and the ancestor who invented it are only
one; sometimes, both have the same name.[923] When someone makes the
bull-roarer resound, they say that it is the voice of the ancestor
making himself heard.[924] But, for the very reason that each of these
heroes is confounded with the cult he is believed to have founded, they
believe that he is attentive to the way in which it is celebrated. He is
not satisfied unless the worshippers fulfil their duties exactly; he
punishes those who are negligent.[925] So he is thought of as the
guardian of the rite, as well as its founder, and for this reason, he
becomes invested with a veritable moral rôle.[926]
IV
However, this mythological formation is not the highest which is to be
found among the Australians. There are at least a certain number of
tribes who have arrived at a conception of a god who, if not unique, is
at least supreme, and to whom is attributed a pre-eminent position among
all the other religious entities.
The existence of this belief was pointed out long ago by different
observers;[927] but it is Howitt who has contributed the most to
establishing its relative generality. In fact, he has verified it over a
very extended geographical area embracing the State of Victoria and New
South Wales and even extending up to Queensland.[928] In all this entire
region, a considerable number of tribes believe in the existence of a
veritable tribal divinity, who has different names, according to the
district. The ones most frequently employed are Bunjil or Punjil,[929]
Daramulun[930] and Baiame.[931] But we also find Nuralie or
Nurelle,[932] Kohin[933] and Mangan-ngaua.[934] The same conception is
found again farther west, among the Narrinyeri, where the great god is
called Nurunderi or Ngurrunderi.[935] Among the Dieri, it is probable
that there is one of the Mura-mura, or ordinary ancestors, who enjoys a
sort of supremacy over the others.[936] Finally, in opposition to the
affirmations of Spencer and Gillen, who declare that they have observed
no belief in a real divinity among the Arunta,[937] Strehlow assures us
that this people, as well as the Loritja, recognize, under the name
Altjira, a veritable "good god."[938]
The essential characteristics of this personage are the same everywhere.
It is an immortal, and even an eternal being, for it was not derived
from any other. After having lived on earth for a certain length of
time, he ascended to heaven, or else was taken up there,[939] and
continues to live there, surrounded by his family, for generally he is
said to have one or several wives, children and brothers,[940] who
sometimes assist him in his functions. Under the pretext of a visit he
is said to have made to them, he and his family are frequently
identified with certain stars.[941] Moreover, they attribute to him a
power over stars. It is he who regulates the journey of the sun and
moon;[942] he gives them orders.[943] It is he who makes the lightning
leap from the clouds and who throws the thunder-bolts.[944] Since he is
the thunder, he is also connected with the rain:[945] it is to him that
men address themselves when there is a scarcity of water, or when too
much falls.[946]
They speak of him as a sort of creator: he is called the father of men
and they say that he made them. According to a legend current around
Melbourne, Bunjil made the first man in the following manner. He made a
little statue out of white clay; then, after he had danced all around it
several times and had breathed into its nostrils, the statue became
animated and commenced to walk about.[947] According to another myth, he
lighted the sun; thus the earth became heated and men came out of
it.[948] At the same time that he made men,[949] this divine personage
made the animals and trees;[950] it is to him that men owe all the arts
of life, arms, language and tribal rites.[951] He is the benefactor of
humanity. Even yet, he plays the rôle of a sort of providence for them.
It is he who supplies his worshippers with all that is necessary for
their existence.[952] He is in communication with them, either directly
or through intermediaries.[953] But being at the same time guardian of
the morals of the tribe, he treats them severely when these are
violated.[954] If we are to believe certain observers, he will even
fulfil the office of judge, after this life; he will separate the good
from the bad, and will not reward the ones like the others.[955] In any
case, they are often represented as ruling the land of the dead,[956]
and as gathering the souls together when they arrive in the
beyond.[957]
As the initiation is the principal form of the tribal cult, it is to the
rites of initiation that he is attached especially; he is their centre.
He is very frequently represented by an image cut on a piece of bark or
soaked into the ground. They dance around it; they sing in its honour;
they even address real prayers to it.[958] They explain to the young men
who the personage is whom this image represents; they tell them his
secret name, which the women and the uninitiated cannot know; they
relate to them his history and the part attributed to him in the life of
the tribe. At other times they raise their hands towards the heaven
where he is thought to dwell, or else they point their arms or the
ritual instruments they have in hand in this direction;[959] this is a
way of entering into communication with him. They feel his presence
everywhere. He watches over the neophyte when he has withdrawn into the
forest.[960] He is attentive to the manner in which the ceremonies are
celebrated. The initiation is his cult. So he gives special attention to
seeing that these are carried out exactly: if there are any faults or
negligences, he punishes them in a terrible manner.[961]
Moreover, the authority of each of these supreme gods is not limited to
a single tribe; it is recognized equally by a number of neighbouring
tribes. Bunjil is adored in nearly all of Victoria, Baiame in a
considerable portion of New South Wales, etc.; this is why there are so
few gods for a relatively extended geographical area. So the cults of
which they are the object have an international character. It even
happens sometimes that mythologies intermingle, combine and make mutual
borrowings. Thus the majority of the tribes who believe in Baiame also
admit the existence of Daramulun; however, they accord him a slighter
dignity. They make him a son or brother of Baiame, and subordinate to
this latter.[962] Thus the faith in Daramulun has spread in diverse
forms, into all of New South Wales. So it is far from true that
religious internationalism is a peculiarity of the most recent and
advanced religions. From the dawn of history, religious beliefs have
manifested a tendency to overflow out of one strictly limited political
society; it is as though they had a natural aptitude for crossing
frontiers, and for diffusing and internationalizing themselves. Of
course there have been peoples and times when this spontaneous aptitude
has been held in check by opposed social necessities; but that does not
keep it from being real and, as we see, very primitive.
To Tylor this conception has appeared to be a part of so elevated a
theology that he refuses to see in it anything but the product of a
European importation: he would have it be a more or less denatured
Christian idea.[963] Andrew Lang, on the contrary, considers them
autochthonous;[964] but as he also admits that it is contrasted with all
the other Australian beliefs and rests on completely different
principles, he concludes that the religions of Australia are made up of
two heterogeneous systems, superimposed one upon the other, and
consequently derived from a double origin. On the one hand, there were
ideas relative to totems and spirits, which had been suggested to men by
the sight of certain natural phenomena. But at the same time, by a sort
of intuition as to the nature of which he refuses to make himself
clear,[965] the human intelligence succeeded at the first onset in
conceiving a unique god, creator of the world and legislator of the
moral order. Lang even estimates that this idea was purer of foreign
elements at the beginning, and especially in Australia, than in the
civilizations which immediately followed. With time, it was covered over
and obscured little by little by the ever-growing mass of animistic and
totemic superstitions. Thus it underwent a sort of progressive
degeneration up to the day when, as the effect of a privileged culture,
it succeeded in coming into its own and restated itself again with more
force and clarity than it had in the first place.[966]
But the facts allow neither the sceptical hypothesis of Tylor nor the
theological interpretation of Lang.
In the first place, it is certain to-day that the ideas relative to the
great tribal god are of indigenous origin. They were observed before
the influence of the missionaries had as yet had time to make itself
felt.[967] But it does not follow that it is necessary to attribute them
to a mysterious revelation. Far from being derived from a different
source than the regular totemic beliefs, they are, on the contrary, only
the logical working-out of these beliefs and their highest form.
We have already seen how the notion of mythical ancestors is implied in
the very principles upon which totemism rests, for each of them is a
totemic being. Now, though the great gods are certainly superior to
these, still, there are only differences of degree between them; we pass
from the first to the second with no break of continuity. In fact, a
great god is himself an ancestor of especial importance. They frequently
speak to us about him as though he were a man, endowed, to be sure, with
more than human powers, but one who lived a human life upon the
earth.[968] He is pictured as a great hunter,[969] a powerful
magician,[970] or the founder of the tribe.[971] He was the first
man.[972] One legend even represents him in the form of a worn-out old
man who could hardly move about.[973] If a supreme god named Mura-mura
has existed among the Dieri, the very word is significant, for it serves
to designate the class of the ancestors. Likewise, Nuralie, the name of
a great god among the tribes on the Murray River, is sometimes used as a
collective expression which is applied to the group of mythical beings
whom tradition places at the origin of things.[974] They are personages
wholly comparable to those of the Alcheringa.[975] In Queensland, we
have already met with a god Anjea or Anjir, who made men but who seems,
nevertheless, to be only the first man.[976]
A fact that has aided Australian thought to pass from the numerous
ancestral geniuses to the idea of the tribal god is that between the two
extremes a middle term has been inserted, which has served as a
transition: these are the civilizing heroes. The fabulous beings whom we
call by this name are really simple ancestors to whom mythology has
attributed an eminent place in the history of the tribe, and whom it
has, for this reason, set above the others. We have even seen that they
ordinarily form a part of the totemic organization: Mangarkunjerkunja
belongs to the Lizard totem and Putiaputia to the Wild Cat totem. But on
the other hand, the functions which they are believed to fulfil, or to
have fulfilled, are closely similar to those incumbent upon a great god.
He, too, is believed to have introduced the arts of civilization among
men, to have been the founder of the principal social institutions and
the revealer of the great religious ceremonies which still remain under
his control. If he is the father of men, it is because he manufactured
them rather than begat them: but Mangarkunjerkunja also made them.
Before his time, there were no men, but only unformed masses of flesh,
in which the different members and even the different individuals were
not yet separated from one another. It was he who cut up this original
matter and made real human beings out of it.[977] Between this mode of
fabrication and the one the myth we have spoken of attributes to Bunjil,
there are only shades of difference. Moreover, the bonds uniting these
two sorts of figures to each other are well shown by the fact that a
relationship of descent is sometimes established between them. Among the
Kurnai, the hero of the bull-roarer, Tundun, is the son of the great god
Mungan-ngaua.[978] Likewise, among the Euahlayi, Daramulun, the son or
brother of Baiame, is identical with Gayandi who is the equivalent of
the Tundun of the Kurnai.[979] Of course it is not necessary to conclude
from these facts that the great god is nothing more than a civilizing
hero. There are cases where these two personages are carefully
differentiated. But if they are not confounded, they are at least
relatives. So it sometimes happens that we find it hard to distinguish
them; there are some who could be classified equally well in one
category or the other. Thus, we have spoken of Atnatu as a civilizing
hero; but he comes very near to being a great god.
