Now it is apparent that precisely the same conditions that underlie the

development of the various forms of exogamy also generate _polygyny_

and _polyandry_. From the standpoint of the general human impulses

determining the relations of the sexes, both sorts of polygamy are

manifestly connected very closely with the origin of exogamy. Here,

again, the fact that exogamy originated in marriage by capture from

within the tribe is of decisive importance. It is precisely this

friendly form of the capture of brides, as we may learn from the

example of the Australians and of others, that is never carried out by

the individual alone, whether the custom be still seriously practised

or exists only in playful survivals. The companions of the captor aid

him, and he, in turn, reciprocates in similar undertakings. Thereby the

companion, according to a view that long continued to be held, gains a

joint right to the captured woman. Hence the original form of polygamy

was probably not polygyny--the only form, practically, that later

occurs--but _polyandry_. At first this polyandry, which originates in

capture, was probably only temporary in character. Nevertheless it

inevitably led to a loosening of the marriage bond, the result of which

might easily be the introduction of polygyny. The man who has gained a

wife for his permanent possession seeks to indemnify himself, so far as

possible, for the partial loss which he suffers through his companions.

Here, then, two motives co-operate to introduce the so-called

'group-marriage'--the dearth of women, which may also act as a

secondary motive in the claim of the companions to the captured woman,

and the impulse for sexual satisfaction, which is, in turn, intensified

by the lack of women. Similarly, the right to the possession of a

woman, even though only temporarily, also has two sources. In the first

place, the helper demands a reward for his assistance. This reward,

according to the primitive views of barter and exchange, can consist

only in a partial right to the spoils, which, in this case, means

the temporary joint possession of the woman. In the second place,

however, the individual is a member of the clan, and what he gains is

therefore regarded as belonging also to the others. Thus the right of

the closest companions may broaden into a right of the clan. Indeed,

where strict monogamy does not prevent, phenomena similar to marriage

by capture persist far beyond this period into a later civilization.

Thus, in France and Scotland, down to the seventeenth century, the

lord possessed the right of _jus primæ noctis_ in the case of all his

newly married vassals. In place of the clan of an earlier period we

here find the lord; to him has been transmitted the right of the clan.

At the time when these phenomena were in their early beginnings, the

temporary relation might very easily have become permanent. It is thus

that group-marriage originates--an institution of an enduring character

which not only survives the early marriage by capture but which is

reinforced and probably first made permanent by its substitute, namely,

marriage by purchase. In this instance again, Australian custom

offers the clearest evidence. In the so-called 'Pirrauru marriage' of

Australia, a man, M, possesses a chief wife, C^1, called

'Tippamalku.' [image missing, see htm--transcribers.] Another man, N,

likewise has a chief wife, C^2. This wife, C^2, is, however, at the

same time a secondary wife, S^1, or 'Pirrauru' of M. In like manner

the chief wife, C^1, may, in turn, be a secondary wife, S^2, of N.

This is the simplest form of group-marriage. Two men have two wives,

of whom one is the chief wife of M and the secondary wife of N, and

the other is the chief wife of N and the secondary wife of M. Into

such a group yet a third man, O, may occasionally enter with

a chief wife, C^3, whom he gives to M as a secondary wife,

S^3, and eventually to N as a secondary wife, S^4, without

himself participating further in the group. In this way there may well

be innumerable different relations. But the marriage is a 'Pirrauru

marriage' whenever a man possesses not only a chief wife but also one

or more secondary wives who are at the same time the wives of other

men. 'Pirrauru marriage' is a form of group-marriage, for it involves

an exchange of women between the men of a group according to the

reciprocal relation of chief and secondary wives. The very manner in

which 'Pirrauru marriage' originates, however, indicates that in all

probability its basis is _monogamy_, and not, as is supposed by many

ethnologists and sociologists, 'promiscuity,' or the total absence of

all marriage. In harmony with this interpretation is the fact that in

numerous regions of Australia, especially in the northern districts,

it is not group-marriage but monogamy that prevails. There is also,

of course, a form of group-marriage that differs from 'Pirrauru

marriage,' and is apparently simpler. In it, the differences between

chief and secondary wives disappear; several men simply possess

several wives in common. Because this form of group-marriage is the

simpler, it is also usually regarded as the earlier. This view,

however, is not susceptible of proof. The supposition rests simply

and alone upon the consideration that, if a state of absolutely

promiscuous sexual intercourse originally prevailed, the transition

to an undifferentiated group-marriage without distinction of chief

and secondary wives would be the next stage of development. The

reverse, however, would obtain were monogamy the original custom.

For the group-marriage with chief and secondary wives is, of course,

more similar to monogamy than is undifferentiated group-marriage.

Moreover, this order of succession is also in greater consonance with

the general laws underlying social changes of this sort. As a matter of

fact, it would scarcely be possible to find grounds for a transition

from undifferentiated group-marriage to the 'Pirrauru system.' If we

assume that there was a growing inclination for single marriage, it

would be difficult to understand why the circuitous path of 'Pirrauru

marriage' should have been chosen. On the other hand, it is very easy

to see that the distinction between chief and secondary wives might

gradually disappear. Indeed, this is what has almost universally

happened wherever pure polygyny prevails. Wherever polygyny may be

traced back to its beginnings, it always seems to have its origin in

the combination of a chief wife with several secondary wives. Later,

however, when the wife comes to be regarded as property, we find a

formal co-ordination of the wives. Or, there may be a distinction that

arises from the accidental preference of the husband, as in the case

of the Sultan's favourite wife, though in modern times such choice

has again been displaced by a law of more ancient tradition. The

latter change, however, was the result of the external influence of

the culture of Western Europe. Such a retrogressive movement, in the

sense of a reapproach to monogamy, is foreign to the motives immanent

in the development itself. Furthermore, 'Pirrauru marriage' is very

easily explicable by reference to the same condition that best explains

the origin of exogamy, namely, the custom of marriage by capture as

practised between groups enjoying a tribal or cult relationship. The

captured wife is the Tippamalku, or chief wife, of the captor; to the

companions who assist the latter she becomes a Pirrauru, or secondary

wife. This latter relation is at first only temporary, though it later

becomes permanent, probably as a result, in part, of a dearth of

women. By rendering his companions a similar service, the original

captor in turn gains the chief wives of the former as his secondary

wives. As frequently happens, the custom which thus arises outlives the

conditions of its origin. This is all the more likely to happen in this

case, because the general motives to polyandry and polygyny persist and

exercise a constant influence.

Proof that this is the forgotten origin of group-marriage may perhaps

be found in a remarkable feature of the customs of these tribes--one

that is for the most part regarded as an inexplicable paradox. Marriage

with the chief wife is not celebrated by ceremonies or festivals, as is

the union with the secondary wife. Thus, the celebration occurs, not

in connection with that marriage which is of primary importance even

to the Australian, but, on the contrary, on the occasion of the union

which is in itself of less importance. The solution of this riddle can

lie only in the origin of the two forms of marriage. And, in fact,

the two result from radically different causes, if it be true that

capture from a friendly clan is the origin of the Tippamalku marriage

and that assistance rendered to an allied companion underlies Pirrauru

marriage. Capture is an act which precludes all ceremony; alliance with

a companion is a contract, perhaps the very first marriage contract

that was ever concluded--one that was made, not with the woman or with

her parents, but with her husband. The consummation of such a contract,

however, is an act which in early times was always accompanied by

ceremonial performances. These accompanying phenomena may also, of

course, persist long after their source has been lost to memory. Thus,

the difference between the two forms of primitive group-marriage also

indirectly confirms the supposition that monogamy lies at the basis of

group-marriage in general.

After a man has won one or more secondary wives in addition to his

chief wife, in Pirrauru marriage, there will doubtless be a tendency

for him to seek additional chief wives. This will be particularly apt

to occur where, on the one hand, marriage by capture gives way to

marriage by barter and later to marriage by purchase, and where, on

the other hand, group-marriage is on the wane. Custom may then either

recur to monogamy, or it may advance to a polygyny which is pure and

not, as in the case of group-marriage, combined with polyandry. Whether

the former or the latter will occur, will depend, now that marriage by

purchase has become predominant, upon might and property. Since these

are also the factors which insure man's supremacy within the family,

the older forms of combined polyandry and polygyny almost universally

(with few exceptions, conditioned by the dearth of women) give way,

with the advance of culture, to simple polygyny, which is then

practised alongside of monogamy. This polygyny, in turn, also finally

recedes in favour of monogamy. The circle of development, accordingly,

may be represented by the following diagram:--

Monogamy

|

Polyandry

|

Polyandry with Polygyny

(Group-marriage)

|

Polygyny

|

Monogamy.

As an intermediate stage between monogamy and group-marriage, pure

polyandry, it should be remarked, is doubtless a very transitory

phenomenon. Nevertheless, it has a priority over polygyny in so far as

it first furnishes the motives for the additional practice, and thus

for the very origin, of the latter.

As a matter of fact, the ethnological distribution of the forms

of marriage entirely confirms, as a general rule, the truth of

this diagram. Even in Australia the phenomena of Pirrauru and of

group-marriage are confined particularly to the southern regions. In

the northerly regions, where immigration and racial fusion have played

a greater rôle, both monogamy and polygyny may be found. The same is

true of America and of Africa, monogamy decidedly predominating in

the former and polygyny in the latter. The influence of marriage by

purchase then constantly becomes stronger, with the result that the

woman comes to be regarded from the point of view of property. The rich

man is able to buy more wives than the poor man. In all polygynous

countries and fields of culture, therefore, even in the present domain

of Islamism, the poor man, as a rule, lives in monogamy, the rich man

in polygyny. Only the wealthiest and most aristocratic allow themselves

a real harem with a considerable number of wives.

Linked with these influences is yet a further change. Its beginnings

are to be found as early as Australian culture; in America, it has

progressed somewhat farther; in the other regions of totemism, it has

finally succeeded in crowding out the original conditions with the

exception of meagre remnants and survivals of customs. The change to

which I refer is the _transition from maternal descent_, which, in all

probability, was originally universal, _to paternal descent_. Maternal

descent is in direct harmony with the natural feeling that the children

who are born of the mother, and whose early care rests with her alone,

should also belong to her. In this sense, mother-right represents the

earliest of all conceptions of property. At the same time it precludes

the possibility of that marriage which was avoided even by primitive

man, and which, on higher cultural levels, is abhorred beyond all the

other unions forbidden by the exogamous norms of custom--marriage

between son and mother. The decisive external factor in connection with

maternal descent, however, is the subordinate position of the family

as compared with the association of the age-companions of the same

sex, particularly the men's club. Because of its tribal struggles,

whose increasing importance is externally reflected in the character

of the weapon, it is precisely the totemic era that tends to loosen

the natural family ties of the preceding primitive age, and, as a

result, to allot the child to the mother. This tendency is clearly

expressed in certain transitional phenomena that may occasionally

be observed; they occur more frequently in Melanesia and America,

however, than in Australia. The child, in these cases, inherits the

totem of the mother as well as that of the father; or the son, though

continuing to inherit the totem of the mother, nevertheless passes

over into the clan of the father. These are intermediate phenomena,

preparatory to the general transition from maternal to paternal

descent. At the same time, the fact that membership is inherited in the

paternal clan, in spite of the custom whereby the mother determines

the totem, directly suggests that the bond uniting the men may become

a force which counteracts maternal descent and then readily leads to

paternal descent. This transition is bound to occur, particularly

under the co-operation of other favouring conditions. Such conditions,

as a matter of fact, are present; for social organization gains an

increasing influence upon the whole of life's relations. There are

primarily _three_ factors that militate against the original custom

of maternal descent. The first of these consists in the increasing

authority of the man over his family, particularly over the son, who

was generally subject to stricter regulations than was the daughter.

