The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Part 8

In order to give a semblance of intelligibility to this duality, so strange for us, the primitive has invented myths which, it is true, explain nothing and only shift the difficulty, but which, by shifting it, seem at least to lessen the logical scandal. With slight variations of detail, all are constructed on the same plan: their object is to establish genealogical connections between the man and the totemic animal, making the one a relative of the other. By this common origin, which, by the way, is represented in various manners, they believe that they account for their common nature. The Narrinyeri, for example, have imagined that certain of the first men had the power of transforming themselves into beasts.[390] Other Australian societies place at the beginning of humanity either strange animals from which the men were descended in some unknown way,[391] or mixed beings, half-way between the two kingdoms,[392] or else unformed creatures, hardly representable, deprived of all determined organs, and even of all definite members, and the different parts of whose bodies were hardly outlined.[393] Mythical powers, sometimes conceived under the form of animals, then intervened and made men out of these ambiguous and innumerable beings which Spencer and Gillen say represent "stages in the transformation of animals and plants into human beings."[394] These transformations are represented to us under the form of violent and, as it were, surgical operations. It is under the blows of an axe or, if the operator is a bird, blows of the beak, that the human individual was carved out of this shapeless ma.s.s, his members separated from each other, his mouth opened and his nostrils pierced.[395] a.n.a.logous legends are found in America, except that owing to the more highly developed mentality of these peoples, the representations which they employ do not contain confusions so troublesome for the mind. Sometimes it is a legendary personage who, by an act of his power, metamorphosed the animal who gives its name to the clan into a man.[396] Sometimes the myth attempts to explain how, by a series of nearly natural events and a sort of spontaneous evolution, the animal transformed himself little by little, and finally took a human form.[397]

It is true that there are societies (the Haida, Tlinkit, Tsimshian) where it is no longer admitted that man was born of an animal or plant; but the idea of an affinity between the animals of the totemic species and the members of the clan has survived there nevertheless, and expresses itself in myths which, though differing from the preceding, still retain all that is essential in them. Here is one of the fundamental themes. The ancestor who gives his name to the clan is here represented as a human being, but who, in the course of various wanderings, has been led to live for a while among the fabulous animals of the very species which gave the clan its name. As the result of this intimate and prolonged connection, he became so like his new companions that when he returned to men, they no longer recognized him. He was therefore given the name of the animal which he resembled. It is from his stay in this mythical land that he brought back the totemic emblem, together with the powers and virtues believed to be attached to it.[398]

Thus in this case, as in the others, men are believed to partic.i.p.ate in the nature of the animal, though this partic.i.p.ation may be conceived in slightly different forms.[399]

So man also has something sacred about him. Though diffused into the whole organism, this characteristic is especially apparent in certain privileged places. There are organs and tissues that are specially marked out: these are particularly the blood and the hair.

In the first place, human blood is so holy a thing that in the tribes of Central Australia, it frequently serves to consecrate the most respected instruments of the cult. For example, in certain cases, the nurtunja is regularly anointed from top to bottom with the blood of a man.[400] It is upon ground all saturated with blood that the men of the Emu, among the Arunta, trace their sacred images.[401] We shall presently see that streams of blood are poured upon the rocks which represent the totemic animals and plants.[402] There is no religious ceremony where blood does not have some part to play.[403] During the initiation, the adults open their veins and sprinkle the novice with their blood; and this blood is so sacred a thing that women may not be present while it is flowing; the sight of it is forbidden them, just as the sight of a churinga is.[404]

The blood lost by a young initiate during the very violent operations he must undergo has very particular virtues: it is used in various ceremonies.[405] That which flows during the sub-incision is piously kept by the Arunta and buried in a place upon which they put a piece of wood warning pa.s.sers-by of the sacredness of the spot; no woman should approach it.[406] The religious nature of blood also explains the equal importance, religiously, of the red ochre, which is very frequently employed in ceremonies; they rub the churinga with it and use it in ritual decorations.[407] This is due to the fact that because of its colour, it is regarded as something kindred to blood. Many deposits of red ochre which are found in the Arunta territory are even supposed to be the coagulated blood which certain heroines of the mythical period shed on to the soil.[408]

