The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Part 17

These harmful spirits seem to have been conceived on the same model as the good spirits of which we have just been speaking. They are represented in an animal form, or one that is half-animal, half-man;[902] but men are naturally inclined to give them enormous dimensions and a repulsive aspect.[903] Like the souls of the ancestors, they are believed to inhabit trees, rocks, water-holes and subterranean caverns.[904] Taking the Arunta as a particular example, Spencer and Gillen say expressly that these evil geniuses, known under the name of Oruncha, are beings of the Alcheringa.[905] Many are represented as the souls of persons who had led a terrestrial life.[906] Among the personages of the fabulous epoch, there were, in fact, many different temperaments: some had cruel and evil instincts which they retained;[907] others were naturally of a bad const.i.tution; they were thin and emaciated; so after they had entered into the ground, the nanja rocks to which they gave birth were considered the homes of dangerous influences.[908]

Yet they are distinguished by special characteristics from their confreres, the heroes of the Alcheringa. They do not reincarnate themselves; among living men, there is no one who represents them; they are without human posterity.[909] When, judging from certain signs, they believe that a child is the result of their work, it is put to death as soon as born.[910] Also, these belong to no determined totemic group; they are outside the social organization.[911] By all these traits, they are recognized as magic powers rather than religious ones. And in fact, it is especially with the magician that they have relations; very frequently it is from them that he gets his powers.[912] So we have now arrived at the point where the world of religion stops and that of magic commences; and as this latter is outside the field of our research, we need not push our researches further.[913]

III

The appearance of the notion of spirits marks an important step in advance in the individualization of religious forces.

However, the spiritual beings of whom we have been speaking up to the present are as yet only secondary personages. They are either evil-working geniuses who belong to magic rather than religion, or else, being attached to determined individuals or places, they cannot make their influence felt except within a circle of a very limited radius. So they can only be the objects of private and local rites. But after the idea has once been established, it naturally spreads to the higher spheres of the religious life, and thus mythical personalities of a superior order are born.

Though the ceremonies of the different clans differ from one another, they all belong to the same religion, none the less; also, a certain number of essential similarities exist between them. Since all the clans are only parts of one and the same tribe, the unity of the tribe cannot fail to make itself felt through this diversity of particular cults. In fact, there is no totemic group that does not have churinga and bull-roarers, and these are used everywhere in the same way. The organization of the tribe into phratries, matrimonial cla.s.ses and clans, and the exogamic interdictions attached to them, are veritable tribal inst.i.tutions. The initiation celebrations all include certain fundamental practices, the extraction of a tooth, circ.u.mcision, subincision, etc., which do not vary with the totems within a single tribe. The uniformity on this point is the more easily established as the initiation always takes place in the presence of the tribe, or at least, before an a.s.sembly to which the different clans have been summoned. The reason for this is that the object of the initiation is to introduce the neophyte into the religious life, not merely of the clan into which he was born, but of the tribe as a whole; so it is necessary that the various aspects of the tribal religion be represented before him and take place, in a way, under his very eyes. It is on this occasion that the moral and religious unity of the tribe is affirmed the best.

Thus, in each society there are a certain number of rites which are distinguished from all the others by their h.o.m.ogeneity and their generality. So noticeably a harmony seemed to be explicable only by a unity of origin. So they imagined that each group of similar rites had been founded by one and the same ancestor, who came to reveal them to the tribe as a whole. Thus, among the Arunta, it was an ancestor of the Wild Cat clan, named Putiaputia,[914] who is thought to have taught men the way of making churinga and using it ritually; among the Warramunga, it was Murtu-murtu;[915] among the Urabunna, Witurna;[916] it was Atnatu among the Kaitish[917] and Tendun among the Kurnai.[918] Likewise, the practice of circ.u.mcision is attributed by the eastern Dieri and many other tribes[919] to two special Muramura, and by the Arunta to a hero of the Alcheringa, of the Lizard totem, named Mangarkunjerkunja.[920] To this same personage are ascribed the foundation of the matrimonial inst.i.tutions and the social organization they imply, the discovery of fire, the invention of the spear, the buckler, the boomerang, etc. It also happens very frequently that the inventor of the bull-roarer is also considered the founder of the rites of initiation.[921]