This authority begins to manifest itself at that time, especially,

when the man's relations with his family again become closer, and the

associations which originally embraced, without exception, all the men

of the clan, are displaced by family groups subject to the control of

a family elder. Coincident with these changes and with the resulting

transition to a patriarchal order, there occurs also the gradual

dissolution of the general system of totemic tribal organization. Now,

the system of maternal descent was closely bound up with totemic tribal

organization from the very beginning. With the disappearance of the

latter, therefore, the former loses its power of resistance against the

forces making for its destruction. Finally, as a third factor, there

is the gradually increasing prominence of personal property. Just as

the wife becomes the property of the man, so also does the child. So

great was this emphasis of the property conception, combined with the

notion of authority, that even among the Romans the _pater familias_

had power extending over the life of his children. Beginnings of such

conceptions, however, are to be found even in more primitive societies.

Polynesian custom, for example, permitted the murder of new-born

children, and free advantage was taken of the permission. Only after

the child had lived for a short time was infanticide prohibited. The

decision, however, as to whether or not the child should be allowed to

live rested primarily with the father.

8. THE DEVELOPMENTAL FORMS OF TOTEMISM.

Our discussions thus far have been restricted to those aspects of

totemism which are directly related to tribal organization. But however

important these phases may be, particularly in so far as they affect

marriage regulations, they are, after all, but an external indication

of the all-pervading influence of totemism upon life as a whole.

Moreover, tribal totemism leaves many things unexplained, especially

the origin of totemic belief. At any rate, the fact that totem groups

were originally cult associations unmistakably points to inner motives

of which the influence of totemism upon tribal organization and upon

exogamy is but the outer expression. To answer the question concerning

the nature of these motives, however, we must first call to mind

the various sorts of totemic ideas. An analysis of these ideas may

proceed in either of _two_ directions. It may concern itself either

with the _social unit_ that regards itself as in relation to the

totem or with the nature of the _object_ that constitutes the totem.

So far as the social unit is concerned, it may be a particular group

of individuals--whether constituting a cult association independent

of the real tribal organization, as in Australia, or, as in America,

representing one of the tribal divisions themselves--that takes the

name of a particular animal or, less frequently, of a plant for its

totemic designation. The individual, however, may also possess a

personal totem. Furthermore, the totemic idea may be associated with

the birth of an individual, conception being regarded as an act in

which the totem ancestor passes over into the germ as a magic being.

This particular form of totemic belief is generally known as conception

totemism. It supposes either that the totem ancestor co-operates with

the father in the begetting of the child or that the father has no

connection with procreation, the child being the direct offspring of

the mother and the totem ancestor. There is, finally, also a fourth,

though a relatively uncommon, form of totemism, generally called 'sex

totemism.' Sex totemism also is social in nature, though in this case

it is not different cult or tribal associations that possess separate

totems, but the sexes, the men and women of a tribe or clan. The men

have a totem, as have also the women, or there may be several totems

for each sex.

Intercrossing with this classification based on the social factor, on

whether the totem is associated with the tribe, the individual, or the

procreation of the individual, there is a second classification. The

latter concerns itself with the nature of the objects that are regarded

as totems. These objects are of various sorts. Here again, moreover,

we must doubtless recognize a development in totemic conceptions. The

original totem, and the one that is by far the most common, is the

animal. Numerous peoples possess no totems except animals. In many

communities, however, plant totems have been adopted, and in certain

regions they have gradually become predominant. Of the plant totems,

the most important are the nutritious plants. In addition to these

two classes of totemic objects, there is, finally, another, though

an exceedingly rare, sort of totem. The totem that is conceived as

an animal ancestor may give way to other fanciful ancestral ideas or

may intercross with them. Various forms of such phenomena are to be

found, particularly in Australia. In this region, such ancestors,

which, doubtless, are for the most part regarded as anthropomorphic,

are sometimes called Mura-mura or also Alcheringa. They are apparently

imaged as mighty human beings possessed of magic powers. They are

believed to have introduced totemism and to have instructed the

forbears of the Australians in magic ceremonies. Mura-mura is the name

that occurs especially in Southern Australia; the term, Alcheringa,

prevails in the north, where the age of these mythical ancestors is

often directly referred to as the Alcheringa age. At times, apparently,

it is believed that these ancestors merely singled out as totems

certain already existing animals. In other cases, however, animals, as

well as mankind, are held to have been created by the magic-working

beings out of formless matter, doubtless earth. It is commonly believed

that the creatures that were thus created were at first lifeless, but

became animals and men when placed in the sun. These various ideas are

for the most part so intertangled in Australian legend that no coherent

history of creation is anywhere discoverable. The legends plainly

embody merely a number of detached fanciful ideas.

Closely connected with these original ancestors there is a third sort

of totem or of totemic objects which we may briefly designate as

_inanimate_. The objects are regarded as possessing magical powers and

as having been bequeathed by the original ancestors, thus representing

a legacy of the magical Alcheringa age. It is particularly stones and

pieces of wood that are held to be the abode of these totemic spirits

and that are represented by legend as having at one time been entrusted

to the custody of the forefathers. These ideas abound particularly in

northern Australia, where the magical objects are called churingas

(or tjurungas). Churingas play an important rôle in the ceremonies of

the totem festivals. For the most part, they consist of symmetrically

shaped stones, somewhat similar to the boomerang; yet other objects

also may be found, particularly such as are somehow striking in

form. These churingas are also associated with other totemic ideas,

particularly with conception totemism. The original ancestor is

supposed to continue his existence, as it were, in the churinga, so

that when this comes into contact with the mother he may pass over

directly into the child.

If, now, we compare with each other the two extreme forms of the first

class of totemic ideas--namely, _tribal_ and _individual totemism_--we

at once face the question, Which is the earlier, the original form?

The ideas connected with the individual totem are certainly much

more widely disseminated than is tribal totemism. Guardian spirits,

particularly demoniacal, protective animals, may be found in many

regions of the earth where there is little or no trace of the tribal

totem. This is true especially of many regions of North America and

of southern Africa, and likewise of numerous islands of Oceania. In

these localities the individual totem is sometimes regarded as a sort

of double of the individual person. If the totem animal dies, the man

whose totem it is must also die. Closely related to this conception

are a vast number of ideas reaching far down into later mythology,

particularly into Germanic lore--ideas according to which the soul of

a man lies hidden in some external object, perhaps in a plant or in an

animal, and, when this vehicle of the soul is destroyed, the man, or

the god or demon who has assumed human form, must die.

In these various modifications, _individual totemism_ is doubtless

more widespread than is tribal totemism. Nevertheless, this by no

means implies that the latter developed from the former. On the

contrary, both may possibly be equally original, grounded as they

are in universal human motives that run parallel and independent

courses. For this very reason, however, it is also possible that

tribal totemism is the older form, for on somewhat higher cultural

levels it recedes in favour of the belief in protective spirits

of individuals. In questions such as this it is helpful to adduce

parallels from later cults whose mode of origin is more familiar. In

the present instance, leaving out of account the animal ideas, the

two forms of totemism are closely analogous to the Roman Catholic

worship of saints. The saints also are regarded partly as guardians

of communities and partly as personal protectors. Thus, on the one

hand, we have the patrons of cities, of monasteries, of vocations,

and of classes; on the other hand, the individual also may possess a

particular patron saint. We know of a certainty, however, that the

patron saints of individuals did not antecede those of the Church

itself. It was this most inclusive community that first elected the

saints, whereupon smaller groups and finally individuals, guided by

motives that were frequently quite external, selected specific patron

saints from among the number of ecclesiastical saints. When the Church

set apart a certain day of the year for the particular worship of one

of its saints, this day was called by the name of the saint; to those

individuals who were named after him, the day became sacred. Thus, the

patron saint of the individual appeared later than the more universal

saint. This order of development, moreover, is in harmony with the

general nature of custom, language, and myth, according to which the

individual succeeds the universal; only secondarily may the process

occasionally be reversed. Usually, however, it is cult associations

and their common cult objects that are first in origin. Our contention

is unaffected by the fact that individual cult objects, as well as

individual totems, may continue to survive after tribal cults and

tribal totems have disappeared. For the need of a personal protector is

generally much more permanent than are the social conditions that gave

it birth. Again we may find verification in the analogous development

of saint worship. Nowadays the patron saints of the vocations, classes,

and cities have more and more passed into oblivion. Among the Roman

Catholic rural population, however, the individual still frequently

has his patron saint, and, even where the saint has disappeared, the

celebration of the 'name-day' has been retained. It is particularly

in the religious realm that personal need gains a greater and greater

ascendancy over community need. Everything seems to indicate that

such a change took place even within totemism, especially under the

influence of the gradual dissolution of the original totemic tribal

organization--a change analogous to that which occurred in the case

of saint worship as a result of the decay of mediæval guilds. These

arguments, of course, cannot lay claim to more than probability. No one

can show how the individual totem developed out of the group totem.

Certain indications, however, suggest that the above was the course of

development. In Australia, the stronghold of original tribal totemism,

a youth is frequently given a personal totem, in addition to the tribal

totem, upon the occasion of his initiation into manhood. The personal

totem is frequently a matter of secrecy, being known only to the

medicine-men or to the elders of the tribe. The fact that this is true

indicates that such a personal totem possesses no public significance

and, moreover, that it is probably bound up with the idea that the

real essence of a man is contained in his name, just as it is in his

picture, so that the mere speaking of the name might bring harm to the

person. It is doubtless probable, therefore, that, after groups came to

be formed within the primitive horde, they were at once bound together

by relations of cult. As Australian conditions indicate, the origin

of totems in the sense of cult groups is at least as old as tribal

organization, if not older.

The same cannot be said of the much more remarkable, though also rarer,

forms of totemism, _conception_ and _sex totemism_. The former of these

may be regarded as a modification of individual totemism, inasmuch as

it relates to the procreation of the individual. However, it also forms

a sort of intermediate stage between tribal and individual totemism.

A woman receives the totem of the child on a specific occasion, of

which she usually has knowledge. Among the Aranda, the conception

may occur at any place whatsoever; among the Warramunga, the woman

retires to a certain spot, the totem place, where the ancestral spirits

dwell. Either during the day or, especially, during the night and

in sleep, the spirit of the ancestor passes over into her. The word

'spirit,' which is employed by English writers, is not, of course, an

accurate rendering of the Australian term, and may easily lead to a

misconception. The German missionary Strehlow has probably done better

in using the word 'germ.' The germ of the child is thought to pass over

into the body of the mother independently of any act of the father,

or, at most, the participation of the latter is held to be merely

secondary, and not essential.

Adherents of the theory of original promiscuity have interpreted these

ideas also as a survival of unrestrained sexual conditions, and thus

as indicative of the fact that paternity was at one time unknown. A

closer acquaintance with the phenomena, however, shows that this can

scarcely be the case. Thus, the idea of the Warramunga that it is the

totem ancestors of a woman's husband and not those of any other man

that pass over into her, clearly presupposes a state of marriage, as

does also the further fact that these same tribes reckon descent in

the line of the father and not in that of the mother. Moreover, the

passing of the totem ancestor into the woman is generally accompanied

by magical ceremonies, such as the swinging of bull-roarers, or contact

with churingas. Or, the totem ancestor may appear to the woman in

sleep or in a waking vision. On the Banks Islands, strange to say, we

find conception totemism without any trace of tribal totemism. The

manner of reception of the totem ancestor also differs; the woman eats

of the flesh of her husband's totem animal, which, since there is no

tribal totemism, is in this case a personal, protective totem. Thus,

conception totemism represents something of an exception in that the

eating of the totem is not forbidden, as it generally is, but rather

constitutes a sort of cult act, as it also does in certain other cases.

In Australia, moreover, conception totemism is to be found only among

several of the northern tribes, to whom it may at one time have come

from Melanesia. Because of the primitive nature of the ideas connected

with conception totemism, particularly when, as among the Aranda, the

husband is ignored and it is believed that conception is mediated

only by the totem ancestor, the northern tribes just referred to have

sometimes been regarded as the most primitive. There are some writers,

on the other hand, by whom the possibility of such ideas is denied on

the ground that these very tribes must be familiar with the process

of procreation in the animal world. But this does not prove the case.

