The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, by Emile Durkheim.

[966] The thesis of Lang has been taken up again by Father Schmidt in the Anthropos (1908-1909). Replying to Sydney Hartland, who had criticized Lang's theory in an article entitled The "High Gods" of Australia, in Folk-Lore (Vol. IX, pp. 290 ff.), Father Schmidt undertook to show that Baiame, Bunjil, etc., are eternal gods, creators, omnipotent, omniscient and guardians of the moral order. We are not going to enter into this discussion, which seems to have neither interest nor importance. If these different adjectives are given a relative sense, in harmony with the Australian mind, we are quite ready to accept them, and have even used them ourselves. From this point of view, omnipotent means having more power than the other sacred beings; omniscient, seeing things that escape the vulgar and even the greatest magicians; guardian of the moral order, one causing the rules of Australian morality to be respected, howsoever much these may differ from our own. But if they want to give these words meanings which only a spiritualistic Christian could attach to them, it seems useless to discuss an opinion so contrary to the principles of the historical method.

[967] On this question, see N. W. Thomas, Baiame and Bell-bird—A Note on Australian Religion, in Man, 1905, No. 28. Cf. Lang, Magic and Religion, p. 25. Waitz had already upheld the original character of this conception in his Anthropologie d. Naturvölker, pp. 796-798.

[968] Dawson, p. 49; Meyer, Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, pp. 205, 206; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 481, 491, 492, 494; Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136.

[969] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 55-56.

[970] L. Parker, More Austr. Leg. Tales, p. 94.

[971] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427.

[972] Taplin, ibid., p. 60.

[973] Taplin, ibid., p. 61.

[974] "The world was created by beings called Nuralie; these beings, who had already long existed, had the forms of crows or of eagle-hawks" (Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424).

[975] "Bayamee," says Mrs. Parker, "is for the Euahlayi what the Alcheringa is for the Arunta" (The Euahlayi, p. 6).

[976] See above, pp. 257 f.

[977] In another myth, reported by Spencer and Gillen, a wholly analogous rôle is filled by two personages living in heaven, named Ungambikula (Nat. Tr., pp. 388 ff.).

[978] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 493.

[979] Parker, The Euahlayi, pp. 62-66, 67. This is because the great god is connected with the bull-roarer, which is identified with the thunder; for the roaring of this ritual instrument is connected with the rolling of thunder.

[980] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 135. The word meaning totem is written thundung by Howitt.

[981] Strehlow, I, pp. 1-2 and II, p. 59. It will be remembered that, among the Arunta, the maternal totem was quite probably the real totem at first.

[982] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 555.

[983] Ibid., pp. 546, 560.

[984] Ridley, Kamilaroi, pp. 136, 156. He is represented in this form during the initiation rites of the Kamilaroi. According to another legend, he is a black swan (L. Parker, More Aust. Leg. Tales, p. 94).

[985] Strehlow, I, p. 1.

[986] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 423-424.

[987] Nat. Tr., p. 492.

[988] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 128.

[989] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 417-423.

[990] See above, p. 108.

[991] There are phratries bearing the names Kilpara (crow) and Mukwara. This is the explanation of the myth itself, which is reported by Brough Smyth (I, pp. 423-424).

[992] Brough Smyth, I, pp. 425-427. Cf. Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 486. In this case, Karween is identified with the blue heron.

[993] Brough Smyth, I, p. 423.

[994] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 136; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 585; Mathews, J. of R. S. of N.S. Wales, XXVIII (1894), p. 111.

[995] See above, p. 145. Cf. Father Schmidt, The Origin of the Idea of God, in Anthropos, 1909.

[996] Op. cit., p. 7. Among these same people, the principal wife of Baiame is also represented as the mother of all the totems, without belonging to any totem herself (ibid., pp. 7, 79).

[997] See Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 511 f., 513, 602 ff.; Mathews, J. of R.S. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 270. They invite to these feasts not only the tribes with whom a regular connubium is established, but also those with whom there are quarrels to be arranged; the vendetta, half-ceremonial and half-serious, take place on these occasions.

