The same argument seems to demonstrate that the idea of kinship within

the clan was prior to the idea of descent from a common ancestor,

whether an animal or plant, a god, hero or nicknamed ancestor. Because

it is obvious that a set of persons otherwise unconnected could not

suddenly and without reason have believed themselves to be descended

from a common ancestor and hence related. If a number of persons not

demonstrably connected by blood believe themselves to be akin simply

on account of their descent from a common ancestor, it can only be

because they are an expanded family, either actually or by fiction,

which really had or might have had a common ancestor. That is, the

clan tracing its descent from a common ancestor, if this was the

primary type of clan, must have been subsequent to the family as

a social institution. But as already seen the sentiment of kinship

within the clan was prior to that within the family, and therefore

the genesis of the clan from an expanded family is an impossible

hypothesis; and it follows that the members of the clan must first

have believed themselves to be bound together by some tie equivalent to

or stronger than that of consanguineous kinship, and afterwards, when

the primary belief was falling into abeyance, that of descent from a

common ancestor came into existence to account for the clan sentiment

of kinship already existing. If then the first form of association

of human beings was in small groups, which led a migratory life and

subsisted mainly by hunting and the consumption of fruits and roots,

as the Australian natives still do, the sentiment of kinship must

first have arisen, as stated by Mr. M'Lennan, in that small body

which lived and hunted together, and was due simply to the fact that

they were so associated, that they obtained food for each other, and

on occasion protected and preserved each other's lives. [93] These

small bodies of persons were the first social units, and according to

our knowledge of the savage peoples who are nearest to the original

migratory and hunting condition of life, without settled habitations,

domestic animals or cultivated plants, they first called themselves

after some animal or plant, usually, as Sir J.G. Frazer has shown in

_Totemism and Exogamy_, [94] after some edible animal or plant. The

most probable theory of totemism on _a priori_ grounds seems therefore

to be that the original small bodies who lived and hunted together, or

totem-clans, called themselves after the edible animal or plant from

which they principally derived their sustenance, or that which gave

them life. While the real tie which connected them was that of living

together, they did not realise this, and supposed themselves to be akin

because they commonly ate this animal or plant together. This theory

of totemism was first promulgated by Professor Robertson Smith and,

though much disputed, appears to me to be the most probable. It has

also been advocated by Dr. A.C. Haddon, F.R.S. [95] The Gaelic names

for family, _teadhloch_ and _cuedichc_ or _coedichc_, mean, the first,

'having a common residence,' the second, 'those who eat together.' [96]

The detailed accounts of the totems of the Australian, Red Indian and

African tribes, now brought together by Sir J.G. Frazer in _Totemism

and Exogamy_, show a considerable amount of evidence that the early

totems were not only as a rule edible animals, but the animals

eaten by the totem-clans which bore their names. [97] But after the

domestication of animals and the culture of plants had been attained

to, the totems ceased to be the chief means of subsistence. Hence the

original tie of kinship was supplanted by another and wider one in the

tribe, and though the totem-clans remained and continued to fulfil an

important purpose, they were no longer the chief social group. And in

many cases, as man had also by now begun to speculate on his origin,

the totems came to be regarded as ancestors, and the totem-clans,

retaining their sentiment of kinship, accounted for it by supposing

themselves to be descended from a common ancestor. They thus also

came to base the belief in clan-kinship on the tie of consanguinity

recognised in the family, which had by now come into existence. This

late and secondary form of totemism is that which obtains in India,

where the migratory and hunting stage has long been passed. The Indian

evidence is, however, of great value because we find here in the same

community, occasionally in the same caste, exogamous clans which

trace their descent sometimes from animals and plants, or totems,

and sometimes from gods, heroes, or titular ancestors, while many

of the clans are named after villages or have names to which no

meaning can be attached. As has been seen, there is good reason to

suppose that all these forms of the exogamous clan are developed from

the earliest form of the totem-clan; and since this later type of

clan has developed from the totem-clan in India, it is a legitimate

deduction that wherever elsewhere exogamous clans are found tracing

their descent from a common ancestor or with unintelligible names,

probably derived from places, they were probably also evolved from

the totem-clan. This type of clan is shown in Professor Hearn's _Aryan

Household_ to have been the common unit of society over much of Europe,

where no traces of the existence of totemism are established. [98]

And from the Indian analogy it is therefore legitimate to presume

that the totem-clan may have been the original unit of society among

several European races as well as in America, Africa, Australia and

India. Similar exogamous clans exist in China, and many of them have

the names of plants and animals. [99]

52. Animate Creation.

In order to render clear the manner in which the clan named after a

totem animal (or, less frequently, a plant) came to hold its members

akin both to each other and their totem animals, an attempt may be

made to indicate, however briefly and imperfectly, some features

of primitive man's conception of nature and life. Apparently when

they began dimly to observe and form conscious mental impressions

of the world around them, our first ancestors made some cardinal,

though natural and inevitable, mistakes. In the first place they

thought that the whole of nature was animate, and that every animal,

plant, or natural object which they saw around them, was alive and

self-conscious like themselves. They had, of course, no words or

ideas connoting life or consciousness, or distinguishing animals,

vegetables or lifeless objects, and they were naturally quite incapable

of distinguishing them. They merely thought that everything they saw

was like themselves, would feel hurt and resentment if injured, and

would know what was done to it, and by whom; whenever they saw the

movement of an animal, plant, or other object, they thought it was

volitional and self-conscious like their own movements. If they saw

a tree waving in the wind, having no idea or conception of the wind,

they thought the tree was moving its branches about of its own accord;

if a stone fell, they, knowing nothing of the force of gravity, thought

the stone projected itself from one place to another because it wished

to do so. This is exactly the point of view taken by children when

they first begin to observe. They also think that everything they see

is alive like themselves, and that animals exercise volition and have

a self-conscious intelligence like their own. But they quickly learn

their mistakes and adopt the point of view of their elders because

they are taught. Primitive man had no one to teach him, and as he did

not co-ordinate or test his observations, the traces of this first

conception of the natural world remain clearly indicated by a vast

assortment of primitive customs and beliefs to the present day. All

the most prominent natural objects, the sun and moon, the sky, the sea,

high mountains, rivers and springs, the earth, the fire, became objects

of veneration and were worshipped as gods, and this could not possibly

have happened unless they had been believed to have life. Stone images

and idols are considered as living gods. In India girls are married

to flowers, trees, arrows, swords, and so on. A bachelor is married

to a ring or a plant before wedding a widow, and the first ceremony

is considered as his true marriage. The Saligram, or ammonite stone,

is held to represent the god Vishnu, perhaps because it was thought

to be a thunderbolt and to have fallen from heaven. Its marriage is

celebrated with the _tulsi_ or basil-plant, which is considered the

consort of Vishnu. Trees are held to be animate and possessed by

spirits, and before a man climbs a tree he begs its pardon for the

injury he is about to inflict on it. When a tank is dug, its marriage

is celebrated. To the ancient Roman his hearth was a god; the walls and

doors and threshold of his house were gods; the boundaries of his field

were also gods. [100] It is precisely the same with the modern Hindu;

he also venerates the threshold of his house, the cooking-hearth, the

grinding-mill, and the boundaries of his field. The Jains still think

that all animals, plants and inanimate objects have souls or spirits

like human beings. The belief in a soul or spirit is naturally not

primitive, as man could not at first conceive of anything he did not

see or hear, but plants and inanimate objects could not subsequently

have been credited with the possession of souls or spirits unless they

had previously been thought to be alive. "The Fijians consider that

if an animal or a plant dies its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo;

if a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally

its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men

and hogs and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up,

away flies its soul for the service of the gods. If a house is taken

down or any way destroyed, its immortal part will find a situation on

the plains of Bolotoo. The Finns believed that all inanimate objects

had their _haltia_ or soul." [101] The Malays think that animals,

vegetables and minerals, as well as human beings, have souls. [102]

The Kawar tribe are reported to believe that all articles of furniture

and property have souls or spirits, and if any such is stolen the

spirit will punish the thief. Theft is consequently almost unknown

among them. All the fables about animals and plants speaking and

exercising volition; the practice of ordeals, resting on the belief

that the sacred living elements, fire and water, will of themselves

discriminate between the innocent and guilty; the propitiatory

offerings to the sea and to rivers, such incidents as Xerxes binding

the sea with fetters, Ajax defying the lightning, Aaron's rod that

budded, the superstitions of sailors about ships: all result from

the same primitive belief. Many other instances of self-conscious

life and volition being attributed to animals, plants and natural

objects are given by Lord Avebury in _Origin of Civilisation_, by

Dr. Westermarck in _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_,

[103] and by Sir J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_ [104]

Thus primitive man had no conception of inanimate matter, and it seems

probable that he did not either realise the idea of death. Though

it may be doubtful whether any race exists at present which does not

understand that death is the cessation of life in the body, indications

remain that this view was not primary and may not have been acquired

for some time. The Gonds apparently once thought that people would not

die unless they were killed by magic, and similar beliefs are held by

the Australian and African savages. Several customs also point to the

belief in the survival of some degree of life in the body after death,

apart from the idea of the soul.

53. The distribution of life over the body.

Primitive man further thought that life, instead of being concentrated

in certain organs, was distributed equally over the whole of the

body. This mistake appears also to have been natural and inevitable

when it is remembered that he had no name for the body, the different

limbs and the internal organs, and no conception of their existence and

distribution, nor of the functions which they severally performed. He

perceived that sensation extended over all parts of the body, and

that when any part was hurt or wounded the blood flowed and life

gradually declined in vigour and ebbed away. For this reason the blood

was subsequently often identified with the life. During the progress

of culture many divergent views have been held about the source and

location of life and mental and physical qualities, and the correct

one that life is centred in the heart and brain, and that the brain is

the seat of intelligence and mental qualities has only recently been

arrived at. We still talk about people being hard-hearted, kind-hearted

and heartless, and about a man's heart being in the right place, as if

we supposed that the qualities of kindness and courage were located in

the heart, and determined by the physical constitution and location of

the heart. The reason for this is perhaps that the soul was held to be

the source of mental qualities, and to be somewhere in the centre of

the body, and hence the heart came to be identified with it. As shown

by Sir J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_ many peoples or races have

thought that the life and qualities were centred in the whole head,

not merely in the brain. And this is the reason why Hindus will not

appear abroad with the head bare, why it is a deadly insult to knock

off a man's turban, and why turbans or other head-gear were often

exchanged as a solemn pledge of friendship. The superstition against

walking under a ladder may have originally been based on some idea

of its being derogatory or dangerous to the head, though not, of

course, from the fear of being struck by a falling brick. Similarly,

as shown in the article on Nai, the belief that the bodily strength

and vigour were located in the hair, and to a less extent in the

nails and teeth, has had a world-wide prevalence. But this cannot

have been primary, because the hair had first to be conceived of

apart from the rest of the body, and a separate name devised for it,

before the belief that the hair was the source of strength could

gradually come into existence. The evolution of these ideas may have

extended over thousands of years. The expression 'white-livered,'

again, seems to indicate that the quality of courage was once held to

be located in the liver, and the belief that the liver was the seat

of life was perhaps held by the Gonds. But the primary idea seems

necessarily to have been that the life was equally distributed all

over the body. And since, as will be seen subsequently, the savage

was incapable of conceiving the abstract idea of life, he thought of

it in a concrete form as part of the substance of the flesh and blood.