When, however, we learn that the older men of the tribe themselves no

longer entertain the belief in magical generation, particularly as the

exclusive factor, whereas, on the other hand, this is still taught to

the young men, and especially to the children, we may well call to mind

our own childish notions about the stork that brings the babies. Why

might something similar not occur among the Australians, and the belief

possibly retain credence somewhat beyond the age of childhood?

Sex totemism, similarly to conception totemism, is also of somewhat

limited distribution, and seems to occur principally in those regions

where tribal totemism proper is lacking or is at least strongly

recedent. Among the Kurnai of southern Australia, for example, no

tribal totemism has been discovered, though sex totemism occurs and

actually forms the basis of certain marriage ceremonies. Sex totemism

probably has its origin in the individual totem, especially in the

appearance of this totem in dreams. If, after such a totem has appeared

to an individual man or woman, it is then adopted by others of the

same sex, specific sex totems may well come into being, particularly

under the influence of the separate associations of men and women.

It is also significant that in the case of sex totemism nocturnal

animals predominate. The totem of the women is usually the bat; that

of the men, the owl. This fact is indicative of a dream origin and of

a genesis from the individual totem. Diurnal birds may, of course,

also appear in dreams. Whether or not this occurs depends solely upon

concomitant circumstances. At the stage of culture, however, when man

is accustomed to sleep in the open, it is probable that the nocturnal

birds which circle about him will also appear in his dreams. A further

characteristic phenomenon of the regions where sex totemism prevails,

is the manner in which marriage is consummated. In this case also, the

woman eats of the totem of the man. This causes a struggle between the

man and the woman, which is really a mere mock-fight ending with an

offer of reconciliation on the part of the man. With this, the marriage

is concluded. Such customs likewise point back to individual totemism

as their original source, and probably also to marriage by capture.

The fact that tribal totemism everywhere receded with the dominance

of individual totems, explains why sex and tribal totemism seem to be

mutually exclusive. Of the two rare forms of totemism, accordingly,

it is probable that conception totemism was the earlier, and that

sex totemism belongs to a relatively late stage of development. A

further indication of the primitive nature of conception totemism is

to be found in the fact that the Aranda possess a tribal organization

in which the grouping of totems to form clan divisions follows a

principle which elsewhere obtains only in the case of the two tribal

halves. Two clans, A and B, that enjoy exogamous relations with each

other, do not have different totem groups, as they do among all other

tribes; their totem groups are largely the same. Among the Aranda,

therefore, a man of one totem may, under certain circumstances, marry a

woman of the same totem, provided only she belongs to the other clan.

True, phenomena are not lacking--such particularly as those of plant

totems, to be mentioned below, and the ceremonial festivals connected

with them--which indicate that these northern tribes were affected by

Papuan immigrations and by race-mixture. But influences of this kind

are the less apt to lead to the submergence of primitive views and

customs according as they are instrumental, particularly when they

are operative at an early age, in maintaining conditions which might

otherwise possibly disappear as a result of further development.

The _second_ mode of classifying the forms of totemism is based on

the _objects_ which are used as totems and leads to an essentially

different analysis of totem beliefs. Each of the forms which the

classification distinguishes is, of course, also subsumable under one

of the kinds of totemism already discussed. The earliest totem objects,

as has already been mentioned, are without doubt _animals_. In America,

as in Australia, there are practically no totems except animals; in

other places also it is the animal that plays the principal rôle in

totemic mythology. In part, the animal continues to remain predominant

even after the age of actual totemism has passed. Nevertheless, _plant

totemism_ has found its way into certain regions. Here also the facts

are most clearly traceable in Australia, our most important source of

information regarding the history of the development of totemic ideas.

In southern Australia, there are no totems except animals; towards the

north, plant totems gradually begin to make their appearance, until

finally, among the most northerly peoples of central Australia, such

totems have the dominance. Plant totems, moreover, are also found

particularly in Melanesia, from which place they might easily have

come to Australia across the chain of islands which extends from New

Guinea to the north coast of the island-continent. That plants play

an unusually large rôle in the regions of Oceania, in connection with

totemism as well as otherwise, is directly due to external conditions.

These islands are poor in fauna; true, they possess great numbers

of birds, but these are of little value to the hunter. On the other

hand, they have a luxuriant flora. From early times on, therefore, it

is chiefly the plant world that has been the centre of interest and

that has left its stamp upon myth and custom. Clearly, plant totemism

had its origin on these islands. From them it was introduced into

Australia, where it combined with animal totemism. But the regions

into which plant totemism was introduced underwent a great change

in their totemic cults. It is probably only with the appearance of

plant totems that those cult ceremonies arose which are celebrated,

not, as the festivals of tribal totemism originally were, mainly at

the adolescence of youths, but primarily for the sake of effecting a

_multiplication of the totems_. Annually, at stated times, the members

of allied clans unite in magical ceremonies and cult dances, the

well-known 'corroborees,' as they are called by those who practise

them. The primary aim of such cults is to bring about by magical means

an increase of the totem plants and animals. Doubtless we may regard

it as highly probable that this ceremony represents a borrowing on the

part of animal totemism from plant totemism. For the hunter, similarly,

desires that there be a very great abundance of game animals. Yet it

is mainly plants that are the object of concern--a concern caused by

the changes in weather, with its incalculable oscillations between

life-bringing rain and the withering glare of the sun. These are

the motives that find expression in the festivals designed for the

multiplication of the totems, the 'Intichiuma' festivals. The motives

to these ancient cults still frequently find their counterparts in the

customs of the cultural peoples of the present. When, in times of a

long drought, processions pass over the fields and supplicate Heaven

for rain, as occurs even to-day in some regions, we certainly have an

analogous phenomenon. The only difference is that the Australian tribes

invoke their totems instead of Heaven; they call upon the plants which

are to increase and upon the animals which are to be available for

hunting, with the aim of thus exercising a magical influence upon them.

In connection with the Australian ceremonies designed to multiply the

food plants and game animals, we come upon still a _third_ kind of

totem objects. They differ from those of the two preceding classes

in that they are not regarded as independent totems, but merely as

vehicles of the same sort of magical power as is possessed by animal

and plant totems. In distinction from the latter, we may briefly call

them _inanimate totems_. They consist of stones and sticks. These are

utilized as magical objects in the Australian Intichiuma festivals, and

also, under the above-mentioned name of 'churingas,' in connection with

conception totemism. They differ from animate totems in that the latter

are in themselves endowed with magical properties, whereas the former

are always held to derive these powers from living magicians, from the

anthropomorphic or zoömorphic ancestors of antiquity. These magicians

are thought to have transmitted the objects to later generations for

the use of the latter in the practice of magic. Thus, the churingas

have a peculiar status, intermediate between magical beings and magical

implements. They are carefully preserved because--as is indicated by

their use in connection with conception totemism--they are regarded

as legacies left by ancestors; moreover, they are also supposed to

harbour the demoniacal power of these ancestors. One of the factors

determining the selection of these objects is doubtless generally their

shape, which is frequently of a striking nature, such as to arouse

astonishment. Ejected into the object itself, this astonishment becomes

a wonder-working power. Later, the desire to secure such magical means

of aid may become a supplementary factor in the selection of these

objects, and, as widespread phenomena of a similar nature show, may

eventually suffice of itself to constitute an object the bearer of

magical powers. Thus, it is these inanimate vehicles of a magic derived

from totem ancestors, that form the transition from the totem object to

the so-called _fetish_.

Each of the three kinds of totem objects just described, the plant

totem, the animal totem, and the totemic fetish, may assert itself in

connection with the three above-mentioned social forms of totemism.

Moreover, the three kinds of objects may also, to a certain extent,

combine with one another. For, though the animal is very commonly

the only totem, plant totems never occur except in connection with

animal totems, even though there are certain conditions under which

they attain the dominance. Finally, the totemic fetish is always

associated in totemic regions with animal and plant totems, and is also

closely connected with the idea, even here permeating totemic belief,

that there were anthropomorphic ancestors who left these fetishes as

magic-working legacies. Thus, totemism passes over, on the one hand,

into ancestor-worship, and, on the other, into fetishism, with which

it combines, particularly in the 'Intichiuma' festivals, to form a

composite cult. Tribal totemism is the source of the individual totem;

the latter, probably as a result of animistic ideas that displace

tribal totemism, gives rise, as an occasional offshoot, to the sex

totem. This is the conclusion to which we are led by the fact that the

choice of the sex totem is influenced by the dream. The last important

product of individual totemism, in combination with tribal totemism, is

an incipient ancestor worship, which is accompanied by peculiar forms

of fetishism. In view of its origin, we may perhaps refer to this cult

as 'totemic fetishism.' The following diagram illustrates this genetic

relationship:--

Tribal and Animal Totemism

/ \

Tribal Totemism--Animal Individual Animal

and Plant Totemism Totemism

\ / |

Ancestor Worship Sex Totemism

|

Totemic Fetishism

9. THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMIC IDEAS.

We have attempted to trace the succession of the various forms of

totemism by reference to the characteristics which these forms reveal.

Closely connected with this problem is the question concerning the

origin of totemic ideas. With respect to this question, however,

widely different hypotheses have been proposed. Of these, those that

belong to an earlier stage of our ethnological knowledge concerning

this subject can here receive but brief mention. Herbert Spencer held

that the entire institution of totemism arose out of the totem names

of individuals, such, for example, as wolf, deer, eagle, or, among

the Australians, emu, kangaroo, etc. These animal names, according

to him, were at first perhaps nicknames, such as are occasionally to

be found even to-day. Out of the individual totem arose the tribal

totem. The name then became identical with the thing itself--that is,

with the animal, which thus became a protective and ancestral animal.

Though rejecting the idea that the origin of totemism is to be found

in nicknames and epithets, Andrew Lang retained the belief that the

name was primary, and that the substitution of the animal or the plant

for the name occurred only later. This theory is not so strange as

it might appear. As a matter of fact, it is quite characteristic of

primitive thought closely to associate a name and its object. Primitive

man regards his name as a part of himself; this idea is similar to that

which underlies the terror that he sometimes manifests when a sketch

is made of him, a terror due to the belief that a part of his soul

is being carried away in the picture of the artist. And yet there is

_prima facie_ little probability that a phenomenon so widely prevalent

and so highly ramified as totemism could have its source in a fact of

this kind, which is, after all, only incidental. Moreover, in one of

the chief centres of tribal totemism, in the eastern part of North

America, as, for example, among the Iroquois, we find very clearly

defined personal names. These names, however, are never identical

with those of the totems, nor even, as a rule, with those of animals.

Sometimes they are borrowed from the names of flowers, although there

are no plant totems in America; or, they are flattering appellatives

such as we still find in higher civilizations. Moreover, there is no

indication that they ever came to be used for the designation of totems.

The view held by Howitt and by Spencer and Gillen, scholars deserving

of high esteem for their knowledge of Australian totemism, is an

essentially different one. In their opinions, it is the conditions of

a hunting life that are reflected in totemic beliefs. They maintain

that the animals of the chase were the first to become totem animals.

Wherever plant food gained great importance, plant totems were then

added. The evidence for this view is based mainly on those Intichiuma

ceremonies and festivals by means of which the Australians aim to

secure a multiplication of the totems. In these festivals, for example,

grass seed is scattered broadcast by members of the grass seed totem,

or a huge lizard is formed of clay by the members of the lizard totem,

and pieces of it are strewn about. These are magic ceremonies that,

in a certain sense, anticipate the sowing and harvest festivals of

later times. The only difference consists in the fact that these

primitive magic usages are not directed to the rain-bringing clouds or

to celestial deities in petition for a blessing upon the crops, but to

the objects themselves, to the animals and plants. Magic powers are

ascribed to the latter; by virtue of these powers they are to multiply

themselves. In regions where sowing and harvest do not as yet exist,

but where man gains his food solely by gathering that which the earth

of itself brings forth, such festivals and ceremonies are to a certain

extent the natural precursors of the later vegetation festivals.

