Introduction to the History of Religions Part 4

+141+. Less violent methods of riddance may be employed. Evil, being a physical thing, may be embodied in some object, nonhuman or human, which is then carried forth or sent away to some distant point, or destroyed.

With this principle of transference may be compared the conception of solidarity of persons and things in a tribe or other community: what one unit does or suffers affects all--the presence of an accursed thing with one person brings a curse on his nation,[284] and conversely, the removal of the evil thing or person removes the curse, which may, under certain circ.u.mstances, be shifted to some other place or person.

+142+. The particular method of expulsion or transference is immaterial.[285] The troublesome evil may be carted or boated away according to local convenience, or it may depart in the person of an animal. Leprous taint is transferred to a bird, which, having been dipped in the blood of a sacred animal, is allowed to fly away carrying the taint off from the community.[286] Even moral evils (sin) may thus be got rid of. In the great Hebrew annual ceremony of atonement not only the ritual impurity of the sanctuary and the altar, but also the sin of the nation, is laid on a goat and sent away to the wilderness demon, Azazel.[287]

+143+. Examples of human apotropaic vehicles occur in the ancient civilized world. In the Athenian Thargelia the Pharmakos was supposed to bear in his person crimes and evils, and was driven forth from the city.[288] The same conception is found, perhaps, in the Roman Mamuralia and Lupercalia. In the first of these Mamertius is driven forth from the city and consigned to the keeping of hostile persons;[289] in the second, young men ran about the streets beating the women with strips of goatskin, the skin being that of a sacred animal--a proceeding that was regarded as purificatory, and seems to be naturally explicable as an expulsion of evil spirits or injurious mana.[290]

+144+. In another direction expulsion of evil, or protection against it, is effected by the blood of a sacrificed (and therefore sacred) animal.

A well-known example of this sort of ceremony is the Hebrew _pesah_ (the old lamb ceremony, later combined with the agricultural festival of unleavened bread, at the time of the first harvest, the two together then const.i.tuting the pa.s.sover); here the doorposts and lintel of every house were sprinkled with the blood of a slain lamb by the master of the house,[291] and the hostile spirits hovering in the air were thus prevented from entering. The sacred blood seems to have been conceived of as carrying with it the power of the family G.o.d (who was also the clan G.o.d), which overbore that of the demons (in the earliest period, however, the efficacy was doubtless held to reside simply in the blood itself). The ceremony belonged to each family, but it belonged also to the clan since it was performed by every family, and ultimately it became a national usage.

+145+. Apotropaic ceremonies appear to have been performed originally at various times during the year as occasions arose; the increasing pressure of occupations,[292] the necessity of consulting people's convenience, and the demand for order and precision led here (as in other cases) to the ma.s.sing of the observances. When so ma.s.sed they begin to lose their original significance, to yield to the knowledge of natural law, to be reinterpreted from time to time, and finally to become mere social events or to be dropped altogether. Apotropaism has hardly survived at all in the higher religions.[293] In popular customs it appears in the reliance placed on horseshoes and other objects as means of keeping witches and similar demonic things out of houses.[294]

CEREMONIES OF p.u.b.eRTY AND INITIATION

+146+. Ceremonies in connection with the arrival of young persons, male and female, at the age of maturity appear to be universal, and they yield in importance to no other cla.s.s of social procedures. The basis of most of these is civil; their object is to prepare young persons for entering on the active duties of what may be called citizenship. They involve a distinct idea of the importance of the clan, the necessity of maintaining its life unimpaired, and, to that end, preparing with the utmost care the younger portion of the community to take up the duties of the older. The boys are to be trained to be the hunters and rulers of the clan, the girls are to be fitted to become the wives and mothers of the next generation. But while the ceremonies in question have their foundation in the needs of civil life, they inevitably receive a religious coloring, since religion is intimately connected with all the details of early life.

+147+. Among the details of the initiation of boys, tests of endurance occupy a prominent place. In various ways the capacity of the lad to endure physical pain or to face apparent dangers is tested,[295] and in some cases one who fails to stand such tests is refused admission into the clan and forever after occupies an inferior and despised position.

Such persons are sometimes treated as women; they are required to wear women's dress and to do menial work.[296]

+148+. The seclusion of girls on arriving at the age of p.u.b.erty, with imposition of various taboos (of food, etc.), is a widespread custom.

