The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Émile Durkheim 6685 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Author: Émile Durkheim

Translator: Joseph Ward Swain

Release date: November 13, 2012 [eBook #41360]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41360

Credits: Produced by Ruth Morrison, Tor Martin Kristiansen and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ELEMENTARY FORMS OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE ***

THE ELEMENTARY FORMS OF THE
RELIGIOUS LIFE

EMILE DURKHEIM

The Elementary Forms
of the
Religious Life

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
JOSEPH WARD SWAIN
M.A.

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1915
SECOND IMPRESSION 1926
THIRD IMPRESSION 1954

FOURTH IMPRESSION 1957
FIFTH IMPRESSION 1964

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart
from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study,
research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act, 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any
process without written permission. Enquiry should be made
to the publisher.

© George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1915

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY HOLLEN STREET PRESS LTD
LONDON W.1

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
Subject of our Study: Religious Sociology and the Theory of
PAGE
Knowledge
I.—Principal subject of the book: analysis of the simplest
religion known to determine the elementary forms of the
religious life—Why they are more easily found and
explained in the primitive religions 1
II.—Secondary subject of research: the genesis of the
fundamental notions of thought or the categories—Reasons
for believing that their origin is religious and consequently
social—How a way of restating the theory of knowledge is
thus seen 9

BOOK I
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS
CHAPTER I
Definition of Religious Phenomena and of Religion
Usefulness of a preliminary definition of religion; method to be
followed in seeking this definition—Why the usual
definitions should be examined first 23
I.—Religion defined by the supernatural and mysterious—
Criticism: the notion of mystery is not primitive 24
II.—Religion defined in connection with the idea of God or a
spiritual being.—Religions without gods—Rites in deistic
religions which imply no idea of divinity 29
III.—Search for a positive definition—Distinction between 36
beliefs and rites—Definition of beliefs—First characteristic:
division of things between sacred and profane—Distinctive

characteristics of this definition—Definition of rites in
relation to beliefs—Definition of religion
IV.—Necessity of another characteristic to distinguish magic
from religion—The idea of the Church—Do individualistic
religions exclude the idea of a Church? 42
CHAPTER II
Leading Conceptions of the Elementary Religion
I.—Animism
Distinction of animism and naturism 48
I—The three theses of animism: Genesis of the idea of the soul;
Formation of the idea of spirits; Transformation of the cult
of spirits into the cult of nature 49
II.—Criticism of the first thesis—Distinction of the idea of the
soul from that of a double—Dreams do not account for the
idea of the soul 55
III.—Criticism of the second thesis—Death does not explain the
transformation of a soul into a spirit—The cult of the souls
of the dead is not primitive 60
IV.—Criticism of the third thesis—The anthropomorphic instinct
—Spencer's criticism of it; reservations on this point—
Examination of the facts by which this instinct is said to be
proved—Difference between a soul and the spirits of nature
—Religious anthropomorphism is not primitive 65
V.—Conclusion: animism reduces religion to nothing more than
a system of hallucinations 68
CHAPTER III
Leading Conceptions of the Elementary Religion—(continued)
II.—Naturism
History of the theory 71
I.—Exposition of Max Müller's naturism 73
II.—If the object of religion is to express natural forces, it is hard
to see how it has maintained itself, for it expresses them in
an erroneous manner—Pretended distinction between
religion and mythology 78
III.—Naturism does not explain the division of things into sacred
and profane 84

CHAPTER IV
Totemism as an Elementary Religion
I.—Brief history of the question of totemism 88
II.—Reasons of method for which our study will be given
specially to the totemism of Australia—The place which
will be given to facts from America 93

BOOK II
THE ELEMENTARY BELIEFS
CHAPTER I
Totemic Beliefs
The Totem as Name and as Emblem
I.—Definition of the clan—The totem as name of the clan—
Nature of the things which serve as totems—Ways in which
the totem is acquired—The totems of phratries; of
matrimonial classes 102
II.—The totem as emblem—Totemic designs engraved or carved
upon objects; tatooings or designs upon the body 113
III.—Sacred character of the totemic emblem—The churinga—
The nurtunja—The waninga—Conventional character of
totemic emblems 119
CHAPTER II
Totemic Beliefs—(continued)
The Totemic Animal and Man
I.—Sacred character of the totemic animals—Prohibition to eat
them, kill them or pick the totemic plants—Different
moderations given these prohibitions—Prohibition of
contact—The sacred character of the animal is less marked
than that of the emblem 128
II.—The man—His relationship with the totemic animal or plant
—Different myths explaining this relationship—The sacred
character of the man is more apparent in certain parts of the
organism: the blood, hair, etc.—How this character varies
with sex and age—Totemism is not plant or animal worship 134
CHAPTER III
Totemic Beliefs—(continued)

The Cosmological System of Totemism and the Idea of Class
I.—The classification of things into clans, phratries and classes 141
II.—Genesis of the notion of class: the first classifications of
things take their forms from society—Differences between
the sentiment of the differences of things and the idea of
class—Why this is of social origin 144
III.—Religious significance of these classifications: all of the
things classified into a clan partake of the nature of the
totem and its sacred character—The cosmological system of
totemism—Totemism as the tribal religion 148
CHAPTER IV
Totemic Beliefs—(end)
The Individual Totem and the Sexual Totem
I.—Individual totem as a forename; its sacred character—
Individual totem as personal emblem—Bonds between the
man and his individual totem—Relations with the collective
totem 157
II.—The totems of sexual groups—Resemblances and
differences with the collective and individual totems—Their
tribal nature 165
CHAPTER V
Origins of these Beliefs
Critical Examination of Preceding Theories
I.—Theories which derive totemism from a previous religion:
from the ancestor cult (Wilken and Tylor); from the nature
cult (Jevons)—Criticism of these theories 168
II.—Theories which derive collective totemism from individual
totemism—Origins attributed by these theories to the
individual totem (Frazer, Boas, Hill Tout)—Improbability
of these hypotheses—Reasons showing the priority of the
collective totem 172
III.—Recent theory of Frazer: conceptional and local totemism
—The begging of the question upon which it rests—The
religious character of the totem is denied—Local totemism
is not primitive 180

IV.—Theory of Lang: that the totem is only a name—Difficulties
in explaining the religious character of totemic practices
from this point of view 184
V.—All these theories explain totemism only by postulating
other religious notions anterior to it 186
CHAPTER VI
Origins of these Beliefs—(continued)
The Notion of the Totemic Principle, or Mana, and the Idea of Force
I.—The notion of the totemic force or principle—Its ubiquity—
Its character at once physical and moral 188
II.—Analogous conceptions in other inferior societies—The
gods in Samoa, the wakan of the Sioux, the orenda of the
Iroquois, the mana of Melanesia—Connection of these
notions with totemism—The Arunkulta of the Arunta 191
III.—Logical priority of impersonal force over the different
mythical personalities—Recent theories which tend to
admit this priority 198
IV.—The notion of religious force is the prototype of that of
force in general 203
CHAPTER VII
Origins of these Beliefs—(end)
Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle or Mana
I.—The totemic principle is the clan, but thought of under a
more empirical form 205
II.—General reasons for which society is apt to awaken the
sensation of the sacred and the divine—Society as an
imperative moral force; the notion of moral authority—
Society as a force which raises the individual outside of
himself—Facts which prove that society creates the sacred 206
III.—Reasons peculiar to Australian societies—The two phases
through which the life of these societies alternatively
passes: dispersion, concentration—Great collective
effervescence during the periods of concentration—
Examples—How the religious idea is born out of this
effervescence 214

Why collective force has been thought of under totemic forms: it
is the totem that is the emblem of the clan—Explanation of
the principal totemic beliefs 219
IV.—Religion is not the product of fear—It expresses something
real—Its essential idealism—This idealism is a general
characteristic of collective mentality—Explanation of the
external character of religious forces in relation to their
subjects—The principle that the part is equal to the whole 223
V.—Origin of the notion of emblem: emblems a necessary
condition of collective representations—Why the clan has
taken its emblems from the animal and vegetable kingdoms 230
VI.—The proneness of the primitive to confound the kingdoms
and classes which we distinguish—Origins of these
confusions—How they have blazed the way for scientific
explanations—They do not exclude the tendency towards
distinction and opposition 234
CHAPTER VIII
The Idea of the Soul
I.—Analysis of the idea of the soul in the Australian societies 240
II.—Genesis of this idea—The doctrine of reincarnation
according to Spencer and Gillen: it implies that the soul is a
part of the totemic principle—Examination of the facts
collected by Strehlow; they confirm the totemic nature of
the soul 246
III.—Generality of the doctrine of reincarnation—Diverse facts
in support of the proposed genesis 256
IV.—Antithesis of the soul and the body: what there is objective
in this—Relations of the individual soul with the collective
soul—The idea of the soul is not chronologically after that
of mana 262
V.—Hypothesis to explain the belief in its survival 267
VI.—The idea of a soul and the idea of a person; impersonal
elements in the personality 269
CHAPTER IX
The Idea of Spirits and Gods

I.—Difference between a soul and a spirit—The souls of the
mythical ancestors are spirits, having determined functions
—Relations between the ancestral spirit, the individual soul
and the individual totem—Explanation of this latter—Its
sociological significance 273
II.—Spirits and magic 281
III.—The civilizing heroes 283
IV.—The great gods—Their origin—Their relations with the
totemic system—Their tribal and international character 285
V.—Unity of the totemic system 295

BOOK III
THE PRINCIPAL RITUAL ATTITUDES
CHAPTER I
The Negative Cult and its Functions
The Ascetic Rites
I.—The system of interdictions—Magic and religious
interdictions—Interdictions between sacred things of
different sorts—Interdictions between sacred and profane—
These latter are the basis of the negative cult—Leading
types of these interdictions; their reduction to two essential
types 299
II.—The observance of interdictions modifies the religious state
of individuals—Cases where this efficacy is especially
apparent: ascetic practices—The religious efficacy of
sorrow—Social function of asceticism 309
III.—Explanation of the system of interdictions: antagonism of
the sacred and the profane, contagiousness of the sacred 317
IV.—Causes of this contagiousness—It cannot be explained by
the laws of the association of ideas—It is because religious
forces are outside of their subjects—Logical interest in this
property of religious forces 321
CHAPTER II
The Positive Cult
I.—The Elements of Sacrifice

The Intichiuma ceremony in the tribes of Central Australia—
Different forms which it presents 326
I.—The Arunta Form—The two phases—Analysis of the first:
visit to sacred places, scattering of sacred dust, shedding of
blood, etc., to assure the reproduction of the totemic species 327
II.—Second phase: ritual consumption of the totemic plant or
animal 333
III.—Interpretation of the complete ceremony—The second rite
consists in a communion meal—Reason for this
communion 336
IV.—The rites of the first phase consists in oblations—Analogies
with sacrificial oblations—The Intichiuma thus contains the
two elements of sacrifice—Interest of these facts for the
theory of sacrifice 340
V.—On the pretended absurdity of sacrificial oblations—How
they are explained: dependence of sacred beings upon their
worshippers—Explanation of the circle in which sacrifice
seems to move—Origin of the periodicity of positive rites 344
CHAPTER III
The Positive Cult—(continued)
II.—Imitative Rites and the Principle of Causality
I.—Nature of the imitative rites—Examples of ceremonies
where they are employed to assure the fertility of the
species 351
II.—They rest upon the principle: like produces like—
Examination of the explanation of this given by the
anthropological school—Reasons why they imitate the
animal or plant—Reasons for attributing a physical efficacy
to these gestures—Faith—In what sense it is founded upon
experience—The principles of magic are born in religion 355
III.—The preceding principle considered as one of the first
statements of the principle of causality—Social conditions
upon which this latter depends—The idea of impersonal
force or power is of social origin—The necessity for the
conception of causality explained by the authority inherent
in social imperatives 362

CHAPTER IV
The Positive Cult—(continued)
III.—Representative or Commemorative Rites
I.—Representative rites with physical efficacy—Their relations
with the ceremonies already described—Their action is
wholly moral 371
II.—Representative rites without physical efficacy—They
confirm the preceding results—The element of recreation in
religion: its importance; its reason for existence—The idea
of a feast 376
III.—Ambiguity of function in the various ceremonies studied;
they substitute themselves for each other—How this
ambiguity confirms the theory proposed 383
CHAPTER V
Piacular Rites and the Ambiguity of the Notion of Sacredness
Definition of the piacular rite 389
I.—Positive rites of mourning—Description of these rites 390
II.—How they are explained—They are not a manifestation of
private sentiments—The malice attributed to the souls of
the dead cannot account for them either—They correspond
to the state of mind in which the group happens to be—
Analysis of this state—How it ends by mourning—
Corresponding changes in the way in which the souls of the
dead are conceived 396
III.—Other piacular rites; after a public mourning, a poor
harvest, a drought, the southern lights—Rarity of these rites
in Australia—How they are explained 403
IV.—The two forms of the sacred: the pure and the impure—
Their antagonism—Their relationship—Ambiguity of the
idea of the sacred—All rites present the same character 409

CONCLUSION
To what extent the results obtained may be generalized 415
I.—Religion rests upon an experience that is well founded but 416
not privileged—Necessity of a science to reach the reality at
the bottom of this experience—What is this reality?—The

human groups—Human meaning of religion—Concerning
the objection which opposes the ideal society to the real
society
How religious individualism and cosmopolitanism are explained
in this theory 424
II.—The eternal element in religion—Concerning the conflict
between science and religion; it has to do solely with the
speculative side of religion—What this side seems destined
to become 427
III.—How has society been able to be the source of logical, that
is to say conceptual, thought? Definition of the concept: not
to be confounded with the general idea; characterized by its
impersonality and communicability—It has a collective
origin—The analysis of its contents bears witness in the
same sense Collective representations as types of ideas
which individuals accept—In regard to the objection that
they are impersonal only on condition of being true—
Conceptual thought is coeval with humanity 431
IV.—How the categories express social things—The chief
category is the concept of totality which could be suggested
only by society—Why the relations expressed by the
categories could become conscious only in society—
Society is not an a-logical being—How the categories tend
to detach themselves from geographically determined
groups 439
The unity of science on the one hand, and of morals and religion
on the other—How the society accounts for this unity—
Explanation of the rôle attributed to society: its creative
power—Reactions of sociology upon the science of man 445

THE
ELEMENTARY FORMS OF

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

INTRODUCTION

SUBJECT OF OUR STUDY:
RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY AND
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
In this book we propose to study the most primitive and simple religion
which is actually known, to make an analysis of it, and to attempt an
explanation of it. A religious system may be said to be the most primitive
which we can observe when it fulfils the two following conditions: in the
first place, when it is found in a society whose organization is surpassed by
no others in simplicity;[1] and secondly, when it is possible to explain it
without making use of any element borrowed from a previous religion.
We shall set ourselves to describe the organization of this system with all
the exactness and fidelity that an ethnographer or an historian could give it.
But our task will not be limited to that: sociology raises other problems than
history or ethnography. It does not seek to know the passed forms of
civilization with the sole end of knowing them and reconstructing them. But
rather, like every positive science, it has as its object the explanation of
some actual reality which is near to us, and which consequently is capable
of affecting our ideas and our acts: this reality is man, and more precisely,
the man of to-day, for there is nothing which we are more interested in
knowing. Then we are not going to study a very archaic religion simply for
the pleasure of telling its peculiarities and its singularities. If we have taken
it as the subject of our research, it is because it has seemed to us better
adapted than any other to lead to an understanding of the religious nature of
man, that is to say, to show us an essential and permanent aspect of
humanity.
But this proposition is not accepted before the raising of strong
objections. It seems very strange that one must turn back, and be

transported to the very beginnings of history, in order to arrive at an
understanding of humanity as it is at present. This manner of procedure
seems particularly paradoxical in the question which concerns us. In fact,
the various religions generally pass as being quite unequal in value and
dignity; it is said that they do not all contain the same quota of truth. Then it
seems as though one could not compare the highest forms of religious
thought with the lowest, without reducing the first to the level of the
second. If we admit that the crude cults of the Australian tribes can help us
to understand Christianity, for example, is that not supposing that this latter
religion proceeds from the same mentality as the former, that it is made up
of the same superstitions and rests upon the same errors? This is how the
theoretical importance which has sometimes been attributed to primitive
religions has come to pass as a sign of a systematic hostility to all religion,
which, by prejudging the results of the study, vitiates them in advance.
There is no occasion for asking here whether or not there are scholars
who have merited this reproach, and who have made religious history and
ethnology a weapon against religion. In any case, a sociologist cannot hold
such a point of view. In fact, it is an essential postulate of sociology that a
human institution cannot rest upon an error and a lie, without which it could
not exist. If it were not founded in the nature of things, it would have
encountered in the facts a resistance over which it could never have
triumphed. So when we commence the study of primitive religions, it is
with the assurance that they hold to reality and express it; this principle will
be seen to re-enter again and again in the course of the analyses and
discussions which follow, and the reproach which we make against the
schools from which we have separated ourselves is that they have ignored
it. When only the letter of the formulæ is considered, these religious beliefs
and practices undoubtedly seem disconcerting at times, and one is tempted
to attribute them to some sort of a deep-rooted error. But one must know
how to go underneath the symbol to the reality which it represents and
which gives it its meaning. The most barbarous and the most fantastic rites
and the strangest myths translate some human need, some aspect of life,
either individual or social. The reasons with which the faithful justify them
may be, and generally are, erroneous; but the true reasons do not cease to
exist, and it is the duty of science to discover them.
In reality, then, there are no religions which are false. All are true in their
own fashion; all answer, though in different ways, to the given conditions of

human existence. It is undeniably possible to arrange them in a hierarchy.
Some can be called superior to others, in the sense that they call into play
higher mental functions, that they are richer in ideas and sentiments, that
they contain more concepts with fewer sensations and images, and that their
arrangement is wiser. But howsoever real this greater complexity and this
higher ideality may be, they are not sufficient to place the corresponding
religions in different classes. All are religions equally, just as all living
beings are equally alive, from the most humble plastids up to man. So when
we turn to primitive religions it is not with the idea of depreciating religion
in general, for these religions are no less respectable than the others. They
respond to the same needs, they play the same rôle, they depend upon the
same causes; they can also well serve to show the nature of the religious
life, and consequently to resolve the problem which we wish to study.

But why give them a sort of prerogative? Why choose them in preference
to all others as the subject of our study?—It is merely for reasons of
method.
In the first place, we cannot arrive at an understanding of the most recent
religions except by following the manner in which they have been
progressively composed in history. In fact, historical analysis is the only
means of explanation which it is possible to apply to them. It alone enables
us to resolve an institution into its constituent elements, for it shows them to
us as they are born in time, one after another. On the other hand, by placing
every one of them in the condition where it was born, it puts into our hands
the only means we have of determining the causes which gave rise to it.
Every time that we undertake to explain something human, taken at a given
moment in history—be it a religious belief, a moral precept, a legal
principle, an æsthetic style or an economic system—it is necessary to
commence by going back to its most primitive and simple form, to try to
account for the characteristics by which it was marked at that time, and then
to show how it developed and became complicated little by little, and how
it became that which it is at the moment in question. One readily
understands the importance which the determination of the point of
departure has for this series of progressive explanations, for all the others
are attached to it. It was one of Descartes's principles that the first ring has a
predominating place in the chain of scientific truths. But there is no

question of placing at the foundation of the science of religions an idea
elaborated after the cartesian manner, that is to say, a logical concept, a pure
possibility, constructed simply by force of thought. What we must find is a
concrete reality, and historical and ethnological observation alone can
reveal that to us. But even if this cardinal conception is obtained by a
different process than that of Descartes, it remains true that it is destined to
have a considerable influence on the whole series of propositions which the
science establishes. Biological evolution has been conceived quite
differently ever since it has been known that monocellular beings do exist.
In the same way, the arrangement of religious facts is explained quite
differently, according as we put naturism, animism or some other religious
form at the beginning of the evolution. Even the most specialized scholars,
if they are unwilling to confine themselves to a task of pure erudition, and if
they desire to interpret the facts which they analyse, are obliged to choose
one of these hypotheses, and make it their starting-point. Whether they
desire it or not, the questions which they raise necessarily take the
following form: how has naturism or animism been led to take this
particular form, here or there, or to enrich itself or impoverish itself in such
and such a fashion? Since it is impossible to avoid taking sides on this
initial problem, and since the solution given is destined to affect the whole
science, it must be attacked at the outset: that is what we propose to do.
Besides this, outside of these indirect reactions, the study of primitive
religions has of itself an immediate interest which is of primary importance.
If it is useful to know what a certain particular religion consists in, it is
still more important to know what religion in general is. This is the problem
which has aroused the interest of philosophers in all times; and not without
reason, for it is of interest to all humanity. Unfortunately, the method which
they generally employ is purely dialectic: they confine themselves to
analysing the idea which they make for themselves of religion, except as
they illustrate the results of this mental analysis by examples borrowed
from the religions which best realize their ideal. But even if this method
ought to be abandoned, the problem remains intact, and the great service of
philosophy is to have prevented its being suppressed by the disdain of
scholars. Now it is possible to attack it in a different way. Since all religions
can be compared to each other, and since all are species of the same class,
there are necessarily many elements which are common to all. We do not
mean to speak simply of the outward and visible characteristics which they

all have equally, and which make it possible to give them a provisional
definition from the very outset of our researches; the discovery of these
apparent signs is relatively easy, for the observation which it demands does
not go beneath the surface of things. But these external resemblances
suppose others which are profound. At the foundation of all systems of
beliefs and of all cults there ought necessarily to be a certain number of
fundamental representations or conceptions and of ritual attitudes which, in
spite of the diversity of forms which they have taken, have the same
objective significance and fulfil the same functions everywhere. These are
the permanent elements which constitute that which is permanent and
human in religion; they form all the objective contents of the idea which is
expressed when one speaks of religion in general. How is it possible to pick
them out?
Surely it is not by observing the complex religions which appear in the
course of history. Every one of these is made up of such a variety of
elements that it is very difficult to distinguish what is secondary from what
is principal, the essential from the accessory. Suppose that the religion
considered is like that of Egypt, India or the classical antiquity. It is a
confused mass of many cults, varying according to the locality, the temples,
the generations, the dynasties, the invasions, etc. Popular superstitions are
there confused with the purest dogmas. Neither the thought nor the activity
of the religion is evenly distributed among the believers; according to the
men, the environment and the circumstances, the beliefs as well as the rites
are thought of in different ways. Here they are priests, there they are monks,
elsewhere they are laymen; there are mystics and rationalists, theologians
and prophets, etc. In these conditions it is difficult to see what is common to
all. In one or another of these systems it is quite possible to find the means
of making a profitable study of some particular fact which is specially
developed there, such as sacrifice or prophecy, monasticism or the
mysteries; but how is it possible to find the common foundation of the
religious life underneath the luxuriant vegetation which covers it? How is it
possible to find, underneath the disputes of theology, the variations of ritual,
the multiplicity of groups and the diversity of individuals, the fundamental
states characteristic of religious mentality in general?
Things are quite different in the lower societies. The slighter
development of individuality, the small extension of the group, the
homogeneity of external circumstances, all contribute to reducing the

differences and variations to a minimum. The group has an intellectual and
moral conformity of which we find but rare examples in the more advanced
societies. Everything is common to all. Movements are stereotyped;
everybody performs the same ones in the same circumstances, and this
conformity of conduct only translates the conformity of thought. Every
mind being drawn into the same eddy, the individual type nearly confounds
itself with that of the race. And while all is uniform, all is simple as well.
Nothing is deformed like these myths, all composed of one and the same
theme which is endlessly repeated, or like these rites made up of a small
number of gestures repeated again and again. Neither the popular
imagination nor that of the priests has had either the time or the means of
refining and transforming the original substance of the religious ideas and
practices; these are shown in all their nudity, and offer themselves to an
examination, it requiring only the slightest effort to lay them open. That
which is accessory or secondary, the development of luxury, has not yet
come to hide the principal elements.[2] All is reduced to that which is
indispensable, to that without which there could be no religion. But that
which is indispensable is also that which is essential, that is to say, that
which we must know before all else.
Primitive civilizations offer privileged cases, then, because they are
simple cases. That is why, in all fields of human activity, the observations of
ethnologists have frequently been veritable revelations, which have
renewed the study of human institutions. For example, before the middle of
the nineteenth century, everybody was convinced that the father was the
essential element of the family; no one had dreamed that there could be a
family organization of which the paternal authority was not the keystone.
But the discovery of Bachofen came and upset this old conception. Up to
very recent times it was regarded as evident that the moral and legal
relations of kindred were only another aspect of the psychological relations
which result from a common descent; Bachofen and his successors,
MacLennan, Morgan and many others still laboured under this
misunderstanding. But since we have become acquainted with the nature of
the primitive clan, we know that, on the contrary, relationships cannot be
explained by consanguinity. To return to religions, the study of only the
most familiar ones had led men to believe for a long time that the idea of
god was characteristic of everything that is religious. Now the religion
which we are going to study presently is, in a large part, foreign to all idea

of divinity; the forces to which the rites are there addressed are very
different from those which occupy the leading place in our modern
religions, yet they aid us in understanding these latter forces. So nothing is
more unjust than the disdain with which too many historians still regard the
work of ethnographers. Indeed, it is certain that ethnology has frequently
brought about the most fruitful revolutions in the different branches of
sociology. It is for this same reason that the discovery of unicellular beings,
of which we just spoke, has transformed the current idea of life. Since in
these very simple beings, life is reduced to its essential traits, these are less
easily misunderstood.
But primitive religions do not merely aid us in disengaging the
constituent elements of religion; they also have the great advantage that
they facilitate the explanation of it. Since the facts there are simpler, the
relations between them are more apparent. The reasons with which men
account for their acts have not yet been elaborated and denatured by studied
reflection; they are nearer and more closely related to the motives which
have really determined these acts. In order to understand an hallucination
perfectly, and give it its most appropriate treatment, a physician must know
its original point of departure. Now this event is proportionately easier to
find if he can observe it near its beginnings. The longer the disease is
allowed to develop, the more it evades observation; that is because all sorts
of interpretations have intervened as it advanced, which tend to force the
original state into the background, and across which it is frequently difficult
to find the initial one. Between a systematized hallucination and the first
impressions which gave it birth, the distance is often considerable. It is the
same thing with religious thought. In proportion as it progresses in history,
the causes which called it into existence, though remaining active, are no
longer perceived, except across a vast scheme of interpretations which quite
transform them. Popular mythologies and subtile theologies have done their
work: they have superimposed upon the primitive sentiments others which
are quite different, and which, though holding to the first, of which they are
an elaborated form, only allow their true nature to appear very imperfectly.
The psychological gap between the cause and the effect, between the
apparent cause and the effective cause, has become more considerable and
more difficult for the mind to leap. The remainder of this book will be an
illustration and a verification of this remark on method. It will be seen how,
in the primitive religions, the religious fact still visibly carries the mark of

its origins: it would have been well-nigh impossible to infer them merely
from the study of the more developed religions.
The study which we are undertaking is therefore a way of taking up
again, but under new conditions, the old problem of the origin of religion.
To be sure, if by origin we are to understand the very first beginning, the
question has nothing scientific about it, and should be resolutely discarded.
There was no given moment when religion began to exist, and there is
consequently no need of finding a means of transporting ourselves thither in
thought. Like every human institution, religion did not commence
anywhere. Therefore, all speculations of this sort are justly discredited; they
can only consist in subjective and arbitrary constructions which are subject
to no sort of control. But the problem which we raise is quite another one.
What we want to do is to find a means of discerning the ever-present causes
upon which the most essential forms of religious thought and practice
depend. Now for the reasons which were just set forth, these causes are
proportionately more easily observable as the societies where they are
observed are less complicated. That is why we try to get as near as possible
to the origins.[3] It is not that we ascribe particular virtues to the lower
religions. On the contrary, they are rudimentary and gross; we cannot make
of them a sort of model which later religions only have to reproduce. But
even their grossness makes them instructive, for they thus become
convenient for experiments, as in them, the facts and their relations are
easily seen. In order to discover the laws of the phenomena which he
studies, the physicist tries to simplify these latter and rid them of their
secondary characteristics. For that which concerns institutions, nature
spontaneously makes the same sort of simplifications at the beginning of
history. We merely wish to put these to profit. Undoubtedly we can only
touch very elementary facts by this method. When we shall have accounted
for them as far as possible, the novelties of every sort which have been
produced in the course of evolution will not yet be explained. But while we
do not dream of denying the importance of the problems thus raised, we
think that they will profit by being treated in their turn, and that it is
important to take them up only after those of which we are going to
undertake the study at present.

II

But our study is not of interest merely for the science of religion. In fact,
every religion has one side by which it overlaps the circle of properly
religious ideas, and there, the study of religious phenomena gives a means
of renewing the problems which, up to the present, have only been
discussed among philosophers.
For a long time it has been known that the first systems of representations
with which men have pictured to themselves the world and themselves were
of religious origin. There is no religion that is not a cosmology at the same
time that it is a speculation upon divine things. If philosophy and the
sciences were born of religion, it is because religion began by taking the
place of the sciences and philosophy. But it has been less frequently noticed
that religion has not confined itself to enriching the human intellect, formed
beforehand, with a certain number of ideas; it has contributed to forming
the intellect itself. Men owe to it not only a good part of the substance of
their knowledge, but also the form in which this knowledge has been
elaborated.
At the roots of all our judgments there are a certain number of essential
ideas which dominate all our intellectual life; they are what philosophers
since Aristotle have called the categories of the understanding: ideas of
time, space,[4] class, number, cause, substance, personality, etc. They
correspond to the most universal properties of things. They are like the solid
frame which encloses all thought; this does not seem to be able to liberate
itself from them without destroying itself, for it seems that we cannot think
of objects that are not in time and space, which have no number, etc. Other
ideas are contingent and unsteady; we can conceive of their being unknown
to a man, a society or an epoch; but these others appear to be nearly
inseparable from the normal working of the intellect. They are like the
framework of the intelligence. Now when primitive religious beliefs are
systematically analysed, the principal categories are naturally found. They
are born in religion and of religion; they are a product of religious thought.
This is a statement that we are going to have occasion to make many times
in the course of this work.
This remark has some interest of itself already; but here is what gives it
its real importance.
The general conclusion of the book which the reader has before him is
that religion is something eminently social. Religious representations are

collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a
manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and
which are destined to excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states in
these groups. So if the categories are of religious origin, they ought to
participate in this nature common to all religious facts; they too should be
social affairs and the product of collective thought. At least—for in the
actual condition of our knowledge of these matters, one should be careful to
avoid all radical and exclusive statements—it is allowable to suppose that
they are rich in social elements.
Even at present, these can be imperfectly seen in some of them. For
example, try to represent what the notion of time would be without the
processes by which we divide it, measure it or express it with objective
signs, a time which is not a succession of years, months, weeks, days and
hours! This is something nearly unthinkable. We cannot conceive of time,
except on condition of distinguishing its different moments. Now what is
the origin of this differentiation? Undoubtedly, the states of consciousness
which we have already experienced can be reproduced in us in the same
order in which they passed in the first place; thus portions of our past
become present again, though being clearly distinguished from the present.
But howsoever important this distinction may be for our private experience,
it is far from being enough to constitute the notion or category of time. This
does not consist merely in a commemoration, either partial or integral, of
our past life. It is an abstract and impersonal frame which surrounds, not
only our individual existence, but that of all humanity. It is like an endless
chart, where all duration is spread out before the mind, and upon which all
possible events can be located in relation to fixed and determined guide
lines. It is not my time that is thus arranged; it is time in general, such as it
is objectively thought of by everybody in a single civilization. That alone is
enough to give us a hint that such an arrangement ought to be collective.
And in reality, observation proves that these indispensable guide lines, in
relation to which all things are temporally located, are taken from social
life. The divisions into days, weeks, months, years, etc., correspond to the
periodical recurrence of rites, feasts, and public ceremonies.[5] A calendar
expresses the rhythm of the collective activities, while at the same time its
function is to assure their regularity.[6]

It is the same thing with space. As Hamelin has shown,[7] space is not the
vague and indetermined medium which Kant imagined; if purely and
absolutely homogeneous, it would be of no use, and could not be grasped
by the mind. Spatial representation consists essentially in a primary co-
ordination of the data of sensuous experience. But this co-ordination would
be impossible if the parts of space were qualitatively equivalent and if they
were really interchangeable. To dispose things spatially there must be a
possibility of placing them differently, of putting some at the right, others at
the left, these above, those below, at the north of or at the south of, east or
west of, etc., etc., just as to dispose states of consciousness temporally there
must be a possibility of localizing them at determined dates. That is to say
that space could not be what it is if it were not, like time, divided and
differentiated. But whence come these divisions which are so essential? By
themselves, there are neither right nor left, up nor down, north nor south,
etc. All these distinctions evidently come from the fact that different
sympathetic values have been attributed to various regions. Since all the
men of a single civilization represent space in the same way, it is clearly
necessary that these sympathetic values, and the distinctions which depend
upon them, should be equally universal, and that almost necessarily implies
that they be of social origin.[8]
Besides that, there are cases where this social character is made manifest.
There are societies in Australia and North America where space is
conceived in the form of an immense circle, because the camp has a circular
form;[9] and this spatial circle is divided up exactly like the tribal circle, and
is in its image. There are as many regions distinguished as there are clans in
the tribe, and it is the place occupied by the clans inside the encampment
which has determined the orientation of these regions. Each region is
defined by the totem of the clan to which it is assigned. Among the Zuñi,
for example, the pueblo contains seven quarters; each of these is a group of
clans which has had a unity: in all probability it was originally a single clan
which was later subdivided. Now their space also contains seven quarters,
and each of these seven quarters of the world is in intimate connection with
a quarter of the pueblo, that is to say with a group of clans.[10] "Thus," says
Cushing, "one division is thought to be in relation with the north, another
represents the west, another the south," etc.[11] Each quarter of the pueblo
has its characteristic colour, which symbolizes it; each region has its colour,

which is exactly the same as that of the corresponding quarter. In the course
of history the number of fundamental clans has varied; the number of the
fundamental regions of space has varied with them. Thus the social
organization has been the model for the spatial organization and a
reproduction of it. It is thus even up to the distinction between right and left
which, far from being inherent in the nature of man in general, is very
probably the product of representations which are religious and therefore
collective.[12]
Analogous proofs will be found presently in regard to the ideas of class,
force, personality and efficacy. It is even possible to ask if the idea of
contradiction does not also depend upon social conditions. What makes one
tend to believe this is that the empire which the idea has exercised over
human thought has varied with times and societies. To-day the principle of
identity dominates scientific thought; but there are vast systems of
representations which have played a considerable rôle in the history of ideas
where it has frequently been set aside: these are the mythologies, from the
grossest up to the most reasonable.[13] There, we are continually coming
upon beings which have the most contradictory attributes simultaneously,
who are at the same time one and many, material and spiritual, who can
divide themselves up indefinitely without losing anything of their
constitution; in mythology it is an axiom that the part is worth the whole.
These variations through which the rules which seem to govern our present
logic have passed prove that, far from being engraven through all eternity
upon the mental constitution of men, they depend, at least in part, upon
factors that are historical and consequently social. We do not know exactly
what they are, but we may presume that they exist.[14]

This hypothesis once admitted, the problem of knowledge is posed in
new terms.
Up to the present there have been only two doctrines in the field. For
some, the categories cannot be derived from experience: they are logically
prior to it and condition it. They are represented as so many simple and
irreducible data, imminent in the human mind by virtue of its inborn
constitution. For this reason they are said to be a priori. Others, however,
hold that they are constructed and made up of pieces and bits, and that the
individual is the artisan of this construction.[15]

But each solution raises grave difficulties.
Is the empirical thesis the one adopted? Then it is necessary to deprive
the categories of all their characteristic properties. As a matter of fact they
are distinguished from all other knowledge by their universality and
necessity. They are the most general concepts which exist, because they are
applicable to all that is real, and since they are not attached to any particular
object they are independent of every particular subject; they constitute the
common field where all minds meet. Further, they must meet there, for
reason, which is nothing more than all the fundamental categories taken
together, is invested with an authority which we could not set aside if we
would. When we attempt to revolt against it, and to free ourselves from
some of these essential ideas, we meet with great resistances. They do not
merely depend upon us, but they impose themselves upon us. Now
empirical data present characteristics which are diametrically opposed to
these. A sensation or an image always relies upon a determined object, or
upon a collection of objects of the same sort, and expresses the momentary
condition of a particular consciousness; it is essentially individual and
subjective. We therefore have considerable liberty in dealing with the
representations of such an origin. It is true that when our sensations are
actual, they impose themselves upon us in fact. But by right we are free to
conceive them otherwise than they really are, or to represent them to
ourselves as occurring in a different order from that where they are really
produced. In regard to them nothing is forced upon us except as
considerations of another sort intervene. Thus we find that we have here
two sorts of knowledge, which are like the two opposite poles of the
intelligence. Under these conditions forcing reason back upon experience
causes it to disappear, for it is equivalent to reducing the universality and
necessity which characterize it to pure appearance, to an illusion which may
be useful practically, but which corresponds to nothing in reality;
consequently it is denying all objective reality to the logical life, whose
regulation and organization is the function of the categories. Classical
empiricism results in irrationalism; perhaps it would even be fitting to
designate it by this latter name.
In spite of the sense ordinarily attached to the name, the apriorists have
more respect for the facts. Since they do not admit it as a truth established
by evidence that the categories are made up of the same elements as our
sensual representations, they are not obliged to impoverish them

systematically, to draw from them all their real content, and to reduce them
to nothing more than verbal artifices. On the contrary, they leave them all
their specific characteristics. The apriorists are the rationalists; they believe
that the world has a logical aspect which the reason expresses excellently.
But for all that, it is necessary for them to give the mind a certain power of
transcending experience and of adding to that which is given to it directly;
and of this singular power they give neither explanation nor justification.
For it is no explanation to say that it is inherent in the nature of the human
intellect. It is necessary to show whence we hold this surprising prerogative
and how it comes that we can see certain relations in things which the
examination of these things cannot reveal to us. Saying that only on this
condition is experience itself possible changes the problem perhaps, but
does not answer it. For the real question is to know how it comes that
experience is not sufficient unto itself, but presupposes certain conditions
which are exterior and prior to it, and how it happens that these conditions
are realized at the moment and in the manner that is desirable. To answer
these questions it has sometimes been assumed that above the reason of
individuals there is a superior and perfect reason from which the others
emanate and from which they get this marvellous power of theirs, by a sort
of mystic participation: this is the divine reason. But this hypothesis has at
least the one grave disadvantage of being deprived of all experimental
control; thus it does not satisfy the conditions demanded of a scientific
hypothesis. More than that, the categories of human thought are never fixed
in any one definite form; they are made, unmade and remade incessantly;
they change with places and times. On the other hand, the divine reason is
immutable. How can this immutability give rise to this incessant
variability?
Such are the two conceptions that have been pitted against each other for
centuries; and if this debate seems to be eternal, it is because the arguments
given are really about equivalent. If reason is only a form of individual
experience, it no longer exists. On the other hand, if the powers which it has
are recognized but not accounted for, it seems to be set outside the confines
of nature and science. In the face of these two opposed objections the mind
remains uncertain. But if the social origin of the categories is admitted, a
new attitude becomes possible, which we believe will enable us to escape
both of the opposed difficulties.

