[601] In the conclusion of _Totemism and Exogamy_ (IV, pp. 58-59), Frazer says, it must be admitted, that there is a totemism still more ancient than that of the Arunta: it is the one observed by Rivers in the Banks Islands (_Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia_, in _J.A.I._, XXXIX, p. 172). Among the Arunta it is the spirit of an ancestor who is believed to impregnate the mother; in the Banks Islands, it is the spirit of an animal or vegetable, as the theory supposes. But as the ancestral spirits of the Arunta have an animal or vegetable form, the difference is slight. Therefore we have not mentioned it in our exposition.
[602] _Social Origins_, London, 1903, especially ch. viii, entitled _The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs_, and _The Secret of the Totem_, London, 1905.
[603] In his _Social Origins_ especially, Lang attempts to reconstitute by means of conjecture the form which these primitive groups should have; but it seems superfluous to reproduce these hypotheses, which do not affect his theory of totemism.
[604] On this point, Lang approaches the theory of Julius Pickler (see Pickler and Szomolo, _Der Ursprung des Totemismus. Ein Beitrag zur materialistirchen Geschichtstheorie_, Berlin, 36 pp. in 8vo). The difference between the two hypotheses is that Pickler attributes a higher importance to the pictorial representation of the name than to the name itself.
[609] "With reverence," as Lang says (_The Secret of the Totem_, p. 111).
[610] Lang adds that these taboos are the basis of exogamic practices.
[612] However, we have not spoken of the theory of Spencer. But this is because it is only a part of his general theory of the transformation of the ancestor-cult into the nature-cult. As we have described that already, it is not necessary to repeat it.
[613] Except that Lang ascribes another source to the idea of the great gods: as we have already said, he believes that this is due to a sort of primitive revelation. But Lang does not make use of this idea in his explanation of totemism.
[614] For example, in a Kwakiutl myth, an ancestral hero pierces the head of an enemy by pointing a finger at him (Boas, _Vth Rep. on the North. Tribes of Canada_, _B.A.A.S._, 1889, p. 30).
[615] References supporting this assertion will be found on p. 128, n. 1, and p. 320, n. 1.
[616] See Bk. III, ch. ii.
[617] See, for example, Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 482; Schürmann, _The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, _Nat. Tr. of S. Australia_, p. 231.
[618] Frazer has even taken many facts from Samoa which he presents as really totemic (See _Totemism_, pp. 6, 12-15, 24, etc.). It is true that we have charged Frazer with not being critical enough in the choice of his examples, but so many examples would obviously have been impossible if there had not really been important survivals of totemism in Samoa.
[619] See Turner, _Samoa_, p. 21 and ch. iv and v.
[620] Alice Fletcher, _A Study of the Omaha Tribe_, in _Smithsonian Rep._ for 1897, pp. 582 f.
[623] Riggs and Dorsey, _Dakota-English Dictionary_, in _Contrib. N. Amer. Ethnol._, VII, p. 508. Many observers cited by Dorsey identify the word wakan with the words wakanda and wakanta, which are derived from it, but which really have a more precise signification.
[624] _XIth Rep._, p. 372, § 21. Miss Fletcher, while recognizing no less clearly the impersonal character of the wakanda, adds nevertheless that a certain anthropomorphism has attached to this conception. But this anthropomorphism concerns the various manifestations of the wakanda. Men address the trees or rocks where they think they perceive the wakanda, as if they were personal beings. But the wakanda itself is not personified (_Smithsonian Rep. for 1897_, p. 579).
[638] In certain Melanesian societies (Banks Islands, North New Hebrides) the two exogamic phratries are found which characterize the Australian organization (Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 23 ff.). In Florida, there are regular totems, called _butos_ (_ibid._, p. 31). An interesting discussion of this point will be found in Lang, _Social Origins_, pp. 176 ff. On the same subject, and in the same sense, see W. H. R. Rivers, _Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia_, in _J.A.I._, XXXIX, pp. 156 ff.
[640] An analysis of this idea will be found in Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie Générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, p. 108.
[641] There are not only totems of clans but also of guilds (A. Fletcher, _Smithsonian Rep. for 1897_, pp. 581 ff.).
[643] _Ibid._, p. 583. Among the Dakota, the totem is called Wakan. See Riggs and Dorsey, _Dakota Grammar, Texts and Ethnol._, in _Contributions N. Amer. Ethn._, 1893, p. 219.