In view of these facts, the hypothesis of the above-mentioned

investigators seems to have much in its favour. There is a very

important consideration, however, that obviously speaks against it. It

is highly probable that these very ceremonies for the multiplication

of totem objects are not indigenous to Australia, the chief centre of

totemism, but that they, along with the plant totem, were introduced

from without. These plant totems, as was remarked above, appear to

have come from the Melanesian Islands, where the animal totem plays a

small rôle, because the fauna is meagre and man is dependent in great

measure upon plant food. Besides animal and particularly bird totems,

therefore, which also occur on the Melanesian Islands, we find plant

totems throughout the whole of northern Australia. These totems, as we

may suppose, are the result of Papuan immigrations, to which are due

also other objects of Melanesian culture to be found in the Australian

continent. In the south, where there are no totems other than animals,

Intichiuma ceremonies receive small emphasis. In entire harmony with

our contentions are the conditions in America, where no festivals

of this sort are connected with the totems themselves; an analogous

significance is gained only later by the great vegetation festivals,

and these presuppose agriculture, together with the beginnings of a

celestial mythology.

In more recent times, therefore, Frazer, whose great work, "Totemism

and Exogamy," has assembled the richest collection of facts concerning

totemic culture, has turned to an essentially different theory. He

traces all forms of totemism back to conception totemism. Since the

latter, as we have already stated, probably arose out of individual

totemism, we are again confronted by an individualistic view, much as

in the hypothesis of the origin from names. Frazer derives conception

totemism from the dreams which mothers are supposed occasionally to

have experienced before the birth of a child. The animal appearing in

such a dream is thought to have become the totem or guardian animal of

the child. But, though conception totemism, as well as sex totemism,

may possibly have some connection with such phenomena--the fact that

the animals here concerned are chiefly nocturnal animals suggests that

such may be the case--totemism as a whole may, nevertheless, scarcely

be derived from dreams. Still less can this hypothesis be harmonized

with the fact that conception totemism is an anomaly. The ideas centred

about it are but of rare occurrence within the system of totemic

culture as a whole. Moreover, as Frazer also has assumed, they never

appear except as an offshoot of individual totemism, and this in turn,

when viewed in all its phases, cannot be regarded otherwise than as a

product of tribal totemism. In its reference to the dream, however,

this hypothesis may perhaps contain an element of truth, inasmuch as

it involves ideas that obviously play an important rôle in totemism.

This is shown particularly by reference to the totem animals that are

found most commonly in Australia, and that suggest a relation between

totemism and animistic ideas of the soul.

As a matter of fact, the totem is already itself the embodiment of a

soul. Either the soul of an ancestor or that of a protective being

is regarded as incorporated in the animal. The other totems, such

as plants or totem fetishes (churingas), are obviously derivative

phenomena, and the same is true of those legendary beings that inhabit

the churingas as spirits, or that gave them to the ancestors for the

purposes of magic. Now, originally, the totem was probably always

an animal. But a survey of the great mass of animistic conceptions

prevalent in all parts of the world shows that in this case also it

is particularly the animal that is represented as capable of becoming

the receptacle of a human soul after death. Animals, of course, are

not all equally suited to this purpose. Some are more apt than others

to be regarded as soul animals, particularly such as are characterized

by rapid movement, flight through the air, or by other features that

arouse surprise or uncanny dread. Thus, even in the popular belief

of to-day, it is especially the snake, the lizard, and the mouse, in

addition to the birds, that are counted among the soul animals. If,

now, with these facts in mind, we cast a glance over the list of totem

animals, we are at once struck by the fact that the most common among

them are soul animals. In Australia, we find the hawk, the crow, and

the lizard; in America, the eagle, the falcon, and the snake.

In respect to these ideas, the totemic age marks an important

turning-point in the history of soul conceptions. Primitive man regards

that which we have succinctly called the 'corporeal soul' (p. 82) as

the principal, and perhaps originally as the only, soul. At death,

the soul is believed to remain in the body, wherefore primitive man

flees in terror from the corpse. Even at this stage, of course, we

occasionally find traces of a different idea. The soul may also be

regarded as active outside of the body, in the form of a demoniacal

being. But as yet these ideas are generally fluctuating and undefined.

There then comes a change, dependent, just as are the other cultural

transformations, on the strife and warfare arising as a result of

tribal migrations. This change, as we may suppose, is due to the

fact that tribal struggles bring with them the impressive spectacle

of sudden death. One who is killed in battle exhibits the contrast

between life and death so directly that, even though the belief in

the continued existence of the soul within the body still survives,

it nevertheless permits the co-presence of other more advanced

conceptions. Thus _two_ sets of ideas come to be developed. On the

one hand, the soul is believed to depart with the blood. In place of

the entire body, therefore, the blood comes to be the chief vehicle

of the soul. Blood magic, which by itself constitutes an extensive

chapter in the history of magic beliefs, and which is prevalent in all

periods of culture, has its source in this conception. Further factors

then enter into the development. In addition to the blood, the inner

parts of the body, which are exposed in cases of violent death, become

vehicles of the soul. The idea of the sudden departure of the soul

is then transferred from the one who is killed to the dying person in

general. With the exhalation of his last breath, his soul is thought

to depart from him. The soul is therefore conceived as a moving form,

particularly as an animal, a bird, a rapidly gliding snake, or a lizard.

In dealing, later, with the soul conceptions of the totemic age, we

will consider these several motives in their independent influence

as well as in their reciprocal action upon one another. Here we can

touch upon them only in so far as they harbour the sources of totemism

itself. But in this connection two facts are of decisive importance.

In the first place, the original totem, and the one which continues

to remain most common, is the animal; and, secondly, the earliest

totem animals are identical with soul animals. But in addition to soul

animals, other animals also may later readily come to be regarded

as totems, particularly such as continually claim man's attention,

as, for example, game animals. Thus, the soul motives are brought

into interplay with other influences, springing in part from the

emotions associated with the search for daily food, though primarily

with success or failure in the chase. As a result, the soul motives

obviously become less prominent, and the totem animal, freed from this

association, acquires its own peculiar significance, which fluctuates

between the ancestral idea and that of a protective demon. The concern

for food, which was at first operative only as a secondary motive, was

heightened in certain localities where the natural environment was

poor, and, with the influx of immigrant tribes, it assumed ever greater

prominence. In this way, plant totems came to be added to animal

totems; finally, as a result of certain relations of these two totems

to inanimate objects, there arose a fetishistic offshoot of totemism.

This again brought totemism into close connection with ancestor ideas,

and contributed also towards the transition from animal to human

ancestors.

Thus, then, totemic ideas arise as a result of the diremption of

primitive soul ideas into the _corporeal soul_ and the _breath-_ and

_shadow-soul_. That the two latter are associated, is proven also by

the history of totemism. Folk belief, even down to the present, holds

that the soul of the dying person issues in his last breath and that it

possesses the form of an animal. The soul of one who has recently died,

however, appears primarily in dreams and as a phantom form. Now, the

totem animal has its genesis in the transformation of the breath-soul

into an animal. The shadow-soul of the dream, moreover, exercises

an influence on individual totemism, as it does also on conception

totemism and on sex totemism.

Thus, totemism is directly connected with the belief in souls--that

is to say, with _animism_. It represents that branch of animism which

exercised a long-continuing influence on the tribal organization as

well as on the beliefs of peoples. But before turning to these final

aspects of totemism and their further developments, it is necessary to

consider another group of ideas which, in their beginnings, occupied

an important place within the circle of totemic beliefs. The ideas to

which I refer are those connected with the custom of _taboo_.

10. THE LAWS OF TABOO.

It is a significant fact that 'totem' and 'taboo' are concepts for

which our cultural languages possess no adequate words. Both these

terms are taken from the languages of so-called natural peoples,

'totem' from an idiom of the North American Indians, and 'taboo'

from the Polynesian languages. The word 'totem' is as yet relatively

uncommon in literature, with the exception of books on ethnology and

folk psychology; the word 'taboo,' on the other hand, is much in use.

A thing is called taboo when it may not be touched, or when it must

be avoided for some reason, whether because of its peculiar sanctity

or contrariwise because its harmful influence renders it 'impure,'

defiling every one who comes into contact with it. Thus, two opposing

ideas are combined in the conception of taboo: the idea of the sacred

as something to be avoided because of its sanctity, and that of the

impure or loathsome, which must be avoided because of its repulsive or

harmful nature. These ideas combine in the conception of _fear_. There

is, indeed, one sort of fear which we call _awe_, and another termed

_aversion_. Now, the history of taboo ideas leaves no doubt that in

this case awe and aversion sprang from the same source. That which

aroused aversion at a later age was in the totemic period chiefly an

object of awe, or, at any rate, of fear--that is, of a feeling in which

aversion and awe were still undifferentiated. That which is designated

by the simplest word [_Scheu_] is also earliest in origin; awe

[_Ehrfurcht_] and aversion [_Abscheu_] developed from fear [_Scheu_].

If, now, we associate the term 'taboo' in a general way with an object

that arouses fear, the earliest object of taboo seems to have been the

totem animal. One of the most elemental of totemic ideas and customs

consists in the fact that the members of a totem group are prohibited

from eating the flesh of the totem, and sometimes also from hunting the

totem animal. This prohibition, of course, can have originated only

in a general feeling of fear, as a result of which the members of a

totemic group are restrained from eating or killing the totem animal.

In many regions, where the culture, although already totemic, is,

nevertheless, primitive, the totem animal appears to be the only object

of taboo. This fact alone makes it probable that totemism lies at the

basis of taboo ideas. The protective animal of the individual long

survived the tribal totem and sometimes spread to far wider regions.

Similarly, the taboo, though closely related to tribal organization

in origin, underwent further developments which continued after the

totemic ideas from which it sprang had either entirely disappeared or

had, at any rate, vanished with the exception of meagre traces. This

accounts for the fact that it is not in Australia, the original home

of the totem, that we find the chief centre of taboo customs, nor in

Melanesian territory, where the totem is still fairly common, nor in

North America, but in Polynesia.

It is in Polynesia, therefore, that we can most clearly trace the

spread of taboo ideas beyond their original starting-point. The taboo

of animals is here only incidental; man himself is the primary object

of taboo--not every individual, but the privileged ones, the superiors,

the priest, the chieftain. Closely related to the fact that man is

thus held taboo, is the development of chieftainship and the gradual

growth of class differences. The higher class becomes taboo to the

lower class. This fear is then carried over from the man himself to

his possessions. The property of the nobleman is taboo to every other

person. The taboo has not merely the force of a police law, similar

to that whereby, in other localities, men of superior rank prohibit

entrance to their parks; it is a religious law, whose transgression

is eventually punished by death. It is particularly the chief and his

property that are objects of taboo. Where the taboo regulations were

strict, no one was allowed to venture close to the chief or even to

speak his name. Thus, the taboo might become an intolerable constraint.

In Hawaii, the chief was not allowed to raise his own food to his

mouth, for he was taboo and his contact with the food rendered this

also taboo. Hence the Hawaian chief was obliged to have a servant feed

him. The objects which he touched became taboo to all individuals. In

short, he became the very opposite of a despotic ruler, namely, the

slave of a despotic custom.

From the individual person, the taboo was further extended to

localities, houses, and lands. A member of the aristocratic class

might render taboo not only his movable property but also his land.

The temple, in particular, was taboo, and, together with the priests,

it retained this character longer than any other object. The taboo

concerned with the eating of certain animals, however, also remained

in force for a long time. Though these animals were at first avoided

as sacred, the taboo of the sacred, in this case, later developed into

that of the impure. Thus, this conception recurs, in a sense, to its

beginning. For the fear that is associated with the animals which the

totem group regards as sacred, is here combined with the fear that the

eating of the flesh is harmful. Sickness or even death is believed to

follow a transgression of such a taboo regulation. Even in its original

home, however, the taboo assumes wider forms. It subjects to its

influence the demon-ideas that reach back even to pretotemic times. The

corpse particularly, and the sick person also, are held taboo because

of the demoniacal magic proceeding from them. Likewise the priest and

the chief are taboo, because of their sacredness. Thus, the taboo gains

a circle of influence that widens according as totemic ideas proper

recede. The taboo which the upper classes placed upon their property

had come to be such a preponderant factor in Polynesian custom that

the first investigators of these regions believed the taboo in general

to be chiefly an institution whereby the rich aimed to protect their

property by taking advantage of the superstition of the masses.

