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Title: Introduction to the History of Religions

Author: Crawford Howell Toy

Editor: Morris Jastrow

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INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS ***

Transcriber's Note:
Footnote links in the INDEX shown as n. x are linked to the
same footnotes with reindexed footnote numbers.

HANDBOOKS
ON THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
EDITED BY

MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., Ph.D.
Late Professor of Semitic Languages in the
University of Pennsylvania

Volume IV
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
Oxford University Press

INTRODUCTION TO THE

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
BY

CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY
Late Professor in Harvard University
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1924
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY
———
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Third Impression

PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.

PREFACE
The object of this volume is to describe the principal customs and ideas that
underlie all public religion; the details are selected from a large mass of
material, which is increasing in bulk year by year. References to the higher
religions are introduced for the purpose of illustrating lines of progress.
The analytic table of contents and the index are meant to supplement each
other, the one giving the outline of the discussion, the other giving the more
important particulars; the two together will facilitate the consultation of the
book. In the selected list of works of reference the titles are arranged, as far
as possible, in chronological order, so as to indicate in a general way the
progress of investigation in the subjects mentioned.
My thanks are due to the publishers for the care they have taken in the
printing of the volume, and to their proofreaders, particularly to the chief
proofreader, for not a few helpful suggestions.
C. H. T.
Cambridge, Massachusetts

CONTENTS
(The Arabic figures in the chapter summaries refer to paragraphs)
PAGE

CHAPTER I. NATURE OF RELIGION 1
Science and religion coeval, 1; Man's sense of dependence on
mysterious Powers, 2; Early man's feeling toward them of a mixed
nature, 3; mainly selfish, 4; Prominence of fear, 6 Conception of
natural law, 7; Sense of an extrahuman Something, 9; Universality
of religion, 10; Its development parallel to that of social
organization, 12; Unitary character of human life, 14; External
religion, 15; Internal religion, 16.

CHAPTER II. THE SOUL 10
Nature of the Soul. Universal belief in an interior something, 18;
its basis, 19; from observation of breath, 21; of shadow, 22 of blood,
23 Its form a sublimated double of the corporeal man, 24; or of an
animal, 25; The seat of the soul, 26; Localization of qualities, 27;
Consequences of the soul's leaving the body, 29 The hidden soul,
31.
Origin of the Soul. Not investigated by savages, 32; Creation of
man, 33; Theories of birth, 34 Divine origin of the soul, 36;
Mysteriousness of death, 38.
Polypsychism. Early views of the number and functions of souls, 39
Civilized views, 43.
Future of the Soul. Belief in its death, 46; This belief transient, 51-
53; Dwellingplace of the surviving soul in human beings, beasts,
plants, or inanimate objects, -59; or near its earthly abode, 60-63; or
in some remote place in earth, sea, or sky, 66-66 or in an
underground world, 67-69; Occupations of the dead, 70; Retribution
in the Underworld, 71 Nonmoral distinctions, 72-75; Moral

retribution, savage, 76-78; Civilized, 79-80; Local separation of the
good from the bad, 81 Reward and punishment, Hindu, 82
Egyptian, 83; Greek, 84 Jewish and Christian, 85, 86 Purgatory, 87
Resurrection, 88-90.
Powers of the Separated Soul. Prayers for the dead, 95, 96.
Genesis of Spirits. Functions of spirits (souls of nonhuman objects),
97-100.

CHAPTER III. EARLY RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES 48
Predominance of ceremonies in early religious life, 101, 102 They
are communal, 103; and sacred, 104.
Emotional and Dramatic Ceremonies. Religious dances and plays,
106-108; Connected with the worship of gods, 109; Are means of
religious culture, 110; Processions, 111; Circumambulation, 112;
Magical potency, 113.
Decorative and Curative Ceremonies. Decoration of the body, 114-
118; of houses, 119; of official dress, 120; Symbolism in decoration,
121.
Economic Ceremonies. Propitiation of hunted animals, 122-125;
Taboos, 126; Rules about eating, 127-128; Magical means of
procuring food, 129-131; Use of blood, 132; to fertilize soil, 133;
Sacrifice of first-born animals, including children, 134; Raising and
housing crops, 135; Rain, 136; Survivals in civilized times, 137.
Apotropaic Ceremonies. Early methods, 138-139; Expulsion of
spirits, 140-141; Transference of evil, 142, 143; Expulsion by
sacrifice, 144; The massing of such observances, 145.
Ceremonies of Puberty and Initiation. Training of the young, 146;
Tests of endurance, 147; Seclusion of girls, 148; Rearrangement of
taboos, 149; Supernatural machinery, 150; Mutilation of the body,
151, 152; Circumcision of males, its wide diffusion, 153; not a test
of endurance, 154; nor hygienic, 155; nor to get rid of magical
dangers, 156; nor to increase procreative power, 157; not religious
in origin: not a form of phallic worship, 158; nor a sacrifice, 159,
160; nor a provision for reincarnation, 161; Circumcision of
females, 162; Object of circumcision probably increase of sensual

enjoyment, 163, 164; The symbolical interpretation, 165-168;
Ceremonies of initiation to secure union with the clan, 169; Feigned
resurrection of the initiate, 170; The lonely vision, 171; Instruction
of youth, 172, 173; Initiation into secret societies, 174.
Marriage Ceremonies. Simple forms, 176-178; The bride hiding,
179; Prenuptial defloration, 180; Introduction of a supernatural
element, 181; View that all marriage-ceremonies are essentially
religious, 182.
Ceremonies at Birth. Parental care, 184; The couvade, 185; Child
regarded as a reincarnation, 186; Ablutions and naming, 187; Child
regarded as child of God, 188.
Burial Ceremonies. Natural grief, 189; Propitiation of the dead by
offerings at grave, 190; Ban of silence, 191; The dead regarded as
powerful, 192; Social value of these ceremonies, 193.
Ceremonies of Purification and Consecration. Occasions of
purification, 194-196; Methods: by water, sand, etc., 197-199; by
sacrifice, 200; Purification of a whole community, 201;
Consecration of private and official persons, 202, 203; Fasting, 204;
its origin, 205-207; its religious effects, 208; Result of massing
these ceremonies, 209.
Ceremonies Connected With Seasons and Periods. Calendars, 210,
211; Lunar festivals, 212-214; Solar festivals, 215; Solstitial and
stellar festivals, 216; Importance of agricultural festivals, 217;
Joyous, 218; Licentious, 219; Offering of first fruits, 220; Sadness,
221; The eating of sacred food, 222; Long periods, 223; Social
value of these ceremonies, 224.

CHAPTER IV. EARLY CULTS 99
Savage treatment of superhuman Powers discriminating, 225-228;
Charms and fetish objects, 229, 230; Life-force (mana), 231-233;
not an object of worship, but enters into alliance with religion, 234,
235; Nature of sacredness, 236, 237; Luck, 238; The various objects
of worship, 239, 240.
Animals. Their social relations with men, 241, 242; Transformation
and transmigration, 243; Two attitudes of men toward animals, 244-

248; What animals are revered, 249, 250; Regarded as incarnations
of gods or of spirits, 251; Those sacred to gods generally represent
old beast-cults, 252, 253; Survivals of reverence for animals, 254;
Beasts as creators, 255, 256; Worship rarely offered them, 257, 258;
Coalescence of beast-cults with other religious observances, 259;
Whether animals ever became anthropomorphic deities, 260;
Historical significance of beast-cults, 261.
Plants. Their economic rôle, 262-264; Held to possess souls, 265;
Their relations with men friendly and unfriendly, 266, 267; Sacred
trees, 268, 269; Deification of soma, 270; Whether corn-spirits have
been deified, 271; Sacred trees by shrines, 272; Their connection
with totem posts, 273; Blood-kinship between men and trees, 274,
275; The cosmic tree, 276; Divinatory function of trees, 277;
Relation of tree-spirits to gods, 278-285.
Stones and Mountains. Stones alive and sacred, 286-288; have
magical powers, 289, 290; Relation between divine stones and
gods, 291-295; Magna Mater, 291; Massebas, 293; Bethels, 294;
Stones cast on graves, and boundary stones, 296; Stones as altars:
natural forms, 297; artificial forms, 298; High pillars by temples,
299; Images of gods, 300, 301; Folk-stories and myths connected
with stones, 302; Sacred mountains, 303-305.
Waters. Why waters are regarded as sacred, 306-308; Ritual use of
water, 309; Water-spirits, 310, 311; Water-gods, 312-314; Rain-
giving gods, 315; Water-myths, 316; Gods of ocean, 317.
Fire. Its sacredness, 318, 319; Persian fire-cult, 320; Ritual use of
fire, 321-323; Its symbolic significance, 334; Light as sacred, 325.
Winds. Their relation to gods, 327.
Heavenly Bodies. Anthropomorphized, 328; Cosmogonic myths
connected with them, 329, 330; Sex of sun and moon, 331; Whether
they ever became gods, 332, 333; Thunder and lightning not
worshiped, 334.
Worship of Human Beings. Their worship widespread, with
distinction between the living and the dead, 335.
The Cult of the Living. Worship to be distinguished from
reverence, 336; Worship of the living by savages, 337; by civilised

peoples, 338; in Egypt, 339, 340; in Babylonia, 341; but there
probably not Semitic, 342; not by Hebrews and Arabs, 343, 344; in
China, 345; in Japan, 346; Whether by Greeks and Romans, 347;
Not in India and Persia, 348; Cults of the living rarely important,
349.
The Cult of the Dead. Of historical persons: noncivilized, 351;
civilized: in Egypt, 352; in Greece and Rome, 353; in China, 354;
of the Calif Ali, 355; Greek and Roman worship of mythical
ancestors, 356, 357; Dedivinization of gods, 358; Euhemerism, 359;
Worship of the dead kin, 360, 361; Ghosts friendly and unfriendly,
362; Savage customs: mourning, 363; funeral feasts, 364; fear and
kindly feeling, 365, 366; Definite cult of ghosts: savage, 367-370;
civilised, 371-373; Greek and Roman state cults, 374; Chinese, 375;
Divine functions of the venerated dead, 376-378; Ethical power of
ancestor-worship, 379-383.
Cults of Generative Powers. Nature's productivity, 384-386; Not
all customs connected with generation are religious, 387; Cult of
generative organs, 388-406; widespread, 388; Nonreligious usages,
389, 390; Phallic cults hardly to be found among the lowest
peoples, 391, 392; Well developed in West Africa, 393; in modern
India, 394; in Japan, 395; Most definite in some ancient civilized
religions, 396; In Egypt, 397; Whether in Semitic communities,
398; Hierapolis, 399; Babylonia and Palestine, 400; Extensively
practiced in Asia Minor, Ionia, and Greece, 401; Priapos, 402, 403;
The Roman Mutunus Tutunus, 404; Phalli as amulets, 405; The
female organ, 406; Androgynous deities, 407-418; Supposed
Semitic figures: Ishtar, 408; Ashtart, 409; Tanit, 410; The Cyprian
goddess, 411, 412; The Phrygian Agdistis, 413; Hermaphroditos,
415, 416; Androgynous deities not religiously important, 417;
Origin of the conception, 418; Animals associated with phallic
deities, 419; Christian phallic cults, 420.

CHAPTER V. TOTEMISM AND TABOO 176
The contrasted rôles of the two, 421.
Totemism. Social protective clan customs, 422; Control of marriage
by exogamic organization, 423-428; Theories of the origin of

exogamy (scarcity of women, primitive promiscuity, absence of
sexual attraction between persons brought up together, patriarch's
jealousy, horror of incest, migration of young men) and criticism of
them, 429-435; Diffusion and function of exogamy, 436-440;
Definition of totemism, 441; Customs and beliefs associated with it,
442: exogamy, 443; names and badges, 444-448; descent from the
totem, 449-451; refusal to kill or eat it, 452-459; magical
ceremonies for increasing supply of food, 460, 461; Stricter
definition of totemism, 462-465; Geographical distribution of
totemic usages, 466-513; Australia, 468-473; Torres Straits Islands,
474, 475; British New Guinea, 476; Melanesia, 477-483;
Micronesia and Polynesia, 484, 485; Indonesia, 486; India, 487;
North America, 488-506; Africa, 507-513; Supposed traces in
civilized peoples, 514-519; The permanent element in totemism,
520, 521; Conditions favorable and unfavorable to totemistic
organization, 522; economic, 523-528; individualistic institutions
(secret societies, guardian spirits), 529-537; political, 538; religious,
539, 540; The lines of progress to which totemism succumbs, 541.
Theories of the Origin of Totemism, 542-559:
Individualistic Theories. Confusion between names and things,
544; Animal or plant held to be the incarnation of a dead man, 545;
Body of an animal as magical apparatus, 546; Animals as places of
deposit of souls, 547; An object that influences a mother at
conception, of which the child may not eat, 548; Animals and plants
as incarnations of the souls of the dead, 549; Criticism, 550-552.
Theories Based on Clan Action. A clan chooses an animal or plant
as friend, 553, 554; The totem a clan badge, 555-557; Coöperation
of groups to supply particular foods, 558; The totem a god incarnate
in every member of a clan, 559; Summing-up on origin of
totemism, 560-562; Social function of totemism, 563; Whether it
produced the domestication of animals and plants, 564-569; Its
relation to religion, 570-580; The totem as helper, 570-575;
Whether a totem is ever worshiped, 576; or ever becomes a god,
577-580.
Taboo. Its relation to ethics, 581-584; It has to do with dangerous
objects and acts, 585, 586; Classes of taboo things, 587: those

connected with the conception of life (parents and children), 588,
589; with death, 590, 591; with women and the relation between the
sexes, 592-594; with great personages, 595-597; with industrial
pursuits, 589-600; with other important social events (expulsion of
spirits, sacred seasons, war, etc.), 601-604; with the moon: fear of
celest phenomena, 605; observation of lunations, 606; new moon
and full moon, 607; Whether the Hebrew sabbath was originally a
full-moon day, 608, 609; The seven-day week, 610; Prohibitions
connected with lucky and unlucky days, 611-613; Punishment of
violation of taboo, 614, 615; Removal of taboos, 616, 617; Taboo
and magic, 618, 619; Modification of taboo by civil law, 620;
Despotism of taboo, 621; Duration of taboo periods, 622; Diffusion
of taboo customs, 623, 624; Traces in ancient civilized
communities, 625; Indications of former general prevalence, 626,
627; Causes of disappearance, 628, 629; Rôle of taboo in the history
of religion, 630-634.

CHAPTER VI. GODS 265
How gods differ from other supernatural beings, 635, 636; Early
mythical founders of culture, 637-643.
Clan Gods (including divinized men). In lower tribes, 644-647; In
civilized nations, 648-651; One class of Greek "heroes," 652, 653;
Historical importance of clan gods, 654.
Departmental Gods. In half-civilised communities, 658-662; In
Maya, Mexican, and Peruvian religions, 663-665; Among
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, 666-670; Supposed Semitic
instances, 671; Tutelary deities of individuals, cities, and nations,
672, 673; Classes of departmental gods, 674: Creators, 675-679;
Gods of the other world, 680-682: Good and bad Powers, 683-694;
Conflict and adjustment, 684-688; Ethical dualism, 689; Man's
attitude toward demons, 690-694; Gods of abstractions, 695-697:
Semitic, 698-700; Egyptian, 701; Roman and Greek, 702; Aryan,
703; Absorption of specialized deities by great gods, 704-706.
Nature Gods. Their characteristics, 707, 708; Cult of the sun, 709-
713; of the moon, 714; of stars, 715-718.

The Great Gods. Their genesis, 719, 720; Divine dynasties, 721-
723; The supremacy of a particular god determined by social
conditions, 724; Origin of composite figures, 725.
Illustrations of the growth of gods, 725 ff.:
Egyptians. Horus, 726; Ra, 727; Osiris, 728; Hathor, Neith, Isis,
729.
Hindu. Varuna, 730; Indra, 731; Soma, 732; Vishnu and Çiva, 733;
Dyaus and Prithivi, 734; Ushas (and Çaktism), 734; Yama, 735,
736.
Persian. Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyu, 737, 738; Mithra and
Anahita, 739; Character of the Zoroastrian reform, 740-745.
Chinese. Feeble theistic development, 746; Confucianism and
Taoism, 747-749.
Japanese. No great god, 750.
Nature of Semitic theistic constructions, 751-755.
Babylonian and Assyrian. Ea, 756; Enlil (Bel), 757; Marduk, 758;
Ashur, 759; Female deities, 760; Bau, 761; Ishtar, 762, 763.
Phoenician and Arabian. Melkart, Eshmun, Dusares, Al-Lât, Al-
Uzza, 764.
Hebrew. Yahweh, 765; The titles Ilu (El), Elohim, 766.
Greek. The pantheon, 767; Zeus, 768, 769; Apollo, 770; Poseidon,
771; Hermes, 772; Pan, 773, 774; Ares, 775; Dionysus, 776-778;
Hades, 779, 780; Female deities, 781: Hera, 782, 783; Demeter,
784; Maiden goddesses, 785: the Kore, 786; Hestia, 787; Artemis,
788, 789; Hekate, 790; Athene, 791, 792; Aphrodite, 793, 794;
Breadth of the Greek theistic scheme, 795.
Roman. Nature gods, 796, 797; Jupiter, 798; Janus, 799; Mars, 800;
Saturn, 801; Deities of obscure origin, 802; Female deities, 803;
Juno, 804; Vesta, 805; Diana, 806; Minerva, 807; Venus, 808, 809.
Characteristics of the great ancient national religions, 810-818.

CHAPTER VII. MYTHS 359

Their historical value, 819, 820; Duration of the mythopœic age,
821; Period of origination of myths, 832; Similarity of myths
throughout the world, 823-826; Classes of myths, 827:
Cosmogonic. Creation of the world, 838-831; of man, 832, 833;
Man originally not mortal, 834; Macrobiotes, 835; Primeval
paradise, 835; Final destruction of the world, etc., 836-838.
Ethnogonic, 839-841.
Sociogonic, 842: Arts and ceremonies, 843-845; Relation between
myth and ritual, 846; Social reforms, 847; Sacred places, 848.
Astronomical, procellar, vegetation: astrological, 849, 850; Storm
myths, 851; Certain heroes, 852, 853; Decay and revival of
vegetation, 854, 855; Literary mythical histories, 856; Antagonism
between light and darkness, 857, 858.
Mingling of myth and legend, 859, 860; Original nature of a god
given in popular observances, 861; Interpretation of myths, 862;
Ancient, 863; Recent, 864-879; Influence of myths on dogmas and
ceremonies, 880; Fairy lore, 881.

CHAPTER VIII. MAGIC AND DIVINATION 392
Difference between their functions, 882.
Magic. Science of magic, 883-885; Its methods, 886, 887; Relation
between magic and religion, 888-890; Magic a social product, 891;
Magicians, 893-894; Families, 895; Women, 895, 896; Tribes, 897;
Power of the magician, 898; His methods, 899, 900; Attitude of
civilised religions toward magic, 901, 902; Its persistent hold on
men, 903; Its historical rôle, 904.
Divination. Its nature and organization, 905, 906; Prophetic ecstasy,
907; Relations between magician, diviner, and priest, 908.
Divinatory signs, 909, 910; Signs without human initiation:
omens, 911, 912; Prodigies, 913: Astrology, 914, 915; Words and
acts of men, 916; Parts of the human body, 917; Signs arranged for
by men: lots, 918; Haruspication, etc., 919, 920; Oneiromancy, 921-
923; Ordeals, 924-926; Oracles and necromancy, 927; Development
of the office of diviner, 928-932; Sibyls and Sibylline books, 933-
940; Religious and ethical influence of divination, 941, 942.

CHAPTER IX. THE HIGHER THEISTIC DEVELOPMENT 440
Groups into which the great religions fall, 943, 944.
Polytheism. Differences between the polytheistic schemes of
various peoples: Egyptian, Semitic, Indo-European, Mexican,
Peruvian, 945-950; Extent of anthropomorphization of gods
measured by richness of mythology: in savage and half-civilized
communities, 952-954; Gradations of anthropomorphization in
civilized peoples, 955-964; Religious rôle of polytheism, 965, 966;
Dissatisfaction with its discordances, and demand for simplification
of the conception of the divine government of the world, 967.
Dualism. Belief of lower tribes in two mutually antagonistic sets of
Powers, 968-972; Of the great ancient religions it is only
Zoroastrianism that has constructed a dualistic system, 973-976;
Whether a strictly dualistic scheme has ever existed, 977;
Manichæism, 978; Problems raised by dualism, 979.
Monotheism. The general movement toward it, 980, 981; Two
theories of its origin: that it is the natural primitive form of religion,
that it is the result of a primitive divine revelation, 982; The facts in
the case: it is not now found in low tribes, 983-985; it is not visible
in the popular cults of the great nations of antiquity, 986; But
tendency toward a unitary conception of the divine government of
the world, 987; Disposition to ascribe absoluteness to some one
deity in Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, India, 988-991; Chinese
headship of Heaven, 992; Peruvian cult of the sun, 993; Hebrew
monolatry, 994, 995; Demand for unity by Greek poets and
philosophers, 996-1001; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 1002;
Cults of Isis and Mithra—Modern reforms: Brahma-Samaj, Parsi,
Babist, Shinto, 1003.
Pantheistic and Nontheistic Systems. Pantheism is a revolt against
the separation of God and the world, 1004; Perplexing ethical and
religious questions make it unacceptable to the mass of men, 1005;
Nontheistic systems attempt to secure unity by taking the world to
be self-sufficient, or by regarding the gods as otiose, 1006; The
Sankhya philosophy dispenses with extrahuman Powers, but
recognizes the soul—Buddhism ignores both, 1007; Greek

materialism, 1008. General Survey of the Theistic Development,
1009 ff. Intervention of gods fixed by appeal to natural law, 1010;
Persistence of belief in miracles, 1011; Constitution of the deity
constructed by philosophy, 1012; His moral character determined
by that of his worshipers, 1013.

CHAPTER X. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION 481
The external history of religion a history of social growth, 1014-
1016.
External Worship. Establishment of relations with Powers, 1017,
1018; by processes, 1019-1021; by gifts, 1022, 1023; by
messengers, 1024, 1025; Blood is placatory as a gift of food, 1026;
Human sacrifice, 1027-1031; Dances and processions, 1032;
Preponderant importance of ordinary sacrifices—the various kinds,
1033-1035; Elaboration of the sacrificial ritual, 1036.
Theories of the Origin of Sacrifice. Their formulation late, 1037;
Bloody and unbloody offerings equal in expiatory virtue, 1038; Two
groups of theories of origin, 1039: the offering as gift, 1040, 1041;
as effecting union between deity and worshiper, 1042: by sharing
the flesh of a sacred animal (Smith and Frazer), 1043-1047; Self-
sacrifice of a god, 1048; Union through a sanctified victim (Hubert
and Mauss), 1049, 1050; Union with the Infinite effected by all
religious acts (Tiele), 1051, 1052; Persistence of these conceptions
of sacrifice 1053, 1054.
Ritual. Its growth in elaborateness along with the growth of social
forms, 1055-1061.
Priests. Regulation of the life, physical and moral, of priests and
priestesses, 1062-1065; Origin of religious prostitution; secular and
religious explanations, 1066; Organization and influence of the
priesthood: Egyptian, 1067; Babylonian and Assyrian, 1068;
Palestinian, 1069; Hindu, 1070; Persian, 1071; Greek, 1073;
Roman, 1073; Chinese, 1074; Peruvian and Mexican, 1075;
Influence for good and for evil, 1076-1079; No priesthood in Islam
or in Judaism after 70 A.D., 1080; Its function in some Christian
churches, 1080.

Worship. Early places of worship, 1081-1082; Development of
temples, 1083-1086; Forms of worship: offerings, hymns, music,
1087, 1088; Festivals, 1089; Vows, blessings, curses, 1090; Idols:
their formal development, 1091, 1092; Conception of their
personality, 1093; Religious function of idolatry, 1094.
Churches. Individualism called forth voluntary associations, 1095;
Savage secret societies, 1096; Greek mysteries, 1097-1099;
Whether the Semites produced mysteries, 1100; Rise of the idea of
the church in the Græco-Roman world, 1101: Philosophy produced
no church, 1102-1105; True churches produced by Buddhism and
Jainism, 1106, 1107; not by Judaism and Mazdaism, 1108, 1109;
Development of the Christian idea of the church, 1110-1112; A
church called forth by the cult of Mithra, 1113; not by that of Isis or
that of Sarapis, 1114; The Manichæan church, 1115; As to Islam and
certain associations that have arisen within it (Mahdism, Drusism,
etc.), 1116; Ecclesiastical power of the Peruvian Inca, 1117; Hindu
and Persian movements, 1118-1120.
Monachism. Its dualistic root, 1121; India its birthplace, 1122; Trace
in Egypt (the Sarapeum), 1123; Therapeutae, 1124; Essenes, 1125;
Christian monachism, 1126; Religious influence of monachism,
1127.
Sacred Books. Their origin and collection, 1128; Canons: Buddhist,
1129; Jewish, 1130; Christian, 1131; Mazdean, 1132; Islamic, 1133;
Religious influence of sacred books, 1134-1136; General influence
of churches, 1137-1140.
Universal Religions. Actual diffusion the test of universality, 1141;
As to Buddhism, 1142; Judaism, 1143; Christianity, 1144;
Zoroastrianism, 1145; Islam, 1146; So tested no existing religion is
universal, 1147.
Classification of Religions. Their resemblances and differences,
1148; Points in common, 1149; Proposed systems of classification,
and objections to them: according to grade of general culture, 1150;
division into national religions and those founded each by a single
person, 1151; religions of redemption, 1151; Religious unity, savage
and civilized, 1152; Disadvantages of tabulated classifications of
religions, 1153.

CHAPTER XI. SCIENTIFIC AND ETHICAL ELEMENTS IN
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS 572
Spheres of religion, science and constructive ethics distinct, but
tend to coalesce, 1154.
The Scientific Element. When science clashes with religion, 1155:
Phases in the relation between the two: when there is no knowledge
of natural law—a crude conception of unity—no place for the
miraculous, 1156; Rise of highly personalized deities who stand
outside the world: age of miracles, 1157; Recognition of the
domination of natural law—separation between science and
religion, 1158; Higher conception of the unity of God and the
world, 1159; Scientific theories held to be not a part of the content
of religion, 1160.
The Ethical Element. Religion adopts current ethical customs and
codes, 1161; Both good, 1162; and bad, 1163; Mutual influence of
religion and ethics, 1164, 1165; Religion infuses nobility and
tenderness into ethics, 1166; Religious personalities; martyr, saint,
1167, 1169; Evil influence of religion on ethics, 1169; Contribution
of religion to the sense of obligation to do right, 1170; Answers of
religion to questions concerning the existence of moral evil, 1171;
concerning man's moral capacity, 1172; concerning the essential
goodness or badness of the world, 1173.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 585

INDEX 625

INTRODUCTION TO THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
CHAPTER I
NATURE OF RELIGION

1. It appears probable that primitive men endowed with their own qualities
every seemingly active object in the world. Experience forced them to take
note of the relations of all objects to themselves and to one another. The
knowledge of the sequences of phenomena, so far as the latter are not
regarded as acting intentionally on him, constitutes man's science and
philosophy; so far as they are held to act on him intentionally, the
knowledge of them constitutes his theory of religion, and his sense of
relation with them is his religious sentiment. Science and religion are
coeval in man's history, and both are independently continuous and
progressive. At first science is in the background because most objects,
since they are believed to be alive and active, are naturally supposed by
man to affect him purposely; it grows slowly, keeping pace with
observation, and constantly abstracting phenomena from the domain of
religion.1 Religion is man's attitude toward the universe regarded as a social
and ethical force; it is the sense of social solidarity with objects regarded as
Powers, and the institution of social relations with them.
2. These Powers are thought of in general as mysterious, and as mightier
than ordinary living men.2 Ordinarily the feeling toward them on man's part
is one of dependence—he is conscious of his inferiority. In some forms of
philosophic thought the man regards himself as part of the one universal
personal Power, or as part of the impersonal Whole, and his attitude toward
the Power or the Whole is like that of a member of a composite political
body toward the whole body; such a position is possible, however, only in a
period of very advanced culture.
3. There being no records of initial humanity, it is hardly possible for us to
know certainly what the earliest men's feeling was toward the animate and

inanimate forces around them. Not improbably it was simply fear, the result
of ignorance of their nature and absence of social relations with them. But
in the human communities known to us, even the lowest, the relations with
extrahuman beings appear to be in general of a mixed nature, sometimes
friendly, sometimes unfriendly, but neither pure love nor pure hatred. So
refined a feeling as love for a deity is not found among savages. As religion
springs from the human demand for safety and happiness as the gift of the
extrahuman Powers, hostility to them has been generally felt to be opposed
to common sense.3 Coercion there has been, as in magical procedures, or to
bring a stubborn deity to terms; and occasional antagonism (for example,
toward foreign gods); but not hatred proper as a dogma, except in the great
ethical religions toward evil spirits, and in certain elaborate philosophic
systems—as, for example, in the Gnostic conception of an imperfect
Demiurge, or in the assumption of an original blind Chance or blind Will
whose products and laws are regarded as not entitled to respect and
obedience.
4. Instead of complete friendliness and unfriendliness in early tribes we find
more commonly between the two a middle ground of self-regarding
equipoise. The savage, the half-civilized man, and the peasant often deal
with superhuman Powers in a purely selfish commercial spirit, courting or
neglecting them as they seem likely to be useful or not. The Central
Australian (who may be credited with a dim sense of the superhuman)
conducts his ceremonies, intended to insure a supply of food, apparently
without the slightest emotion of any sort except the desire for gain.4 The
Italian peasant, who has vowed a wax candle to a saint in return for a favor
to be shown, does not scruple to cheat the saint, after the latter has
performed his part of the agreement, by offering tallow instead of wax, if he
thinks he can do so with impunity. A recusant deity is sometimes neglected
or even kicked by way of punishment or to force him to give the desired
aid, and a god or a saint is valued and sought after in proportion to his
supposed ability to be useful.
5. And this naïvely utilitarian point of view is by no means confined to the
lowest forms of religion; in the Old Testament, for example, the appeal to
Yahveh is generally based on his assumed power to bestow temporal
blessings,5 and this is a widespread attitude at the present day in religious

communities, where salvation is commonly the end had in view by the
worshiper. Love toward the deity simply on account of his personal moral
character, without regard to the benefit (namely happiness) to be got from
him, is found, if found at all, only in highly cultivated natures, and is rare in
these. And, in truth, it is difficult if not impossible to justify religion except
on the ground that it brings satisfaction (that is, happiness through and in
perfection of nature) in the broadest and highest sense of that term, for
otherwise it could not be regarded as a good thing.
6. On the other hand, fear of the superhuman Power is a common feeling,
recognizable everywhere, at all times, and in all stages of social and
intellectual development. By many it is regarded as the original and
essential attitude of the religious mind.6 To this view it is sometimes
objected that religion could never have arisen from fear—that religion, as a
cult, of necessity involves amicable relations between man and the deity.
The objection, however, is based on an arbitrary and incorrect definition of
religion; it is quite conceivable that man might cultivate the deity through
fear of the latter's displeasure, and that an elaborate system of ceremonies
and beliefs might arise from the desire to avert his anger. Such a conception
—which is certainly not a lofty one—is not unnatural in the presence of a
great Power whose dispositions and purposes are not well understood;
numerous examples of such an attitude might be cited from various
religions, savage and civilized.
7. But, on historical grounds, as in the examples given above, it seems
better to say that the earliest known attitude of man toward the superhuman
Power is one of interested observation and fluid emotion—the feeling is
determined by experience of phenomena. The man is pleased, displeased
and afraid, suspicious or careless, according as he sees things to be helpful,
harmful, doubtful, or resultless. In process of time, by observation and
reflection, he succeeds in tabulating phenomena, and more or less definitely
fixing his emotional attitude toward their assumed cause. A tradition is
gradually established, and men are trained from infancy to welcome certain
things, to fear others, and to accept certain others as meaningless; from time
to time strange things will appear, and these will be treated according to
established principles or will remain mysterious. A germinal conception of
natural law will arise from the observation of periodically occurring
phenomena (such as the rising and setting of the sun, periodic rains, tides)

and familiar facts of everyday life, as, for example, the habits of men and
other animals. Everything outside this sphere will be ascribed to
extrahuman agency—so sickness, death, and sometimes birth.7
8. The history of religion, which is a part of the history of thought,
necessarily shows, as is observed above, a constant enlargement of the
domain of natural law, and a consequent contraction of the direct action of
the supernatural, though this does not always or generally lessen the
conviction that the Supernatural Power, acting through natural law, controls
all things. In this process, also, the conception of the attitude of the
Supernatural Power is more or less definitely fixed; a formulation of signs
is accomplished, whereby it is known whether the deity, at particular
moments, is pleased or displeased, and whether a given deity is generally
friendly or hostile. This method of determining the attitude of the deity
continued into late stages of social life, and still exists even in professedly
Christian communities.8
9. As the basis of the religious feeling we must suppose a sense and
conception of an extrahuman Something, the cause of things not otherwise
understood. All things were supposed to have life, and therefore to be loci
of force; man's sense of social relation with this force constituted his
religion. This sense was at first doubtless vague, ill-defined, or undefined,
and in this form it is now found in certain tribes.9 Gradually, as the
processes of human life and of the external world become better known,
and the vastness of the extrahuman control becomes evident, the Something
is conceived of as great, then as indefinitely great, and finally, under the
guidance of philosophic thought, as infinite. Thus the sense of the infinite
may be said to be present in man's mind in germinal form at the beginning
of truly human life, though it does not attain full shape, is not formulated,
and is not effective, till the period of philosophic culture is reached.10
10. As far as our present knowledge goes, religion appears to be universal
among men. There is no community of which we can say with certainty that
it is without religion. There are some doubtful cases—for example, certain
Australian tribes reported on by Spencer and Gillen, among whom it is
difficult to discover any definite religious feeling: they offer no sacrifices or
petitions, and appear to recognize no personal relations with any
supernatural Power, beyond the belief that the spirits of the dead are active

in their midst, causing sickness, death, and birth; nor is there any sign that
they have lost earlier more definite beliefs.11 Yet they have solemn
ceremonies in which human blood plays a great part, and these may have
reference to the intervention of supernatural beings, the term "supernatural"
being taken as expressing any mysterious fact lying outside of the common
course of things. A mysterious being called Twan is spoken of in initiation
ceremonies, chiefly, it seems, to frighten or train the boys. Is there an
indication that the tribal leaders have risen above the popular belief in such
a being? Experience shows that it is difficult for civilized men to get at the
religious ideas of savages; and it is possible, in spite of the careful
investigations thus far made, that the last word on Central Australian beliefs
has not yet been spoken. A similar reserve must be exercised in regard to
reports of certain other tribes, whose ceremonies and institutions have
appeared to some European and American observers to be without a
religious element.12
11. There is at present no satisfactory historical evidence (whatever
psychological ground there may be, or whatever deduction from the theory
of evolution may seem necessary) of the existence of a subreligious stage of
human life—a stage in which there is only a vague sense of some
extrahuman power affecting man's interests, without definition of the
power, and without attempt to enter into social relations with it.13
12. True, in the great mass of existing savage humanity we find social and
religious customs so definite that we are forced to suppose a long preceding
period of development. It has even been held that traces of religious
conceptions are discernible in the first surviving records of "prehistoric"
man, the contemporary of the cave bear—a period separated from the
earliest clear historical records by many millenniums;14 but, though the
existence of such conceptions is by no means improbable, the alleged traces
are too dim to build a theory on. The supposition of a continuous religious
development from the earliest times is in accord with all that we know of
human history, but, until more facts come to light, it will be prudent to
reserve opinion as to the character of prehistoric religion.15
13. In general, religious development goes hand in hand with social
organization. Those groups which, like the Rock Veddas of Ceylon
(described by Sarasin) and the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego (described by

Hyades and Deniker), have scarcely any clan organization, have also
scarcely any religion. In most of the lowest communities known to us we
find well-constituted clans and tribes, with strict (and usually complicated)
laws of relationship and marriage, and a somewhat developed form of
religion.16 Here again it is evident that we see in the world only the later
stages of a long social process; the antecedent history of this process
belongs to sociological science, and does not concern us here;17 its later
history is inseparably connected with the development of religion.
14. It is in this social process that science, philosophy, art, and ethics are
constructed, and these, though distinct from the religious sentiment, always
blend with it into a unity of life. Religion proper is simply an attitude
toward a Power; the nature and activity of the Power and the mode of
approaching it are constructed by man's observation and reflection. The
analysis of the external world and of man's body and mind, the discovery of
natural laws, the history of the internal and external careers of the human
race—this is the affair of science and philosophy; rules of conduct,
individual and communal, grow up through men's association with one
another in society, their basis being certain primary instincts of self-
assertion and sympathy; art is the product of the universal sense of beauty.
All these lines of growth stand side by side and coalesce in unitary human
life.
15. The external history of religion is the history of the process by which
the religious sentiment has attached itself to the various conceptions formed
by man's experience: ritual is the religious application of the code of social
manners; the gods reflect human character; churches follow the methods of
social organization; monotheism springs from the sense of the physical and
moral unity of the world. Ideas concerning the nature and functions of the
deity, the nature of the soul and of conscience, and future life are all
products of scientific thought and might exist if religion did not exist, that
is, if men did not recognize any practical relations between themselves and
the deity. But, as a matter of fact, the religious sentiment, coexisting with
these ideas, has always entered into alliance with them, creating nothing,
but appropriating everything. Supernatural sanctions and emotional
coloring are products of general experience and feeling. The intellectual and
ethical content of religion varies with the intellectual and ethical culture of

its adherents; we may speak properly of the philosophy and morals, not of a
religion, but of the people who profess it.
16. The internal history of religion is the history of individual religious
emotional experience (a phenomenon that hardly appears at all in the
records of early life), and becomes especially interesting only in periods of
advanced culture. It is true that this experience is based on the whole
reflective life of man, whose beginnings go back to the earliest times.
Aspirations and ideals, connected especially with man's religious life,
spring from the long line of experiences with which men have always been
struggling. The central fact of the higher religious experience is communion
and union with the deity, and the roots of this conception are found in all
the religious ideas and usages that have been formulated and practiced in
human history. The study of such ideas and practices is thus important for
the understanding of the later more refined spiritual life, as in turn this latter
throws light on its crude predecessors. It is no disparagement to the higher
forms of thought that they have grown from feeble beginnings, and it does
not detract from the historical value of primitive life that we must decline to
credit it with depth and refinement. Every phase and every stadium of
human experience has its value, and the higher stages must be estimated by
what they are in themselves. In the history of religion the outward and the
inward elements have stood side by side in a unitary experience. But,
though the deeper feeling is necessarily more or less closely connected with
the external history, it is an independent fact requiring a separate treatment,
and will be only occasionally referred to in the present volume.

CHAPTER II
THE SOUL
17. The doctrine of the soul is so interwoven with the history of religious
beliefs that a brief statement of its early forms will be appropriate before we
enter on the consideration of religious institutions and ideas.18

1. Nature of the Soul

18. The belief in an interior something in man, different from the body,
appears to be practically universal in early human history; the ideas
concerning the nature of the soul have changed from time to time, but no
tribe of men has yet been found in which it is certain that there is no belief
in its existence. The Central Australians, religiously one of the least-
developed communities known, believe in ghosts, and a ghost presupposes
some sort of substance different from the ordinary body. Of some tribes, as
the Pygmies of Central Africa and the Fuegians, we have no exact
information on this point. But in all cases in which there is information
traces of a belief in a soul are found. We are not concerned here with
philosophic views, like that of Buddhism and many modern psychologists,
that do not admit the existence of the soul as a separate entity. The proofs of
the universality of the belief in a soul are scattered through all books that
deal with man's religious constitution and history.19
19. For the basis of a universal fact of human experience we naturally seek
a universal or essential element of human thought. In this case we must
assume a natural or instinctive conviction of the existence of an internal life
or being—a consciousness (at first doubtless dim and vague) of something
diverse and separate from the visible physical being, a sense of mental
activity in thought, feeling, and will.
20. It is not surprising that we do not meet with the expression of such a
consciousness among savages: partly, as is well known, they are like
children, intellectually incapable of formulating their instinctive beliefs
(and they have, consequently, no word to express such a formulation);
partly, they are not disposed to speak frankly on subjects that they regard as
sacred or mysterious. Attempts at formulation follow the lines of culture,
and it is not till a comparatively late stage that they reach definite shape.
21. The interior being, whose existence was vaguely felt, was recognized by
early man in many common experiences. Certain phenomena were
observed that seemed to be universal accompaniments of life, and these, by
a strictly scientific method of procedure, were referred to an inward living
thing. It was hardly possible for early observers not to notice that when the
breath ceased the life ceased; hence many peoples have regarded the breath
as the life, and as the form of the interior being, and in many languages the

words for 'soul' and 'spirit' are derived from the word for 'breath'.20 The
breath and therefore the soul of a dying man might be received (inhaled) by
any person present; it was sometimes obligatory on a son to receive his
father's last breath—he thereby acquired the father's qualities.21
22. Another accompaniment of the body that attracted the attention of early
men was the shadow, for which the science of that day, unacquainted with
optical laws, could account only on the supposition that it was a double of
the man, another self, a something belonging in the same general category
with the breath-soul, though usually distinguished from it.22 The shadow
was regarded as a sort of independent objective being, which might be
seized and destroyed, for example, by a crocodile, as the man passed along
a river bank; yet, as it was the man, its destruction involved the man's
death.23 The soul, regarded as a shadow, could not cast a shadow. Similarly
one's reflection in water was regarded as a double of him.24
23. Blood was known by observation in very early times to be intimately
connected with life, acquired the mystery and sacredness that attached to
life, and has played a great part in religious ceremonies.25 As soul is life, a
close relation between blood and soul appears in the thought of lower and
higher peoples, though the relation is not always the same as that described
above. The blood is sometimes said to be the soul,26 sometimes the soul is
supposed to be in the blood as it is in the hair or any other part of the body.
Blood could not be regarded as the soul in the same sense in which the
breath, for example, was the soul—if the breath departed the man's life
departed, but one could lose much blood without injury to vital power. It is
not to be expected that the relation between the two should be precisely
defined in the early stages of society. If Homer at one time speaks of the
soul passing away through a wound and at another time of the blood so
passing (death being the result),27 this variation must not be pressed into a
statement of the exact identity of blood and soul. By the Californian Maidu
the soul is spoken of as a 'heart', apparently by reason of the connection of
the heart with the blood and the life.28 There is to be recognized, then, a
vague identification of 'soul' and 'blood'; but in common usage the two
terms are somewhat differently employed—'soul' is the vital entity, the
man's personality, 'blood' is the representative of life, especially on its social
side (kinsmen are of "one blood," but not of "one soul")29 and in offerings

to the deity. Early man seems, in fact, to have distinguished between life
and soul.30
24. As the soul was conceived of as an independent being, it was natural
that it should be held to have a form like that of the external body—it could
not be thought of otherwise.31 This opinion was doubtless confirmed in the
savage mind by such experiences as dreams, visions, hallucinations, and
illusions, and by such phenomena as shadows and reflections. The dreamer
believed that he had been far away during the night, hunting or fighting, and
yet the testimony of his comrades convinced him that his body had not left
its place; the logical conclusion was that his inner self had been wandering,
and this self, as it seemed to him, had walked, eaten, hurled the spear, done
all that the ordinary corporeal man would do. In dreams he saw and
conversed with his friends or his enemies, all in corporeal form, yet all of
them asleep in their several places; their souls also, he concluded, were
wandering. Even in his waking hours, in the gloom of evening or on some
wide gleaming plain, he saw, as he thought, shadowy shapes of persons who
were dead or far away, and heard mysterious voices and other sounds,
which he would naturally refer to the inner self of the absent living or the
dead. Reproductions of himself and others appeared on land and in water.
All such experiences would go to convince him that there were doubles of
himself and of others, and that these were corporeal—only dim, ethereal,
with powers greater than those of the ordinary external body.
25. While the soul of the living man was most commonly conceived of as a
sublimated replica of the ordinary body, it was also supposed in some cases
to take the form of some animal—an opinion that may have arisen as
regards any particular animal from its appearance at a time when the soul
was supposed to be absent from the body,32 and is to be referred ultimately
to the belief in the identity of nature of animals and man. The souls of the
dead also were sometimes supposed to take the shape of animals, or to take
up their abode in animals33 or in trees (as in Egypt): such animals (tigers,
for example) were commonly dangerous, and this theory of incarnation is
an expression of the widely diffused belief in the dangerous character of the
souls of the dead. In later, cultivated times the bird became a favorite
symbol of the soul—perhaps from its swift and easy flight through the air.34

26. Savage science, though it generally identified the soul with the breath,
and regarded it as a separate interior form, seems not to have attempted to
define its precise locus, posture, and extension within the body—the early
man was content to regard it as a vague homunculus. The whole body was
looked on as the seat of life, and was sometimes eaten in order to acquire its
qualities, especially the quality of courage.35 Life was supposed to reside in
the bones as the solid part of the body, and these were preserved as the basis
of a future life.36 But even in early stages of culture we find a tendency to
specialize—courage, for example, was assigned particularly to the head and
the heart, which were accounted the most desirable parts of a dead enemy.37
These organs were selected probably on account of their prominence—the
heart also because it was the receptacle of the blood. The soul was located
by the Indians of Guiana in the pupil of the eye.38
27. Gradually a more precise localization of qualities was made by the
Semites, Greeks, Romans, and other peoples. These, for reasons not clearly
known to us, assigned the principal emotional faculties to the most
prominent organs of the trunk of the body. The Semites placed thought and
courage in the heart and the liver, anger in the liver (the bile), love and grief
in the bowels, voluntary power in the kidneys.39 The Greeks and Romans
were less definite: to the heart, the diaphragm, and the liver (the upper half
of the trunk); the Greeks assigned thought, courage, emotion;40 the Romans
placed thought and courage in the heart, and the affections in the liver.
Among these organs special prominence came to be given to the heart and
the liver as seats of mental faculties.41
28. It is not clear how early the brain was supposed to be connected with
the mind. Alcmæon of Crotona (5th cent. b.c.), who, according to Diogenes
Laertius, wrote chiefly on medical subjects, is credited with the view that
the brain was the constructor of thought.42 Plato suggests that the brain may
be the seat of perception and then of memory and reflection, and calls the
head the most divine part of man.43 Cicero reports that some persons looked
on some part of the cerebrum as the chief seat of the mind.44 In the Semitic
languages the first occurrence of a term for 'brain' is in the Arabic.45 Some
American tribes are said to regard the brain as the seat of the mind.46 The
scientific Greek view appears to have been connected with medical

research, but the process by which it was reached has not been recorded.
The Arabic conception of the brain was probably borrowed from the
Greeks.
29. The soul as an independent personality was supposed to leave the body
at times, and its departure entailed various consequences—in general the
result was the withdrawal of the man's ordinary powers to a greater or less
extent, according to the duration of the soul's absence. The consequences
might be sleep, trance, swoon, coma, death; the precise nature of the effect
was determined by the man's subsequent condition—he would wake from
sleep, or return to his ordinary state from a trance, or come to himself from
a swoon, or lie permanently motionless in death. When he seemed to be
dead there was often doubt as to his real condition—the escaped soul might
seek its old abode (as in the case of the vampire, for instance), and means
were sometimes taken to prevent its return.47
30. The obvious difference in serious results between sleep and other
cessations of the ordinary consciousness and activity led among some tribes
to the supposition of a special dream-soul that could leave the body without
injury to the man. It was believed by certain Greenlanders48 that a man
going on a journey might leave his soul behind. It was a not uncommon
opinion that souls might be taken out for a while, with friendly intent, to
guard them during a period of danger (so in Celebes when a family moves
into a new house). In Greenland, according to Cranz, a damaged soul might
be repaired. Or the soul might be removed with evil intent by magic art—
the result would be sickness or swoon; it was then incumbent on the
sufferer or his friends to discover the hostile magician and counteract his
work by stronger magic, or force him to restore the soul.49 On the other
hand, the soul of a dead man might be so recalled that the man would live
again, the usual agency being a god, a magician, or a prophet.
31. It has been and is a widespread opinion in low tribes that the life of a
person is bound up with that of an animal or plant, or with the preservation
of something closely connected with the person. This opinion springs from
the conviction of the intimate vital relation between men and their
surroundings. From the combination of these beliefs with the view referred
to above50 that a man's soul might dwell in a beast or a plant, the idea of the
hidden soul, common in folk-lore, may have arisen51—the idea that one

might conceal his soul in some unsuspected place and then would be free
from fear of death so long as his soul remained undisturbed.52 These folk-
tales are products of the popular imagination based on materials such as
those described above. From the early point of view there was no reason
why the vital soul, an independent entity, should not lead a locally separate
life.
2. Origin of the Soul

