Chapter 14
+542+. It remains to mention the princ.i.p.al theories of the origin of totemism that are or have been held, and to ask what part it has played in the history of religion.
+543+. _Theories of the origin of totemism._ These may conveniently be divided into such as refer the origin to individual action, and such as refer it to the action of clans.
+544+. _Individualistic theories._ Among the earliest of theories were those that explained the totemic const.i.tution as due to a confusion in the minds of savages between names and things. Individuals or families might be named after animals, plants, and other objects, and these, it was supposed, might come to be regarded as intimately a.s.sociated with human persons, and might be looked on with affection or reverence and even wors.h.i.+ped.[899] Or, more definitely, it was held that, the origin of such names being forgotten, reverence for the ancestors led to reverence for the things after which they were named and identification with them--a man whose ancestor was called "the Tiger" would think of himself as descended from a tiger and as being of the tiger stock.[900]
It is now generally recognized, however, that the origin of so widespread and influential a system of organization as totemism cannot be referred to a mere misunderstanding of nicknames; and whether such misunderstanding was general or natural in early times is open to doubt.
+545+. It sometimes happens that a man (generally a chief) announces that after death he will take the form of this or that animal or plant, and this procedure, it has been supposed, would found a totemic family--his descendants would revere the object in question as the embodiment of the spirit of the ancestor, would take its name, and, when it was edible, would refrain from eating it.[901] It is true that the belief was, and is, not uncommon among savages that a deceased person might take the form of some natural object; but the reported cases are rare in which a man deliberately enjoins on his descendants reverence for such an object with the result that a quasi-totemic group arises.[902] This custom is not frequent enough to account for totemism.
+546+. A theory suggested by the fact that many clans perform magical ceremonies (for the purpose of increasing the supply of food) is that, when the magical apparatus of some body of persons consisted of parts of an animal, the animal would become sacred, a magical society might be formed by an individual magician, and thus a totemic magic-working clan might be created. For this hypothesis there is no support except in the fact that changes in clan life are sometimes brought about by the old men; but such changes are modifications of existing usages, not new creations. The power of a savage man of genius may be admitted, but to account for the known totemic communities we should have to suppose a vast number of such men, in different parts of the world, all working in the same direction and reaching substantially the same results.
+547+. The belief that a man might deposit his soul in an animal or a plant or some other object is found in West Africa, North America, and probably elsewhere. As such objects would, as a rule, not be killed (and every individual of a group would be thus respected), it has been supposed that, when various persons deposited their souls in the same object, a totemic body would come into existence.[903] This view would account for totemic reverence and for the sense of kins.h.i.+p, but the objection to it is that in most totemic organizations the belief in question has not been certified.
+548+. The "conceptional" theory refers the origin of totemism to the belief, found among certain peoples, that conception is produced by the entrance into the mother's womb of some object (animal, plant, or other) with which the child is identified.[904] In Central Australia it is held that what pa.s.ses into the woman is a spirit child which has a certain object for its totem; but in this case the previous existence of the totem is a.s.sumed. In certain islands (Mota and Motlav) of the Banks group, however, there exists, it is said, the belief that a child is the object from which the mother received some influence at conception or at some other period of pregnancy--the child resembles the object, and may not eat it if it is edible.[905] The persons thus identified with a given object would, if united, const.i.tute a group totemic in the respects that they believe themselves to be one with the object in question and refrain from eating it.[906] The totemic object is selected, in the case of every child, by the fancy of the mother, and is, therefore, not inherited; totemic groups, thus, would be found distributed through the larger groups (phratries or tribes), and might also gradually coalesce and form local groups. If the belief in this origin of birth (ident.i.ty of the child with some object) were found to be widespread, and generally effective as the ground of early social organization, it would furnish a satisfactory explanation of totemistic beginnings. But in point of fact it has so far been found, in full form, only in a small region in Melanesia, and its history in this region is not known; back of it may lie some other system of organization. And in this region clan totemism is lacking or faint. Further testimony is needed before it can be accepted as the solution of the problem of totemic origins.[907]
+549+. A similar remark must be made in reference to theories based on the belief that the souls of the dead are incarnate in animals and plants. Such a belief is a natural outgrowth from the conception of the ident.i.ty of nature of human beings and animals, and it occurs in so many parts of the world (Oceania, Africa, America) that it might naturally be regarded as having been at one time universal, though it is not now found everywhere. Reverence for an ancestor might be, and sometimes is, transferred to the object in which he is supposed to be incarnate; from this object a man holds himself to be descended, and he refrains from eating or injuring it.[908] This view, a combination of reverence for ancestors and reverence for animals and plants, thus supplies two features of totemistic organization, but proof is lacking that it is the basis of this organization. If it be the determining consideration in some cases, there are many cases in which its influence is not apparent.
