[93] We thus leave aside here those theories which, in whole or in part, make use of super-experimental data. This is the case with the theory which Andrew Lang exposed in his book, The Making of Religion, and which Father Schmidt has taken up again, with variations of detail, in a series of articles on The Origin of the Idea of God (Anthropos, 1908, 1909). Lang does not set animism definitely aside, but in the last analysis, he admits a sense or intuition of the divine directly. Also, if we do not consider it necessary to expose and discuss this conception in the present chapter, we do not intend to pass it over in silence; we shall come to it again below, when we shall ourselves explain the facts upon which it is founded (Bk. II, ch. ix, § 4).

[94] This is the case, for example, of Fustel de Coulanges who accepts the two conceptions together (The Ancient City, Bk. I and Bk. III, ch. ii).

[95] This is the case with Jevons, who criticizes the animism taught by Tylor, but accepts his theories on the origin of the idea of the soul and the anthropomorphic instinct of man. Inversely, Usener, in his Götternamen, rejects certain hypotheses of Max Müller which will be described below, but admits the principal postulates of naturism.

[96] Primitive Culture, chs. xi-xviii.

[97] Principles of Sociology, Parts I and VI.

[98] This is the word used by Tylor. It has the inconvenience of seeming to imply that men, in the proper sense of the term, existed before there was a civilization. However, there is no proper term for expressing the idea; that of primitive, which we prefer to use, lacking a better, is, as we have said, far from satisfactory.

[99] Tylor, op. cit., I, pp. 455 f.

[100] See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, pp. 143 ff., and Tylor, op. cit., I, pp. 434 ff., 445 ff.

[101] Tylor, II, pp. 113 ff.

[102] Tylor, I, pp. 481 ff.

[103] Principles of Sociology, I, p. 126.

[104] Ibid., pp. 322 ff.

[105] Ibid., pp. 366-367.

[106] Ibid., p. 346. Cf. p. 384.

[107] See below, Bk. II, ch. viii.

[108] See Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 123-127; Strehlow, Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral Australien, II, pp. 52 ff.

[109] The Melanesians, pp. 249-250.

[110] Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-Eastern Australia, p. 358.

[111] Ibid., pp. 434-442.

[112] Of the negroes of southern Guinea, Tylor says that "their sleeping hours are characterized by almost as much intercourse with the dead as their waking are with the living" (Primitive Culture, I, p. 443). In regard to these peoples, the same author cites this remark of an observer: "All their dreams are construed into visits from the spirits of their deceased friends" (ibid., p. 443). This statement is certainly exaggerated; but it is one more proof of the frequency of mystic dreams among the primitives. The etymology which Strehlow proposes for the Arunta word altjirerama, which means "to dream," also tends to confirm this theory. This word is composed of altjira, which Strehlow translates by "god" and rama, which means "see." Thus a dream would be the moment when a man is in relations with sacred beings (Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme, I, p. 2).

[113] Andrew Lang, who also refuses to admit that the idea of the soul was suggested to men by their dream experiences, believes that he can derive it from other empirical data: these are the data of spiritualism (telepathy, distance-seeing, etc.). We do not consider it necessary to discuss the theory such as it has been exposed in his book The Making of Religion. It reposes upon the hypothesis that spiritualism is a fact of constant observation, and that distance-seeing is a real faculty of men, or at least of certain men, but it is well known how much this theory is scientifically contested. What is still more contestable is that the facts of spiritualism are apparent enough and of a sufficient frequency to have been able to serve as the basis for all the religious beliefs and practices which are connected with souls and spirits. The examination of these questions would carry us too far from what is the object of our study. It is still less necessary to engage ourselves in this examination, since the theory of Lang remains open to many of the objections which we shall address to that of Tylor in the paragraphs which follow.

[114] Jevons has made a similar remark. With Tylor, he admits that the idea of the soul comes from dreams, and that after it was created, men projected it into things. But, he adds, the fact that nature has been conceived as animated like men does not explain how it became the object of a cult. "The man who believes the bowing tree or the leaping flame to be a living thing like himself, does not therefore believe it to be a supernatural being—rather, so far as it is like himself, it, like himself, is not supernatural" (Introduction to the History of Religions, p. 55).

[115] See Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 506, and Nat. Tr., p. 512.

[116] This is the ritual and mythical theme which Frazer studies in his Golden Bough.

[117] The Melanesians, p. 119.

[118] Ibid., p. 125.

[119] There are sometimes, as it seems, even funeral offerings. (See Roth, Superstition, Magic and Medicine, in North Queensland Ethnog., Bulletin No. 5, § 69 c., and Burial Customs, in ibid., No. 10, in Records of the Australian Museum, Vol. VI, No. 5, p. 395). But these offerings are not periodical.

[120] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 538, 553, and Nor. Tr., pp. 463, 543, 547.

[121] See especially, Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, ch. vi, vii, ix.

[122] The Religions of Primitive Peoples, pp. 47 ff.

[123] Myth, Ritual and Religions, p. 123.

[124] Les Religions des peuples non civilisés, II, Conclusion.

[125] The Religion of the Semites, 2 ed., pp. 126, 132.

[126] This is the reasoning of Westermarck (Origins of Human Marriage, p. 6).

[127] By sexual communism we do not mean a state of promiscuity where man knows no matrimonial rules: we believe that such a state has never existed. But it has frequently happened that groups of men have been regularly united to one or several women.

[128] See our Suicide, pp. 233 ff.

[129] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, pp. 129 f.

[130] The Melanesians, p. 123.

[131] Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, in XIth Annual Report of the Bureau of Amer. Ethnology, pp. 431 ff., and passim.

[132] La religion des peuples non civilisés, I, p. 248.

[133] V. W. de Visser, De Graecorum diis non referentibus speciem humanam. Cf. P. Perdrizet, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 1899, p. 635.

[134] However, according to Spencer, there is a germ of truth in the belief in spirits: this is the idea that "the power which manifests itself inside the consciousness is a different form of power from that manifested outside the consciousness" (Ecclesiastical Institutions, § 659). Spencer understands by this that the notion of force in general is the sentiment of the force which we have extended to the entire universe; this is what animism admits implicitly when it peoples nature with spirits analogous to our own. But even if this hypothesis in regard to the way in which the idea of force is formed were true—and it requires important reservations which we shall make (Bk. III, ch. iii, § 3)—it has nothing religious about it; it belongs to no cult. It thus remains that the system of religious symbols and rites, the classification of things into sacred and profane, all that which is really religious in religion, corresponds to nothing in reality. Also, this germ of truth, of which he speaks, is still more a germ of error, for if it be true that the forces of nature and those of the mind are related, they are profoundly distinct, and one exposes himself to grave misconceptions in identifying them.

[135] This is undoubtedly what explains the sympathy which folk-lorists like Mannhardt have felt for animistic ideas. In popular religions as in inferior religions, these spiritual beings of a second order hold the first place.

[136] In the essay entitled Comparative Mythology (pp. 47 ff).

[137] Herabkunft des Feuers und Gōttertranks, Berlin, 1859 (a new edition was given by Ernst Kuhn in 1886). Cf. Der Schuss des Wilden Jägers auf den Sonnen-hirsch, Zeitschrift f. d. Phil., I, 1869, pp. 89-169. Entwickelungsstufen des Mythus, Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad., 1873.

