[788] Nat. Tr., pp. 512 f.; cf. ch. x and xi.

[789] Nat. Tr., p. 119.

[790] Among the Kaitish (Nor. Tr., p. 154) and the Urabunna (Nor. Tr., p. 146).

[791] This is the case among the Warramunga and the related tribes, the Walpari, Wulmala, Worgaia, Tjingilli (Nor. Tr., p. 161), and also the Umbaia and the Gnanji (ibid., p. 170).

[792] Strehlow, I, pp. 15-16. For the Loritja, see Strehlow, p. 7.

[793] Strehlow even goes so far as to say that sexual relations are not even thought to be a necessary condition or sort of preparation for conception (II, p. 52, n. 7). It is true that he adds a few lines below that the old men know perfectly well the connection which unites sexual intercourse and generation, and that as far as animals are concerned, the children themselves know it. This lessens the value of his first assertion a little.

[794] In general, we employ the terminology of Spencer and Gillen rather than that of Strehlow because it is now consecrated by long usage.

[795] Nat. Tr., pp. 124, 513.

[796] I, p. 5. Ngarra means eternal, according to Strehlow. Among the Loritja, only rocks fulfil this function.

[797] Strehlow translates it by Kinderkeime (children-germs). It is not true that Spencer and Gillen have ignored the myth of the ratapa and the customs connected with it. They explicitly mention it in Nat. Tr., pp. 336 ff. and 552. They noticed, at different points of the Arunta territory, the existence of rocks called Erathipa from which the spirit children, or the children's souls, disengage themselves, to enter the bodies of women and fertilize them. According to Spencer and Gillen, Erathipa means child, though, as they add, it is rarely used in this sense in ordinary conversation (ibid., p. 338).

[798] The Arunta are divided into four or eight matrimonial classes. The class of a child is determined by that of his father; inversely, that of the latter may be deduced from the former (see Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 70 ff.; Strehlow, I, pp. 6 ff.). It remains to be seen how the ratapa has a matrimonial class; we shall return to this point again.

[799] Strehlow, II, p. 52. It happens sometimes, though rarely, that disputes arise over the nature of the child's totem. Strehlow cites such a case (II, p. 53).

[800] This is the same word as the namatwinna found in Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., p. 541).

[801] Strehlow, II, p. 53.

[802] Strehlow, II, p. 56.

[803] Mathews attributes a similar theory of conception to the Tjingilli (alias Chingalee) (Proc. Roy. Geogr. Trans. and Soc. Queensland, XXII (1907), pp. 75-76).

[804] It sometimes happens that the ancestor who is believed to have thrown the namatuna shows himself to the woman in the form of an animal or a man; this is one more proof of the affinity of the ancestral soul for a material form.

[805] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 237.

[806] This results from the fact that the ratapa can incarnate itself only in the body of a woman belonging to the same matrimonial class as the mother of the mythical ancestor. So we cannot understand how Strehlow could say (I, p. 42, Anmerkung) that, except in one case, the myths do not attribute determined matrimonial classes to the Alcheringa ancestors. His own theory of conception proves the contrary (cf. II, pp. 53 ff.).

[807] Strehlow, II, p. 58.

[808] The difference between the two versions becomes still smaller and is reduced to almost nothing, if we observe that, when Spencer and Gillen tell us that the ancestral soul is incarnated in the woman, the expressions they use are not to be taken literally. It is not the whole soul which comes to fertilize the mother, but only an emanation from this soul. In fact, according to their own statement, a soul equal or even superior in power to the one that is incarnated continues to live in the nanja tree or rock (see Nat. Tr., p. 514); we shall have occasion to come back to this point again (cf. below, p. 275).

[809] II, pp. 76, 81. According to Spencer and Gillen, the churinga is not the soul of the ancestor, but the object in which his soul resides. At bottom, these two mythological interpretations are identical, and it is easy to see how one has been able to pass into the other: the body is the place where the soul resides.

[810] Strehlow, I, p. 4.

[811] Strehlow, I, pp. 53 f. In these stories, the ancestor begins by introducing himself into the body of the woman and causing there the troubles characteristic of pregnancy. Then he goes out, and only then does he leave his namatuna.

[812] Strehlow, II, p. 76.

[813] Ibid., p. 81. This is the word for word translation of the terms employed, as Strehlow gives them: Dies du Körper bist; dies du der nämliche. In the myth, a civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, says as he presents to each man the churinga of his ancestor: "You are born of this churinga" (ibid., p. 76).

[814] Strehlow, II, p. 76.

[815] Strehlow, ibid.

