The ancestral spirits are only entities forged in the image of the individual souls whose origin they are destined to explain. The souls, in their turn, are only the form taken by the impersonal forces which we found at the basis of totemism, as they individualize themselves in the human body. The unity of the system is as great as its complexity.
In this work of elaboration, the idea of the soul has undoubtedly played an important part: it is through it that the idea of personality has been introduced into the domain of religion. But it is not true that, as the theorists of animism maintain, it contains the germ of the whole religion. First of all, it presupposes the notion of mana or the totemic principle of which it is only a special form. Then, if the spirits and gods could not bs conceived before the soul, they are, nevertheless, more than mere human souls, liberated by death ; else whence would come their supernatural powers? The idea of the soul has merely served to direct the mythological imagination in a new way and to suggest to it constructions of a new sort. But the matter for these conceptions has been taken, not from the representation of the soul, but from this reservoir of the anonymous and diffused forces which constitute the original foundation of religions. The creation of mythical personalities has only As for the notion of the great god, it is due entirely to the sentiment whose action we have already observed in the genesis of the most specifically totemic beliefs : this is the tribal sentiment. In fact, we have seen that totemism was not the work of isolated clans, but that it was always elaborated in the body of a tribe which was to some degree conscious of its unity. It is for this reason that the different cults peculiar to each clan mutually touch and complete each other in such a way as to form a unified whole.1 Now it is this same sentiment of a tribal unity which is expressed in the conception of a supreme god, common to the tribe as a whole. So they are quite the same causes which are active at the bottom and at the top of this religious system. However, up to the present, we have considered the religious. I representations as if they were self-sufficient and could be explained by themselves. But in reality, they are inseparable from the rites, not only because they manifest themselves there, but also because they, in their turn, feel the influence of these. Of course the cult depends upon the beliefs, but it also reacts upon them. So in order to understand them better, it is important to understand it better. The moment has come for undertaking its study.been another way of thinking of these essential forces.
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CHAPTER I
THE NEGATIVE CULT AND ITS FUNCTIONS THE ASCETIC RITES
BOOK III THE PRINCIPAL RITUAL ATTITUDES
WE do not have the intention of attempting a complete description of the primitive cult in what is to follow. Being preoccupied especially with reaching that which is most elementary and most fundamental in the religious life, we shall not attempt to reconstruct in detail the frequently confused multiplicity of all the ritual forms. But out of the midst of this extreme diversity of practices we should like to touch upon the most characteristic attitudes which the primitive observes in the celebration of his cult, to classify the most general forms of his rites, and to determine their origins and significance, in order that we may control and, if there is occasion, make more definite the results to which the analysis of the beliefs has led us.1
Every cult presents a double aspect, one negative, the other positive. In reality, of course, the two sorts of rites which we denominate thus are closely associated ; we shall see that they suppose one another. But still, they are different and, if it is only to understand their connection, it is necessary to distinguish them.
I
By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane beings. Normally, the first are outside
1 See above, p. 155
1 There is one form ol ritual especially which we leave completely aside ; this is the oral ritual which must be studied in a special volume of the Collection de Г Annie Sociologique.
the others. A whole group of rites has the object of realizing this state of separation which is essential. Since their function is to prevent undue mixings and to keep one of these two domains from encroaching upon the other, they are only able to impose abstentions or negative acts. Therefore, we propose to give the name negative cult to the system formed by these special rites. They do not prescribe certain acts to the faithful, but confine themselves to forbidding certain ways of acting ; so they all
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take the form of interdictions, or as is commonly said by ethno-graphers, of taboos. This latter word is the one used in the Polynesian languages to designate the institution in virtue of which certain things are withdrawn from common use1; it is also an adjective expressing the distinctive characteristic of these kinds of things. We have already had occasion to show how hard it is to translate a strictly local and dialectical expression like this into a generic term. There is no religion where there are no interdictions and where they do not play a considerable part; so it is regrettable that the consecrated terminology should seem to make so universal an institution into a peculiarity of Polynesia.2 The expression interdicts or interdictions seems to us to be much more preferable. However, the word taboo, like the word totem, is so customary that it would show an excess of purism to prohibit it systematically; also, the inconveniences it may have are attenuated when its real meaning and importance have once been definitely stated.
But there are interdictions of different sorts which it is important to distinguish; for we shall not have to treat all kinds of interdictions in this chapter.