One of the most remarkable extensions of the scope of taboo is the

_taboo which rests on relations by marriage._ The history of exogamy,

whose earliest stages are represented by the totemic marriage laws of

the Australians, clearly teaches that the aversion to marriage between

blood relations was not the cause but at most, to a great extent, the

effect of exogamous customs that everywhere reach back into a distant

past. But there is a second class of marriage prohibitions, and this

likewise has found a place even in present-day legislation--the

prohibition of unions between relations by marriage. Such prohibitions

are from the very beginning outside the pale of exogamous laws.

Indeed, it is clear that all unions of this sort--such, for example,

as are forbidden by our present laws--were permitted by the totem and

clan exogamy of the Australians and that of the American Indians. In

the case of maternal descent, the group from which a man must select

his wife included his mother-in-law as well as his wife. Similarly,

in the case of paternal descent, the husband and father-in-law were

totem associates. There is another set of customs, however, which

is generally connected with even the earliest forms of exogamy, and

which fills out in a very remarkable way the gap that appears in the

original totemic exogamy when this is compared with present-day

legislation. These customs are no other than the laws of taboo. One of

the earliest and most common of these regulations is the _taboo of the

mother-in-law_. Corresponding to it, not so common and yet obviously

a parallel phenomenon occasionally connected with it, is the _taboo

of the father-in-law_. The relative distribution of the two taboos is

analogous to that of maternal and paternal descent in the primitive

condition of society, for it is maternal descent that is dominant.

This is not at all meant to imply that there is any casual[1] relation

between these phenomena. Rather is it true, probably, that they are

based upon similar motives, and that these motives, just as in the

case of marriage between relations, are more potent in the case of

the mother than in that of the father. In general, however, the taboo

of parents-in-law signifies that the husband must so far as possible

avoid meeting his mother-in-law, and the wife, her father-in-law.

Now, it is evident that in so far as this avoidance excludes the

possibility of marriage, the custom is, in a way, supplementary to

exogamy. Wherever maternal descent prevails, no one may marry his

mother; and, where taboo of the mother-in-law exists, no one may marry

his mother-in-law. The same holds of father and daughter, and of father

and daughter-in-law, in the case of paternal descent. This analogy

may possibly indicate the correct clue to the interpretation of the

phenomena. It would certainly be erroneous to regard the taboo of the

mother-in-law as a regulation intentionally formulated to prevent

unions between direct relations by marriage. Yet there is evidence

here of a natural association by virtue of which the fear of marriage

with one's own mother, which, though not caused by the exogamous

prohibition, is nevertheless greatly strengthened by it, is directly

carried over to the mother-in-law. Between a woman and the husband of

her daughter there thus arises a state of taboo such as is impossible

between mother and son because, from the time of his birth on, they are

in close and constant relation with each other. In consequence of the

above-mentioned association, mother and mother-in-law, or father and

father-in-law, form a unity analogous to that which obtains between man

and wife. What is true of the husband, is also true in the case of the

wife; similarly, what holds for the mother of the husband holds no less

for the mother of the wife.

Striking evidence of the effect of an association of ideas that

is perfectly analogous to the one underlying the taboo of the

mother-in-law, is offered by a custom which is doubtless generally

only local in scope and yet is found in the most diverse parts of the

earth, thus showing plainly that it is autochthonous in character. I

refer to the custom of so-called father-confinement or 'couvade.' This

custom prevails in various places, occurring even in Europe, where it

is practised by the Basques of the Pyrenées, a remarkable fragment of a

pre-Indo-Germanic population of Europe. Due, probably, to the heavier

tasks which these people impose upon women, it here occasionally

occurs in an exaggerated form. Even after the mother has already begun

to attend to her household duties, the father, lying in the bed to

which he has voluntarily retired, receives the congratulations of the

relatives. Custom also demands that he subject himself to certain

ascetic restrictions, namely, that he avoid the eating of certain kinds

of food. The custom of couvade is clearly the result of an ideational

association between husband and wife--one that is absolutely analogous

to that between the two mothers of the married couple. The child owes

its existence to both father and mother. Both, therefore, must obey the

regulations which surround birth, and thus they are also subject to the

same taboo. Just as there is very commonly a taboo on the mother and

her new-born child, so also, in the regions where couvade exists, is

this transferred to the husband.

As is well known, the last vestiges of the taboo of the mother-in-law

have not yet disappeared, though they survive only in humour, as do

many other customs that were once seriously practised. In fact, there

is no other form of relationship, whether by blood or by marriage,

that is so subjected to the satire of daily life as well as to the

witticisms and jokes of comic papers as is that of the unfortunate

mother-in-law. Thus, the primitive taboo resting on the mother-in-law

and also, even though in lesser degree, on the father-in-law, has

registered itself in habits that are relatively well known. Graver

results of the regulations of ancient custom are doubtless to be found

in those prohibitions of union between relatives by marriage that still

constitute essential elements of present-day laws. This, of course,

does not mean that these prohibitions are unjustifiable or that they do

not reflect natural feelings. They but exemplify the fact that every

law presupposes a development which, as a rule, goes back to a distant

past, and that the feelings which we to-day regard as natural and

original had a definite origin and assumed their present character as

the outcome of many changes.

Alongside of these later forms of the taboo, and outlasting them, we

have its most primitive form. This is the taboo which rests on the

eating of certain foods, particularly the flesh of certain animals,

though less frequently it applies also to occasional plants. The

latter, however, probably represents a transference, just as does plant

totemism. A particular example of such a taboo is the avoidance of

the bean by the Grecian sect of Orphians and by the Pythagoreans whom

they influenced. The taboo of certain animals survived much longer.

But it was just in this case that there came an important shift of

ideas which gave to the taboo a meaning almost the opposite of that

which it originally possessed. Proof of such a change is offered by

the Levitical Priests' Code of Israel. The refined casuistry of the

priests prescribed even to details what the Israelite might eat and

what was taboo for him. For the Israelite, however, this taboo was

not associated with the sacred but with the unclean. The original

taboo on the eating of the flesh of an animal related, in the totemic

period, to the sacred animal. This is the taboo in its original form.

The Australian shrinks from eating the flesh of his totem animal, not

because it is unclean, but because he fears the revenge of demons

if he consumes the protective animal of his group. In the Priests'

Code, the sacred object has become entirely transmuted into an unclean

object, supposed to contaminate all who eat of it. It is a striking

fact, however, that the animals which are regarded as unclean are

primarily the early totem animals--the screech-owl, the bat, the eagle,

the owl, etc. Of the animals that live in or near the sea, only those

may be eaten that have scales, that is, only fish proper, and not the

snake-like fish. The snake itself and the snake-like reptiles are

taboo, as well as numerous birds--all of which were at a very early

period totem animals. Heading the list of the animals that may be

eaten, on the other hand, are the ox, the sheep, the goat--in short,

the animals of an agricultural and sheep-raising culture. Thus, as

the original magical motives of taboo disappear, their place is taken

by the emotion of fear, which causes the object arousing it to appear

as unclean. Whoever touches such an object is polluted in a physical

as well as a moral sense, and requires a cleansing purification

according to rites prescribed by cult. We cannot avoid the impression,

accordingly, that the unclean animals held to be taboo by the Priests'

Code, are the same as those which this same people regarded as sacred

soul and totem animals at an earlier stage of culture. Thus, these

prohibitions with reference to food are analogous to the impassioned

preaching against false idolatry--both refer back to an earlier cult.

In this category belongs also the prohibition of consuming the blood of

animals in the eating of their flesh. This likewise is the survival of

a very common belief--certainly prevalent also among the Israelites at

one time--that with the blood of an animal one might appropriate its

spirit-power. The priestly law transforms this motive into its direct

opposite. For the text expressly says: "In the blood is the life; but

ye shall not destroy the life together with the flesh."

Thus, the significance of the taboo shifts from the sacred, which

evokes man's fear, to the unclean and demoniacal, which also arouse

fear but in the form of aversion. Closely related to this change is

a group of views and customs resulting from this last form of taboo

and reaching down, as its after-effects, far into the later religious

development. These are the _purification rites_ connected with the

ideas of clean and unclean. The word _lustratio_, by which the Romans

designated these rites, is really more appropriate than the German

word _Reinigung_, since it suggests more than merely the _one_ aspect

of these usages. Indeed, the idea of purification is not even primary,

any more than the conception of the unclean is the initial stage in the

development of the taboo. On the other hand, the idea that a man might

be exposed to demoniacal powers by touching an object or by eating a

certain food, such, for example, as the flesh of certain animals, is in

entire accord with such primitive notions as are expressed in the fear

of the corpse and of sickness, as well as in other similar phenomena.

The essential thing is to escape the demon who is harboured in the

particular object of concern. This impulse is so irresistible that,

whenever the idea of taboo arises, the conception of lustration, of a

magic counteraction to the demoniacal power, is also evolved. Thus,

magic and counter-magic, here, as everywhere, stand in antithesis. The

means of such counter-magic are not only very similar throughout the

most remote parts of the earth, but externally they remain the same

even throughout the various stages of culture. There are only _three_

means by which an individual may free himself from the effects of a

violation of taboo--_water, fire_, and _magical transference_.

Of these means, the one which is the most familiar to us is water.

Just as water removes physical uncleanness, so also does it wash away

soul or demoniacal impurity--not symbolically, for primitive man has

no symbols in our sense of the word, but magically. As water is the

most common element, so also is it the most common magical means of

lustration. Besides water, fire also is employed; generally it is

regarded as the more potent element--in any event, its use for this

purpose anteceded that of water. Fire, no less than water, is supposed

to remove the impurity or the demoniacal influences to which a man

has been exposed. It is especially peculiar to fire, however, that

it is held not only to free an individual from an impurity which he

has already contracted, but also to protect him from the possibility

of contamination. This preventive power, of course, later came to be

ascribed to water also. Indeed, all the various means of lustration

may come to be substituted for one another, so that each of them may

eventually acquire properties that originally belonged exclusively to

one of the others. The third form of purification, finally, consists

in a magical transference of the impurity from man to other objects

or to other beings, as, for example, from a man to an animal. Closely

associated with such a transference are a considerable number of

other magic usages. These have even found their way down into modern

superstition. We need but refer to the above-mentioned cord-magic, by

which a sickness, for example, is transferred to a tree by tying a cord

around it.

In the primitive cult ceremonies of the Australians, lustration is

effected almost exclusively by fire. In America also fire still plays

an important rôle, particularly in the cult ceremonies of the Pueblo

peoples. They kindle a great fire, about which they execute dances. In

the initiation ceremonies of the Australians, the youths must approach

very close to the fire or, at times, leap over it. In this way they are

made proof against future attacks. Such fire-magic reaches down even

into later civilizations. A survival of this sort is the St. John's

fire still prevalent in many regions of Europe and, in view of its

origin, still frequently called 'solstice fire' in southern Germany.

On these occasions also, the young men and maidens leap over the fire

and expose themselves to the danger of its flames, in the belief that

whatever they may wish at the time will come to pass. Here again, as in

the Australian initiation ceremonies, lustration by fire signifies a

magic act having reference to the future.

Water is a far more common means of lustration than fire. It everywhere

gained the ascendancy and at the same time very largely preserved its

original significance. From early times on it combined the power

of removing the impurities resulting from the violation of a taboo,

or, more widely applied, of cleansing from guilt, with the power of

protecting against impending impurity and guilt. Thus, even in the

beginnings of taboo usages, the bath, or ablution, was a universal

means of purification. The _sprinkling_ with water, on the other

hand, which has held its place even in Christian cult, is a means of

purification directed primarily to the future. In the so-called Jordan

festivals of the Greek Catholic Church, ordinary water is changed into

Jordan water by the magic of the priest. The believer is confident that

if he is sprinkled with this water he will commit no sin in the course

of the following year.