[816] At bottom, the only real difference between Strehlow and Spencer and Gillen is the following one. For these latter, the soul of the individual, after death, returns to the nanja tree, where it is again confounded with the ancestor's soul (Nat. Tr., p. 513); for Strehlow, it goes to the isle of the dead, where it is finally annihilated. In neither myth does it survive individually. We are not going to seek the cause of this divergence. It is possible that there has been an error of observation on the part of Spencer and Gillen, who do not speak of the isle of the dead. It is also possible that the myth is not the same among the eastern Arunta, whom Spencer and Gillen observed particularly, as in the other parts of the tribe.

[817] Strehlow, II, p. 51.

[818] Ibid., II, p. 56.

[819] Ibid., I, pp. 3-4.

[820] Ibid., II, p. 61.

[821] See above, p. 183.

[822] Strehlow, II, p. 57; I, p. 2.

[823] Strehlow, II, p. 57.

[824] Roth, Superstition, Magic, etc., § 74.

[825] In other words, the totemic species is made up of the group of ancestors and the mythological species much more than of the regular animal or vegetable species.

[826] See above, p. 254.

[827] Strehlow, II, p. 76.

[828] Strehlow, ibid.

[829] Strehlow, II, pp. 57, 60, 61. Strehlow calls the list of totems the list of ratapa.

[830] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 475 ff.

[831] The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe of Australian Aborigines, in Curr, II, p. 47.

[832] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 482.

[833] Ibid., p. 487.

[834] Taplin, Folk-Lore, Customs, Manners, etc., of the South Australian Aborig., p. 88.

[835] The clan of each ancestor has its special camp underground; this camp is the miyur.

[836] Mathews, in Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 293. He points out the same belief among other tribes of Victoria (ibid., p. 197).

[837] Mathews, ibid., p. 349.

[838] J. Bishop, Die Niol-Niol, in Anthropos, III, p. 35.

[839] Roth, Superstition, etc., § 68; cf. § 69a, gives a similar case from among the natives on the Proserpine River. To simplify the description, we have left aside the complications due to differences of sex. The souls of daughters are made out of the choi of their mother, though these share with their brothers the ngai of their father. This peculiarity, coming perhaps from two systems of filiation which have been in use successively, has nothing to do with the principle of the perpetuity of the soul.

[840] Ibid., p. 16.

[841] Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 282.

[842] Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida, pp. 117 ff.

[843] Boas, Sixth Rep. of the Comm. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, p. 59.

[844] Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages Amériquains, II, p. 434; Petitot, Monographie des Dénè-Dindjié, p. 59.

[845] See above, pp. 134 ff.

[846] See above, p. 137.

[847] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 147; cf. ibid., p. 769.

[848] Strehlow (I, p. 15, n. 2) and Schulze (loc. cit., p. 246) speak of the soul, as Howitt here speaks of the totem, as leaving the body to go to eat another soul. Likewise, as we have seen above, the altjira or maternal totem shows itself in dreams, just as a soul or spirit does.

[849] Fison and Howitt, Kurnai and Kamilaroi, p. 280.

[850] Globus, Vol. CXI, p. 289. In spite of the objections of Leonhardi, Strehlow maintains his affirmations on this point (see Strehlow, III, p. xi). Leonhardi finds a contradiction between this assertion and the theory according to which the ratapa emanate from trees, rocks or churinga. But the totemic animal incarnates the totem just as much as the nanja-tree or rock does, so they may fulfil the same function. The two things are mythological equivalents.

[851] Notes on the West Coastal Tribes of the Northern Territory of S. Australia, in Trans. of the Roy. Soc. of S. Aust., XXXI (1907), p. 4. Cf. Man, 1909, No. 86.

[852] Among the Wakelbura, where, according to Curr and Howitt, each matrimonial class has its own totems, the animal shows the class (see Curr, III, p. 28); among the Buandik, it reveals the clan (Mrs. James S. Smith, The Buandik Tribes of S. Australian Aborigines, p, 128). Cf. Howitt, On Some Australian Beliefs, in J.A.I., XIII, p. 191; XIV, p. 362; Thomas, An American View of Totemism, in Man, 1902, No. 85; Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, pp. 347-348; Brough Smyth, I, p. 110; Nor. Tr., p. 513.

[853] Roth, Superstition, etc., § 83. This is probably a form of sexual totemism.

[854] Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika, II, p. 190.

[855] K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Bräsiliens, 1894, pp. 511, 512.

[856] See Frazer, Golden Bough², I, pp. 250, 253, 256, 257, 258.

[857] Third Rep., pp. 229, 233.

[858] Indian Tribes, IV, p. 86.

