Primitive Theory of the Soul_, in _J.A.I._, XV, p. 66.
[756] This is the case with the Kaitish and the Unmatjera; see _Nor.
Tr._, p. 506; and _Nat. Tr._, p. 512.
[757] Roth, _ibid._, §§ 65, 66, 67, 68.
[758] Roth, _ibid._, § 68; this says that when someone faints after a
loss of blood, it is because the soul is gone. Cf. Parker, _The
Euahlayi_, p. 38.
[759] Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 29, 35; Roth, _ibid._, § 65.
[760] Strehlow, I, pp. 12, 14. In these passages he speaks of evil
spirits which kill little children and eat their souls, livers and fat,
or else their souls, livers and kidneys. The fact that the soul is thus
put on the same plane as the different viscera and tissues and is made a
food like them shows the close connection it has with them. Cf. Schulze,
p. 245.
[761] For example, among the peoples on the Pennefather River (Roth,
_ibid._, § 68), there is a name for the soul residing in the heart
(_Ngai_), another for the one in the placenta (_Cho-i_), and a third for
the one which is confounded with the breath (_Wanji_). Among the
Euahlayi, there are three or even four souls (Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p.
35).
[762] See the description of the _Urpmilchima_ rite among the Arunta
(_Nat. Tr._, pp. 503 ff.).
[763] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 497 and 508.
[764] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 547, 548.
[765] _Ibid._, pp. 506, 527 ff.
[766] Meyer, _The Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, p. 198.
[767] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 551, 463; _Nat. Tr._, p. 553.
[768] _Nor. Tr._, p. 540.
[769] Among the Arunta and Loritja, for example (Strehlow, I, p. 15, n.
2; II, p. 77). During life, the soul is called _gumna_, and _ltana_
after death. The _ltana_ of Strehlow is identical with the _ulthana_ of
Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 514 ff.). The same is true of the
tribes on the Bloomfield River (Roth, _Superstition_, etc., §66).
[770] Eylmann, p. 188.
[771] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 524, 491, 496.
[772] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 542, 504.
[773] Mathews, _Ethnol. Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and
Victoria_, in _Journal and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_,
XXXVIII, p. 287.
[774] Strehlow, I, pp. 15 ff. Thus, according to Strehlow, the dead live
in an island in the Arunta theory, but according to Spencer and Gillen,
in a subterranean place. It is probable that the two myths coexist and
are not the only ones. We shall see that even a third has been found. On
this conception of an island of the dead, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p.
498; Schürmann, _Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235;
Eylmann, p. 189.
[775] Schulze, p. 244.
[776] Dawson, p. 51.
[777] In these same tribes evident traces of a more ancient myth will be
found, according to which the dead live in a subterranean place (Dawson,
_ibid._).
[778] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 18 f.; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 473;
Strehlow, I, p. 16.
[779] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498.
[780] Strehlow, I, p. 16; Eylmann, p. 189; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 473.
[781] These are the spirits of the ancestors of a special clan, the clan
of a certain poisonous gland (_Giftdrüsenmänner_).
[782] Sometimes the work of the missionaries is evident. Dawson speaks
of a real hell opposed to paradise; but he too tends to regard this as a
European importation.
[783] Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, pp. 419-420, 422, 485. Cf. Marillier, _La
survivance de l'âme et l'idée de justice chez les peuples
non-civilisés_, _Rapport de l'Ecole des Hautes Études_, 1893.
[784] They may be doubled temporarily, as we shall see in the next
chapter: but these duplications add nothing to the number of the souls
capable of reincarnation.
[785] Strehlow, I, p. 2.
[786] _Nat. Tr._, p. 73, n. 1
[787] On this set of conceptions, see _Nat. Tr._, pp. 119, 123-127, 387
ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 145-174. Among the Gnanji, it is not necessarily
near the oknanikilla that the conception takes place. But they believe
that each couple is accompanied in its wanderings over the continent by
a swarm of souls of the husband's totem. When the time comes, one of
these souls enters the body of the wife and fertilizes it, wherever she
may be (_Nor. Tr._, p. 169).
[788] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 512 f.; cf. ch. x and xi.
[789] _Nat. Tr._, p. 119.
[790] Among the Kaitish (_Nor. Tr._, p. 154) and the Urabunna (_Nor.
Tr._, p. 146).
[791] This is the case among the Warramunga and the related tribes, the
Walpari, Wulmala, Worgaia, Tjingilli (_Nor. Tr._, p. 161), and also the
Umbaia and the Gnanji (_ibid._, p. 170).
[792] Strehlow, I, pp. 15-16. For the Loritja, see Strehlow, p. 7.
[793] Strehlow even goes so far as to say that sexual relations are not
even thought to be a necessary condition or sort of preparation for
conception (II, p. 52, n. 7). It is true that he adds a few lines below
that the old men know perfectly well the connection which unites sexual
intercourse and generation, and that as far as animals are concerned,
the children themselves know it. This lessens the value of his first
assertion a little.
[794] In general, we employ the terminology of Spencer and Gillen rather
than that of Strehlow because it is now consecrated by long usage.
[795] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 124, 513.
[796] I, p. 5. _Ngarra_ means eternal, according to Strehlow. Among the
Loritja, only rocks fulfil this function.
[797] Strehlow translates it by _Kinderkeime_ (children-germs). It is
not true that Spencer and Gillen have ignored the myth of the _ratapa_
and the customs connected with it. They explicitly mention it in _Nat.
Tr._, pp. 336 ff. and 552. They noticed, at different points of the
Arunta territory, the existence of rocks called _Erathipa_ from which
the _spirit children_, or the children's souls, disengage themselves, to
enter the bodies of women and fertilize them. According to Spencer and
Gillen, _Erathipa_ means child, though, as they add, it is rarely used
in this sense in ordinary conversation (_ibid._, p. 338).
[798] The Arunta are divided into four or eight matrimonial classes. The
class of a child is determined by that of his father; inversely, that of
the latter may be deduced from the former (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat.
Tr._, pp. 70 ff.; Strehlow, I, pp. 6 ff.). It remains to be seen how the
ratapa has a matrimonial class; we shall return to this point again.
[799] Strehlow, II, p. 52. It happens sometimes, though rarely, that
disputes arise over the nature of the child's totem. Strehlow cites such
a case (II, p. 53).
[800] This is the same word as the _namatwinna_ found in Spencer and
Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, p. 541).
[801] Strehlow, II, p. 53.
[802] Strehlow, II, p. 56.
[803] Mathews attributes a similar theory of conception to the Tjingilli
(_alias_ Chingalee) (_Proc. Roy. Geogr. Trans. and Soc. Queensland_,
XXII (1907), pp. 75-76).
[804] It sometimes happens that the ancestor who is believed to have
thrown the namatuna shows himself to the woman in the form of an animal
or a man; this is one more proof of the affinity of the ancestral soul
for a material form.
[805] Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 237.
[806] This results from the fact that the ratapa can incarnate itself
only in the body of a woman belonging to the same matrimonial class as
the mother of the mythical ancestor. So we cannot understand how
Strehlow could say (I, p. 42, _Anmerkung_) that, except in one case, the
myths do not attribute determined matrimonial classes to the Alcheringa
ancestors. His own theory of conception proves the contrary (cf. II, pp.
53 ff.).
[807] Strehlow, II, p. 58.
[808] The difference between the two versions becomes still smaller and
is reduced to almost nothing, if we observe that, when Spencer and
Gillen tell us that the ancestral soul is incarnated in the woman, the
expressions they use are not to be taken literally. It is not the whole
soul which comes to fertilize the mother, but only an emanation from
this soul. In fact, according to their own statement, a soul equal or
even superior in power to the one that is incarnated continues to live
in the nanja tree or rock (see _Nat. Tr._, p. 514); we shall have
occasion to come back to this point again (cf. below, p. 275).
[809] II, pp. 76, 81. According to Spencer and Gillen, the churinga is
not the soul of the ancestor, but the object in which his soul resides.
At bottom, these two mythological interpretations are identical, and it
is easy to see how one has been able to pass into the other: the body is
the place where the soul resides.
[810] Strehlow, I, p. 4.
[811] Strehlow, I, pp. 53 f. In these stories, the ancestor begins by
introducing himself into the body of the woman and causing there the
troubles characteristic of pregnancy. Then he goes out, and only then
does he leave his namatuna.
[812] Strehlow, II, p. 76.
[813] _Ibid._, p. 81. This is the word for word translation of the terms
employed, as Strehlow gives them: _Dies du Körper bist; dies du der
nämliche._ In the myth, a civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, says as he
presents to each man the churinga of his ancestor: "You are born of this
churinga" (_ibid._, p. 76).
[814] Strehlow, II, p. 76.
[815] Strehlow, _ibid._
[816] At bottom, the only real difference between Strehlow and Spencer
and Gillen is the following one. For these latter, the soul of the
individual, after death, returns to the nanja tree, where it is again
confounded with the ancestor's soul (_Nat. Tr._, p. 513); for Strehlow,
it goes to the isle of the dead, where it is finally annihilated. In
neither myth does it survive individually. We are not going to seek the
cause of this divergence. It is possible that there has been an error of
observation on the part of Spencer and Gillen, who do not speak of the
isle of the dead. It is also possible that the myth is not the same
among the eastern Arunta, whom Spencer and Gillen observed particularly,
as in the other parts of the tribe.
[817] Strehlow, II, p. 51.
[818] _Ibid._, II, p. 56.
[819] _Ibid._, I, pp. 3-4.
[820] _Ibid._, II, p. 61.
[821] See above, p. 183.
[822] Strehlow, II, p. 57; I, p. 2.
[823] Strehlow, II, p. 57.
[824] Roth, _Superstition, Magic_, etc., § 74.
[825] In other words, the totemic species is made up of the group of
ancestors and the mythological species much more than of the regular
animal or vegetable species.
[826] See above, p. 254.
[827] Strehlow, II, p. 76.
[828] Strehlow, _ibid._
[829] Strehlow, II, pp. 57, 60, 61. Strehlow calls the list of totems
the list of ratapa.