The fundamental proposition of the apriorist theory is that knowledge is
made up of two sorts of elements, which cannot be reduced into one
another, and which are like two distinct layers superimposed one upon the
other.[16] Our hypothesis keeps this principle intact. In fact, that knowledge
which is called empirical, the only knowledge of which the theorists of
empiricism have made use in constructing the reason, is that which is
brought into our minds by the direct action of objects. It is composed of
individual states which are completely explained[17] by the psychical nature
of the individual. If, on the other hand, the categories are, as we believe
they are, essentially collective representations, before all else, they should
show the mental states of the group; they should depend upon the way in
which this is founded and organized, upon its morphology, upon its
religious, moral and economic institutions, etc. So between these two sorts
of representations there is all the difference which exists between the
individual and the social, and one can no more derive the second from the
first than he can deduce society from the individual, the whole from the
part, the complex from the simple.[18] Society is a reality sui generis; it has
its own peculiar characteristics, which are not found elsewhere and which
are not met with again in the same form in all the rest of the universe. The
representations which express it have a wholly different contents from
purely individual ones and we may rest assured in advance that the first add
something to the second.
Even the manner in which the two are formed results in differentiating
them. Collective representations are the result of an immense co-operation,
which stretches out not only into space but into time as well; to make them,
a multitude of minds have associated, united and combined their ideas and
sentiments; for them, long generations have accumulated their experience
and their knowledge. A special intellectual activity is therefore concentrated
in them which is infinitely richer and complexer than that of the individual.
From that one can understand how the reason has been able to go beyond
the limits of empirical knowledge. It does not owe this to any vague
mysterious virtue but simply to the fact that according to the well-known
formula, man is double. There are two beings in him: an individual being
which has its foundation in the organism and the circle of whose activities
is therefore strictly limited, and a social being which represents the highest
reality in the intellectual and moral order that we can know by observation
—I mean society. This duality of our nature has as its consequence in the

practical order, the irreducibility of a moral ideal to a utilitarian motive, and
in the order of thought, the irreducibility of reason to individual experience.
In so far as he belongs to society, the individual transcends himself, both
when he thinks and when he acts.
This same social character leads to an understanding of the origin of the
necessity of the categories. It is said that an idea is necessary when it
imposes itself upon the mind by some sort of virtue of its own, without
being accompanied by any proof. It contains within it something which
constrains the intelligence and which leads to its acceptance without
preliminary examination. The apriorist postulates this singular quality, but
does not account for it; for saying that the categories are necessary because
they are indispensable to the functioning of the intellect is simply repeating
that they are necessary. But if they really have the origin which we attribute
to them, their ascendancy no longer has anything surprising in it. They
represent the most general relations which exist between things; surpassing
all our other ideas in extension, they dominate all the details of our
intellectual life. If men did not agree upon these essential ideas at every
moment, if they did not have the same conception of time, space, cause,
number, etc., all contact between their minds would be impossible, and with
that, all life together. Thus society could not abandon the categories to the
free choice of the individual without abandoning itself. If it is to live there
is not merely need of a satisfactory moral conformity, but also there is a
minimum of logical conformity beyond which it cannot safely go. For this
reason it uses all its authority upon its members to forestall such
dissidences. Does a mind ostensibly free itself from these forms of thought?
It is no longer considered a human mind in the full sense of the word, and is
treated accordingly. That is why we feel that we are no longer completely
free and that something resists, both within and outside ourselves, when we
attempt to rid ourselves of these fundamental notions, even in our own
conscience. Outside of us there is public opinion which judges us; but more
than that, since society is also represented inside of us, it sets itself against
these revolutionary fancies, even inside of ourselves; we have the feeling
that we cannot abandon them if our whole thought is not to cease being
really human. This seems to be the origin of the exceptional authority which
is inherent in the reason and which makes us accept its suggestions with
confidence. It is the very authority of society,[19] transferring itself to a
certain manner of thought which is the indispensable condition of all

common action. The necessity with which the categories are imposed upon
us is not the effect of simple habits whose yoke we could easily throw off
with a little effort; nor is it a physical or metaphysical necessity, since the
categories change in different places and times; it is a special sort of moral
necessity which is to the intellectual life what moral obligation is to the
will.[20]

But if the categories originally only translate social states, does it not
follow that they can be applied to the rest of nature only as metaphors? If
they were made merely to express social conditions, it seems as though they
could not be extended to other realms except in this sense. Thus in so far as
they aid us in thinking of the physical or biological world, they have only
the value of artificial symbols, useful practically perhaps, but having no
connection with reality. Thus we come back, by a different road, to
nominalism and empiricism.
But when we interpret a sociological theory of knowledge in this way, we
forget that even if society is a specific reality it is not an empire within an
empire; it is a part of nature, and indeed its highest representation. The
social realm is a natural realm which differs from the others only by a
greater complexity. Now it is impossible that nature should differ radically
from itself in the one case and the other in regard to that which is most
essential. The fundamental relations that exist between things—just that
which it is the function of the categories to express—cannot be essentially
dissimilar in the different realms. If, for reasons which we shall discuss
later,[21] they are more clearly disengaged in the social world, it is
nevertheless impossible that they should not be found elsewhere, though in
less pronounced forms. Society makes them more manifest but it does not
have a monopoly upon them. That is why ideas which have been elaborated
on the model of social things can aid us in thinking of another department
of nature. It is at least true that if these ideas play the rôle of symbols when
they are thus turned aside from their original signification, they are well-
founded symbols. If a sort of artificiality enters into them from the mere
fact that they are constructed concepts, it is an artificiality which follows
nature very closely and which is constantly approaching it still more
closely.[22] From the fact that the ideas of time, space, class, cause or
personality are constructed out of social elements, it is not necessary to

conclude that they are devoid of all objective value. On the contrary, their
social origin rather leads to the belief that they are not without foundation in
the nature of things.[23]
Thus renovated, the theory of knowledge seems destined to unite the
opposing advantages of the two rival theories, without incurring their
inconveniences. It keeps all the essential principles of the apriorists; but at
the same time it is inspired by that positive spirit which the empiricists have
striven to satisfy. It leaves the reason its specific power, but it accounts for
it and does so without leaving the world of observable phenomena. It
affirms the duality of our intellectual life, but it explains it, and with natural
causes. The categories are no longer considered as primary and
unanalysable facts, yet they keep a complexity which falsifies any analysis
as ready as that with which the empiricists content themselves. They no
longer appear as very simple notions which the first comer can very easily
arrange from his own personal observations and which the popular
imagination has unluckily complicated, but rather they appear as priceless
instruments of thought which the human groups have laboriously forged
through the centuries and where they have accumulated the best of their
intellectual capital.[24] A complete section of the history of humanity is
resumed therein. This is equivalent to saying that to succeed in
understanding them and judging them, it is necessary to resort to other
means than those which have been in use up to the present. To know what
these conceptions which we have not made ourselves are really made of, it
does not suffice to interrogate our own consciousnesses; we must look
outside of ourselves, it is history that we must observe, there is a whole
science which must be formed, a complex science which can advance but
slowly and by collective labour, and to which the present work brings some
fragmentary contributions in the nature of an attempt. Without making these
questions the direct object of our study, we shall profit by all the occasions
which present themselves to us of catching at their very birth some at least
of these ideas which, while being of religious origin, still remain at the
foundation of the human intelligence.

BOOK I

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS

CHAPTER I

DEFINITION OF RELIGIOUS
PHENOMENA AND OF RELIGION[25]

If we are going to look for the most primitive and simple religion which
we can observe, it is necessary to begin by defining what is meant by a
religion; for without this, we would run the risk of giving the name to a
system of ideas and practices which has nothing at all religious about it, or
else of leaving to one side many religious facts, without perceiving their
true nature. That this is not an imaginary danger, and that nothing is thus
sacrificed to a vain formalism of method, is well shown by the fact that
owing to his not having taken this precaution, a certain scholar to whom the
science of comparative religions owes a great deal, Professor Frazer, has not
been able to recognize the profoundly religious character of the beliefs and
rites which will be studied below, where, according to our view, the initial
germ of the religious life of humanity is to be found. So this is a prejudicial
question, which must be treated before all others. It is not that we dream of
arriving at once at the profound characteristics which really explain
religion: these can be determined only at the end of our study. But that
which is necessary and possible, is to indicate a certain number of external
and easily recognizable signs, which will enable us to recognize religious
phenomena wherever they are met with, and which will deter us from

confounding them with others. We shall proceed to this preliminary
operation at once.
But to attain the desired results, it is necessary to begin by freeing the
mind of every preconceived idea. Men have been obliged to make for
themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions
started its methodical comparisons. The necessities of existence force all of
us, believers and non-believers, to represent in some way these things in the
midst of which we live, upon which we must pass judgment constantly, and
which we must take into account in all our conduct. However, since these
preconceived ideas are formed without any method, according to the
circumstances and chances of life, they have no right to any credit
whatsoever, and must be rigorously set aside in the examination which is to
follow. It is not from our prejudices, passions or habits that we should
demand the elements of the definition which we must have; it is from the
reality itself which we are going to define.
Let us set ourselves before this reality. Leaving aside all conceptions of
religion in general, let us consider the various religions in their concrete
reality, and attempt to disengage that which they have in common; for
religion cannot be defined except by the characteristics which are found
wherever religion itself is found. In this comparison, then, we shall make
use of all the religious systems which we can know, those of the present and
those of the past, the most primitive and simple as well as the most recent
and refined; for we have neither the right nor the logical means of excluding
some and retaining others. For those who regard religion as only a natural
manifestation of human activity, all religions, without any exception
whatsoever, are instructive; for all, after their manner, express man, and
thus can aid us in better understanding this aspect of our nature. Also, we
have seen how far it is from being the best way of studying religion to
consider by preference the forms which it presents among the most civilized
peoples.[26]
But to aid the mind in freeing itself from these usual conceptions which,
owing to their prestige, might prevent it from seeing things as they really
are, it is fitting to examine some of the most current of the definitions in
which these prejudices are commonly expressed, before taking up the
question on our own account.

I

One idea which generally passes as characteristic of all that is religious,
is that of the supernatural. By this is understood all sorts of things which
surpass the limits of our knowledge; the supernatural is the world of the
mysterious, of the unknowable, of the un-understandable. Thus religion
would be a sort of speculation upon all that which evades science or distinct
thought in general. "Religions diametrically opposed in their overt
dogmas," said Spencer, "are perfectly at one in the tacit conviction that the
existence of the world, with all it contains and all which surrounds it, is a
mystery calling for an explanation"; he thus makes them consist essentially
in "the belief in the omnipresence of something which is inscrutable."[27] In
the same manner, Max Müller sees in religion "a struggle to conceive the
inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the Infinite."[28]
It is certain that the sentiment of mystery has not been without a
considerable importance in certain religions, notably in Christianity. It must
also be said that the importance of this sentiment has varied remarkably at
different moments in the history of Christianity. There are periods when this
notion passes to an inferior place, and is even effaced. For example, for the
Christians of the seventeenth century, dogma had nothing disturbing for the
reason; faith reconciled itself easily with science and philosophy, and the
thinkers, such as Pascal, who really felt that there is something profoundly
obscure in things, were so little in harmony with their age that they
remained misunderstood by their contemporaries.[29] It would appear
somewhat hasty, therefore, to make an idea subject to parallel eclipses, the
essential element of even the Christian religion.
In all events, it is certain that this idea does not appear until late in the
history of religions; it is completely foreign, not only to those peoples who
are called primitive, but also to all others who have not attained a
considerable degree of intellectual culture. When we see them attribute
extraordinary virtues to insignificant objects, and people the universe with
singular principles, made up of the most diverse elements and endowed
with a sort of ubiquity which is hardly representable, we are undoubtedly
prone to find an air of mystery in these conceptions. It seems to us that
these men would have been willing to resign themselves to these ideas, so
disturbing for our modern reason, only because of their inability to find

others which were more rational. But, as a matter of fact, these explanations
which surprise us so much, appear to the primitive man as the simplest in
the world. He does not regard them as a sort of ultima ratio to which the
intellect resigns itself only in despair of others, but rather as the most
obvious manner of representing and understanding what he sees about him.
For him there is nothing strange in the fact that by a mere word or gesture
one is able to command the elements, retard or precipitate the motion of the
stars, bring rain or cause it to cease, etc. The rites which he employs to
assure the fertility of the soil or the fecundity of the animal species on
which he is nourished do not appear more irrational to his eyes than the
technical processes of which our agriculturists make use, for the same
object, do to ours. The powers which he puts into play by these diverse
means do not seem to him to have anything especially mysterious about
them. Undoubtedly these forces are different from those which the modern
scientist thinks of, and whose use he teaches us; they have a different way
of acting, and do not allow themselves to be directed in the same manner;
but for those who believe in them, they are no more unintelligible than are
gravitation and electricity for the physicist of to-day. Moreover, we shall
see, in the course of this work, that the idea of physical forces is very
probably derived from that of religious forces; then there cannot exist
between the two the abyss which separates the rational from the irrational.
Even the fact that religious forces are frequently conceived under the form
of spiritual beings or conscious wills, is no proof of their irrationality. The
reason has no repugnance a priori to admitting that the so-called inanimate
bodies should be directed by intelligences, just as the human body is,
though contemporary science accommodates itself with difficulty to this
hypothesis. When Leibniz proposed to conceive the external world as an
immense society of minds, between which there were, and could be, only
spiritual relations, he thought he was working as a rationalist, and saw
nothing in this universal animism which could be offensive to the intellect.
Moreover, the idea of the supernatural, as we understand it, dates only
from to-day; in fact, it presupposes the contrary idea, of which it is the
negation; but this idea is not at all primitive. In order to say that certain
things are supernatural, it is necessary to have the sentiment that a natural
order of things exists, that is to say, that the phenomena of the universe are
bound together by necessary relations, called laws. When this principle has
once been admitted, all that is contrary to these laws must necessarily

appear to be outside of nature, and consequently, of reason; for what is
natural in this sense of the word, is also rational, these necessary relations
only expressing the manner in which things are logically related. But this
idea of universal determinism is of recent origin; even the greatest thinkers
of classical antiquity never succeeded in becoming fully conscious of it. It
is a conquest of the positive sciences; it is the postulate upon which they
repose and which they have proved by their progress. Now as long as this
was lacking or insufficiently established, the most marvellous events
contained nothing which did not appear perfectly conceivable. So long as
men did not know the immutability and the inflexibility of the order of
things, and so long as they saw there the work of contingent wills, they
found it natural that either these wills or others could modify them
arbitrarily. That is why the miraculous interventions which the ancients
attributed to their gods were not to their eyes miracles in the modern
acceptation of the term. For them, they were beautiful, rare or terrible
spectacles, or causes of surprise and marvel (θαύματα, mirabilia, miracula);
but they never saw in them glimpses of a mysterious world into which the
reason cannot penetrate.
We can understand this mentality the better since it has not yet
completely disappeared from our midst. If the principle of determinism is
solidly established to-day in the physical and natural sciences, it is only a
century ago that it was first introduced into the social sciences, and its
authority there is still contested. There are only a small number of minds
which are strongly penetrated with this idea that societies are subject to
natural laws and form a kingdom of nature. It follows that veritable
miracles are believed to be possible there. It is admitted, for example, that a
legislator can create an institution out of nothing by a mere injunction of its
will, or transform one social system into another, just as the believers in so
many religions have held that the divine will created the world out of
nothing, or can arbitrarily transmute one thing into another. As far as social
facts are concerned, we still have the mentality of primitives. However, if so
many of our contemporaries still retain this antiquated conception for
sociological affairs, it is not because the life of societies appears obscure
and mysterious to them; on the contrary, if they are so easily contented with
these explanations, and if they are so obstinate in their illusions which
experience constantly belies, it is because social events seem to them the
clearest thing in the world; it is because they have not yet realized their real

obscurity; it is because they have not yet recognized the necessity of
resorting to the laborious methods of the natural sciences to gradually
scatter the darkness. The same state of mind is found at the root of many
religious beliefs which surprise us by their pseudo-simplicity. It is science
and not religion which has taught men that things are complex and difficult
to understand.
But the human mind, says Jevons,[30] has no need of a properly scientific
culture to notice that determined sequences, or a constant order of
succession, exist between facts, or to observe, on the other hand, that this
order is frequently upset. It sometimes happens that the sun is suddenly
eclipsed, that rain fails at the time when it is expected, that the moon is slow
to reappear after its periodical disappearance, etc. Since these events are
outside the ordinary course of affairs, they are attributed to extraordinary
exceptional causes, that is to say, in fine, to extra-natural causes. It is under
this form that the idea of the supernatural is born at the very outset of
history, and from this moment, according to this author, religious thought
finds itself provided with its proper subject.
But in the first place, the supernatural cannot be reduced to the
unforeseen. The new is a part of nature just as well as its contrary. If we
state that in general, phenomena succeed one another in a determined order,
we observe equally well that this order is only approximative, that it is not
always precisely the same, and that it has all kinds of exceptions. If we have
ever so little experience, we are accustomed to seeing our expectations fail,
and these deceptions return too often to appear extraordinary to us. A
certain contingency is taught by experience just as well as a certain
uniformity; then we have no reason for assigning the one to causes and
forces entirely different from those upon which the other depends. In order
to arrive at the idea of the supernatural, it is not enough, therefore, to be
witnesses to unexpected events; it is also necessary that these be conceived
as impossible, that is to say, irreconcilable with an order which, rightly or
wrongly, appears to us to be implied in the nature of things. Now this idea
of a necessary order has been constructed little by little by the positive
sciences, and consequently the contrary notion could not have existed
before them.
Also, in whatever manner men have represented the novelties and
contingencies revealed by experience, there is nothing in these

representations which could serve to characterize religion. For religious
conceptions have as their object, before everything else, to express and
explain, not that which is exceptional and abnormal in things, but, on the
contrary, that which is constant and regular. Very frequently, the gods serve
less to account for the monstrosities, fantasies and anomalies than for the
regular march of the universe, for the movement of the stars, the rhythm of
the seasons, the annual growth of vegetation, the perpetuation of species,
etc. It is far from being true, then, that the notion of the religions coincides
with that of the extraordinary or the unforeseen. Jevons replies that this
conception of religious forces is not primitive. Men commenced by
imagining them to account for disorders and accidents, and it was only
afterwards that they began to utilize them in explaining the uniformities of
nature.[31] But it is not clear what could have led men to attribute such
manifestly contradictory functions to them. More than that, the hypothesis
according to which sacred beings were at first restricted to the negative
function of disturbers is quite arbitrary. In fact, we shall see that, even with
the most simple religions we know, their essential task is to maintain, in a
positive manner, the normal course of life.[32]
So the idea of mystery is not of primitive origin. It was not given to man;
it is man who has forged it, with his own hands, along with the contrary
idea. This is why it has a place only in a very small number of advanced
religions. It is impossible to make it the characteristic mark of religious
phenomena without excluding from the definition the majority of the facts
to be defined.

II

Another idea by which the attempt to define religion is often made, is
that of divinity. "Religion," says M. Réville,[33] "is the determination of
human life by the sentiment of a bond uniting the human mind to that
mysterious mind whose domination of the world and itself it recognizes,
and to whom it delights in feeling itself united." It is certain that if the word
divinity is taken in a precise and narrow sense, this definition leaves aside a
multitude of obviously religious facts. The souls of the dead and the spirits
of all ranks and classes with which the religious imagination of so many
different peoples has populated nature, are always the object of rites and

sometimes even of a regular cult; yet they are not gods in the proper sense
of the term. But in order that the definition may embrace them, it is enough
to substitute for the term "gods" the more comprehensive one of "spiritual
beings." This is what Tylor does. "The first requisite in a systematic study
of the religions of the lower races," he says, "is to lay down a rudimentary
definition of religion. By requiring in this definition the belief in a supreme
deity ..., no doubt many tribes may be excluded from the category of
religious. But such narrow definition has the fault of identifying religion
rather with particular developments.... It seems best ... simply to claim as a
minimum definition of Religion, the belief in Spiritual Beings."[34] By
spiritual beings must be understood conscious subjects gifted with powers
superior to those possessed by common men; this qualification is found in
the souls of the dead, geniuses or demons as well as in divinities properly
so-called. It is important, therefore, to give our attention at once to the
particular conception of religion which is implied in this definition. The
relations which we can have with beings of this sort are determined by the
nature attributed to them. They are conscious beings; then we can act upon
them only in the same way that we act upon consciousnesses in general,
that is to say, by psychological processes, attempting to convince them or
move them, either with the aid of words (invocations, prayers), or by
offerings and sacrifices. And since the object of religion is to regulate our
relations with these special beings, there can be no religion except where
there are prayers, sacrifices, propitiatory rites, etc. Thus we have a very
simple criterium which permits us to distinguish that which is religious
from that which is not. It is to this criterium that Frazer,[35] and with him
numerous ethnographers,[36] systematically makes reference.
But howsoever evident this definition may appear, thanks to the mental
habits which we owe to our religious education, there are many facts to
which it is not applicable, but which appertain to the field of religion
nevertheless.
In the first place, there are great religions from which the idea of gods
and spirits is absent, or at least, where it plays only a secondary and minor
rôle. This is the case with Buddhism. Buddhism, says Burnouf, "sets itself
in opposition to Brahmanism as a moral system without god and an atheism
without Nature."[37] "As it recognizes not a god upon whom man depends,"
says Barth, "its doctrine is absolutely atheistic,"[38] while Oldenberg, in his

turn, calls it "a faith without a god."[39] In fact, all that is essential to
Buddhism is found in the four propositions which the faithful call the four
noble truths.[40] The first states the existence of suffering as the
accompaniment to the perpetual change of things; the second shows desire
to be the cause of suffering; the third makes the suppression of desire the
only means of suppressing sorrow; the fourth enumerates the three stages
through which one must pass to attain this suppression: they are
uprightness, meditation, and finally wisdom, the full possession of the
doctrine. These three stages once traversed, one arrives at the end of the
road, at the deliverance, at salvation by the Nirvâna.
Now in none of these principles is there question of a divinity. The
Buddhist is not interested in knowing whence came the world in which he
lives and suffers; he takes it as a given fact,[41] and his whole concern is to
escape it. On the other hand, in this work of salvation, he can count only
upon himself; "he has no god to thank, as he had previously no god to
invoke during his struggle."[42] Instead of praying, in the ordinary sense of
the term, instead of turning towards a superior being and imploring his
assistance, he relies upon himself and meditates. This is not saying "that he
absolutely denies the existence of the beings called Indra, Agni and Varuna;
[43]
but he believes that he owes them nothing and that he has nothing to do
with them," for their power can only extend over the goods of this world,
which are without value for him. Then he is an atheist, in the sense that he
does not concern himself with the question whether gods exist or not.
Besides, even if they should exist, and with whatever powers they might be
armed, the saint or the emancipated man regards himself superior to them;
for that which causes the dignity of beings is not the extent of the action
they exercise over things, but merely the degree of their advancement upon
the road of salvation.[44]
It is true that Buddha, at least in some divisions of the Buddhist Church,
has sometimes been considered as a sort of god. He has his temples; he is
the object of a cult, which, by the way, is a very simple one, for it is reduced
essentially to the offering of flowers and the adoration of consecrated relics
or images. It is scarcely more than a commemorative cult. But more than
that, this divinization of Buddha, granting that the term is exact, is peculiar
to the form known as Northern Buddhism. "The Buddhist of the South,"
says Kern, "and the less advanced of the Northern Buddhists can be said,

according to data known to-day, to speak of their founder as if he were a
man."[45] Of course, they attribute extraordinary powers to Buddha, which
are superior to those possessed by ordinary mortals; but it was a very
ancient belief in India, and one that is also very general in a host of different
religions, that a great saint is endowed with exceptional virtues;[46] yet a
saint is not a god, any more than a priest or magician is, in spite of the
superhuman faculties frequently attributed to them. On the other hand,
according to the most authorized scholars, all this theism and the
complicated mythology which generally accompanies it, are only derived
and deviated forms of Buddhism. At first, Buddha was only regarded as
"the wisest of men."[47] Burnouf says "the conception of a Buddha who is
something more than a man arrived at the highest stage of holiness, is
outside the circle of ideas which form the foundation of the simple Sûtras";
[48]
and the same author adds elsewhere that "his humanity is a fact so
incontestably recognized by all that the myth-makers, to whom miracles
cost so little, have never even had the idea of making a god out of him since
his death."[49] So we may well ask if he has ever really divested himself
completely of all human character, and if we have a right to make him into
a god completely;[50] in any case, it would have to be a god of a very
particular character and one whose rôle in no way resembles that of other
divine personalities. For a god is before all else a living being, with whom
man should reckon, and upon whom he may count; but Buddha is dead, he
has entered into the Nirvâna, and he can no longer influence the march of
human events.[51]
Finally, whatever one may think of the divinity of Buddha, it remains a
fact that this is a conception wholly outside the essential part of Buddhism.
Buddhism consists primarily in the idea of salvation, and salvation supposes
only that one know the good doctrine and practise it. To be sure, this could
never have been known if Buddha had not come to reveal it; but when this
revelation had once been made, the work of Buddha was accomplished.
From that moment he ceased to be a factor necessary to the religious life.
The practice of the four holy truths would be possible, even if the memory
of him who revealed them were completely obliterated.[52] It is quite
another matter with Christianity, which is inconceivable without the ever-
present idea of Christ and his ever-practised cult; for it is by the ever-living

Christ, sacrificed each day, that the community of believers continues to
communicate with the supreme source of the spiritual life.[53]
All that precedes can be applied equally well to another great religion of
India, Jaïnism. The two doctrines have nearly the same conception of the
world and of life. "Like the Buddhists," says Barth, "the Jaïnas are atheists.
They admit of no creator; the world is eternal; they explicitly deny the
possibility of a perfect being from the beginning. The Jina became perfect;
he was not always so."
Just as the Buddhists in the north, the Jaïnists, or at least certain of them,
have come back to a sort of deism; in the inscriptions of Dekhan there is
mention of a Jinapati, a sort of supreme Jina, who is called the primary
creator; but such language, says the same author, is "in contradiction to the
most explicit declarations extracted from their most authorized writings."
[54]

Moreover, if this indifference for the divine is developed to such a point
in Buddhism and Jaïnism, it is because its germ existed already in the
Brahmanism from which the two were derived. In certain of its forms at
least, Brahmic speculation ended in "a frankly materialistic and atheistic
interpretation of the universe."[55] In time, the numerous divinities which
the people of India had originally learned to adore, came to merge
themselves into a sort of principal deity, impersonal and abstract, the
essence of all that exists. This supreme reality, which no longer has
anything of a divine personality about it, is contained within man himself,
or rather, man is but one with it, for nothing exists apart from it. To find it,
and unite himself to it, one does not have to search some external support
outside himself; it is enough to concentrate upon himself and meditate. "If
in Buddhism," says Oldenberg, "the proud attempt be made to conceive a
deliverance in which man himself delivers himself, to create a faith without
a god, it is Brahmanical speculation which has prepared the way for this
thought. It thrusts back the idea of a god step by step; the forms of the old
gods have faded away, and besides the Brahma, which is enthroned in its
everlasting quietude, highly exalted above the destinies of the human world,
there is left remaining, as the sole really active person in the great work of
deliverance, man himself."[56] Here, then, we find a considerable portion of
religious evolution which has consisted in the progressive recoil of the idea
of a spiritual being from that of a deity. Here are great religions where

invocations, propitiations, sacrifices and prayers properly so-called are far
from holding a preponderating place, and which consequently do not
present that distinctive sign by which some claim to recognize those
manifestations which are properly called religious.
But even within deistic religions there are many rites which are
completely independent of all idea of gods or spiritual beings. In the first
place, there are a multitude of interdictions. For example, the Bible orders
that a woman live isolated during a determined period each month;[57] a
similar isolation is obligatory during the lying-in at child-birth;[58] it is
forbidden to hitch an ass and a horse together, or to wear a garment in
which the hemp is mixed with flax;[59] but it is impossible to see the part
which belief in Jahveh can have played in these interdictions, for he is
wholly absent from all the relations thus forbidden, and could not be
interested in them. As much can be said for the majority of the dietetic
regulations. These prohibitions are not peculiar to the Hebrews, but they are
found under diverse forms, but with substantially the same character, in
innumerable religions.
It is true that these rites are purely negative, but they do not cease being
religious for that. Also there are others which demand active and positive
services of the faithful, but which are nevertheless of the same nature. They
work by themselves, and their efficacy depends upon no divine power; they
mechanically produce the effects which are the reason for their existence.
They do not consist either in prayers or offerings addressed to a being upon
whose goodwill the expected result depends; this result is obtained by the
automatic operation of the ritual. Such is notably the case with the sacrifice
of the Vedic religion. "The sacrifice exercises a direct influence upon the
celestial phenomena," says Bergaigne;[60] it is all-powerful of itself, and
without any divine influence. It is this, for example, which broke open the
doors of the cavern where the dawn was imprisoned and which made the
light of day burst forth.[61] In the same way there are special hymns which,
by their direct action, made the waters of heaven fall upon the earth, and
even in spite of the gods.[62] The practice of certain austerities has the same
power. More than that, "the sacrifice is so fully the origin of things par
excellence, that they have attributed to it not only the origin of man, but
even that of the gods.... Such a conception may well appear strange. It is
explained, however, as being one of the ultimate consequences of the idea

of the omnipotence of sacrifice."[63] Thus, in the entire first part of his
work, M. Bergaigne speaks only of sacrifices, where divinities play no rôle
whatsoever.
Nor is this fact peculiar to the Vedic religion, but is, on the contrary, quite
general. In every cult there are practices which act by themselves, by a
virtue which is their own, without the intervention of any god between the
individual who practises the rite and the end sought after. When, in the so-
called Feast of the Tabernacles, the Jew set the air in motion by shaking
willow branches in a certain rhythm, it was to cause the wind to rise and the
rain to fall; and it was believed that the desired phenomenon would result
automatically from the rite, provided it were correctly performed.[64] This is
the explanation of the fundamental importance laid by nearly all cults upon
the material portion of the ceremonies. This religious formalism—very
probably the first form of legal formalism—comes from the fact that since
the formula to be pronounced and the movements to be made contain within
themselves the source of their efficacy, they would lose it if they did not
conform absolutely to the type consecrated by success.
Thus there are rites without gods, and even rites from which gods are
derived. All religious powers do not emanate from divine personalities, and
there are relations of cult which have other objects than uniting man to a
deity. Religion is more than the idea of gods or spirits, and consequently
cannot be defined exclusively in relation to these latter.

III

These definitions set aside, let us set ourselves before the problem.
First of all, let us remark that in all these formulæ it is the nature of
religion as a whole that they seek to express. They proceed as if it were a
sort of indivisible entity, while, as a matter of fact, it is made up of parts; it
is a more or less complex system of myths, dogmas, rites and ceremonies.
Now a whole cannot be defined except in relation to its parts. It will be
more methodical, then, to try to characterize the various elementary
phenomena of which all religions are made up, before we attack the system
produced by their union. This method is imposed still more forcibly by the
fact that there are religious phenomena which belong to no determined
religion. Such are those phenomena which constitute the matter of folk-lore.

