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But if the ancestor is so readily confused with the totemic being, the individual soul, which is so near the ancestral soul, cannot do otherwise. Moreover, this is what actually results from the close union of each man with his churinga. In fact, we know that the churinga represents the personality of the individual who is believed to have been born of it;1 but it also expresses the totemic animal. When the civilizing hero, Man-garkunjerkunja, presented each member of the Kangaroo clan with his personal totem, he spoke as follows: " Here is the body of a kangaroo."2 Thus the churinga is at once the body of the ancestor, of the individual himself and of the totemic animal; so, according to a strong and very just expression of Strehlow, these three beings form a " solid unity."3 They are almost equivalent and interchangeable terms. This is as much as to say that they are thought of as different aspects of one and the same reality, which is also denned by the distinctive attributes of the totem. Their common essence is the totemic principle. The language itself expresses this identity. The word ratapa, and the aratapi of the Loritja language, designate the mythical embryo which is detached from the ancestor and which becomes the child ; now these same words also designate the totem of this same child, such as is determined by the spot where the mother believes that she conceived.4
III
Up to the present we have studied the doctrine of reincarnation only in the tribes of Central Australia; therefore the bases upon which our inference rests may be deemed too narrow. But in the first place, for the reasons which we have pointed out, the experiment holds good outside of the societies which we have observed directly. Also, there are abundant facts proving that the same or analogous conceptions are found in the most diverse parts of Australia or, at least, have left very evident traces there. They are found even in America.
Howitt mentions them among the Dieri of South Australia.5 The word Mu-ra-mura, which Gason translates with Good Spirit and which he thinks expresses a belief in a god creator,6 is really a collective word designating the group of ancestors placed by the myth at the beginning of the tribe. They continue to exist
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to-day as formerly. " They are believed to live in trees, which are sacred for this reason." Certain irregularities of the ground, rocks and springs are identified with these Mura-mura,1 which consequently resemble the Altjirangamitjina of the Arunta in a singular way. The Kurnai of Gippsland, though retaining only vestiges of totemism, also believe in the existence of ancestors called Muk-Kurnai, and which they think of as beings intermediate between men and animals.2 Among the Nimbaldi, Taplin has observed a theory of conception similar to that which Strehlow attributes to the Arunta.3 We find this belief in reincarnation held integrally by the Wotjobaluk in Victoria. " The spirits of the dead," says Mathews, " assemble in the miyur4 of their respective clans ; they leave these to be born again in human form when a favourable occasion presents itself."5
1See above, p. 254.
2Strehlow, II, p. 76.
3Strehlow, ibid.
4Strehlow, II, pp. 57, бо, бг. Strehlow calls the list of totems the list of ratapa.
5Howitt, Nat. TV., pp. 475 ff.
6The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe of Australian Aborigines, in Curr, II, p. 47.
1Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 482.
2Ibid., p. 487.
3Taplin, Folk-Lore, Customs. Manners, etc., of the South Australian Aborig., p. S,-
4The clan of each ancestor has its special camp underground ; this camp is the miyur.
5Mathews, in Jour. of Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII. p. 293. lie points out the same belief among other tribes of
Victoria (ihid., p. 197).