The mysterious change in the girl is supposed to be produced by some supernatural and dangerous Power, and she is therefore to be shielded from contact with all injurious things. The details of the procedure depend on local ideas, but the principle is the same everywhere. The object is the preparation of the girl for civic life, and the ceremony inevitably becomes connected with tribal cults of the supernatural Powers.[297]

+149+. A rearrangement of taboos is a frequent feature in ceremonies of p.u.b.erty and initiation. Certain taboos, no longer needed, are removed and others are imposed; these latter refer, in the case of boys, to intercourse with the men and women of the clan or tribe--they are instructed not to speak to certain persons, and in general they are made acquainted with the somewhat elaborate social system that prevails in many early tribes. These taboos are intended to prepare the boys to understand their position as members of the tribe, responsible for the maintenance of its customs. The taboos relating to food have arisen from conditions whose origins belong to a remote and unrecorded past, and remain obscure.[298]

+150+. When the ceremony of initiation is elaborate and secret, it becomes mysterious to boys, is looked forward to by them with apprehension, and appeals to their imagination. Supernatural terrors are provided by the leaders--noises are heard (made by the bull-roarer or some similar device), and the report is circulated that the initiate is in danger of death at the hands of a supernatural being. These methods testify to the importance attached by early societies to the introduction of the young into social and political life, and they furnish an early example of the employment of the supernatural for the government of the ma.s.ses. The old men do not believe in their supernatural machinery, and the boys, after initiation, are let into the secret.

+151+. _Mutilation_ of the body is a widespread custom in connection with initiation and arrival at the age of p.u.b.erty.[299] In most cases the origin of mutilating customs is obscure. Imitation of the form or appearance of a sacred animal, embellishment of the initiate, or consecration of a part of the body to a deity have been suggested as motives; but there is no clear evidence of such designs. The knocking out of a tooth may be for convenience in taking food; it seems not to have religious significance except in so far as all tribal marks become religiously important.[300] Boring through the septum of the nose is perhaps for decorative purposes. The cutting of the hair is possibly for convenience, possibly for dedication to a deity.[301]

+152+. Among the most important of the customs of initiation are those connected with the organs of generation, excluding, as is remarked above, complete excision, which belongs to conceptions of religious asceticism (consecration to a deity, preservation against temptation) in the higher cults, and is not found among savages.[302] Partial excision occurs in circ.u.mcision, for males, and in similar operations for females.

+153+. _Circ.u.mcision of males._[303] The most widely diffused of such customs of initiation is the gashing or the complete removal of the prepuce. It existed in ancient times among the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Hebrews (for the Arabs, the Syrians, and the Babylonians and a.s.syrians we have no information), not, so far as the records go, among the Greeks, Romans, and Hindus. At the present time it is found among all Moslems and most Jewish communities, throughout Africa, Australia, Polynesia and Melanesia, and, it is said, in Eastern Mexico. It is hardly possible to say what its original distribution was, and whether or not there was a single center of distribution. As to its origin many theories have been advanced. Its character as initiatory is not an explanation--all customs of initiation need to have their origins explained. It may be said at the outset that a usage prevalent in low tribes and clearly beginning under savage conditions of life must, probably, have sprung from some simple physical need, not from advanced scientific or religious conceptions. We may briefly examine the princ.i.p.al explanations of its origin that have been offered.

+154+. It cannot be regarded as a test of endurance, for it involves no great suffering, and neither it nor the severer operation of subincision[304] (practiced in Australia) is ever spoken of as an official test.

+155+. A hygienic ground is out of the question for early society. The requisite medical observation is then lacking, and there is no hint of such a motive in the material bearing on the subject. Circ.u.mcision is employed in modern surgery for certain diseases and as a generally helpful operation, but such employment appears to be modern and of limited extent. The exact meaning of Herodotus's statement that the Egyptians were circ.u.mcised for the sake of cleanliness, preferring it to beauty,[305] is not clear; but in any case so late an idea throws no light on the beginnings.

+156+. Somewhat more to the point is Crawley's view that the object of the removal of the prepuce is to get rid of the dangerous emanation from the physical secretion therewith connected.[306] Such an object would issue from savage ideas of magic, the secretions of the human body (as urine and dung) being often supposed to contain the power resident in all life. But this view, though conceivably correct, is without support from known facts. There is no trace of fear of the secretion in question, and the belief in power, when such a belief appears, attaches rather to the oblated prepuce (which is sometimes preserved as a sort of charm, or hidden, or swallowed by the boy or by some other person) than to the secretion. Nor does this theory account for the custom of subincision.

+157+. As circ.u.mcision is often performed shortly before marriage it has been suggested that its object is to increase procreative power by preventing phimosis.[307] The opinion that such is its effect, though it has no scientific support, has been and is held by not a few persons.