There are myths tracing the totemism of clans to ancestors having animal forms, but these myths are relatively late savage philosophical explanations of existing inst.i.tutions.
+550+. The relation of the individual patron and guardian to the clan totem has been variously defined. Such a patron, it is sometimes held (obtained by a dream or a vision), descends from the original possessor to his children (or, in a matrilineal system, to his sister's children), and thus becomes the patron (the totem) of a family or kin; and a larger group, formed by the union of several kins, may similarly have its protecting spirit. Cases in which descent is through the mother here make a difficulty--a man's guardian spirit would not then be inherited.
Granting that the personal patron of a shaman or of an ordinary man may be inherited, such inheritance appears to be of rare occurrence, and there is no trustworthy evidence that it ever leads to the formation of a totemic clan.
+551+. It is true there is a resemblance between a man's relation to his clan totem and his relation to his personal guardian--in both cases the sacred object is revered and spared. It is sometimes the case also (as, for example, among the Australian Arunta) that the totem comes through an individual (the mother) and is not transmissible, and yet endogamous clans arise by the union of persons having the same totem. But here the resemblance ceases--the Arunta child's totem is determined for him before his birth, but a man chooses his personal guardian for himself, and joins others having the same guardian, not in a clan but in a secret society. Furthermore, the inst.i.tution of the personal guardian is very rare except in North America, and there flourishes in inverse proportion to the strength of clan life proper.
+552+. On the supposition of the primitive predominance of the rule of descent through the mother individualistic theories of the origin of totemism, with one exception, are out of the question--the totem is first chosen by a man, but children would have the totem not of the father but of the mother. The exception is the conceptional theory, in which the totem is determined by the mother--especially the Mota (Banks Islands) form, in which the choice of a sacred object by the woman is unlimited. In a small community a certain number of women would, however, choose the same object, and thus totemic groups would arise.
This scheme of organization, though not open to the objection mentioned above, is geographically limited.
+553+. _Theories based on clan action._ Here the starting-point is the clan, which is supposed to have come into existence somehow; it is not essential to determine precisely the method of its origination, though the question of method is sometimes included in the discussion of a theory. The clan finds itself confronted by various natural objects with which, it believes, it must form helpful relations; or some sort of relation is forced on it by the conditions of life. The question is how a human group came to enter into the totemic relation.
+554+. The simplest answer is that the primitive clan deliberately chose among all a.s.sociated objects some one to be its particular friend or its special a.s.sociate,[909] naturally valued and respected this object, refrained from eating it when it was edible, took its name, came to regard it as ancestor, and created myths explanatory of these conceptions. This general theory has a.s.sumed various forms, but the objection usually made to its central supposition is that such deliberate choice is out of keeping with the known methods of early societies. Though a certain amount of reflection must be a.s.sumed for primitive men (the lower animals, indeed, show reflection), it is held that so elaborate a system as totemism, like other inst.i.tutions, must have been the product of accidental experiences, developed through a long period of time. Something more definite, it is said, is required in order to account for the details of the system--all that can be safely a.s.sumed is that early man, constantly on the alert to better his condition, took advantage of every situation to strengthen himself by taking precautions against enemies or by securing the aid of surrounding objects, human and nonhuman.
+555+. The totem is supposed by some to have been originally merely the mark or badge by which a human group distinguished itself from neighboring groups. In hunting expeditions and migrations such a mark would be necessary or, at any rate, useful.[910] More generally, it was natural for a clan to have a name for itself, as it had names for its individual members and for other objects. It might take its name from an a.s.sociated animal or plant or heavenly body or from a place. The badge and the name once adopted, other totemic features would follow. Such badges are common in Northwestern America, and are found elsewhere, and the term 'totem' has been explained by natives as meaning 'badge.' But this explanation is late, and the employment of the sacred object as badge is not widely diffused. When it gives a clan its name it is, of course, a distinguis.h.i.+ng mark, but this does not show that such distinction was in all cases its original function. Nor would the badge come into use till the name had been fixed.