These special ancestors cannot be put in the same rank as the others. On the one hand, the sentiments of veneration which they inspire are not limited to one clan, but are common to the whole tribe. On the other hand, it is to them that men ascribe all that is most esteemed in the tribal civilization. For this double reason, they became the object of a special consideration. For example, they say of Atnatu that he was born in heaven at an epoch even prior to the times of the Alcheringa, that he made himself and that he gave himself the name he bears. The stars are his wives and daughters. Beyond the heaven where he lives, there is another one with another sun. His name is sacred, and should never be p.r.o.nounced before women or non-initiated persons.[922]

Yet, howsoever great the prestige enjoyed by these personages may be, there was no occasion for founding special rites in their honour; for they themselves are only rites personified. They have no other reason for existence than to explain existing practices; they are only another aspect of these. The churinga and the ancestor who invented it are only one; sometimes, both have the same name.[923] When someone makes the bull-roarer resound, they say that it is the voice of the ancestor making himself heard.[924] But, for the very reason that each of these heroes is confounded with the cult he is believed to have founded, they believe that he is attentive to the way in which it is celebrated. He is not satisfied unless the worshippers fulfil their duties exactly; he punishes those who are negligent.[925] So he is thought of as the guardian of the rite, as well as its founder, and for this reason, he becomes invested with a veritable moral role.[926]

IV

However, this mythological formation is not the highest which is to be found among the Australians. There are at least a certain number of tribes who have arrived at a conception of a G.o.d who, if not unique, is at least supreme, and to whom is attributed a pre-eminent position among all the other religious ent.i.ties.

The existence of this belief was pointed out long ago by different observers;[927] but it is Howitt who has contributed the most to establishing its relative generality. In fact, he has verified it over a very extended geographical area embracing the State of Victoria and New South Wales and even extending up to Queensland.[928] In all this entire region, a considerable number of tribes believe in the existence of a veritable tribal divinity, who has different names, according to the district. The ones most frequently employed are Bunjil or Punjil,[929]

Daramulun[930] and Baiame.[931] But we also find Nuralie or Nurelle,[932] Kohin[933] and Mangan-ngaua.[934] The same conception is found again farther west, among the Narrinyeri, where the great G.o.d is called Nurunderi or Ngurrunderi.[935] Among the Dieri, it is probable that there is one of the Mura-mura, or ordinary ancestors, who enjoys a sort of supremacy over the others.[936] Finally, in opposition to the affirmations of Spencer and Gillen, who declare that they have observed no belief in a real divinity among the Arunta,[937] Strehlow a.s.sures us that this people, as well as the Loritja, recognize, under the name Altjira, a veritable "good G.o.d."[938]

The essential characteristics of this personage are the same everywhere.

It is an immortal, and even an eternal being, for it was not derived from any other. After having lived on earth for a certain length of time, he ascended to heaven, or else was taken up there,[939] and continues to live there, surrounded by his family, for generally he is said to have one or several wives, children and brothers,[940] who sometimes a.s.sist him in his functions. Under the pretext of a visit he is said to have made to them, he and his family are frequently identified with certain stars.[941] Moreover, they attribute to him a power over stars. It is he who regulates the journey of the sun and moon;[942] he gives them orders.[943] It is he who makes the lightning leap from the clouds and who throws the thunder-bolts.[944] Since he is the thunder, he is also connected with the rain:[945] it is to him that men address themselves when there is a scarcity of water, or when too much falls.[946]

They speak of him as a sort of creator: he is called the father of men and they say that he made them. According to a legend current around Melbourne, Bunjil made the first man in the following manner. He made a little statue out of white clay; then, after he had danced all around it several times and had breathed into its nostrils, the statue became animated and commenced to walk about.[947] According to another myth, he lighted the sun; thus the earth became heated and men came out of it.[948] At the same time that he made men,[949] this divine personage made the animals and trees;[950] it is to him that men owe all the arts of life, arms, language and tribal rites.[951] He is the benefactor of humanity. Even yet, he plays the role of a sort of providence for them.

