single case of a taboo imposed by women); it is at its maximum with the chiefs and old men, who use it to monopolize whatever things they find it convenient to (Roth, _ibid._, p. 77). Thus the religious interdict becomes a right of property and an administrative rule.
[1046] See below, this book, ch. ii.
[1049] See Hubert and Mauss, _Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, pp. 22 ff.
[1050] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 560, 657, 659, 661. Even the shadow of a woman must not fall upon him (_ibid._, p. 633). Whatever he has touched must not be touched by a woman (_ibid._, p. 621).
[1052] The word Jeraeil, for example, among the Kurnai, or Kuringal among the Yuin and Wolgal (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 518, 617).
[1066] One may compare these ascetic practices with those used at the initiation of a magician. Just like the young neophyte, the apprentice magician is submitted to a multitude of interdictions, the observation of which contributes to his acquisition of his specific powers (see _L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques_, in Hubert and Mauss, _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, pp. 171, 173, 176). The same is true for the husband and wife on the day before and the day after the wedding (taboos of the betrothed and newly married); this is because marriage also implies a grave change of condition. We limit ourselves to mentioning these facts summarily, without stopping over them; for the first concern magic, which is not our subject, and the second have to do with that system of juridico-religious rules which relates to the commerce of the sexes, the study of which will be possible only in conjunction with the other precepts of primitive conjugal morality.
[1067] It is true that Preuss interprets these facts by saying that suffering is a way of increasing a man's magic force (_die menschliche Zauberkraft_); from this expression, one might believe that suffering is a magic rite, not a religious one. But as we have already pointed out, Preuss gives the name magic, without great precision, to all anonymous and impersonal forces, whether they belong to magic or religion. Of course, there are tortures which are used to make magicians; but many of those which we have described are a part of the real religious ceremonies, and, consequently, it is the religious state of the individuals which they modify.
[1068] Preuss, _Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst_, in _Globus_, LXXXVIII, pp. 309-400. Under this same rubric Preuss classes a great number of incongruous rites, for example, effusions of blood which act in virtue of the positive qualities attributed to blood and not because of the suffering which they imply. We retain only those in which suffering is an essential element of the rite and the cause of its efficacy.
[1070] _Ibid._, p. 335. A similar practice will be found among the Dieri (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 658 ff.).
[1071] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 214 ff.--From this example we see that the rites of initiation sometimes have all the characteristics of hazing. In fact, hazing is a real social institution which arises spontaneously every time that two groups, inequal in their moral and social situation, come into intimate contact. In this case, the one considering itself superior to the other resists the intrusion of the new-comers; it reacts against them is such a way as to make them aware of the superiority it feels. This reaction, which is produced automatically and which takes the form of more or less grave cruelties quite naturally, is also destined to shape the individuals for their new existence and assimilate them into their new environment. So it is a sort of initiation. Thus it is explained how the initiation, on its side, takes the form of hazing. It is because the group of old men is superior in religious and moral dignity to that of the young men, and yet the first must assimilate the second. So all the conditions for hazing are given.
[1077] Among the Warramunga, the operation must be made by persons favoured with beautiful hair.
[1078] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 675; this concerns the tribes on the lower Darling.
[1080] _Ibid._ [1081] References on this question will be found in our memoir on _La Prohibition de l'incest et ses origines_ (_Année Sociol._, I, pp. 1 ff.), and Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 37 ff.
[1086] In addition to the ascetic rites of which we have spoken, there are some positive ones whose object is to charge, or, as Howitt says, to saturate the initiate with religiousness (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 535). It is true that instead of religiousness, Howitt speaks of magic powers, but as we know, for the majority of the ethnologists, this word merely signifies religious virtues of an impersonal nature.
[1094] On this question, see Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 152 ff., 446, 481; Frazer, art. _Taboo_ in _Encyc. Brit._, Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp. 59 f.; Crawley, _Mystic Rose_, ch. ii-ix; Van Gennep, _Tabou et Totemisme à Madagascar_, ch. iii.
