chapter vi

, entitled _Ceremonies Connected with the Totems_.

[1226] Strehlow, III, pp. 1-2.

[1227] This explains the error of which Strehlow accuses Spencer and Gillen: that they applied to one form of the ceremony the term which is more appropriate for the other. But in these conditions, the error hardly seems to have the gravity attributed to it by Strehlow.

[1228] It cannot be otherwise. In fact, as the initiation is a tribal feast, novices of different totems are initiated at the same time. So the ceremonies which thus succeed one another in the same place have to do with several totems, and, therefore, they must take place away from the places with which they are connected by the myth.

[1229] It will now be understood why we have never studied the initiation rites by themselves: it is because they are not a ritual entity, but are formed by the conglomeration of rites of different sorts. There are interdictions, ascetic rites and representative ceremonies which cannot be distinguished from those celebrated at the time of the Intichiuma. So we had to dismember this composite system and treat each of the different rites composing it separately, classifying them with the similar rites to which they are to be related. We have also seen (pp. 285 ff.) that the initiation has served as the point of departure for a new religion which tends to surpass totemism. But it has been sufficient for us to show that totemism contained the germs of this religion; we have had no need of following out its development. The object of this book is to study the elementary beliefs and practices; so we must stop at the moment when they give birth to more complex forms.

[1230] _Nat. Tr._, p. 463. If the individual may choose between the ceremonies of his paternal and maternal totems, it is because, owing to reasons which we have set forth above (p. 183), he participates in both.

[1231] See below, ch. v, p. 395.

[1232] See _Essai sur le Sacrifice_, in _Mélanges d'histoire des Religions_, p. 83.

[1233] _Piacularia auspicia appellabant quæ sacrificantibus tristia portendebant_ (Paul ex Fest., p. 244, ed. Müller). The word piaculum is even used as a synonym of misfortune. "_Vetonica herba_," says Pliny, "_tantum gloriæ habet ut domus in qua sita sit tuta existimetur a piaculis omnibus_" (XXV, 8, 46).

[1234] _Nor. Tr._, p. 526; Eylmann, p. 239. Cf. above, p. 305.

[1235] Brough Smyth, I, p. 106; Dawson, p. 64; Eylmann, p. 239.

[1236] Dawson, p. 66; Eylmann, p. 241.

[1237] _Nat. Tr._, p. 502; Dawson, p. 67.

[1238] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 516-517.

[1239] _Ibid._, pp. 520-521. The authors do not say whether these were tribal or blood relatives. The former hypothesis is the more probable one.

[1240] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 525 f. This interdiction against speaking, which is peculiar to women, though it consists in a simple abstention, has all the appearance of a piacular rite: it is a way of incommoding one's self. Therefore we mention it here. Also, fasting may be a piacular rite or an ascetic one, according to the circumstances. Everything depends upon the conditions in which it takes place and the end pursued (for the difference between these two sorts of rites, see below, p. 396).

[1241] A very expressive illustration showing this rite will be found in _Nor. Tr._, p. 525.

[1242] _Ibid._, p. 522.

[1243] For the principal forms of funeral rites, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 446-508, for the tribes of the South-East; Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 505, and _Nat. Tr._, pp. 497 ff., for those of the centre; Roth, _Nor. Queensland Ethnog._, Bull. 9, in _Records of the Australian Museum_, VI, No. 5, pp. 365 ff. (_Burial Customs and Disposal of the Dead_).

[1244] See, for example, Roth, _loc. cit._, p. 368; Eyre, _Journals of Exped. into Central Aust._, II, pp. 344 f.

[1245] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 500; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 507, 508; Eylmann, p. 241; Parker, _Euahlayi_, pp. 83 ff.; Brough Smyth, I, p. 118.

[1246] Dawson, p. 66; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 466; Eylmann, pp. 239-240.

[1247] Brough Smyth, I, p. 113.

[1248] W. E. Stanbridge, _Trans. Ethnological Society of London_, N.S., Vol. I, p. 286.

[1249] Brough Smyth, I, p. 104.

[1250] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 459. Similar scenes will be found in Eyre, _op. cit._, II, p. 255, n., and p. 347; Roth, _loc. cit._, pp. 394, 395, for example; Grey, II, pp. 320 ff.

[1251] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 104, 112; Roth, _loc. cit._, p. 382.