[645] We do not mean to say that in principle every representation of religious forces in an animal form is an index of former totemism. But when we are dealing with societies where totemism is still apparent, as is the case with the Dakota, it is quite natural to think that these conceptions are not foreign to it.
[646] See below, same book, ch. ix, § 4, pp. 285 ff.
[647] The first spelling is that of Spencer and Gillen; the second, that of Strehlow.
[648] _Nat. Tr._, p. 548, n. 1. It is true that Spencer and Gillen add: "The idea can be best expressed by saying that an Arungquiltha object is possessed of an evil spirit." But this free translation of Spencer and Gillen is their own unjustified interpretation. The idea of the arungquiltha in no way implies the existence of spiritual beings, as is shown by the context and Strehlow's definition.
[650] Under the name Boyl-ya (see Grey, _Journal of Two Expeditions_, II, pp. 337-338).
[651] See above, p. 42. Spencer and Gillen recognize this implicitly when they say that the arungquiltha is a "supernatural force." Cf. Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie Générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, p. 119.
[654] There is even ground for asking whether an analogous notion is completely lacking in Australia. The word churinga, or tjurunga as Strehlow writes, has a very great similarity, with the Arunta. Spencer and Gillen say that it designates "all that is secret or sacred. It is applied both to the object and to the quality it possesses" (_Nat. Tr._, p. 648, s.v. churinga). This is almost a definition of mana. Sometimes Spencer and Gillen even use this word to designate religious power or force in a general way. While describing a ceremony among the Kaitish, they say that the officiant is "_full of churinga_," that is to say, they continue, of the "magic power emanating from the objects called churinga." Yet it does not seem that the notion of churinga has the same clarity and precision as that of the mana in Melanesia or of the wakan among the Sioux.
[655] Yet we shall see below (this book, ch. viii and ix) that totemism is not foreign to all ideas of a mythical personality. But we shall show that these conceptions are the product of secondary formations: far from being the basis of the beliefs we have just analysed, they are derived from them.
[659] In the expressions such as [Greek: Zeus yei] or _Ceres succiditur_, it is shown that this conception survived in Greece as well as in Rome. In his _Götternamen_, Usener has clearly shown that the primitive gods of Greece and Rome were impersonal forces thought of only in terms of their attributes.
[662] _Ibid._, p. 179. In a more recent work, _The Conception of Mana_ (in _Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions_, II, pp. 54 ff.), Marrett tends to subordinate still further the animistic conception of mana, but his thought on this point remains hesitating and very reserved.
[664] This return of preanimism to naturism is still more marked in Clodd, _Preanimistic Stages of Religion_ (_Trans. Third Inter. Congress for the H. of Rel._, I, p. 33).
[665] _Théorie générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, pp. 108 ff.
[668] He clearly opposes them to all influences of a profane nature (_Globus_, LXXXVI, p. 379a).
[669] It is found even in the recent theories of Frazer. For if this scholar denies to totemism all religious character, in order to make it a sort of magic, it is just because the forces which the totemic cult puts into play are impersonal like those employed by the magician. So Frazer recognizes the fundamental fact which we have just established. But he draws different conclusions because he recognizes religion only where there are mythical personalities.
[670] However, we do not take this word in the same sense as Preuss and Marrett. According to them, there was a time in religious evolution when men knew neither souls nor spirits: a _preanimistic_ phase. But this hypothesis is very questionable: we shall discuss this point below (Bk. II, ch. viii and ix).
[671] On this same question, see an article of Alessandro Bruno, _Sui fenomeni magico-religiosi della communità primitive_, in _Rivista italiana di Sociologia_, XII Year, Fasc. IV-V, pp. 568 ff., and an unpublished communication made by W. Bogoras to the XIV Congress of the Americanists, held at Stuttgart in 1904. This communication is analysed by Preuss in the _Globus_, LXXXVI, p. 201.
[672] "All things," says Miss Fletcher, "are filled with a common principle of life," _Smiths. Rep. for 1897_, p. 579.
[677] Pickler, in the little work above mentioned, had already expressed, in a slightly dialectical manner, the sentiment that this is what the totem essentially is.
[678] See our _Division du travail social_, 3rd ed., pp. 64 ff.
[680] This is the case at least with all moral authority recognized as such by the group as a whole.