[1096] It is to be remembered that when it is a religious interdict that has been violated, these sanctions are not the only ones; there is also a real punishment or a stigma of opinion.
[1097] See Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp. 67-68. We say nothing of the recent, and slightly explicit, theory of Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, ch. iv-vii), according to which the contagiousness of taboos is due to a false interpretation of the phenomena of contagion. It is arbitrary. As Jevons very truly says in the passage to which we refer, the contagious character of sacredness is affirmed _a priori_, and not on a faith in badly interpreted experiences.
[1101] This has been well demonstrated by Preuss in his articles in the _Globus_.
[1102] It is true that this contagiousness is not peculiar to religious forces; those belonging to magic have the same property; yet it is evident that they do not correspond to objectified social sentiments. It is because magic forces have been conceived on the model of religious forces. We shall come back to this point again (see p. 361).
[1105] Of course the word designating these celebrations changes with the tribes. The Urabunna call them _Pitjinta_ (_Nor. Tr._, p. 284); the Warramunga _Thalaminta_ (_ibid._, p. 297), etc.
[1108] Of course the women are under the same obligation.
[1109] The apmara is the only thing which he brought from the camp.
[1112] _Ibid._ [1114] _Ibid._ [1115] We shall see below that these clans are much more numerous than Spencer and Gillen say.
[1119] _Ibid._, p. 206. We use the words of Spencer and Gillen, and with them, we say that "spirits or spirit parts of kangaroo" are disengaged from the rocks. Strehlow (III, p. 7) contests the exactness of this expression. According to him, the rite makes real kangaroos, with living bodies, appear. But this dispute is without interest, just as the one about the notion of the _ratapa_ was (see above, p. 252). The kangaroo germs thus escaping from the rock are not visible, so they are not made out of the same substance as the kangaroos which we see. This is all that Spencer and Gillen mean to say. It is quite certain, moreover, that they are not pure spirits such as a Christian might conceive. Like human souls, they have a material form.
[1121] A tribe on the east of Lake Eyre.
[1123] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 798. Cf. Howitt, _Legends of the Dieri and Kindred Tribes of Central Australia_, in _J.A.I._, XXIV, pp. 124 ff. Howitt believes that the ceremony is performed by the men of the totem, but is not prepared to say so definitely.
[1128] _Ibid._, p. 519.--The analysis of the rites which have just been studied is based solely on the observations of Spencer and Gillen. Since this chapter was written, Strehlow has published the third fascicule of his work, which deals with the positive cult and especially the Intichiuma, or, as he says, the rites of the _mbatjalkatiuma_. But we have found nothing in this publication which obliges us to modify the preceding description or even to complete it with important additions. The most interesting thing taught by Strehlow on this subject is that the effusions and oblations of blood are much more frequent than one would suspect from the account of Spencer and Gillen (see Strehlow, III, pp. 13, 14, 19, 29, 39, 43, 46, 56, 67, 80, 89).
Moreover, the information given by Strehlow in regard to the cult must be taken carefully, for he was not a witness of the rites he describes; he confined himself to collecting oral testimony, which is generally rather summary (see fasc. III, Preface of Leonhardi, p. v). It may even be asked if he has not confused the totemic ceremonies of initiation with those which he calls _mbatjalkatiuma_, to an excessive degree. Of course, he has made a praiseworthy attempt to distinguish them and has made two of their distinctive characteristics very evident. In the first place, the Intichiuma always takes place at a sacred spot to which the souvenir of some ancestor is attached, while the initiation ceremonies may be celebrated anywhere. Secondly, the oblations of blood are special to the Intichiuma, which proves that they are close to the heart of the ritual (III, p. 7). But in the description which he gives us of the rites, we find facts belonging indifferently to each species of ceremony. In fact, in what he describes under the name mbatjalkatiuma, the young men generally take an important part (for example, see pp. 11, 13, etc.), which is characteristic of the initiation. Also, it seems as though the place of the rite is arbitrary, for the actors construct their scene artificially. They dig a hole into which they go; he seldom makes any allusion to sacred trees or rocks and their ritual rôle.