And since primitive man had no conception of inanimate matter it

followed that when any part of the body was severed from the whole,

he did not think of the separate fraction as merely lifeless matter,

but as still a part of the body to which it had originally belonged and

retaining a share of its life. For according to his view of the world

and of animate nature, which has been explained above, he could not

think of it as anything else. Thus the clippings of hair, nails, teeth,

the spittle and any other similar products all in his view remained

part of the body from which they had been severed and retained part of

its life. In the case of the elements, earth, fire and water, which

he considered as living beings and subsequently worshipped as gods,

this view was correct. Fractional portions of earth, fire and water,

when severed from the remainder, retained their original nature and

constitution, and afforded some support to his generally erroneous

belief. And since he had observed that an injury done to any part

of the body was an injury to the whole, it followed that if one got

possession of any part of the body, such as the severed hair, teeth

or nails, one could through them injure that body of which they still

formed a part. It is for this reason that savages think that if an

enemy can obtain possession of any waste product of the body, such

as the severed hair or nails, that he can injure the owner through

them. Similarly the Hindus thought that the clippings of the hair or

nails, if buried in fertile ground, would grow into a plant, through

the life which they retained, and as this plant waxed in size it

would absorb more and more of the original owner's life, which would

consequently wane and decline. The worship of relics, such as the

bones or hair of saints, is based on the same belief that they retain

a part of the divine life and virtue of him to whom they once belonged.

54. Qualities associated with animals.

It is probable that qualities were first conceived of by being observed

in animals or natural objects. Prior to the introduction of personal

names, the individuality of human beings could neither be clearly

realised nor remembered after they were dead. But man must have

perceived at an early period that certain animals were stronger or

swifter than he was, or more cunning, and since the same quality was

reproduced in every animal of the species, it could easily become

permanently associated with the animal. But there were no names

for qualities, nor any independent conception of them apart from the

animal or animals in which they were observed. Supposing that strength

and swiftness were mainly associated with the horse, as was often

the case, then they would be necessarily conceived of as a part or

essence of the horse and his life, not in the way we think of them,

as qualities appertaining to the horse on account of the strength

of his muscles and the conformation of his limbs. When names were

devised for these qualities, they would be something equivalent to

horsey or horse-like. The association of qualities with animals is

still shown in such words as asinine, owlish, foxy, leonine, mulish,

dogged, tigerish, and so on; but since the inferiority of animals

to man has long been recognised, most of the animal adjectives have

a derogatory sense. [105] It was far otherwise with primitive man,

who first recognised the existence of the qualities most necessary

to him, as strength, courage, swiftness, sagacity, cunning and

endurance, as being displayed by certain animals in a greater degree

than he possessed them himself. Birds he admired and venerated as

being able to rise and fly in the air, which he could not do; fish

for swimming and remaining under water when he could not; while at

the same time he had not as yet perceived that the intelligence of

animals was in any way inferior to his own, and he credited many of

them with the power of speech. Thus certain animals were venerated on

account of the qualities associated with them, and out of them in the

course of time anthropomorphic gods personifying the qualities were

evolved. The Australian aborigines of the kangaroo totem, when they

wish to multiply the number of kangaroos, go to a certain place where

two special blocks of stone project immediately one above the other

from the hillside. One is supposed to represent an 'old man' kangaroo

and the other a female. The stones are rubbed and then painted with

alternate red and white stripes, the red stripes representing the red

fur of the kangaroos, and the white ones its bones. After doing this

some of them open veins in their arms and allow the blood to spurt

over the stones. The other men sing chants referring to the increase

in the numbers of the kangaroos, and they suppose that this ceremony

will actually result in producing an increased number of kangaroos

and hence an additional supply of food. [106] Here the inference

seems to be that the stones represent the centre or focus of the

life of kangaroos, and when they are quickened by the painting, and

the supply of blood, they will manifest their creative activity and

increase the kangaroos. If we suppose that some similar stone existed

on the Acropolis and was considered by the owl clan as the centre of

the life of the owls which frequented the hill, then when the art of

sculpture had made some progress, and the superiority of the human form

and intellect began to be apprehended, if a sculptor carved the stone

into the semblance of a human being, the goddess Athena would be born.

55. Primitive language.

It has been seen that primitive man considered the life and qualities

to be distributed equally over the body in a physical sense, so that

they formed part of the substance and flesh. The same view extended

even to instrumental qualities or functions, since his mental powers

and vision were necessarily limited by his language. Language must

apparently have begun by pointing at animals or plants and making

some sound, probably at first an imitation of the cry or other

characteristic of the animal, which came to connote it. We have to

suppose that language was at the commencement a help in the struggle

for life, because otherwise men, as yet barely emerged from the animal

stage, would never have made the painful mental efforts necessary

to devise and remember the words. Words which would be distinctly

advantageous in the struggle would be names for the animals and

plants which they ate, and for the animals which ate them. By saying

the name and pointing in any direction, the presence of such animals

or plants in the vicinity would be intimated more quickly and more

accurately than by signs or actions. Such names were then, it may

be supposed, the first words. Animals or plants of which they made

no use nor from which they apprehended any danger, would for long be

simply disregarded, as nothing was to be gained by inventing names for

them. The first words were all nouns and the names of visible objects,

and this state of things probably continued for a long period and

was the cause of many erroneous primitive conceptions and ideas. Some

traces of the earliest form of language can still be discerned. Thus of

Santali Sir G. Grierson states: "Every word can perform the function

of a verb, and every verbal form can, according to circumstances,

be considered as a noun, an adjective or a verb. It is often simply

a matter of convenience which word is considered as a noun and which

as an adjective ... Strictly speaking, in Santali there is no real

verb as distinct from the other classes of words. Every independent

word can perform the function of a verb, and every verbal form can in

its turn be used as a noun or adjective." [107] And of the Dravidian

languages he says: "The genitive of ordinary nouns is in reality an

adjective, and the difference between nouns and adjectives is of no

great importance ... Many cases are both nouns and verbs. Nouns of

agency are very commonly used as verbs." [108] Thus if it be admitted

that nouns preceded verbs as parts of speech, which will hardly be

disputed, these passages show how the semi-abstract adjectives and

verbs were gradually formed from the names of concrete nouns. Of

the language of the now extinct Tasmanian aborigines it is stated:

"Their speech was so imperfectly constituted that there was no settled

order or arrangement of words in the sentence, the sense being eked

out by face, manner and gesture, so that they could scarcely converse

in the dark, and all intercourse had to cease with nightfall. Abstract

forms scarcely existed, and while every gum-tree or wattle-tree had

its name, there was no word for 'tree' in general, nor for qualities

such as hard, soft, hot, cold, etc. Anything hard was 'like a stone,'

anything round 'like the moon,' and so on, the speaker suiting the

action to the word, and supplementing the meaning to be understood

by some gesture." [109] Here the original concrete form of language

can be clearly discerned. They had a sufficiency of names for all the

objects which were of use to them, and apparently verbal ideas were

largely conveyed by gesture. Captain Forsyth states [110] that though

the Korkus very seldom wash themselves, there exist in their language

eight words for washing, one for washing the face, another for the

hands and others for different parts of the body. Thus we see that

the verbal idea of washing was originally conceived not generally,

but separately with reference to each concrete object or noun, for

which a name existed and to which water was applied.

56. Concrete nature of primitive ideas.

The primitive languages consisted only of nouns or the names of

visible objects, possibly with the subsequent addition of a few names

for such conceptions as the wind and the voice, which could be heard,

but not seen. There were no abstract nor semi-abstract terms nor parts

of speech. The resulting inability to realise any abstract conception

and the tendency to make everything concrete is a principal and salient

characteristic of ethnology and primitive religion. [111] All actions

are judged by their concrete aspect or effects and not by the motives

which prompted them, nor the results which they produce. For a Hindu

to let a cow die with a rope round its neck is a grave caste offence,

apparently because an indignity is thus offered to the sacred animal,

but it is no offence to let a cow starve to death. A girl may be

married to inanimate objects as already seen, or to an old man or a

relative without any intention that she shall live with him as a wife,

but simply so that she may be married before reaching puberty. If she

goes through the ceremony of marriage she is held to be married. Yet

the motive for infant-marriage is held to be that a girl should begin

to bear children as soon as she is physically capable of doing so,

and such a marriage is useless from this point of view. Some castes

who cannot afford to burn a corpse hold a lighted brand to it or

kindle a little fire on the grave and consider this equivalent to

cremation. Promises are considered as concrete; among some Hindus

promises are tied up in knots of cloth, and when they are discharged

the knots are untied. Mr. S.C. Roy says of the Oraons: "Contracts are

even to this day generally not written but acted. Thus a lease of land

is made by the lessor handing over a clod of earth (which symbolises

land) to the lessee; a contract of sale of cattle is entered into by

handing over to the buyer a few blades of grass (which symbolise so

many heads of cattle); a contract of payment of bride-price is made

by the bridegroom's father or other relative handing over a number of

_baris_ or small cakes of pulse (which symbolise so many rupees) to the

bride's father or other relative; and a contract of service is made by

the mistress of the house anointing the head of the intended servant

with oil, and making a present of a few pice, and entertaining him to

a feast, thus signifying that he would receive food, lodging and some

pay." [112] Thus an abstract agreement is not considered sufficient

for a contract; in each case it must be ratified by a concrete act.

The divisions of time are considered in a concrete sense. The

fortnight or Nakshatra is presided over by its constellation, and

this is held to be a nymph or goddess, who controls events during its

course. Similarly, as shown in _The Golden Bough_, [113] many kinds

of new enterprises should be begun in the fortnight of the waxing

moon, not in that of the waning moon. Days are also thought to be

concrete and governed by their planets, and from this idea come all

the superstitions about lucky and unlucky days. If a day had been

from the beginning realised as a simple division of time no such

superstitions could exist. Events, so far as they are conceived of,

are also considered in a concrete sense. The reason why omens were

so often drawn from birds [114] is perhaps that birds fly from a

distance and hence are able to see coming events on their way; and the

hare and donkey were important animals of augury, perhaps because,

on account of their long ears, they were credited with abnormally

acute hearing, which would enable them to hear the sound of coming

events before ordinary people. The proverb 'Coming events cast their

shadows before,' appears to be a survival of this mode of belief,

as it is obvious that that which has no substance cannot cast a shadow.