[859] For example, among the Batta of Sumatra (see Golden Bough², III, p. 420), in Melanesia (Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 178), in the Malay Archipelago (Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, in J.A.I., New Series, I, p. 147). It is to be remarked that the cases where the soul clearly presents itself after death in an animal form all come from the societies where totemism is more or less perverted. This is because the idea of the soul is necessarily ambiguous wherever the totemic beliefs are relatively pure, for totemism implies that it participate in the two kingdoms at the same time. So it cannot become either one or the other exclusively, but takes one aspect or the other, according to the circumstances. As totemism develops, this ambiguity becomes less necessary, while at the same time, spirits more actively demand attention. Then the marked affinities of the soul for the animal kingdom are manifested, especially after it is freed from the human body.

[860] See above, p. 170. On the generality of the doctrine of metempsychosis, see Tylor, II, pp. 8 ff.

[861] Even if we believe that religious and moral representations constitute the essential elements of the idea of the soul, still we do not mean to say that they are the only ones. Around this central nucleus are grouped other states of consciousness having this same character, though to a slighter degree. This is the case with all the superior forms of the intellectual life, owing to the special price and dignity attributed to them by society. When we devote our lives to science or art, we feel that we are moving in a circle of things that are above bodily sensations, as we shall have occasion to show more precisely in our conclusion. This is why the highest functions of the intelligence have always been considered specific manifestations of the soul. But they would probably not have been enough to establish the idea of it.

[862] F. Tregear, The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 203-205.

[863] This is the thesis of Preuss in his articles in the Globus which we have cited several times. It seems that M. Lévy-Bruhl also tends towards this conception (see his Fonctions mentales, etc., pp. 92-93).

[864] On this point, see our Suicide, pp. 233 ff.

[865] It may be objected perhaps that unity is the characteristic of the personality, while the soul has always been conceived as multiple, and as capable of dividing and subdividing itself almost to infinity. But we know to-day that the unity of the person is also made up of parts and that it, too, is capable of dividing and decomposing. Yet the notion of personality does not vanish because of the fact that we no longer think of it as a metaphysical and indivisible atom. It is the same with the popular conceptions of personality which find their expression in the idea of the soul. These show that men have always felt that the human personality does not have that absolute unity attributed to it by certain metaphysicians.

[866] For all this, we do not deny the importance of the individual factor: this is explained from our point of view just as easily as its contrary. If the essential element of the personality is the social part of us, on the other hand there can be no social life unless distinct individuals are associated, and this is richer the more numerous and different from each other they are. So the individual factor is a condition of the impersonal factor. And the contrary is no less true, for society itself is an important source of individual differences (see our Division du travail social, 3rd. ed., pp. 267 ff.).

[867] Roth, Superstition, Magic, etc., §§ 65, 68; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 514, 516.

[868] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 521, 515; Dawson, Austral. Aborig., p. 58; Roth, op. cit., § 67.

[869] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 517.

[870] Strehlow, II, p. 76 and n. 1; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 514, 516.

[871] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 513.

[872] On this question, see Negrioli, Dei Genii presso i Romani; the articles Daimon and Genius in the Dict. of Antiq.; Preller, Romische Mythologie, II, pp. 195 ff.

[873] Negrioli, ibid., p. 4.

[874] Ibid., p. 8.

[875] Ibid., p. 7.

[876] Ibid., p. 11. Cf. Samter, Der Ursprung der Larencultus, in Archiv f. Religions-wissenschaft, 1907, pp. 368-393.

[877] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 237.

[878] Strehlow, I, p. 5. Cf. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 133; Gason, in Curr, II, p. 69.

[879] See the case of a Mura-mura who is considered the spirit of certain hot springs, in Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 482.

[880] Nor. Tr., pp. 313 f.; Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 351. Among the Dieri there is also a Mura-mura whose function is to produce rain (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 798 f.).

[881] Roth. Superstition, etc., § 67. Cf. Dawson, p. 59.

[882] Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff.

[883] See above, p. 249.

[884] Nor. Tr., ch. vii.

[885] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 277.

[886] Strehlow, I, p. 5.

[887] It is true that some nanja-trees and rocks are not situated around the ertnatulunga; they are scattered over different parts of the tribal territory. It is said that these are places where an isolated ancestor disappeared into the ground, lost a member, let some blood flow, or lost a churinga which was transformed into a tree or rock. But these totemic sites have only a secondary importance; Strehlow calls them kleinere Totemplätze (I, pp. 4-5). So it may be that they have taken this character only by analogy with the principal totemic centres. The trees and rocks which, for some reason or other, remind one of those found in the neighbourhood of an ertnatulunga, inspire analogous sentiments, so the myth which was formed in regard to the latter was extended to the former.

[888] Nat. Tr., p. 139.

[889] Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 21. The tree serving for this use is generally one of those figuring among the sub-totems of the individual. As a reason for this choice, they say that as it is of the same family as the individual, it should be better disposed to giving him aid (ibid., p. 29).

[890] Ibid., p. 36.

[891] Strehlow, II, p. 81.