32. Theories of a special origination of the soul belong only to the more
advanced cults. In early stages of culture the soul is taken as a natural part
of the human constitution, and though it is regarded as in a sort an
independent entity, the analysis of the man is not carried so far as to raise
the question of separate beginnings of the two constituents of the
personality, except as this is partially involved in the hypothesis of
reincarnation. The child is born into the world equipped with all the
capacities of man, and further investigation as to how these capacities
originally came is not made.
33. It was, however, thought necessary to account for the appearance of
man (a clan or tribe) on earth, and his creation was generally ascribed to a
supernatural being. Every tribe has its history of man's creation—the variety
in the anthropogonic myths is endless, the diversities depending on the
differences of general culture and of surroundings; but the essential point is
the same in all; some god or other supernatural Power fashioned human
creatures of different sex, whether with well-considered aim or by caprice is
not said.
34. The first pair is thus accounted for in a simple and generally satisfactory
manner. But the fact of the perpetuation of the tribe or the race appears to
have offered serious difficulties to the savage mind. Some tribes are
reported to be ignorant of the natural cause of birth. Some Melanesian
women believe that the origin or beginning of a child is a plant (coconut or
other), and that the child will be the nunu (something like an echo) of that
thing or of a dead person (this is not the transition of a soul—the child takes
the place of the dead person). In Mota there is a similar belief.53 The
Central Australians, it is said, think that the birth of a child is due to the
entrance of a spirit into the body of a woman54—every child is thus the

reincarnation of some ancient person (an "ancestor"), and the particular
person is identified by the sacred object (stone or tree, or other object) near
which the woman is when she first becomes aware of the child within her;
every such object (and there are many of them near any village) represents
some spirit whose name is known to the old men of the tribe, and this name
is given the child.55

35. Similar theories of birth are found among the Eskimo56 and the
Khonds,57 in Melanesia,58 in West Africa,59 and elsewhere.60 Such views
thus appear to have been widely diffused, and are in fact a natural product
of early biological science. They embody the earliest known form of the
doctrine of reincarnation, which is so important in the Buddhistic dogma.61
With it must be connected the fact that among many peoples (savage, half-
civilized, and civilized) birth was intimately connected with supernatural
beings, whence the origin of numerous usages: the precautions taken to
guard the woman before delivery, the lustrations after the birth, the
couvade, the dread of menstrual and seminal discharges, and further,
customs relating to the arrival of boys and girls at the age of puberty.
36. At a later stage of culture the creation of the soul was distinguished
from that of the body, and was generally regarded as a special act of the
deity: the Hebrews conceived that the body was fashioned out of dust, and
that the breath of life was breathed into it by God, so that man became a
"living soul"62; Plato at one time63 thought that the soul of the world was
created by God, out of certain elements, before the body, and was made
prior to it in origin and excellence so that it should be its ruler, and that
afterwards he placed separate souls in the various separate bodies; the
immortal gods, says Cicero, have placed souls (animos) in human bodies,
and the human soul has been plucked (decerptus) from the divine mind.64
37. In the early Christian centuries the question of how the soul came into
the body was an intensely practical one—it was closely connected with the
question of man's inherent sinfulness and his capacity for redemption.
Tertullian's theory of the natural propagation of souls (traducianism), which
involved the inheritance of a sinful nature, was succeeded on the one hand
by the theory of preëxistence (adopted by Origen from Plato), and on the
other hand by the view that every soul was an immediate creation of God

(creationism, held by Jerome and others), these both assuming the natural
goodness or untainted character of the soul at the birth of the human being.
38. The mysterious character of death, the final departure of the soul from
the body, called forth in savage communities feelings of awe and dread. As
death, in the savage view, was due to the intervention of a supernatural
agency, the dead body and everything connected with it partook of the
sacredness that attached to the supernatural.65 Hence, probably, many of the
customs relating to the treatment of corpses—taboos that survived into
comparatively late times.66 The Old Testament ritual term 'unclean' is used
of corpses and other things that it was unlawful to touch, things taboo, and
in this sense is equivalent to 'sacred.'67
3. Polypsychism

39. In the preceding section only the general fact of the existence of the soul
is considered. We find, however, a widespread belief among savage and
half-civilized peoples that every human body is inhabited by several souls
(two or more).68 Thus, the Fijians, the Algonkins, and the Karens recognize
two souls; the Malagasy, the Dahomi, and the Ashanti three; the Congoans
three or four, the Chinese three, the Dakotas four, the Malays (of the
peninsula) seven; and this list is not exhaustive.69 To these various souls
different procedures and functions are assigned.
40. In general, as to place and function during the man's life, the following
classes of souls are distinguished: the vital soul, or the principle of life,
whose departure leaves the man insensible or dead (Malagasy aina, Karen
kalah, Eẃe 'ghost-soul'); the dream-soul, which wanders while the man is
asleep (probably a universal conception in early stages of culture); the
shadow-soul, which accompanies him by day (also, probably, universal);
the reflection-soul (similar to the preceding); the beast-soul, or bush-soul,
incarnate in a beast (among the Congoans, the Eẃe, the Tshi, the Khonds),
with which may be compared the Egyptian view that revenant souls and
Underworld shadows may assume the form of animals, and the Hindu
metempsychosis. A particular responsible moral soul is also reported
(among the Karens),70 but it is doubtful whether this is native; and still
more doubtful are the Karen 'reason' (tsō) and the Khond beatified soul.71

41. In regard to procedure after the man's death, it is generally held in early
stages of culture that one soul stays with the body, or at the tomb, or in the
village, or becomes air, while another departs to the land of the dead
(Fijians, Algonkins, and others), or is reborn (Khonds), and in some cases a
soul is said to vanish.72
42. It is obvious that there was great flexibility and indefiniteness in early
theories of the soul. The savage mind, feeling its way among its varied
experiences, was disposed to imagine a separate interior substance to
account for anything that seemed to be a separate and valuable
manifestation of the man's personality. The number of souls varies with the
number of phenomena that it was thought necessary to recognize as
peculiar, and the lines of demarcation between different souls are not
always strictly drawn. As to the manner of the souls' indwelling in the body,
and as to their relations one to another, savages have nothing definite to say,
or, at least, have said nothing. In general our information regarding savage
psychical theories is meager; it is not unlikely that with fuller acquaintance
the details given above would have to be modified, though the general fact
of polypsychism would doubtless remain.
43. In the higher ancient religions there are only more or less obscure
indications of an earlier polypsychic system. The Egyptian distinction
between soul (bai), shadow (haibet), and double (ka) appears to involve
such a system; but the Egyptologists of the present day are not agreed as to
the precise interpretation of these terms.73 The Semitic terms nafs and ruḥ
(commonly rendered 'soul' and 'spirit' respectively) are of similar origin,
both meaning 'wind,' 'breath'; in the literature they are sometimes used in
the same sense, sometimes differentiated. The 'soul' is the seat of life,
appetite, feeling, thought—when it leaves the body the man swoons or dies;
it alone is used as a synonym of personality (a 'soul' often means simply a
'person'). 'Spirit,' while it sometimes signifies the whole nature, is also
employed (like English 'spirit') to express the tone of mind, especially
courage, vigor. But, so far as the conception of an interior being is
concerned, the two terms are substantially identical in the Semitic
languages as known to us.74 And though, as is noted above, 'spirit' is not
used for the human personality, it alone is the term in Hebrew for a class of
subordinate supernatural beings standing in close relations with the deity.75

Greek literature seems to know only one personal soul (psyche, with which
pneuma is often identical in meaning); a quality of nature (as in Semitic
ruḥ) is sometimes expressed by pneuma ('spirit').76 The thymos appears in
Homer to be merely a function of the psyche,77 in any case it does not
represent a separate personality alongside of the psyche, and the same thing
is true of the daimon. Similarly, in Latin, animus and anima are
substantially synonyms78—animus sometimes expressing tone of mind—
and spiritus is equivalent to ruḥ and pneuma; the individual genius, with its
feminine representative the juno, is a complicated and obscure figure, but it
cannot be regarded as a separate soul.79
44. This variety of terms in the more advanced religions may point to an
early polypsychic conception. The tendency was, with the progress of
culture, to modify or efface this sort of conception.80 From a belief in a
number of entities in the human interior being men passed to a recognition
of different sides or aspects of the inward life, and finally to the distinct
conception of the oneness of the soul. The movement toward psychic unity
may be compared with the movement toward monotheism by the
unification of the phenomena of the external world.
4. Future of the Soul

45. Savage philosophy, recognizing the dual nature of man, regarded death
as due to the departure of the soul from the body. The cessation of breathing
at death was matter of common observation, and the obvious inference was
that the breath, the vital soul, had left the body. Reflection on this fact
naturally led to the question, Whither has the soul gone?
46. Death of the soul. The general belief has always been that the soul
survived the man's death.81 There are, however, exceptions; the continued
existence of the soul was not an absolutely established article in the savage
creed. According to the reports of travelers, it would seem that among some
tribes there was disbelief or doubt on this point. A West African native
expressed his belief in the form of the general proposition, "The dead must
die"; that is, apparently, the dead man must submit to the universal law to
which the living are subject.82 In another African community some held and
others denied that a spirit could be killed, and one man was certain that
spirits lived long, but was not certain whether they ever died.83 Differences

of opinion in regard to the fact of immortality are said to exist in Banks
Islands.84 The Eskimos are reported as holding that the soul may be
destroyed, and then, however, repaired.85
47. It thus appears that even among low tribes there is speculation on the
question of the continuance of existence after earthly death; there is
admission of ignorance. We have, however, examples of a definite belief in
annihilation. In some cases, when the theory of several souls is held,86 one
of these souls is supposed to become extinct at death: this is the case with
the Malagasy saina, and the 'beast-soul' among the Eẃe, Tshi, and
Congoans; but such a soul represents only a part of the man, and its
disappearance does not signify the extinction of the man's personality.
48. Complete extinction of the soul and the personality, in the case of
certain persons, is found among the Fijians: in the long and difficult way to
the Underworld, bachelors (as a rule), untattooed women, false boasters,
and those men who failed to overcome in combat the "slayer of souls" (the
god Sama) are killed and eaten.87 Something like this is reported of the
Hervey Islands,88 New Zealand,89 the Hawaiians,90 and other tribes. Among
the wild tribes of India, the Khonds and the Oraons, or Dhangars, hold to
annihilation of the soul in certain cases.91 Miss Kingsley reports a specially
interesting view in Congo to the effect that souls die when the family dies
out.92 The ground of this sense of the solidarity of the living and the dead is
not clear; the most obvious explanation is that the latter get their sustenance
from the offerings of the former, and perhaps from their prayers; such
prayers, according to W. Ellis,93 are made in Polynesia. This belief appears
also in some advanced peoples: so the Egyptians,94 and apparently the
Hindus.95
49. In these cases no explanation is offered of how a soul can die. Earthly
death is the separation of the soul from the body, and by analogy the death
of a soul should involve a disruption of constituents, but the savage
imagination appears to have passed lightly over this point: when a soul is
eaten, it is destroyed as the human body is destroyed when it is eaten; if it is
drowned or clubbed, it dies as a man does under similar treatment. The soul
is conceived of as an independent personality, with a corporeal form and

mental powers; the psychic body, it would seem, is endowed with power of
thought.96
50. This vagueness of conception enables us to understand how savage
logic reaches the conclusion that the soul may be mortal: all the possibilities
of the earthly person are transferred to it. In regard to the occasion of its
death, it is sometimes represented as punishment for violation of tribal
customs (as in Fiji), sometimes as the natural fate of inferior classes of
persons (as among the Tongans, who are said to believe that only chiefs live
after death),97 sometimes as a simple destruction by human agency.
51. In the popular faith of the Semitic, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indo-
European peoples there is no sign of an extinction of the personality after
earthly death. The Babylonian dead all go to the vast and gloomy
Underworld (Aralu), where their food is dust, and whence there is no
return.98 The Old-Hebrew 'soul' (nephesh) continues to exist in Sheol. True,
its life is a colorless one, without achievement, without hope, and without
religious worship; yet it has the marks of personality.99 The fortunes of the
spirit (ruḥ), when it denotes not merely a quality of character but an entity,
are identical with those of the 'soul.'100 In India, belief in life after death has
always been held by the masses, and philosophic systems conceive of
absorption, not of extinction proper. Zoroastrianism had, and has, a well-
developed doctrine of immortality, and the Egyptian conception of the
future was equally elaborate. In China the cult of ancestors does not admit
belief in annihilation.101 No theory of annihilation is found in connection
with the Greek and Latin 'soul' and 'spirit' (psyche, pneuma; animus, anima,
spiritus); the thymos is not a separate entity, but only an expression of the
'soul';102 and the Greek daimon and the Latin genius are too vague to come
into consideration in this connection.103
52. Omitting the purely philosophical views of the nature and destiny of the
soul (absorption into the Supreme God, or the Universal Force, is to be
distinguished from annihilation), and the belief of certain Christian sects in
the future annihilation of the wicked (based probably on a
misunderstanding of certain Biblical passages104), it may be said that the
rôle of the theory of extinction of the soul in the general development of
religion has been an insignificant one. Beginning among the lowest tribes as

an expression of belief in the universality of mortality, it assumed a punitive
character in the higher savage creed, and was gradually abandoned by the
religions of civilized peoples.
53. The belief in the continued existence of the soul, on the other hand, has
maintained itself from the earliest known times to the present. The inquiry
into the grounds of this survival belongs to the history of the doctrine of
immortality, and will not be pursued here in detail.105 Doubtless it has been
the increasing sense of the dignity of human nature, the conviction of the
close connection of human life with the divine, and the demand for a
compensation for the sufferings of the present (together with the instinctive
desire for continued existence) that has led men to retain faith in the
continued life of the soul. Modern beliefs in ghosts and in spiritualistic
phenomena testify to the persistence of this article of faith.

54. Abode of the surviving soul.106 Opinions regarding the destiny of the
surviving soul have changed from time to time in accordance with
topographical conditions and with changes in intellectual and moral culture.
There is no place or thing on or under or above the ground that has not been
regarded, at some time and by some communities, as its abode. The
selection of the particular thing or place has been determined by local
conditions—by what was supposed to be observation of facts, or by what
was conceived to be appropriate. The obscurity of the subject has allowed
free play to savage imagination. The paucity of data makes it impossible to
give a complete statement of the views that have been held, or to arrange
such as are known in accurate chronological order; but the principal
opinions may be mentioned, following in a general way the order of
refinement.107
55. 1. One of the earliest (and also one of the most persistent) views of the
future of souls is that they are reborn or reincarnated as human beings, or as
beasts or plants or inanimate things. It was not unnatural that, when a new
human being came into the world, it should be regarded as the reproduction
of a former human being, especially if the physiological conditions of birth
were not understood;108 the basis of the belief may have been the general
similarity between human forms, and, in some cases, the special similarity
between the infant or the adult and some deceased person. An extension of

the sphere of reincarnation would also naturally arise from the recognized
kinship between man and other things, animate or inanimate.

56. Examples of these views are found in many parts of the world. Tylor109
and Marillier110 have collected instances of such beliefs among savage
tribes in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, as well as in higher
religions (Brahmanism, Buddhism, Plato, Mani, the Jewish Kabbala,
Swedenborg).111 Other instances of belief in rebirth in human beings or in
animals are found among the ancient Germans,112 the people of Calabar,113
the Torres Straits islanders,114 the Central Australians,115 and the
Yorubans.116
57. There is an obvious relation between the belief in reincarnation in
animal form and the worship of animals;117 both rest on the assumption of
substantial identity of nature between man and other beings, an assumption
which seems to be universal in early stages of culture, and is not without
support in modern philosophic thought.118 Ancient belief included gods in
this circle of kinship—a view that appears in Brahmanism and the later
Buddhism.
58. The higher forms of the theory introduced a moral element into the
process of reincarnation—the soul ascends or descends in the scale of being
according to the moral character or illumination of its life on earth.119 Thus
it is given a practical bearing on everyday life—a result that is in
accordance with all religious history, in which we find that religious faith
always appropriates and utilizes the ethical ideas of its time.
59. At the present day the interest in the hypothesis of reincarnation springs
from its supposed connection with the doctrine of immortality. Brahmanists
and Buddhists maintain that it is the only sure basis for this doctrine; but
this view appears not to have met with wide acceptance.
60. 2. An all but universal belief among lower tribes is that departed souls
remain near their earthly abodes, haunting the neighborhood of the body or
the grave or the village.120 It is apparently assumed that a soul is more at
home in places which it knew in its previous life, and this assumption is
confirmed by sights and sounds, chiefly during the night, that are
interpreted as the forms and utterances of wandering souls.

61. Generally no occupation is assigned to these ghosts, except that it is
sometimes supposed that they seek food and warmth:121 scraps of food are
left on the ground for them, and persons sitting around a fire at night are
afraid to venture into the dark places beyond lest they meet them.122 For it
is a common belief that such souls are dangerous, having both the power
and the will to inflict injury.123 It is easy to see why they should be
supposed to possess extraordinary powers.124 The belief in their
maliciousness may have come naturally from the social conditions of the
place and time: in savage communities a man who is stronger than his
fellows is likely to treat them as his savage instincts prompt, to seize their
property or kill them; and departed souls would naturally be credited with
similar dispositions.
62. It is also true that the mysterious is often dreadful; even now in civilized
lands there is a general fear of a 'ghost.' Precautions are taken by savages to
drive or keep the soul away: the doors of houses are closed, and noises are
made. On the other hand, ghosts, as members of the family or the clan, are
often regarded as friendly.125 Even during a man's lifetime his soul may be
a sort of guide and protector—may attain, in fact, the rank of a deity;126 and
after death it may become, as ancestor, the object of a regular cult.
63. Fear of ghosts has, perhaps, suggested certain methods of disposing of
the dead body, as by interring or exposing it at a distance from the village,
or burning it or throwing it into the water; other considerations, however, as
is suggested above,127 may determine, in whole or in part, these methods of
dealing with the body.
64. 3. It may be considered an advance in the organization of the future life
when the soul is supposed to go to some distant place on the earth or in the
sea or in the sky.128 This is an attempt to separate the spheres of the living
and the dead, and thus at once to define the functions of the dead and
relieve the living from the fear of them. The land of the dead is sometimes
vaguely spoken of as lying on earth, far off in some direction not precisely
defined—east, west, north, or south—in accordance with traditions whose
origin is lost in the obscurity of the past.

65. Possibly in some cases it is the traditional original home of the tribe;129
more often, it would seem, some local or astronomical fact has given the
suggestion of the place; one Egyptian view was that the western desert (a
wide mysterious region) was the abode of the departed; it was a widespread
belief that the dead went to where the sun disappeared beneath the
horizon.130 Tribes living near the sea or a river often place the other world
beyond the sea or the river,131 and a ferryman is sometimes imagined who
sets souls over the water.132 Mountains also are regarded as abodes of the
dead.133 It is not unnatural that the abodes of departed souls should be
placed in the sky, whose height and brightness, with its crowd of luminous
bodies, made it an object of wonder and awe, and caused it to be regarded
as the dwelling place of the happy gods, with whom deserving men would
naturally be. Sometimes the expanse of the upper air was regarded as the
home of souls (as in Samoa), sometimes a heavenly body—the sun (in
India), or the moon (in the Bowditch Islands), or the stars.134 The schemes
being vague, several of these conceptions may exist side by side at the same
place and time.
66. The occupations of the dead in these regions are held usually to be the
same as those of the living; no other view is possible in early stages of
social life. Generally all the apparatus of earthly life (food, utensils,
weapons) is placed on the grave or with the body, and wives and slaves are
slain to be the companions of the deceased.
67. 4. A more decided separation between the living and the dead is made in
the conception of the underground world as the abode of the latter. It was,
however, only at a late period that this conception was carried far enough to
make the separation effective. Among the Central Australians there were
folk-stories of early men who traveled under the ground, but this is
represented as merely an extraordinary way of getting from one place to
another on the surface of the earth. Some North American tribes tell of an
underground world inhabited by the ants and by beings similar to man, but
those who live up on the earth are seen there only by accident, as when
some hero dares the descent.135 The conception of a real subterranean or
submarine hades is found, however, among many savage and barbarous
peoples, as the Samoans, the inhabitants of New Guinea, the Zulus, the
Navahos, the Eskimo, the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, and others.136

68. These pictures of the future world are crude, and usually stand side by
side with others; they are experiments in eschatology. But the constructive
imagination moved more and more toward an organized underground hades
as the sole abode of the dead—the place to which all the dead go. Such a
hades is found among the civilized peoples of antiquity, Egyptians, Semites,
Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, and, in more recent times, among the Teutons
(Scandinavians). The suggestion for this position may have come from the
grave (though it does not appear that the grave was regarded as the
permanent abode of the dead), and from caverns that seemed to lead down
into the bowels of the earth. The descent of souls into a subterranean world
offered no difficulties to early imagination: ghosts, like the Australian
ancestors, could move freely where living men could not go; where there
was no cavern like that by which Æneas passed below,137 they could pass
through the ground.
69. A lower region offered a wide land for the departed, with the possibility
of organization of its denizens. Ghosts gradually lost their importance as a
factor in everyday life; sights and sounds that had been referred to
wandering souls came to be explained by natural laws. Wider geographical
knowledge made it difficult to assign the ghosts a mundane home, and led
to their relegation to the sub-mundane region. Further, the establishment of
great nations familiarized men with the idea that every large community
should have its own domain. The gods were gradually massed, first in the
sky, the ocean, and hades, and then in heaven. For the dead the first
organization (if that term may be allowed) was in hades; the separation into
heaven and hell came later. A specific divine head of the Underworld is
found in Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, India, Greece, Rome, but not in
Israel. Such a definite system of government could exist only when
something approaching a pantheon had been established; the Babylonians,
for example, whose pantheon was vague, had also a vague god of hades.
70. Theories of the occupations of the dead varied in the early civilized
stage, before the rise of the idea of ethical retribution in the other life. In the
absence of earthly relations, imagination could conceive of nothing for
them to do, and hence an ardent desire for the continuance of earthly life.138
For the Hebrews the Underworld was without pursuits; the shades sat
motionless, in the dress and according to the rank of the upper world,
without emotions or aims (except a sparkle of malicious satisfaction when

some great man came down from earth), and without religious worship.139
A similar view was held by the Greeks and the Romans. Certain Egyptian
documents speak of mundane occupations for the dead, but these
documents belong to a comparatively late stage of culture, and what the
earlier view was we do not know.140 Of Hindu ideas, also, on this point we
have only relatively late notices.
71. 5. A radical transformation in the conception of the state of the dead was
effected by the introduction of the idea of moral retribution into the life of
the Underworld.141 The basis of the movement was the natural conception
of life as determined by ethical considerations, but the process of
transformation has extended over thousands of years and has hardly yet
reached its completion. In the lowest eschatological systems known to us
there is no marked difference in the status of departed souls; so among the
Central Australians, the tribes of New Guinea and the Torres Straits islands,
the Zulus, the Malagasy, the West African peoples, and some North
American tribes.142
72. The earliest grounds of distinction are ritualistic and social; these occur
among the higher savages and survive in some civilized peoples. The
Fijians assign punishment in the other world to bachelors, men
unaccompanied by their wives and children, cowards, and untattooed
women.143 Where circumcision was a tribal mark, the uncircumcised, as
having no social status, were consigned to inferior places in hades: so
among the Hebrews.144 The omission of proper funeral ceremonies was
held in like manner to entail deprivation of privilege in hades: the shade had
an undesirable place below, as among the Babylonians and the Hebrews,145
or was unable to enter the abode of the dead, and wandered forlorn on the
earth or on the border of the Underworld, as was the Greek belief.146
Exposure of the corpse to beasts and birds, making funeral ceremonies
impossible, was regarded as a terrible misfortune for the dead.147
73. Such of these beliefs as relate to violations of ritual appear to spring
from the view that the tribal customs are sacred, and from the consequent
distinction between tribesmen and foreigners. All persons without the tribal
mark were shut out from the privileges of the tribe, were outlaws in this
world and the next; and those whose bodies were not properly disposed of

lost the support of the tribal deities or of the subterranean Powers.148 It was
also held that the body retained the form in which it went down to hades;149
hence the widespread dread of mutilation, as among the Chinese still. On
the other hand the brave were rewarded.150
74. Sometimes earthly rank determines future conditions—a natural
corollary to what is stated above (§72 f.). A distinction is made between
nobles and common people in the Bowditch Islands.151 The members of the
Fijian Areoi Society are held to enjoy special privileges in the other
world.152 The belief in the Marquesas Islands is that the sky is for high gods
and nobles.153 According to John Smith, in savage Virginia only nobles and
priests were supposed to survive after death.154 The North American
Mandans (of Dakota), according to one view, assign to the brave in the
hereafter the delightful villages of the gods.155 When souls are supposed to
enter into animals different animals are assigned to nobles and common
men.156 Kings and nobles retain their superiority of position and are
sometimes attended by their slaves and officers.157
75. The manner of death is sometimes significant. The Karens hold that
persons killed by elephants, famine, or sword, do not enter the abode of the
dead, but wander on the earth and take possession of the souls of men.158 In
Borneo it is supposed that those who are killed in war become specters.159
The belief in the Marquesas Islands is that warriors dying in battle, women
dying in childbirth, and suicides go up to the sky.160 In regard to certain
modes of death opposite opinions are held in the Ladrone (Marianne)
Islands and the Hervey group: in the former those who die by violence are
supposed to be tortured by demons, those who die a natural death are
believed to be happy; according to the view in the latter group these last are
devoured by the goddess of death, and the others are happy. In the one case
violent death, it would seem, is supposed to be due to the anger of the gods,
and to be a sign of something bad in the man; in the other case happiness is
compensation for the misfortune of a violent death, and natural death, being
the fate of ordinary people, leaves one at the mercy of the mistress of the
other world.
76. The advance to the conception of moral retribution hereafter could take
place only in communities in which earthly life was organized on a moral

basis. The beginning of the movement is seen in certain savage tribes.
Savages have their codes, which generally recognize some ethical virtues
among the tribal obligations. Stealing, lying, failure in hospitality,
cowardice, violation of marital rights—in general, all the acts that affect
injuriously the communal life—are, as a rule, condemned by the common
sense of the lowest peoples, and the moral character of the gods reflects that
of their worshipers. By reason of the sense of solidarity the faults of
individuals affect not only themselves but also their communities, and the
gods care for communities as well as for individuals. Whenever, then, there
is an inquest in the other world, these faults, it is likely, will be punished.
On account of the paucity of our information, it is not possible to make a
general statement on this point, but examples of future moral control occur
in many savage creeds.161 In such systems the nature of the life beyond the
grave is variously conceived: sometimes as cheerless and gloomy (as in
Finland), sometimes as pleasant (as in Samoa, New Guinea, New
Caledonia, Bowditch Islands, some North American tribes, Brazil).162
77. In tracing the growth of the conception of distinctions in the other
world,163 we find first a vague opinion that those who do badly in this life
are left to shift for themselves hereafter;164 that is, there is no authority
controlling the lives of men below. In the majority of cases, however,
distinctions are made, but these, as is remarked above, are based on various
nonmoral considerations, and have small cultural value.165
78. In the published reports of savage beliefs there is not always mention of
a formal examination of the character of the dead, and probably nothing of
the sort was imagined by the lowest tribes. It appears, however, in such
relatively advanced peoples as the Fijians166 and the Khonds.167
79. Moral retribution proper is found only in great civilized nations and not
in all of them; the early Semites appear to have retained the old conception
of punishment for ritual faults or failures, and for offenses against the
national welfare. For the Hebrews the proof is found in the Old Testament
passim; in the Babylonian and Assyrian literature, as far as published, there
is one sign of departure from the scheme sketched in the Descent of Ishtar:
Hammurabi (ca. 2000 B.C.) invokes the curses of the gods on any one who
shall destroy the tablet of his penal code, and wishes that such a one may be

deprived of pure water after death. In regard to the South Arabians, the pre-
Mohammedan North Arabians, and the Aramæans, we have no information;
and for the Phœnicians there is only the suggestion involved in the curse
invoked on those who violate a tomb, and in the funeral ceremonies.168 But
the same general religious ideas prevailed throughout the ancient Semitic
area, and we may probably assume that the Hebrew conception was the
universal one.
80. In Egypt, India, China, Persia, Greece, Rome, however, and among the
Jews in the Greek period,169 higher ethical conceptions were carried over to
the Underworld; judgment, it was held, was pronounced on the dead, and
rewards and punishments dealt out to them according to their moral
character. The Jews and the Persians went a step further, and conceived of a
final general judgment, a final winding-up of human history, and a
permanent reconstruction of the world on a basis largely moral, though
tinged with local religious elements—a grandiose idea that has maintained
itself up to the present time, embodying the conviction that the outcome of
life depends on character, and that ethical retribution is the essence of the
world.
81. This ethical constitution of the life hereafter led to the local separation
of the good from the bad. Such a separation was imagined by comparatively
undeveloped peoples whose ethical principle was chiefly ritualistic, as, for
example, the Fijians, the American Indians, and by civilized peoples in their
early stages, the Vedic Hindus170 (Yama's abode in the sky, and a pit) and
the Greeks (the Homeric Elysian Fields, and Tartarus).171
82. In fact, a recognition of a place of happiness and a place of punishment
in the other life accompanies sooner or later a certain stage of ethical
culture in all communities. In India it appears in the late Vedic and post-
Vedic periods, together with the ethical doctrine of metempsychosis, and
though, as is natural in such a stage of development, various ideas are held
respecting the destinies of the good and the bad, the ethical distinction
between these classes of persons, with a systematic awarding of rewards
and punishments, becomes firmly established: Yama becomes an ethical
judge. In the Brahmanas, Manu, and the Mahabharata, we find a sort of
heaven for the virtuous and a hell for the vicious. While the academic
thought of Brahmanism and the altruistic systems of Jainism and Buddhism

looked to the absorption of the departed into the All, the popular Hindu
faith held fast to the scheme of happiness and wretchedness in the future.172
As in Dante's Divina Commedia, the heaven was somewhat colorless, the
hell more distinct and picturesque; pain is acute and varied, happiness is
calm and uniform.
83. The later Egyptian eschatological development was not unlike the later
Hindu. The good were rewarded with delightful habitations in the West or
with the Sun; the bad were tortured in a gloomy place.173
84. As regards the early Greek eschatological scheme, it is suggested by S.
Reinach174 that the descriptions of punishments in Tartarus (as in the cases
of Tantalus and others) arose from misunderstood representations of the
condition of the dead in the other world, they being represented either as
engaged in the occupations of this life, or as they were at the moment of
death. The great punishments, in fact, are assigned only to heroic mythical
offenders, but there seems to be no reason why the idea of retribution
should not be supposed to enter into such descriptions. Separation of the
good from the bad on ethical grounds appears in Greece in the time of
Plato. In various passages he describes the savage places (Tartarus and
others) to which criminals go after death, and the happy abodes of the
virtuous.175 These abodes were not with the gods; the occasional
translations to heaven (Heracles, Ganymede) are exceptional honors paid to
heroes and favorites.
85. The Jewish conception of a punitive future belongs to the Greek period
of Jewish history, and was probably developed on Hebrew lines under
Greek and Egyptian influence. A combination of the Old Testament view of
future retribution on earth with the conception of torture in the other world
is given in Enoch.176 In some circles Sheol was placed in the West and
divided into two regions, one of happiness, the other of punishment,177 or
the good dwell with the angels in heaven, the bad in hell.178 By others the
abodes of the dead were placed in the heavenly regions: of the seven
heavens, the second was assigned to the bad and the third to the good.179
With all the variation of locality, the separation of the bad from the good is
made permanent, and this distinction is maintained in the New Testament,
which throughout assigns the wicked to hell (Gehenna or Tartarus), while

the righteous dwell sometimes on the renovated earth, sometimes in the
heavenly regions.180
86. The Jewish and Christian books mentioned above content themselves
with the general statement that the punishment of the wicked will be torture
by fire and cold. Succeeding Christian books elaborated the picture of
torture with great ingenuity; the Apocalypse of Peter, following and
expanding the description of Plato and Enoch, has an elaborate barbarous
apparatus of punishment, and this scheme, continued through a series of
works,181 has its culmination in Dante's Inferno, where, however, the ethical
element is pronounced, though colored by the poet's likes and dislikes.
87. Purgatory. The wicked dead were not always left hopeless in their place
of punishment. Kindly human feeling (shown in early stages by pious care
for the well-being of the dead) and the analogy of earthly procedures, civil
and religious, led to the view that, after the expiation of faults by suffering,
the evildoer might be freed from his prison and gain a place of happiness.
Pardon and purification were effected on earth by punishments (scourging,
imprisonment, etc.) or by ritual processes (ablution, fastings, etc.)—why
not in the other life? In some systems of transmigration the man, forced
after death to assume a lower form, may rise by good conduct to a higher
form. In Plato's imaginative construction of the Underworld182 those who
have lived neither well nor ill are purified in the Acherusian lake and then
receive rewards according to their deserts; and those who have committed
great but not unpardonable crimes may come to the lake (after having
suffered the pains of Tartarus) and be freed from trouble if they obtain
pardon from those they have wronged. But as here, so hereafter, certain
offenses were regarded as unpardonable. The purgatorial conception passed
into patristic and Roman and Eastern Christianity and Talmudic and
Medieval Judaism.183
88. Resurrection. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which has
been fully developed only by the Persians and the Jews (and from them
taken by Christianity and Islam), appears to have grown from simple
beginnings. It is the expression of the conviction that the perfect man is
made up of soul and body, and its full form is found only in periods of high
ethical culture. But in very early times the belief in the intimate connection
between body and soul appears in the care taken among certain peoples to

preserve the bones or the whole body of the deceased as a possible future
abode for the soul;184 and, on the other hand, as the soul, it was held, might
return to the body and be dangerous to the living, means were sometimes
employed to frighten it off. It seems to have been believed in some cases
that the destruction of the body involved the destruction of the soul (New
Zealand). An actual entrance of a departed soul into a human body is
involved in some early forms of the doctrine of reincarnation,185 but this is
not the restoration of the dead man's own body. It was held in Egypt (and
not improbably elsewhere) that the soul after death might desire to take
possession of its own body, and provision was made for such an emergency;
but this belief seems not to have had serious results for religious life. A
temporary reunion of soul and body appears in the figure of the vampire,
which, however, is a part of a popular belief and religiously not important.
But these passing beliefs indicate a general tendency, and may have paved
the way for the more definite conception of bodily restoration.
89. The more developed Hindu doctrine (Brahmanic, Jainistic, Buddhistic)
recognized a great variety of possible forms of reincarnation (human and
nonhuman), and made a step forward by including the continuity or
reëstablishment of moral life and responsibility (the doctrine of karma).186
It, however, never reached the form of a universal or partial resurrection.
90. The birthplace of this latter doctrine appears to have been the region in
which Mazdaism arose, the country south of the Caspian Sea.
Windischmann infers from Herodotus, iii, 62, that it appears as a Mazdean
belief as early as the sixth century B.C.187 This is doubtful, but it is reported
as a current belief by Theopompus.188 Its starting-point was doubtless the
theory of reincarnation, which, we may suppose, the Iranian Aryans shared
with their Indian brethren. Precisely what determined the Iranian movement
toward this specific form of reincarnation we have no means of knowing. It
may be due to the same genius for simple organization that led the
Zoroastrians to discard the mass of the old gods and elevate Ahura Mazda
to the chief place in the pantheon; their genius for practical social religious
organization may have induced them to select human reincarnation as the
most natural and the most effective morally, and to discard other forms as
unworthy.189 The dead man's own body would then be the natural dwelling
place of his soul; but a refined body (as in 1 Cor. xv) might be regarded as

better suited to the finer life of the future. Whatever the cause, they adopted
this conception, and probably through their influence it passed to, or was
formulated by, the Jews, among whom it appears in the second century B.C.
(in the Book of Daniel).190 In Daniel and 2 Maccabees resurrection is
confined to the Jews; in Enoch it is sometimes similarly confined,
sometimes apparently universal.191 In the New Testament also the same
diversity of statement appears; resurrection seems to be confined to
believers in some passages192 and to be universal in others.193 In the former
case it is regarded as a reward of piety and as a consequence of the intimate
relation between the man and God or Christ; unbelievers then remain in
hades, where they are punished. But universal resurrection was probably
thought of as involved in the grandiose conceptions of a final judgment and
a final moral restoration.194
5. Powers of the Soul

91. Savage lore takes account of the powers of the separated soul only; the
qualities and functions of the earthly incorporate soul are accepted as a part
of the existing familiar order, and are not analyzed or discussed. It was
different with the departed soul, which, because of its strangeness and
mystery, was credited with extraordinary powers, and this part of savage
science was gradually developed, through observation and inference, into
an important system. In the search for causes, the Shade, its independent
existence once established, came to be regarded as the agent in many
procedures of which no probable account could otherwise be given.
92. The greatest activity of the departed soul is found in the earliest known
period of culture, when it was not yet relegated to hades or to the sky, but
dwelt on earth, either near its former habitation or in a distant region from
which it might return. Its powers of movement and action are then held to
be all that imagination can suggest. Such souls move through the air or
under the ground, enter houses through obstacles impenetrable to the
earthly man, pass into the human body, assume such shapes as pleases
them. Divested of gross earthly bodies, they are regarded as raised above all
ordinary limitations of humanity. Of these conceptions, that of the ghost's
superhuman power of movement remains in the popular faith to the present
day.

93. The practical question for the early man is the determination of the
relation of departed souls to earthly life. Among savage tribes their attitude
is sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly, more often the latter.195 To
fear the unknown is a human instinct. Shades are looked on as aliens, and
aliens are generally enemies. In particular, ghosts are conceived of as
sometimes wandering about in search of food or warmth, or as cherishing
enmity toward persons who had wronged them in their earthly life. They are
supposed to be capable of inflicting disease or pain, and precautions are
taken against them. Cases are reported of persons who killed themselves in
order that, as ghosts, they might wreak vengeance on enemies.196 On the
other hand, to the members of its own family the departed soul is
sometimes held to be friendly, or not unfriendly, but among savages it is not
thought of as a potent and valuable friend.
94. In the more advanced cults the functions of the departed souls become
larger and more important. They are regarded as having the power of
foretelling the future, and are consulted.197 They become guardian spirits,
and a cult of souls arises.198 In some higher forms of religion (Judaism,
Christianity, Islam) they are regarded as mediators between man and the
deity, or as advocates for man in the heavenly court.

95. Prayer for the dead. Before the ethical stage of religion the moral
condition and needs of the dead did not come into consideration; their
physical wants were met by performance of funeral rites and by supplying
them with food and other necessities of life,199 and they later came to be
looked on as helpers rather than as needing help; but when this old view
passed away, and the conceptions of judgment and ethical retribution after
death were reached, the moral status of the dead became a source of anxiety
to the living. It was held that the divine judge might be reached—by
intercession or by petitions, or by the performance of certain ceremonies—
and his attitude toward the dead modified.
96. A trace of such care for the deceased may be found in the Brahmanic
ceremonies intended to secure complete immortality to fathers.200 In Egypt,
in the later times, there was an arrangement for securing for the deceased
immunity from punishment for moral offenses: a sacred beetle of stone,
inscribed with a charm beginning "O my heart, rise not up against me as a
witness," laid on the breast of the mummy, silences the heart in the presence
of Osiris, and the man, even though guilty, goes free. Forms of charms were
prepared by the priests, and the name of any one who could pay was
inserted in blanks left for this purpose.201 This sort of corrupting procedure
was reproduced in some periods of Christianity. In the early Church a
custom existed of receiving baptism on behalf of such as died
unbaptized;202 here, apparently, a magical efficacy was ascribed to the act.
The first mention of prayer for the dead occurs in a history of the
Maccabean wars, where a sin-offering, accompanied by prayer, effects
reconciliation for certain soldiers who died in a state of sin (idol symbols
were found on their persons).203 Prayer for the dead has been largely
developed in Christianity and Islam.204
6. Genesis of Spirits

97. As early science identified life with the soul, it logically attributed a
soul to everything that was regarded as living. This category seems to have
embraced all the objects of the world—human beings, beasts, plants,
weapons, rocks, waters, heavenly bodies. Savages rarely formulate their
ideas on such a subject, but the belief in the future existence of nonhuman
as well as human things is fairly established by the widespread practice of

slaying animals at the tomb and burying with the dead the objects they are
supposed to need in the other world. This custom exists among many tribes
at the present day, and the contents of ancient tombs prove its existence in
former times. The dead are provided with clothing, implements of labor,
weapons, ornaments, food, and as these objects remain in their mundane
form by or in the grave, it is held that their souls pass with the souls of their
possessors into the world beyond. Further, the belief in transformation from
human to nonhuman forms and vice versa involves the supposition of life in
all such things. That the heavenly bodies, similarly, are supposed to be
animated by souls appears from the fact that they are regarded as manlike in
form, thought, and manner of life: the sun is frequently represented as a
venerable man who traverses the sky—the moon being his wife, and the
stars their children; and sun and moon sometimes figure as totems. This
general conception has been expanded and modified in a great variety of
ways among different peoples, but the belief in the anthropomorphic nature
of the astral bodies has been an element of all religions except the highest.
98. The apparent incongruities in the savage theory—that all things are
endowed with life—need occasion us no difficulty. Complete consistency
and tenability in such theories is not to be expected. Early men, like the
lower animals, were doubtless capable of distinguishing between things
living and things dead: a dog quickly discovers whether a moving object is
alive. Man and beasts have in such questions canons of criticism derived
from long experience.205
99. But man differs from the beast in that he feels the necessity of
accounting for life by the hypothesis of a soul, and as he seems to himself
to find evidence of life in plants and minerals (movement, growth, decay),
he is justified in attributing souls to all things. He is interested, however,
only in movements that affect his welfare. Whatever his general theory
about rocks, a particular rock, as long as it does not affect his life, is for him
an inert and worthless mass, practically dead; but if he discovers that it has
power to harm him, it becomes instinct with life, and is treated as a rational
being. Man has shown himself practical in all stages of religion; he is
always the center of his world, and treats objects and theories with sole
regard to his own well-being.