[138] Der Ursprung der Mythologie, Berlin, 1860.

[139] In his book Hercule et Cacus. Étude de mythologie comparée. Max Müller's Comparative Mythology is there signalized as a work "which marks a new epoch in the history of Mythology" (p. 12).

[140] Die Griechischen Kulte und Mythen, I, p. 78.

[141] Among others who have adopted this conception may be cited Renan. See his Nouvelles études d'histoire religieuse, 1884, p. 31.

[142] Aside from the Comparative Mythology, the works where Max Müller has exposed his general theories on religion are: Hibbert Lectures (1878) under the title The Origin and Development of Religion; Natural Religion (1889); Physical Religion (1890); Anthropological Religion (1892); Theosophy, or Psychological Religion (1893); Contributions to the Science of Mythology (1897). Since his mythological theories are closely related to his philosophy of language, these works should be consulted in connection with the ones consecrated to language or logic, especially Lectures on the Science of Language, and The Science of Thought.

[143] Natural Religion, p. 114.

[144] Physical Religion, pp. 119-120.

[145] Ibid., p. 121; cf. p. 304.

[146] Natural Religion, pp. 121 ff., and 149-155.

[147] "The overwhelming pressure of the infinite" (ibid., p. 138).

[148] Ibid., pp. 195-196.

[149] Max Müller even goes so far as to say that until thought has passed this first stage, it has very few of the characteristics which we now attribute to religion (Physic. Rel., p. 120).

[150] Physic. Rel., p. 128.

[151] The Science of Thought, p. 30.

[152] Natural Religion, pp. 393 ff.

[153] Physic. Rel., p. 133; The Science of Thought, p. 219; Lectures on the Science of Language, II, pp. 1 ff.

[154] The Science of Thought, p. 272.

[155] The Science of Thought, I, p. 327; Physic. Rel., pp. 125 ff.

[156] Mélanges de mythologie et de linguistique, p. 8.

[157] Anthropological Religion, pp. 128-130.

[158] This explanation is not as good as that of Tylor. According to Max Müller, men could not admit that life stopped with death; therefore they concluded that there were two beings within them, one of which survived the body. But it is hard to see what made them think that life continued after the body was decomposed.

[159] For the details, see Anthrop. Rel., pp. 351 ff.

[160] Anthrop. Rel., p. 130.—This is what keeps Max Müller from considering Christianity the climax of all this development. The religion of ancestors, he says, supposes that there is something divine in man. Now is that idea not the one at the basis of the teaching of Christ? (ibid., pp. 378 ff.). It is useless to insist upon the strangeness of the conception which makes Christianity the latest of the cults of the dead.

[161] See the discussion of the hypothesis in Gruppe, Griechishen Kulte und Mythen, pp. 79-184.

[162] See Meillet, Introduction à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes, p. 119.

[163] Oldenberg, Die Religion des Vedas, pp. 59 ff.; Meillet, Le dieu Iranien Mythra, in Journal Asiatique, X, No. 1, July-August, 1907, pp. 143 ff.

[164] In this category are a large number of the maxims of popular wisdom.

[165] It is true that this argument does not touch those who see in religion a code (especially of hygiene) whose provisions, though placed under the sanction of imaginary beings, are nevertheless well founded. But we shall not delay to discuss a conception so insupportable, and which has, in fact, never been sustained in a systematic manner by persons somewhat informed upon the history of religions. It is difficult to see what good the terrible practices of the initiation bring to the health which they threaten; what good the dietetic restrictions, which generally deal with perfectly clean animals, have hygienically; how sacrifices, which take place far from a house, make it more solid, etc. Undoubtedly there are religious precepts which at the same time have a practical utility; but they are lost in the mass of others, and even the services which they render are frequently not without some drawbacks. If there is a religiously enforced cleanliness, there is also a religious filthiness which is derived from these same principles. The rule which orders a corpse to be carried away from the camp because it is the seat of a dreaded spirit is undoubtedly useful. But the same belief requires the relatives to anoint themselves with the liquids which issue from a corpse in putrefaction, because they are supposed to have exceptional virtues.—From this point of view, magic has served a great deal more than religion.

[166] Contributions to the Science of Mythology, I, pp. 68 f.

[167] Lectures on the Science of Language, II, p. 456 ff.; Physic. Rel., pp. 276 ff.—Also Bréal, Mélanges, p. 6, "To bring the necessary clarity into this question of the origin of mythology, it is necessary to distinguish carefully the gods, which are the immediate product of the human intelligence, from the fables, which are its indirect and involuntary product."

[168] Max Müller recognized this. See Physic. Rel., p. 132, and Comparative Mythology, p. 58. "The gods are nomina and not numina, names without being and not beings without name."

[169] It is true that Max Müller held that for the Greeks, "Zeus was, and remained, in spite of all mythological obscurations, the name of the Supreme Deity" (Science of Language, II, p. 478). We shall not dispute this assertion, though it is historically contestable; but in any case, this conception of Zeus could never have been more than a glimmer in the midst of all the other religious beliefs of the Greeks.

Besides this, in a later work, Max Müller went so far as to make even the notion of god in general the product of a wholly verbal process and thus of a mythological elaboration (Physic. Rel., p. 138).

[170] Undoubtedly outside the real myths there were always fables which were not believed, or at least were not believed in the same way and to the same degree, and hence had no religious character. The line of demarcation between fables and myths is certainly floating and hard to determine. But this is no reason for making all myths stories, any more than we should dream of making all stories myths. There is at least one characteristic which in a number of cases suffices to differentiate the religious myth: that is its relation to the cult.

[171] See above, p. 28.

[172] More than that, in the language of Max Müller, there is a veritable abuse of words. Sensuous experience, he says, implies, at least in certain cases, "beyond the known, something unknown, something which I claim the liberty to call infinite" (Natural Rel., p. 195; cf. p. 218). The unknown is not necessarily the infinite, any more than the infinite is necessarily the unknown if it is in all points the same, and consequently like the part which we know. It would be necessary to prove that the part of it which we perceive differs in nature from that which we do not perceive.

[173] Max Müller involuntarily recognizes this in certain passages. He confesses that he sees little difference between Agni, the god of fire, and the notion of ether, by which the modern physicist explains light and heat (Phys. Rel., pp. 126 f.). Also, he connects the notion of divinity to that of agency (p. 138) or of a causality which is not natural and profane. The fact that religion represents the causes thus imagined, under the form of personal agents, is not enough to explain how they got a sacred character. A personal agent can be profane, and also, many religious forces are essentially impersonal.

[174] We shall see below, in speaking of the efficacy of rites and faith, how these illusions are to be explained (Bk. III, ch. ii).

[175] Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter.

[176] This idea was so common that even M. Réville continued to make America the classic land of totemism (Religions des peuples non civilisés, I, p. 242).

[177] Journals of Two Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia, II, p. 228.

[178] The Worship of Animals and Plants. Totems and Totemism (1869, 1870).

[179] This idea is found already very clearly expressed in a study by Gallatin entitled Synopsis of the Indian Tribes (Archæologia Americana, II, pp. 109 ff.), and in a notice by Morgan in the Cambrian Journal, 1860, p. 149.

[180] This work had been prepared for and preceded by two others by the same author: The League of the Iroquois (1851), and Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871).

[181] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 1880.