[830] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 475 ff.
[831] _The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe of Australian
Aborigines_, in Curr, II, p. 47.
[832] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 482.
[833] _Ibid._, p. 487.
[834] Taplin, _Folk-Lore, Customs, Manners, etc., of the South
Australian Aborig._, p. 88.
[835] The clan of each ancestor has its special camp underground; this
camp is the miyur.
[836] Mathews, in _Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 293.
He points out the same belief among other tribes of Victoria (_ibid._,
p. 197).
[837] Mathews, _ibid._, p. 349.
[838] J. Bishop, _Die Niol-Niol_, in _Anthropos_, III, p. 35.
[839] Roth, _Superstition_, etc., § 68; cf. § 69a, gives a similar case
from among the natives on the Proserpine River. To simplify the
description, we have left aside the complications due to differences of
sex. The souls of daughters are made out of the choi of their mother,
though these share with their brothers the ngai of their father. This
peculiarity, coming perhaps from two systems of filiation which have
been in use successively, has nothing to do with the principle of the
perpetuity of the soul.
[840] _Ibid._, p. 16.
[841] _Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 282.
[842] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, pp. 117
ff.
[843] Boas, _Sixth Rep. of the Comm. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada_, p.
59.
[844] Lafitau, _M[oe]urs des sauvages Amériquains_, II, p. 434; Petitot,
_Monographie des Dénè-Dindjié_, p. 59.
[845] See above, pp. 134 ff.
[846] See above, p. 137.
[847] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 147; cf. _ibid._, p. 769.
[848] Strehlow (I, p. 15, n. 2) and Schulze (_loc. cit._, p. 246) speak
of the soul, as Howitt here speaks of the totem, as leaving the body to
go to eat another soul. Likewise, as we have seen above, the altjira or
maternal totem shows itself in dreams, just as a soul or spirit does.
[849] Fison and Howitt, _Kurnai and Kamilaroi_, p. 280.
[850] _Globus_, Vol. CXI, p. 289. In spite of the objections of
Leonhardi, Strehlow maintains his affirmations on this point (see
Strehlow, III, p. xi). Leonhardi finds a contradiction between this
assertion and the theory according to which the ratapa emanate from
trees, rocks or churinga. But the totemic animal incarnates the totem
just as much as the nanja-tree or rock does, so they may fulfil the same
function. The two things are mythological equivalents.
[851] _Notes on the West Coastal Tribes of the Northern Territory of S.
Australia_, in _Trans. of the Roy. Soc. of S. Aust._, XXXI (1907), p. 4.
Cf. _Man_, 1909, No. 86.
[852] Among the Wakelbura, where, according to Curr and Howitt, each
matrimonial class has its own totems, the animal shows the class (see
Curr, III, p. 28); among the Buandik, it reveals the clan (Mrs. James S.
Smith, _The Buandik Tribes of S. Australian Aborigines_, p, 128). Cf.
Howitt, _On Some Australian Beliefs_, in _J.A.I._, XIII, p. 191; XIV, p.
362; Thomas, _An American View of Totemism_, in _Man_, 1902, No. 85;
Mathews, _Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, pp. 347-348;
Brough Smyth, I, p. 110; _Nor. Tr._, p. 513.
[853] Roth, _Superstition_, etc., § 83. This is probably a form of
sexual totemism.
[854] Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika_, II, p. 190.
[855] K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Bräsiliens_,
1894, pp. 511, 512.
[856] See Frazer, _Golden Bough_^2, I, pp. 250, 253, 256, 257, 258.
[857] _Third Rep._, pp. 229, 233.
[858] _Indian Tribes_, IV, p. 86.
[859] For example, among the Batta of Sumatra (see _Golden Bough_^2,
III, p. 420), in Melanesia (Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 178), in
the Malay Archipelago (Tylor, _Remarks on Totemism_, in _J.A.I._, New
Series, I, p. 147). It is to be remarked that the cases where the soul
clearly presents itself after death in an animal form all come from the
societies where totemism is more or less perverted. This is because the
idea of the soul is necessarily ambiguous wherever the totemic beliefs
are relatively pure, for totemism implies that it participate in the two
kingdoms at the same time. So it cannot become either one or the other
exclusively, but takes one aspect or the other, according to the
circumstances. As totemism develops, this ambiguity becomes less
necessary, while at the same time, spirits more actively demand
attention. Then the marked affinities of the soul for the animal kingdom
are manifested, especially after it is freed from the human body.
[860] See above, p. 170. On the generality of the doctrine of
metempsychosis, see Tylor, II, pp. 8 ff.
[861] Even if we believe that religious and moral representations
constitute the essential elements of the idea of the soul, still we do
not mean to say that they are the only ones. Around this central nucleus
are grouped other states of consciousness having this same character,
though to a slighter degree. This is the case with all the superior
forms of the intellectual life, owing to the special price and dignity
attributed to them by society. When we devote our lives to science or
art, we feel that we are moving in a circle of things that are above
bodily sensations, as we shall have occasion to show more precisely in
our conclusion. This is why the highest functions of the intelligence
have always been considered specific manifestations of the soul. But
they would probably not have been enough to establish the idea of it.
[862] F. Tregear, _The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
203-205.
[863] This is the thesis of Preuss in his articles in the _Globus_ which
we have cited several times. It seems that M. Lévy-Bruhl also tends
towards this conception (see his _Fonctions mentales_, etc., pp. 92-93).
[864] On this point, see our _Suicide_, pp. 233 ff.
[865] It may be objected perhaps that unity is the characteristic of the
personality, while the soul has always been conceived as multiple, and
as capable of dividing and subdividing itself almost to infinity. But we
know to-day that the unity of the person is also made up of parts and
that it, too, is capable of dividing and decomposing. Yet the notion of
personality does not vanish because of the fact that we no longer think
of it as a metaphysical and indivisible atom. It is the same with the
popular conceptions of personality which find their expression in the
idea of the soul. These show that men have always felt that the human
personality does not have that absolute unity attributed to it by
certain metaphysicians.
[866] For all this, we do not deny the importance of the individual
factor: this is explained from our point of view just as easily as its
contrary. If the essential element of the personality is the social part
of us, on the other hand there can be no social life unless distinct
individuals are associated, and this is richer the more numerous and
different from each other they are. So the individual factor is a
condition of the impersonal factor. And the contrary is no less true,
for society itself is an important source of individual differences (see
our _Division du travail social_, 3rd. ed., pp. 267 ff.).
[867] Roth, _Superstition, Magic_, etc., §§ 65, 68; Spencer and Gillen,
_Nat. Tr._, pp. 514, 516.
[868] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 521, 515; Dawson, _Austral.
Aborig._, p. 58; Roth, _op. cit._, § 67.
[869] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 517.
[870] Strehlow, II, p. 76 and n. 1; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp.
514, 516.
[871] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 513.
[872] On this question, see Negrioli, _Dei Genii presso i Romani_; the
articles _Daimon_ and _Genius_ in the _Dict. of Antiq._; Preller,
_Romische Mythologie_, II, pp. 195 ff.
[873] Negrioli, _ibid._, p. 4.
[874] _Ibid._, p. 8.
[875] _Ibid._, p. 7.
[876] _Ibid._, p. 11. Cf. Samter, _Der Ursprung der Larencultus_, in
_Archiv f. Religions-wissenschaft_, 1907, pp. 368-393.
[877] Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 237.
[878] Strehlow, I, p. 5. Cf. Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 133;
Gason, in Curr, II, p. 69.
[879] See the case of a Mura-mura who is considered the spirit of
certain hot springs, in Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 482.
[880] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 313 f.; Mathews, _Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S.
Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 351. Among the Dieri there is also a Mura-mura whose
function is to produce rain (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 798 f.).
[881] Roth. _Superstition_, etc., § 67. Cf. Dawson, p. 59.
[882] Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff.
[883] See above, p. 249.
[884] _Nor. Tr._, ch. vii.
[885] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 277.
[886] Strehlow, I, p. 5.
[887] It is true that some nanja-trees and rocks are not situated around
the ertnatulunga; they are scattered over different parts of the tribal
territory. It is said that these are places where an isolated ancestor
disappeared into the ground, lost a member, let some blood flow, or lost
a churinga which was transformed into a tree or rock. But these totemic
sites have only a secondary importance; Strehlow calls them _kleinere
Totemplätze_ (I, pp. 4-5). So it may be that they have taken this
character only by analogy with the principal totemic centres. The trees
and rocks which, for some reason or other, remind one of those found in
the neighbourhood of an ertnatulunga, inspire analogous sentiments, so
the myth which was formed in regard to the latter was extended to the
former.
[888] _Nat. Tr._, p. 139.
[889] Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 21. The tree serving for this use is
generally one of those figuring among the sub-totems of the individual.
As a reason for this choice, they say that as it is of the same family
as the individual, it should be better disposed to giving him aid
(_ibid._, p. 29).
[890] _Ibid._, p. 36.
[891] Strehlow, II, p. 81.
[892] Parker, _op. cit._, p. 21.
[893] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 249-253.
[894] Turner, _Samoa_, p. 17.
[895] These are the very words used by Codrington (p. 251).
[896] This close connection between the soul, the guardian genius and
the moral conscience of the individual is especially apparent among
certain peoples of Indonesia. "One of the seven souls of the Tobabatak
is buried with the placenta; though preferring to live in this place, it
may leave it to warn the individual or to manifest its approbation when
he does well. So in one sense, it plays the rôle of a moral conscience.
However, its communications are not confined to the domain of moral
facts. It is called the younger brother of the soul, as the placenta is
called the younger brother of the child.... In war, it inspires the man
with courage to march against the enemy" (Warneck, _Der bataksche Ahnen
und Geistercult_, in _Allg. Missionszeitschrift_, Berlin, 1904. p. 10.
Cf. Kruijt, _Het Animisme in den indischen Archipel_, p. 25).
[897] It still remains to be investigated how it comes that after a
certain moment in evolution, this duplication of the soul was made in
the form of an individual totem rather than of a protecting ancestor.