In general, they are the debris of passed religions, inorganized survivals; but
there are some which have been formed spontaneously under the influence
of local causes. In our European countries Christianity has forced itself to
absorb and assimilate them; it has given them a Christian colouring.
Nevertheless, there are many which have persisted up until a recent date, or
which still exist with a relative autonomy: celebrations of May Day, the
summer solstice or the carnival, beliefs relative to genii, local demons, etc.,
are cases in point. If the religious character of these facts is now
diminishing, their religious importance is nevertheless so great that they
have enabled Mannhardt and his school to revive the science of religions. A
definition which did not take account of them would not cover all that is
religious.
Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental
categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in
representations; the second are determined modes of action. Between these
two classes of facts there is all the difference which separates thought from
action.
The rites can be defined and distinguished from other human practices,
moral practices, for example, only by the special nature of their object. A
moral rule prescribes certain manners of acting to us, just as a rite does, but
which are addressed to a different class of objects. So it is the object of the
rite which must be characterized, if we are to characterize the rite itself.
Now it is in the beliefs that the special nature of this object is expressed. It
is possible to define the rite only after we have defined the belief.
All known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, present one
common characteristic: they presuppose a classification of all the things,
real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups,
generally designated by two distinct terms which are translated well enough
by the words profane and sacred (profane, sacré). This division of the
world into two domains, the one containing all that is sacred, the other all
that is profane, is the distinctive trait of religious thought; the beliefs,
myths, dogmas and legends are either representations or systems of
representations which express the nature of sacred things, the virtues and
powers which are attributed to them, or their relations with each other and
with profane things. But by sacred things one must not understand simply
those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a

spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be
sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which
does not have it to a certain degree. There are words, expressions and
formulæ which can be pronounced only by the mouths of consecrated
persons; there are gestures and movements which everybody cannot
perform. If the Vedic sacrifice has had such an efficacy that, according to
mythology, it was the creator of the gods, and not merely a means of
winning their favour, it is because it possessed a virtue comparable to that
of the most sacred beings. The circle of sacred objects cannot be
determined, then, once for all. Its extent varies infinitely, according to the
different religions. That is how Buddhism is a religion: in default of gods, it
admits the existence of sacred things, namely, the four noble truths and the
practices derived from them.[65]
Up to the present we have confined ourselves to enumerating a certain
number of sacred things as examples: we must now show by what general
characteristics they are to be distinguished from profane things.
One might be tempted, first of all, to define them by the place they are
generally assigned in the hierarchy of things. They are naturally considered
superior in dignity and power to profane things, and particularly to man,
when he is only a man and has nothing sacred about him. One thinks of
himself as occupying an inferior and dependent position in relation to them;
and surely this conception is not without some truth. Only there is nothing
in it which is really characteristic of the sacred. It is not enough that one
thing be subordinated to another for the second to be sacred in regard to the
first. Slaves are inferior to their masters, subjects to their king, soldiers to
their leaders, the miser to his gold, the man ambitious for power to the
hands which keep it from him; but if it is sometimes said of a man that he
makes a religion of those beings or things whose eminent value and
superiority to himself he thus recognizes, it is clear that in any case the
word is taken in a metaphorical sense, and that there is nothing in these
relations which is really religious.[66]
On the other hand, it must not be lost to view that there are sacred things
of every degree, and that there are some in relation to which a man feels
himself relatively at his ease. An amulet has a sacred character, yet the
respect which it inspires is nothing exceptional. Even before his gods, a
man is not always in such a marked state of inferiority; for it very

frequently happens that he exercises a veritable physical constraint upon
them to obtain what he desires. He beats the fetich with which he is not
contented, but only to reconcile himself with it again, if in the end it shows
itself more docile to the wishes of its adorer.[67] To have rain, he throws
stones into the spring or sacred lake where the god of rain is thought to
reside; he believes that by this means he forces him to come out and show
himself.[68] Moreover, if it is true that man depends upon his gods, this
dependence is reciprocal. The gods also have need of man; without
offerings and sacrifices they would die. We shall even have occasion to
show that this dependence of the gods upon their worshippers is maintained
even in the most idealistic religions.
But if a purely hierarchic distinction is a criterium at once too general
and too imprecise, there is nothing left with which to characterize the sacred
in its relation to the profane except their heterogeneity. However, this
heterogeneity is sufficient to characterize this classification of things and to
distinguish it from all others, because it is very particular: it is absolute. In
all the history of human thought there exists no other example of two
categories of things so profoundly differentiated or so radically opposed to
one another. The traditional opposition of good and bad is nothing beside
this; for the good and the bad are only two opposed species of the same
class, namely morals, just as sickness and health are two different aspects of
the same order of facts, life, while the sacred and the profane have always
and everywhere been conceived by the human mind as two distinct classes,
as two worlds between which there is nothing in common. The forces which
play in one are not simply those which are met with in the other, but a little
stronger; they are of a different sort. In different religions, this opposition
has been conceived in different ways. Here, to separate these two sorts of
things, it has seemed sufficient to localize them in different parts of the
physical universe; there, the first have been put into an ideal and
transcendental world, while the material world is left in full possession of
the others. But howsoever much the forms of the contrast may vary,[69] the
fact of the contrast is universal.
This is not equivalent to saying that a being can never pass from one of
these worlds into the other: but the manner in which this passage is effected,
when it does take place, puts into relief the essential duality of the two
kingdoms. In fact, it implies a veritable metamorphosis. This is notably

demonstrated by the initiation rites, such as they are practised by a
multitude of peoples. This initiation is a long series of ceremonies with the
object of introducing the young man into the religious life: for the first time,
he leaves the purely profane world where he passed his first infancy, and
enters into the world of sacred things. Now this change of state is thought
of, not as a simple and regular development of pre-existent germs, but as a
transformation totius substantiae—of the whole being. It is said that at this
moment the young man dies, that the person that he was ceases to exist, and
that another is instantly substituted for it. He is re-born under a new form.
Appropriate ceremonies are felt to bring about this death and re-birth,
which are not understood in a merely symbolic sense, but are taken literally.
[70]
Does this not prove that between the profane being which he was and
the religious being which he becomes, there is a break of continuity?
This heterogeneity is even so complete that it frequently degenerates into
a veritable antagonism. The two worlds are not only conceived of as
separate, but as even hostile and jealous rivals of each other. Since men
cannot fully belong to one except on condition of leaving the other
completely, they are exhorted to withdraw themselves completely from the
profane world, in order to lead an exclusively religious life. Hence comes
the monasticism which is artificially organized outside of and apart from
the natural environment in which the ordinary man leads the life of this
world, in a different one, closed to the first, and nearly its contrary. Hence
comes the mystic asceticism whose object is to root out from man all the
attachment for the profane world that remains in him. From that come all
the forms of religious suicide, the logical working-out of this asceticism; for
the only manner of fully escaping the profane life is, after all, to forsake all
life.
The opposition of these two classes manifests itself outwardly with a
visible sign by which we can easily recognize this very special
classification, wherever it exists. Since the idea of the sacred is always and
everywhere separated from the idea of the profane in the thought of men,
and since we picture a sort of logical chasm between the two, the mind
irresistibly refuses to allow the two corresponding things to be confounded,
or even to be merely put in contact with each other; for such a promiscuity,
or even too direct a contiguity, would contradict too violently the
dissociation of these ideas in the mind. The sacred thing is par excellence
that which the profane should not touch, and cannot touch with impunity.

To be sure, this interdiction cannot go so far as to make all communication
between the two worlds impossible; for if the profane could in no way enter
into relations with the sacred, this latter could be good for nothing. But, in
addition to the fact that this establishment of relations is always a delicate
operation in itself, demanding great precautions and a more or less
complicated initiation,[71] it is quite impossible, unless the profane is to lose
its specific characteristics and become sacred after a fashion and to a certain
degree itself. The two classes cannot even approach each other and keep
their own nature at the same time.
Thus we arrive at the first criterium of religious beliefs. Undoubtedly
there are secondary species within these two fundamental classes which, in
their turn, are more or less incompatible with each other.[72] But the real
characteristic of religious phenomena is that they always suppose a bipartite
division of the whole universe, known and knowable, into two classes
which embrace all that exists, but which radically exclude each other.
Sacred things are those which the interdictions protect and isolate; profane
things, those to which these interdictions are applied and which must
remain at a distance from the first. Religious beliefs are the representations
which express the nature of sacred things and the relations which they
sustain, either with each other or with profane things. Finally, rites are the
rules of conduct which prescribe how a man should comport himself in the
presence of these sacred objects.
When a certain number of sacred things sustain relations of co-ordination
or subordination with each other in such a way as to form a system having a
certain unity, but which is not comprised within any other system of the
same sort, the totality of these beliefs and their corresponding rites
constitutes a religion. From this definition it is seen that a religion is not
necessarily contained within one sole and single idea, and does not proceed
from one unique principle which, though varying according to the
circumstances under which it is applied, is nevertheless at bottom always
the same: it is rather a whole made up of distinct and relatively
individualized parts. Each homogeneous group of sacred things, or even
each sacred thing of some importance, constitutes a centre of organization
about which gravitate a group of beliefs and rites, or a particular cult; there
is no religion, howsoever unified it may be, which does not recognize a
plurality of sacred things. Even Christianity, at least in its Catholic form,

admits, in addition to the divine personality which, incidentally, is triple as
well as one, the Virgin, angels, saints, souls of the dead, etc. Thus a religion
cannot be reduced to one single cult generally, but father consists in a
system of cults, each endowed with a certain autonomy. Also, this
autonomy is variable. Sometimes they are arranged in a hierarchy, and
subordinated to some predominating cult, into which they are finally
absorbed; but sometimes, also, they are merely rearranged and united. The
religion which we are going to study will furnish us with an example of just
this latter sort of organization.
At the same time we find the explanation of how there can be groups of
religious phenomena which do not belong to any special religion; it is
because they have not been, or are no longer, a part of any religious system.
If, for some special reason, one of the cults of which we just spoke happens
to be maintained while the group of which it was a part disappears, it
survives only in a disintegrated condition. That is what has happened to
many agrarian cults which have survived themselves as folk-lore. In certain
cases, it is not even a cult, but a simple ceremony or particular rite which
persists in this way.[73]
Although this definition is only preliminary, it permits us to see in what
terms the problem which necessarily dominates the science of religions
should be stated. When we believed that sacred beings could be
distinguished from others merely by the greater intensity of the powers
attributed to them, the question of how men came to imagine them was
sufficiently simple: it was enough to demand which forces had, because of
their exceptional energy, been able to strike the human imagination
forcefully enough to inspire religious sentiments. But if, as we have sought
to establish, sacred things differ in nature from profane things, if they have
a wholly different essence, then the problem is more complex. For we must
first of all ask what has been able to lead men to see in the world two
heterogeneous and incompatible worlds, though nothing sensible
experience seems able to suggest the idea of so radical a duality to them.

IV

However, this definition is not yet complete, for it is equally applicable to
two sorts of facts which, while being related to each other, must be

distinguished nevertheless: these are magic and religion.
Magic, too, is made up of beliefs and rites. Like religion, it has its myths
and its dogmas; only they are more elementary, undoubtedly because,
seeking technical and utilitarian ends, it does not waste its time in pure
speculation. It has its ceremonies, sacrifices, lustrations, prayers, chants and
dances as well. The beings which the magician invokes and the forces
which he throws in play are not merely of the same nature as the forces and
beings to which religion addresses itself; very frequently, they are
identically the same. Thus, even with the most inferior societies, the souls
of the dead are essentially sacred things, and the object of religious rites.
But at the same time, they play a considerable rôle in magic. In Australia[74]
as well as in Melanesia,[75] in Greece as well as among the Christian
peoples,[76] the souls of the dead, their bones and their hair, are among the
intermediaries used the most frequently by the magician. Demons are also a
common instrument for magic action. Now these demons are also beings
surrounded with interdictions; they too are separated and live in a world
apart, so that it is frequently difficult to distinguish them from the gods
properly so-called.[77] Moreover, in Christianity itself, is not the devil a
fallen god, or even leaving aside all question of his origin, does he not have
a religious character from the mere fact that the hell of which he has charge
is something indispensable to the Christian religion? There are even some
regular and official deities who are invoked by the magician. Sometimes
these are the gods of a foreign people; for example, Greek magicians called
upon Egyptian, Assyrian or Jewish gods. Sometimes, they are even national
gods: Hecate and Diana were the object of a magic cult; the Virgin, Christ
and the saints have been utilized in the same way by Christian magicians.
[78]

Then will it be necessary to say that magic is hardly distinguishable from
religion; that magic is full of religion just as religion is full of magic, and
consequently that it is impossible to separate them and to define the one
without the other? It is difficult to sustain this thesis, because of the marked
repugnance of religion for magic, and in return, the hostility of the second
towards the first. Magic takes a sort of professional pleasure in profaning
holy things;[79] in its rites, it performs the contrary of the religious
ceremony.[80] On its side, religion, when it has not condemned and
prohibited magic rites, has always looked upon them with disfavour. As

Hubert and Mauss have remarked, there is something thoroughly anti-
religious in the doings of the magician.[81] Whatever relations there may be
between these two sorts of institutions, it is difficult to imagine their not
being opposed somewhere; and it is still more necessary for us to find
where they are differentiated, as we plan to limit our researches to religion,
and to stop at the point where magic commences.
Here is how a line of demarcation can be traced between these two
domains.
The really religious beliefs are always common to a determined group,
which makes profession of adhering to them and of practising the rites
connected with them. They are not merely received individually by all the
members of this group; they are something belonging to the group, and they
make its unity. The individuals which compose it feel themselves united to
each other by the simple fact that they have a common faith. A society
whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in
regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by
the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices, is
what is called a Church. In all history, we do not find a single religion
without a Church. Sometimes the Church is strictly national, sometimes it
passes the frontiers; sometimes it embraces an entire people (Rome, Athens,
the Hebrews), sometimes it embraces only a part of them (the Christian
societies since the advent of Protestantism); sometimes it is directed by a
corps of priests, sometimes it is almost completely devoid of any official
directing body.[82] But wherever we observe the religious life, we find that
it has a definite group as its foundation. Even the so-called private cults,
such as the domestic cult or the cult of a corporation, satisfy this condition;
for they are always celebrated by a group, the family or the corporation.
Moreover, even these particular religions are ordinarily only special forms
of a more general religion which embraces all;[83] these restricted Churches
are in reality only chapels of a vaster Church which, by reason of this very
extent, merits this name still more.[84]
It is quite another matter with magic. To be sure, the belief in magic is
always more or less general; it is very frequently diffused in large masses of
the population, and there are even peoples where it has as many adherents
as the real religion. But it does not result in binding together those who
adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group leading a common life. There

is no Church of magic. Between the magician and the individuals who
consult him, as between these individuals themselves, there are no lasting
bonds which make them members of the same moral community,
comparable to that formed by the believers in the same god or the observers
of the same cult. The magician has a clientele and not a Church, and it is
very possible that his clients have no other relations between each other, or
even do not know each other; even the relations which they have with him
are generally accidental and transient; they are just like those of a sick man
with his physician. The official and public character with which he is
sometimes invested changes nothing in this situation; the fact that he works
openly does not unite him more regularly or more durably to those who
have recourse to his services.
It is true that in certain cases, magicians form societies among
themselves: it happens that they assemble more or less periodically to
celebrate certain rites in common; it is well known what a place these
assemblies of witches hold in European folk-lore. But it is to be remarked
that these associations are in no way indispensable to the working of the
magic; they are even rare and rather exceptional. The magician has no need
of uniting himself to his fellows to practise his art. More frequently, he is a
recluse; in general, far from seeking society, he flees it. "Even in regard to
his colleagues, he always keeps his personal independence."[85] Religion,
on the other hand, is inseparable from the idea of a Church. From this point
of view, there is an essential difference between magic and religion. But
what is especially important is that when these societies of magic are
formed, they do not include all the adherents to magic, but only the
magicians; the laymen, if they may be so called, that is to say, those for
whose profit the rites are celebrated, in fine, those who represent the
worshippers in the regular cults, are excluded. Now the magician is for
magic what the priest is for religion, but a college of priests is not a Church,
any more than a religious congregation which should devote itself to some
particular saint in the shadow of a cloister, would be a particular cult. A
Church is not a fraternity of priests; it is a moral community formed by all
the believers in a single faith, laymen as well as priests. But magic lacks
any such community.[86]
But if the idea of a Church is made to enter into the definition of religion,
does that not exclude the private religions which the individual establishes

for himself and celebrates by himself? There is scarcely a society where
these are not found. Every Ojibway, as we shall see below, has his own
personal manitou, which he chooses himself and to which he renders
special religious services; the Melanesian of the Banks Islands has his
tamaniu;[87] the Roman, his genius;[88] the Christian, his patron saint and
guardian angel, etc. By definition all these cults seem to be independent of
all idea of the group. Not only are these individual religions very frequent
in history, but nowadays many are asking if they are not destined to be the
pre-eminent form of the religious life, and if the day will not come when
there will be no other cult than that which each man will freely perform
within himself.[89]
But if we leave these speculations in regard to the future aside for the
moment, and confine ourselves to religions such as they are at present or
have been in the past, it becomes clearly evident that these individual cults
are not distinct and autonomous religious systems, but merely aspects of the
common religion of the whole Church, of which the individuals are
members. The patron saint of the Christian is chosen from the official list of
saints recognized by the Catholic Church; there are even canonical rules
prescribing how each Catholic should perform this private cult. In the same
way, the idea that each man necessarily has a protecting genius is found,
under different forms, at the basis of a great number of American religions,
as well as of the Roman religion (to cite only these two examples); for, as
will be seen later, it is very closely connected with the idea of the soul, and
this idea of the soul is not one of those which can be left entirely to
individual choice. In a word, it is the Church of which he is a member
which teaches the individual what these personal gods are, what their
function is, how he should enter into relations with them and how he should
honour them. When a methodical analysis is made of the doctrines of any
Church whatsoever, sooner or later we come upon those concerning private
cults. So these are not two religions of different types, and turned in
opposite directions; both are made up of the same ideas and the same
principles, here applied to circumstances which are of interest to the group
as a whole, there to the life of the individual. This solidarity is even so close
that among certain peoples,[90] the ceremonies by which the faithful first
enter into communication with their protecting geniuses are mixed with

rites whose public character is incontestable, namely the rites of initiation.
[91]

There still remain those contemporary aspirations towards a religion
which would consist entirely in internal and subjective states, and which
would be constructed freely by each of us. But howsoever real these
aspirations may be, they cannot affect our definition, for this is to be
applied only to facts already realized, and not to uncertain possibilities. One
can define religions such as they are, or such as they have been, but not
such as they more or less vaguely tend to become. It is possible that this
religious individualism is destined to be realized in facts; but before we can
say just how far this may be the case, we must first know what religion is,
of what elements it is made up, from what causes it results, and what
function it fulfils—all questions whose solution cannot be foreseen before
the threshold of our study has been passed. It is only at the close of this
study that we can attempt to anticipate the future.
Thus we arrive at the following definition: A religion is a unified system
of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set
apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single
moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them. The
second element which thus finds a place in our definition is no less essential
than the first; for by showing that the idea of religion is inseparable from
that of the Church, it makes it clear that religion should be an eminently
collective thing.[92]

CHAPTER II

LEADING CONCEPTIONS OF THE
ELEMENTARY RELIGION

I.—Animism

Armed with this definition, we are now able to set out in search of this
elementary religion which we propose to study.

Even the crudest religions with which history and ethnology make us
acquainted are already of a complexity which corresponds badly with the
idea sometimes held of primitive mentality. One finds there not only a
confused system of beliefs and rites, but also such a plurality of different
principles, and such a richness of essential notions, that it seems impossible
to see in them anything but the late product of a rather long evolution.
Hence it has been concluded that to discover the truly original form of the
religious life, it is necessary to descend by analysis beyond these observable
religions, to resolve them into their common and fundamental elements, and
then to seek among these latter some one from which the others were
derived.
To the problem thus stated, two contrary solutions have been given.
There is no religious system, ancient or recent, where one does not meet,
under different forms, two religions, as it were, side by side, which, though
being united closely and mutually penetrating each other, do not cease,
nevertheless, to be distinct. The one addresses itself to the phenomena of
nature, either the great cosmic forces, such as winds, rivers, stars or the sky,
etc., or else the objects of various sorts which cover the surface of the earth,
such as plants, animals, rocks, etc.; for this reason it has been given the
name of naturism. The other has spiritual beings as its object, spirits, souls,
geniuses, demons, divinities properly so-called, animated and conscious
agents like man, but distinguished from him, nevertheless, by the nature of
their powers and especially by the peculiar characteristic that they do not
affect the senses in the same way: ordinarily they are not visible to human
eyes. This religion of spirits is called animism. Now, to explain the
universal co-existence of these two sorts of cults, two contradictory theories
have been proposed. For some, animism is the primitive religion, of which
naturism is only a secondary and derived form. For the others, on the
contrary, it is the nature cult which was the point of departure for religious
evolution; the cult of spirits is only a peculiar case of that.
These two theories are, up to the present, the only ones by which the
attempt has been made to explain rationally[93] the origins of religious
thought. Thus the capital problem raised by the history of religions is
generally reduced to asking which of these two solutions should be chosen,
or whether it is not better to combine them, and in that case, what place
must be given to each of the two elements.[94] Even those scholars who do

not admit either of these hypotheses in their systematic form, do not refuse
to retain certain propositions upon which they rest.[95] Thus we have a
certain number of theories already made, which must be submitted to
criticism before we take up the study of the facts for ourselves. It will be
better understood how indispensable it is to attempt a new one, when we
have seen the insufficiency of these traditional conceptions.

I

It is Tylor who formed the animist theory in its essential outlines.[96]
Spencer, who took it up after him, did not reproduce it without introducing
certain modifications.[97] But in general the questions are posed by each in
the same terms, and the solutions accepted are, with a single exception,
identically the same. Therefore we can unite these two doctrines in the
exposition which follows, if we mark, at the proper moment, the place
where the two diverge from one another.
In order to find the elementary form of the religious life in these
animistic beliefs and practices, three desiderata must be satisfied: first,
since according to this hypothesis, the idea of the soul is the cardinal idea of
religion, it must be shown how this is formed without taking any of its
elements from an anterior religion; secondly, it must be made clear how
souls become the object of a cult and are transformed into spirits; and
thirdly and finally, since the cult of these spirits is not all of any religion, it
remains to be explained how the cult of nature is derived from it.

According to this theory, the idea of the soul was first suggested to men
by the badly understood spectacle of the double life they ordinarily lead, on
the one hand, when awake, on the other, when asleep. In fact, for the
savage,[98] the mental representations which he has while awake and those
of his dreams are said to be of the same value: he objectifies the second like
the first, that is to say, that he sees in them the images of external objects
whose appearance they more or less accurately reproduce. So when he
dreams that he has visited a distant country, he believes that he really was
there. But he could not have gone there, unless two beings exist within him:
the one, his body, which has remained lying on the ground and which he

finds in the same position on awakening; the other, during this time, has
travelled through space. Similarly, if he seems to talk with one of his
companions who he knows was really at a distance, he concludes that the
other also is composed of two beings: one which sleeps at a distance, and
another which has come to manifest himself by means of the dream. From
these repeated experiences, he little by little arrives at the idea that each of
us has a double, another self, which in determined conditions has the power
of leaving the organism where it resides and of going roaming at a distance.
Of course, this double reproduces all the essential traits of the perceptible
being which serves it as external covering; but at the same time it is
distinguished from this by many characteristics. It is more active, since it
can cover vast distances in an instant. It is more malleable and plastic; for,
to leave the body, it must pass out by its apertures, especially the mouth and
nose. It is represented as made of matter, undoubtedly, but of a matter much
more subtile and etherial than any which we know empirically. This double
is the soul. In fact, it cannot be doubted that in numerous societies the soul
has been conceived in the image of the body; it is believed that it
reproduces even the accidental deformities such as those resulting from
wounds or mutilations. Certain Australians, after having killed their enemy,
cut off his right thumb, so that his soul, deprived of its thumb also, cannot
throw a javelin and revenge itself. But while it resembles the body, it has, at
the same time, something half spiritual about it. They say that "it is the finer
or more aeriform part of the body," that "it has no flesh nor bone nor
sinew"; that when one wishes to take hold of it, he feels nothing; that it is
"like a purified body."[99]
Also, other facts of experience which affect the mind in the same way
naturally group themselves around this fundamental fact taught by the
dream: fainting, apoplexy, catalepsy, ecstasy, in a word, all cases of
temporary insensibility. In fact, they all are explained very well by the
hypothesis that the principle of life and feeling is able to leave the body
momentarily. Also, it is natural that this principle should be confounded
with the double, since the absence of the double during sleep daily has the
effect of suspending thought and life. Thus diverse observations seem to
agree mutually and to confirm the idea of the constitutional duality of man.
[100]

But the soul is not a spirit. It is attached to a body which it can leave only
by exception; in so far as it is nothing more than that, it is not the object of
any cult. The spirit, on the other hand, though generally having some
special thing as its residence, can go away at will, and a man can enter into
relations with it only by observing ritual precautions. The soul can become
a spirit, then, only by transforming itself: the simple application of these
preceding ideas to the fact of death produced this metamorphosis quite
naturally. For a rudimentary intelligence, in fact, death is not distinguished
from a long fainting swoon or a prolonged sleep; it has all their aspects.
Thus it seems that it too consists in a separation of the soul and the body,
analogous to that produced every night; but as in such cases, the body is not
reanimated, the idea is formed of a separation without an assignable limit of
time. When the body is once destroyed—and funeral rites have the object of
hastening this destruction—the separation is taken as final. Hence come
spirits detached from any organism and left free in space. As their number
augments with time, a population of souls forms around the living
population. These souls of men have the needs and passions of men; they
seek to concern themselves with the life of their companions of yesterday,
either to aid them or to injure them, according to the sentiments which they
have kept towards them. According to the circumstances, their nature makes
them either very precious auxiliaries or very redoubtable adversaries.
Owing to their extreme fluidity, they can even enter into the body, and
cause all sorts of disorders there, or else increase its vitality. Thus comes the
habit of attributing to them all those events of life which vary slightly from
the ordinary: there are very few of these for which they cannot account.
Thus they constitute a sort of ever-ready supply of causes which never
leaves one at a loss when in search of explanations. Does a man appear
inspired, does he speak with energy, is it as though he were lifted outside
himself and above the ordinary level of men? It is because a good spirit is in
him and animates him. Is he overtaken by an attack or seized by madness?
It is because an evil spirit has entered into him and brought him all this
trouble. There are no maladies which cannot be assigned to some influence
of this sort. Thus the power of souls is increased by all that men attribute to
them, and in the end men find themselves the prisoners of this imaginary
world of which they are, however, the authors and the models. They fall
into dependence upon these spiritual forces which they have created with

their own hands and in their own image. For if souls are the givers of health
and sickness, of goods and evils to this extent, it is wise to conciliate their
favour or appease them when they are irritated; hence come the offerings,
prayers, sacrifices, in a word, all the apparatus of religious observances.[101]
Here is the soul transformed. From a simple vital principle animating the
body of a man, it has become a spirit, a good or evil genius, or even a deity,
according to the importance of the effects with which it is charged. But
since it is death which brought about this apotheosis, it is to the dead, to the
souls of ancestors, that the first cult known to humanity was addressed.
Thus the first rites were funeral rites; the first sacrifices were food offerings
destined to satisfy the needs of the departed; the first altars were tombs.[102]

But since these spirits were of human origin, they interested themselves
only in the life of men and were thought to act only upon human events. It
is still to be explained how other spirits were imagined to account for the
other phenomena of the universe and how the cult of nature was
subsequently formed beside that of the ancestors.
For Tylor, this extension of animism was due to the particular mentality
of the primitive who, like an infant, cannot distinguish the animate and the
inanimate. Since the first beings of which the child commences to have an
idea are men, that is, himself and those around him, it is upon this model of
human nature that he tends to think of everything. The toys with which he
plays, or the objects of every sort which affect his senses, he regards as
living beings like himself. Now the primitive thinks like a child.
Consequently, he also is inclined to endow all things, even inanimate ones,
with a nature analogous to his own. Then if, for the reasons exposed above,
he once arrives at the idea that man is a body animated by a spirit, he must
necessarily attribute a duality of this sort and souls like his own even to
inert bodies themselves. Yet the sphere of action of the two could not be the
same. The souls of men have a direct influence only upon the world of men:
they have a marked preference for the human organism, even when death
has given them their liberty. On the other hand, the souls of things reside
especially in these things, and are regarded as the productive causes of all
that passes there. The first account for health and sickness, skilfulness or
unskilfulness, etc.; by the second are explained especially the phenomena of
the physical world, the movement of water-courses or the stars, the

germination of plants, the reproduction of animals, etc. Thus the first
philosophy of man, which is at the basis of the ancestor-cult, is completed
by a philosophy of the world.
In regard to these cosmic spirits, man finds himself in a state of
dependence still more evident than that in regard to the wandering doubles
of his ancestors. For he could have only ideal and imaginary relations with
the latter, but he depends upon things in reality; to live, he has need of their
concurrence; he then believes that he has an equal need of the spirits which
appear to animate these things and to determine their diverse
manifestations. He implores their assistance, he solicits them with offerings
and prayers, and the religion of man is thus completed in a religion of
nature.
Herbert Spencer objects against this explanation that the hypothesis upon
which it rests is contradicted by the facts. It is held, he says, that there is a
time when men do not realize the differences which separate the animate
from the inanimate. Now, as one advances in the animal scale, he sees the
ability to make this distinction develop. The superior animals do not
confound an object which moves of itself and whose movements are
adapted to certain ends, with those which are mechanically moved from
without. "Amusing herself with a mouse she has caught, the cat, if it
remains long stationary, touches it with her paw to make it run. Obviously
the thought is that a living thing disturbed will try to escape."[103] Even the
primitive men could not have an intelligence inferior to that of the animals
which preceded them in evolution; then it cannot be for lack of discernment
that they passed from the cult of ancestors to the cult of things.
According to Spencer, who upon this point, but upon this point only,
differs from Tylor, this passage was certainly due to a confusion, but to one
of a different sort. It was, in a large part at least, the result of numerous
errors due to language. In many inferior societies it is a very common
custom to give to each individual, either at his birth or later, the name of
some animal, plant, star or natural object. But as a consequence of the
extreme imprecision of his language, it is very difficult for a primitive to
distinguish a metaphor from the reality. He soon lost sight of the fact that
these names were only figures, and taking them literally, he ended by
believing that an ancestor named "Tiger" or "Lion" was really a tiger or a
lion. Then the cult of which the ancestor was the object up to that time, was

changed over to the animal with which he was thereafter confounded; and
as the same substitution went on for the plants, the stars and all the natural
phenomena, the religion of nature took the place of the old religion of the
dead. Besides this fundamental confusion, Spencer signalizes others which
aided the action of the first from time to time. For example, the animals
which frequent the surroundings of the tombs or houses of men have been
taken for their reincarnated souls, and adored under this title;[104] or again,
the mountain which tradition made the cradle of the race was finally taken
for the ancestor of the race; it was thought that men were descended from it
because their ancestors appeared coming from it, and it was consequently
treated as an ancestor itself.[105] But according to the statement of Spencer,
these accessory causes had only a secondary influence; that which
principally determined the institution of naturism was "the literal
interpretation of metaphorical names."[106]
We had to mention this theory to have our exposition of animism
complete; but it is too inadequate for the facts, and too universally
abandoned to-day to demand that we stop any longer for it. In order to
explain a fact as general as the religion of nature by an illusion, it would be
necessary that the illusion invoked should have causes of an equal
generality. Now even if misunderstandings, such as those of which Spencer
gives some rare illustrations, could explain the transformation of the cult of
ancestors into that of nature, it is not clear why this should be produced
with a sort of universality. No psychical mechanism necessitated it. It is true
that because of its ambiguity, the word might lead to an equivocation; but
on the other hand, all the personal souvenirs left by the ancestor in the
memories of men should oppose this confusion. Why should the tradition
which represented the ancestor such as he really was, that is to say, as a man
who led the life of a man, everywhere give way before the prestige of a
word? Likewise, one should have a little difficulty in admitting that men
were born of a mountain or a star, of an animal or a plant; the idea of a
similar exception to the ordinary conceptions of generation could not fail to
raise active resistance. Thus, it is far from true that the error found a road all
prepared before it, but rather, all sorts of reasons should have kept it from
being accepted. It is difficult to understand how, in spite of all these
obstacles, it could have triumphed so generally.

II

The theory of Tylor, whose authority is always great, still remains. His
hypotheses on the dream and the origin of the ideas of the soul and of spirits
are still classic; it is necessary, therefore, to test their value.
First of all, it should be recognized that the theorists of animism have
rendered an important service to the science of religions, and even to the
general history of ideas, by submitting the idea of the soul to historical
analysis. Instead of following so many philosophers and making it a simple
and immediate object of consciousness, they have much more correctly
viewed it as a complex whole, a product of history and mythology. It cannot
be doubted that it is something essentially religious in its nature, origin and
functions. It is from religion that the philosophers received it; it is
impossible to understand the form in which it is represented by the thinkers
of antiquity, if one does not take into account the mythical elements which
served in its formation.
But if Tylor has had the merit of raising this problem, the solution he
gives raises grave difficulties.
First of all, there are reservations to be made in regard to the very
principle which is at the basis of this theory. It is taken for granted that the
soul is entirely distinct from the body, that it is its double, and that within it
or outside of it, it normally lives its own autonomous life. Now we shall
see[107] that this conception is not that of the primitive, or at least, that it
only expresses one aspect of his idea of the soul. For him, the soul, though
being under certain conditions independent of the organism which it
animates, confounds itself with this latter to such an extent that it cannot be
radically separated from it: there are organs which are not only its appointed
seat, but also its outward form and material manifestation. The notion is
therefore more complex than the doctrine supposes, and it is doubtful
consequently whether the experiences mentioned are sufficient to account
for it; for even if they did enable us to understand how men have come to
believe themselves double, they cannot explain how this duality does not
exclude, but rather, implies a deeper unity and an intimate interpenetration
of the two beings thus differentiated.
But let us admit that the idea of the soul can be reduced to the idea of a
double, and then see how this latter came to be formed. It could not have

been suggested to men except by the experience of dreams. That they might
understand how they could see places more or less distant during sleep,
while their bodies remained lying on the ground, it would seem that they
were led to conceive of themselves as two beings: on the one hand, the
body, and on the other, a second self, able to leave the organism in which it
lives and to roam about in space. But if this hypothesis of a double is to be
able to impose itself upon men with a sort of necessity, it should be the only
one possible, or at least, the most economical one. Now as a matter of fact,
there are more simple ones which, it would seem, might have occurred to
the mind just as naturally. For example, why should the sleeper not imagine
that while asleep he is able to see things at a distance? To imagine such a
power would demand less expense to the imagination than the construction
of this complex notion of a double, made of some etherial, semi-invisible
substance, and of which direct experience offers no example. But even
supposing that certain dreams rather naturally suggest the animistic
explanation, there are certainly many others which are absolutely
incompatible with it. Often our dreams are concerned with passed events;
we see again the things which we saw or did yesterday or the day before or
even during our youth, etc.; dreams of this sort are frequent and hold a
rather considerable place in our nocturnal life. But the idea of a double
cannot account for them. Even if the double can go from one point to
another in space, it is not clear how it could possibly go back and forth in
time. Howsoever rudimentary his intelligence may be, how could a man on
awakening believe that he had really been assisting at or taking part in
events which he knows passed long before? How could he imagine that
during his sleep he lived a life which he knows has long since gone by? It
would be much more natural that he should regard these renewed images as
merely what they really are, that is, as souvenirs like those which he has
during the day, but ones of a special intensity.
Moreover, in the scenes of which we are the actors and witnesses while
we sleep, it constantly happens that one of our contemporaries has a rôle as
well as ourselves: we think we see and hear him in the same place where we
see ourselves. According to the animists, the primitive would explain this
by imagining that his double was visited by or met with those of certain of
his companions. But it would be enough that on awakening he question
them, to find that their experiences do not coincide with his. During this
same time, they too have had dreams, but wholly different ones. They have

not seen themselves participating in the same scene; they believe that they
have visited wholly different places. Since such contradictions should be
the rule in these cases, why should they not lead men to believe that there
had probably been an error, that they had merely imagined it, that they had
been duped by illusions? This blind credulity which is attributed to the
primitive is really too simple. It is not true that he must objectify all his
sensations. He cannot live long without perceiving that even when awake
his senses sometimes deceive him. Then why should he believe them more
infallible at night than during the day? Thus we find that there are many
reasons opposing the theory that he takes his dreams for the reality and
interprets them by means of a double of himself.
But more than that, even if every dream were well explained by the
hypothesis of a double, and could not be explained otherwise, it would
remain a question why men have attempted to explain them. Dreams
undoubtedly constitute the matter of a possible problem. But we pass by
problems every day which we do not raise, and of which we have no
suspicion until some circumstance makes us feel the necessity of raising
them. Even when the taste for pure speculation is aroused, reflection is far
from raising all the problems to which it could eventually apply itself; only
those attract it which present a particular interest. Especially, when it is a
question of facts which always take place in the same manner, habit easily
numbs curiosity, and we do not even dream of questioning them. To shake
off this torpor, it is necessary that practical exigencies, or at least a very
pressing theoretical interest, stimulate our attention and turn it in this
direction. That is why, at every moment of history, there have been so many
things that we have not tried to understand, without even being conscious of
our renunciation. Up until very recent times, it was believed that the sun
was only a few feet in diameter. There is something incomprehensible in the
statement that a luminous disc of such slight dimensions could illuminate
the world: yet for centuries men never thought of resolving this
contradiction. The fact of heredity has been known for a long time, but it is
very recently that the attempt has been made to formulate its theory. Certain
beliefs were even admitted which rendered it wholly unintelligible: thus in
many Australian societies of which we shall have occasion to speak, the
child is not physiologically the offspring of its parents.[108] This intellectual
laziness is necessarily at its maximum among the primitive peoples. These
weak beings, who have so much trouble in maintaining life against all the

forces which assail it, have no means for supporting any luxury in the way
of speculation. They do not reflect except when they are driven to it. Now it
is difficult to see what could have led them to make dreams the theme of
their meditations. What does the dream amount to in our lives? How little is
the place it holds, especially because of the very vague impressions it leaves
in the memory, and of the rapidity with which it is effaced from
remembrance, and consequently, how surprising it is that a man of so
rudimentary an intelligence should have expended such efforts to find its
explanation! Of the two existences which he successively leads, that of the
day and that of the night, it is the first which should interest him the most.
Is it not strange that the second should have so captivated his attention that
he made it the basis of a whole system of complicated ideas destined to
have so profound an influence upon his thought and conduct?
Thus all tends to show that, in spite of the credit it still enjoys, the
animistic theory of the soul must be revised. It is true that to-day the
primitive attributes his dreams, or at least certain of them, to displacements
of his double. But that does not say that the dream actually furnished the
materials out of which the idea of the double or the soul was first
constructed; it might have been applied afterwards to the phenomena of
dreams, ecstasy and possession, without having been derived from them. It
is very frequent that, after it has been formed, an idea is employed to co-
ordinate or illuminate—with a light frequently more apparent than real—
certain facts with which it had no relation at first, and which would never
have suggested it themselves. God and the immortality of the soul are
frequently proven to-day by showing that these beliefs are implied in the
fundamental principles of morality; as a matter of fact, they have quite
another origin. The history of religious thought could furnish numerous
examples of these retrospective justifications, which can teach us nothing of
the way in which the ideas were formed, nor of the elements out of which
they are composed.
It is also probable that the primitive distinguishes between his dreams,
and does not interpret them all in the same way. In our European societies
the still numerous persons for whom sleep is a sort of magico-religious state
in which the mind, being partially relieved of the body, has a sharpness of
vision which it does not enjoy during waking moments, do not go to the
point of considering all their dreams as so many mystic intuitions: on the
contrary, along with everybody else, they see in the majority of their dreams

only profane conditions, vain plays of images, or simple hallucinations. It
might be supposed that the primitive should make analogous distinctions.
Codrington says distinctly that the Melanesians do not attribute all their
dreams indiscriminately to the wanderings of their souls, but merely those
which strike their imagination forcibly:[109] undoubtedly by that should be
understood those in which the sleeper imagines himself in relations with
religious beings, good or evil geniuses, souls of the dead, etc. Similarly, the
Dieri in Australia sharply distinguish ordinary dreams from those nocturnal
visions in which some deceased friend or relative shows himself to them. In
the first, they see a simple fantasy of their imagination; they attribute the
second to the action of an evil spirit.[110] All the facts which Howitt
mentions as examples to show how the Australian attributes to the soul the
power of leaving the body, have an equally mystic character. The sleeper
believes himself transported into the land of the dead or else he converses
with a dead companion.[111] These dreams are frequent among the
primitives.[112] It is probably upon these facts that the theory is based. To
account for them, it is admitted that the souls of the dead come back to the
living during their sleep. This theory was the more readily accepted because
no fact of experience could invalidate it. But these dreams were possible
only where the ideas of spirits, souls and a land of the dead were already
existent, that is to say, where religious evolution was relatively advanced.
Thus, far from having been able to furnish to religion the fundamental
notion upon which it rests, they suppose a previous religious system, upon
which they depended.[113]

