[1072] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 372.

[1073] Ibid., p. 335.

[1074] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 675.

[1075] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 569, 604.

[1076] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 251; Nor. Tr., 341, 352.

[1077] Among the Warramunga, the operation must be made by persons favoured with beautiful hair.

[1078] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 675; this concerns the tribes on the lower Darling.

[1079] Eylmann, op. cit., p. 212.

[1080] Ibid.

[1081] References on this question will be found in our memoir on La Prohibition de l'incest et ses origines (Année Sociol., I, pp. 1 ff.), and Crawley, The Mystic Rose, pp. 37 ff.

[1082] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 133.

[1083] See above, p. 121.

[1084] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 134 f.; Strehlow, I, p. 78.

[1085] Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., pp. 167, 299.

[1086] In addition to the ascetic rites of which we have spoken, there are some positive ones whose object is to charge, or, as Howitt says, to saturate the initiate with religiousness (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 535). It is true that instead of religiousness, Howitt speaks of magic powers, but as we know, for the majority of the ethnologists, this word merely signifies religious virtues of an impersonal nature.

[1087] Howitt, ibid., pp. 674 f.

[1088] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 454. Cf. Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 561.

[1089] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 557.

[1090] Ibid., p. 560.

[1091] See above, pp. 303, 306. Cf. Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 498; Nor. Tr., pp. 506, 507, 518 f., 526; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 449, 461, 469; Mathews, in J. of R.S. of N.S. Wales, XXXVIII, p. 274; Schulze, loc. cit., p. 231; Wyatt, Adelaide and Encounter Bay Tribes, in Woods, pp. 165, 198.

[1092] Australian Aborigines, p. 42.

[1093] Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 470-471.

[1094] On this question, see Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 152 ff., 446, 481; Frazer, art. Taboo in Encyc. Brit., Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religions, pp. 59 f.; Crawley, Mystic Rose, ch. ii-ix; Van Gennep, Tabou et Totemisme à Madagascar, ch. iii.

[1095] See references above, p. 128, n. 1. Cf. Nor. Tr., pp. 323, 324; Nat. Tr., p. 168; Taplin, The Narrinyeri, p. 16; Roth, North Queensland Ethnography. Bull. 10, Records of Austral. Museum, VII, p. 76.

[1096] It is to be remembered that when it is a religious interdict that has been violated, these sanctions are not the only ones; there is also a real punishment or a stigma of opinion.

[1097] See Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religions, pp. 67-68. We say nothing of the recent, and slightly explicit, theory of Crawley (Mystic Rose, ch. iv-vii), according to which the contagiousness of taboos is due to a false interpretation of the phenomena of contagion. It is arbitrary. As Jevons very truly says in the passage to which we refer, the contagious character of sacredness is affirmed a priori, and not on a faith in badly interpreted experiences.

[1098] See above, p. 229.

[1099] See above, p. 194.

[1100] See above, p. 190.

[1101] This has been well demonstrated by Preuss in his articles in the Globus.

[1102] It is true that this contagiousness is not peculiar to religious forces; those belonging to magic have the same property; yet it is evident that they do not correspond to objectified social sentiments. It is because magic forces have been conceived on the model of religious forces. We shall come back to this point again (see p. 361).

[1103] See above, p. 235.

[1104] Strehlow, I, p. 4.

[1105] Of course the word designating these celebrations changes with the tribes. The Urabunna call them Pitjinta (Nor. Tr., p. 284); the Warramunga Thalaminta (ibid., p. 297), etc.

[1106] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 243; Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., pp. 169 f.

[1107] Nat. Tr., pp. 170 ff.

[1108] Of course the women are under the same obligation.

[1109] The apmara is the only thing which he brought from the camp.

[1110] Nat. Tr., pp. 185-186.

[1111] Nor. Tr., p. 288.

[1112] Ibid.

[1113] Nor. Tr., p. 312.

[1114] Ibid.

[1115] We shall see below that these clans are much more numerous than Spencer and Gillen say.

[1116] Nat. Tr., pp. 184-185.

[1117] Nat. Tr., pp. 438, 461, 464; Nor. Tr., pp. 596 ff.

[1118] Nat. Tr., p. 201.