[681] We hope that this analysis and those which follow will put an end to an inexact interpretation of our thought, from which more than one misunderstanding has resulted. Since we have made constraint the _outward sign_ by which social facts can be the most easily recognized and distinguished from the facts of individual psychology, it has been assumed that according to our opinion, physical constraint is the essential thing for social life. As a matter of fact, we have never considered it more than the material and apparent expression of an interior and profound fact which is wholly ideal: this is _moral authority_. The problem of sociology--if we can speak of _a_ sociological problem--consists in seeking, among the different forms of external constraint, the different sorts of moral authority corresponding to them and in discovering the causes which have determined these latter. The particular question which we are treating in this present work has as its principal object, the discovery of the form under which that particular variety of moral authority which is inherent in all that is religious has been born, and out of what elements it is made. It will be seen presently that even if we do make social pressure one of the distinctive characteristics of sociological phenomena, we do not mean to say that it is the only one. We shall show another aspect of the collective life, nearly opposite to the preceding one, but none the less real (see p. 212).
[682] Of course this does not mean to say that the collective consciousness does not have distinctive characteristics of its own (on this point, see _Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives_, in _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1898, pp. 273 ff.).
[683] This is proved by the length and passionate character of the debates where a legal form was given to the resolutions made in a moment of collective enthusiasm. In the clergy as in the nobility, more than one person called this celebrated night the dupe's night, or, with Rivarol, the St. Bartholomew of the estates (see Stoll, _Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Völkerpsychologie_, 2nd ed., p. 618, n. 2).
[684] See Stoll, _op. cit._, pp. 353 ff.
[687] The emotions of fear and sorrow are able to develop similarly and to become intensified under these same conditions. As we shall see, they correspond to quite another aspect of the religious life (Bk. III, ch. v).
[688] This is the other aspect of society which, while being imperative, appears at the same time to be good and gracious. It dominates us and assists us. If we have defined the social fact by the first of these characteristics rather than the second, it is because it is more readily observable, for it is translated into outward and visible signs; but we have never thought of denying the second (see our _Règles de la Méthode Sociologique_, preface to the second edition, p. xx, n. 1).
[689] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 50, 103, 120. It is also generally thought that in the Polynesian languages, the word _mana_ primitively had the sense of authority (see Tregear, _Maori Comparative Dictionary_, s.v.).
[690] See Albert Mathiez, _Les origines des cultes révolutionnaires_ (1789-1792).
[695] See Mathiez, _La Théophilanthropie et la Culte décadaire_, p. 36.
[697] There are even ceremonies, for example, those which take place in connection with the initiation, to which members of foreign tribes are invited. A whole system of messages and messengers is organized for these convocations, without which the great solemnities could not take place (see Howitt, _Notes on Australian Message-Sticks and Messengers_, in _J.A.I._, 1889; _Nat. Tr._, pp. 83, 678-691; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 159; _Nor. Tr._, p. 551).
[698] The corrobbori is distinguished from the real religious ceremonies by the fact that it is open to women and uninitiated persons. But if these two sorts of collective manifestations are to be distinguished, they are, none the less, closely related. We shall have occasion elsewhere to come back to this relationship and to explain it.
[699] Except, of course, in the case of the great bush-beating hunts.
[700] "The peaceful monotony of this part of his life," say Spencer and Gillen (_Nor. Tr._, p. 33).
[701] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 683. He is speaking of the demonstrations which take place when an ambassador sent to a group of foreigners returns to camp with news of a favourable result. Cf. Brough Smyth, I, p. 138; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 222.
[702] See Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 96 f.; _Nor. Tr._, p. 137; Brough Smyth, II, p. 319.--This ritual promiscuity is found especially in the initiation ceremonies (Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 267, 381; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 657), and in the totemic ceremonies (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 214, 298, 237). In these latter, the ordinary exogamic rules are violated. Sometimes among the Arunta, unions between father and daughter, mother and son, and brothers and sisters (that is in every case, relationship by blood) remain forbidden (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 96 f.).
[703] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 535, 545. This is extremely common.
[704] These women were Kingilli themselves, so these unions violated the exogamic rules.
[706] _Nor. Tr._, p. 391. Other examples of this collective effervescence during the religious ceremonies will be found in _Nat. Tr._, pp. 244-246, 365-366, 374, 509-510 (this latter in connection with a funeral rite). Cf. _Nor. Tr._, pp. 213, 351.
[707] Thus we see that this fraternity is the logical consequence of totemism, rather than its basis. Men have not imagined their duties towards the animals of the totemic species because they regarded them as kindred, but have imagined the kinship to explain the nature of the beliefs and rites of which they were the object. The animal was considered a relative of the man because it was a sacred being like the man, but it was not treated as a sacred being because it was regarded as a relative.
[708] See below, Bk. III, ch i, § 3.