III

We now arrive at that which constitutes the very heart of the doctrine.
Wherever this idea of a double may come from, it is not sufficient,
according to the avowal of the animists themselves, to explain the
formation of the cult of the ancestors which they would make the initial
type of all religions. If this double is to become the object of a cult, it must
cease to be a simple reproduction of the individual, and must acquire the
characteristics necessary to put it in the rank of sacred beings. It is death,
they say, which performs this transformation. But whence comes the virtue
which they attribute to this? Even were the analogy of sleep and death

sufficient to make one believe that the soul survives the body (and there are
reservations to be made on this point), why does this soul, by the mere fact
that it is now detached from the organism, so completely change its nature?
If it was only a profane thing, a wandering vital principle, during life, how
does it become a sacred thing all at once, and the object of religious
sentiments? Death adds nothing essential to it, except a greater liberty of
movement. Being no longer attached to a special residence, from now on, it
can do at any time what it formerly did only by night; but the action of
which it is capable is always of the same sort. Then why have the living
considered this uprooted and vagabond double of their former companion
as anything more than an equal? It was a fellow-creature, whose approach
might be inconvenient; it was not a divinity.[114]
It seems as though death ought to have the effect of weakening vital
energies, instead of strengthening them. It is, in fact, a very common belief
in the inferior societies that the soul participates actively in the life of the
body. If the body is wounded, it is wounded itself and in a corresponding
place. Then it should grow old along with the body. In fact, there are
peoples who do not render funeral honours to men arrived at senility; they
are treated as if their souls also had become senile.[115] It even happens that
they regularly put to death, before they arrive at old age, certain privileged
persons, such as kings or priests, who are supposed to be the possessors of
powerful spirits whose protection the community wishes to keep. They thus
seek to keep the spirit from being affected by the physical decadence of its
momentary keepers; with this end in view, they take it from the organism
where it resides before age can have weakened it, and they transport it,
while it has as yet lost nothing of its vigour, into a younger body where it
will be able to keep its vitality intact.[116] So when death results from
sickness or old age, it seems as though the soul could retain only a
diminished power; and if it is only its double, it is difficult to see how it
could survive at all, after the body is once definitely dissolved. From this
point of view, the idea of survival is intelligible only with great difficulty.
There is a logical and psychological gap between the idea of a double at
liberty and that of a spirit to which a cult is addressed.
This interval appears still more considerable when we realize what an
abyss separates the sacred world from the profane; it becomes evident that a
simple change of degree could not be enough to make something pass from

one category into the other. Sacred beings are not distinguished from
profane ones merely by the strange or disconcerting forms which they take
or by the greater powers which they enjoy; between the two there is no
common measure. Now there is nothing in the notion of a double which
could account for so radical a heterogeneity. It is said that when once freed
from the body, the spirit can work all sorts of good or evil for the living,
according to the way in which it regards them. But it is not enough that a
being should disturb his neighbourhood to seem to be of a wholly different
nature from those whose tranquillity it menaces. To be sure, in the
sentiment which the believer feels for the things he adores, there always
enters in some element of reserve and fear; but this is a fear sui generis,
derived from respect more than from fright, and where the dominating
emotion is that which la majesté inspires in men. The idea of majesty is
essentially religious. Then we have explained nothing of religion until we
have found whence this idea comes, to what it corresponds and what can
have aroused it in the mind. Simple souls of men cannot become invested
with this character by the simple fact of being no longer incarnate.
This is clearly shown by an example from Melanesia. The Melanesians
believe that men have souls which leave the body at death; it then changes
its name and becomes what they call a tindalo, a natmat, etc. Also, they
have a cult of the souls of the dead: they pray to them, invoke them and
make offerings and sacrifices to them. But every tindalo is not the object of
these ritual practices; only those have this honour which come from men to
whom public opinion attributed, during life, the very special virtue which
the Melanesians call the mana. Later on, we shall have occasion to fix
precisely the meaning which this word expresses; for the time being, it will
suffice to say that it is the distinctive character of every sacred being. As
Codrington says, "it is what works to effect anything which is beyond the
ordinary power of men, outside the common processes of nature."[117] A
priest, a sorcerer or a ritual formula have mana as well as a sacred stone or
spirit. Thus the only tindalo to which religious services are rendered are
those which were already sacred of themselves, when their proprietor was
still alive. In regard to the other souls, which come from ordinary men,
from the crowd of the profane, the same author says that they are "nobodies
alike before and after death."[118] By itself, death has no deifying virtue.
Since it brings about in a more or less complete and final fashion the

separation of the soul from profane things, it can well reinforce the sacred
character of the soul, if this already exists, but it cannot create it.
Moreover, if, as the hypothesis of the animists supposes, the first sacred
beings were really the souls of the dead and the first cult that of the
ancestors, it should be found that the lower the societies examined are, the
more the place given to this cult in the religious life. But it is rather the
contrary which is true. The ancestral cult is not greatly developed, or even
presented under a characteristic form, except in advanced societies like
those of China, Egypt or the Greek and Latin cities; on the other hand, it is
completely lacking in the Australian societies which, as we shall see,
represent the lowest and simplest form of social organization which we
know. It is true that funeral rites and rites of mourning are found there; but
these practices do not constitute a cult, though this name has sometimes
wrongfully been given them. In reality, a cult is not a simple group of ritual
precautions which a man is held to take in certain circumstances; it is a
system of diverse rites, festivals and ceremonies which all have this
characteristic, that they reappear periodically. They fulfil the need which
the believer feels of strengthening and reaffirming, at regular intervals of
time, the bond which unites him to the sacred beings upon which he
depends. That is why one speaks of marriage rites but not of a marriage
cult, of rites of birth but not of a cult of the new-born child; it is because the
events on the occasion of which these rites take place imply no periodicity.
In the same way, there is no cult of the ancestors except when sacrifices are
made on the tombs from time to time, when libations are poured there on
certain more or less specific dates, or when festivals are regularly
celebrated in honour of the dead. But the Australian has no relations of this
sort with his dead. It is true that he must bury their remains according to a
ritual, mourn for them during a prescribed length of time and in a
prescribed manner, and revenge them if there is occasion to.[119] But when
he has once accomplished these pious tasks, when the bones are once dry
and the period of mourning is once accomplished, then all is said and done,
and the survivors have no more duties towards their relatives who exist no
longer. It is true that there is a way in which the dead continue to hold a
place in the lives of their kindred, even after the mourning is finished. It is
sometimes the case that their hair or certain of their bones are kept, because
of special virtues which are attached to them.[120] But by that time they
have ceased to exist as persons, and have fallen to the rank of anonymous

and impersonal charms. In this condition they are the object of no cult; they
serve only for magical purposes.
However, there are certain Australian tribes which periodically celebrate
rites in honour of fabulous ancestors whom tradition places at the beginning
of time. These ceremonies generally consist in a sort of dramatic
representation in which are rehearsed the deeds which the myths ascribe to
these legendary heroes.[121] But the personages thus represented are not
men who, after living the life of men, have been transformed into a sort of
god by the fact of their death. They are considered to have exercised
superhuman powers while alive. To them is attributed all that is grand in the
history of the tribe, or even of the whole world. It is they who in a large
measure made the earth such as it is, and men such as they are. The haloes
with which they are still decorated do not come to them merely from the
fact that they are ancestors, that is to say, in fine, that they are dead, but
rather from the fact that a divine character is and always has been attributed
to them; to use the Melanesian expression, it is because they are
constitutionally endowed with mana. Consequently, there is nothing in these
rites which shows that death has the slightest power of deification. It cannot
even be correctly said of certain rites that they form an ancestor-cult, since
they are not addressed to ancestors as such. In order to have a real cult of
the dead, it is necessary that after death real ancestors, the relations whom
men really lose every day, become the object of the cult; let us repeat it
once more, there are no traces of any such cult in Australia.
Thus the cult which, according to this hypothesis, ought to be the
predominating one in inferior societies, is really nonexistent there. In
reality, the Australian is not concerned with his dead, except at the moment
of their decease and during the time which immediately follows. Yet these
same peoples, as we shall see, have a very complex cult for sacred beings of
a wholly different nature, which is made up of numerous ceremonies and
frequently occupying weeks or even entire months. It cannot be admitted
that the few rites which the Australian performs when he happens to lose
one of his relatives were the origin of these permanent cults which return
regularly every year and which take up a considerable part of his existence.
The contrast between the two is so great that we may even ask whether the
first were not rather derived from the second, and if the souls of men, far
from having been the model upon which the gods were originally imagined,

have not rather been conceived from the very first as emanations from the
divinity.

IV

From the moment that the cult of the dead is shown not to be primitive,
animism lacks a basis. It would then seem useless to discuss the third thesis
of the system, which concerns the transformation of the cult of the dead into
the cult of nature. But since the postulate upon which it rests is also found
in certain historians of religion who do not admit the animism properly so-
called, such as Brinton,[122] Lang,[123] Réville,[124] and even Robertson
Smith himself,[125] it is necessary to make an examination of it.
This extension of the cult of the dead to all nature is said to come from
the fact that we instinctively tend to represent all things in our own image,
that is to say, as living and thinking beings. We have seen that Spencer has
already contested the reality of this so-called instinct. Since animals clearly
distinguish living bodies from dead ones, it seemed to him impossible that
man, the heir of the animals, should not have had this same faculty of
discernment from the very first. But howsoever certain the facts cited by
Spencer may be, they have not the demonstrative value which he attributes
to them. His reasoning supposes that all the faculties, instincts and aptitudes
of the animal have passed integrally into man; now many errors have their
origin in this principle which is wrongfully taken as a proven truth. For
example, since sexual jealousy is generally very strong among the higher
animals, it has been concluded that it ought to be found among men with
the same intensity from the very beginnings of history.[126] But it is well
known to-day that men can practise a sexual communism which would be
impossible if this jealousy were not capable of attenuating itself and even of
disappearing when necessary.[127] The fact is that man is not merely an
animal with certain additional qualities: he is something else. Human nature
is the result of a sort of recasting of the animal nature, and in the course of
the various complex operations which have brought about this recasting,
there have been losses as well as gains. How many instincts have we not
lost? The reason for this is that men are not only in relations with the
physical environment, but also with a social environment infinitely more
extended, more stable and more active than the one whose influence

animals undergo. To live, they must adapt themselves to this. Now in order
to maintain itself, society frequently finds it necessary that we should see
things from a certain angle and feel them in a certain way; consequently it
modifies the ideas which we would ordinarily make of them for ourselves
and the sentiments to which we would be inclined if we listened only to our
animal nature; it alters them, even going so far as to put the contrary
sentiments in their place. Does it not even go so far as to make us regard
our own individual lives as something of little value, while for the animal
this is the greatest of things?[128] Then it is a vain enterprise to seek to infer
the mental constitution of the primitive man from that of the higher animals.
But if the objection of Spencer does not have the decisive value which its
author gives it, it is equally true that the animist theory can draw no
authority from the confusions which children seem to make. When we hear
a child angrily apostrophize an object which he has hit against, we conclude
that he thinks of it as a conscious being like himself; but that is interpreting
his words and acts very badly. In reality, he is quite a stranger to the very
complicated reasoning attributed to him. If he lays the blame on the table
which has hurt him, it is not because he supposes it animated and
intelligent, but because it has hurt him. His anger, once aroused by the pain,
must overflow; so it looks for something upon which to discharge itself, and
naturally turns toward the thing which has provoked it, even though this has
no effect. The action of an adult in similar circumstances is often as slightly
reasonable. When we are violently irritated, we feel the need of inveighing,
of destroying, though we attribute no conscious ill-will to the objects upon
which we vent our anger. There is even so little confusion that when the
emotion of a child is calmed, he can very well distinguish a chair from a
person: he does not act in at all the same way towards the two. It is a similar
reason which explains his tendency to treat his playthings as if they were
living beings. It is his extremely intense need of playing which thus finds a
means of expressing itself, just as in the other case the violent sentiments
caused by pain created an object out of nothing. In order that he may
consciously play with his jumping-jack, he imagines it a living person. This
illusion is the easier for him because imagination is his sovereign mistress;
he thinks almost entirely with images, and we know how pliant images are,
bending themselves with docility before every exigency of the will. But he
is so little deceived by his own fiction that he would be the first to be
surprised if it suddenly became a reality, and his toy bit him![129]

Let us therefore leave these doubtful analogies to one side. To find out if
men were primitively inclined to the confusions imputed to them, we
should not study animals or children of to-day, but the primitive beliefs
themselves. If the spirits and gods of nature were really formed in the image
of the human soul, they should bear traces of their origin and bring to mind
the essential traits of their model. The most important characteristic of the
soul is that it is conceived as the internal principle which animates the
organism: it is that which moves it and makes it live, to such an extent that
when it withdraws itself, life ceases or is suspended. It has its natural
residence in the body, at least while this exists. But it is not thus with the
spirits assigned to the different things in nature. The god of the sun is not
necessarily in the sun, nor is the spirit of a certain rock in the rock which is
its principal place of habitation. A spirit undoubtedly has close relations
with the body to which it is attached, but one employs a very inexact
expression when he says that it is its soul. As Codrington says,[130] "there
does not appear to be anywhere in Melanesia a belief in a spirit which
animates any natural object, a tree, waterfall, storm or rock, so as to be to it
what the soul is believed to be to the body of man. Europeans, it is true,
speak of the spirits of the sea or of the storm or of the forest; but the native
idea which they represent is that ghosts haunt the sea and the forest, having
power to raise storms and strike a traveller with disease." While the soul is
essentially within the body, the spirit passes the major portion of its time
outside the object which serves as its base. This is one difference which
does not seem to show that the second idea was derived from the first.
From another point of view, it must be added that if men were really
forced to project their own image into things, then the first sacred beings
ought to have been conceived in their likeness. Now anthropomorphism, far
from being primitive, is rather the mark of a relatively advanced
civilization. In the beginning, sacred beings are conceived in the form of an
animal or vegetable, from which the human form is only slowly disengaged.
It will be seen below that in Australia, it is animals and plants which are the
first sacred beings. Even among the Indians of North America, the great
cosmic divinities, which commence to be the object of a cult there, are very
frequently represented in animal forms.[131] "The difference between the
animal, man and the divine being," says Réville, not without surprise, "is
not felt in this state of mind, and generally it might be said that it is the
animal form which is the fundamental one."[132] To find a god made up

entirely of human elements, it is necessary to advance nearly to Christianity.
Here, God is a man, not only in the physical aspect in which he is
temporarily made manifest, but also in the ideas and sentiments which he
expresses. But even in Greece and Rome, though the gods were generally
represented with human traits, many mythical personages still had traces of
an animal origin: thus there is Dionysus, who is often met with in the form
of a bull, or at least with the horns of a bull; there is Demeter, who is often
represented with a horse's mane, there are Pan and Silenus, there are the
Fauns, etc.[133] It is not at all true that man has had such an inclination to
impose his own form upon things. More than that, he even commenced by
conceiving of himself as participating closely in the animal nature. In fact,
it is a belief almost universal in Australia, and very widespread among the
Indians of North America, that the ancestors of men were beasts or plants,
or at least that the first men had, either in whole or in part, the distinctive
characters of certain animal or vegetable species. Thus, far from seeing
beings like themselves everywhere, men commenced by believing
themselves to be in the image of some beings from which they differed
radically.

V

Finally, the animistic theory implies a consequence which is perhaps its
best refutation.
If it were true, it would be necessary to admit that religious beliefs are so
many hallucinatory representations, without any objective foundation
whatsoever. It is supposed that they are all derived from the idea of the soul
because one sees only a magnified soul in the spirits and gods. But
according to Tylor and his disciples, the idea of the soul is itself constructed
entirely out of the vague and inconsistent images which occupy our
attention during sleep: for the soul is the double, and the double is merely a
man as he appears to himself while he sleeps. From this point of view, then,
sacred beings are only the imaginary conceptions which men have produced
during a sort of delirium which regularly overtakes them every day, though
it is quite impossible to see to what useful ends these conceptions serve, nor
what they answer to in reality. If a man prays, if he makes sacrifices and
offerings, if he submits to the multiple privations which the ritual

prescribes, it is because a sort of constitutional eccentricity has made him
take his dreams for perceptions, death for a prolonged sleep, and dead
bodies for living and thinking beings. Thus not only is it true, as many have
held, that the forms under which religious powers have been represented to
the mind do not express them exactly, and that the symbols with the aid of
which they have been thought of partially hide their real nature, but more
than that, behind these images and figures there exists nothing but the
nightmares of primitive minds. In fine, religion is nothing but a dream,
systematized and lived, but without any foundation in reality.[134] Thence it
comes about that the theorists of animism, when looking for the origins of
religious thought, content themselves with a small outlay of energy. When
they think that they have explained how men have been induced to imagine
beings of a strange, vaporous form, such as those they see in their dreams,
they think the problem is resolved.
In reality, it is not even approached. It is inadmissible that systems of
ideas like religions, which have held so considerable a place in history, and
to which, in all times, men have come to receive the energy which they
must have to live, should be made up of a tissue of illusions. To-day we are
beginning to realize that law, morals and even scientific thought itself were
born of religion, were for a long time confounded with it, and have
remained penetrated with its spirit. How could a vain fantasy have been
able to fashion the human consciousness so strongly and so durably? Surely
it ought to be a principle of the science of religions that religion expresses
nothing which does not exist in nature; for there are sciences only of natural
phenomena. The only question is to learn from what part of nature these
realities come and what has been able to make men represent them under
this singular form which is peculiar to religious thought. But if this question
is to be raised, it is necessary to commence by admitting that they are real
things which are thus represented. When the philosophers of the eighteenth
century made religion a vast error imagined by the priests, they could at
least explain its persistence by the interest which the sacerdotal class had in
deceiving the people. But if the people themselves have been the artisans of
these systems of erroneous ideas at the same time that they were its dupes,
how has this extraordinary dupery been able to perpetuate itself all through
the course of history?
One might even demand if under these conditions the words of science of
religions can be employed without impropriety. A science is a discipline

which, in whatever manner it is conceived, is always applied to some real
data. Physics and chemistry are sciences because physico-chemical
phenomena are real, and of a reality which does not depend upon the truths
which these sciences show. There is a psychological science because there
are really consciousnesses which do not hold their right of existence from
the psychologist. But on the contrary, religion could not survive the
animistic theory and the day when its truth was recognized by men, for they
could not fail to renounce the errors whose nature and origin would thus be
revealed to them. What sort of a science is it whose principal discovery is
that the subject of which it treats does not exist?

CHAPTER III

LEADING CONCEPTIONS OF THE
ELEMENTARY RELIGION—continued

II.—Naturism

The spirit of the naturistic school is quite different. In the first place, it is
recruited in a different environment. The animists are, for the most part,
ethnologists or anthropologists. The religions which they have studied are
the crudest which humanity has ever known. Hence comes the
extraordinary importance which they attribute to the souls of the dead, to
spirits and to demons, and, in fact, to all spiritual beings of the second
order: it is because these religions know hardly any of a higher order.[135]
On the contrary, the theories which we are now going to describe are the
work of scholars who have concerned themselves especially with the great
civilizations of Europe and Asia.
Ever since the work of the Grimm brothers, who pointed out the interest
that there is in comparing the different mythologies of the Indo-European
peoples, scholars have been struck by the remarkable similarities which
these present. Mythical personages were identified who, though having
different names, symbolized the same ideas and fulfilled the same
functions; even the names were frequently related, and it has been thought
possible to establish the fact that they are not unconnected with one another.
Such resemblances seemed to be explicable only by a common origin. Thus
they were led to suppose that these conceptions, so varied in appearance,
really came from one common source, of which they were only diversified
forms, and which it was not impossible to discover. By the comparative
method, they believed one should be able to go back, beyond these great
religions, to a much more ancient system of ideas, and to the really
primitive religion, from which the others were derived.
The discovery of the Vedas aided greatly in stimulating these ambitions.
In the Vedas, scholars had a written text, whose antiquity was undoubtedly
exaggerated at the moment of its discovery, but which is surely one of the

most ancient which we have at our disposition in an Indo-European
language. Here they were enabled to study, by the ordinary methods of
philology, a literature as old as or older than Homer, and a religion which
was believed more primitive than that of the ancient Germans. A document
of such value was evidently destined to throw a new light upon the religious
beginnings of humanity, and the science of religions could not fail to be
revolutionized by it.
The conception which was thus born was so fully demanded by the state
of the science and by the general march of ideas, that it appeared almost
simultaneously in two different lands. In 1856, Max Müller exposed its
principles in his Oxford Essays.[136] Three years later appeared the work of
Adalbert Kuhn on The Origin of Fire and the Drink of the Gods,[137] which
was clearly inspired by the same spirit. When once set forth, the idea spread
very rapidly in scientific circles. To the name of Kuhn is closely associated
that of his brother-in-law Schwartz, whose work on The Origin of
Mythology,[138] followed closely upon the preceding one. Steinthal and the
whole German school of Völkerpsychologie attached themselves to the
same movement. The theory was introduced into France in 1863 by M.
Michel Bréal.[139] It met so little resistance that, according to an expression
of Gruppe,[140] "a time came when, aside from certain classical philologists,
to whom Vedic studies were unknown, all the mythologists had adopted the
principles of Max Müller or Kuhn as their point of departure."[141] It is
therefore important to see what they really are, and what they are worth.
Since no one has presented them in a more systematic form than Max
Müller, it is upon his work that we shall base the description which follows.
[142]

I

We have seen that the postulate at the basis of animism is that religion, at
least in its origin, expresses no physical reality. But Max Müller
commences with the contrary principle. For him, it is an axiom that religion
reposes upon an experience, from which it draws all its authority.
"Religion," he says, "if it is to hold its place as a legitimate element of our
consciousness, must, like all other knowledge, begin with sensuous

experience."[143] Taking up the old empirical adage, "Nihil est in intellectu
quod non ante fuerit in sensu," he applies it to religion and declares that
there can be nothing in beliefs which was not first perceived. So here is a
doctrine which seems to escape the grave objection which we raised against
animism. From this point of view, it seems that religion ought to appear, not
as a sort of vague and confused dreaming, but as a system of ideas and
practices well founded in reality.
But which are these sensations which give birth to religious thought?
That is the question which the study of the Vedas is supposed to aid in
resolving.
The names of the gods are generally either common words, still
employed, or else words formerly common, whose original sense it is
possible to discover. Now both designate the principal phenomena of
nature. Thus Agni, the name of one of the principal divinities of India,
originally signified only the material fact of fire, such as it is ordinarily
perceived by the senses and without any mythological addition. Even in the
Vedas, it is still employed with this meaning; in any case, it is well shown
that this signification was primitive by the fact that it is conserved in other
Indo-European languages: the Latin ignis, the Lithuanian ugnis, the old
Slav ogny are evidently closely related to Agni. Similarly, the relationship
of the Sanskrit Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, the Latin Jovis and the Zio of High
German is to-day uncontested. This proves that these different words
designate one single and the same divinity, whom the different Indo-
European peoples recognized as such before their separation. Now Dyaus
signifies the bright sky. These and other similar facts tend to show that
among these peoples the forms and forces of nature were the first objects to
which the religious sentiment attached itself: they were the first things to be
deified. Going one step farther in his generalization, Max Müller thought
that he was prepared to conclude that the religious evolution of humanity in
general had the same point of departure.
It is almost entirely by considerations of a psychological sort that he
justifies these inferences. The varied spectacles which nature offers man
seemed to him to fulfil all the conditions necessary for arousing religious
ideas in the mind directly. In fact, he says, "at first sight, nothing seemed
less natural than nature. Nature was the greatest surprise, a terror, a marvel,
a standing miracle, and it was only on account of their permanence,

constancy, and regular recurrence that certain features of that standing
miracle were called natural, in the sense of foreseen, common,
intelligible.... It was that vast domain of surprise, of terror, of marvel, of
miracle, the unknown, as distinguished from the known, or, as I like to
express it, the infinite, as distinct from the finite, which supplied from the
earliest times the impulse to religious thought and language."[144] In order
to illustrate his idea, he applies it to a natural force which holds a rather
large place in the Vedic religion, fire. He says, "if you can for a moment
transfer yourselves to that early stage of life to which we must refer not
only the origin, but likewise the early phases of Physical Religion, you can
easily understand what an impression the first appearance of fire must have
made on the human mind. Fire was not given as something permanent or
eternal, like the sky, or the earth, or the water. In whatever way it first
appeared, whether through lightning or through the friction of the branches
of trees, or through the sparks of flints, it came and went, it had to be
guarded, it brought destruction, but at the same time, it made life possible in
winter, it served as a protection during the night, it became a weapon of
defence and offence, and last, not least, it changed man from a devourer of
raw flesh into an eater of cooked meat. At a later time it became the means
of working metal, of making tools and weapons, it became an indispensable
factor in all mechanical and artistic progress, and has remained so ever
since. What should we be without fire even now?"[145] The same author
says in another work that a man could not enter into relations with nature
without taking account of its immensity, of its infiniteness. It surpasses him
in every way. Beyond the distances which he perceives, there are others
which extend without limits; each moment of time is preceded and followed
by a time to which no limit can be assigned; the flowing river manifests an
infinite force, since nothing can exhaust it.[146] There is no aspect of nature
which is not fitted to awaken within us this overwhelming sensation of an
infinity which surrounds us and dominates us.[147] It is from this sensation
that religions are derived.[148]
However, they are there only in germ.[149] Religion really commences
only at the moment when these natural forces are no longer represented in
the mind in an abstract form. They must be transformed into personal
agents, living and thinking beings, spiritual powers or gods; for it is to
beings of this sort that the cult is generally addressed. We have seen that

animism itself has been obliged to raise this question, and also how it has
answered it: man seems to have a sort of native incapacity for
distinguishing the animate from the inanimate and an irresistible tendency
to conceive the second under the form of the first. Max Müller rejects any
such solution.[150] According to him it is language which has brought about
this metamorphosis, by the action which it exercises upon thought.

It is easily explained how men, being perplexed by the marvellous forces
upon which they feel that they depend, have been led to reflect upon them,
and how they have asked themselves what these forces are and have made
an effort to substitute for the obscure sensation which they primitively had
of them, a clearer idea and a better defined concept. But as our author very
justly says,[151] this idea and concept are impossible without the word.
Language is not merely the external covering of a thought; it also is its
internal framework. It does not confine itself to expressing this thought
after it has once been formed; it also aids in making it. However, its nature
is of a different sort, so its laws are not those of thought. Then since it
contributes to the elaboration of this latter, it cannot fail to do it violence to
some extent, and to deform it. It is a deformation of this sort which is said
to have created the special characteristic of religious thought.
Thinking consists in arranging our ideas, and consequently in classifying
them. To think of fire, for example, is to put it into a certain category of
things, in such a way as to be able to say that it is this or that, or this and not
that. But classifying is also naming, for a general idea has no existence and
reality except in and by the word which expresses it and which alone makes
its individuality. Thus the language of a people always has an influence
upon the manner in which new things, recently learned, are classified in the
mind and are subsequently thought of; these new things are thus forced to
adapt themselves to pre-existing forms. For this reason, the language which
men spoke when they undertook to construct an elaborated representation
of the universe marked the system of ideas which was then born with an
indelible trace.
Nor are we without some knowledge of this language, at least in so far as
the Indo-European peoples are concerned. Howsoever distant it may be
from us, souvenirs of it remain in our actual languages which permit us to
imagine what it was: these are the roots. These stems, from which are

derived all the words which we employ and which are found at the basis of
all the Indo-European languages, are regarded by Max Müller as so many
echoes of the language which the corresponding peoples spoke before their
separation, that is to say, at the very moment when this religion of nature,
which is to be explained, was being formed. Now these roots present two
remarkable characteristics, which, it is true, have as yet been observed only
in this particular group of languages, but which our author believes to be
present equally in the other linguistic families.[152]
In the first place, the roots are general; that is to say that they do not
express particular things and individuals, but types, and even types of an
extreme generality. They represent the most general themes of thought; one
finds there, as though fixed and crystallized, those fundamental categories
of the intellect which at every moment in history dominate the entire mental
life, the arrangement of which philosophers have many times attempted to
reconstruct.[153]
Secondly, the types to which they correspond are types of action, and not
of objects. They translate the most general manners of acting which are to
be observed among living beings and especially among men; they are such
actions as striking, pushing, rubbing, lying down, getting up, pressing,
mounting, descending, walking, etc. In other words, men generalized and
named their principal ways of acting before generalizing and naming the
phenomena of nature.[154]
Owing to their extreme generality, these words could easily be extended
to all sorts of objects which they did not originally include; it is even this
extreme suppleness which has permitted them to give birth to the numerous
words which are derived from them. Then when men, turning towards
things, undertook to name them, that they might be able to think about
them, they applied these words to them, though they were in no way
designed for them. But, owing to their origin, these were able to designate
the forces of nature only by means of their manifestations which seemed the
nearest to human actions: a thunderbolt was called something that tears up
the soil or that spreads fire; the wind, something that sighs or whistles; the
sun, something that throws golden arrows across space; a river, something
that flows, etc. But since natural phenomena were thus compared to human
acts, this something to which they were attached was necessarily conceived
under the form of personal agents, more or less like men. It was only a

metaphor, but it was taken literally; the error was inevitable, for science,
which alone could dispel the illusion, did not yet exist. In a word, since
language was made of human elements, translating human states, it could
not be applied to nature without transforming it.[155] Even to-day, remarks
M. Bréal, it forces us in a certain measure to represent things from this
angle. "We do not express an idea, even one designating a simple quality,
without giving it a gender, that is to say, a sex; we cannot speak of an
object, even though it be considered in a most general fashion, without
determining it by an article; every subject of a sentence is presented as an
active being, every idea as an action, and every action, be it transitory or
permanent, is limited in its duration by the tense in which we put the verb."
[156]
Our scientific training enables us to rectify the errors which language
might thus suggest to us; but the influence of the word ought to be all-
powerful when it has no check. Language thus superimposes upon the
material world, such as it is revealed to our senses, a new world, composed
wholly of spiritual beings which it has created out of nothing and which
have been considered as the causes determining physical phenomena ever
since.
But its action does not stop there. When words were once forged to
represent these personalities which the popular imagination had placed
behind things, a reaction affected these words themselves: they raised all
sorts of questions, and it was to resolve these problems that myths were
invented. It happened that one object received a plurality of names,
corresponding to the plurality of aspects under which it was presented in
experience; thus there are more than twenty words in the Vedas for the sky.
Since these words were different, it was believed that they corresponded to
so many distinct personalities. But at the same time, it was strongly felt that
these same personalities had an air of relationship. To account for that, it
was imagined that they formed a single family; genealogies, a civil
condition and a history were invented for them. In other cases, different
things were designated by the same term: to explain these homonyms, it
was believed that the corresponding things were transformations of each
other, and new fictions were invented to make these metamorphoses
intelligible. Or again, a word which had ceased to be understood, was the
origin of fables designed to give it a meaning. The creative work of
language continued then, making constructions ever more and more
complex, and then mythology came to endow each god with a biography,

ever more and more extended and complete, the result of all of which was
that the divine personalities, at first confounded with things, finally
distinguished and determined themselves.
This is how the notion of the divine is said to have been constructed. As
for the religion of ancestors, it was only a reflection of this other.[157] The
idea of the soul is said to have been first formed for reasons somewhat
analogous to those given by Tylor, except that according to Max Müller,
they were designed to account for death, rather than for dreams.[158] Then,
under the influence of diverse, partially accidental, circumstances,[159] the
souls of men, being once disengaged from the body, were drawn little by
little within the circle of divine beings, and were thus finally deified
themselves. But this new cult was the product of only a secondary
formation. This is proven by the fact that deified men have generally been
imperfect gods or demi-gods, whom the people have always been able to
distinguish from the genuine deities.[160]

II

This doctrine rests, in part, upon a certain number of linguistic postulates
which have been and still are very much questioned. Some have contested
the reality of many of the similarities which Max Müller claimed to have
found between the names of the gods in the various European languages.
The interpretation which he gave them has been especially doubted: it has
been asked if these names, far from being the mark of a very primitive
religion, are not the slow product, either of direct borrowings or of natural
intercourse with others.[161] Also, it is no longer admitted that the roots once
existed in an isolated state as autonomous realities, nor that they allow us to
reconstruct, even hypothetically, the original language of the Indo-
Europeans.[162] Finally, recent researches would tend to show that the Vedic
divinities did not all have the exclusively naturistic character attributed to
them by Max Müller and his school.[163] But we shall leave aside those
questions, the discussion of which requires a special competence as a
philologist, and address ourselves directly to the general principles of the
system. It will be important here not to confound the naturistic theory with
these controverted postulates; for this is held by numbers of scholars who

do not make language play the predominating rôle attributed to it by Max
Müller.
That men have an interest in knowing the world which surrounds them,
and consequently that their reflection should have been applied to it at an
early date, is something that everyone will readily admit. Co-operation with
the things with which they were in immediate connection was so necessary
for them that they could not fail to seek a knowledge of their nature. But if,
as naturism pretends, it is of these reflections that religious thought was
born, it is impossible to explain how it was able to survive the first attempts
made, and the persistence with which it has maintained itself becomes
unintelligible. If we have need of knowing the nature of things, it is in order
to act upon them in an appropriate manner. But the conception of the
universe given us by religion, especially in its early forms, is too greatly
mutilated to lead to temporarily useful practices. Things become nothing
less than living and thinking beings, minds or personalities like those which
the religious imagination has made into the agents of cosmic phenomena. It
is not by conceiving of them under this form or by treating them according
to this conception that men could make them work for their ends. It is not
by addressing prayers to them, by celebrating them in feasts and sacrifices,
or by imposing upon themselves fasts and privations, that men can deter
them from working harm or oblige them to serve their own designs. Such
processes could succeed only very exceptionally and, so to speak,
miraculously. If, then, religion's reason for existence was to give us a
conception of the world which would guide us in our relations with it, it
was in no condition to fulfil its function, and people would not have been
slow to perceive it: failures, being infinitely more frequent than successes,
would have quickly shown them that they were following a false route, and
religion, shaken at each instant by these repeated contradictions, would not
have been able to survive.
It is undeniably true that errors have been able to perpetuate themselves
in history; but, except under a union of very exceptional circumstances,
they can never perpetuate themselves thus unless they were true practically,
that is to say, unless, without giving us a theoretically exact idea of the
things with which they deal, they express well enough the manner in which
they affect us, either for good or for bad. Under these circumstances, the
actions which they determine have every chance of being, at least in a
general way, the very ones which are proper, so it is easily explained how

they have been able to survive the proofs of experience.[164] But an error
and especially a system of errors which leads to, and can lead to nothing but
mistaken and useless practices, has no chance of living. Now what is there
in common between the rites with which the believer tries to act upon
nature and the processes by which science has taught us to make use of it,
and which we now know are the only efficacious ones? If that is what men
demanded of religion, it is impossible to see how it could have maintained
itself, unless clever tricks had prevented their seeing that it did not give
them what they expected from it. It would be necessary to return again to
the over simple explanations of the eighteenth century.[165]
Thus it is only in appearance that naturism escapes the objection which
we recently raised against animism. It also makes religion a system of
hallucinations, since it reduces it to an immense metaphor with no objective
value. It is true that it gives religion a point of departure in reality, to wit, in
the sensations which the phenomena of nature provoke in us; but by the
bewitching action of language, this sensation is soon transformed into
extravagant conceptions. Religious thought does not come in contact with
reality, except to cover it at once with a thick veil which conceals its real
forms: this veil is the tissue of fabulous beliefs which mythology brought
forth. Thus the believer, like the delirious man, lives in a world peopled
with beings and things which have only a verbal existence. Max Müller
himself recognized this, for he regarded myths as the product of a disease of
the intellect. At first, he attributed them to a disease of language, but since
language and the intellect are inseparable for him, what is true of the one is
true of the other. "When trying to explain the inmost nature of mythology,"
he says, "I called it a disease of Language rather than of Thought.... After I
had fully explained in my Science of Thought that language and thought are
inseparable, and that a disease of language is therefore the same thing as a
disease of thought, no doubt ought to have remained as to what I meant. To
represent the supreme God as committing every kind of crime, as being
deceived by men, as being angry with his wife and violent with his children,
is surely a proof of a disease, of an unusual condition of thought, or, to
speak more clearly, of real madness."[166] And this argument is not valid
merely against Max Müller and his theory, but against the very principle of
naturism, in whatever way it may be applied. Whatever we may do, if
religion has as its principal object the expression of the forces of nature, it is

impossible to see in it anything more than a system of lying fictions, whose
survival is incomprehensible.
Max Müller thought he escaped this objection, whose gravity he felt, by
distinguishing radically between mythology and religion, and by putting the
first outside the second. He claims the right of reserving the name of
religion for only those beliefs which conform to the prescriptions of a sane
moral system and a rational theology. The myths were parasitic growths
which, under the influence of language, attached themselves upon these
fundamental conceptions, and denatured them. Thus the belief in Zeus was
religious in so far as the Greeks considered him the supreme God, father of
humanity, protector of laws, avenger of crimes, etc.; but all that which
concerned the biography of Zeus, his marriages and his adventures, was
only mythology.[167]
But this distinction is arbitrary. It is true that mythology has an æsthetic
interest as well as one for the history of religions; but it is one of the
essential elements of the religious life, nevertheless. If the myth were
withdrawn from religion, it would be necessary to withdraw the rite also;
for the rites are generally addressed to definite personalities who have a
name, a character, determined attributes and a history, and they vary
according to the manner in which these personalities are conceived. The
cult rendered to a divinity depends upon the character attributed to him; and
it is the myth which determines this character. Very frequently, the rite is
nothing more than the myth put in action; the Christian communion is
inseparable from the myth of the Last Supper, from which it derives all its
meaning. Then if all mythology is the result of a sort of verbal delirium, the
question which we raised remains intact: the existence, and especially the
persistence of the cult become inexplicable. It is hard to understand how
men have continued to do certain things for centuries without any object.
Moreover, it is not merely the peculiar traits of the divine personalities
which are determined by mythology; the very idea that there are gods or
spiritual beings set above the various departments of nature, in no matter
what manner they may be represented, is essentially mythical.[168] Now if
all that which appertains to the notion of gods conceived as cosmic agents is
blotted out of the religions of the past, what remains? The idea of a divinity
in itself, of a transcendental power upon which man depends and upon
which he supports himself? But that is only an abstract and philosophic

conception which has been fully realized in no historical religion; it is
without interest for the science of religions.[169] We must therefore avoid
distinguishing between religious beliefs, keeping some because they seem
to us to be true and sane and rejecting others because they shock and
disconcert us. All myths, even those which we find the most unreasonable,
have been believed.[170] Men have believed in them no less firmly than in
their own sensations; they have based their conduct upon them. In spite of
appearances, it is therefore impossible that they should be without objective
foundation.
However, it will be said that in whatever manner religions may be
explained, it is certain that they are mistaken in regard to the real nature of
things: science has proved it. The modes of action which they counsel or
prescribe to men can therefore rarely have useful effects: it is not by
lustrations that the sick are cured nor by sacrifices and chants that the crops
are made to grow. Thus the objection which we have made to naturism
would seem to be applicable to all possible systems of explanation.
Nevertheless, there is one which escapes it. Let us suppose that religion
responds to quite another need than that of adapting ourselves to sensible
objects: then it will not risk being weakened by the fact that it does not
satisfy, or only badly satisfies, this need. If religious faith was not born to
put man in harmony with the material world, the injuries which it has been
able to do him in his struggle with the world do not touch it at its source,
because it is fed from another.
If it is not for these reasons that a man comes to believe, he should
continue to believe even when these reasons are contradicted by the facts. It
is even conceivable that faith should be strong enough, not only to support
these contradictions, but also even to deny them and to keep the believer
from seeing their importance; this is what succeeds in rendering them
inoffensive for religion. When the religious sentiment is active, it will not
admit that religion can be in the wrong, and it readily suggests explanations
which make it appear innocent; if the rite does not produce the desired
results, this failure is imputed either to some fault of execution, or to the
intervention of another, contrary deity. But for that, it is necessary that these
religious ideas have their source in another sentiment than that betrayed by
these deceptions of experience, or else whence could come their force of
resistance?