[182] In the very first volumes of the Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology are found the study of Powell, Wyandot Government (I, p. 59), that of Cushing, Zuñi Fetiches (II, p. 9), Smith, Myths of the Iroquois (ibid., p. 77), and the important work of Dorsey, Omaha Sociology (III, p. 211), which are also contributions to the study of totemism.

[183] This first appeared, in an abridged form, in the Encyclopædia Britannica (9th ed.).

[184] In his Primitive Culture, Tylor had already attempted an explanation of totemism, to which we shall return presently, but which we shall not give here; for by making totemism only a particular case of the ancestor-cult, he completely misunderstood its importance. In this chapter we mention only those theories which have contributed to the progress of the study of totemism.

[185] Published at Cambridge, 1885.

[186] First edition, 1889. This is the arrangement of a course given at the University of Aberdeen in 1888. Cf. the article Sacrifice in the Encyclopædia Britannica (9th edition).

[187] London, 1890. A second edition in three volumes has since appeared (1900) and a third in five volumes is already in course of publication.

[188] In this connection must be mentioned the interesting work of Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, 3 vols., 1894-1896.

[189] We here confine ourselves to giving the names of the authors; their works will be indicated below, when we make use of them.

[190] If Spencer and Gillen have been the first to study these tribes in a scientific and thorough manner, they were not the first to talk about them. Howitt had already described the social organization of the Wuaramongo (Warramunga of Spencer and Gillen) in 1888 in his Further Notes on the Australian Classes in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute (hereafter, J.A.I.), pp. 44 f. The Arunta had already been briefly studied by Schulze (The Aborigines of the Upper and Middle Finke River, in Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, Vol. XIV, fasc. 2): the organization of the Chingalee (the Tjingilli of Spencer and Gillen), the Wombya, etc., by Mathews (Wombya Organization of the Australian Aborigines, in American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. II, p. 494; Divisions of some West Australian Tribes, ibid., p. 185; Proceedings Amer. Philos. Soc., XXXVII, pp. 151-152, and Journal Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXII, p. 71 and XXXIII, p. 111). The first results of the study made of the Arunta had also been published already in the Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Pt. IV (1896). The first part of this Report is by Stirling, the second by Gillen; the entire publication was placed under the direction of Baldwin Spencer.

[191] London, 1899. Hereafter, Native Tribes or Nat. Tr.

[192] London, 1904. Hereafter, Northern Tribes or Nor. Tr.

[193] We write the Arunta, the Anula, the Tjingilli, etc., without adding the characteristic s of the plural. It does not seem very logical to add to these words, which are not European, a grammatical sign which would have no meaning except in our languages. Exceptions to this rule will be made when the name of the tribe has obviously been Europeanized (the Hurons for example).

[194] Strehlow has been in Australia since 1892; at first he lived among the Dieri, and from them he went to the Arunta.

[195] Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral Australien. Four fascicules have been published up to the present. The last appeared at the moment when the present book was finished, so it could not be used. The two first have to do with the myths and legends, and the third with the cult. It is only just to add to the name of Strehlow that of von Leonhardi, who has had a great deal to do with this publication. Not only has he charged himself with editing the manuscripts of Strehlow, but by his judicious questions he has led the latter to be more precise on more than one point. It would be useful also to consult an article which von Leonhardi gave the Globus, where numerous extracts from his correspondence with Strehlow will be found (Ueber einige religiöse und totemistische Vorstellungen der Aranda und Loritja in Zentral Australien, in Globus, XCI, p. 285). Cf. an article on the same subject by N. W. Thomas in Folk-lore, XVI, pp. 428 ff.

[196] Spencer and Gillen are not ignorant of it, but they are far from possessing it as thoroughly as Strehlow.

[197] Notably by Klaatsch, Schlussbericht über meine Reise nach Australien, in Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie, 1907, pp. 635 ff.

[198] The book of K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, that of Eylmann, Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien; that of John Mathews, Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, and certain recent articles of Mathews all show the influence of Spencer and Gillen.

[199] A list of these publications will be found in the preface to his Nat. Tr., pp. 8-9.

[200] London, 1904. Hereafter we shall cite this work by the abbreviation Nat. Tr., but always mentioning the name of Howitt, to distinguish it from the first work of Spencer and Gillen, which we abbreviate in the same manner.

[201] Totemism and Exogamy, 4 vols., London, 1910. The work begins with a re-edition of Totemism, reproduced without any essential changes.

[202] It is true that at the end and at the beginning there are some general theories on totemism, which will be described and discussed below. But these theories are relatively independent of the collection of facts which accompanies them, for they had already been published in different articles in reviews, long before this work appeared. These articles are reproduced in the first volume (pp. 89-172).

[203] Totemism, p. 12.

[204] Ibid., p. 15.

[205] Ibid., p. 32.

[206] It should be noted that in this connection, the more recent work, Totemism and Exogamy, shows an important progress in the thought as well as the method of Frazer. Every time that he describes the religious or domestic institutions of a tribe, he sets himself to determine the geographic and social conditions in which this tribe is placed. Howsoever summary these analyses may be, they bear witness nevertheless to a rupture with the old methods of the anthropological school.

[207] Undoubtedly we also consider that the principal object of the science of religions is to find out what the religious nature of man really consists in. However, as we do not regard it as a part of his constitutional make-up, but rather as the product of social causes, we consider it impossible to find it, if we leave aside his social environment.

[208] We cannot repeat too frequently that the importance which we attach to totemism is absolutely independent of whether it was ever universal or not.

[209] This is the case with the phratries and matrimonial classes; on this point, see Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, ch. iii; Howitt, Native Tribes, pp. 109 and 137-142; Thomas, Kinship and Marriage in Australia, ch. vi and vii.

[210] Division du Travail social, 3rd ed., p. 150.

[211] It is to be understood that this is not always the case. It frequently happens, as we have already said, that the simpler forms aid to a better understanding of the more complex. On this point, there is no rule of method which is applicable to every possible case.

[212] Thus the individual totemism of America will aid us in understanding the function and importance of that in Australia. As the latter is very rudimentary, it would probably have passed unobserved.

[213] Besides, there is not one unique type of totemism in America, but several different species which must be distinguished.

[214] We shall leave this field only very exceptionally, and when a particularly instructive comparison seems to us to impose itself.

[215] This is the definition given by Cicero: Gentiles sunt qui inter se eodem nomine sunt (Top. 6). (Those are of the same gens who have the same name among themselves.)

[216] It may be said in a general way that the clan is a family group, where kinship results solely from a common name; it is in this sense that the gens is a clan. But the totemic clan is a particular sort of the class thus constituted.

[217] In a certain sense, these bonds of solidarity extend even beyond the frontiers of the tribe. When individuals of different tribes have the same totem, they have peculiar duties towards each other. This fact is expressly stated for certain tribes of North America (see Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, III, pp. 57, 81, 299, 356-357). The texts relative to Australia are less explicit. However, it is probable that the prohibition of marriage between members of a single totem is international.

[218] Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 165.

[219] In Australia the words employed differ with the tribes. In the regions observed by Grey, they said Kobong; the Dieri say Murdu (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 91); the Narrinyeri, Ngaitye (Talpin, in Curr, II, p. 244); the Warramunga, Mungái or Mungáii (Nor. Tr., p. 754), etc.

