Among the Arunta and the neighbouring tribes, there are two other liturgical instruments closely connected with the totem and the churinga itself, which ordinarily enters into their composition: they are the _nurtunja_ and the _waninga_.
The nurtunja,[342] which is found among the northern Arunta and their immediate neighbours,[343] is made up principally of a vertical support which is either a single lance, or several lances united into a bundle, or of a simple pole.[344] Bunches of grass are fastened all around it by means of belts or little cords made of hair. Above this, down is placed, arranged either in circles or in parallel lines which run from the top to the bottom of the support. The top is decorated with the plumes of an eagle-hawk. This is only the most general and typical form; in particular cases, it has all sorts of variations.[345] The waninga, which is found only among the southern Arunta, the Urabunna and the Loritja, has no one unique model either. Reduced to its most essential elements, it too consists in a vertical support, formed by a long stick or by a lance several yards high, with sometimes one and sometimes two cross-pieces.[346] In the former case, it has the appearance of a cross. Cords made either of human hair or opossum or bandicoot fur diagonally cross the space included between the arms of the cross and the extremities of the central axis; as they are quite close to each other, they form a network in the form of a lozenge. When there are two cross-bars, these cords go from one to the other and from these to the top and bottom of the support. They are sometimes covered with a layer of down, thick enough to conceal the foundation. Thus the waninga has the appearance of a veritable flag.[347] Now the nurtunja and the waninga, which figure in a multitude of important rites, are the object of a religious respect quite like that inspired by the churinga. The process of their manufacture and erection is conducted with the greatest solemnity. Fixed in the earth, or carried by an officiant, they mark the central point of the ceremony: it is about them that the dances take place and the rites are performed. In the course of the initiation, the novice is led to the foot of a nurtunja erected for the occasion. Someone says to him, "There is the nurtunja of your father; many young men have already been made by it." After that, the initiate must kiss the nurtunja.[348] By this kiss, he enters into relations with the religious principle which resides there; it is a veritable communion which should give the young man the force required to support the terrible operation of sub-incision.[349] The nurtunja also plays a considerable rôle in the mythology of these societies. The myths relate that in the fabulous times of the great ancestors, the territory of the tribe was overrun in every direction by companies composed exclusively of individuals of the same totem.[350] Each of these troops had a nurtunja with it. When it stopped to camp, before scattering to hunt, the members fixed their nurtunja in the ground, from the top of which their churinga was suspended.[351] That is equivalent to saying that they confided the most precious things they had to it. It was at the same time a sort of standard which served as a rallying-centre for the group. One cannot fail to be struck by the analogies between the nurtunja and the sacred post of the Omaha.[352] Now its sacred character can come from only one cause: that is that it represents the totem materially. The vertical lines or rings of down which cover it, and even the cords of different colours which fasten the arms of the waninga to the central axis, are not arranged arbitrarily, according to the taste of the makers; they must conform to a type strictly determined by tradition which, in the minds of the natives, represents the totem.[353] Here we cannot ask, as we did in the case of the churinga, whether the veneration accorded to this instrument of the cult is not merely the reflex of that inspired by the ancestors; for it is a rule that each nurtunja and each waninga last only during the ceremony where they are used. They are made all over again every time that it is necessary, and when the rite is once accomplished, they are stripped of their ornaments and the elements out of which they are made are scattered.[354] They are nothing more than images--and temporary images at that--of the totem, and consequently it is on this ground, and on this ground alone, that they play a religious rôle.
So the churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga owe their religious nature solely to the fact that they bear the totemic emblem. It is the emblem that is sacred. It keeps this character, no matter where it may be represented. Sometimes it is painted upon rocks; these paintings are called _churinga ilkinia_, sacred drawings.[355] The decorations with which the officiants and assistants at the religious ceremonies adorn themselves have the same name: women and children may not see them.[356] In the course of certain rites, the totem is drawn upon the ground. The way in which this is done bears witness to the sentiments inspired by this design, and the high value attributed to it; it is traced upon a place that has been previously sprinkled, and saturated with human blood,[357] and we shall presently see that the blood is in itself a sacred liquid, serving for pious uses only. When the design has been made, the faithful remain seated on the ground before it, in an attitude of the purest devotion.[358] If we give the word a sense corresponding to the mentality of the primitive, we may say that they adore it. This enables us to understand how the totemic blazon has remained something very precious for the Indians of North America: it is always surrounded with a sort of religious halo.