100. The world of the savage was thus peopled with souls, and these came
to have an independent existence. That this was the case with human souls
is pointed out above,206 and by analogy the separateness was extended to all
souls. Thus there arose tree-spirits, river-spirits, and other similar
extrahuman beings. It is convenient to employ the term 'spirit' as the
designation of the soul in a nonhuman object, isolated and independent, and
regarded as a Power to be treated with respect. The term is sometimes used
of a disembodied human soul, and sometimes of a deity resident in an
object of nature. It is better to distinguish, as far as possible, between these
different senses of the word. The functions of a spirit are sometimes
practically identical with those of a god. The difference between these two
classes of extrahuman agents is one of general culture; it is especially
determined in any community by the extent of the organization of such
agents that has been effected by the community. The cult of spirits is
considered below in connection with the description of divine beings.207

CHAPTER III
EARLY RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES

101. The earliest known forms of social life are characterized by the
performance of public ceremonies, which are almost always religious.
Religion in some form enters into all the details of early life—there is no
event that is not supposed to be caused or affected by a supernatural Power
or influence. A vaguely conceived force (mana), an attribute of life, is
believed to reside in all things, and under certain circumstances has to be
reckoned with. Mysterious potencies in the shape of souls, spirits, gods, or
mana are held to preside over and control all affairs—birth, sickness, death,
hate and love, hunting and war, sowing and reaping. There is no dogma
except belief in this extrahuman influence—no conception of moral effort
as based on and sanctioned by a definite moral ideal, no struggle of the sort
that we call spiritual. Religion consists of a body of practices whose
authority rests on precedent; as it is supposed they have existed from time
immemorial, they are held to be necessary to secure the well-being of the

tribe (a sufficient supply of food, or victory over enemies); to the question
why such and such things are done, the common reply of the savage is that
without them the thing desired could not be got.
102. In the earliest stages known to us these procedures are already
elaborate and distinct; they are generally conducted by the tribal leaders
(old men, chiefs, magicians), by whom they are handed down from
generation to generation.208 Their precise origin is lost in the depths of
antiquity. Doubtless they arose from social needs, and their precise forms
were suggested by crude observation and reasoning. Reflection on
processes of nature, guided sometimes by fortunate or unfortunate
accidents, may have led to the establishment of methods of procedure for
gaining social and individual ends; and, as at this formative period the
whole life of the community was permeated by religious conceptions, the
procedures either were originally religious or speedily took on a religious
coloring.
103. Two characteristics belong to early ceremonies: they are communal,
and they are generally sacred mysteries. Whatever be the origin of the tribal
and clan institutions of society, these are practically universal in the world
as it is now known. Even in the few cases where men live in the
comparative isolation of individual family groups (as the Eskimo, Fuegians,
and others are said to do209), there is a communal feeling that is shown in
the identity of customs and ideas among the isolated groups. In early man
there is little individuality of thought or of religious experience,210 and
there is no observable difference between public and private religious
worship. Ceremonies, like language, are the product of social thought, and
are themselves essentially social. When a man performs an individual
religious act (as when he recognizes an omen in an animal or bird, or
chooses a guardian animal or spirit, or wards off a sickness or a noxious
influence), he is aware that his act is in accordance with general usage, that
it has the approval of the community, and that its potency rests on the
authority of the community. It is true that such communal character
belongs, in some degree, to all religious life—no person's religion is wholly
independent of the thought of his community; but in the lower strata the
acceptance of the common customs is unreflective and complete. When
definite individualism sets in, ceremonies begin to lose their old

significance, though they may be retained as mere forms or with a new
interpretation.
104. That the ceremonial observances are usually sacred is obvious from all
the descriptions we have of them. Their power is not always attributed to
the action of external personal, supernatural agencies (though such agencies
may have been assumed originally); in many cases, it is held to reside in
themselves.211 They are sacred in the sense that they are mysterious, acting
in a way that is beyond human comprehension and with a power that is
beyond human control.212 They are efficacious only when performed by
persons designated or recognized by the community. Here there is
undoubtedly a dim sense of law and unity in the world, based on an
interpretation of experiences. This is a mode of thought that runs through
the whole history of religion—only, in the earliest stages of human life, it is
superficial and narrow. The earlier ceremonial customs contain the germs
and the essential features of the later more refined procedures.
105. Without attempting to give an exhaustive list, the principal early
ceremonies may be divided into classes as follows:
Emotional and Dramatic Ceremonies

106. The dances that are so common among savage tribes are in many
instances now (and doubtless this has always been the case) simply the
expression of animal joyousness.213 They are like the caperings of young
animals—only, the human feeling of rhythm asserts itself, the movements
are often measured and graceful. There is naturally an accompaniment of
noise—shouting and beating on pieces of wood, bone, or metal, with songs
or chants, the beginnings of vocal and instrumental music.
Words and melodies are simple and rude; they are the productions of
individual singers, often, of course, made from a stock of material common
to all members of the clan or the tribe. In Australia songs are thought to be
obtained by bards during sleep from the souls of the dead (sometimes from
Bunjil), or the bard is possessed by the soul of a beast; chants are employed
in magical ceremonies, and there are lullabies and other children's songs.214
The Muscogee "Song of the Sabbea" is very sacred.215 In West Africa
minstrels recite song-stories, every story being attached to an object (bone,

feather, etc.).216 Songs are chanted at festivals in Guiana (and at night men
tell endless stories).217
107. The movements of the dance are sometimes in imitation of those of
animals,218 sometimes spontaneous, and sometimes from our point of view
indecent. The indecency and obscenity originated and has continued in a
period when no moral element entered into such performances—they
simply follow animal instincts and impulses, are controlled by them, and
appear usually not to affect the customs relating to marriage and chastity (so
in the Areoi festivities of Tahiti, and among the Central Australians219).
108. In accordance with the law by which religion appropriates social
customs, the dance is devoted to religious purposes and acquires a sacred
character.220 It is a common ceremony as a preparation for war: the warriors
of the tribe jump about with violent gesticulations and shouts, brandishing
weapons and mimicking the acts of attacking and slaying enemies.221 Here,
doubtless, the object is partly to excite the men to fury and thus prepare
them for combat, but there is also the conviction that the ceremony itself
has a sacred potency.222 A similar occult power is attached to dancing in
Timorlaut, where, when a ship is at sea, the girls sing and dance on the
beach daily to bring the men back.223 There are dances in commemoration
of the dead224—apparently a combination of affection and homage, with the
general purpose of conciliating the departed and procuring their aid; the
belief being, apparently, that the dead see these demonstrations and are
pleased with them. A Ghost Dance formerly performed in California had for
its object bringing back the dead.225
109. At a later time such ceremonies were connected with the worship of
gods: sometimes they were of the nature of offerings of homage to the
supernatural Powers, as in the Young Dog Dance;226 sometimes they took
on a symbolic and representative or dramatic character. Among the Redmen
the dramatic dances are elaborate, often representing the histories of divine
persons, these latter frequently appearing in the form of animals.227 The
accompanying songs or chants relate stories that are intended to explain,
wholly or in part, the details of the rite.228

110. Thus combined with other ceremonies, dances become important
means of religious culture. In Greece dances were connected with many
cults, among others with the Dionysiac ceremonies, out of which grew the
Greek drama. Among the Hebrews the ancient ceremonial dance appears as
late as the time of David,229 though it was then, perhaps, falling into
desuetude, since his wife, Michal, is disgusted at his procedures. The
violent movement of the dance excites not only warlike rage but also
religious ecstasy, and has been used abundantly for this purpose by
magicians, prophets, and mystics; the performer is regarded as a vehicle of
divine revelation, all abnormal excitement being ascribed to possession by a
spirit.230
111. With dances may be classed processions, in which usually a god is
invoked or praised. In Ashantiland, in time of war, when the men are with
the army, processions of women, wives of the warriors, march through the
streets, invoking the gods on behalf of the absent men.231 Often the
performers bear a sacred object, as a stone (sometimes inclosed in a
box232), a boat, or an image; in early times such objects not only represent
the gods but actually embody them, or are themselves superhuman Powers.
112. A peculiar form of procession is that in which the worshipers move
round a sacred object, perhaps the adoption of a natural form of play. The
original design in such movements may have been simply to show respect
to the object in question and secure its favor, the circular movement being a
natural way of keeping in touch with it. In certain cases the
circumambulation is connected with the movement of the sun in the sky—
probably a later interpretation of the ceremony. Examples are found in
Hindu, Greek, and Roman practices, and in some modern Christian usages
(in the Greek and Roman churches). As a magical efficiency was held to
attach to the ceremony, its effect was sometimes held to depend on the
direction of the movement; if it was to the right—passing from east through
south to west (the worshiper facing the east)—it was good, but bad if in the
opposite direction. Though traces of solemn circumambulation are found in
some lower tribes, it has been, and is, practiced chiefly in the higher
cults.233
113. Sacred dances and processions are natural human expressions of
emotions that have been adopted by religious sentiment, and are often

supposed to have potency in themselves. They tend to disappear with the
progress of general refinement and of ethical conceptions of life and of
deity. They continue, however, far into the civilized period, in which we
find dramatic representations (as the Eleusinian rites and the medieval
Mystery Plays), processions of priests bearing or conducting sacred objects,
processions of devotees with music, and pilgrimages to shrines. Such
ceremonies, while they are regarded by educated persons simply as
expressions of reverence and accompaniments of prayer, are still believed
by many to have an innate or magic potency, insuring prosperity to the
participants.
Decorative and Curative Ceremonies

114. Love of ornament is found among all savage peoples; the value they
attach to beads and all colored things is well known to travelers and traders.
It has been plausibly argued that the origin of clothing is to be found in the
desire of each sex to make itself beautiful in the eyes of the other.234
However that may be, the employment of leaves for headdresses and
waistbands is general among lower tribes.235
115. Equally popular is the adornment of the body by colored marks made
with red ocher, pipe-clay, turmeric, charcoal, and such like things as are
furnished by nature. Elaborate designs, of straight and curved lines, are
traced on the skin, and these are gradually differentiated and become marks
of rank and function. The war paint of the American Indians is governed by
fixed rules, the object being to make the warrior terrible to enemies.236
Rings, quills, sticks, and stones, worn in holes made in ears, nose, lips, and
cheeks, are all originally decorative; and so also prickings and gashes in the
body, often in regular outlines.237
116. These latter, made according to tribal custom and law, become tribal
marks (tattoo), and are then essential to one's standing in the community.
This custom is general in Polynesia and in parts of North America.238 The
use of oil and other unguents early established itself as a custom of savage
society. They were probably useful in a variety of ways. For the hair they
made up for the absence of comb and brush; in combat they enabled the
warrior to slip from the grasp of his enemy; they defended the naked body
from rain, and from soiling and injury produced by contact with the earth

and hard bodies; and in sickness they were regarded as curative.239 Oil was
abundantly used as an article of food.
117. All these materials of decoration are transferred to the service of
religion. The headdress becomes a mask to represent an animal in a sacred
ceremony,240 or a priestly tiara. In such ceremonies (especially in those of
initiation) the painting of the body plays an important part, the traceries
varying according to the thing represented and the symbolism of the
action.241 It is often difficult to see the precise significance of the paintings,
but in certain cases they are totemic marks, and represent whatever is sacred
in totemic belief.242
118. It is possible to construe the development in two ways: the paintings
may be regarded as originally totemic or other clan marks, and as
afterwards employed as ornaments, or the order of movement may be taken
to be in the reverse direction; but when we consider the primitive character
of decoration, the second suggestion seems the more probable. The same
remark applies to the practice of pricking, scarring, and tattooing.243 For the
body-markings blood is sometimes employed, perhaps in part on account of
its decorative color, but also probably with a religious significance.244
119. Decoration has been and is largely employed in structures and dress
connected with religious life. Posts and beams of houses, totem posts and
masts of vessels are covered with figures in which artistic feeling is
discernible;245 and in late periods all the resources of art are devoted to the
form and adornments of temples, altars, and images. The designs are taken
from familiar objects, mostly from plants and animals. The ultimate motive
is love of ornament, which, while it finds abundant expression in ordinary
social life, has its greatest development in religion—a natural result of the
fact that in a large part of human history religion has been the chief
organizing factor of society.
120. The tendency has been to make the dress of ministers of religion
ornate.246 This tendency has arisen partly from love of ornament, and partly,
doubtless, it is the transference of court customs to religious ceremonial.247
121. Symbolism has entered largely into religious decoration. In very early
times figures of animals, plants, and human beings were used as records of

current events, and were sometimes supposed to have magical power, the
picture being identified with the thing represented. In a more advanced
stage of culture the transition was easy to the conception of the figures as
representing ideas, but the older conception is often found alongside of the
later—a symbolical signification is attached to pictures of historical things.
These then have a spiritual meaning for higher minds, while for the masses
they may be of the nature of fetishes.248 In both cases they may serve a
good purpose in worship by fixing the mind on sacred things.
Economic Ceremonies

122. The first necessity of savages is a sufficient supply of food, and this,
they hold, is to be procured either by the application of what they conceive
to be natural laws, or by appeal to superhuman Powers. Among economic
ceremonies, therefore, we may distinguish those which may be loosely
described as natural, those in which a supernatural element enters, and those
in which the two orders of procedure appear to be combined.
123. Savages are generally skillful hunters. They know how to track game,
to prepare nets and pits, and to make destructive weapons. The African
pygmies have poisoned arrows, with which they are able to kill the largest
animals.249 The people of British New Guinea organize hunts on a large
scale.250 In Australia, Polynesia, and America there is no tribe that is not
able to secure food by the use of natural means.
124. But such means are often supplemented by ceremonies that involve
some sort of supernatural influence. These ceremonies appear to assume a
social relation between man and beasts and plants; in some cases there is
assumed a recognition by animals of the necessities of the case and a spirit
of friendly coöperation; in other cases a magical power is called into play.
125. Desire to propitiate the hunted animal, in order not only to avert the
anger of its kin but also to obtain its aid, appears in the numerous cases in
which excuses are made for the killing, and the animal is implored to make
a friendly report of the man to its friends and to return in order that it may
be killed.251 Formal prayer is sometimes made to the animal in important
tribal ceremonies, as in British Columbia a boy is ordered by the chief to

pray to the first salmon sighted for a good catch;252 here the good will of
the salmon tribe and the quasi-human intelligence of the fish are assumed.
126. Precautions are taken to guard against antagonistic extrahuman
influences; there are taboos and rules of purification in preparation for
hunting. In New Guinea hunters are required to abstain from certain sorts of
food and to perform purificatory ceremonies.253 Among the Nandi some
men are forbidden to hunt, make traps, or dig pits for game;254 these men, it
would seem, are supposed to be, for ceremonial reasons, antipathetic to the
animals to be hunted, as, on the other hand, there are men who attract
game.255 The taboos of food and other things imposed are doubtless
intended to guard against malefic spirits or mana. The particular rules are
determined by local conditions.
127. Certain rules about eating the food secured by hunting appear to have
come from the desire to act in an orderly manner and with due respect to the
animal. When it is prescribed that a bone shall not be broken this may be for
fear of giving offense to the animal kin and thus insuring failure in further
hunting.256 The provision that each man shall gather of a fruit or vegetable
only so much as will suffice for a single day may have had an economic
ground, the desire to avoid waste; or it may have been made also partly in
the interest of orderliness, and so have had originally no reference to any
superhuman being.257 Naturally it was taken up into religion and given a
religious sanction.
128. In Central Australia, where every clan is charged with the duty of
procuring a particular food (its totem) for the tribe, the custom is that when
the product of hunting or gathering is brought in to be thrown into the tribal
store, the principal men of the hunting group begin by eating a little of the
food, after which the food is licit for the rest of the tribe but illicit for the
hunters.258 This custom has been held to have a sacramental significance; it
has been suggested that the food is sanctified by the touch of the elders and
thus made lawful for the tribe, or that, as naturally sacred, it secures, when
eaten, union between the eater and a superhuman Power. But there is no
hint of such a conception in the Australian ceremony or elsewhere. The
procedure is obligatory and solemn—to omit it would be, in the feeling of
the people, to imperil the life of the tribe; but all such usages are sanctified

by time. We should rather seek for the origin of the custom in some simple
early idea. It is not unusual, in parts of Australia and in other lands, that a
man, though he may not eat his totem, may kill it for others; the eating in
this case is the important thing—there is magical power in it—and the
economic obligation to provide food overbears the sense of reverence for
the totem. The only obscure point in the ceremony under consideration is
the obligation on the killer or gatherer to taste the food before he gives it to
his fellows. This may be a survival of the rule, known to exist among some
tribes, that in a hunting party he who kills an animal has the first right to it.
The Australian hunter cannot eat his totem, but he may hold to his
traditional right; the result will be the custom as it now exists. With our
present knowledge no quite satisfactory explanation of the origin of this
particular rule can be given.
129. The employment of magical means for procuring food appears in the
performance of ceremonial dances, in the use of charms, the imitation of
animals, and other procedures. In California the supply of acorns and
animals is supposed to be increased by dances.259 The New Guinea Koita
give their hunting dogs decoctions of sago and other food into which are put
pieces of odoriferous bark;260 these charms are said to have been got from
the Papuans, the lowest race of the region. A Pawnee folk-story (which
doubtless reflects a current idea) tells how a boy by his songs (that is, magic
songs or charms) brought the buffalo within reach of his people.261 Among
the Melanesians of New Guinea the hunting expert plays a great rôle—his
presence is necessary for the success of an expedition.262 He fixes the date
of the hunt, prepares himself by a series of abstinences,263 and at the
appointed time assembles the men, recites spells addressed to ancestors, and
passing along the lines of the hunters imitates the movements of the animal
sought.264
130. Very elaborate ceremonies including imitations of animals (imitative or
sympathetic magic) are found in Central Australia.265 When any animal is
to be hunted the old men of the appropriate totemic group, dressed to
imitate the totem and accompanied by some of the young men, repair to a
spot regarded as sacred, and, along with other ceremonies, trace on the
sacred rock, with blood drawn from the young men, a picture of the animal,
or figures representing its growth—in general, something that sets forth its

personality. These ceremonies, very numerous and extending over a long
space of time, constitute the main business of the elders, as, in fact, the
procuring of food is the chief concern of the people.
131. There is no perceptible religious element in these Australian
ceremonies—no utterance of charms or prayers, no mention of any
supernatural being. The acts appear to be simply procedures of imitative
magic, customs sanctified by long usage. They relate to the life of the tribe;
this life, like all life, is mysterious and therefore sacred.266 The belief in the
potency of the ceremonies appears to come from belief in the vital identity
of the two groups, human and nonhuman—the latter is supposed to respond,
in some occult way, to the expression of kinship involved in the official
proceedings.
132. The employment of blood (considered as the locus of life) may
indicate more definitely a sense of the unity of life-force; the human blood
is, perhaps, supposed to stimulate life in the kindred animal group, and so to
produce a large supply of individuals. In the published accounts there is no
hint that the blood is supposed to have atoning power. There is no sense of
wrongdoing or unworthiness on the part of the performers, or of any
relation to a deity. The theology of Central Australia is still obscure—the
general religious situation in that region has much that is enigmatical.
133. A more advanced ritual occurs among certain agricultural tribes,
among whom is found a more elaborate use of blood and a definite
recognition of superhuman beings. In these communities it is regarded as
necessary to profitable tilling to fertilize the soil with the blood of a slain
victim, sometimes human (as among the Khonds of Orissa, the Pawnees,
and others267), sometimes bestial (as in Southern India268); parts of the
victim's flesh are buried, or blood is sprinkled on the seed, and homage is
paid to a sacred stone or some similar object.
134. In more civilized agricultural communities these ceremonies persist in
attenuated form. There is a sacrifice of first-born animals to a deity and an
offering of the first fruits of the field; and as children, no less than crops,
are the gift of the gods, whose bounty must be recognized, it is not
surprising to find that, along with the first fruits of the field, first-born
children are sometimes sacrificed to the deity. Such a custom is reported as

existing or having existed in New South Wales, Florida, East Africa,
heathen Russia, the Fiji Islands, and Northern India.269 A trace of the
custom among the early Hebrews is, probably, to be recognized in the
provision of the Old Testament code that the first-born children are to be
redeemed by an animal sacrifice.270
135. In the course of time many ceremonies grew up in connection with the
procuring and housing of crops and other supplies. In Australia the men of
the clan charged with assuring any sort of food were unarmed and fasted
during their ceremony.271 Among the Kondyan plowing and sowing are
solemn seasons, an auspicious day is chosen, and there are religious songs
and choruses.272 For the Hos of Northeastern India the harvest home is a
great festival, held with sacrifice and prayer (though also with great license
of manners).273 A dim conception of law underlies all these procedures. The
law is sometimes natural, as in imitative processes, sometimes religious, as
when blood is employed or the agency of religious official persons is called
in.
136. The economical importance of rain has led to various quasi-scientific
and magical devices for securing it, and to the rise of professional rain
makers. The methods commonly employed are mimic representations of
rainfall or of a storm.274 The Australian Arunta have a rain clan whose
function is to bring the desired supply by nonsacred dancing festivals and
sacred ceremonies. A more advanced method is to dip a stone, as rain-god,
into a stream.275 Certain American tribes assign the duty of rain making to
secret societies or to priests.
137. All such economical ceremonies disappear with the progress of
knowledge, though traces of them linger long in civilized communities.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen note the gradual disappearance of the
economical and magical aspect of ceremonies in parts of Australia, and a
similar process is to be observed elsewhere.276
Apotropaic Ceremonies

138. The savage and half-civilized belief (a belief that has survived to some
extent in civilized communities) is that the ills that afflict or threaten a
community (such as epidemics and shortage of crops) are due not to natural

causes but to supernatural agencies. But man, it is held, may control the
hostile supernatural agents—they are subject to fear and other emotions,
and though powerful are not omnipotent; they may be expelled or otherwise
got rid of—violence may be used against them, or the aid of stronger
supernatural Powers may be called in. In pursuance of these ends
ceremonies have been devised in many parts of the world; though differing
in details they are alike in principle; the question is how man may become
the master of the demons. The ceremonies are sometimes performed on the
occasion of particular afflictions, sometimes are massed at stated seasons,
as at the beginning of the year or in connection with some agricultural
festival.
139. Man's defensive attitude toward the supernatural world appears in
many usages connected with ordinary life. Fear of the hostility of ghosts has
led surviving friends to take precautions against their return—their own
houses are closed to them and they are driven away with blows.277 They are
too near akin to be trusted, and they are believed to be able and willing to
do harm.278 At the other extreme of life, when the child comes into the
world, mother and child must be guarded against hostile demonic
influences.279 When a demon is known to have entered into a human being,
producing sickness or madness, exorcism must be resorted to; magicians,
prophets, and saints are able by ceremonies or by prayer to expel the
intruder and restore the afflicted to health. Ritual taint (which is
supernatural), incurred, for example, by touching a dead body, is removed
by sprinkling with sacred water.280
140. But the term "apotropaic" is generally used of expulsive ceremonies in
which a whole community takes part. In the simplest forms of procedure the
hostile spirits are driven out of the village by shouts and blows; crowds of
men rush through the streets, searching houses, expelling spirits at every
possible point of ingress, and finally forcing them outside the limits of the
community. Examples of such a custom are found in the Pacific Islands,
Australia, Japan, Indonesia, West Africa, Cambodia, India, North America
(Eskimo), South America (Peru),281 and there are survivals in modern
Europe. In China this wholesale expulsion is still practiced in a very
elaborate form.282 Among the Ainu, it is said, on the occasion of any
accident the "spirit of accidents" (a useful generalization) is driven away by

the community.283 In these cases the spirits are thought of as being in a sort
corporeal, sensitive to blows, and also as afraid of noise. There is
sometimes a combination of natural and supernatural conceptions: while the
violent expulsive process is going on the household utensils are vigorously
washed by the women; washing, known to cleanse from mere physical dirt,
here also takes on, from its association with the men's ceremony of
expulsion, a supernatural potency—it removes the injurious mana of the
hostile spirits.
141. Less violent methods of riddance may be employed. Evil, being a
physical thing, may be embodied in some object, nonhuman or human,
which is then carried forth or sent away to some distant point, or destroyed.
With this principle of transference may be compared the conception of
solidarity of persons and things in a tribe or other community: what one unit
does or suffers affects all—the presence of an accursed thing with one
person brings a curse on his nation,284 and conversely, the removal of the
evil thing or person removes the curse, which may, under certain
circumstances, be shifted to some other place or person.

142. The particular method of expulsion or transference is immaterial.285
The troublesome evil may be carted or boated away according to local
convenience, or it may depart in the person of an animal. Leprous taint is
transferred to a bird, which, having been dipped in the blood of a sacred
animal, is allowed to fly away carrying the taint off from the community.286
Even moral evils (sin) may thus be got rid of. In the great Hebrew annual
ceremony of atonement not only the ritual impurity of the sanctuary and the
altar, but also the sin of the nation, is laid on a goat and sent away to the
wilderness demon, Azazel.287
143. Examples of human apotropaic vehicles occur in the ancient civilized
world. In the Athenian Thargelia the Pharmakos was supposed to bear in his
person crimes and evils, and was driven forth from the city.288 The same
conception is found, perhaps, in the Roman Mamuralia and Lupercalia. In
the first of these Mamertius is driven forth from the city and consigned to
the keeping of hostile persons;289 in the second, young men ran about the
streets beating the women with strips of goatskin, the skin being that of a
sacred animal—a proceeding that was regarded as purificatory, and seems

to be naturally explicable as an expulsion of evil spirits or injurious
mana.290
144. In another direction expulsion of evil, or protection against it, is
effected by the blood of a sacrificed (and therefore sacred) animal. A well-
known example of this sort of ceremony is the Hebrew pesah (the old lamb
ceremony, later combined with the agricultural festival of unleavened bread,
at the time of the first harvest, the two together then constituting the
passover); here the doorposts and lintel of every house were sprinkled with
the blood of a slain lamb by the master of the house,291 and the hostile
spirits hovering in the air were thus prevented from entering. The sacred
blood seems to have been conceived of as carrying with it the power of the
family god (who was also the clan god), which overbore that of the demons
(in the earliest period, however, the efficacy was doubtless held to reside
simply in the blood itself). The ceremony belonged to each family, but it
belonged also to the clan since it was performed by every family, and
ultimately it became a national usage.
145. Apotropaic ceremonies appear to have been performed originally at
various times during the year as occasions arose; the increasing pressure of
occupations,292 the necessity of consulting people's convenience, and the
demand for order and precision led here (as in other cases) to the massing
of the observances. When so massed they begin to lose their original
significance, to yield to the knowledge of natural law, to be reinterpreted
from time to time, and finally to become mere social events or to be
dropped altogether. Apotropaism has hardly survived at all in the higher
religions.293 In popular customs it appears in the reliance placed on
horseshoes and other objects as means of keeping witches and similar
demonic things out of houses.294
Ceremonies of Puberty and Initiation

146. Ceremonies in connection with the arrival of young persons, male and
female, at the age of maturity appear to be universal, and they yield in
importance to no other class of social procedures. The basis of most of these
is civil; their object is to prepare young persons for entering on the active
duties of what may be called citizenship. They involve a distinct idea of the
importance of the clan, the necessity of maintaining its life unimpaired, and,

to that end, preparing with the utmost care the younger portion of the
community to take up the duties of the older. The boys are to be trained to
be the hunters and rulers of the clan, the girls are to be fitted to become the
wives and mothers of the next generation. But while the ceremonies in
question have their foundation in the needs of civil life, they inevitably
receive a religious coloring, since religion is intimately connected with all
the details of early life.
147. Among the details of the initiation of boys, tests of endurance occupy a
prominent place. In various ways the capacity of the lad to endure physical
pain or to face apparent dangers is tested,295 and in some cases one who
fails to stand such tests is refused admission into the clan and forever after
occupies an inferior and despised position. Such persons are sometimes
treated as women; they are required to wear women's dress and to do menial
work.296
148. The seclusion of girls on arriving at the age of puberty, with imposition
of various taboos (of food, etc.), is a widespread custom. The mysterious
change in the girl is supposed to be produced by some supernatural and
dangerous Power, and she is therefore to be shielded from contact with all
injurious things. The details of the procedure depend on local ideas, but the
principle is the same everywhere. The object is the preparation of the girl
for civic life, and the ceremony inevitably becomes connected with tribal
cults of the supernatural Powers.297
149. A rearrangement of taboos is a frequent feature in ceremonies of
puberty and initiation. Certain taboos, no longer needed, are removed and
others are imposed; these latter refer, in the case of boys, to intercourse with
the men and women of the clan or tribe—they are instructed not to speak to
certain persons, and in general they are made acquainted with the somewhat
elaborate social system that prevails in many early tribes. These taboos are
intended to prepare the boys to understand their position as members of the
tribe, responsible for the maintenance of its customs. The taboos relating to
food have arisen from conditions whose origins belong to a remote and
unrecorded past, and remain obscure.298
150. When the ceremony of initiation is elaborate and secret, it becomes
mysterious to boys, is looked forward to by them with apprehension, and

appeals to their imagination. Supernatural terrors are provided by the
leaders—noises are heard (made by the bull-roarer or some similar device),
and the report is circulated that the initiate is in danger of death at the hands
of a supernatural being. These methods testify to the importance attached by
early societies to the introduction of the young into social and political life,
and they furnish an early example of the employment of the supernatural
for the government of the masses. The old men do not believe in their
supernatural machinery, and the boys, after initiation, are let into the secret.
151. Mutilation of the body is a widespread custom in connection with
initiation and arrival at the age of puberty.299 In most cases the origin of
mutilating customs is obscure. Imitation of the form or appearance of a
sacred animal, embellishment of the initiate, or consecration of a part of the
body to a deity have been suggested as motives; but there is no clear
evidence of such designs. The knocking out of a tooth may be for
convenience in taking food; it seems not to have religious significance
except in so far as all tribal marks become religiously important.300 Boring
through the septum of the nose is perhaps for decorative purposes. The
cutting of the hair is possibly for convenience, possibly for dedication to a
deity.301
152. Among the most important of the customs of initiation are those
connected with the organs of generation, excluding, as is remarked above,
complete excision, which belongs to conceptions of religious asceticism
(consecration to a deity, preservation against temptation) in the higher cults,
and is not found among savages.302 Partial excision occurs in circumcision,
for males, and in similar operations for females.

153. Circumcision of males.303 The most widely diffused of such customs
of initiation is the gashing or the complete removal of the prepuce. It
existed in ancient times among the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the
Hebrews (for the Arabs, the Syrians, and the Babylonians and Assyrians we
have no information), not, so far as the records go, among the Greeks,
Romans, and Hindus. At the present time it is found among all Moslems
and most Jewish communities, throughout Africa, Australia, Polynesia and
Melanesia, and, it is said, in Eastern Mexico. It is hardly possible to say
what its original distribution was, and whether or not there was a single
center of distribution. As to its origin many theories have been advanced. Its

character as initiatory is not an explanation—all customs of initiation need
to have their origins explained. It may be said at the outset that a usage
prevalent in low tribes and clearly beginning under savage conditions of life
must, probably, have sprung from some simple physical need, not from
advanced scientific or religious conceptions. We may briefly examine the
principal explanations of its origin that have been offered.
154. It cannot be regarded as a test of endurance, for it involves no great
suffering, and neither it nor the severer operation of subincision304
(practiced in Australia) is ever spoken of as an official test.
155. A hygienic ground is out of the question for early society. The requisite
medical observation is then lacking, and there is no hint of such a motive in
the material bearing on the subject. Circumcision is employed in modern
surgery for certain diseases and as a generally helpful operation, but such
employment appears to be modern and of limited extent. The exact meaning
of Herodotus's statement that the Egyptians were circumcised for the sake
of cleanliness, preferring it to beauty,305 is not clear; but in any case so late
an idea throws no light on the beginnings.
156. Somewhat more to the point is Crawley's view that the object of the
removal of the prepuce is to get rid of the dangerous emanation from the
physical secretion therewith connected.306 Such an object would issue from
savage ideas of magic, the secretions of the human body (as urine and
dung) being often supposed to contain the power resident in all life. But this
view, though conceivably correct, is without support from known facts.
There is no trace of fear of the secretion in question, and the belief in
power, when such a belief appears, attaches rather to the oblated prepuce
(which is sometimes preserved as a sort of charm, or hidden, or swallowed
by the boy or by some other person) than to the secretion. Nor does this
theory account for the custom of subincision.
157. As circumcision is often performed shortly before marriage it has been
suggested that its object is to increase procreative power by preventing
phimosis.307 The opinion that such is its effect, though it has no scientific
support, has been and is held by not a few persons. Such an object,
however, is improbable for low stages of society—it implies an extent of
observation that is not to be assumed for savages; and there is, besides, the

fact that certain tribes (in Australia and elsewhere) that practice
circumcision do not connect the birth of children with sexual intercourse. In
general it is not to be supposed that savages make well-considered physical
preparation for marriage in the interests of procreation. The choice of mates
is determined by tribal law, but in other respects the individual is generally
left free before marriage to satisfy his appetite—it is instinct that controls
the relations between the sexes.
158. There is no clear evidence that the origin of circumcision is to be
traced to religious conceptions. It has been held that it is connected with the
cult of the generative organs (phallic worship).308 It is true that a certain
sacredness often attached to these organs; this appears, for example, in the
oath taken by laying the hands upon or under the thigh, as in the story of
Abraham.309 In some parts of Africa circumcision is directly connected or
combined with the worship of the phallus.310 But, on the other hand, each
of these customs is found frequently without the other: in India we have
phallic worship without circumcision, in Australia circumcision without
phallic worship; and this separateness of the two may be said to be the rule.
The cult of the phallus seems not to exist among the lowest peoples.
159. The view that circumcision is of the nature of a sacrifice or dedication
to a deity, particularly to a deity of fertility, appears to be derived from late
usages in times when more refined ideas have been attached to early
customs. The Phrygian practice of excision was regarded, probably, as a
sacrifice. But elsewhere, in Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan, where the
worship of gods and goddesses of fertility was prominent, we do not find
circumcision connected therewith. In the writings of the Old Testament
prophets it is treated as a symbol of moral purification. Among the lower
peoples there is no trace of the conception of it as a sacrifice. It is not
circumcision that makes the phallus sacred—it is sacred in itself, and all
procedures of savage veneration for the prepuce assume its inherent
potency.
160. Nor can circumcision be explained as an attenuated survival of human
sacrifice. The practice (in Peru and elsewhere) of drawing blood from the
heads or hands of children on solemn occasions may be a softening of an
old savage custom, and the blood of circumcision is sacred. But this quality

attaches to all blood, and the essential thing in circumcision is not the blood
but the removal of the prepuce.
161. The suggestion that the object of detaching and preserving the foreskin
(a vital part of one's self) is to lay up a stock of vital energy, and thus secure
reincarnation for the disembodied spirit,311 is putting an afterthought for
origin. The existence of the practice in question is doubtful, and it must
have arisen, if it existed, after circumcision had become an established
custom. Savages and other peoples, when they feel the need of providing
for reincarnation, commonly preserve the bones or the whole body of the
deceased.
162. Circumcision and other operations performed on females.
Circumcision of girls is practiced by many African savage tribes (Nandi,
Masai, Mandingos, and others), by Malays and Arabs, Gallas and
Abessinians and others. Introcision appears to be confined to Australia.
Infibulation is practiced in Northeastern Africa and by the Mohammedan
Malays.312 The effect, and doubtless the purpose, of the first and second of
these operations is to facilitate coition; the object of the third is to prevent
coition until the proper time for it arrives. They are all connected more or
less with initiation or with arrival at the age of puberty, and they are,
naturally, sometimes associated with other ceremonies.
163. Origin of circumcision. The preceding review may be taken to make it
probable that the origin of circumcision is not to be referred to reflection or
to religious ideas. We must look for a cruder motive, and several
considerations point to the desire to facilitate coition as the starting-point of
the custom (so also R. F. Burton). Reports from all over the savage world
testify to the prominence of sexual intercourse in the lower forms of human
life. Folk-stories are full of coarse details of the practice. Popular festivals
are often characterized by gross license. To lend a wife to a guest is in many
places a recognized rule of hospitality.313 In all this there is nothing
immoral—it is permitted by the existing law and is in accord with the
current ideas of propriety. Early man seems in this regard to have obeyed
his animal appetite without reflection. This form of pleasure occupied (and
occupies) a great part of his life, and it was not unnatural that he should
seek to remove all hindrances from it. It is quite conceivable that early
observation led him to regard the prepuce as a hindrance.

164. About the motives of early man in the adoption of these customs of
excision we have, of course, no direct information; but some later usages
favor the explanation suggested above. The operations performed on
females are obviously dictated by considerations of convenience or
propriety in coition. Various means are adopted of increasing the pleasure of
sexual intercourse (in Indonesia and elsewhere).314 These procedures are
purely animal, nonmoral, and without ulterior design; there is no thought of
progeny or, in general, of preparation for marriage—the frame of mind is
appropriate to the lowest grade of life.
165. In the course of time, however, all such customs tend to become
sanctified and to take on new meanings. When the importance of
circumcision was generally felt, it was natural that it should be performed at
puberty and at initiation.315 It would thus come to be regarded as an
introduction to the tribal life—not as preparation, but as a custom
established by unwritten law. Its origination would be put far back in the
past and sometimes ascribed to supernatural personages—the Central
Australians refer it to the mythical ancestors, the later Jews to the command
of the national deity issued to the legendary or mythical ancestor Abram.316
Under certain circumstances it might become a tribal mark; the Hebrews
thus distinguished themselves from their neighbors the Philistines, and
"uncircumcised" was a term of reproach.317
166. Apart from its use in initiation the cultic rôle of circumcision has been
small. It does not appear as an element in the worship of any deity, neither
in that of such gods as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, nor in that of any
other. It is not represented in ancient records as a devotion of one's self or
an assimilation of one's self or of a child to the tribal or national god. Its
performance is generally a religious duty, as is true of every established
custom, but this fact throws no light on its origin. The prepuce is sometimes
treated as an amulet or in general as a magically powerful or sacred thing;
but many other parts of the body (hair, finger nails, etc.) are so treated.
167. In the higher religions circumcision is generally viewed as an act of
physical purification or as a symbol of moral purification. The former view,
perhaps, prevailed in Egypt, though on this point the records appear to be
silent.318 The latter view is that of the Old Testament prophets and the New

Testament.319 It has now ceased to have any effective religious significance,
and is retained in some communities merely as a national social tradition or
as an ancient divine ordinance.
168. The origin of circumcision suggested above seems to account
sufficiently for all usages and ideas connected with it; the possibility of
several different origins need not be denied, but the practical identity of the
customs in all parts of the world in which the institution exists, makes the
simpler hypothesis the more probable.
169. Certain features of ceremonies of initiation appear to be designed to
secure union between the initiate and the clan. Such, for example, is the
custom found in New South Wales of the initiate's drinking the blood of his
companions. In other cases there is a union with other parts of the body.
Such usages arise from the idea that physical union is essential to social
union—a conception which elsewhere takes the form of blood-
brotherhood.320 This is a scientific rather than a religious idea, depending
on the belief that the body is an essential part of the personality.321
170. Another noteworthy custom is the feigned resurrection of the initiate.
In Australia the women are informed that the youth during the process of
initiation is slain by a supernatural being and brought to life again.
Elsewhere the initiate is supposed to forget his former life completely and
to be obliged, on emerging from the ceremony, to recover slowly his
knowledge of things.322 The origin of this custom is obscure, but it appears
to express the idea that the youth now enters on an entirely new life, and
having come into new relations and responsibilities, is to forget what he
was and what he did before—a profound conception which has been taken
up into some of the most advanced religions (as, for example, in baptism
and confirmation).
171. In certain half-civilized tribes a higher type of initiatory ceremonies is
found. The youth must perform a lonely vigil, going into the forest or some
other solitary place, and there wait for the vision or revelation of a
supernatural protector.323 This procedure is connected with the advance of
individualism, the old totemic or other relation being superseded by an
individual relation to a guardian spirit. The development of this higher
religious conception will be discussed below.324

172. Finally, instruction forms a part of most initiation ceremonies. The
youth is told the secrets of the tribe, and is thus inducted into its higher and
more intimate life.325 This confiding of tribal secrets (the tradition and the
knowledge of sacred things) to the young man about to enter on public life
is a political necessity, but in the nature of the case connects itself with
religious conceptions. Generally, also, moral instruction is given.326 The
ethical code is usually good so far as intratribal relations are concerned
(foreigners are not considered): the youth is told that he must obey his
elders, respect the rights of his fellow clansmen, and especially be careful in
his attitude toward women. In some cases a supernatural sanction for such
instructions is added; it is impressed on the youth that some supernatural
being will punish him if he disobeys these instructions. The moral code in
question is one which springs naturally and necessarily from the relations of
men in society, and the supernatural sanction affixed to it is a consequence
of the belief that the tribal deity is the lord of the tribe and the natural and
most effective guardian of its rights.
173. From this brief statement of initiation ceremonies it appears that they
rest substantially on social ideas and necessities. Religion enters into them,
as is pointed out above, when a superhuman being is represented as the
patron of the clan and the protector of its ceremonies, or when the moral
teaching is referred to such a being, or when the initiate seeks a
supernatural patron with whom to enter into relations, or when, as in some
North Australian tribes, the supernatural being is believed to be angry at the
omission of the ceremonies. This last case might recall the displeasure of
the Greek gods when sacrifices to them were withheld or diminished; but
more probably it involves simply the belief that all important ceremonies
and affairs are under the control of the being in question, who demands
obedience to him as lord.
174. In later stages of savage or semicivilized life the clan constitution as a
rule has been succeeded by the formation of secret societies, and then
initiation into a society takes the place of the old initiation into the clan.327
Initiation into such a society is often elaborate and solemn—it is carried out
in great detail in many Polynesian, African, and North American tribes—
but its general features are the same as those of the earlier procedure.
Savage societies and civilized mysteries all have their secrets and their

moral instruction, and they all represent an advance in individualism. Still
later the church takes the place of the mysteries, and here the process of
initiation, though more refined, is still in essence identical with the earlier
forms.328 Naturally in the increasing refinement of the ceremonies there is
an increasing prominence of the supernatural element, for the reason that
the special care of religion recedes more and more from general society
(which tends to occupy itself with civil and political questions solely), and
is intrusted to special voluntary organizations.
Marriage Ceremonies

175. Marriage is so important a fact for the communal life that it has always
been regulated to a greater or less extent by the community, which defines
its methods, rights, and obligations.329
176. In the lowest known tribes the ceremony of marriage is simple: the
woman is given to the man by the constituted authorities—that is, the
relatives of the parties and the elders of the clan or tribe—and by that act
the two become husband and wife. At this stage of social growth the stress
is laid on preparation for marriage in the ceremonies of puberty and
initiation. The members of the tribe being thus prepared for union, marriage
is merely the assignment of a given woman to a given man. The wife is
selected according to established custom; that is, in accordance with
customary law, which in most cases defines precisely from what group of
the tribe the woman proper to a given man shall be taken.
177. Though the origin of this law goes back to a remote antiquity and is
involved in obscurity, it seems to have been originally simply a matter of
social agreement. It came to be, however, connected with systems of
totemism and taboo, and thus to have acquired a certain religious character;
and, as being important for the tribal life, it would come under the control
of the tribal god when there is such a god. A similar remark may be made in
regard to exogamy. Why marriage between members of the same tribe, clan,
or phratry should be prohibited is not clear.330 The rule arose, doubtless,
from some social feature of ancient society, and only later was involved in
the general religious atmosphere.331
178. Gradually greater freedom of choice was allowed men and women,
and the ceremonies of marriage became more elaborate. Certain of these

seem intended to secure the complete union of husband and wife; such, for
example, are the customs of eating together, of the inoculation of each party
with the blood of the other or with some bodily part of the other, and the
giving of presents by each to the other. All these rest on the conception that
union between two persons is effected by each taking something that
belongs to the other; each thus acquires something of the other's personality.
This is a scientific biological idea; and though it had its origin doubtless in
some very crude notion of life, it has maintained itself in one form or
another up to the present time.
179. Among many communities the custom is for the bride to hide herself
and to be pursued and taken by the bridegroom. This custom, again, is in its
origin obscure. Almost certainly it does not point to original marriage by
capture, for of such a customary method of acquiring wives there is no trace
in savage communities (though in particular cases women may have been
captured and married). Possibly it reflects merely the coyness of the
woman; or it may be simply a festive procedure, an occasion of fun for the
young people, as indeed a wedding now commonly is. In many cases,
however, it appears to represent the transference of the woman from her
own tribe to that of her husband. Though she was thus transferred bodily
and brought into civic relations with the latter, certain taboos, arising from
her original tribal position, often clung to her. The right to dwell in her own
house in her own tribe, and to receive there her foreign husband, belongs to
a relatively late social stage.332
180. The defloration of the woman before marriage is rather a preparation
for marriage than a marriage ceremony; or it may represent the social right
of the elders of the tribe and the relatives of the bride to the possession of
her, perhaps symbolizing her entrance into a family.333 The hypothesis that
such a custom points to primitive promiscuity is ably combated by
Westermarck, and is involved in great difficulties; it is, however,
maintained by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in their two works on Australian
tribes, whose customs seem to them to be inexplicable except on the
supposition of primitive promiscuity, in spite of Westermarck's arguments;
and in support of this view the sexual license granted in many tribes to
unmarried girls may be adduced. However this may be, the custom in
question appears to be civil and not religious. The same thing is true of the
ceremonies in which bridegroom and bride are hailed as king and queen—a

very natural form of merrymaking.334 The purchase of wives is probably a
simple commercial act.
181. The marriage ceremonies mentioned above appear to be all social in
their nature. Into them the supernatural is introduced in proportion as the
conception of a divine control of society obtains.335 On the other hand,
those customs which are intended to ward off evil spirits or general evil
influences from the married pair are religious or magical.

182. Mr. Crawley336 holds that all marriage ceremonies are essentially
religious, as involving the conception of something strange and dangerous
in the contact of men and women; they are intended, he thinks, to neutralize
dangers by reversing taboos and by assimilating the two persons each to the
other, the dangers in question being not merely distinctly sexual but those
of contact in general. Though he carries his application of the principle of
taboo too far, he has collected a large number of examples which illustrate
the separation between the sexes in early society, and the taboos which hold
in their social intercourse. The separation of the sexes in early times seems
to have resulted largely from the difference in their occupations and the
consequent isolation of each from the other. Possibly one result of this
isolation was that each saw something strange and wonderful in the other;
but it must be remembered that the taboo laws were made by men and are
therefore directed particularly against women. The belief in the sacredness
of life would act more particularly on the ideas concerning birth.
183. Among many half-civilized peoples and generally in Christian
communities marriage is regarded both as a religious ceremony and as a
civil contract, and is controlled in the one case by the religious authorities,
in the other case by the civil authorities. In Mohammedan communities
marriage is simply a civil contract, but religious ceremonies are often
connected with it.337
Ceremonies at Birth

184. It is possible that early man was so impressed by the fact of life and
the wonderfulness of the birth of a human being that he included this latter
fact in the sphere of the supernatural, and that the taboos connected with it
arose from his dread of supernatural, dangerous influence.338 Many of the

ceremonies connected with the birth of a child may be explained easily as
resulting from the natural care for mother and child. Both of these are, in
the modern sense of the term, sacred; and even in very early times ordinary
humane feeling would seek to protect them from injury.339

185. Thus the curious custom of the couvade,340 in which the husband, and
not the wife, goes to bed on the birth of the child, may be an effort on the
man's part to share in the labor of the occasion, since he has to take care of
the child; or it may be primarily an economical procedure—the woman
must go out to work and the man must therefore stay at home to take care of
the house and the child. But probably something more than this is involved
—there seems to be fear of supernatural danger. It is not necessary to
suppose that the man takes the woman's place in order to attract to himself
the malevolent spirits that figure on such occasions; but the belief in the
intimate vital connection between father and child may induce the desire to
guard the former against injury. Similar precautions are taken in regard to
the mother;341 some of these have a natural basis in her physical condition
which necessitates a certain carefulness. Where such customs connected
with birth prevail, departure from them is thought to be dangerous or fatal;
but such a feeling exists in regard to all social customs.
186. The belief that the newborn child is the reincarnation of an ancestor is
scientific rather than religious. In Central Australia every child is held to be
the reincarnation of a spirit ancestor; a similar idea is found in North
America, in Western Africa, and in Orissa.342 In searching for the cause of
birth it is not unnatural that it should be ascribed to a preëxistent being who
desires to enter again into human life.343
187. The ablutions or sprinklings of water practiced in some places appear
to be merely the expression of welcome into the community.344 The choice
of a name for the child is frequently connected with religious ideas. Among
many tribes the custom is to seek for some hint from the child itself, as by
repeating a number of names and observing which of them the child seems
to recognize or accept. The help of a deity is sometimes invoked, as in
Borneo, where a pig is killed and its spirit thus sent as messenger to a
particular god, who is asked to approve.345 In Samoa a tutelary spirit is
sometimes chosen for the infant;346 during childhood the child bears the

name of a god, who seems to be regarded as its protector. The identification
of person and name, common among savages, is also scientific rather than
religious. At the entrance into a secret society the novitiate may receive a
new name.347 The adoption of a child's name by the father (teknonymy)
may be simply the expression of paternal pride, or possibly it is the
expression of the father's protection or of his identification with the child.
The adoption of a secret name that involves the man's personality and is
therefore to be withheld from enemies belongs to adult life.
188. The taboos imposed on the mother during pregnancy and after the birth
of the child, often numerous and oppressive, are derived from local
conditions, and are generally regulated by religion. With the growth of
refinement they tend to disappear, while the attendant ceremonies take on a
moral and spiritual character, culminating, in the great religions, in the
conception that the babe, as a child of God, is to be taken into the religious
fellowship of the community and trained for a good life.
Burial Ceremonies348

189. Among savage peoples grief for the dead expresses itself in a variety
of violent ceremonies of mourning, such as wailing, and cutting and
gashing the body. These are partly expressions of natural sorrow,349 but
may be intended in part to propitiate the dead, who thus sees that honor is
paid him.
190. The belief that the dead person is powerful expresses itself in the care
with which the grave is guarded, it being held that injury to the grave is an
injury to the dead, and likely, therefore, to excite his anger. Further, savage
science as a rule does not recognize natural causes of death. It regards death
as murder, and there is accordingly search for the murderer, often by
protracted ceremonies with the aid of a magician. The well-being of the
dead man is provided for by placing food and drink, utensils and weapons
in his grave, that he may have the means of enjoyment in the other
world.350 To assure him proper service his wives and slaves are sometimes
slain, that their souls may accompany his; but this custom is not found
among the lowest tribes—it belongs to a relatively advanced conception of
the other life.351 In many cases blood is sprinkled on the ground near the
grave of the corpse, as in Borneo (the blood of a fowl);352 the blood may be

meant to be food for the dead, or its supernatural power may be supposed to
guard against injury from him to the living.
191. A ban of silence is often imposed—the name of the dead person is not
to be mentioned except by certain privileged men;353 among certain North
American tribes on the death of a child there is a ban of silence on the
father.354 The reason for this prohibition of the dead person's name is not
certain. It may be respect for him, or it may be merely an expression of
sorrow at his loss. More probably, however, it comes from the belief that
the dead man is powerful and may be hurtful, and that therefore his name,
which is identical with himself, is dangerous.355
192. In the cases mentioned above, the dead person is generally regarded as
dangerous—to be feared and appeased. Among some tribes, indeed,
precautions are taken to prevent his coming back to his house. Very
generally the presence of the corpse is held to cause a certain pollution.356
There is, however, another side to the attitude toward the dead. As he is
regarded as powerful, parts of his body are preserved as amulets; wives
wear parts of the bones of the dead husband, and the skulls of the deceased
are supposed to be especially powerful, in some cases to give oracular
responses.357
193. In general, early burial ceremonies appear to be designed to assure the
comfort of the deceased in the other world with a view to securing his
friendship and aid for the members of his family and clan in this life. As he
is of the nature of a divine person, the ceremonies in question are naturally
religious. Socially they are effective in binding the members of a
community together—a large sense of solidarity is produced by the
communal recognition of kinship with the dead. Special stress is laid on this
conception in China.358
Ceremonies of Purification and Consecration359