First of all, beside those coming from religion, there are others which are due to magic. The two have this in common, that they declare certain things incompatible, and prescribe the separation of the things whose incompatibility is thus proclaimed. But there are also very grave differences between them. In the first place, the sanctions are not the same in the two cases. Of course the violation of the religious interdicts is frequently believed, as we shall presently see, to bring about material disorders mechanically, from which the guilty man will suffer, and which are regarded as a judgment on his act. But even if these really come about this spontaneous and automatic judgment is not the only one ; it is always completed by another one, supposing human intervention. A real punishment is added to this, if it does not anticipate it, and this one is deliberately inflicted by men ; or at least there is a blame and public reprobation. Even when the sacrilege has been punished, as it were, by the sickness or natural death of its author, it is also defamed; it offends opinion, which reacts against it; it puts the man who did it in fault. On the contrary, the magic interdiction is judged only by the material consequences which the forbidden act is
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believed to produce, with a sort of physical necessity. In disobeying, a man runs risks similar to those to which an invalid exposes himself in not following the advice of his physician; but in this case disobedience is not a fault; it creates no indignation. There is no sin in magic. Moreover, this difference in sanction is due to a profound difference in the nature of the interdictions. The religious interdiction necessarily implies the notion of sacredness; it comes from the respect inspired by the sacred object, and its purpose is to keep this respect from failing. On the other hand, the interdictions of magic suppose only a wholly lay notion of property. The things which the magician recommends to be kept separate are those which, by reason of their characteristic properties, cannot be brought together and confused without danger. Even if he happens to ask his clients to keep at a distance from certain sacred things, it is not through respect for them and fear
1See the article Taboo in the Encyclopedia Britannica, written by Frazer.
2Facts 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 Reville, Religion des peuples primitifs, II, p. 55 ; Richard, La Femme dans I'histoire, p. 435).
that they may be profaned, for, as we know, magic lives on profanations;1 it is merely for reasons of temporal utility. In a word, religious interdictions are categorical imperatives; others are useful maxims, the first form of hygienic and medical interdictions. We cannot study two orders of facts as different as these simultaneously, or even under the same name, without confusion. We are only concerned with the religious interdictions here.2
But a new distinction is necessary between these latter. There are religious interdictions whose object is to separate two sacred things of different species from each other. For example, it will be remembered that among the Wakelbura the scaffold upon which the corpse is exposed must be made exclusively of materials belonging to the phratry of the dead man ;
this is as much as to say that all contact between the corpse, which is sacred, and the things of the other phratry, which are also sacred, but differently, is forbidden. Elsewhere, the arms which one uses to hunt an animal with cannot be made out of a kind of wood that is classed in the same social group as the animal itself.3 But the most important of these interdictions are the ones which we shall study in the next chapter ; they are intended to prevent all communication between the purely sacred and the impurely sacred, between the sacredly auspicious and the sacredly inauspicious. All these interdictions have one common
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characteristic; they come, not from the fact that some things are sacred while others are not, but from the fact that there are inequalities and incompatibilities between sacred things. So they do not touch what is essential in the idea of sacredness. The observance of these prohibitions can give place only to isolated rites which are particular and almost exceptional ; but it could not make a real cult, for before all, a cult is made by regular relations between the profane and the sacred as such.
But there is another system of religious interdictions which is much more extended and important; this is the one which separates, not different species of sacred things, but all that is sacred from all that is profane. So it is derived immediately from the notion of sacredness itself, and it limits itself to expressing and realizing this. Thus it furnishes the material for a veritable cult, and even of a cult which is at the basis of all the others; for the attitude which it prescribes is one from which the worshipper must never depart in all his relations with the sacred. It is what we call the negative cult. We may say that its interdicts are the religious interdicts par excellence.1 It is only these that we shall discuss in the following pages.
But they take multiple forms. Here are the principal ones which we observe in Australia. Before all are the interdictions of contact ; these are the original taboos, of which the others
are scarcely more than particular varieties. They rest upon the principle that the profane should never touch the sacred. We have seen already that the uninitiated may not touch the churinga or the bull-roarers under any circumstances. If adults are allowed the free use of them, it is because
1See above, p. 43.
2This 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.
3See above, p. 149.
1 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 tliem. 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, Nov. 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.
initiation has conferred a sacred character upon them. Blood, and especially that which flows during the initiation, has a religious virtue;2 it is under the same interdict.3 It is the same
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with the hair.1 A dead man is sacred because the soul which animated the body stays with the corpse ; for this reason it is sometimes forbidden to carry the bones of a dead man about unless they are wrapped up in a piece of bark.2 Even the place where the death took place should be avoided, for they believe that the soul of the dead man continues to haunt the spot. That is why they break camp and move some distance away;3 in certain cases they destroy it along with everything it contains,4 and a certain time must elapse before they can come back to the same place.5 Thus it comes about that a dying man creates an empty space about him ; they abandon him after they have installed him as comfortably as possible.6
An exceptionally intimate contact is the one resulting from the absorption of food. Hence comes the interdiction against eating the sacred animals or vegetables, and especially those serving as totems.7 Such an act appears so very sacrilegeous that the prohibition covers even adults, or at least, the majority of them ; only the old men attain a sufficient religious dignity to escape this interdict sometimes. This prohibition has sometimes been explained by the mythical kinship uniting the man to the animals whose name he bears ; they are protected by the sentiment of sympathy which they inspire by their position as kin.8 But the fact that the consumption of the forbidden flesh is believed to cause sickness or death automatically shows that this interdiction does not have its origin in the simple revolt of the feeling of domestic relationship. Forces of another sort are in action which are analogous to those in all religions and which are believed to react against sacrileges.