But if we are seeking to understand how it comes that these totemic representations are so sacred, it is not without interest to see what they consist in.
Among the Indians of North America, they are painted, engraved or carved images which attempt to reproduce as faithfully as possible the external aspect of the totemic animal. The means employed are those which we use to-day in similar circumstances, except that they are generally cruder. But it is not the same in Australia, and it is in the Australian societies that we must seek the origin of these representations. Although the Australian may show himself sufficiently capable of imitating the forms of things in a rudimentary way,[359] sacred representations generally seem to show no ambitions in this line: they consist essentially in geometrical designs drawn upon the churinga, the nurtunga, rocks, the ground, or the human body. They are either straight or curved lines, painted in different ways,[360] and the whole having only a conventional meaning. The connection between the figure and the thing represented is so remote and indirect that it cannot be seen, except when it is pointed out. Only the members of the clan can say what meaning is attached to such and such combinations of lines.[361] Men and women are generally represented by semicircles, and animals by whole circles or spirals,[362] the tracks of men or animals by lines of points, etc. The meaning of the figures thus obtained is so arbitrary that a single design may have two different meanings for the men of two different totems, representing one animal here, and another animal or plant there. This is perhaps still more apparent with the nurtunja and waninga. Each of them represents a different totem. But the few and simple elements which enter into their composition do not allow a great variety of combinations. The result is that two nurtunja may have exactly the same appearance, and yet express two things as different as a gum tree and an emu.[363] When a nurtunja is made, it is given a meaning which it keeps during the whole ceremony, but which, in the last resort, is fixed by convention.
These facts prove that if the Australian is so strongly inclined to represent his totem, it is in order not to have a portrait of it before his eyes which would constantly renew the sensation of it; it is merely because he feels the need of representing the idea which he forms of it by means of material and external signs, no matter what these signs may be. We are not yet ready to attempt to understand what has thus caused the primitive to write his idea of his totem upon his person and upon different objects, but it is important to state at once the nature of the need which has given rise to these numerous representations.[364] CHAPTER II TOTEMIC BELIEFS--_continued_ _The Totemic Animal and Man_ But totemic images are not the only sacred things. There are real things which are also the object of rites, because of the relations which they have with the totem: before all others, are the beings of the totemic species and the members of the clan.
I First of all, since the designs which represent the totem arouse religious sentiments, it is natural that the things whose aspect these designs reproduce should have this same property, at least to a certain degree.
For the most part, these are animals or plants. The profane function of vegetables and even of animals is ordinarily to serve as food; then the sacred character of the totemic animal or plant is shown by the fact that it is forbidden to eat them. It is true that since they are sacred things, they can enter into the composition of certain mystical repasts, and we shall see, in fact, that they sometimes serve as veritable sacraments; yet normally they cannot be used for everyday consumption. Whoever oversteps this rule, exposes himself to grave dangers. It is not that the group always intervenes to punish this infraction artificially; it is believed that the sacrilege produces death automatically. A redoubtable principle is held to reside in the totemic plant or animal, which cannot enter into the profane organism without disorganizing it or destroying it.[365] In certain tribes at least, only the old men are free from this prohibition;[366] we shall see the reason for this later.
However, if this prohibition is formal in a large number of tribes[367]--with certain exceptions which will be mentioned later--it is incontestable that it tends to weaken as the old totemic organization is disturbed. But the restrictions which remain even then prove that these attenuations are not admitted without difficulty. For example, when it is permitted to eat the plant or animal that serves as totem, it is not possible to do so freely; only a little bit may be taken at a time. To go beyond this amount is a ritual fault that has grave consequences.[368] Elsewhere, the prohibition remains intact for the parts that are regarded as the most precious, that is to say, as the most sacred; for example, the eggs or the fat.[369] In still other parts, consumption is not allowed except when the animal in question has not yet reached full maturity.[370] In this case, they undoubtedly think that its sacred character is not yet complete. So the barrier which isolates and protects the totemic being yields but slowly and with active resistance, which bears witness to what it must have been at first.