194. The essence of religion is a helpful relation to the supernatural, but in
early stages of culture man frequently finds himself exposed to conditions,
either resident in himself or induced from without, that destroy this relation
and disqualify him for the performance of sacred acts. The result is a state
of ritual impurity or uncleanness, conceived of at first as purely physical,

but tending to become gradually moralized. The removal of the
disqualification constitutes purification; the positive preparation for the
performance of a sacred act constitutes consecration; the two procedures
represent two sides of the same idea, and they are related in a general way
to ceremonies of initiation and atonement.
195. The occasions for purification are numerous, including all contacts or
possibilities of contact with dangerous (sacred) things, and thus often
coinciding with taboo conceptions.360 All acts connected with procreation
and birth; contact with a corpse, or with a sacred person or thing, or with an
object belonging to a sacred person; return from a journey (in the course of
which the traveler may have been exposed to some injurious supernatural
influence)361—such things as these call for cleansing. Inanimate objects
also, especially such as are connected with religious worship (altars,
vessels, and instruments), require purification; these are thought of
originally as having souls, and as incurring defilement by the transmission
of neighboring impurities. A moral conception may seem to be involved in
the requirement of purification after the committal of a murder; certainly, in
the more advanced stages of society, the feeling in this case is moral, but it
is doubtful whether in earlier stages anything more is involved than the
recognition of ritual defilement by contact with blood; homicide, as a social
crime, is dealt with by the civil law, and is generally excluded from the
benefits of acts of ritual atonement,362 and so also all violations of tribal
law.
196. The religious preparation for the performance of a sacred act usually
concerns official persons (see below, under consecration, § 202), but
sometimes involves the purification of others. The largest act of purification
is that which includes a whole community or people;363 the social mass is
then regarded as a unit, and there is no reason, according to early thought,
why such a mass should not, by a ceremony, be freed from all ritual
disabilities, the idea of moral purification being, of course, absent or latent.
Finally, ritual purification is sometimes a preliminary to pleasing and
influencing the deity, who, as the most sacred and most dangerous object,
must be approached with the greatest precautions.364
197. The various methods of purification may be included under a few
heads, the principal of which are: the application of water (bathing,

sprinkling); the application of sand, dung, bark, and similar things;
exposure to fire; incantation and sacrifice; and fasting. In all these cases the
virtue lies either in a sacred thing or act that has the quality of dissipating
the mysterious defilement present, or in the removal or avoidance of the
defiling thing; it is frequently required that the application of the cleansing
substance be made by a sacred person, whose character adds potency to the
act. The use of water for ceremonial purification has been, and is, practiced
all over the world, alike by savages and by civilized peoples:365 the
newborn child, ritually impure by reason of the mystery of birth, is bathed
or sprinkled; before the performance of a sacred act the officiator must
bathe;366 numerous ablutions are prescribed in the Old Testament; similar
usages obtained among the Egyptians, the Hindus and the Persians, the
Greeks and the Romans, the Chinese and the Japanese, the Mexicans and
the Peruvians, and other peoples.
198. These usages have arisen doubtless from observation of the natural
cleansing power of water and other things in conjunction with the belief in
their sacred character. Adopted by the higher religions they have been more
or less spiritualized by the infusion into them of ideas of penitence,
forgiveness of sin, and regeneration—so in India, Persia, and Peru.
Christian baptism seems to have come from Jewish proselyte baptism:367
the proselyte was by immersion in water symbolically cleansed from sin
and introduced into a new religious life, and such was the significance of
the rite practiced by John, though his surname "the Baptizer" probably
indicates that he gave it a broader and deeper meaning; he overstepped
national bounds, receiving Jews as well as non-Jews.368 Moslem ritual
requires ablutions before the stated prayers and at certain other times; every
mosque has its tank of water for the convenience of worshipers.
199. Where water cannot be had, usage in Islam and in some forms of
Christianity permits the substitution of sand or dust—both thought to have
cleansing power. Similar power is ascribed to urine and dung of domestic
animals.369 Such usages may originate in a belief in the physical cleansing
efficacy of those substances (the Toda women employ dried buffalo's dung
in household cleaning), or they may be supposed to derive their efficacy
from the sacredness of the animals. The Todas also make much use of a
certain bark for purification.370 The origin of these customs is obscure; they

go back to times and conditions for a knowledge of which data are lacking
—possibly to the early conception of the sacredness of all natural
objects.371 It is less difficult to explain the belief in the purifying power of
fire. Its splendor and utility caused it to be regarded as a god in India and
Persia, and if it was also destructive, it often consumed hurtful things. It
was sacred, and might, therefore, be a remover of impurity. Its employment
for this purpose is, however, not frequent;372 it is oftener used to consume
corpses and other unclean things.
200. In the more developed religious rituals, sacrifice is a common
accompaniment of purifying ceremonies, the object being to procure the
forgiveness of the deity for the offense held to be involved in the impurity;
the conception of sin in such cases is sometimes physical, sometimes moral,
and the ceremony is always nearly allied to one of atonement. In the
Hebrew ritual a human bodily impurity and the apparatus of the temple
alike require a sin-offering.373 In India the bath of purification stood in
close relation with a sacrifice.374 In Greece the two were associated in the
cults of Apollo and Dionysos and in ordinary worship in general.375 Thus,
men and gods take part in the process of freeing the worshiper from the
impure elements of life: the man obeys the law of the ritual, and the god
receives him into association with the divine.
201. Ancient examples of the purification of a whole community are the
Hebrew ceremony on the annual day of atonement376 (which is called in the
text a purification), and the Roman Lupercalia.377 An elaborate festival of
this sort was observed every year by the Creeks;378 it lasted eight days,
included various cathartic observances, and ended in a physical and moral
reconstruction of the nation. Among the Todas a similar ceremony for the
purification of a village exists.379
202. Ceremonies of consecration are similar to those of purification, only
usually more formal and solemn. Entrance on a sacred function, which
involves special direct contact with a deity, requires special preparation.
Even before a simple act of prayer it was felt to be proper to cleanse one's
person;380 how much more important was bodily cleansing and other
preparation for one who was chosen by the community to represent it in its
relations with the supernatural Powers! The preparation for such an office is

in earlier times ritual and external, and becomes gradually moralized.
Magicians must submit to purificatory restrictions, and prove their fitness
by various deeds.381 Initiation into secret societies (whose members had a
certain official character) was, and is, often elaborate.382 Priests in Egypt,
Babylonia and Assyria, Canaan, India, Greece and Rome, were subject to
conditions of purity, always physical and sometimes moral, that secured a
daily consecration.
203. Methods of initial consecration were, probably, of the general
character of those prescribed in the Hebrew ritual law.383 Authority is often
conferred by a high official, whose consecrating act is then generally
regarded as essential.384 The priest becomes invested with a quasi-divine
authority. The consecration of kings follows the same general lines as that
of priests. In both cases the desire is to have some visible form of the deity
whose relations with men may be felt to be direct.
204. No purificatory and consecrative usage has been more widespread than
fasting.385 It is found throughout religious history in the lowest tribes and in
the most highly civilized peoples, has been practiced in a great variety of
circumstances, and has been invested with a special sanctity and efficacy. It
has been regarded as necessary before partaking of sacred food, before the
performance of a sacred ceremony, after a death, in the presence of a great
occurrence (as an eclipse or a thunderstorm, regarded as supernatural), as a
part of the training of magicians, as a preparation for the search after a
guardian spirit, as a part of ceremonies in honor of gods, as an act of
abstinence in connection with a calamity (or in general as a self-denial
proper to sinful man and pleasing to the deity as an act of humility), and,
finally, as a retirement from fleshly conditions in preparation for spiritual
exercises.
205. A great number of explanations of the origin of the custom have been
proposed, and it is obvious that the particular usages come from somewhat
different conceptions. Apparently, however, all these usages of purification
by fasting go back to the idea that the body, which is identified with the
human personality, is in its ordinary state nonsacred386 and therefore unfit
for the performance of a sacred act, and that it is rendered especially unfit
by contact with a ritually unclean thing. Ordinary food, nourishing the body

and becoming a part of it, thus maintains it in its nonsacred character. This
point of view appears in the practice of administering a purge as a means of
ceremonial purification; the Nandi, for example, give a purge to a girl
before her circumcision, and in some cases to any one who has touched a
taboo object.387
206. The essence of fasting is the avoiding of defiling food; this conception
may be traced in all instances of the practice, though it may be in some
cases reënforced by other considerations, and is sometimes spiritualized.
The efficacy of sacred food would be destroyed if it came in contact with
common food, or it might itself become destructive.388 A sacred ceremony
demands a sacred performer, one who has not taken a defiling substance
into his being. Death diffuses defilement, and makes the food in the house
of the deceased dangerous.
207. Other ideas may here come in: abstinence may be a sign or a result of
grief, though this does not seem likely except in refined communities; or its
ground may be fear of eating the ghost, which is believed to be hovering
about the dead body;389 it is hardly the result of "making excessive
provision for the dead."390 Special communion with supernatural Powers,
by magicians and others (including conditions of ecstasy), requires ritual
purity, and similar preparation of the body is proper when it is desired to
avert the anger of a deity or to do him honor.
208. Once established, the custom has maintained itself in the higher
religions391 in connection with more or less definite spiritual aims and with
other exercises, particularly prayer. The dominant feeling is then self-denial,
at the bottom of which the conviction appears to be that the deity demands
complete subordination in the worshiper and is displeased when he asserts
himself. This conviction, which is a fundamental element in all religious
thought, pertains properly only to inward experience, but naturally tends to
annex nonspiritual acts of self-abnegation like fasting. As a moral
discipline, a training in the government of self and a preparation for
enduring times of real privation, fasting is regarded by many persons as
valuable. Its power to isolate the man from the world and thus minister to
religious communion differs in different persons. The Islamic fast of
Ramadan is said to produce irritability and lead to quarrels. In general,
fasting tends to induce a nonnatural condition of body and mind, favorable

to ecstatic experiences, and favorable or not, as the case may be, to a
genuine religious life.392
209. As with other religious observances, so with purificatory ceremonies
the tendency is to mass and organize them—they are made to occur at
regular times and under fixed conditions, as in the Christian Lent, the
Moslem Ramadan, and the Creek Busk. Such arrangements give orderliness
to outward religious life, but are likely to diminish or destroy spontaneity in
observances. Ceremonies of this sort have great vitality—they are handed
on from age to age, the later religion adopting and modifying and
reinterpreting the forms of the earlier. In such cases the lower conceptions
survive in the minds of the masses, and are moralized by the more spiritual
natures, and their influence on society is therefore of a mixed character.
Ceremonies connected with Seasons and Periods

210. Some of these have already been mentioned under "Economic
Ceremonies." We may here take a general survey of festivals the times of
whose celebration are determined by the divisions of the year, and thus
constitute calendars.393 The earliest calendars appear to have been fixed by
observation of the times when it was proper to gather the various sorts of
food—to hunt animals and gather grubs and plants (as in Central Australia),
or this or that species of fish (as in Hawaii). The year was thus divided
according to the necessities of life—seasons were fixed by experience.
211. At a comparatively early period, however, the phases of the moon
attracted attention, and became the basis of calendars. Lunar calendars are
found among savage and half-civilized tribes of various grades of culture in
Polynesia, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and were retained for a time by
most ancient civilized peoples. Later observation included the movements
of the sun; it is only among advanced peoples that festivals are connected
with equinoxes and solstices. The more scientific calendars gradually
absorbed the earlier, and it is probable that simple ceremonies that were
originally neither agricultural nor astral were taken up into the later systems
and reinterpreted.394
212. When, from observation of climatic conditions and lunar changes, a
general division of the year came to be made into spring, summer, autumn,
and winter, or several similar seasons (sometimes with intermediate points),

festivals gradually arranged themselves in the various periods. The terms
designating the four seasons are, however, somewhat indefinite in regard to
position in the year and duration, varying in these points in different places,
and it is better, in considering agricultural ceremonies, to make a general
division into times of planting and times of harvesting. It is not certain
whether lunar or agricultural festivals came first in the development of
public religious life, but as (omitting the lowest tribes) the former are found
where there is no well-organized agricultural system, we may begin with
them.
213. The new moon, as marking the beginning of the month, and other
phases of the moon are frequently accompanied by observances of a more
or less definitely religious character, with great variety of detail in different
places. The Nandi395 have two seasons (the wet and the dry) and twelve
months named from meteorological phenomena, and each day in the month
receives a name from the attendant phase of the moon. The great
ceremonies are conducted in the period of the waxing of the moon, and its
waning is an occasion of mourning. The new moon is greeted with a prayer
that it may bring blessing. A similar custom exists among the Masai.396 On
the other hand the Todas, though the times of their festivals are all regulated
by the moon, appear to have no lunar ceremony;397 if there was ever any
such ceremony, it has been absorbed by the buffalo cult. The South
American Arawaks have six ceremonies in the year that seem to be fixed by
the appearance of the new moon.398 The Hebrew first day of the (lunar)
month was observed with special religious ceremonies.399 The full moon,
the last phase of growth, is less prominent; where it marks a festival day it
is generally in connection with an agricultural event, as among the non-
Aryan Bhils of India400 and in the later Hebrew calendar;401 in both these
cases the observance occurs only once in the year.
214. The new moon of the first month marks the beginning of the year, and
new year's day is celebrated, particularly in the more advanced
communities, with special observances. The Hindu pongol and similar
festivals are seasons of merriment, with giving of presents, and religious
exercises.402 Though these occasions now include agricultural epochs, we
may recognize in them an interest in the beginning of a new era in life. A
like character attaches to the celebration of the Japanese new year's day.403

Of Assyrian observances of the day little is known, but at Babylon it was
celebrated with great pomp, and with it was connected the conception of the
determination of human fortunes for the year by Marduk, the chief deity of
the city.404 The late Old Testament ritual makes it a taboo day (first day of
the seventh month, September-October); no servile work is to be done,
trumpets are to be blown (apparently to mark its solemnity), and a special
sacrifice is to be offered;405 in post-Biblical times the feature of the divine
assignment of fates (probably adopted from the Babylonians) appears. The
old Roman religious year began with the kalends of March, when the sacred
fire of Vesta was renewed, a procedure obviously intended to introduce a
new era; on the later civil new year's day (kalends of January) presents were
exchanged,406 a custom everywhere relatively late, a feature in the gradual
secularization of ceremonies.
215. Solar festivals, as such, are less prominent than the lunar in religious
ritual. Though the sun was a great god widely worshiped, it was little used
in the construction of early calendars. Primitive astronomy knew hardly
anything of solstices and equinoxes, and where these are noted in the more
advanced rituals, they appear to be attachments to observances founded on
other considerations—so the Roman Saturnalia, celebrated near the winter
solstice, and apparently the plebeian festival of the summer solstice
attached to the worship of Fortuna; and the same thing is probably true of
the Semitic and Greek festivals that occurred near the equinoxes and
solstices.407
216. Elaborate solstitial ceremonies are practiced by the North American
Pueblos.408 A well-developed solar system of festivals existed in Peru,
where the sun was the central object of worship; equinoxes and solstices
were observed with great ceremonies, and especially at the summer solstice
the rising of the sun was hailed with popular rejoicing as a sign that the
favor of the deity would be extended to the nation.409 Similar ceremonies
may have existed in Mexico and elsewhere, but in general, as is remarked
above, the astronomical feature at solar epochs yielded to other
associations. Occasional festivals occur in connection with the worship of
stars (especially the morning star);410 the Pleiades are objects of
observation among some low tribes, and in some cases (Society Islands,
Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand) the year began with the rising of these stars,

but apparently no festivals are dedicated to them.411 In the later theistic
development various deities are brought into connection with heavenly
bodies, and their cults absorb earlier observances.412
217. Socially the agricultural festivals are the most important of the early
festival ceremonies;413 they unite the people in public observances, thus
furthering the communal life, and they satisfy the popular demand for
amusement. Doubtless under any social conditions gatherings for
merrymaking would have arisen, but, by reason of the constitution of early
society, they necessarily assume a religious character. Whether for planting
or for reaping, the local god must be considered; it is he whose aid must be
invoked for coming crops, and he must be thanked for successful seasons.
The festivals occur at various times in the year among various peoples, but
the tone of merriment is the predominant one—it is only in a few cases that
a touch of seriousness or sadness is found. Early festal calendars are largely
agricultural. In Greece, Rome, and Peru there was a succession of festivals,
connected with planting and reaping, running substantially through the
year; other ceremonies, of course, stood side by side with them, but these
were relatively few.
218. Joyous festivals occur especially at the time of the ripening of crops
and harvest. The old Canaanite autumn feasts, adopted by the Hebrews,
were seasons of good cheer.414 In Greece the Panathenæa fell in July-
August, the Thesmophoria in October, and the Anthesteria in February,—all
agricultural, with joyous features;415 of the similar Roman festivals the
Feriæ Latinæ fell in April, the Feriæ Jovi in August, the Saturnalia in
December, and with these should perhaps be included the Ambarvalia (in
May) and the festival of the horse sacrifice (in October).416 Other
ceremonies of this nature occur in India, New Zealand, Torres Straits
islands, and in the old Peruvian cult.
219. Popular festivities easily pass into license; examples are the Roman
Saturnalia and the Hindu Holi417; the harvest festival of the Hos of
Northeastern India is a debauch,418 and with it is connected the expulsion of
evil spirits—an example of the coalescence of festivals. A peculiar feature
in certain of these ceremonies is the exchange of places between masters
and servants; this abandonment of ordinary social distinctions is an

expression of the desire for freedom from all restraints, and is found in
carnivals generally (in the Saturnalia and elsewhere).419
220. Ceremonies of a serious character occur in connection with the eating
of the first fruits of the year. In developed cults (as in the Hebrew) the deity
is recognized as the giver by the presentation of a portion of the new
crop.420 In very early cults there are other procedures, the origin and
significance of which are not always clear. So far as the ceremonial eating,
a preliminary to general use, is concerned, this may be understood as a
recognition, more or less distinct, of some supernatural Power to whom (or
to which) the supply of food is due. The obscurest form of such recognition
is found among the Australian Arunta.421 The Nandi practice is clearer—the
god is invoked to bless the grain.422 In the Creek Puskita (Busk) there is
perhaps a worship of the sun as the source of fertility.423 Probably the
element of recognition of extrahuman power (the object being to secure its
favor) is to be found in all first-fruits ceremonies. A natural result of this
recognition is that it is unlawful (that is, dangerous) to partake of the new
food till it has been properly offered to the deity. The ceremonial features
(such as the choice of the persons to make the offering) are simply the
carrying over of general social arrangements into religious observances—
the ministrant is the father of the family, or the chief of the tribe, or the
priest or other elected person, according to the particular local customs.
221. The sadness or gloom that sometimes attaches to these ceremonies has
been variously explained, and is due doubtless to various orders of ideas; it
comes probably from the coalescence of other cults with the agricultural
cults proper. The remembrance of ancestors is not unnatural at such a time,
and sorrow may be expressed for their death; such is perhaps the case in the
Nandi usage mentioned above—the women sorrowfully take home baskets
of elusine grain, and the bits that drop in the house are left to the souls of
the deceased. Sorrow appears also in other agricultural seasons, as in the
Roman Vestalia (in June) and the Greek Thesmophoria (in the autumn), in
which cases more likely it is connected with the fear of evil influences.424
So the great tribal purification of the Creeks, at the beginning of a new year,
naturally coincides with the gathering of the new crop.

222. A further extension of the conception of the sacredness of food
(whether or not of the first eating) appears in the Mexican custom (in May
and December) of making dough images of gods, the eating of which
sanctifies the worshiper;425 here the god dwells in the bread of which he is
the giver.
223. In addition to the astral and agricultural festivals above described there
has been the observance of long periods to which a religious significance
was sometimes attached. The Egyptian Sothis period426 (of 1461 years), the
Greek period of eight years (oktaeteris), and the Mexican period of fifty-
two years were calendary—attempts to harmonize the lunar and solar years;
in Mexico the new cycle introduced a new religious era—a great ceremony
was held in which domestic fires were rekindled from the sacred fires. The
Hebrew jubilee period (of fifty years), apparently a late development from
the sabbatical year, was intended, among other things, to maintain the
division of landed property among the people—all alienated land was to
return finally to its original owner—participation in the blessings bestowed
by the national deity being conditioned on having a share in the land, of
which he was held to be the proprietor; the proposed arrangement turned
out, however, owing to changed social conditions, to be impracticable.
224. It thus appears that ceremonies of various sorts have played a very
important part in religious life. They have been the most popularly effective
presentation of religious ideas, and they have preserved for us religious
conceptions that without them would have remained unknown. Their social
character has insured their persistence427—ceremonies of to-day contain
features that go back to the earliest known stratum of organized religious
life. While the motives that underlie them (desire to propitiate supernatural
Powers, demand for an objective presentation of ideas, and love of
amusement) are the same throughout the world, their forms reflect the
various climatic, economic, and general cultural conditions of clans, tribes,
and nations. They acquire consistency with the organization of society; they
tend to become more and more elaborate, just as in other points social
intercourse tends to produce formal definiteness; they grow decrepit and
have to be artificially strengthened and revived; they lose their original
meanings and must be constantly reinterpreted to bring them into accord
with new ideas, social, moral, and religious. Their history, in a word, is the

history of the development of human ideas, and it sets forth the religious
unity of the race. The selections given above are only a small part of the
known material, a full treatment of which would require a separate volume.

CHAPTER IV
EARLY CULTS

225. The lowest tribes known to us regard the whole world of nature and
the human dead as things to be feared and usually as things to be
propitiated. In most cases they conceive of some anthropomorphic being as
the creator or arranger of the world. But in all cases they regard animals,
plants, and inanimate objects as capable of doing extraordinary things. All
these beings they think of as akin to men; transformations from human to
nonhuman and from nonhuman to human are believed to be possible and
frequent.
226. From the point of view of the savage mind this theory of the world is
inevitable. Ignorant of what we call natural law, they can see no reason why
the phenomena of life should not be under the control of any of the powers
known to them; and for sources of power they look to the things around
them. All objects of nature are mysterious to the savage—stones, hills,
waters, the sky, the heavenly bodies, trees, plants, fishes, birds, beasts, are
full of movement, and seemingly display capacities that induce the savage
to see in them the causes of things. Since their procedures seem to him to be
in general similar to his own, he credits them with a nature like his own. As
they are mysterious and powerful, he fears them and tries to make allies of
them or to ward off their injurious influences.
227. But while he excludes nothing from his list of possible powers, he is
vitally interested only in those objects with which he comes into contact,
and he learns their powers by his own experience or through the wisdom
inherited from his forefathers. His procedure is strictly scientific; he adopts
only what observation has shown him and others to be true. Different tribes
are interested in different things—some are indifferent to one thing, others

to another, according to the topographical and economic milieu. The savage
is not without discrimination. He is quite capable of distinguishing between
the living and the dead. Not all stones are held by him to be alive in any
important sense, and not all beasts to be powerful. He is a practical thinker
and deals with each phenomenon as it presents itself, and particularly as it
shows itself to be connected with his interests. He is constantly on the alert
to distinguish between the profitable and the unprofitable, the helpful and
the injurious. He himself is the center of his whole scientific and religious
system, and the categories into which he divides all things are determined
by his own sense of self-interest.428
228. It is often by accident that one object or another displays itself as
helpful or harmful, just as, in a later and higher form of religious belief, a
theophany is often, as to time and place, a matter of accident. Indeed, most
manifestations of extrahuman power in the earliest times may be said to
come to man incidentally, since he does not generally demand them from
the gods or make experiments in order to discover them. But in the nature
of the case many things meet him as to which he is obliged to use judgment,
and of these a certain number appear to him to be powerful.
229. These objects are held by him to be in some sort akin to man. This
seems to be his view of certain dead things in which a mysterious power is
held to reside. When such objects are parts of animals (bones, feathers,
claws, tails, feet, fat, etc.), or of vegetables that are used as charms, it may
be supposed that they simply retain the power resident in the objects of
which they are parts—objects originally living and sacred. In other cases an
indwelling supernatural being is assumed, as, for example, in minerals
whose shape and color are remarkable.

230. Fetish objects in West Africa are believed to be inhabited by spirits.429
The Australian sacred object called churinga—a thing of mysterious
potency—is believed to be the abode of the soul of an ancestor endowed
with extraordinary power. Many such fetish objects are found all over the
world.
231. Further, the conception of a life-force, existing in many things
(perhaps in all things), appears to have been prominent in savage religious
systems. Life implies power; but while it is held to reside in all things, its

manifestations vary according to the relations between things and human
needs. The life-force in its higher manifestations has been isolated in
thought by some more advanced savages, especially in North America and
Polynesia, and has been given a definite name; in Polynesia and Melanesia
it is called mana, and other names for it occur elsewhere.430
232. It shows itself in any object, nonhuman or human, that produces
extraordinary effects. In the Pacific islands all great achievements of men
are attributed to it—all great chiefs possess it in an eminent degree;431 it is
then nearly equivalent to what we call capacity or genius. When it resides in
an inanimate thing it may produce a physical effect: it comes up in the
steam of the American sacred sweat lodge, and gives health to the body
(and thus buoyancy to the mind);432 here it is identical with the soothing
and stimulating power of the steam. It is, in a word, a term for the force
residing in any object.433 Like sickness and other evils, blessings, and
curses, it is conceived of as having physical form and may be transmitted
from its possessor to another person or object. In some cases its name is
given to the thing to which it is attached.434
233. How widely the conception exists is uncertain; further research may
discover it in regions where up to now it has not been recognized. Scarcely
a trace of it exists in the higher ancient religions. The Latin genius, the
indwelling power of the man, bears a resemblance to it. The Old Testament
"spirit of God" is said to "come on" a man or to be "poured out on" him, as
if it were a physical thing—it gives courage and strength to the warrior and
knowledge to the worshiper;435 the power or energy is here (in the earlier
Hebrew writings) identified with the spirit or animus of the deity, which
appears to be thought of as physical.
234. Mana is conceived of by the peoples mentioned above not as a vague
influence diffused through the world, but as a power resident in certain
definite persons or things. It is impersonal in the sense in which any quality,
as courage, is impersonal, but it is not itself an object of worship; worship is
directed toward the thing that possesses or imparts mana. It may reside in a
natural object or in a supernatural being—the object will be used to secure
it, the supernatural being will be asked to bestow it. In both cases the act
will be religious.

235. Mana is itself, strictly speaking, a scientific biological conception, but
it necessarily enters into alliance with religion. Belief in it exists along with
belief in ghosts, spirits, and gods—it is not a rival of these, but an
attachment to them. As a thing desirable, it is one of the good gifts that the
great Powers can bestow, and it thus leads to worship. It is found in distinct
form, as is pointed out above, only in superior tribes—it has not been
discovered in very low communities, and appears not to belong to the
earliest stratum of religious beliefs. But it rests on the view that all things
are endowed with life, and this view may be taken to be universal. The
doctrine of mana gradually vanishes before a better knowledge of the
human constitution,436 a larger conception of the gods, and a greater trust in
them.437
236. Things and persons endowed with peculiar power, whether as seats of
mana or as abodes of spirits, are set apart by themselves, are regarded with
feelings of awe, and thus become "sacred." In process of time the
accumulated experience of generations builds up a mass of sacred objects
which become a part of the religious possessions of the community. The
quality of sacredness is sometimes attached to objects and customs when
these are regarded as necessary to the well-being of the community, or
highly convenient. A house, for example, represents the life of the family,
and is therefore a thing to be revered; and in many tribes the walls, which
guard the house against intrusion, and the door and the threshold, which
offer entrance into it, are considered sacred; the hearth especially, the social
center of the dwelling, becomes a sacred place.
237. The savage communities with which we are acquainted all possess
their stock of such things—the beliefs concerning sacred objects are held by
all the members of the tribe. The development of the idea of 'sacred' is a
social communal one, but it is impossible for us to say precisely how all the
individual sacred objects were selected, or what was the exact attitude of
primeval man toward all the things that are now regarded as sacred.
238. The conception of power resident in certain things to control human
life is represented by our term "luck." The formulation of "luck" systems
goes on in savage and half-civilized communities up to a certain point, and
is then checked by the rise of higher religious ideas and by the growth of
the conception of natural law. But long after the grounds of belief in luck

have ceased to be accepted by the advanced part of the community, many
individual forms of good luck and bad luck maintain themselves in popular
belief.438 Some of these beliefs may be traced back to their savage sources,
especially those that are connected with animals; the origin of most of them
is obscure. They coalesce to some extent with conceptions derived from
magic, divination, and taboo. The persistence of such savage dogma into
civilized times enables us to understand how natural this dogma was for
early forms of society.
239. In the practices mentioned above there is no worship proper. Mana is
not thought of as being in itself a personal power, and worship is paid only
to objects regarded as having personality. The fetish derives its value from
the spirit supposed to be resident in the fetish objects; these are commonly
worn as charms, and the attitude of the man to such a charm, though he
regards it as powerful, seems to be not exactly that of worship—he keeps it
as a protection so long as it appears to be useful, but, as is remarked above,
he acts as if he were its master. He believes that the efficient factor is the
indwelling spirit, but he commonly distinguishes between this spirit and a
god proper. When, however, the fetish is regarded as a tutelary divinity, it
loses its lower character and takes its place among the gods.
240. We turn now to man's attitude toward other objects, similarly regarded
as sacred, but invested with distinct personality, and supposed to act
consciously on human life. These are all such things as men's experiences
bring them into intimate relations with, this relationship forming the basis
of the high regard in which they are held. They are animals, plants,
mountains, rivers, heavenly bodies, living men, and ghosts. These are
objects of cults, many of them in some cases being worshiped at the same
time in a single community. A chronological order in the adoption of such
cults it is not possible to determine. All objects stand together in man's
consciousness in early cultural strata, and the data now at command do not
enable us to say which of them first assumed for him a religious character;
the chronological order of cults may have differed in different communities
when the general social conditions were different. We may begin with the
cult of animals without thereby assuming that it came first in order of time.
Animals

241. Of all nonhuman natural objects it would seem to have been the animal
that most deeply impressed early man.439 All objects were potentially divine
for him, and all received worship, but none entered so intimately into his
life as animals. He was doubtless struck, perhaps awed, by the brightness of
the heavenly bodies, but they were far off, intangible; mountains were
grand and mighty, but motionless; stones lay in his path, but did not
approach him; rivers ran, but in an unchanging way, rarely displaying
emotion; plants grew, and furnished food, but showed little sign of
intelligence. Animals, on the other hand, dwelt with him in his home, met
him at every turn, and did things that seemed to him to exhibit qualities
identical with his own, not only physical but also mental—they showed
swiftness, courage, ferocity, and also skill and cunning. In certain regards
they appeared to be his superiors, and thus became standards of power and
objects of reverence.
242. At a very early period the belief in social relations between men and
animals appears. The latter were supposed to have souls, to continue their
existence after death, sometimes to come to life on earth after death. Their
social life was supposed to be similar to that of men;440 in Samoa the
various species form social units,441 the Ainu see tattoo marks on frogs and
sparrows,442 the Arabs recognize a clan organization in beasts.443
243. From identity of nature comes the possibility of transformation and
transmigration.444 An Australian of the Kangaroo clan explained that he
might be called either kangaroo or man—it was all the same, man-kangaroo
or kangaroo-man, and the Australian legends constantly assume change
from human to animal and from animal to human.445 The same belief
appears in Africa and North America, and may be assumed to be universal
among savages. It survives in the Greek transformation stories and in the
werwolf and swan maiden of the European popular creed. It is the basis of a
part of the theory of the transmigration of souls.446
244. The relations of early man with animals are partly friendly, partly
hostile. A friendly attitude is induced by admiration of their powers and
desire for their aid. Such an attitude is presupposed in the myths of
intermarriage between beasts and men. It is perhaps visible also in the
custom of giving or assuming names of animals as personal names of men,

though this custom may arise from the opinion that animals are the best
expressions of certain qualities, or from some conception underlying
totemistic organization; the general history of savage proper names has not
yet been written. Beast tales, likewise, bear witness to man's opinion of the
cleverness or folly of his nonhuman brethren, and perhaps originally to
nothing more. The distinctest expression of friendliness is seen in certain
religious customs spoken of below.
245. On the other hand, early man necessarily comes into conflict with
animals. Against some of them he is obliged to protect himself by force or
by skillful contrivance; others must be slain for food. With all of them he
deals in such a way as to secure his own well-being, and thus comes to
regard them as things subservient to him, to be used in such way as he may
find profitable. Those that he cannot use he gradually exterminates, or, at a
later stage, these, banished to thickets, mountains, deserts, caves, and other
inhospitable places, are excluded from human society and identified with
demons.447
246. The two attitudes, of friendliness and of hostility, coexist throughout
the savage period, and, in softened form, even in half-civilized life. They
represent two points of view, both of which issue from man's social needs.
Early man is logical, but he comprehends the necessity of not pushing logic
too far—he is capable of holding at the same time two mutually
contradictory views, and of acting on each as may suit his convenience; he
makes his dogma yield to the facts of life (a saving principle not confined to
savages, but acted on to a greater or less extent by all societies). He slays
sacred animals for divinatory and other religious purposes, for food, or in
self-defense; he fears their anger, but his fear is overcome by hunger; he
offers profuse apologies, explains that he acts without ill will and that the
bones of the animal will be preserved and honored, or he declares that it is
not he but some one else that is the slayer—but he does not hesitate to
kill.448
247. This fact—the existence of different points of view—enables us to
understand in part the disrespectful treatment of sacred animals in folk-
tales. Such tales are the product of popular fancy, standing apart from the
serious and solemn conceptions of the tribal religion. The reciter, who will
not fail at the proper time to pay homage to his tribal patron, does not

hesitate at other times to put him into ridiculous and disgraceful
situations.449
248. Man's social contact with the lower animals is doubtless as old as man
himself, but there are no records of his earliest life, and it is not possible to
say exactly when and how his religious relations with them began. His
attitude toward them; as is remarked above, was a mixed one; in general,
however, it may be assumed that constant intercourse with them revealed
their great qualities and impressed on him the necessity of securing their
good will. This was especially true of those of them that stood nearest to
him and were of greatest importance for his safety and convenience. These,
invested with mystery by reason of their power and their strangeness, were
held in great respect as quasi-gods, were approached with caution, and thus
acquired the character of sacredness. Gradually, as human society was
better and better organized, as conceptions of government became clearer,
and as the natures of the various animals were more closely studied, means
were devised of guarding against their anger and securing their friendship
and aid. Our earliest information of savage life reveals in every tribe an
inchoate pantheon of beasts. All the essential apparatus of public religion is
present in these communities in embryonic form—later movements have
had for their object merely to clarify ideas and refine procedures.
249. The animals revered by a tribe are those of its vicinage, the inhabitants
of its hunting grounds. Some of these man uses as food, some he fears. His
relation to plains, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers, and seas, influences his
choice of sacred beasts. Usually there are many of them, and the natural
inference is that originally all animals are sacred, and that gradually those
most important for man are singled out as objects of special regard.
250. Thus, to mention the principal of them: in Africa we find lion, leopard,
hyena, hippopotamus, crocodile, bull, ram, dog, cat, ape, grasshopper; in
Oceania, kangaroo, emu, pig, heron, owl, rail, eel, cuttlefish; in Asia, lion,
elephant, bear, horse, bull, dog, pig, eagle, tiger, water wagtail, whale; in
Europe, bear, wolf, horse, bull, goat, swan; in America, whale, bear, wolf,
fox, coyote, hare, opossum, deer, monkey, tiger, beaver, turtle, eagle, raven,
various fishes. The snake seems to have been generally revered, though it
was sometimes regarded as hostile.450 Since animals are largely valued as

food, changes in the animals specially honored follow on changes in
economic organization (hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages).
251. Often animals are looked on as the abodes or incarnations of gods or
spirits: so various birds, fishes, and beasts in Polynesia (in Samoa every
man has a tutelary deity, which appears in the form of an animal451),
Siberia, Mexico, and elsewhere. In other cases they are revered as
incarnations of deceased men.452 Where a species of animal is supposed to
represent a god, this view is probably to be regarded not as a generalization
from an individualistic to a specific conception (a process too refined for
savages), but as an attempt to carry over to the animal world the idea of
descent from a common ancestor combined with the idea of a special
creator for every family of animals.453
252. In the course of religious growth the beast-god may be replaced or
succeeded by an anthropomorphic god, and then the former is regarded as
sacred to the latter—the recollection of the beast form still remains after the
more refined conception has been reached, and the two, closely connected
in popular feeling, can be brought into harmony only by making one
subordinate to the other.454 A certain element or flavor of divinity clings to
the beast a long time, but finally vanishes under the light of better
knowledge.
253. While the cases, very numerous, in which animals are associated in
worship with gods—in composite forms (as in Egypt, Babylonia, and
Assyria) or as symbols of deities or sacred to them—point probably to early
beast-cults, Egypt alone of the ancient civilized nations maintained the
worship of the living animal.455 For the better thinkers of Egypt beasts
doubtless were incarnations or symbols of deities; but the mass of the
people appear to have regarded them as gods in their own persons.
254. Reverence for animals persists in attenuated form in civilized nations
in various superstitions connected with them. Their appearances and their
cries are believed to portend success or disaster. The great number of
"signs" recognized and relied on by uneducated and educated persons at the
present day bear witness to the strong hold that the cult of animals had on
early man.456

255. It is in keeping with early ideas that savages often, perhaps generally,
ascribe the creation or construction of the world (so far as they know it) to
animals. The creation (whether by beasts or by other beings) is not
conceived of as produced out of nothing; there is always preëxisting
material, the origin of which is not explained; primitive thought seems not
to have considered the possibility of a situation in which nothing existed.
The "creation" conceived of is the arrangement of existing material into the
forms familiar to man—every tribe accounting thus for its own
environment. The origin of the land, of mountains, defiles, lakes, rivers,
trees, rocks, sun, moon, and stars, wind and rain, human beings and lower
animals, and sometimes of social organizations and ceremonies, is
explained in some way natural to the thought of the time and place. Not all
these details occur in the cosmogony of every tribe or clan, but the purpose
of every cosmogony is to account for everything in the origin of which the
people are interested.
256. The creator in the cosmogonies known to us is not always an animal—
he is sometimes a man, sometimes a god; it is possible, however, that
human and divine creators are the successors of original animal creators. In
Central Australia the production of certain natural features of the country
and the establishment of certain customs are ascribed to ancestors, mythical
beings of the remote past, creatures both animal and human, or rather, either
animal or human—possibly animals moving toward the anthropomorphic
stage.457 However this may be, there are instances in which the creator is an
animal pure and simple, though, of course, endowed with extraordinary
powers. The beast to which the demiurgic function is assigned is selected, it
would seem, on the ground of some peculiar skill or other power it is
supposed to possess; naturally the reason for the choice is not always
apparent. For the Ainu the demiurge is the water wagtail;458 for the
Navahos and in California,459 the coyote or prairie wolf; among the Lenni-
Lenâpé, the wolf.460 Various animals—as elephants, boars, turtles, snakes—
are supposed to bear the world on their backs. The grounds of such
opinions, resting on remote social conditions, are obscure.
257. Though, in early stadia of culture, animals are universally revered as in
a sort divine, there are few recorded instances of actual worship offered
them.461 Whether the Bushmen and the Hottentots worship the mantis (the

Bushman god Cagn) as animal is not quite clear.462 The bear, when it is
ceremonially slain, is treated by the Ainu as divine—it is approached with
food and prayer, but only for the specific purpose of asking that it will
speak well of them to its divine kin and will return to earth to be slain. The
Zuñi cult of the turtle and the Californian worship of the bird called
panes463 present similar features. The non-Aryan Santhals of Bengal are
said to offer divine worship to the tiger.464 Such worship appears to be paid
to the snake by the Naga tribes and the Gonds of India, and by the Hopi of
North America.465
258. In these and similar cases it is sometimes difficult to say whether the
animal is worshiped in its own person merely, or as the embodiment or
representative of a god or of ancestors. The usages in question are almost
entirety confined to low tribes, and disappear with the advance of
civilization; wild animals are banished from society and cease to be sacred,
and the recollection of their early character survives only in their
mythological attachment to deities proper. For a different reason
domesticated animals lose their sacredness—they become merely servants
of men. The Egyptian cult of the bull is the best-attested instance of actual
worship of a domestic animal, and parallels to this it is hard to find; the
Todas, for example, for whom the buffalo is the central sacred object, do
not now pay worship to the animal—they may have done so in former
times.
259. The sacredness of animals, and the fact that they are regarded as
embodying the souls of things and human beings, have led to a coalescence
of their cults with other religious observances. They are abundantly
employed in magical procedures and in sacrifices; they are often identified
with spirits of vegetation, any locally revered animal being chosen for this
purpose; they are brought into connection with astral objects and their
forms are fancifully seen in sun, moon, and constellations; they play a great
rôle in apotropaic and purificatory ceremonies; and they appear in myths of
all sorts,466 especially in the histories of gods.
260. But, though they are in many cases regarded as tutelary beings, it is
doubtful whether they ever develop into anthropomorphic deities.467 The
creation of such deities followed a different line468 and dispensed with the

lower quasi-divine forms. Such manlike attributes as beasts were supposed
to have were taken up into the distincter and nobler conceptions of tribal
gods to whom beasts were more and more subordinated. The latter were
allegorized and spiritualized, and came to serve merely as material for
poetry.
261. Yet beast worship, such as it was and is, has played an important part
in religious development. It has furnished a point of crystallization for early
ideas, and has supplied interesting objects in which man's demand for
superhuman companionship could find satisfaction.469 It has disappeared
when it has been no longer needed.
Plants

262. The cult of plants has been as widespread as that of animals, and, if its
rôle in the history of religion has been less important than that of the latter,
this is because plants show less definite signs of life than animals and enter
less intimately than they into the social interests of man. But, like all other
things, they are regarded by early man as living, as possessing a nature
similar to that of man, and as having power to work good or ill. Trees are
represented as thinking, speaking, entering into marriage relations, and in
general doing whatever intelligent beings can do. Through thousands of
years in the period before the dawn of written history man was brought into
constant contact with the vegetable world, and learned by experience to
distinguish between plants that were beneficial and those that were harmful.
His observation created an embryonic science of medicine, and his
imagination an embryonic religious cult.
263. The value of certain vegetable products (fruits, nuts, wild plants) as
food must have become known at a very early time, and these would
naturally be offered to the extrahuman Powers. At a later time, when cereals
were cultivated, they formed an important part of sacrificial offerings, and
were held—as, for example, among the Greeks and the Hebrews—to have
piacular efficacy.
264. Among the discoveries of the early period was that of the intoxicating
quality of certain plants—a quality that came to play a prominent rôle in
religious life. Valued at first, probably, for the agreeable sensations they
produced, such plants were later supposed to possess magical power, to

exert a mysterious influence on the mind, and to be the source or medium of
superhuman communications. Thus employed by magicians they were
connected with the beginnings of religious ecstasy and prophecy. Their
magical power belongs to them primarily as living things, but came to be
attributed to extrahuman beings.

265. Plants as living things were supposed to possess souls.470 Probably the
soul was conceived of at first as simply the vital principle, and the power of
the plant was thought of as similar to the power of an animal or any other
living thing. In the course of time this soul, the active principle, was
distinguished from the vital principle, was isolated and regarded as an
independent being dwelling in the plant. To it all the powers of the latter
were ascribed, and it became a friend or an enemy, an object of worship or
of dread.471
266. This difference of attitude on man's part toward different plants
probably showed itself at an early period. Those that were found to be
noxious he would avoid; the useful he would enter into relations with,
though on this point for very early times there is in the nature of the case
little information.472 Unfriendly or demonic spirits of plants are recognized
by savage man in certain forests whose awe-inspiring gloom, disease-
breeding vapors, and wild beasts repel and frighten him. Demons identified
with plants or dwelling in them are of the same nature as animal demons,
and have been dealt with in the same way as these.473
267. The progress of society brought men into association with useful
plants, such as medicinal and edible herbs, and fruit-bearing and shade-
giving trees; these, conceived of as inhabited by anthropomorphic spirits,
fulfilled all the functions that attach to friendly animals. They became
guardians and allies, totems and ancestors.474 Several of the Central
Australian totems are plants, and form part of the mythical ancestral
population constructed by the imagination or ethnographic science of the
people.475 In Samoa a plant is often the incarnation of a spirit friendly to a
particular family476—a conception that is not improbably a development
from an earlier view that a certain plant had a special relation to a certain
clan.477 In general, a plant important in a given region (as, for example, the

tobacco plant in North America) is likely to be invested with a sacred
character.
268. Trees, by reason of their greater dignity (size, beauty, protective
character), have generally been singled out as special cultic centers.478 A
great tree sometimes served as a boundary mark or signpost; under trees
chiefs of clans sat to decide disputes. Thus invested with importance as a
sort of political center as well as the abode of a spirit, a tree naturally
became a shrine and an asylum.479 In India and Greece, and among the
ancient Celts and Germans, the gods were worshiped in groves, by the
Canaanites and Hebrews "under every green tree." To cut down a sacred
tree was a sacrilege, and the spirit of the tree was believed to avenge the
crime.480
269. As might be expected, there is hardly a species of tree that has not been
held sacred by some group of men. The Nagas and other tribes of Northeast
India regard all plants as sacred,481 and every village has its sacred tree. In
Babylonia and Assyria, it is said, there were hundreds of trees looked on as
invested with more or less sanctity. The oak was revered in some parts of
Greece, and among the Romans and the Celts. The cult of particular
species, as the pipal (Ficus religiosa), the vata or banyan (Ficus Indica), the
karam and others, has been greatly systematized in India.482
270. Vegetable spirits in some cases have developed into real gods. A
notable example of such growth is furnished by the history of the
intoxicating soma plant, which in the Rig-Veda is represented not only as
the inspiring drink of the gods but as itself a deity, doing things that are
elsewhere ascribed to Indra, Pushan, and other well-established deities.483
The spirit, coming to be regarded as an anthropomorphic person, under
peculiar circumstances assumes the character of a god. A similar
development appears in the Iranian haoma, and the cultic identity of soma
and haoma shows that the deification of the plant took place in the early
Aryan period.484
271. Another example has been supposed to be furnished by corn-spirits.
The importance of cereal crops for human life gave them a prominent
position in the cult of agricultural communities. The decay and revival of
the corn was an event of prime significance, and appears to have been

interpreted as the death and resurrection of the spirit that was the life of the
crop. Such is the idea in the modern popular customs collected by
Mannhardt and Frazer.485 The similarity between these ceremonies and
those connected with the Phœnician Tammuz (Adonis) and the Phrygian
Attis makes it probable that the two are based on the same ideas; that is,
that Adonis and Attis (and so also Osiris and Ishtar) were deities of
vegetation. This, however, does not prove that they were developed out of
spirits of vegetation; they may have been deities charged with the care of
crops.486 The Phœnician name Adon is merely a title ('lord') that might be
given to any god; he whom the Greeks called Adonis was a Syrian local
deity, identical in origin with the Babylonian Tammuz, and associated in
worship with Astarte, whom the Greeks identified with their Aphrodite.
272. A sacred tree often stood by a shrine; that is, probably, the shrine was
put in the spot made sacred by a tree, and a ritual connection between the
two was thus established. Later, when a shrine for any reason (in
consequence of a theophany, for example) was built where there was no
tree, its place was supplied by a wooden post, which inherited the cultic
value of a sacred tree. In the Canaanite cult, which was adopted by the
Hebrews, the sacred post (called "ashera") stood by the side of every shrine,
and was denounced by the prophets as an accompaniment of foreign (that
is, non-Yahwistic) worship.487 The transition from tree to post is illustrated,
perhaps, by the conventionalized form of trees frequent on Babylonian seal
cylinders.488 How far the sacred post was an object of worship by the
people we have no means of knowing; but by the more intelligent,
doubtless, it came to be regarded simply as a symbol, a sign of the presence
of a deity, and was, in so far, in the same category with images.489
273. It is not impossible that totem posts may be connected with original
totem trees or other sacred trees. A tree as totem would naturally be the
object of some sort of cult, and when it took the form of a post or pole,
would have totemic symbols carved on it. Oftener, probably, it was the
sacred pole of a village (itself descended from a sacred tree) that would be
adorned with totemic figures, as among the Indians of Northwestern
America.490 In all such cases there is a coalescence of totemism and tree
worship.