Moreover, if certain foods are forbidden to the profane because they are sacred, certain others, on the contrary, are forbidden to persons of a sacred character, because they are profane. Thus it frequently happens that certain animals are specially designated as the food of women; for this reason, they believe that they partake of a feminine nature and that they are consequently
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profane. On the other hand, the young initiate is submitted to a series of rites of particular severity ; to give him the virtues which will enable him to enter into the world of sacred things, from which he had up till then been excluded, they centre an exceptionally powerful group of religious forces upon him. Thus he enters into a state of sanctity which keeps all that is profane at a distance. Then he is not allowed to eat the game which is regarded as the special food of women.1
But contact may be established by other means than the touch. One comes into relations
2See above, p. 137.
3Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 463.
1Nat. Tr.. p. 538 ; Nor. Tr.. p. 640.
2Nor. Tr., p. 531.
3Nor. Tr.. pp. 518 f. ; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 449.
4Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498 ; Schuize, loc. cit., p. 231.
5Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 499.
6Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 451.
7If 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.
8 See Frazcr, Totemism, p. 7.
1 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.
with a thing by merely regarding it : a look is a means of contact. This is why the sight of sacred things is forbidden to the profane in certain cases. A woman should never see the instruments of the cult ; the most that is permitted her is to catch a glimpse of them from afar.2 It is the same with the totemic paintings executed on the bodies of the officiants in the exceptionally important ceremonies.3 The exceptional solemnity of the rites of initiation prevents the women in certain tribes from seeing the place where they were celebrated4 or even the neophyte himself.5 The sacred character which is imminent in the ceremony as a whole is naturally found in the persons of those who directed it or took some part in it; the result of this is that the novice may not raise his eyes to them, and this interdiction continues even after the rite is accomplished.6 A dead man is also removed from view sometimes : his face is covered over in such a way that it cannot be seen.7
The word is another way of entering into relations with persons or things. The breath expired establishes a communication ; this is a part of us which spreads outwards. Thus it is forbidden to the profane to address the sacred beings or simply to speak in their presence. Just as the neophyte must not regard either the operators or the assistants, so it is forbidden to him to converse with them except by signs; and this interdiction keeps the place to which it has been raised, by means of a special rite.8
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In a general way, there are, among the Arunta, moments in the course of the great ceremonies when silence is obligatory.1 As soon as the churinga are exposed, every one keeps still, or if someone talks, he does so in a low voice or with his lips only.2
Besides the sacred things, there are words and sounds which have the same character ; they should not pass the lips of the profane or enter their ears. There are ritual songs which women must not hear under pain of death.3 They may hear the noise of the bull-roarers, but only from a distance. Every proper name is considered an essential element of the person who bears it; being closely associated in the mind to the idea of this person, it participates in the sentiments which this latter inspires. So if the one is sacred, the other is. Therefore, it may not be pronounced in the course of the profane life. Among the Warramunga there is one totem which is particularly venerated, this is the snake called Wollunqua ; its name is taboo.4 It is the same with Baiame, Daramulun and Bunjil ; the esoteric form of their name must not be revealed to the uninitiate.5 During mourning, the name of the dead man must not be mentioned, at least by his parents, except when there is an absolute necessity, and even in this case it must be whispered.6 This interdiction is frequently perpetual for the widow and certain relatives.7 Among certain peoples, this even extends beyond the family ; all the individuals whose name is the same as that of the dead man must change theirs temporarily.8 But there is more than this : the relatives and intimate friends sometimes abstain from certain words in the usual language, undoubtedly because they were employed by the dead man ; these gaps are filled in by means of periphrases or words taken from some foreign dialects.9 In addition to their public and everyday names all men have another which
2Nat. Tr., p. 134 ; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 354.
3Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 624.
4Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 572.
5Ibid., p. 661.
6Nat. Tr., p. 386 ; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 655. 665.
7Among the Wiimbaio (Howitt, ibid., p. 451).
8Howitt. ibid., pp. 624, 66i, 663, 667 ; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 382 ff. ; Nor. Tr.. pp. 335, 344, 353, 369.
1Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 2б2, 288, 303, -378, 380.
2Ibid.. р. зо2.
3Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 581.
4Nor. Tr., p. 227.
5See above, p. 288.
6Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498 ; Nor. Tr., p. 526 ; Taplin, Narrin-yeri, p. 19.
7Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 466, 469 ff.
8Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, p. 165.
9Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 470.