Perhaps this question has an ethnological rather than a sociological
interest. However, the manner in which this substitution was probably
effected may be represented as follows.
The individual totem commenced by playing a merely complimentary rôle.
Those individuals who wished to acquire powers superior to those
possessed by everybody, did not and could not content themselves with
the mere protection of the ancestor; so they began to look for another
assistant of the same sort. Thus it comes about that among the Euahlayi,
the magicians are the only ones who have or who can procure individual
totems. As each one has a collective totem in addition, he finds himself
having many souls. But there is nothing surprising in this plurality of
souls: it is the condition of a superior power.
But when collective totemism once begins to lose ground, and when the
conception of the protecting ancestor consequently begins to grow dim in
the mind, another method must be found for representing the double
nature of the soul, which is still felt. The resulting idea was that,
outside of the individual soul, there was another, charged with watching
over the first one. Since this protecting power was no longer
demonstrated by the very fact of birth, men found it natural to employ,
for its discovery, means analogous to those used by magicians to enter
into communion with the forces of whose aid they thus assured
themselves.
[898] For example, see Strehlow, II, p. 82.
[899] Wyatt, _Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes_, in Woods, p. 168.
[900] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 62 f.; Roth, _Superstition_, etc., §
116; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 356, 358; Strehlow, pp. 11-12.
[901] Strehlow, I, pp. 13-14; Dawson, p. 49.
[902] Strehlow, I, pp. 11-14; Eylmann, pp. 182, 185; Spencer and Gillen,
_Nor. Tr._, p. 211; Schürmann, _The Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in
Woods, p. 239.
[903] Eylmann, p. 182.
[904] Mathews, _Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 345;
Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 467; Strehlow, I, p. 11.
[905] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 390-391. Strehlow calls these evil spirits
_Erintja_; but this word is evidently equivalent to Oruncha. Yet there
is a difference in the ways the two are presented to us. According to
Spencer and Gillen, the Oruncha are malicious rather than evil; they
even say (p. 328) that the Arunta know no necessarily evil spirits. On
the contrary, the regular business of Strehlow's Erintja is to do evil.
Judging from certain myths given by Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, p.
390), they seem to have touched up the figures of the Oruncha a little:
these were originally ogres (_ibid._, p. 331).
[906] Roth, _Superstition_, etc., § 115; Eylmann, p. 190.
[907] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 390 f.
[908] _Ibid._, p. 551.
[909] _Ibid._, pp. 326 f.
[910] Strehlow, I, p. 14. When there are twins, the first one is
believed to have been conceived in this manner.
[911] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 327.
[912] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 358, 381, 385; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat.
Tr._, p. 334; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 501, 530.
[913] As the magician can either cause or cure sickness, we sometimes
find, besides these magical spirits whose function is to do evil, others
who forestall or neutralize the evil influence of the former. Cases of
this sort will be found in _Nor. Tr._, pp. 501-502. The fact that the
latter are magic just as much as the former is well shown by the fact
that the two have the same name, among the Arunta. So they are different
aspects of a single magic power.
[914] Strehlow, I, p. 9. Putiaputia is not the only personage of this
sort of whom the Arunta myths speak: certain portions of the tribe give
a different name to the hero to whom the same invention is ascribed. We
must not forget that the extent of the territory occupied by the Arunta
prevents their mythology from being completely homogeneous.
[915] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 493.
[916] _Ibid._, p. 498.
[917] _Ibid._, pp. 498 f.
[918] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 135.
[919] _Ibid._, pp. 476 ff.
[920] Strehlow, I, pp. 6-8. The work of Mangarkunjerkunja must be taken
up again later among other heroes; for, according to a belief that is
not confined to the Arunta, a time came when men forgot the teaching of
their first initiators and became corrupt.
[921] This is the case, for example, of Atnatu (Spencer and Gillen,
_Nor. Tr._, p. 153) and the Witurna (_Nor. Tr._, p. 498), If Tendun did
not establish these rites, it is he who is charged with the direction of
their celebration (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 670).
[922] _Nor. Tr._, p. 499.
[923] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 493; _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 197 and
247; Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 492.
[924] For example, see _Nor. Tr._, p. 499.
[925] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 338, 347, 499.
[926] It is true that Spencer and Gillen maintain that these mythical
beings play no moral rôle (_Nor. Tr._, p. 493); but this is because they
give too narrow a meaning to the word. Religious duties are duties: so
the fact of looking after the manner in which these are observed
concerns morals, especially because all morals have a religious
character at this period.
[927] The fact was observed as early as 1845 by Eyre, _Journals_, etc.,
II, p. 362, and, before Eyre, by Henderson, _Observations on the
Colonies of N.S. Wales and Van Diemen's Land_, p. 147.
[928] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 488-508.
[929] Among the Kulin, Wotjobaluk and Woëworung (Victoria).
[930] Among the Yuin, Ngarrigo and Wolgal (New South Wales).
[931] Among the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi (northern part of New South
Wales); and more to the centre, in the same province, among the
Wonghibon and the Wiradjuri.
[932] Among the Wiimbaio and the tribes on the lower Murray (Ridley,
_Kamilaroi_, p. 137; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423, n., 431).
[933] Among the tribes on the Herbert River (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p.
498).
[934] Among the Kurnai.
[935] Taplin, p. 55; Eylmann, p. 182.
[936] It is undoubtedly to this supreme Mura-mura that Gason makes
allusion in the passage already cited (Curr, II, p. 55).
[937] _Nat. Tr._, p. 246.
[938] Between Baiame, Bunjil and Daramulun on the one hand, and Altjira
on the other, there is the difference that the latter is completely
foreign to all that concerns humanity; he did not make man and does not
concern himself with what they do. The Arunta have neither love nor fear
for him. But when this conception is carefully observed and analysed, it
is hard to admit that it is primitive; for if the Altjira plays no rôle,
explains nothing, serves for nothing, what made the Arunta imagine him?
Perhaps it is necessary to consider him as a sort of Baiame who has lost
his former prestige, as an ancient god whose memory is fading away.
Perhaps, also, Strehlow has badly interpreted the testimony he has
gathered. According to Eylmann, who, it is to be admitted, is neither a
very competent nor a very sure observer, Altjira made men (_op. cit._,
p. 134). Moreover, among the Loritja, the corresponding personage,
Tukura, is believed to celebrate the initiation ceremonies himself.
[939] For Bunjil, see Brough Smyth, I, p. 417; for Baiame, see Ridley,
_Kamilaroi_, p. 136; for Daramulun, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 495.
[940] On the composition of Bunjil's family, for example, see Howitt,
_Nat. Tr._, pp. 128, 129, 489, 491; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417, 423; for
Baiame's, see L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 7, 66, 103; Howitt, _Nat.
Tr._, pp. 502, 585, 407; for Nurunderi's, Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp.
57 f. Of course, there are all sorts of variations in the ways in which
the families of these great gods are conceived. The personage who is a
brother here, is a son there. The number and names of the wives vary
with the locality.
[941] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 128.
[942] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 430, 431.
[943] _Ibid._, I, p. 432, n.
[944] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 498, 538; Mathews, _Jour. of the Roy. Soc.
of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 343; Ridley, p. 136.
[945] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 538; Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 57-58.
[946] L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 8.
[947] Brough Smyth, I, p. 424.
[948] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 492.
[949] According to certain myths, he made men but not women; this is
related of Bunjil. But then, the origin of women is attributed to his
son-brother, Pallyan (Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417 and 423).
[950] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 489, 492; Mathews, _Journ. of the Roy.
Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 340.
[951] L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 7; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 630.
[952] Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, p. 136; L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 114.
[953] L. Parker, _More Austr. Leg. Tales_, pp. 84-89, 90-91.
[954] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 495, 498, 543, 563, 564; Brough Smyth, I,
p. 429; L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 79.
[955] Ridley, p. 137.
[956] L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 90-91.
[957] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 495; Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, p. 58.
[958] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 538, 543, 553, 555, 556; Mathews, _loc.
cit._, p. 318; L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 6, 79, 80.
[959] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 498, 528.
[960] Howitt, _ibid._, p. 493; L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 76.
[961] L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 76; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 493,
612.
[962] Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, p. 153; L. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 67;
Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 585; Mathews, _loc. cit._, p. 343. In opposition
to Baiame, Daramulun is sometimes presented as a necessarily evil spirit
(L. Parker, _loc. cit._; Ridley, in Brough Smyth, II, p. 285).
[963] _J.A.I._, XXI, pp. 292 ff.
[964] _The Making of Religion_, pp. 187-293.
[965] Lang, _ibid._, p. 331. The author confines himself to stating that
the hypothesis of St. Paul does not appear to him "the most
unsatisfactory."
[966] The thesis of Lang has been taken up again by Father Schmidt in
the _Anthropos_ (1908-1909). Replying to Sydney Hartland, who had
criticized Lang's theory in an article entitled _The "High Gods" of
Australia_, in _Folk-Lore_ (Vol. IX, pp. 290 ff.), Father Schmidt
undertook to show that Baiame, Bunjil, etc., are eternal gods, creators,
omnipotent, omniscient and guardians of the moral order. We are not
going to enter into this discussion, which seems to have neither
interest nor importance. If these different adjectives are given a
relative sense, in harmony with the Australian mind, we are quite ready
to accept them, and have even used them ourselves. From this point of
view, omnipotent means having more power than the other sacred beings;
omniscient, seeing things that escape the vulgar and even the greatest
magicians; guardian of the moral order, one causing the rules of
Australian morality to be respected, howsoever much these may differ
from our own. But if they want to give these words meanings which only a
spiritualistic Christian could attach to them, it seems useless to
discuss an opinion so contrary to the principles of the historical
method.
[967] On this question, see N. W. Thomas, _Baiame and Bell-bird--A Note
on Australian Religion_, in _Man_, 1905, No. 28. Cf. Lang, _Magic and
Religion_, p. 25. Waitz had already upheld the original character of
this conception in his _Anthropologie d. Naturvölker_, pp. 796-798.