274. It was natural in early times, when most men lived in forests, which
supplied all their needs, that trees should be looked on as intimately
connected with human life. A tree might be regarded as in itself an
independent personality, having, of course, a body and a soul, but not as
dependent on an isolated spirit. A group of men might think itself descended
from a tree—a conception that may have been widespread, though there is
little direct evidence of its existence.491 Indirect evidence of such a view is
found in the custom of marrying girls to trees,492 and in the belief in "trees
of life," which are sometimes connected with individual men in such a way
that when the tree or a part of it is destroyed the man dies, as in the case of
Meleager whose life depended on the preservation of a piece of wood,493
the representative, probably, of a tree, and the priest of Nemi whose life was
bound up in the "golden bough"494; sometimes the tree has a magical power
of conferring life on whoever eats of its fruit, as in the case of the tree of
Eden.495
275. These stories involve the conception of blood-kinship between man
and tree. Closely related to the "tree of life" is the "tree of knowledge"—life
is knowledge and knowledge is life. In the original form of the story in
Genesis there was only one tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil496—whose fruit, if eaten, made one the equal of the gods;497 that is, the
tree (in the original form of the conception, in remote times) was allied in
nature (that is, in blood) to gods and to men, so that whoever partook of its
substance shared its attribute of knowledge in sharing its life, and the
command not to eat of it was due apparently to Yahweh's unwillingness that
man should equal the gods in knowledge. The serpent-god, who belongs to
the inner divine circle, but for some unexplained reason is hostile to the god
of the garden,498 reveals the secret.
276. Probably, also, it is from this general order of ideas that the conception
of the cosmic tree has sprung. The Scandinavian Yggdrasil is the source of
life to all things and represents also wisdom; though the details may contain
Christian elements, the general conception of the world as a tree or as
nourished by a tree is probably old.499 The same conception appears in the
cosmic tree of India.500 Such quasi-philosophical ideas of the unity of the
life of the world suppose, doubtless, a relatively advanced stage of culture,
but they go back to the simple belief that the tree is endowed with life and

is a source of life for men. The transition to the cosmic conception may be
found in those quasi-divine trees that grant wishes and endow their friends
with wisdom and life.
277. The divinatory function of trees follows as a matter of course from
their divine nature (whether this was regarded as innate or as due to an
indwelling spirit). Their counsel was supposed to be expressed by the
rustling of their leaves,501 or in some way that was interpreted by priests or
priestesses (as at Dodona and elsewhere) or by diviners (so, perhaps, the
Canaanite "terebinth of the diviners").502 The predictions of the Cumæan
sibyl were said to be written on leaves that were whirled away by the wind
and had to be gathered and interpreted. To what method of divination this
points is not clear—possibly to supposed indications in the markings of the
leaves; it may, however, be merely an imaginative statement of the
difficulty of discovering the sibyl's meaning.503
278. The passage from the conception of the tree as a divine thing or person
(necessarily anthropomorphic) to the view that it was the abode of a spirit
was gradual, and it is not always easy to distinguish the two stages one from
the other. The tree-spirits, in the nature of the case very numerous, were not
distinguished by individual names, as the trees were not so distinguished.504
The spirits resident in the divine trees invoked in the Vedas are powerful,
but have not definite personality, and it is hard to say whether it is the tree
or the spirit that is worshiped. The Indian tree-spirits called Nagas appear to
be always nameless, and are not mentioned in the list of deities that pay
reverence to the Buddha (in the Maha Samaya).505 The large number of
trees accounted sacred in Babylonia were doubtless believed to be inhabited
by spirits, but to no one of these is a name given.
279. Thus the divine tree with its nameless spirit stands in a class apart from
that of the gods proper. A particular tree, it is true, may be connected with a
particular god, but such a connection is generally, if not always, to be traced
(as in the parallel case of animals506) to an accidental collocation of cults.
When a deity has become the numen of a tribe, his worship will naturally
coalesce with the veneration felt by the tribe for some tree, which will then
be conceived of as sacred to the god. Such, doubtless, was the history of the
oak of Dodona, sacred to Zeus; when Zeus was established as deity of the

place, the revered tree had to be brought into relation with him, and this
relation could only be one of subordination—the tree became the medium
by which the god communicated his will. There was then no need of the
spirit of the tree, which accordingly soon passed away; the tree had lost its
spiritual divine independence. The god who is said to have appeared to
Moses in a burning bush, and is described as dwelling in the bush, is a local
deity, the numen loci later identified with Yahweh, or called an angel.507
That a tree is sacred to a god means only that it has a claim to respect based
on its being the property or instrument of a god.
280. While the tree-spirit has undoubtedly played a great rôle in early
religious history, there is not decisive evidence of its ever having developed
into a true god, with name, distinct personality, and distinct functions.508
There are many Greek and Roman titles that connect gods with trees,509 but
these may be explained in the way suggested above: Zeus Endendros is a
god dwelling in a tree, but the tree is only an abode, not a god, and the god
Zeus does not come from the tree—rather two distinct sacred things have
been brought together and fused into a unity, or the tree is a rude, incipient
image. The Dionysos Hermes-figures may be explained in the same way.510
281. It appears to be the aloofness of trees that prevents their becoming
gods; they are revered and worshiped, but without becoming personalities.
Babylonian seal engravings and wall pictures often represent a tree before
which men or higher beings stand in adoration; according to Maspero511
there was actual worship of trees in Egypt, and similar cults are found
among the wild tribes of India.512 Adoration, however, does not necessarily
imply a god; the Buddhist's worship under the bo-tree is not directed to any
being; it is only the recognition of something that he thinks worthy of
reverence.513

282. The cult of the corn-spirit is referred to above,514 and doubt is there
expressed as to whether such a spirit has grown into a true god. The
question is confessedly a difficult one on account of the absence of full data
for the period involved. The chief ground for the doubt as to the
development in question lies in what we know of early gods. The term
'Adon,' as is remarked above, is the Phœnician title of the local deity. The
origin of such deities is involved in the obscurity of the remote past, but

they are, each in his community, universal powers; their functions embrace
all that their communities desire, and they represent each the total life of a
people. It is the general rule that any popular custom may be introduced
into the cult of the local god; of such sort of procedure there are many
examples. In the case under consideration the god may have become the
hero of a ceremony with which he had originally nothing to do, as the
Hebrews when they entered Canaan connected Canaanite festivals with
their national god, Yahweh, and later a cult of the wilderness deity
Azazel515 was adopted and modified by the Yahwist leaders. Various cults
attached themselves to the worship of Zeus, Apollo, Dionysos, and other
Greek deities.516
283. A similar explanation may be given of the ceremonies of death and
resurrection connected with Attis and Osiris. Of Attis we have only late
accounts, and do not know his early history. Osiris is an old underground
deity (later the judge of the Underworld), with functions that included more
than the vivification of vegetation, and the absorption of the corn-spirit into
his cult would be natural. The collocation of a male with a female deity,
common to the three cults, may be merely the elaboration of the myth in
accordance with human social usage (the dead deity is mourned by his
consort).517 The descent of Ishtar has been interpreted of the weakening of
the sun's heat in winter; but as she is obviously a deity of fertility and, in
her descent, disappears entirely from among men, while the sun does not
disappear entirely, she rather, in this story, represents or is connected with
the decay and rebirth of vegetation.
284. It is thus possible that, though many ancient ceremonies stand in
relation to the corn-spirit and also to a god, the explanation of this fact is
not that the spirit has grown into a god, but that it has coalesced with a god.
In all such explanations, however, our ignorance of the exact processes of
ancient thought must be borne in mind.
285. Trees have been widely credited with the power of bestowing blessings
of all sorts. But, like animals, they rarely receive formal worship;518 the
reason for this is similar to that suggested above519 in the case of animals.
The coalescence, spoken of above, of tree ceremonies with cults of fully
developed gods is not uncommon, and trees figure largely in mythical
divine histories.

Stones and Mountains

286. Like all other objects stones have been regarded, in all parts of the
world, as living, as psychologically anthropomorphic (that is, as having
soul, emotion, will), and, in some cases, as possessing superhuman
powers.520 The term 'sacred,' as applied to them, may mean either that they
are in themselves endowed with peculiar powers, or that they have special
relations with divine beings; the first meaning is the earlier, the second
belongs to a period when the lesser revered objects have been subordinated
to the greater.
287. The basis of the special belief in their sacredness was, probably, the
mystery of their forms and qualities, their hardness, brilliancy, solidity.
They seem to have been accepted, in the earliest known stages of human
life, as ultimate facts. When explanations of their presence were sought,
they were supposed to have been deposited by ancestors or other beings,
sometimes as depositories of their souls.521 Meteorites, having fallen from
the sky, needed no other explanation. Popular science (that is, popular
imagination), perhaps from fancied resemblances to the human form,
assumed of some stones that they were human beings turned to stone, and
stories grew up to account for the metamorphoses. In many different ways,
according to differences of physical surroundings and of social conceptions,
men accounted for such of these objects as interested them particularly.
288. That stones were believed to be alive and akin to men is shown by the
stories of the birth of men and gods from stones,522 the turning of human
beings to stone (Niobe, Lot's wife), the accounts of their movements (rocks
in Brittany).523
289. Small stones, especially such as are of peculiar shape, are in many
parts of the world regarded as having magic power; the peculiarity of shape
seems mysterious and therefore connected with power. Doubtless accidental
circumstances, such as the occurrence of a piece of good fortune, have often
endowed a particular stone with a reputation for power. Certain forms,
especially flat disks with a hole in the center, have preserved this reputation
down to the present day. The Roman lapis manalis is said by Festus to have
been employed to get rain.524

290. Magical stones were, doubtless, believed to possess souls. In
accordance with the general law such stones and others were regarded later
as the abodes of independent movable spirits.525 When the power of a fetish
seems to be exhausted, and a new object is chosen and by appropriate
ceremonies a spirit is induced to take up its abode in it, there seems to be no
theory as to whether the incoming spirit is the old one or a new one, or, if it
be a new one, what becomes of the old one, about which little or no interest
is felt.526 The pneumatology is vague; the general view is that the air is full
of spirits, whose movements may be controlled by magical means: spirits,
that is, are subject to laws, and these laws are known to properly trained
men.
291. Reverence for divine stones continues into the period of the rise of the
true gods. When god and stone stand together in a community, both revered,
they may be and generally are combined into a cultic unity: the stone
becomes the symbol or the abode or the person of the god.527 It was,
doubtless, in some such way as this that a stone came to be identified with
the Magna Mater of Pessinus. When this stone was brought to Rome toward
the end of the Second Punic War, the Roman leaders may have regarded it
simply as a symbol of the goddess, but the people probably looked on it as
itself a divine defense against Hannibal.528 The Israelite ark, carried out to
the battle against the Philistines,529 appears to have contained a stone,
possibly a meteorite, possibly a piece taken from the sacred mountain Sinai,
itself divine, but in the Old Testament narrative regarded as the abode of
Yahweh (a Sinaitic god), though it was probably of independent origin and
only gradually brought into association with the local god of the mountain.
292. Similar interpretations may be given of other stones identified or
connected with deities, as that of Zeus at Seleucia,530 that of Aphrodite at
Paphos,531 that of Jupiter Lapis,532 and the black stone that represented the
Syrian Elagabalos at Emesa.533 The remark of Pausanias, after he has
described the thirty sacred stones of Pheræ, that the early Greeks paid
divine honors to unhewn stones, doubtless expresses the traditions and
beliefs of his time;534 and it is probable that in antiquity there were many
divine stones, and that these were frequently in later times identified with
local gods. In many cases, however, there was no identification, only a

collocation and subordination: the stone became the symbol of the deity, or
a sacred object associated with the deity.535
293. This seems to be the later conception of the character of the sacred
stones mentioned in the Old Testament, as the one that Jacob is said to have
set up as a masseba and anointed.536 The Canaanite massebas, adopted as
cultic objects by the Israelites,537 were stone pillars standing by shrines and
regarded as a normal if not a necessary element of worship; originally
divine in themselves (as may be inferred from the general history of such
objects), they came to be regarded as mere accessories; there is no
indication in the Old Testament that they were looked on as gods, though
they may have been so regarded by the people538—their presence at the
Canaanite shrines, as a part of foreign, non-Yahwistic worship, sufficiently
explains the denunciation of them by the prophets.539
294. In the story of Jacob he is said to have given the name Bethel to the
place where he anointed the stone. It does not appear that he so called the
stone itself; Bethel (in Hebrew, "house of God"540) seems to have been an
old sacred place, and terms compounded with 'beth' in Hebrew are names of
shrines. The relation between this name and the Semitic word whence,
probably, comes Greek baitulos541 (Latin baetulus) is not clear; this last is
the designation of a sacred stone held to have fallen from heaven
(meteoric). Such an one is called by Philo of Byblos "empsuchos,"
'endowed with life or with soul.'542 Pliny describes the baetulus as a species
of ceraunia (thunderstone).543 The Greek word is now commonly derived
from betel ('bethel')—a derivation possible so far as the form of the word is
concerned.544 According to this view the stone is the abode of a deity—a
conception common in early religion. Such an object would be revered, and
would ultimately be brought into connection with a local god.545 If Hebrew
bethel was originally a stone considered as the abode of a deity, then in the
Old Testament the earlier form of the conception has been effaced by the
later thought—the word 'bethel' has become the name of a place, a shrine,
the dwelling place of God.546
295. The origin of the black stone of the Kaaba at Mecca is unknown—it
was doubtless either a meteorite or in some way connected with a sacred

place; it was, and is, regarded as in itself sacred, but whether it represented
originally a deity, and if so what deity, is not known.547
296. The belief in the sacred character of stones may account, at least in
part, for the custom of casting stones on the grave of a chieftain (as in
Northern Arabia), though this may be merely intended to preserve the
grave. So also the stones thrown at the foot of a Hermes pillar may have
been meant as a waymark, yet with the feeling that the stone heap had a
sacred character of its own.548 The stone circles at Stonehenge and Avebury
may have had a religious significance, but their function is not clear.
Boundary stones seem to have had at first simply a political function, but
were naturally dedicated to the deities who were guardians of tribal
boundaries (Roman Terminus, various Babylonian gods, etc.).
297. It is by virtue of their divine character that stones came to be used as
altars.549 As things divine in themselves or as representing a deity they
receive the blood of the sacred (that is, divine) sacrificial animal, which is
the food of the god. Originally a part of the blood is applied to the stone,
and the rest poured out or eaten (as sacred food) by the worshiper. In
process of time, when the god has been divorced from the stone, the latter
becomes a table on which the victim is offered;550 the old conception
survives in the custom of slaying the victim by the side of the altar, and
applying the blood to the horns of the altar as a representative part of the
sacred structure. In the late Jewish ritual this application of blood is
interpreted as a purification of the altar from ceremonial defilements.551
298. Originally, it seems, it was only natural stones that were sacred or
divine and were employed as representatives of deities; but by a natural
process of thought the custom arose of using artificial stones in the same
way. By means of certain ceremonies, it was held, the deity could be
induced to accept an altar or a house, or to take up his abode in an image, as
a spirit is introduced by the savage into a fetish object.552 The basis of this
sort of procedure is first the belief in the amenableness of the deity to
magical laws, and, later, the belief in his friendly disposition, his
willingness to accede to the wishes of his worshipers provided they offer
the proper tribute; but even in very late ceremonies a trace of the magical
element remains.

299. The significance of the high pillars, of stone or of metal, that stood at
the entrance of certain Semitic temples, is not clear. Examples are: in Tyre,
the temple of the local Baal (Melkart);553 Solomon's temple of Yahweh in
Jerusalem, and the temple planned by Ezekiel in imitation of that of
Solomon;554 compare the temple of the Carthaginian Tanit-Artemis, a form
of Ashtart, the votive stela from the temple of Aphrodite in Idalium (in
Cyprus), and similar figures on Cyprian coins.555 Of the various
explanations offered of these pillars that which regards them as phallic
symbols may be set aside as lacking proof.556 It is not probable that they
were merely decorative; the details of ancient temples, as a rule, were
connected with worship. It has been suggested that they were fire altars,557
in support of which view may be cited the figures on Cyprian coins
(mentioned above), and the fact that sailors sacrificed at Gades at a place
where there were two high pillars;558 but such a custom does not prove that
the sacrifices were offered on the pillars, and these latter are generally too
high to serve such a purpose; they are too high also to be convenient
candelabra.559 It seems more probable that they were developments from
sacred stones (such as the Canaanite massebas), which originally
represented the deity, came to be conventional attachments to temples, and
then were treated in accordance with architectural principles. They would
be placed in pairs, one pillar on each side of the temple door, for the sake of
symmetry, and dignity would be sought by giving them a considerable
height.560 They might also be utilized, when they were not too high, as
stands for lamps or cressets, but this would be a secondary use. The
obelisks that stood in front of Egyptian temples, likewise, were probably
sacred monuments reared in honor of deities.561
300. Images of gods and other extrahuman beings arise through the natural
human impulse to represent familiar objects of thought. Very rude tribes
have stone or wood carvings of spirits and gods, good and bad. These
images are generally in human shape, because all Powers are thought of as
anthropomorphic. Sometimes, as Réville suggests, a root, or branch of a
tree, bearing some resemblance to the human face or figure, may have led
to the making of an image; but the general natural artistic tendency is
sufficient to account for the fact.562

301. The character assigned to images varies with stages of culture. In low
communities they are themselves divine—the gods have entered into them
and they are not thought of as different from their divine indwellers. In such
cases they are sometimes chained to prevent their getting away; if they are
obstinate, not listening to prayers, they are cuffed, scourged, or reviled.563
This conception lingers still among the peasants of Southern Europe, who
treat a saint (a rechristened old god) as if he were a man to be won by
threats or cajolements. In a more refined age the image becomes simply a
symbol, a visible representation serving to fix the attention and recall divine
things. Different races also differ in the extent of their demand for such
representations of deity.
302. Stones and rocks, like other natural objects, are starting-points for
folk-stories and myths. All over the world they lie on the ground or rise in
the shape of hills, and, being mysterious, require explanation. The
explanations given, and handed down from generation to generation, are
always connected with superhuman or with extraordinary persons,
ancestors, heroes, spirits. To each stone or rock a story is attached, a
creation of the fancy suggested by the surroundings and by the popular
traditions; and each story forms an episode in the history of the hero or
spirit. The stones and rocks thus come to constitute a book chronicling the
history of the tribe and the deeds of its great men—a book quite legible to
the man who has been taught the stories. These grow with every generation,
receiving such additions as fancy and reflection dictate, and gradually
taking on literary form. In the territory of the Australian Arunta every stone
is connected with some incident in the careers of the mythical ancestors,
and the stories taken together form the legendary history of the origin of
customs.564 In Samoa and New Guinea many stones are pointed out as
having been set in place by local heroes. In North America innumerable
rocks and stones are connected with the mythical ancestors and creators of
the tribes.
303. Mountains have everywhere been regarded as abodes of spirits or
deities, and therefore sacred. Their height and massiveness invested them
with dignity (even as now they appeal mightily to the imagination), and
their lofty summits and rugged sides were full of danger and mystery.
Sacred mountains are found in North America, Bengal, Africa, and

elsewhere. Naturally they are often abodes of gods of rain; they are feared
on account of the spirits inhabiting them, but they are also resorted to as
places where divine revelations may be obtained.565 The Semitic, Hindu,
and Greek examples are familiar: the Hebrew and Canaanite Sinai (or
Horeb), Nebo, Carmel, Hermon; the Arabian Arafat, near Mecca; the
Babylonian Ekur; in India, Meru, Mandara, Himavat, and other mountains;
in Greece, Olympus and Parnassus.

304. Mountains are also worshiped as being themselves divine.566 The cult,
however, has not been important; the physical mass is too solid, lacking in
movement, and human interest naturally centered in the spirit or deity who
dwelt therein.567
305. Mythological fancy has made them the abodes and places of assembly
of gods and glorified saints, usually in the north. The mythical Ekur was the
dwelling place of Babylonian deities.568 In India various peaks in the
Himalayas, inaccessible to men, were assigned to groups of deities, and the
mythical world-mountain Meru was the special abode of great gods, who
there lived lives of delight.569 On the highest peak of the Thessalian
Olympus Zeus sat, surrounded by the inferior gods; here he held councils
and announced his decrees.570 The two conceptions of the home of the gods
—on mountains and in the sky—existed for a time side by side, having in
common the feature of remoteness and secrecy; gradually the earthly abode
was ignored, and the gods were assigned to the more dignified heavenly
home.
Waters

306. To early man waters, fire, winds, are interesting because of their
relation to his life, and sacred because of their power and
mysteriousness.571 They are regarded by him not as "elements" of the
world, but as individual phenomena that affect well-being. His conception
of them is not cosmogonic or analytic, but personal; they are entities with
which he has to deal.
307. The mobility of masses of water, seeming to be a sign of life, naturally
procured them a definite place among sacred things. Any spring, pond, lake,
or river with which a tribe was brought into intimate relations was regarded

as a source of life or of healing, and of divination. Dwellers by the sea
regarded it with awe; its depths were mysterious and its storms terrible.
308. As in the case of animals, plants, and stones, so here: the earliest
conception of water masses is that they are divine in themselves (every one,
of course, having its own soul), and are potent for bodily help or harm, and
for divination. The waters of the Nile, the Ganges, the Jordan, were held to
heal the diseased and purify the unclean; and a similar power is now
ascribed to the water of the well Zamzam in the Kaaba at Mecca. Hannibal
swore, among other things, by the waters,572 and the oath by the river Styx
was the most binding of oaths, having power to control even the gods; the
thing by which an oath is taken is always originally divine. In the Hebrew
ordeal of jealousy the sacred water decides whether the accused woman is
guilty or not.573 The sea is treated as a living thing, whose anger may be
appeased by gifts; it is a monster, a dragon.574 The Spartan Cleomenes,
about to start on a voyage, sacrifices a bull to the sea.575 Offerings to the
sea are made in the Maldive Islands.576
309. Water is abundantly employed in religious ritual as a means of
purification from ceremonial defilement, and in services of initiation. A
bathing-place often stood by a shrine (as in pre-Islamic Arabia and in Islam
now), and immersions came to play a prominent part in highly developed
systems (Jewish, Christian, Mithraic). The purification was generally
symbolic, but in some forms of Christian belief the water of baptism is held
to have regenerating power577—a survival of the ancient conception of the
divinity of water.
310. It is often hard to say whether a body of water is regarded simply as
itself a living thing, or is conceived of as the dwelling place of an isolated
or independent spirit. In savage systems the details on this point are hardly
ever recorded or obtainable; but the beliefs involved in later folk-lore make
it probable that this latter stage of the construction of creeds is passed
through in savage life. The water maidens of Greek mythology and the
Germanic nixies and water kelpies are developed forms of spirits. Sacred
springs and wells are still believed to be inhabited by beings that are not
gods, but possess superhuman power.

311. While wells and streams of a domestic character (such as are freely
used by human beings) are generally friendly, they have their unfriendly
side. The spirits that dwell in them are sometimes regarded as being hostile
to man. They drag the incautious wanderer into their depths, and then
nothing can save him from drowning. Fear of these malignant beings
sometimes prevents attempts to rescue a drowning person; such attempts
are held to bring down the vengeance of the water-demon on the would-be
rescuer.578
312. In the course of time true water-gods appear. In Greece every river had
its deity, and in India such deities are found in the Mahabharata.579 When in
the Iliad the river Xanthos rises to seize and drown Achilles, it may be a
question whether the stream or the god of the stream is the actor. Nor is it
always possible to say whether the extrahuman Power inhabiting a water
mass is a true god or a spirit; the latter form may pass by invisible
gradations into the former.
313. Waters originally divine tend to become the abodes of the deity of the
place, or sacred to him, and healing or other power is ascribed to his
presence or agency.580 Sacred water, being unwilling to retain anything
impure, thus becomes a means of detecting witches and other criminals,
who, when thrown in, cannot sink, but are rejected by the divine Power.
314. Deities of streams and springs do not play an important part in worship
or in mythology; their physical functions are not definite enough, and their
activities are naturally merged in or subsumed under those of the greater or
more definite local gods. If, for example, the Canaanite Baals are gods or
lords of underground irrigation,581 this is because they, as divine lords of
the particular regions, control all phenomena; they are, in fact, also gods of
rain and thunderstorms, harvests and war. So rain-gods in general are to be
regarded as local deities, among whose functions that of bestowing rain was
regarded as specially important. In the lowest systems the rain-giver may be
a sacred stone, dipped in a stream,582 or a royal or priestly magician who is
held responsible and is punished if the expected result is not attained.583 In
such cases the procedure is often one of imitative magic.584
315. If there be, in the next higher stratum of belief, a local or tribal god, it
is he who is looked to for the rain supply; so the early Hebrews looked to

Yahweh,585 and the Canaanites, doubtless, to the Baals. The economic
importance of rain led, even in low tribes, to the conception of a special
deity charged with its bestowal.586 In more elaborate mythologies various
deities are credited with rain-making power. In India, for example, Dyaus,
the Maruts, Parjanya, Brihaspati, Indra, Agni,587 all concerned with rain,
have, all except Agni, evidently grown from local figures with general
functions; this appears from the great variety of parts they play. The same
thing is true, perhaps, of Zeus and Jupiter in their character of rain-gods—
as all-sufficient divine patrons they would be dispensers of all blessings,
including rain; they seem, however, to have been originally gods of the sky,
and thus naturally the special guardians of rain.588
316. Great masses of water have given rise to myths, mostly cosmogonic.
The conception of a watery mass as the primeval material of the world (in
Egypt, Babylonia, India, Greece, Rome) belongs not to religion but to
science; in a relatively advanced period, however, this mass was
represented as a monster, the antagonist of the gods of light and order, and
from this representation has come a whole literature of myths. In Babylonia
a great cosmogonic poem grew up in which the dragon figures of the water
chaos (Tiamat, Mummu, Kingu) play a great part,589 and echoes of this
myth appear in the later Old Testament books.
317. In the more elaborate pantheons the local deities of streams and
springs tend to disappear, and gods of ocean appear: in Babylonia, Ea; in
Greece, Okeanos and Poseidon; in Rome, Neptune; and along with these are
numerous subordinate figures—attendants on the great gods, and intrusted
with various particular duties.
Fire

318. There was, doubtless, a time when man had not learned to produce
fire, and there may now be tribes unacquainted with its domestic uses. But
such ignorance, if it exists, is rare; savages generally know how to make
fire, and to use it for warmth and for the preparation of food. When men
began to reflect on the origin of things, fire seemed to them so wonderful
that they supposed it must have been discovered or invented, and the
knowledge of it bestowed on men by higher beings, gods or demigods; such
benefactors are Hastsezini (of the Navahos), Lightning (of the Pawnees),

the Beaver and the Eagle (of the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia), Maui (of the Maoris), Agni, Prometheus.590
319. Though, like other mysterious things, it has been regarded generally
(perhaps universally) as sacred, there is no clear proof that it has been
worshiped as divine. What may have been the case in remote ages we
cannot tell, but, according to the information we possess, it has been, and is,
merely revered as in itself mysterious or sacred,591 or as the abode or
production of a spirit or a deity. Possibly in the early stages of culture
known to us there is a fusion of the element with the indwelling or
controlling god or spirit.592 The divine patrons of fire are found in all parts
of the world, varying in form and function according to the degrees of
advancement of the various communities, from the beast-gods of the
Redmen to the departmental deities of the Maoris, Babylonians, Mexicans,
and others, and to the more complicated gods of Hindus, Greeks, and
Romans.593
320. The most elaborate and most interesting of all fire-cults is the Persian.
The ritual of the Avesta appears at times to describe a worship of the
element itself: in Fargard xviii the fire implores the householder to rise,
wash his hands, and put pure wood on the flame; Yaçna lxi is a hymn of
homage and petition addressed to the fire, which is called the son of Ahura
Mazda—the householder asks that all the blessings of life may be his as a
reward for his sacrifice. The numerous temples devoted to the fire-cult,
mentioned by later writers,594 might seem to look in the same direction. But
a comparison of other parts of the Avesta makes it doubtful whether in the
passages just cited anything more is meant than that the fire, as a creation of
Ahura Mazda and sacred to him, is for his sake worthy of reverence and
through him a source of blessing. Thus Yaçna xvii is a hymn in honor of
Ahura Mazda and all his creatures, among which are mentioned the law of
Zarathustra, the fire (and five different fires are named), the soul of the ox,
and pure deeds, along with the Amesha-spentas, the heavenly bodies, and
good men. This collection shows vagueness in the conception of the divine
and the sacred, and, to say the least, leaves it uncertain whether the singer
does not think of the fire simply as a symbol of the Supreme God.

321. The relation of fire to the gods, and especially its use in sacrifice, have
led to a number of religious ceremonies in which it plays a principal part.595
Certain fires must be kindled by specially appointed sacred persons: among
the Todas of Southern India, when a new dairy is visited or an old dairy is
reconsecrated;596 among the Lacandones of Central America, on the
occasion of the renewal of the incense-bowls;597 in the Peruvian temple at
the feast of Raymi, when the flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins
of the Sun, and was to be kept up during the year;598 in the temples of
Hestia and Vesta; throughout Greece, when the fires had been polluted by
the presence of the Persians, it was ordered that they should be put out and
rekindled from the sacred fire at Delphi.599
322. The purificatory power of fire was, doubtless, a fact of early
observation.
323. As the physical means of sacrifice, fire acquired a certain symbolic
significance; in the Hebrew ritual "fire-offerings" are regarded as specially
important. By Carthaginians, Moabites, and Hebrews children were devoted
to the deity by fire.600
324. By reason of its brightness fire connects itself in religious imagery
with the sun, with lightning, and with light in general, and so appears
frequently as a representation of the glory of the deity.601

325. Light is sometimes regarded as an independent thing, and as sacred.602
Winds

326. Traces of an early cult of the physical wind may be found, perhaps, in
certain customs that survive in modern communities; as, for example, in the
offering of food to the wind that it may be placated and do no harm.603 The
belief of sailors that wind may be called up by whistling rests on a process
of imitative magic that may be connected with an early cult. Wind is said to
be regarded as a divine being in some American tribes.604 But generally it is
the spirit or god of a wind (and usually of a definite wind) that is invoked.
Examples of wind-gods are found in all parts of the world.605 A wind may
be the vehicle or the messenger of a deity.606

327. As in the cases of other elements, referred to above, it is often hard to
say whether it is the thing or the deity that is invoked: Achilles's appeal, for
instance, seems to be to the physical winds, but Iris, who goes to summon
them, finds them carousing like men, and they act like gods.607 It must be
borne in mind, however, that in early thought all active things are conceived
of as being anthropomorphic, and there is the difficulty, just mentioned, of
determining where the anthropomorphic object stops and the spirit or god
begins.
Heavenly Bodies

328. The heavenly bodies seem to have been regarded at first merely as
objects somehow thrown up into the sky or in some other way fixed there
by gods or men.608 Later, under the general anthropomorphizing tendency,
they are conceived of as manlike beings, and their characters and histories
are worked out in accordance with local ideas. Their origin is ascribed at
first to such creative beings as appear in the various early communities; for
example, among the Navahos to the First Man, the First Woman, and the
coyote.609
329. In half-civilized peoples elaborate cosmogonies arise, in which the sky
is introduced along with sun, moon, and stars. The most noteworthy of
these representations of the origin of the sky is one that occurs in almost
identical forms in Egypt and New Zealand, among the Masai of Central
East Africa, and elsewhere: two beings lie in marriage embrace—one is
lifted up and stretches from horizon to horizon as the sky, the other remains
as the earth.610 The sun is commonly male but sometimes female,611 and
there is also diversity of views as to the sex of the moon. The stars are often
called the children of the sun and moon.
330. Savage fancy sees in the groups of stars resemblances to human
persons and objects.612 Such resemblances are worked out by civilized
peoples, a descriptive science of constellations arises, and stories are
invented to explain the origin of their names. These stellar myths, brought
into connection with others, play a great part in developed mythologies.
331. Among higher communities there are diverse conceptions of the sex of
the great luminaries. The word for 'sun' is feminine in Sanskrit, Anglo-

Saxon, German, and often in Hebrew; masculine in Babylonian, Assyrian,
Greek, and Latin. 'Moon' is masculine in Anglo-Saxon and German, and
generally in Sanskrit and the Semitic languages; feminine in Greek and
Latin. The reasons for these differences are to be sought in the economic
relations of the communities to sun and moon, and in the play of
imagination, but the history of the variations is not clear. One proposed
explanation is that to those who traveled by night on land or on sea the
moon was the strong guide and patron, and by day the sun appeared as a
splendidly beautiful woman. Other explanations have been offered, but no
general determining principle can be stated.613
332. The early anthropomorphic figures of sun and moon appear to be on
the verge of becoming true gods. It is, however, often difficult to decide
whether in the widespread veneration of the sun it is to be regarded as a
living thing (it is frequently represented as a man, a great chief,614 dwelling
in the sky), or a physical object inhabited by a spirit, or a fully developed
god.615 The transition to the higher conception is gradual, and will be
discussed below,616 along with the representations of the moon and the
stars.
333. The view that the sky and the earth are the original progenitors of
things appears among many peoples, low and high (notably among the
Chinese); the two are sometimes taken for granted, but it is probable that
there were always stories accounting for their origin. The sky is sometimes
female, usually in the older myths (Maori, Egyptian), sometimes male
(Greek, Roman).617
334. Thunder and lightning are regarded in early systems of thought as
independent things, only locally or accidentally combined. They are awful
and terrible to savage feeling,618 but they have never received religious
worship. A quasi-scientific explanation of thunder found among certain
peoples (North American, Brazilian, Bakuana, Karen, and others) is that it
is produced by the flapping of the wings of a mighty bird.619 More
commonly thunder is the voice of a deity, and lightning is his arrow,620 or
these are said simply to be sent by a god.621
Worship of Human Beings622

335. We might naturally suppose that human beings, as well as animals,
plants, and inanimate things, would be objects of religious reverence to
undeveloped communities; men, it might seem, would be thought worthier
objects of worship than beasts, plants, and stones. In fact, the cult of human
beings has been and is widespread, but in this cult the savage mind makes a
sharp distinction between the living and the dead. Living men are tangible
and intelligible, affected with human frailties, and therefore offer less food
for the imagination than beasts; the souls of dead men are remote,
intangible, mysterious, and it is they that have most inspired religious
emotion. The history of these cults is in some points obscure; though many
facts have been collected, the data are not full and exact enough to furnish a
complete explanation of the details of usage, diffusion, origin, and
development.
The Cult of the Living

336. Savages appear to put no limit to the possible powers of men. In the
absence of any exact knowledge of natural law there is no reason why a
man should not be thought capable of inflicting sickness and death,
bringing rain, securing food, and doing all that relates to human life.
Magicians, prophets, ascetics, and saints are credited with such powers in
early and later times. Polynesian chiefs are supposed to be imbued with a
sacredness that makes contact with them dangerous, and everything that
they touch becomes thereby taboo to the ordinary man; the same sort of
sacredness clung to the Roman flamen dialis, to the emperor of Japan, and
to many other high officials. This reverence, however, is simply fear of the
mysterious, and does not, in itself, reach the height of worship, though it
prepares the way for it and may sometimes be scarcely distinguishable from
worship proper. The magician is the mouthpiece of a god, and in popular
belief is often invested with power that is practically divine.
337. Many cases, in fact, are reported in which living men are worshiped as
gods; but such reports are often open to doubt and need confirmation.
Travelers and other observers are not always in position to state the facts
precisely; particularly they do not always distinguish between awe and
religious worship, and the statements of savages on this point are often
vague. Frazer has collected a considerable number of examples of alleged
worship of living men.623 One of these, that of the dairyman (palol) of the

Todas of Southern India, is not supported by the latest observer, who says
that the palol is highly respected but not worshiped.624 An apparently clear
case of worship is the Panjab god Nikkal Sen, said to be General
Nicholson;625 and it is not improbable that in other cases mentioned by
Frazer (Marquesas Islands, Raiatea, Samoa, Fiji) actual deification takes
place.
338. Among many more-advanced communities divinity has been ascribed
to living monarchs: to the kings of ancient Egypt; to many early Babylonian
kings; to the emperor of China; to some of the Ptolemies and Seleucids; to
certain Roman emperors; to the kings of Mexico and Peru; and in more
modern times to the emperor of Japan. Whether such titles involve a real
ascription of divinity, or are only an assertion of kinship with the gods, or
express nothing more than the adulation of courtiers, it may not be easy
always to determine; probably all these conceptions have existed at various
times. The conception that men are akin to gods, that there is no difference
of nature between the two classes, is an old one, and the ascription of
divinity to a king might involve, in earlier stages of civilization or even in
relatively advanced stages, no break in the order of things. The custom once
established, it might continue to be observed, long accepted seriously by the
mass of the people, but coming gradually to be regarded by the educated
classes as a mere form.

339. The development of the custom appears most plainly in Egypt.626 The
identification of the king with Horus (apparently the ancient patron deity of
Egypt) runs through the history down to the Persian conquest: he is called
"Horus" or "Golden Horus," and sometimes (as, for example, Mentuhotep
IV) "heir of Horus," or is said to sit on the throne of Horus, and has a
"Horus name," the affirmation of his divine character; even the
monotheistic reformer Amenhotep IV is called "Golden Horus." At the
same time he is styled the "son" of this or that deity—Re, Min, Amon,
Amon-Re, Osiris—according to the particular patron adopted by him; the
liberal interpretation of such filial relation is illustrated by the title "son of
the gods of the Northland" given to one monarch. The king is "the good
god"; at death he flies to heaven (so, for instance, Totmose III, of the
eighteenth dynasty).

340. The official honorific character of divine titles appears as early as the
fifteenth century, when Queen Hatshepsut is officially declared to be the
daughter of Amon. By such an official procedure Alexander, though not
akin to any Egyptian royal house, was declared to be the son of Amon;
Ptolemy Philadelphus became the son of the sun-god, and his wife Arsinoë
was made a goddess by a solemn ceremony. Possibly the recognition of the
divine title, in educated Egyptian circles, as a conventional form began at a
relatively early time—the easy way in which a man was made a god may
have been felt in such circles to be incompatible with real divinity.
Nevertheless the cult of the divinized king was practiced seriously. In some
cases the living monarch had his temple and retinue of priests, and divine
honors were paid him.627
341. The case was different in the Semitic treatment of kings styled divine.
The custom of so regarding them is found only in early Babylonia. The
evidence that they were held to be divine consists in the fact that the
determinative for divinity (Sumerian dingir, Semitic an) is prefixed to their
names in the inscriptions.628 It appears that the determinative occurs at
times during a period of about a thousand years (ca. 3000-2000 B.C.—the
chronology is uncertain), and is then dropped. The data do not explain the
reasons for this change of custom; a natural suggestion is that there came a
time when the conception of the deity forbade an ascription of divinity to
human beings. However this may be, the nominal divinization of kings
seems not to have had any effect on the cultus. As far as the known
evidence goes, the king seems never to have been approached with divine
worship.629
342. It may be doubted whether the Babylonian usage can properly be
called Semitic. As such a custom is found nowhere else in the Semitic area,
and as the early Babylonian Semites borrowed much from the non-Semitic
Sumerians (they borrowed their system of writing and some literary
material), it is conceivable that they adopted this practice from them. There
is, to be sure, no proof, except from the inscriptions, that the practice was
Sumerian; but, as it is found in some Asiatic non-Semitic lands,630 there is
the possibility that it existed among the Sumerians, of whose history,
however, we unfortunately know little. It is to be noted that the cessation of

the practice appears to be synchronous with the establishment of the first
great Semitic dynasty at Babylon.
343. No ascription of divinity to men is found among the Hebrews. The
Elohim-beings (called "sons of God" in the English translation of the Bible)
are gods. The code forbids men to curse God (not "judges")631—judges are
not called "gods." There is nothing going to show that the old Hebrew kings
were looked on as divine. Frazer's hypothesis that the king was identified
with the God Adonis632 is not supported by the statements of the Old
Testament; the title 'my lord' (adoni) given him is simply the ordinary
expression of respect and courtesy. He is "the anointed of Yahweh," as
many ancient official persons (kings and priests) were inducted into office
by the pouring of oil on their heads, but, as a mouthpiece and representative
of the deity, he is inferior to the prophet; at best, flattery, such as that of the
woman of Tekoa, might liken him to an angel.633 The epithet el gibbor
(English Bible, "mighty God"), applied to a Jewish prince, must probably
be rendered 'mighty hero.'634 The title 'gods' has been supposed to be given
to men (judges) a couple of times in the Psalter,635 but the reference there
seems to be to Greek deities regarded as acting as judges.
344. The ascription of divinity to human beings is lacking in Arabia also
and among Semitic Moslems generally. The Ismailic and Babist dogmas of
the incarnation of God in certain men are of Aryan (Indian) origin.
345. The Chinese conception of the all-pervading and absolute power of the
Universe naturally invests the emperor with divinity.636 All human beings
are supposed to possess some portion of the divine essence, but he alone, as
head and representative of the nation, possesses it in full measure. He is
theoretically perfect in thought, word, and deed, and is entitled not only to
the reverence and obedience of his subjects, but also to their religious
homage. Larger acquaintance with other peoples has doubtless led educated
Chinese to regard him as only one among several great kings in the world,
but for the people at large he is still practically a god. Other living men also
are worshiped as divine.
346. The Japanese formal divinization of the emperor appears to have
begun with the establishment of the monarchy (in the sixth or seventh
century of our era), but, like the Chinese, goes back to the crude conception

of early times. It has been generally accepted seriously by the people, but
has not received philosophical formulation. It is now practically given up
by the educated classes, and will probably soon vanish completely.637
347. Among the Greeks and the Romans the belief in the divinity of living
men and women was of a vague character. In Homer the epithet dios when
applied to human beings (individuals or peoples) means little more, if any
more, than 'of exalted character' (except in the case of mythical heroes, like
Achilles, who were of actual divine parentage). At a later time such
divinization was sometimes treated jestingly. If Plutarch may be accepted as
authority,638 Alexander did not take his own godhead seriously, did not
believe in it, but allowed it merely for its effect on others. It was little more
than a farce when the Syrian-Greek Antiochus II, for services rendered to a
city, was called "Theos" by the grateful citizens;639 it was the baldest
flattery when Herod's oration640 was greeted by a tumultuous assembly as
the "voice of a god." Augustus, though he allowed temples and altars to be
consecrated to him in the provinces, did not permit it in Rome, being,
apparently, ashamed of such procedures.641 The most infamous of the early
emperors, Caligula, received divine honors in his lifetime by his own
decree.642 Apart from these particular cases, however, the general
conception of the possibility of a man's being divine had a notable effect on
the religious development in the Roman Empire.643 The custom, for
example, of burning incense before the Emperor's statue (which faithful
Christians refused to do), while it strengthened the idea of the presence of
the divine in human life, doubtless debased it.
348. Deification of living men is not found in the great national religions of
India and Persia. Mazdaism, like Hebraism, kept the human distinctly apart
from the divine: Ahura Mazda is virtually absolute, and Zoroaster and the
succeeding prophets, including the savior Çaoshyanç, are men chosen and
appointed by him.644 Vedism developed the nature-gods, and in
Brahmanism the goal of the worshiper was union with the divine, but not
independent divinity; the muni by ascetic observances might attain a power
equal or superior to that of the gods and feared by them,645 but he remained
(like the old magician) a powerful man and did not receive divine
worship.646 In recent times the followers of the Brahma-Samaj leader Sen

are said to have worshiped him as a god647—apparently an isolated
phenomenon, the origin of which is not clear. Buddha was purely human to
himself and his contemporaries. The ascription of divinity to the Tibetan
Grand Lamas is a product of the transformation of Buddhism under the
influence of a crude non-Aryan population that retained the old conception
of the essential identity of nature of men and gods.
349. When chiefs and kings are divinized, offerings are usually made to
them as to other gods; their cult becomes a part of the polytheistic system.
But it is rare that they displace the old local deities or equal them in
influence. Their worship passes with the passing of polytheism.
The Cult of the Dead

350. In the history of religion the veneration of the dead, as is remarked
above, is more widely diffused and more effective than that of the living.
We may distinguish between the cult of known historical persons after
death (which is closely related to that of living men), the deification of
mythical ancestors, and the worship of ghosts.
351. Historical persons. In simple communities commanding personalities
that have impressed the imagination of the people by proofs of power and
by conferring benefits on communities may not unnaturally receive divine
honors after death. Lyall reports a case of this sort in recent times: the
French officer Raymond in Hyderabad is said to have been worshiped as a
god.648 Other cases are reported as occuring in Samoa and in India.649
Rivers mentions traditions among the Todas of Southern India which, he
thinks, may vouch for the worship of gods who were originally men, but
implicit reliance cannot be placed on such traditions.650 Two apparently
definite instances of deification are given by Ellis,651 both of cruel kings
(one dethroned in 1818), to whom temples with complete rituals are
dedicated; but the deification in one of these cases (and probably in the
other) was a deliberate act of political leaders, and not a product of
spontaneous popular feeling. Two other local gods mentioned by Ellis were,
according to the tradition, two men who began the trade that made Whydah
the chief port of the west coast of Africa; but here also the tradition is not
perfectly trustworthy.