Hair has similar properties. The natives of the centre wear belts made of human hair, whose religious functions we have already pointed out: they are also used to wrap up certain instruments of the cult.[409]

Does one man loan another one of his churinga? As a sign of acknowledgment, the second makes a present of hair to the first; these two sorts of things are therefore thought to be of the same order and of equivalent value.[410] So the operation of cutting the hair is a ritual act, accompanied by definite ceremonies: the individual operated upon must squat on the ground, with his face turned in the direction of the place where the fabulous ancestors from which the clan of his mother is believed to be descended, are thought to have camped.[411] For the same reason, as soon as a man is dead, they cut his hair off and put it away in some distant place, for neither women nor the non-initiated have the right of seeing it: it is here, far from profane eyes, that the belts are made.[412]

Other organic tissues might be mentioned which have similar properties, in varying degrees: such are the whiskers, the foreskin, the fat of the liver, etc.[413] But it is useless to multiply examples. Those already given are enough to prove that there is something in man which holds profane things at a distance and which possesses a religious power; in other words, the human organism conceals within its depths a sacred principle, which visibly comes to the surface in certain determined cases. This principle does not differ materially from that which causes the religious character of the totem. In fact, we have just seen that the different substances in which it incarnates itself especially enter into the ritual composition of the objects of the cult (nurtunja, totemic designs), or else are used in the anointings whose object is to renew the virtues either of the churinga or of the sacred rocks; they are things of the same species.

Sometimes the religious dignity which is inherent in each member of the clan on this account is not equal for all. Men possess it to a higher degree than women; in relation to them, women are like profane beings.[414] Thus, every time that there is an a.s.sembly, either of the totemic group or of the tribe, the men have a separate camp, distinct from that of the women, and into which these latter may not enter: they are separated off.[415] But there are also differences in the way in which men are marked with a religious character. The young men not yet initiated are wholly deprived of it, since they are not admitted to the ceremonies. It is among the old men that it reaches its greatest intensity. They are so very sacred that certain things forbidden to ordinary people are permissible for them: they may eat the totemic animal more freely and, as we have seen, there are even some tribes where they are freed from all dietetic restrictions.

So we must be careful not to consider totemism a sort of animal worship.

The att.i.tude of a man towards the animals or plants whose name he bears is not at all that of a believer towards his G.o.d, for he belongs to the sacred world himself. Their relations are rather those of two beings who are on the same level and of equal value. The most that can be said is that in certain cases, at least, the animal seems to occupy a slightly more elevated place in the hierarchy of sacred things. It is because of this that it is sometimes called the father or the grandfather of the men of the clan, which seems to show that they feel themselves in a state of moral dependence in regard to it.[416] But in other, and perhaps even more frequent cases, it happens that the expressions used denote rather a sentiment of equality. The totemic animal is called the friend or the elder brother of its human fellows.[417] Finally, the bonds which exist between them and it are much more like those which unite the members of a single family; the animals and the men are made of the same flesh, as the Buandik say.[418] On account of this kinship, men regard the animals of the totemic species as kindly a.s.sociates upon whose aid they think they can rely. They call them to their aid[419] and they come, to direct their blows in the hunt and to give warning of whatever dangers there may be.[420] In return for this, men treat them with regard and are never cruel to them;[421] but these attentions in no way resemble a cult.