[220] Indian Tribes of the United States, IV, p. 86.

[221] This fortune of the word is the more regrettable since we do not even know exactly how it is written. Some write totam, others toodaim, or dodaim, or ododam (see Frazer, Totemism, p. 1). Nor is the meaning of the word determined exactly. According to the report of the first observer of the Ojibway, J. Long, the word totam designated the protecting genius, the individual totem, of which we shall speak below (Bk. II, ch. iv) and not the totem of the clan. But the accounts of other explorers say exactly the contrary (on this point, see Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, III, pp. 49-52).

[222] The Wotjobaluk (p. 121) and the Buandik (p. 123).

[223] The same.

[224] The Wolgal (p. 102), the Wotjobaluk and the Buandik.

[225] The Muruburra (p. 117), the Wotjobaluk and the Buandik.

[226] The Buandik and the Kaiabara (p. 116). It is to be remarked that all the examples come from only five tribes.

[227] Thus, out of 204 kinds of totems, collected by Spencer and Gillen out of a large number of tribes, 188 are animals or plants. The inanimate objects are the boomerang, cold weather, darkness, fire, lightning, the moon, red ochre, resin, salt water, the evening star, a stone, the sun, water, the whirlwind, the wind and hail-stones (Nor. Tr., p. 773. Cf. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, I, pp. 253-254).

[228] Frazer (Totemism, pp. 10 and 13) cites a rather large number of cases and puts them in a special group which he calls split-totems, but these are taken from tribes where totemism is greatly altered, such as in Samoa or the tribes of Bengal.

[229] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 107.

[230] See the tables collected by Strehlow, op. cit., II, pp. 61-72 (cf. III, pp. xiii-xvii). It is remarkable that these fragmentary totems are taken exclusively from animal totems.

[231] Strehlow, II, pp. 52 and 72.

[232] For example, one of these totems is a cave where an ancestor of the Wild Cat totem rested; another is a subterranean gallery which an ancestor of the Mouse clan dug, etc. (ibid., p. 72).

[233] Nat. Tr., pp. 561 ff. Strehlow, II, p. 71, note 2. Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 426 ff.; On Australian Medicine Men, J.A.I., XVI, p. 53; Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems, J.A.I., XVIII, pp. 63 ff.

[234] Thaballa means "laughing boy," according to the translation of Spencer and Gillen. The members of the clan which bear this name think they hear him laughing in the rocks which are his residence (Nor. Tr., pp. 207, 215, 226 note). According to a myth given on p. 422, there was an initial group of mythical Thaballa (cf. p. 208). The clan of the Kati, "full-grown men," as Spencer and Gillen say, seems to be of the same sort (Nor. Tr., p. 207).

[235] Nor. Tr., pp. 226 ff.

[236] Strehlow, II, pp. 71 f. He mentions a totem of the Loritja and Arunta which is very close to the serpent Wollunqua: it is the totem of a mythical water-snake.

[237] This is the case with Klaatsch, in the article already cited (see above, p. 92, n. 3).

[238] As we indicated in the preceding chapter, totemism is at the same time of interest for the question of religion and that of the family, for the clan is a family. In the lower societies, these two problems are very closely connected. But both are so complex that it is indispensable to treat them separately. Also, the primitive family organization cannot be understood before the primitive religious beliefs are known; for the latter serve as the basis of the former. This is why it is necessary to study totemism as a religion before studying the totemic clan as a family group.

[239] See Taplin, The Narrinyeri Tribe, in Curr, II, pp. 244 f.; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 131.

[240] Nor. Tr., pp. 163, 169, 170, 172. It is to be noted that in all these tribes, except the Mara and the Anula, the transmission of the totem in the paternal line is only a general rule, which has exceptions.

[241] According to Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., pp. 123 ff.), the soul of the ancestor becomes reincarnate in the body of the mother and becomes the soul of the child; according to Strehlow (II, pp. 51 ff.), the conception, though being the work of the ancestor, does not imply any reincarnation; but in neither interpretation does the totem of the child necessarily depend upon that of the parents.

[242] Nat. Tr., p. 133; Strehlow, II, p. 53.

[243] It is in large part the locality where the mother believes that she conceived which determines the totem of the child. Each totem, as we shall see, has its centre and the ancestors preferably frequent the places serving as centres for their respective totems. The totem of the child is therefore that which belongs to the place where the mother believes that she conceived. As this should generally be in the vicinity of the place which serves as totemic centre for her husband, the child should generally follow the totem of his father. It is undoubtedly this which explains why the greater part of the inhabitants of a given locality belong to the same totem (Nat. Tr., p. 9).

[244] The Secret of the Totem, pp. 159 ff. Cf. Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 40 f.; John Mathews, Eaglehawk and Crow; Thomas, Kinship and Marriage in Australia, pp. 52 ff.

[245] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 124.

[246] Howitt, pp. 121, 123, 124; Curr, III, p. 461.

[247] Howitt, p. 126.

[248] Howitt, pp. 98 ff.

[249] Curr, II, p. 165; Brough Smyth, I, p. 423; Howitt, op. cit., p. 429.

[250] Howitt, pp. 101, 102.

[251] J. Mathews, Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, p. 139.

[252] Still other reasons could be given in support of this hypothesis, but it would be necessary to bring in considerations relative to the organization of the family, and we wish to keep these two studies separate. Also this question is only of secondary interest to our subject.

[253] For example, Mukwara, which is the name of a phratry among the Barkinji, the Paruinji and the Milpulko, designates the eagle-hawk, according to Brough Smyth; now one of the clans of this phratry has the eagle-hawk as totem. But here the animal is designated by the word Bilyara. Many cases of the same thing are cited by Lang, op. cit., p. 162.

[254] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 115. According to Howitt (op. cit., pp. 121 and 454), among the Wotjobaluk, the clan of the pelican is found in the two phratries equally. This fact seems doubtful to us. It is very possible that the two clans may have two varieties of pelicans as totems. Information given by Mathews on the same tribe seems to point to this (Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria, in Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, 1904, pp. 287 f.).

[255] In connection with this question, see our memoir on Le Totémisme, in the Année Sociologique, Vol. V, pp. 82 ff.

[256] On the question of Australian matrimonial classes in general, see our memoir on La Prohibition de l'inceste, in the Année Soc., I, pp. 9 ff., and especially for the tribes with eight classes, L'Organisation matrimoniale des societés Australiennes, in Année Soc., VIII, pp. 118-147.

[257] This principle is not maintained everywhere with an equal strictness. In the central tribes of eight classes notably, beside the class with which marriage is regularly permitted, there is another with which a sort of secondary concubinage is allowed (Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 106). It is the same with certain tribes of four classes. Each class has a choice between the two classes of the other phratry. This is the case with the Kabi (see Mathews, in Curr, III, 162).

[258] See Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, pp. 56 ff.; Palmer, Notes on some Australian Tribes, J.A.I., XIII (1884), pp. 302 ff.

[259] Nevertheless, some tribes are cited where the matrimonial classes bear the names of animals or plants: this is the case with the Kabi (Mathew, Two Representative Tribes, p. 150), the tribes observed by Mrs. Bates (The Marriage Laws and Customs of the West Australian Aborigines, in Victorian Geographical Journal, XXIII-XXIV, p. 47), and perhaps in two tribes observed by Palmer. But these facts are very rare and their significance badly established. Also, it is not surprising that the classes, as well as the sexual groups, should sometimes adopt the names of animals. This exceptional extension of the totemic denominations in no way modifies our conception of totemism.