The notion of a supreme god even depends so closely upon the entire
system of the totemic beliefs that it still bears their mark. Tundun is
a divine hero, as we have just seen, who is very close to the tribal
divinity; now among the Kurnai, the same word means totem.[980]
Similarly, among the Arunta, Altjira is the name of a great god; it is
also the name of the maternal totem.[981] But there is more to be said
than this; many great gods have an obviously totemic aspect. Daramulun
is an eagle-hawk;[982] his mother, an emu.[983] It is also under the
features of an emu that Baiame is represented.[984] The Altjira of the
Arunta has the legs of an emu.[985] Before being the name of a great
god, Nuralie designated, as we just saw, the ancestor-founders of the
tribe; now some of these were crows, the others hawks.[986] According to
Howitt,[987] Bunjil is always represented in a human form; however, the
same word serves to designate the totem of a phratry, the eagle-hawk. At
least one of his sons is among the totems included in the phratry to
which he has given, or from which he has taken his name.[988] His
brother is Pallyan, the bat; now this latter serves as sexual totem for
the men in many tribes in Victoria.[989]
We can even go farther and state more definitely the connection which
these great gods have with the totemic system. We have just seen that
Bunjil is the totem of a phratry. Daramulun, like Bunjil, is an
eagle-hawk, and we know that this bird is the totem of phratries in a
large number of south-eastern tribes.[990] We have already pointed out
that Nuralie seems to have originally been a collective term designating
indistinctly either eagle-hawks or crows; now in the tribes where this
myth has been observed, the crow is the totem of one of the two
phratries, the eagle-hawk, that of the other.[991] Also, the legendary
history of the great gods resembles that of the totems of the phratries
very closely. The myths, and sometimes the rites, commemorate the
struggles which each of these divinities fought against a carnivorous
bird, over which it triumphed only with the greatest difficulty. Bunjil,
the first man, after making the second man, Karween, entered into a
conflict with him, and in the course of a sort of duel, he wounded him
severely and changed him into a crow.[992] The two species of Nurtalie
are represented as two hostile groups which were originally in a
constant state of war.[993] Baiame, on his side, had to fight against
Mullian, the cannibal eagle-hawk, who, by the way, is identical with
Daramulun.[994] Now, as we have seen, there is also a sort of
constitutional hostility between the totems of the phratries. This
parallelism completes the proof that the mythology of the great gods and
that of these totems are closely related. This relationship will appear
still more evident if we notice that the rival of the god is regularly
either a crow or an eagle-hawk, and that these are quite generally the
totems of the phratries.[995]
So Baiame, Daramulun, Nuralie and Bunjil seem to be phratry-totems who
have been deified; and we may imagine that this apotheosis took place as
follows. It is obviously in the assemblies which take place in regard to
the initiation that the conception was elaborated, for the great gods do
not play a rôle of any importance except in these rites, and are
strangers to the other religious ceremonies. Moreover, as the initiation
is the principal form of the tribal cult, it is only on this occasion
that a tribal mythology could arise. We have already seen how the
rituals of circumcision and subincision spontaneously tend to personify
themselves under the form of civilizing heroes. However, these heroes
exercised no supremacy; they were on the same footing as the other
legendary benefactors of society. But wherever the tribe acquired a
livelier sentiment of itself, this sentiment naturally incarnated itself
in some personage, who became its symbol. In order to account for the
bonds uniting them to one another, no matter what clan they belonged to,
men imagined that they were all descended from the same stock and that
they were all descended from a single father, to whom they owe their
existence, though he owed his to no one. The god of the initiation was
predestined to this rôle, for, according to an expression frequently
coming to the lips of the natives, the object of the initiation is to
make or manufacture men. So they attributed a creative power to this
god, and for all these reasons, he found himself invested with a
prestige setting him well above the other heroes of the mythology. These
others became his auxiliaries, subordinate to him; they were made his
sons or younger brothers, as was the case with Tundun, Gayandi,
Karween, Pallyan, etc. But other sacred beings already existed, who
occupied an equally eminent place in the religious system of the clan:
these were the totems of the phratries. Wherever these are maintained,
they are believed to keep the totems of the clans dependent upon them.
Thus they had all that was necessary for becoming tribal divinities
themselves. So it was only natural that a partial confusion should arise
between these two sorts of mythical beings; it is thus that one of the
two fundamental totems of the tribe gave his traits to the great god.
But as it was necessary to explain why only one of them was called to
this dignity and the other excluded, they supposed that this latter, in
the course of a fight against his rival, was vanquished and that his
exclusion was the consequence of his defeat. This theory was the more
readily admitted because it was in accord with the rest of the
mythology, where the totems of the phratries are generally considered
enemies of one another.
A myth observed by Mrs. Parker among the Euahlayi[996] may serve to
confirm this explanation, for it merely translates it into figurative
language. It is related that in this tribe, the totems were only the
names given to the different parts of Baiame's body at first. So the
clans were, in a sense, the fragments of the divine body. Now is this
not just another way of saying that the great god is the synthesis of
all the totems and consequently the personification of the tribal unity?
But at the same time, it takes an international character. In fact, the
members of the tribe to which the young initiates belong are not the
only ones who assist at the ceremonies of initiation; representatives
from the neighbouring tribes are specially summoned to these
celebrations, which thus become sorts of international fairs, at once
religious and laical.[997] Beliefs elaborated in social environments
thus constituted could not remain the exclusive patrimony of any special
nationality. The stranger to whom they are revealed carries them back to
his own tribe when he returns home; and as, sooner or later, he is
forced to invite his former hosts, there is a continual exchange of
ideas from tribe to tribe. It is thus that an international mythology
was established, of which the great god was quite naturally the
essential element, for it had its origin in the rites of initiation
which it is his function to personify. So his name passed from one
language to another, along with the representations which were attached
to it. The fact that the names of the phratries are generally the same
in very different tribes could not fail to facilitate this diffusion.
The internationalism of the totems opened the way for that of the great
god.
V
We thus reach the highest conception to which totemism has arrived. This
is the point where it touches and prepares the religions which are to
follow, and aids us in understanding them. But at the same time, we are
able to see that this culminating idea is united without any
interruption to the crudest beliefs which we analysed to start with.
In fact, the great tribal god is only an ancestral spirit who finally
won a pre-eminent place. The ancestral spirits are only entities forged
in the image of the individual souls whose origin they are destined to
explain. The souls, in their turn, are only the form taken by the
impersonal forces which we found at the basis of totemism, as they
individualize themselves in the human body. The unity of the system is
as great as its complexity.
In this work of elaboration, the idea of the soul has undoubtedly played
an important part: it is through it that the idea of personality has
been introduced into the domain of religion. But it is not true that, as
the theorists of animism maintain, it contains the germ of the whole
religion. First of all, it presupposes the notion of _mana_ or the
totemic principle of which it is only a special form. Then, if the
spirits and gods could not be conceived before the soul, they are,
nevertheless, more than mere human souls, liberated by death; else
whence would come their supernatural powers? The idea of the soul has
merely served to direct the mythological imagination in a new way and to
suggest to it constructions of a new sort. But the matter for these
conceptions has been taken, not from the representation of the soul, but
from this reservoir of the anonymous and diffused forces which
constitute the original foundation of religions. The creation of
mythical personalities has only been another way of thinking of these
essential forces.
As for the notion of the great god, it is due entirely to the sentiment
whose action we have already observed in the genesis of the most
specifically totemic beliefs: this is the tribal sentiment. In fact, we
have seen that totemism was not the work of isolated clans, but that it
was always elaborated in the body of a tribe which was to some degree
conscious of its unity. It is for this reason that the different cults
peculiar to each clan mutually touch and complete each other in such a
way as to form a unified whole.[998] Now it is this same sentiment of a
tribal unity which is expressed in the conception of a supreme god,
common to the tribe as a whole. So they are quite the same causes which
are active at the bottom and at the top of this religious system.
However, up to the present, we have considered the religious
representations as if they were self-sufficient and could be explained
by themselves. But in reality, they are inseparable from the rites, not
only because they manifest themselves there, but also because they, in
their turn, feel the influence of these. Of course the cult depends upon
the beliefs, but it also reacts upon them. So in order to understand
them better, it is important to understand it better. The moment has
come for undertaking its study.
BOOK III
THE PRINCIPAL RITUAL ATTITUDES
CHAPTER I
THE NEGATIVE CULT AND ITS FUNCTIONS THE ASCETIC RITES
We do not have the intention of attempting a complete description of the
primitive cult in what is to follow. Being preoccupied especially with
reaching that which is most elementary and most fundamental in the
religious life, we shall not attempt to reconstruct in detail the
frequently confused multiplicity of all the ritual forms. But out of the
midst of this extreme diversity of practices we should like to touch
upon the most characteristic attitudes which the primitive observes in
the celebration of his cult, to classify the most general forms of his
rites, and to determine their origins and significance, in order that we
may control and, if there is occasion, make more definite the results to
which the analysis of the beliefs has led us.[999]
Every cult presents a double aspect, one negative, the other positive.
In reality, of course, the two sorts of rites which we denominate thus
are closely associated; we shall see that they suppose one another. But
still, they are different and, if it is only to understand their
connection, it is necessary to distinguish them.
I
By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which
characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them
and the profane beings. Normally, the first are outside the others. A
whole group of rites has the object of realizing this state of
separation which is essential. Since their function is to prevent undue
mixings and to keep one of these two domains from encroaching upon the
other, they are only able to impose abstentions or negative acts.