Such an object, however, is improbable for low stages of society--it implies an extent of observation that is not to be a.s.sumed for savages; and there is, besides, the fact that certain tribes (in Australia and elsewhere) that practice circ.u.mcision do not connect the birth of children with s.e.xual intercourse. In general it is not to be supposed that savages make well-considered physical preparation for marriage in the interests of procreation. The choice of mates is determined by tribal law, but in other respects the individual is generally left free before marriage to satisfy his appet.i.te--it is instinct that controls the relations between the s.e.xes.

+158+. There is no clear evidence that the origin of circ.u.mcision is to be traced to religious conceptions. It has been held that it is connected with the cult of the generative organs (phallic worship).[308]

It is true that a certain sacredness often attached to these organs; this appears, for example, in the oath taken by laying the hands upon or under the thigh, as in the story of Abraham.[309] In some parts of Africa circ.u.mcision is directly connected or combined with the worship of the phallus.[310] But, on the other hand, each of these customs is found frequently without the other: in India we have phallic worship without circ.u.mcision, in Australia circ.u.mcision without phallic worship; and this separateness of the two may be said to be the rule. The cult of the phallus seems not to exist among the lowest peoples.

+159+. The view that circ.u.mcision is of the nature of a sacrifice or dedication to a deity, particularly to a deity of fertility, appears to be derived from late usages in times when more refined ideas have been attached to early customs. The Phrygian practice of excision was regarded, probably, as a sacrifice. But elsewhere, in Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan, where the worship of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of fertility was prominent, we do not find circ.u.mcision connected therewith. In the writings of the Old Testament prophets it is treated as a symbol of moral purification. Among the lower peoples there is no trace of the conception of it as a sacrifice. It is not circ.u.mcision that makes the phallus sacred--it is sacred in itself, and all procedures of savage veneration for the prepuce a.s.sume its inherent potency.

+160+. Nor can circ.u.mcision be explained as an attenuated survival of human sacrifice. The practice (in Peru and elsewhere) of drawing blood from the heads or hands of children on solemn occasions may be a softening of an old savage custom, and the blood of circ.u.mcision is sacred. But this quality attaches to all blood, and the essential thing in circ.u.mcision is not the blood but the removal of the prepuce.

+161+. The suggestion that the object of detaching and preserving the foreskin (a vital part of one's self) is to lay up a stock of vital energy, and thus secure reincarnation for the disembodied spirit,[311]

is putting an afterthought for origin. The existence of the practice in question is doubtful, and it must have arisen, if it existed, after circ.u.mcision had become an established custom. Savages and other peoples, when they feel the need of providing for reincarnation, commonly preserve the bones or the whole body of the deceased.

+162+. _Circ.u.mcision and other operations performed on females._ Circ.u.mcision of girls is practiced by many African savage tribes (Nandi, Masai, Mandingos, and others), by Malays and Arabs, Gallas and Abessinians and others. Introcision appears to be confined to Australia.

Infibulation is practiced in Northeastern Africa and by the Mohammedan Malays.[312] The effect, and doubtless the purpose, of the first and second of these operations is to facilitate coition; the object of the third is to prevent coition until the proper time for it arrives. They are all connected more or less with initiation or with arrival at the age of p.u.b.erty, and they are, naturally, sometimes a.s.sociated with other ceremonies.

+163+. _Origin of circ.u.mcision._ The preceding review may be taken to make it probable that the origin of circ.u.mcision is not to be referred to reflection or to religious ideas. We must look for a cruder motive, and several considerations point to the desire to facilitate coition as the starting-point of the custom (so also R. F. Burton). Reports from all over the savage world testify to the prominence of s.e.xual intercourse in the lower forms of human life. Folk-stories are full of coa.r.s.e details of the practice. Popular festivals are often characterized by gross license. To lend a wife to a guest is in many places a recognized rule of hospitality.[313] In all this there is nothing immoral--it is permitted by the existing law and is in accord with the current ideas of propriety. Early man seems in this regard to have obeyed his animal appet.i.te without reflection. This form of pleasure occupied (and occupies) a great part of his life, and it was not unnatural that he should seek to remove all hindrances from it. It is quite conceivable that early observation led him to regard the prepuce as a hindrance.

+164+. About the motives of early man in the adoption of these customs of excision we have, of course, no direct information; but some later usages favor the explanation suggested above. The operations performed on females are obviously dictated by considerations of convenience or propriety in coition. Various means are adopted of increasing the pleasure of s.e.xual intercourse (in Indonesia and elsewhere).[314] These procedures are purely animal, nonmoral, and without ulterior design; there is no thought of progeny or, in general, of preparation for marriage--the frame of mind is appropriate to the lowest grade of life.