III

But more than that, even if men had really had reasons for remaining
obstinate, in spite of all their mistakes, in expressing cosmic phenomena in
religious terms, it is also necessary that these be of a nature to suggest such
an interpretation. Now when could they have gotten such a property? Here
again we find ourselves in the presence of one of those postulates which
pass as evident only because they have not been criticized. It is stated as an
axiom that in the natural play of physical forces there is all that is needed to
arouse within us the idea of the sacred; but when we closely examine the
proofs of this proposition, which, by the way, are sufficiently brief, we find
that they reduce to a prejudice.
They talk about the marvel which men should feel as they discover the
world. But really, that which characterizes the life of nature is a regularity
which approaches monotony. Every morning the sun mounts in the horizon,
every evening it sets; every month the moon goes through the same cycle;
the river flows in an uninterrupted manner in its bed; the same seasons
periodically bring back the same sensations. To be sure, here and there an
unexpected event sometimes happens: the sun is eclipsed, the moon is
hidden behind clouds, the river overflows. But these momentary variations
could only give birth to equally momentary impressions, the remembrance
of which is gone after a little while; they could not serve as a basis for these
stable and permanent systems of ideas and practices which constitute
religions. Normally, the course of nature is uniform, and uniformity could
never produce strong emotions. Representing the savage as filled with
admiration before these marvels transports much more recent sentiments to
the beginnings of history. He is much too accustomed to it to be greatly
surprised by it. It requires culture and reflection to shake off this yoke of
habit and to discover how marvellous this regularity itself is. Besides, as we
have already remarked,[171] admiring an object is not enough to make it
appear sacred to us, that is to say, to mark it with those characteristics
which make all direct contact with it appear a sacrilege and a profanation.
We misunderstand what the religious sentiment really is, if we confound it
with every impression of admiration and surprise.
But, they say, even if it is not admiration, there is a certain impression
which men cannot help feeling in the presence of nature. He cannot come in
contact with it, without realizing that it is greater than he. It overwhelms

him by its immensity. This sensation of an infinite space which surrounds
him, of an infinite time which has preceded and will follow the present
moment, and of forces infinitely superior to those of which he is master,
cannot fail, as it seems, to awaken within him the idea that outside of him
there exists an infinite power upon which he depends. And this idea enters
as an essential element into our conception of the divine.
But let us bear in mind what the question is. We are trying to find out
how men came to think that there are in reality two categories of things,
radically heterogeneous and incomparable to each other. Now how could
the spectacle of nature give rise to the idea of this duality? Nature is always
and everywhere of the same sort. It matters little that it extends to infinity:
beyond the extreme limit to which my eyes can reach, it is not different
from what it is here. The space which I imagine beyond the horizon is still
space, identical with that which I see. The time which flows without end is
made up of moments identical with those which I have passed through.
Extension, like duration, repeats itself indefinitely; if the portions which I
touch have of themselves no sacred character, where did the others get
theirs? The fact that I do not see them directly, is not enough to transform
them.[172] A world of profane things may well be unlimited; but it remains a
profane world. Do they say that the physical forces with which we come in
contact exceed our own? Sacred forces are not to be distinguished from
profane ones simply by their greater intensity, they are different; they have
special qualities which the others do not have. Quite on the contrary, all the
forces manifested in the universe are of the same nature, those that are
within us just as those that are outside of us. And especially, there is no
reason which could have allowed giving a sort of pre-eminent dignity to
some in relation to others. Then if religion really was born because of the
need of assigning causes to physical phenomena, the forces thus imagined
would have been no more sacred than those conceived by the scientist to-
day to account for the same facts.[173] This is as much as to say that there
would have been no sacred beings and therefore no religion.
But even supposing that this sensation of being "overwhelmed" were
really able to suggest religious ideas, it could not have produced this effect
upon the primitive, for he does not have it. He is in no way conscious that
cosmic forces are so superior to his own. Since science has not yet taught
him modesty, he attributes to himself an empire over things which he really

does not have, but the illusion of which is enough to prevent his feeling
dominated by them. As we have already pointed out, he thinks that he can
command the elements, release the winds, compel the rain to fall, or stop
the sun, by a gesture, etc.[174] Religion itself contributes to giving him this
security, for he believes that it arms him with extended powers over nature.
His rites are, in part, means destined to aid him in imposing his will upon
the world. Thus, far from being due to the sentiment which men should
have of their littleness before the universe, religions are rather inspired by
the contrary sentiment. Even the most elevated and idealistic have the effect
of reassuring men in their struggle with things: they teach that faith is, of
itself, able "to move mountains," that is to say, to dominate the forces of
nature. How could they give rise to this confidence if they had had their
origin in a sensation of feebleness and impotency?
Finally, if the objects of nature really became sacred because of their
imposing forms or the forces which they manifest, then the sun, the moon,
the sky, the mountains, the sea, the winds, in a word, the great cosmic
powers, should have been the first to be raised to this dignity; for there are
no others more fitted to appeal to the senses and the imagination. But as a
matter of fact, they were divinized but slowly. The first beings to which the
cult is addressed—the proof will be found in the chapters which follow—
are humble vegetables and animals, in relation to which men could at least
claim an equality: they are ducks, rabbits, kangaroos, lizards, worms, frogs,
etc. Their objective qualities surely were not the origin of the religious
sentiments which they inspired.

CHAPTER IV

TOTEMISM AS AN ELEMENTARY
RELIGION

History of the Question.—Method of Treating it

Howsoever opposed their conclusions may seem to be, the two systems
which we have just studied agree upon one essential point: they state the
problem in identical terms. Both undertake to construct the idea of the
divine out of the sensations aroused in us by certain natural phenomena,
either physical or biological. For the animists it is dreams, for the naturists,
certain cosmic phenomena, which served as the point of departure for
religious evolution. But for both, it is in the nature, either of man or of the
universe, that we must look for the germ of the grand opposition which
separates the profane from the sacred.
But such an enterprise is impossible: it supposes a veritable creation ex
nihilo. A fact of common experience cannot give us the idea of something
whose characteristic is to be outside the world of common experience. A
man, as he appears to himself in his dreams, is only a man. Natural forces,
as our senses perceive them, are only natural forces, howsoever great their
intensity may be. Hence comes the common criticism which we address to
both doctrines. In order to explain how these pretended data of religious
thought have been able to take a sacred character which has no objective
foundation, it would be necessary to admit that a whole world of delusive
representations has superimposed itself upon the other, denatured it to the
point of making it unrecognizable, and substituted a pure hallucination for
reality. Here, it is the illusions of the dream which brought about this
transfiguration; there, it is the brilliant and vain company of images evoked
by the word. But in one case as in the other, it is necessary to regard
religion as the product of a delirious imagination.
Thus one positive conclusion is arrived at as the result of this critical
examination. Since neither man nor nature have of themselves a sacred
character, they must get it from another source. Aside from the human
individual and the physical world, there should be some other reality, in
relation to which this variety of delirium which all religion is in a sense, has
a significance and an objective value. In other words, beyond those which
we have called animistic and naturistic, there should be another sort of cult,
more fundamental and more primitive, of which the first are only derived
forms or particular aspects.
In fact, this cult does exist: it is the one to which ethnologists have given
the name of totemism.

I

It was only at the end of the eighteenth century that the word totem
appeared in ethnographical literature. It is found for the first time in the
book of an Indian interpreter, J. Long, which was published in London in
1791.[175] For nearly a half a century, totemism was known only as
something exclusively American.[176] It was only in 1841 that Grey, in a
passage which has remained celebrated,[177] pointed out the existence of
wholly similar practices in Australia. From that time on, scholars began to
realize that they were in the presence of a system of a certain generality.
But they saw there only an essentially archaic institution, an
ethnographical curiosity, having no great interest for the historian.
MacLennan was the first who undertook to attach totemism to the general
history of humanity. In a series of articles in the Fortnightly Review,[178] he
set himself to show that totemism was not only a religion, but one from
which were derived a multitude of beliefs and practices which are found in
much more advanced religious systems. He even went so far as to make it
the source of all the animal-worshipping and plant-worshipping cults which
are found among ancient peoples. Certainly this extension of totemism was
abusive. The cults of animals and plants depend upon numerous causes
which cannot be reduced to one, without the error of too great simplicity.
But this error, by its very exaggerations, had at least the advantage, that it
put into evidence the historical importance of totemism.
Students of American totemism had already known for a long time that
this form of religion was most intimately united to a determined social
organization, that its basis is the division of the social group into clans.[179]
In 1877, in his Ancient Society,[180] Lewis H. Morgan undertook to make a
study of it, to determine its distinctive characteristics, and at the same time
to point out its generality among the Indian tribes of North and Central
America. At nearly the same moment, and even following the direct
suggestion of Morgan, Fison and Howitt[181] established the existence of the
same social system in Australia, as well as its relations with totemism.
Under the influence of these directing ideas, observations could be made
with better method. The researches which the American Bureau of
Ethnology undertook, played an important part in the advance of these
studies.[182] By 1887, the documents were sufficiently numerous and

significant to make Frazer consider it time to unite them and present them
to us in a systematic form. Such is the object of his little book Totemism,
[183]
where the system is studied both as a religion and as a legal institution.
But this study was purely descriptive; no effort was made to explain
totemism[184] or to understand its fundamental notions.
Robertson Smith is the first who undertook this work of elaboration. He
realized more clearly than any of his predecessors how rich this crude and
confused religion is in germs for the future. It is true that MacLennan had
already connected it with the great religions of antiquity; but that was
merely because he thought he had found here and there the cult of animals
or plants. Now if we reduce totemism to a sort of animal or plant worship,
we have seen only its most superficial aspect: we have even misunderstood
its real nature. Going beyond the mere letter of the totemic beliefs, Smith
set himself to find the fundamental principles upon which they depend. In
his book upon Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia,[185] he had already
pointed out that totemism supposes a likeness in nature, either natural or
acquired, of men and animals (or plants). In his The Religion of the Semites,
[186]
he makes this same idea the first origin of the entire sacrificial system:
it is to totemism that humanity owes the principle of the communion meal.
It is true that the theory of Smith can now be shown one-sided; it is no
longer adequate for the facts actually known; but for all that, it contains an
ingenious theory and has exercised a most fertile influence upon the science
of religions. The Golden Bough[187] of Frazer is inspired by these same
ideas, for totemism, which MacLennan had attached to the religions of
classical antiquity, and Smith to the religions of the Semitic peoples, is here
connected to the European folk-lore. The schools of MacLennan and
Morgan are thus united to that of Mannhardt.[188]
During this time, the American tradition continued to develop with an
independence which it has kept up until very recent times. Three groups of
societies were the special object of the researches which were concerned
with totemism. These are, first, certain tribes of the North-west, the Tlinkit,
the Haida, the Kwakiutl, the Salish and the Tsimshian; then, the great nation
of the Sioux; and finally, the Pueblo Indians in the south-western part of the
United States. The first were studied principally by Dall, Krause, Boas,
Swanton, Hill Tout; the second by Dorsey; the last by Mindeleff, Mrs.
Stevenson and Cushing.[189] But however rich the harvest of facts thus

gathered in all parts of the country may have been, the documents at our
disposal were still fragmentary. Though the American religions contain
numerous traces of totemism, they have passed the stage of real totemism.
On the other hand, observations in Australia had brought little more than
scattered beliefs and isolated rites, initiation rituals and interdictions
relative to totemism. It was with facts taken from all these sources that
Frazer attempted to draw a picture of totemism in its entirety. Whatever
may be the incontestable merit of the reconstruction undertaken in such
circumstances, it could not help being incomplete and hypothetical. A
totemic religion in complete action had not yet been observed.
It is only in very recent years that this serious deficiency has been
repaired. Two observers of remarkable ability, Baldwin Spencer and F. J.
Gillen, discovered[190] in the interior of the Australian continent a
considerable number of tribes whose basis and unity was founded in
totemic beliefs. The results of their observations have been published in two
works, which have given a new life to the study of totemism. The first of
these, The Native Tribes of Central Australia,[191] deals with the more
central of these tribes, the Arunta, the Luritcha, and a little farther to the
south, on the shores of Lake Eyre, the Urabunna. The second, which is
entitled The Northern Tribes of Central Australia,[192] deals with the
societies north of the Urabunna, occupying the territory between
MacDonnell's Range and Carpenter Gulf. Among the principal of these we
may mention the Unmatjera, the Kaitish, the Warramunga, the Worgaia, the
Tjingilli, the Binbinga, the Walpari, the Gnanji and finally, on the very
shores of the gulf, the Mara and the Anula.[193]
More recently, a German missionary, Carl Strehlow, who has also passed
long years in these same Central Australian societies,[194] has commenced
to publish his own observations on two of these tribes, the Aranda and the
Loritja (the Arunta and Luritcha of Spencer and Gillen).[195] Having well
mastered the language spoken by these peoples,[196] Strehlow has been able
to bring us a large number of totemic myths and religious songs, which are
given us, for the most part, in the original text. In spite of some differences
of detail which are easily explained and whose importance has been greatly
exaggerated,[197] we shall see that the observations of Strehlow, though
completing, making more precise and sometimes even rectifying those of
Spencer and Gillen, confirm them in all that is essential.

These discoveries have given rise to an abundant literature to which we
shall have occasion to return. The works of Spencer and Gillen especially
have exercised a considerable influence, not only because they were the
oldest, but also because the facts were there presented in a systematic form,
which was of a nature to give a direction to later studies,[198] and to
stimulate speculation. Their results were commented upon, discussed and
interpreted in all possible manners. At this same time, Howitt, whose
fragmentary studies were scattered in a number of different publications,
[199]
undertook to do for the southern tribes what Spencer and Gillen had
done for those of the centre. In his Native Tribes of South-East Australia,
[200]
he gives us a view of the social organization of the peoples who
occupy Southern Australia, New South Wales, and a good part of
Queensland. The progress thus realized suggested to Frazer the idea of
completing his Totemism by a sort of compendium[201] where would be
brought together all the important documents which are concerned either
with the totemic religion or the family and matrimonial organization which,
rightly or wrongly, is believed to be connected with this religion. The
purpose of this book is not to give us a general and systematic view of
totemism, but rather to put the materials necessary for a construction of this
sort at the disposition of scholars.[202] The facts are here arranged in a
strictly ethnographical and geographical order: each continent, and within
the continent, each tribe or ethnic group is studied separately. Though so
extended a study, where so many diverse peoples are successively passed in
review, could hardly be equally thorough in all its parts, still it is a useful
hand-book to consult, and one which can aid greatly in facilitating
researches.

II

From this historical résumé it is clear that Australia is the most
favourable field for the study of totemism, and therefore we shall make it
the principal area of our observations.
In his Totemism, Frazer sought especially to collect all the traces of
totemism which could be found in history or ethnography. He was thus led
to include in his study societies the nature and degree of whose culture
differs most widely: ancient Egypt,[203] Arabia and Greece,[204] and the

southern Slavs[205] are found there, side by side with the tribes of Australia
and America. This manner of procedure is not at all surprising for a disciple
of the anthropological school. For this school does not seek to locate
religions in the social environments of which they are a part,[206] and to
differentiate them according to the different environments to which they are
thus connected. But rather, as is indicated by the name which it has taken to
itself, its purpose is to go beyond the national and historical differences to
the universal and really human bases of the religious life. It is supposed that
man has a religious nature of himself, in virtue of his own constitution, and
independently of all social conditions, and they propose to study this.[207]
For researches of this sort, all peoples can be called upon equally well. It is
true that they prefer the more primitive peoples, because this fundamental
nature is more apt to be unaltered here; but since it is found equally well
among the most civilized peoples, it is but natural that they too should be
called as witnesses. Consequently, all those who pass as being not too far
removed from the origins, and who are confusedly lumped together under
the rather imprecise rubric of savages, are put on the same plane and
consulted indifferently. Since from this point of view, facts have an interest
only in proportion to their generality, they consider themselves obliged to
collect as large a number as possible of them; the circle of comparisons
could not become too large.
Our method will not be such a one, for several reasons.
In the first place, for the sociologist as for the historian, social facts vary
with the social system of which they form a part; they cannot be understood
when detached from it. This is why two facts which come from two
different societies cannot be profitably compared merely because they seem
to resemble each other; it is necessary that these societies themselves
resemble each other, that is to say, that they be only varieties of the same
species. The comparative method would be impossible, if social types did
not exist, and it cannot be usefully applied except within a single type.
What errors have not been committed for having neglected this precept! It
is thus that facts have been unduly connected with each other which, in
spite of exterior resemblances, really have neither the same sense nor the
same importance: the primitive democracy and that of to-day, the
collectivism of inferior societies and actual socialistic tendencies, the
monogamy which is frequent in Australian tribes and that sanctioned by our

laws, etc. Even in the work of Frazer such confusions are found. It
frequently happens that he assimilates simple rites of wild-animal-worship
to practices that are really totemic, though the distance, sometimes very
great, which separates the two social systems would exclude all idea of
assimilation. Then if we do not wish to fall into these same errors, instead
of scattering our researches over all the societies possible, we must
concentrate them upon one clearly determined type.
It is even necessary that this concentration be as close as possible. One
cannot usefully compare facts with which he is not perfectly well
acquainted. But when he undertakes to include all sorts of societies and
civilizations, one cannot know any of them with the necessary
thoroughness; when he assembles facts from every country in order to
compare them, he is obliged to take them hastily, without having either the
means or the time to carefully criticize them. Tumultuous and summary
comparisons result, which discredit the comparative method with many
intelligent persons. It can give serious results only when it is applied to so
limited a number of societies that each of them can be studied with
sufficient precision. The essential thing is to choose those where
investigations have the greatest chance to be fruitful.
Also, the value of the facts is much more important than their number. In
our eyes, the question whether totemism has been more or less universal or
not, is quite secondary.[208] If it interests us, it does so before all because in
studying it we hope to discover relations of a nature to make us understand
better what religion is. Now to establish these relations it is neither
necessary nor always useful to heap up numerous experiences upon each
other; it is much more important to have a few that are well studied and
really significant. One single fact may make a law appear, where a
multitude of imprecise and vague observations would only produce
confusion. In every science, the scholar would be overwhelmed by the facts
which present themselves to him, if he did not make a choice among them.
It is necessary that he distinguish those which promise to be the most
instructive, that he concentrate his attention upon these, and that he
temporarily leave the others to one side.
That is why, with one reservation which will be indicated below, we
propose to limit our research to Australian societies. They fulfil all the
conditions which were just enumerated. They are perfectly homogeneous,

for though it is possible to distinguish varieties among them, they all belong
to one common type. This homogeneity is even so great that the forms of
social organization are not only the same, but that they are even designated
by identical or equivalent names in a multitude of tribes, sometimes very
distant from each other.[209] Also, Australian totemism is the variety for
which our documents are the most complete. Finally, that which we propose
to study in this work is the most primitive and simple religion which it is
possible to find. It is therefore natural that to discover it, we address
ourselves to societies as slightly evolved as possible, for it is evidently there
that we have the greatest chance of finding it and studying it well. Now
there are no societies which present this characteristic to a higher degree
than the Australian ones. Not only is their civilization most rudimentary—
the house and even the hut are still unknown—but also their organization is
the most primitive and simple which is actually known; it is that which we
have elsewhere called organization on a basis of clans.[210] In the next
chapter, we shall have occasion to restate its essential traits.

However, though making Australia the principal field of our research, we
think it best not to leave completely aside the societies where totemism was
first discovered, that is to say, the Indian tribes of North America.
This extension of the field of comparison has nothing about it which is
not legitimate. Undoubtedly these people are more advanced than those of
Australia. Their civilization has become much more advanced: men there
live in houses or under tents, and there are even fortified villages. The size
of the society is much greater, and centralization, which is completely
lacking in Australia, is beginning to appear there; we find vast
confederations, such as that of the Iroquois, under one central authority.
Sometimes a complicated system of differentiated classes arranged in a
hierarchy is found. However, the essential lines of the social structure
remain the same as those in Australia; it is always the organization on a
basis of clans. Thus we are not in the presence of two different types, but of
two varieties of a single type, which are still very close to each other. They
represent two successive moments of a single evolution, so their
homogeneousness is still great enough to permit comparisons.
Also, these comparisons may have their utility. Just because their
civilization is more advanced than that of the Australians, certain phases of

the social organization which is common to both can be studied more easily
among the first than among the second. As long as men are still making
their first steps in the art of expressing their thought, it is not easy for the
observer to perceive that which moves them; for there is nothing to translate
clearly that which passes in these obscure minds which have only a
confused and ephemeral knowledge of themselves. For example, religious
symbols then consist only in formless combinations of lines and colours,
whose sense it is not easy to divine, as we shall see. There are many
gestures and movements by which interior states express themselves; but
being essentially ephemeral, they readily elude observation. That is why
totemism was discovered earlier in America than in Australia; it was much
more visible there, though it held relatively less place in the totality of the
religious life. Also, wherever beliefs and institutions do not take a
somewhat definite material form, they are more liable to change under the
influence of the slightest circumstances, or to become wholly effaced from
the memory. Thus the Australian clans frequently have something floating
and Protean about them, while the corresponding organization in America
has a greater stability and more clearly defined contours. Thus, though
American totemism is further removed from its origins than that of
Australia, still there are important characteristics of which it has better kept
the memory.
In the second place, in order to understand an institution, it is frequently
well to follow it into the advanced stages of its evolution;[211] for
sometimes it is only when it is fully developed that its real signification
appears with the greatest clearness. In this way also, American totemism,
since it has a long history behind it, could serve to clarify certain aspects of
Australian totemism.[212] At the same time, it will put us in a better
condition to see how totemism is bound up with the forms which follow,
and to mark its place in the general historical development of religion.
So in the discussions which follow, we shall not forbid ourselves the use
of certain facts borrowed from the Indian societies of North America. But
we are not going to study American totemism here;[213] such a study must
be made directly and by itself, and cannot be mixed with the one which we
are undertaking; it raises other problems and implies a wholly different set
of special investigations. We shall have recourse to American facts merely
in a supplementary way, and only when they seem to be able to make us

understand Australian facts to advantage. It is these latter which constitute
the real and immediate object of our researches.[214]

BOOK II

THE ELEMENTARY BELIEFS

CHAPTER I

TOTEMIC BELIEFS

The Totem as Name and as Emblem

Owing to its nature, our study will include two parts. Since every religion
is made up of intellectual conceptions and ritual practices, we must deal
successively with the beliefs and rites which compose the totemic religion.
These two elements of the religious life are too closely connected with each
other to allow of any radical separation. In principle, the cult is derived
from the beliefs, yet it reacts upon them; the myth is frequently modelled
after the rite in order to account for it, especially when its sense is no longer
apparent. On the other hand, there are beliefs which are clearly manifested
only through the rites which express them. So these two parts of our
analysis cannot fail to overlap. However, these two orders of facts are so
different that it is indispensable to study them separately. And since it is
impossible to understand anything about a religion while unacquainted with
the ideas upon which it rests, we must seek to become acquainted with
these latter first of all.
But it is not our intention to retrace all the speculations into which the
religious thought, even of the Australians alone, has run. The things we
wish to reach are the elementary notions at the basis of the religion, but
there is no need of following them through all the development, sometimes

very confused, which the mythological imagination of these peoples has
given them. We shall make use of myths when they enable us to understand
these fundamental ideas better, but we shall not make mythology itself the
subject of our studies. In so far as this is a work of art, it does not fall within
the jurisdiction of the simple science of religions. Also, the intellectual
evolution from which it results is of too great a complexity to be studied
indirectly and from a foreign point of view. It constitutes a very difficult
problem which must be treated by itself, for itself and with a method
peculiar to itself.
Among the beliefs upon which totemism rests, the most important are
naturally those concerning the totem; it is with these that we must begin.

I

At the basis of nearly all the Australian tribes we find a group which
holds a preponderating place in the collective life: this is the clan. Two
essential traits characterize it.
In the first place, the individuals who compose it consider themselves
united by a bond of kinship, but one which is of a very special nature. This
relationship does not come from the fact that they have definite blood
connections with one another; they are relatives from the mere fact that they
have the same name. They are not fathers and mothers, sons or daughters,
uncles or nephews of one another in the sense which we now give these
words; yet they think of themselves as forming a single family, which is
large or small according to the dimensions of the clan, merely because they
are collectively designated by the same word. When we say that they regard
themselves as a single family, we do so because they recognize duties
towards each other which are identical with those which have always been
incumbent upon kindred: such duties as aid, vengeance, mourning, the
obligation not to marry among themselves, etc.
By this first characteristic, the clan does not differ from the Roman gens
or the Greek γένος; for this relationship also came merely from the fact that
all the members of the gens had the same name,[215] the nomen gentilicium.
And in one sense, the gens is a clan; but it is a variety which should not be
confounded with the Australian clan.[216] This latter is distinguished by the
fact that its name is also the name of a determined species of material things

with which it believes that it has very particular relations, the nature of
which we shall presently describe; they are especially relations of kinship.
The species of things which serves to designate the clan collectively is
called its totem. The totem of the clan is also that of each of its members.
Each clan has its totem, which belongs to it alone; two different clans of
the same tribe cannot have the same. In fact, one is a member of a clan
merely because he has a certain name. All who bear this name are members
of it for that very reason; in whatever manner they may be spread over the
tribal territory, they all have the same relations of kinship with one another.
[217]
Consequently, two groups having the same totem can only be two
sections of the same clan. Undoubtedly, it frequently happens that all of a
clan does not reside in the same locality, but has representatives in several
different places. However, this lack of a geographical basis does not cause
its unity to be the less keenly felt.
In regard to the word totem, we may say that it is the one employed by
the Ojibway, an Algonquin tribe, to designate the sort of thing whose name
the clan bears.[218] Although this expression is not at all Australian,[219] and
is found only in one single society in America, ethnographers have
definitely adopted it, and use it to denote, in a general way, the system
which we are describing. Schoolcraft was the first to extend the meaning of
the word thus and to speak of a "totemic system."[220] This extension, of
which there are examples enough in ethnography, is not without
inconveniences. It is not normal for an institution of this importance to bear
a chance name, taken from a strictly local dialect, and bringing to mind
none of the distinctive characteristics of the thing it designates. But to-day
this way of employing the word is so universally accepted that it would be
an excess of purism to rise against this usage.[221]
In a very large proportion of the cases, the objects which serve as totems
belong either to the animal or the vegetable kingdom, but especially to the
former. Inanimate things are much more rarely employed. Out of more than
500 totemic names collected by Howitt among the tribes of south-eastern
Australia, there are scarcely forty which are not the names of plants or
animals; these are the clouds, rain, hail, frost, the moon, the sun, the wind,
the autumn, the summer, the winter, certain stars, thunder, fire, smoke,
water or the sea. It is noticeable how small a place is given to celestial
bodies and, more generally, to the great cosmic phenomena, which were

destined to so great a fortune in later religious development. Among all the
clans of which Howitt speaks, there were only two which had the moon as
totem,[222] two the sun,[223] three a star,[224] three the thunder,[225] two the
lightning.[226] The rain is a single exception; it, on the contrary, is very
frequent.[227]
These are the totems which can be spoken of as normal. But totemism
has its abnormalities as well. It sometimes happens that the totem is not a
whole object, but the part of an object. This fact appears rather rarely in
Australia;[228] Howitt cites only one example.[229] However, it may well be
that this is found with a certain frequency in the tribes where the totemic
groups are excessively subdivided; it might be said that the totems had to
break themselves up in order to be able to furnish names to these numerous
divisions. This is what seems to have taken place among the Arunta and the
Loritja. Strehlow has collected 442 totems in these two societies, of which
many are not an animal species, but some particular organ of the animal of
the species, such as the tail or stomach of an opossum, the fat of the
kangaroo, etc.[230]
We have seen that normally the totem is not an individual, but a species
or a variety: it is not such and such a kangaroo or crow, but the kangaroo or
crow in general. Sometimes, however, it is a particular object. First of all,
this is necessarily the case when the thing serving as totem is unique in its
class, as the sun, the moon, such or such a constellation, etc. It also happens
that clans take their names from certain geographical irregularities or
depressions of the land, from a certain ant-hill, etc. It is true that we have
only a small number of examples of this in Australia; but Strehlow does
mention some.[231] But the very causes which have given rise to these
abnormal totems show that they are of a relatively recent origin. In fact,
what has made certain geographical features of the land become totems is
that a mythical ancestor is supposed to have stopped there or to have
performed some act of his legendary life there.[232] But at the same time,
these ancestors are represented in the myths as themselves belonging to
clans which had perfectly regular totems, that is to say, ones taken from the
animal or vegetable kingdoms. Therefore, the totemic names thus
commemorating the acts and performances of these heroes cannot be
primitive; they belong to a form of totemism that is already derived and
deviated. It is even permissible to ask if the meteorological totems have not

a similar origin; for the sun, the moon and the stars are frequently identified
with the ancestors of the mythological epoch.[233]
Sometimes, but no less exceptionally, it is an ancestor or a group of
ancestors which serves as totem directly. In this case, the clan takes its
name, not from a thing or a species of real things, but from a purely
mythical being. Spencer and Gillen had already mentioned two or three
totems of this sort. Among the Warramunga and among the Tjingilli there
are clans which bear the name of an ancestor named Thaballa who seems to
be gaiety incarnate.[234] Another Warramunga clan bears the name of a huge
fabulous serpent named Wollunqua, from which the clan considers itself
descended.[235] We owe other similar facts to Strehlow.[236] In any case, it is
easy enough to see what probably took place. Under the influence of
diverse causes and by the very development of mythological thought, the
collective and impersonal totem became effaced before certain mythical
personages who advanced to the first rank and became totems themselves.
Howsoever interesting these different irregularities may be, they contain
nothing which forces us to modify our definition of a totem. They are not,
as has sometimes been believed,[237] different varieties of totems which are
more or less irreducible into each other or into the normal totem, such as we
have defined it. They are merely secondary and sometimes even aberrant
forms of a single notion which is much more general, and there is every
ground for believing it the more primitive.