[968] Dawson, p. 49; Meyer, _Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, pp. 205,
206; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 481, 491, 492, 494; Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, p.
136.
[969] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 55-56.
[970] L. Parker, _More Austr. Leg. Tales_, p. 94.
[971] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427.
[972] Taplin, _ibid._, p. 60.
[973] Taplin, _ibid._, p. 61.
[974] "The world was created by beings called Nuralie; these beings, who
had already long existed, had the forms of crows or of eagle-hawks"
(Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424).
[975] "Bayamee," says Mrs. Parker, "is for the Euahlayi what the
Alcheringa is for the Arunta" (_The Euahlayi_, p. 6).
[976] See above, pp. 257 f.
[977] In another myth, reported by Spencer and Gillen, a wholly
analogous rôle is filled by two personages living in heaven, named
Ungambikula (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 388 ff.).
[978] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 493.
[979] Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 62-66, 67. This is because the great
god is connected with the bull-roarer, which is identified with the
thunder; for the roaring of this ritual instrument is connected with the
rolling of thunder.
[980] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 135. The word meaning totem is written
_thundung_ by Howitt.
[981] Strehlow, I, pp. 1-2 and II, p. 59. It will be remembered that,
among the Arunta, the maternal totem was quite probably the real totem
at first.
[982] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 555.
[983] _Ibid._, pp. 546, 560.
[984] Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, pp. 136, 156. He is represented in this form
during the initiation rites of the Kamilaroi. According to another
legend, he is a black swan (L. Parker, _More Aust. Leg. Tales_, p. 94).
[985] Strehlow, I, p. 1.
[986] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424.
[987] _Nat. Tr._, p. 492.
[988] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 128.
[989] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417-423.
[990] See above, p. 108.
[991] There are phratries bearing the names Kilpara (crow) and Mukwara.
This is the explanation of the myth itself, which is reported by Brough
Smyth (I, pp. 423-424).
[992] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427. Cf. Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 486. In
this case, Karween is identified with the blue heron.
[993] Brough Smyth, I, p. 423.
[994] Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, p. 136; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 585; Mathews,
_J. of R. S. of N.S. Wales_, XXVIII (1894), p. 111.
[995] See above, p. 145. Cf. Father Schmidt, _The Origin of the Idea of
God_, in _Anthropos_, 1909.
[996] _Op. cit._, p. 7. Among these same people, the principal wife of
Baiame is also represented as the mother of all the totems, without
belonging to any totem herself (_ibid._, pp. 7, 79).
[997] See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 511 f., 513, 602 ff.; Mathews, _J. of
R.S. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 270. They invite to these feasts not
only the tribes with whom a regular _connubium_ is established, but also
those with whom there are quarrels to be arranged; the vendetta,
half-ceremonial and half-serious, take place on these occasions.
[998] See above, p. 155.
[999] There is one form of ritual especially which we leave completely
aside; this is the oral ritual which must be studied in a special volume
of the _Collection de l'Année Sociologique_.
[1000] See the article _Taboo_ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, written
by Frazer.
[1001] Facts prove the reality of this inconvenience. There is no lack
of writers who, putting their trust in the word, have believed that the
institution thus designated was peculiar to primitive peoples in
general, or even to the Polynesians (see Réville, _Religion des peuples
primitifs_, II, p. 55; Richard, _La Femme dans l'histoire_, p. 435).
[1002] See above, p. 43.
[1003] This is not saying that there is a radical break of continuity
between the religious and the magic interdictions: on the contrary, it
is one whose true nature is not decided. There are interdicts of
folk-lore of which it is hard to say whether they are religious or
magic. But their distinction is necessary, for we believe that the magic
interdicts cannot be understood except as a function of the religious
ones.
[1004] See above, p. 149.
[1005] Many of the interdictions between sacred things can be traced
back, we think, to those between the sacred and the profane. This is the
case with the interdicts of age or rank. For example, in Australia,
there are sacred foods which are reserved for the initiated. But these
foods are not all sacred to the same degree; there is a hierarchy among
them. Nor are the initiated all equal. They do not enjoy all their
religious rights from the first, but only enter step by step into the
domain of religious things. They must pass through a whole series of
ranks which are conferred upon them one after another, after special
trials and ceremonies; it requires months and sometimes even years to
reach the highest rank. Now special foods are assigned to each of these
ranks; the men of the lower ranks may not touch the foods which
rightfully belong to the men of the superior ones (see Mathews, _Ethnol.
Notes_, etc., _loc. cit._ pp. 262 ff.; Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 23;
Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 611 ff.; _Nat. Tr._, pp. 470 ff.).
So the more sacred repels the less sacred; but this is because the
second is profane in relation to the first. In fine, all the
interdictions arrange themselves in two classes: the interdictions
between the sacred and the profane and the purely sacred and the
impurely sacred.
[1006] See above, p. 137.
[1007] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 463.
[1008] _Nat. Tr._, p. 538; _Nor. Tr._, p. 640.
[1009] _Nor. Tr._, p. 531.
[1010] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 518 f.; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 449.
[1011] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p.
231.
[1012] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 499.
[1013] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 451.
[1014] If the alimentary interdictions which concern the totemic plant
or vegetable are the most important, they are far from being the only
ones. We have seen that there are foods which are forbidden to the
non-initiated because they are sacred; now very different causes may
confer this character. For example, as we shall presently see, the birds
which are seen on the tops of trees are reputed to be sacred, because
they are neighbours to the great god who lives in heaven. Thus, it is
possible that for different reasons the flesh of certain animals has
been specially reserved for the old men and that consequently it has
seemed to partake of the sacred character recognized in these latter.
[1015] See Frazer, _Totemism_, p. 7.
[1016] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 674.--There is one interdiction of contact
of which we say nothing because it is very hard to determine its exact
nature: this is sexual contact. There are religious periods when a man
cannot have commerce with a woman (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 293, 295; _Nat. Tr._,
p. 397). Is this because the woman is profane or because the sexual act
is dreaded? This question cannot be decided in passing. We set it aside
along with all that concerns conjugal and sexual rites. It is too
closely connected with the problems of marriage and the family to be
separated from them.
[1017] _Nat. Tr._, p. 134; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 354.
[1018] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 624.
[1019] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 572.
[1020] _Ibid._, p. 661.
[1021] _Nat. Tr._, p. 386; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 655, 665.
[1022] Among the Wiimbaio (Howitt, _ibid._, p. 451).
[1023] Howitt, _ibid._, pp. 624, 661, 663, 667; Spencer and Gillen,
_Nat. Tr._, pp. 221, 382 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 335, 344, 353, 369.
[1024] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 221, 262, 288, 303, 378, 380.
[1025] _Ibid._, p. 302.
[1026] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 581.
[1027] _Nor. Tr._, p. 227.
[1028] See above, p. 288.
[1029] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498; _Nor. Tr._, p. 526;
Taplin, _Narrinyeri_, p. 19.
[1030] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 466, 469 ff.
[1031] Wyatt, _Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes_, in Woods, p. 165.
[1032] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 470.
[1033] _Ibid._, p. 657; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 139; _Nor.
Tr._, pp. 580 ff.
[1034] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 537.
[1035] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 544, 597, 614, 620.
[1036] For example, the hair belt which he ordinarily wears (Spencer and
Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 171).
[1037] _Ibid._, p. 624 ff.
[1038] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 556.
[1039] _Ibid._, p. 587.
[1040] This act takes on a sacred character, it is true, when the
elements eaten are sacred. But in itself, the act is so very profane
that eating a sacred food always constitutes a profanation. The
profanation may be permitted or even ordered, but, as we shall see
below, only on condition that rites attenuating or expiating it precede
or accompany it. The existence of these rites shows that, by itself, the
sacred thing should not be eaten.
[1041] _Nor. Tr._, p. 263.
[1042] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 171.
[1043] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 674. Perhaps the rule against talking
during the great religious solemnities is due to the same cause. Men
speak, and especially in a high voice, during ordinary life; then, in
the religious life they ought to keep still or talk in a low voice. This
same consideration is not foreign to the alimentary interdictions (see
above, p. 128).
[1044] _Nor. Tr._, p. 33.
[1045] Since there is a sacred principle, the soul, within each man,
from the very first, the individual is surrounded by interdicts, the
original form of the moral interdicts which isolate and protect the
human person to-day. Thus the corpse of his victim is considered
dangerous for a murderer (Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 492), and
is taboo for him. Now the interdicts having this origin are frequently
used by individuals as a means of withdrawing certain things from common
use and thus establishing a property right over them. "When a man goes
away from the camp, leaving his arms and food there," says Roth,
speaking of the tribes on the Palmer River (North Queensland), "if he
urinates near the objects he leaves, they become _tami_ (equivalent to
taboo) and he may be sure of finding them intact on his return" (_North
Queensland Ethnography_, in _Records of the Australian Museum_, Vol.
VII, No. 2, p. 75). This is because the urine, like the blood, is
believed to contain some of the sacred force which is personal to the
individual. So it keeps strangers at a distance. For the same reasons,
the spoken word may also serve as a vehicle for these same influences;
that is how it becomes possible to prevent access to an object by a mere
verbal declaration. This power of making interdicts varies with
different individuals; it is greater as their character is more sacred.
Men have this privilege almost to the exclusion of women (Roth cites one
single case of a taboo imposed by women); it is at its maximum with the
chiefs and old men, who use it to monopolize whatever things they find
it convenient to (Roth, _ibid._, p. 77). Thus the religious interdict
becomes a right of property and an administrative rule.
[1046] See below, this book, ch. ii.
[1047] See above, p. 10.
[1048] See above, p. 219.
[1049] See Hubert and Mauss, _Essai sur la nature et la fonction du
sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, pp. 22 ff.
[1050] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 560, 657, 659, 661. Even the shadow of a
woman must not fall upon him (_ibid._, p. 633). Whatever he has touched
must not be touched by a woman (_ibid._, p. 621).
[1051] _Ibid._, pp. 561, 563, 670 f.; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p.
223; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 340, 342.
[1052] The word Jeraeil, for example, among the Kurnai, or Kuringal
among the Yuin and Wolgal (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 518, 617).
[1053] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 348.
[1054] Howitt, p. 561.
[1055] Howitt, pp. 633, 538, 560.
[1056] _Ibid._, p. 674; Parker, _Euahlayi_, p. 75.
[1057] Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, p. 154.
[1058] Howitt, p. 563.
[1059] _Ibid._, p. 611.
[1060] _Ibid._, pp. 549, 674.
[1061] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 580, 596, 604, 668, 670; Spencer and
Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 223, 351.
[1062] Howitt, p. 557.
[1063] _Ibid_., p. 604; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 351.
[1064] Howitt, p. 611.
[1065] Howitt, p. 589.
[1066] One may compare these ascetic practices with those used at the
initiation of a magician. Just like the young neophyte, the apprentice
magician is submitted to a multitude of interdictions, the observation
of which contributes to his acquisition of his specific powers (see
_L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques_, in Hubert and Mauss, _Mélanges
d'histoire des religions_, pp. 171, 173, 176). The same is true for the
husband and wife on the day before and the day after the wedding (taboos
of the betrothed and newly married); this is because marriage also
implies a grave change of condition. We limit ourselves to mentioning
these facts summarily, without stopping over them; for the first concern
magic, which is not our subject, and the second have to do with that
system of juridico-religious rules which relates to the commerce of the
sexes, the study of which will be possible only in conjunction with the
other precepts of primitive conjugal morality.
[1067] It is true that Preuss interprets these facts by saying that
suffering is a way of increasing a man's magic force (_die menschliche
Zauberkraft_); from this expression, one might believe that suffering is
a magic rite, not a religious one. But as we have already pointed out,
Preuss gives the name magic, without great precision, to all anonymous
and impersonal forces, whether they belong to magic or religion. Of
course, there are tortures which are used to make magicians; but many of
those which we have described are a part of the real religious
ceremonies, and, consequently, it is the religious state of the
individuals which they modify.
[1068] Preuss, _Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst_, in _Globus_,
LXXXVIII, pp. 309-400. Under this same rubric Preuss classes a great
number of incongruous rites, for example, effusions of blood which act
in virtue of the positive qualities attributed to blood and not because
of the suffering which they imply. We retain only those in which
suffering is an essential element of the rite and the cause of its
efficacy.
[1069] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 331 f.
[1070] _Ibid._, p. 335. A similar practice will be found among the Dieri
(Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 658 ff.).
[1071] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 214 ff.--From this example we
see that the rites of initiation sometimes have all the characteristics
of hazing. In fact, hazing is a real social institution which arises
spontaneously every time that two groups, inequal in their moral and
social situation, come into intimate contact. In this case, the one
considering itself superior to the other resists the intrusion of the
new-comers; it reacts against them is such a way as to make them aware
of the superiority it feels. This reaction, which is produced
automatically and which takes the form of more or less grave cruelties
quite naturally, is also destined to shape the individuals for their new
existence and assimilate them into their new environment. So it is a
sort of initiation. Thus it is explained how the initiation, on its
side, takes the form of hazing. It is because the group of old men is
superior in religious and moral dignity to that of the young men, and
yet the first must assimilate the second. So all the conditions for
hazing are given.
[1072] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 372.
[1073] _Ibid._, p. 335.
[1074] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 675.
[1075] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 569, 604.
[1076] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 251; _Nor. Tr._, 341, 352.
[1077] Among the Warramunga, the operation must be made by persons
favoured with beautiful hair.
[1078] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 675; this concerns the tribes on the lower
Darling.
[1079] Eylmann, _op. cit._, p. 212.
[1080] _Ibid._
[1081] References on this question will be found in our memoir on _La
Prohibition de l'incest et ses origines_ (_Année Sociol._, I, pp. 1
ff.), and Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 37 ff.
[1082] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 133.
[1083] See above, p. 121.
[1084] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 134 f.; Strehlow, I, p. 78.
[1085] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 167, 299.
[1086] In addition to the ascetic rites of which we have spoken, there
are some positive ones whose object is to charge, or, as Howitt says, to
saturate the initiate with religiousness (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 535).
It is true that instead of religiousness, Howitt speaks of magic powers,
but as we know, for the majority of the ethnologists, this word merely
signifies religious virtues of an impersonal nature.
[1087] Howitt, _ibid._, pp. 674 f.
[1088] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 454. Cf. Howitt, _Nat. Tr._,
p. 561.
[1089] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 557.
[1090] _Ibid._, p. 560.
[1091] See above, pp. 303, 306. Cf. Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p.
498; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 506, 507, 518 f., 526; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 449,
461, 469; Mathews, in _J. of R.S. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 274;
Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 231; Wyatt, _Adelaide and Encounter Bay
Tribes_, in Woods, pp. 165, 198.
[1092] _Australian Aborigines_, p. 42.
[1093] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 470-471.
[1094] On this question, see Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,
pp. 152 ff., 446, 481; Frazer, art. _Taboo_ in _Encyc. Brit._, Jevons,
_Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp. 59 f.; Crawley, _Mystic
Rose_, ch. ii-ix; Van Gennep, _Tabou et Totemisme à Madagascar_, ch.
iii.
[1095] See references above, p. 128, n. 1. Cf. _Nor. Tr._, pp. 323, 324;
_Nat. Tr._, p. 168; Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, p. 16; Roth, _North
Queensland Ethnography_. Bull. 10, _Records of Austral. Museum_, VII, p.
76.
[1096] It is to be remembered that when it is a religious interdict that
has been violated, these sanctions are not the only ones; there is also
a real punishment or a stigma of opinion.
[1097] See Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp.
67-68. We say nothing of the recent, and slightly explicit, theory of
Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, ch. iv-vii), according to which the
contagiousness of taboos is due to a false interpretation of the
phenomena of contagion. It is arbitrary. As Jevons very truly says in
the passage to which we refer, the contagious character of sacredness is
affirmed _a priori_, and not on a faith in badly interpreted
experiences.
[1098] See above, p. 229.
[1099] See above, p. 194.
[1100] See above, p. 190.
[1101] This has been well demonstrated by Preuss in his articles in the
_Globus_.
[1102] It is true that this contagiousness is not peculiar to religious
forces; those belonging to magic have the same property; yet it is
evident that they do not correspond to objectified social sentiments. It
is because magic forces have been conceived on the model of religious
forces. We shall come back to this point again (see p. 361).
[1103] See above, p. 235.
[1104] Strehlow, I, p. 4.
[1105] Of course the word designating these celebrations changes with
the tribes. The Urabunna call them _Pitjinta_ (_Nor. Tr._, p. 284); the
Warramunga _Thalaminta_ (_ibid._, p. 297), etc.
[1106] Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 243; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp.
169 f.
[1107] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 170 ff.
[1108] Of course the women are under the same obligation.
[1109] The apmara is the only thing which he brought from the camp.
[1110] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 185-186.
[1111] _Nor. Tr._, p. 288.
[1112] _Ibid._
[1113] _Nor. Tr._, p. 312.
[1114] _Ibid._
[1115] We shall see below that these clans are much more numerous than
Spencer and Gillen say.
[1116] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 184-185.
[1117] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 438, 461, 464; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 596 ff.
[1118] _Nat. Tr._, p. 201.
[1119] _Ibid._, p. 206. We use the words of Spencer and Gillen, and with
them, we say that "spirits or spirit parts of kangaroo" are disengaged
from the rocks. Strehlow (III, p. 7) contests the exactness of this
expression. According to him, the rite makes real kangaroos, with living
bodies, appear. But this dispute is without interest, just as the one
about the notion of the _ratapa_ was (see above, p. 252). The kangaroo
germs thus escaping from the rock are not visible, so they are not made
out of the same substance as the kangaroos which we see. This is all
that Spencer and Gillen mean to say. It is quite certain, moreover, that
they are not pure spirits such as a Christian might conceive. Like human
souls, they have a material form.
[1120] _Nat. Tr._, p. 181.
[1121] A tribe on the east of Lake Eyre.
[1122] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 287 f.
[1123] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 798. Cf. Howitt, _Legends of the Dieri and
Kindred Tribes of Central Australia_, in _J.A.I._, XXIV, pp. 124 ff.
Howitt believes that the ceremony is performed by the men of the totem,
but is not prepared to say so definitely.
[1124] _Nor. Tr._, p. 295.
[1125] _Ibid._, p. 314.
[1126] _Ibid._, pp. 296 f.
[1127] _Nat. Tr._, p. 170.
[1128] _Ibid._, p. 519.--The analysis of the rites which have just been
studied is based solely on the observations of Spencer and Gillen. Since
this chapter was written, Strehlow has published the third fascicule of
his work, which deals with the positive cult and especially the
Intichiuma, or, as he says, the rites of the _mbatjalkatiuma_. But we
have found nothing in this publication which obliges us to modify the
preceding description or even to complete it with important additions.
The most interesting thing taught by Strehlow on this subject is that
the effusions and oblations of blood are much more frequent than one
would suspect from the account of Spencer and Gillen (see Strehlow, III,
pp. 13, 14, 19, 29, 39, 43, 46, 56, 67, 80, 89).
Moreover, the information given by Strehlow in regard to the cult must
be taken carefully, for he was not a witness of the rites he describes;
he confined himself to collecting oral testimony, which is generally
rather summary (see fasc. III, Preface of Leonhardi, p. v). It may even
be asked if he has not confused the totemic ceremonies of initiation
with those which he calls _mbatjalkatiuma_, to an excessive degree. Of
course, he has made a praiseworthy attempt to distinguish them and has
made two of their distinctive characteristics very evident. In the first
place, the Intichiuma always takes place at a sacred spot to which the
souvenir of some ancestor is attached, while the initiation ceremonies
may be celebrated anywhere. Secondly, the oblations of blood are special
to the Intichiuma, which proves that they are close to the heart of the
ritual (III, p. 7). But in the description which he gives us of the
rites, we find facts belonging indifferently to each species of
ceremony. In fact, in what he describes under the name mbatjalkatiuma,
the young men generally take an important part (for example, see pp. 11,
13, etc.), which is characteristic of the initiation. Also, it seems as
though the place of the rite is arbitrary, for the actors construct
their scene artificially. They dig a hole into which they go; he seldom
makes any allusion to sacred trees or rocks and their ritual rôle.