[1119] Ibid., p. 206. We use the words of Spencer and Gillen, and with them, we say that "spirits or spirit parts of kangaroo" are disengaged from the rocks. Strehlow (III, p. 7) contests the exactness of this expression. According to him, the rite makes real kangaroos, with living bodies, appear. But this dispute is without interest, just as the one about the notion of the ratapa was (see above, p. 252). The kangaroo germs thus escaping from the rock are not visible, so they are not made out of the same substance as the kangaroos which we see. This is all that Spencer and Gillen mean to say. It is quite certain, moreover, that they are not pure spirits such as a Christian might conceive. Like human souls, they have a material form.

[1120] Nat. Tr., p. 181.

[1121] A tribe on the east of Lake Eyre.

[1122] Nor. Tr., pp. 287 f.

[1123] Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 798. Cf. Howitt, Legends of the Dieri and Kindred Tribes of Central Australia, in J.A.I., XXIV, pp. 124 ff. Howitt believes that the ceremony is performed by the men of the totem, but is not prepared to say so definitely.

[1124] Nor. Tr., p. 295.

[1125] Ibid., p. 314.

[1126] Ibid., pp. 296 f.

[1127] Nat. Tr., p. 170.

[1128] Ibid., p. 519.—The analysis of the rites which have just been studied is based solely on the observations of Spencer and Gillen. Since this chapter was written, Strehlow has published the third fascicule of his work, which deals with the positive cult and especially the Intichiuma, or, as he says, the rites of the mbatjalkatiuma. But we have found nothing in this publication which obliges us to modify the preceding description or even to complete it with important additions. The most interesting thing taught by Strehlow on this subject is that the effusions and oblations of blood are much more frequent than one would suspect from the account of Spencer and Gillen (see Strehlow, III, pp. 13, 14, 19, 29, 39, 43, 46, 56, 67, 80, 89).

Moreover, the information given by Strehlow in regard to the cult must be taken carefully, for he was not a witness of the rites he describes; he confined himself to collecting oral testimony, which is generally rather summary (see fasc. III, Preface of Leonhardi, p. v). It may even be asked if he has not confused the totemic ceremonies of initiation with those which he calls mbatjalkatiuma, to an excessive degree. Of course, he has made a praiseworthy attempt to distinguish them and has made two of their distinctive characteristics very evident. In the first place, the Intichiuma always takes place at a sacred spot to which the souvenir of some ancestor is attached, while the initiation ceremonies may be celebrated anywhere. Secondly, the oblations of blood are special to the Intichiuma, which proves that they are close to the heart of the ritual (III, p. 7). But in the description which he gives us of the rites, we find facts belonging indifferently to each species of ceremony. In fact, in what he describes under the name mbatjalkatiuma, the young men generally take an important part (for example, see pp. 11, 13, etc.), which is characteristic of the initiation. Also, it seems as though the place of the rite is arbitrary, for the actors construct their scene artificially. They dig a hole into which they go; he seldom makes any allusion to sacred trees or rocks and their ritual rôle.

[1129] Nat. Tr., p. 203. Cf. Meyer, The Encounter Bay Tribe, in Woods, p. 187.

[1130] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 204.

[1131] Nat. Tr., pp. 205-207.

[1132] Nor. Tr., pp. 286 f.

[1133] Ibid., p. 294.

[1134] Ibid., p. 296.

[1135] Meyer, in Woods, p. 187.

[1136] We have already cited one case; others will be found in Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 208; Nor. Tr., p. 286.

[1137] The Walpari, Wulmala, Tjingilli, Umbaia.

[1138] Nor. Tr., p. 318.

[1139] For the second part of the ceremony as for the first, we have followed Spencer and Gillen. On this subject, the recent fascicule of Strehlow only confirms the observations of his predecessors, at least on all essential points. He recognizes that after the first ceremony (two months afterwards, he says, p. 13), the chief of the clan eats the totemic animal or plant ritually and that after this he raises the interdicts; he calls this operation die Freigabe des Totems zum allgemeinen Gebrauch (III, p. 7). He even tells us that this operation is important enough to have a special word for it in the Arunta language. He adds, it is true, that this ritual consummation is not the only one, but that the chiefs and old men sometimes eat the sacred plant or animal before the first ceremony and that the performer of the rite does so after the celebration. The fact is not improbable; these consummations are means employed by the officiants or assistants to acquire virtues which they acquire; it is not surprising if they are numerous. It does not invalidate the account of Spencer and Gillen at all, for the rite upon which they insist, and not without reason, is the Freigabe des Totems.