It is he who supplies his worshippers with all that is necessary for their existence.[952] He is in communication with them, either directly or through intermediaries.[953] But being at the same time guardian of the morals of the tribe, he treats them severely when these are violated.[954] If we are to believe certain observers, he will even fulfil the office of judge, after this life; he will separate the good from the bad, and will not reward the ones like the others.[955] In any case, they are often represented as ruling the land of the dead,[956]

and as gathering the souls together when they arrive in the beyond.[957]

As the initiation is the princ.i.p.al form of the tribal cult, it is to the rites of initiation that he is attached especially; he is their centre.

He is very frequently represented by an image cut on a piece of bark or soaked into the ground. They dance around it; they sing in its honour; they even address real prayers to it.[958] They explain to the young men who the personage is whom this image represents; they tell them his secret name, which the women and the uninitiated cannot know; they relate to them his history and the part attributed to him in the life of the tribe. At other times they raise their hands towards the heaven where he is thought to dwell, or else they point their arms or the ritual instruments they have in hand in this direction;[959] this is a way of entering into communication with him. They feel his presence everywhere. He watches over the neophyte when he has withdrawn into the forest.[960] He is attentive to the manner in which the ceremonies are celebrated. The initiation is his cult. So he gives special attention to seeing that these are carried out exactly: if there are any faults or negligences, he punishes them in a terrible manner.[961]

Moreover, the authority of each of these supreme G.o.ds is not limited to a single tribe; it is recognized equally by a number of neighbouring tribes. Bunjil is adored in nearly all of Victoria, Baiame in a considerable portion of New South Wales, etc.; this is why there are so few G.o.ds for a relatively extended geographical area. So the cults of which they are the object have an international character. It even happens sometimes that mythologies intermingle, combine and make mutual borrowings. Thus the majority of the tribes who believe in Baiame also admit the existence of Daramulun; however, they accord him a slighter dignity. They make him a son or brother of Baiame, and subordinate to this latter.[962] Thus the faith in Daramulun has spread in diverse forms, into all of New South Wales. So it is far from true that religious internationalism is a peculiarity of the most recent and advanced religions. From the dawn of history, religious beliefs have manifested a tendency to overflow out of one strictly limited political society; it is as though they had a natural apt.i.tude for crossing frontiers, and for diffusing and internationalizing themselves. Of course there have been peoples and times when this spontaneous apt.i.tude has been held in check by opposed social necessities; but that does not keep it from being real and, as we see, very primitive.

To Tylor this conception has appeared to be a part of so elevated a theology that he refuses to see in it anything but the product of a European importation: he would have it be a more or less denatured Christian idea.[963] Andrew Lang, on the contrary, considers them autochthonous;[964] but as he also admits that it is contrasted with all the other Australian beliefs and rests on completely different principles, he concludes that the religions of Australia are made up of two heterogeneous systems, superimposed one upon the other, and consequently derived from a double origin. On the one hand, there were ideas relative to totems and spirits, which had been suggested to men by the sight of certain natural phenomena. But at the same time, by a sort of intuition as to the nature of which he refuses to make himself clear,[965] the human intelligence succeeded at the first onset in conceiving a unique G.o.d, creator of the world and legislator of the moral order. Lang even estimates that this idea was purer of foreign elements at the beginning, and especially in Australia, than in the civilizations which immediately followed. With time, it was covered over and obscured little by little by the ever-growing ma.s.s of animistic and totemic superst.i.tions. Thus it underwent a sort of progressive degeneration up to the day when, as the effect of a privileged culture, it succeeded in coming into its own and restated itself again with more force and clarity than it had in the first place.[966]

But the facts allow neither the sceptical hypothesis of Tylor nor the theological interpretation of Lang.

In the first place, it is certain to-day that the ideas relative to the great tribal G.o.d are of indigenous origin. They were observed before the influence of the missionaries had as yet had time to make itself felt.[967] But it does not follow that it is necessary to attribute them to a mysterious revelation. Far from being derived from a different source than the regular totemic beliefs, they are, on the contrary, only the logical working-out of these beliefs and their highest form.