+556+. The view just mentioned does not attempt to explain how a particular name came
+557+. It is obviously true that human groups have names derived from objects with which they are somehow specially connected; in the lists of clan-names in Oceania, Africa, India, America, animal names predominate, but many are taken from plants, and some from inanimate objects;[913]
when groups become settled they are sometimes called after their places of abode. The other supposition in these "name theories"--that the names are given from without--is less certain. There are examples of such naming by outsiders--nicknames, sometimes respectful, sometimes derisive.[914] But the known cases are not numerous enough to establish a general rule--the origin of names of clans and tribes is largely involved in obscurity.[915] There is no improbability in either theory of the method of naming, native or foreign--both modes may have existed, one in one region, one in another, and one group may at different times have been called by different names.
+558+. "Cooperative" theories suppose that a number of groups united for economic purposes, to each being a.s.signed the duty of increasing by magical means the supply of a particular sort of food or other necessity, and procuring a portion for the general store.[916] Such cooperation, however, a.s.sumes too great a capacity of organization to be primitive. It is hardly found outside of Central Australia, in which region there are indications of a long period of social development.[917]
+559+. The theory that the totem is a G.o.d, immanent in the clan, incarnate in every member of the clan, a divine ancestor, the center of the clan's religion,[918] is contradicted by the actual relation between a clan and its totem: the latter is cherished as a kinsman and friend, but not wors.h.i.+ped as a G.o.d.[919]
+560+. _Summing-up on the origin of totemism._ This brief survey of proposed theories of the origin of totemism is sufficient to show the complexity of the problem. Not one of the hypotheses just mentioned is universally accepted, and no one of them appears to account satisfactorily for all the known facts. Some of them are based obviously on data derived from limited areas. Australian usage suggested the cooperative theory, and Australia and Melanesia the conceptional theory.
The identification of totemism with ancestor-wors.h.i.+p comes from South Africa; its connection with the belief in transmigration is due to Indonesia; its derivation from the individual guardian is based on a North American inst.i.tution; and North America probably suggested the badge theory also. It may be frankly confessed that in the present state of knowledge all theories are guesses.
+561+. As there are communities in which it is probable or possible that totemism has never existed, so it is conceivable that it has been developed in different ways in different places. Considering the variety of circ.u.mstances in primitive life, it would not be strange if human groups found themselves impelled to take various paths in their attempts at effective organization. The starting-point being reverence for animals and other objects of nature, and belief in their kins.h.i.+p with men, one human group may have been led by some accidental experience to regard some nonhuman group or object as its ally. In another case a name, adopted by a group of its own accord or given it from without, may have induced such an alliance. Individuals may have imposed their guardian animals or plants on communities. A badge, chosen for convenience, may have been the beginning of a totemic organization.
In these and other ways a group of men may have come to form intimate relations with a nonhuman group or other object.
+562+. This fundamental relation having been established (with aversion to eating or injuring the sacred object), various usages would attach themselves to it in accordance with general laws of social development.
In many cases a rule of exogamy, for the better regulation of marriage, would be adopted. When tribes, consisting each of several clans, came into existence, a cooperative economic system would sometimes arise: magical methods of producing results, common in early stages of life, would be so organized that to every clan would be a.s.signed the duty of producing a supply of some sort of food. Following the general tendency to genealogical construction, the belief in kins.h.i.+p with the sacred object would lead a clan to imagine an ancestor of the same kind, animal or animal-human or plant or rock, and myths explaining the origin would be devised. Various other usages and ideas would coalesce with those belonging to totemism proper: belief in the superhuman power of nonhuman things, including the conception of mana; the belief that every newborn child is the reincarnation of an ancestor; recognition of omens from the movements of such things; belief in the magical power of names; reverence for ancestors--a natural feeling, in itself independent of the totemic conception; totems regarded as creators; the employment of totemic animals as emissaries to the supernatural Powers. Thus the resultant social system would be a congeries of beliefs and usages, and in such a system, when it appears, the totemic element must be distinguished from its attachments, which must be referred each to its appropriate source.