Therefore, we propose to give the name negative cult to the system
formed by these special rites. They do not prescribe certain acts to the
faithful, but confine themselves to forbidding certain ways of acting;
so they all take the form of interdictions, or as is commonly said by
ethnographers, of _taboos_. This latter word is the one used in the
Polynesian languages to designate the institution in virtue of which
certain things are withdrawn from common use[1000]; it is also an
adjective expressing the distinctive characteristic of these kinds of
things. We have already had occasion to show how hard it is to translate
a strictly local and dialectical expression like this into a generic
term. There is no religion where there are no interdictions and where
they do not play a considerable part; so it is regrettable that the
consecrated terminology should seem to make so universal an institution
into a peculiarity of Polynesia.[1001] The expression _interdicts_ or
_interdictions_ seems to us to be much more preferable. However, the
word taboo, like the word totem, is so customary that it would show an
excess of purism to prohibit it systematically; also, the inconveniences
it may have are attenuated when its real meaning and importance have
once been definitely stated.
But there are interdictions of different sorts which it is important to
distinguish; for we shall not have to treat all kinds of interdictions
in this chapter.
First of all, beside those coming from religion, there are others which
are due to magic. The two have this in common, that they declare certain
things incompatible, and prescribe the separation of the things whose
incompatibility is thus proclaimed. But there are also very grave
differences between them. In the first place, the sanctions are not the
same in the two cases. Of course the violation of the religious
interdicts is frequently believed, as we shall presently see, to bring
about material disorders mechanically, from which the guilty man will
suffer, and which are regarded as a judgment on his act. But even if
these really come about this spontaneous and automatic judgment is not
the only one; it is always completed by another one, supposing human
intervention. A real punishment is added to this, if it does not
anticipate it, and this one is deliberately inflicted by men; or at
least there is a blame and public reprobation. Even when the sacrilege
has been punished, as it were, by the sickness or natural death of its
author, it is also defamed; it offends opinion, which reacts against it;
it puts the man who did it in fault. On the contrary, the magic
interdiction is judged only by the material consequences which the
forbidden act is believed to produce, with a sort of physical
necessity. In disobeying, a man runs risks similar to those to which an
invalid exposes himself in not following the advice of his physician;
but in this case disobedience is not a fault; it creates no indignation.
There is no sin in magic. Moreover, this difference in sanction is due
to a profound difference in the nature of the interdictions. The
religious interdiction necessarily implies the notion of sacredness; it
comes from the respect inspired by the sacred object, and its purpose is
to keep this respect from failing. On the other hand, the interdictions
of magic suppose only a wholly lay notion of property. The things which
the magician recommends to be kept separate are those which, by reason
of their characteristic properties, cannot be brought together and
confused without danger. Even if he happens to ask his clients to keep
at a distance from certain sacred things, it is not through respect for
them and fear that they may be profaned, for, as we know, magic lives on
profanations;[1002] it is merely for reasons of temporal utility. In a
word, religious interdictions are categorical imperatives; others are
useful maxims, the first form of hygienic and medical interdictions. We
cannot study two orders of facts as different as these simultaneously,
or even under the same name, without confusion. We are only concerned
with the religious interdictions here.[1003]
But a new distinction is necessary between these latter.
There are religious interdictions whose object is to separate two sacred
things of different species from each other. For example, it will be
remembered that among the Wakelbura the scaffold upon which the corpse
is exposed must be made exclusively of materials belonging to the
phratry of the dead man; this is as much as to say that all contact
between the corpse, which is sacred, and the things of the other
phratry, which are also sacred, but differently, is forbidden.
Elsewhere, the arms which one uses to hunt an animal with cannot be made
out of a kind of wood that is classed in the same social group as the
animal itself.[1004] But the most important of these interdictions are
the ones which we shall study in the next chapter; they are intended to
prevent all communication between the purely sacred and the impurely
sacred, between the sacredly auspicious and the sacredly inauspicious.
All these interdictions have one common characteristic; they come, not
from the fact that some things are sacred while others are not, but from
the fact that there are inequalities and incompatibilities between
sacred things. So they do not touch what is essential in the idea of
sacredness. The observance of these prohibitions can give place only to
isolated rites which are particular and almost exceptional; but it could
not make a real cult, for before all, a cult is made by regular
relations between the profane and the sacred as such.
But there is another system of religious interdictions which is much
more extended and important; this is the one which separates, not
different species of sacred things, but all that is sacred from all that
is profane. So it is derived immediately from the notion of sacredness
itself, and it limits itself to expressing and realizing this. Thus it
furnishes the material for a veritable cult, and even of a cult which is
at the basis of all the others; for the attitude which it prescribes is
one from which the worshipper must never depart in all his relations
with the sacred. It is what we call the negative cult. We may say that
its interdicts are the religious interdicts _par excellence_.[1005] It
is only these that we shall discuss in the following pages.
But they take multiple forms. Here are the principal ones which we
observe in Australia.
Before all are the interdictions of contact; these are the original
taboos, of which the others are scarcely more than particular varieties.
They rest upon the principle that the profane should never touch the
sacred. We have seen already that the uninitiated may not touch the
churinga or the bull-roarers under any circumstances. If adults are
allowed the free use of them, it is because initiation has conferred a
sacred character upon them. Blood, and especially that which flows
during the initiation, has a religious virtue;[1006] it is under the
same interdict.[1007] It is the same with the hair.[1008] A dead man is
sacred because the soul which animated the body stays with the corpse;
for this reason it is sometimes forbidden to carry the bones of a dead
man about unless they are wrapped up in a piece of bark.[1009] Even the
place where the death took place should be avoided, for they believe
that the soul of the dead man continues to haunt the spot. That is why
they break camp and move some distance away;[1010] in certain cases they
destroy it along with everything it contains,[1011] and a certain time
must elapse before they can come back to the same place.[1012] Thus it
comes about that a dying man creates an empty space about him; they
abandon him after they have installed him as comfortably as
possible.[1013]
An exceptionally intimate contact is the one resulting from the
absorption of food. Hence comes the interdiction against eating the
sacred animals or vegetables, and especially those serving as
totems.[1014] Such an act appears so very sacrilegious that the
prohibition covers even adults, or at least, the majority of them; only
the old men attain a sufficient religious dignity to escape this
interdict sometimes. This prohibition has sometimes been explained by
the mythical kinship uniting the man to the animals whose name he bears;
they are protected by the sentiment of sympathy which they inspire by
their position as kin.[1015] But the fact that the consumption of the
forbidden flesh is believed to cause sickness or death automatically
shows that this interdiction does not have its origin in the simple
revolt of the feeling of domestic relationship. Forces of another sort
are in action which are analogous to those in all religions and which
are believed to react against sacrileges.
Moreover, if certain foods are forbidden to the profane because they are
sacred, certain others, on the contrary, are forbidden to persons of a
sacred character, because they are profane. Thus it frequently happens
that certain animals are specially designated as the food of women; for
this reason, they believe that they partake of a feminine nature and
that they are consequently profane. On the other hand, the young
initiate is submitted to a series of rites of particular severity; to
give him the virtues which will enable him to enter into the world of
sacred things, from which he had up till then been excluded, they centre
an exceptionally powerful group of religious forces upon him. Thus he
enters into a state of sanctity which keeps all that is profane at a
distance. Then he is not allowed to eat the game which is regarded as
the special food of women.[1016]
But contact may be established by other means than the touch. One comes
into relations with a thing by merely regarding it: a look is a means of
contact. This is why the sight of sacred things is forbidden to the
profane in certain cases. A woman should never see the instruments of
the cult; the most that is permitted her is to catch a glimpse of them
from afar.[1017] It is the same with the totemic paintings executed on
the bodies of the officiants in the exceptionally important
ceremonies.[1018] The exceptional solemnity of the rites of initiation
prevents the women in certain tribes from seeing the place where they
were celebrated[1019] or even the neophyte himself.[1020] The sacred
character which is imminent in the ceremony as a whole is naturally
found in the persons of those who directed it or took some part in
it; the result of this is that the novice may not raise his eyes
to them, and this interdiction continues even after the rite is
accomplished.[1021] A dead man is also removed from view sometimes: his
face is covered over in such a way that it cannot be seen.[1022]
The word is another way of entering into relations with persons or
things. The breath expired establishes a communication; this is a part
of us which spreads outwards. Thus it is forbidden to the profane to
address the sacred beings or simply to speak in their presence. Just as
the neophyte must not regard either the operators or the assistants, so
it is forbidden to him to converse with them except by signs; and this
interdiction keeps the place to which it has been raised, by means of a
special rite.[1023]
In a general way, there are, among the Arunta, moments in the course of
the great ceremonies when silence is obligatory.[1024] As soon as the
churinga are exposed, every one keeps still, or if someone talks, he
does so in a low voice or with his lips only.[1025]
Besides the sacred things, there are words and sounds which have the
same character; they should not pass the lips of the profane or enter
their ears. There are ritual songs which women must not hear under pain
of death.[1026] They may hear the noise of the bull-roarers, but only
from a distance. Every proper name is considered an essential element of
the person who bears it; being closely associated in the mind to the
idea of this person, it participates in the sentiments which this latter
inspires. So if the one is sacred, the other is. Therefore, it may not
be pronounced in the course of the profane life. Among the Warramunga
there is one totem which is particularly venerated, this is the snake
called Wollunqua; its name is taboo.[1027] It is the same with Baiame,
Daramulun and Bunjil; the esoteric form of their name must not be
revealed to the uninitiate.[1028] During mourning, the name of the dead
man must not be mentioned, at least by his parents, except when there is
an absolute necessity, and even in this case it must be whispered.[1029]
This interdiction is frequently perpetual for the widow and certain
relatives.[1030] Among certain peoples, this even extends beyond the
family; all the individuals whose name is the same as that of the dead
man must change theirs temporarily.[1031] But there is more than this:
the relatives and intimate friends sometimes abstain from certain words
in the usual language, undoubtedly because they were employed by the
dead man; these gaps are filled in by means of periphrases or words
taken from some foreign dialects.[1032] In addition to their public and
everyday names all men have another which is kept a secret: the women
and children do not know it; it is never used in the ordinary life. This
is because it has a religious character.[1033] There are even ceremonies
during which it is necessary to speak a special language which must not
be used for profane purposes. It is the beginning of a sacred
language.[1034]
Not only are the sacred beings separated from the profane, but also
nothing which either directly or indirectly concerns the profane life
should be confused with the religious life. Complete nudity is
frequently demanded of the native as a prerequisite to being admitted to
participation in the rites;[1035] he is required to strip himself of all
his habitual ornaments, even those to which he is the most attached, and
from which he separates himself the least willingly because of the
protecting virtues he attributes to them.[1036] If he is obliged to
decorate himself to play his part in the ritual, this decoration has to
be made specially for the occasion; it is a ceremonial costume, a gala
dress.[1037] As these ornaments are sacred, owing to the use made of
them, he is forbidden to use them in profane affairs; when the ceremony
is finished, they are buried or burnt;[1038] the men must even wash
themselves in such a way as to carry away with them no trace of the
decorations with which they were adorned.[1039]
In general, all acts characteristic of the ordinary life are forbidden
while those of the religious life are taking place. The act of eating
is, of itself, profane; for it takes place every day, it satisfies
essentially utilitarian and material needs and it is a part of our
ordinary existence.[1040] This is why it is prohibited in religious
times. When one totemic group has loaned its churinga to a foreign clan,
it is an exceptionally solemn moment when they are brought back and put
into the ertnatulunga; all those who take part in the ceremony must fast
as long as it lasts, and it lasts a long time.[1041] The same rule is
observed during the rites,[1042] of which we shall speak in the next
chapter, as well as at certain moments of the initiation.[1043]
For this same reason, all temporal occupations are suspended while the
great religious solemnities are taking place. According to a remark of
Spencer and Gillen,[1044] which we have already had occasion to cite,
the life of the Australian is divided into two very distinct parts: the
one is devoted to hunting, fishing and warfare; the other is consecrated
to the cult, and these two forms of activity mutually exclude and repel
one another. It is on this principle that the universal institution of
religious days of rest reposes. The distinctive character of the
feast-days in all known religions is the cessation of work and the
suspension of public and private life, in so far as it does not have a
religious objective. This repose is not merely a sort of temporary
relaxation which men have given themselves in order to give themselves
up more freely to the sentiments of joy ordinarily awakened by the
feast-days; for they are sad feasts, consecrated to mourning and
repentance, and during which this cessation is no less obligatory. This
is because work is an eminent form of profane activity: it has no other
apparent end than to provide for the temporal necessities of life; it
puts us in relations with ordinary things only. On feast days, on the
contrary, the religious life attains an exceptional degree of intensity.