We have already seen how the notion of mythical ancestors is implied in the very principles upon which totemism rests, for each of them is a totemic being. Now, though the great G.o.ds are certainly superior to these, still, there are only differences of degree between them; we pa.s.s from the first to the second with no break of continuity. In fact, a great G.o.d is himself an ancestor of especial importance. They frequently speak to us about him as though he were a man, endowed, to be sure, with more than human powers, but one who lived a human life upon the earth.[968] He is pictured as a great hunter,[969] a powerful magician,[970] or the founder of the tribe.[971] He was the first man.[972] One legend even represents him in the form of a worn-out old man who could hardly move about.[973] If a supreme G.o.d named Mura-mura has existed among the Dieri, the very word is significant, for it serves to designate the cla.s.s of the ancestors. Likewise, Nuralie, the name of a great G.o.d among the tribes on the Murray River, is sometimes used as a collective expression which is applied to the group of mythical beings whom tradition places at the origin of things.[974] They are personages wholly comparable to those of the Alcheringa.[975] In Queensland, we have already met with a G.o.d Anjea or Anjir, who made men but who seems, nevertheless, to be only the first man.[976]

A fact that has aided Australian thought to pa.s.s from the numerous ancestral geniuses to the idea of the tribal G.o.d is that between the two extremes a middle term has been inserted, which has served as a transition: these are the civilizing heroes. The fabulous beings whom we call by this name are really simple ancestors to whom mythology has attributed an eminent place in the history of the tribe, and whom it has, for this reason, set above the others. We have even seen that they ordinarily form a part of the totemic organization: Mangarkunjerkunja belongs to the Lizard totem and Putiaputia to the Wild Cat totem. But on the other hand, the functions which they are believed to fulfil, or to have fulfilled, are closely similar to those inc.u.mbent upon a great G.o.d.

He, too, is believed to have introduced the arts of civilization among men, to have been the founder of the princ.i.p.al social inst.i.tutions and the revealer of the great religious ceremonies which still remain under his control. If he is the father of men, it is because he manufactured them rather than begat them: but Mangarkunjerkunja also made them.

Before his time, there were no men, but only unformed ma.s.ses of flesh, in which the different members and even the different individuals were not yet separated from one another. It was he who cut up this original matter and made real human beings out of it.[977] Between this mode of fabrication and the one the myth we have spoken of attributes to Bunjil, there are only shades of difference. Moreover, the bonds uniting these two sorts of figures to each other are well shown by the fact that a relationship of descent is sometimes established between them. Among the Kurnai, the hero of the bull-roarer, Tundun, is the son of the great G.o.d Mungan-ngaua.[978] Likewise, among the Euahlayi, Daramulun, the son or brother of Baiame, is identical with Gayandi who is the equivalent of the Tundun of the Kurnai.[979] Of course it is not necessary to conclude from these facts that the great G.o.d is nothing more than a civilizing hero. There are cases where these two personages are carefully differentiated. But if they are not confounded, they are at least relatives. So it sometimes happens that we find it hard to distinguish them; there are some who could be cla.s.sified equally well in one category or the other. Thus, we have spoken of Atnatu as a civilizing hero; but he comes very near to being a great G.o.d.

The notion of a supreme G.o.d even depends so closely upon the entire system of the totemic beliefs that it still bears their mark. Tundun is a divine hero, as we have just seen, who is very close to the tribal divinity; now among the Kurnai, the same word means totem.[980]

Similarly, among the Arunta, Altjira is the name of a great G.o.d; it is also the name of the maternal totem.[981] But there is more to be said than this; many great G.o.ds have an obviously totemic aspect. Daramulun is an eagle-hawk;[982] his mother, an emu.[983] It is also under the features of an emu that Baiame is represented.[984] The Altjira of the Arunta has the legs of an emu.[985] Before being the name of a great G.o.d, Nuralie designated, as we just saw, the ancestor-founders of the tribe; now some of these were crows, the others hawks.[986] According to Howitt,[987] Bunjil is always represented in a human form; however, the same word serves to designate the totem of a phratry, the eagle-hawk. At least one of his sons is among the totems included in the phratry to which he has given, or from which he has taken his name.[988] His brother is Pallyan, the bat; now this latter serves as s.e.xual totem for the men in many tribes in Victoria.[989]