[892] Parker, op. cit., p. 21.

[893] Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 249-253.

[894] Turner, Samoa, p. 17.

[895] These are the very words used by Codrington (p. 251).

[896] This close connection between the soul, the guardian genius and the moral conscience of the individual is especially apparent among certain peoples of Indonesia. "One of the seven souls of the Tobabatak is buried with the placenta; though preferring to live in this place, it may leave it to warn the individual or to manifest its approbation when he does well. So in one sense, it plays the rôle of a moral conscience. However, its communications are not confined to the domain of moral facts. It is called the younger brother of the soul, as the placenta is called the younger brother of the child.... In war, it inspires the man with courage to march against the enemy" (Warneck, Der bataksche Ahnen und Geistercult, in Allg. Missionszeitschrift, Berlin, 1904. p. 10. Cf. Kruijt, Het Animisme in den indischen Archipel, p. 25).

[897] It still remains to be investigated how it comes that after a certain moment in evolution, this duplication of the soul was made in the form of an individual totem rather than of a protecting ancestor. Perhaps this question has an ethnological rather than a sociological interest. However, the manner in which this substitution was probably effected may be represented as follows.

The individual totem commenced by playing a merely complimentary rôle. Those individuals who wished to acquire powers superior to those possessed by everybody, did not and could not content themselves with the mere protection of the ancestor; so they began to look for another assistant of the same sort. Thus it comes about that among the Euahlayi, the magicians are the only ones who have or who can procure individual totems. As each one has a collective totem in addition, he finds himself having many souls. But there is nothing surprising in this plurality of souls: it is the condition of a superior power.

But when collective totemism once begins to lose ground, and when the conception of the protecting ancestor consequently begins to grow dim in the mind, another method must be found for representing the double nature of the soul, which is still felt. The resulting idea was that, outside of the individual soul, there was another, charged with watching over the first one. Since this protecting power was no longer demonstrated by the very fact of birth, men found it natural to employ, for its discovery, means analogous to those used by magicians to enter into communion with the forces of whose aid they thus assured themselves.

[898] For example, see Strehlow, II, p. 82.

[899] Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, p. 168.

[900] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 62 f.; Roth, Superstition, etc., § 116; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 356, 358; Strehlow, pp. 11-12.

[901] Strehlow, I, pp. 13-14; Dawson, p. 49.

[902] Strehlow, I, pp. 11-14; Eylmann, pp. 182, 185; Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 211; Schürmann, The Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln, in Woods, p. 239.

[903] Eylmann, p. 182.

[904] Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 345; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 467; Strehlow, I, p. 11.

[905] Nat. Tr., pp. 390-391. Strehlow calls these evil spirits Erintja; but this word is evidently equivalent to Oruncha. Yet there is a difference in the ways the two are presented to us. According to Spencer and Gillen, the Oruncha are malicious rather than evil; they even say (p. 328) that the Arunta know no necessarily evil spirits. On the contrary, the regular business of Strehlow's Erintja is to do evil. Judging from certain myths given by Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., p. 390), they seem to have touched up the figures of the Oruncha a little: these were originally ogres (ibid., p. 331).

[906] Roth, Superstition, etc., § 115; Eylmann, p. 190.

[907] Nat. Tr., pp. 390 f.

[908] Ibid., p. 551.

[909] Ibid., pp. 326 f.

[910] Strehlow, I, p. 14. When there are twins, the first one is believed to have been conceived in this manner.

[911] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 327.

[912] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 358, 381, 385; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 334; Nor. Tr., pp. 501, 530.

[913] As the magician can either cause or cure sickness, we sometimes find, besides these magical spirits whose function is to do evil, others who forestall or neutralize the evil influence of the former. Cases of this sort will be found in Nor. Tr., pp. 501-502. The fact that the latter are magic just as much as the former is well shown by the fact that the two have the same name, among the Arunta. So they are different aspects of a single magic power.

[914] Strehlow, I, p. 9. Putiaputia is not the only personage of this sort of whom the Arunta myths speak: certain portions of the tribe give a different name to the hero to whom the same invention is ascribed. We must not forget that the extent of the territory occupied by the Arunta prevents their mythology from being completely homogeneous.

[915] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 493.

[916] Ibid., p. 498.

[917] Ibid., pp. 498 f.

[918] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 135.

[919] Ibid., pp. 476 ff.

[920] Strehlow, I, pp. 6-8. The work of Mangarkunjerkunja must be taken up again later among other heroes; for, according to a belief that is not confined to the Arunta, a time came when men forgot the teaching of their first initiators and became corrupt.

[921] This is the case, for example, of Atnatu (Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 153) and the Witurna (Nor. Tr., p. 498), If Tendun did not establish these rites, it is he who is charged with the direction of their celebration (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 670).