Mathews even affirms that " the belief in the reincarnation or transmigration of souls is strongly enrooted in all the Australian tribes."6
If we pass to the northern regions we find the pure doctrine of the Arunta among the NiolNiol in the north-west; every birth is attributed to the incarnation of a pre-existing soul, which introduces itself into the body of a woman.7 In northern Queensland myths, differing from the preceding only in form, express exactly the same ideas. Among the tribes on the Penne-father River it is believed that every man has two souls: the one, called ngai, resides in the heart; the other, called choi, remains in the placenta. Soon after birth the placenta is buried in a consecrated place. A particular genius, named Anje-a, who has charge of the phenomena of procreation, comes to get this choi and keeps it until the child, being grown up, is married When the time comes to give him a son, Anje-a takes a bit of the choi of this man, places it in the embryo he is making, and inserts it into the womb of the mother. So it is out of the soul of the father that that of the child is made. It is true that the child does not receive the paternal soul integrally at first, for the ngai remains in the heart of the father as long as he lives. But when he dies the ngai, being liberated, also incarnates itself in the bodies of the children ; if there are several children it is divided equally among them. Thus there is a perfect spiritual
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continuity between the generations ; it is the same soul which is transmitted from a father to his children and from these to their children, and this unique soul, always remaining itself in spite of its successive divisions and subdivisions, is the one which animated the first ancestor at the beginning of all things.1 Between this theory and the one held by the central tribes there is only one difference of any importance; this is that the reincarnation is not the work of the ancestors themselves but that of a special genius who takes charge of this function professionally. But it seems probable that this genius is the product of a syncretism which has fused the numerous figures of the first ancestors into one single being. This hypothesis is at least made probable by the fact that the words Anje-a and Anjir are evidently very closely related; now the second designates the first man, the original ancestor from whom all men are descended.2
These same ideas are found again among the Indian tribes of America. Krauss says that among the Tlinkit, the souls of the departed are believed to come back to earth and introduce themselves into the bodies of the pregnant women of their families.
So when a woman dreams, during pregnancy, of some deceased relative, she believes that the soul of this latter has penetrated into her. If the young child has some characteristic mark which the dead man had before, they believe that it is the dead man himself come back to earth, and his name is given to the child."3 This belief is also general among the Haida. It is the shaman who reveals which relative it was who reincarnated himself in the child and what name should consequently be given to him.4 Among the Kwakiuti it is believed that the latest member of a family who died comes back to life in the person of the first child to be born in that family.5 It is the same with the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Tinneh, and many other tribes of the United States.6 The universality of these conceptions extends, of course, to the conclusion which we have deduced from them, that is, to the explanation of the idea of the soul which we have proposed. Its general acceptability is also proved by the following facts.
6 Mathews, rb'iii., p. 349. J. liishop, Die Л'»о/-Л'»о/, in Anihropos, III, p. 35.
1Roth, Superstition, etc., § 68 ; cf. § 6ga, 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.
2Ibid., p. 16.
3Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 282.
4Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida. pp. 117 ft.
5Boas, Sixth Rep. of the Comm. on the N. W. Tribes of Canada, p. 59.
6Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages Ameriquains, II, p. 434 ; Petitot, Monographic des Dene-Dindjii, p. 59.
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We know1 that each individual contains within him something of that anonymous force which is diffused in the sacred species;
he is a member of this species himself. But as an empirical and visible being, he is not, for, in spite of the symbolic designs and marks with which he decorates his body, there is nothing in him to suggest the form of an animal or plant. So it must be that there is another being in him, in whom he recognizes himself, but whom he represents in the form of an animal or vegetable species. Now is it not evident that this double can only be the soul, since the soul is, of itself, already a double of the subject whom it animates ? The justification of this identification is completed by the fact that the organs where the fragment of the totemic principle contained in each individual incarnates itself the most eminently are also those where the soul resides. This is the case with the blood. The blood contains something of the nature of the totem, as is proved by the part it takes in the totemic ceremonies.2 But at the same time, the blood is one of the seats of the soul; or rather, it is the soul itself, seen from without. When blood flows, life runs out and, in the same process, the soul escapes. So the soul is confused with the sacred principle which is imminent in the blood.
Regarding matters from another point of view, if our explanation is well-founded, the totemic principle, in penetrating into the individual as we suppose, should retain a certain amount of autonomy there, since it is quite distinct from the subject in whom it is incarnated. Now this is just what Howitt claims to have observed among the Yuin : " That in this tribe the totem is thought to be in some way part of a man is clearly seen by the case of Umbara, before mentioned, who told me that, many years ago, someone of the Lace-lizard totem sent it while he ,was asleep, and that it went down his throat and almost ate his totem, which was in his breast, so that he nearly died."3 So it is quite true that the totem is broken up in individualizing itself and that each of the bits thus detached plays the part of a spirit or soul residing in the body.4
But there are other more clearly demonstrative facts. If the soul is only the totemic principle individualized, it should have, in certain cases at least, rather close relations with the animal or vegetable species whose form is reproduced by the totem.