+165+. In the course of time, however, all such customs tend to become sanctified and to take on new meanings. When the importance of circ.u.mcision was generally felt, it was natural that it should be performed at p.u.b.erty and at initiation.[315] It would thus come to be regarded as an introduction to the tribal life--not as preparation, but as a custom established by unwritten law. Its origination would be put far back in the past and sometimes ascribed to supernatural personages--the Central Australians refer it to the mythical ancestors, the later Jews to the command of the national deity issued to the legendary or mythical ancestor Abram.[316] Under certain circ.u.mstances it might become a tribal mark; the Hebrews thus distinguished themselves from their neighbors the Philistines, and "uncirc.u.mcised" was a term of reproach.[317]

+166+. Apart from its use in initiation the cultic role of circ.u.mcision has been small. It does not appear as an element in the worship of any deity, neither in that of such G.o.ds as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, nor in that of any other. It is not represented in ancient records as a devotion of one's self or an a.s.similation of one's self or of a child to the tribal or national G.o.d. Its performance is generally a religious duty, as is true of every established custom, but this fact throws no light on its origin. The prepuce is sometimes treated as an amulet or in general as a magically powerful or sacred thing; but many other parts of the body (hair, finger nails, etc.) are so treated.

+167+. In the higher religions circ.u.mcision is generally viewed as an act of physical purification or as a symbol of moral purification. The former view, perhaps, prevailed in Egypt, though on this point the records appear to be silent.[318] The latter view is that of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament.[319] It has now ceased to have any effective religious significance, and is retained in some communities merely as a national social tradition or as an ancient divine ordinance.

+168+. The origin of circ.u.mcision suggested above seems to account sufficiently for all usages and ideas connected with it; the possibility of several different origins need not be denied, but the practical ident.i.ty of the customs in all parts of the world in which the inst.i.tution exists, makes the simpler hypothesis the more probable.

+169+. Certain features of ceremonies of initiation appear to be designed to secure _union_ between the initiate and the clan. Such, for example, is the custom found in New South Wales of the initiate's drinking the blood of his companions. In other cases there is a union with other parts of the body. Such usages arise from the idea that physical union is essential to social union--a conception which elsewhere takes the form of blood-brotherhood.[320] This is a scientific rather than a religious idea, depending on the belief that the body is an essential part of the personality.[321]

+170+. Another noteworthy custom is the feigned _resurrection_ of the initiate. In Australia the women are informed that the youth during the process of initiation is slain by a supernatural being and brought to life again. Elsewhere the initiate is supposed to forget his former life completely and to be obliged, on emerging from the ceremony, to recover slowly his knowledge of things.[322] The origin of this custom is obscure, but it appears to express the idea that the youth now enters on an entirely new life, and having come into new relations and responsibilities, is to forget what he was and what he did before--a profound conception which has been taken up into some of the most advanced religions (as, for example, in baptism and confirmation).

+171+. In certain half-civilized tribes a higher type of initiatory ceremonies is found. The youth must perform a lonely vigil, going into the forest or some other solitary place, and there wait for the vision or revelation of a supernatural protector.[323] This procedure is connected with the advance of individualism, the old totemic or other relation being superseded by an individual relation to a guardian spirit. The development of this higher religious conception will be discussed below.[324]

+172+. Finally, instruction forms a part of most initiation ceremonies.

The youth is told the secrets of the tribe, and is thus inducted into its higher and more intimate life.[325] This confiding of tribal secrets (the tradition and the knowledge of sacred things) to the young man about to enter on public life is a political necessity, but in the nature of the case connects itself with religious conceptions.

Generally, also, moral instruction is given.[326] The ethical code is usually good so far as intratribal relations are concerned (foreigners are not considered): the youth is told that he must obey his elders, respect the rights of his fellow clansmen, and especially be careful in his att.i.tude toward women. In some cases a supernatural sanction for such instructions is added; it is impressed on the youth that some supernatural being will punish him if he disobeys these instructions.

The moral code in question is one which springs naturally and necessarily from the relations of men in society, and the supernatural sanction affixed to it is a consequence of the belief that the tribal deity is the lord of the tribe and the natural and most effective guardian of its rights.