The whole category of superstitions about the evil eye arises from the

belief that the glance of the eye is a concrete thing which strikes

the person or object towards which it is directed like a dart. The

theory that the injury is caused through the malice or envy of the

person casting the evil eye seems to be derivative and explanatory. If

a stranger's glance falls on the food of a Ramanuji Brahman while it

is being cooked, the food becomes polluted and must be buried in the

ground. Here it is clear that the glance of the eye is equivalent to

real contact of some part of the stranger's body, which would pollute

the food. In asking for leave in order to nurse his brother who was

seriously ill but could obtain no advantage from medical treatment,

a Hindu clerk explained that the sick man had been pierced by the

evil glance of some woman.

57. Words and names concrete.

Similarly words were considered to have a concrete force, so that

the mere repetition of words produced an effect analogous to their

sense. The purely mechanical repetition of prayers was held to be a

virtuous act, and this idea was carried to the most absurd length in

the Buddhist's praying-wheel, where merit was acquired by causing

the wheel with prayers inscribed on its surface to revolve in a

waterfall. The wearing of strips of paper, containing sacred texts,

as amulets on the body is based on this belief, and some Muhammadans

will wash off the ink from paper containing a verse of the Koran and

drink the mixture under the impression that it will do them good. Here

the belief in the concrete virtue and substance of the written word

is very clear. The Hindus think that the continued repetition of the

Gayatri or sacred prayer to the sun is a means of acquiring virtue,

and the prayer is personified as a goddess. The enunciation of the

sacred syllable Aum or Om is supposed to have the most powerful

results. Homer's phrase 'winged words' perhaps recalls the period

when the words were considered as physical entities which actually

travelled through the air from the speaker to the hearer and were

called winged because they went so fast. A Korku clan has the name

_lobo_ which means a piece of cloth. But the word _lobo_ also signifies

'to leak.' If a person says a sentence containing the word _lobo_ in

either signification before a member of the clan while he is eating,

he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated

and prepare a meal afresh. Here it is clear that the Korku pays no

regard to the sense but solely to the word or sound. This belief

in the concrete force of words has had the most important effects

both in law and religion. The earliest codes of law were held to be

commands of the god and claimed obedience on this ground. The binding

force of the law rested in the words and not in the sense because the

words were held to be those of the god and to partake of his divine

nature. In ancient Rome the citizen had to take care to know the

words of the law and to state them exactly. If he used one wrong word

the law gave him no assistance. "Gaius tells a story of a man whose

neighbour had cut his vines; the facts were clear; he stated the law

applying to his case, but he said vines, whereas the law said trees;

he lost his suit." [115] The divine virtue attached to the sacred

books of different religions rests on the same belief. Frequently the

books themselves are worshipped, and it was held that they could not

be translated because the sanctity resided in the actual words and

would be lost if other words were used. The efficacy of spells and

invocations seems to depend mainly on this belief in the concrete

power of words. If one knows an efficacious form of words connoting

a state of physical facts and repeats it with the proper accessory

conditions, then that state of facts is actually caused to exist;

and if one knows a man's name and calls on him with a form of words

efficacious to compel attendance, he has to come and his spirit can

similarly be summoned from the dead. When a Malay wishes to kill an

enemy he makes an image of the man, transfixes or otherwise injures

it, and buries it on the path over which the enemy will tread. As he

buries it with the impression that he will thereby cause the enemy

to die and likewise be buried, he says:

It is not I who am burying him,

It is Gabriel who is burying him,

and thinks that the repetition of these words produces the state of

facts which they denote so that the guilt of the murder is removed from

his own shoulders to those of the archangel Gabriel. Similarly when he

has killed a deer and wishes to be free from the guilt of his action,

or as he calls it to cast out the mischief from the deer, he says:

It is not I who cast out these mischiefs,

It is Michael who casts them out.

It is not I who cast out these mischiefs,

It is Israfel who casts them out,

and so on, freeing himself in the same manner from responsibility

for the death of the deer. [116] Names also are regarded as

concrete. Primitive man could not regard a name as an abstract

appellation, but thought of it as part of the person or thing to

which it was applied and as containing part of his life, like his

hair, spittle and the rest of his body. He would have used names

for a long period before he had any word for a name, and his first

idea of the name as a part of the substantive body to which it is

applied has survived a more correct appreciation. Thus if one knew

a person's name one could injure him by working evil on it and the

part of his life contained in it, just as one could injure him through

the clippings of his hair, his spittle, clothes or the earth pressed

by his foot. This is the reason for the common custom of having two

names, one of which, the true name, is kept secret and only used on

ceremonial occasions when it is essential, as at a wedding, while the

other is employed for everyday life. The latter, not being the man's

true name, does not contain part of his life, and hence there is no

harm in letting an enemy know it. Similarly the Hindus think that a

child's name should not be repeated at night, lest an owl might hear

it, when this bird could injure the child through its name, just as

if it got hold of a piece of cloth worn or soiled by the child. The

practice of euphemism rests on this belief, as it was thought that

if a person's name was said and a part of him was thus caused to be

present the rest would probably follow. Hence the rule of avoiding the

use of the names of persons or things of which one does not desire the

presence. Thus Sir E.B. Tylor says: "The Dayak will not speak of the

smallpox by name, but will call it 'The Chief,' or 'Jungle leaves,'

or say, 'Has He left you?' The euphemism of calling the Furies the

Eumenides, or 'Gracious Ones,' is the stock illustration of this

feeling, and the euphemisms for fairies and for the devil are too

familiar to quote." [117] Similarly the name of a god was considered

as part of him and hence partaking of his divine nature. It was thus

so potent that it could not be mentioned on ordinary occasions or by

common persons. Allah is only an epithet for the name of God among

the Muhammadans and his True or Great Name is secret. Those who know

it have power over all created things. Clearly then the divine power

is held to reside in the name itself. The concealment of the name of

the tutelary deity of Rome, for divulging which Valerius Soranus is

said to have paid the penalty of death, is a case in point. [118]

Sir E.B. Tylor gives many other interesting examples of the above

ideas and points out the connection clearly existing in the savage mind

between the name and the object to which it is applied. The Muhammadans

think that Solomon's name is very efficacious for casting out devils

and evil spirits. The practice of naming children after gods or by

the epithets or titles applied to the divine being, or after the

names of saints, appears to be due to the belief that such names,

by reason of their association with the god or saint, acquire a part

of his divine life and virtue, which when given to children the names

will in turn convey to them. [119] On the other hand, when a Hindu

mother is afraid lest her child may die, she sometimes gives it an

opprobrious name as dirt, rubbish, sweepings, or sold for one or two

cowries, so that the evil spirits who take the lives of children may

be deceived by the name and think that such a valueless child is not

worth having. The voice was also held to be concrete. The position

of the Roman tribune was peculiar, as he was not a magistrate chosen

by divine authority and hence could not summon people to his court;

but the tribune had been dedicated to the city gods, and his person

was sacrosanct. He could therefore lay hands on a man, and once the

tribune touched him, the man was held to be in the magistrate's power,

and bound to obey him. This rule extended even to those who were within

hearing of his voice; any one, even a patrician or consul, who heard

the tribune's voice was compelled to obey him. In this case it is

clear that the voice and spoken words were held to be concrete, and

to share in the sanctity attaching to the body. [120] When primitive

man could not think of a name as an abstraction but had to think of

it as an actual part of the body and life of the person or visible

object to which it belonged, it will be realised how impossible it

was for him during a long period to conceive of any abstract idea,

which was only a word without visible or corporal reality.

58. The soul or spirit.

Thus he could not at first have had any conception of a soul or

spirit, which is an unseen thing. Savages generally may have evolved

the conception of a soul or spirit as an explanation of dreams,

according to the view taken by Mr. E. Clodd in _Myths and Dreams_,

[121] Mr. Clodd shows that dreams were necessarily and invariably

considered as real events, and it could not have been otherwise, as

primitive man would have been unable to conceive the abstract idea of a

vision or fantasy. And since during dreams the body remained immobile

and quiescent, it was thought that the spirit inside the body left

it and travelled independently. Hence the reluctance often evinced

to waking a sleeper suddenly from fear lest the absent spirit might

not have time to return to the body before its awakening and hence

the man might die. Savages, not having the conception of likeness or

similarity, [122] would confuse death and sleep, because the appearance

of the body is similar in death and in sleep. Legends of the type

of Rip Van Winkle and the Sleeping Beauty, and of heroes like King

Arthur and Frederick Barbarossa lying asleep through the centuries

in some remote cave or other hiding-place, from which they will one

day issue forth to regenerate the world, perpetuate the primitive

identification of death and sleep. And the belief long prevailed that

after death the soul or spirit remained with the body in the place

where it lay, leaving the body and returning to it as the spirit was

held to do in sleep. The spirit was also thought to be able to quit

the body and enter any other body, both during life and after death;

most of the beliefs in spirit-possession and many of those about the

power of witches arise from this view. The soul or spirit was commonly

conceived of in concrete form; the Egyptians, Greeks and Hindus thought

of it as a little mannikin inside the body. After death the Hindus

often break the skull in order to allow the soul to escape. Often an

insect or a stone is thought to harbour the spirit. As shown by Sir

E. B. Tylor in _Primitive Culture_, [123] the breath, the shadow and

the pupil of the eye were sometimes held to be or to represent the

soul or spirit. Disembodied spirits are imprisoned in a tree or hole

by driving nails into the tree or ground to confine them and prevent

their exit. When a man died accidentally or a woman in childbirth and

fear was felt that their spirits might annoy or injure the living,

a stake might be driven through the body or a cairn of stones piled

over it in order to keep the ghost down and prevent it from rising

and walking. The genii of the Arabian Nights were imprisoned in

sealed bottles, and when the bottle was opened they appeared in a

cloud of vapour.

There seems every reason to suppose, as the same author suggests,

that man first thought he had a spirit himself and as a consequence

held that animals, plants and inanimate objects also contained

spirits. Because the belief that the human body had a spirit can

easily be accounted for, but there seems to be no valid reason why

man should have thought that all other visible objects also contained

spirits, except that at the period when he conceived of the existence

of a soul or spirit he still held them to be possessed of life and

self-conscious volition like himself. But certain beliefs, such as

the universal existence of life, and of its distribution all over

the body and transmission by contact and eating, the common life

of the species, and possibly totemism itself, appear to have been

pre-animistic or prior to any conception of or belief in a soul or

spirit either in man himself or in nature.