[998] See above, p. 155.

[999] There is one form of ritual especially which we leave completely aside; this is the oral ritual which must be studied in a special volume of the Collection de l'Année Sociologique.

[1000] See the article Taboo in the Encyclopædia Britannica, written by Frazer.

[1001] Facts 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 Réville, Religion des peuples primitifs, II, p. 55; Richard, La Femme dans l'histoire, p. 435).

[1002] See above, p. 43.

[1003] This 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.

[1004] See above, p. 149.

[1005] 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 them. 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, Nor. 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.

[1006] See above, p. 137.

[1007] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 463.

[1008] Nat. Tr., p. 538; Nor. Tr., p. 640.

[1009] Nor. Tr., p. 531.

[1010] Nor. Tr., pp. 518 f.; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 449.

[1011] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Schulze, loc. cit., p. 231.

[1012] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 499.

[1013] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 451.

[1014] If 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.

[1015] See Frazer, Totemism, p. 7.

[1016] 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.

[1017] Nat. Tr., p. 134; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 354.

[1018] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 624.

[1019] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 572.

[1020] Ibid., p. 661.

[1021] Nat. Tr., p. 386; Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 655, 665.

[1022] Among the Wiimbaio (Howitt, ibid., p. 451).

[1023] Howitt, ibid., pp. 624, 661, 663, 667; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 382 ff.; Nor. Tr., pp. 335, 344, 353, 369.

[1024] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 221, 262, 288, 303, 378, 380.

[1025] Ibid., p. 302.

[1026] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 581.

[1027] Nor. Tr., p. 227.

[1028] See above, p. 288.

[1029] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Nor. Tr., p. 526; Taplin, Narrinyeri, p. 19.

[1030] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 466, 469 ff.

[1031] Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, p. 165.

[1032] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 470.

[1033] Ibid., p. 657; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 139; Nor. Tr., pp. 580 ff.

[1034] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 537.

[1035] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 544, 597, 614, 620.

[1036] For example, the hair belt which he ordinarily wears (Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 171).

[1037] Ibid., p. 624 ff.

[1038] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 556.

[1039] Ibid., p. 587.

[1040] This act takes on a sacred character, it is true, when the elements eaten are sacred. But in itself, the act is so very profane that eating a sacred food always constitutes a profanation. The profanation may be permitted or even ordered, but, as we shall see below, only on condition that rites attenuating or expiating it precede or accompany it. The existence of these rites shows that, by itself, the sacred thing should not be eaten.

[1041] Nor. Tr., p. 263.

[1042] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 171.

[1043] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 674. Perhaps the rule against talking during the great religious solemnities is due to the same cause. Men speak, and especially in a high voice, during ordinary life; then, in the religious life they ought to keep still or talk in a low voice. This same consideration is not foreign to the alimentary interdictions (see above, p. 128).

[1044] Nor. Tr., p. 33.

[1045] Since there is a sacred principle, the soul, within each man, from the very first, the individual is surrounded by interdicts, the original form of the moral interdicts which isolate and protect the human person to-day. Thus the corpse of his victim is considered dangerous for a murderer (Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 492), and is taboo for him. Now the interdicts having this origin are frequently used by individuals as a means of withdrawing certain things from common use and thus establishing a property right over them. "When a man goes away from the camp, leaving his arms and food there," says Roth, speaking of the tribes on the Palmer River (North Queensland), "if he urinates near the objects he leaves, they become tami (equivalent to taboo) and he may be sure of finding them intact on his return" (North Queensland Ethnography, in Records of the Australian Museum, Vol. VII, No. 2, p. 75). This is because the urine, like the blood, is believed to contain some of the sacred force which is personal to the individual. So it keeps strangers at a distance. For the same reasons, the spoken word may also serve as a vehicle for these same influences; that is how it becomes possible to prevent access to an object by a mere verbal declaration. This power of making interdicts varies with different individuals; it is greater as their character is more sacred. Men have this privilege almost to the exclusion of women (Roth cites one single case of a taboo imposed by women); it is at its maximum with the chiefs and old men, who use it to monopolize whatever things they find it convenient to (Roth, ibid., p. 77). Thus the religious interdict becomes a right of property and an administrative rule.