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And, in fact, " the Geawe-Gal (a tribe of New South Wales) had a superstition that everyone had within himself an affinity to the spirit of some bird, beast or reptile. Not that he sprung from the creature in any way, but that the spirit which was in him was akin to that of the creature."1
There are even cases where the soul is believed to emanate directly from the animal or vegetable serving as totem. Among the Arunta, according to Strehlow, when a woman has eaten a great deal of fruit, it is believed that she will give birth to a child who will have this fruit as totem. If, at the moment when she felt the first tremblings of the child, she was looking at a kangaroo, it is believed that the ratapa of the kangaroo has entered her body and fertilized her.2 H. Basedow reported the same fact from the Wogait.3 We know, also, that the ratapa and the soul are almost
1See above, pp. 134 ff.
2See above, p.137.
3Howitt, .Ve<. Гг., p. 147 ; cf. ibtd., p. 769.
4Strehlow (I, p. 15, n. 2) and Schuize (loc. tit., 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.
1Fison and Howitt, Kurnai and Kamilaroi, p. 280.
2Globus, 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 nanjatree or rock does, so they may fulfil tlie same function. The two things are mythological equivalents.
3 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.
indistinguishable things. Now, such an origin could never have been attributed to the soul if men did not think that it was made out of the same substances as the plants and animals of the totemic species.
Thus the soul is frequently represented in an animal form. It is known that in inferior societies, death is never considered a natural event, due to the action of purely physical causes ; it is generally attributed to the evil workings of some sorcerer. In a large number of Australian societies, in order to determine who is the responsible author of this murder, they work on the principle that the soul of the murderer must inevitably come to visit its victim. Therefore, the body is placed upon a scaffolding; then, the ground under the corpse and all around it is carefully smoothed off so that the slightest mark becomes easily perceptible. They return the next day ; if an animal has passed by there during the interval, its tracks are readily recognizable. Their form reveals the species to which it belongs, and from that, they infer the social group of which the guilty man is a member. They say that it is a man of such a class or such a clan,4 according
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the Idea of the Soul to whether the animal is the totem of this or that class or clan. So the soul is believed to have come in the form of the totemic animal.
In other societies where totemism has weakened or disappeared, the soul still continues to be thought of in an animal form. The natives of Cape Bedford (North Queensland) believe that the child, at the moment of entering the body of its mother, is a curlew if it is a girl, or a snake if it is a boy.1 It is only later that it takes a human form. Many of the Indians of North America, says the Prince of Wied, say that they have an animal in their bodies.2 The Bororo of Brazil represent the soul in the form of a bird, and therefore believe that they are birds of the same variety.3 In other places, it is thought of as a snake, a lizard, a fly, a bee, etc.4
But it is especially after death that this animal nature of the soul is manifested. During life, this characteristic is partially veiled, as it were, by the very form of the human body. But when death has once set it free, it becomes itself again. Among the Omaha, in at least two of the Buffalo clans, it is believed that the souls of the dead go to rejoin the buffalo, their ancestors.5 The Hopi are divided into a certain number of clans, whose ancestors were animals or beings with animal forms. Now Schoolcraft tells us that they say that at death, they take their original form again ; each becomes a bear or deer, according to the clan to which he belongs.6 Very frequently the soul is believed to reincarnate itself in the body of an animal.7 It is probably from this that the widelyspread doctrine of metempsychosis was derived. We have already seen how hard pressed Tyior is to account for it.8 If the soul is an essentially human
4Among the Wakelbiira, 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 Tutemism, in Man, 1902, No. 85 ; Mathews, Journ. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, XXXV1I1. pp. 347-348 ; Brough Smyth, I, p. uo ; Nor. Tr., p. 513.
1Roth, Superstition, etc., § 83. This is probably a form of sexual totemism. i
2Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-A merika, II, p. 190.