59. The tranmission of qualities.

Primitive man thought that the life and all qualities, mental

and physical, were equally distributed over the body as part of

the substance of the flesh. He thus came to think that they could

be transferred from one body or substance to another in two ways:

either by contact of the two bodies or substances, or by the eating

or assimilation of one by the other. The transmission of qualities

by contact could be indicated through simply saying the two names of

the objects in contact together, and transmission by eating through

saying the two names with a gesture of eating. Thus if one ate a piece

of tiger's flesh, one assimilated an equivalent amount of strength,

ferocity, cruelty, yellowness, and any other qualities which might be

attributed to the tiger. Warriors and youths are sometimes forbidden

to eat deer's flesh because it will make them timid, but they are

encouraged to eat the flesh of tigers, bears, and other ferocious

animals, because it will make them brave. The Gonds, if they wish

a child to be a good dancer, cause it to eat the flesh of a kind of

hawk, which hangs gracefully poised over the water, with its wings

continually flapping, on the look-out for its prey. They think that

by eating the flesh the limbs of the child will become supple like

the wings of the bird. If a child is slow in learning to speak,

they give it to eat the leaves of the pipal tree, which rustle

continually in the wind and are hence supposed to have the quality

of making a noise. All qualities, objective and instrumental, were

conceived of in the same manner, because in the absence of verbs or

abstract terms their proper relation to the subject and object could

not be stated or understood. Thus if a woman's labour in child-birth

is prolonged she is given to drink water in which the charred wood of

a tree struck by lightning has been dipped. Here it is clear that the

quality of swiftness is held to have been conveyed by the lightning

to the wood, by the wood to the water, and by the water to the woman,

so as to give her a swift delivery. By a similar train of reasoning

she is given to drink the water of a swiftly-flowing stream which thus

has the quality of swiftness, or water poured through a gun-barrel in

which the fouling of a bullet is left. Here the quality of swiftness

appertaining to the bullet is conveyed by the soiling to the barrel and

thence to the water and to the woman who drinks the water. In the above

cases all the transfers except that to the woman are by contact. The

belief in the transfer of qualities by contact may have arisen from

the sensations of the body and skin, to which heat, cold and moisture

are communicated by contact. It was applied to every kind of quality. A

familiar instance is the worship of the marks on rocks or stone which

are held to be the footprints left by a god. Here a part of the god's

divine virtue and power has been communicated through the sole of his

foot to the rock dented by the latter. Touching for the king's evil

was another familiar case, when it was thought that a fraction of

the king's divine life and virtue was communicated by contact to the

person touched and cured him of his ailment. The wearing of amulets

where these consist of parts of the bodies of animals is based on the

same belief. When a man wears on his person the claws of a tiger in an

amulet, he thinks that the claws being the tiger's principal weapon

of offence contain a concentrated part of his strength, and that the

wearer of the claws will acquire some of this by contact. The Gonds

carry the shoulder-bone of a tiger, or eat the powdered bone-dust,

in order to acquire strength. The same train of reasoning applies

to the wearing of the hair of a bear, a common amulet in India, the

hair being often considered as the special seat of strength. [124]

The whole practice of wearing ornaments of the precious metals and

precious stones appears to have been originally due to the same motive,

as shown in the article on Sunar.

If the Gonds want a child to become fat, they put it in a pigsty or

a place where asses have rolled, so that it may acquire by contact

the quality of fatness belonging to the pigs or asses. If they wish to

breed quarrels in an enemy's house, they put the seeds of the _amaltas_

or the quills of the porcupine in the thatch of the roof. The seeds

in the dried pods of this tree rattle in the wind, while the fretful

porcupine raises its quills when angry. Hence the seeds will impart

the quality of noise to the house, so that its inmates will be noisy,

while the quills of the porcupine will similarly breed strife between

them. The effects produced by weapons and instruments are thought of

in the same manner. We say that an arrow is shot from a bow with such

force as to penetrate the body and cause a wound. The savage could not

think or speak in this way, because he had no verbs and could not think

of nouns in the objective case. He thought of the arrow as an animate

thing having a cutting or piercing quality. When placed in a suitable

position to exercise its powers, it flew, of its own volition, through

the air to the target, and communicated to it by contact some of the

above quality. The idea is more easily realised in the case of balls,

pieces of bone or other missiles thrown by magicians. Here the person

whom it is intended to injure may be miles away, so that the object

could not possibly strike him merely through the force imparted to it

by the thrower. But when the magician has said charms over the missile,

communicating to it the power and desire to do his will, he throws it

in the proper direction and savages believe that it will go of its

own accord to the person against whom it is aimed and penetrate his

body. To pretend to suck pieces of bone out of the body, which are

supposed to have been propelled into the victim by an enemy, is one

of the commonest magical methods of curing an illness. The following

instances of this idea are taken from the admirable collection in

_The Golden Bough_ [125]: "(In Suffolk) if a man cuts himself with a

bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the weapon bright,

and oils it to prevent the wound from festering. If he runs a thorn or,

as he calls it, a bush into his hand, he oils or greases the extracted

thorn. A man came to a doctor with an inflamed hand, having run a

thorn into it while he was hedging. On being told that the hand was

festering, he remarked: 'That didn't ought to, for I greased the bush

well after I pulled it out' If a horse wounds its foot by treading on

a nail, a Suffolk groom will invariably preserve the nail, clean it

and grease it every day to prevent the wound from festering." Here the

heat and festering of the wounds are held to be qualities of the axe,

thorn or nail, which have been communicated to the person or animal

wounded by contact. If these qualities of the instrument are reduced

by cleaning and oiling it, then that portion of them communicated

to the wound, which was originally held to be a severed part of

the life and qualities of the instrument, will similarly be made

cool and easy. It is not probable that the people of Suffolk really

believe this at present, but they retain the method of treatment

arising from the belief without being able to explain it. Similarly

the Hindus must have thought that the results produced by the tools

of artisans working on materials, and by the plough on the earth,

were communicated by these instruments volitionally through contact;

and this is why they worship once or twice a year the implements of

their profession as the givers of the means of subsistence. All the

stories of magic swords, axes, impenetrable shields, sandals, lamps,

carpets and so on originally arose from the same belief.

60. The faculty of counting. Confusion of the individual and the

species.

But primitive man not only considered the body as a homogeneous mass

with the life and qualities distributed equally over it. He further,

it may be suggested, did not distinguish between the individual

and the species. The reason for this was that he could not count,

and had no idea of numbers. The faculty of counting appears to have

been acquired very late. Messrs. Spencer and Gillan remark of the

aborigines of Central Australia: [126] "While in matters such as

tracking, which are concerned with their everyday life, and upon

efficiency in which they actually depend for their livelihood,

the natives show conspicuous ability, there are other directions in

which they are as conspicuously deficient. This is perhaps shown most

clearly in the matter of counting. At Alice Springs they occasionally

count, sometimes using their fingers in doing so, up to five, but

frequently anything beyond four is indicated by the word _oknira_,

meaning 'much' or 'great.' One is _nintha_, two _thrama_ or _thera_,

three _mapitcha_, four _therankathera_, five _therankathera-nintha_."

The form of these words is interesting, because it is clear that

the word for four is two and two, or twice two, and the word for

five is two and two and one. These words indicate the prolonged and

painful efforts which must have been necessary to count as far as

five, and this though in other respects the Australian natives show

substantial mental development, having a most complicated system of

exogamy, and sometimes two personal names for each individual. Again,

the Andamanese islanders, despite the extraordinary complexity of

their agglutinative language, have no names for the numerals beyond

two. [127] It is said that the Majhwar tribe can only count up to

three, while among the Bhatras the qualification for being a village

astrologer, who foretells the character of the rainfall and gives

auspicious days for sowing and harvest, is the ability to count

a certain number of posts. The astrologer's title is Meda Gantia,

or Counter of Posts. The above facts demonstrate that counting is a

faculty acquired with difficulty after considerable mental progress,

and primitive man apparently did not feel the necessity for it. [128]

But if he could not count, it seems a proper deduction that his

eye would not distinguish a number of animals of the same species

together, because the ability to do this, and to appraise distinct

individuals of like appearance appears to depend ultimately on the

faculty of counting. Major Hendley, a doctor and therefore a skilled

observer, states that the Bhils were unable to distinguish colours

or to count numbers, apparently on account of their want of words

to express themselves. [129] Now it seems clearly more easy for the

eye to discriminate between opposing colours than to distinguish

a number of individuals of the same species together. There are a

few things which we still cannot count, such as the blades of grass,

the ears of corn, drops of rain, snowflakes, and hailstones. All of

these things are still spoken of in the singular, though this is well

known to be scientifically incorrect. We say an expanse of grass,

a field of corn, and so on, as if the grass and corn were all one

plant instead of an innumerable quantity of plants. Apparently when

primitive man saw a number of animals or trees of the same species

together, the effect on him must have been exactly the same as that

of a field of grass or corn on us. He could be conscious only of an

indefinite sense of magnitude. But he did not know, as we do in the

cases cited, that the objects he saw were really a collection of

distinct individuals. He would naturally consider them as all one,

just as children would think a field of grass or corn to be one great

plant until they were told otherwise. But there was no one to tell

him, nor any means by which he could find out his mistake. He had no

plural number, and no definite or indefinite articles. Whether he

saw one or a hundred tigers together, he could only describe them

by the one word tiger. It was a long time before he could even say

'much tiger,' as the Australian natives still have to do if they see

more animals than five together, and the Andamanese if they see more

than two. The hypothesis therefore seems reasonable that at first man

considered each species of animals or plants which he distinguished

to have a separate single life, of which all the individuals were

pieces or members. The separation of different parts of one living

body presented no difficulties to his mind, since, as already seen, he

believed the life to continue in severed fractions of the human body.

A connection between individuals, apparently based on the idea that

they have a common life, has been noticed in other cases. Thus at the

commencement of the patriarchal state of society, when the child is

believed to derive its life from its father, any carelessness in the

father's conduct may injuriously affect the child. Sir E.B. Tylor notes

this among the tribes of South America. After the birth of a child

among the Indians of South America the father would eat no regular

cooked food, not suitable for children, as he feared that if he did

this his child would die. [130] "Among the Arawaks of Surinam for some

time after the birth of a child the father must fell no tree, fire

no gun, hunt no large game; he may stay near home, shoot little birds

with a bow and arrow, and angle for little fish; but his time hanging

heavy on his hands the only comfortable thing he can do is to lounge

in his hammock." [131] On another occasion a savage who had lately

become a father, refused snuff, of which he was very fond, because

his sneezing would endanger the life of his newly-born child. They

believed that any intemperance or carelessness of the father, such as

drinking, eating large quantities of meat, swimming in cold weather,

riding till he was tired and sweated, would endanger the child's life,

and if the child died, the father was bitterly reproached with having

caused its death by some such indiscretion. [132] Here the idea clearly

seems to be that the father's and child's life are one, the latter

being derived from and part of the former. The custom of the Couvade

may therefore perhaps be assigned to the early patriarchal stage. The

first belief was that the child derived its life from its mother,

and apparently that the weakness and debility of the mother after

childbirth were due to the fact that she had given up a part of her

life to the child. When the system of female descent changed to male

descent, the woman was taken from another clan into her husband's;

the child, being born in its father's clan, obviously could not draw

its life from its mother, who was originally of a different clan. The

inference was that it drew its life from its father; consequently

the father, having parted with a part of his life to his child, had

to imitate the conduct of the mother after childbirth, abstain from

any violent exertion, and sometimes feign weakness and lie up in the

house, so as not to place any undue strain on the severed fraction

of his life in his child, which would be simultaneously affected with

his own, but was much more fragile.