It is true that according to Spencer and Gillen these restrictions are not the remnants of what was once a rigorous prohibition now losing hold, but the beginnings of an interdiction which is only commencing to establish itself. These writers hold[371] that at first there was a complete liberty of consumption and that the limitations which were presently brought are relatively recent. They think they find the proof of their theory in the two following facts. In the first place, as we just said, there are solemn occasions when the members of the clan or their chief not only may, but must eat the totemic animal or plant. Moreover, the myths relate that the great ancestors, the founders of the clans, ate their totems regularly: now, it is said, these stories cannot be understood except as an echo of a time when the present prohibitions did not exist.
But the fact that in the course of certain solemn ceremonies a consumption of the totem, and a moderate one at that, is ritually required in no way implies that it was once an ordinary article of food. Quite on the contrary, the food that one eats at a mystical repast is essentially sacred, and consequently forbidden to the profane. As for the myths, a somewhat summary critical method is employed, if they are so readily given the value of historical documents. In general, their object is to interpret existing rites rather than to commemorate past events; they are an explanation of the present much more than a history. In this case, the traditions according to which the ancestors of the fabulous epoch ate their totem are in perfect accord with the beliefs and rites which are always in force. The old men and those who have attained a high religious dignity are freed from the restrictions under which ordinary men are placed:[372] they can eat the sacred thing because they are sacred themselves; this rule is in no way peculiar to totemism, but it is found in all the most diverse religions. Now the ancestral heroes were nearly gods. It is therefore still more natural that they should eat the sacred food;[373] but that is no reason why the same privilege should be awarded to the simple profane.[374] However, it is neither certain nor even probable that the prohibition was ever absolute. It seems to have always been suspended in case of necessity, as, for example, when a man is famished and has nothing else with which to nourish himself.[375] A stronger reason for this is found when the totem is a form of nourishment which a man cannot do without. Thus there are a great many tribes where water is a totem; a strict prohibition is manifestly impossible in this case. However, even here, the privilege granted is submitted to certain restrictions which greatly limit its use and which show clearly that it goes against a recognized principle. Among the Kaitish and the Warramunga, a man of this totem is not allowed to drink water freely; he may not take it up himself; he may receive it only from the hands of a third party who must belong to the phratry of which he is not a member.[376] The complexity of this procedure and the embarrassment which results from it are still another proof that access to the sacred thing is not free. This same rule is applied in certain central tribes every time that the totem is eaten, whether from necessity or any other cause. It should also be added that when this formality is not possible, that is, when a man is alone or with members of his own phratry only, he may, on necessity, do without an intermediary. It is clear that the prohibition is susceptible of various moderations.
Nevertheless, it rests upon ideas so strongly ingrained in the mind that it frequently survives its original cause for being. We have seen that in all probability, the different clans of a phratry are only subdivisions of one original clan which has been dismembered. So there was a time when all the clans, being welded together, had the same totem; consequently, wherever the souvenir of this common origin is not completely effaced, each clan continues to feel itself united to the others and to consider that their totems are not completely foreign to it. For this reason an individual may not eat freely of the totems held by the different clans of the phratry of which he is a member; he may touch them only if the forbidden plant or animal is given him by a member of the other phratry.[377] Another survival of the same sort is the one concerning the maternal totem. There are strong reasons for believing that at first, the totem was transmitted in the uterine line. Therefore, wherever descent in the paternal line has been introduced, this probably took place only after a long period, during which the opposite principle was applied and the child had the totem of his mother along with all the restrictions attached to it. Now in certain tribes where the child inherits the paternal totem to-day, some of the interdictions which originally protected the totem of his mother still survive: he cannot eat it freely.[378] In the present state of affairs, however, there is no longer anything corresponding to this prohibition.
