The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

[394]Nat. Tr., p. 389. Cf. Strehlow, I, pp. 2-7.

[395]Nat. Tr., p. 389; Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff. Undoubtedly there is an echo of the initiation rites in this mythical theme. The initiation also has the object of making the young man into a complete man, and on the other hand, it also implies actual surgical operations (circumcision, sub-incision, the extraction of teeth, etc.). The processes which served to form the first men would naturally be conceived on the same model.

[396] This the case with the nine clans of the Moqui (Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, IV, p. 86), the Crain clan among the Ojibway (Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 180), and the Nootka clans (Boas, VIth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, p. 43), etc.

[397] It is thus that the Turtle clan of the Iroquois took form. A group of turtles had been forced to leave the lake where they dwelt and seek another home. One of them, which was larger than the others, stood this exercise very badly owing to the heat. It made such violent efforts that it got out of its shell. The process of transformation, being once commenced, went on by itself and the turtle finally became a man who was the ancestor of the clan (Erminnie A. Smith, The Myths of the Iroquois, IInd Report, p. 77). The Crab clan of the Choctaw was formed in a similar manner. Some men surprised a certain number of crabs that lived in the neighbourhood, took them home with them, taught them to talk and to walk, and finally adopted them into their society (Catlin, North American Indians, II, p. 128).

[398] For example, here is a legend of the Tsimshian. In the course of a hunt, an Indian met a black bear which took him to its home, and taught him to catch salmon and build canoes. The man stayed with the bear for two years, and then returned to his native village. But the people were afraid of him, because he was just like a bear. He could not talk or eat anything except raw food. Then he was rubbed with magic herbs and gradually regained his original form. After that, whenever he was in trouble, he called upon his bear friends, who came to aid him. He built a house and painted a bear on the foundation. His sister made a blanket for the dance, upon which a bear was designed. That is why the descendants of this sister had the bear as their emblem (Boas, Kwakiutl, p. 323. Cf. Vth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, pp. 23, 29 ff.; Hill Tout, Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh of British Columbia, in J.A.I., 1905, XXXV, p. 150).

Thus we see the inconveniences in making this mystical relationship between the man and the animal the distinctive characteristic of totemism, as M. Van Gennep proposes (Totémisme et méthode comparative, in Revue de l'histoire des religions, Vol. LVIII, July, 1908, p. 55). This relationship is a mythical representation of otherwise profound facts; but it may be omitted without causing the disappearance of the essential traits of totemism. Undoubtedly there are always close bonds between the people of the clan and the totemic animal, but these are not necessarily bonds of blood-relationship, though they are frequently conceived in this form.

[399] There are also some Tlinkit myths in which the relationship of descent between the man and the animal is still more carefully stated. It is said that the clan is descended from a mixed union, if we may so speak, that is to say, one where either the husband or the wife was an animal of the species whose name the clan bears (see Swanton, Social Condition, Beliefs, etc., of the Tlinkit Indians, XXVIth Rep., pp. 415-418).

[400]Nat. Tr., p. 284.

[401]Ibid., p. 179.

[402] See Bk. III, ch. ii. Cf. Nat. Tr., pp. 184, 201.

[403]Ibid., pp. 204, 262, 284.

[404] Among the Dieri and the Parnkalla. See Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 658, 661, 668, 669-671.

[405] Among the Warramunga, the blood from the circumcision is drunk by the mother (Nor. Tr., p. 352). Among the Binbinga, the blood on the knife which was used in the sub-incision must be licked off by the initiate (ibid., p. 368). In general, the blood coming from the genital organs is regarded as especially sacred (Nat. Tr., p. 464; Nor. Tr., p. 598).

[406]Nat. Tr., p. 268.

[407]Ibid., pp. 144, 568.

[408]Ibid., pp. 442, 464. This myth is quite common in Australia.

[409]Nat. Tr., p. 627.

[410]Ibid., p. 466.

[411]Ibid. It is believed that if all these formalities are not rigorously observed, grave calamities will fall upon the individual.

[412]Nat. Tr., p. 538; Nor. Tr., p. 604.

[413] After the foreskin has been detached by circumcision, it is sometimes hidden, just like the blood; it has special virtues; for example, it assures the fecundity of certain animal and vegetable species (Nor. Tr., pp. 353 f.). The whiskers are mixed with the hair, and treated as such (ibid., pp. 604, 544). They also play a part in the myths (ibid., p. 158). As for the fat, its sacred character is shown by the use made of it in certain funeral rites.

[414] This is not saying that the woman is absolutely profane. In the myths, at least among the Arunta, she plays a religious rôle much more important than she does in reality (Nat. Tr., pp. 195 f.). Even now she takes part in certain initiation rites. Finally, her blood has religious virtues (see Nat. Tr., p. 464; cf. La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines, Année Sociol., I, pp. 41 ff.).

It is upon this complex situation of the woman that the exogamic restrictions depend. We do not speak of them here because they concern the problem of domestic and matrimonial organization more directly than the present one.

[415]Nat. Tr., p. 460.

[416] Among the Wakelbura, according to Howitt, p. 146; among the Bechuana, according to Casalis, Basoutos, p. 221.

[417] Among the Buandik and Kurnai (Howitt, ibid.); among the Arunta (Strehlow, II, p. 58).

[418] Howitt, ibid.

[419] In the Tully River district, says Roth (Superstition, Magic and Medicine, in North Queensland Ethnography, No. 5, § 74), as an individual goes to sleep or gets up in the morning, he pronounces in a rather low voice the name of the animal after which he is named himself. The purpose of this practice is to make the man clever or lucky in the hunt, or be forewarned of the dangers to which he may be exposed from this animal. For example, a man who has a species of serpent as his totem is protected from bites if this invocation has been made regularly.

[420] Taplin, Narrinyeri, p. 64; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 147; Roth, loc. cit.

[421] Strehlow, II, p. 58.

[422] Howitt, p. 148.

[423]Nor. Tr., pp. 159-160.

[424]Ibid.

[425]Ibid., p. 225; Nat. Tr., pp. 202, 203.

[426] A. L. P. Cameron, On Two Queensland Tribes, in Science of Man, Australasian Anthropological Journal, 1904, VII, 28, col. I.

[427]Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 170.

[428]Notes on some Australian Tribes, J.A.I., XIII, p. 300.

[429] In Curr, Australian Race, III, p. 45; Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, I, p. 91; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 168.

[430] Durkheim and Mauss, De quelques formes primitives de classification, in Année Sociol., VI, pp. 1 ff.

[431] Curr, III, p. 461.