61. Similarity and identity.

Again, primitive man had no conception of likeness or similarity,

nor did he realise an imitation as distinct from the thing

imitated. Likeness or similarity and imitation are abstract ideas,

for which he had no words, and consequently did not conceive of

them. And clearly if one had absolutely no term signifying likeness

or similarity, and if one wished to indicate say, that something

resembled a goat, all one could do would be to point at the goat and

the object resembling it and say 'goat,' 'goat.' Since the name was

held to be part of the thing named, such a method would strengthen the

idea that resemblance was equivalent to identity. This point of view

can also be observed in children, who have no difficulty in thinking

that any imitation or toy model is just as good as the object or animal

imitated, and playing with it as such. Even to call a thing by the name

of any object is sufficient with children to establish its identity

with that object for the purposes of a game or mimicry, and a large

part of children's games are based on such pretensions. They also have

not yet clearly grasped the difference between likeness and identity,

and between an imitation of an object and the object itself. A large

part of the category of substituted ceremonies and sacrifices are

based on this confusion between similarity and identity. Thus when the

Hindus put four pieces of stick into a pumpkin and call it a goat,

they do not mean to cheat the god to whom it is offered, but fancy

that when they have made a likeness of a goat and called it a goat,

it is a goat, at any rate for the purpose of sacrifice. And when the

Jains, desiring to eat after sunset against the rule of their religion,

place a lamp under a sieve and call it the sun, and eat by it, they are

acting on the same principle and think they have avoided committing

a sin. A Baiga should go to his wedding on an elephant, but as he

cannot obtain a real elephant, two wooden cots are lashed together

and covered with blankets, with a black cloth trunk in front, and

this arrangement passes muster for an elephant. A small gold image

of a cat is offered to a Brahman in expiation for killing a cat,

silver eyes are offered to the goddess to save the eyes of a person

suffering from smallpox, a wisp of straw is burnt on a man's grave as

a substitute for cremating the body, a girl is married to an image

of a man made of _kusha_ grass, and so on. In rites where blood is

required vermilion is used as a substitute for blood; on the other

hand castes which abstain from flesh sometimes also decline to eat

red vegetables and fruits, because the red colour is held to make

them resemble and be equivalent to blood. These beliefs survive in

religious ceremonial long after the hard logic of facts has dispelled

them from ordinary life. [133] Thus when an image of a god was made

it was at once the god and contained part of his life. Primitive man

had no idea of an imitation or an image nor of a lifeless object, and

therefore could not conceive of the representation being anything else

than the god. Only in later times was some ceremony of conveying life

to the image considered requisite. The prohibition of sculpture among

the Jews and of painting among the Muhammadans was based on this view,

[134] because sculptures and paintings were not considered as images or

representations, but as living beings or gods, and consequently false

gods. The world-wide custom of making an image of a man with intent

to injure him arises from the same belief. Since primitive man could

conceive neither of an imitation nor of an inanimate object, the image

of a man was to his view the man; there was nothing else which it could

be. And thus it contained part of the man's life, just as every idol of

a god was the god himself and contained part of the god's life. Since

the man's life was common to himself and the image, by injuring or

destroying the image it was held that the man's life would similarly

be injured or destroyed, on the analogy already explained of injury

to life being frequently observed to follow a hurt or wound of any

part of the body. Afterwards the connection between the man and the

image was strengthened by working into the material of the latter some

fraction of his body, such as severed hair or the earth pressed by his

foot. But this was not necessary to the original belief. The objection

often raised by savages to having their photographs taken or pictures

painted may be explained in the same manner. Here the photograph or

picture cannot be realised as a simple imitation; it is held to be

the man himself, and must therefore contain part of his life. Hence

any one in whose possession it is can do him harm by injuring or

destroying the photograph or picture, according to the method of

reasoning already explained. The superstitions against looking in a

mirror, especially after dark, or seeing one's reflection in water,

are analogous cases. Here the reflection in the mirror or water is held

to be the person himself, because savages do not understand the nature

of the reflected image. It is the person himself, but has no corporeal

substance; therefore the reflection must be his ghost or spirit. But

if the spirit appears once it is an omen that it will appear again;

and in order that it may do so the man will have to die so that the

spirit may be set free from the body in order to appear. The special

reason for not looking into a mirror at night would thus be because

the night is the usual time for the appearance of spirits. The fable

of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in the

water and was drowned, probably arose from the superstition against

seeing one's image reflected in water. And similarly the belief was

that a man's clothes and other possessions contained part of his life

by contact; this is the explanation of the custom of representing a

person by some implement or article of clothing, such as performing

the marriage ceremony with the bridegroom's sword instead of himself,

and sending the bride's shoes home with the bridegroom to represent

her. A barren woman will try to obtain a piece of a pregnant woman's

breast-cloth and will burn it and eat the ashes, thinking thereby to

transfer the pregnant woman's quality of fertility to herself. When

a Hindu widow is remarried her clothes and ornaments are sometimes

buried on the boundary of her second husband's village and she puts

on new clothes, because it is thought that her first husband's spirit

will remain in the old clothes and give trouble.

62. The recurrence of events.

A brief digression may be made here in order to suggest an explanation

of another important class of primitive ideas. These arise from the

belief that when something has happened, that same event, or some

other resembling it, will again occur, or, more briefly, the belief

in the recurrence of events. This view is the origin of a large class

of omens, and appears to have been originally evolved simply from the

recurring phenomena of day and night and of the months and climatic

seasons. For suppose that one was in the position of primitive man,

knowing absolutely nothing of the nature and constitution of the earth

and the heavenly bodies, or of the most elementary facts of astronomy;

then, if the question were asked why one expected the sun to rise

to-morrow, the only possible answer, and the answer which one would

give, would be because it had risen to-day and every day as long as one

could remember. The reason so stated might have no scientific value,

but would at any rate establish a strong general probability. But

primitive man could not have given it in this form, because he had no

memory and could not count. Even now comparatively advanced tribes like

the Gonds have a hopelessly inaccurate memory for ordinary incidents;

and, as suggested subsequently, the faculty of memory was probably

acquired very slowly with the development of language. And since he

could not count, the continuous recurrence of natural phenomena had

no cumulative force with him, so that he might distinguish them from

other events. His argument was thus simply "the sun will rise again

because it rose before; the moon will wax and wane again because she

waxed and waned before"; grass and leaves and fruit would grow again

because they did so before; the animals which gave him food would come

again as before; and so on. But these were the only events which his

brain retained at all, and that only because his existence depended

upon them and they continually recurred. The ordinary incidents of life

which presented some variation passed without record in his mind, as

they still do very largely in those of primitive savages. And since he

made no distinction between the different classes of events, holding

them all to be the acts of volitional beings, he applied this law of

the recurrence of events to every incident of life, and thought that

whenever anything happened, reason existed for supposing that the same

thing or something like it would happen again. It was sufficient that

the second event should be like the first, since, as already seen,

he did not distinguish between similarity and identity. Thus, to give

instances, the Hindus think that if a man lies full length inside a

bed, he is lying as if on a bier and will consequently soon be dead

on a real bier; hence beds should be made so that one's feet project

uncomfortably over the end. By a similar reasoning he must not lie with

his feet to the south because corpses are laid in this direction. A

Hindu married woman always wears glass bangles as a sign of her state,

and a widow may not wear them. A married woman must therefore never

let her arms be without bangles or it is an omen that she will become

a widow. She must not wear wholly white clothes, because a widow wears

these. If a man places one of his shoes over the other in the house,

it is an omen that he will go on a journey when the shoes will be in

a similar position as he walks along. A Kolta woman who desires to

ascertain whether she will have a son, puts a fish into a pot full of

water and spreads her cloth by it. If the fish jumps into her lap,

it is thought that her lap will shortly hold another living being,

that is a son. At a wedding, in many Hindu castes, the bride and

bridegroom perform the business of their caste or an imitation of

it. Among the Kuramwar shepherds the bride and bridegroom are seated

with the shuttle which is used for weaving blankets between them. A

miniature swing is put up and a doll is placed in it in imitation

of a child and swung to and fro. The bride then takes the doll out

and gives it to the bridegroom, saying:--"Here, take care of it,

I am now going to cook food"; while, after a time, the boy returns

the doll to the girl saying, "I must now weave the blanket and go

to tend the flock." Thus, having performed their life's business at

their wedding, it is thought that they will continue to do so happily

as long as they live. Many castes, before sowing the real crop, make

a pretence of sowing seed before the shrine of the god, and hope thus

to ensure that the subsequent sowing will be auspicious. The common

stories of the appearance of a ghost, or other variety of apparition,

before the deaths of members of a particular family, are based partly

on the belief in the recurrence of associated events. The well-known

superstition about sitting down thirteen to dinner, on the ground that

one of the party may die shortly afterwards, is an instance of the

same belief, being of course based on the Last Supper. But the number

thirteen is generally unlucky, being held to be so by the Hindus,

Muhammadans and Persians, as well as Europeans, and the superstition

perhaps arose from its being the number of the intercalary month in

the soli-lunar calendar, which is present one year and absent the

next year. Thirteen is one more than twelve, the auspicious number

of the months of the year. Similarly seven was perhaps lucky or

sacred as being the number of the planets which gave their names

to the days of the week, and three because it represented the sun,

moon and earth. When a gambler stakes his money on a number such as

the date of his birth or marriage, he acts on the supposition that a

number which has been propitious to him once will be so again, and this

appears to be a survival of the belief in the recurrence of events.

63. Controlling the future.

But primitive man was not actuated by any abstract love of knowledge,

and when he had observed what appeared to him to be a law of nature, he

proceeded to turn it to advantage in his efforts for the preservation

of his life. Since events had the characteristic of recurrence, all he

had to do in order to produce the recurrence of any particular event

which he desired, was to cause it to happen in the first instance; and

since he did not distinguish between imitation and reality, he thought

that if he simply enacted the event he would thus ensure its being

brought to pass. And so he assiduously set himself to influence the

course of nature to his own advantage. When the Australian aborigines

are performing ceremonies for the increase of witchetty grubs, a long

narrow structure of boughs is made which represents the chrysalis of

the grub. The men of the witchetty grub totem enter the structure

and sing songs about the production and growth of the witchetty

grub. Then one after another they shuffle out of the chrysalis,

and glide slowly along for a distance of some yards, imitating the

emergence and movements of the witchetty grubs. By thus enacting the

production of the grubs they think to cause and multiply the real

production. [135] When the men of the emu totem wish to multiply the

number of emus, they allow blood from their arms, that is emu blood,

to fall on the ground until a certain space is covered. Then on this

space a picture is drawn representing the emu; two large patches of

yellow indicate lumps of its fat, of which the natives are very fond,

but the greater part shows, by means of circles and circular patches,

the eggs in various stages of development, some before and some after

laying. Then the men of the totem, placing on their heads a stick with

a tuft of feathers to represent the long neck and small head of the

bird, stand gazing about aimlessly after the manner of the emu. Here

the picture itself is held to be a living emu, perhaps the source or

centre from which all emus will originate, and the men, pretending

to be emus, will cause numbers of actual emus to be produced. [136]

