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THE SEX WORSHIP AND
SYMBOLISM OF PRIMITIVE
RACES
AN INTERPRETATION
BY
SANGER BROWN II., M. D.
_Assistant Physician, Bloomingdale Hospital_
_With an Introduction by James H. Leuba_
BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER
TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED
_Copyright 1916, by Richard G. Badger_
_All rights reserved_
_The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A._
DEDICATED TO MY WIFE
HELEN WILLISTON BROWN
PREFACE
The greater part of the first three chapters of this book appeared in
the _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_ in the December-January number of
1915-16 and the February-March number of 1916. This material is
reprinted here by the kind permission of the Editor of that Journal.
This part of the subject is chiefly historical and the data here given
is accessible as indicated by the references throughout the text,
although many of these books are difficult to secure or are out of
print. For this historical material I am particularly indebted to the
writings of Hargrave Jennings, Richard Payne Knight and Doctor Thomas
Inman. Most of the reference matter coming under the general heading of
Nature Worship was obtained from comparatively recent sources, such as
the publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology, of the Smithsonian
Institute, and certain publications of the American Museum of Natural
History. Frazer's _Golden Bough_ and other writings of J. G. Frazer on
Anthropology furnished much valuable information. The writings of
special investigators, among others those of Spencer, and A. W. Howitt,
on Primitive Australian Tribes, and W. H. R. Rivers on the Todas have
been freely drawn upon. A number of other books and references have been
made use of, as indicated throughout the text. I have found two books by
Miss J. Harrison, _i. e._, _Themis_ and _Ancient Art and Ritual_, of
great value in interpreting primitive ceremonies and primitive customs
in general.
My main object has been to give the life history of a primitive motive
in the development of the race, and to emphasize the dynamic
significance of this motive. Later other motives may be dealt with in
more detail if it is proved that both in normal and abnormal psychology
we may best understand the mental development of the individual through
our knowledge of the development of the race.
I wish to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the
assistance rendered me by my wife.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Simple Sex Worship 13
II Symbolism 34
III Sun Myths, Mysteries and Decadent Sex Worship 69
IV Interpretations 96
References and Bibliography 137
Index 141
INTRODUCTION
Our knowledge of religion receives contributions from every quarter;
even the student of mental diseases finds information that is of service
to the student of religion. The reverse is equally true: a knowledge of
religion sheds light upon even the science of mental disorders.
In this short book, a psychiatrist seeks in the study of one aspect of
religious practice--the worship of the procreating power--to gain a
clearer understanding of the forms taken by certain kinds of mental
diseases. His theory is that we may expect diseased minds to reproduce,
or return to expressions of desire customary and official in societies
of lower culture. This is, as a matter of fact, less a theory than a
statement of observed facts; of this, the reader of these pages, if
familiar with certain mental disorders, may readily convince himself.
But Doctor Brown's intention is not merely, perhaps not primarily, to
draw the attention of the Psychiatrist to a neglected source of
information, he aims at something of wider import and addresses a wider
public. His purpose is no less than the tracing of the history of that
great motive of action, the sex passion, as it appears in religion and
the interpretation of its significance. Those who come to this book
without the preparation of the specialist will find it not only replete
with novel and surprising facts, but will find these facts placed in
such a relation to each other and to life in general, as to illuminate
both religion and human nature. This important result is made possible
by the point of view from which the author writes, the point of view of
racial development which has proved its fertility in so many directions.
JAMES H. LEUBA.
THE SEX WORSHIP AND
SYMBOLISM OF PRIMITIVE RACES:
AN INTERPRETATION
CHAPTER I
SIMPLE SEX WORSHIP
Psychiatry, during recent years, has found it to its advantage to turn
to related sciences and allied branches of study for the explanation of
a number of the peculiar symptoms of abnormal mental states. Of these
related studies, none have been of greater value than those which throw
light on the mental development of either the individual or the race. In
primitive races we discover a number of inherent motives which are of
interest from the standpoint of mental evolution. These motives are
expressed in a very interesting symbolism. It is the duty of the
psychiatrist to see to what extent these primitive motives operate
unconsciously in abnormal mental conditions, and also to learn whether
an insight into the symbolism of mental diseases may be gained, through
comparison, by a study of the symbolism of primitive races. In the
following discussion one particular motive with its accompanying
symbolism is dealt with.
A great many of the institutions and usages of our present day
civilization originated at a very early period in the history of the
race. Many of these usages are carried on in modified form century after
century, after they have lost the meaning which they originally
possessed; it must be remembered, however, that in primitive races they
were of importance, and they arose because they served a useful end.
