The nobles of the feudal period carved, engraved and designed in every way their coats-of- arms upon the walls of their castles, their arms, and every sort of object that belonged to them ; the blacks of Australia and the Indians of North America do the
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same thing with their totems. The Indians who accompanied Samuel Hearne painted their totems on their shields before going into battle.1 According to Charlevoix, in time of war, certain tribes of Indians had veritable ensigns, made of bits of bark fastened to the end of a pole, upon which the totems were represented.2 Among the Tlinkit, when a conflict breaks out between two clans, the champions of the two hostile groups wear helmets over their heads, upon which are painted their respective totems.3 Among the Iroquois, they put the skin of the animal which serves as totem upon each wigwam, as a mark of the clan.4 According to another observer, the animal was stuffed and set up before the door.5 Among the Wyandot, each clan has its own ornaments and its distinctive paintings.6 Among the Omaha, and among the Sioux generally, the totem is painted on the tent.7
Wherever the society has become sedentary, where the tent is replaced by the house, and where the plastic arts are more fully developed, the totem is engraved upon the woodwork and upon the walls. This is what happens, for example, among the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Salish and the Tlinkit. " A very particular ornament of the house, among the Tlinkit," says Krause, " is the totemic coat-of-arms." Animal forms, sometimes combined with human forms, are engraved upon the posts at the sides of the door of entry, which are as high as 15 yards ; they are generally painted with very bright colours.8 However, these totemic decorations are not very numerous in the Tlinkit village ; they are found almost solely before the houses of the chiefs and rich men. They are much more frequent in the neighbouring tribe of the Haida ; here there are always several for each house.9 With its many sculptured posts arising on every hand, sometimes to a great height, a Haida village gives the impression of a sacred city, all bristling with belfries or little minarets.10 Among the Salish, the totem is frequently represented upon the interior walls of the house.11 Elsewhere, it
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is found upon the canoes, the utensils of every sort and the funeral piles.1
The preceding examples are taken exclusively from the Indians of North America. This is because sculpture, engravings and permanent figurations are not possible except where the technique of the plastic arts has reached a degree of perfection to which the Australian tribes have not yet attained. Consequently the totemic representations of the sort which we just mentioned are rarer and less apparent in Australia than in America. However, cases of them are cited. Among the Warramunga, at the end of the burial ceremonies, the bones of the dead man are interred, after they have been dried and reduced to powder ; beside the place where they are deposited, a figure
1893, p. 377.
1Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 148 (quoted from Frazer, Toiemism,
P. 30).
2Charlevoix, Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France, V, p. 329.
3Krause, Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 248.
4Erminnie A. Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Sec. Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol., p. 78.
5Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 225.
6Powell, Wyandot Government, in First Rep. of the Bur. of Ethnol., 1881, p. 64.
7Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, in Third Rep,, pp. 229, 240, 248.
8Krause, op. cit., pp. 130 i.
9Krause, p. 308.
10See a photograph of a Haida village in Swanton, op. cit., PI. IX. Cf. Tyior, Totem Post of the Haida Village of Masset, J .A .1., New Series I, p. 133.
11Hill Tout, Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia, J.A .1., XXXV, p. 155-
1 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).
representing the totem is traced upon the ground.2 Among the Мага and the Anula, the body is placed in a piece of hollow" wood decorated with designs characteristic of the totem.3 In New South Wales, Oxiey found engravings upon the trees near the tomb where a native was buried 4 to which Brough Smyth attributes a totemic character. The natives of the Upper Darling carve totemic images upon their shields.5 According to Collins, nearly all the utensils are covered with ornaments which probably have the same significance ; figures of the same sort are found upon the rocks.6 These totemic designs may even be more frequent than it seems, for, owing to reasons which will be discussed below, it is not always easy to see what their real meaning is.
These different facts give us an idea of the considerable place held by the totem in the social life of the primitives. However, up to the present, it has appeared to us as something relatively outside of the man, for it is only upon external things that we have seen it represented. But totemic images are not placed only upon the walls of their houses, the sides of their canoes, their arms, their utensils and their tombs ; they are also found on the bodies of the men. They do not put their coat- of-arms merely upon the things which they possess, but they put it upon their persons ; they imprint it upon their flesh, it becomes a
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part of them, and this world of representations is even by far the more important one.