Less common, on the whole, is the third form of lustration, that by

magical transference. Israelitic legend affords a striking example of

such lustration in the goat which, laden with the sins of Israel, is

driven by Aaron into the wilderness. He takes the goat, lays both his

hands on its head, and whispers the sins of Israel into its ear. The

goat is then driven into the wilderness, where it is to bury the sins

in a distant place. An analogous New Testament story, moreover, is

related in St. Matthew's Gospel. We are here told that, in Galilee, a

man who was possessed of many demons was freed from them by Jesus, who

commanded them to pass into a herd of swine that happened to be near

by. Since the demons had previously begged Jesus not to destroy them,

they were banished into these animals. The swine, however, plunged into

an adjacent sea, and thus the demons perished with them.

Totem, taboo, lustration, and counter-magic, accordingly, were

originally closely related to one another, though each of them proved

capable of initiating new tendencies and of undergoing a further

independent development. The totem, for example, gave rise to numerous

sorts of protective demons; the taboo was transferred to the most

diverse objects, such as aroused feelings of fear and aversion;

lustration led to the various counter agencies that freed men's minds

from the ideas of contamination and guilt. These institutions,

however, were themselves based upon certain more elementary ideas

whose influence was far from being exhausted in them. On the one hand,

totemic belief grew out of the belief in souls; on the other hand,

totemic ideas were the precursors of further developments. The activity

of totem ancestors was associated with certain inanimate objects,

such as the Australian churingas, to which magical powers were held

to have been transmitted. Inasmuch as the totem animal was also an

ancestral animal, it formed the transition to the elevation of human

ancestors into cult objects, first on a par with animal ancestors and

later exalted above them. Thus, there are three sets of ideas which,

in part, form the bases of totemism, and, in part, reach out beyond

it, constituting integral factors of further developments of the most

diverse character. These ideas may be briefly designated as _animism,

fetishism,_ and _ancestor worship_. Animism, as here used, refers to

the various forms of the belief in souls. By fetishism, on the other

hand, is universally meant the belief in the demoniacal power of

inanimate objects. Ancestor worship, finally, is the worship in cult

of family or tribal ancestors. The original totemism passes over into

the higher ancestor worship, which, in turn, issues in hero cult, and

finally in the cult of the gods.

[1] transcribers' note: "causal" is probably meant here.

11. SOUL BELIEFS OF THE TOTEMIC AGE.

Soul ideas, as we have already noted, constitute the basis of totem

belief, and may thus be said to date back into the pretotemic age, even

though it is obviously only within the totemic period that they attain

to their more complete development. If we include the whole of the

broad domain of soul belief under the term _animism_, the latter, in

its many diverse forms, may be said to extend from the most primitive

to the highest levels of culture. It is fitting, however, to enter upon

a connected account of animism at this point, because the development

of the main forms of soul belief and of their transformations takes

place within the totemic age. Moreover, not only is totemism closely

dependent from the very beginning upon soul conceptions, but the

development of soul conceptions is to an equal degree affected by

totemism.

Soul belief, thus, constitutes an imperishable factor in all

mythology and religion. This accounts for the fact that there are

some mythologists as well as certain psychologists of religion who

actually trace all mythology and religion to animism, believing that

soul ideas first gave rise to demon and ancestor cults, and then to the

worship of the gods. This view is maintained by Edward Tylor, Herbert

Spencer, Julius Lippert, and a number of others. Undeniable as it is

that soul belief has exerted an important influence upon mythological

and religious thought, it nevertheless represents but one factor among

others. For this very reason, however, we must consider separately

its own peculiar conditions, since it is thus alone that we can gain

an understanding of its relation to the other factors of mythological

thought. The fittest place for examining this general interconnection

is just at this point, where we are in the very midst of totemic ideas,

and where we encounter the transformations of soul ideas in a specially

pronounced form. Everything goes to show that the most important

change in the history of the development of soul belief falls within

the totemic period. This change consists in the distinction between a

soul that is bound to the body, and which, because of this permanent

attachment, we will briefly call the _corporeal soul_, and a soul which

may leave the body and continue its existence independently of it.

Moreover, according to an idea particularly peculiar to the totemic

age, this latter soul may become embodied in other living beings,

especially in animals, but also in plants, and even in inanimate

objects. We will call this soul _psyche_, the breath or shadow soul. It

is a breath soul because it was the exhalation of the breath, perhaps,

that first suggested these ideas; it is a shadow soul since it was

the dream image, in particular, that gave to this soul the form of a

shadowy, visible but intangible, counterpart of man. As a fleeting

form, rapidly appearing and again disappearing, the shadow soul is a

variety of breath soul. The two readily pass over into each other, and

are therefore regarded as one and the same psyche.

There is ground for the conjecture that the distinction between these

two main forms of the soul, the corporeal and the breath or shadow

soul, is closely bound up with the changed culture of the totemic age.

Primitive man flees from the corpse--indeed, even from those who are

sick, if he sees that death is approaching. The corpse is left where

it lies, and even the mortally ill are abandoned in their helpless

condition. The living avoid the places where death has entered. All

this changes in an age that has become familiar with struggle and

death, and particularly with the sudden death which follows upon the

use of weapons. This is exemplified even by the natives of Australia,

who are armed with spear and shield. The warrior who falls before the

deadly weapon, whose blood flows forth, and who expires in the midst of

his fellow-combatants, arouses an entirely different impression from

the man of the most primitive times who dies in solitude, and from

whose presence the living flee. In addition to the original ideas of a

soul that is harboured in the body, and that after death wanders about

the neighbourhood as an invisible demon, we now have a further set of

ideas. The soul is believed to leave the body in the form of the blood.

But it may take an even more sudden departure, being sometimes supposed

to leave in the last breath. In this case, it is held to be directly

perceptible as a small cloud or a vapour, or as passing over into some

animal that is swift of movement or possesses such characteristics as

arouse an uncanny feeling. This idea of a breath soul readily leads to

the belief that the psyche, after its separation from the body, appears

in the dream image, again temporarily assuming, in shadowy form, the

outlines of its original body.

Now the most remarkable feature of this entire development is the fact

that the idea of the corporeal soul in no wise disappears, as one

might suppose, with the origin of the breath or shadow soul. On the

contrary, both continue to exist without any mutual interference. This

is noticeable particularly in the case of death in war. The belief

that the soul leaves the body with the blood may here be directly

combined with the belief that it departs with the breath, though the

two ideas fall under entirely different categories. Even in Homer this

combination of ideas is still clearly in evidence. The breath soul is

said to descend to Hades, there to continue its unconscious existence

as a dreamlike shadow, while at the same time the corporeal soul is

thought to inhere not only in the blood but also in other parts of the

body. Certain particular organs of the body are held to be vehicles

of the soul; among these are the heart, the respiratory organs, and

the diaphragm, the latter probably in connection with the immediately

adjacent kidneys, which these primitive soul ideas usually represent

as an important centre of soul powers. The believer in animism was

not in the least aware of any contradiction in holding, as he did for

a long time, that these two forms, the corporeal soul and the breath

soul, exist side by side. His concern was not with concepts that might

be scientifically examined in such a way as to effect a reconciliation

of the separate ideas or a resolution of their contradictions. Even

the ancient Egyptians, with their high civilization, preserved a firm

belief in a corporeal soul, and upon this belief they based their

entire practice of preserving bodies by means of embalmment. The reason

for leaving the mouth of the mummy open was to enable the deceased

person to justify himself before the judge of the dead. That the mummy

was very carefully enclosed in its burial chamber and thus removed

from the sphere of intercourse of the living, indicates a survival of

the fear of demoniacal power which is characteristic of the beginnings

of soul belief. The Egyptians, however, also developed the idea of a

purely spiritual soul. The latter was held to exist apart from the body

in a realm of the dead, from which it was supposed occasionally to

return to the mummy. It was by this simple expedient of an intercourse

between the various souls that mythological thought here resolved the

contradiction between unity and multiplicity as affecting its soul

concepts--a contradiction which even later frequently claimed the

attention of philosophy.

When, on a more advanced cultural level, the structure of the body

came to be more closely observed, a strong impetus was given towards

a progressive differentiation of the corporeal soul. Certain parts of

the body, in particular, were singled out as vehicles of the soul.

Those that are separable from the body, such, for example, as certain

secretions and the products of growth, received a sort of intermediate

position between the corporeal soul proper and the breath soul. Chief

among these was the blood. Among some peoples, particularly the Bantus

of South Africa, the saliva rivals the blood in importance, possibly

because of the readily suggested association with the soul that departs

in the vapour of the breath. The blood soul, however, is by far the

most universal and most permanent of these ideas. In its after-effects

it has survived even down to the present. For, when we speak of a

'blood relationship' uniting those persons who stand close to one

another through ancestry, the word 'blood' doubtless represents a sort

of reminiscence of the old idea of a blood soul. To the dispassionate

eye of the physiologist, the blood is one of the most unstable elements

of the body, so that, so far as the blood is concerned, the father

and mother certainly transmit nothing of a permanent nature to their

descendants. More stable parts of the organism are much more likely

to be inherited. But, in spite of the fact that blood is one of the

most transitory of structures, it continues to be regarded as the

vehicle of the relationship existing between members of a family,

and even between tribally related nations. More striking expressions

of the idea of a blood soul are to be found on primitive levels. In

concluding the so-called blood brotherhood, the exchange of blood,

according to prevalent belief, mediates the establishment of an actual

blood relationship. In accordance with a custom which probably sprang

up independently in many different parts of the earth, each of the two

parties to the compact, upon entering this brotherhood, took a drop of

blood from a small, self-inflicted wound and transferred it to the

corresponding wound of the other. Since the drop of exchanged blood

represents the blood in general--not merely symbolically, as it were,

but in real actuality--the two who have entered into the alliance have

become nearest blood relatives, and thus brothers.

The idea that a soul exists in the blood, however, has also a converse

aspect. This consists in the fear of shedding blood, since the wounded

person would thus be robbed of his soul. The belief then arises that

one who consumes the blood of a sacrificed person or animal also gains

his soul powers--an idea which likewise comes to have reference to

other parts of the body, particularly to the specific bearers of the

soul, such as the heart and the kidneys. Thus, between fear, on the

one hand, and this striving for power, on the other, a conflict of

emotions may arise in which the victory leans now to the one and now

to the other side. But the striving to appropriate the soul which is

contained in the blood tends to become dominant, since the struggle

which enkindles the passion for the annihilation of the enemy is also

probably the immediate cause for acting in accordance with this belief

concerning the blood. To drink the blood of the slain enemy, to consume

his heart--these are impulses in which the passion to annihilate the

foe and the desire to appropriate his soul powers intensify each

other. These ideas, therefore, also probably represent the origin of

anthropophagy. Anthropophagy is not at all a prevalent custom among

primitive tribes, as is generally believed. On the contrary, it is

just among primitive peoples that it seems to be entirely lacking.

It appears in its primary forms, as well as in its modifications,

only where weapons and other phenomena point to intertribal wars, and

the latter do not occur until the beginning of the totemic age. The

totemic age, however, is the period which marks the development not

only of the idea of the blood soul but of other soul ideas as, well.

Accordingly, anthropophagy is, or was until recently, to be found, not

among the most primitive peoples such as have not attained to the level

of totemism, but precisely within the bounds of totemic culture, and,

in part, in connection with its cults. In these cults, man, as well

as the animal, becomes an object of sacrifice in the blood offering.

Human sacrifice of this sort continues to be practised under conditions

as advanced as deity cult. In the latter, anthropophagy even finds a

temporary religious sanction, inasmuch as the priest, particularly,

is permitted to eat of the flesh of the sacrifice. Of course, the

perpetuation and extension of anthropophagy was not due merely to

magical motives; even at a very early period, the food impulse was a

contributing factor. The very fact of the relatively late origin of

the custom, however, makes it highly improbable that the food impulse

would, of itself and apart from magical and cult motives, ever have

led to it, though such an explanation has been offered, especially as

regards the regions of Oceania where animals are scarce.