From the study of these remnants of former days, we are able to learn
the trends of thought which activated and inspired the minds of
primitive people. When we clearly understand these motives, we may then
judge the extent of their influence on our present day thought and
tendencies.
It has only been during comparatively recent times that the importance
of primitive beliefs and practices, from the standpoint of mental
evolution, has been appreciated. Formerly, primitive man was regarded
merely as a curiosity, and not as an individual from whom anything of
any value whatever was to be learned. But more recent studies have
changed all this. In order to illustrate this matter of the evolution
and development of the human mind we can very profitably quote from Sir
J. G. Frazer:[1] "For by comparison with civilized man the savage
represents an arrested or rather a retarded state of social development,
and an examination of his customs and beliefs accordingly supplies the
same sort of evidence of the evolution of the human mind that an
examination of the embryo supplies of the evolution of the human body.
To put it otherwise, a savage is to a civilized man as a child is to an
adult; and just as a gradual growth of intelligence in a child
corresponds to, and in a sense recapitulates, the gradual growth of
intelligence in the species, so a study of savage society at various
stages of evolution enables us to follow approximately, though of course
not exactly, the road by which the ancestors of the higher races must
have travelled in their progress upward through barbarism to
civilization. In short, savagery is the primitive condition of mankind,
and if we would understand what primitive man was we must know what the
savage now is."
To properly interpret these beliefs and conduct, certain facts must be
kept in mind. One is that with primitive races the group stands for the
unit, and the individual has little if any personality distinct from the
group. This social state gives rise to what is spoken of as collective
thought, collective feeling, group action, etc. Miss J. Harrison[2]
considers this conception a very important one in primitive religious
development. All that the race expresses, all that it believes, is an
expression of collective feeling. As a result of this group thought,
feelings and beliefs are developed which are entertained by every
individual of the community. These racial feelings become a part of the
race itself; they are inseparable from it, and they find expression in
the loftiest of sentiments and the most earnest of religious beliefs.
Our study is not primarily concerned with religious development, but
since early man's deepest feelings found expression in what later became
a religion, it is necessary to search for racial motives in primitive
religions. These feelings are in no way comparable to the conscious
religious beliefs of later times, which were worked out in many
instances by an ingenious priesthood. The period when group feeling
predominated far antedated such civilizations as those of Egypt and
later Greece, for example, in which very elaborate religious systems
existed.
With primitive people these deeper feelings appear to arise
unconsciously rather than consciously. Moreover, probably as a result of
collective thought and feeling, motives and beliefs are developed and
elaborated in a way quite beyond the mental capacity of any one
individual of the community. Beliefs are formulated which have a
grandeur of conception and a beauty of expression well worthy of
admiration. The beauty and native vigor of some of the earlier myths are
examples of this. They live in the tribe as traditions. No one person
seems to have written them; in fact, they are added to, changed and
improved until they represent the highest expression of national
feelings. Gilbert Murray has indicated this in the _Rise of the Greek
Epic_. He emphasizes that there is found an expression of racial
feelings, built up from many sources. Such Sagas are not the property of
any one individual. The feelings they express are associated with the
unconscious of the race, if such a term is permissible. Gilbert
Murray,[3] in interpreting this element in primitive literature states:
"We have also, I suspect, a strange unanalyzed vibration below the
surface, an undercurrent of desires and fears, and passions, long
slumbering yet eternally familiar, which have for thousands of years
lain near the root of our most intimate emotions and been wrought into
the fabric of our most magical dreams. How far in the past ages this
stream may reach back I dare not even surmise; but it sometimes seems as
if the power of stirring it or moving with it were one of the last
secrets of genius."
The importance of the collective or group feeling has been emphasized as
thereby one sees how a fundamental racial motive becomes an integral
part of the mental life of each and every member of the group. In
primitive life every individual contributes something to this motive and
in turn receives something from it. It enters into the developing mind
and becomes inseparably associated with it. In studying the evolution of
these motives one is studying the evolution of the human mind.
The motive which we have undertaken to explain has to do with one of the
most important of instincts, _i. e._, that of reproduction. The feelings
associated with this instinct were raised to the dignity of religion,
and in this we have the worship of sex. This worship is to be regarded
as an unconscious racial expression, the result of group or collective
feeling, the dynamic significance of which, from a biological
standpoint, will appear later.