[709] At the bottom of this conception there is a well-founded and persistent sentiment. Modern science also tends more and more to admit that the duality of man and nature does not exclude their unity, and that physical and moral forces, though distinct, are closely related. We undoubtedly have a different conception of this unity and relationship than the primitive, but beneath these different symbols, the truth affirmed by the two is the same.
[710] We say that this derivation is sometimes indirect on account of the industrial methods which, in a large number of cases, seem to be derived from religion through the intermediacy of magic (see Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie générale de la Magie_, _Année Sociol._, VII, pp. 144 ff.); for, as we believe, magic forces are only a special form of religious forces. We shall have occasion to return to this point several times.
[711] At least after he is once adult and fully initiated, for the initiation rites, introducing the young man to the social life, are a severe discipline in themselves.
[712] Upon this particular aspect of primitive societies, see our _Division du travail social_, 3rd ed., pp. 123, 149, 173 ff.
[713] We provisionally limit ourselves to this general indication: we shall return to this idea and give more explicit proof, when we speak of the rites (Bk. III).
[714] On this point, see Achelis, _Die Ekstase_, Berlin, 1902, especially ch. i.
[715] Cf. Mauss, _Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés eskimos_, in _Année Sociol._, IX, p. 127.
[716] Thus we see how erroneous those theories are which, like the geographical materialism of Ratzel (see especially his _Politische Geographie_), seek to derive all social life from its material foundation (either economic or territorial). They commit an error precisely similar to the one committed by Maudsley in individual psychology. Just as this latter reduced all the psychical life of the individual to a mere epiphenomenon of his physiological basis, they seek to reduce the whole psychical life of the group to its physical basis. But they forget that ideas are realities and forces, and that collective representations are forces even more powerful and active than individual representations. On this point, see our _Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives_, in the _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, May, 1898.
[717] See above, pp. 188 and 194.
[718] Even the _excreta_ have a religious character. See Preuss, _Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst_, especially ch. ii, entitled _Der Zauber der Defäkation_ (_Globus_, LXXXVI, pp. 325 ff.).
[719] This principle has passed from religion into magic: it is the _totem ex parte_ of the alchemists.
[720] On this point see _Règles de la méthode sociologique_, pp. 5 ff.
[721] Procopius of Gaza, _Commentarii in Isaiam_, 496.
[722] See Thévenot, _Voyage au Levant_, Paris, 1689, p. 638. The fact was still round in 1862.
[727] For the authority of the chiefs, see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 10; _Nor. Tr._, p. 25; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 295 ff.
[728] At least in Australia. In America, the population is more generally sedentary; but the American clan represents a relatively advanced form of organization.
[729] To make sure of this, it is sufficient to look at the chart arranged by Thomas, _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, p. 40. To appreciate this chart properly, it should be remembered that the author has extended, for a reason unknown to us, the system of totemic filiation in the paternal line clear to the western coast of Australia, though we have almost no information about the tribes of this region, which is, moreover, largely a desert.
[730] The stars are often regarded, even by the Australians, as the land of souls and mythical personages, as will be established in the next chapter: that means that they pass as being a very different world from that of the living.
[732] Of course it is to be understood that, as we have already pointed out (see above, p. 155), this choice was not made without a more or less formal agreement between the groups that each should take a different emblem from its neighbours.
[733] The mental state studied in this paragraph is identical to the one called by Lévy-Bruhl the law of participation (_Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures_, pp. 76 ff.). The following pages were written when this work appeared and we publish them without change; we confine ourselves to adding certain explanations showing in what we differ from M. Lévy-Bruhl in our understanding of the facts.
[735] Another cause has contributed much to this fusion; this is the extreme contagiousness of religious forces. They seize upon every object within their reach, whatever it may be. Thus a single religious force may animate the most diverse things which, by that very fact, become closely connected and classified within a single group. We shall return again to this contagiousness, when we shall show that it comes from the social origins of the idea of sacredness (Bk. III, ch. i, _in fine_).
[739] This is the case with the Gnanji; see _Nor. Tr._, pp. 170, 546; cf. a similar case in Brough Smyth, II, p. 269.