Men sometimes even appear to have a mysterious sort of property-right over their totems. The prohibition against killing and eating them is applied only to members of the clan, of course; it could not be extended to other persons without making life practically impossible. If, in a tribe like the Arunta, where there is such a host of different totems, it were forbidden to eat, not only the animal or plant whose name one bears, but also all the animals and all the plants which serve as totems to other clans, the sources of food would be reduced to nothing. Yet there are tribes where the consumption of the totemic plant or animal is not allowed without restrictions, even to foreigners. Among the Wakelbura, it must not take place in the presence of men of this totem.[422] In other places, their permission must be given. For example, among the Kaitish and the Unmatjera, whenever a man of the Emu totem happens to be in a place occupied by a gra.s.s-seed clan, and gathers some of these seed, before eating them he must go to the chief and say to him, "I have gathered these seeds in your country." To this the chief replies, "All right; you may eat them." But if the Emu man ate them before demanding permission, it is believed that he would fall sick and run the risk of dying.[423] There are even cases where the chief of the group must take a little of the food and eat it himself: it is a sort of payment which must be made.[424] For the same reason, the churinga gives the hunter a certain power over the corresponding animal: by rubbing his body with a Euro churinga, for example, a man acquires a greater chance of catching euros.[425] This is the proof that the fact of partic.i.p.ating in the nature of a totemic being confers a sort of eminent right over this latter. Finally, there is one tribe in northern Queensland, the Karingbool, where the men of the totem are the only ones who have a right to kill the animal or, if the totem is a tree, to peel off its bark. Their aid is indispensable to all others who want to use the flesh of this animal or the wood of this tree for their own personal ends.[426] So they appear as proprietors, though it is quite evidently over a special sort of property, of which we find it hard to form an idea.

CHAPTER III

TOTEMIC BELIEFS--_continued_

_The Cosmological System of Totemism and the Idea of Cla.s.s_

We are beginning to see that totemism is a much more complex religion than it first appeared to be. We have already distinguished three cla.s.ses of things which it recognizes as sacred, in varying degrees: the totemic emblem, the animal or plant whose appearance this emblem reproduces, and the members of the clan. However, this list is not yet complete. In fact, a religion is not merely a collection of fragmentary beliefs in regard to special objects like those we have just been discussing. To a greater or less extent, all known religions have been systems of ideas which tend to embrace the universality of things, and to give us a complete representation of the world. If totemism is to be considered as a religion comparable to the others, it too should offer us a conception of the universe. As a matter of fact, it does satisfy this condition.

I

The fact that this aspect of totemism has generally been neglected is due to the too narrow notion of the clan which has been prevalent.

Ordinarily it is regarded as a mere group of human beings. Being a simple subdivision of the tribe, it seems that like this, it is made up of nothing but men. But in reasoning thus, we subst.i.tute our European ideas for those which the primitive has of man and of society. For the Australian, things themselves, everything which is in the universe, are a part of the tribe; they are const.i.tuent elements of it and, so to speak, regular members of it; just like men, they have a determined place in the general scheme of organization of the society. "The South Australian savage," says Fison, "looks upon the universe as the Great Tribe, to one of whose divisions he himself belongs; and all things, animate and inanimate, which belong to his cla.s.s are parts of the body corporate whereof he himself is a part."[427] As a consequence of this principle, whenever the tribe is divided into two phratries, all known things are distributed between them. "All nature," says Palmer, in speaking of the Bellinger River tribe, "is also divided into cla.s.s [phratry] names.... The sun and moon and stars are said ... to belong to cla.s.ses [phratries] just as the blacks themselves."[428] The Port Mackay tribe in Queensland has two phratries with the names Yungaroo and Wootaroo, as do the neighbouring tribes. Now as Bridgmann says, "all things, animate and inanimate, are divided by these tribes into two cla.s.ses, named Yungaroo and Wootaroo."[429] Nor does the cla.s.sification stop here. The men of each phratry are distributed among a certain number of clans; likewise, the things attributed to each phratry are in their turn distributed among the clans of which the phratry is composed.