On only two points does Strehlow contest the allegations of Spencer and Gillen. In the first place, he declares that the ritual consumption does not take place in every case. This cannot be doubted, for there are some animals and plants which are not edible. But still, the rite is very frequent; Strehlow himself cites numerous examples (pp. 13, 14, 19, 23, 33, 36, 50, 59, 67, 68, 71, 75, 80, 84, 89, 93). Secondly, we have seen that according to Spencer and Gillen, if the chief does not eat the totemic animal or plant, he will lose his powers. Strehlow assures us that the testimony of natives does not confirm this assertion. But this question seems to us to be quite secondary. The assured fact is that the ritual consumption is required, so it must be thought useful or necessary. Now, like every communion, it can only serve to confer needed virtues upon the person communicating. It does not follow from the fact that the natives, or some of them, have forgotten this function of the rite, that it is not real. Is it necessary to repeat that worshippers are generally ignorant of the real reasons for their practices?

[1140] See The Religion of the Semites, Lectures vi-xi, and the article Sacrifice in the Encyclopædia Britannica (Ninth Edition).

[1141] See Hubert and Mauss, Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice, in Mélanges d'histoire des religions, pp. 40 ff.

[1142] See the explanation of this rule, above, p. 229.

[1143] See Strehlow, III, p. 3.

[1144] We must not forget that among the Arunta it is not completely forbidden to eat the totemic animal.

[1145] See other facts in Frazer, Golden Bough, pp. 348 ff.

[1146] The Religion of the Semites, pp. 275 ff.

[1147] The Religion of the Semites, pp. 318-319.

[1148] On this point, see Hubert and Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des religions, preface, p. v ff.

[1149] The Religion of the Semites, pp. 390 ff.

[1150] Smith cites some cases himself in The Rel. of the Semites, p. 231.

[1151] For example, see Exodus xxix. 10-14; Leviticus ix. 8-11; it is their own blood which the priests of Baal pour over the altar (1 Kings xviii. 28).

[1152] Strehlow, III, p. 12, verse 7.

[1153] At least when it is complete: in certain cases, it may be reduced to one of its elements.

[1154] Strehlow says that the natives "regard these ceremonies as a sort of divine service, just as a Christian regards the exercises of his religion" (III, p. 9).

[1155] It should be asked, for example, whether the effusions of blood and the offerings of hair which Smith regards as acts of communion are not real oblations (see Smith, op. cit., pp. 320 ff.).

[1156] The expiatory rites, of which we shall speak more fully in the fifth chapter of this same book, are almost exclusively oblations. They are communions only secondarily.

[1157] This is why we frequently speak of the ceremonies as if they were addressed to living personalities (see, for example, texts by Krichauff and Kemp, in Eylmann, p. 202).

[1158] In a philosophical sense, the same is true of everything, for nothing exists except in representation. But as we have shown (p. 227), this proposition is doubly true for religious forces, for there is nothing in the constitution of things which corresponds to sacredness.

[1159] See Mauss, Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés Eskimos, in Année Sociol., IX, pp. 96 ff.

[1160] Nat. Tr., p. 176.

[1161] Nor. Tr., p. 179. It is true that Spencer and Gillen do not say expressly that this is an Intichiuma. But the context allow of no doubt on this point.

[1162] In the index of totem names, Spencer and Gillen write Untjalka (Nor. Tr., p. 772).

[1163] Nat. Tr., p. 182.

[1164] Nat. Tr., p. 193.

[1165] Schulze, loc. cit., p. 221; cf. p. 243.

[1166] Strehlow, III, pp. 11, 31, 36, 37, 68, 72, 84.

[1167] Ibid., p. 100.

[1168] Ibid., pp. 81, 100, 112, 115.

[1169] Nor. Tr., p. 310.

[1170] Nor. Tr., pp. 285-286. Perhaps the object of these movements of the lance is to pierce the clouds.

[1171] Nor. Tr., pp. 294-296. It is curious that, on the contrary, the Anula regard the rainbow as productive of rain (ibid., p. 314).

[1172] The same process is employed among the Arunta (Strehlow, III, p. 132). Of course we may ask if this effusion of blood is not an oblation designed to win the powers which produce rain. However, Gason says distinctly that this is a way of imitating the water which falls.