352. Egyptian kings were regularly deified after death, being identified with
Osiris; their cult, though not equal in sanctity to that of the gods proper, was
still prominent and important.652 It is probably to be regarded as a revision
and magnification of the cult of the dead kin, combined with the desire to
honor great representative men. No such custom is known to have existed
among Semitic peoples, by whom a sharp distinction was made between the
divine and the human. In India it was chiefly the ascetic sages that were
religiously eminent, and in the prevailing pantheistic system these (as is
remarked above), absorbing the divine essence, sometimes became as
powerful as gods, but passed after death into the cosmic All, and remained
human. The Mazdean faith, like the Israelite, made it impossible to accept a
deceased man as a god.
353. Examples of the occasional divinization of deceased men in the
Hellenic world are given below.653 In Rome the custom arose at a
comparatively late period, and it was the work not of spontaneous Roman
thought but of political philosophy.654 The deification of the Roman
emperors after death had its ground in the reconstruction of Roman life
undertaken by Augustus. He recognized a principle of unification in the
resuscitation of the old national religion, in which the people believed,
whether he himself did or not. Religion in Rome was largely an affair of the
state; the leaders of the public religion were great state officials. Augustus
was made pontifex maximus, and it was only one step farther to elevate the
chief magistrate to the rank of a god. The good sense of the time generally
forbade the bestowment of this honor during the imperator's lifetime, but an
apotheosis was in accord with the veneration paid to the manes and with the
exalted position of the Emperor as absolute lord of the Western world.655
Popular feeling appears to have accepted this divinization without question
and in sincerity; educated circles accepted it as an act of political policy.
The elevation of Julius Cæsar and Augustus to the rank of gods established
the rule, and deceased emperors received divine honors up to the triumph of
Christianity.656
354. In China, Confucius was deified as the special exponent of the state
religion and the authoritative teacher of the principles of social and political
life. His religious cult is practiced by the government (officially) and by the
masses of the people; how far it is sincerely accepted by the educated

classes is uncertain. In China and in Japan the gods of war are said to be
historical persons deified.
355. The divinization of the Calif Ali by some Shiah sects was the product
of religious fanaticism under the guidance of Aryan conceptions of the
incarnation of the divine.657
356. Mythical ancestors. Mythical ancestors are usually eponymous; the
tendency in all ancient peoples was to refer their names and origins to
single persons. Such an eponym was the product of imagination, a
genealogical myth (Hellen, Ion, Dorus, Jacob, Israel), and was revered, but
was not always the object of a religious cult; such cults do not appear
among the Semites658 or in the native Roman rites. Nor does the custom
seem to have originated in the earliest periods; it was rather a creation of
quasi-scientific reflection, the demand for definite historical organization,
and it appears first in relatively late literary monuments.659
357. Still later arose the worship of these ancestral founders. In Greece
shrines were erected by various cities to their supposed founders, and
where, as in Athens, the tribes had their eponyms, these received divine
worship, though they never attained equal rank with the gods proper. From
Greece this cult was brought into Italy. It was probably under Greek
influence, and at a relatively late time, that Romulus was created, made the
immediate founder of Rome, and took his place among the objects of
worship;660 on the other hand, Æneas (a Greek importation), though he was
accepted as original founder, never received divine worship, doubtless
because Romulus (nearer in name to the city Roma) already held the
position of divine patron. The cult of eponyms tended naturally to coalesce
with that of divine 'heroes'661—the two figures were alike in character,
differing mainly in function, and eponyms were styled 'heroes.'662
358. The inverse process, the reduction of divine beings to simple human
proportions, has gone on in early cults and in early attempts at historical
construction to a not inconsiderable degree. Thus, to take a relatively late
example, by Saxo Grammaticus and in the Heimskringla (both of the
thirteenth century) the god Odin is made into a human king and the history
of his exploits is given in detail.663 It is, however, especially in the
treatment of the old divine heroes, originally true gods, that the process of

dedivinization appears. These figures, because of their local character and
for other reasons, entered into peculiarly close relations with human
societies, of which they thus tended to become constituent parts, and the
same feeling that gave the gods human shapes converted the heroes into
mere men, who are generally reconstructers of society. Examples of this
sort of anthropomorphizing are found in myths all over the world: the
Babylonian Gilgamesh; the "mighty men" of Genesis vi, 4, originally
demigods, the progeny of human mothers and of the Elohim-beings (the
Benë Elohim, 'sons of the gods,' members, that is, of the divine circle);
Heracles and Hercules; the Scandinavian (apparently general Teutonic)
Valkyrs, Nornas, and Swan-maidens.664
359. The Sicilian Euhemeros (of the latter part of the fourth century B.C.),
after extensive travels to great places of worship, formulated the theory that
all the gods were deified men. Some grounds for his theory he doubtless
had, for, according to ancient opinion, gods might and did die, and their
places of burial were sometimes pointed out (the grave of Zeus, for
instance, in Crete). How far this view had been held before the time of
Euhemeros is uncertain, but he gave it vogue, and it is called, after him,
Euhemerism.665 In recent times it has been revived in part by Herbert
Spencer and Allen, who derive all gods from ghosts.666 Similar to it is the
rationalizing of myths, which has met with favor at various times.
360. The dead kin. Apart from the special cases mentioned above, the dead
have been the objects of particular care in all parts of the world. Some of
the observances connected with them might perhaps, in themselves
considered, be ascribed to natural affection. It cannot be denied that savages
have some love of kindred, and this feeling, in conjunction with the ideas
concerning the future state, might lead the survivors to do such things as it
was believed would secure the comfort of the deceased—decent burial in
accordance with tribal customs, and provision of food and attendants and
other necessaries. But, while the existence and influence of natural human
kindliness need not be denied, observation of savage life favors the
conclusion that the greater part of the early usages connected with the dead
have their origin in the desire to conciliate them, to avert their displeasure
and gain their aid, and thus come to constitute a cult of the dead that runs
through all phases of civilization.667

361. Such usages must be very ancient, for they are found in the lowest
tribes, and appear to be based on the earliest known conceptions of the
nature of departed souls.668 These latter are held to have all the ordinary
affections of the living, but to be endowed with extraordinary powers: they
have their likes and dislikes, their kindliness, jealousy, anger,
revengefulness, all on the lower moral grade of undeveloped life; they are,
in many regards, not subject to the ordinary limitations of the living—they
are invisible, move swiftly from place to place through obstacles
impervious to the living, enter their bodies, produce sickness and death, aid
or destroy crops. On the other hand, they need food and other necessities of
ordinary life, and for these things are dependent on the living. Hence the
desirableness of securing their good will by showing them respect and
supplying their needs, or else of somehow getting rid of them.
362. There are, then, two sorts of ghosts, or, more precisely, two sorts of
ghostly activity—the friendly and the unfriendly—and corresponding to
these are the emotions of love and fear which they call forth. On account of
paucity of data it is difficult to say which of these emotions is the
commoner among savages; probably the feeling is a mixed one,
compounded of fear and friendliness.669 In general it is evident that with the
better organization of family life a gentler feeling for the dead was called
forth; but it is probable that in the least-developed communities fear of the
mysterious departed was the prevailing emotion.
363. Though the accessible evidence does not enable us to determine with
certainty the motives of all savage customs connected with the dead, there
are some distinctions that may be made with fair probability. To supply the
dead with food and cooking-utensils may very well be, as is remarked
above, the impulse of affection, and even where slaves and wives are slain
that their ghosts may minister to the ghost of the master and husband, this
may not go beyond pious solicitude for the comfort of the deceased. But the
mourning-usages common with savages are too violent to be merely the
expression of love; the loud cries and the wounding of the person are meant
more probably to assure the deceased of the high regard in which he is
held;670 in some cases, as among the Central Australians, men gash
themselves so severely as to come near producing death.671 These excessive
demonstrations are softened as general culture increases, and finally

dwindle to an apparatus of hired mourners. A similar explanation holds of
the restriction of food, the seclusion of the widow or the widower, and the
rule against mentioning the name of the deceased: abstinence and silence
are marks of respect.

364. Funeral feasts also testify respect:672 they appear to be extensions of
the practice of providing food for the dead, feasts in which the mourners,
from motives of thriftiness, take part; the ghost consumes only the invisible
soul of the food, and it is proper that what is left should furnish refreshment
for the living.673 The funeral festivities are sometimes protracted, and
become occasions of enjoyment to the circle of kinsfolk, in some cases at a
ruinous expense to the family of the deceased, as is true now sometimes of
Irish and other wakes. The honor of the family is involved, and this fact,
together with the natural desire for pleasure, has contributed to the
development of the custom in savage as well as in civilized life. In general
the solemnity of the various ceremonies and other usages testifies to a
profound conviction of the necessity of keeping on good terms with the
dead.674
365. The reports of savage customs show a certain number of cases in
which the benevolent and the malevolent activities of the dead are equally
prominent: so, for example, among the Australian Kurnai,675 the New
Zealanders,676 the Melanesian peoples,677 the Vezimbas of Madagascar,678
the Zulus,679 the Eẃe-speaking tribes on the west coast of Africa.680 It is
probable that the list might be greatly extended by exact observation. When
we find two peoples, dwelling near together and of the same grade of
general culture, credited the one with fear, the other with friendly feeling
toward the dead, it seems likely that different sets of usages have met the
eyes of the observers; a certain amount of accident must color such reports.
366. It is natural to suppose that fear of ghosts is commoner among less-
developed peoples, kindly feeling more usual in higher communities; and
when civilized peoples are taken into account this sort of progression is
obvious. But the reports of savages show such a mixture of customs that it
is difficult to see any line of progress. Dread of ghosts is certified in Central
Australia and North Queensland, in Tonga (Polynesia), Central Africa,
Central Asia, among the North American Chippewas, Navahos, and

Southwest Oregon Indians, and the South American Araucanians; friendly
feeling is found in Tasmania, Western Africa, South Africa, California, and
among the Iroquois and the Zuñi Indians.681 In such lists there is no clear
sign of a division according to general culture.
367. Friendly relations with the dead do not in themselves necessarily
involve worship, but a more or less definite cult of ghosts is found in
various parts of the world. They are, or were, regarded as tutelary spirits in
Tasmania, Ashanti, and Dahomi (where shrines are dedicated to them), and
by the Zuñi Indians; prayers are addressed to them in Samoa and the
Hawaiian Islands (where there is a definite family worship), in Yoruba, by
the Banyas and the Zulus, by the Ossetes, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and the
North American Dakotas; offerings are made to them—sometimes to
influential persons, chiefs, and others, as in the Gilbert Islands, in parts of
Melanesia, in Borneo, and by the Cakchiquels of Central America—
sometimes to all the dead, as in the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides,
Fiji, Torres Straits, and by the Zulus, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Kolarians
of Bengal, and the Ossetes.682
368. These lists include peoples of very different grades of culture; the
inference suggested is that the cult of the dead is of very early origin—its
basis is the same among all communities that practice it, though the
particular ceremonies of worship vary.
369. Besides forms of actual worship there are several usages that involve
religious veneration of the dead. Graves are regarded as asylums by the
Kafirs (graves of chiefs)683 and in Tonga.684 The Bedawin of Arabia held
(in pre-Islamic times), and still hold, graves sacred;685 they sometimes
become shrines, and oaths are sworn by them. The custom of swearing by
the dead is widespread. In their character of powerful spirits they are agents
in processes of magic and divination. Parts of dead bodies are used as
charms. The skull especially is revered as an oracle.686
370. Among the lower tribes, savage and half-civilized, it is chiefly those
who have died recently that are worshiped. A Zulu explained to Callaway
that his people forgot those who died long ago—they were supposed to be
not helpful—and hope of gain has always been the basis of worship. Among
the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush it is the custom to erect an effigy to the

memory of every adult one year after his decease. Women, as well as men,
are thus honored, and may be put on an equality with men by being given a
throne to sit on. No worship is offered to these images, but it is believed
that their presence brings prosperity; bad weather is ascribed to their
removal. There are solemn dances in honor of the illustrious dead and
sacrifices are offered to them.687
371. The worship of the dead in the great civilized communities, though
more elaborate and refined than the savage cult, is in substance identical
with it. The Egyptians provided the departed soul with food and honored
the dead man with laudatory notices of his earthly life; the royal ancestor of
a king, it was believed, might act as mediator between him and the gods.688
The Babylonians, while they lamented the departure of men to the gloomy
existence in the Underworld, recognized the quasi-divine power of the dead
and addressed prayer to them.689 The Hebrews offered food to the dead, had
funeral feasts, and consulted ghosts who were regarded as divine.690 The
Hindu "fathers," though kept distinct from the gods, were yet conceived of
as possessing godlike powers and were worshiped as gods.691 The Persian
"forefathers" (fravashis), particularly the manes of eminent pious men, were
held to be bestowers of all the blessings of life; offerings were made and
prayers addressed to them.692
372. Early notices of a cult of the dead among the Greeks are scanty. There
was the usual kindly provision of food, arms, and other necessaries for
them.693 Odysseus in Hades pours out a libation (honey, wine, water, to
which meal is added) to all the dead, addresses vows and prayers to them,
and promises to offer to them a barren heifer on his return to Ithaca, and a
black sheep separately to Teiresias.694 From the sixth century onward the
references in the literature show that the worship of the dead (including
children) was then general (and of course it must have begun much earlier).
The offerings made to them were both vegetable and animal; the sacrificed
animal was slaughtered in the same way as in the sacrifices to chthonic
deities—the dead were, in fact, regarded as underground deities.695 The
flesh of the animals offered was not eaten by the worshipers.
373. Among the dead thus honored is to be included one class of heroes. A
Greek "hero" was sometimes an eminent man, sometimes such a man

divinized, sometimes an old god reduced to human dimensions, reckoned in
some cases to belong to the circle of the gods proper.696 Such personages
might be worshiped as gods, with the sacrifices appropriate to the gods, or
as departed men, with the sacrifices that custom fixed for the dead. The
hero-cult included many men of note recently deceased, like Brasidas and
those that fell at Marathon.697
374. The cults just mentioned dealt with the departed as friendly souls, the
protectors of the family, the clan, or the state. The state cult of the dead was
elaborate and solemn. The Greek citizen was surrounded by a host of the
eminent dead who kept him in touch with the past and offered him ideals of
life.698 Another attitude toward the dead is indicated by the great apotropaic
spring festival, the Anthesteria of Athens, the object of which was to rid the
city of the ghosts that then wandered about.699 This double attitude is
precisely that of the savage tribes referred to above. The same difference of
feeling appears in the Roman cults: the manes are the friendly or doubtful
souls of dead ancestors; the Parentalia is a festival in honor of the dead kin;
in the Lemuria, on the other hand, the father of the family performs a
ceremony at midnight intended to rid the house of ghosts.700
375. Among modern peoples it is the Chinese that have organized the
worship of the dead in the completest way; it is for them the most important
part of the popular religion.701 Similar veneration of ancestors exists in
Japan.702
376. The venerated dead stood apart, as a rule, from the nature-spirits and
the gods, but these different classes sometimes coalesced, as has been
remarked above, in popular usage. The powers and functions of the dead
were not essentially different from those of the divinities proper,
particularly in the simpler stages of society. They were able to bestow all
the blessings and to inflict all the misfortunes of life. In process of time the
advance of knowledge relegated them to a subordinate place, but they long
retained a considerable importance as friends of families and states, as
disseminators of disease, and as predictors of human fortunes.
377. In the exercise of these functions they were often not to be
distinguished from the higher and lower deities. King Saul, on the eve of a
great battle, having failed to get an answer from the national deity by the

ordinary legitimate methods, had recourse to necromancy and obtained
from the ghost of Samuel the information that Yahweh had refused to
give.703 The Greek kēres and the wandering ghosts of West Africa do
exactly what is ascribed to the malefic spirits of Babylonia.704 Examples of
such identity of function between the various superhuman Powers are found
all over the world.
378. This fact does not show that these Powers have the same origin. The
savage accepts agents in human life wherever he can find them—in beings
inhabiting mountains, rocks, trees, caves, springs, and in the souls of
departed men. Doubtless he thinks of the forms of these various actors as
being all of the same sort, a sublimated manlike body; but he keeps them in
different categories, and in the course of time the tendency is for ghosts and
spirits to sink out of sight and for the gods to absorb all extrahuman
activities.
379. The ethical power of the cults so far discussed resides in the human
association to which they give rise and the sanctions they supply to conduct.
Of these two effects the former is the more important. The moral character
of a ghost or spirit or deity never rises above that of its circle of worshipers:
its approval or disapproval is the echo of current usage, and has special
efficiency only in the accompanying power of reward or punishment; it
appeals to the hopes and fears of men. This police function is doubtless
valuable in restraining from crime and inciting to good conduct, but it has
no regenerative power. The enlargement of human association, on the other
hand, increases sympathy and coöperation among men, and paves the way
to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of
social virtue.
380. Among the lower cults ancestor-worship may be expected to take the
highest place, for the reason that it tends to strengthen family unity and the
solidarity of the clan, tribe, or nation; all such knitting together of men
makes for the increase of honesty and kindliness. The data are lacking,
however, for the determination of this point. It may be said in general that
the attitude toward the dead becomes finer with advance in civilization; but
before a specific moral power in ancestor-worship can be proved, it will be
necessary to have exact details of moral ideas and conduct in all the lower
tribes, together with some information regarding the attitude of individuals

toward questions of conduct, and the motives that impel toward this or that
action. The question of ethical growth in society is a complicated one, and
the most that can be said for any element of social constitution is that it
tends to strengthen or weaken the individual's confidence in and regard for
his fellows.
381. The part played in religious history by the worship of the dead is so
important that some writers have derived all religion from it.705 This view is
now generally rejected for the reason that it does not accord with known
facts; it is only by forced (though often ingenious) interpretations that a
plausible case is made out for it. To reply in detail to the arguments
advanced in its favor would be to go over the whole ground of the origin of
religious observances; the answer is furnished by setting forth the nature of
the various cults, as is attempted in this and following chapters. If, for
example, there is reason to believe that savages have always regarded the
lower animals as powerful beings, there is no need, in accounting for the
veneration given them, to resort to the roundabout way of assuming a
misinterpretation of names of men derived from beasts.
382. Between Euhemerism and the theory that explains myths as a "disease
of language" there is little or no essential difference of principle. Both
theories assume that man, having devised certain epithets, later came to
misunderstand them and to build up histories on the misunderstanding. Both
thus rest the immense mass of human religious customs and beliefs, which
form so large a part of human history, on the precarious foundation of
passing fancy and inadvertence, and they must be put into the same
category with the naïve theory, once popular, that religion is the invention
of priests who sought to control men through their fears.
383. Ancestor-worship is the feeling of kinship with the dead, invested by
religion with peculiar intensity and solemnity. It has been one of the great
constructive forces of society.
Cults of Generative Powers

384. The origin of religion is not to be referred exclusively to any one order
of ideas; it springs out of man's total life. All objects and processes have
been included in men's construction of nature, and the processes, when they

have been held to bear on human well-being, have been ascribed to a force
inherent in things or to the activity of supernatural beings.
385. The study of processes has gone hand in hand with the creation of
divine beings who are supposed to manifest themselves in the processes.
The great spectacle of nature's productivity has been especially
recognizable in the vegetable world and in the world of man; in both of
these life has been perpetually unfolding itself under men's eyes as a
mysterious process, which, by virtue of its mysteriousness, has become
religious material and has entered into systems of religious worship.
386. The relation of vegetable life to religious cults is referred to
elsewhere,706 and a brief survey may now be given of usages and ideas that
have been connected with the production of human life.
387. It is obvious that not all customs that include the function of
generation are of the nature of religious observances. The promiscuity that
obtains in many savage communities before marriage is a naïve unreflective
animal procedure. Exchange of wives (as in Central Australia) and the
offering of a wife to a guest are matters of social etiquette. Festivals in
which sexual license is the rule are generally merely the expression of
natural impulses. Holidays, being times of amusement, are occasions used
by the people for the satisfaction of all appetites: there is eating and
drinking, buffoonery, disregard of current conventions, unbounded liberty
to do whatever exuberant animalism prompts. Such festivities abound
among existing savages,707 were not uncommon in ancient civilized
times,708 and have survived in diminished form to the present day.709 In the
course of time they often become attached to the worship of gods, are
organized, explained by myths, and sanctified. In such cases of coalescence
we must distinguish between the true worship offered to a divine being, and
the observances, generally originating in desire for animal amusement and
enjoyment, that have been attached to them.
388. Cult of generative organs. Men's attention must have been directed
very early to those organs that were believed to be connected with the
genesis of human life. At what stage this belief arose it is hardly possible to
say; there are peoples among whom it seems not to exist;710 but it is found
over a great part of the world, and was doubtless an outcome of popular

observation.711 As it was intimately connected with life it passed naturally
into the domain of religion, and in process of time became a more or less
prominent part of religious observances; the organs in question, both male
and female, became objects of religious devotion.
389. Here again it must be noted that not all usages connected with the
organs of generation were religious of origin. It is pointed out above712 that
the origin of circumcision and excision is to be sought in another direction.
Ithyphallic images are sometimes merely attempts at realism in art; a nude
figure (as in modern art) must be represented in its full proportions. Such
seems to be the nature of certain images among the Western Bantu,713 and
this may have been the case with the images of the Egyptian Khem and
Osiris and similar deities. In general this sort of representation in savage
and ancient civilized communities is often either simple realism or
indecency. Folk-stories abound in details that sound indecent to modern
ears, but were for the authors often merely copies of current usages.
390. All important members of the human body have been regarded as to a
greater or less extent sacred, their importance depending on their
subservience to man's needs. The head of an enemy gives the slayer wisdom
and strength; an oath sworn by the head or beard of one's father is
peculiarly binding; the heart, when eaten, imparts power; a solemn oath
may be sworn by the sexual organs. In no case does the sacredness of an
object necessarily involve its worship; whether or not it shall receive a true
cult depends on general social considerations.
391. Though phallic cults proper cannot be shown to be universal among
men, they have played a not inconsiderable part in religious history. They
appear to have passed through the usual grades of development—simple at
first, later more complicated. The attitude of savages and low communities
generally, non-Christian and Christian, toward the phallus, suggests that in
the earliest stage of the cult some sort of worship was paid the physical
object itself considered as a creator of life; satisfactory data on this point,
however, are lacking. It was at so early a period that it was brought into
cultic connection with supernatural beings that its initial forms escape us.
392. It seems not to exist now among the lowest peoples. There are no
definite traces of it in the tribes of Oceania, Central Africa, Central Asia,

and America. The silence of explorers on this point cannot indeed be taken
as proof positive of its nonexistence; yet the absence of distinct mention of
it in a great number of carefully prepared works leads us to infer that it does
not play an important part in the religious systems therein described.714 It
seems to require, for its establishment, a fairly well-developed social and
political organization. Some of the tribes named above have departmental
deities, mostly of a simple sort, but apparently it has not occurred to them to
isolate this particular function, which they probably regarded as a familiar
part of the order of things and not needing special mention. The gift of
children was in the hands of the local god, a generally recognized part of his
duty as patron of the tribe, and all sexual matters naturally might be referred
to him. Also, as is remarked above, in certain tribes there was no knowledge
of the connection between the birth of children and the union of the
sexes,715 and such tribes would of course ascribe no creative power to the
phallus.
393. The best example of a half-civilized phallic cult is that which is now
practiced in Yoruba and Dahomi, countries with definite government and
institutions. The cult is attached to the worship of a deity (Elegba or Legba),
who appears to be a patron of fertility; the phallus occupies a prominent
place on his temples, and its worship is accompanied by the usual licentious
rites.716 These are expressions of popular appetite, and it does not appear
that the cult itself is otherwise religiously significant.
394. In modern India the Çivaite phallicism is pronounced and important.
The linga is treated as a divine power, and, as producer of fertility, is
especially the object of devotion of women;717 though Çivaism has its rites
of unbridled bestialism, the worship of the linga by women is often free
from impurity; it is practically worship of a deity of fertility. The origin of
the Indian cult is not clear. As it does not appear in the earliest literature, it
has been supposed to have come into Aryan worship from non-Aryan tribes.
Whatever its origin, it is now widely observed in Aryan India, and has been
adopted by various outlying tribes.718
395. While it is, or was, well established in Japan, it apparently has had no
marked influence on the religious thought of the people. Phallic forms
abound719 in the land, in spite of repressive measures on the part of the

government, but the cult partakes of the general looseness of the Shinto
organization of supernatural Powers. It is said to have been adopted in some
cases by Buddhists. It appears to have been combined with Shinto at a very
early (half-civilized) time, for which, however, no records exist.
396. It is among the great ancient civilized peoples that the most definite
organization of phallic cults is found.

397. For Egypt there is the testimony of Herodotus,720 who describes a
procession of women bearing small phallic images and singing hymns in
honor of a deity whom he calls Dionysos—probably Khem or Osiris or Bes;
such images are mentioned by Plutarch,721 supposed by him to represent
Osiris. Both Khem and Osiris were great gods, credited with general
creative power, and popular ceremonies of a phallicistic nature might easily
be attached to their cults. Bes, a less important deity, seems to have been
fashioned largely by popular fancy. These ceremonies were doubtless
attended with license,722 but they probably formed no part of Egyptian
serious worship. The phallus was essential in a realistic image, but it
appears to have been regarded simply as a physical part of the god or as an
emblem of him; there is no evidence that worship was addressed to it in
itself.
398. The evidence that has been adduced for a cult of the phallus among
Semitic peoples is of a doubtful nature. No ithyphallic images or figures of
gods have been found. Religious prostitution there was in all North Semitic
lands,723 but this is a wholly different thing from a phallicistic cult. It is
supposed, however, by not a few scholars that descriptions and
representations of the phallus occur in so many places as to make some sort
of cult of the object probable. In a passage of the Book of Isaiah,
descriptive of a foreign cult practiced, probably, by some Jews, the phallus,
it is held, is named.724 The passage is obscure. The nature and origin of the
cult referred to are not clear; it is not elsewhere mentioned. The word (yad,
usually 'hand') supposed to mean 'phallus' is not found in this sense
elsewhere in the Old Testament or in later Hebrew literature. But, if the
proposed rendering be adopted, the reference will be not to a cult of the
phallus but to sexual intercourse, a figurative description of idolatry.

399. A distinct mention of phalli as connected with religious worship occurs
in Pseudo-Lucian's description of the temple of a certain goddess at
Hierapolis.725 He gives the name to enormously high structures standing in
the propylæa of the temple, but mentions no details suggesting a phallic
cult. Twice a year, he says, a man ascends one of them, on the top of which
he stays seven days, praying, as some think, for a blessing on all Syria—a
procedure suggesting that the pillar was simply a structure consecrated to
the deity of the place (probably Atargatis, who is often called "the Syrian
goddess")726. However, if there was a phallic cult there (the phallus being
regarded as a symbol of the productive function of the deity), it is not
certain that it was Semitic. Hierapolis had long been an important religious
center in a region in which Asiatic and Greek worships were influential, and
foreign elements might easily have become attached to the worship of a
Semitic deity. The cult of the Asian Great Mother (whom the Greeks
identified with their Leto) had orgiastic elements. Lucian's reference to a
custom of emasculation suggests Asian features at Hierapolis.727
400. In Babylonia and Palestine stones, held by some to be phalli, have
been found.728 While the shape of some of these objects and their
occurrence at shrines may be supposed to lend support to this view, its
correctness is open to doubt. There is no documentary evidence as to the
character of the objects in question, and they may be explained otherwise
than as phalli. But, if they are phalli, their presence does not prove a phallic
cult—they may be votive objects, indicating that the phallus was regarded
as in some sort sacred, not that it was worshiped. Decision of the question
may be reserved till more material has been collected. There is no sufficient
ground for regarding the stone posts that stood by Hebrew shrines as phallic
symbols; they are naturally explained as sacred stones, originally
embodying a deity, later attached to his shrines as traditional objects
entitled to veneration.729
401. In Asia Minor and the Hellenic communities (both in Ionia and in
Greece proper) the phallicistic material is extensive and complicated. A
symbolic signification appears to have been superimposed on early realistic
anthropomorphic figures that were simply images of supernatural Powers.
In various regions such figures came to be associated with the generative
force of nature in human birth, and the tendency to specialization assigned

these divine beings special functions; of this nature, probably, were the
local Athenian deities Orthanes, Konisalos, and others.730 At a later period
such functions were attributed to the well-developed gods of fertility; rituals
sprang up and were explained by myths, and various combinations and
identifications were made between the prominent gods.
402. The most interesting figure of this character is Priapos, an ithyphallic
deity of uncertain origin; his special connection was with Lampsakos, and
he may have been an Asian creation. From the variety of his functions (he
was patron of gardens and viticulture, of sailors and fishermen, and in some
places a god of war)731 it may be surmised that he was originally a local
deity, charged with the care of all human interests, in an agricultural
community the patron of fertility, and at some time, and under
circumstances unknown to us, especially connected with sexual life.
Whatever his origin, his cult spread over Greece, he was identified with
certain Greek deities, licentious popular festivals naturally attached
themselves to his worship, and his name became a synonym of sexual
passion. In the later time the pictorial representations of him became
grossly indecent; his cult was an outlet for popular and artistic license.732
On the other hand, in the higher thought he was made the representative of
the production of universal animal life, and rose to the rank of a great
god.733
403. The Greek deities with whom Priapos was oftenest identified were
Dionysos and Hermes—both gods of fertility. They, as great gods of such a
nature, would naturally absorb lesser phallicistic figures; but they were
specialized in other directions, and Priapos remained as the distinctest
embodiment of phallicistic conceptions. Other such figures, as Pan, Titans,
Sileni, and Satyrs, were beings connected with fields, woods, and
mountains, products of a low form of civilization, to whom realistic forms
and licentious festivals naturally attached themselves.
404. Rome had its native ithyphallic deity, Mutunus Tutunus (or Mutinus), a
naïve symbol of generative power.734 Little is known of his cult beyond the
fact that he figured in marriage ceremonies in a peculiarly indecent way; by
later writers he is sometimes identified with Priapos.735 The Romans

adopted the cult of Priapos as well as other phallicistic forms of worship;
his original character appears in his rôle of patron of gardens.
405. Phalli as amulets occur in all parts of the world; as symbols and
perhaps as abodes of deities, they have been held potent to ward off all
evils.736
406. The female organ (yoni, kteis) appears frequently in figures of female
deities, ordinarily without special significance, religious or other, except as
a sign of sex. In the rare cases in which it is the object of religious
veneration (as in India) it is subordinated to the phallos737—there is little or
no evidence for the existence of a yonistic cult proper.738 Female deities act
as fully formed anthropomorphic Powers, embodiments of the productive
energies of nature; they are generally treated as persons, without special
reference to bodily parts. The most definite formulation of this conception
appears in Çaktism, the worship of the female principle in nature as
represented by various goddesses, often accompanied, naturally, by
licentious rites.739
407. Androgynous deities represent attempts to combine in a single person
the two sides of the productive power of nature. Such attempts are relatively
late, implying a considerable degree of reflection and organization; how
early they began we have not the data to determine. They are not found
among savage or half-civilized peoples.
408. In Semitic lands no artistic representations of a bisexual deity are now
known, but evidence is adduced to show that this conception existed in
early times. It has been sought in two old Babylonian inscriptions published
by the British Museum.740 The first of these (written in Sumerian) reads:
"For [or, in honor of] the (divine) king of countries, the (divine) Nana
[Ishtar], the lady Nana, Lugaltarsi, king of Kish, has constructed," etc.
Barton takes the two titles "the divine Ishtar" (='king of countries,'
masculine) and "the lady Ishtar" to refer to the same deity, in whose person
would thus be united male and female beings. If, however, the king of
countries and Ishtar be taken to be two different deities (as is possible),
there is no bisexuality. The second inscription, which is bilingual, has the
expressions "the mother-father Enlil," "the mother-father Ninlil"
(Sumerian), rendered in Semitic "the father-mother Enlil," "the father-

mother Ninlil." These expressions probably signify not that the two deities
are bisexual, but that each of them fulfills the guarding and nourishing
functions of a father and a mother.
The expression in a hymn to Ishtar that "she has a beard like the god Ashur"
may be satisfactorily explained as an astrological statement, the meaning of
which is that the planet Dilbat (Ishtar, Venus) at certain times equals the sun
(represented by Ashur) in brilliancy, her rays being likened to a beard.741 A
similar astrological interpretation is offered by Jastrow of a passage (to
which attention was called by François Lenormant) in which a female
Dilbat and a male Dilbat are spoken of. Other astrological texts indicate that
the terms 'male' and 'female' are employed as expressions of greater or less
brilliancy.742 Lajard's view, that all Babylonian and Assyrian deities were
androgynous, hardly needs discussion now.743
409. Of a more definite character are expressions in two Phœnician
inscriptions. In an inscription of Eshmunazzar II (probably early in the
fourth century B.C.) the great goddess of Sidon is called "Ashtart Shem
Baal."744 The word shem means 'name,' and, if it be so interpreted as to give
the goddess the name of a male divinity, she may be understood to have
partly male form. But such change of name is hardly probable, and this is
not necessarily the natural force of the phrase. In Hebrew to "call one's
name on a person or thing" is to assert ownership in it or close connection
with it.745 In the West Semitic area some personal names signify simply
'name of such and such a deity,' as, for example, Shemuel (Samuel), 'name
of El,' Shemzebul, 'name of (the god) Zebul,' denoting devotion or
subordination to the deity in question. "Shem Baal" as a title of Ashtart may
then indicate her close relation with the god, or, perhaps, if the expression
be understood more broadly, her equality with him in power (the name of a
deity involves his attributes)—he was the great god, but she, the expression
would say, is not less mighty than he; or, less probably, baal may be taken
not as proper name but as title, the sense then being that the goddess is the
lord of the city.746 Another proposal is to read "Ashtart shamē Baal,"
'Ashtart of the heaven [sky] of Baal.'747 There is a Phœnician Baal-shamem,
'lord of the sky,' but nowhere else is the sky described as the abode of a
baal, and the transference of the local city-goddess to that region would be

strange; nor in the expression 'Baal-shamem' is Baal a proper name—it is
merely a title.
410. Another phrase, occurring in many Carthaginian inscriptions, makes
mention of "Tanit face of Baal,"748 an expression that may point to a female
body with male face. Its indefiniteness—it does not state the nature of the
face (it may point to a beard)—makes it difficult to draw from it any
conclusions as to the character of the deity named.749 But the probability is
that it is identical in sense with the one mentioned above. Tanit was the
great goddess of Carthage; she is called "Adon," 'lord,' and her equality
with Baal is indicated by the statement that she had his face, the word 'face'
being here equivalent to 'personality' and 'power.'750
411. At a later period (early in the fifth century of our era) two authors,
Servius and Macrobius, make definite statements concerning a bisexual
cult, apparently Semitic.751 Both statements occur in connection with
Vergil's use of the masculine deus (ducente deo) as a title of Venus, in
explanation of which the cases of supposed bisexualism are cited.752 What
is said is that there was in Cyprus a deity whose image was bearded—a god
of virile nature, but dressed as a woman, and regarded as being both male
and female. Further, Philochorus is quoted to the effect that men sacrificed
to her in women's dress and women in men's dress. This last remark does
not necessarily point to an androgynous deity, for exchange of dress
between men and women sometimes occurs where there is no question of
the cult of such a deity.753 But the Cyprian deity is said also to have been
called Ἀφρόδιτον (Aphroditos? or Aphroditon?)754—apparently a male
Aphrodite.
412. Leaving aside a few other notices that add nothing to our knowledge of
the point under consideration, we should naturally conclude, if we give any
credit to the statements of Servius and Macrobius, that there was a report in
their time of a bisexual deity in Cyprus. As regards Vergil's "deus," that may
be merely a poetical expression of the eminence and potency of the
goddess. But the assertions of her bisexual character are distinct, even if the
"beard" be discarded. This latter may have come from a misunderstanding
of some appearance on the face of the statue; or, as has been suggested,
there may have been a false beard attached to it permanently or

occasionally,755 and from this may have sprung the belief in the twofold
nature of the deity. We are not told, however, that such a nature was
ascribed to Aphrodite, or that a beard was attached to her statue; and, if this
was done, it is difficult to suppose that a popular belief in the bisexuality of
a deity could have arisen from such a procedure. Some better ground for the
statements of Servius and Macrobius there seems to have been, though we
do not know their authorities. In any case it may be concluded that the cult
in question, if it existed, was late, popular, and without marked influence on
the Semitic religious development. No figures or other traces of a bisexual
deity have been discovered in Cyprus or elsewhere (unless the Carthaginian
Tanit be an exception), and all that is otherwise known of the character and
cult of the Babylonian Ishtar, the Phœnician Ashtart, and the Carthaginian
Tanit (=Ashtart) is against the supposition of bisexuality. Ishtar, originally a
deity of fertility, became, through social growth, a patron of war and
statecraft; but there is no indication that an attempt was ever made to
combine these two characters in one figure.
413. The Phrygian figure Agdistis, represented in the myths as
androgynous756 (the myths being based on cults), is connected with the
worship of the Great Mother, Kybele (the embodiment of the female
productive power of nature), with whom is associated Attis (the
embodiment of the male power).757 The myths identify Agdistis on the one
hand with Kybele, on the other hand with Attis—he represents in his own
person the combination of the two generative powers. But it is doubtful
whether this was his significance in the actual worship, in which he hardly
appears; he was probably a divine figure of the same character as Kybele
and Attis, worked up by myth-makers and woven into the larger myth. His
self-castration reflects the practice of the priests and other worshipers of
Kybele.758 Thus culturally he is of little or no importance.
414. There is no evidence that this Phrygian figure was derived from
Semitic sources. A certain similarity between Phrygian and Syrian cults of
gods and goddesses of fertility is obvious, and the social relations between
Asia Minor, Syria, and Cyprus make borrowing in either direction
conceivable. But cults of such deities might grow up independently in
different regions,759 and the supposition that the Phrygian worship was
native to Asia Minor is favored by the great elaboration of its ceremonies

and by their barbarous character. This character suggests that the worship
may have originated with savage peoples who preceded the Aryans in the
country.760
415. The most definite androgynous figure is the Greek Hermaphroditos. It
was only in Greece that such a compound name arose, and that the
composite form became established in art. It is not certain when the Greek
form was fixed. If the statement that Aristophanes used the term
"Aphroditos"761 (or "Aphroditon") is to be relied on, it must be concluded
that the conception existed in Greece prior to the fifth century, probably in
that case as a popular usage that was unorganized and unimportant, since it
is not referred to in the existing literature. But of this Aristophanes we know
nothing, and the vague statements of Servius and Macrobius may be
neglected as being without significance for the figure in question.
416. The name Hermaphroditos is said to occur for the first time in the
fourth or third century B.C.762 This would indicate a gradual formulation of
the idea, the result being the combination of two divine forms into a single
form. Aphrodite would naturally be chosen for the female side, and the
ithyphallic Hermes is appropriate for the male side—possibly the Hermes
pillar with Aphrodite bust was the earliest form.763 The representations of
Hermaphrodites show a male body with female bust; the name Aphroditos
would rather suggest a female body with male additions. Other Greek
bisexual figures are forms of Priapos and Eros.
An historical connection between the Greek and the Phrygian forms is
possible, but is not proved. In India the bisexual form of Çiva, which seems
to be late,764 connects itself with the licentious character of his rites. Its
historical origin is uncertain.
417. It does not appear that the cult of the Greek androgynous deities
entered seriously into the religious life of the people. In late philosophic
circles they were treated merely as symbols of the creative power of nature,
and thus lost their character as persons.
418. The starting-point for the development of the hermaphrodite figure
may perhaps be found in two facts, the interchange or change of sexual
characters765 and the combination of two deities to express a broader idea

than either of them represents. The assumption of female dress and sexual
habits by males, and of male dress and habits by females, has prevailed over
a great part of the world.766 The embodiment of this fact in a composite
divine form would be not unnatural at a time when there was a disposition
to give expression, in the person of gods, to all human experiences. Such
definite embodiment is, however, rare in religious history, probably, as is
suggested above, because it involves a large generalization and a more or
less distinct symbolism. The first movement in this direction may have been
naïvely sensuous; later, as is remarked above, the symbolic conception
became predominant.
419. The association of certain animals with certain phallic deities (as the
bull with Dionysos, the goat with Pan, the ass with Priapos) is a part of the
general connection between gods and animals, the grounds of which are in
many cases obscure.767 Pan's rural character may explain his relation to the
goat; the bull, the ass, and many other animals regarded as sacred, may
have been brought into ritual connection with gods by processes of
subordination of divine beasts and through collocation of cults. There is no
evidence to show that the animals connected with phallic gods were
selected on account of their salacious dispositions or their sexual power.
420. Phallicistic cults, attenuated by advance of refinement, survived long,
even into Christian times, under modified forms.768 In such cases they
become merely devices of ignorant piety. When the aid of a Christian saint
is sought in order to secure fertility, the trust in the phallus-symbol involves
no unworthy desire; and what is true of medieval European peoples may
have been true of ancient peoples. In the ancient world these cults took
many forms, ranging from naïve faith to frank obscenity on the one hand
and philosophic breadth on the other hand. They take their place as part of
the general worship of the forces of nature, and follow all the variations of
human culture.

CHAPTER V

TOTEMISM AND TABOO

421. Totemism and taboo are both of them intimately connected with the
history of early religion, but in different ways. Totemism is not essentially
religious if religion be held to involve worship of superhuman or
extrahuman beings; it has, however, in many cases coalesced with religious
practices and ideas, and it is sometimes difficult to draw the line distinctly
between it and religion proper. Taboo, on the other hand, is founded on
magical conceptions, and these are nearly allied to the basis of early
religion; it is more or less prominent in all early cults, and has survived in
the higher religious systems, though in these it is generally spiritualized.
The two lines of development, totemism and taboo, appear side by side in
early cults, and influence each the other; but their functions in the social
organization of religion have been different, and they are best treated
separately. As the collections of material for their history are still
incomplete, accounts of them must be regarded as, to a greater or less
extent, provisional.
Totemism

422. The natural attraction of human beings for one another and the
necessity of providing effective means of defense against enemies have led
men to associate themselves together in clans and tribes. In such
associations some form of organization arose as a matter of course;
experience early showed that men could not live together except under the
guidance and control of authoritative regulations. Such regulations dealt
with fundamental facts of life, which in the beginnings of society are mostly
physical. The points requiring regulation are: the relation of man to
nonhuman things (animals, plants, and inanimate objects); the maintenance
of rights of life and property; and the sexual relations between human
beings, especially marriage as the basis of the family. The determination of
what things may be eaten belongs more particularly under "taboo," and is
considered below. Customs and rules designed to protect life and property
have always coalesced with religious systems; they are mentioned in
connection with the ethical element in religion.769 The other points—
relations to nonhuman things and sexual relations—may be conveniently
considered together here; but, as the second point belongs rather to
sociology than to the history of religion, it will be sufficient, with an

introductory word on marriage restrictions (under Exogamy), to give the
facts in connection with the various totemic organizations.

423. Exogamy.770 All over the savage world the general rule prevails
(though not without exceptions) that a man must not marry a woman of his
own clan; though the family proper (husband, wife, and children) exists, the
clan is the fundamental social unit. When a tribe contains several clans it is
commonly divided into groups (phratries), each phratry including certain
clans, and the rule then is that a man shall not marry a woman of his
phratry. Usually the number of phratries is two, but in some cases (as
among the Australian Arunta and adjoining tribes) these are divided so that
there are four or eight exogamous groups (subphratries). When the totem is
hereditary the totemic clans are exogamous; otherwise (as among the
Arunta) marriage between persons of the same clan is permitted.
424. Whether the clan or the phratry preceded in time it is hardly possible to
determine—clans may have united to form a larger group, or an original
group may have been divided into clans. But in the latter case this original
group was practically a clan, so that the question of precedence in time is
not important. Where clan exogamy exists without phratries it is possible
that these also formerly existed and have been dropped in the interests of
freedom—that is, they limited the choice of a wife to an extent that proved
inconvenient.771
425. An almost universal feature of the marriage rules of low tribes is the
classificatory system of relationship. According to this system, the
community being divided into groups, terms of relationship indicate not
kinship in blood but tribal status in respect of marriageability; thus, the
same term is used for a child's real father and for every man who might
legally have become the husband of his mother, and the same term for the
real mother and for every woman whom the father might have married; the
children of such possible fathers and mothers are the child's brothers and
sisters; all possible spouses are called a man's "wives" or a woman's
"husbands"; and similarly with all relationships.772
426. The system has many varieties of form, and gives way in time to the
formal recognition of blood kinship. It has been held to point to an earlier
system of "group marriage," in which all the men of one group had marital

relations with all the women of another group, and further to a primitive
custom of sexual promiscuity.773 In the nature of the case these hypotheses
do not admit of proof or disproof. All that is certain is that the classificatory
system has been and is an accompaniment of one stage of social and
religious development.
427. The effect of exogamous arrangements has been to prevent marriage
between persons related in blood.774 In totemic organizations, when the
totem is inherited, a division into two exogamous groups makes marriage of
brother to sister impossible, since all the children of one mother are in the
same group; and if there are four such groups and children are assigned to a
group different from that of the father and that of the mother, marriage
between parent and child is impossible. When the totem is not inherited (as
is the case among the Australian Arunta) similar results are secured by a
further subdivision.
428. The particular exogamic customs vary considerably among early
tribes, the differences following, in general, differences of social
organization. In some more settled savage communities (as, for example,
the Kurnai of Southeast Australia), in which there are neither classes nor
totemic clans, marriage is permitted only between members of certain
districts.775 Well-organized social life tends to promote individual freedom
in marriage as in other things. Marriage with a half-sister was allowed by
the old Hebrew law,776 and Egyptian kings often married their sisters.
429. Theories of the origin of exogamy. Exogamy has been referred to a
supposed scarcity of women, which forced the young men to seek wives
abroad.777 On the assumption of early sexual promiscuity it has been
regarded as a deliberate attempt to prevent the marriage of blood
relations.778 It has been supposed to result from the absence of sexual
attraction between persons who have been brought up together.779 An
original human horde being assumed, it has been suggested that the
patriarch, who had possession of all the women of the horde, would, from
jealousy, drive the young men off to seek wives elsewhere.780 From the
point of view of the totem as divine ancestor, exogamy has been supposed
to arise from religious respect for the clan blood, which is held to share the

divinity of the totem, and would be polluted (with danger to the clan) by
outside marriages.781
430. Objections may be raised to all these theories. It is doubtful whether a
scarcity of women existed in early times; and supposing that there were not
women enough in a clan for the men of the clan, this would not stand in the
way of men's taking as wives their clan women.782 The assumption of
primitive sexual promiscuity, likewise, cannot be said to be distinctly borne
out by known facts.783 Morgan's theory, however, is not dependent on this
assumption—it need only suppose repugnance to the marriage of blood
relations. Such repugnance granted, the main objection to the theory rests
on the difficulty of supposing savages capable of originating so thoughtful
and elastic a scheme as the exogamous system. This is a point on which it is
not possible to speak positively. The lowest tribes have produced languages
of wonderfully intricate and delicate construction, and, supposing the
process of constructing marriage regulations to have gone on during a very
long period, modifications introduced from time to time, to meet conditions
felt to be important, might conceivably result in such exogamous systems as
are now found.
431. As to absence of sexual attraction between persons brought up
together,784 this seems to be a result rather than a cause of the prohibition of
sexual relations between certain classes of persons. The argument from
habits of the lower animals is indefinite—no general habit has been proven.
In orgies in India and elsewhere no repulsion appears between persons of
the same family. In the ancient world marriage between such persons was
legal and not uncommon.
432. The human horde, with its jealous patriarch, appears to be a creation of
the scientific imagination. It, again, was derived by its author from the
procedure of certain beast-herds in which the strongest male drives away
his rivals. It is supposed, however, that in the human horde the young men,
having found wives, are allowed to come back bringing their wives with
them, and these last the patriarch is supposed not to appropriate. The theory
is supported by no facts of actual usage.
433. The supposition that the young men of a clan or tribe go off to seek
food, and thus found a new clan, has more in its favor. Being compelled to

seek wives in their new surroundings, they might thus initiate a habit of
outside marriage that would in time become general usage and therefore
sacred. Secession from tribes does occur, and may have been frequent in
prehistoric times, but concerning these times we have little or no
information. It may be said that movements of this sort would furnish a
more probable starting-point for savage customs than the ideas and schemes
mentioned above.
434. Proof is lacking also for Durkheim's theory. It is not probable that the
totem was regarded as divine in the period in which exogamy arose—by the
tribes whose ideas on this point are known the totem is looked on as a
friend and an equal but not as a god. And, as is pointed out above, there is
no such general religious respect for the clan blood as would forbid sexual
intercourse between persons of the same clan. The demand for revenge for
the murder of a clansman arises from the sense of clan solidarity and the
necessity of self-defense—it is only in this regard that the blood of the clan
is regarded as sacred.
435. Horror of marriage or of sexual intercourse in general, within the
prohibited degrees or areas, is universal in low communities; violation of
the tribal law on this point is severely punished, sometimes with death.
Whence this feeling sprang is not clear.785 It cannot have arisen from
respect for the purity of women or from a belief in the sanctity of the family
—intercourse with girls before their marriage is freely allowed, and lending
or exchange of wives is common. Magical dangers are supposed to follow
on infringement of marriage rules, but, as such results come from violation
of any tribal custom, this throws no light on the origin of the feeling of
horror in question. Absence of sexual attraction between persons brought up
together,786 though the absence of such feeling is said to have been
observed in some of the lower animals, is not assured for savages; its
existence in civilized communities is due to the acceptance of the
established usage, which makes certain unions impossible, so that they are
not considered, and the germ of such a public opinion may perhaps be
assumed for early tribes. Probably the horror of incest is a derivation from
economic and other situations and laws that arose naturally in early society
—it is a habit hardened into an instinct.

436. Though exogamy differs from totemism in origin and function, the two
are often found associated—their conjunction may be said to be the general
rule. There are, however, exceptions.787 Totemic clans are not exogamous in
Central Australia, the Melanesian Banks Islands, among the Nandi of East
Africa, and the Bakuana of South Africa. On the other hand, exogamy is
found without totemism in the tribes just mentioned, among the Todas of
Southern India, in Sumatra, among the African Masai and Ashanti, and in
Southern Nigeria, and local exogamy among tribes (for example, the Kurnai
of Southeast Australia, and the Californian Maidu and Shasta) in which
totemic divisions are not perceptible.
437. In all such cases, however, the absence of records makes the history of
the organizations uncertain—we do not know whether or not one of the
elements, totemism or exogamy, formerly existed and has yielded to
disintegrating influences. Thus local exogamy may have superseded clan
exogamy in many places, the former representing the more settled habit of
life, and the absence of the totemic constitution may indicate a process of
decay of totemism. No general rule for the decision of the question can be
laid down—every case must be judged for itself.788
438. Since a custom of exogamy presupposes at least two social groups
(clans), and totemism appears to be connected originally with single clans,
the natural inference is that the latter has everywhere preceded the former in
time. Both have undergone great changes produced by similar sets of
circumstances, and in both cases the simplest form is probably the oldest,
though here again definite data are lacking. However, comparison of the
known exogamous systems points to a two-group arrangement as that from
which the existing forms have come.
439. Exogamy served a good purpose in early stages of society, both by
preventing marriages between blood relations and by inducing a sense of
the sacredness of the marriage bond. Its long persistence shows that it was
regarded by most tribes as necessary for the maintenance of the tribal life.
Its restriction of individual freedom in the choice of wives was an evil, and
was in time modified and finally thrown off; but it seems to have been the
only means, discoverable by early society, by which clans and tribes could
live peaceably side by side, and it paved the way for the establishment of
the family proper.