+563+. _Function of totemism in the development of society._ The service of totemism to society lies in the aid it has given to the friendly a.s.sociation of men in groups. Common social feeling, the perception of the advantage to be gained by combination in the quest for food and for defense against human enemies, originated the formation of groups.
Totemism strengthened union by increasing the sense of brotherhood in the clan and facilitating the cooperation that is a condition of social progress. This sort of service was rendered in early times by all systems in which social relations were connected with relations to animals and other natural objects; but totemism made a special appeal to the emotions and gave all the members of a human group one and the same object of devotion about which sentiments of loyalty and brotherhood could crystallize. It is a crude, initial political form that has given way to more definite forms.
+564+. It cannot be said that totemism has contributed to _economic_ progress except in so far as every stable organization may be favorable to general progress. It has been claimed that it effected the domestication of animals and plants.[920] In support of this claim it is urged that, apart from reverence for these objects, there is nothing in savage ideas and customs that could lead to domestication. Early man, seeking food, would try all accessible animals and plants--but why, it is asked, should he desire to keep them as attachments to his home and cultivate them for his own use? Would his purpose be amus.e.m.e.nt? But, though savages sometimes have animals as pets, the custom is not general, and such pets are freely killed. Could the motive be utility?
The answer is that savages have neither the ability to perceive the advantage, for food and labor, that would accrue from domestication, nor knowledge of the fact that seeds must be kept, in order to secure a crop, from one year to another, nor the self-restraint to practice present abstinence for the sake of future good.
+565+. On the other hand, it is said, semireligious reverence for animals preserves them from injury, they lose their fear of man, and those that are domesticable become tame and are appropriated and used by men; and sacred plants are retained from one year to another for ritual purposes, and their seeds produce a succession of crops. Totem animals are not eaten--a pastoral people does not eat its cattle, it keeps them for their milk. In a word, animals, it is held, are not tamed by man of set purpose, but grow tame when not molested, and those that are edible or capable of rendering service are gradually domesticated; and similarly, through religious use of plants, the possibility of cultivating certain plants becomes known.
+566+. This argument rests on the a.s.sumption of the universal mental incapacity of early men--a subject admittedly obscure. Certainly they appear to be quite lacking in knowledge and reflection in some regards; yet they sometimes show remarkable skill in hunting (so, for example, the African Pygmies), and they have created remarkable languages. But, if we leave the question of intellectual capacity aside, there are facts that seem to throw doubt on the totemic origin of domestication. In the first place, the conditions under which reverence for a totemic animal may make it tame do not appear to have existed in totemic society. For such taming it is necessary that the animal be perfectly safe within a considerable area. But this is not possible where a group of men is composed of various clans, a given animal being spared by one clan but freely hunted and killed by all the other clans[921]--a state of things that was presumably universal.
+567+. Further, it is difficult to discover any historical connection between the actual cases of domestication of animals and reverence for these as totems. It is unfortunate for the decision of this question that in the two princ.i.p.al totemic centers, Australia and North America, there are very few native domesticable animals--only one (a species of dog) in Australia, and two (dog and bison) in North America. The history of the dog in North America, however, is suggestive: it has been domesticated by totemic Redmen for hunting purposes and by nontotemic Eskimo for drawing sledges--that is, its economic use seems to be independent of totemic considerations. Other cases of divergence between employment of animals and their position as totems have been cited in Uganda, for example;[922] but civilization is relatively far advanced in Uganda, and in such cases we cannot infer original conditions from existing customs.
+568+. It may fairly be surmised that observation in some cases led to the domestic use of animals. The value of the milk of cattle, goats, and mares as food may have been suggested to men who were acquainted with the life of these animals; and valuing them for their milk, their owners would abstain from eating them except under pressure of hunger or for ceremonial purposes. Such a procedure does not seem to be beyond the capacities of very simple communities. Chance may have suggested the function of seeds in the growth of plants, and, agriculture once entered on, the labor of animals would gradually be utilized. So far as regards artistic representations, these are found everywhere, and their occurrence on totemic poles (as, for example, among the Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands) cannot be regarded as a special product of totemism.