[260] Perhaps the same explanation is applicable to certain other tribes of the South-East and the East where, if we are to believe the informers of Howitt, totems specially attached to each matrimonial class are to be found. This is the case among the Wiradjuri, the Wakelbura and the Bunta-Murra on the Bulloo River (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 210, 221, 226). However, the evidence collected is suspect, according to his own admission. In fact, it appears from the lists which he has drawn up, that many totems are found equally in the two classes of the same phratry.

The explanation which we propose, after Frazer (Totemism and Exogamy, pp. 531 ff.), raises one difficulty. In principle, each clan and consequently each totem, is represented equally in the two classes of a single phratry, since one of the classes is that of the children and the other that of the parents from whom the former get their totems. So when the clans disappeared, the totemic interdictions which survived should have remained in both matrimonial classes, while in the actual cases cited, each class has its own. Whence comes this differentiation? The example of the Kaiabara (a tribe of southern Queensland) allows us to see how it may have come about. In this tribe, the children have the totem of their mother, but it is particularized by some distinctive mark. If the mother has the black eagle-hawk as totem, the child has the white eagle-hawk (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 229). This appears to be the beginning of a tendency for the totems to differentiate themselves according to the matrimonial classes.

[261] A tribe of only a few hundred members frequently has fifty or sixty clans, or even many more. On this point, see Durkheim and Mauss, De quelques formes primitives de classification, in the Année Sociologique, Vol. VI, p. 28, n. 1.

[262] Except among the Pueblo Indians of the South-West, where they are more numerous. See Hodge, Pueblo Indian Clans, in American Anthropologist, 1st series, Vol. IX, pp. 345 ff. It may always be asked whether the groups which have these totems are clans or sub-clans.

[263] See the tables arranged by Morgan, Ancient Society, pp. 153-185.

[264] Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 112; Swanton, Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVIth Rep., p. 308.

[265] Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida, p. 62.

[266] "The distinction between the two clans is absolute in every respect," says Swanton, p. 68; he gives the name clan to what we call phratries. The two phratries, he says elsewhere, are like two foreign nations in their relations to each other.

[267] Among the Haida at least, the totem of the real clans is altered more than that of the phratries. In fact, usage permits a clan to sell or give away the right of bearing its totem, as a result of which each clan has a number of totems, some of which it has in common with other clans (see Swanton, pp. 107 and 268). Since Swanton calls the phratries clans, he is obliged to give the name of family to the real clans, and of household to the regular families. But the real sense of his terminology is not to be doubted.

[268] Journals of two Expeditions in N.W. and W. Australia, II, p. 228.

[269] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 165.

[270] Indian Tribes, I, p. 420; cf. I, p. 52. This etymology is very doubtful. Cf. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Smithsonian Inst. Bur. of Ethnol., Pt. II, s.v., Totem, p. 787).

[271] Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, III, 184; Garrick Mallery, Picture Writing of the American Indians, in Tenth Report, 1893, p. 377.

[272] Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 148 (quoted from Frazer, Totemism, p. 30).

[273] Charlevoix, Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France, V, p. 329.

[274] Krause, Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 248.

[275] Erminnie A. Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Sec. Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol., p. 78.

[276] Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 225.

[277] Powell, Wyandot Government, in First Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol., 1881, p. 64.

[278] Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, in Third Rep., pp. 229, 240, 248.

[279] Krause, op. cit., pp. 130 f.

[280] Krause, p. 308.

[281] See a photograph of a Haida village in Swanton, op. cit., Pl. IX. Cf. Tylor, Totem Post of the Haida Village of Masset, J.A.I., New Series I, p. 133.

[282] Hill Tout, Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia, J.A.I., XXXV, p. 155.

[283] Krause, op. cit., p. 230; Swanton, Haida, pp. 129, 135 ff.; Schoolcraft, op. cit., I, pp. 52-53, 337, 356. In the latter case the totem is represented upside down, in sign of mourning. Similar usages are found among the Creek (C. Swan, in Schoolcraft, V, p. 265) and the Delaware (Heckewelder, An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania, pp. 246-247).

[284] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., pp. 168, 537, 540.

[285] Ibid., p. 174.

[286] Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, I, p. 99 n.

[287] Brough Smyth, I, p. 284. Strehlow cites a fact of the same sort among the Arunta (III, p. 68).

[288] An Account of the English Colony in N.S. Wales, II, p. 381.

[289] Krause, p. 237.

[290] Swanton, Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVIth Rep., pp. 435 ff.; Boas, The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, p. 358.

[291] Frazer, Totemism, p. 26.

[292] Bourke, The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, p. 229; J. W. Fewkes, The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called Katcinas, in XVth Rep., 1897, pp. 151-263.

[293] Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 327.

[294] Schoolcraft, op. cit., III, p. 269.

[295] Dorsey, Omaha Sociol., Third Rep., pp. 229, 238, 240, 245.

[296] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 451.

[297] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 257.

[298] The meaning of these relations will be seen below (Bk. II, ch. iv).

[299] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 296.

[300] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 744-746; cf. p. 129.

[301] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 66 n. It is true that other informers contest this fact.

[302] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 744.

[303] Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida, pp. 41 ff., Pl. XX and XXI; Boas, The Social Organization of the Kwakiutl, p. 318; Swanton, Tlingit, Pl. XVI ff.—In one place, outside the two ethnographic regions which we are specially studying, these tattooings are put on the animals which belong to the clan. The Bechuana of South Africa are divided into a certain number of clans; there are the people of the crocodile, the buffalo, the monkey, etc. Now the crocodile people, for example, make an incision in the ears of their cattle whose form is like the jaws of this animal (Casalis, Les Basoutos, p. 221). According to Robertson Smith, the same custom existed among the ancient Arabs (Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, pp. 212-214).

[304] However, according to Spencer and Gillen, there are some which have no religious sense (see Nat. Tr., pp. 41 f.; Nor. Tr., pp. 45, 54-56).

[305] Among the Arunta, this rule has exceptions which will be explained below.

[306] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 162; Nor. Tr., pp. 179, 259, 292, 295 f.; Schulze, loc. cit., p. 221. The thing thus represented is not always the totem itself, but one of those things which, being associated to this totem, are regarded as being in the same family of things.

[307] This is the case, for example, among the Warramunga, the Walpari, the Wulmala, the Tjingilli, the Umbaia and the Unmatjera (Nor. Tr., 339, 348). Among the Warramunga, at the moment when the design is executed, the performers address the initiated with the following words: "That mark belongs to your place; do not look out along another place." "This means," say Spencer and Gillen, "that the young man must not interfere with ceremonies belonging to other totems than his own: it also indicates the very close association which is supposed to exist between a man and his totem and any spot especially connected with the totem" (Nor. Tr., p. 584 and n.). Among the Warramunga, the totem is transmitted from father to child, so each locality has its own.

[308] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 215, 241, 376.