440. This brief account of the most important adjunct of totemism may
serve to clear the way for the consideration of the totemic system.
441. Among the various relations that undeveloped communities sustain to
nonhuman things totemism has the peculiarity that it is an alliance between
a human group (clan or tribe) and a species of animals or plants, or an
inanimate natural object (as sun or moon), or, rarely, an artificial object
(usually an implement of labor).789 The nonhuman thing is regarded as a
friend, and is respected and cared for accordingly. When it is a species
(animal or plant) every individual of the species is held to bear this friendly
relation to every individual of the allied human group. Generally there is
believed to be not only similarity or identity of nature between the two
(such identity of nature between man and nonhuman things is everywhere
an article of the creed of savages) but a special intimacy, commonly a
kinship of blood. While the men of a group respect their ally, it, on its part,
is supposed to refrain from injuring them, and even in some cases to aid
them. It is credited with great power, such as in savage life all nonhuman
things are supposed to possess. The members of the human group regard
one another as brothers; this feeling, however, can hardly be said to be
peculiar to totemic organizations—it exists, more or less, in all early
associations, particularly in any one association as against others.
442. While, therefore, we may take a certain clan alliance as a fundamental
fact of totemism, we find in various communities other features of
organization more or less closely combined with this into a social unity. In
every such case it is necessary to inquire whether the feature in question is a
universal or general accompaniment of clan alliance, and whether it is
peculiar to the latter or is found in other systems also.

443. (a) Exogamy. It is pointed out above790 that totemism and exogamy are
mutually independent arrangements, differing in function and origin, each
being found without the other. Yet in many cases, perhaps in the majority of
cases, the two are found combined. Exogamy supposes a body of clans,
and, given a group of totemic clans, it would naturally be attached to these,
and so become an organic part of their social constitution. Where there is no
totemism the question of union, of course, does not come up. Where
totemism is not accompanied by exogamy it is sometimes probable that the
union of the two once existed,791 or that exogamy is excluded by the

peculiar form of the totemism.792 Exogamy may thus be regarded as a
natural and frequent accompaniment of totemism, but it is not a universal
and necessary element of the totemic constitution.
444. (b) Names. As a general rule the totemic clan bears the name of its
totem. The exceptions appear to be found in somewhat advanced
communities, as the Fijians and the Kwakiutl (but not the northern branch
of this tribe).793 There are also many larger exogamous groups (as, for
example, in Australia) the meaning of whose names is obscure—they may
or may not contain the name of the totem; but such groups may have a
different origin from that of the totemic clans.
445. In some cases clans and tribes have distinctive crests or badges,
generally totemic figures or parts of such figures. These are carved on
beams of houses and on house poles, or cut or drawn on men's persons, and
are used as signs manual, serving thus to indicate to strangers a man's clan
connections. Such emblems are employed in the Torres Straits islands and
British New Guinea,794 in the Aru Islands (southwest of New Guinea), and
in North America among the Lenâpé (Delawares), the Pueblo tribes, the
Tlingit, the Haidas, and the Kwakiutl.795
446. In America the crest is not always identical in name with the totem,
and sometimes coalesces with the guardian animal-spirit. The myths that
give the origin of the crest usually describe some adventure (marriage or
other) of a man with the crest animal, involving sometimes, but not always,
the origin of the clan.796 The relation between totem and crest thus differs in
different places, and its origin is not clear. The simplest form of this relation
(that found in the New Guinea region) may indicate that the totem animal,
being most intimately connected with the clan, is chosen on that account as
its badge. Or possibly totem and crest have arisen, independently of each
other, from some early affiliation with animals, and therefore do not always
coincide. Such a mode of origination would help to explain the fact that in
Northwestern America a clan may have several crests, and a man also may
acquire more than one. The relation of crest to clan is looser than that of
totem to clan—the same crest or crests are found in different clans. When
the totemic constitution of the tribe or clan is weakened, the crest may
become more important than the totem, as is the case among the Haidas.

But the adoption of the crest name does not invalidate the general rule that
the clan bears the name of its totem.
447. Names of families and of persons do not come into consideration here.
They arise from various local and personal peculiarities that, as a rule, have
nothing to do with totemism, and they become more prominent and
important as the latter declines.
448. The origin of clan totemic names is closely connected with the origin
of the totemic organization, and will be more conveniently considered in
connection with this point.797
449. (c) Descent from the totem. Details so far reported as to this belief are
regrettably few and often indefinite, and it is not possible to give more than
a provisional sketch of it.798 In Central Australia it is held that all the
members of a clan come into being as spirit children, who are the creation
of mythical half-human, half-animal beings of the olden time; the clan bears
the name of the mythical ancestor (its totem), and its members regard
themselves as identical in blood and nature with the totem.799 Similar
beliefs are reported as existing in New South Wales and West Australia, and
a definite conception of descent from the totem has been found in the Santa
Cruz group in Southern Melanesia, in Fiji in Eastern Melanesia, and
apparently in Tonga and Tikopia.800 In North America the belief is reported
as existing among the Lenâpé (Delawares) and other Eastern tribes.801 In
South America it appears among the Arawaks of Guiana,802 and perhaps
elsewhere. For Africa there is little information on this point, and what we
have is not always definite;803 one of the clearest expressions of descent is
found in the title "grandfather" given to the chameleon by the Chameleon
clan of the Herrero of German Southwest Africa, but a comparison with the
similar title given by the Zulus to a sort of divine ancestor, and with the
Herrero mythical stories of the origins of certain clans, suggests that the
conception is vague.
450. In addition to the more direct statements there are traditions or myths
that connect the origin of clans with animals or plants through the
intermediation of gods or human beings, by marriage, or some other
relation. The Bushbuck clan of the East African Baganda worship a lion-
god, who is called an ancestor and is said to have turned into a lion at his

death. Fluctuating opinions (some persons holding to direct descent from a
nonhuman object, others to friendly relations between it and the ancestor)
are reported in Sumatra, Borneo, and the Moluccas. The Hurons regarded
the rattlesnake as a kinsman of their ancestor. The origin of the clan or
family is referred to marriage with an animal by the Borneo Dyaks and
various tribes on the African Gold Coast, and to marriage with a plant by
some of the Upper Liluet;804 and the origin of the crests in Northwestern
America is ascribed to adventures with crest animals.805 In the Trobriand
group of islands (lying to the northeast of British New Guinea) the totems
are said to have been brought by the first men; naturally it is not explained
whence and how the men got them.806
451. These instances of indirect origination (to which others of the sort
might be added) show a variety of points of view, and may be variously
interpreted. They may be regarded as declensions from an earlier belief in
the direct descent of the clan from the totem, or as independent conceptions
that never grew into this belief. Both these ideas of the form of descent are
found in widely separated regions and in communities differing one from
another in general culture and in the degree of importance they attach to the
totemic constitution. The possibility of general agreement in myths, with
difference in details, between tribes remote from one another is illustrated
by the creation myths of the Australian Arunta (who have an elaborate
totemism) and the Thompson River Indians of Northwestern America (who
have no clan totems, secret societies, or dramatic ceremonies); both relate
transformations of primitive unformed persons, but in the former the
creators are half-human, half-animal, in the latter they are men who
transform half-human, half-animal beings. Such widespread variations point
to early differences in social conditions and in intellectual endowments with
the nature of which we are not acquainted.807
452. (d) Refusal to kill or eat the totem. The usages in regard to killing or
eating the totem are so diverse, and often so uncertain, that it is not possible
to lay down a general rule of prohibition. An edible totem is only a peculiar
sort of sacred animal or plant, and respect for such objects often leads to
refusal to kill or eat them—an interdiction of this sort does not in itself
show whether or not the object in question is a totem. But within totemic
areas the usage varies in a remarkable manner, as, for example, in Australia.

In the north there is complete prohibition, sometimes including the totems
of a man's father, mother, and father's father. Among the central tribes a
man kills his clan totem only for the benefit of other clans, and eats a little
of it ceremonially. In the southeast the Dieri, it is said, kill and eat their
totems freely, while other tribes, the Wotjoballuk and others, eat them only
at a pinch.808 The northeastern tribes have many food taboos, which,
however, relate not to the totemic clans but to the exogamous subclasses. A
modified regard for the totem or crest (kobong) appears in West Australia,
according to Sir George Grey's report809; it is not allowable to kill a family
kobong while it is asleep, and it is always with reluctance that it is killed.
453. Abstention from killing and eating the totem holds, as a rule, in the
Torres Straits islands, while in New Guinea the custom varies—the totem is
eaten by some tribes, not eaten by others.
454. In Melanesia the food restrictions connected with animal patrons or
friends of clans are less definite than in Australia. Here, also, there are local
differences of usage. Prohibition of eating or using the totem (fish, grass,
fowl, and so forth) was found by Rivers in the Santa Cruz group (in
Southern Melanesia) but not in the northern New Hebrides.810 In the central
islands the prohibition refers to the exogamous classes, and a similar usage
is reported as existing in the Duke of York group (in the north). The Fijians
refrain from eating their tribal sacred animals.
455. In Polynesia family gods appear instead of totems, and the incarnations
of gods (in animals and plants) are not eaten; such is the rule in Samoa and
Tonga, and this was formerly the practice in Hawaii. The food restrictions
in Borneo and Sumatra are not definitely totemic.
456. The non-Aryan tribes of India generally refrain from eating their
totems, or, in some cases, from injuring or using them; and this is true even
of those tribes (for example, the Khonds and Oraons of Bengal) that have
somewhat developed theistic systems. Occasionally exemptions from the
rule of abstention are procured, perhaps under Aryan influence; such
influence has affected many of the tribes, but has not usually destroyed the
old totemic customs. Among the Todas (in the south), however, Rivers
found only feeble suggestions of totemic objects and food restrictions; the
buffalo-cult seems to have ousted all others.811

457. Among the native tribes of Africa there is special respect for the object
with which the clan or tribe has particularly definite relations. The Bakuana
do not eat the animal whose name is borne by the clan; if an animal (the
lion, for example) is dangerous, it is killed with an apology. The Herrero (of
German Southeast Africa) abstain from the flesh of the chameleon, and will
not eat gray sheep or oxen. Among the half-civilized Baganda, of the east,
certain of the clans refrain from eating the object from which a clan takes
its name; the noteworthy political organization of these people seems to
have obliterated old clan functions in part. In the west (Senegambia,
Ashanti, Dahomi, Nigeria, Congo) there are food restrictions, but these are
not generally connected with totemic social organizations.
458. There is little evidence for totemic food restrictions in North America.
The custom of apologizing to an animal on killing it, frequent elsewhere, is
reported as existing among the Algonkin Ottawas and Menomini; but this is
not necessarily totemic. The more advanced tribes of the East and South
(Algonkin, Iroquois, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasas, Cherokees, Natchez),
the peoples of the Pacific Coast, and the agricultural tribes of the middle of
the continent (Pueblos, Mandans, and others) appear to be free from
restrictions as to eating. The Navahos are said to refrain from the flesh of
fish, turkeys, swine, and bears, but the grounds of the interdiction are not
clear.812 The distinctest evidence of totemistic clan food-taboos are found
among the Siouan Caddos (of the southern Mississippi Valley) and the
Omahas (of the Middle West). Both these groups are in part agricultural,
and it does not appear how they have come to differ from their neighbors in
this regard. Food restrictions are reported for the Northwest region.813
459. There is no clear report of totemic food restrictions in Central America
or in South America;814 but these regions have as yet not been thoroughly
examined for clan usages.
460. (e) Magical ceremonies for increasing the supply of food. Such
ceremonies exist, or have existed, in many regions and among peoples of
various grades of culture, civilized as well as savage, but the cases in which
they are, or were, conducted by totemistic clans are comparatively few. This
sort of economic function of the totem clan is most definite and important
in Central and parts of Southeast Australia, where every clan is charged
with the duty of increasing the supply of its totem for the benefit of its

connected clans; and magical rites are performed in the fertile coast region
no less than in the arid region about Lake Eyre—that is, in these cases the
employment of magic seems not to be conditioned on the natural resources
of the land. Similar totemic clan functions appear in the islands of Torres
Straits, the Turtle and Dugong clans performing ceremonies to increase the
supply of turtles and to attract dugongs. Magical control of totems for the
benefit of the whole community is reported to be found in the Siouan
Omaha clans (in the center of the North American continent). The tribes just
mentioned are those in which the social organization is definitely totemistic.
461. Elsewhere the economic function attaches to other bodies than totemic
clans, as in parts of Southeast Australia, and in West Australia (where the
ceremonies are conducted by the exogamous classes). In New Guinea the
totemic character of the performances appears to be doubtful. A single
instance of clan action has been found among the East African Baganda—
the women of the Grasshopper clan undertake to increase the supply of their
totem; why this duty is assigned to the women is not clear—the custom
appears to involve a relaxation of totemistic rules. The economic festivals
and "dances" of the Siouan Mandans and Hidatsa are general tribal
ceremonies. Among the Pueblo Indians such rites are the care of religious
fraternities;815 the Zuñi Frog clan performs a ceremony to procure rain, but
this duty is mainly committed to rain-priests. In Northwestern America the
magical performances are not connected with totemic clans.
462. Definition of totemism. It appears, then, that not one of the points just
mentioned is found invariably in the systems of organization commonly
called totemic. Exogamy is an independent phenomenon; the clan does not
always bear the name of the totem, and is not always held to have
descended from it; usages in regard to eating it vary greatly; magical
economic ceremonies are performed by other than totemic bodies. There is
no known clan that includes all these elements in its organization, though in
Central Australia there is an approach to complete inclusion; the features
lacking are clan exogamy and absolute prohibition of eating the totem, but
practically a clan does not eat its totem, and exogamy, for reasons given
above, may be left out of consideration. The Central Australian system may
be said to be substantially complete; with it the North American systems
stand in sharp contrast, and from it many others diverge.

463. But, with all these differences, the fact remains that in totemism the
human group stands in a peculiar relation to some nonhuman object.816 This
general statement must, however, be defined in two particulars: the relation
is an alliance for the benefit of both parties; and the nonhuman object is not
regarded as a god and is not worshiped. The first of these particulars marks
totemism off from that general regard that is paid by savages to animals,
plants, certain heavenly bodies, and other physical things;817 the second
particular distinguishes it from the cult of ghosts and gods proper. We may
therefore define it as an alliance, offensive and defensive, between a human
group and a nonhuman group or object that is not worshiped, the friendly
relation existing between every member of the one group and every
member of the other group.818
464. This relation having been formed, the various features mentioned
above will naturally become attached to it in various ways and to different
extents. The clan will somehow get a name, when and how we need not
now ask; usually its name is that of the totem—this is in keeping with the
intimate connection between the two. To trace the origin of the clan to the
totem is only to do what is done abundantly among uncivilized and
civilized peoples (Hebrews, Greeks, and others); the eponymous ancestor is
constructed out of the current name of the clan. To refrain from killing or
eating a friendly animal or plant is a simple mark of respect. The conception
of special ability in a clan to insure a supply of its totem for food is in
accord with savage ideas of magical endowment. When the custom of
exogamy arose it would naturally attach to the clan as the social unit.
465. In view of the diverse physical surroundings of the tribes of the earth
and their intellectual differences, it cannot be surprising that they have
combined these elements of organization in various ways. In their efforts to
secure food, good marriage relations, protection of property, and defense
against enemies, they have from time to time adopted such measures as the
circumstances made desirable and possible. There is evidence that in some
instances clans have changed their social regulations, sometimes by a
process of internal growth, sometimes by borrowing from without. It is not
always possible to trace such movements, and it is impossible now to say
what the earliest social constitution of men was. The probability is that the
earliest state was an unformed one, without governmental or other

institutions, and that totemism was one of the first attempts to introduce
order into society. In accordance with what is said above, the term
'totemism' may be used to mean particularly a simple alliance between men
and nonhuman things, and then more generally to mean such an alliance
combined in whatever way, with one or more of the particular customs
described in preceding paragraphs.819
466. Geographical survey of totemistic usages. If totemism be taken in the
simpler sense, as a certain sort of intimate relation between men and
nonhuman things, it will be found to be widely distributed in the
noncivilized world. Its occurrence becomes rarer in proportion as adjuncts
are attached to it; as is remarked above, it is hardly possible to find a clan
whose constitution embraces all adjuncts. Where usages like exogamy
occur, or where there is reverence for an object, without belief in a definite,
nontheistic relation between a human clan and a nonhuman object, we
cannot recognize totemism proper; such usages must be treated as
belonging to man's general attitude toward his nonhuman associates. The
question whether they represent germinal or decadent totemism, or neither,
must be considered separately in every case.
467. The two great totemistic regions of the world are Australia and North
America, and in each of these the variations of custom run through the
gamut of possible differences. In each of them also the native population
may include different stocks, though on this point there is uncertainty.
Differences of climate and topographical situations there are, but these do
not always account for the diversities of culture and custom.820
468. Australia. In the heart of Central Australia (the home of the Arunta and
other tribes) there are clans that bear the names of their totems, and trace
their descent from half-human totem ancestors, with whom they consider
themselves to be identical; totems, however, are not hereditary, but are
determined by the ancestor connected with the place where the mother first
becomes aware of the child within her; each clan performs magical
ceremonies to secure a supply of its totem for the associated clans, and,
when the totem is an animal or a plant, hunts or gathers it and brings it to be
distributed; at the distribution the headman of the providing clan must eat a
little of the food ceremonially, and at other times clansmen eat of it

sparingly;821 the rule of exogamy relates not to the totemic clans, but to the
phratries or subphratries.
469. In the South Central region these features are found, with an exception
in the rule concerning eating one's totem. Sometimes, as in the Urabanna
tribe, such eating is forbidden. But among the Warramunga there is a
relaxation of the rule in the case of old people—for them the food
restriction is removed (apparently a humanitarian provision); on the other
hand, for other clansfolk there is an extension of the rule—the prohibition
includes two subclasses of the moiety to which the clan belongs, and
conditionally includes the whole moiety (this is perhaps a cautionary
measure, to guard against the possibility of unlawful eating on the part of
clansmen).
470. The special feature in North Australia (on the shores of the Gulf of
Carpentaria) is the absolute prohibition of eating the totem. In regard to the
performance of magical ceremonies for increase of the totem also there is
the peculiarity that a clan is not bound to conduct such performances—it is
optional with it to do so or not; it has magical power, but is not required by
custom to exercise it. It is suggested by Spencer and Gillen that this
variation from the usage of the Central region is to be attributed to the more
regular rainfall on the coast, which insures a more regular supply of food
and thus does away with the necessity for magic.822 Possibly, also, this
climatic feature may account for the stricter rule of prohibition mentioned
above; as the rule is sometimes relaxed when it is hard to get food, so, on
the other hand, it may be strictly enforced when food is plentiful.
471. Still a different situation appears in the southeastern part of the
continent (New South Wales and Victoria)—several prominent features of
the Central system are absent. The Dieri clans bear the names of their
totems, from which also they think themselves descended, but they eat them
freely. Some adjacent tribes eat them only at a pinch, others refrain from
them. The clans of the Narrinyeri are mostly localized, and the clan-names
are not now those of the totems;823 the totems are eaten. The Kurnai show
the greatest divergence from the ordinary type—they have neither totemic
clans nor exogamous classes; their rule of exogamy relates to districts.
Throughout the southeast the conduct of magical economic ceremonies by
clans, every clan being responsible for its own totem, seems not to exist.

472. In certain tribes (the Wotjoballuk, the Yuin, the Kurnai, and others)
there are sex-patrons, animals intimately related to all the males or all the
females of the tribe; the belief is said to be that the life of any individual of
the animal group is the life of a man or a woman, and neither sex group will
kill its patron animal. So far as regards the conception of identity with the
animal and reverence for it, the institution agrees with the usual totemic
type; but since it is not connected with clans, some such designation for the
animal as "patron" or "guardian" is to be preferred to "totem."824 Such
animals, protectors of sexes, are of rare occurrence, having been certainly
found so far only in Southeast Australia, and they occur in a body of tribes
that show a disposition to discard the clan constitution. In this region
individual men also sometimes have animal guardians, so that a general
tendency toward individualism may be recognized. It is not unnatural to
connect this tendency with the fertility of the south coast, which may
weaken the clan organization. The organization by sex is a singular
phenomenon, of the history of which there are no records. It is doubtless a
special development of the widespread separation of the sexes, combined
with an increasing recognition of the property rights and the social equality
of women. At an early age boys were often kept apart from girls. Special
taboos, of food and other things, were imposed on women. On the other
hand, they were in some cases the owners of the tribal property, and were
sometimes admitted to membership in secret societies. The organization of
the sex would follow under peculiarly favorable conditions.825
473. The remaining districts of Australia have been less carefully
investigated than the central and southern parts, and information about their
totemistic customs is not always satisfactory. So far as the accounts go there
is a widespread divergence from simple clan organization in these districts.
In Northeast Australia (Queensland) there are exogamous subclasses, and
no clan taboos. In the southwest not clans but families are the social units;
these trace their descent from animals, and there are individual animal
patrons. In the northwest no clan organization is reported; there is class
exogamy, and in the magical ceremonies the performers are taken from the
exogamous classes.
474. Torres Straits Islands. These noteworthy variations in the totemism of
the Australian continent appear to be connected in a general way with
differences of climate and the degree of isolation of the clans and tribes.

Similar variations appear in the Torres Straits islands and in British New
Guinea. In the western islands of the Straits (the only part in which distinct
totemism has been found) the social organization is to a certain extent
independent of totemic relations: the clans are locally segregated, and
marriage is mainly regulated by blood-kinship. On the other hand, an
intimate relation between a man and his totem is recognized—the latter, as a
rule, is not eaten by the related clansmen (there are exceptions), magical
economic ceremonies are performed by certain clans, and there is clan
exogamy. A possible survival of an early social arrangement is the existence
of subsidiary totems.
475. There is also a rudimentary cult of heroes: two of these (animal in
form) have shrines and effigies, annual dances are performed in their honor,
and stones are shown in which their souls are supposed to dwell. The
resemblance of this cult to certain forms of worship in Polynesia (in Samoa,
for example) is apparent; the stones may be compared with similar abodes
of superhuman animals or spirits in Central Australia and elsewhere; the
myths connect the two animal heroes with the origin of totems—a common
procedure. One hero, Kwoiam of Mabuiag, is said to have been a real man,
and to have been almost deified; divinization of dead men is not unusual in
Polynesia.
476. New Guinea. In the eastern portion of British New Guinea the
peculiarities of organization are826 that the people live in hamlets; that there
is generally a combination of totems in a clan; and that special regard is
paid to the father's totem. There is no report of belief in descent from the
totem.827 The hamlets tend to become family groups, but clan exogamy is
observed. The system of "linked totems" seems to be designed to secure
superhuman aid from all departments of the nonhuman world: ordinarily
there will be a bird, a fish, a snake, and a plant—the bird has come to be the
most important of these. A man may kill his own totem but not his father's
—a rule that has arisen perhaps from a displacement of matrilineal descent
(according to which a man's totem is that of his mother) by descent through
the father. So far as appears, there are no magical ceremonies for increase of
the supply of food. In both New Guinea and the Straits the fact that old
customs are disappearing under foreign influence increases the difficulty of
determining whether certain usages are primitive or decadent.

477. Melanesia. The social organization in the vast mass of islands called
Melanesia828 has not been fully investigated, but the existence of some
general features has been established. Society is divided not into clans or
tribes, but into exogamous classes, and the classificatory system of
relationships is general. The rules governing marriage are less elaborate
than in Australia, the method of initiation is simpler, and the political
organization is more definite. In regard to other usages commonly
associated with totemism the reported details are not numerous. There
appears to be a movement away from Australian totemism, growing more
pronounced as we go eastward, and culminating in Fiji, in which totemic
features are very rare.
478. In the Bismarck Archipelago every class has connected with it certain
animals regarded as relatives, but in New Britain, apparently, not as
ancestors.829 In New Ireland dances imitating the movements of the sacred
animals are performed. Such animals are treated with great respect, and the
relation to them constitutes a bond of union between members of a class.
479. Some peculiarities appear in the Solomon Islands. While there is the
usual regard for the sacred objects (called buto), so that these are not to be
eaten (in some cases not to be touched or seen), the names of the classes are
not always those of the sacred things, and there is difference of opinion
among the natives as to whether the latter are ancestors or merely
associated with an ancestor: a man (particularly a chief) may announce that
after death he will be incarnate in a given thing, as, for example, a banana—
this then becomes sacred. But in some cases830 the god of the class is
regarded as the ancestor; instead of a number of sacred animals there is a
theistic system with regular worship—a state of things quite distinct from
totemism.831
480. In the New Hebrides group there is mention of a slight magical
ceremony performed by a member of a class to attract a class animal, but
there is no rule against eating the object whose name the class bears. The
usage in the Santa Cruz group in regard to eating, and the belief as to
descent from the sacred object, differ in different islands; they are
sometimes lax and vague, sometimes strict and definite.

481. Belief in a vital connection between a man and some object chosen by
himself is found in the Banks Islands; there is an obvious similarity
between such an object and the North American manitu. Further, the belief
is reported by Rivers that in these islands the character of a child is
determined by an edible object from which the mother, before the birth of
the child, received some sort of influence; the child will resemble the object
or be identified with it, and will not, throughout life, eat of it.832
482. In the easternmost group, the Fijian, the relation between the tribes and
their associated sacred animals and plants was, and is, various. The rule was
that these should not be injured, and, if edible, should not be eaten. But
alongside of such sacred objects real gods are found; these dwell or are
incarnate in certain birds, fish, and plants, and sometimes in men. In one
district, in the interior of the large island Viti Levu, Rivers learned that
every village had its deity, which in many cases might turn into an animal,
and the animal would then become taboo;833 the familiar custom of not
eating a sacred thing was thus extended to any new object of this sort. The
functions of the tribal sacred animals approached in some points those of
gods: they were consulted by magicians on important occasions (war,
sickness, marriage). It was supposed (somewhat as in the Banks Islands)
that the tribal sacred animal appeared to a mother just before the birth of her
child.
483. Thus in Melanesia, along with a large mass of sacred objects
connected more or less intimately with social units (but not with clans
proper), there are usages and ideas that are commonly found associated
with clan totemism (belief in descent from a sacred thing and refusal to eat
it when it is edible), but also other ideas and usages (omens from animals;
superhuman determination, before a child's birth, of its character; creation
of a new sacred thing by an individual man) that look away from clan
organization to an individualistic form of society.834
484. Micronesia and Polynesia. The character of the social organization in
Micronesia (the Caroline and Pelew groups, with which may be included
the little island of Tikopia, southeast of the Santa Cruz group) is not very
well known, but the published reports indicate a considerable divergence
from clan totemism. The westernmost island of the Carolines, Uap (or Yap),
according to a recent observer,835 retains many old beliefs, is without an

exogamous system, and has a large apparatus of spirits and gods. Elsewhere
in the Carolines and in Tikopia there are non-exogamous social groups,
sacred animals greatly revered, and in some places belief in descent from an
animal-god. Sacred animals and village gods (with exogamous families) are
found in the Pelew group.836 The diversity in Micronesian customs may be
due in part to mixture of tribes resulting from migrations.
485. In Polynesia the family is generally the social unit, and there is a fairly
good political organization, with more or less developed pantheons. Gods
are held to be incarnate in animals and trees, but there are also great gods
divorced to some extent from phenomena. The theistic development is
noteworthy in Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, and Tonga, and there
are elaborate forms of worship with priests and temples. The existing
organization is not totemic, but here, as elsewhere in similar cases, the
question has been raised whether or not the gods have arisen from sacred
(or, more definitely, totemic) animals and plants,837 and whether, in general,
the existing organization was preceded by one approaching totemism.838
486. Indonesia. The Battas of the interior of Sumatra have clan exogamy
(but the clans live mixed together), and every clan has sacred animals which
it is unlawful to eat. One clan on the west coast asserts its descent from a
tiger. In the Moluccas villages claim descent from animals or plants, and
these are taboo. The indications of totemic organization in Borneo are
slight: there are sacred animals that are not eaten, and there is a vague
feeling of kinship with animals—phenomena that are not necessarily
totemic. The belief of the Sea Dyaks in individual guardians is to be
distinguished from general respect for sacred animals.
487. India. The non-Aryan peoples of India are divided into a large number
of exogamous clans, each with its sacred object, which it is unlawful to
injure or use.839 A departure from ordinary totemic usage appears in the fact
that in many cases the sacred objects receive worship. The social
constitution of these peoples seems to have undergone modifications, partly
through adoption of agriculture (which has occurred generally), partly by
direct Hindu religious influence; the history of the non-Aryans, however, is
obscure in many points. The Aryans of India have exogamy but not
totemism, and this is true in part of the Assamese. Totemism has not been
observed in Burma840 and China, or in the Malay Peninsula.

488. North America. The North American native tribes, scattered over a
large territory, with widely different climatic and topographical features,
and themselves divided into half a dozen linguistic stocks, show great
diversities of social organization. While exogamous groups (clans,
phratries, and local groups) are found almost everywhere, there is little
precise information about certain fundamental points of totemic systems,
particularly customs of killing and eating the totem and belief in descent
from it. With a general apparatus that often suggests an original totemism,
the American social type differs considerably from the Australian,
resembling in some respects the Melanesian and the Polynesian, but with
peculiarities that difference it from these. Among the Eskimo and the
Californians no definite signs of totemism have been discovered. Among
the other peoples the Rocky Mountain range makes a line of demarcation—
the tribes of the Pacific Coast differ in organization decidedly not only from
their eastern neighbors but also from all other known savage and half-
civilized peoples. There are points of similarity to these, but the general
Pacific Coast type is unique.
489. Beginning with the Eastern tribes, we find that the Iroquois and their
allies (Mohawks, Senecas, and others),841 mainly agricultural, had the tribe
or the phratry rather than the clan as their political and religious unit. The
Iroquois League, organized by the great statesman Hiawatha in the fifteenth
century, was a federal union of five (later of six) tribes that showed
remarkable political wisdom and skill. The great festivals were tribal. The
clan is recognized in a myth that describes the metamorphosis of a turtle
into a man who became the progenitor of the clan of that name, and it was
socially influential by reason of the brotherhood that existed among
members of clans having the same name in different tribes, and through the
fact that a man's personal name was the property of the clan. The totem
figure was used as a badge. Whether or not the totem was killed and eaten is
not known. In the form, then, in which it is known, the Iroquois
organization cannot be called totemic—whether it was originally such must
be left undetermined.
490. The Cherokees, belonging to the southern division of the Iroquois
stock (living formerly in Tennessee and North Carolina), killed the animals
they respected, but with ceremonies. Their Green Corn dance, the object of

which was to insure a good crop, was expiatory, and was accompanied by a
general amnesty.842

491. Wyandot (Huron) myths843 account for their Snake and Hawk clans by
stories of marriages between women and a snake or a hawk; here human
beings are assumed to have existed before the genesis of the clan (a
difference from the Australian scheme), but it is true that the clan is held to
have descended in part from an animal.

492. In the great Algonkin stock844 the evidence for a distinct totemic
organization is similarly indefinite. The Lenâpé (Delawares), who were
agricultural and well advanced in manufacture, gave prominence to families
rather than to clans, and the totem was a badge. The Ojibwas, hunters
(dwelling by the Great Lakes and in the valley of the St. Lawrence),845 also
used their sacred animal forms as badges; whether they ate such animals or
claimed descent from them we are not informed. The friendly relation
existing between the Otter and Beaver clans is explained by a story of a
marriage between an Otter clansman and a Beaver woman. For the
Potawatamies it was lawful to kill and eat the totem. The Ottawas (of
Canada) and the combined Sauks and Foxes (of the Mississippi Valley) had
traditions of descent from the totem. The Menomini (of the same region)
would kill the totem, but always with an apology to it; their myths embody
varying conceptions of the relation of eponymous animals to clans:
sometimes the origin of a clan is referred to the action of a supernatural
being who changed a bear, for example, into a man, or to adventures of
animals; sometimes eponymous birds (eagle and hawk) are described as
being spirits or deities. Such introduction of supernatural beings involves a
deviation from the conception of the eponymous animal as independent
creator of a clan.846
493. For the tribes bordering on the Gulf of Mexico no signs have been
preserved of an organization based on the relation between clans and
eponymous animals, plants, and other objects. The great Maskoki stock
(including Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasas, and some other less
important tribes) had a well-formed political system, and their religion was
represented by the Chief Magician or Priest (Medicine Man). They
performed magical ceremonies for increase of food, but these were tribal,

and the Creek annual fast (puskita, busk) had high religious and ethical
significance.847
494. The Caddoan group, dwelling formerly west of the Mississippi, in
Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, had an approach to specific totemism. In
the Caddo tribe clansmen refrained from killing the eponymous animal; but
all members of the tribe refrained from killing eagles and panthers. Whether
this custom represents former clan restrictions is uncertain. For the related
Skidi Pawnee (who formerly dwelt in the Nebraska region) there is
evidence, from folk-tales, of a belief in the origin of clans from marriages
between human beings and animals, and of belief that through such
marriages benefits accrued to the people. But such beliefs appear not to
have affected the Pawnee social organization.848
495. The Nakchi (Natchez) people (of the lower Mississippi Valley) dwelt
in villages that had such names as "pond-lily people," "hickory people,"
"swan people," "forest people." These are possibly survivals of totemic
names, but there is no account of the existence of totemic groups among
them. On the other hand, they had a highly developed sun-worship, with
human sacrifices.
496. Customs in the Siouan stock vary. In the Dakota tribe there is no
known evidence of totemism. The Omahas (of the Missouri Valley), who
are partly agriculturalists, partly hunters, refrain from eating or using
eponymous objects, certain clans are credited with magical power over such
objects, and there are traces, in ceremonies and myths, of the descent of
clans, each from its eponym. This combination of more definite totemistic
conceptions is not found in any other member of the Siouan stock. The
Osages had a tradition or myth of their descent from animals, but their civil
organization was nontotemic—they were divided into two groups, termed
respectively the Peace Side and the War Side, and the members of the
former group took no animal life, though they ate flesh that they obtained
from the War Side. The origin of this custom is uncertain—the two
divisions of the tribe, the hunters and the tillers of the soil, exchanged
products, but how this division of labor arose (whether from a union of two
tribes or otherwise) is not clear. Among the Hidatsa, it is reported, there was
a belief that spirit children might enter into a woman and be born into the
world. The resemblance to the Central Australian belief is striking, but it

does not appear that such entrance of spirit children was supposed to be the
only mode of human birth. The Mandans (living on the Missouri River, in
North Dakota) now have no totemic system; but little or nothing is known
of their early history.849 In the Siouan tribes the figure of the individual
animal guardian (the manitu or "medicine") plays a prominent rôle.
497. There are indications that the institutions of the Pueblo tribes (who are
now wholly agricultural) have undergone modifications, perhaps under
foreign (Spanish) influence. Hopi myths represent clans as descended from
ancestors originally animal, and transformed into human shape by deities.
But the elaborate sun-worship and the complicated solstice ceremonies are
tribal.850 The Zuñi economic ceremonies appear to have passed from under
clan control. Thus, the magical ceremony for procuring rain, properly the
function of the Frog clan, is now in the hands of rain-priests; and the
magical, dramatic performances for insuring a supply of food are conducted
by nontotemic religious fraternities. The great Snake "dance" may have
been originally a totemic ceremony intended to secure rain and corn.851
498. For a former totemic organization among the Navahos, Apaches, and
Mohaves (these last live on the Colorado River) there are only vague
traditions and other faint traces; the taboos on foods now touch not a
particular clan but a whole tribe.
499. The coast tribes of Northwest America (in British Columbia and the
United States)852 differ in social organization from the other Indians in
several respects, and particularly in the importance they attach to rank, in
their employment of the crest or badge, and in the prominence they give to
the individual guardian animal or spirit.
500. In the civil organization of the Carrier division of the Déné, the Salish,
the Kwakiutl, and other tribes, three or four castes or groups are recognized:
hereditary nobles; the middle class, whose position is based on property;
and the common folk; and to these is to be added among some tribes the
class of slaves. In the summer ceremonies the men are seated according to
class and rank. The family pride of the nobles is great—every family has its
traditions and pedigrees. In such a scheme the zoönymous clan plays an
insignificant part. Classes and clans are mixed in the villages in which, for
the most part, these people live, and trade is prominent in their life. The

curious custom of the "potlatch"—a man invites his friends and neighbors
to a gathering and makes them magnificent presents, his reputation being
great in proportion to the extent of his gifts—appears to be a device for
laying up property; the host in his turn receives presents from friends and
neighbors.
501. The employment of a sacred object as a badge or crest, a sign of tribal
or clan position, is found, as is noted above,853 in various parts of the
world: in the Torres Straits islands, in the Aru archipelago (west of New
Guinea), and in North America among the Iroquois, the Lenâpé
(Delawares), the Pueblos, and perhaps among the Potawatamies. In these
tribes, however, the rôle of the badge is relatively unimportant—it is
employed for decorative purposes, but does not enter fundamentally into the
organization of the clan or the tribe. In Northwest America, on the other
hand, it is of prime significance both in decoration and in organization—it,
to a great extent, takes the place occupied elsewhere by the totem, and it is
not always identical with the eponymous object of the clan, though this may
be an accidental result of shifting social relations (new combinations of
clans, or a borrowing of a device from a neighbor).
502. The crest. The origin of this function of the crest and its relation to the
function of the totem is not clear; it may have arisen in different ways in
different places, or different conceptions may have been combined in the
same place. The decorative use is an independent fact, having no necessary
connection with clan organization; the demand for decoration is universal
among savages, and the employment of sacred objects for this purpose is
natural. Figures of such objects are used, however, in magical procedures—
abundantly, for example, in Central Australia—and it is conceivable that
such use by a clan may have converted the totemic object into a symbol or
device. The artistic employment of figures of sacred objects has been
developed on the American Pacific Coast to a remarkable extent; the great
poles standing in front of houses or erected in memory of the dead have
carved on them histories of the relation of the family or of the deceased
person to certain animals and events. These so-called totem poles
presuppose, it is true, reverence for the sacred symbol, but the custom may
possibly have grown simply out of artistic and historical (or biographical)
motives.

503. Perhaps, however, we must assume or include another line of
development. The crest may be regarded either as the non-artistic
modification or degradation of an original true totem (due to diminished
reverence for animals and other causes), or as an employment of sacred
objects (for purposes of organization) that has not reached the proportions
of totemism proper. Which of these views will seem the more probable will
depend partly on the degree of importance assigned to certain traditions and
folk-stories of the Northwestern tribes, partly on one's construction of the
general history of totemistic observances. In so obscure a subject a definite
theory can hardly be maintained. The large number of stories in which the
beginnings of clan life are attributed to marriages between clansmen and
eponymous animals, or to beneficent or other adventures with such animals,
may appear to indicate that there was an underlying belief in the descent of
clans from animals. On the other hand, in certain low tribes (in New Britain
and the Solomon Islands and elsewhere) the feeling of kinship with animals
is said to exist without the belief that they are ancestors, or the animal is
regarded as the representative of a human ancestor rather than as itself the
ancestor. This latter view may be a bit of euhemeristic rationalism.854
504. While guardian spirits (generally in animal form) are found
abundantly in America and elsewhere,855 their rôle in the tribes of the
Pacific Coast appears to be specially important, for there they largely take
the place occupied in Central Australia by the clan totems. They are not
wholly lacking, however, in Australia. Among the nontotemic Kurnai of
Southeast Australia there are animal patrons of the sexes and of shamans
and other individuals. In like manner the shamans of the Pacific Coast
Haidas and Tlingit have their guardians, and sometimes secret societies are
similarly provided; in the winter ceremonies of the Kwakiutl the youth is
supposed to be possessed by the patron of the society to which he belongs.
We thus have, apparently, similar and mutually independent developments
in Australia and America out of the early relations of men with animals.
505. The Eskimo live in small groups, and marriage is locally unrestricted.
There is the usual reverence for animals, with folk-stories of animal
creators and of transformations, but no well-defined marks of totemism, and
no recognition of individual protecting animal-spirits.

506. In the Californian tribes, which are among the least developed in
America, no traces of totemistic organization have been found.856 The
people live, or lived, in villages. The shamans, who are important members
of the communities, have their familiar spirits, acquired through dreams and
by ascetic observances; but these belong to the widespread apparatus of
magic, and differ in their social function from guardian spirits proper.
507. There are no definite marks of totemism in Central and Northeastern
Asia, and few such marks in Africa. The Siberian Koryaks believe in a
reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals, but their social
organization is not determined by this belief. Certain clans of the Ainu
(inhabiting the northernmost islands of the Japan archipelago) are said to
regard as ancestors the animals whose names they bear, but this belief
appears to be socially unimportant. Marriage is not controlled by clan
relations.
508. Throughout savage Africa sacred animals, plants, and other objects
play a great part in life, but generally without assuming a specifically
totemistic rôle.

509. In the great Bantu family the usages vary greatly.857 One of the most
interesting systems is that of the Bakuana (in the south). Here the
eponymous animal approaches divinity—not only is it killed with regret, it
is a thing to swear by, and has magical power; but independence of the
totem appears in the fact that it may be changed; that is, it is a friend
adopted by men at their convenience. It is in accord with this conception
that the Bakuana (who are pastoral and agricultural) have clan gods.
Beyond taboos on sacred objects there is nothing in the Bantu territory that
clearly indicates a totemistic organization of society.
510. In the half-civilized and higher savage communities of the eastern and
western parts of the continent totemism proper, if it has ever been
predominant, has been expelled or depressed by higher forms of
organization. It seems not to exist among the Masai, a vigorous people with
an interesting theistic system. The neighboring Nandi, who have clan
totems, lay stress rather on the family than on the clan in their marriage
laws, and their taboos include more than their totems; their excessive regard
for the hyena may be due simply to their fear of the animal.858

511. The half-civilized Baganda (of the British Uganda Protectorate) refrain
from injuring clan totems, but the functions of the clans are now political
and religious (relating, for example, to the building of temples) under the
control of a quasi-royal government; there is almost complete absence of
magical ceremonies for the multiplication or control of sacred objects.859
Old marriage laws are relaxed—a king may marry his sister (as in ancient
Egypt). Free dealing with totems is illustrated by the adoption of a new
cooking-pot as totem by one clan. The cult of the python obtains here, as in
West Africa. Among the neighboring Banyoro, and among the Bahima
(west of Victoria Nyanza), who are herdsmen with a kingly government,
there is the usual reverence for animals, but eponymous animals are not
important for the social organization.
512. In West Africa also definite totemistic organization has not been found.
Everywhere there is reverence for the eponymous sacred thing, and, when it
is edible, refusal to eat it; but the taboos are sometimes, as in Siena (which
is agricultural), more extensive than the list of sacred things. In Southern
Nigeria at funerals (and sometimes on other occasions) the totem animal or
plant is offered, in the form of soup, to the dead; the animal or plant in such
cases is regarded, apparently, simply or mainly as acceptable food for
ghosts—the offering is a part of ancestor-worship. In Congo families have
sacred animals (as in Samoa) which they abstain from eating. Here and
there occurs belief in the reincarnation of deceased human beings in
animals. A negro fetish, becoming intimately associated with a clan,
sometimes resembles a totem. The half-civilized Ashanti, Dahomi, and
Yoruba have elaborate theistic systems, with monarchical governments that
leave no place for a totemistic organization.860
513. Madagascar, before it came under European control, had a well-
defined religious and political hierarchy.861 Along with its very elaborate
tabooism the island has beliefs concerning animals that are found in totemic
systems but do not take the form of totemism proper. The animal is
regarded as an ancestor or a patron, but clans do not take their names from
animals, there is no general rule of exogamy, and there is no word
corresponding exactly to the word 'totem.' The question arises whether the
Malagasy system is a stage antecedent to totemism proper or an attenuated
survival of it.862

514. Alleged survivals of totemism among civilized peoples. Though
totemism, as a system of social organization, is not recognizable in any
civilized community, ancient or modern, it is held by some scholars that the
fragments or hints of such a system that are certified bear witness to its
former existence in these communities.863
515. In fact certain ideas and customs that occur in connection with savage
totemism are found abundantly among ancient Semites, Greeks and
Romans, and in Celtic and Teutonic lands. They are such as the following: a
tribe or clan bears an animal name, and regards itself as akin to the animal
in question and as descended from it; this animal is sacred, not to be killed
or eaten (except ceremonially), and, when it dies, is to be buried solemnly;
sacred animals aid men by furnishing omens, or even by protecting from
harm; they are sacrificed on critical occasions (sometimes once every year),
and in some cases the killing of the sacrificial animal is treated as a crime;
animal-gods are worshiped, and gods are thought to be incarnate in animals;
men change into animals and animals into men; certain animals are sacred
to certain deities; human worshipers dress in imitation of animal forms (by
wearing skins of beasts and by other devices); a man's tribal mark is derived
from the form of an animal; the death of the sacrificial animal comes to be
regarded as the death of a god; the form of social organization in certain
ancient communities is similar to that with which totemism is usually found
associated.
516. Not all of these points are found in any one case, but their occurrence
over so wide an area, it is argued, is most naturally explicable by the
assumption of an original totemism of which these are the survivals. It is
suggested also that they may be an inheritance from savage predecessors of
the civilized peoples.
517. It will be sufficient to mention a few examples of the beliefs and
usages that appear to point to an original totemism.864 Names of clans and
tribes derived from animals or plants are not uncommon: Hebrew Raḫel
(Rachel, ewe), perhaps Kaleb (dog) and Yael (Jael, mountain goat);865
Greek Kunnadai (dog), and perhaps Myrmidon (ant); Roman Porcius (hog),
Fabius (bean); Irish Coneely (seal); Teutonic clan-names like Wolfing and
the like. Belief in a general kinship of men and animals existed among
Semites, Greeks, and Romans. On the other hand, belief in the descent of a

clan from an animal rarely appears: it is apparently not found in the Semitic
area; the Ophiogeneis of Parium (in Asia Minor) are said to have regarded
themselves as akin to snakes and to have traced their genos (family or clan)
to a hero who was at first a snake;866 the Myrmidons, according to one
tradition, were transformed ants, and some of the Irish Coneely clan are
said to have been changed into seals. Transformations of men into animals
are common in Greek mythology. Taboos of certain foods were observed
abundantly in the ancient world: by Egyptians,867 Hebrews,868 Greeks,869
and Romans,870 and by Celts.871 Among the various omen-giving animals
some may have been totems. Solemn annual sacrifices, followed by
mourning for the victims, were performed in Egypt,872 and the slaying of
the sacrificial animal was treated as murder in various Greek cities.873
Living animals were worshiped in Egypt, and everywhere in antiquity gods
assumed animal forms, and certain animals were sacred to certain gods.
Worshipers clothed themselves in the skins of sacrificed animals in Egypt,
Cyprus, and Rome.874 Tribal marks and ensigns were sometimes derived
from figures of animals.875 Finally, there are traces, in the early history of
the ancient civilized peoples, of the form of social organization with which
savage totemism is found associated.876
518. It is possible that such facts as these may point to a primitive totemistic
stage of ancient civilized society. But it is to be noted that the usages in
question almost all relate to the general sacredness of animals (or of plants),
not to their specific character as totems. They occur in lower tribes in cases
where totemism does not exist.877 Animal clan-names and tribe-names,
belief in kinship with animals and plants and in descent from them,
exogamy, transformations, refusal to eat certain animals except
ceremonially, apologies for killing them, omens derived from them,
worship of animal-gods, incarnations of gods in animals, animals sacred to
gods, tribal marks derived from animals—all these are found in such
diverse social combinations that it is impossible to infer merely from the
occurrence of this or that custom the existence of the peculiar form of social
organization to which the name 'totemism' proper is given above. The same
remark holds of inferences from the general constitution of early society; a
custom of matrilineal descent, for example, by no means carries totemism
with it.