In the course of religious development, human sacrifice gave way to

animal sacrifice, and cult anthropophagy was displaced by the eating of

the flesh of the sacrificial animal. Inasmuch as the latter cult was

not only more common than the former but everywhere probably existed

prior to the rise of human sacrifice, this later period involved a

recurrence of earlier conditions. Nevertheless, there were phenomena

which clearly indicated the influence of the fear of the blood, and

this militated against the appropriation of the blood soul. Of extreme

significance, for example, was the injunction of the Israelitic

Priests' Code against partaking of the blood of animals. The original

motive for drinking the blood became a motive for abstaining from it--a

counter-motive, in which the prohibition, as in many other cases, may

also indicate an intentional abandonment of an earlier custom. Among

the Israelites, as among many other Semitic tribes, the blood of the

animals was poured out at the sacrificial altar. That which was denied

man was fitly given to the gods, to whom the life of the animal was

offered in its blood.

In early ages, reaching down probably into the beginnings of totemic

culture, _two_ organ complexes, in addition to the blood, were held,

in an especial degree, to be vehicles of the corporeal soul--the

kidneys with their surrounding fat, and the external sexual organs. The

fact that, in many languages, kidneys and testicles were originally

denoted by the same name, indicates that these two organs were probably

regarded as essentially related, a view that may possibly be due to the

position of the urethra, which apparently connects the kidneys with the

sexual organs. The Bible also offers remarkable testimony in connection

with the history of the belief that soul powers are resident in the

kidneys and their appended organs. In the earlier writings of the Old

Testament, the kidneys, as well as the heart, are frequently referred

to as bearers of the soul. It is said of God that he searches the

heart and tries the reins; and Job, afflicted with sorrow and disease,

complains, "He cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare." The

sacrificial laws of the Israelites, therefore, state that, in addition

to the blood, the kidneys with their surrounding fat are the burnt

offering which is most acceptable to God. Rationalistic interpretation

has sometimes held that man retains the choice parts of the flesh of

the sacrificial animal for himself and devotes the less agreeable parts

to the gods. Such motives may have played a rôle when sacrificial

conceptions were on the wane. The original condition, however, was

no doubt the reverse. The most valuable part belonged to the gods,

and this consisted of the organs that were pre-eminently the vehicles

of the soul. Though man first aimed to appropriate the soul of the

sacrifice for himself, the developed religious cult of a later period

made this the privilege of the deity.

It was only in early custom and cult, however, that the kidneys played

this rôle. Indeed, as already indicated, it is not improbable that

they owe their importance to the fact that their position led to the

belief that they are a central organ governing particularly the sexual

functions. That this is the case is corroborated by the fact that,

in the further development of these ideas of a corporeal soul, the

kidneys more and more became secondary to the external sexual organs,

and that the latter long continued to retain the dominant importance.

Thus, the _phallus cult_, which was prevalent in numerous Oriental

countries and which penetrated from these into the Greek and Roman

worlds, may doubtless be regarded as the last, as well as the most

permanent, expression of those ideas of a central corporeal soul that

were originally associated with the kidneys and their surrounding

parts. At the outset, the representation of the phallus was held to be

not a mere symbol, as it were, but the very vehicle of masculine power.

As a productive, creative potency, it was regarded as very especially

characteristic of the deity, and, just as the attributes of deities

were supposed to be vested in their images, so also was this divine

power thought to be communicated to the phallus. In addition to and

anteceding these ideas relating to gods, the phallus was held to be the

perfect embodiment of demons, particularly of field-demons, who cause

the ripening and growth of the seed. The belief in phallus-bearing

demons of fertility probably dates back to the totemic age. The cults,

however, to which such ideas of the corporeal soul gave rise, reached

their mature development only in the following period. It was then

that deity belief was elaborated, and it was in connection with the

latter that the phallus became a universal magic symbol of creative

power. With the decline of these cults, the symbol, according to a law

observable in the case of other phenomena also, was again relegated,

for the most part, to the more restricted field of its origin.

Vestiges and survivals of the primitive forms of the corporeal soul

extend far down into later culture. Nevertheless, the second main form

of soul-belief, that of the _psyche_, comes to gain the prepondering

influence, at first alongside of the corporeal soul, and then more and

more displacing it. In this case, the earliest form of the belief,

that in a _breath soul_, proves to be also the most permanent. The

idea that the soul leaves the dying person in his last breath, and

that the breath, therefore, exercises animating or magical effects, or

that in it the soul may pass over from one person to another, is a

very common belief. Probably, moreover, it arose independently in many

different localities. Some primitive tribes have the custom of holding

a child over the bed of a dying person in order that the soul may pass

over into it; or, a member of the family stoops over the expiring one

to receive his soul. Virgil's _Æneid_ contains an impressive account

relating that upon Dido's death her sister attempted to catch the soul,

which, as she assumed, roams about as an aerial form, while she also

carefully removed the blood from the wound in order that the soul might

not remain within the body. Thus, the blood soul and the breath soul

are here closely connected.

In the further destinies of the breath soul, a particularly important

incident is its passage into some swiftly moving animal, perhaps a

bird hovering in the air, or, again, some creeping animal, such as the

lizard or the snake, whose manner of movement arouses uncanny fear.

It is these animals, chiefly, that are regarded as metamorphoses of

the psyche. Remarkable evidence that the bird and snake in combination

were regarded as vehicles of the soul may be found in the pictorial

representations of the natives of northwestern America. The escape of

the soul from the body is here portrayed as the departure of a snake

from the mouth of a human figure seated in a birdlike ship. This

picture combines three ideas, which occur elsewhere also, either singly

or in combination, in connection with the wandering of the soul. There

is, in the first place, the soul-bird; then the soul-ship, readily

suggested by association with a flying bird, and recurring in the ship

which was thought in ancient times to cross the Styx of the underworld;

finally, the soul-snake, representing the soul in the act of leaving

the body. This very common idea of the soul as a snake and, by further

association, its conception as a fish, may be ascribed not only to

the fear aroused by the creeping snake, but also to the circumstances

attending the decomposition of the corpse. The worm which creeps out

of the decaying body is directly perceived as a snake. Thus, corporeal

soul and psyche are again united; in this union they mediate the idea

of an embodied soul, which, in a certain sense, of course, is a psyche

retransformed into a corporeal soul.

With the appearance of these ideas of an embodied soul, totemism

merges directly into soul-belief. Under the influence of the remaining

elements of totemism, however, the soul-ideas come to be associated

with more and more animals. The soul is no longer held to be embodied

merely in the earliest soul-animals--bird, snake, and lizard--but other

animals are added, such particularly as those of the chase, which

have a closer relation to the life of man. Following upon this change

are also the further developments mentioned above. When interest in

the production of vegetable food is added to that of the chase, the

same ideas become associated with plants. Their sprouting and growth

continue to suggest soul-powers; and, even though the ancestor idea

characteristic of the animal totem cannot attain to prominence because

of the greater divergence of plants from man, this very fact causes the

phenomena of sprouting and growth all the more to bring into emphasis

the magical character of these vegetable totems. Hence it is mainly

the plant totem that gives rise to those ceremonies and cult festivals

which are designed for the magical increase of the totems. With the

wane of the soul-beliefs connected with animal totemism, it is not

only plants to which demoniacal powers are ascribed. Even inanimate

objects come to be associated with magical ideas, either because of

certain peculiar characteristics or because of the function which they

perform. It is in this way that the introduction of the plant into

the realm of totemic ideas mediates the transition from the totem to

the _fetish_. On the other hand, as the totem animal comes more and

more to be an ancestral animal, and as the memory of human forefathers

gains greater prominence with the rise of culture, the animal ancestor

changes into the _human ancestor_. Thus, fetishism and ancestor worship

are logical developments of totemism. Though differing in tendency,

they nevertheless constitute developmental forms which are not at all

mutually exclusive, but which may become closely related, just as is

the case with the animal and the plant totems from which they have

proceeded.

Before turning to these later outgrowths of totemic soul-belief,

however, we must consider their influence upon the important customs

relating to the _disposition of the dead_. These customs give

expression to the ideas of death and of the destiny of the soul after

death. Hence the changes that occur at the beginning and in the course

of the totemic age as regards the usages relative to the disposal of

the corpse, mirror the important transformations which the latter

undergoes. Primitive man, as we have seen, flees from the corpse.

Dominated solely by his fear of escaping demons, he allows the dead

to lie where they have died. Thus, no attempt whatsoever is made to

dispose of the dead, or at most there are but slight beginnings in

this direction. It is not the dead who vacate the premises in favour

of the living, but the latter accommodate themselves to the dead.

Totemic culture, accustomed to armed warfare and sudden death, begins

from the outset gradually to lose its fear of the dead, even though not

the fear of death, and this reacts upon the disposal of the corpse.

Of course, the early custom of depositing the corpse in the open air

near the place where death has occurred, does not entirely disappear.

This locality, however, is no longer avoided; on the contrary, anxious

expectation and observation are now fixed upon the corpse. Just as

totemic man drinks the blood of those who are slain in battle, in

order to appropriate their power, so also in the case of those who die

of disease does he wish to acquire their souls the moment they leave

the body. Traces of such a custom, indeed, occur even in much later

times, as is shown in Virgil's above-mentioned account of the death of

Dido. Within the sphere of totemic ideas, however, where the belief

in a corporeal soul is still incomparably stronger, though already

intercrossing with the belief in animal transformations of the psyche,

the custom of depositing the dead in the open indeed continues to be

practised, yet the disposition of the corpse changes, becoming, in

spite of an external similitude, almost the very opposite. The corpse

is no longer left at the place of death, but is stretched out on a

mound of earth. This is the so-called 'platform' method of disposal,

which, as is evident, forms a clear transition to burial, or interment.

Before the mound of earth covers the body, it forms a platform upon

which the corpse is laid out to be viewed, a primitive catafalque, as

it were. This manner of disposing of the corpse has been regarded as

a custom characteristic of the dominance of totemic culture. This is

going entirely beyond the facts, since other modes of disposal are

also to be found even in Oceania and Australia, the chief centres of

totemism. Nevertheless, the phenomena connected with exposure on a

platform indicate that a fusion with soul-ideas has now taken place.

Decomposition follows relatively soon after death, particularly in

a damp, tropical climate. On the one hand, the liquid products of

decomposition that flow from the corpse are interpreted as a departure

of the soul analogous to that which occurs, in the case of death by

violence, in the loss of blood. As the blood is drunk to appropriate

the soul of the deceased, so also do the relatives now crowd in to

partake of the liquid products of decomposition--a transference

similar to that which sometimes occurs when the powers of the blood

are ascribed to the saliva or to other secretions. On the other hand,

the first worm of decomposition to leave the corpse is held to be the

bearer of the soul. Thus, corporeal soul and psyche are here closely

fused. The liquid products that leave the body are in themselves

elements of the corporeal soul, but in their separation from the body

they resemble a psyche incorporated in an external object; conversely,

the worm of decomposition is an embodiment of the psyche, which is

itself represented as proceeding directly from the corporeal soul.

This interplay of soul-forms appears also when we consider the other

modes of disposing of the dead that are practised in regions where

totemic culture or its direct outgrowths prevail. Among some of the

North American Indian tribes, for example, the corpse is buried, but

a small hole is pierced in the mound of earth over the grave, in order

to allow the psyche an exit from the body or also a return to it. This

view of the relation between body and psyche passed down, in a more

developed form, even into the other-world mythology of the ancient

Egyptians. The mummification practised in Egypt was also anticipated,

for the idea of the connection of the soul with the body early led to

the exsiccation of the corpse in the open air. According to another

usage, observed particularly in America, the corpse was first buried,

but then, shortly afterwards, exhumed for the purpose of preserving

the skull or other bones as vehicles of the soul. The fundamental idea

seems to have been that the soul survives in these more permanent

parts of the body; in the case of the skull, an appreciation of the

importance which the various organs of the head possess for the living

person may also have played a rôle. Possibly these ideas likewise

lie at the basis of the discreditable head-hunting practised by the

Indians, even though it be true that the skull, which is preserved

and utilized as a favourite adornment of the exterior of the hut, and

also the representative of the skull, the scalp, have long been mere

trophies of victory, similar to the antlers of the stag and the deer

with which our huntsmen decorate their dwellings. Of the various forms

of disposing of the dead that are peculiar to the totemic age, however,

it is interment, the very opposite of platform disposal, that finally

comes to be adopted in many places. The reason is evidently the same as

that which impelled primitive man to flee from the corpse. The demons

of the dead are to be banished into the earth, so that the living may

pursue their daily activities undisturbed. That this is the aim is

shown by many accompanying phenomena--such, for example, as the custom

of firmly stamping down the earth upon the grave, or of weighting the

burial-mound with stones. Moreover, the custom of burying the corpse

as soon as possible after death--ordained even at the time of the

Israelitic law--can hardly have originated as a hygienic provision.