A certain tree, for example, will be a.s.signed to the Kangaroo clan, and to it alone; then, just like the human members of the clan, it will have the Kangaroo as totem; another will belong to the Snake clan; clouds will be placed under one totem, the sun under another, etc. All known things will thus be arranged in a sort of tableau or systematic cla.s.sification embracing the whole of nature.

We have given a certain number of these cla.s.sifications elsewhere;[430]

at present we shall confine ourselves to repeating a few of these as examples. One of the best known of these is the one found in the Mount Gambier tribe. This tribe includes two phratries, named respectively the k.u.mite and the Kroki; each of these, in its turn, is subdivided into five clans. Now "everything in nature belongs to one or another of these ten clans";[431] Fison and Howitt say that they are all "included"

within it. In fact, they are cla.s.sified under these ten totems just like species in their respective cla.s.ses. This is well shown by the following table based on information gathered by Curr and by Fison and Howitt.[432]

PHRATRIES. CLANS. THINGS CLa.s.sED IN EACH CLAN.

{ Fish-hawk { Smoke, honeysuckle, certain { { trees, etc.

{ Pelican { Blackwood-trees, dogs, fire, { { frost, etc.

k.u.mITE { Crow { Rain, thunder, lightning, { { clouds, hail, winter, etc.

{ Black c.o.c.katoo { The stars, the moon, etc.

{ A non-poisonous snake { Fish, seal, eel, the { stringybark-tree, etc.

{ Tea-tree { Duck, crayfish, owls, etc.

{ An edible root { Bustard, quail, a small KROKI { { kangaroo, etc.

{ A white crestless c.o.c.katoo { Kangaroo, the summer, the { { sun, wind, the autumn, etc.

{ Details are lacking for the fourth and fifth Kroki clans.

The list of things attached to each clan is quite incomplete; Curr himself warns us that he has limited himself to enumerating some of them. But through the work of Mathews and of Howitt[433] we have more extended information to-day on the cla.s.sification adopted by the Wotjobaluk tribe, which enables us to understand better how a system of this kind is able to include the whole universe, as known to the natives. The Wotjobaluk also are divided into two phratries called Gurogity and Gumaty (Krokitch and Gamutch according to Howitt[434]); not to prolong this enumeration, we shall content ourselves with indicating, after Mathews, the things cla.s.sed in some of the clans of the Gurogity phratry.

In the clan of the Yam are cla.s.sified the plain-turkey, the native cat, the _mopoke_, the _dyim-dyim_ owl, the _mallee_ hen, the rosella parrot, the peewee.

In the Mussel[435] clan are the grey emu, the porcupine, the curlew, the white c.o.c.katoo, the wood-duck, the _mallee_ lizard, the stinking turtle, the flying squirrel, the ring-tail opossum, the bronze-wing pigeon, the _wijuggla_.

In the Sun clan are the bandicoot, the moon, the kangaroo-rat, the black and white magpies, the opossum, the _ng[)u]rt_ hawk, the gum-tree grub, the wattle-tree grub, the planet Venus.

In the clan of the Warm Wind[436] are the grey-headed eagle-hawk, the carpet snake, the smoker parrot, the sh.e.l.l parrot, the _murrakan_ hawk, the _dikkomur_ snake, the ring-neck parrot, the _mirudai_ snake, the shingle-back lizard.

If we remember that there are many other clans (Howitt names twelve and Mathews fourteen and adds that his list is incomplete[437]), we will understand how all the things in which the native takes an interest find a natural place in these cla.s.sifications.