So the contrast between the two forms of existence is especially marked
at this moment; consequently, they cannot remain near to each other. A
man cannot approach his god intimately while he still bears on him marks
of his profane life; inversely, he cannot return to his usual
occupations when a rite has just sanctified him. So the ritual day of
rest is only one particular case of the general incompatibility
separating the sacred from the profane; it is the result of an
interdiction.
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the different interdictions
which have been observed, even in the Australian religions alone. Like
the notion of sacredness upon which it rests, the system of interdicts
extends into the most diverse relations; it is even used deliberately
for utilitarian ends.[1045] But howsoever complex it may be, it finally
rests upon two fundamental interdictions, which summarize it and
dominate it.
In the first place, the religious life and the profane life cannot
coexist in the same place. If the former is to develop, a special spot
must be placed at its disposition, from which the second is excluded.
Hence comes the founding of temples and sanctuaries: these are the spots
awarded to sacred beings and things and serve them as residences, for
they cannot establish themselves in any place except on the condition of
entirely appropriating to themselves all within a certain distance. Such
arrangements are so indispensable to all religious life that even the
most inferior religions cannot do without them. The ertnatulunga, the
spot where the churinga are deposited, is a veritable sanctuary. So the
uninitiated are not allowed to approach it. It is even forbidden to
carry on any profane occupation whatsoever there. As we shall presently
see, there are other holy places where important ceremonies are
celebrated.[1046]
Likewise, the religious life and the profane life cannot coexist in the
same unit of time. It is necessary to assign determined days or periods
to the first, from which all profane occupations are excluded. Thus
feast days are born. There is no religion, and, consequently, no society
which has not known and practised this division of time into two
distinct parts, alternating with one another according to a law varying
with the peoples and the civilizations; as we have already pointed out,
it was probably the necessity of this alternation which led men to
introduce into the continuity and homogeneity of duration, certain
distinctions and differentiations which it does not naturally
have.[1047] Of course, it is almost impossible that the religious life
should ever succeed in concentrating itself hermetically in the places
and times which are thus attributed to it; it is inevitable that a
little of it should filter out. There are always some sacred things
outside the sanctuaries; there are some rites that can be celebrated on
work-days. But these are sacred things of the second rank and rites of a
lesser importance. Concentration remains the dominating characteristic
of this organization. Generally this concentration is complete for all
that concerns the public cult, which cannot be celebrated except in
common. The individual, private cult is the only one which comes very
near to the temporal life. Thus the contrast between these two
successive phases of human life attains its maximum of intensity in the
inferior societies; for it is there that the individual cult is the most
rudimentary.[1048]
II
Up to the present, the negative cult has been presented to us only as a
system of abstentions. So it seems to serve only to inhibit activity,
and not to stimulate it or to modify it. And yet, as an unexpected
reaction to this inhibitive effect, it is found to exercise a positive
action of the highest importance over the religious and moral nature of
the individual.
In fact, owing to the barrier which separates the sacred from the
profane, a man cannot enter into intimate relations with sacred things
except after ridding himself of all that is profane in him. He cannot
lead a religious life of even a slight intensity unless he commences by
withdrawing more or less completely from the temporal life. So the
negative cult is in one sense a means in view of an end: it is a
condition of access to the positive cult. It does not confine itself to
protecting sacred beings from vulgar contact; it acts upon the
worshipper himself and modifies his condition positively. The man who
has submitted himself to its prescribed interdictions is not the same
afterwards as he was before. Before, he was an ordinary being who, for
this reason, had to keep at a distance from the religious forces.
Afterwards, he is on a more equal footing with them; he has approached
the sacred by the very act of leaving the profane; he has purified and
sanctified himself by the very act of detaching himself from the base
and trivial matters that debased his nature. So the negative rites
confer efficient powers just as well as the positive ones; the first,
like the second, can serve to elevate the religious tone of the
individual. According to a very true remark which has been made, no one
can engage in a religious ceremony of any importance without first
submitting himself to a sort of preliminary initiation which introduces
him progressively into the sacred world.[1049] Unctions, lustrations,
benedictions or any essentially positive operation may be used for this
purpose; but the same result may be attained by means of fasts and
vigils or retreat and silence, that is to say, by ritual abstinences,
which are nothing more than certain interdictions put into practice.
When there are only particular and isolated negative rites, their
positive action is generally too slight to be easily perceptible. But
there are circumstances when a whole system of interdictions is
concentrated on one man; in these cases, their effects accumulate, and
thus become more manifest. This takes place in Australia at the time of
the initiation. The neophyte is submitted to a great variety of
negative rites. He must withdraw from the society in which his existence
has been passed up till then, and from almost all human society. Not
only is it forbidden for him to see women and uninitiated persons,[1050]
but he also goes to live in the brush, far from his fellows, under the
direction of some old men who serve him as godfathers.[1051] So very
true is it that the forest is considered his natural environment, that
in a certain number of tribes, the word with which the initiation is
designated signifies _that which is from the forest_.[1052] For this
same reason, he is frequently decorated with leaves during the
ceremonies at which he assists.[1053] In this way he passes long
months,[1054] interspersed from time to time with rites in which he must
take a part. This time is a period of all sorts of abstinences for him.
A multitude of foods are forbidden him; he is allowed only that quantity
of food which is absolutely indispensable for the maintenance of
life;[1055] he is even sometimes bound to a rigorous fast,[1056] or must
eat impure foods.[1057] When he eats, he must not touch the food with
his hands; his godfathers put it into his mouth for him.[1058] In some
cases, he must go to beg his food.[1059] Likewise, he sleeps only as
much as is indispensable.[1060] He must abstain from talking, to the
extent of not uttering a word; it is by signs that he makes known his
needs.[1061] He must not wash;[1062] sometimes he must not move. He
remains stretched out upon the earth, immobile[1063] and without
clothing of any sort.[1064] Now the result of the numerous interdictions
is to bring about a radical change of condition in the initiate. Before
the initiation, he lived with the women; he was excluded from the cult.
After it, he is admitted to the society of men; he takes part in the
rites, and has acquired a sacred character. The metamorphosis is so
complete that it is sometimes represented as a second birth. They
imagine that the profane person, who was the young man up till then, has
died, that he has been killed and carried away by the god of the
initiation, Bunjil, Baiame or Daramulun, and that quite another
individual has taken the place of the one that no longer is.[1065] So
here we find the very heart of the positive effects of which negative
rites are capable. Of course we do not mean to say that these latter
produced this great transformation all by themselves; but they certainly
contributed to it, and largely.