It is grounded in the fear of demons. When the living themselves no

longer flee from the dead, this fear all the more necessitates the

speedy removal of the corpse to the secure protection of the earth. The

fear of demons is likewise expressed in the fact that prior to burial

the arms and legs of the corpse are bound to the body. This obviously

points to a belief that the binding constrains the demon of the dead,

which is thereby confined to the grave just as is the fettered corpse.

Herein lies the origin of the so-called 'crouching graves,' which are

still to be found among the Bushmen, as well as among Australian and

Melanesian tribes. Gradually, however, a change took place in that the

binding was omitted, though the position was retained--doubtless a sign

that fear of the demon of the dead was on the wane.

Under the influence of the profuse wealth of old and new soul-ideas,

therefore, the totemic age developed a great number of modes of

disposing of the dead. Of these modes, interment alone has survived.

It is simpler than the others and may be practised in connection with

the most diverse ideas of the destiny of the soul. _Cremation_ was the

only form of disposing of the dead that was unknown, at least in large

part, to the totemic age. And yet the motives underlying cremation

belong to the same circle of ideas as those that find expression in

the customs of taboo and lustration. It is not impossible, therefore,

that cremation may itself date back to the totemic age. Yet interment

is universally the earlier mode of disposal; in most parts of the

earth, moreover, it has also enjoyed a greater permanence. Only in

isolated districts has interment been displaced by cremation. Even in

early times it was chiefly among Indo-Germanic peoples that cremation

was practised, whereas the Semites everywhere adhered to interment.

If, therefore, cremation occurred in ancient Babylonia, as it appears

to have done, it probably represents a heritage from the Sumerian

culture preceding the Semitic immigration. But even among Indo-Germanic

peoples interment was originally universal. In Greece, it existed as

late as the period of Mycenian culture. By the time of Homer, on

the other hand, cremation had already become the prevalent mode of

disposition of the corpse. Cremation was likewise practised very early

by the Germans, the Iranians, and the peoples of India. But it was

always conditioned by one fact which, as a rule, would seem to carry

us beyond the boundaries of the totemic era. It is significant that

prehistoric remains show no traces of cremation prior to the beginning

of the bronze age--a period in which man was capable of utilizing the

high degrees of heat necessary to melt metals. The tremendous heat

required for the melting of bronze might well have suggested the idea

of also melting man, as it were, in the fire. Nevertheless, external

circumstances such as these played but a secondary rôle. They leave

unanswered the decisive question regarding the motives that led to

the substitution of cremation for interment. This, then, remains our

unsolved problem, inasmuch as the economic motives at the basis of

the present endeavour to reintroduce cremation were certainly not

operative at the time of its origin. With reference to the origin of

cremation, only psychological probabilities are possible to us. These

are suggested particularly by the ceremonies which accompany cremation

in India--the country where this custom has continued to preserve an

important cult significance down to the very present. Indeed, even

in our own day it has hardly been possible to eradicate from India

the custom of burning the widow of the deceased. In particular, two

different motives to the custom suggest themselves. In the first place,

as we shall presently see, sacrificial usages, and especially the more

advanced forms of the sacrifice to the deceased, are closely connected

with the taboo and purification customs. Purification from a taboo

violation, however, was attained primarily by two means, water and

fire. The latter of these means was employed even in very primitive

times. Now, the corpse, above all else, was regarded as taboo; contact

with it was thought to bring contamination and to demand the rites

of lustration. The one who touched a corpse was likewise held to be

taboo, and as a result he himself might not be touched before having

undergone lustration. By one of those associative reversals which are

common in the field of mythology, this then reacted upon the corpse

itself. The corpse also must be subjected to a lustration by which it

is purified. Such a purification from all earthly dross is mediated,

according to the ideas of India, by fire. When the body is burned,

the soul becomes pure. But connected with this belief, as we may

conjecture, is still a second idea. The soul or psyche departs in the

smoke which ascends from the body as this is burned. The body remains

below in the ashes, while the soul soars aloft to heaven in the smoke.

In this way, the burning of the corpse is closely connected with

celestial mythology, which, indeed, was likewise developed relatively

early among the Indo-Germanic peoples, with whom cremation had its

centre. The customs of the Semitic peoples were different. They adopted

the idea of a celestial migration of the soul only at a late period,

probably under Indo-Aryan influences; but even then they continued to

practise the ancient custom of burial. Amid these differences, however,

there is a certain similarity. For, the Semitic peoples believed

that the celestial migration of the soul would occur only after its

sojourn under the earth, following upon its resurrection, which, it was

thought, would take place only at the end of time. It was in this form,

as is well known, that Christianity took over into its resurrection

belief the ideas developed by Judaism, and, with them, the custom of

interment.

12. THE ORIGIN OF THE FETISH.

If, as is customary, we employ the term 'fetish' to mean any natural

object to which demoniacal powers are ascribed, or, as the word itself

(Fr. _fétiche_ from Lat. _facticius_, artificially constructed)

indicates, an artificial, inanimate object of similar powers, a wide

gulf appears at first glance to separate the fetish from the psyche.

Nevertheless, the two are very closely related, as is indicated by the

totemic origin of certain primitive forms of fetishes. In the cults

of totemic clans, magic stones and pieces of wood are reverenced and

preserved, being regarded as powerful instruments that were originally

fashioned, according to legend, by magic beings of a distant past.

Into the objects has passed the magic power of these ancestors. By

their agency, the plants and animals which man utilizes as food may

be increased; through them, evils may be averted and, in particular,

diseases may be cured. The universal characteristic of the fetish,

however, over and above this special mode of origin, is the fact that

it is supposed to harbour a soul-like, demoniacal being. In fact, most

of the phenomena of so-called fetishism, and those which are still

regarded as typical of it, are to be found outside of totemic cult.

It is primarily African fetishism, a cult form which is apparently

independent of totemism, that has given its characteristic stamp to the

conception of the fetish. Among the Soudan negroes, fetishes generally

consist of artificially fashioned wooden objects, not infrequently

bearing a grimacing likeness of a human face. As regards the possession

of magical powers, however, they do not differ from the so-called

churingas of the Australians, although the latter are, as a rule,

natural objects that have been picked up accidentally and that differ

from ordinary stones and pieces of wood only in their striking form. It

is clearly the form, both in the case of the artificial as well as of

the natural fetish, that has caused the inanimate object to be regarded

as a demoniacal vehicle of the soul. Yet it is not a lifeless object

as such that constitutes a fetish, but the fact that a demoniacal,

soul-like being is believed to lurk within it as an agency of magical

activities.

At the time of its origin, which was probably totemic, fetishism

possessed a more restricted meaning than that just given. Defined in

this broader way, however, fetishism may be said to be disseminated

over the entire earth. It is a direct offshoot of the belief in a

corporeal soul, according to which magical powers are resident in

certain parts of the human body. In Australia and elsewhere, the

kidneys, particularly, are held to possess magical powers. The same,

however, is true of the blood--also of the hair, which, as the Biblical

legend of Samson serves to show, was supposed to be an especial centre

of demoniacal power, and is still regarded by modern superstition as

a means of magic. Thus, the transference of the properties of the

soul to inanimate objects of nature appears, on the one hand, to be

closely related to the activity of the soul in certain parts of the

body; on the other hand, it is closely connected with the fact that

certain independent beings, particularly such as arouse the emotions

of surprise or fear by their form and behaviour, were believed to

embody souls. The greater the difference between the object in which

such a demon takes up his abode and the familiar sorts of living

beings, the more does its demoniacal activity become a pure product

of the emotions, which control the imagination that ascribes life

to the object. Thus, while the characteristics of the totem animal

and, to a certain extent, even those of the totem plant, continue to

be determined by their own nature, the fetish is solely the product

of the mental activities of the fetish believer. Whereas the totem,

particularly the totem animal, retains in great part the nature of a

soul, the fetish completely assumes the character of a demon, differing

from the demons resident in storms, solitary chasms, and other uncanny

places only in the fact that it is _inseparable from_ the discovered

or artificially fashioned object. Hence it all the more becomes the

embodiment of the emotions of its possessor, of his fears and of his

hopes, ever adapting itself to the mood of the moment.

The development of magical ideas is in an especial measure due to

the incorporation of demoniacal beings in inanimate objects. Such

objects circulate freely and may even survive the individual who

owns them, gaining by their permanence an advantage over the animate

objects to which soul-like demoniacal powers are ascribed. Inanimate

objects may embody the magical beliefs of whole generations. This is

exemplified even in the age of deity beliefs, for a sanctuary acquires

increasing sacredness with age. And yet the fetish is never valued on

its own account, as is the totem animal--in part, at least--or the

organ containing the corporeal soul. The fetish is merely a means for

furthering purposes of magic. It is especially the fetish, therefore,

that represents the transition from soul-beliefs to pure magic-beliefs.

For this reason we may speak of a 'cult of the fetish' only in so

far as external ceremonies are employed for the purpose of arousing

the fetish to magical activity. Such a fetish cult does not include

expressions of reverence and thanksgiving, as do the soul and totem

cults and later, in a greater measure, the deity cult. A fetishism of

this sort, purely magical in purpose, may be found particularly in the

Soudan regions of Africa. Fetishistic magic-cult here prevails in its

most diverse forms, having, to all appearances, practically displaced

the original soul and totem beliefs, though traces of the latter are

everywhere present. Frequently it is an individual who calls upon his

fetish, perhaps to free him from a sickness, or to protect him from an

epidemic, or also to aid him in an undertaking, to influence distant

objects, injure an enemy, etc. But an entire village may also possess a

fetish in common, committing it to the care of the medicine-man. When

exigencies arise, a threatening war or a famine, such a village fetish

is particularly fêted in order that he may be induced to avert the

disaster.

Among cult objects the fetish occupies a low place. Nevertheless,

it is precisely because the demoniacal powers were supposed to be

harboured in an inanimate object that the fetish prepared the way for

the numerous transitions that led to the later cult-objects in the

form of divine images. The fetish, as it were, was a precursor within

the totemic age of the divine image of later times. For in the case of

the latter also, the deity was supposed to be present and immediately

operative; the image, therefore, was called upon for assistance just

as was the god himself. Originally, all worship involved an image that

was supposed to embody the deity. The divine image, of course, differed

in essential respects from the fetish, for it incorporated, as the

personal characteristics of the god, those traits that were gradually

developed in cult. The fetish, on the other hand, was impersonal; it

was purely a demon of desire and fear. Because its activity resembled

that of human beings, it was generally given anthropomorphic features,

though occasionally it was patterned after animals. Sometimes no such

representation was attempted, but, as in the case of the Australian

churingas, an object was left just as it was found, particularly if

it possessed a striking form. Nor did the divine image come of a

sudden to its perfected form. Just as it was only gradually, in the

development of the religious myth, that the god acquired his personal

characteristics, so also did art search long in every particular case

for an adequate expression of the divine idea. In so doing, art not

merely gave expression to the religious development, but was itself an

important factor in it. The development, however, had its beginning in

the fetish. Moreover, so long as the god remains a demoniacal power

without clearly defined personal traits, the divine image retains the

indeterminate character of the fetish image. Even among the Greeks the

earliest divine images were but wooden posts that bore suggestions of

a human face; they were idols whose external appearance was as yet

in nowise different from that of fetishes. The same is true of other

cultural peoples in so far as we have knowledge of their earliest

objects of religious art.