+173+. From this brief statement of initiation ceremonies it appears that they rest substantially on social ideas and necessities. Religion enters into them, as is pointed out above, when a superhuman being is represented as the patron of the clan and the protector of its ceremonies, or when the moral teaching is referred to such a being, or when the initiate seeks a supernatural patron with whom to enter into relations, or when, as in some North Australian tribes, the supernatural being is believed to be angry at the omission of the ceremonies. This last case might recall the displeasure of the Greek G.o.ds when sacrifices to them were withheld or diminished; but more probably it involves simply the belief that all important ceremonies and affairs are under the control of the being in question, who demands obedience to him as lord.

+174+. In later stages of savage or semicivilized life the clan const.i.tution as a rule has been succeeded by the formation of secret societies, and then initiation into a society takes the place of the old initiation into the clan.[327] Initiation into such a society is often elaborate and solemn--it is carried out in great detail in many Polynesian, African, and North American tribes--but its general features are the same as those of the earlier procedure. Savage societies and civilized mysteries all have their secrets and their moral instruction, and they all represent an advance in individualism. Still later the church takes the place of the mysteries, and here the process of initiation, though more refined, is still in essence identical with the earlier forms.[328] Naturally in the increasing refinement of the ceremonies there is an increasing prominence of the supernatural element, for the reason that the special care of religion recedes more and more from general society (which tends to occupy itself with civil and political questions solely), and is intrusted to special voluntary organizations.

MARRIAGE CEREMONIES

+175+. Marriage is so important a fact for the communal life that it has always been regulated to a greater or less extent by the community, which defines its methods, rights, and obligations.[329]

+176+. In the lowest known tribes the ceremony of marriage is simple: the woman is given to the man by the const.i.tuted authorities--that is, the relatives of the parties and the elders of the clan or tribe--and by that act the two become husband and wife. At this stage of social growth the stress is laid on preparation for marriage in the ceremonies of p.u.b.erty and initiation. The members of the tribe being thus prepared for union, marriage is merely the a.s.signment of a given woman to a given man. The wife is selected according to established custom; that is, in accordance with customary law, which in most cases defines precisely from what group of the tribe the woman proper to a given man shall be taken.

+177+. Though the origin of this law goes back to a remote antiquity and is involved in obscurity, it seems to have been originally simply a matter of social agreement. It came to be, however, connected with systems of totemism and taboo, and thus to have acquired a certain religious character; and, as being important for the tribal life, it would come under the control of the tribal G.o.d when there is such a G.o.d.

A similar remark may be made in regard to exogamy. Why marriage between members of the same tribe, clan, or phratry should be prohibited is not clear.[330] The rule arose, doubtless, from some social feature of ancient society, and only later was involved in the general religious atmosphere.[331]

+178+. Gradually greater freedom of choice was allowed men and women, and the ceremonies of marriage became more elaborate. Certain of these seem intended to secure the complete union of husband and wife; such, for example, are the customs of eating together, of the inoculation of each party with the blood of the other or with some bodily part of the other, and the giving of presents by each to the other. All these rest on the conception that union between two persons is effected by each taking something that belongs to the other; each thus acquires something of the other's personality. This is a scientific biological idea; and though it had its origin doubtless in some very crude notion of life, it has maintained itself in one form or another up to the present time.

+179+. Among many communities the custom is for the bride to hide herself and to be pursued and taken by the bridegroom. This custom, again, is in its origin obscure. Almost certainly it does not point to original marriage by capture, for of such a customary method of acquiring wives there is no trace in savage communities (though in particular cases women may have been captured and married). Possibly it reflects merely the coyness of the woman; or it may be simply a festive procedure, an occasion of fun for the young people, as indeed a wedding now commonly is. In many cases, however, it appears to represent the transference of the woman from her own tribe to that of her husband.

Though she was thus transferred bodily and brought into civic relations with the latter, certain taboos, arising from her original tribal position, often clung to her. The right to dwell in her own house in her own tribe, and to receive there her foreign husband, belongs to a relatively late social stage.[332]

+180+. The defloration of the woman before marriage is rather a preparation for marriage than a marriage ceremony; or it may represent the social right of the elders of the tribe and the relatives of the bride to the possession of her, perhaps symbolizing her entrance into a family.[333] The hypothesis that such a custom points to primitive promiscuity is ably combated by Westermarck, and is involved in great difficulties; it is, however, maintained by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in their two works on Australian tribes, whose customs seem to them to be inexplicable except on the supposition of primitive promiscuity, in spite of Westermarck's arguments; and in support of this view the s.e.xual license granted in many tribes to unmarried girls may be adduced.

However this may be, the custom in question appears to be civil and not religious. The same thing is true of the ceremonies in which bridegroom and bride are hailed as king and queen--a very natural form of merrymaking.[334] The purchase of wives is probably a simple commercial act.