[1136] We have already cited one case; others will be found in Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 208; _Nor. Tr._, p. 286.
[1137] The Walpari, Wulmala, Tjingilli, Umbaia.
[1139] For the second part of the ceremony as for the first, we have followed Spencer and Gillen. On this subject, the recent fascicule of Strehlow only confirms the observations of his predecessors, at least on all essential points. He recognizes that after the first ceremony (two months afterwards, he says, p. 13), the chief of the clan eats the totemic animal or plant ritually and that after this he raises the interdicts; he calls this operation _die Freigabe des Totems zum allgemeinen Gebrauch_ (III, p. 7). He even tells us that this operation is important enough to have a special word for it in the Arunta language. He adds, it is true, that this ritual consummation is not the only one, but that the chiefs and old men sometimes eat the sacred plant or animal before the first ceremony and that the performer of the rite does so after the celebration. The fact is not improbable; these consummations are means employed by the officiants or assistants to acquire virtues which they acquire; it is not surprising if they are numerous. It does not invalidate the account of Spencer and Gillen at all, for the rite upon which they insist, and not without reason, is the _Freigabe des Totems_.
On only two points does Strehlow contest the allegations of Spencer and Gillen. In the first place, he declares that the ritual consumption does not take place in every case. This cannot be doubted, for there are some animals and plants which are not edible. But still, the rite is very frequent; Strehlow himself cites numerous examples (pp. 13, 14, 19, 23, 33, 36, 50, 59, 67, 68, 71, 75, 80, 84, 89, 93). Secondly, we have seen that according to Spencer and Gillen, if the chief does not eat the totemic animal or plant, he will lose his powers. Strehlow assures us that the testimony of natives does not confirm this assertion. But this question seems to us to be quite secondary. The assured fact is that the ritual consumption is required, so it must be thought useful or necessary. Now, like every communion, it can only serve to confer needed virtues upon the person communicating. It does not follow from the fact that the natives, or some of them, have forgotten this function of the rite, that it is not real. Is it necessary to repeat that worshippers are generally ignorant of the real reasons for their practices?
[1140] See _The Religion of the Semites_, Lectures vi-xi, and the article _Sacrifice_ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (Ninth Edition).
[1141] See Hubert and Mauss, _Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, pp. 40 ff.
[1142] See the explanation of this rule, above, p. 229.
[1143] See Strehlow, III, p. 3.
[1144] We must not forget that among the Arunta it is not completely forbidden to eat the totemic animal.
[1145] See other facts in Frazer, _Golden Bough_, pp. 348 ff.
[1146] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 275 ff.
[1147] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 318-319.
[1148] On this point, see Hubert and Mauss, _Mélanges d'histoire des religions_, preface, p. v ff.
[1149] _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 390 ff.
[1150] Smith cites some cases himself in _The Rel. of the Semites_, p. 231.
[1151] For example, see Exodus xxix. 10-14; Leviticus ix. 8-11; it is their own blood which the priests of Baal pour over the altar (1 Kings xviii. 28).
[1153] At least when it is complete: in certain cases, it may be reduced to one of its elements.
[1154] Strehlow says that the natives "regard these ceremonies as a sort of divine service, just as a Christian regards the exercises of his religion" (III, p. 9).
[1155] It should be asked, for example, whether the effusions of blood and the offerings of hair which Smith regards as acts of communion are not real oblations (see Smith,_ op_. _cit._, pp. 320 ff.).
[1156] The expiatory rites, of which we shall speak more fully in the fifth chapter of this same book, are almost exclusively oblations. They are communions only secondarily.
[1157] This is why we frequently speak of the ceremonies as if they were addressed to living personalities (see, for example, texts by Krichauff and Kemp, in Eylmann, p. 202).
[1158] In a philosophical sense, the same is true of everything, for nothing exists except in representation. But as we have shown (p. 227), this proposition is doubly true for religious forces, for there is nothing in the constitution of things which corresponds to sacredness.
[1159] See Mauss, _Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés Eskimos_, in _Année Sociol._, IX, pp. 96 ff.