[1129] _Nat. Tr._, p. 203. Cf. Meyer, _The Encounter Bay Tribe_, in
Woods, p. 187.
[1130] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 204.
[1131] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 205-207.
[1132] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 286 f.
[1133] _Ibid._, p. 294.
[1134] _Ibid._, p. 296.
[1135] Meyer, _in_ Woods, p. 187.
[1136] We have already cited one case; others will be found in Spencer
and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 208; _Nor. Tr._, p. 286.
[1137] The Walpari, Wulmala, Tjingilli, Umbaia.
[1138] _Nor. Tr._, p. 318.
[1139] For the second part of the ceremony as for the first, we have
followed Spencer and Gillen. On this subject, the recent fascicule of
Strehlow only confirms the observations of his predecessors, at least on
all essential points. He recognizes that after the first ceremony (two
months afterwards, he says, p. 13), the chief of the clan eats the
totemic animal or plant ritually and that after this he raises the
interdicts; he calls this operation _die Freigabe des Totems zum
allgemeinen Gebrauch_ (III, p. 7). He even tells us that this operation
is important enough to have a special word for it in the Arunta
language. He adds, it is true, that this ritual consummation is not the
only one, but that the chiefs and old men sometimes eat the sacred plant
or animal before the first ceremony and that the performer of the rite
does so after the celebration. The fact is not improbable; these
consummations are means employed by the officiants or assistants to
acquire virtues which they acquire; it is not surprising if they are
numerous. It does not invalidate the account of Spencer and Gillen at
all, for the rite upon which they insist, and not without reason, is the
_Freigabe des Totems_.
On only two points does Strehlow contest the allegations of Spencer and
Gillen. In the first place, he declares that the ritual consumption does
not take place in every case. This cannot be doubted, for there are some
animals and plants which are not edible. But still, the rite is very
frequent; Strehlow himself cites numerous examples (pp. 13, 14, 19, 23,
33, 36, 50, 59, 67, 68, 71, 75, 80, 84, 89, 93). Secondly, we have seen
that according to Spencer and Gillen, if the chief does not eat the
totemic animal or plant, he will lose his powers. Strehlow assures us
that the testimony of natives does not confirm this assertion. But this
question seems to us to be quite secondary. The assured fact is that the
ritual consumption is required, so it must be thought useful or
necessary. Now, like every communion, it can only serve to confer needed
virtues upon the person communicating. It does not follow from the fact
that the natives, or some of them, have forgotten this function of the
rite, that it is not real. Is it necessary to repeat that worshippers
are generally ignorant of the real reasons for their practices?
[1140] See _The Religion of the Semites_, Lectures vi-xi, and the
article _Sacrifice_ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (Ninth Edition).
[1141] See Hubert and Mauss, _Essai sur la nature et la fonction du
sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, pp. 40 ff.
[1142] See the explanation of this rule, above, p. 229.
[1143] See Strehlow, III, p. 3.
[1144] We must not forget that among the Arunta it is not completely
forbidden to eat the totemic animal.
[1145] See other facts in Frazer, _Golden Bough_, pp. 348 ff.
[1146] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 275 ff.
[1147] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 318-319.
[1148] On this point, see Hubert and Mauss, _Mélanges d'histoire des
religions_, preface, p. v ff.
[1149] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 390 ff.
[1150] Smith cites some cases himself in _The Rel. of the Semites_, p.
231.
[1151] For example, see Exodus xxix. 10-14; Leviticus ix. 8-11; it is
their own blood which the priests of Baal pour over the altar (1 Kings
xviii. 28).
[1152] Strehlow, III, p. 12, verse 7.
[1153] At least when it is complete: in certain cases, it may be reduced
to one of its elements.
[1154] Strehlow says that the natives "regard these ceremonies as a sort
of divine service, just as a Christian regards the exercises of his
religion" (III, p. 9).
[1155] It should be asked, for example, whether the effusions of blood
and the offerings of hair which Smith regards as acts of communion are
not real oblations (see Smith,_ op_. _cit._, pp. 320 ff.).
[1156] The expiatory rites, of which we shall speak more fully in the
fifth chapter of this same book, are almost exclusively oblations. They
are communions only secondarily.
[1157] This is why we frequently speak of the ceremonies as if they were
addressed to living personalities (see, for example, texts by Krichauff
and Kemp, in Eylmann, p. 202).
[1158] In a philosophical sense, the same is true of everything, for
nothing exists except in representation. But as we have shown (p. 227),
this proposition is doubly true for religious forces, for there is
nothing in the constitution of things which corresponds to sacredness.
[1159] See Mauss, _Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés
Eskimos_, in _Année Sociol._, IX, pp. 96 ff.
[1160] _Nat. Tr._, p. 176.
[1161] _Nor. Tr._, p. 179. It is true that Spencer and Gillen do not say
expressly that this is an Intichiuma. But the context allow of no doubt
on this point.
[1162] In the index of totem names, Spencer and Gillen write _Untjalka_
(_Nor. Tr._, p. 772).
[1163] _Nat. Tr._, p. 182.
[1164] _Nat. Tr._, p. 193.
[1165] Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 221; cf. p. 243.
[1166] Strehlow, III, pp. 11, 31, 36, 37, 68, 72, 84.
[1167] _Ibid._, p. 100.
[1168] _Ibid._, pp. 81, 100, 112, 115.
[1169] _Nor. Tr._, p. 310.
[1170] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 285-286. Perhaps the object of these movements of
the lance is to pierce the clouds.
[1171] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 294-296. It is curious that, on the contrary, the
Anula regard the rainbow as productive of rain (_ibid._, p. 314).
[1172] The same process is employed among the Arunta (Strehlow, III, p.
132). Of course we may ask if this effusion of blood is not an oblation
designed to win the powers which produce rain. However, Gason says
distinctly that this is a way of imitating the water which falls.
[1173] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, pp. 66-68. Howitt (_Nat.
Tr._, pp. 798-800) mentions other rites of the Dieri for obtaining rain.
[1174] _Ethnological Notes on the Western Australian Aborigines_, in
_Internationales Archiv. f. Ethnographie_, XVI, pp. 6-7. Cf. Withnal,
_Marriage Rites and Relationship_ in _Man_, 1903, p. 42.
[1175] We presume that sub-totems may have _tarlow_, for, according to
Clement, certain clans have several totems.
[1176] Clement says a tribal family.
[1177] We shall explain below (p. 362) why this is incorrect.
[1178] On this classification, see Frazer, _Lectures on the Early
History of Kingship_, pp. 37 ff.; Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie générale de
la Magie_, pp. 61 ff.
[1179] We say nothing of what has been called the law of opposition,
for, as MM. Hubert and Mauss have shown, a contrary produces its
opposite only through the intermediacy of a similar (_Théorie générale
de la Magie_, p. 70).
[1180] _Lectures on the History of Kingship_, p. 39.
[1181] It is applicable in the sense that there is really an association
of the statue and the person encharmed. But it is true that this
association is the simple product of an association of ideas by
similarity. The true determining cause of the phenomenon is the
contagiousness peculiar to religious forces, as we have shown.
[1182] For the causes determining this outward manifestation, see above,
pp. 230 ff.
[1183] M. Lévy-Bruhl, _Les Fonctions mentales dans les sociétés
inférieures_, pp. 61-68.
[1184] _Golden Bough_^2, I, pp. 69-75.
[1185] We do not wish to say that there was ever a time when religion
existed without magic. Probably as religion took form, certain of its
principles were extended to non-religious relations, and it was thus
supplemented by a more or less developed magic. But if these two systems
of ideas and practices do not correspond to distinct historical phases,
they have a relation of definite derivation between them. This is all we
have sought to establish.
[1186] _Loc. cit._, pp. 108 ff.
[1187] See above, pp. 203 f.
[1188] Of course animal societies do exist. However, the word does not
have exactly the same sense when applied to men and to animals. The
institution is a characteristic fact of human societies; but animals
have no institutions.
[1189] The conception of cause is not the same for a scholar and for a
man with no scientific culture. Also, many of our contemporaries
understand the principle of causality differently, as they apply it to
social facts and to physico-chemical facts. In the social order, men
frequently exhibit a conception of causality singularly like that which
was at the basis of magic for a long time. One might even ask if a
physicist and a biologist represent the causal relation in the same
fashion.
[1190] Of course these ceremonies are not followed by an alimentary
communion. According to Strehlow, they have another name, at least when
they concern non-edible plants: they are called, not mbatjalkatiuma, but
_knujilelama_ (Strehlow, III, p. 96).
[1191] Strehlow, III, p. 8.
[1192] The Warramunga are not the only ones among whom the Intichiuma
takes the form of a dramatic representation. It is also found among the
Tjingilli, the Umbaia, the Wulmala, the Walpari and even the Kaitish,
though in certain of its features the ritual of these latter resembles
that of the Arunta (_Nor. Tr._, p. 291, 309, 311, 317). If we take the
Warramunga as a type, it is because they have been studied the best by
Spencer and Gillen.
[1193] This is the case with the Intichiuma of the black cockatoo (see
above, p. 353).
[1194] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 300 ff.
[1195] One of these two actors does not belong to the Black Snake clan,
but to that of the Crow. This is because the Crow is supposed to be an
"associate" of the Black Snake: in other words, it is a sub-totem.
[1196] _Nor. Tr._, p. 302.
[1197] _Ibid._, p. 305.
[1198] See Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 188; Strehlow, III, p. 5.