In the light of these facts, we are able to understand what asceticism
is, what place it occupies in the religious life and whence come the
virtues which have generally been attributed to it. In fact, there is no
interdict, the observance of which does not have an ascetic character to
a certain degree. Abstaining from something which may be useful or from
a form of activity which, since it is usual, should answer to some human
need, is, of necessity, imposing constraints and renunciations. So in
order to have real asceticism, it is sufficient for these practices to
develop in such a way as to become the basis of a veritable scheme of
life. Normally, the negative cult serves only as an introduction and
preparation for the positive cult. But it sometimes happens that it
frees itself from this subordination and passes to the first place, and
that the system of interdicts swells and exaggerates itself to the point
of usurping the entire existence. Thus a systematic asceticism is born
which is consequently nothing more than a hypertrophy of the negative
cult. The special virtues which it is believed to confer are only an
amplified form of those conferred, to a lesser degree, by the practice
of any interdiction. They have the same origin; for they both rest on
the principle that a man sanctifies himself only by efforts made to
separate himself from the profane. The pure ascetic is a man who raises
himself above men and acquires a special sanctity by fasts and vigils,
by retreat and silence, or in a word, by privations, rather than by acts
of positive piety (offerings, sacrifices, prayers, etc.). History shows
to what a high religious prestige one may attain by this method: the
Buddhist saint is essentially an ascetic, and he is equal or superior to
the gods.
It follows that asceticism is not a rare, exceptional and nearly
abnormal fruit of the religious life, as some have supposed it to be; on
the contrary, it is one of its essential elements. Every religion
contains it, at least in germ, for there are none in which a system of
interdicts is not found. Their only difference in this regard which
there may be between cults is that this germ is more or less developed
in different ones. It should also be added that there probably is not a
single one in which this development does not take, at least
temporarily, the characteristic traits of real asceticism. This is what
generally takes place at certain critical periods when, for a relatively
short time, it is necessary to bring about a grave change of condition
in a subject. Then, in order to introduce him more rapidly into the
circle of sacred things with which he must be put in contact, he is
separated violently from the profane world; but this does not come
without many abstinences and an exceptional recrudescence of the system
of interdicts. Now this is just what happens in Australia at the moment
of initiation. In order to transform youths into men, it is necessary to
make them live the life of a veritable ascetic. Mrs. Parker very justly
calls them the monks of Baiame.[1066]
But abstinences and privations do not come without suffering. We hold to
the profane world by all the fibres of our flesh; our senses attach us
to it; our life depends upon it. It is not merely the natural theatre of
our activity; it penetrates us from every side; it is a part of
ourselves. So we cannot detach ourselves from it without doing violence
to our nature and without painfully wounding our instincts. In other
words, the negative cult cannot develop without causing suffering. Pain
is one of its necessary conditions. Some have been led to think of it as
constituting a sort of rite in itself; they have seen in it a state of
grace which is to be sought and aroused, even artificially, because of
the powers and privileges which it confers in the same way as these
systems of interdicts, of which it is the natural accompaniment. So far
as we know, Preuss is the first who has realized the religious
rôle[1067] which is attributed to suffering in the inferior societies.
He cites the case of the Arapahs who inflict veritable torments upon
themselves in order to become immune from the dangers of battle; of the
Big Belly Indians who submit to actual tortures on the eve of military
expeditions; of the Hupa who swim in icy rivers and then remain
stretched out on the bank as long as possible, in order to assure
themselves of success in their enterprises; of the Karaya who from time
to time draw blood from their arms and legs by means of scratches made
out of the teeth of fish, in order to strengthen their muscles; of the
men of Dallmannhafen (Emperor William's Land in New Guinea) who combat
the sterility of their women by making bloody incisions in the upper
part of their thighs.[1068]
But similar facts may be found without leaving Australia, especially in
the course of the initiation ceremonies. Many of the rites practised on
this occasion consist in systematically inflicting certain pains on the
neophyte in order to modify his condition and to make him acquire the
qualities characteristic of a man. Thus, among the Larakia, while the
young men are in retreat in the forest, their godfathers and guardians
give them violent blows at any instant, without warning and without
cause.[1069] Among the Urabunna, at a certain time, the novice is
stretched out on the ground, his face against the earth. All the men
present beat him rudely; then they make four or eight gashes on his
back, arranged on each side of the dorsal spine and one on the meridial
line of the nape of his neck.[1070] Among the Arunta, the first rite of
the initiation consists in tossing the subject in a blanket; the men
throw him into the air and catch him when he comes down, to throw him up
again.[1071] In the same tribe, at the close of this long series of
ceremonies, the young man lies down on a bed of leaves under which they
have placed live coals; he remains there, immobile in the midst of the
heat and suffocating smoke.[1072] A similar rite is observed among the
Urabunna; but in addition, while the patient is in this painful
situation, they beat him on the back.[1073] In a general way, all the
exercises to which he is submitted have this same character to such an
extent that when he is allowed to re-enter the ordinary life, he has a
pitiful aspect and appears half stupefied.[1074] It is true that all
these practices are frequently represented as ordeals destined to prove
the value of the neophyte and to show whether he is worthy of being
admitted into the religious society or not.[1075] But in reality, the
probational function of the rite is only another aspect of its efficacy.
For the fact that it has been undergone is proved by its producing its
effect, that is to say, by its conferring the qualities which are the
original reason for its existence.
In other cases, these ritual cruelties are executed, not on the organism
as a whole, but on a particular organ or tissue, whose vitality it is
their object to stimulate. Thus, among the Arunta, the Warramunga and
many other tribes,[1076] at a certain moment in the initiation, certain
persons are charged with biting the novice severely in the scalp. This
operation is so painful that the patient can hardly support it without
uttering cries. Its object is to make the hair grow.[1077] The same
treatment is applied to make the beard grow. The rite of pulling out
hairs, which Howitt mentions in other tribes, seems to have the same
reason for existence.[1078] According to Eylmann, the men and women of
the Arunta and the Kaitish make small wounds on their arms with sticks
red with fire, in order to become skilful in making fire or to acquire
the strength necessary for carrying heavy loads of wood.[1079] According
to this same observer, the Warramunga girls amputate the second and
third joints of the index finger on one hand, thinking that the finger
thus becomes better fitted for finding yams.[1080]
It is not impossible that the extraction of teeth was sometimes destined
to produce effects of this sort. In any case, it is certain that the
cruel rites of circumcision and subincision have the object of
conferring particular powers on the genital organs. In fact, the young
man is not allowed to marry until after he has undergone them; so he
owes them special virtues. What makes this initiation _sui generis_
indispensable is that in all inferior societies, the union of the sexes
is marked with a religious character. It is believed to put redoubtable
forces into play which a man cannot approach without danger, until after
he has acquired the necessary immunity, by ritual processes:[1081] for
this, a whole series of positive and negative practices is used, of
which circumcision and subincision are the forerunners. By painfully
mutilating an organ, a sacred character is given to it, since by that
act, it is put into shape for resisting the equally sacred forces which
it could not meet otherwise.
At the beginning of this work, we said that all the essential elements
of religious thought and life ought to be found, at least in germ, in
the most primitive religions: the preceding facts confirm this
assertion. If there is any one belief which is believed to be peculiar
to the most recent and idealistic religions, it is the one attributing a
sanctifying power to sorrow. Now this same belief is at the basis of the
rites which have just been observed. Of course, it is understood
differently at the different moments of history when it is studied. For
the Christian, it acts especially upon the soul: it purges it, ennobles
it, spiritualizes it. For the Australian, it is the body over which it
is efficient: it increases its vital energies; it makes its beard and
hair grow; it toughens its members. But in both cases the principle is
the same. In both it is admitted that suffering creates exceptional
strength. And this belief is not without foundation. In fact, it is by
the way in which he braves suffering that the greatness of a man is best
manifested. He never rises above himself with more brilliancy than when
he subdues his own nature to the point of making it follow a way
contrary to the one it would spontaneously take. By this, he
distinguishes himself from all the other creatures who follow blindly
wherever pleasure calls them; by this, he makes a place apart for
himself in the world. Suffering is the sign that certain of the bonds
attaching him to his profane environment are broken; so it testifies
that he is partially freed from this environment, and, consequently, it
is justly considered the instrument of deliverance. So he who is thus
delivered is not the victim of a pure illusion when he believes himself
invested with a sort of mastery over things: he really has raised
himself above them, by the very act of renouncing them; he is stronger
than nature, because he makes it subside.
Moreover, it is by no means true that this virtue has only an æsthetic
value: the whole religious life supposes it. Sacrifices and privations
do not come without privations which cost the worshipper dear. Even if
the rites do not demand material gifts from him, they require his time
and his strength. In order to serve his gods, he must forget himself; to
make for them a fitting place in his own life, he must sacrifice his
profane interests. The positive cult is possible only when a man is
trained to renouncement, to abnegation, to detachment from self, and
consequently to suffering. It is necessary that he have no dread of
them: he cannot even fulfil his duties joyfully unless he loves them to
some extent. But for that, it is necessary that he train himself, and it
is to this that the ascetic practices tend. So the suffering which they
impose is not arbitrary and sterile cruelty; it is a necessary school,
where men form and temper themselves, and acquire the qualities of
disinterestedness and endurance without which there would be no
religion. If this result is to be obtained, it is even a good thing that
the ascetic ideal be incarnated eminently in certain persons, whose
speciality, so to speak, it is to represent, almost with excess, this
aspect of the ritual life; for they are like so many living models,
inciting to effort. Such is the historic rôle of the great ascetics.
When their deeds and acts are analysed in detail, one asks himself what
useful end they can have. He is struck by the fact that there is
something excessive in the disdain they profess for all that ordinarily
impassions men. But these exaggerations are necessary to sustain among
the believers a sufficient disgust for an easy life and common
pleasures. It is necessary that an elite put the end too high, if the
crowd is not to put it too low. It is necessary that some exaggerate, if
the average is to remain at a fitting level.
But asceticism does not serve religious ends only. Here, as elsewhere,
religious interests are only the symbolic form of social and moral
interests. The ideal beings to whom the cults are addressed are not the
only ones who demand of their followers a certain disdain for suffering:
society itself is possible only at this price. Though exalting the
strength of man, it is frequently rude to individuals; it necessarily
demands perpetual sacrifices from them; it is constantly doing violence
to our natural appetites, just because it raises us above ourselves. If
we are going to fulfil our duties towards it, then we must be prepared
to do violence to our instincts sometimes and to ascend the decline of
nature when it is necessary. So there is an asceticism which, being
inherent in all social life, is destined to survive all the mythologies
and all the dogmas; it is an integral part of all human culture. At
bottom, this is the asceticism which is the reason for the existence of
and the justification of that which has been taught by the religions of
all times.