[1161] _Nor. Tr._, p. 179. It is true that Spencer and Gillen do not say expressly that this is an Intichiuma. But the context allow of no doubt on this point.
[1162] In the index of totem names, Spencer and Gillen write _Untjalka_ (_Nor. Tr._, p. 772).
[1170] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 285-286. Perhaps the object of these movements of the lance is to pierce the clouds.
[1171] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 294-296. It is curious that, on the contrary, the Anula regard the rainbow as productive of rain (_ibid._, p. 314).
[1172] The same process is employed among the Arunta (Strehlow, III, p. 132). Of course we may ask if this effusion of blood is not an oblation designed to win the powers which produce rain. However, Gason says distinctly that this is a way of imitating the water which falls.
[1173] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, pp. 66-68. Howitt (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 798-800) mentions other rites of the Dieri for obtaining rain.
[1174] _Ethnological Notes on the Western Australian Aborigines_, in _Internationales Archiv. f. Ethnographie_, XVI, pp. 6-7. Cf. Withnal, _Marriage Rites and Relationship_ in _Man_, 1903, p. 42.
[1175] We presume that sub-totems may have _tarlow_, for, according to Clement, certain clans have several totems.
[1176] Clement says a tribal family.
[1177] We shall explain below (p. 362) why this is incorrect.
[1178] On this classification, see Frazer, _Lectures on the Early History of Kingship_, pp. 37 ff.; Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie générale de la Magie_, pp. 61 ff.
[1179] We say nothing of what has been called the law of opposition, for, as MM. Hubert and Mauss have shown, a contrary produces its opposite only through the intermediacy of a similar (_Théorie générale de la Magie_, p. 70).
[1181] It is applicable in the sense that there is really an association of the statue and the person encharmed. But it is true that this association is the simple product of an association of ideas by similarity. The true determining cause of the phenomenon is the contagiousness peculiar to religious forces, as we have shown.
[1182] For the causes determining this outward manifestation, see above, pp. 230 ff.
[1183] M. Lévy-Bruhl, _Les Fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures_, pp. 61-68.
[1185] We do not wish to say that there was ever a time when religion existed without magic. Probably as religion took form, certain of its principles were extended to non-religious relations, and it was thus supplemented by a more or less developed magic. But if these two systems of ideas and practices do not correspond to distinct historical phases, they have a relation of definite derivation between them. This is all we have sought to establish.
[1187] See above, pp. 203 f.
[1188] Of course animal societies do exist. However, the word does not have exactly the same sense when applied to men and to animals. The institution is a characteristic fact of human societies; but animals have no institutions.
[1189] The conception of cause is not the same for a scholar and for a man with no scientific culture. Also, many of our contemporaries understand the principle of causality differently, as they apply it to social facts and to physico-chemical facts. In the social order, men frequently exhibit a conception of causality singularly like that which was at the basis of magic for a long time. One might even ask if a physicist and a biologist represent the causal relation in the same fashion.
[1190] Of course these ceremonies are not followed by an alimentary communion. According to Strehlow, they have another name, at least when they concern non-edible plants: they are called, not mbatjalkatiuma, but _knujilelama_ (Strehlow, III, p. 96).
[1192] The Warramunga are not the only ones among whom the Intichiuma takes the form of a dramatic representation. It is also found among the Tjingilli, the Umbaia, the Wulmala, the Walpari and even the Kaitish, though in certain of its features the ritual of these latter resembles that of the Arunta (_Nor. Tr._, p. 291, 309, 311, 317). If we take the Warramunga as a type, it is because they have been studied the best by Spencer and Gillen.
[1193] This is the case with the Intichiuma of the black cockatoo (see above, p. 353).
[1195] One of these two actors does not belong to the Black Snake clan, but to that of the Crow. This is because the Crow is supposed to be an "associate" of the Black Snake: in other words, it is a sub-totem.