[1173] Gason, The Dieri Tribe, in Curr, II, pp. 66-68. Howitt (Nat. Tr., pp. 798-800) mentions other rites of the Dieri for obtaining rain.

[1174] Ethnological Notes on the Western Australian Aborigines, in Internationales Archiv. f. Ethnographie, XVI, pp. 6-7. Cf. Withnal, Marriage Rites and Relationship in Man, 1903, p. 42.

[1175] We presume that sub-totems may have tarlow, for, according to Clement, certain clans have several totems.

[1176] Clement says a tribal family.

[1177] We shall explain below (p. 362) why this is incorrect.

[1178] On this classification, see Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of Kingship, pp. 37 ff.; Hubert and Mauss, Théorie générale de la Magie, pp. 61 ff.

[1179] We say nothing of what has been called the law of opposition, for, as MM. Hubert and Mauss have shown, a contrary produces its opposite only through the intermediacy of a similar (Théorie générale de la Magie, p. 70).

[1180] Lectures on the History of Kingship, p. 39.

[1181] It is applicable in the sense that there is really an association of the statue and the person encharmed. But it is true that this association is the simple product of an association of ideas by similarity. The true determining cause of the phenomenon is the contagiousness peculiar to religious forces, as we have shown.

[1182] For the causes determining this outward manifestation, see above, pp. 230 ff.

[1183] M. Lévy-Bruhl, Les Fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures, pp. 61-68.

[1184] Golden Bough², I, pp. 69-75.

[1185] We do not wish to say that there was ever a time when religion existed without magic. Probably as religion took form, certain of its principles were extended to non-religious relations, and it was thus supplemented by a more or less developed magic. But if these two systems of ideas and practices do not correspond to distinct historical phases, they have a relation of definite derivation between them. This is all we have sought to establish.

[1186] Loc. cit., pp. 108 ff.

[1187] See above, pp. 203 f.

[1188] Of course animal societies do exist. However, the word does not have exactly the same sense when applied to men and to animals. The institution is a characteristic fact of human societies; but animals have no institutions.

[1189] The conception of cause is not the same for a scholar and for a man with no scientific culture. Also, many of our contemporaries understand the principle of causality differently, as they apply it to social facts and to physico-chemical facts. In the social order, men frequently exhibit a conception of causality singularly like that which was at the basis of magic for a long time. One might even ask if a physicist and a biologist represent the causal relation in the same fashion.

[1190] Of course these ceremonies are not followed by an alimentary communion. According to Strehlow, they have another name, at least when they concern non-edible plants: they are called, not mbatjalkatiuma, but knujilelama (Strehlow, III, p. 96).

[1191] Strehlow, III, p. 8.

[1192] The Warramunga are not the only ones among whom the Intichiuma takes the form of a dramatic representation. It is also found among the Tjingilli, the Umbaia, the Wulmala, the Walpari and even the Kaitish, though in certain of its features the ritual of these latter resembles that of the Arunta (Nor. Tr., p. 291, 309, 311, 317). If we take the Warramunga as a type, it is because they have been studied the best by Spencer and Gillen.

[1193] This is the case with the Intichiuma of the black cockatoo (see above, p. 353).

[1194] Nor. Tr., pp. 300 ff.

[1195] One of these two actors does not belong to the Black Snake clan, but to that of the Crow. This is because the Crow is supposed to be an "associate" of the Black Snake: in other words, it is a sub-totem.

[1196] Nor. Tr., p. 302.

[1197] Ibid., p. 305.

[1198] See Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 188; Strehlow, III, p. 5.

[1199] Strehlow himself recognizes this: "The totemic ancestor and his descendant, who represents him (der Darsteller) are presented as one in these sacred hymns." (III, p. 6). As this incontestable fact contradicts the theory according to which ancestral souls do not reincarnate themselves, Strehlow adds, it is true, in a note, that "in the course of the ceremony there is no real incarnation of the ancestor in the person who represents him." If Strehlow wishes to say that the incarnation does not take place on the occasion of the ceremony, then nothing is more certain. But if he means that there is no incarnation at all, we do not understand how the officiant and the ancestor can be confounded.

[1200] Perhaps this difference is partially due to the fact that among the Warramunga each clan is thought to be descended from one single ancestor about whom the legendary history of the clan centres. This is the ancestor whom the rite commemorates; now the officiant need not be descended from him. One might even ask if these mythical chiefs, who are sorts of demigods, are submitted to reincarnation.