[741] There certainly was a time when the Gnanji women had souls, for a large number of women's souls still exist to-day. However, they never reincarnate themselves; since in this tribe the soul animating a new-born child is an old reincarnated soul, it follows from the fact that women's souls do not reincarnate themselves, that women cannot have a soul. Moreover, it is possible to explain whence this absence of reincarnation comes. Filiation among the Gnanji, after having been uterine, is now in the paternal line: a mother no longer transmits her totem to her child. So the woman no longer has any descendants to perpetuate her; she is the _finis familiæ suæ_. To explain this situation, there are only two possible hypotheses; either women have no souls, or else they are destroyed after death. The Gnanji have adopted the former of these two explanations; certain peoples of Queensland have preferred the latter (see Roth, _Superstition, Magic and Medicine_, in _N. Queensland Ethnog._, No. 5, § 68).
[742] "The children below four or five years of age have neither soul nor future life," says Dawson. But the fact he thus relates is merely the absence of funeral rites for young children. We shall see the real meaning of this below.
[745] This is the expression used by Dawson, p. 50.
[746] Strehlow, I, p. 15, n. 1; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 246; this is the theme of the myth of the vampire.
[747] Strehlow, I, p. 15; Schulze, p. 244; Dawson, p. 51. It is true that it is sometimes said that souls have nothing corporeal; according to certain testimony collected by Eylmann (p. 188), they are _ohne Fleisch und Blut_. But these radical negations leave us sceptical. The fact that offerings are not made to the souls of the dead in no way implies, as Roth thinks (_Superstition, Magic_, etc., § 65), that they do not eat.
[751] Schürmann, _Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235.
[755] Frazer, _On Certain Burial Customs, as Illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul_, in _J.A.I._, XV, p. 66.
[756] This is the case with the Kaitish and the Unmatjera; see _Nor. Tr._, p. 506; and _Nat. Tr._, p. 512.
[758] Roth, _ibid._, § 68; this says that when someone faints after a loss of blood, it is because the soul is gone. Cf. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 38.
[760] Strehlow, I, pp. 12, 14. In these passages he speaks of evil spirits which kill little children and eat their souls, livers and fat, or else their souls, livers and kidneys. The fact that the soul is thus put on the same plane as the different viscera and tissues and is made a food like them shows the close connection it has with them. Cf. Schulze, p. 245.
[761] For example, among the peoples on the Pennefather River (Roth, _ibid._, § 68), there is a name for the soul residing in the heart (_Ngai_), another for the one in the placenta (_Cho-i_), and a third for the one which is confounded with the breath (_Wanji_). Among the Euahlayi, there are three or even four souls (Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 35).
[762] See the description of the _Urpmilchima_ rite among the Arunta (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 503 ff.).
[763] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 497 and 508.
[766] Meyer, _The Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, p. 198.
[769] Among the Arunta and Loritja, for example (Strehlow, I, p. 15, n. 2; II, p. 77). During life, the soul is called _gumna_, and _ltana_ after death. The _ltana_ of Strehlow is identical with the _ulthana_ of Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 514 ff.). The same is true of the tribes on the Bloomfield River (Roth, _Superstition_, etc., §66).
[773] Mathews, _Ethnol. Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journal and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 287.
[774] Strehlow, I, pp. 15 ff. Thus, according to Strehlow, the dead live in an island in the Arunta theory, but according to Spencer and Gillen, in a subterranean place. It is probable that the two myths coexist and are not the only ones. We shall see that even a third has been found. On this conception of an island of the dead, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498; Schürmann, _Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235; Eylmann, p. 189.
[777] In these same tribes evident traces of a more ancient myth will be found, according to which the dead live in a subterranean place (Dawson, _ibid._).
[781] These are the spirits of the ancestors of a special clan, the clan of a certain poisonous gland (_Giftdrüsenmänner_).
[782] Sometimes the work of the missionaries is evident. Dawson speaks of a real hell opposed to paradise; but he too tends to regard this as a European importation.
[783] Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, pp. 419-420, 422, 485. Cf. Marillier, _La survivance de l'âme et l'idée de justice chez les peuples non-civilisés_, _Rapport de l'Ecole des Hautes Études_, 1893.
[784] They may be doubled temporarily, as we shall see in the next chapter: but these duplications add nothing to the number of the souls capable of reincarnation.
[787] On this set of conceptions, see _Nat. Tr._, pp. 119, 123-127, 387 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 145-174. Among the Gnanji, it is not necessarily near the oknanikilla that the conception takes place. But they believe that each couple is accompanied in its wanderings over the continent by a swarm of souls of the husband's totem. When the time comes, one of these souls enters the body of the wife and fertilizes it, wherever she may be (_Nor. Tr._, p. 169).
[791] This is the case among the Warramunga and the related tribes, the Walpari, Wulmala, Worgaia, Tjingilli (_Nor. Tr._, p. 161), and also the Umbaia and the Gnanji (_ibid._, p. 170).