[1199] Strehlow himself recognizes this: "The totemic ancestor and his
descendant, who represents him (_der Darsteller_) are presented as one
in these sacred hymns." (III, p. 6). As this incontestable fact
contradicts the theory according to which ancestral souls do not
reincarnate themselves, Strehlow adds, it is true, in a note, that "in
the course of the ceremony there is no real incarnation of the ancestor
in the person who represents him." If Strehlow wishes to say that the
incarnation does not take place on the occasion of the ceremony, then
nothing is more certain. But if he means that there is no incarnation at
all, we do not understand how the officiant and the ancestor can be
confounded.
[1200] Perhaps this difference is partially due to the fact that among
the Warramunga each clan is thought to be descended from one single
ancestor about whom the legendary history of the clan centres. This is
the ancestor whom the rite commemorates; now the officiant need not be
descended from him. One might even ask if these mythical chiefs, who are
sorts of demigods, are submitted to reincarnation.
[1201] In this Intichiuma, three assistants represent ancestors "of a
considerable antiquity"; they play a real part (_Nat. Tr._, pp.
181-182). It is true that Spencer and Gillen add that these are
ancestors posterior to the Alcheringa. Nevertheless, mythical personages
are represented in the course of the rite.
[1202] Sacred rocks and water-holes are not mentioned. The centre of the
ceremony is the image of an emu drawn on the ground, which can be made
anywhere.
[1203] We do not mean to say that all the ceremonies of the Warramunga
are of this type. The example of the white cockatoo, of which we spoke
above, proves that there are exceptions.
[1204] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 226 ff. On this same subject, cf. certain
passages of Eylmann which evidently refer to the same mythical being
(_Die Eingeborenen_, etc., p. 185). Strehlow also mentions a mythical
snake among the Arunta (_Kulaia_, water-snake) which may not differ
greatly from the Wollunqua (Strehlow, I, p. 78; cf. II, p. 71, where the
Kulaia is found in a list of totems).
[1205] We use the Arunta words, in order not to complicate our
terminology; the Warramunga call this mythical period Wingara.
[1206] "It is not easy to express in words what is in reality rather a
vague feeling amongst the natives, but after carefully watching the
different series of ceremonies, we were impressed with the feeling that
the Wollunqua represented to the native mind the idea of a dominant
totem" (_Nor. Tr._, p. 248).
[1207] One of the most solemn of these ceremonies is the one which we
have had occasion to describe above (p. 217), in the course of which an
image of the Wollunqua is designed on a sort of hillock which is then
torn to pieces in the midst of a general effervescence.
[1208] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 227, 248.
[1209] Here are the terms of Spencer and Gillen in the only passage in
which they speak of a possible connection between the Wollunqua and
rain. A few days after the rite about the hillock, "the old men say that
they have heard Wollunqua speak, that he was satisfied with what had
passed and that he was going to send rain. The reason for this prophecy
was that they, as well as ourselves, had heard thunder rolling at a
distance." To such a slight extent is the production of rain the
immediate object of the ceremony that they did not attribute it to
Wollunqua until several days later, and then after accidental
circumstances. Another fact shows how vague the ideas of the natives are
on this point. A few lines below, thunder is spoken of as a sign, not of
the Wollunqua's satisfaction, but of its discontent. In spite of these
prognostics, continue our authors, "the rain did not fall. But some days
later, they heard the thunder rolling in the distance again. The old men
said that the Wollunqua was grumbling because he was not contented" with
the way in which the rite had been celebrated. Thus a single phenomenon,
the noise of thunder, is sometimes interpreted as a sign of a favouring
disposition, and sometimes as a mark of evil intentions.
However, there is one detail of the ritual which, if we accept the
explanation of it proposed by Spencer and Gillen, is directly efficient.
According to them, the destruction of the hillock was intended to
frighten the Wollunqua and to prevent it, by magic constraint, from
leaving its retreat. But this interpretation seems very doubtful to us.
In fact, in the very case of which we were speaking, where it was
announced that the Wollunqua was dissatisfied, this dissatisfaction was
attributed to the fact that they had neglected to take away the debris
of the hillock. So this removal is demanded by the Wollunqua itself, and
in no way intended to intimidate it and exercise a coercive influence
over it. This is probably merely one case of a more general rule which
is in force among the Warramunga: the instruments of the cult must be
destroyed after each ceremony. Thus the ritual ornamentations with which
the officiants are decorated are violently torn off from them when the
rite is terminated (_Nor. Tr._, p. 205).
[1210] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 207-208.
[1211] _Ibid._, p. 210.
[1212] See, in the list of totems drawn up by Strehlow, Nos. 432-442
(II, p. 72).
[1213] See Strehlow, III, p, 8. Among the Arunta there is also a totem
_Worra_ which greatly resembles the "laughing boy" totem of Warramunga
(_ibid._, and III, p. 124). _Worra_ means young men. The object of the
ceremony is to make the young men take more pleasure in the game
_labara_ (for this game, see Strehlow, I, p. 55, n. 1).
[1214] See above, p. 373.
[1215] A case of this sort will be found in _Nor. Tr._, p. 204.
[1216] _Nat. Tr._, p. 118 and n. 2, pp. 618 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 716 ff.
There are some sacred ceremonies from which women are not wholly
excluded (see, for example, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 375 ff.); but this is
exceptional.
[1217] See _Nat. Tr._, pp. 329 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 210 ff.
[1218] This is the case, for example, with the corrobbori of the Molonga
among the Pitta-Pitta of Queensland and the neighbouring tribes (see
Roth, _Ethnog. Studies among the N.W. Central Queensland Aborigines_,
pp. 120 ff.).--References for the ordinary corrobbori will be found in
Stirling, _Rep. of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia_, Part IV,
p. 72, and in Roth, _op. cit._, pp. 117 ff.
[1219] On this question see the excellent work of Culin, _Games of the
North American Indians (XXIVth Rep. of the Bureau of Am. Ethnol._).
[1220] See above, p. 81.
[1221] Especially in sexual matters. In the ordinary corrobbori, sexual
licence is frequent (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 96-97, and
_Nor. Tr._, pp. 136-137). On sexual licence in popular feasts in
general, see Hagelstrange, _Süddeutsches Bauernleben im Mittelalter_,
pp. 221 ff.
[1222] Thus the exogamic rules must be violated in the course of certain
religious ceremonies (see above, p. 216, n. 1). A precise ritual meaning
probably could not be found for these excesses. It is merely a
mechanical consequence of the state of super-excitation provoked by the
ceremony. It is an example of rites having no definite object
themselves, but which are mere discharges of energy (see above, p. 381).
The native does not assign them a definite end either; he merely says
that if these licences are not committed, the rite will not produce its
effects; the ceremony will fail.
[1223] Here are the very words used by Spencer and Gillen: "They (the
ceremonies connected with the totems) are often, though by no means
always, associated with the performance of the ceremonies attendant upon
initiation of young men, or are connected with the Intichiuma" (_Nor.
Tr._, p. 178).
[1224] We leave aside the question of what this character consists in.
It is a problem which would lead us into a very long and technical
development and which must therefore be treated by itself. Moreover, it
does not concern the propositions established in this present work.
[1225] This is chapter vi, entitled _Ceremonies Connected with the
Totems_.
[1226] Strehlow, III, pp. 1-2.
[1227] This explains the error of which Strehlow accuses Spencer and
Gillen: that they applied to one form of the ceremony the term which is
more appropriate for the other. But in these conditions, the error
hardly seems to have the gravity attributed to it by Strehlow.
[1228] It cannot be otherwise. In fact, as the initiation is a tribal
feast, novices of different totems are initiated at the same time. So
the ceremonies which thus succeed one another in the same place have to
do with several totems, and, therefore, they must take place away from
the places with which they are connected by the myth.
[1229] It will now be understood why we have never studied the
initiation rites by themselves: it is because they are not a ritual
entity, but are formed by the conglomeration of rites of different
sorts. There are interdictions, ascetic rites and representative
ceremonies which cannot be distinguished from those celebrated at the
time of the Intichiuma. So we had to dismember this composite system and
treat each of the different rites composing it separately, classifying
them with the similar rites to which they are to be related. We have
also seen (pp. 285 ff.) that the initiation has served as the point of
departure for a new religion which tends to surpass totemism. But it has
been sufficient for us to show that totemism contained the germs of this
religion; we have had no need of following out its development. The
object of this book is to study the elementary beliefs and practices; so
we must stop at the moment when they give birth to more complex forms.
[1230] _Nat. Tr._, p. 463. If the individual may choose between the
ceremonies of his paternal and maternal totems, it is because, owing to
reasons which we have set forth above (p. 183), he participates in both.
[1231] See below, ch. v, p. 395.
[1232] See _Essai sur le Sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des
Religions_, p. 83.
[1233] _Piacularia auspicia appellabant quæ sacrificantibus tristia
portendebant_ (Paul ex Fest., p. 244, ed. Müller). The word piaculum is
even used as a synonym of misfortune. "_Vetonica herba_," says Pliny,
"_tantum gloriæ habet ut domus in qua sita sit tuta existimetur a
piaculis omnibus_" (XXV, 8, 46).
[1234] _Nor. Tr._, p. 526; Eylmann, p. 239. Cf. above, p. 305.
[1235] Brough Smyth, I, p. 106; Dawson, p. 64; Eylmann, p. 239.
[1236] Dawson, p. 66; Eylmann, p. 241.
[1237] _Nat. Tr._, p. 502; Dawson, p. 67.
[1238] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 516-517.
[1239] _Ibid._, pp. 520-521. The authors do not say whether these were
tribal or blood relatives. The former hypothesis is the more probable
one.
[1240] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 525 f. This interdiction against speaking, which
is peculiar to women, though it consists in a simple abstention, has all
the appearance of a piacular rite: it is a way of incommoding one's
self. Therefore we mention it here. Also, fasting may be a piacular rite
or an ascetic one, according to the circumstances. Everything depends
upon the conditions in which it takes place and the end pursued (for the
difference between these two sorts of rites, see below, p. 396).
[1241] A very expressive illustration showing this rite will be found in
_Nor. Tr._, p. 525.
[1242] _Ibid._, p. 522.