[1252] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 511-512.

[1253] Dawson, p. 67; Roth, _loc. cit._, pp. 366-367.

[1254] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 508-510.

[1255] A little wooden vessel, of which we spoke above, p. 334.

[1256] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 508-510. The other final rite at which Spencer and Gillen assisted is described on pp. 503-508 of the same work. It does not differ essentially from the one we have analysed.

[1257] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 531-540.

[1258] Contrarily to what Jevons says, _Introduction to the History of Religion_, pp. 46 ff.

[1259] This makes Dawson say that the mourning is sincere (p. 66). But Eylmann assures us that he never knew a single case where there was a wound from sorrow really felt (_op. cit._, p. 113).

[1260] _Nat. Tr._, p. 510.

[1261] Eylmann, pp. 238-239.

[1262] _Nor. Tr._, p. 507; _Nat. Tr._, p. 498.

[1263] _Nat. Tr._, p. 500; Eylmann, p. 227.

[1264] Brough Smyth, I, p. 114.

[1265] _Nat. Tr._, p. 510.

[1266] Several examples of this belief are to be found in Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 435. Cf. Strehlow, I, 15-16; II, p. 7.

[1267] It may be asked why repeated ceremonies are necessary to produce the relief which follows upon mourning. The funeral ceremonies are frequently very long; they include many operations which take place at intervals during many months. Thus they prolong and support the moral disturbance brought about by the death (cf. Hertz, _La Representation collective de la mort_, in _Année Sociol._, X, pp. 48 ff.). In a general way, a death marks a grave change of condition which has extended and enduring effects upon the group. It takes a long time to neutralize these effects.

[1268] In a case reported by Grey from the observations of Bussel, the rite has all the aspects of a sacrifice: the blood is sprinkled over the body itself (Grey, II, p. 330). In other cases, there is something like an offering of the beard: men in mourning cut off a part of their beards, which they throw on to the corpse (_ibid._, p. 335).

[1269] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 135-136.

[1270] Of course each churinga is believed to be connected with an ancestor. But it is not to appease the spirits of the ancestors that they mourn for the lost churinga. We have shown elsewhere (p. 123) that the idea of the ancestor only entered into the conception of the churinga secondarily and late.

[1271] _Op. cit._, p. 207; cf. p. 116.

[1272] Eylmann, p. 208.

[1273] _Ibid._, p. 211.

[1274] Howitt, _The Dieri_, in _J.A.I._, XX (1891), p. 93.

[1275] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 394.

[1276] Howitt, _ibid._, p. 396.

[1277] Communication of Gason in _J.A.I._, XXIV (1895), p. 175.

[1278] _Nor. Tr._, p. 286.

[1279] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, p. 68.

[1280] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_: Eylmann, p. 208.

[1281] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 277 and 430.

[1282] _Ibid._, p. 195.

[1283] Gason, _The Dieri Tribe_, in Curr, II, p. 69. The same process is used to expiate a ridiculous act. Whenever anybody, by his awkwardness or otherwise, has caused the laughter of others, he asks one of them to beat him on the head until blood flows. Then things are all right again, and the one who was laughed at joins in the general gaiety (_ibid._, p. 70).

[1284] Eylmann, pp. 212 and 447.

[1285] See above, p. 385.

[1286] _The Religion of the Semites_, lect. XI.

[1287] This is the case in which the Dieri, according to Jason, invoke the Mura-mura of water during a drought.

[1288] _Op. cit._, p. 262.

[1289] It is also possible that the belief in the morally tempering virtues of suffering (see above, p. 312) has added something here. Since sorrow sanctifies and raises the religious level of the worshipper, it may also raise him up again when he falls lower than usual.

[1290] Cf. what we have said of expiation in our _Division du travail social_^3, pp. 64 ff.

[1291] See above, p. 301.

[1292] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 460; _Nor. Tr._, p. 601; Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography_, Bulletin No. 5, p. 24. It is useless to multiply references for so well-known a fact.

[1293] However, Spencer and Gillen cite one case where churinga are placed on the head of the dead man (_Nat. Tr._, p. 156). But they admit that the fact is unique and abnormal (_ibid._, p. 157), while Strehlow energetically denies it (II, p. 79).

[1294] Smith, _Rel. of Semites_, p. 153; cf. p. 446, the additional note, _Holiness, Uncleanness and Taboo_.