+569+. Considering the obscurity of the subject, it is doubtless wise to refrain from offering a universal theory of the origin of domestication of animals and plants. All that is here contended for is that the large role sometimes a.s.signed to totemism in this regard is not supported by the facts now known to us. Future investigations may bring with them new constructions of early history.
+570+. _Relation of totemism to religion._ As the beginnings of totemism are obscure it is not possible to say exactly what a man's att.i.tude toward his totem was in the earliest period. But, when the totemic relation became a definite feature of social organization, the feeling was that the totem was in the nature of a clansman, of the same blood as the human group, and ent.i.tled to all the respect and affection with which men regarded their clan-brethren. The sentiment, in this point of view, was sacred in the sense in which this term may be used of the feeling existing between persons of the same human group; it involved a certain sense of obligation toward fellow members--to respect their rights and to defend them against enemies was an imperative duty.
+571+. Totemic clans.h.i.+p, however, differed from ordinary human clans.h.i.+p in that the nonhuman clan-brother was regarded as a specially powerful being, endowed with the superhuman qualities with which all animals and plants and certain other objects were credited. Regard for the totem was, thus, part of the regard paid to nonhuman objects in general, only emotionalized and intensified by the belief that the nonhuman group was in a peculiar way allied to the human group. There was not only unwillingness to injure the totem--there was fear that one would suffer by such an act. The totem, it was believed, was able in its turn to inflict injury; and this belief added an element of awe to the feeling with which it was regarded.
+572+. In another respect, also, the totem shared the powers of other nonhuman objects--it could aid its friends. The expectation of totemic aid is, however, vague in the earlier stages of organization, that is, in communities in which totemism proper is well-defined--it appears to amount to little more than a feeling that things will go well if respect is paid to the totem. In cases where there is more definite aid there is always the question whether the aid is afforded by the totem in its specific character of clan-brother or merely in its character of nonhuman powerful thing. Omens, for example, are given by all natural objects; when an object of this sort happens to be a totem, it is not clear that its capacity of omen-giving belongs to it simply as totem.
+573+. There is similar uncertainty in the case of the Queensland practice, when a man, on lying down at any time or rising in the morning, whispers the name of the animal after which he is called or the name of the animal belonging to his group-division, in the belief that it will give him success in his affairs;[923] here the animal is not a clan totem, and the evidence does not show that it has come from such a totem--it may be a sacred animal that has somehow been brought into special connection with the man or with his group. Personal guardians that confer magical powers on a man do not here come into consideration.
+574+. The relation between totemism and the practice of magic appears to be essentially one of coexistence in a community. The two belong to the same stage of culture and the same order of ideas; but the fact that each is found without the other shows that neither is dependent on the other. Naturally they are sometimes combined, as sometimes happens in North America and particularly in Central Australia (where every totemic clan is charged with certain magical ceremonies); yet this close alliance is rare. Magical practice rests on a conception of man's relation to nature that is distinct from the conception of kins.h.i.+p between a human clan and a nonhuman species or individual object.
+575+. Secret societies sometimes perform magical ceremonies; but such societies are not totemic--either they have risen above the totemic point of view, or they have sprung from ideas and usages that are independent of totemism proper.[924]
+576+. It is difficult to find a clear case of the offering of religious wors.h.i.+p to a totem as totem. There are the ceremonies performed by the Australian Warramunga for the purpose of propitiating or coercing the terrible water snake Wollunqua.[925] This creature is a totem, but a totem of unique character--a fabulous animal, never visible, a creation of the imagination; the totem proper is a visible object whose relations with human beings are friendly, the Wollunqua is savage in nature and often hostile to men. He appears to be of the nature of a G.o.d, but an undomesticated one--a demon, adopted by a tribe as totem, or identified with a previously existing totem. The situation is an exceptional one and cannot be regarded as evidence of general totemic wors.h.i.+p.