[1243] For the principal forms of funeral rites, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._,
pp. 446-508, for the tribes of the South-East; Spencer and Gillen, _Nor.
Tr._, p. 505, and _Nat. Tr._, pp. 497 ff., for those of the centre;
Roth, _Nor. Queensland Ethnog._, Bull. 9, in _Records of the Australian
Museum_, VI, No. 5, pp. 365 ff. (_Burial Customs and Disposal of the
Dead_).
[1244] See, for example, Roth, _loc. cit._, p. 368; Eyre, _Journals of
Exped. into Central Aust._, II, pp. 344 f.
[1245] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 500; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 507, 508;
Eylmann, p. 241; Parker, _Euahlayi_, pp. 83 ff.; Brough Smyth, I, p.
118.
[1246] Dawson, p. 66; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 466; Eylmann, pp. 239-240.
[1247] Brough Smyth, I, p. 113.
[1248] W. E. Stanbridge, _Trans. Ethnological Society of London_, N.S.,
Vol. I, p. 286.
[1249] Brough Smyth, I, p. 104.
[1250] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 459. Similar scenes will be found in Eyre,
_op. cit._, II, p. 255, n., and p. 347; Roth, _loc. cit._, pp. 394, 395,
for example; Grey, II, pp. 320 ff.
[1251] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 104, 112; Roth, _loc. cit._, p. 382.
[1252] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 511-512.
[1253] Dawson, p. 67; Roth, _loc. cit._, pp. 366-367.
[1254] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 508-510.
[1255] A little wooden vessel, of which we spoke above, p. 334.
[1256] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 508-510. The other final rite at which Spencer
and Gillen assisted is described on pp. 503-508 of the same work. It
does not differ essentially from the one we have analysed.
[1257] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 531-540.
[1258] Contrarily to what Jevons says, _Introduction to the History of
Religion_, pp. 46 ff.
[1259] This makes Dawson say that the mourning is sincere (p. 66). But
Eylmann assures us that he never knew a single case where there was a
wound from sorrow really felt (_op. cit._, p. 113).
[1260] _Nat. Tr._, p. 510.
[1261] Eylmann, pp. 238-239.
[1262] _Nor. Tr._, p. 507; _Nat. Tr._, p. 498.
[1263] _Nat. Tr._, p. 500; Eylmann, p. 227.
[1264] Brough Smyth, I, p. 114.
[1265] _Nat. Tr._, p. 510.
[1266] Several examples of this belief are to be found in Howitt, _Nat.
Tr._, p. 435. Cf. Strehlow, I, 15-16; II, p. 7.
[1267] It may be asked why repeated ceremonies are necessary to produce
the relief which follows upon mourning. The funeral ceremonies are
frequently very long; they include many operations which take place at
intervals during many months. Thus they prolong and support the moral
disturbance brought about by the death (cf. Hertz, _La Representation
collective de la mort_, in _Année Sociol._, X, pp. 48 ff.). In a general
way, a death marks a grave change of condition which has extended and
enduring effects upon the group. It takes a long time to neutralize
these effects.
[1268] In a case reported by Grey from the observations of Bussel, the
rite has all the aspects of a sacrifice: the blood is sprinkled over the
body itself (Grey, II, p. 330). In other cases, there is something like
an offering of the beard: men in mourning cut off a part of their
beards, which they throw on to the corpse (_ibid._, p. 335).
[1269] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 135-136.
[1270] Of course each churinga is believed to be connected with an
ancestor. But it is not to appease the spirits of the ancestors that
they mourn for the lost churinga. We have shown elsewhere (p. 123) that
the idea of the ancestor only entered into the conception of the
churinga secondarily and late.
[1271] _Op. cit._, p. 207; cf. p. 116.
[1272] Eylmann, p. 208.
[1273] _Ibid._, p. 211.
[1274] Howitt, _The Dieri_, in _J.A.I._, XX (1891), p. 93.
[1275] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 394.
[1276] Howitt, _ibid._, p. 396.
[1277] Communication of Gason in _J.A.I._, XXIV (1895), p. 175.
[1278] _Nor. Tr._, p. 286.
[1279] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, p. 68.
[1280] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_: Eylmann, p. 208.
[1281] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 277 and 430.
[1282] _Ibid._, p. 195.
[1283] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, p. 69. The same process is
used to expiate a ridiculous act. Whenever anybody, by his awkwardness
or otherwise, has caused the laughter of others, he asks one of them to
beat him on the head until blood flows. Then things are all right again,
and the one who was laughed at joins in the general gaiety (_ibid._, p.
70).
[1284] Eylmann, pp. 212 and 447.
[1285] See above, p. 385.
[1286] _The Religion of the Semites_, lect. XI.
[1287] This is the case in which the Dieri, according to Jason, invoke
the Mura-mura of water during a drought.
[1288] _Op. cit._, p. 262.
[1289] It is also possible that the belief in the morally tempering
virtues of suffering (see above, p. 312) has added something here. Since
sorrow sanctifies and raises the religious level of the worshipper, it
may also raise him up again when he falls lower than usual.
[1290] Cf. what we have said of expiation in our _Division du travail
social_^3, pp. 64 ff.
[1291] See above, p. 301.
[1292] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 460; _Nor. Tr._, p. 601; Roth,
_North Queensland Ethnography_, Bulletin No. 5, p. 24. It is useless to
multiply references for so well-known a fact.
[1293] However, Spencer and Gillen cite one case where churinga are
placed on the head of the dead man (_Nat. Tr._, p. 156). But they admit
that the fact is unique and abnormal (_ibid._, p. 157), while Strehlow
energetically denies it (II, p. 79).
[1294] Smith, _Rel. of Semites_, p. 153; cf. p. 446, the additional
note, _Holiness, Uncleanness and Taboo_.
[1295] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 448-450; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 118, 120;
Dawson, p. 67; Eyre, II, p. 251; Roth, _North Queensland Ethn._, Bull.
Mo. 9, in _Rec. of the Austral. Museum_, VI, No. 5, p. 367.
[1296] See above, p. 320.
[1297] _Nor. Tr._, p. 599; _Nat. Tr._, p. 464.
[1298] Among the Hebrews, for example, they sprinkled the altar with the
blood of the expiatory victim (Lev. iv, 5 ff.); they burned the flesh
and used products of this combustion to make water of purification
(Numb. xix).
[1299] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 32-34. When two persons who have
thus exchanged their umbilical cords belong to different tribes, they
are used as inter-tribal messengers. In this case, the exchange of cords
took place shortly after birth, through the intermediary of their
respective parents.
[1300] It is true that Smith did not admit the reality of these
substitutions and transformations. According to him, if the expiatory
victim served to purify, it was because it had nothing impure in itself.
At first, it was a holy thing; it was destined to re-establish, by means
of a communion, the bonds of kinship uniting the worshipper to his god,
when a ritual fault had strained or broken them. An exceptionally holy
animal was chosen for this operation in order that the communion might
be as efficacious as possible, and efface the effects of the fault as
completely as possible. It was only when they no longer understood the
meaning of the rite that the sacrosanct animal was considered impure
(_op. cit._, pp. 347 ff.). But it is inadmissible that beliefs and
practices as universal as these, which we find at the foundation of the
expiatory sacrifice, should be the product of a mere error of
interpretation. In fact, we cannot doubt that the expiatory victim was
charged with the impurity of the sin. We have shown, moreover, that
these transformations of the pure into the impure, or the contrary, are
to be found in the most inferior societies which we know.
[1301] William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_.
[1302] Quoted by James, _op. cit._, p. 20.
[1303] See above, pp. 230 ff.
[1304] Only one form of social activity has not yet been expressly
attached to religion: that is economic activity. Sometimes processes
that are derived from magic have, by that fact alone, an origin that is
indirectly religious. Also, economic value is a sort of power or
efficacy, and we know the religious origins of the idea of power. Also,
richness can confer _mana_; therefore it has it. Hence it is seen that
the ideas of economic value and of religious value are not without
connection. But the question of the nature of these connections has not
yet been studied.
[1305] It is for this reason that Frazer and even Preuss set impersonal
religious forces outside of, or at least on the threshold of religion,
to attach them to magic.
[1306] Boutroux, _Science et Religion_, pp. 206-207.
[1307] See above, pp. 379 ff. On this same question, see also our
article, "Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives,"
in the _Revue de Métaphysique_, May, 1898.
[1308] William James, _Principles of Psychology_, I, p. 464.
[1309] This universality of the concept should not be confused with its
generality: they are very different things. What we mean by universality
is the property which the concept has of being communicable to a number
of minds, and in principle, to all minds; but this communicability is
wholly independent of the degree of its extension. A concept which is
applied to only one object, and whose extension is consequently at the
minimum, can be the same for everybody: such is the case with the
concept of a deity.
[1310] It may be objected that frequently, as the mere effect of
repetition, ways of thinking and acting become fixed and crystallized in
the individual, in the form of habits which resist change. But a habit
is only a tendency to repeat an act or idea automatically every time
that the same circumstances appear; it does not at all imply that the
idea or act is in the form of an exemplary type, proposed to or imposed
upon the mind or will. It is only when a type of this sort is set up,
that is to say, when a rule or standard is established, that social
action can and should be presumed.
[1311] Thus we see how far it is from being true that a conception lacks
objective value merely because it has a social origin.
[1312] See also above, p. 208.
[1313] Lévy-Bruhl, _Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés
inférieures_, pp. 131-138.
[1314] _Ibid._, p. 446.
[1315] See above, p. 18.
[1316] William James, _Principles of Psychology_, I, p. 134.
[1317] Men frequently speak of space and time as if they were only
concrete extent and duration, such as the individual consciousness can
feel, but enfeebled by abstraction. In reality, they are representations
of a wholly different sort, made out of other elements, according to a
different plan, and with equally different ends in view.
[1318] At bottom, the concept of totality, that of society and that of
divinity are very probably only different aspects of the same notion.
[1319] See our _Classifications primitives_, _loc. cit._, pp. 40 ff.