The manner in which the name is acquired is more important for the
organization and recruiting of the clan than for religion; it belongs to the
sociology of the family rather than to religious sociology.[238] So we shall
confine ourselves to indicating summarily the most essential principles
which regulate the matter.
In the different tribes, three different systems are in use.
In a great number, or it might even be said, in the greater number of the
societies, the child takes the totem of its mother, by right of birth: this is
what happens among the Dieri and the Urabunna of the centre of Southern
Australia; the Wotjobaluk and the Gournditch-Mara of Victoria; the
Kamilaroi, the Wiradjuri, the Wonghibon and the Euahlayi of New South
Wales; and the Wakelbura, the Pitta-Pitta and the Kurnandaburi of

Queensland, to mention only the most important names. In this case, owing
to a law of exogamy, the mother is necessarily of a different totem from her
husband, and on the other hand, as she lives in his community, the members
of a single totem are necessarily dispersed in different localities according
to the chances of their marriages. As a result, the totemic group lacks a
territorial base.
Elsewhere the totem is transmitted in the paternal line. In this case, if the
child remains with his father, the local group is largely made up of people
belonging to a single totem; only the married women there represent foreign
totems. In other words, each locality has its particular totem. Up until recent
times, this scheme of organization was found in Australia only among the
tribes where totemism was in decadence, such as the Narrinyeri, where the
totem has almost no religious character at all any more.[239] It was therefore
possible to believe that there was a close connection between the totemic
system and descent in the uterine line. But Spencer and Gillen have
observed, in the northern part of central Australia, a whole group of tribes
where the totemic religion is still practised but where the transmission of
the totem is in the paternal line: these are the Warramunga, the Quanji, the
Umbia, the Binbinga, the Mara and the Anula.[240]
Finally, a third combination is the one observed among the Arunta and
Loritja. Here the totem of the child is not necessarily either that of the
mother or that of the father; it is that of a mythical ancestor who came, by
processes which the observers recount in different ways,[241] and
mysteriously fecundated the mother at the moment of conception. A special
process makes it possible to learn which ancestor it was and to which
totemic group he belonged.[242] But since it was only chance which
determined that this ancestor happened to be near the mother, rather than
another, the totem of the child is thus found to depend finally upon
fortuitous circumstances.[243]

Outside of and above the totems of clans there are totems of phratries
which, though not differing from the former in nature, must none the less be
distinguished from them.
A phratry is a group of clans which are united to each other by particular
bonds of fraternity. Ordinarily the Australian tribe is divided into two

phratries between which the different clans are distributed. Of course there
are some tribes where this organization has disappeared, but everything
leads us to believe that it was once general. In any case, there are no tribes
in Australia where the number of phratries is greater than two.
Now in nearly all the cases where the phratries have a name whose
meaning has been established, this name is that of an animal; it would
therefore seem that it is a totem. This has been well demonstrated in a
recent work by A. Lang.[244] Thus, among the Gournditch (Victoria), the
phratries are called Krokitch and Kaputch; the former of the words
designates the white cockatoo and the latter the black cockatoo.[245] The
same expressions are found again among the Buandik and the Wotjobaluk.
[246]
Among the Wurunjerri, the names employed are Bunjil and Waang,
which designate the eagle-hawk and the crow.[247] The words Mukwara and
Kilpara are used for the same purpose in a large number of tribes of New
South Wales;[248] they designate the same birds.[249] It is also the eagle-
hawk and the crow which have given their names to the two phratries of the
Ngarigo and the Wolgal.[250] Among the Kuinmurbura, it is the white
cockatoo and the crow.[251] Many other examples might be cited. Thus we
are led to regard the phratry as an ancient clan which has been
dismembered; the actual clans are the product of this dismemberment, and
the solidarity which unites them is a souvenir of their primitive unity.[252] It
is true that in certain tribes, the phratries no longer have special names, as it
seems; in others where these names exist, their meaning is no longer
known, even to the members. But there is nothing surprising in this. The
phratries are certainly a primitive institution, for they are everywhere in a
state of regression; their descendants the clans have passed to the first rank.
So it is but natural that the names which they bore should have been effaced
from memory little by little, when they were no longer understood; for they
must belong to a very archaic language no longer in use. This is proved by
the fact that in many cases where we know the animal whose name the
phratry bears, the word designating this animal in the current language is
very different from the one employed here.[253]
Between the totem of the phratry and the totems of the clans there exists
a sort of relation of subordination. In fact, in principle each clan belongs to
one and only one phratry; it is very exceptional that it has representatives in
the other phratry. This is not met with at all except among certain central

tribes, notably the Arunta;[254] also even where, owing to disturbing
influences, overlappings of this sort have taken place, the great part of the
clan is included entirely within one or the other of the two groups of the
tribe; only a small minority is to be found in the other one.[255] As a rule
then, the two phratries do not overlap each other; consequently, the list of
totems which an individual may have is predetermined by the phratry to
which he belongs. In other words, the phratry is like a species of which the
clans are varieties. We shall presently see that this comparison is not purely
metaphorical.

In addition to the phratries and clans, another secondary group is
frequently met with in Australian societies, which is not without a certain
individuality: these are the matrimonial classes.
By this name they designate certain subdivisions of the phratry, whose
number varies with the tribe: there are sometimes two and sometimes four
per phratry.[256] Their recruiting and operation are regulated by the two
following principles. In the first place, each generation in a phratry belongs
to different clans from the immediately preceding one. Thus, when there are
only two classes per phratry, they necessarily alternate with each other
every generation. The children make up the class of which their parents are
not members; but grandchildren are of the same class as their grandparents.
Thus, among the Kamilaroi, the Kupathin phratry has two classes, Ippai and
Kumbo; the Dilby phratry, two others which are called Murri and Kubbi. As
descent is in the uterine line, the child is in the phratry of its mother; if she
is a Kupathin, the child will be one also. But if she is of the Ippai class, he
will be a Kumbo; if the child is a girl, her children will again be in the Ippai
class.
Likewise, the children of the women of the Murri class will be in the
Kubbi class, and the children of the Kubbi women will be Murri again.
When there are four classes per phratry, instead of two, the system is
naturally more complex, but the principle is the same. The four classes form
two couples of two classes each, and these two classes alternate with each
other every generation in the manner just indicated. Secondly, the members
of one class can in principle[257] marry into only one of the classes of the
other phratry. The Ippai must marry into the Kubbi class and the Murri into

the Kumbo class. It is because this organization profoundly affects
matrimonial relations that we give the group the name of matrimonial class.
Now it may be asked whether these classes do not sometimes have
totems like the phratries and clans.
This question is raised by the fact that in certain tribes of Queensland,
each matrimonial class has dietetic restrictions that are peculiar to it. The
individuals who compose it must abstain from eating the flesh of certain
animals which the others may consume freely.[258] Are these animals not
totems?
But dietetic restrictions are not the characteristic marks of totemism. The
totem is a name first of all, and then, as we shall see, an emblem. Now in
the societies of which we just spoke, there are no matrimonial classes which
bear the name of an animal or plant, or which have an emblem.[259] Of
course it is possible that these restrictions are indirectly derived from
totemism. It might be supposed that the animals which these interdictions
protect were once the totems of clans which have since disappeared, while
the matrimonial classes remained. It is certain that they have a force of
endurance which the clans do not have. Then these interdictions, deprived
of their original field, may have spread themselves out over the entire class,
since there were no other groups to which they could be attached. But it is
clear that if this regulation was born of totemism, it represents only an
enfeebled and denatured form of it.[260]
All that has been said of the totem in Australian societies is equally
applicable to the Indian tribes of North America. The only difference is that
among these latter, the totemic organization has a strictness of outline and a
stability which are not found in Australia. The Australian clans are not only
very numerous, but in a single tribe their number is almost unlimited.
Observers cite some of them as examples, but without ever succeeding in
giving us a complete list. This is because the list is never definitely
terminated. The same process of dismemberment which broke up the
original phratries and give birth to clans properly so-called still continues
within these latter; as a result of this progressive crumbling, a clan
frequently has only a very small effective force.[261] In America, on the
contrary, the totemic system has better defined forms. Although the tribes
there are considerably larger on the average, the clans are less numerous. A
single tribe rarely has more than a dozen of them,[262] and frequently less;

each of them is therefore a much more important group. But above all, their
number is fixed; they know their exact number, and they it tell to us.[263]
This difference is due to the superiority of their social economy. From the
moment when these tribes were observed for the first time, the social
groups were strongly attached to the soil, and consequently better able to
resist the decentralizing forces which assailed them. At the same time, the
society had too keen a sentiment of its unity to remain unconscious of itself
and of the parts out of which it was composed. The example of America
thus enables us to explain even better the organization at the base of the
clans. We would take a mistaken view, if we judged this only on the present
conditions in Australia. In fact, it is in a state of change and dissolution
there, which is not at all normal; it is much rather the product of a
degeneration which we see, due both to the natural decay of time and the
disorganizing effect of the whites. To be sure, it is hardly probable that the
Australian clans ever had the dimensions and solid structure of the
American ones. But there must have been a time when the distance between
them was less considerable than it is to-day, for the American societies
would never have succeeded in making so solid a structure if the clans had
always been of so fluid and inconsistent a nature.
This greater stability has even enabled the archaic system of phratries to
maintain itself in America with a clearness and a relief no longer to be
found in Australia. We have just seen that in the latter continent the phratry
is everywhere in a state of decadence; very frequently it is nothing more
than an anonymous group; when it has a name, this is either no longer
understood, or in any case, it cannot mean a great deal to the native, since it
is borrowed from a foreign language, or from one no longer spoken. Thus
we have been able to infer the existence of totems for phratries only from a
few survivals, which, for the most part, are so slightly marked that they
have escaped the attention of many observers. In certain parts of America,
on the contrary, this institution has retained its primitive importance. The
tribes of the North-west coast, the Tlinkit and the Haida especially, have
now attained a relatively advanced civilization; yet they are divided into
two phratries which are subdivided into a certain number of clans: the
phratries of the Crow and the Wolf among the Tlinkit,[264] of the Eagle and
the Crow among the Haida.[265] And this division is not merely nominal; it
corresponds to an ever-existing state of tribal customs and is deeply marked

with the tribal life. The moral distance separating the clans is very slight in
comparison with that separating the phratries.[266] The name of each is not a
word whose sense is forgotten or only vaguely known; it is a totem in the
full sense of the term; they have all its essential attributes, such as will be
described below.[267] Consequently, upon this point also, American tribes
must not be neglected, for we can study the totems of phratries directly
there, while Australia offers only obscure vestiges of them.

II

But the totem is not merely a name; it is an emblem, a veritable coat-of-
arms whose analogies with the arms of heraldry have often been remarked.
In speaking of the Australians, Grey says, "each family adopt an animal or
vegetable as their crest and sign,"[268] and what Grey calls a family is
incontestably a clan. Also Fison and Howitt say, "the Australian divisions
show that the totem is, in the first place, the badge of a group."[269]
Schoolcraft says the same thing about the totems of the Indians of North
America. "The totem is in fact a design which corresponds to the heraldic
emblems of civilized nations, and each person is authorized to bear it as a
proof of the identity of the family to which it belongs. This is proved by the
real etymology of the word, which is derived from dodaim, which means
village or the residence of a family group."[270] Thus when the Indians
entered into relations with the Europeans and contracts were formed
between them, it was with its totem that each clan sealed the treaties thus
concluded.[271]
The nobles of the feudal period carved, engraved and designed in every
way their coats-of-arms upon the walls of their castles, their arms, and
every sort of object that belonged to them; the blacks of Australia and the
Indians of North America do the same thing with their totems. The Indians
who accompanied Samuel Hearne painted their totems on their shields
before going into battle.[272] According to Charlevoix, in time of war,
certain tribes of Indians had veritable ensigns, made of bits of bark fastened
to the end of a pole, upon which the totems were represented.[273] Among
the Tlinkit, when a conflict breaks out between two clans, the champions of
the two hostile groups wear helmets over their heads, upon which are

painted their respective totems.[274] Among the Iroquois, they put the skin
of the animal which serves as totem upon each wigwam, as a mark of the
clan.[275] According to another observer, the animal was stuffed and set up
before the door.[276] Among the Wyandot, each clan has its own ornaments
and its distinctive paintings.[277] Among the Omaha, and among the Sioux
generally, the totem is painted on the tent.[278]
Wherever the society has become sedentary, where the tent is replaced by
the house, and where the plastic arts are more fully developed, the totem is
engraved upon the woodwork and upon the walls. This is what happens, for
example, among the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Salish and the Tlinkit. "A
very particular ornament of the house, among the Tlinkit," says Krause, "is
the totemic coat-of-arms." Animal forms, sometimes combined with human
forms, are engraved upon the posts at the sides of the door of entry, which
are as high as 15 yards; they are generally painted with very bright colours.
[279]
However, these totemic decorations are not very numerous in the
Tlinkit village; they are found almost solely before the houses of the chiefs
and rich men. They are much more frequent in the neighbouring tribe of the
Haida; here there are always several for each house.[280] With its many
sculptured posts arising on every hand, sometimes to a great height, a Haida
village gives the impression of a sacred city, all bristling with belfries or
little minarets.[281] Among the Salish, the totem is frequently represented
upon the interior walls of the house.[282] Elsewhere, it is found upon the
canoes, the utensils of every sort and the funeral piles.[283]
The preceding examples are taken exclusively from the Indians of North
America. This is because sculpture, engravings and permanent figurations
are not possible except where the technique of the plastic arts has reached a
degree of perfection to which the Australian tribes have not yet attained.
Consequently the totemic representations of the sort which we just
mentioned are rarer and less apparent in Australia than in America.
However, cases of them are cited. Among the Warramunga, at the end of the
burial ceremonies, the bones of the dead man are interred, after they have
been dried and reduced to powder; beside the place where they are
deposited, a figure representing the totem is traced upon the ground.[284]
Among the Mara and the Anula, the body is placed in a piece of hollow
wood decorated with designs characteristic of the totem.[285] In New South

Wales, Oxley found engravings upon the trees near the tomb where a native
was buried[286] to which Brough Smyth attributes a totemic character. The
natives of the Upper Darling carve totemic images upon their shields.[287]
According to Collins, nearly all the utensils are covered with ornaments
which probably have the same significance; figures of the same sort are
found upon the rocks.[288] These totemic designs may even be more
frequent than it seems, for, owing to reasons which will be discussed below,
it is not always easy to see what their real meaning is.

These different facts give us an idea of the considerable place held by the
totem in the social life of the primitives. However, up to the present, it has
appeared to us as something relatively outside of the man, for it is only
upon external things that we have seen it represented. But totemic images
are not placed only upon the walls of their houses, the sides of their canoes,
their arms, their utensils and their tombs; they are also found on the bodies
of the men. They do not put their coat-of-arms merely upon the things
which they possess, but they put it upon their persons; they imprint it upon
their flesh, it becomes a part of them, and this world of representations is
even by far the more important one.
In fact, it is a very general rule that the members of each clan seek to give
themselves the external aspect of their totem. At certain religious festivals
among the Tlinkit, the person who is to direct the ceremonies wears a
garment which represents, either wholly or in part, the body of the animal
whose name he bears.[289] These same usages are also found in all the
North-West of America.[290] They are found again among the Minnitaree,
when they go into combat,[291] and among the Indians of the Pueblos.[292]
Elsewhere, when the totem is a bird, men wear the feathers of this bird on
their heads.[293] Among the Iowa, each clan has a special fashion of cutting
the hair. In the Eagle clan, two large tufts are arranged on the front of the
head, while there is another one behind; in the Buffalo clan, they are
arranged in the form of horns.[294] Among the Omaha, analogous
arrangements are found: each clan has its own head-dress. In the Turtle
clan, for example, the hair is all shaved off, except six bunches, two on each
side of the head, one in front, and one behind, in such a way as to imitate
the legs, the head and the tail of the animal.[295]

But it is more frequently upon the body itself that the totemic mark is
stamped: for this is a way of representation within the capacity of even the
least advanced societies. It has sometimes been asked whether the common
rite of knocking out a young man's two upper teeth at the age of puberty
does not have the object of reproducing the form of the totem. The fact is
not established, but it is worth mentioning that the natives themselves
sometimes explain the custom thus. For example, among the Arunta, the
extraction of teeth is practised only in the clans of the rain and of water;
now according to tradition, the object of this operation is to make their
faces look like certain black clouds with light borders which are believed to
announce the speedy arrival of rain, and which are therefore considered
things of the same family.[296] This is a proof that the native himself is
conscious that the object of these deformations is to give him, at least
conventionally, the aspect of his totem. Among these same Arunta, in the
course of the rites of sub-incision, certain gashes are cut upon the sisters
and the future wife of the novice; scars result from these, whose form is
also represented upon a certain sacred object of which we shall speak
presently and which is called the churinga; as we shall see, the lines thus
drawn upon the churinga are emblematic of the totem.[297] Among the
Kaitish, the euro is believed to be closely connected with the rain;[298] the
men of the rain clan wear little ear-rings made of euro teeth.[299] Among the
Yerkla, during the initiation the young man is given a certain number of
slashes which leave scars; the number and form of these varies with the
totems.[300] An informer of Fison mentions the same fact in the tribes
observed by him.[301] According to Howitt, a relationship of the same sort
exists among the Dieri between certain arrangements of scars and the water
totem.[302] Among the Indians of the North-West, it is a very general custom
for them to tattoo themselves with the totem.[303]
But even if the tattooings which are made by mutilations or scars do not
always have a totemic significance,[304] it is different with simple designs
drawn upon the body: they are generally representations of the totem. It is
true that the native does not carry them every day. When he is occupied
with purely economic occupations, or when the small family groups scatter
to hunt or fish, he does not bother with all this paraphernalia, which is quite
complicated. But when the clans unite to live a common life and to assist at
the religious ceremonies together, then he must adorn himself. As we shall

see, each of the ceremonies concerns a particular totem, and in theory the
rites which are connected with a totem can be performed only by the men of
that totem. Now those who perform,[305] who take the part of officiants, and
sometimes even those who assist as spectators, always have designs
representing the totem on their bodies.[306] One of the principal rites of
initiation, by which a young man enters into the religious life of the tribe,
consists in painting the totemic symbol on his body.[307] It is true that
among the Arunta the design thus traced does not always and necessarily
represent the totem of the initiated;[308] but these are exceptions, due,
undoubtedly, to the disturbed state of the totemic organization of this tribe.
[309]
Also, even among the Arunta, at the most solemn moment of the
initiation, which is its crown and consecration, when the neophyte is
allowed to enter the sanctuary where all the sacred objects belonging to the
clan are preserved, an emblematic painting is placed upon him; this time, it
is the totem of the young man which is thus represented.[310] The bonds
which unite the individual to his totem are even so strong that in the tribes
on the North-west coast of North America, the emblem of the clan is
painted not only upon the living but also upon the dead: before a corpse is
interred, they put the totemic mark upon it.[311]

III

These totemic decorations enable us to see that the totem is not merely a
name and an emblem. It is in the course of the religious ceremonies that
they are employed; they are a part of the liturgy; so while the totem is a
collective label, it also has a religious character. In fact, it is in connection
with it, that things are classified as sacred or profane. It is the very type of
sacred thing.
The tribes of Central Australia, especially the Arunta, the Loritja, the
Kaitish, the Unmatjera, and the Ilpirra,[312] make constant use of certain
instruments in their rites which are called the churinga by the Arunta,
according to Spencer and Gillen, or the tjurunga, according to Strehlow.[313]
They are pieces of wood or bits of polished stone, of a great variety of
forms, but generally oval or oblong.[314] Each totemic group has a more or
less important collection of these. Upon each of these is engraved a design

representing the totem of this same group.[315] A certain number of the
churinga have a hole at one end, through which goes a thread made of
human hair or that of an opossum. Those which are made of wood and are
pierced in this way serve for exactly the same purposes as those instruments
of the cult to which English ethnographers have given the name of "bull-
roarers." By means of the thread by which they are suspended, they are
whirled rapidly in the air in such a way as to produce a sort of humming
identical with that made by the toys of this name still used by our children;
this deafening noise has a ritual significance and accompanies all
ceremonies of any importance. These sorts of churinga are real bull-roarers.
But there are others which are not made of wood and are not pierced;
consequently they cannot be employed in this way. Nevertheless, they
inspire the same religious sentiments.
In fact, every churinga, for whatever purpose it may be employed, is
counted among the eminently sacred things; there are none which surpass it
in religious dignity. This is indicated even by the word which is used to
designate them. It is not only a substantive but also an adjective meaning
sacred. Also, among the several names which each Arunta has, there is one
so sacred that it must not be revealed to a stranger; it is pronounced but
rarely, and then in a low voice and a sort of mysterious murmur. Now this
name is called the aritna churinga (aritna means name).[316] In general, the
word churinga is used to designate all ritual acts; for example, ilia churinga
signifies the cult of the emu.[317] Churinga, when used substantively,
therefore designates the thing whose essential characteristic is sacredness.
Profane persons, that is to say, women and young men not yet initiated into
the religious life, may not touch or even see the churinga; they are only
allowed to look at it from a distance, and even this is only on rare
occasions.[318]
The churinga are piously kept in a special place, which the Arunta call
the ertnatulunga.[319] This is a cave or a sort of cavern hidden in a deserted
place. The entrance is carefully closed by means of stones so cleverly
placed that a stranger going past it could not suspect that the religious
treasury of the clan was so near to him. The sacred character of the churinga
is so great that it communicates itself to the locality where they are stored:
the women and the uninitiated cannot approach it. It is only after their
initiation is completely finished that the young men have access to it: there

are some who are not esteemed worthy of this favour except after years of
trial.[320] The religious nature radiates to a distance and communicates itself
to all the surroundings: everything near by participates in this same nature
and is therefore withdrawn from profane touch. Is one man pursued by
another? If he succeeds in reaching the ertnatulunga, he is saved; he cannot
be seized there.[321] Even a wounded animal which takes refuge there must
be respected.[322] Quarrels are forbidden there. It is a place of peace, as is
said in the Germanic societies; it is a sanctuary of the totemic group, it is a
veritable place of asylum.
But the virtues of the churinga are not manifested merely by the way in
which it keeps the profane at a distance. If it is thus isolated, it is because it
is something of a high religious value whose loss would injure the group
and the individuals severely. It has all sorts of marvellous properties: by
contact it heals wounds, especially those resulting from circumcision;[323] it
has the same power over sickness;[324] it is useful for making the beard
grow;[325] it confers important powers over the totemic species, whose
normal reproduction it ensures;[326] it gives men force, courage and
perseverance, while, on the other hand, it depresses and weakens their
enemies. This latter belief is so firmly rooted that when two combatants
stand pitted against one another, if one sees that the other has brought
churinga against him, he loses confidence and his defeat is certain.[327] Thus
there is no ritual instrument which has a more important place in the
religious ceremonies.[328] By means of various sorts of anointings, their
powers are communicated either to the officiants or to the assistants; to
bring this about, they are rubbed over the members and stomach of the
faithful after being covered with grease;[329] or sometimes they are covered
with a down which flies away and scatters itself in every direction when
they are whirled; this a way of disseminating the virtues which are in them.
[330]

But they are not useful merely to individuals; the fate of the clan as a
whole is bound up with theirs. Their loss is a disaster; it is the greatest
misfortune which can happen to the group.[331] Sometimes they leave the
ertnatulunga, for example when they are loaned to other groups.[332] Then
follows a veritable public mourning. For two weeks, the people of the totem
weep and lament, covering their bodies with white clay just as they do

when they have lost a relative.[333] And the churinga are not left at the free
disposition of everybody; the ertnatulunga where they are kept is placed
under the control of the chief of the group. It is true that each individual has
special rights to some of them;[334] yet, though he is their proprietor in a
sense, he cannot make use of them except with the consent and under the
direction of the chief. It is a collective treasury; it is the sacred ark of the
clan.[335] The devotion of which they are the object shows the high price
that is attached to them. The respect with which they are handled is shown
by the solemnity of the movements.[336] They are taken care of, they are
greased, rubbed, polished, and when they are moved from one locality to
another, it is in the midst of ceremonies which bear witness to the fact that
this displacement is regarded as an act of the highest importance.[337]
Now in themselves, the churinga are objects of wood and stone like all
others; they are distinguished from profane things of the same sort by only
one particularity: this is that the totemic mark is drawn or engraved upon
them. So it is this mark and this alone which gives them their sacred
character. It is true that according to Spencer and Gillen, the churinga serve
as the residence of an ancestor's soul and that it is the presence of this soul
which confers these properties.[338] While declaring this interpretation
inexact, Strehlow, in his turn, proposes another which does not differ
materially from the other: he claims that the churinga are considered the
image of the ancestor's body, or the body itself.[339] So, in any case, it
would be sentiments inspired by the ancestor which fix themselves upon the
material object, and convert it into a sort of fetish. But in the first place,
both conceptions,—which, by the way, scarcely differ except in the letter of
the myth,—have obviously been made up afterwards, to account for the
sacred character of the churinga. In the constitution of these pieces of wood
and bits of stone, and in their external appearance, there is nothing which
predestines them to be considered the seat of an ancestral soul, or the image
of his body. So if men have imagined this myth, it was in order to explain
the religious respect which these things inspired in them, and the respect
was not determined by the myth. This explanation, like so many
mythological explanations, resolves the question only by repeating it in
slightly different terms; for saying that the churinga is sacred and saying
that it has such and such a relation with a sacred being, is merely to
proclaim the same fact in two different ways; it is not accounting for them.

Moreover, according to the avowal of Spencer and Gillen, there are some
churinga among the Arunta which are made by the old men of the group, to
the knowledge of and before the eyes of all;[340] these obviously do not
come from the great ancestors. However, except for certain differences of
degree, they have the same power as the others and are preserved in the
same manner. Finally, there are whole tribes where the churinga is never
associated with a spirit.[341] Its religious nature comes to it, then, from some
other source, and whence could it come, if not from the totemic stamp
which it bears? It is to this image, therefore, that the demonstrations of the
rite are really addressed; it is this which sanctifies the object upon which it
is carved.
Among the Arunta and the neighbouring tribes, there are two other
liturgical instruments closely connected with the totem and the churinga
itself, which ordinarily enters into their composition: they are the nurtunja
and the waninga.
The nurtunja,[342] which is found among the northern Arunta and their
immediate neighbours,[343] is made up principally of a vertical support
which is either a single lance, or several lances united into a bundle, or of a
simple pole.[344] Bunches of grass are fastened all around it by means of
belts or little cords made of hair. Above this, down is placed, arranged
either in circles or in parallel lines which run from the top to the bottom of
the support. The top is decorated with the plumes of an eagle-hawk. This is
only the most general and typical form; in particular cases, it has all sorts of
variations.[345]
The waninga, which is found only among the southern Arunta, the
Urabunna and the Loritja, has no one unique model either. Reduced to its
most essential elements, it too consists in a vertical support, formed by a
long stick or by a lance several yards high, with sometimes one and
sometimes two cross-pieces.[346] In the former case, it has the appearance of
a cross. Cords made either of human hair or opossum or bandicoot fur
diagonally cross the space included between the arms of the cross and the
extremities of the central axis; as they are quite close to each other, they
form a network in the form of a lozenge. When there are two cross-bars,
these cords go from one to the other and from these to the top and bottom of
the support. They are sometimes covered with a layer of down, thick

enough to conceal the foundation. Thus the waninga has the appearance of a
veritable flag.[347]
Now the nurtunja and the waninga, which figure in a multitude of
important rites, are the object of a religious respect quite like that inspired
by the churinga. The process of their manufacture and erection is conducted
with the greatest solemnity. Fixed in the earth, or carried by an officiant,
they mark the central point of the ceremony: it is about them that the dances
take place and the rites are performed. In the course of the initiation, the
novice is led to the foot of a nurtunja erected for the occasion. Someone
says to him, "There is the nurtunja of your father; many young men have
already been made by it." After that, the initiate must kiss the nurtunja.[348]
By this kiss, he enters into relations with the religious principle which
resides there; it is a veritable communion which should give the young man
the force required to support the terrible operation of sub-incision.[349] The
nurtunja also plays a considerable rôle in the mythology of these societies.
The myths relate that in the fabulous times of the great ancestors, the
territory of the tribe was overrun in every direction by companies composed
exclusively of individuals of the same totem.[350] Each of these troops had a
nurtunja with it. When it stopped to camp, before scattering to hunt, the
members fixed their nurtunja in the ground, from the top of which their
churinga was suspended.[351] That is equivalent to saying that they confided
the most precious things they had to it. It was at the same time a sort of
standard which served as a rallying-centre for the group. One cannot fail to
be struck by the analogies between the nurtunja and the sacred post of the
Omaha.[352]
Now its sacred character can come from only one cause: that is that it
represents the totem materially. The vertical lines or rings of down which
cover it, and even the cords of different colours which fasten the arms of the
waninga to the central axis, are not arranged arbitrarily, according to the
taste of the makers; they must conform to a type strictly determined by
tradition which, in the minds of the natives, represents the totem.[353] Here
we cannot ask, as we did in the case of the churinga, whether the veneration
accorded to this instrument of the cult is not merely the reflex of that
inspired by the ancestors; for it is a rule that each nurtunja and each
waninga last only during the ceremony where they are used. They are made
all over again every time that it is necessary, and when the rite is once

accomplished, they are stripped of their ornaments and the elements out of
which they are made are scattered.[354] They are nothing more than images
—and temporary images at that—of the totem, and consequently it is on
this ground, and on this ground alone, that they play a religious rôle.
So the churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga owe their religious nature
solely to the fact that they bear the totemic emblem. It is the emblem that is
sacred. It keeps this character, no matter where it may be represented.
Sometimes it is painted upon rocks; these paintings are called churinga
ilkinia, sacred drawings.[355] The decorations with which the officiants and
assistants at the religious ceremonies adorn themselves have the same
name: women and children may not see them.[356] In the course of certain
rites, the totem is drawn upon the ground. The way in which this is done
bears witness to the sentiments inspired by this design, and the high value
attributed to it; it is traced upon a place that has been previously sprinkled,
and saturated with human blood,[357] and we shall presently see that the
blood is in itself a sacred liquid, serving for pious uses only. When the
design has been made, the faithful remain seated on the ground before it, in
an attitude of the purest devotion.[358] If we give the word a sense
corresponding to the mentality of the primitive, we may say that they adore
it. This enables us to understand how the totemic blazon has remained
something very precious for the Indians of North America: it is always
surrounded with a sort of religious halo.

But if we are seeking to understand how it comes that these totemic
representations are so sacred, it is not without interest to see what they
consist in.
Among the Indians of North America, they are painted, engraved or
carved images which attempt to reproduce as faithfully as possible the
external aspect of the totemic animal. The means employed are those which
we use to-day in similar circumstances, except that they are generally
cruder. But it is not the same in Australia, and it is in the Australian
societies that we must seek the origin of these representations. Although the
Australian may show himself sufficiently capable of imitating the forms of
things in a rudimentary way,[359] sacred representations generally seem to
show no ambitions in this line: they consist essentially in geometrical

designs drawn upon the churinga, the nurtunga, rocks, the ground, or the
human body. They are either straight or curved lines, painted in different
ways,[360] and the whole having only a conventional meaning. The
connection between the figure and the thing represented is so remote and
indirect that it cannot be seen, except when it is pointed out. Only the
members of the clan can say what meaning is attached to such and such
combinations of lines.[361] Men and women are generally represented by
semicircles, and animals by whole circles or spirals,[362] the tracks of men
or animals by lines of points, etc. The meaning of the figures thus obtained
is so arbitrary that a single design may have two different meanings for the
men of two different totems, representing one animal here, and another
animal or plant there. This is perhaps still more apparent with the nurtunja
and waninga. Each of them represents a different totem. But the few and
simple elements which enter into their composition do not allow a great
variety of combinations. The result is that two nurtunja may have exactly
the same appearance, and yet express two things as different as a gum tree
and an emu.[363] When a nurtunja is made, it is given a meaning which it
keeps during the whole ceremony, but which, in the last resort, is fixed by
convention.
These facts prove that if the Australian is so strongly inclined to represent
his totem, it is in order not to have a portrait of it before his eyes which
would constantly renew the sensation of it; it is merely because he feels the
need of representing the idea which he forms of it by means of material and
external signs, no matter what these signs may be. We are not yet ready to
attempt to understand what has thus caused the primitive to write his idea of
his totem upon his person and upon different objects, but it is important to
state at once the nature of the need which has given rise to these numerous
representations.[364]

CHAPTER II

TOTEMIC BELIEFS—continued

The Totemic Animal and Man

But totemic images are not the only sacred things. There are real things
which are also the object of rites, because of the relations which they have
with the totem: before all others, are the beings of the totemic species and
the members of the clan.

I

First of all, since the designs which represent the totem arouse religious
sentiments, it is natural that the things whose aspect these designs
reproduce should have this same property, at least to a certain degree.
For the most part, these are animals or plants. The profane function of
vegetables and even of animals is ordinarily to serve as food; then the
sacred character of the totemic animal or plant is shown by the fact that it is
forbidden to eat them. It is true that since they are sacred things, they can
enter into the composition of certain mystical repasts, and we shall see, in
fact, that they sometimes serve as veritable sacraments; yet normally they
cannot be used for everyday consumption. Whoever oversteps this rule,
exposes himself to grave dangers. It is not that the group always intervenes
to punish this infraction artificially; it is believed that the sacrilege produces
death automatically. A redoubtable principle is held to reside in the totemic
plant or animal, which cannot enter into the profane organism without
disorganizing it or destroying it.[365] In certain tribes at least, only the old
men are free from this prohibition;[366] we shall see the reason for this later.
However, if this prohibition is formal in a large number of tribes[367]—
with certain exceptions which will be mentioned later—it is incontestable
that it tends to weaken as the old totemic organization is disturbed. But the
restrictions which remain even then prove that these attenuations are not
admitted without difficulty. For example, when it is permitted to eat the
plant or animal that serves as totem, it is not possible to do so freely; only a
little bit may be taken at a time. To go beyond this amount is a ritual fault
that has grave consequences.[368] Elsewhere, the prohibition remains intact
for the parts that are regarded as the most precious, that is to say, as the

most sacred; for example, the eggs or the fat.[369] In still other parts,
consumption is not allowed except when the animal in question has not yet
reached full maturity.[370] In this case, they undoubtedly think that its sacred
character is not yet complete. So the barrier which isolates and protects the
totemic being yields but slowly and with active resistance, which bears
witness to what it must have been at first.
It is true that according to Spencer and Gillen these restrictions are not
the remnants of what was once a rigorous prohibition now losing hold, but
the beginnings of an interdiction which is only commencing to establish
itself. These writers hold[371] that at first there was a complete liberty of
consumption and that the limitations which were presently brought are
relatively recent. They think they find the proof of their theory in the two
following facts. In the first place, as we just said, there are solemn
occasions when the members of the clan or their chief not only may, but
must eat the totemic animal or plant. Moreover, the myths relate that the
great ancestors, the founders of the clans, ate their totems regularly: now, it
is said, these stories cannot be understood except as an echo of a time when
the present prohibitions did not exist.
But the fact that in the course of certain solemn ceremonies a
consumption of the totem, and a moderate one at that, is ritually required in
no way implies that it was once an ordinary article of food. Quite on the
contrary, the food that one eats at a mystical repast is essentially sacred, and
consequently forbidden to the profane. As for the myths, a somewhat
summary critical method is employed, if they are so readily given the value
of historical documents. In general, their object is to interpret existing rites
rather than to commemorate past events; they are an explanation of the
present much more than a history. In this case, the traditions according to
which the ancestors of the fabulous epoch ate their totem are in perfect
accord with the beliefs and rites which are always in force. The old men and
those who have attained a high religious dignity are freed from the
restrictions under which ordinary men are placed:[372] they can eat the
sacred thing because they are sacred themselves; this rule is in no way
peculiar to totemism, but it is found in all the most diverse religions. Now
the ancestral heroes were nearly gods. It is therefore still more natural that
they should eat the sacred food;[373] but that is no reason why the same
privilege should be awarded to the simple profane.[374]

However, it is neither certain nor even probable that the prohibition was
ever absolute. It seems to have always been suspended in case of necessity,
as, for example, when a man is famished and has nothing else with which to
nourish himself.[375] A stronger reason for this is found when the totem is a
form of nourishment which a man cannot do without. Thus there are a great
many tribes where water is a totem; a strict prohibition is manifestly
impossible in this case. However, even here, the privilege granted is
submitted to certain restrictions which greatly limit its use and which show
clearly that it goes against a recognized principle. Among the Kaitish and
the Warramunga, a man of this totem is not allowed to drink water freely;
he may not take it up himself; he may receive it only from the hands of a
third party who must belong to the phratry of which he is not a member.[376]
The complexity of this procedure and the embarrassment which results
from it are still another proof that access to the sacred thing is not free. This
same rule is applied in certain central tribes every time that the totem is
eaten, whether from necessity or any other cause. It should also be added
that when this formality is not possible, that is, when a man is alone or with
members of his own phratry only, he may, on necessity, do without an
intermediary. It is clear that the prohibition is susceptible of various
moderations.
Nevertheless, it rests upon ideas so strongly ingrained in the mind that it
frequently survives its original cause for being. We have seen that in all
probability, the different clans of a phratry are only subdivisions of one
original clan which has been dismembered. So there was a time when all
the clans, being welded together, had the same totem; consequently,
wherever the souvenir of this common origin is not completely effaced,
each clan continues to feel itself united to the others and to consider that
their totems are not completely foreign to it. For this reason an individual
may not eat freely of the totems held by the different clans of the phratry of
which he is a member; he may touch them only if the forbidden plant or
animal is given him by a member of the other phratry.[377]
Another survival of the same sort is the one concerning the maternal
totem. There are strong reasons for believing that at first, the totem was
transmitted in the uterine line. Therefore, wherever descent in the paternal
line has been introduced, this probably took place only after a long period,
during which the opposite principle was applied and the child had the totem

of his mother along with all the restrictions attached to it. Now in certain
tribes where the child inherits the paternal totem to-day, some of the
interdictions which originally protected the totem of his mother still
survive: he cannot eat it freely.[378] In the present state of affairs, however,
there is no longer anything corresponding to this prohibition.
To this prohibition of eating is frequently added that of killing the totem,
or picking it, when it is a plant.[379] However, here also there are exceptions
and tolerations. These are especially in the case of necessity, when the
totem is a dangerous animal,[380] for example, or when the man has nothing
to eat. There are even tribes where men are forbidden to hunt the animals
whose names they bear, on their own accounts, but where they may kill
them for others.[381] But the way in which this act is generally accomplished
clearly indicates that it is something illicit. One excuses himself as though
for a fault, and bears witness to the chagrin which he suffers and the
repugnance which he feels,[382] while precautions are taken that the animal
may suffer as little as possible.[383]
In addition to these fundamental interdictions, certain cases of a
prohibition of contact between a man and his totem are cited. Thus among
the Omaha, in the clan of the Elk, no one may touch any part of the body of
a male elk; in the sub-clan of the Buffalo, no one is allowed to touch the
head of this animal.[384] Among the Bechuana, no man dares to clothe
himself in the skin of his totem.[385] But these cases are rare; and it is
natural that they should be exceptional, for normally a man must wear the
image of his totem or something which brings it to mind. The tattooings and
the totemic costumes would not be possible if all contact were forbidden. It
has also been remarked that this prohibition has not been found in Australia,
but only in those societies where totemism has advanced far from its
original form; it is therefore probably of late origin and due perhaps to the
influence of ideas that are really not totemic at all.[386]
If we now compare these various interdictions with those whose object is
the totemic emblem, contrarily to all that could be foreseen, it appears that
these latter are more numerous, stricter, and more severely enforced than
the former. The figures of all sorts which represent the totem are surrounded
with a respect sensibly superior to that inspired by the very being whose
form these figures reproduce. The churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga

can never be handled by the women or the uninitiated, who are even
allowed to catch glimpses of it only very exceptionally, and from a
respectful distance. On the other hand, the plant or animal whose name the
clan bears may be seen and touched by everybody. The churinga are
preserved in a sort of temple, upon whose threshold all noises from the
profane life must cease; it is the domain of sacred things. On the contrary,
the totemic animals and plants live in the profane world and are mixed up
with the common everyday life. Since the number and importance of the
interdictions which isolate a sacred thing, and keep it apart, correspond to
the degree of sacredness with which it is invested, we arrive at the
remarkable conclusion that the images of totemic beings are more sacred
than the beings themselves. Also, in the ceremonies of the cult, it is the
churinga and the nurtunja which have the most important place; the animal
appears there only very exceptionally. In a certain rite, of which we shall
have occasion to speak,[387] it serves as the substance for a religious repast,
but it plays no active rôle. The Arunta dance around the nurtunja, and
assemble before the image of their totem to adore it, but a similar
demonstration is never made before the totemic being itself. If this latter
were the primarily sacred object, it would be with it, the sacred animal or
plant, that the young initiate would communicate when he is introduced into
the religious life; but we have seen that on the contrary, the most solemn
moment of the initiation is the one when the novice enters into the
sanctuary of the churinga. It is with them and the nurtunja that he
communicates. The representations of the totem are therefore more actively
powerful than the totem itself.