[1295] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 448-450; Brough Smyth, I, pp. 118, 120; Dawson, p. 67; Eyre, II, p. 251; Roth, _North Queensland Ethn._, Bull. Mo. 9, in _Rec. of the Austral. Museum_, VI, No. 5, p. 367.

[1296] See above, p. 320.

[1297] _Nor. Tr._, p. 599; _Nat. Tr._, p. 464.

[1298] Among the Hebrews, for example, they sprinkled the altar with the blood of the expiatory victim (Lev. iv, 5 ff.); they burned the flesh and used products of this combustion to make water of purification (Numb. xix).

[1299] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 32-34. When two persons who have thus exchanged their umbilical cords belong to different tribes, they are used as inter-tribal messengers. In this case, the exchange of cords took place shortly after birth, through the intermediary of their respective parents.

[1300] It is true that Smith did not admit the reality of these substitutions and transformations. According to him, if the expiatory victim served to purify, it was because it had nothing impure in itself. At first, it was a holy thing; it was destined to re-establish, by means of a communion, the bonds of kinship uniting the worshipper to his god, when a ritual fault had strained or broken them. An exceptionally holy animal was chosen for this operation in order that the communion might be as efficacious as possible, and efface the effects of the fault as completely as possible. It was only when they no longer understood the meaning of the rite that the sacrosanct animal was considered impure (_op. cit._, pp. 347 ff.). But it is inadmissible that beliefs and practices as universal as these, which we find at the foundation of the expiatory sacrifice, should be the product of a mere error of interpretation. In fact, we cannot doubt that the expiatory victim was charged with the impurity of the sin. We have shown, moreover, that these transformations of the pure into the impure, or the contrary, are to be found in the most inferior societies which we know.

[1301] William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_.

[1302] Quoted by James, _op. cit._, p. 20.

[1303] See above, pp. 230 ff.

[1304] Only one form of social activity has not yet been expressly attached to religion: that is economic activity. Sometimes processes that are derived from magic have, by that fact alone, an origin that is indirectly religious. Also, economic value is a sort of power or efficacy, and we know the religious origins of the idea of power. Also, richness can confer _mana_; therefore it has it. Hence it is seen that the ideas of economic value and of religious value are not without connection. But the question of the nature of these connections has not yet been studied.

[1305] It is for this reason that Frazer and even Preuss set impersonal religious forces outside of, or at least on the threshold of religion, to attach them to magic.

[1306] Boutroux, _Science et Religion_, pp. 206-207.

[1307] See above, pp. 379 ff. On this same question, see also our article, "Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives," in the _Revue de Métaphysique_, May, 1898.

[1308] William James, _Principles of Psychology_, I, p. 464.

[1309] This universality of the concept should not be confused with its generality: they are very different things. What we mean by universality is the property which the concept has of being communicable to a number of minds, and in principle, to all minds; but this communicability is wholly independent of the degree of its extension. A concept which is applied to only one object, and whose extension is consequently at the minimum, can be the same for everybody: such is the case with the concept of a deity.

[1310] It may be objected that frequently, as the mere effect of repetition, ways of thinking and acting become fixed and crystallized in the individual, in the form of habits which resist change. But a habit is only a tendency to repeat an act or idea automatically every time that the same circumstances appear; it does not at all imply that the idea or act is in the form of an exemplary type, proposed to or imposed upon the mind or will. It is only when a type of this sort is set up, that is to say, when a rule or standard is established, that social

## action can and should be presumed.

[1311] Thus we see how far it is from being true that a conception lacks objective value merely because it has a social origin.

[1312] See also above, p. 208.

[1313] Lévy-Bruhl, _Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures_, pp. 131-138.

[1314] _Ibid._, p. 446.

[1315] See above, p. 18.

[1316] William James, _Principles of Psychology_, I, p. 134.

[1317] Men frequently speak of space and time as if they were only concrete extent and duration, such as the individual consciousness can feel, but enfeebled by abstraction. In reality, they are representations of a wholly different sort, made out of other elements, according to a different plan, and with equally different ends in view.

[1318] At bottom, the concept of totality, that of society and that of divinity are very probably only different aspects of the same notion.

[1319] See our _Classifications primitives_, _loc. cit._, pp. 40 ff.