Before proceeding, it is desirable to make reference to some of our
sources of information. There are plenty of books on the history of
Egypt, the antiquities of India or on the interpretation of Oriental
customs, which make scarcely any reference to the deification of sex. We
have always been told, for example, that Bacchus was the god of the
harvest and that the Greek Pan was the god of nature. We have not been
told that these same gods were representations of the male generative
attribute, and that they were worshipped as such; yet, anyone who has
access to the statuettes or engravings of these various deities of
antiquity, whether they be of Egypt, of India or of China, cannot fail
to see that they were intended to represent generative attributes. On
account of the incompleteness of many books which describe primitive
races, a number of references are given throughout these pages, and some
bibliographical references are added.
* * * * *
As will be presently indicated, we have evidence from a number of
sources to show sex was at one time frankly and openly worshipped by the
primitive races of mankind. This worship has been shown to be so general
and so wide-spread, that it is to be regarded as part of the general
evolution of the human mind; it seems to be indigenous with the race,
rather than an isolated or exceptional circumstance.
The American Cyclopedia, under Phallic Worship, reads as follows: "In
early ages the sexual emblems were adored as most sacred objects, and in
the several polytheistic systems the act or principle of which the
phallus was the type was represented by a deity to whom it was
consecrated: in Egypt by Khem, in India by Siva, in Assyria by Vul, in
primitive Greece by Pan, and later by Priapus, in Italy by Mutinus or
Priapus, among the Teutonic and Scandinavian nations by Fricco, and in
Spain by Hortanes. Phallic monuments and sculptured emblems are found in
all parts of the world."
Rawlinson, in his history of Ancient Egypt, gives us the following
description of Khem: "A full Egyptian idea of Khem can scarcely be
presented to the modern reader, on account of the grossness of the forms
under which it was exhibited. Some modern Egyptologists endeavor to
excuse or palliate this grossness; but it seems scarcely possible that
it should not have been accompanied by indelicacy of thought or that it
should have failed to exercise a corrupting influence on life and
morals. Khem, no doubt, represented to the initiated merely the
generative power in nature, or that strange law by which living
organisms, animal and vegetable, are enabled to reproduce their like.
But who shall say in what exact light he presented himself to the
vulgar, who had continually before their eyes the indecent figures under
which the painters and sculptors portrayed him? As impure ideas and
revolting practices clustered around the worship of Pan in Greece and
later Rome, so it is more than probable that in the worship of Khem in
Egypt were connected similar excesses. Besides his priapic or
'Ithyphallic' form, Khem's character was marked by the assignment to him
of the goat as his symbol, and by his ordinary title _Ka-mutf_, 'The
Bull of His Mother,' _i. e._, of nature."
This paragraph clearly indicates that the sexual organs were worshipped
under the form of Khem by the Egyptians. The writer, however, has fallen
into a very common error in giving us to understand that this was a
degraded form of worship; from numerous other sources it is readily
shown that such is not the case.
The following lines, from _Ancient Sex Worship_, substantiate the above
remarks, and at the same time, they show the incompleteness of the
writings of many antiquarians. In this book we read: "Phallic emblems
abounded at Heliopolis and Syria and many other places, even into modern
times. The following unfolds marvelous proof to our point. A brother
physician, writing to Dr. Inman, says: 'I was in Egypt last winter
(1865-66), and there certainly are numerous figures of gods and kings on
the walls of the temple at Thebes, depicted with the male genital erect.
The great temple at Karnac is, in particular, full of such figures and
the temple of Danclesa, likewise, although that is of much later date,
and built merely in imitation of old Egyptian art.'" The writer further
states that this shows how completely English Egyptologists have
suppressed a portion of the facts in the histories which they have given
to the world. With all our descriptions of the wonderful temple of
Karnac, it is remarkable that all mention of its association with sex
worship should be omitted by many writers.
A number of travellers in Africa, even in comparatively modern times,
have observed evidences of sex worship among the primitive races of that
continent. Captain Burton[4] speaks of this custom with the Dahome
tribe. Small gods of clay are made in priapic attitudes before which
the natives worship. The god is often made as if contemplating its
sexual organs. Another traveler, a clergyman,[5] has described the same
worship in this tribe. He has observed idols in priapic attitudes,
rudely carved in wood, and others made of clay. On the lower Congo the
same worship is described, where both male and female figures with
disproportionate genital organs are used for purposes of worship.
Phallic symbols and other offerings are made to these simple deities.
Definite examples of the sexual act having religious significance may be
cited. Richard Payne Knight[6] quotes a passage from Captain Cook's
voyages to one of the Southern Pacific Islands. The Missionaries of the
expedition on this occasion assembled the members of the party for
religious ceremonies in which the natives joined. The primitive natives
observed the ceremony with great respect and then with due solemnity
enacted their form of sacred worship. Quite to the astonishment of the
white people, this ceremony consisted of the open performance of the
sexual act by a young Indian man and woman. This was entirely a
religious ceremony, and was fittingly respected by all the natives
present.