Before sowing the crops, a common practice is to sow small quantities

of grain in baskets or pots in rich soil, so that it will sprout and

grow up quickly, the idea being to ensure that the real crop will have

a similarly successful growth. These baskets are the well-known Gardens

of Adonis fully described in _The Golden Bough_. They are grown for

nine days, and on the tenth day are taken in procession by the women

and deposited in a river. The women may be seen carrying the baskets

of wheat to the river after the nine days' fasts of Chait and Kunwar

(March and September) in many towns of the Central Provinces, as the

Athenian women carried the Gardens of Adonis to the sea on the day

that the expedition under Nicias set sail for Syracuse. [137] The

fire kindled at the Holi festival in spring is meant, as explained

by Sir J.G. Frazer, to increase the power of the sun for the growth

of vegetation. By the production of fire the quantity and strength

of the heavenly fire is increased. He remarks: [138]--"The custom of

throwing blazing discs, shaped like suns, into the air, is probably

also a piece of imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the

magic force is supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy; by

imitating the desired result you actually produce it; by counterfeiting

the sun's progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to

pursue his celestial journey with punctuality and despatch. The name

'fire of heaven,' by which the midsummer fire is sometimes popularly

known, clearly indicates a consciousness of the connection between the

earthly and the heavenly flame." The obscene songs of the Holi appear

to be the relic of a former period of promiscuous sexual debauchery,

which, through the multiplied act of reproduction, was intended to

ensure that nature should also reproduce on a generous scale. The red

powder thrown over everybody at the Holi is said to represent the seed

of life. The gifts of Easter eggs seem to be the vestige of a rite

having the same object. At a wedding in the Lodhi caste the bride

is seated before the family god while an old woman brings a stone

rolling-pin wrapped up in a piece of cloth, which is supposed to be a

baby, and the old woman imitates a baby crying. She puts the roller

in the bride's lap, saying, "Take this and give it milk." The bride

is abashed and throws it aside. The old woman picks it up and shows

it to the assembled women, saying, "The bride has just had a baby,"

amid loud laughter. Then she gives the stone to the bridegroom, who

also throws it aside. This ceremony is meant to induce fertility,

and it is supposed that by making believe that the bride has had

a baby she will quickly have one. Similar rites are performed in

several other castes, and when a girl becomes adult her lap is filled

with fruits with the idea that this will cause it subsequently to be

filled with the fruit of her womb. The whole custom of giving dolls

to girls to play with, perhaps originated in the belief that by doing

so they would afterwards come to play with children.

The dances of the Kol tribe consist partly of symbolical enactments

of events which they desired to be successfully accomplished. Some

variations of the dance, Colonel Dalton states, represent the

different seasons and the necessary acts of cultivation that each

brings with it. In one the dancers, bending down, make a motion with

their hands, as though they were sowing the grain, keeping step with

their feet all the time. Then comes the reaping of the crop and

the binding of the sheaves, all done in perfect time and rhythm,

and making, with the continuous droning of the voices, a quaint

and picturesque performance. [139] The Karma dance of the Gonds

and Oraons is also connected with the crops, and probably was once

an enactment of the work of cultivation. [140] The Bhils danced at

their festivals and before battles. The men danced in a ring, holding

sticks and striking them against one another. Before a battle they

had a war-dance in which the performers were armed and imitated a

combat. To be carried on the shoulders of one of the combatants was

a great honour, perhaps because it symbolised being on horseback. The

object was to obtain success in battle by going through an imitation

of a successful battle beforehand. This was also the common custom

of the Red Indians, whose war-dances are well known; they brandished

their weapons and killed their foe in mimicry in order that they

might soon do so in reality. The Sela dance of the Gonds and Baigas,

in which they perform the figure of the grand chain of the lancers,

only that they strike their sticks together instead of clasping hands

as they pass, was probably once an imitation of a combat. It is still

sometimes danced before their communal hunting and fishing parties. In

these mimetic rehearsals of events with the object of causing them

to occur we may perhaps discern the origin of the arts both of acting

and dancing. Another, and perhaps later form, was the reproduction of

important events, or those which had influenced history. For to the

primitive mind, as already seen, the results were not conceived of as

instrumentally caused by the event, but as part of the event itself

and of its life and personality. Hence by the re-enactment of the event

the beneficial results would be again obtained or at least preserved in

undiminished potency and vigour. This was perhaps the root idea of the

drama and the representation of sacred or heroic episodes on the stage.

64. The common life.

Thus, resuming from paragraph 61, primitive man had no difficulty

in conceiving of a life as shared between two or more persons or

objects, and it does not seem impossible that he should have at

first conceived it to extend through a whole species. [141] A good

instance of the common life is afforded by the gods of the Hindu

and other pantheons. Each god was conceived of as performing some

divine function, guiding the chariot of the sun, manipulating the

thunder and so on; but at the same time thousands of temples existed

throughout the country, and in each of these the god was alive and

present in his image or idol, able to act independently, receive

and consume sacrifices and offerings, protect suppliants and punish

transgressors. No doubt at all can be entertained that each idol was

in itself held to be a living god. In India food is offered to the

idol, it goes through its ablutions, is fanned, and so on, exactly

like a human king. The ideas of sanctuary and sacrilege appear to

depend primarily on the belief in the actual presence of the god

in his shrine. And in India no sanctity at all attaches to a temple

from which the idol has been removed. Thus we see the life of the god

distributed over a multitude of personalities. Again, the same god,

as Vishnu or the sun, is held to have had a number of incarnations,

as the boar, the tortoise, a man-lion, a dwarf, Rama and Krishna,

and these are venerated simultaneously as distinct deities. The

whole Brahman caste considered itself divine or as partaking in the

life of the god, the original reason for this perhaps being that

the Brahmans obtained the exclusive right to perform sacrifices,

and hence the life of the sacrificial animal or food passed to

them, as in other societies it passed to the king who performed the

sacrifice. A Brahman further holds that the five gods, Indra, Brahma,

Siva, Vishnu and Ganesh, are present in different parts of his body,

[142] and here again the life of the god is seen to be divided into

innumerable fragments. The priests of the Vallabhacharya sect, the

Gokulastha Gosains, were all held to be possessed by the god Krishna,

so that it was esteemed a high privilege to perform the most menial

offices for them, because to touch them was equivalent to touching

the god, and perhaps assimilating by contact a fragment of his divine

life and nature. [143] The belief in a common life would also explain

the veneration of domestic animals and the prohibition against killing

them, because to kill one would injure the whole life of the species,

from which the tribe drew its subsistence. Similarly in a number of

cases the first idea of seasonal fasts is that the people abstain

from the grain or fruit which is growing or sown in the ground. Thus

in India during the rains the vegetables growing at this period are

not eaten, and are again partaken of for the first time after the

sacrificial offering of the new crop. This rule could not possibly be

observed in the case of grain, but instead certain single fast-days are

prescribed, and on these days no cultivated grain or fruit, but only

those growing wild, should be eaten. These rules seem to indicate that

the original motive of the fast was to avoid injuring the common life

of the grain or fruit, which injury would be caused by a consumption

of any part of it, at a time when the whole of the common life and

vigour was required for its reproduction and multiplication. This

idea may have operated to enable the savage to restrain himself from

digging up and eating the grain sown in the ground, or slaughtering his

domestic animals for food, and a taboo on the consumption of grain and

fruits during their period of ripening may have first begun in their

wild state. The Intichiuma ceremonies of the Australian natives are

carried out with the object of increasing the supply of the totem for

food purposes. In the Ilpirla or Manna totem the members of the clan go

to a large boulder surrounded by stones, which are held to represent

masses of Ilpirla or the manna of the _mulga_ tree. A Churinga stone

is dug up, which is supposed to represent another mass of manna, and

this is rubbed over the boulder, and the smaller stones are also rubbed

over it. While the leader does this, the others sing a song which is an

invitation to the dust produced by the rubbing of the stones to go out

and produce a plentiful supply of Ilpirla on the _mulga_ trees. [144]

Then the dust is swept off the surface of the stones with twigs of

the _mulga_ tree. Here apparently the large boulder and other stones

are held to be the centre or focus of the common life of the manna,

and from them the seed issues forth which will produce a crop of manna

on all the _mulga_ trees. The deduction seems clear that the trees are

not conceived of individually, but are held to have a common life. In

the case of the _hakea_ flower totem they go to a stone lying beneath

an old tree, and one of the members lets his blood flow on to the stone

until it is covered, while the others sing a song inciting the _hakea_

tree to flower much and to the blossoms to be full of honey. [145]

The blood is said to represent a drink prepared from the _hakea_

flowers, but probably it was originally meant to quicken the stone

with the blood of a member of the totem, that is its own blood or

life, in order that it might produce abundance of flowers. Here again

the stone seems to be the centre of the common life of the _hakea_

flower. The songs are sung with the idea that the repetition of words

connoting a state of facts will have the effect of causing that state

of facts to exist, in accordance with the belief already explained

in the concrete virtue of words.

Sir E. B. Tylor states: "In Polynesia, if a village god were accustomed

to appear as an owl, and one of his votaries found a dead owl by

the roadside, he would mourn over the sacred bird and bury it with

much ceremony, but the god himself would not be thought to be dead,

for he remains incarnate in all existing owls. According to Father

Geronimo Boscana, the Acagchemen tribe of Upper California furnish a

curious parallel to this notion. They worshipped the _panes_ bird,

which seems to have been an eagle or vulture, and each year, in

the temple of each village, one of them was solemnly killed without

shedding blood, and the body buried. Yet the natives maintained and

believed that it was the same individual bird they sacrificed each

year, and more than this, that the same bird was slain by each of

the villages." [146] An account of the North American Indians quoted

by the same author states that they believe all the animals of each

species to have an elder brother, who is as it were the principle and

origin of all the individuals, and this elder brother is marvellously

great and powerful. According to another view each species has its

archetype in the land of souls; there exists, for example, a _manitu_

or archetype of all oxen, which animates all oxen. [147]

Generally in the relations between the totem-clan and its

totem-animal, and in all the fables about animals, one animal is

taken as representing the species, and it is tacitly assumed that

all the animals of the species have the same knowledge and qualities

and would behave in the same manner as the typical one. Thus when

the Majhwar says that the tiger would run away if he met a member

of the tiger-clan who was free from sin, but would devour any member

who had been put out of caste for an offence, he assumes that every

tiger would know a member of the clan on meeting him, and also whether

that member was in or out of caste. He therefore apparently supposes a

common knowledge and intelligence to exist in all tigers as regards the

clan, as if they were parts of one mind or intelligence. And since the

tigers know instinctively when a member of the clan is out of caste,

the mind and intelligence of the tigers must be the same as that

of the clan. The Kols of the tiger clan think that if they were to

sit up for a tiger over a kill the tiger would not come and would be

deprived of his food, and that they themselves would fall ill. Here

the evil effects of the want of food on one tiger are apparently held

to extend to all tigers and also to all members of the tiger clan.