[1046] See below, this book, ch. ii.

[1047] See above, p. 10.

[1048] See above, p. 219.

[1049] See Hubert and Mauss, Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice, in Mélanges d'histoire des religions, pp. 22 ff.

[1050] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 560, 657, 659, 661. Even the shadow of a woman must not fall upon him (ibid., p. 633). Whatever he has touched must not be touched by a woman (ibid., p. 621).

[1051] Ibid., pp. 561, 563, 670 f.; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 223; Nor. Tr., pp. 340, 342.

[1052] The word Jeraeil, for example, among the Kurnai, or Kuringal among the Yuin and Wolgal (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 518, 617).

[1053] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 348.

[1054] Howitt, p. 561.

[1055] Howitt, pp. 633, 538, 560.

[1056] Ibid., p. 674; Parker, Euahlayi, p. 75.

[1057] Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 154.

[1058] Howitt, p. 563.

[1059] Ibid., p. 611.

[1060] Ibid., pp. 549, 674.

[1061] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 580, 596, 604, 668, 670; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 223, 351.

[1062] Howitt, p. 557.

[1063] Ibid., p. 604; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 351.

[1064] Howitt, p. 611.

[1065] Howitt, p. 589.

[1066] One may compare these ascetic practices with those used at the initiation of a magician. Just like the young neophyte, the apprentice magician is submitted to a multitude of interdictions, the observation of which contributes to his acquisition of his specific powers (see L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques, in Hubert and Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des religions, pp. 171, 173, 176). The same is true for the husband and wife on the day before and the day after the wedding (taboos of the betrothed and newly married); this is because marriage also implies a grave change of condition. We limit ourselves to mentioning these facts summarily, without stopping over them; for the first concern magic, which is not our subject, and the second have to do with that system of juridico-religious rules which relates to the commerce of the sexes, the study of which will be possible only in conjunction with the other precepts of primitive conjugal morality.

[1067] It is true that Preuss interprets these facts by saying that suffering is a way of increasing a man's magic force (die menschliche Zauberkraft); from this expression, one might believe that suffering is a magic rite, not a religious one. But as we have already pointed out, Preuss gives the name magic, without great precision, to all anonymous and impersonal forces, whether they belong to magic or religion. Of course, there are tortures which are used to make magicians; but many of those which we have described are a part of the real religious ceremonies, and, consequently, it is the religious state of the individuals which they modify.

[1068] Preuss, Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst, in Globus, LXXXVIII, pp. 309-400. Under this same rubric Preuss classes a great number of incongruous rites, for example, effusions of blood which act in virtue of the positive qualities attributed to blood and not because of the suffering which they imply. We retain only those in which suffering is an essential element of the rite and the cause of its efficacy.

[1069] Nor. Tr., pp. 331 f.

[1070] Ibid., p. 335. A similar practice will be found among the Dieri (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 658 ff.).

[1071] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 214 ff.—From this example we see that the rites of initiation sometimes have all the characteristics of hazing. In fact, hazing is a real social institution which arises spontaneously every time that two groups, inequal in their moral and social situation, come into intimate contact. In this case, the one considering itself superior to the other resists the intrusion of the new-comers; it reacts against them is such a way as to make them aware of the superiority it feels. This reaction, which is produced automatically and which takes the form of more or less grave cruelties quite naturally, is also destined to shape the individuals for their new existence and assimilate them into their new environment. So it is a sort of initiation. Thus it is explained how the initiation, on its side, takes the form of hazing. It is because the group of old men is superior in religious and moral dignity to that of the young men, and yet the first must assimilate the second. So all the conditions for hazing are given.