[309] It will be remembered (see above, p. 107) that in this tribe, the child may have a different totem than his father, his mother, or his relatives in general. Now the relatives on both sides are the performers designated for the ceremonies of initiation. Consequently, since in principle a man can have the quality of performer or officiant only for the ceremonies of his own totem, it follows that in certain cases the rites by which the young man is initiated must be in connection with a totem that is not his own. That is why the paintings made on the body of the novice do not necessarily represent his own totem: cases of this sort will be found in Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 229. That there is an anomaly here is well shown by the fact that the circumcision falls to the totem which predominates in the local group of the initiate, that is to say, to the one which would be the totem of the initiate himself, if the totemic organization were not disturbed, if among the Arunta it were what it is among the Warramunga (see Spencer and Gillen, ibid., p. 219).

The same disturbance has had another consequence. In a general way, its effect is to extend a little the bonds attaching each totem to a special group, since each totem may have members in all the local groups possible, and even in the two phratries. The idea that these ceremonies of a totem might be celebrated by an individual of another totem—an idea which is contrary to the very principles of totemism, as we shall see better after a while—has thus been accepted without too much resistance. It has been admitted that a man to whom a spirit revealed the formula for a ceremony had the right of presiding over it, even when he was not of the totem in question himself (Nat. Tr., p. 519). But that this is an exception to the rule and the product of a sort of toleration is proved by the fact that the beneficiary of the formula does not have the free disposition of it; if he transmits it—and these transmissions are frequent—it can be only to a member of the totem which the rite concerns (Nat. Tr., ibid.).

[310] Nat. Tr., p. 140. In this case, the novice keeps the decoration with which he has thus been adorned until it disappears of itself by the effect of time.

[311] Boas, General Report on the Indians of British Columbia in British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fifth Rep. of the Committee on the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada, p. 41.

[312] There are also some among the Warramunga, but in smaller numbers than among the Arunta; they do not figure in the totemic ceremonies, though they do have a place in the myths (Nor. Tr., p. 163).

[313] Other names are used by other tribes. We give a generic sense to the Arunta term because it is in this tribe that the churinga have the most important place and have been studied the best.

[314] Strehlow, II, p. 81.

[315] There are a few which have no apparent design (see Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 144).

[316] Nat. Tr., pp. 139 and 648; Strehlow, II, p. 75.

[317] Strehlow, who writes tjurunga, gives a slightly different translation to the word. "This word," he says, "means that which is secret and personal (der eigene geheime). Tju is an old word which means hidden or secret, and runga means that which is my own." But Kempe, who has more authority than Strehlow in this matter, translates tju by great, powerful, sacred (Kempe, Vocabulary of the Tribes inhabiting Macdonell Ranges, s.v. Tju, in Transactions of the R. Society of Victoria, Vol. XIII). At bottom, the translation of Strehlow is not so different from the other as might appear at first glance, for what is secret is hidden from the knowledge of the profane, that is, it is sacred. As for the meaning given to runga, it appears to us very doubtful. The ceremonies of the emu belong to all the members of that clan; all may participate in them; therefore they are not personal to any one of them.

[318] Nat. Tr., pp. 130-132; Strehlow, II, p. 78. A woman who has seen a churinga or a man who has shown one to her are both put to death.

[319] Strehlow calls this place, defined in exactly the same terms as by Spencer and Gillen, arknanaua instead of ertnatulunga (Strehlow, II, p. 78).

[320] Nor. Tr., p. 270; Nat. Tr., p. 140.

[321] Nat. Tr., p. 135.

[322] Strehlow, II, p. 78. However, Strehlow says that if a murderer takes refuge near an ertnatulunga, he is unpityingly pursued there and put to death. We find some difficulty in conciliating this fact with the privilege enjoyed by animals, and ask ourselves if the rigour with which a criminal is treated is not something recent and should not be attributed to a weakening of the taboo which originally protected the ertnatulunga.

[323] Nat. Tr., p. 248.

[324] Ibid., pp. 545 f. Strehlow, II, p. 79. For example, the dust detached by rubbing a churinga with a stone, when dissolved in water, forms a potion which restores health to sick persons.

[325] Nat. Tr., pp. 545 f. Strehlow (II, p. 79) contests this fact.

[326] For example, the churinga of the yam totem, if placed in the soil, make the yams grow (Nor. Tr., p. 275). It has the same power over animals (Strehlow, II, pp. 76, 78; III, pp. 3, 7).

[327] Nat. Tr., p. 135; Strehlow, II, p. 79.

[328] Nor. Tr., p. 278.

[329] Ibid., p. 180.

[330] Nor. Tr., pp. 272 f.

[331] Nat. Tr., p. 135.

[332] One group borrows the churinga of another with the idea that these latter will communicate some of the virtues which are in them and that their presence will quicken the vitality of the individuals and of the group (Nat. Tr., pp. 158 ff.).

[333] Ibid., p. 136.

[334] Each individual is united by a particular bond to a special churinga which assures him his life, and also to those which he has received as a heritage from his parents.

[335] Nat. Tr., p. 154; Nor. Tr., p. 193. The churinga are so thoroughly collective that they take the place of the "message-sticks" with which the messengers of other tribes are provided, when they are sent to summon foreign groups to a ceremony (Nat. Tr., pp. 141 f.).

[336] Ibid., p. 326. It should be remarked that the bull-roarers are used in the same way (Mathews, Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria, in Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, pp. 307 f.).

[337] Nat. Tr., pp. 161, 259 ff.

[338] Ibid., p. 138.

[339] Strehlow, I, Vorwort. in fine; II, pp. 76, 77 and 82. For the Arunta, it is the body of the ancestor itself; for the Loritja, it is only an image.

[340] When a child has just been born, the mother shows the father the spot where she believes that the soul of the ancestor entered her. The father, accompanied by a few relatives, goes to this spot and looks for the churinga which the ancestor is believed to have left at the moment that he reincarnated himself. If it is found there, some old man of the group undoubtedly put it there (this is the hypothesis of Spencer and Gillen). If they do not find it, a new churinga is made in a determined manner (Nat. Tr., p. 132. Cf. Strehlow, II, p. 80).

[341] This is the case among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Worgaia, the Umbaia, the Tjingilli and the Guangi (Nor. Tr., pp. 258, 275 f.). Then, say Spencer and Gillen, "they were regarded as of especial value because of their association with a totem" (ibid., p. 276). There are examples of the same fact among the Arunta (Nat. Tr., 156).

[342] Strehlow writes tnatanja (I, pp. 4-5).

[343] The Kaitish, the Ilpirra, the Unmatjera; but it is rare among the latter.

[344] The pole is sometimes replaced by very long churinga, placed end to end.

[345] Sometimes another smaller one is hung from the top of the nurtunja. In other cases, the nurtunja is in the form of a cross or a T. More rarely, the central support is lacking (Nat. Tr., pp. 298-300, 360-364, 627).

[346] Sometimes there are even three of these cross-bars.

[347] Nat. Tr,, pp. 231-234, 306-310, 627. In addition to the nurtunja and the waninga, Spencer and Gillen distinguish a third sort of sacred post or flag, called the kanana (Nat. Tr., pp. 364, 370, 629), whose functions they admit they have been unable to determine. They merely note that it "is regarded as something common to the members of all the totems." According to Strehlow (II, p. 23, n. 2) the kanana of which Spencer and Gillen speak, is merely the nurtunja of the Wild Cat totem. As this animal is the object of a tribal cult, the veneration of which it is the object might easily be common to all the clans.