Similar arrangements have been observed in the most diverse parts of the Australian continent; in South Australia, in Victoria, and in New South Wales (among the Euahlayi[438]); very clear traces of it are found in the central tribes.[439] In Queensland, where the clans seem to have disappeared and where the matrimonial cla.s.ses are the only subdivisions of the phratry, things are divided up among these cla.s.ses. Thus, the Wakelbura are divided into two phratries, Mallera and Wutaru; the cla.s.ses of the first are called Kurgilla and Banbe, those of the second, Wungo and Obu. Now to the Banbe belong the opossum, the kangaroo, the dog, honey of little bees, etc.; to the Wungo are attributed the emu, the bandicoot, the black duck, the black snake, the brown snake; to the Obu, the carpet snake, the honey of stinging bees, etc.; to the Kurgilla, the porcupine, the turkey of the plains, water, rain, fire, thunder, etc.[440]

This same organization is found among the Indians of North America. The Zuni have a system of cla.s.sification which, in its essential lines, is in all points comparable to the one we have just described. That of the Omaha rests on the same principles as that of the Wotjobaluk.[441] An echo of these same ideas survives even into the more advanced societies.

Among the Haida, all the G.o.ds and mythical beings who are placed in charge of the different phenomena of nature are cla.s.sified in one or the other of the two phratries which make up the tribe just like men; some are Eagles, the others, Crows.[442] Now the G.o.ds of things are only another aspect of the things which they govern.[443] This mythological cla.s.sification is therefore merely another form of the preceding one. So we may rest a.s.sured that this way of conceiving the world is independent of all ethnic or geographic particularities; and at the same time it is clearly seen to be closely united to the whole system of totemic beliefs.

II

In the paper to which we have already made allusion several times, we have shown what light these facts throw upon the way in which the idea of kind or cla.s.s was formed in humanity. In fact, these systematic cla.s.sifications are the first we meet with in history, and we have just seen that they are modelled upon the social organization, or rather that they have taken the forms of society as their framework. It is the phratries which have served as cla.s.ses, and the clans as species. It is because men were organized that they have been able to organize things, for in cla.s.sifying these latter, they limited themselves to giving them places in the groups they formed themselves. And if these different cla.s.ses of things are not merely put next to each other, but are arranged according to a unified plan, it is because the social groups with which they commingle themselves are unified and, through their union, form an organic whole, the tribe. The unity of these first logical systems merely reproduces the unity of the society. Thus we have an occasion for verifying the proposition which we laid down at the commencement of this work, and for a.s.suring ourselves that the fundamental notions of the intellect, the essential categories of thought, may be the product of social factors. The above-mentioned facts show clearly that this is the case with the very notion of category itself.

However, it is not our intention to deny that the individual intellect has of itself the power of perceiving resemblances between the different objects of which it is conscious. Quite on the contrary, it is clear that even the most primitive and simple cla.s.sifications presuppose this faculty. The Australian does not place things in the same clan or in different clans at random. For him as for us, similar images attract one another, while opposed ones repel one another, and it is on the basis of these feelings of affinity or of repulsion that he cla.s.sifies the corresponding things in one place or another.

There are also cases where we are able to perceive the reasons which inspired this. The two phratries were very probably the original and fundamental bases for these cla.s.sifications, which were consequently bifurcate at first. Now, when a cla.s.sification is reduced to two cla.s.ses, these are almost necessarily conceived as ant.i.theses; they are used primarily as a means of clearly separating things between which there is a very marked contrast. Some are set at the right, the others at the left. As a matter of fact this is the character of the Australian cla.s.sifications. If the white c.o.c.katoo is in one phratry, the black one is in the other; if the sun is on one side, the moon and the stars of night are on the opposite side.[444] Very frequently the beings which serve as the totems of the two phratries have contrary colours.[445]

These oppositions are even met with outside of Australia. Where one of the phratries is disposed to peace, the other is disposed to war;[446]

if one has water as its totem, the other has earth.[447] This is undoubtedly the explanation of why the two phratries have frequently been thought of as naturally antagonistic to one another. They say that there is a sort of rivalry or even a const.i.tutional hostility between them.[448] This opposition of things has extended itself to persons; the logical contrast has begotten a sort of social conflict.[449]

It is also to be observed that within each phratry, those things have been placed in a single clan which seem to have the greatest affinity with that serving as totem. For example, the moon has been placed with the black c.o.c.katoo, but the sun, together with the atmosphere and the wind, with the white c.o.c.katoo. Or again, to a totemic animal has been united all that serves him as food,[450] as well as the animals with which he has the closest connection.[451] Of course, we cannot always understand the obscure psychology which has caused many of these connections and distinctions, but the preceding examples are enough to show that a certain intuition of the resemblances and differences presented by things has played an important part in the genesis of these cla.s.sifications.