III
Having determined what the system of interdicts consists in and what its
positive and negative functions are, we must now seek the causes which
have given it birth.
In one sense, it is logically implied in the very notion of sacredness.
All that is sacred is the object of respect, and every sentiment of
respect is translated, in him who feels it, by movements of inhibition.
In fact, a respected being is always expressed in the consciousness by a
representation which, owing to the emotion it inspires, is charged with
a high mental energy; consequently, it is armed in such a way as to
reject to a distance every other representation which denies it in whole
or in part. Now the sacred world and the profane world are antagonistic
to each other. They correspond to two forms of life which mutually
exclude one another, or which at least cannot be lived at the same time
with the same intensity. We cannot give ourselves up entirely to the
ideal beings to whom the cult is addressed and also to ourselves and our
own interests at the same time; we cannot devote ourselves entirely to
the group and entirely to our own egoism at once. Here there are two
systems of conscious states which are directed and which direct our
conduct towards opposite poles. So the one having the greater power of
action should tend to exclude the other from the consciousness. When we
think of holy things, the idea of a profane object cannot enter the mind
without encountering grave resistance; something within us opposes
itself to its installation. This is because the representation of a
sacred thing does not tolerate neighbours. But this psychic antagonism
and this mutual exclusion of ideas should naturally result in the
exclusion of the corresponding things. If the ideas are not to coexist,
the things must not touch each other or have any sort of relations. This
is the very principle of the interdict.
Moreover, the world of sacred things is, by definition, a world apart.
Since it is opposed to the profane world by all the characteristics we
have mentioned, it must be treated in its own peculiar way: it would be
a misunderstanding of its nature and a confusion of it with something
that it is not, to make use of the gestures, language and attitudes
which we employ in our relations with ordinary things, when we have to
do with the things that compose it. We may handle the former freely; we
speak freely to vulgar beings; so we do not touch the sacred beings, or
we touch them only with reserve; we do not speak in their presence, or
we do not speak the common language there. All that is used in our
commerce with the one must be excluded from our commerce with the other.
But if this explanation is not inexact, it is, nevertheless,
insufficient. In fact, there are many beings which are the objects of
respect without being protected by systems of rigorous interdictions
such as those we have just described. Of course there is a general
tendency of the mind to localize different things in different places,
especially when they are incompatible with each other. But the profane
environment and the sacred one are not merely distinct, but they are
also closed to one another; between them there is an abyss. So there
ought to be some particular reason in the nature of sacred things, which
causes this exceptional isolation and mutual exclusion. And, in fact, by
a sort of contradiction, the sacred world is inclined, as it were, to
spread itself into this same profane world which it excludes elsewhere:
at the same time that it repels it, it tends to flow into it as soon as
it approaches. This is why it is necessary to keep them at a distance
from one another and to create a sort of vacuum between them.
What makes these precautions necessary is the extraordinary
contagiousness of a sacred character. Far from being attached to the
things which are marked with it, it is endowed with a sort of
elusiveness. Even the most superficial or roundabout contact is
sufficient to enable it to spread from one object to another. Religious
forces are represented in the mind in such a way that they always seem
ready to escape from the points where they reside and to enter
everything passing within their range. The nanja tree where the spirit
of an ancestor lives is sacred for the individual who considers himself
the reincarnation of this ancestor. But every bird which alights upon
this tree participates in this same nature: it is also forbidden to
touch it.[1082] We have already had occasion to show how simple contact
with a churinga is enough to sanctify men and things;[1083] it is also
upon this principle of the contagiousness of sacredness that all the
rites of consecration repose. The sanctity of the churinga is so great
that its action is even felt at a distance. It will be remembered how
this extends not only to the cave where they are kept, but also to the
whole surrounding district, to the animals who take refuge there, whom
it is forbidden to kill, and to the plants which grow there, which must
not be touched.[1084] A snake totem has its centre at a place where
there is a water-hole. The sacred character of the totem is
communicated to this place, to the water-hole and even to the water
itself, which is forbidden to all the members of the totemic
group.[1085] The initiate lives in an atmosphere charged with
religiousness, and it is as though he were impregnated with it
himself.[1086] Consequently all that he possesses and all that he
touches is forbidden to the women, and withdrawn from their contact,
even down to the bird he has struck with his stick, the kangaroo he has
pierced with his lance or the fish which has bit on his hook.[1087] But,
on the other hand, the rites to which he is submitted and the things
which have a part in them have a sanctity superior to his own: this
sanctity is contagiously transmitted to everything which evokes the idea
of one or the other. The tooth which has been knocked out of him is
considered very holy.[1088] For this reason, he may not eat animals with
prominent teeth, because they make him think of his own lost tooth. The
ceremonies of the Kuringal terminate with a ritual washing;[1089]
acquatic birds are forbidden to the neophyte because they make him think
of this rite. Animals that climb to the tops of trees are equally sacred
for him, because they are too near to Daramulun, the god of the
initiation, who lives in heaven.[1090] The soul of a dead man is a
sacred thing: we have already seen how this same property passes to the
corpse in which the soul resided, to the spot where this is buried, to
the camp in which he lived when alive, and which is either destroyed or
quitted, to the name he bore, to his wife and to his relations.[1091]
They, too, are invested, as it were, with a sacred character;
consequently, men keep at a distance from them; they do not treat them
as mere profane beings. In the societies observed by Dawson, their
names, like that of the dead man, cannot be pronounced during the period
of mourning.[1092] Certain animals which he ate may also be
prohibited.[1093]
This contagiousness of sacredness is too well known a phenomenon[1094]
to require any proof of its existence from numerous examples; we only
wish to show that it is as true in totemism as in the more advanced
religions. When once established, it quickly explains the extreme rigour
of the interdicts separating the sacred from the profane. Since, in
virtue of this extraordinary power of expansion, the slightest contact,
the least proximity, either material or simply moral, suffices to draw
religious forces out of their domain, and since, on the other hand, they
cannot leave it without contradicting their nature, a whole system of
measures is indispensable for maintaining the two worlds at a respectful
distance from one another. This is why it is forbidden to the profane,
not only to touch, but even to see or hear that which is sacred, and why
these two sorts of life cannot be mixed in their consciousnesses.
Precautions are necessary to keep them apart because, though opposing
one another, they tend to confuse themselves into one another.
When we understand the multiplicity of these interdicts we also
understand the way in which they operate and the sanctions which are
attached to them. Owing to the contagiousness inherent in all that is
sacred, a profane being cannot violate an interdict without having the
religious force, to which he has unduly approached, extend itself over
him and establish its empire over him. But as there is an antagonism
between them, he becomes dependent upon a hostile power, whose hostility
cannot fail to manifest itself in the form of violent reactions which
tend to destroy him. This is why sickness or death are considered the
natural consequences of every transgression of this sort; and they are
consequences which are believed to come by themselves, with a sort of
physical necessity. The guilty man feels himself attacked by a force
which dominates him and against which he is powerless. Has he eaten the
totemic animal? Then he feels it penetrating him and gnawing at his
vitals; he lies down on the ground and awaits death.[1095] Every
profanation implies a consecration, but one which is dreadful, both for
the subject consecrated and for those who approach him. It is the
consequences of this consecration which sanction, in part, the
interdict.[1096]
It should be noticed that this explanation of the interdicts does not
depend upon the variable symbols by the aid of which religious forces
are conceived. It matters little whether these are conceived as
anonymous and impersonal energies or figured as personalities endowed
with consciousness and feeling. In the former case, of course, they are
believed to react against profaning transgressions in an automatic and
unconscious manner, while in the latter case, they are thought to obey
passionate movements determined by the offence resented. But at bottom,
these two conceptions, which, moreover, have the same practical effect,
only express one and the same psychic mechanism in two different
languages. The basis of both is the antagonism of the sacred and the
profane, combined with the remarkable aptitude of the former for
spreading over to the latter; now this antagonism and this
contagiousness act in the same way, whether the sacred character is
attributed to blind forces or to conscious ones. Thus, so far is it from
being true that the real religious life commences only where there are
mythical personalities, that we see that in this case the rite remains
the same, whether the religious beings are personified or not. This is a
statement which we shall have occasion to repeat in each of the chapters
which follow.
IV
But if this contagiousness of sacredness helps to explain the system of
interdicts, how is it to be explained itself?
Some have tried to explain it with the well-known laws of the
association of ideas. The sentiments inspired in us by a person or a
thing spread contagiously from the idea of this thing or person to the
representations associated with it, and thence to the objects which
these representations express. So the respect which we have for a sacred
being is communicated to everything touching this being, or resembling
it, or recalling it. Of course a cultivated man is not deceived by these
associations; he knows that these derived emotions are due to mere plays
of the images and to entirely mental combinations, so he does not give
way to the superstitions which these illusions tend to bring about. But
they say that the primitive naïvely objectifies his impressions, without
criticising them. Does something inspire a reverential fear in him? He
concludes that an august and redoubtable force really resides in it; so
he keeps at a distance from this thing and treats it as though it were
sacred, even though it has no right to this title.[1097]
But whoever says this forgets that the most primitive religions are not
the only ones which have attributed this power of propagation to the
sacred character. Even in the most recent cults, there is a group of
rites which repose upon this principle. Does not every consecration by
means of anointing or washing consist in transferring into a profane
object the sanctifying virtues of a sacred one? Yet it is difficult to
regard an enlightened Catholic of to-day as a sort of retarded savage
who continues to be deceived by his associations of ideas, while nothing
in the nature of things explains or justifies these ways of thinking.