3К. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvi'lkern Zentral-Briisiliens, 1894, PP. 511. 512.
4Sec Fraxcr, Golden Bough, I, pp. 250, 253, 256, 257, 258.
5Third Rep.. pp. 229, 233.
6Indian Tribes, IV, p. ti6.
7For example, among the Batta of Sumatra (sec Golden Bough2, III, p. 420), in Melanesia (Codrington, The
Melanesians, p. 178), in the Malay Archipelago (T.ylor, Remarks on Totemism, in J.A.I., New Series, I, p. 147). It is to be remarked tliat the cases where the soul clearly presents itself after death in an animal form ,4.11 come from the societies where toteraism 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 hulrfan body.
8 See above, p. 170. On the generality of the doctrine of metempsychosis, see Tyior, II. pp. 8 ff.
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principle, what could be more curious than this marked predilection which it shows, in so large a number of societies, for the animal form ? On the other hand, everything is explained if, by its very constitution, the soul is closely related to the animal, for in that case, when it returns to the animal world at the close of this life, it is only returning to its real nature. Thus the generality of the belief in metempsychosis is a new proof that the constituent elements of the idea of the soul have been taken largely from the animal kingdom, as is presupposed by the theory which we have just set forth.
IV
Thus the notion of the soul is a particular application of the beliefs relative to sacred beings. This is the explanation of the religious character which this idea has had from the moment when it first appeared in history, and which it still retains to-day. In fact, the soul has always been considered a sacred thing ; on this ground, it is opposed to the body which is, in itself, profane. It is not merely distinguished from its material envelope as the inside from the outside ; it is not merely represented as made out of a more subtle and fluid matter ; but more than this, it inspires those sentiments which are everywhere reserved for that which is divine. If it is not made into a god, it is at least regarded as a spark of the divinity. This essential characteristic would be inexplicable if the idea of the soul were only a pre-scientific solution given to the problem of dreams ; for there is nothing in the dream to awaken religious emotions, so the cause by which these are explained could not have such a character. But if the soul is a part of the divine substance, it represents something not ourselves that is within us ; if it is made of the same mental matter as the sacred beings, it is natural that it should become the object of the same sentiments.
And the sacred character which men thus attribute to themselves is not the product of a pure illusion either ; like the notions of religious force and of divinity, the notion of the soul is not without a foundation in reality. It is perfectly true that we are made up of two distinct parts, which are opposed to one another as the sacred to the profane, and we may say that, in a certain sense, there is divinity in us. For society, this unique source of all that is sacred, does not limit itself to moving us from without and affecting us for the moment ; it establishes itself within us in a durable manner. It arouses within us a whole world of ideas and sentiments which express it but which, at the same time, form an integral and permanent part of ourselves. When the Australian goes away from a religious ceremony, the representations
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which this communal life has aroused or re-aroused within him are not obliterated in a second. The figures of the great ancestors, the heroic exploits whose memory these rites perpetuate, the great deeds of every sort in which he, too, has participated through the cult, in a word, all these numerous ideals which he has elaborated with the co-operation of his fellows, continue to Uve in his consciousness and, through the emotions which are attached to them and the ascendancy which they hold over his entire being, they are sharply distinguished from the vulgar impressions arising from his daily relations with external things. Moral ideas have the same character. It is society which forces them upon us, and as the respect inspired by it is naturally extended to all that comes from it, its imperative rules of conduct are invested, by reason of their origin, with an authority and a dignity which is shared by none of our internal states : therefore, we assign them a place apart in our psychical life. Although our moral conscience is a part of our consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices ; the very tone in which it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is not of ourselves. This is the objective foundation of the idea of the soul: those representations whose flow constitutes our interior life are of two different species which are irreducible one into another. Some concern themselves with the external and material world ; others, with an ideal world to which we attribute a moral superiority over the first. So we are really made up of two beings facing in different and almost contrary directions, one of whom exercises a real pre-eminence over the other. Such is the profound