We can even go farther and state more definitely the connection which these great G.o.ds have with the totemic system. We have just seen that Bunjil is the totem of a phratry. Daramulun, like Bunjil, is an eagle-hawk, and we know that this bird is the totem of phratries in a large number of south-eastern tribes.[990] We have already pointed out that Nuralie seems to have originally been a collective term designating indistinctly either eagle-hawks or crows; now in the tribes where this myth has been observed, the crow is the totem of one of the two phratries, the eagle-hawk, that of the other.[991] Also, the legendary history of the great G.o.ds resembles that of the totems of the phratries very closely. The myths, and sometimes the rites, commemorate the struggles which each of these divinities fought against a carnivorous bird, over which it triumphed only with the greatest difficulty. Bunjil, the first man, after making the second man, Karween, entered into a conflict with him, and in the course of a sort of duel, he wounded him severely and changed him into a crow.[992] The two species of Nurtalie are represented as two hostile groups which were originally in a constant state of war.[993] Baiame, on his side, had to fight against Mullian, the cannibal eagle-hawk, who, by the way, is identical with Daramulun.[994] Now, as we have seen, there is also a sort of const.i.tutional hostility between the totems of the phratries. This parallelism completes the proof that the mythology of the great G.o.ds and that of these totems are closely related. This relationship will appear still more evident if we notice that the rival of the G.o.d is regularly either a crow or an eagle-hawk, and that these are quite generally the totems of the phratries.[995]

So Baiame, Daramulun, Nuralie and Bunjil seem to be phratry-totems who have been deified; and we may imagine that this apotheosis took place as follows. It is obviously in the a.s.semblies which take place in regard to the initiation that the conception was elaborated, for the great G.o.ds do not play a role of any importance except in these rites, and are strangers to the other religious ceremonies. Moreover, as the initiation is the princ.i.p.al form of the tribal cult, it is only on this occasion that a tribal mythology could arise. We have already seen how the rituals of circ.u.mcision and subincision spontaneously tend to personify themselves under the form of civilizing heroes. However, these heroes exercised no supremacy; they were on the same footing as the other legendary benefactors of society. But wherever the tribe acquired a livelier sentiment of itself, this sentiment naturally incarnated itself in some personage, who became its symbol. In order to account for the bonds uniting them to one another, no matter what clan they belonged to, men imagined that they were all descended from the same stock and that they were all descended from a single father, to whom they owe their existence, though he owed his to no one. The G.o.d of the initiation was predestined to this role, for, according to an expression frequently coming to the lips of the natives, the object of the initiation is to make or manufacture men. So they attributed a creative power to this G.o.d, and for all these reasons, he found himself invested with a prestige setting him well above the other heroes of the mythology. These others became his auxiliaries, subordinate to him; they were made his sons or younger brothers, as was the case with Tundun, Gayandi, Karween, Pallyan, etc. But other sacred beings already existed, who occupied an equally eminent place in the religious system of the clan: these were the totems of the phratries. Wherever these are maintained, they are believed to keep the totems of the clans dependent upon them.

Thus they had all that was necessary for becoming tribal divinities themselves. So it was only natural that a partial confusion should arise between these two sorts of mythical beings; it is thus that one of the two fundamental totems of the tribe gave his traits to the great G.o.d.

But as it was necessary to explain why only one of them was called to this dignity and the other excluded, they supposed that this latter, in the course of a fight against his rival, was vanquished and that his exclusion was the consequence of his defeat. This theory was the more readily admitted because it was in accord with the rest of the mythology, where the totems of the phratries are generally considered enemies of one another.

A myth observed by Mrs. Parker among the Euahlayi[996] may serve to confirm this explanation, for it merely translates it into figurative language. It is related that in this tribe, the totems were only the names given to the different parts of Baiame's body at first. So the clans were, in a sense, the fragments of the divine body. Now is this not just another way of saying that the great G.o.d is the synthesis of all the totems and consequently the personification of the tribal unity?