[348] Nor. Tr., p. 342; Nat. Tr., p. 309.

[349] Nat. Tr., p. 255.

[350] Ibid., ch. x and xi.

[351] Ibid., pp. 138, 144.

[352] See Dorsey, Siouan Cults, XIth Rep., p. 413; Omaha Sociology, Third Rep., p. 234. It is true that there is only one sacred post for the tribe, while there is a nurtunja for each clan. But the principle is the same.

[353] Nat. Tr., pp. 232, 308, 313, 334, etc.; Nor. Tr., 182, 186, etc.

[354] Nat. Tr., p. 346. It is true that some say that the nurtunja represents the lance of the ancestor who was at the head of each clan in Alcheringa times. But it is only a symbolic representation of it; it is not a sort of relic, like the churinga, which is believed to come from the ancestor himself. Here the secondary character of the explanation is very noticeable.

[355] Nat. Tr., pp. 614 ff., esp. p. 617; Nor. Tr., p. 749.

[356] Nat. Tr., p. 624.

[357] Ibid., p. 179.

[358] Ibid., p. 181.

[359] See the examples given in Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., Fig. 131. Here are designs, many of which evidently have the object of representing animals, plants, the heads of men, etc., though of course all are very conventional.

[360] Nat. Tr., p. 617; Nor. Tr., p. 716 ff.

[361] Nat. Tr., p. 145; Strehlow, II, p. 80.

[362] Nat. Tr., p. 151.

[363] Ibid., p. 346.

[364] It cannot be doubted that these designs and paintings also have an æsthetic character; here is the first form of art. Since they are also, and even above all, a written language, it follows that the origins of design and those of writing are one. It even becomes clear that men commenced designing, not so much to fix upon wood or stone beautiful forms which charm the senses, as to translate his thought into matter (cf. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, I, p. 405; Dorsey, Siouan Cults, pp. 394 ff.).

[365] See the cases in Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 63; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 146, 769; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 169; Roth, Superstition, Magic and Medicine, § 150; Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, p. 168; Meyer, ibid., p. 186.

[366] This is the case with the Warramunga (Nor. Tr., p. 168).

[367] For example, among the Warramunga, the Urabunna, the Wonghibon, the Yuin, the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, Ngeumba, etc.

[368] Among the Kaitish, if a man of the clan eats too much of his totem, the members of the other phratry have recourse to a magic operation which is expected to kill him (Nor. Tr., p. 284; cf. Nat. Tr., p. 204; Langloh Parker, The Euahlavi Tribe, p. 20).

[369] Nat. Tr., p. 202, n.; Strehlow, II, p. 58.

[370] Nor. Tr., p. 173.

[371] Nat. Tr., pp. 207 ff.

[372] See above, p. 128.

[373] It should also be borne in mind that in these myths the ancestors are never represented as nourishing themselves regularly with their totem. Consumption of this sort is, on the contrary, the exception. Their ordinary food, according to Strehlow, was the same as that of the corresponding animal (see Strehlow, I, p. 4).

[374] Also, this whole theory rests upon an entirely arbitrary hypothesis: Spencer and Gillen, as well as Frazer, admit that the tribes of central Australia, and especially the Arunta, represent the most archaic and consequently the purest form of totemism. We shall presently say why this conjecture seems to us to be contrary to all probability. It is even probable that these authors would not have accepted their thesis so readily if they had not refused to regard totemism as a religion and if they had not consequently misunderstood the sacred character of the totem.

[375] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 64; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 145 and 147; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 202; Grey, loc. cit.; Curr, III, p. 462.

[376] Nor. Tr., pp. 160, 167. It is not enough that the intermediary be of another totem: as we shall see, every totem of a phratry is forbidden in a certain measure for the members of the phratry who are of a different totem.

[377] Nor. Tr., p. 167. We can now explain more easily how it happens that when an interdiction is not observed, it is the other phratry which revenges this sacrilege (see above, p. 129, n. 2). It is because it has an interest in seeing that the rule is observed. In fact, they believe that when the rule is broken, the totemic species may not reproduce abundantly. Now the members of the other phratry consume it regularly: therefore it is they who are affected. That is why they revenge themselves.

[378] This is the case among the Loritja (Strehlow, II, pp. 60, 61), the Worgaia, the Warramunga, the Walpari, the Mara, the Anula and the Binbinga (Nor. Tr., pp. 166, 167, 171, 173). It may be eaten by a Warramunga or a Walpari, but only when offered by a member of the other phratry. Spencer and Gillen remark (p. 167, n.), that in this regard the paternal and the maternal totems appear to be under different rules. It is true that in both cases the offer must come from the other phratry. But when it is a question of the paternal totem, or the totem properly so-called, this phratry is the one to which the totem does not belong; for the maternal totem, the contrary is the case. Probably the principle was first established for the former, then mechanically extended to the other, though the situation was different. When the rule had once become established that the prohibition protecting the totem could be neglected only on the invitation of the other phratry, it was applied also to the maternal totem.

[379] For example, among the Warramunga (Nor. Tr., p. 166), the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, the Kurnai (Howitt, pp. 146 f.) and the Narrinyeri (Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 63).

[380] Even this is not always the case. An Arunta of the Mosquito totem must not kill this insect, even when it bothers him: he must confine himself to driving it away (Strehlow, II, p. 58; cf. Taplin, p. 63).

[381] Among the Kaitish and the Unmatjera (Nor. Tr., p. 160). It even happens that in certain cases an old man gives a young one of a different totem one of his churinga, so that he may kill the donor's totem more easily (ibid., p. 272).

[382] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 146; Grey, op. cit., II, p. 228; Casalis, Basoutos, p. 221. Among these latter, "one must be purified after committing such a sacrilege."

[383] Strehlow, II, pp. 58, 59, 61.

[384] Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, IIIrd Rep., pp. 225, 231.

[385] Casalis, ibid.

[386] Even among the Omaha, it is not certain that the interdictions of contact, certain examples of which we have just cited, are really of a totemic nature, for many of them have no direct connection with the animal that serves as totem of the clan. Thus in the sub-clan of the Eagle, the characteristic interdiction is against touching the head of a buffalo (Dorsey, op. cit., p. 239); in another sub-clan with the same totem, they must not touch verdigris, charcoal, etc. (ibid., p. 245).

We do not mention other interdictions mentioned by Frazer, such as those of naming or looking at the animal or plant, for it is still less certain that they are of totemic origin, except perhaps for certain facts observed among the Bechuana (Totemism, pp. 12-13). Frazer admits too readily—and in this regard, he has imitators—that the prohibitions against eating or touching an animal depend upon totemic beliefs. However, there is one case in Australia, where the sight of the animal seems to be forbidden. According to Strehlow (II, p. 59), among the Arunta and the Loritja, a man who has the moon as totem must not look at it very long, or he would be likely to die at the hand of an enemy. But we believe that this is a unique case. We must not forget, also, that astronomical totems were probably not primitive in Australia, so this prohibition may be the product of a complex elaboration. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that among the Euahlayi, looking at the moon is forbidden to all mothers and children, no matter what their totems may be (L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 53).

[387] See Bk. III, ch. ii, § 2.

[388] Perhaps there is no religion which makes man an exclusively profane being. For the Christian, the soul which each of us has within him and which constitutes the very essence of our being, has something sacred about it. We shall see that this conception of the soul is as old as religious thought itself. The place of man in the hierarchy of sacred things is more or less elevated.