But the feeling of resemblances is one thing and the idea of cla.s.s is another. The cla.s.s is the external framework of which objects perceived to be similar form, in part, the contents. Now the contents cannot furnish the frame into which they fit. They are made up of _vague and fluctuating_ images, due to the super-imposition and partial fusion of a _determined number of individual images_, which are found to have common elements; the framework, on the contrary, is a _definite form_, with fixed outlines, but which may be applied to an _undetermined number of things_, perceived or not, actual or possible. In fact, every cla.s.s has possibilities of extension which go far beyond the circle of objects which we know, either from direct experience or from resemblance. This is why every school of thinkers has refused, and not with good reason, to identify the idea of cla.s.s with that of a generic image. The generic image is only the indistinctly-bounded residual representation left in us by similar representations, when they are present in consciousness simultaneously; the cla.s.s is a logical symbol by means of which we think distinctly of these similarities and of other a.n.a.logous ones. Moreover, the best proof of the distance separating these two notions is that an animal is able to form generic images though ignorant of the art of thinking in cla.s.ses and species.

The idea of cla.s.s is an instrument of thought which has obviously been constructed by men. But in constructing it, we have at least had need of a model; for how could this idea ever have been born, if there had been nothing either in us or around us which was capable of suggesting it to us? To reply that it was given to us _a priori_ is not to reply at all; this lazy man's solution is, as has been said, the death of a.n.a.lysis.

But it is hard to see where we could have found this indispensable model except in the spectacle of the collective life. In fact, a cla.s.s is not an ideal, but a clearly defined group of things between which internal relationships exist, similar to those of kindred. Now the only groups of this sort known from experience are those formed by men in a.s.sociating themselves. Material things may be able to form collections of units, or heaps, or mechanical a.s.semblages with no internal unity, but not groups in the sense we have given the word. A heap of sand or a pile of rock is in no way comparable to that variety of definite and organized society which forms a cla.s.s. In all probability, we would never have thought of uniting the beings of the universe into h.o.m.ogeneous groups, called cla.s.ses, if we had not had the example of human societies before our eyes, if we had not even commenced by making things themselves members of men's society, and also if human groups and logical groups had not been confused at first.[452]

It is also to be borne in mind that a cla.s.sification is a system whose parts are arranged according to a hierarchy. There are dominating members and others which are subordinate to the first; species and their distinctive properties depend upon cla.s.ses and the attributes which characterize them; again, the different species of a single cla.s.s are conceived as all placed on the same level in regard to each other. Does someone prefer to regard them from the point of view of the understanding? Then he represents things to himself in an inverse order: he puts at the top the species that are the most particularized and the richest in reality, while the types that are most general and the poorest in qualities are at the bottom. Nevertheless, all are represented in a hierarchic form. And we must be careful not to believe that the expression has only a metaphorical sense here: there are really relations of subordination and co-ordination, the establishment of which is the object of all cla.s.sification, and men would never have thought of arranging their knowledge in this way if they had not known beforehand what a hierarchy was. But neither the spectacle of physical nature nor the mechanism of mental a.s.sociations could furnish them with this knowledge. The hierarchy is exclusively a social affair. It is only in society that there are superiors, inferiors and equals. Consequently, even if the facts were not enough to prove it, the mere a.n.a.lysis of these ideas would reveal their origin. We have taken them from society, and projected them into our conceptions of the world. It is society that has furnished the outlines which logical thought has filled in.

III

But these primitive cla.s.sifications have a no less direct interest for the origins of religious thought.