[922] Nor. Tr., p. 499.

[923] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 493; Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 197 and 247; Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 492.

[924] For example, see Nor. Tr., p. 499.

[925] Nor. Tr., pp. 338, 347, 499.

[926] It is true that Spencer and Gillen maintain that these mythical beings play no moral rôle (Nor. Tr., p. 493); but this is because they give too narrow a meaning to the word. Religious duties are duties: so the fact of looking after the manner in which these are observed concerns morals, especially because all morals have a religious character at this period.

[927] The fact was observed as early as 1845 by Eyre, Journals, etc., II, p. 362, and, before Eyre, by Henderson, Observations on the Colonies of N.S. Wales and Van Diemen's Land, p. 147.

[928] Nat. Tr., pp. 488-508.

[929] Among the Kulin, Wotjobaluk and Woëworung (Victoria).

[930] Among the Yuin, Ngarrigo and Wolgal (New South Wales).

[931] Among the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi (northern part of New South Wales); and more to the centre, in the same province, among the Wonghibon and the Wiradjuri.

[932] Among the Wiimbaio and the tribes on the lower Murray (Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 137; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423, n., 431).

[933] Among the tribes on the Herbert River (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 498).

[934] Among the Kurnai.

[935] Taplin, p. 55; Eylmann, p. 182.

[936] It is undoubtedly to this supreme Mura-mura that Gason makes allusion in the passage already cited (Curr, II, p. 55).

[937] Nat. Tr., p. 246.

[938] Between Baiame, Bunjil and Daramulun on the one hand, and Altjira on the other, there is the difference that the latter is completely foreign to all that concerns humanity; he did not make man and does not concern himself with what they do. The Arunta have neither love nor fear for him. But when this conception is carefully observed and analysed, it is hard to admit that it is primitive; for if the Altjira plays no rôle, explains nothing, serves for nothing, what made the Arunta imagine him? Perhaps it is necessary to consider him as a sort of Baiame who has lost his former prestige, as an ancient god whose memory is fading away. Perhaps, also, Strehlow has badly interpreted the testimony he has gathered. According to Eylmann, who, it is to be admitted, is neither a very competent nor a very sure observer, Altjira made men (op. cit., p. 134). Moreover, among the Loritja, the corresponding personage, Tukura, is believed to celebrate the initiation ceremonies himself.

[939] For Bunjil, see Brough Smyth, I, p. 417; for Baiame, see Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136; for Daramulun, see Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 495.

[940] On the composition of Bunjil's family, for example, see Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 128, 129, 489, 491; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417, 423; for Baiame's, see L. Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 7, 66, 103; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 502, 585, 407; for Nurunderi's, Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 57 f. Of course, there are all sorts of variations in the ways in which the families of these great gods are conceived. The personage who is a brother here, is a son there. The number and names of the wives vary with the locality.

[941] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 128.

[942] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 430, 431.

[943] Ibid., I, p. 432, n.

[944] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 498, 538; Mathews, Jour. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 343; Ridley, p. 136.

[945] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 538; Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 57-58.

[946] L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 8.

[947] Brough Smyth, I, p. 424.

[948] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 492.

[949] According to certain myths, he made men but not women; this is related of Bunjil. But then, the origin of women is attributed to his son-brother, Pallyan (Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417 and 423).

[950] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 489, 492; Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 340.

[951] L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 7; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 630.

[952] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136; L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 114.

[953] L. Parker, More Austr. Leg. Tales, pp. 84-89, 90-91.

[954] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 495, 498, 543, 563, 564; Brough Smyth, I, p. 429; L. Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 79.

[955] Ridley, p. 137.

[956] L. Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 90-91.

[957] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 495; Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 58.

[958] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 538, 543, 553, 555, 556; Mathews, loc. cit., p. 318; L. Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 6, 79, 80.

[959] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 498, 528.

[960] Howitt, ibid., p. 493; L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 76.

[961] L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 76; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 493, 612.

[962] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 153; L. Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 67; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 585; Mathews, loc. cit., p. 343. In opposition to Baiame, Daramulun is sometimes presented as a necessarily evil spirit (L. Parker, loc. cit.; Ridley, in Brough Smyth, II, p. 285).

[963] J.A.I., XXI, pp. 292 ff.

[964] The Making of Religion, pp. 187-293.

[965] Lang, ibid., p. 331. The author confines himself to stating that the hypothesis of St. Paul does not appear to him "the most unsatisfactory."