[1199] Strehlow himself recognizes this: "The totemic ancestor and his descendant, who represents him (_der Darsteller_) are presented as one in these sacred hymns." (III, p. 6). As this incontestable fact contradicts the theory according to which ancestral souls do not reincarnate themselves, Strehlow adds, it is true, in a note, that "in the course of the ceremony there is no real incarnation of the ancestor in the person who represents him." If Strehlow wishes to say that the incarnation does not take place on the occasion of the ceremony, then nothing is more certain. But if he means that there is no incarnation at all, we do not understand how the officiant and the ancestor can be confounded.
[1200] Perhaps this difference is partially due to the fact that among the Warramunga each clan is thought to be descended from one single ancestor about whom the legendary history of the clan centres. This is the ancestor whom the rite commemorates; now the officiant need not be descended from him. One might even ask if these mythical chiefs, who are sorts of demigods, are submitted to reincarnation.
[1201] In this Intichiuma, three assistants represent ancestors "of a considerable antiquity"; they play a real part (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 181-182). It is true that Spencer and Gillen add that these are ancestors posterior to the Alcheringa. Nevertheless, mythical personages are represented in the course of the rite.
[1202] Sacred rocks and water-holes are not mentioned. The centre of the ceremony is the image of an emu drawn on the ground, which can be made anywhere.
[1203] We do not mean to say that all the ceremonies of the Warramunga are of this type. The example of the white cockatoo, of which we spoke above, proves that there are exceptions.
[1204] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 226 ff. On this same subject, cf. certain passages of Eylmann which evidently refer to the same mythical being (_Die Eingeborenen_, etc., p. 185). Strehlow also mentions a mythical snake among the Arunta (_Kulaia_, water-snake) which may not differ greatly from the Wollunqua (Strehlow, I, p. 78; cf. II, p. 71, where the Kulaia is found in a list of totems).
[1205] We use the Arunta words, in order not to complicate our terminology; the Warramunga call this mythical period Wingara.
[1206] "It is not easy to express in words what is in reality rather a vague feeling amongst the natives, but after carefully watching the different series of ceremonies, we were impressed with the feeling that the Wollunqua represented to the native mind the idea of a dominant totem" (_Nor. Tr._, p. 248).
[1207] One of the most solemn of these ceremonies is the one which we have had occasion to describe above (p. 217), in the course of which an image of the Wollunqua is designed on a sort of hillock which is then torn to pieces in the midst of a general effervescence.
[1209] Here are the terms of Spencer and Gillen in the only passage in which they speak of a possible connection between the Wollunqua and rain. A few days after the rite about the hillock, "the old men say that they have heard Wollunqua speak, that he was satisfied with what had passed and that he was going to send rain. The reason for this prophecy was that they, as well as ourselves, had heard thunder rolling at a distance." To such a slight extent is the production of rain the immediate object of the ceremony that they did not attribute it to Wollunqua until several days later, and then after accidental circumstances. Another fact shows how vague the ideas of the natives are on this point. A few lines below, thunder is spoken of as a sign, not of the Wollunqua's satisfaction, but of its discontent. In spite of these prognostics, continue our authors, "the rain did not fall. But some days later, they heard the thunder rolling in the distance again. The old men said that the Wollunqua was grumbling because he was not contented" with the way in which the rite had been celebrated. Thus a single phenomenon, the noise of thunder, is sometimes interpreted as a sign of a favouring disposition, and sometimes as a mark of evil intentions.
However, there is one detail of the ritual which, if we accept the explanation of it proposed by Spencer and Gillen, is directly efficient. According to them, the destruction of the hillock was intended to frighten the Wollunqua and to prevent it, by magic constraint, from leaving its retreat. But this interpretation seems very doubtful to us. In fact, in the very case of which we were speaking, where it was announced that the Wollunqua was dissatisfied, this dissatisfaction was attributed to the fact that they had neglected to take away the debris of the hillock. So this removal is demanded by the Wollunqua itself, and in no way intended to intimidate it and exercise a coercive influence over it. This is probably merely one case of a more general rule which is in force among the Warramunga: the instruments of the cult must be destroyed after each ceremony. Thus the ritual ornamentations with which the officiants are decorated are violently torn off from them when the rite is terminated (_Nor. Tr._, p. 205).