[389] Nat. Tr., p. 202.

[390] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 59-61.

[391] Among certain clans of the Warramunga, for example (Nor. Tr., p. 162).

[392] Among the Urabunna (Nor. Tr., p. 147). Even when they tell us that the first beings were men, these are really only semi-human, and have an animal nature at the same time. This is the case with certain Unmatjera (ibid., pp. 153-154). Here we find ways of thought whose confusion disconcerts us, but which must be accepted as they are. We would denature them if we tried to introduce a clarity that is foreign to them (cf. Nat. Tr., p. 119).

[393] Among the Arunta (Nat. Tr., pp. 388 ff.); and among certain Unmatjera (Nor. Tr., p. 153).

[394] Nat. Tr., p. 389. Cf. Strehlow, I, pp. 2-7.

[395] Nat. Tr., p. 389; Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff. Undoubtedly there is an echo of the initiation rites in this mythical theme. The initiation also has the object of making the young man into a complete man, and on the other hand, it also implies actual surgical operations (circumcision, sub-incision, the extraction of teeth, etc.). The processes which served to form the first men would naturally be conceived on the same model.

[396] This the case with the nine clans of the Moqui (Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, IV, p. 86), the Crain clan among the Ojibway (Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 180), and the Nootka clans (Boas, VIth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, p. 43), etc.

[397] It is thus that the Turtle clan of the Iroquois took form. A group of turtles had been forced to leave the lake where they dwelt and seek another home. One of them, which was larger than the others, stood this exercise very badly owing to the heat. It made such violent efforts that it got out of its shell. The process of transformation, being once commenced, went on by itself and the turtle finally became a man who was the ancestor of the clan (Erminnie A. Smith, The Myths of the Iroquois, IInd Report, p. 77). The Crab clan of the Choctaw was formed in a similar manner. Some men surprised a certain number of crabs that lived in the neighbourhood, took them home with them, taught them to talk and to walk, and finally adopted them into their society (Catlin, North American Indians, II, p. 128).

[398] For example, here is a legend of the Tsimshian. In the course of a hunt, an Indian met a black bear which took him to its home, and taught him to catch salmon and build canoes. The man stayed with the bear for two years, and then returned to his native village. But the people were afraid of him, because he was just like a bear. He could not talk or eat anything except raw food. Then he was rubbed with magic herbs and gradually regained his original form. After that, whenever he was in trouble, he called upon his bear friends, who came to aid him. He built a house and painted a bear on the foundation. His sister made a blanket for the dance, upon which a bear was designed. That is why the descendants of this sister had the bear as their emblem (Boas, Kwakiutl, p. 323. Cf. Vth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, pp. 23, 29 ff.; Hill Tout, Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia, in J.A.I., 1905, XXXV, p. 150).

Thus we see the inconveniences in making this mystical relationship between the man and the animal the distinctive characteristic of totemism, as M. Van Gennep proposes (Totémisme et méthode comparative, in Revue de l'histoire des religions, Vol. LVIII, July, 1908, p. 55). This relationship is a mythical representation of otherwise profound facts; but it may be omitted without causing the disappearance of the essential traits of totemism. Undoubtedly there are always close bonds between the people of the clan and the totemic animal, but these are not necessarily bonds of blood-relationship, though they are frequently conceived in this form.

[399] There are also some Tlinkit myths in which the relationship of descent between the man and the animal is still more carefully stated. It is said that the clan is descended from a mixed union, if we may so speak, that is to say, one where either the husband or the wife was an animal of the species whose name the clan bears (see Swanton, Social Condition, Beliefs, etc., of the Tlinkit Indians, XXVIth Rep., pp. 415-418).

[400] Nat. Tr., p. 284.

[401] Ibid., p. 179.

[402] See Bk. III, ch. ii. Cf. Nat. Tr., pp. 184, 201.

[403] Ibid., pp. 204, 262, 284.

[404] Among the Dieri and the Parnkalla. See Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 658, 661, 668, 669-671.

[405] Among the Warramunga, the blood from the circumcision is drunk by the mother (Nor. Tr., p. 352). Among the Binbinga, the blood on the knife which was used in the sub-incision must be licked off by the initiate (ibid., p. 368). In general, the blood coming from the genital organs is regarded as especially sacred (Nat. Tr., p. 464; Nor. Tr., p. 598).

[406] Nat. Tr., p. 268.

[407] Ibid., pp. 144, 568.

[408] Ibid., pp. 442, 464. This myth is quite common in Australia.

[409] Nat. Tr., p. 627.

[410] Ibid., p. 466.

[411] Ibid. It is believed that if all these formalities are not rigorously observed, grave calamities will fall upon the individual.

[412] Nat. Tr., p. 538; Nor. Tr., p. 604.

[413] After the foreskin has been detached by circumcision, it is sometimes hidden, just like the blood; it has special virtues; for example, it assures the fecundity of certain animal and vegetable species (Nor. Tr., pp. 353 f.). The whiskers are mixed with the hair, and treated as such (ibid., pp. 604, 544). They also play a part in the myths (ibid., p. 158). As for the fat, its sacred character is shown by the use made of it in certain funeral rites.

[414] This is not saying that the woman is absolutely profane. In the myths, at least among the Arunta, she plays a religious rôle much more important than she does in reality (Nat. Tr., pp. 195 f.). Even now she takes part in certain initiation rites. Finally, her blood has religious virtues (see Nat. Tr., p. 464; cf. La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines, Année Sociol., I, pp. 41 ff.).

It is upon this complex situation of the woman that the exogamic restrictions depend. We do not speak of them here because they concern the problem of domestic and matrimonial organization more directly than the present one.

[415] Nat. Tr., p. 460.

[416] Among the Wakelbura, according to Howitt, p. 146; among the Bechuana, according to Casalis, Basoutos, p. 221.

[417] Among the Buandik and Kurnai (Howitt, ibid.); among the Arunta (Strehlow, II, p. 58).

[418] Howitt, ibid.

[419] In the Tully River district, says Roth (Superstition, Magic and Medicine, in North Queensland Ethnography, No. 5, § 74), as an individual goes to sleep or gets up in the morning, he pronounces in a rather low voice the name of the animal after which he is named himself. The purpose of this practice is to make the man clever or lucky in the hunt, or be forewarned of the dangers to which he may be exposed from this animal. For example, a man who has a species of serpent as his totem is protected from bites if this invocation has been made regularly.

[420] Taplin, Narrinyeri, p. 64; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 147; Roth, loc. cit.

[421] Strehlow, II, p. 58.

[422] Howitt, p. 148.

[423] Nor. Tr., pp. 159-160.

[424] Ibid.

[425] Ibid., p. 225; Nat. Tr., pp. 202, 203.

[426] A. L. P. Cameron, On Two Queensland Tribes, in Science of Man, Australasian Anthropological Journal, 1904, VII, 28, col. I.

[427] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 170.

[428] Notes on some Australian Tribes, J.A.I., XIII, p. 300.

[429] In Curr, Australian Race, III, p. 45; Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, I, p. 91; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 168.

[430] Durkheim and Mauss, De quelques formes primitives de classification, in Année Sociol., VI, pp. 1 ff.

[431] Curr, III, p. 461.