[966] The thesis of Lang has been taken up again by Father Schmidt in the Anthropos (1908-1909). Replying to Sydney Hartland, who had criticized Lang's theory in an article entitled The "High Gods" of Australia, in Folk-Lore (Vol. IX, pp. 290 ff.), Father Schmidt undertook to show that Baiame, Bunjil, etc., are eternal gods, creators, omnipotent, omniscient and guardians of the moral order. We are not going to enter into this discussion, which seems to have neither interest nor importance. If these different adjectives are given a relative sense, in harmony with the Australian mind, we are quite ready to accept them, and have even used them ourselves. From this point of view, omnipotent means having more power than the other sacred beings; omniscient, seeing things that escape the vulgar and even the greatest magicians; guardian of the moral order, one causing the rules of Australian morality to be respected, howsoever much these may differ from our own. But if they want to give these words meanings which only a spiritualistic Christian could attach to them, it seems useless to discuss an opinion so contrary to the principles of the historical method.

[967] On this question, see N. W. Thomas, Baiame and Bell-bird—A Note on Australian Religion, in Man, 1905, No. 28. Cf. Lang, Magic and Religion, p. 25. Waitz had already upheld the original character of this conception in his Anthropologie d. Naturvölker, pp. 796-798.

[968] Dawson, p. 49; Meyer, Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, pp. 205, 206; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 481, 491, 492, 494; Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136.

[969] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 55-56.

[970] L. Parker, More Austr. Leg. Tales, p. 94.

[971] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427.

[972] Taplin, ibid., p. 60.

[973] Taplin, ibid., p. 61.

[974] "The world was created by beings called Nuralie; these beings, who had already long existed, had the forms of crows or of eagle-hawks" (Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424).

[975] "Bayamee," says Mrs. Parker, "is for the Euahlayi what the Alcheringa is for the Arunta" (The Euahlayi, p. 6).

[976] See above, pp. 257 f.

[977] In another myth, reported by Spencer and Gillen, a wholly analogous rôle is filled by two personages living in heaven, named Ungambikula (Nat. Tr., pp. 388 ff.).

[978] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 493.

[979] Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 62-66, 67. This is because the great god is connected with the bull-roarer, which is identified with the thunder; for the roaring of this ritual instrument is connected with the rolling of thunder.

[980] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 135. The word meaning totem is written thundung by Howitt.

[981] Strehlow, I, pp. 1-2 and II, p. 59. It will be remembered that, among the Arunta, the maternal totem was quite probably the real totem at first.

[982] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 555.

[983] Ibid., pp. 546, 560.

[984] Ridley, Kamilaroi, pp. 136, 156. He is represented in this form during the initiation rites of the Kamilaroi. According to another legend, he is a black swan (L. Parker, More Aust. Leg. Tales, p. 94).

[985] Strehlow, I, p. 1.

[986] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424.

[987] Nat. Tr., p. 492.

[988] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 128.

[989] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417-423.

[990] See above, p. 108.

[991] There are phratries bearing the names Kilpara (crow) and Mukwara. This is the explanation of the myth itself, which is reported by Brough Smyth (I, pp. 423-424).

[992] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427. Cf. Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 486. In this case, Karween is identified with the blue heron.

[993] Brough Smyth, I, p. 423.

[994] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 585; Mathews, J. of R. S. of N.S. Wales, XXVIII (1894), p. 111.

[995] See above, p. 145. Cf. Father Schmidt, The Origin of the Idea of God, in Anthropos, 1909.

[996] Op. cit., p. 7. Among these same people, the principal wife of Baiame is also represented as the mother of all the totems, without belonging to any totem herself (ibid., pp. 7, 79).

[997] See Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 511 f., 513, 602 ff.; Mathews, J. of R.S. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 270. They invite to these feasts not only the tribes with whom a regular connubium is established, but also those with whom there are quarrels to be arranged; the vendetta, half-ceremonial and half-serious, take place on these occasions.

[998] See above, p. 155.

[999] There is one form of ritual especially which we leave completely aside; this is the oral ritual which must be studied in a special volume of the Collection de l'Année Sociologique.

[1000] See the article Taboo in the Encyclopædia Britannica, written by Frazer.

[1001] Facts prove the reality of this inconvenience. There is no lack of writers who, putting their trust in the word, have believed that the institution thus designated was peculiar to primitive peoples in general, or even to the Polynesians (see Réville, Religion des peuples primitifs, II, p. 55; Richard, La Femme dans l'histoire, p. 435).

[1002] See above, p. 43.

[1003] This is not saying that there is a radical break of continuity between the religious and the magic interdictions: on the contrary, it is one whose true nature is not decided. There are interdicts of folk-lore of which it is hard to say whether they are religious or magic. But their distinction is necessary, for we believe that the magic interdicts cannot be understood except as a function of the religious ones.

[1004] See above, p. 149.