[1212] See, in the list of totems drawn up by Strehlow, Nos. 432-442 (II, p. 72).
[1213] See Strehlow, III, p, 8. Among the Arunta there is also a totem _Worra_ which greatly resembles the "laughing boy" totem of Warramunga (_ibid._, and III, p. 124). _Worra_ means young men. The object of the ceremony is to make the young men take more pleasure in the game _labara_ (for this game, see Strehlow, I, p. 55, n. 1).
[1215] A case of this sort will be found in _Nor. Tr._, p. 204.
[1216] _Nat. Tr._, p. 118 and n. 2, pp. 618 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 716 ff. There are some sacred ceremonies from which women are not wholly excluded (see, for example, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 375 ff.); but this is exceptional.
[1218] This is the case, for example, with the corrobbori of the Molonga among the Pitta-Pitta of Queensland and the neighbouring tribes (see Roth, _Ethnog. Studies among the N.W. Central Queensland Aborigines_, pp. 120 ff.).--References for the ordinary corrobbori will be found in Stirling, _Rep. of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia_, Part IV, p. 72, and in Roth, _op. cit._, pp. 117 ff.
[1219] On this question see the excellent work of Culin, _Games of the North American Indians (XXIVth Rep. of the Bureau of Am. Ethnol._).
[1221] Especially in sexual matters. In the ordinary corrobbori, sexual licence is frequent (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 96-97, and _Nor. Tr._, pp. 136-137). On sexual licence in popular feasts in general, see Hagelstrange, _Süddeutsches Bauernleben im Mittelalter_, pp. 221 ff.
[1222] Thus the exogamic rules must be violated in the course of certain religious ceremonies (see above, p. 216, n. 1). A precise ritual meaning probably could not be found for these excesses. It is merely a mechanical consequence of the state of super-excitation provoked by the ceremony. It is an example of rites having no definite object themselves, but which are mere discharges of energy (see above, p. 381). The native does not assign them a definite end either; he merely says that if these licences are not committed, the rite will not produce its effects; the ceremony will fail.
[1223] Here are the very words used by Spencer and Gillen: "They (the ceremonies connected with the totems) are often, though by no means always, associated with the performance of the ceremonies attendant upon initiation of young men, or are connected with the Intichiuma" (_Nor. Tr._, p. 178).
[1224] We leave aside the question of what this character consists in. It is a problem which would lead us into a very long and technical development and which must therefore be treated by itself. Moreover, it does not concern the propositions established in this present work.
[1225] This is chapter vi, entitled _Ceremonies Connected with the Totems_.
[1226] Strehlow, III, pp. 1-2.
[1227] This explains the error of which Strehlow accuses Spencer and Gillen: that they applied to one form of the ceremony the term which is more appropriate for the other. But in these conditions, the error hardly seems to have the gravity attributed to it by Strehlow.
[1228] It cannot be otherwise. In fact, as the initiation is a tribal feast, novices of different totems are initiated at the same time. So the ceremonies which thus succeed one another in the same place have to do with several totems, and, therefore, they must take place away from the places with which they are connected by the myth.
[1229] It will now be understood why we have never studied the initiation rites by themselves: it is because they are not a ritual entity, but are formed by the conglomeration of rites of different sorts. There are interdictions, ascetic rites and representative ceremonies which cannot be distinguished from those celebrated at the time of the Intichiuma. So we had to dismember this composite system and treat each of the different rites composing it separately, classifying them with the similar rites to which they are to be related. We have also seen (pp. 285 ff.) that the initiation has served as the point of departure for a new religion which tends to surpass totemism. But it has been sufficient for us to show that totemism contained the germs of this religion; we have had no need of following out its development. The object of this book is to study the elementary beliefs and practices; so we must stop at the moment when they give birth to more complex forms.
[1230] _Nat. Tr._, p. 463. If the individual may choose between the ceremonies of his paternal and maternal totems, it is because, owing to reasons which we have set forth above (p. 183), he participates in both.