In fact, it is a very general rule that the members of each clan seek to give themselves the external aspect of their totem. At certain religious festivals among the Tlinkit, the person who is to direct the ceremonies wears a garment which represents, either wholly or in part, the body of the animal whose name he bears.1 These same usages are also found in all the North-West of America.2 They are found again among the Minnitaree, when they go into combat,3 and among the Indians of the Pueblos.4 Elsewhere, when the totem is a bird, men wear the feathers of this bird on their heads.5 Among the Iowa, each clan has a special fashion of cutting the hair. In the Eagle clan, two large tufts are arranged on the front of the head, while there is another one behind ; in the Buffalo clan, they are arranged in the form of horns.6 Among the Omaha, analogous arrangements are found : each clan has its own head-dress. In the Turtle clan, for example, the hair is all shaved off, except six bunches, two on each side of the head, one in front, and one behind, in such a way as to imitate the legs, the head and the tail of the animal.7
But it is more frequently upon the body itself that the totemic mark is stamped : for this is a way of representation within the capacity of even the least advanced societies. It has sometimes been asked whether the common rite of knocking out a young man's two upper teeth at the age of puberty does not have the object of reproducing the form of the totem. The fact is not established, but it is worth mentioning that the natives themselves sometimes explain the custom thus. For example, among the Arunta, the extraction of teeth is practised only in the clans of the rain and of water ; now according to tradition, the object of this operation is to make their faces look like certain black clouds with light borders which are believed to announce the speedy arrival of rain, and which are therefore considered things of the same family.8 This is a proof that the native
2Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., pp. 168, 537, 540.
3Ibid., p. i74.
4Brough Srnyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, I, p. 99 n.
5Brough Smyth, I, p. 284. Strehlow cites a fact of the same sort among the Arunta (III. p. 68).
6An Account of the English Colony in N.S. Wales, II, p. 381.
1Krause, p. 237.
2Swanton, Social Condition. Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVlth Rep., pp. 435 ft. ; Boas, The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiuti Indians, p. 358.
3Frazer, Totemism, p. 26.
4Boarke, The Snake Dance of the Maquis of Arizona, p. 229 ; J. W. Fewkes, The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called Katcinas, in X Vth Re-p., 1897, pp. 151-263.
5Muller, Geschichte der Amenkanischen Urreligionen, p. 327.
6Schoolcraft, op. cit.. Ill, p. 269.
7Dorsey, Omaha Social., Third Rep., pp. 229, 238, 240, 245.
8Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 451.
himself is conscious that the object of these deformations is to give him, at least conventionally, the aspect of his totem. Among these
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same Arunta, in the course of the rites of sub-incision, certain gashes are cut upon the sisters and the future wife of the novice ;
scars result from these, whose form is also represented upon a certain sacred object of which we shall speak presently and which is called the chnringa ; as we shall see, the lines thus drawn upon the churinga are emblematic of the totem.1 Among the Kaitish, the euro is believed to be closely connected with the rain;2 the men of the rain clan wear little ear-rings made of euro teeth.3 Among the Yerkia, during the initiation the young man is given a certain number of slashes which leave scars ; the number and form of these varies with the totems.4 An informer of Fison mentions the same fact in the tribes observed by him.5 According to Howitt, a relationship of the same sort exists among the Dieri between certain arrangements of scars and the water totem.6 Among the Indians of the North-West, it is a very general custom for them to tattoo themselves with the totem.7
But even if the tattooings which are made by mutilations or scars do not always have a totemic significance,8 it is different with simple designs drawn upon the body : they are generally representations of the totem. It is true that the native does not carry them every day. When he is occupied with purely economic occupations, or when the small family groups scatter to hunt or fish, he does not bother with all this paraphernalia, which is quite complicated. But when the clans unite to live a common life and to assist at the religious ceremonies together, then he must adorn himself. As we shall see, each of the ceremonies concerns a particular totem, and in theory the rites which are connected with a totem can be performed only by the men of that totem. Now those who perform,9 who take the part of
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officiants, and sometimes even those who assist as spectators, always have designs representing the totem on their bodies.1 One of the principal rites of initiation, by which a young man enters into the religious life of the tribe, consists in painting the totemic symbol on his body.2 It is true that among
1Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 257.
2The meaning oi these relations will be seen below (Bk. II, ch. iv).
3Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 296.
4Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 744-746 ; cf. p. 129.
5Kamilaroi and Kurnai. p. 66 n. It is true that other informers contest this fact.
6Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 744.
7Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida, pp. 41 ff., PI. XX and XXI ; Boas, The Social Organization
of the Kwakiuti, p. 318 : Swanton, Tlingit, PI. XVI ff.—In one place, outside the two ethnographic regions which we are specially studying, these tattooings arc 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, !-.es Basotdos, p. 221). According to "Robertson Smith, the same custom existed among the ancient Arabs {Kгnshгp and Marriage in Early Arabia, pp. 212—214).
8However, 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).
9Among the Arunta, this rule has exceptions which will be explained below.
1Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 162 ; Nor. Tr., pp. 179, 259, 292, 295 f.; Schuize, 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.