[792] Strehlow, I, pp. 15-16. For the Loritja, see Strehlow, p. 7.
[793] Strehlow even goes so far as to say that sexual relations are not even thought to be a necessary condition or sort of preparation for conception (II, p. 52, n. 7). It is true that he adds a few lines below that the old men know perfectly well the connection which unites sexual intercourse and generation, and that as far as animals are concerned, the children themselves know it. This lessens the value of his first assertion a little.
[794] In general, we employ the terminology of Spencer and Gillen rather than that of Strehlow because it is now consecrated by long usage.
[796] I, p. 5. _Ngarra_ means eternal, according to Strehlow. Among the Loritja, only rocks fulfil this function.
[797] Strehlow translates it by _Kinderkeime_ (children-germs). It is not true that Spencer and Gillen have ignored the myth of the _ratapa_ and the customs connected with it. They explicitly mention it in _Nat. Tr._, pp. 336 ff. and 552. They noticed, at different points of the Arunta territory, the existence of rocks called _Erathipa_ from which the _spirit children_, or the children's souls, disengage themselves, to enter the bodies of women and fertilize them. According to Spencer and Gillen, _Erathipa_ means child, though, as they add, it is rarely used in this sense in ordinary conversation (_ibid._, p. 338).
[798] The Arunta are divided into four or eight matrimonial classes. The class of a child is determined by that of his father; inversely, that of the latter may be deduced from the former (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 70 ff.; Strehlow, I, pp. 6 ff.). It remains to be seen how the ratapa has a matrimonial class; we shall return to this point again.
[799] Strehlow, II, p. 52. It happens sometimes, though rarely, that disputes arise over the nature of the child's totem. Strehlow cites such a case (II, p. 53).
[800] This is the same word as the _namatwinna_ found in Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, p. 541).
[803] Mathews attributes a similar theory of conception to the Tjingilli (_alias_ Chingalee) (_Proc. Roy. Geogr. Trans. and Soc. Queensland_, XXII (1907), pp. 75-76).
[804] It sometimes happens that the ancestor who is believed to have thrown the namatuna shows himself to the woman in the form of an animal or a man; this is one more proof of the affinity of the ancestral soul for a material form.
[806] This results from the fact that the ratapa can incarnate itself only in the body of a woman belonging to the same matrimonial class as the mother of the mythical ancestor. So we cannot understand how Strehlow could say (I, p. 42, _Anmerkung_) that, except in one case, the myths do not attribute determined matrimonial classes to the Alcheringa ancestors. His own theory of conception proves the contrary (cf. II, pp. 53 ff.).
[808] The difference between the two versions becomes still smaller and is reduced to almost nothing, if we observe that, when Spencer and Gillen tell us that the ancestral soul is incarnated in the woman, the expressions they use are not to be taken literally. It is not the whole soul which comes to fertilize the mother, but only an emanation from this soul. In fact, according to their own statement, a soul equal or even superior in power to the one that is incarnated continues to live in the nanja tree or rock (see _Nat. Tr._, p. 514); we shall have occasion to come back to this point again (cf. below, p. 275).
[809] II, pp. 76, 81. According to Spencer and Gillen, the churinga is not the soul of the ancestor, but the object in which his soul resides. At bottom, these two mythological interpretations are identical, and it is easy to see how one has been able to pass into the other: the body is the place where the soul resides.
[811] Strehlow, I, pp. 53 f. In these stories, the ancestor begins by introducing himself into the body of the woman and causing there the troubles characteristic of pregnancy. Then he goes out, and only then does he leave his namatuna.
[813] _Ibid._, p. 81. This is the word for word translation of the terms employed, as Strehlow gives them: _Dies du Körper bist; dies du der nämliche._ In the myth, a civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, says as he presents to each man the churinga of his ancestor: "You are born of this churinga" (_ibid._, p. 76).
[816] At bottom, the only real difference between Strehlow and Spencer and Gillen is the following one. For these latter, the soul of the individual, after death, returns to the nanja tree, where it is again confounded with the ancestor's soul (_Nat. Tr._, p. 513); for Strehlow, it goes to the isle of the dead, where it is finally annihilated. In neither myth does it survive individually. We are not going to seek the cause of this divergence. It is possible that there has been an error of observation on the part of Spencer and Gillen, who do not speak of the isle of the dead. It is also possible that the myth is not the same among the eastern Arunta, whom Spencer and Gillen observed particularly, as in the other parts of the tribe.