To this prohibition of eating is frequently added that of killing the totem, or picking it, when it is a plant.[379] However, here also there are exceptions and tolerations. These are especially in the case of necessity, when the totem is a dangerous animal,[380] for example, or when the man has nothing to eat. There are even tribes where men are forbidden to hunt the animals whose names they bear, on their own accounts, but where they may kill them for others.[381] But the way in which this act is generally accomplished clearly indicates that it is something illicit. One excuses himself as though for a fault, and bears witness to the chagrin which he suffers and the repugnance which he feels,[382] while precautions are taken that the animal may suffer as little as possible.[383] In addition to these fundamental interdictions, certain cases of a prohibition of contact between a man and his totem are cited. Thus among the Omaha, in the clan of the Elk, no one may touch any part of the body of a male elk; in the sub-clan of the Buffalo, no one is allowed to touch the head of this animal.[384] Among the Bechuana, no man dares to clothe himself in the skin of his totem.[385] But these cases are rare; and it is natural that they should be exceptional, for normally a man must wear the image of his totem or something which brings it to mind. The tattooings and the totemic costumes would not be possible if all contact were forbidden. It has also been remarked that this prohibition has not been found in Australia, but only in those societies where totemism has advanced far from its original form; it is therefore probably of late origin and due perhaps to the influence of ideas that are really not totemic at all.[386] If we now compare these various interdictions with those whose object is the totemic emblem, contrarily to all that could be foreseen, it appears that these latter are more numerous, stricter, and more severely enforced than the former. The figures of all sorts which represent the totem are surrounded with a respect sensibly superior to that inspired by the very being whose form these figures reproduce. The churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga can never be handled by the women or the uninitiated, who are even allowed to catch glimpses of it only very exceptionally, and from a respectful distance. On the other hand, the plant or animal whose name the clan bears may be seen and touched by everybody. The churinga are preserved in a sort of temple, upon whose threshold all noises from the profane life must cease; it is the domain of sacred things. On the contrary, the totemic animals and plants live in the profane world and are mixed up with the common everyday life. Since the number and importance of the interdictions which isolate a sacred thing, and keep it apart, correspond to the degree of sacredness with which it is invested, we arrive at the remarkable conclusion that _the images of totemic beings are more sacred than the beings themselves_. Also, in the ceremonies of the cult, it is the churinga and the nurtunja which have the most important place; the animal appears there only very exceptionally. In a certain rite, of which we shall have occasion to speak,[387] it serves as the substance for a religious repast, but it plays no active rôle. The Arunta dance around the nurtunja, and assemble before the image of their totem to adore it, but a similar demonstration is never made before the totemic being itself. If this latter were the primarily sacred object, it would be with it, the sacred animal or plant, that the young initiate would communicate when he is introduced into the religious life; but we have seen that on the contrary, the most solemn moment of the initiation is the one when the novice enters into the sanctuary of the churinga. It is with them and the nurtunja that he communicates. The representations of the totem are therefore more actively powerful than the totem itself.
II We must now determine the place of man in the scheme of religious things.
By the force of a whole group of acquired habits and of language itself, we are inclined to consider the common man, the simple believer, as an essentially profane being. It may well happen that this conception is not literally true for any religion;[388] in any case, it is not applicable to totemism. Every member of the clan is invested with a sacred character which is not materially inferior to that which we just observed in the animal. This personal sacredness is due to the fact that the man believes that while he is a man in the usual sense of the word, he is also an animal or plant of the totemic species.
In fact, he bears its name; this identity of name is therefore supposed to imply an identity of nature. The first is not merely considered as an outward sign of the second; it supposes it logically. This is because the name, for a primitive, is not merely a word or a combination of sounds; it is a part of the being, and even something essential to it. A member of the Kangaroo clan calls himself a kangaroo; he is therefore, in one sense, an animal of this species. "The totem of any man," say Spencer and Gillen, "is regarded as the same thing as himself; a native once said to us when we were discussing the matter with him, 'That one,' pointing to his photograph which we had taken, 'is the same thing as me: so is a kangaroo' (his totem)."[389] So each individual has a double nature: two beings coexist within him, a man and an animal.
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 mass, his members separated from each other, his mouth opened and his nostrils pierced.[395] Analogous 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 participate in the nature of the animal, though this participation 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 passers-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 assembly, 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.