2This 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.
the Arunta the design thus traced does not always and necessarily represent the totem of the initiated;3 but these are exceptions, due, undoubtedly, to the disturbed state of the totemic organization of this tribe.4 Also, even among the Arunta, at the most solemn moment of the initiation, which is its crown and consecration, when the neophyte is allowed to enter the sanctuary where all the sacred objects belonging to the clan are preserved, an emblematic painting is placed upon him ; this time, it is the
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totem of the young man which is thus represented.1 The bonds which unite the individual to his totem are even so strong that in the tribes on the North-west coast of North America, the emblem of the clan is painted not only upon the living but also upon the dead : before a corpse is interred, they put the totemic mark upon it.2
III
These totemic decorations enable us to see that the totem is not merely a name and an emblem. It is in the course of the religious ceremonies that they are employed ; they are a part of the liturgy ; so while the totem is a collective label, it also has a religious character. In fact, it is in connection with it, that things are classified as sacred or profane. It is the very type of sacred thing.
The tribes of Central Australia, especially the Arunta, the Loritja, the Kaitish, the Unmatjera, and the llpirra,3 make constant use of certain instruments in their rites which are called the churinga by the Arunta, according to Spencer and Gillen, or the tjurunga, according to Strehlow.4 They are pieces of wood or bits of polished stone, of a great variety of forms, but generally oval or oblong.5 Each totemic group has a more or less important collection of these. Upon each of these is engraved a design - representing the totem of this same group.6 A certain number of the churinga have a hole at one end, through which goes a thread made of human hair or that of an opossum. Those which, are made of wood and are pierced in this way serve for exactly the same purposes as those instruments of the cult to which English ethnographers have given the
3Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 215, 241, 376.
4It 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 anotlier 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.).
1Nat. 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.
2Boas, General Report on the Indians of British Columbia in British Associa-. Hen/or the Advancement of Science, Fifth Rep. of the Committee on the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada, p. 41.
3There 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).
4Other 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.
5Strehlow, II, p. 81.
6There are a few which have no apparent design (see Spencer and Gillen, Naf. Tr., p. 144).
name of " bull-roarers." By means of the thread by which they are suspended, they are whirled rapidly in the air in such a way as to produce a sort of humming identical with that made by the toys of this name still used by our children ; this deafening noise has a ritual
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significance and accompanies all ceremonies of any importance. These sorts of churinga are real bull-roarers. But there are others which are not made of wood and are not pierced ; consequently they cannot be employed in this way. Nevertheless, they inspire the same religious sentiments.
In fact, every churinga, for whatever purpose it may be employed, is counted among the eminently sacred things ; there are none which surpass it in religious dignity. This is indicated even by the word which is used to designate tliem. It is not only a substantive but also an adjective meaning sacred. Also, among the several names which each Arunta has, there is one so sacred that it must not be revealed to a stranger ; it is pronounced but rarely, and then in a low voice and a sort of mysterious murmur. Now this name is called the aritna churinga (aritna means name).1 In general, the word churinga is used to designate all ritual acts ; for example, ilia churinga signifies the cult of the emu.2 Churinga, when used substantively, therefore designates the thing whose essential characteristic is sacredness. Profane persons, that is to say, women and young men not yet initiated into the religious life, may not touch or even see the churinga; they are only allowed to look at it from a distance, and even this is only on rare occasions.3
The churinga are piously kept in a special place, which the Arunta call the ertnatulunga.4 This is a cave or a sort of cavern hidden in a deserted place. The entrance is carefully closed by means of stones so cleverly placed that a stranger going past it could not suspect that the religious treasury of the clan was so near to him. The sacred character of the churinga is so great that it communicates itself to the locality where they are stored: the women and the uninitiated cannot approach it. It is only after their initiation is completely finished that the young men have access to it : there are some who are not esteemed worthy
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of this favour except after years of trial.1 The religious nature radiates to a distance and communicates itself to all the surroundings : everything near by participates in this same nature and is therefore withdrawn from profane touch. Is one man pursued by another ? If he succeeds in reaching the ertnatulunga, be is saved; he cannot be seized there.2 Even a wounded animal which takes refuge there must be respected.3 Quarrels are forbidden there. It is a place of peace, as is said in the Germanic societies ; it is a sanctuary of the totemic group, it is a veritable place of asylum.
But the virtues of the churinga are not manifested merely by the way in which it keeps the profane at a distance. If it is thus isolated, it is because it is something of a high religious value
1Nat. Tr., pp. 139 and 648 ; Strehlow, II, p. 75.
2Strehlow, who writes tjurunga, gives a slightly different translation to the word. " This word," he says, " means that which is secret and personal (der eige-ne 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 Macdonelt 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.
3Nat. 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.
4Strehlow calls this place, defined in exactly the same terms as by Spencer and Gillen, arknaiiaua instead of ertnatulunga (Strehlow, II, p. 78).
1Nor. Tr., p. 270 ; Nat. Tr., p. 140.
2Nat. Tr., p. 135.
3Strehlow, 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.