Moreover, it is quite arbitrarily that they attribute to the primitive
this tendency to objectify blindly all his emotions. In his ordinary
life, and in the details of his lay occupations, he does not impute the
properties of one thing to its neighbours, or _vice versa_. If he is
less careful than we are about clarity and distinction, still it is far
from true that he has some vague, deplorable aptitude for jumbling and
confusing everything. Religious thought alone has a marked leaning
towards these sorts of confusions. So it is in something special to the
nature of religious things, and not in the general laws of the human
intelligence, that the origin of these predispositions is to be sought.
When a force or property seems to be an integral part or constituent
element of the subject in which it resides, we cannot easily imagine its
detaching itself and going elsewhere. A body is defined by its mass and
its atomic composition; so we do not think that it could communicate any
of these distinctive characteristics by means of contact. But, on the
other hand, if we are dealing with a force which has penetrated the body
from without, since nothing attaches it there and since it is foreign to
the body, there is nothing inconceivable in its escaping again. Thus the
heat or electricity which a body has received from some external source
may be transmitted to the surrounding medium, and the mind readily
accepts the possibility of this transmission. So the extreme facility
with which religious forces spread out and diffuse themselves has
nothing surprising about it, if they are generally thought of as outside
of the beings in which they reside. Now this is just what the theory we
have proposed implies.
In fact, they are only collective forces hypostatized, that is to say,
moral forces; they are made up of the ideas and sentiments awakened in
us by the spectacle of society, and not of sensations coming from the
physical world. So they are not homogeneous with the visible things
among which we place them. They may well take from these things the
outward and material forms in which they are represented, but they owe
none of their efficacy to them. They are not united by external bonds
to the different supports upon which they alight; they have no roots
there; according to an expression we have already used[1098] and which
serves best for characterizing them, _they are added to them_. So there
are no objects which are predestined to receive them, to the exclusion
of all others; even the most insignificant and vulgar may do so;
accidental circumstances decide which are the chosen ones. The terms in
which Codrington speaks of the mana should be borne in mind: it is a
force, he says, which "_is not fixed in anything and can be conveyed in
almost anything_."[1099] Likewise, the Dakota of Miss Fletcher
represented the wakan as a sort of surrounding force which is always
coming and going through the world, alighting here and there, but
definitely fixing itself nowhere.[1100] Even the religious character
inherent in men does not have a different character. There is certainly
no other being in the world of experience which is closer to the very
source of all religious life; none participates in it more directly, for
it is in human consciousnesses that it is elaborated. Yet we know that
the religious principle animating men, to wit, the soul, is partially
external.
But if religious forces have a place of their own nowhere, their
mobility is easily explained. Since nothing attaches them to the things
in which we localize them, it is natural that they should escape on the
slightest contact, in spite of themselves, so to speak, and that they
should spread afar. Their intensity incites them to this spreading,
which everything favours. This is why the soul itself, though holding to
the body by very personal bonds, is constantly threatening to leave it:
all the apertures and pores of the body are just so many ways by which
it tends to spread and diffuse itself into the outside.[1101]
But we shall account for this phenomenon which we are trying to
understand, still better if, instead of considering the notion of
religious forces as it is when completely formulated, we go back to the
mental process from which it results.
We have seen, in fact, that the sacred character of a being does not
rest in any of its intrinsic attributes. It is not because the totemic
animal has a certain aspect or property that it inspires religious
sentiments; these result from causes wholly foreign to the nature of the
object upon which they fix themselves. What constitutes them are the
impressions of comfort and dependence which the action of the society
provokes in the mind. Of themselves, these emotions are not attached to
the idea of any particular object; but as these emotions exist and are
especially intense, they are also eminently contagious. So they make a
stain of oil; they extend to all the other mental states which occupy
the mind; they penetrate and contaminate those representations
especially in which are expressed the various objects which the man had
in his hands or before his eyes at the moment: the totemic designs
covering his body, the bull-roarers which he was making roar, the rocks
surrounding him, the ground under his feet, etc. It is thus that the
objects themselves get a religious value which is really not inherent in
them but is conferred from without. So the contagion is not a sort of
secondary process by which sacredness is propagated, after it has once
been acquired; it is the very process by which it is acquired. It is by
contagion that it establishes itself: we should not be surprised,
therefore, if it transmits itself contagiously. What makes its reality
is a special emotion; if it attaches itself to some object, it is
because this emotion has found this object in its way. So it is natural
that from this one it should spread to all those which it finds in its
neighbourhood, that is to say, to all those which any reason whatsoever,
either material contiguity or mere similarity, has mentally connected
with the first.
Thus, the contagiousness of sacredness finds its explanation in the
theory which we have proposed of religious forces, and by this very
fact, it serves to confirm our theory.[1102] And, at the same time, it
aids us in understanding a trait of primitive mentality to which we have
already called the attention.
We have seen[1103] the facility with which the primitive confuses
kingdoms and identifies the most heterogeneous things, men, animals,
plants, stars, etc. Now we see one of the causes which has contributed
the most to facilitating these confusions. Since religious forces are
eminently contagious, it is constantly happening that the same principle
animates very different objects equally; it passes from some into others
as the result of either a simple material proximity or of even a
superficial similarity. It is thus that men, animals, plants and rocks
come to have the same totem: the men because they bear the name of the
animal: the animals because they bring the totemic emblem to mind; the
plants because they nourish these animals; the rocks because they mark
the place where the ceremonies are celebrated. Now religious forces are
therefore considered the source of all efficacy; so beings having one
single religious principle ought to pass as having the same essence, and
as differing from one another only in secondary characteristics. This is
why it seemed quite natural to arrange them in a single category and to
regard them as mere varieties of the same class, transmutable into one
another.
When this relation has been established, it makes the phenomena of
contagion appear under a new aspect. Taken by themselves, they seem to
be quite foreign to the logical life. Is their effect not to mix and
confuse beings, in spite of their natural differences? But we have seen
that these confusions and participation have played a rôle of the
highest utility in logic; they have served to bind together things which
sensation leaves apart from one another. So it is far from true that
contagion, the source of these connections and confusions, is marked
with that fundamental irrationality that one is inclined to attribute it
at first. It has opened the way for the scientific explanations of the
future.
CHAPTER II
THE POSITIVE CULT
I.--_The Elements of the Sacrifice_
Whatever the importance of the negative cult may be, and though it may
indirectly have positive effects, it does not contain its reason for
existence in itself; it introduces one to the religious life, but it
supposes this more than it constitutes it. If it orders the worshipper
to flee from the profane world, it is to bring him nearer to the sacred
world. Men have never thought that their duties towards religious forces
might be reduced to a simple abstinence from all commerce; they have
always believed that they upheld positive and bilateral relations with
them, whose regulation and organization is the function of a group of
ritual practices. To this special system of rites we give the name of
_positive cult_.
For some time we almost completely ignored the positive cult of the
totemic religion and what it consists in. We knew almost nothing more
than the initiation rites, and we do not know those sufficiently well
even now. But the observations of Spencer and Gillen, prepared for by
those of Schulze and confirmed by those of Strehlow, on the tribes of
central Australia, have partially filled this gap in our information.
There is one ceremony especially which these explorers have taken
particular pains to describe to us and which, moreover, seems to
dominate the whole totemic cult: this is the one that the Arunta,
according to Spencer and Gillen, call the _Intichiuma_. It is true that
Strehlow contests the meaning of this word. According to him, intichiuma
(or, as he writes it, _intijiuma_) means "to instruct" and designates
the ceremonies performed before the young man to teach him the
traditions of the tribe. The feast which we are going to describe bears,
he says, the name _mbatjalkatiuma_, which means "to fecundate" or "to
put into a good condition."[1104] But we shall not try to settle this
question of vocabulary, which touches the real problem but slightly, as
the rites in question are all celebrated in the course of the
initiation. On the other hand, as the word Intichiuma now belongs to the
current language of ethnography, and has almost become a common noun, it
seems useless to replace it with another.[1105]
The date on which the Intichiuma takes place depends largely upon the
season. There are two sharply separated seasons in Australia: one is dry
and lasts for a long time; the other is rainy and is, on the contrary,
very short and frequently irregular. As soon as the rains arrive,
vegetation springs up from the ground as though by enchantment and
animals multiply, so that the country which had recently been only a
sterile desert is rapidly filled with a luxurious flora and fauna. It is
just at the moment when the good season seems to be close at hand that
the Intichiuma is celebrated. But as the rainy season is extremely
variable, the date of the ceremonies cannot be fixed once for all. It
varies with the climatic circumstances, which only the chief of the
totemic group, the Alatunja, is qualified to judge: on a day which he
considers suitable, he informs his companions that the moment has
arrived.[1106]
Each totemic group has its own Intichiuma. Even if this rite is general
in the societies of the centre, it is not the same everywhere; among the
Warramunga, it is not what it is among the Arunta; it varies, not only
among the tribes, but also within the tribe, among the clans. But it is
obvious that the different mechanisms in use are too closely related to
each other to be dissociated completely. There is no ceremony, perhaps,
which is not made up of several, though these are very unequally
developed: what exists only as a germ in one, occupies the most
important place in another, and inversely. Yet they must be carefully
distinguished, for they constitute just so many different ritual types
to be described and explained separately, but afterwards we must seek
some common source from which they were derived.
Let us commence with those observed among the Arunta.
I
The celebration includes two successive phases. The object of the rites
which take place in the first is to assure the prosperity of the animal
or vegetable species serving the clan as totem. The means employed for
this end may be reduced to two principal types.
It will be remembered that the fabulous ancestors from whom each clan is
supposed to be descended, formerly lived on earth and left traces of
their passage there. These traces consist especially in stones and rocks
which they deposited at certain places, or which were formed at the
spots where they entered into the ground. These rocks and stones are
considered the bodies or parts of the bodies of the ancestors, whose
memory they keep alive; they represent them. Consequently, they also
represent the animals and plants which served these same ancestors as
totems, for an individual and his totem are only one. The same reality
and the same properties are attributed to them as to the actually living
plants or animals of the same species. But they have this advantage over
these latter, that they are imperishable, knowing neither sickness nor
death. So they are like a permanent immutable and ever-available reserve
of animal and vegetable life. Also, in a certain number of cases, it is
this reserve that they annually draw upon to assure the reproduction of
the species.