[1005] Many of the interdictions between sacred things can be traced back, we think, to those between the sacred and the profane. This is the case with the interdicts of age or rank. For example, in Australia, there are sacred foods which are reserved for the initiated. But these foods are not all sacred to the same degree; there is a hierarchy among them. Nor are the initiated all equal. They do not enjoy all their religious rights from the first, but only enter step by step into the domain of religious things. They must pass through a whole series of ranks which are conferred upon them one after another, after special trials and ceremonies; it requires months and sometimes even years to reach the highest rank. Now special foods are assigned to each of these ranks; the men of the lower ranks may not touch the foods which rightfully belong to the men of the superior ones (see Mathews, Ethnol. Notes, etc., loc. cit. pp. 262 ff.; Parker, The Euahlayi, p. 23; Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., pp. 611 ff.; Nat. Tr., pp. 470 ff.). So the more sacred repels the less sacred; but this is because the second is profane in relation to the first. In fine, all the interdictions arrange themselves in two classes: the interdictions between the sacred and the profane and the purely sacred and the impurely sacred.

[1006] See above, p. 137.

[1007] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 463.

[1008] Nat. Tr., p. 538; Nor. Tr., p. 640.

[1009] Nor. Tr., p. 531.

[1010] Nor. Tr., pp. 518 f.; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 449.

[1011] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Schulze, loc. cit., p. 231.

[1012] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 499.

[1013] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 451.

[1014] If the alimentary interdictions which concern the totemic plant or vegetable are the most important, they are far from being the only ones. We have seen that there are foods which are forbidden to the non-initiated because they are sacred; now very different causes may confer this character. For example, as we shall presently see, the birds which are seen on the tops of trees are reputed to be sacred, because they are neighbours to the great god who lives in heaven. Thus, it is possible that for different reasons the flesh of certain animals has been specially reserved for the old men and that consequently it has seemed to partake of the sacred character recognized in these latter.

[1015] See Frazer, Totemism, p. 7.

[1016] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 674.—There is one interdiction of contact of which we say nothing because it is very hard to determine its exact nature: this is sexual contact. There are religious periods when a man cannot have commerce with a woman (Nor. Tr., pp. 293, 295; Nat. Tr., p. 397). Is this because the woman is profane or because the sexual act is dreaded? This question cannot be decided in passing. We set it aside along with all that concerns conjugal and sexual rites. It is too closely connected with the problems of marriage and the family to be separated from them.

[1017] Nat. Tr., p. 134; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 354.

[1018] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 624.

[1019] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 572.

[1020] Ibid., p. 661.

[1021] Nat. Tr., p. 386; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 655, 665.

[1022] Among the Wiimbaio (Howitt, ibid., p. 451).

[1023] Howitt, ibid., pp. 624, 661, 663, 667; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 382 ff.; Nor. Tr., pp. 335, 344, 353, 369.

[1024] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 262, 288, 303, 378, 380.

[1025] Ibid., p. 302.

[1026] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 581.

[1027] Nor. Tr., p. 227.

[1028] See above, p. 288.

[1029] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Nor. Tr., p. 526; Taplin, Narrinyeri, p. 19.

[1030] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 466, 469 ff.

[1031] Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, p. 165.

[1032] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 470.

[1033] Ibid., p. 657; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 139; Nor. Tr., pp. 580 ff.

[1034] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 537.

[1035] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 544, 597, 614, 620.

[1036] For example, the hair belt which he ordinarily wears (Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 171).

[1037] Ibid., p. 624 ff.

[1038] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 556.

[1039] Ibid., p. 587.

[1040] This act takes on a sacred character, it is true, when the elements eaten are sacred. But in itself, the act is so very profane that eating a sacred food always constitutes a profanation. The profanation may be permitted or even ordered, but, as we shall see below, only on condition that rites attenuating or expiating it precede or accompany it. The existence of these rites shows that, by itself, the sacred thing should not be eaten.

[1041] Nor. Tr., p. 263.

[1042] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 171.

[1043] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 674. Perhaps the rule against talking during the great religious solemnities is due to the same cause. Men speak, and especially in a high voice, during ordinary life; then, in the religious life they ought to keep still or talk in a low voice. This same consideration is not foreign to the alimentary interdictions (see above, p. 128).

[1044] Nor. Tr., p. 33.

[1045] Since there is a sacred principle, the soul, within each man, from the very first, the individual is surrounded by interdicts, the original form of the moral interdicts which isolate and protect the human person to-day. Thus the corpse of his victim is considered dangerous for a murderer (Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 492), and is taboo for him. Now the interdicts having this origin are frequently used by individuals as a means of withdrawing certain things from common use and thus establishing a property right over them. "When a man goes away from the camp, leaving his arms and food there," says Roth, speaking of the tribes on the Palmer River (North Queensland), "if he urinates near the objects he leaves, they become tami (equivalent to taboo) and he may be sure of finding them intact on his return" (North Queensland Ethnography, in Records of the Australian Museum, Vol. VII, No. 2, p. 75). This is because the urine, like the blood, is believed to contain some of the sacred force which is personal to the individual. So it keeps strangers at a distance. For the same reasons, the spoken word may also serve as a vehicle for these same influences; that is how it becomes possible to prevent access to an object by a mere verbal declaration. This power of making interdicts varies with different individuals; it is greater as their character is more sacred. Men have this privilege almost to the exclusion of women (Roth cites one 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.