Hargrave Jennings[7] describes the same custom in India. An Indian woman
of designated caste and vocation is selected. Many incantations and
strange rites are gone through. A circle, or "Vacant Enchanted Place" is
rendered pure by certain rites and sprinkled with wine. Then secret
charms are whispered three times in the woman's ear. The sexual act is
then consummated, and the whole procedure before the altar is distinctly
a form of sacrifice and worship.
Hodder M. Westropp in _Primitive Symbolism_ has indicated the countries
in which sex worship has existed. He gives numerous instances in ancient
Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome. In India, as well as in China and
Japan, it forms the basis of early religions. This worship is described
among the early races of Greece, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, and among
the Mexicans and Peruvians of America as well. In Borneo, Tasmania, and
Australia phallic emblems have been found. Many other localities have
been mentioned by this writer and one seems fairly justified in
concluding that sex worship is regularly found at one time in the
development of primitive races. We shall now pass to another form of
this same worship, namely, sacred prostitution.
There is abundant evidence to show that there was a time in the
centuries before Christ when prostitution was held as a most sacred
vocation. We learn of this practice from many sources. It appears that
temples in a number of ancient cities of the East, in Babylonia,
Nineveh, Corinth and throughout India, were erected for the worship of
certain deities. This worship consisted of the prostitution of women.
The women were consecrated to the support of the temple. They were
chosen in much the same way as the modern woman enters a sacred church
order. The returns from their vocation went to the support of the deity
and the temple. The children born of such a union were in no way held in
disgrace, but on the contrary, they appeared to have formed a separate
and rather superior class. We are told that this practice did not
interfere with a woman's opportunities for subsequent marriage. In India
the practice was very general at one time. The women were called the
"Women of the Idol." Richard Payne Knight speaks of a thousand sacred
prostitutes living in each of the temples at Eryx and Corinth.
A custom which shows even more clearly that prostitution was held as a
sacred duty to women was that in Babylonia every woman, of high rank or
low, must at one time in her life prostitute herself to any stranger who
offered money. In _Ancient Sex Worship_ we read: "There was a temple in
Babylonia where every female had to perform once in her life a (to us)
strange act of religion, namely, prostitution with a stranger. The name
of it was Bit-Shagatha, or 'The Temple,' the 'Place of Union.'" Moreover
we learn that once a woman entered the temple for such a sacred act she
could not leave until it was performed.
The above accounts deal exclusively in the sacrifice made by women to
the deity of sex. Men did not escape this sacrifice and it appears that
some inflicted upon themselves an even worse one. Frazer[8] tells us of
this worship which was introduced from Assyria into Rome about two
hundred years before Christ. It was the worship of Cybele and Attis.
These deities were attended by emasculated priests and the priests in
oriental costume paraded Rome in religious ceremony.
On one occasion, namely, "the day of blood" in the Spring, the chief
ceremony was held. This, among other things, consisted in fastening an
effigy of the god to a pine tree, which was brought to the temple of the
Goddess Cybele. A most spectacular dance about the effigy then occurred
in which the priests slashed themselves with knives, the blood being
offered as sacrifice. As the excitement increased the sexual nature of
the ceremony became evident. To quote from Frazer: "For man after man,
his veins throbbing with the music, his eyes fascinated by the sight of
streaming blood, flung his garments from him, leaped forth with a shout,
and seizing one of the swords which stood ready for the service,
castrated himself on the spot. Then he ran through the city holding the
bloody parts in his hands and threw them into one of the houses which he
passed in his mad career."
We see that this act directly corresponds with the part played by the
female. The female prostituted herself, and the male presented his
generative powers to the deity. Both the sacred prostitutes and
emasculated priests were held in religious veneration.
The above references are sufficient to show that a simple form of sex
worship has been quite generally found. It becomes apparent as we
proceed that the worship of sex not only plays a part, but a very
prominent part, in the developing mind of man. In the frank and open
form of this worship it is quite clear that we are dealing with a very
simple type of mind. These primitive people exhibit many of the
qualities of the child. They are quite without sex consciousness. Their
motives are at once both simple and direct, and they are doubtless
sincere. Much misunderstanding has arisen by judging such primitive
people by the standards of our present day civilization. Sex worship,
while it held sway was probably quite as seriously entertained as many
other beliefs; it only became degraded during a decadent age, when
civilization had advanced beyond such simple conceptions of a deity, but
had not evolved a satisfactory substitute.