II

We must now determine the place of man in the scheme of religious
things.
By the force of a whole group of acquired habits and of language itself,
we are inclined to consider the common man, the simple believer, as an
essentially profane being. It may well happen that this conception is not
literally true for any religion;[388] in any case, it is not applicable to
totemism. Every member of the clan is invested with a sacred character
which is not materially inferior to that which we just observed in the

animal. This personal sacredness is due to the fact that the man believes that
while he is a man in the usual sense of the word, he is also an animal or
plant of the totemic species.
In fact, he bears its name; this identity of name is therefore supposed to
imply an identity of nature. The first is not merely considered as an outward
sign of the second; it supposes it logically. This is because the name, for a
primitive, is not merely a word or a combination of sounds; it is a part of
the being, and even something essential to it. A member of the Kangaroo
clan calls himself a kangaroo; he is therefore, in one sense, an animal of this
species. "The totem of any man," say Spencer and Gillen, "is regarded as
the same thing as himself; a native once said to us when we were discussing
the matter with him, 'That one,' pointing to his photograph which we had
taken, 'is the same thing as me: so is a kangaroo' (his totem)."[389] So each
individual has a double nature: two beings coexist within him, a man and an
animal.
In order to give a semblance of intelligibility to this duality, so strange
for us, the primitive has invented myths which, it is true, explain nothing
and only shift the difficulty, but which, by shifting it, seem at least to lessen
the logical scandal. With slight variations of detail, all are constructed on
the same plan: their object is to establish genealogical connections between
the man and the totemic animal, making the one a relative of the other. By
this common origin, which, by the way, is represented in various manners,
they believe that they account for their common nature. The Narrinyeri, for
example, have imagined that certain of the first men had the power of
transforming themselves into beasts.[390] Other Australian societies place at
the beginning of humanity either strange animals from which the men were
descended in some unknown way,[391] or mixed beings, half-way between
the two kingdoms,[392] or else unformed creatures, hardly representable,
deprived of all determined organs, and even of all definite members, and the
different parts of whose bodies were hardly outlined.[393] Mythical powers,
sometimes conceived under the form of animals, then intervened and made
men out of these ambiguous and innumerable beings which Spencer and
Gillen say represent "stages in the transformation of animals and plants into
human beings."[394] These transformations are represented to us under the
form of violent and, as it were, surgical operations. It is under the blows of
an axe or, if the operator is a bird, blows of the beak, that the human

individual was carved out of this shapeless mass, his members separated
from each other, his mouth opened and his nostrils pierced.[395] Analogous
legends are found in America, except that owing to the more highly
developed mentality of these peoples, the representations which they
employ do not contain confusions so troublesome for the mind. Sometimes
it is a legendary personage who, by an act of his power, metamorphosed the
animal who gives its name to the clan into a man.[396] Sometimes the myth
attempts to explain how, by a series of nearly natural events and a sort of
spontaneous evolution, the animal transformed himself little by little, and
finally took a human form.[397]
It is true that there are societies (the Haida, Tlinkit, Tsimshian) where it is
no longer admitted that man was born of an animal or plant; but the idea of
an affinity between the animals of the totemic species and the members of
the clan has survived there nevertheless, and expresses itself in myths
which, though differing from the preceding, still retain all that is essential in
them. Here is one of the fundamental themes. The ancestor who gives his
name to the clan is here represented as a human being, but who, in the
course of various wanderings, has been led to live for a while among the
fabulous animals of the very species which gave the clan its name. As the
result of this intimate and prolonged connection, he became so like his new
companions that when he returned to men, they no longer recognized him.
He was therefore given the name of the animal which he resembled. It is
from his stay in this mythical land that he brought back the totemic
emblem, together with the powers and virtues believed to be attached to it.
[398]
Thus in this case, as in the others, men are believed to participate in the
nature of the animal, though this participation may be conceived in slightly
different forms.[399]
So man also has something sacred about him. Though diffused into the
whole organism, this characteristic is especially apparent in certain
privileged places. There are organs and tissues that are specially marked
out: these are particularly the blood and the hair.
In the first place, human blood is so holy a thing that in the tribes of
Central Australia, it frequently serves to consecrate the most respected
instruments of the cult. For example, in certain cases, the nurtunja is
regularly anointed from top to bottom with the blood of a man.[400] It is
upon ground all saturated with blood that the men of the Emu, among the

Arunta, trace their sacred images.[401] We shall presently see that streams of
blood are poured upon the rocks which represent the totemic animals and
plants.[402] There is no religious ceremony where blood does not have some
part to play.[403] During the initiation, the adults open their veins and
sprinkle the novice with their blood; and this blood is so sacred a thing that
women may not be present while it is flowing; the sight of it is forbidden
them, just as the sight of a churinga is.[404] The blood lost by a young
initiate during the very violent operations he must undergo has very
particular virtues: it is used in various ceremonies.[405] That which flows
during the sub-incision is piously kept by the Arunta and buried in a place
upon which they put a piece of wood warning passers-by of the sacredness
of the spot; no woman should approach it.[406] The religious nature of blood
also explains the equal importance, religiously, of the red ochre, which is
very frequently employed in ceremonies; they rub the churinga with it and
use it in ritual decorations.[407] This is due to the fact that because of its
colour, it is regarded as something kindred to blood. Many deposits of red
ochre which are found in the Arunta territory are even supposed to be the
coagulated blood which certain heroines of the mythical period shed on to
the soil.[408]
Hair has similar properties. The natives of the centre wear belts made of
human hair, whose religious functions we have already pointed out: they are
also used to wrap up certain instruments of the cult.[409] Does one man loan
another one of his churinga? As a sign of acknowledgment, the second
makes a present of hair to the first; these two sorts of things are therefore
thought to be of the same order and of equivalent value.[410] So the
operation of cutting the hair is a ritual act, accompanied by definite
ceremonies: the individual operated upon must squat on the ground, with
his face turned in the direction of the place where the fabulous ancestors
from which the clan of his mother is believed to be descended, are thought
to have camped.[411] For the same reason, as soon as a man is dead, they cut
his hair off and put it away in some distant place, for neither women nor the
non-initiated have the right of seeing it: it is here, far from profane eyes,
that the belts are made.[412]
Other organic tissues might be mentioned which have similar properties,
in varying degrees: such are the whiskers, the foreskin, the fat of the liver,

etc.[413] But it is useless to multiply examples. Those already given are
enough to prove that there is something in man which holds profane things
at a distance and which possesses a religious power; in other words, the
human organism conceals within its depths a sacred principle, which visibly
comes to the surface in certain determined cases. This principle does not
differ materially from that which causes the religious character of the totem.
In fact, we have just seen that the different substances in which it incarnates
itself especially enter into the ritual composition of the objects of the cult
(nurtunja, totemic designs), or else are used in the anointings whose object
is to renew the virtues either of the churinga or of the sacred rocks; they are
things of the same species.
Sometimes the religious dignity which is inherent in each member of the
clan on this account is not equal for all. Men possess it to a higher degree
than women; in relation to them, women are like profane beings.[414] Thus,
every time that there is an assembly, either of the totemic group or of the
tribe, the men have a separate camp, distinct from that of the women, and
into which these latter may not enter: they are separated off.[415] But there
are also differences in the way in which men are marked with a religious
character. The young men not yet initiated are wholly deprived of it, since
they are not admitted to the ceremonies. It is among the old men that it
reaches its greatest intensity. They are so very sacred that certain things
forbidden to ordinary people are permissible for them: they may eat the
totemic animal more freely and, as we have seen, there are even some tribes
where they are freed from all dietetic restrictions.
So we must be careful not to consider totemism a sort of animal worship.
The attitude of a man towards the animals or plants whose name he bears is
not at all that of a believer towards his god, for he belongs to the sacred
world himself. Their relations are rather those of two beings who are on the
same level and of equal value. The most that can be said is that in certain
cases, at least, the animal seems to occupy a slightly more elevated place in
the hierarchy of sacred things. It is because of this that it is sometimes
called the father or the grandfather of the men of the clan, which seems to
show that they feel themselves in a state of moral dependence in regard to
it.[416] But in other, and perhaps even more frequent cases, it happens that
the expressions used denote rather a sentiment of equality. The totemic
animal is called the friend or the elder brother of its human fellows.[417]

Finally, the bonds which exist between them and it are much more like
those which unite the members of a single family; the animals and the men
are made of the same flesh, as the Buandik say.[418] On account of this
kinship, men regard the animals of the totemic species as kindly associates
upon whose aid they think they can rely. They call them to their aid[419] and
they come, to direct their blows in the hunt and to give warning of whatever
dangers there may be.[420] In return for this, men treat them with regard and
are never cruel to them;[421] but these attentions in no way resemble a cult.
Men sometimes even appear to have a mysterious sort of property-right
over their totems. The prohibition against killing and eating them is applied
only to members of the clan, of course; it could not be extended to other
persons without making life practically impossible. If, in a tribe like the
Arunta, where there is such a host of different totems, it were forbidden to
eat, not only the animal or plant whose name one bears, but also all the
animals and all the plants which serve as totems to other clans, the sources
of food would be reduced to nothing. Yet there are tribes where the
consumption of the totemic plant or animal is not allowed without
restrictions, even to foreigners. Among the Wakelbura, it must not take
place in the presence of men of this totem.[422] In other places, their
permission must be given. For example, among the Kaitish and the
Unmatjera, whenever a man of the Emu totem happens to be in a place
occupied by a grass-seed clan, and gathers some of these seed, before eating
them he must go to the chief and say to him, "I have gathered these seeds in
your country." To this the chief replies, "All right; you may eat them." But
if the Emu man ate them before demanding permission, it is believed that
he would fall sick and run the risk of dying.[423] There are even cases where
the chief of the group must take a little of the food and eat it himself: it is a
sort of payment which must be made.[424] For the same reason, the churinga
gives the hunter a certain power over the corresponding animal: by rubbing
his body with a Euro churinga, for example, a man acquires a greater
chance of catching euros.[425] This is the proof that the fact of participating
in the nature of a totemic being confers a sort of eminent right over this
latter. Finally, there is one tribe in northern Queensland, the Karingbool,
where the men of the totem are the only ones who have a right to kill the
animal or, if the totem is a tree, to peel off its bark. Their aid is
indispensable to all others who want to use the flesh of this animal or the

wood of this tree for their own personal ends.[426] So they appear as
proprietors, though it is quite evidently over a special sort of property, of
which we find it hard to form an idea.

CHAPTER III

TOTEMIC BELIEFS—continued

The Cosmological System of Totemism and the
Idea of Class

We are beginning to see that totemism is a much more complex religion
than it first appeared to be. We have already distinguished three classes of
things which it recognizes as sacred, in varying degrees: the totemic
emblem, the animal or plant whose appearance this emblem reproduces,
and the members of the clan. However, this list is not yet complete. In fact,
a religion is not merely a collection of fragmentary beliefs in regard to
special objects like those we have just been discussing. To a greater or less
extent, all known religions have been systems of ideas which tend to
embrace the universality of things, and to give us a complete representation
of the world. If totemism is to be considered as a religion comparable to the
others, it too should offer us a conception of the universe. As a matter of
fact, it does satisfy this condition.

I

The fact that this aspect of totemism has generally been neglected is due
to the too narrow notion of the clan which has been prevalent. Ordinarily it
is regarded as a mere group of human beings. Being a simple subdivision of
the tribe, it seems that like this, it is made up of nothing but men. But in
reasoning thus, we substitute our European ideas for those which the
primitive has of man and of society. For the Australian, things themselves,

everything which is in the universe, are a part of the tribe; they are
constituent elements of it and, so to speak, regular members of it; just like
men, they have a determined place in the general scheme of organization of
the society. "The South Australian savage," says Fison, "looks upon the
universe as the Great Tribe, to one of whose divisions he himself belongs;
and all things, animate and inanimate, which belong to his class are parts of
the body corporate whereof he himself is a part."[427] As a consequence of
this principle, whenever the tribe is divided into two phratries, all known
things are distributed between them. "All nature," says Palmer, in speaking
of the Bellinger River tribe, "is also divided into class [phratry] names....
The sun and moon and stars are said ... to belong to classes [phratries] just
as the blacks themselves."[428] The Port Mackay tribe in Queensland has
two phratries with the names Yungaroo and Wootaroo, as do the
neighbouring tribes. Now as Bridgmann says, "all things, animate and
inanimate, are divided by these tribes into two classes, named Yungaroo and
Wootaroo."[429] Nor does the classification stop here. The men of each
phratry are distributed among a certain number of clans; likewise, the things
attributed to each phratry are in their turn distributed among the clans of
which the phratry is composed. A certain tree, for example, will be assigned
to the Kangaroo clan, and to it alone; then, just like the human members of
the clan, it will have the Kangaroo as totem; another will belong to the
Snake clan; clouds will be placed under one totem, the sun under another,
etc. All known things will thus be arranged in a sort of tableau or systematic
classification embracing the whole of nature.
We have given a certain number of these classifications elsewhere;[430] at
present we shall confine ourselves to repeating a few of these as examples.
One of the best known of these is the one found in the Mount Gambier
tribe. This tribe includes two phratries, named respectively the Kumite and
the Kroki; each of these, in its turn, is subdivided into five clans. Now
"everything in nature belongs to one or another of these ten clans";[431]
Fison and Howitt say that they are all "included" within it. In fact, they are
classified under these ten totems just like species in their respective classes.
This is well shown by the following table based on information gathered by
Curr and by Fison and Howitt.[432]

Phratries. Clans. Things classed in each clan.
Smoke, honeysuckle, certain
trees, etc.
Fish-hawk Blackwood-trees, dogs, fire,
Pelican frost, etc.
Kumite Crow Rain, thunder, lightning,
Black cockatoo clouds, hail, winter, etc.
A non-poisonous snake The stars, the moon, etc.
Fish, seal, eel, the stringybark-
tree, etc.
Duck, crayfish, owls, etc.
Tea-tree
Bustard, quail, a small
An edible root
kangaroo, etc.
Kroki A white crestless cockatoo
Kangaroo, the summer, the sun,
Details are lacking for the
wind, the autumn, etc.
fourth and fifth Kroki clans.

The list of things attached to each clan is quite incomplete; Curr himself
warns us that he has limited himself to enumerating some of them. But
through the work of Mathews and of Howitt[433] we have more extended
information to-day on the classification adopted by the Wotjobaluk tribe,
which enables us to understand better how a system of this kind is able to
include the whole universe, as known to the natives. The Wotjobaluk also
are divided into two phratries called Gurogity and Gumaty (Krokitch and
Gamutch according to Howitt[434]); not to prolong this enumeration, we
shall content ourselves with indicating, after Mathews, the things classed in
some of the clans of the Gurogity phratry.
In the clan of the Yam are classified the plain-turkey, the native cat, the
mopoke, the dyim-dyim owl, the mallee hen, the rosella parrot, the peewee.
In the Mussel[435] clan are the grey emu, the porcupine, the curlew, the
white cockatoo, the wood-duck, the mallee lizard, the stinking turtle, the
flying squirrel, the ring-tail opossum, the bronze-wing pigeon, the wijuggla.
In the Sun clan are the bandicoot, the moon, the kangaroo-rat, the black
and white magpies, the opossum, the ngŭrt hawk, the gum-tree grub, the
wattle-tree grub, the planet Venus.

In the clan of the Warm Wind[436] are the grey-headed eagle-hawk, the
carpet snake, the smoker parrot, the shell parrot, the murrakan hawk, the
dikkomur snake, the ring-neck parrot, the mirudai snake, the shingle-back
lizard.
If we remember that there are many other clans (Howitt names twelve
and Mathews fourteen and adds that his list is incomplete[437]), we will
understand how all the things in which the native takes an interest find a
natural place in these classifications.
Similar arrangements have been observed in the most diverse parts of the
Australian continent; in South Australia, in Victoria, and in New South
Wales (among the Euahlayi[438]); very clear traces of it are found in the
central tribes.[439] In Queensland, where the clans seem to have disappeared
and where the matrimonial classes are the only subdivisions of the phratry,
things are divided up among these classes. Thus, the Wakelbura are divided
into two phratries, Mallera and Wutaru; the classes of the first are called
Kurgilla and Banbe, those of the second, Wungo and Obu. Now to the
Banbe belong the opossum, the kangaroo, the dog, honey of little bees, etc.;
to the Wungo are attributed the emu, the bandicoot, the black duck, the
black snake, the brown snake; to the Obu, the carpet snake, the honey of
stinging bees, etc.; to the Kurgilla, the porcupine, the turkey of the plains,
water, rain, fire, thunder, etc.[440]
This same organization is found among the Indians of North America.
The Zuñi have a system of classification which, in its essential lines, is in
all points comparable to the one we have just described. That of the Omaha
rests on the same principles as that of the Wotjobaluk.[441] An echo of these
same ideas survives even into the more advanced societies. Among the
Haida, all the gods and mythical beings who are placed in charge of the
different phenomena of nature are classified in one or the other of the two
phratries which make up the tribe just like men; some are Eagles, the others,
Crows.[442] Now the gods of things are only another aspect of the things
which they govern.[443] This mythological classification is therefore merely
another form of the preceding one. So we may rest assured that this way of
conceiving the world is independent of all ethnic or geographic
particularities; and at the same time it is clearly seen to be closely united to
the whole system of totemic beliefs.

II

In the paper to which we have already made allusion several times, we
have shown what light these facts throw upon the way in which the idea of
kind or class was formed in humanity. In fact, these systematic
classifications are the first we meet with in history, and we have just seen
that they are modelled upon the social organization, or rather that they have
taken the forms of society as their framework. It is the phratries which have
served as classes, and the clans as species. It is because men were organized
that they have been able to organize things, for in classifying these latter,
they limited themselves to giving them places in the groups they formed
themselves. And if these different classes of things are not merely put next
to each other, but are arranged according to a unified plan, it is because the
social groups with which they commingle themselves are unified and,
through their union, form an organic whole, the tribe. The unity of these
first logical systems merely reproduces the unity of the society. Thus we
have an occasion for verifying the proposition which we laid down at the
commencement of this work, and for assuring ourselves that the
fundamental notions of the intellect, the essential categories of thought,
may be the product of social factors. The above-mentioned facts show
clearly that this is the case with the very notion of category itself.
However, it is not our intention to deny that the individual intellect has of
itself the power of perceiving resemblances between the different objects of
which it is conscious. Quite on the contrary, it is clear that even the most
primitive and simple classifications presuppose this faculty. The Australian
does not place things in the same clan or in different clans at random. For
him as for us, similar images attract one another, while opposed ones repel
one another, and it is on the basis of these feelings of affinity or of repulsion
that he classifies the corresponding things in one place or another.
There are also cases where we are able to perceive the reasons which
inspired this. The two phratries were very probably the original and
fundamental bases for these classifications, which were consequently
bifurcate at first. Now, when a classification is reduced to two classes, these
are almost necessarily conceived as antitheses; they are used primarily as a
means of clearly separating things between which there is a very marked
contrast. Some are set at the right, the others at the left. As a matter of fact
this is the character of the Australian classifications. If the white cockatoo is

in one phratry, the black one is in the other; if the sun is on one side, the
moon and the stars of night are on the opposite side.[444] Very frequently the
beings which serve as the totems of the two phratries have contrary colours.
[445]
These oppositions are even met with outside of Australia. Where one of
the phratries is disposed to peace, the other is disposed to war;[446] if one
has water as its totem, the other has earth.[447] This is undoubtedly the
explanation of why the two phratries have frequently been thought of as
naturally antagonistic to one another. They say that there is a sort of rivalry
or even a constitutional hostility between them.[448] This opposition of
things has extended itself to persons; the logical contrast has begotten a sort
of social conflict.[449]
It is also to be observed that within each phratry, those things have been
placed in a single clan which seem to have the greatest affinity with that
serving as totem. For example, the moon has been placed with the black
cockatoo, but the sun, together with the atmosphere and the wind, with the
white cockatoo. Or again, to a totemic animal has been united all that serves
him as food,[450] as well as the animals with which he has the closest
connection.[451] Of course, we cannot always understand the obscure
psychology which has caused many of these connections and distinctions,
but the preceding examples are enough to show that a certain intuition of
the resemblances and differences presented by things has played an
important part in the genesis of these classifications.
But the feeling of resemblances is one thing and the idea of class is
another. The class is the external framework of which objects perceived to
be similar form, in part, the contents. Now the contents cannot furnish the
frame into which they fit. They are made up of vague and fluctuating
images, due to the super-imposition and partial fusion of a determined
number of individual images, which are found to have common elements;
the framework, on the contrary, is a definite form, with fixed outlines, but
which may be applied to an undetermined number of things, perceived or
not, actual or possible. In fact, every class has possibilities of extension
which go far beyond the circle of objects which we know, either from direct
experience or from resemblance. This is why every school of thinkers has
refused, and not with good reason, to identify the idea of class with that of a
generic image. The generic image is only the indistinctly-bounded residual
representation left in us by similar representations, when they are present in

consciousness simultaneously; the class is a logical symbol by means of
which we think distinctly of these similarities and of other analogous ones.
Moreover, the best proof of the distance separating these two notions is that
an animal is able to form generic images though ignorant of the art of
thinking in classes and species.
The idea of class is an instrument of thought which has obviously been
constructed by men. But in constructing it, we have at least had need of a
model; for how could this idea ever have been born, if there had been
nothing either in us or around us which was capable of suggesting it to us?
To reply that it was given to us a priori is not to reply at all; this lazy man's
solution is, as has been said, the death of analysis. But it is hard to see
where we could have found this indispensable model except in the spectacle
of the collective life. In fact, a class is not an ideal, but a clearly defined
group of things between which internal relationships exist, similar to those
of kindred. Now the only groups of this sort known from experience are
those formed by men in associating themselves. Material things may be
able to form collections of units, or heaps, or mechanical assemblages with
no internal unity, but not groups in the sense we have given the word. A
heap of sand or a pile of rock is in no way comparable to that variety of
definite and organized society which forms a class. In all probability, we
would never have thought of uniting the beings of the universe into
homogeneous groups, called classes, if we had not had the example of
human societies before our eyes, if we had not even commenced by making
things themselves members of men's society, and also if human groups and
logical groups had not been confused at first.[452]
It is also to be borne in mind that a classification is a system whose parts
are arranged according to a hierarchy. There are dominating members and
others which are subordinate to the first; species and their distinctive
properties depend upon classes and the attributes which characterize them;
again, the different species of a single class are conceived as all placed on
the same level in regard to each other. Does someone prefer to regard them
from the point of view of the understanding? Then he represents things to
himself in an inverse order: he puts at the top the species that are the most
particularized and the richest in reality, while the types that are most general
and the poorest in qualities are at the bottom. Nevertheless, all are
represented in a hierarchic form. And we must be careful not to believe that
the expression has only a metaphorical sense here: there are really relations

of subordination and co-ordination, the establishment of which is the object
of all classification, and men would never have thought of arranging their
knowledge in this way if they had not known beforehand what a hierarchy
was. But neither the spectacle of physical nature nor the mechanism of
mental associations could furnish them with this knowledge. The hierarchy
is exclusively a social affair. It is only in society that there are superiors,
inferiors and equals. Consequently, even if the facts were not enough to
prove it, the mere analysis of these ideas would reveal their origin. We have
taken them from society, and projected them into our conceptions of the
world. It is society that has furnished the outlines which logical thought has
filled in.

III

But these primitive classifications have a no less direct interest for the
origins of religious thought.
They imply that all the things thus classed in a single clan or a single
phratry are closely related both to each other and to the thing serving as the
totem of this clan or phratry. When an Australian of the Port Mackay tribe
says that the sun, snakes, etc., are of the Yungaroo phratry, he does not
mean merely to apply a common, but none the less a purely conventional,
nomenclature to these different things; the word has an objective
signification for him. He believes that "alligators really are Yungaroo and
that kangaroos are Wootaroo. The sun is Yungaroo, the moon Wootaroo, and
so on for the constellations, trees, plants, etc."[453] An internal bond attaches
them to the group in which they are placed; they are regular members of it.
It is said that they belong to the group,[454] just exactly as the individual
men make a part of it; consequently, the same sort of a relation unites them
to these latter. Men regard the things in their clan as their relatives or
associates; they call them their friends and think that they are made out of
the same flesh as themselves.[455] Therefore, between the two there are
elective affinities and quite special relations of agreement. Things and
people have a common name, and in a certain way they naturally
understand each other and harmonize with one another. For example, when
a Wakelbura of the Mallera phratry is buried, the scaffold upon which the
body is exposed "must be made of the wood of some tree belonging to the

Mallera phratry."[456] The same is true for the branches that cover the
corpse. If the deceased is of the Banbe class, a Banbe tree must be used. In
this same tribe, a magician can use in his art only those things which belong
to his own phratry;[457] since the others are strangers to him, he does not
know how to make them obey him. Thus a bond of mystic sympathy unites
each individual to those beings, whether living or not, which are associated
with him; the result of this is a belief in the possibility of deducing what he
will do or what he has done from what they are doing. Among these same
Wakelbura, when a man dreams that he has killed an animal belonging to a
certain social division, he expects to meet a man of this same division the
next day.[458] Inversely, the things attributed to a clan or phratry cannot be
used against the members of this clan or phratry. Among the Wotjobaluk,
each phratry has its own special trees. Now in hunting an animal of the
Gurogity phratry, only arms whose wood is taken from trees of the other
phratry may be used, and vice versa; otherwise the hunter is sure to miss his
aim.[459] The native is convinced that the arrow would turn of itself and
refuse, so to speak, to hit a kindred and friendly animal.
Thus the men of the clan and the things which are classified in it form by
their union a solid system, all of whose parts are united and vibrate
sympathetically. This organization, which at first may have appeared to us
as purely logical, is at the same time moral. A single principle animates it
and makes its unity: this is the totem. Just as a man who belongs to the
Crow clan has within him something of this animal, so the rain, since it is of
the same clan and belongs to the same totem, is also necessarily considered
as being "the same thing as a crow"; for the same reason, the moon is a
black cockatoo, the sun a white cockatoo, every black-nut tree a pelican,
etc. All the beings arranged in a single clan, whether men, animals, plants or
inanimate objects, are merely forms of the totemic being. This is the
meaning of the formula which we have just cited and this is what makes the
two really of the same species: all are really of the same flesh in the sense
that all partake of the nature of the totemic animal. Also, the qualifiers
given them are those given to the totem.[460] The Wotjobaluk give the name
Mir both to the totem and to the things classed with it.[461] It is true that
among the Arunta, where visible traces of classification still exist, as we
shall see, different words designate the totem and the other beings placed
with it; however, the name given to these latter bears witness to the close

relations which unite them to the totemic animal. It is said that they are its
intimates, its associates, its friends; it is believed that they are inseparable
from it.[462] So there is a feeling that these are very closely related things.
But we also know that the totemic animal is a sacred being. All the things
that are classified in the clan of which it is the emblem have this same
character, because in one sense, they are animals of the same species, just as
the man is. They, too, are sacred, and the classifications which locate them
in relation to the other things of the universe, by that very act give them a
place in the religious world. For this reason, the animals or plants among
these may not be eaten freely by the human members of the clan. Thus in
the Mount Gambier tribe, the men whose totem is a certain non-poisonous
snake must not merely refrain from eating the flesh of this snake; that of
seals, eels, etc., is also forbidden to them.[463] If, driven by necessity, they
do eat some of it, they must at least attenuate the sacrilege by expiatory
rites, just as if they had eaten the totem itself.[464] Among the Euahlayi,
where it is permitted to use the totem, but not to abuse it, the same rule is
applied to the other members of the clan.[465] Among the Arunta, the
interdictions protecting the totemic animal extend over the associated
animals;[466] and in any case, particular attention must be given to these
latter.[467] The sentiments inspired by the two are identical.[468]
But the fact that the things thus attached to the totem are not of a
different nature from it, and consequently have a religious character, is best
proved by the fact that on certain occasions they fulfil the same functions.
They are accessory or secondary totems, or, according to an expression now
consecrated by usage, they are sub-totems.[469] It is constantly happening in
the clans that under the influence of various sympathies, particular affinities
are forming, smaller groups and more limited associations arise, which tend
to lead a relatively autonomous life and to form a new subdivision like a
sub-clan within the larger one. In order to distinguish and individualize
itself, this sub-clan needs a special totem or, consequently, a sub-totem.[470]
Now the totems of these secondary groups are chosen from among the
things classified under the principal totem. So they are always almost
totems and the slightest circumstance is enough to make them actually so.
There is a latent totemic nature in them, which shows itself as soon as
conditions permit it or demand it. It thus happens that a single individual
has two totems, a principal totem common to the whole clan and a sub-

totem which is special to the sub-clan of which he is a member. This is
something analogous to the nomen and cognomen of the Romans.[471]
Sometimes we see a sub-clan emancipate itself completely and become
an autonomous group and an independent clan; then, the sub-totem, on its
side, becomes a regular totem. One tribe where this process of segmentation
has been pushed to the limit, so to speak, is the Arunta. The information
contained in the first book of Spencer and Gillen showed that there were
some sixty totems among the Arunta;[472] but the recent researches of
Strehlow have shown the number to be much larger. He counted no less
than 442.[473] Spencer and Gillen did not exaggerate at all when they said,
"In fact, there is scarcely an object, animate or inanimate, to be found in the
country occupied by the natives which does not give its name to some
totemic group."[474] Now this multitude of totems, whose number is
prodigious when compared to the population, is due to the fact that under
special circumstances, the original clans have divided and sub-divided
infinitely; consequently nearly all the sub-totems have passed to the stage of
totems.
This has been definitely proved by the observations of Strehlow. Spencer
and Gillen cited only certain isolated cases of associated totems.[475]
Strehlow has shown that this is in reality an absolutely general organization.
He has been able to draw up a table where nearly all the totems of the
Arunta are classified according to this principle: all are attached, either as
associates or as auxiliaries, to some sixty principal totems.[476] The first are
believed to be in the service of the second.[477] This state of dependence is
very probably the echo of a time when the "allies" of to-day were only sub-
totems, and consequently when the tribe contained only a small number of
clans subdivided into sub-clans. Numerous survivals confirm this
hypothesis. It frequently happens that two groups thus associated have the
same totemic emblem: now this unity of emblem is explicable only if the
two groups were at first only one.[478] The relation of the two clans is also
shown by the part and the interest that each one takes in the rites of the
other. The two cults are still only imperfectly separated; this is very
probably because they were at first completely intermingled.[479] Tradition
explains the bonds which unite them by imagining that formerly the two
clans occupied neighbouring places.[480] In other cases, the myth says

expressly that one of them was derived from the other. It is related that at
first the associated animal belonged to the species still serving as principal
totem; it differentiated itself at a later period. Thus the chantunga birds,
which are associated with the witchetly grub to-day, were witchetly grubs in
fabulous times, who later transformed themselves into birds. Two species
which are now attached to the honey-ant were formerly honey-ants, etc.[481]
This transformation of a sub-totem into a totem goes on by imperceptible
degrees, so that in certain cases the situation is undecided, and it is hard to
say whether one is dealing with a principal totem or a secondary one.[482]
As Howitt says in regard to the Wotjobaluk, there are sub-totems which are
totems in formation.[483] Thus the different things classified in a clan
constitute, as it were, so many nuclei around which new totemic cults are
able to form. This is the best proof of the religious sentiments which they
inspire. If they did not have a sacred character, they could not be promoted
so easily to the same dignity as the things which are sacred before all
others, the regular totems.
So the field of religious things extends well beyond the limits within
which it seemed to be confined at first. It embraces not only the totemic
animals and the human members of the clan; but since no known thing
exists that is not classified in a clan and under a totem, there is likewise
nothing which does not receive to some degree something of a religious
character. When, in the religions which later come into being, the gods
properly so-called appear, each of them will be set over a special category
of natural phenomena, this one over the sea, that one over the air, another
over the harvest or over fruits, etc., and each of these provinces of nature
will be believed to draw what life there is in it from the god upon whom it
depends. This division of nature among the different divinities constitutes
the conception which these religions give us of the universe. Now so long
as humanity has not passed the phase of totemism, the different totems of
the tribe fulfil exactly the same functions that will later fall upon the divine
personalities. In the Mount Gambier tribe, which we have taken as our
principal example, there are ten clans; consequently the entire world is
divided into ten classes, or rather into ten families, each of which has a
special totem as its basis. It is from this basis that the things classed in the
clan get all their reality, for they are thought of as variant forms of the
totemic being; to return to our example, the rain, thunder, lightning, clouds,
hail and winter are regarded as different sorts of crows. When brought

together, these ten families of things make up a complete and systematic
representation of the world; and this representation is religious, for religious
notions furnish its basis. Far from being limited to one or two categories of
beings, the domain of totemic religion extends to the final limits of the
known universe. Just like the Greek religion, it puts the divine everywhere;
the celebrated formula παντὰ πλήρη θεῶν (everything is full of the gods),
might equally well serve it as motto.
However, if totemism is to be represented thus, the notion of it which has
long been held must be modified on one essential point. Until the
discoveries of recent years, it was made to consist entirely in the cult of one
particular totem, and it was defined as the religion of the clan. From this
point of view, each tribe seemed to have as many totemic religions, each
independent of the others, as it had different clans. This conception was also
in harmony with the idea currently held of the clan; in fact, this was
regarded as an autonomous society,[484] more or less closed to other similar
societies, or having only external and superficial relations with these latter.
But the reality is more complex. Undoubtedly, the cult of each totem has its
home in the corresponding clan; it is there, and only there, that it is
celebrated; it is members of the clan who have charge of it; it is through
them that it is transmitted from one generation to another, along with the
beliefs which are its basis. But it is also true that the different totemic cults
thus practised within a single tribe do not have a parallel development,
though remaining ignorant of each other, as if each of them constituted a
complete and self-sufficing religion. On the contrary, they mutually imply
each other; they are only the parts of a single whole, the elements of a
single religion. The men of one clan never regard the beliefs of
neighbouring clans with that indifference, scepticism or hostility which one
religion ordinarily inspires for another which is foreign to it; they partake of
these beliefs themselves. The Crow people are also convinced that the
Snake people have a mythical serpent as ancestor, and that they owe special
virtues and marvellous powers to this origin. And have we not seen that at
least in certain conditions, a man may eat a totem that is not his own only
after he has observed certain ritual formalities? Especially, he must demand
the permission of the men of this totem, if any are present. So for him also,
this food is not entirely profane; he also admits that there are intimate
affinities between the members of a clan of which he is not a member and
the animal whose name they bear. Also, this community of belief is

sometimes shown in the cult. If in theory the rites concerning a totem can
be performed only by the men of this totem, nevertheless representatives of
different clans frequently assist at them. It sometimes happens that their part
is not simply that of spectators; it is true that they do not officiate, but they
decorate the officiants and prepare the service. They themselves have an
interest in its being celebrated; therefore, in certain tribes, it is they who
invite the qualified clan to proceed with the ceremonies.[485] There is even a
whole cycle of rites which must take place in the presence of the assembled
tribe: these are the totemic ceremonies of initiation.[486]
Finally, the totemic organization, such as we have just described it, must
obviously be the result of some sort of an indistinct understanding between
all the members of the tribe. It is impossible that each clan should have
made its beliefs in an absolutely independent manner; it is absolutely
necessary that the cults of the different totems should be in some way
adjusted to each other, since they complete one another exactly. In fact, we
have seen that normally a single totem is not repeated twice in the same
tribe, and that the whole universe is divided up among the totems thus
constituted in such a way that the same object is not found in two different
clans. So methodical a division could never have been made without an
agreement, tacit or planned, in which the whole tribe participated. So the
group of beliefs which thus arise are partially (but only partially) a tribal
affair.[487]
To sum up, then, in order to form an adequate idea of totemism, we must
not confine ourselves within the limits of the clan, but must consider the
tribe as a whole. It is true that the particular cult of each clan enjoys a very
great autonomy; we can now see that it is within the clan that the active
ferment of the religious life takes place. But it is also true that these cults fit
into each other and the totemic religion is a complex system formed by their
union, just as Greek polytheism was made by the union of all the particular
cults addressed to the different divinities. We have just shown that, thus
understood, totemism also has it cosmology.