65. The common life of the clan.

The totem-clan held itself to partake of the life of its totem, and

on the above hypothesis one common life would flow through all the

animals and plants of the totem and all the members of the clan. An

Australian calls his totem his Wingong (friend) or Tumang (flesh),

and nowadays expresses his sorrow when he has to eat it. [148] If a

man wishes to injure any man of a certain totem, he kills any animal

of that man's totem. [149] This clearly shows that one common life is

held to bind together all the animals of the totem-species and all the

members of the totem-clan, and the belief seems to be inexplicable on

any other hypothesis. The same is the case with the sex-totems of the

Kurnai tribe. In addition to the clan-totems all the boys have the

Superb Warbler bird as a sex-totem, and call it their elder brother;

and all the girls the Emu-wren, and call it their elder sister. If

the boys wish to annoy the girls, or vice versa, each kills or injures

the other's totem-bird, and such an act is always followed by a free

fight between the boys and girls. [150] Sex-totems are a peculiar

development which need not be discussed here, but again it would appear

that a common life runs through the birds of the totem and the members

of the sex. Professor Robertson Smith describes the clan or kin as

follows: "A kin was a group of persons whose lives were so bound up

together, in what must be called a physical unity, that they could

be treated as parts of one common life. The members of one kindred

looked on themselves as one living whole, one single animated mass of

blood, flesh and bones, of which no member could be touched without

all the members suffering. This point of view is expressed in the

Semitic tongue in many familiar forms of speech. In case of homicide

Arabian tribesmen do not say, 'The blood of M. or N. has been spilt'

(naming the man): they say, 'Our blood has been spilt.' In Hebrew

the phrase by which one claims kinship is, 'I am your bone and your

flesh.' Both in Hebrew and in Arabic flesh is synonymous with 'clan'

or kindred group." [151] The custom of the blood-feud appears to have

arisen from the belief in a common life of the clan. "The blood-feud

is an institution not peculiar to tribes reckoning descent through

females; and it is still in force. By virtue of its requirements

every member of a kin, one of whom had suffered at the hands of a

member of another kin, was bound to avenge the wrong upon the latter

kin. Such is the solidarity between members of a kin that vengeance

might be taken upon any member of the offending kin, though he might

be personally quite innocent. In the growth of civilisation vengeance

has gradually come to be concentrated upon the offender only." [152]

Thus the blood-feud appears to have originated from the idea of primary

retributive justice between clan and clan. When a member of a clan had

been killed, one of the offending clan must be killed in return. Who

he might be, and whether the original homicide was justifiable or not,

were questions not regarded by primitive man; motives were abstract

ideas with which he had no concern; he only knew that a piece of the

common life had been lopped off, and the instinct of self-preservation

of the clan demanded that a piece of the life of the offending clan

should be cut off in return. And the tie which united the kin was

eating and drinking together. "According to antique ideas those who

eat and drink together are by this very act tied to one another by

a bond of friendship and mutual obligation." [153] This was the bond

which first united the members of the totem-clan both among themselves

and with their totem. And the relationship with the totem could only

have arisen from the fact that they ate it. The belief in a common

life could not possibly arise in the totem-clan towards any animal or

plant which they did not eat or otherwise use. These they would simply

disregard. Nor would savages, destitute at first of any moral ideas,

and frequently on the brink of starvation, abstain from eating any

edible animal from sentimental considerations; and, as already seen,

the first totems were generally edible. They could not either have

in the first place eaten the totem ceremonially, as there would

be no reason for such a custom. But the ceremonial eating of the

domestic animal, which was the tie subsequently uniting the members

of the tribe, [154] cannot be satisfactorily explained except on

the hypothesis that it was evolved from the customary eating of the

totem-animal. Primitive savages would only feel affection towards the

animals which they ate, just as the affection of animals is gained

by feeding them. The objection might be made that savages could not

feel affection and kinship for an animal which they killed and ate,

but no doubt exists that they do.

"In British Columbia, when the fishing season commenced and the

fish began coming up the rivers, the Indians used to meet them

and speak to them. They paid court to them and would address them

thus: 'You fish, you fish; you are all chiefs, you are; you are all

chiefs.' Among the Northas when a bear is killed, it is dressed in a

bonnet, covered with fine down, and solemnly invited to the chiefs

presence." [155] And there are many other instances. [156] Savages

had no clear realisation of death, and they did not think that the

life of the animal was extinguished but that it passed to them with

the flesh. Moreover they only ate part of the life. In many cases

also the totem-animal only appeared at a certain season of the year,

in consequence of the habit of hibernation or migration in search

of food, while trees only bore fruit in their season. The savage,

regarding all animals and plants as possessed of self-conscious life

and volition, would think that they came of their own accord to give

him subsistence or life. Afterwards, when they had obtained the idea

of a soul or spirit, and of the survival of the soul after death,

and when, on the introduction of personal names, the personality

of individuals could be realised and remembered after death, they

frequently thought that the spirits of ancestors went back to the

totem-animal, whence they derived their life. The idea of descent

from the totem would thus naturally arise. As the means of subsistence

increased, and especially in those communities which had domesticated

animals or cultivated plants, the conception of the totem as the

chief source of life would gradually die away and be replaced by the

belief in descent from it; and when they also thought that the spirits

of ancestors were in the totem, they would naturally abstain from

eating it. Perhaps also the Australians consider that the members

of the totem-clan should abstain from eating the totem for fear of

injuring the common life, as more advanced communities abstained from

eating the flesh of domestic animals. This may be the ground for the

rule that they should only eat sparingly of the totem. To the later

period may be ascribed the adoption of carnivorous animals as totems;

when these animals came to be feared and also venerated for their

qualities of strength, ferocity and courage, warriors would naturally

wish to claim kinship with and descent from them.

66. Living and eating together.

When the members of the totem-clan who lived together recognised that

they owed something to each other, and that the gratification of the

instincts and passions of the individual must to a certain degree be

restrained if they endangered the lives and security of other members

of the clan, they had taken the first step on the long path of moral

and social progress. The tie by which they supposed themselves to be

united was quite different from those which have constituted a bond of

union between the communities who have subsequently lived together in

the tribe, the city-state and the country. These have been a common

religion, common language, race, or loyalty to a common sovereign;

but the real bond has throughout been the common good or the public

interest. And the desire for this end on the part of the majority

of the members of the community, or the majority of those who were

able to express their opinions, though its action was until recently

not overt nor direct, and was not recognised, has led to the gradual

evolution of the whole fabric of law and moral feeling, in order to

govern and control the behaviour and conduct of the individual in

his relations with his family, neighbours and fellow-citizens for

the public advantage. The members of the totem-clan would have been

quite unable to understand either the motives by which they were

themselves actuated or the abstract ideas which have united more

advanced communities; but they devised an even stronger bond than

these, in supposing that they were parts or fractions of one common

body or life. This was the more necessary as their natural impulses

were uncontrolled by moral feeling. They conceived the bond of union

in the concrete form of eating together. As language improved and

passing events were recorded in speech and in the mind, the faculty of

memory was perhaps concurrently developed. Then man began to realise

the insecurity of his life, the dangers and misfortunes to which he

was subject, the periodical failure or irregularity of the supply

of food, and the imminent risks of death. Memory of the past made

him apprehensive for the future, and holding that every event was the

result of an act of volition, he began to assume an attitude either of

veneration, gratitude, or fear towards the strongest of the beings by

whom he thought his destinies were controlled--the sun, moon, sky, wind

and rain, the ocean and great rivers, high mountains and trees, and

the most important animals of his environment, whether they destroyed

or assisted to preserve his life. The ideas of propitiation, atonement

and purification were then imparted to the sacrifice, and it became an

offering to a god. [157] But the primary idea of eating or drinking

together as a bond of union was preserved, and can be recognised in

religious and social custom to an advanced period of civilisation.

67. The origin of exogamy.

Again, Dr. Westermarck shows that the practice of exogamy or

the avoidance of intermarriage did not at first arise between

persons recognised as blood relations, but between those who lived

together. "Facts show that the extent to which relatives are not

allowed to intermarry is nearly connected with their close living

together. Generally speaking the prohibited degrees are extended

much further among savage and barbarous peoples than in civilised

societies. As a rule the former, if they have not remained in the

most primitive social condition of man, live not in separate families

but in large households or communities, all the members of which

dwell in very close contact with each other." [158] And later, after

adducing the evil results of self-fertilisation in plants and close

interbreeding in animals, Dr. Westermarck continues: "Taking all these

facts into consideration, I cannot but believe that consanguineous

marriages, in some way or other, are more or less detrimental to the

species. And here I think we may find a quite sufficient explanation

of the horror of incest; not because man at an early stage recognised

the injurious influence of close intermarriage, but because the law of

natural selection must inevitably have operated. Among the ancestors

of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when blood

relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations here,

as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves; and those of our

ancestors who avoided in-and-in breeding would survive, while the

others would gradually decay and ultimately perish. Thus an instinct

would be developed, which would be powerful enough as a rule to

prevent injurious unions. Of course it would display itself simply as

an aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom

they lived; but these as a matter of fact would be blood relations,

so that the result would be the survival of the fittest."

68. Promiscuity and female descent.

The instinct of exogamy first developed in the totem-clan when it

was migratory and lived by hunting, at least among the Australians

and probably the American Indians.

The first condition of the clan was one of sexual promiscuity, and in

_Totemism and Exogamy_ Sir J.G. Frazer has adduced many instances of

periodical promiscuous debauchery which probably recall this state of

things. [159] The evil results which would accrue from in-breeding

in the condition of promiscuity may have been modified by such

incidents as the expulsion of the young males through the spasmodic

jealousy of the older ones, the voluntary segregation of the old

males, fights and quarrels leading to the rearrangement of groups,

and the frequent partial destruction of a group, when the survivors

might attach themselves to a new group. Primitive peoples attached the

utmost importance to the rule of exogamy, and the punishments for the

breach of it were generally more severe than those for the violation

of the laws of affinity in civilised countries. The Australians say

that the good spirit or the wise men prescribed to them the rule that

the members of each totem-clan should not marry with each other. [160]

Similarly the Gonds say that their divine hero, Lingo, introduced the

rule of exogamy and the division into clans before he went to the gods.