+577+. The question whether a totem ever develops into a G.o.d is a part of the general question whether a sacred animal ever becomes a G.o.d.[926]
The complications of early ideas and customs and the paucity of data for the formative period of early religion make an answer to these questions difficult. As far as regards the evolution of the totem into a true divine figure the evidence is not decisive. The identification of heroes or G.o.ds with animals, their transformations into animals, and their incarnations in animal forms may, indeed, suggest such an evolution. Thus, in the island of Yam (between Australia and New Guinea) two brothers, Sigai and Maiau, have their shrines, in which they are represented by a shark figure and a crocodile figure respectively, and to them food is presented, songs are sung, dances are danced and prayers are offered. Other heroes, Kwoiam (a totem-bringer), Sida (an introducer of the arts of life), Yadzebub (a warrior), and some unnamed are revered in islands of Torres Straits.[927] In the Rewa district in Fiji every village, it is said, has a deity, and these deities have the power of turning into animals, which are then not eaten--that is, it may be supposed, the G.o.d is a developed totem.[928] In the Wakelbura tribe of Southeast Australia the totem animal is spoken of as "father," a t.i.tle frequently given to clan G.o.ds. Household G.o.ds are considered to be incarnate in animals and other objects in some of the Caroline Islands, in Tonga and Tikopia, and in Samoa, and in these islands, except Samoa, the people are supposed to have descended from the animals in question.
Similar ideas seem not to exist in the Americas or in Africa; in India the influence of Hindu cults has largely effaced or greatly modified non-Aryan usages so that their original form cannot generally be determined.[929]
+578+. The cases just mentioned are susceptible of other explanations than that of an evolution from totem to G.o.d. The history of the cult of heroes in Yam and other Torres Straits islands is obscure, but from known facts the indications are that the hero figures have arisen independently of the totem figures and have been, by a natural process, identified with these.[930] The peculiarity of the Rewa deities is that they a.s.sume animal forms at will, and such animals, not being eaten, are held to be totems. Whether totems or not they are sacred and might easily be identified with G.o.ds who stood alongside of them; an obvious explanation of this ident.i.ty would be that the G.o.d a.s.sumed the form of the animal.[931] A similar explanation may be given of incarnations of G.o.ds in animals--a metamorphosis is a temporary incarnation. The Samoan Moso is incarnate in half a dozen different objects, and some deities are incarnate in men. As for the t.i.tle "father," it belongs of course to the object from which a clan is supposed to be descended.
+579+. The sacramental eating of the totem, where such a custom exists, involves a certain ident.i.ty of nature of totem and clan G.o.d, but the two are regarded as distinct--their distinctness is, indeed, a necessary condition of the sacrificial efficacy of the totem as a means of placating the deity.[932]
+580+. Our review seems, thus, to lead to the conclusion that there is no good ground for the opinion that a totem has ever grown into a G.o.d.
The question, belonging, as it does, to a period for which we have no contemporary records, must be admitted to be difficult, and answers to it must be of the nature of hypotheses; but G.o.ds and spirits appear to have taken shape through processes of thought different from those that lie at the basis of totemism.[933]
TABOO
+581+. So far we have been considering the growth of the simpler religious ideas and the parallel development of a quasi-religious social organization. The ethical development is no less important than the religious and the political, with which it has always been closely connected. Ethical ideas and customs are in their origin independent of religion. Religion deals with the relation between human beings and supernatural Powers; ethics has to do with the relation between man and man.[934]
+582+. Thus, the necessity for the protection of life and property (including wives and children) has produced certain rules of conduct, which are at first handed on orally and maintained by custom, and gradually are formulated in written codes. The protection of the tribal life is secured by the tribal leaders as representatives of society. The protection of individual interests is at first in the hands of the individuals concerned, but always under the sanction of society. The murderer, the thief, and the adulterer are dealt with by the person injured or by his clan or family, in accordance with generally recognized regulations. As social life becomes more elaborate, such regulations become more numerous and more discriminating; every new ethical rule springs from the necessity of providing for some new social situation. In all communities the tendency is toward taking the protection of interests out of the hands of the individual and committing it to the community; this course is held to be for the advantage of society.[935]
+583+. As men are const.i.tuted, to account for the growth of moral customs we need to a.s.sume only social life; practically all our requirements that refer to the relations between men are found among early tribes, and it may be taken for granted that any body of human beings, living together and having some form of activity, would work out some such system of rules, mostly negative or prohibitive but also to some extent positive. Even the law of kindness, a product of natural human sympathy, exists among the lowest known peoples. The reference of moral growth to social necessities does not involve the denial of a germinal sense of right and wrong or of germinal moral ideals, but this sense and these ideals arise, through reflection, from experience. We are here concerned only with the actual conduct of men traceable in the early forms of society.