Here, for example, is how the Witchetty grub clan, at Alice Springs,
proceeds at its Intichiuma.[1107]
On the day fixed by the chief, all the members of the totemic group
assemble in the principal camp. The men of the other totems retire to a
distance;[1108] for among the Arunta, they are not allowed to be present
at the celebration of the rite, which has all the characteristics of a
secret ceremony. An individual of a different totem, but of the same
phratry, may be invited to be present, as a favour; but this is only as
a witness. In no case can he take an active part.
After the men of the totem have assembled, they leave the camp, leaving
only two or three of their number behind. They advance in a profound
silence, one behind another, all naked, without arms and without any of
their habitual ornaments. Their attitude and their pace are marked with
a religious gravity: this is because the act in which they are taking
part has an exceptional importance in their eyes. Also, until the end of
the ceremony they are required to observe a rigorous fast.
The country which they traverse is all filled with souvenirs left by the
glorious ancestors. Thus they arrive at a spot where a huge block of
quartz is found, with small round stones all around it. This block
represents the witchetty grub as an adult. The Alatunja strikes it with
a sort of wooden tray called _apmara_,[1109] and at the same time he
intones a chant, whose object is to invite the animal to lay eggs. He
proceeds in the same fashion with the stones which are regarded as the
eggs of the animal and with one of which he rubs the stomach of each
assistant. This done, they all descend a little lower, to the foot of a
cliff also celebrated in the myths of the Alcheringa, at the base of
which is another stone, also representing the witchetty grub. The
Alatunja strikes it with his apmara; the men accompanying him do so as
well, with branches of a gum-tree which they have gathered on the way,
all of which goes on in the midst of chants renewing the invitation
previously addressed to the animal. About ten different spots are
visited in turn, some of which are a mile or more from the others. At
each of them there is a stone at the bottom of a cave or hole, which is
believed to represent the witchetty grub in one of his aspects or at one
of the phases of his existence, and upon each of these stones, the same
ceremonies are repeated.
The meaning of the rite is evident. When the Alatunja strikes the sacred
stones, it is to detach some dust. The grains of this very holy dust are
regarded as so many germs of life; each of them contains a spiritual
principle which will give birth to a new being, when introduced into an
organism of the same species. The branches with which the assistants are
provided serve to scatter this precious dust in all directions; it is
scattered everywhere, to accomplish its fecundating work. By this means,
they assure, in their own minds, an abundant reproduction of the animal
species over which the clans guard, so to speak, and upon which it
depends.
The natives themselves give the rite this interpretation. Thus, in the
clan of the _ilpirla_ (a kind of "manna"), they proceed in the following
manner. When the day of the Intichiuma arrives, the group assembles near
a huge rock, about fifty feet high; on top of this rock is another, very
similar to the first in aspect and surrounded by other smaller ones.
Both represent masses of manna. The Alatunja digs up the ground at the
foot of this rock and uncovers a churinga which is believed to have been
buried there in Alcheringa times, and which is, as it were, the
quintessence of the manna. Then he climbs up to the summit of the higher
rock and rubs it, first with the churinga and then with the smaller
stones which surround it. Finally, he brushes away the dust which has
thus been collected on the surface of the rock, with the branches of a
tree; each of the assistants does the same in his turn. Now Spencer and
Gillen say that the idea of the natives is that the dust thus scattered
will "settle upon the mulga trees and so produce manna." In fact, these
operations are accompanied by a hymn sung by those present, in which
this idea is expressed.[1110]
With variations, this same rite is found in other societies. Among the
Urabunna, there is a rock representing an ancestor of the Lizard clan;
bits are detached from it which they throw in every direction, in order
to secure an abundant production of lizards.[1111] In this same tribe,
there is a sand-bank which mythological souvenirs closely associate with
the louse totem. At the same spot are two trees, one of which is called
the ordinary louse tree, the other, the crab-louse tree. They take some
of this sand, rub it on these trees, throw it about on every side and
become convinced that, as a result of this, lice will be born in large
numbers.[1112] The Mara perform the Intichiuma of the bees by scattering
dust detached from sacred rocks.[1113] For the kangaroo of the plains, a
slightly different method is used. They take some kangaroo-dung and wrap
it up in a certain herb of which the animal is very fond, and which
belongs to the kangaroo totem for this reason. Then they put the dung,
thus enveloped, on the ground between two bunches of this herb and set
the whole thing on fire. With the flame thus made, they light the
branches of trees and then whirl them about in such a way that sparks
fly in every direction. These sparks play the same rôle as the dust in
the preceding cases.[1114]
In a certain number of clans,[1115] men mix something of their own
substance with that of the stone, in order to make the rite more
efficacious. Young men open their veins and let streams of blood flow on
to the rock. This is the case, for example, in the Intichiuma of the
Hakea flower among the Arunta. The ceremony takes place in a sacred
place around an equally sacred rock which, in the eyes of the natives,
represents Hakea flowers. After certain preliminary operations, "the old
leader asks one of the young men to open a vein in his arm, which he
does, and allows the blood to sprinkle freely, while the other men
continue the singing. The blood flows until the stone is completely
covered."[1116] The object of this practice is to revivify the virtues
of the stone, after a fashion, and to reinforce its efficacy. It should
not be forgotten that the men of the clan are relatives of the plant or
animal whose name they bear; the same principle of life is in them, and
especially in their blood. So it is only natural that one should use
this blood and the mystic germs which it carries to assure the regular
reproduction of the totemic species. It frequently happens among the
Arunta that when a man is sick or tired, one of his young companions
opens his veins and sprinkles him with his blood in order to reanimate
him.[1117] If blood is able to reawaken life in a man in this way, it is
not surprising that it should also be able to awaken it in the animal or
vegetable species with which the men of the clan are confounded.
The same process is employed in the Intichiuma of the Undiara kangaroo
among the Arunta. The theatre of the ceremony is a water-hole vaulted
over by a peaked rock. This rock represents an animal-kangaroo of the
Alcheringa which was killed and deposited there by a man-kangaroo of the
same epoch; many kangaroo spirits are also believed to reside there.
After a certain number of sacred stones have been rubbed against each
other in the way we have described, several of the assistants climb up
on the rock upon which they let their blood flow.[1118] "The purpose of
the ceremony at the present day, so say the natives, is by means of
pouring out the blood of kangaroo men upon the rock, to drive out in all
directions the spirits of the kangaroo animals and so to increase the
number of the animals."[1119]
There is even one case among the Arunta where the blood seems to be the
active principle in the rite. In the Emu group, they do not use sacred
stones or anything resembling them. The Alatunja and some of his
assistants sprinkle the ground with their blood; on the ground thus
soaked, they trace lines in various colours, representing the different
parts of the body of an emu. They kneel down around this design and
chant a monotonous hymn. From the fictitious emu to which this chant is
addressed, and, consequently, from the blood which has served to make
it, they believe that vivifying principles go forth, which animate the
embryos of the new generation, and thus prevent the species from
disappearing.[1120]
Among the Wonkgongaru,[1121] there is one clan whose totem is a certain
kind of fish; in the Intichiuma of this totem also, it is the blood that
plays the principal part. The chief of the group, after being
ceremoniously painted, goes into a pool of water and sits down there.
Then he pierces his scrotum and the skin around his navel with small
pointed bones. "The blood from the wounds goes into the water and gives
rise to fish."[1122]
By a wholly similar process, the Dieri think that they assure the
reproduction of two of their totems, the carpet snake and the woma snake
(the ordinary snake). A Mura-mura named Minkani is thought to live under
a dune. His body is represented by some fossil bones of animals or
reptiles, such as the deltas of the rivers flowing into Lake Eyre
contain, according to Howitt. When the day of the ceremony arrives, the
men assemble and go to the home of the Minkani. There they dig until
they come to a layer of damp earth which they call "the excrement of
Minkani." From now on, they continue to turn up the soil with great care
until they uncover "the elbow of Minkani." Then two young men open their
veins and let their blood flow on to the sacred rock. They chant the
hymn of Minkani while the assistants, carried away in a veritable
frenzy, beat each other with their arms. The battle continues until they
get back to the camp, which is about a mile away. Here, the women
intervene and put an end to the combat. They collect the blood which has
flown from the wounds, mix it with the "excrement of Minkani," and
scatter the resulting mixture over the dune. When this rite has been
accomplished, they are convinced that carpet snakes will be born in
abundance.[1123]
In certain cases, they use the very substance which they wish to produce
as the vivifying principle. Thus among the Kaitish, in the course of a
ceremony whose object is to create rain, they sprinkle water over a
sacred rock which represents the mythical heroes of the Water clan. It
is evident that they believe that by this means they augment the
productive virtues of the rock just as well as with blood, and for the
same reasons.[1124] Among the Mara, the actor takes water from a sacred
hole, puts it in his mouth and spits it out in every direction.[1125]
Among the Worgaia, when the yams begin to sprout, the chief of the Yam
clan sends men of the phratry of which he is not a member himself to
gather some of these plants; these bring some to him, and ask him to
intervene, in order that the species may develop well. He takes one,
chews it, and throws the bits in every direction.[1126] Among the
Kaitish when, after various rites which we shall not describe, the grain
of a certain grass called Erlipinna has reached its full development,
the chief of the totem brings a little of it to camp and grinds it
between two stones; the dust thus obtained is piously gathered up, and a
few grains are placed on the lips of the chief, who scatters them by
blowing. This contact with the mouth of the chief, which has a very
special sacramental virtue, undoubtedly has the object of stimulating
the vitality of the germs which these grains contain and which, being
blown to all the quarters of the horizon, go to communicate these
fecundating virtues which they possess to the plants.[1127]