[1047] See above, p. 10.

[1048] See above, p. 219.

[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).

[1051] Ibid., pp. 561, 563, 670 f.; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 223; Nor. Tr., pp. 340, 342.

[1052] The word Jeraeil, for example, among the Kurnai, or Kuringal among the Yuin and Wolgal (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 518, 617).

[1053] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 348.

[1054] Howitt, p. 561.

[1055] Howitt, pp. 633, 538, 560.

[1056] Ibid., p. 674; Parker, Euahlayi, p. 75.

[1057] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 154.

[1058] Howitt, p. 563.

[1059] Ibid., p. 611.

[1060] Ibid., pp. 549, 674.

[1061] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 580, 596, 604, 668, 670; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 223, 351.

[1062] Howitt, p. 557.

[1063] Ibid., p. 604; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 351.

[1064] Howitt, p. 611.

[1065] Howitt, p. 589.

[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.

[1069] Nor. Tr., pp. 331 f.

[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.

[1072] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 372.

[1073] Ibid., p. 335.

[1074] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 675.

[1075] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 569, 604.

[1076] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 251; Nor. Tr., 341, 352.

[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.

[1079] Eylmann, op. cit., p. 212.

[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.

[1082] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 133.

[1083] See above, p. 121.

[1084] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 134 f.; Strehlow, I, p. 78.

[1085] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., pp. 167, 299.

[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.

[1087] Howitt, ibid., pp. 674 f.

[1088] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 454. Cf. Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 561.

[1089] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 557.

[1090] Ibid., p. 560.

[1091] See above, pp. 303, 306. Cf. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Nor. Tr., pp. 506, 507, 518 f., 526; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 449, 461, 469; Mathews, in J. of R.S. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 274; Schulze, loc. cit., p. 231; Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, pp. 165, 198.

[1092] Australian Aborigines, p. 42.

[1093] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 470-471.

[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.

[1095] See references above, p. 128, n. 1. Cf. Nor. Tr., pp. 323, 324; Nat. Tr., p. 168; Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 16; Roth, North Queensland Ethnography. Bull. 10, Records of Austral. Museum, VII, p. 76.

[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.

[1098] See above, p. 229.

[1099] See above, p. 194.

[1100] See above, p. 190.

[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).

[1103] See above, p. 235.

[1104] Strehlow, I, p. 4.

[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.

[1106] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 243; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 169 f.

[1107] Nat. Tr., pp. 170 ff.

[1108] Of course the women are under the same obligation.

[1109] The apmara is the only thing which he brought from the camp.

[1110] Nat. Tr., pp. 185-186.

[1111] Nor. Tr., p. 288.

[1112] Ibid.

[1113] Nor. Tr., p. 312.

[1114] Ibid.

[1115] We shall see below that these clans are much more numerous than Spencer and Gillen say.

[1116] Nat. Tr., pp. 184-185.

[1117] Nat. Tr., pp. 438, 461, 464; Nor. Tr., pp. 596 ff.

[1118] Nat. Tr., p. 201.

[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.

[1120] Nat. Tr., p. 181.

[1121] A tribe on the east of Lake Eyre.

[1122] Nor. Tr., pp. 287 f.

[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.

[1124] Nor. Tr., p. 295.

[1125] Ibid., p. 314.

[1126] Ibid., pp. 296 f.

[1127] Nat. Tr., p. 170.

[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.

[1129] Nat. Tr., p. 203. Cf. Meyer, The Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, p. 187.

[1130] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 204.

[1131] Nat. Tr., pp. 205-207.

[1132] Nor. Tr., pp. 286 f.

[1133] Ibid., p. 294.

[1134] Ibid., p. 296.

[1135] Meyer, in Woods, p. 187.

[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.

[1138] Nor. Tr., p. 318.

[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).

[1152] Strehlow, III, p. 12, verse 7.

[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.

[1160] Nat. Tr., p. 176.

[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).

[1163] Nat. Tr., p. 182.

[1164] Nat. Tr., p. 193.

[1165] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 221; cf. p. 243.

[1166] Strehlow, III, pp. 11, 31, 36, 37, 68, 72, 84.

[1167] Ibid., p. 100.

[1168] Ibid., pp. 81, 100, 112, 115.

[1169] Nor. Tr., p. 310.

[1170] Nor. Tr., pp. 285-286. Perhaps the object of these movements of the lance is to pierce the clouds.