519. The evidence for the existence of totemism among the ancient civilized
peoples, consisting, as it does, of detached statements of customs that are
found elsewhere without totemism, is not decisive. Animal-worship has
played a great rôle in religious history, but the special part assigned to
totemism has often been exaggerated. It has been held that the latter is at the
base of all beliefs in the sacredness of animals and plants, or that certain
usages (such as those mentioned above) are inexplicable except on the
supposition of an original totemism. These positions are not justified by
known facts, and it will conduce to clearness to give totemism its distinct
place in that general regard for animals and plants of which it is a peculiar
part.

520. Totemistic forms of society, as far as our present knowledge goes, are
found only among the lower peoples, and among these a perplexing variety
of conditions exists. As our review of what may be called totemistic
features shows,878 the one permanent element in the relation between men
and nonhuman, nondivine objects is reverence for these last on men's part;
and the conception of an alliance, defensive and offensive, between the two
groups has been proposed above as an additional differentia of totemism, a
sense of kinship being involved. If we further add the condition that the
social organization (not necessarily exogamous) must be determined by this
alliance, we have all that can safely be demanded in a definition of
totemism; but as much as this seems necessary if totemism is to be marked
off as a definite institution.
521. From the point of view of religious history the important thing in any
social organization is its character as framework for religious ideas and
customs. If the central social fact is an intimate relation between a human
group and a nonhuman class of natural objects, then conceptions regarding
this relation may gather about it, and these will be as various as the tribes of
men. The elements of social and religious institutions spring from the
universal human nature and attach themselves to any form of life that may
have been suggested by circumstances. Thus the term 'totemism' may be
used loosely to denote any combination of customs connected with the idea
of an alliance between man and other things, and the alliance itself may
exist in various degrees of intimacy. The restricted definition suggested
above is in part arbitrary, but it may serve as a working hypothesis and as a
norm by which to estimate and define the various systems or cults involving
a relation between human groups and individuals on the one side and
nonhuman things on the other side.
522. Conditions favorable and unfavorable to totemistic organization. The
questions whether totemism was the earliest form of human social life and
whether existing freer forms are developments out of definite totemism may
be left undetermined. Data for the construction of primitive life are not
accessible, and how far decay or decadence of institutions is to be
recognized must be determined in every case from such considerations as
are offered by the circumstances. We may, however, distinguish between
social conditions in connection with which some sort of totemism flourishes

and those under which it is nonexistent or feeble; we may thus note
unfavorable and, by contrast, favorable general accompaniments. These
may be roughly described as economic, individualistic, political, and
religious.
523. Economic conditions. Of savage and slightly civilized tribes some live
by hunting or fishing, some are pastoral (nomadic or settled), some practice
agriculture. Without undertaking to trace minutely the history of these
economic practices it may be assumed that they are fixed in general by
climatic and topographical conditions. Where food is plentiful, thought and
life are likely to be freer. In general, savage peoples are constantly on the
alert to discover supplies of food, and they show ingenuity in devising
economic methods—when one resource fails they look for another. Hunters
and fishers are dependent on wild animals for food, and stand in awe of
them. The domestication of animals leads men to regard them simply as
material for the maintenance of life—the mystery that once attached to
them vanishes; they are considered not as man's equals or superiors but as
his servants. The same result follows when they are used as aids in tilling
the soil or in transportation. Agricultural peoples also have generally some
knowledge of the arts of life and a somewhat settled civil and political
organization, and these tend to separate them from the lower animals and to
diminish or destroy their sense of kinship with them.
524. We find, in fact, that in many cases totemic regulations are less strict
where the food supply is plentiful and where agriculture is practiced. The
correspondence is not exact—other considerations come in, such as
isolation and the unknown quantity of natural tribal endowments; but the
relation between the economic and totemic conditions is so widespread that
it cannot be considered as accidental.
525. Thus, for example, the contrast between the social system of sterile
Central Australia and that of certain tribes on the comparatively fertile
southeast coast is marked; the Kurnai have practically no clan totemism. In
the islands of Torres Straits and in New Guinea agriculture marks a dividing
line between stricter and looser organizations based on regard for the totem.
The agricultural Melanesian and Polynesian tribes, with great regard for
animal patrons, lay stress on the family or on voluntary associations rather
than on the clan. In Africa the partially civilized peoples, such as the

Baganda and adjacent tribes in the east, and Yoruba, Dahomi, and Ashanti
in the west, have fairly well-developed religious organizations, in which
totems play a subordinate part. The customs of certain tribes in the south are
especially worthy of note: the pastoral Herrero have a double system of
clans, maternal and paternal, and their food restrictions are curiously
minute, relating to parts of animals or to their color; the Bakuana, who are
pastoral and agricultural, kill the clan eponymous animals, though
unwillingly, and appear not to regard them as ancestors. The non-Aryan
tribes of India have been so long in contact with Aryan civilization that in
many cases, as it seems, their original customs have been obscured, but at
present among such agricultural tribes as the Hos, the Santhals, and the
Khonds of Bengal, and some others, totemic organizations are not
prominent, and the Todas, with their buffalo-cult, show no signs of
totemism.
526. In North America the variety of climatic and other economic
conditions might lead us to expect clear testimony as to the relation
between these conditions and totemic development; but the value of such
testimony is impaired by the absence of information concerning early forms
of organization. In the period for which there are details it appears that in
the Eastern groups (Iroquois, Algonkin, Creek, Natchez, Siouan, Pueblo)
the effective rôle of totemism is in inverse proportion to the development of
agriculture and to stable civil organization: there are clans bearing the
names of animals and other objects, with mythical stories of descent from
such objects, and rules of exogamy, but the civil, political, and religious life
is largely independent of these conditions; there are great confederations of
tribes with well-devised systems of government that look to the well-being
of the whole community, the clan-division being of small importance. The
mode of life appears to be determined or greatly influenced by climate,
though different climatic situations sometimes lead to similar results:
agriculture naturally arises from fertility of soil, but the Pueblo tribes have
been driven (perhaps under civilized influences), by the aridness of their
land, to till the soil. Throughout the East the known facts suggest that a
nontotemic organization has followed an earlier form in which quasi-
totemic elements are recognizable.
527. The interesting social organization of the Northern Pacific Coast, on
the other hand, appears to be independent of agriculture. The people live by

hunting and fishing; families and villages are the important social units;
instead of totems there are crests or badges; society in some tribes is
marked by a division into classes differing in social rank. The history of all
these tribes, however, is obscure: there have been modifications of
organization through the influence of some tribes on others; the details of
the various social schemes are not all accurately known. The settled village
life and the half-commercial, half-aristocratic constitution of society must
be referred to racial characteristics and other conditions with which we are
not acquainted. As in the East, so here there is the suggestion of a
movement away from a form of organization that resembles true totemism.
The Northwest has a remarkable system of ceremonies, but in definiteness
and elevation of religious conceptions it is greatly inferior to the East.
528. The fact that some of the least-advanced American tribes, particularly
the Eskimo and the California tribes, show no signs of totemistic
organization879 makes against the view that totemism was the initial form of
human society, but its historical background is not known. In any case it
does not invalidate what is said above of the rôle of agriculture in the
modification of savage institutions. The lines of savage growth have been
various—a general law of development cannot be laid down; the history of
every community must be studied for itself, and its testimony must be given
its appropriate value. In this way it will be possible to give a sketch of
totemistic forms and suggestions, if not a history of totemism.
529. Individualistic institutions. The development of individualism, a
universal accompaniment of general social progress, is unfavorable to
totemism, since in this latter the individual is subordinated to the clan. To
assert one's self as an individual is practically to ignore the totem, whose
function pertains to the clan as a whole, without separate recognition of its
members. Revolt against the supremacy of the clan (if that expression is
allowable) has shown itself from an early social stage and in all parts of the
world. The principal forms in which it appears are the institution of
voluntary societies, and the adoption of personal guardians by individuals.
530. Secret societies. It is a common custom in the lower tribes to keep the
sexes separate and to distinguish between the initiated and the uninitiated.
There are often men's houses in which the young unmarried males are
required to live.880 Women and boys are forbidden to be present at

ceremonies of initiation when, as in some instances, the secrets of the tribe
are involved. Thus there arise frequently secret associations of males, who
conduct tribal affairs. But these associations are not voluntary—all initiated
men belong to them perforce—and they are not divorced from totemic
relations. The real voluntary society is of a quite different character. In
general, in its most developed form, it ignores differences of age, sex, and
clan. There are, however, diversities in the constitution of the various
organizations that may be called voluntary;881 conditions of membership
and functions vary.
531. Such organizations are of two sorts, one mainly political or
governmental, the other mainly religious. The best examples of the first sort
are found in Melanesia, Polynesia, and West Africa. The clan government
by the old men, of which a simple form exists in Central Australia, has
passed into, or is represented by, a society of men that undertakes to
maintain order, exact contributions, and provide amusements for the people.
The Dukduk of the Bismarck Archipelago,882 the Egbo of Old Calabar, and
the Ogboni of Yoruba,883 to take prominent examples, are police
associations that have managed to get complete control of their respective
communities and have naturally become instruments of oppression and
fraud. They have elaborate ceremonies of initiation, are terrible to women
and uninitiated males, and religion usually enters only casually and
subordinately into their activities, chiefly in the form of magical
ceremonies. A partial exception, in regard to this last point, occurs in the
case of the Areoi society of Tahiti, which, as it is the best-organized society
in Polynesia, is also the most tyrannical, and the broadest in its scope; its
members enjoy not only a large share of the good things of this life, but also
the most desirable positions in the future life.884
532. On the other hand, the North American voluntary societies are mainly
concerned with the presentation of religious ideas by the dramatization of
myths, and by demanding for membership some sort of religious
experience. How far such societies existed in the Eastern tribes it is not
possible to say. Among these tribes, as among the Skidi Pawnee, the
Navahos, and other groups of the Middle West, the control of religion has
largely passed into the hands of priests—an advance in religious
organization. Where ceremonies are conducted by societies, membership in

these is often conditioned on the adoption of a personal divine patron by
every member.
533. This adoption of a guardian spirit by the individual is the most definite
early divergence from the totemistic clan organization. An intermediate
stage is represented by the sex-patrons of Southeast Australia,885 who
embody a declaration of independence by the women. In this region,
moreover, among the Kurnai, not only shamans but all other men have each
his special "brother" and protector.886 Naturally, where the family, in
distinction from the clan, is the social unit, family protectors arise. The
Koryaks of Northeastern Asia have a guardian spirit for every family and
also for every person.887 A curious feature of Dahomi religion is the
importance that is attached to the family ghost as protector, the ghost, that
is, of a former member of the family, ordinarily its head; he has a shrine,
and becomes practically an inferior deity. Still more remarkable is the
worship that the West African native, both on the Gold Coast and on the
Slave Coast (communities with well-developed systems of royal
government), offers to his own indwelling spirit;888 the man's birthday is
sacred to the spirit and is commenced with a sacrifice.889 In Samoa a
guardian spirit (conceived of as incarnate in some animal) is selected for a
child at its birth.890 Some such custom is said to exist among the Eskimo of
the Yukon district in Alaska; a guardian animal is selected by a boy when he
arrives at the age of puberty, or it is selected for him in his early childhood
by his parents.891
534. While these examples indicate a tendency toward the adoption of
individual patrons, and may suggest that the custom is, or was, more
widespread than now appears, it is among the North American Redmen that
this sort of individualism is best developed and most effective socially and
religiously.892 There are traces of it in the Eastern tribes; but it is in its
Western form that it is best known—it is explicit among the Western
Algonkins and the Siouan tribes, and on the Northwest Pacific Coast. Most
men, though not all, seek and obtain a guardian spirit (usually represented
by an animal) which shall protect from injury and bestow prowess in war,
success in love, and all other goods of life. The spirit is, as a rule,
independent of the clan totem—is found, indeed, in nontotemic tribes; it is
often identical with the eponymous animal of some religious society. It is

sometimes inherited, but rarely—the essence of the institution is that the
guardian shall be sought and found. The preparation for the quest is by
fasting; the revelation of the guardian comes in a dream or a vision, or by
some strong impression made otherwise on the mind.
535. Among the Siouan Indians there are religious societies, each of which
bears the name of some animal and has a ritual composed of chants and
songs which, it is often claimed, have been received in a supernatural
manner.893 The youth who aspires to become a member of one of these
societies goes off alone to the forest, and there, fasting and meditating,
waits for the vision of the sign. This comes usually in the form of an
animal, and the youth enters the society whose distinguishing mark this
animal is. First, however, he must travel until he meets the animal he saw,
when he must slay it and preserve the whole or a part of it. This trophy is
the sign of his vision and is the most sacred thing he can possess, marking
as it does his personal relation to the supernatural being who has appeared
to him.
536. A similar ceremony is found among the Kwakiutl in Northwestern
America.894 The novice is supposed to stay some time with the supernatural
being who is the protector of his society. From this interview he returns in a
state of ecstasy, and is brought to a normal state by the songs and dances
and magical performances of the shaman; but before he is permitted to take
part in the ordinary pursuits of life he must undergo a ceremonial
purification. In these tribes, as is remarked above, the totemic groups have
been replaced by clans, and in the winter ceremonial these clans (according
to one report) are again replaced by the secret societies, whose function is
political only in the sense that its members form a part of the aristocracy.
Recently societies of women have been established—a fact that illustrates
the divergence of the new system from the old.
537. The details of initiation or of acquisition of the guardian spirit vary (for
example, it is not always required that the youth kill his patron animal), but
in all cases there is recognition of the emotional independence of the
individual, and there is involved a certain largeness of religious experience
in the modern sense of the term. The demand for the supernatural friend
represents a germinal desire for intimate personal relations with the divine
world; and, though the particular form that embodied the conception has

given way before more refined ideas, the conception itself has survived in
higher religions in the choice of patron saints.895
538. Political conditions. Political organization, in unifying a community
under the control of a central authority, tends to efface local self-governing
groups. This process is visible in the increased power of Melanesian chiefs,
in the royal governments of Polynesia and Western and Eastern Africa, and
in the inchoate constitutional federations of Eastern North America. In all
these cases the simple clan system is reduced to small proportions, and
totemism loses its social significance. The way in which the functions of
totemic groups are thus modified appears plainly in such governmental
systems as that of the East African Baganda (in which heads of clans have
become officers of the king's household)896 and the Iroquois Confederation
(in which the tribes act through their representatives in a national Council
or Parliament).
539. Religious conditions. The personal guardian spirit and the totem, when
it assumes this character, sometimes receive worship—they are treated as
gods. But their rôle as divinities is of an inferior nature, and it does not last
long. Deities proper came into existence as embodiments of the sense of an
extrahuman government of the world by anthropomorphic beings; they are
direct products of the constructive imagination.897 When the true gods
appear the totemic and individual half-gods disappear. We find that
totemism is feeble in proportion as theistic systems have taken shape, and
that where personal guardians are prominent there are no well-defined gods.
In Central Australia there is only a vague, inactive form that may be called
divine; a more definite conception is found in Southeastern Australia, where
the strictness of totemism is relaxed. Melanesia and Polynesia show an
increased definiteness of theistic figures. Northwestern North America is, in
comparison with the East, undeveloped in this regard. Similar relations
between totemism and theism appear in India and South America. In a
certain number of cases the facts suggest that the former system has been
superseded by the latter.
540. Cults of the totem and of individual guardian spirits are to be
distinguished from certain other forms of worship with which they have
points of connection. The West African fetish is the abode of a tutelary
spirit, and finally is absorbed by local gods; it arises, however, from belief

in the sacredness and power of inanimate things, and is without the sense of
identity with the spirit that characterizes the North American relation. The
family sacred symbols that are worshiped in some places898 are really
family gods (whether or not they were originally totems), developed,
probably, under Brahmanic influence. The worship of a tutelary spirit has
sometimes coalesced with that of an ancestor, but this is doubtless due to
the collocation of two distinct cults; at a certain stage an ancestor is
naturally regarded as friend and protector. The general potency termed
"mana" is not to be connected particularly with any one cult; it represents a
conception that probably underlies all ancient forms of worship.
541. It thus appears that several lines of social progress have proved
unfavorable to totemism, and to these movements it has generally
succumbed. Its home has been, and is, in isolated hunting communities;
agriculture and social intercourse have been fatal to it as to all early forms
of society based on a belief in kinship with nonhuman natural objects.
542. It remains to mention the principal 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 constitution 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 associated with human persons, and
might be looked on with affection or reverence and even worshiped.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 kinship, 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 passes 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 assumed. 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, constitute 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 (identity 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 identity 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 institutions.
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 institution 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 associated objects some one to be its particular friend or its
special associate,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 assumed 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 assumed for primitive men (the lower animals, indeed, show
reflection), it is held that so elaborate a system as totemism, like other
institutions, 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 assumed 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 associated
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
distinguishing 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 to be attached to a clan. This lack is supplied by the theory that
a clan was named by its neighbors after the kind of food on which it chiefly
subsisted.911 The objection to this theory is that no group of men is known
to confine itself to one article of food—savages eat whatever they can find
—and moreover contiguous groups would feed on the same kinds of food.
A view not open to this objection is that names of clans, also given from
without, expressed fancied resemblances of the persons named to animals
and other objects, or peculiarities of person or speech, or were derived from
the place of abode.912
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. "Coöperative" theories suppose that a number of groups united for
economic purposes, to each being assigned 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 coöperation, however,
assumes 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 god, 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 worshiped as
a god.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 coöperative theory, and Australia and
Melanesia the conceptional theory. The identification of totemism with
ancestor-worship 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 institution; 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
circumstances 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 kinship 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 coöperative 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 assigned the duty of producing a
supply of some sort of food. Following the general tendency to genealogical
construction, the belief in kinship 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 association 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
cöoperation 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 amusement? 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 assumption 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 clans921—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 principal
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 rôle sometimes
assigned 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 attitude 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
entitled 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 clanship, however, differed from ordinary human clanship 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 kinship 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 worship 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 god, 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 worship.

577. The question whether a totem ever develops into a god is a part of the
general question whether a sacred animal ever becomes a god.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 gods 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 god is a developed totem.928 In the Wakelbura tribe of
Southeast Australia the totem animal is spoken of as "father," a title
frequently given to clan gods. Household gods 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 god. 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 assume 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 gods who stood
alongside of them; an obvious explanation of this identity would be that the
god assumed the form of the animal.931 A similar explanation may be given
of incarnations of gods 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 title "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 identity of nature of totem and clan god, 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 god. 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 gods 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 constituted, to account for the growth of moral customs we
need to assume 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.
584. But while social life is the basis of ethical construction, the actual
ethical constitution of men has been influenced by religion, in later times by
the supplying of lofty ideals and sanctions, in early times by a magical
determination of things injurious. It is this second category that is covered
by the term 'taboo,' a Polynesian word said to mean 'what is prohibited.'
Prohibitions arising from natural human relations constitute civil law; those
arising from extrahuman or other magical influences constitute taboo.936
585. Early man, regarding all objects as possibly endowed with power,
selects out of the whole mass by observation and experience certain objects
which affect his life, his relations with which he finds it desirable to define.
These are all mysterious;937 some are helpful, some harmful. The helpful
objects become lucky stones, amulets. The injurious or dangerous objects
are the more numerous; in an atmosphere of uncertainty the mysterious is
dreaded, avoided, and guarded against by rules.938
586. The objects affected by the conception of taboo are as various as the
conditions of human life—they include things inanimate and animate, and
events and experiences of all sorts. Sometimes the danger is supposed to be
inherent in the object, sometimes the quality of dangerousness is imposed
on it or infused into it by some authority; but in all cases there is present the

force (mana) that, in savage theory, makes the external world a factor in
human destinies.939 This force may be transmitted from one object to
another (usually by contact940), and thus the taboo infection may spread
indefinitely, a silent and terrible source of misfortune, sometimes to a single
person, sometimes to a whole community. Ceremonies connected with
taboo are designed to protect against this destructive influence.
587. The principal taboo usages may be classed roughly under certain
heads, which, however, will sometimes overlap one another.
588. Taboos connected with the conception of life. For early man the central
mystery of the world was life, and mystery and danger attached to all things
connected with its genesis, maintenance, and cessation—to pregnancy,
birth, death, corpses, funerals, blood. Against these things precautions, in
the form of various restrictions, had to be taken. Pregnancy was sometimes
regarded as due to supernatural agency, and in all cases was noted as a
mysterious condition in which the woman was peculiarly exposed to evil
influences; she was sometimes required to keep her head covered or to
avoid moonshine, or to live separated from her husband.941
589. Care for women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child might
be induced by natural human kindliness. But certain usages in connection
with birth indicate fear of superhuman dangers. In many regions (Central
Asia, Africa, Oceania, China) the mother is taboo for a certain time, being
regarded apparently as a source of danger to others, as well as being herself
exposed to danger. The child also is surrounded by perils. Mother and child
are protected by isolation, ablutions (baptism), amulets, conjurations, and
by consecration to a deity.942 The intimate relation between father and child
may make it necessary to impose taboos on the former—he is sometimes
required to go to bed (the couvade, or man-childbed), to abstain from work
and from certain foods held to be injurious, and to avoid touching weapons
and other dangerous things; thus, through the identity of father and child,
the latter is guarded against the hostile mana that may be lurking near. The
seclusion of the mother sometimes varies in duration according to the sex of
the child; in most cases, apparently, the period is longer for a male child;943
in the Jewish ritual the period for the maid-child is twice as great (eighty
days) as that for the male;944 the difference in the points of view, perhaps, is

that the evil influence may direct itself particularly against, or be more
serious for, the male as socially the more important, or it may be more
dangerous for the female as the weaker.945
590. Taboos connected with death. The danger to the living arising from a
death is of a twofold nature: the corpse, as a strange, uncanny thing, is a
source of peril; and there are possible external enemies—the spirit that
produced the death, and the ghost of the departed. Against these dangerous
things avoidance of the corpse is the common precaution—a dead body
must not be touched, or, if it is touched, he who touches must undergo
purification.946 Perhaps the various modes of disposing of corpses
(exposure, inhumation, cremation) were originally attempts to get rid of
their dangerous qualities; later other motives came in. The body of a suicide
was especially feared, and was staked down on a public way to prevent its
reappearance; it was perhaps the abnormal and desperate character of the
death that produced this special fear. The dread of a corpse is, however, not
universal among savages—in many cases it is eaten, simply as food or to
acquire the qualities of the deceased, or for other reasons. It is feared as
having hurtful power, it is eaten as being sacred or helpful.
591. The house in which a death occurs shares the evil power of the dead
body, and sometimes must be destroyed, together with all its furniture, or
abandoned or purified.947 Death diffuses its baleful influence through the
atmosphere, making it unfavorable for ordinary work, which, accordingly,
is often then suspended for a time.948 Seclusion is sometimes enjoined on
widower or widow,949 and mention of the name of the deceased is forbidden
—the identity of spouse or name with the dead effects the transmission of
what is dangerous in him. In another direction the earthly dwelling of a
dead person is protected—a curse is pronounced on one who violates it.950
592. Taboos connected with woman and the relations between the sexes.
Among many peoples there is dread of the presence of women and of their
belongings under certain circumstances.951 The ground of this fear may lie
in those physiological peculiarities of woman which are regarded as
mysterious and dangerous, and the antagonism of feeling may have been
increased by the separation between the sexes consequent on the differences
in their social functions and their daily pursuits. Woman seems to move in a

sphere different from that of man; she acts in ways that are strange to him.
Whatever its ground, the feeling of dread is a real one: a case is reported of
a man who, on learning that he had lain down on his wife's blanket, became
violently ill.
593. Various restrictions are imposed on women at periods of sexual crisis.
The girl on reaching the age of puberty is generally (though not always952)
immured, sometimes for weeks or months, to shield her from noxious
influences, human and nonhuman. During menstruation a woman is
isolated, may not be looked on by the sun, must remain apart from her
husband, and her food is strictly regulated.953 It is not infrequently the case
that certain foods are permanently forbidden women, for what special
reasons is not clear.954 The rule forbidding a wife to eat with her husband
may have come originally from nonreligious social considerations (her
subordination to the man, or the fact that she belonged to a social group
different from his), but in that case it later acquired a religious character.
Women have commonly been excluded in savage communities from solemn
ceremonies (as those of the initiation of males) and from tribal councils;955
such rules may have originated in the natural differentiation of social
functions of the sexes or in the desire of men to keep the control of tribal
life in their own hands, but in many cases the presence of women was
supposed to vitiate the proceedings supernaturally. In industrial enterprises,
such as hunting and fishing, they are sometimes held to be a fatal
influence.956 In family life a wife's mother was debarred from all social
intercourse with her son-in-law.957
594. Where procreation was ascribed to the union of the sexes, sexual
intercourse, as being intimately connected with life, was credited with
supernatural potency, generally unfavorable to vigor.958 It has been largely
prohibited on all important public occasions, such as hunting and war, and
particularly in connection with religious ceremonies.959 Various
considerations may have contributed to the establishment of such customs,
but in their earliest form we have, probably, to recognize not any moral
effort to secure chastity, but a dread of injurious mana resident in
women.960 We may compare the fact that women have often been regarded
as specially gifted in witchcraft.961

595. Taboos connected with great personages. The theory of mana includes
the belief that special supernatural power resides in the persons of tribal
leaders, such as magicians, chiefs, priests. It follows that danger attaches to
their bodies (particularly to head, hair, and nails), to their names, and to
their food and other belongings. These things must be avoided: their food
must not be eaten by common folk; their houses and other property must
not be used; their nail-cuttings must be buried so that danger may be
averted from the community; their names must not be mentioned. They
themselves, being peculiarly sensitive to malign influences, must be
protected in the house and when they walk out; and it is in some cases not
safe for the common man to look on the chief as he passes through the
village.
596. Not all these regulations are found in any one community, but the
principle is the same everywhere. The greatest development of taboo power
in chiefs occurs in Polynesia, the home of taboo. There they are all-
powerful. Whatever a chief touches becomes his property. If he enters a
house, steps into a canoe, affixes his name to a field, it is his. His control
appears to be limited only by the accident of his momentary desire. No one
thinks of opposing his decisions—that would be fatal to the opposer. This
social situation passes when a better form of civil government is
established, but some features of the old conception cling to later
dignitaries: till recently the nail-parings of the emperor of Japan were
carefully disposed of lest, being inadvertently touched, they should bring
misfortune.
597. A priest also may carry taboo infection on his person. In Ezekiel's
scheme of ritual organization it is ordered that when the priest, having
offered sacrifice, goes forth into the outer court where the people are, he
shall put off the garments in which he ministered and lay them in a sacred
place, and put on other garments, lest some one touching him should be
made ritually unclean, that is taboo, forbidden to mingle with his fellows or
to do his ordinary work for a certain time (generally till the evening).962 In
many regions there have been and are numerous restrictions on priests,
some of which are in their own interests (to preserve their ritual purity),
some in the interests of others (to guard them against the infection of
taboo).963 Other quasi-official or devoted persons (as, for example, the

Hebrew Nazirite964) were subject to restrictions of food. Strangers, who in a
primitive period were frequently put to death, in a more humane period
were subjected to purifying processes in order to remove the taboo infection
that might cling to them.965
598. Industrial taboos. The customs of certain Polynesian chiefs, described
above, cannot be said to aid industry, but there are taboo usages designed to
protect and further popular occupations. These doubtless have a natural
nonmagical basis—the necessity of making good crops and protecting
private property would be recognized everywhere, and would call forth
legal enactments; but it was inevitable, in certain communities, that such
enactments should be strengthened by supernatural sanctions such as those
offered by the conception of taboo.
599. Protective arrangements of this sort abound in Oceania and Indonesia.
In Samoa the sweet-potato fields are taboo till the crop is gathered.966
Hawaiian fisheries are protected by the simple device of forbidding the
taking of certain fish at certain seasons; here the economic motive is
obvious, but taboo penalties are annexed.967 During planting time in New
Zealand all persons employed in the work were taboo for other occupations
and obliged to give all their time to the planting; and the same rule held for
hunting and fishing.968 The Borneo Kayans refrain from their usual
occupations during planting, harvesting, and the search for camphor.969
Similar restrictions, of an elaborate kind, are in force in Sumatra,970 and in
Assam.971
600. The property of private persons was protected: the common man might
impose a taboo on his land, crops, house, and garments, and these were then
safe from depredation. It was true, however, in New Zealand as elsewhere,
that the potency of the imposed taboo depended on the influence of him
who imposed it; chiefs, as uniting in their persons civil and religious
authority, were the most powerful persons in the community, and taboos
ordered by them were the most effective. In Melanesia taboo is largely
employed for the protection of private property—curses are pronounced
against trespassers, and the authority of the tabooer is reënforced by that of
the local spirit or ghost (tindalo);972 here taboo has become definitely an
element of civil law, in which it tends to be absorbed.

601. Taboos connected with other important social events. It appears that all
occurrences supposed to affect the life of the community have been, and
often still are, regarded as bringing with them, or as attended by,
supernatural influences (resident in mana or in spirits) that may be
dangerous. Against these perils the usual precautions are taken, one of the
commonest (as in cases mentioned in the preceding paragraphs) being
abstinence from ordinary work; the belief, apparently, is that such work is
tainted with the injurious influence with which the atmosphere is charged.
602. Among religious ceremonies the expulsion of evil spirits was naturally
attended with danger, and work was prohibited. Such was the custom in
Athens at the Anthesteria and on the sixth day of the Thargelia, and in
Rome at the Lemuria.973 Among existing tribes there are numerous
examples of this sort of restriction: it is found in West Africa974 and in
Indonesia (Kar Nicobar, Bali975); in Assam it takes the form of a taboo
(genna) for laying to rest the ghosts of all who have died within the year976
(an All Souls ceremony).
603. In general, sacred seasons, times of great communal ceremonies,
demand the avoidance of ordinary pursuits, which, it is feared, may imperil
the success of the ceremonies by necessitating contact with things infected
or nonsacred. The earlier Hebrew usage recognized such seasons (new
moon, sabbath, and perhaps others); the later usage increased the number of
tabooed days as the ritual was expanded and organised.977 For Greece we
have the Plynteria, on the principal day of which work was suspended;978 in
Rome the feriae were such days, regular or occasional.979 The inbringing of
first fruits was a peculiarly solemn occasion, when gratitude to the deity
mingled with fear of hostile influences; so among the Hebrews980 and at
Athens981 and in Tonga.982 Polynesian restrictions on the occasion of
ceremonies are given by Ellis.983 All such days of abstinence from ordinary
work tend to become holidays, times of popular amusement, and a taboo
element may be suspected in such festivals as those of the later Hindu
period.984 Naturally, also, days of restriction become sacred to deities.
604. Great nonreligious tribal events and peculiar situations demand
restrictive precautions. Warriors prepare for an expedition by remaining
apart from their wives.985 Women whose husbands are absent are

sometimes immured or forbidden all intercourse with human beings; by
reason of the identity of husband and wife supernatural harm to the latter
will affect the former. Afflictive occurrences, such as famines, pestilences,
earthquakes, are signs of some hostile supernatural power, defense against
which requires the avoidance of ordinary pursuits. Arbitrary enactments by
chiefs may attach restrictions to a particular day. Sometimes restrictive
usages, of obscure origin, become communal law. Thus, every Toda clan
has certain days of the week (not the occasion of special ceremonies) in
which it is forbidden to follow ordinary occupations; among the things
forbidden are the giving of feasts, the performance of funeral ceremonies,
the cutting of nails, and shaving; women and dairymen may not leave the
village, and the people and buffaloes may not move from one place to
another.986 Doubtless this system of prohibitions is the outcome of many
generations of experience—the organization of various local usages.
605. Taboos connected with the moon. Unusual celestial phenomena, such
as eclipses, meteors, and comets, have always excited terror, being referred
to some hostile supernatural agency, and have called forth special placative
and restrictive ceremonies. They are accounted for in savage lore by various
myths.987 But the permanently important taboos have been those that are
associated with the phases of the moon. These periodical transformations,
unexplained and mysterious, seemed to early man to have vital relation with
all earthly life—the waxing and waning of the moon was held to determine,
through the sympathy existing between all things, the growth and decay of
plants, animals, and men.988 Hence arose the widely diffused belief that all
important undertakings should be begun while the moon was increasing,
and innumerable regulations for the conduct of affairs were established, not
a few of them surviving in civilized popular belief and practice to the
present day.
606. Sometimes the changes in the moon are minutely observed. The Nandi
describe every day of the month by the appearance of the moon or by its
relation to occupations.989 Natural observation in some cases divided the
lunar month into four parts: the Buddhist uposatha days are the four days in
the lunar month when the moon is full or new or halfway between the
two;990 in Hawaii the 3d-6th, 14th-15th, 24th-25th, 27th-28th days of every
month were taboo periods;991 the Babylonians had five such periods in

certain months (four periods with one period intercalated). But, though the
quartering of the lunation may seem to us the most natural division of the
month, in actual practice it is rather the exception.992 The simplest division,
indeed, is that into two parts, determined by new moon and full moon
(Cambodia, Siam; cf. the Mexican period of thirteen days). The division
into three periods of ten days each (Egypt, Greece, Annam, Japan) ignores
lunar phases and seeks a convenient and symmetrical arrangement. With
this decimal system is perhaps connected the division of the month into six
periods of five days each (Yoruba, Java, Sumatra, and perhaps Babylonia).
The Romans had a somewhat irregular official division of the first half of
the month into three parts (Kalends, Nones, Ides) corresponding in a
general way to lunar phases, and also commercial periods of eight days
(nundinae), perhaps of similar origin. A seven-day division is found in
Ashantiland (and perhaps in Peru), and in Java there is reported a division
of a year into thirty periods of seven days each.
607. It appears, then, that in several communities there has been a division
of the month in the interests of convenience, without regard to lunar phases;
that in several cases a seven-day week has been fallen upon; and that of the
phases of the moon new moon and full moon have been most frequently
looked to as chronological marks. The new moon, apart from its function of
indicating the beginning of the lunar month, has also by many tribes been
hailed with joy as a friend restored to life after seeming extinction.993 The
full moon, while it has not entered so intimately into the emotional life of
man, has played an important part by marking the division of the month
into two equal parts.
608. The Hebrew sabbath. Taboo days are days of abstinence from work,
set apart as seasons of rest.994 Such was the original form of the Hebrew
sabbath—it is described in the earlier Old Testament notices simply as a day
on which ordinary work was unlawful.995 The history of its precise origin
and development is, however, by no means clear. Theories that derive it
from the cult of some particular deity or regard it as primarily a day for
placating a supernatural Power996 may be set aside. It may be assumed that
it is an early institution somehow connected with the moon, and a definite
indication of origin appears to be furnished by the fact that in a Babylonian
inscription the term shabattu997 is used for the full moon. The identification

of Hebrew sabbath with full moon is favored by the collocation of new
moon and sabbath in early Old Testament documents998 as days on which
trading was unlawful. These, obviously, were the two chief taboo days of
the month; the fact that new moon stands first is doubtless due to its
position in the month.
609. It is uncertain whether the Babylonian full-moon day was ritually
particularly important, and it is not clear how the Hebrews came to invest
this day, if it was their sabbath, with peculiar significance. In the earlier
legal documents it is merely a restrictive period—man and beast are to rest
from toil;999 in later codes religious motives for the observance of the day
are introduced—first, gratitude to Yahweh for the rescue of the nation from
Egyptian bondage, and then respect for the fact that Yahweh worked in
creating the world six days and stopped work on the seventh day.1000 In the
sixth century we find the sabbath elevated to the position of specific sign of
Yahweh's protective relation to the people, and still later it is regarded as a
day of joyous obedience to divine law.1001 Thus, the process of moralization
of the day was probably a long-continued one.1002
610. In the various experimental divisions of the month, as we have seen, a
week of seven days has been approached independently in several places
(Babylonia, Hawaii, Java, Ashantiland). The basis of this division is
doubtless the quartering of the lunation, and it has been reënforced,
probably, by considerations of convenience—seven is an intermediate
number, six days of work and one of abstinence and rest (holiday)
commends itself as a practical arrangement. It appears among the Hebrews
as early as the eighth century B.C.;1003 it may have been derived from or
suggested by Babylonian usage, or it may have been an ancient Hebrew
custom—data on this point are lacking. In any case the Jewish genius for
religious organization seized on the seven-day scheme and wove it into the
system of worship. A more important step taken by the Jews was the
ignoring of lunar phases (except, of course, new moon as the beginning of
the month) and reckoning the week and the seventh day (the sabbath) in a
continuous line. We have noted cases in which lunar phases were ignored,
but this Jewish arrangement appears to be unique, and its simplicity and
convenience have commended it to the world.

611. Lucky and unlucky days. The malefic influences emanating from
various objects and resident in the air attached themselves to certain days,
and out of the vast mass of experiences in every community there grew up
systems of days when things might or might not be done with safety and
advantage. There were the great occasions, economic and astronomical,
referred to above, and there were particular occurrences, such as a death or
a defeat, that stamped a day as unlucky. There are many such beliefs, the
origin of which is lost in a remote antiquity. The ancient civilized nations
had their codes of luck. Egypt had a long list of unlucky days.1004 In
Babylonia onerous restrictions were imposed on kings, seers, and
physicians on certain days (the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, 28th) of the sixth and
eighth months1005 (and perhaps of other months). A brief list of days
favorable and unfavorable to work is given by Hesiod.1006 The Roman dies
nefasti, properly 'irreligious days,' were inauspicious, unlucky.1007 Similar
lists of lucky and unlucky days are found among existing tribes,1008 and the
popular luck codes in Christian communities are numerous and
elaborate.1009 These have done, and still do, great harm by substituting
irrational for rational rules of conduct.
612. In many of the cases cited above and in many totemistic regulations
there are prohibitions of particular sorts of food. Such prohibitions, very
numerous, are found in all grades of civilization.1010 They have arisen from
various causes—climatic conditions, hygienic beliefs, religious conceptions
(as, for example, the recognition of the sacred character of certain animals,
and the connection of certain foods with supernatural beings and
ceremonies1011), sometimes, perhaps, from accidental experiences; the
history of most of the particular usages escapes us. The fundamental
principle involved is the identity of the food with him who eats it—when it
is charged with supernatural power (by its own sacredness, or by its
connection with a sacred person, or by ecclesiastical decree) it becomes
malefic to an unauthorized person who partakes of it.
613. A peculiar form of prohibition of foods appears when a society is
divided into groups that are kept apart from one another by social and
religious traditions that have hardened into civic rules. In such cases the diet
of every group may be regulated by law, and it may become dangerous and
abhorrent for a superior to eat what has been touched by an inferior. The

best example of this sort of organization is the Hindu system of castes,
which has a marked and unhappy effect on the life of the people.1012 All
such arbitrary social divisions yield gradually to the influence of education
and civic freedom, and this appears to be the tendency in India at the
present day.
614. Punishment of violation of taboo. Where the hostile power is inherent
in an object, punishment is supposed to follow violation automatically—
through contact the malefic influence passes into the man's body and works
destruction. Many experiences seem to the savage to establish the certainty
of such a result. Fervid belief, moreover, produced by long tradition, acts
powerfully on the imagination, and in taboo-ridden communities thus often
brings about the bodily ill called for by the theory: a man who ate of food
that he found on the roadside, learning afterwards that it belonged to a
chief, fell ill and died in a few hours.1013 When taboo regulations have been
taken up into the civil law,1014 punishment for violations is inflicted by the
civil authorities. The tendency to make taboo a part of the civil law, and to
subordinate the former to the latter, increases with the advance of
knowledge and political organization; and one result of this movement is
that great personages are sometimes permitted to violate with impunity
taboos imposed by inferiors. The native theory in such cases doubtless is
that the great man's mana overcomes the taboo infection; but at bottom, we
may surmise, lies the sense of the dominance of civil authority.
615. The chief's mana, however, sometimes comes into play as a means of
relief. A man who has inadvertently (or perhaps, in some instances,
purposely) violated a taboo may escape punishment by touching some part
of a chief's body. Here the innate potency of the superior man expels or
destroys the taboo force that has entered the inferior—another example of
how the primitive theory of taboo is modified by conceptions of social rank
and authority.
616. Removal of taboo. In general, magical ceremonies may be employed to
counteract the injurious influence resident in a thing or an act, or to destroy
the evil consequences resulting from a violation of the taboo law. For this
purpose sprinkling with water, bathing in water, and the employment of
charms are held to be effective. Thus in the old Hebrew code the taboo
resting on a house supposed to be infected with the plague is removed by

sprinkling the house with water and the blood of a slain bird, and setting
free a second bird alive, which is supposed to carry the plague-power off
with it.1015 A woman is tabooed forty days at the birth of a male child, and
eighty days at the birth of a female child; the taboo is removed by a
holocaust and a sin-offering.1016
617. A general taboo regulation may be set aside by tribal agreement in the
interests of convenience or pleasure. On certain occasions the restrictions
on the intercourse of the sexes are removed for a brief period, at the
expiration of which the prohibitory law resumes its place.1017 Many special
ceremonies in various parts of the world have to do with modifications of
marriage laws.1018
618. Taboo and magic. Reference is made above to magical procedures in
connection with taboo customs. Taboo and magic have a common basis in
the conception of an occult force (which may conveniently be called mana)
resident in all things, but they contemplate different sides of this force, and
their social developments are very different. Taboo recognizes the inherent
malefic manifestations of the force (known by supposed experience), and
avoids them; magic uses the mana energy to effect results impossible for
unaided human power. In taboo man feels himself to be under the
dominance of an occult law, and his virtue is blind obedience; in magic he
feels himself to be the master of a great energy, and what he needs is
knowledge. Taboo has originated a mass of irrational rules for the guidance
of everyday life; magic has grown into a quasi-science, with an organized
body of adepts, touching religion on one side and real science on another
side.
619. A closer relationship between magic and taboo has been assumed in
view of the fact that both rest to some extent on the principle of the
association of ideas, the principle that like procedures produce like results.
It is true that some taboo rules depend on this conception:1019 the flesh of
timid animals is avoided, that of courageous animals is eaten, under the
belief that the man partakes of the character of the food he eats; association
with women is sometimes supposed to make a man or a boy effeminate. It
is to be expected that in the immense number of taboo prohibitions and
precautions some should be found in which the association of ideas is the
determining factor. But for the majority of taboo regulations this

explanation does not hold. In the economic and sexual taboos mentioned
above, in the dread of corpses, in the fear of touching things belonging to a
chief, and in other cases there are customs that can only be referred to a
belief in an injurious potency residing in certain objects.1020 Practically,
savage tribes distinguish between taboo and magic.
620. Contamination of customs has always been the rule in human
communities, early and late, savage and civilized. We have seen how there
has often been a coalescence between taboo regulations proper and ordinary
civil law. To state the case more fully, these have been fused into a unity of
social life with individual initiative, magical notions, arbitrary enactments.
The actual social constitution even of slightly developed tribes is
composite, the outcome of long experience and experiment in which all the
lines of social feeling and thought have gradually drawn together and been
compacted into a more or less unitary mass. While these lines have
influenced each the others, it is possible, to a considerable extent, to
distinguish the sphere of each. Thus we can, in many cases, see where
ordinary civil law comes in to adopt, modify, or set aside taboo rules, and so
we can generally recognize the line of demarcation between definite taboo
and the conception of association of ideas. In some cases the explanations
offered of taboo customs are afterthoughts—imagined hypotheses to
account for things already in existence.1021
621. The despotism exercised by taboo systems over certain Polynesian
communities is one of the extraordinary facts of human history. In New
Zealand and Hawaii the restrictions on conduct were so numerous and were
carried out so mercilessly that life under these conditions would seem to us
intolerable.1022 In addition to a great number of particular prohibitions and
to the constant fear of violating the sacredness of the persons of chiefs and
trenching on their prerogatives, we find in New Zealand the amazing rule
that on the occasion of a great misfortune (as a fire) the sufferer was to be
deprived of his possessions—the blow that fell on him was held to affix a
stigma to all that he owned. Besides the traditional taboos there were the
arbitrary enactments of chiefs which might constantly introduce new
possibilities of suffering. Yet with all this the people managed to live in
some degree of comfort, somewhat as in civilized communities life goes on

in spite of earthquakes, epidemics, bank failures, the injustices of law, and
the tyranny of the powerful.
622. The duration of certain taboo periods among various peoples in various
ages has varied greatly. Taboos relating to foods, chiefs, and the intercourse
of the sexes are usually permanent everyday customs; those that relate to
economic procedures are in force for the time demanded by each industry.
In Hawaii the catching of certain species of fish was forbidden for half the
year, and the Borneo harvest taboo (carrying prohibition of other work)
lasts sometimes for weeks. There is mention in a Maori legend of a taboo of
three years.1023 According to the later Hebrew law, in every seventh year all
agricultural operations ceased.1024 A portent may demand a long period of
restriction, as in the case of the Roman nine-day ceremony (novendiales
feriae).1025 As has been remarked above, economic taboos are often
dictated by convenience—they are prudential rules to which a supernatural
sanction has been attached.
623. Diffusion of taboo. Polynesia, particularly New Zealand and Hawaii, is
the special home of taboo—the only region in which it is known to have
taken the form of a well-compacted, all-embracing system. It exists in
Melanesia, but it is there less complicated and general,1026 and the same
thing is true of British New Guinea.1027 In parts of Borneo it is found in
modified form: there are two sorts of taboo, one, called mali, absolutely
forbidding work on certain occasions, the other, called penti, allowing work
if it is begun by a person not penti; before the birth of a child the latter form
of taboo rests on both parents.1028 The Land Dyaks have their lali days and
the Sea Dyaks their pemate,1029 these terms being the equivalents of taboo.
624. Though there is no proof of the existence of all-pervading taboo
systems among the peoples of Asia and America, there are notices of taboo
regulations in particular cases in these regions. At the birth of a child the
Hindu father was subject to certain restrictions along with the mother, and
his taboo was removed by bathing.1030 Among the Sioux Indians on the
death of a child the father is taboo for a period of six months or a year.1031
In West African Calabar there are taboos (called ibet) on individuals,
connected with spirits, the guardians of children.1032 In Assam economic

and other taboos are elaborate and well organized.1033 Such observances, in
connection with death, are found among the Kafirs1034 and the Eskimo.1035
625. For the ancient civilized peoples there is no proof of the existence of
general taboo systems. Various particular prohibitions, involving a sense of
danger in certain things, are mentioned above; they relate chiefly to corpses,
to infected houses, to women in connection with menstruation and
childbirth,1036 to certain official persons (as the Roman flamen dialis).
There are also the lists of unlucky days (Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek,
Roman). The origin of food prohibitions (Hebrew, Pythagorean) is
uncertain;1037 they may have arisen, as is suggested above, from general
regard for sacred animals and plants, or from totemistic relations, or from
other conditions unknown to us; the Hebrew lists of forbidden animals may
have been gradually expanded under the guidance of antagonism to
surrounding non-Yahwistic cults. Whether the ancient taboo usages are the
remains of older more extensive systems or represent the extreme point to
which tabooism was carried by the communities in question the data do not
enable us to decide.
626. In various places, outside of the Polynesian area, we find terms that
bear a more or less close resemblance in signification to taboo.1038
Melanesian tambu is that which has a sacred character.1039 The Borneo
terms (lali, pemate, mali, penti) are mentioned just above, and there is the
pomali of Timor (in the Malayan Archipelago). The Malagasy fady is
defined as 'dangerous, prohibited.'1040 In Gabun (West Africa) orunda is
said to mean 'prohibited to human beings.'1041 The Hebrew tamē is used of
things dangerous, not to be touched, ritually defiling,1042 and this sense
sometimes attaches to the term qadosh (rendered in the English version by
'holy'), which involves the presence of a supernatural (and therefore
dangerous) quality.1043
627. From all the facts known it may be concluded that the conception of
taboo exists or has existed in some form in a great part of the world,1044
though its development has differed greatly in different regions. In general
its prevalence appears to have been in inverse proportion to that of
totemism—it is lacking or feeble in the chief totemic centers, Australia and
North America, and strongest in Polynesia, where totemism is hardly