But at the same time, it takes an international character. In fact, the members of the tribe to which the young initiates belong are not the only ones who a.s.sist at the ceremonies of initiation; representatives from the neighbouring tribes are specially summoned to these celebrations, which thus become sorts of international fairs, at once religious and laical.[997] Beliefs elaborated in social environments thus const.i.tuted could not remain the exclusive patrimony of any special nationality. The stranger to whom they are revealed carries them back to his own tribe when he returns home; and as, sooner or later, he is forced to invite his former hosts, there is a continual exchange of ideas from tribe to tribe. It is thus that an international mythology was established, of which the great G.o.d was quite naturally the essential element, for it had its origin in the rites of initiation which it is his function to personify. So his name pa.s.sed from one language to another, along with the representations which were attached to it. The fact that the names of the phratries are generally the same in very different tribes could not fail to facilitate this diffusion.

The internationalism of the totems opened the way for that of the great G.o.d.

V

We thus reach the highest conception to which totemism has arrived. This is the point where it touches and prepares the religions which are to follow, and aids us in understanding them. But at the same time, we are able to see that this culminating idea is united without any interruption to the crudest beliefs which we a.n.a.lysed to start with.

In fact, the great tribal G.o.d is only an ancestral spirit who finally won a pre-eminent place. The ancestral spirits are only ent.i.ties forged in the image of the individual souls whose origin they are destined to explain. The souls, in their turn, are only the form taken by the impersonal forces which we found at the basis of totemism, as they individualize themselves in the human body. The unity of the system is as great as its complexity.

In this work of elaboration, the idea of the soul has undoubtedly played an important part: it is through it that the idea of personality has been introduced into the domain of religion. But it is not true that, as the theorists of animism maintain, it contains the germ of the whole religion. First of all, it presupposes the notion of _mana_ or the totemic principle of which it is only a special form. Then, if the spirits and G.o.ds could not be conceived before the soul, they are, nevertheless, more than mere human souls, liberated by death; else whence would come their supernatural powers? The idea of the soul has merely served to direct the mythological imagination in a new way and to suggest to it constructions of a new sort. But the matter for these conceptions has been taken, not from the representation of the soul, but from this reservoir of the anonymous and diffused forces which const.i.tute the original foundation of religions. The creation of mythical personalities has only been another way of thinking of these essential forces.

As for the notion of the great G.o.d, it is due entirely to the sentiment whose action we have already observed in the genesis of the most specifically totemic beliefs: this is the tribal sentiment. In fact, we have seen that totemism was not the work of isolated clans, but that it was always elaborated in the body of a tribe which was to some degree conscious of its unity. It is for this reason that the different cults peculiar to each clan mutually touch and complete each other in such a way as to form a unified whole.[998] Now it is this same sentiment of a tribal unity which is expressed in the conception of a supreme G.o.d, common to the tribe as a whole. So they are quite the same causes which are active at the bottom and at the top of this religious system.

However, up to the present, we have considered the religious representations as if they were self-sufficient and could be explained by themselves. But in reality, they are inseparable from the rites, not only because they manifest themselves there, but also because they, in their turn, feel the influence of these. Of course the cult depends upon the beliefs, but it also reacts upon them. So in order to understand them better, it is important to understand it better. The moment has come for undertaking its study.

BOOK III

THE PRINc.i.p.aL RITUAL ATt.i.tUDES

CHAPTER I

THE NEGATIVE CULT AND ITS FUNCTIONS THE ASCETIC RITES

We do not have the intention of attempting a complete description of the primitive cult in what is to follow. Being preoccupied especially with reaching that which is most elementary and most fundamental in the religious life, we shall not attempt to reconstruct in detail the frequently confused multiplicity of all the ritual forms. But out of the midst of this extreme diversity of practices we should like to touch upon the most characteristic att.i.tudes which the primitive observes in the celebration of his cult, to cla.s.sify the most general forms of his rites, and to determine their origins and significance, in order that we may control and, if there is occasion, make more definite the results to which the a.n.a.lysis of the beliefs has led us.[999]

Every cult presents a double aspect, one negative, the other positive.

In reality, of course, the two sorts of rites which we denominate thus are closely a.s.sociated; we shall see that they suppose one another. But still, they are different and, if it is only to understand their connection, it is necessary to distinguish them.