At first, however, the exogamous clan was not constituted by descent

through males, but through females. The hypothesis that female

everywhere preceded male descent is strongly supported by natural

probability. In the first instance, the parentage of children was no

more observed and remembered than that of animals. When first observed,

it was necessarily through the mother, the identity of the father

being wholly uncertain. The mother would also be the first parent

to remember her children, her affection for them being based on one

of the strongest natural instincts, whereas the father neither knew

nor cared for his children until long afterwards. Sir J.G. Frazer

has further shown that even now some of the Australian aborigines

are ignorant of the physical fact of paternity and its relation

to sexual intercourse. That such ignorance could have survived so

long is the strongest evidence in favour of the universal priority

of female to male descent. It is doubtful, however, whether even the

mother could remember her children after they had become adult, prior

to the introduction of personal names. Mr. M'Lennan states: "The tie

between mother and child, which exists as a matter of necessity during

infancy, is not infrequently found to be lost sight of among savages

on the age of independence being reached." [161] Personal names were

probably long subsequent to clan-names, and when they were first

introduced the name usually had some reference to the clan. The Red

Indians and other races have totem-names which are frequently some

variant of the name of the totem. [162] When personal names came to

be generally introduced, the genesis of the individual family might

soon follow, but the family could scarcely have come into existence

in the absence of personal names. As a rule, in the exogamous clan

with female descent no regard was paid to the chastity of women, and

they could select their partners as they pleased. Mr. Hartland has

shown in _Primitive Paternity_ that in a large number of primitive

communities the chastity of women was neither enforced nor desired by

the men, this state of things being probably a relic of the period

of female descent. Thus exogamy first arose through the women of

the clan resorting to men outside it. When we consider the extreme

rigour of life and the frequent danger of starvation to which the

small clans in the hunting stage must have been exposed, it does

not seem impossible that the evil effects of marriage within the

clan may have been noticed. At that time probably only a minority

even of healthy children survived, and the slight congenital weakness

produced by in-breeding might apparently be fatal to a child's chance

of life. Possibly some dim perception may have been obtained of the

different fates of the children of women who restricted their sexual

relations to men within the clan and those who resorted to strangers,

even though the nature of paternity may not have been understood. The

strength of the feeling and custom of exogamy seems to demand some

such recognition for its satisfactory explanation, though, on the

other hand, the lateness of the recognition of the father's share in

the production of children militates against this view. The suggestion

may be made also that the belief that the new life of a child must be

produced by a spirit entering the woman, or other extraneous source,

does not necessarily involve an ignorance of the physical fact of

paternity; the view that the spirits of ancestors are reborn in

children is still firmly held by tribes who have long been wholly

familiar with the results of the commerce of the sexes. The practice

of exogamy was no doubt, as shown by Dr. Westermarck, favoured and

supported by the influence of novelty in sexual attraction, since

according to common observation and experience sexual love or desire

is more easily excited between strangers or slight acquaintances than

between those who have long lived together in the same household or

in familiar intercourse. In the latter case the attraction is dulled

by custom and familiarity.

69. Exogamy with female descent.

The exogamous clan, with female descent, was, however, an unstable

social institution, in that it had no regular provision for marriage

nor for the incorporation of married couples. The men who associated

with the women of the clan were not necessarily, nor as a rule,

admitted to it, but remained in their own clans. How this association

took place is not altogether clear. At a comparatively late period in

Arabia, according to Professor Robertson Smith, [163] the woman would

have a tent, and could entertain outside men for a shorter or longer

period according to her inclination. The practice of serving for a wife

also perhaps dates from the period of female descent. The arrangement

would have been that a man went and lived with a woman's family

and gave his services in return for her conjugal society. Whether

the residence with the wife's family was permanent or not is perhaps

uncertain. When Jacob served for Leah and Rachel, society seems to have

been in the early patriarchal stage, as Laban was their father and

he was Laban's sister's son. But it seems doubtful whether his right

was then recognised to take his wives away with him, for even after

he had served fourteen years Laban pursued him, and would have taken

them back if he had not been warned against doing so in a vision. The

episode of Rachel's theft of the images also seems to indicate that

she intended to take her own household gods with her and not to adopt

those of her husband's house. And Laban's chief anxiety was for the

recovery of the images. A relic of the husband's residence with his

wife's family during the period of female descent may perhaps be found

in the Banjara caste, who oblige a man to go and live with his wife's

father for a month without seeing her face. Under the patriarchal

system this rule of the Banjaras is meaningless, though the general

practice of serving for a wife survives as a method of purchase.

Among the Australian aborigines apparently the clans, or sections

of them, wander about in search of food and game, and meet each

other for more or less promiscuous intercourse. This may perhaps

be supposed to have been the general primitive condition of society

after the introduction of exogamy combined with female descent. And

its memory is possibly preserved in the tradition of the Golden Age,

golden only in the sense that man was not troubled either by memory

or anticipation, and lived only for the day. The entire insecurity

of life and its frequent end by starvation or a violent death did not

therefore trouble him any more than is the case with animals. He took

no thought for the morrow, nor did the ills of yesterday oppress

his mind. As when one of a herd of deer is shot by a hunter and

the others stand by it pityingly as it lies dying on the ground,

uncertain of its mishap, though they would help it if they could;

yet when they perceive the hunter they make quickly off and in a few

minutes are again grazing happily a mile or two away: little or no

more than this can primitive man be supposed to have been affected by

the deaths of his fellows. But possibly, since he was carnivorous,

the sick and old may have been killed for food, as is still the

practice among some tribes of savages. In the natural course,

however, more or less permanent unions, though perhaps not regular

marriages, must have developed in the female exogamous clan, which

would thus usually have men of other clans living with it. And since

identification of individuals would be extremely difficult before

the introduction of personal names, there would be danger that when

two clans met, men and women belonging to the same totem-clan would

have sexual intercourse. This offence, owing to the strength of the

feeling for exogamy, was frequently held to entail terrible evils

for the community, and was consequently sometimes punished with

death as treason. Moreover, if we suppose a number of small clans,

A, B, C, D and E, to meet each other again and again, and the men and

women to unite promiscuously, it is clear that the result would be a

mixture of relationships of a very incestuous character. The incest

of brothers and sisters by the same father would be possible and of

almost all other relations, though that of brothers and sisters by the

same mother would not be caused. This may have been the reason for

the introduction of the class system among the Australians and Red

Indians, by which all the clans of a certain area were divided into

two classes, and the men of any clan of one class could only marry or

have intercourse with the women of a clan of the other class. By such a

division the evil results of the mixture of totems in exogamous clans

with female descent would be avoided. The class system was sometimes

further strengthened by the rule, in Australia, that different classes

should, when they met, encamp on opposite sides of a creek or other

natural division [164]; whilst among the Red Indians, the classes camp

on opposite sides of the road, or live on different sides of the same

house or street. [165] In Australia, and very occasionally elsewhere,

the class system has been developed into four and eight sub-classes. A

man of one sub-class can only marry a woman of one other, and their

children belong to one of those different from either the father's or

mother's. This highly elaborate and artificial system was no doubt,

as stated by Sir J. G. Frazer, devised for the purpose of preventing

the intermarriage of parents and children belonging to different clans

where there are four sub-classes, and of first cousins where there are

eight sub-classes. [166] The class system, however, would not appear to

have been the earliest form of exogamy among the Australian tribes. Its

very complicated character, and the fact that the two principal classes

sometimes do not even have names, seem to preclude the idea of its

having been the first form of exogamy, which is a strong natural

feeling, so much so that it may almost be described as an instinct,

though of course not a primitive animal instinct. And just as the

totem clan, which establishes a sentiment of kinship between people

who are not related by blood, was prior to the individual family, so

exogamy, which forbids the marriage of people who are not related by

blood, must apparently have been prior to the feeling simply against

connections of persons related by blood or what we call incest. If the

two-class system was introduced in Australia to prohibit the marriage

of brothers and sisters at a time when they could not recognise each

other in adult life, then on the introduction of personal names which

would enable brothers and sisters to recognise and remember each other,

the two-class system should have been succeeded by a modern table of

prohibited degrees, and not by clan exogamy at all. It is suggested

that the two-class system was a common and natural form of evolution

of a society divided into exogamous totem clans with female descent,

when a man was not taken into the clan of the woman with whom he

lived. The further subdivision into four and eight sub-classes is

almost peculiar to the Australian tribes; its development may perhaps

be attributed to the fact that these tribes have retained the system

of female descent and the migratory hunting method of life for an

abnormally long period, and have evolved this special institution

to prevent the unions of near relatives which are likely to occur

under such conditions. The remains of a two-class system appear to

be traceable among the Gonds of the Central Provinces. In one part of

Bastar all the Gond clans are divided into two classes without names,

and a man cannot marry a woman belonging to any clan of his own class,

but must take one from a clan of the other class. Elsewhere the Gonds

are divided into two groups of six-god and seven-god worshippers among

whom the same rule obtains. Formerly the Gonds appear in some places

to have had seven groups, worshipping different numbers of gods from

one to seven, and each of these groups was exogamous. But after the

complete substitution of male for female kinship in the clan, and the

settlement of clans in different villages, the classes cease to fulfil

any useful purpose. They are now disappearing, and it is very difficult

to obtain any reliable information about their rules. The system of

counting kinship through the mother, or female descent, has long been

extinct in the Central Provinces and over most of India. Some survival

of it, or at least the custom of polyandry, is found among the Nairs

of southern India and in Thibet. Elsewhere scarcely a trace remains,

and this was also the condition of things with the classical races of

antiquity; so much so, indeed, that even great thinkers like Sir Henry

Maine and M. Fustel de Coulanges, with the examples only of India,

Greece and Rome before them, did not recognise the system of female

descent, and thought that the exogamous clan with male descent was

an extension of the patriarchal family, this latter having been the

original unit of society. The wide distribution of exogamy and the

probable priority of the system of female to that of male descent were

first brought prominently to notice by Mr. M'Lennan. Still a distinct

trace of the prior form survives here in the special relationship

sometimes found to exist between a man and his sister's children. This

is a survival of the period when a woman's children, under the rule of

female descent, belonged to her own family and her husband or partner

in sexual relations had no proprietary right or authority over them,

the place and authority of a father belonging in such a condition

of society to the mother's brother or brothers. Among the Halbas a

marriage is commonly arranged when practicable between a brother's

daughter and a sister's son. And a man always shows a special regard

and respect for his sister's son, touching the latter's feet as to a

superior, while whenever he desires to make a gift as an offering of

thanks and atonement, or as a meritorious action, the sister's son is

the recipient. At his death he usually leaves a substantial legacy,

such as one or two buffaloes, to his sister's son, the remainder of

the property going to his own family. Similarly among the Kamars the

marriage of a man's children with his sister's children is considered

the most suitable union. If a man's sister is poor, he will arrange

for the weddings of her children. He will never beat his sister's

children however much they may deserve it, and he will not permit his

sister's son or daughter to eat from the dish from which he eats. The

last rule, it is said, also applies to the maternal aunt. The Kunbis,

and other Maratha castes, have a saying: 'At the sister's house

the brother's daughter is a daughter-in-law.' The Gonds call the

wedding of a brother's daughter to a sister's son _Dudh lautana_, or

'bringing back the milk.' The reason why a brother was formerly anxious

to marry his daughter to his sister's son was that the latter would

be his heir under the matriarchal system; but now that inheritance is

through males, and girls are at a premium for marriage, a brother is

usually more anxious to get his sister's daughter for his son, and on

the analogy of the opposite union it is sometimes supposed, as among

the Gonds, that he also has a right to her. Many other instances of

the special relation between a brother and his sister's children are

given by Sir J.G. Frazer in _Totemism and Exogamy_. In some localities

also the Korkus build their villages in two long lines of houses on

each side of the road, and it may be the case that this is a relic

of the period when two or more clans with female descent lived in the

same village, and those belonging to each class who could not marry or

have sexual relations among themselves occupied one side of the road.