CHAPTER IV

TOTEMIC BELIEFS—end

The Individual Totem and the Sexual Totem

Up to the present, we have studied totemism only as a public institution:
the only totems of which we have spoken are common to a clan, a phratry
or, in a sense, to a tribe;[488] an individual has a part in them only as a
member of a group. But we know that there is no religion which does not
have an individual aspect. This general observation is applicable to
totemism. In addition to the impersonal and collective totems which hold
the first place, there are others which are peculiar to each individual, which
express his personality, and whose cult he celebrates in private.

I

In certain Australian tribes, and in the majority of the Indian tribes of
North America,[489] each individual personally sustains relations with some
determined object, which are comparable to those which each clan sustains
with its totem. This is sometimes an inanimate being or an artificial object;
but it is generally an animal. In certain cases, a special part of the organism,
such as the head, the feet or the liver, fulfils this office.[490]
The name of the thing also serves as the name of the individual. It is his
personal name, his forename, which is added to that of the collective totem,
as the praenomen of the Romans was to the nomen gentilicium. It is true
that this fact is not reported except in a certain number of societies,[491] but
it is probably general. In fact, we shall presently show that there is an
identity of nature between the individual and the thing; now an identity of
nature implies one of name. Being given in the course of especially
important religious ceremonies, this forename has a sacred character. It is
not pronounced in the ordinary circumstances of profane life. It even
happens that the word designating this object in the ordinary language must
be modified to a greater or less extent if it is to serve in this particular case.

[492]
This is because the terms of the usual language are excluded from the
religious life.
In certain American tribes, at least, this name is reinforced by an emblem
belonging to each individual and representing, under various forms, the
thing designated by the name. For example, each Mandan wears the skin of
the animal of which he is the namesake.[493] If it is a bird, he decorates
himself with its feathers.[494] The Hurons and Algonquins tattoo their bodies
with its image.[495] It is represented on their arms.[496] Among the north-
western tribes, the individual emblem, just like the collective emblem of the
clan, is carved or engraved on the utensils, houses,[497] etc.; it serves as a
mark of ownership.[498] Frequently the two coats-of-arms are combined
together, which partially explains the great diversity of aspects presented by
the totemic escutcheons among these peoples.[499]
Between the individual and his animal namesake there exist the very
closest bonds. The man participates in the nature of the animal; he has its
good qualities as well as its faults. For example, a man having the eagle as
his coat-of-arms is believed to possess the gift of seeing into the future; if
he is named after a bear, they say that he is apt to be wounded in combat,
for the bear is heavy and slow and easily caught;[500] if the animal is
despised, the man is the object of the same sentiment.[501] The relationship
of the two is even so close that it is believed that in certain circumstances,
especially in case of danger, the man can take the form of the animal.[502]
Inversely, the animal is regarded as a double of the man, as his alter ego.
[503]
The association of the two is so close that their destinies are frequently
thought to be bound up together: nothing can happen to one without the
other's feeling a reaction.[504] If the animal dies, the life of the man is
menaced. Thus it comes to be a very general rule that one should not kill the
animal, nor eat its flesh. This interdiction, which, when concerning the
totem of the clan, allows of all sorts of attenuations and modifications, is
now much more formal and absolute.[505]
On its side, the animal protects the man and serves him as a sort of
patron. It informs him of possible dangers and of the way of escaping them;
[506]
they say that it is his friend.[507] Since it frequently happens to possess
marvellous powers, it communicates them to its human associate, who
believes in them, even under the proof of bullets, arrows, and blows of

every sort.[508] This confidence of an individual in the efficacy of his
protector is so great that he braves the greatest dangers and accomplishes
the most disconcerting feats with an intrepid serenity: faith gives him the
necessary courage and strength.[509] However, the relations of a man with
his patron are not purely and simply those of dependence. He, on his side, is
able to act upon the animal. He gives it orders; he has influence over it. A
Kurnai having the shark as ally and friend believes that he can disperse the
sharks who menace a boat, by means of a charm.[510] In other cases, the
relations thus contracted are believed to confer upon the man a special
aptitude for hunting the animal with success.[511]
The very nature of these relations seems clearly to imply that the being to
which each individual is thus associated is only an individual itself, and not
a species. A man does not have a species as his alter ego. In fact, there are
cases where it is certainly a certain determined tree, rock or stone that
fulfils this function.[512] It must be thus every time that it is an animal, and
that the existences of the animal and the man are believed to be connected.
A man could not be united so closely to a whole species, for there is not a
day nor, so to speak, an instant when the species does not lose some one of
its members. Yet the primitive has a certain incapacity for thinking of the
individual apart from the species; the bonds uniting him to the one readily
extend to the other; he confounds the two in the same sentiment. Thus the
entire species becomes sacred for him.[513]
This protector is naturally given different names in different societies:
nagual among the Indians of Mexico,[514] manitou among the Algonquins
and okki among the Hurons,[515] snam among certain Salish,[516] sulia
among others,[517] budjan among the Yuin,[518] yunbeai among the
Euahlayi,[519] etc. Owing to the importance of these beliefs and practices
among the Indians of North America, some have proposed creating a word
nagualism or manitouism to designate them.[520] But in giving them a
special and distinctive name, we run the risk of misunderstanding their
relations with the rest of totemism. In fact, the same principle is applied in
the one case to the clan and in the other to the individual. In both cases we
find the same belief that there are vital connections between the things and
the men, and that the former are endowed with special powers, of which
their human allies may also enjoy the advantage. We also find the same

custom of giving the man the name of the thing with which he is associated
and of adding an emblem to this name. The totem is the patron of the clan,
just as the patron of the individual is his personal totem. So it is important
that our terminology should make the relationship of the two systems
apparent; that is why we, with Frazer, shall give the name individual
totemism to the cult rendered by each individual to his patron. A further
justification of this expression is found in the fact that in certain cases the
primitive himself uses the same word to designate the totem of the clan and
the animal protector of the individual.[521] If Tylor and Powell have rejected
this term and demanded different ones for these two sorts of religious
institutions, it is because the collective totem is, in their opinion, only a
name or label, having no religious character.[522] But we, on the contrary,
know that it is a sacred thing, and even more so than the protecting animal.
Moreover, the continuation of our study will show how these two varieties
of totemism are inseparable from each other.[523]
Yet, howsoever close the kinship between these two institutions may be,
there are important differences between them. While the clan believes that it
is the offspring of the animal or plant serving it as totem, the individual
does not believe that he has any relationship of descent with his personal
totem. It is a friend, an associate, a protector; but it is not a relative. He
takes advantage of the virtues it is believed to possess; but he is not of the
same blood. In the second place, the members of a clan allow neighbouring
clans to eat of the animal whose name they bear collectively, under the
simple condition that the necessary formalities shall be observed. But, on
the contrary, the individual respects the species to which his personal totem
belongs and also protects it against strangers, at least in those parts where
the destiny of the man is held to be bound up with that of the animal.
But the chief difference between these two sorts of totems is in the
manner in which they are acquired.
The collective totem is a part of the civil status of each individual: it is
generally hereditary; in any case, it is birth which designates it, and the
wish of men counts for nothing. Sometimes the child has the totem of his
mother (Kamilaroi, Dieri, Urabunna, etc.); sometimes that of his father
(Narrinyeri, Warramunga, etc.); sometimes the one predominating in the
locality where his mother conceived (Arunta, Loritja). But, on the contrary,
the individual totem is acquired by a deliberate act:[524] a whole series of

ritual operations are necessary to determine it. The method generally
employed by the Indians of North America is as follows. About the time of
puberty, as the time for initiation approaches, the young man withdraws into
a distant place, for example, into a forest. There, during a period varying
from a few days to several years, he submits himself to all sorts of
exhausting and unnatural exercises. He fasts, mortifies himself and inflicts
various mutilations upon himself. Now he wanders about, uttering violent
cries and veritable howls; now he lies extended, motionless and lamenting,
upon the ground. Sometimes he dances, prays and invokes his ordinary
divinities. At last, he thus gets himself into an extreme state of super-
excitation, verging on delirium. When he has reached this paroxysm, his
representations readily take on the character of hallucinations. "When," says
Heckewelder, "a boy is on the eve of being initiated, he is submitted to an
alternating régime of fasts and medical treatment; he abstains from all food
and takes the most powerful and repugnant drugs: at times, he drinks
intoxicating concoctions until his mind really wanders. Then he has, or
thinks he has, visions and extraordinary dreams to which he was of course
predisposed by all this training. He imagines himself flying through the air,
advancing under the ground, jumping from one mountain-top to another
across the valleys, and fighting and conquering giants and monsters."[525] If
in these circumstances he sees, or, as amounts to the same thing, he thinks
he sees, while dreaming or while awake, an animal appearing to him in an
attitude seeming to show friendly intentions, then he imagines that he has
discovered the patron he awaited.[526]
Yet this procedure is rarely employed in Australia.[527] On this continent,
the personal totem seems to be imposed by a third party, either at birth[528]
or at the moment of initiation.[529] Generally it is a relative who takes this
part, or else a personage invested with special powers, such as an old man
or a magician. Sometimes divination is used for this purpose. For example,
on Charlotte Bay, Cape Bedford or the Proserpine River, the grandmother or
some other old woman takes a little piece of umbilical cord to which the
placenta is still attached and whirls it about quite violently. Meanwhile the
other old women propose different names. That one is adopted which
happens to be pronounced just at the moment when the cord breaks.[530]
Among the Yarrai-kanna of Cape York, after a tooth has been knocked out
of the young initiate, they give him a little water to rinse his mouth and ask

him to spit in a bucket full of water. The old men carefully examine the clot
formed by the blood and saliva thus spit out, and the natural object whose
shape it resembles becomes the personal totem of the young man.[531] In
other cases, the totem is transmitted from one individual to another, for
example from father to son, or uncle to nephew.[532] This method is also
used in America. In a case reported by Hill Tout, the operator was a
shaman,[533] who wished to transmit his totem to his nephew. "The uncle
took the symbol of his snam (his personal totem), which in this case was a
dried bird's skin, and bade his nephew breathe upon it. He then blew upon it
also himself, uttered some mystic words and the dried skin seemed to Paul
(the nephew) to become a living bird, which flew about them a moment or
two and then finally disappeared. Paul was then instructed by his uncle to
procure that day a bird's skin of the same kind as his uncle's and wear it on
his person. This he did, and that night he had a dream, in which the snam
appeared to him in the shape of a human being, disclosed to him its mystic
name by which it might be summoned, and promised him protection."[534]
Not only is the individual totem acquired and not given, but ordinarily
the acquisition of one is not obligatory. In the first place, there are a
multitude of tribes in Australia where the custom seems to be absolutely
unknown.[535] Also, even where it does exist, it is frequently optional. Thus
among the Euahlayi, while all the magicians have individual totems from
which they get their powers, there are a great number of laymen who have
none at all. It is a favour given by the magician, but which he reserves for
his friends, his favourites and those who aspire to becoming his colleagues.
[536]
Likewise, among certain Salish, persons desiring to excel especially
either in fighting or in hunting, or aspirants to the position of shaman, are
the only ones who provide themselves with protectors of this sort.[537] So
among certain peoples, at least, the individual totem seems to be considered
an advantage and convenient thing rather than a necessity. It is a good thing
to have, but a man can do without one. Inversely, a man need not limit
himself to a single totem; if he wishes to be more fully protected, nothing
hinders his seeking and acquiring several,[538] and if the one he has fulfils
its part badly, he can change it.[539]
But while it is more optional and free, individual totemism contains
within it a force of resistance never attained by the totemism of the clan.
One of the chief informers of Hill Tout was a baptized Salish; however,

though he had sincerely abandoned the faith of his fathers, and though he
had become a model catechist, still his faith in the efficacy of the personal
totems remained unshaken.[540] Similarly, though no visible traces of
collective totemism remain in civilized countries, the idea that there is a
connection between each individual and some animal, plant or other object,
is at the bottom of many customs still observable in many European
countries.[541]

II

Between collective totemism and individual totemism there is an
intermediate form partaking of the characteristics of each: this is sexual
totemism. It is found only in Australia and in a small number of tribes. It is
mentioned especially in Victoria and New South Wales.[542] Mathews, it is
true, claims to have observed it in all the parts of Australia that he has
visited, but he gives no precise facts to support this affirmation.[543]
Among these different peoples, all the men of the tribe on the one hand,
and all the women on the other, to whatever special clan they may belong,
form, as it were, two distinct and even antagonistic societies. Now each of
these two sexual corporations believes that it is united by mystical bonds to
a determined animal. Among the Kurnai, all the men think they are
brothers, as it were, of the emu-wren (Yeerŭng), all the women, that they
are as sisters of the linnet (Djeetgŭn); all the men are Yeerŭng and all the
women are Djeetgŭn. Among the Wotjobaluk and the Wurunjerri, it is the
bat and the nightjar (a species of screech-owl) respectively who take this
rôle. In other tribes, the woodpecker is substituted for the nightjar. Each sex
regards the animal to which it is thus related as a sort of protector which
must be treated with the greatest regard; it is also forbidden to kill and eat
it.[544]
Thus this protecting animal plays the same part in relation to the sexual
society that the totem of the clan plays to this latter group. So the
expression sexual totemism, which we borrow from Frazer,[545] is justified.
This new sort of totem resembles that of the clan particularly in that it, too,
is collective; it belongs to all the people of one sex indiscriminately. It also
resembles this form in that it implies a relationship of descent and

consanguinity between the animal patron and the corresponding sex: among
the Kurnai, all the men are believed to be descended from Yeerŭng and all
the women from Djeetgŭn.[546] The first observer to point out this curious
institution described it, in 1834, in the following terms: "Tilmun, a little
bird the size of a thrush (it is a sort of woodpecker), is supposed by the
women to be the first maker of women. These birds are held in veneration
by the women only."[547] So it was a great ancestor. But in other ways, this
same totem resembles the individual totem. In fact, it is believed that each
member of a sexual group is personally united to a determined individual of
the corresponding animal species. The two lives are so closely associated
that the death of the animal brings about that of the man. "The life of a bat,"
say the Wotjobaluk, "is the life of a man."[548] That is why each sex not only
respects its own totem, but forces the members of the other to do so as well.
Every violation of this interdiction gives rise to actual bloody battles
between the men and the women.[549]
Finally, the really original feature of these totems is that they are, in a
sense, a sort of tribal totems. In fact, they result from men's representing the
tribe as descended as a whole from one couple of mythical beings. Such a
belief seems to demonstrate clearly that the tribal sentiment has acquired
sufficient force to resist, at least to a considerable extent, the particularism
of the clans. In regard to the distinct origins assigned to men and to women,
it must be said that its cause is to be sought in the separate conditions in
which the men and the women live.[550]
It would be interesting to know how the sexual totems are related to the
totems of the clans, according to the theory of the Australians, what
relations there were between the two ancestors thus placed at the
commencement of the tribe, and from which one each special clan is
believed to be descended. But the ethnographical data at our present
disposal do not allow us to resolve these questions. Moreover, however
natural and even necessary it may appear to us, it is very possible that the
natives never raised it. They do not feel the need of co-ordinating and
systematizing their beliefs as strongly as we do.[551]

CHAPTER V

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS

Critical Examination of Preceding Theories

The beliefs which we have just summarized are manifestly of a religious
nature, since they imply a division of things into sacred and profane. It is
certain that there is no thought of spiritual beings, and in the course of our
exposition we have not even had occasion to pronounce the words, spirits,
genii or divine personalities. But if certain writers, of whom we shall have
something more to say presently, have, for this reason, refused to regard
totemism as a religion, it is because they have an inexact notion of what
religious phenomena are.
On the other hand, we are assured that this religion is the most primitive
one that is now observable and even, in all probability, that has ever existed.
In fact, it is inseparable from a social organization on a clan basis. Not only
is it impossible, as we have already pointed out, to define it except in
connection with the clan, but it even seems as though the clan could not
exist, in the form it has taken in a great number of Australian societies,
without the totem. For the members of a single clan are not united to each
other either by a common habitat or by common blood, as they are not
necessarily consanguineous and are frequently scattered over different parts
of the tribal territory. Their unity comes solely from their having the same
name and the same emblem, their believing that they have the same
relations with the same categories of things, their practising the same rites,
or, in a word, from their participating in the same totemic cult. Thus
totemism and the clan mutually imply each other, in so far, at least, as the
latter is not confounded with the local group. Now the social organization
on a clan basis is the simplest which we know. In fact, it exists in all its
essential elements from the moment when the society includes two primary
clans; consequently, we may say that there are none more rudimentary, as
long as societies reduced to a single clan have not been discovered, and we
believe that up to the present no traces of such have been found. A religion
so closely connected to a social system surpassing all others in simplicity
may well be regarded as the most elementary religion we can possibly

know. If we succeed in discovering the origins of the beliefs which we have
just analysed, we shall very probably discover at the same time the causes
leading to the rise of the religious sentiment in humanity.
But before treating this question for ourselves, we must examine the most
authorized solutions of it which have already been proposed.

I

In the first place, we find a group of scholars who believe that they can
account for totemism by deriving it from some previous religion.
For Tylor[552] and Wilken,[553] totemism is a special form of the cult of
the ancestors; it was the widespread doctrine of the transmigration of souls
that served as a bridge between these two religious systems. A large number
of peoples believe that after death, the soul does not remain disincarnate for
ever, but presently animates another living body; on the other hand, "the
lower psychology, drawing no definite line of demarcation between the
souls of men and of beasts, can at least admit without difficulty the
transmigration of human souls into the bodies of the lower animals."[554]
Tylor cites a certain number of cases.[555] Under these circumstances, the
religious respect inspired by the ancestor is quite naturally attached to the
animal or plant with which he is presently confounded. The animal thus
serving as a receptacle for a venerated being becomes a holy thing, the
object of a cult, that is, a totem, for all the descendants of the ancestor, who
form the clan descended from him.
Facts pointed out by Wilken among the societies of the Malay
Archipelago would tend to prove that it really was in this manner that the
totemic beliefs originated. In Java and Sumatra, crocodiles are especially
honoured; they are regarded as benevolent protectors who must not be
killed; offerings are made to them. Now the cult thus rendered to them is
due to their being supposed to incarnate the souls of ancestors. The Malays
of the Philippines consider the crocodile their grandfather; the tiger is
treated in the same way for the same reasons. Similar beliefs have been
observed among the Bantous.[556] In Melanesia it sometimes happens that
an influential man, at the moment of death, announces his desire to
reincarnate himself in a certain animal or plant; it is easily understood how

the object thus chosen as his posthumous residence becomes sacred for his
whole family.[557] So, far from being a primitive fact, totemism would seem
to be the product of a more complex religion which preceded it.[558]
But the societies from which these facts were taken had already arrived at
a rather advanced stage of culture; in any case, they had passed the stage of
pure totemism. They have families and not totemic clans.[559] Even the
majority of the animals to which religious honours are thus rendered are
venerated, not by special groups of families, but by the tribes as a whole. So
if these beliefs and practices do have some connection with ancient totemic
cults, they now represent only altered forms of them[560] and are
consequently not very well fitted for showing us their origins. It is not by
studying an institution at the moment when it is in full decadence that we
can learn how it was formed. If we want to know how totemism originated,
it is neither in Java nor Sumatra nor Melanesia that we must study it, but in
Australia. Here we find neither a cult of the dead[561] nor the doctrine of
transmigration. Of course they believe that the mythical heroes, the
founders of the clan, reincarnate themselves periodically; but this is in
human bodies only; each birth, as we shall see, is the product of one of
these reincarnations. So if the animals of the totemic species are the object
of rites, it is not because the ancestral souls are believed to reside in them. It
is true that the first ancestors are frequently represented under the form of
an animal, and this very common representation is an important fact for
which we must account; but it was not the belief in metempsychosis which
gave it birth, for this belief is unknown among Australian societies.
Moreover, far from being able to explain totemism, this belief takes for
granted one of the fundamental principles upon which this rests; that is to
say, it begs the question to be explained. It, just as much as totemism,
implies that man is considered a close relative of the animal; for if these
two kingdoms were clearly distinguished in the mind, men would never
believe that a human soul could pass so easily from one into the other. It is
even necessary that the body of the animal be considered its true home, for
it is believed to go there as soon as it regains its liberty. Now while the
doctrine of transmigration postulates this singular affinity, it offers no
explanation of it. The only explanation offered by Tylor is that men
sometimes resemble in certain traits the anatomy and physiology of the
animal. "The half-human features and actions and characters of animals are

watched with wondering sympathy by the savage, as by the child. The beast
is the very incarnation of familiar qualities of man: and such names as lion,
bear, fox, owl, parrot, viper, worm, when we apply them as epithets to men,
condense into a word some leading features of a human life."[562] But even
if these resemblances are met with, they are uncertain and exceptional;
before all else, men resemble their relatives and companions, and not plants
and animals. Such rare and questionable analogies could not overcome such
unanimous proofs, nor could they lead a man to think of himself and his
forefathers in forms contradicted by daily experience. So this question
remains untouched, and as long as it is not answered, we cannot say that
totemism is explained.[563]
Finally, this whole theory rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding.
For Tylor as for Wundt, totemism is only a particular case of the cult of
animals.[564] But we, on the contrary, know that it is something very
different from a sort of animal-worship.[565] The animal is never adored; the
man is nearly its equal and sometimes even treats it as his possession, so far
is he from being subordinate to it like a believer before his god. If the
animals of the totemic species are really believed to incarnate the ancestors,
the members of foreign clans would not be allowed to eat their flesh freely.
In reality, it is not to the animal as such that the cult is addressed, but to the
emblem and the image of the totem. Now between this religion of the
emblem and the ancestor-cult, there is no connection whatsoever.

While Tylor derives totemism from the ancestor-cult, Jevons derives it
from the nature-cult,[566] and here is how he does so.
When, under the impulse of the surprise occasioned by the irregularities
observed in the course of phenomena, men had once peopled the world with
supernatural beings,[567] they felt the need of making agreements with these
redoubtable forces with which they had surrounded themselves. They
understood that the best way to escape being overwhelmed by them was to
ally themselves to some of them, and thus make sure of their aid. But at this
period of history men knew no other form of alliance and association than
the one resulting from kinship. All the members of a single clan aid each
other mutually because they are kindred or, as amounts to the same thing,
because they think they are; on the other hand, different clans treat each

other as enemies because they are of different blood. So the only way of
assuring themselves of the support of these supernatural beings was to
adopt them as kindred and to be adopted by them in the same quality: the
well-known processes of the blood-covenant permitted them to attain this
result quite easily. But since at this period, the individual did not yet have a
real personality, and was regarded only as a part of his group, or clan, it was
the clan as a whole, and not the individual, which collectively contracted
this relationship. For the same reason, it was contracted, not with a
particular object, but with the natural group or species of which this object
was a part; for men think of the world as they think of themselves, and just
as they could not conceive themselves apart from their clans, so they were
unable to conceive of anything else as distinct from the species to which it
belonged. Now a species of things united to a clan by a bond of kinship is,
says Jevons, a totem.
In fact, it is certain that totemism implies the close association of a clan
to a determined category of objects. But that this association was contracted
with a deliberate design and in the full consciousness of an end sought after,
as Jevons would have us believe, is a statement having but little harmony
with what history teaches. Religions are too complex, and answer to needs
that are too many and too obscure, to have their origin in a premeditated act
of the will. And while it sins through over-simplicity, this hypothesis is also
highly improbable. It says that men sought to assure themselves of the aid
of the supernatural beings upon which things depend. Then they should
preferably have addressed themselves to the most powerful of these, and to
those whose protection promised to be the most beneficial.[568] But quite on
the contrary, the beings with whom they have formed this mystic kinship
are often among the most humble which exist. Also, if it were only a
question of making allies and defenders, they would have tried to make as
many as possible; for one cannot be defended too well. Yet as a matter of
fact, each clan systematically contents itself with a single totem, that is to
say, with one single protector, leaving the other clans to enjoy their own in
perfect liberty. Each group confines itself within its own religious domain,
never seeking to trespass upon that of its neighbours. This reserve and
moderation are inexplicable according to the hypothesis under
consideration.

II

Moreover, all these theories are wrong in omitting one question which
dominates the whole subject. We have seen that there are two sorts of
totemism: that of the individual and that of the clan. There is too evident a
kinship between the two for them not to have some connection with each
other. So we may well ask if one is not derived from the other, and, in the
case of an affirmative answer, which is the more primitive; according to the
solution accepted, the problem of the origins of totemism will be posed in
different terms. This question becomes all the more necessary because of its
general interest. Individual totemism is an individual aspect of the totemic
cult. Then if it was the primitive fact, we must say that religion is born in
the consciousness of the individual, that before all else, it answers to
individual aspirations, and that its collective form is merely secondary.
The desire for an undue simplicity, with which ethnologists and
sociologists are too frequently inspired, has naturally led many scholars to
explain, here as elsewhere, the complex by the simple, the totem of the
group by that of the individual. Such, in fact, is the theory sustained by
Frazer in his Golden Bough,[569] by Hill Tout,[570] by Miss Fletcher,[571] by
Boas[572] and by Swanton.[573] It has the additional advantage of being in
harmony with the conception of religion which is currently held; this is
quite generally regarded as something intimate and personal. From this
point of view, the totem of the clan can only be an individual totem which
has become generalized. Some eminent man, having found from experience
the value of a totem he chose for himself by his own free will, transmitted it
to his descendants; these latter, multiplying as time went on, finally formed
the extended family known as a clan, and thus the totem became collective.
Hill Tout believes that he has found a proof supporting this theory in the
way totemism has spread among certain societies of North-western
America, especially among the Salish and certain Indians on the Thompson
River. Individual totemism and the clan totemism are both found among
these peoples; but they either do not co-exist in the same tribe, or else,
when they do co-exist, they are not equally developed. They vary in an
inverse proportion to each other; where the clan totem tends to become the
general rule, the individual totem tends to disappear, and vice versa. Is that
not as much as to say that the first is a more recent form of the second,

which excludes it by replacing it?[574] Mythology seems to confirm this
interpretation. In these same societies, in fact, the ancestor of the clan is not
a totemic animal; the founder of the group is generally represented in the
form of a human being who, at a certain time, had entered into familiar
relations with a fabulous animal from whom he received his totemic
emblem. This emblem, together with the special powers which are attached
to it, was then passed on to the descendants of this mythical hero by right of
heritage. So these people themselves seem to consider the collective totem
as an individual one, perpetuated in the same family.[575] Moreover, it still
happens to-day that a father transmits his own totem to his children. So if
we imagine that the collective totem had, in a general way, this same origin,
we are assuming that the same thing took place in the past which is still
observable to-day.[576]
It is still to be explained whence the individual totem comes. The reply
given to this question varies with different authors.
Hill Tout considers it a particular case of fetishism. Feeling himself
surrounded on all sides by dreaded spirits, the individual experienced that
sentiment which we have just seen Jevons attribute to the clan: in order that
he might continue to exist, he sought some powerful protector in this
mysterious world. Thus the use of a personal totem became established.[577]
For Frazer, this same institution was rather a subterfuge or trick of war,
invented by men that they might escape from certain dangers. It is known
that according to a belief which is very widespread in a large number of
inferior societies, the human soul is able, without great inconvenience, to
quit the body it inhabits for a while; howsoever far away it may be, it
continues to animate this body by a sort of detached control. Then, in
certain critical moments, when life is supposed to be particularly menaced,
it may be desirable to withdraw the soul from the body and lead it to some
place or into some object where it will be in greater security. In fact, there
are a certain number of practices whose object is to withdraw the soul in
order to protect it from some danger, either real or imaginary. For example,
at the moment when men are going to enter a newly-built house, a magician
removes their souls and puts them in a sack, to be saved and returned to
their proprietors after the door-sill has been crossed. This is because the
moment when one enters a new house is exceptionally critical; one may
have disturbed, and consequently offended, the spirits who reside in the

ground and especially under the sill, and if precautions are not taken, these
could make a man pay dearly for his audacity. But when this danger is once
passed, and one has been able to anticipate their anger and even to make
sure of their favour through the accomplishment of certain rites, the souls
may safely retake their accustomed place.[578] It is this same belief which
gave birth to the personal totem. To protect themselves from sorcery, men
thought it wise to hide their souls in the anonymous crowd of some species
of animal or vegetable. But after these relations had once been established,
each individual found himself closely united to the animal or plant where
his own vital principle was believed to reside. Two beings so closely united
were finally thought to be practically indistinguishable: men believed that
each participated in the nature of the other. When this belief had once been
accepted, it facilitated and hastened the transformation of the personal
totem into an hereditary, and consequently a collective, totem; for it seemed
quite evident that this kinship of nature should be transmitted hereditarily
from father to child.
We shall not stop to discuss these two explanations of the individual
totem at length: they are ingenious fabrications of the mind, but they
completely lack all positive proof. If we are going to reduce totemism to
fetishism, we must first establish that the latter is prior to the former; now,
not merely is no fact brought forward to support this hypothesis, but it is
even contradicted by everything that we know. The ill-determined group of
rites going under the name of fetishism seem to appear only among peoples
who have already attained to a certain degree of civilization; but it is a
species of cult unknown in Australia. It is true that some have described the
churinga as a fetish;[579] but even supposing that this qualification were
justified, it would not prove the priority which is postulated. Quite on the
contrary, the churinga presupposes totemism, since it is essentially an
instrument of the totemic cult and owes the virtues attributed to it to totemic
beliefs alone.
As for the theory of Frazer, it presupposes a thoroughgoing idiocy on the
part of the primitive which known facts do not allow us to attribute to him.
He does have a logic, however strange this may at times appear; now unless
he were completely deprived of it, he could never be guilty of the reasoning
imputed to him. Nothing could be more natural than that he should believe
it possible to assure the survival of his soul by hiding it in a secret and

inaccessible place, as so many heroes of myths and legends are said to have
done. But why should he think it safer in the body of an animal than in his
own? Of course, if it were thus lost in space, it might have a chance to
escape the spells of a magician more readily, but at the same time it would
be prepared for the blows of hunters. It is a strange way of sheltering it to
place it in a material form exposing it to risks at every instant.[580] But
above all, it is inconceivable that a whole people should allow themselves
to be carried into such an aberration.[581] Finally, in a very large number of
cases, the function of the individual totem is very different from that
assigned it by Frazer; before all else, it is a means of conferring
extraordinary powers upon magicians, hunters or warriors.[582] As to the
kinship of the man and the thing, with all the inconveniences it implies, it is
accepted as a consequence of the rite; but it is not desired in its and for
itself.
There is still less occasion for delaying over this controversy since it
concerns no real problem. What we must know before everything else is
whether or not the individual totem is really a primitive fact, from which
the collective totem was derived; for, according to the reply given to this
question, we must seek the home of the religious life in one or the other of
two opposite directions.
Against the hypothesis of Hill Tout, Miss Fletcher, Boas and Frazer there
is such an array of decisive facts that one is surprised that it has been so
readily and so generally accepted.
In the first place, we know that a man frequently has the greatest interest
not only in respecting, but also in making his companions respect the
species serving him as personal totem; his own life is connected with it.
Then if collective totemism were only a generalized form of individual
totemism, it too should repose upon this same principle. Not only should
the men of a clan abstain from killing and eating their totem-animal
themselves, but they should also do all in their power to force this same
abstention upon others. But as a matter of fact, far from imposing such a
renunciation upon the whole tribe, each clan, by rites which we shall
describe below, takes care that the plant or animal whose name it bears shall
increase and prosper, so as to assure an abundant supply of food for the
other clans. So we must at least admit that in becoming collective,

individual totemism was transformed profoundly, and we must therefore
account for this transformation.
In the second place, how is it possible to explain, from this point of view,
the fact that except where totemism is in full decay, two clans of a single
tribe always have different totems? It seems that nothing prevents two or
several members of a single tribe, even when there is no kinship between
them, from choosing their personal totem in the same animal species and
passing it on to their descendants. Does it not happen to-day that two
distinct families have the same name? The carefully regulated way in which
the totems and sub-totems are divided up, first between the two phratries
and then among the various clans of the phratry, obviously presupposes a
social agreement and a collective organization. This is as much as to say
that totemism is something more than an individual practice spontaneously
generalized.
Moreover, collective totemism cannot be deduced from individual
totemism except by a misunderstanding of the differences separating the
two. The one is acquired by the child at birth; it is a part of his civil status.
The other is acquired during the course of his life; it presupposes the
accomplishment of a determined rite and a change of condition. Some seek
to diminish this distance by inserting between the two, as a sort of middle
term, the right of each possessor of a totem to transmit it to whomsoever he
pleases. But wherever these transfers do take place, they are rare and
relatively exceptional acts; they cannot be performed except by magicians
or other personages invested with special powers;[583] in any case, they are
possible only through ritual ceremonies which bring about the change. So it
is necessary to explain how this prerogative of a few became the right of
all; how that which at first implied a profound change in the religious and
moral constitution of the individual, was able to become an element of this
constitution; and finally, how a transmission which at first was the
consequence of a rite was later believed to operate automatically from the
nature of things and without the intervention of any human will.
In support of his interpretation, Hill Tout claims that certain myths give
the totem of the clan an individual origin: they tell how the totemic emblem
was acquired by some special individual, who then transmitted it to his
descendants. But in the first place, it is to be remarked that these myths are
all taken from the Indian tribes of North America, which are societies

arrived at a rather high degree of culture. How could a mythology so far
removed from the origins of things aid in reconstituting the primitive form
of an institution with any degree of certainty? There are many chances for
intermediate causes to have gravely disfigured the recollection which these
people have been able to retain. Moreover, it is very easy to answer these
myths with others, which seem much more primitive and whose
signification is quite different. The totem is there represented as the very
being from whom the clan is descended. So it must be that it constitutes the
substance of the clan; men have it within them from their birth; it is a part
of their very flesh and blood, so far are they from having received it from
without.[584] More than that, the very myths upon which Hill Tout relies
contain an echo of this ancient conception. The founder who gave his name
to the clan certainly had a human form; but he was a man who, after living
among animals of a certain species, finally came to resemble them. This is
undoubtedly because a time came when the mind was too cultivated to
admit any longer, as it had formerly done, that men might have been born of
animals; so the animal ancestor, now become inconceivable, is replaced by
a human being; but the idea persists that this man had acquired certain
characteristics of the animal either by imitation or by some other process.
Thus even this late mythology bears the mark of a more remote epoch when
the totem of the clan was never regarded as a sort of individual creation.
But this hypothesis does not merely raise grave logical difficulties; it is
contradicted directly by the following facts.
If individual totemism were the initial fact, it should be more developed
and apparent, the more primitive the societies are, and inversely, it should
lose ground and disappear before the other among the more advanced
peoples. Now it is the contrary which is true. The Australian tribes are far
behind those of North America; yet Australia is the classic land of collective
totemism. In the great majority of the tribes, it alone is found, while we do
not know a single one where individual totemism alone is practised.[585]
This latter is found in a characteristic form only in an infinitesimal number
of tribes.[586] Even where it is met with it is generally in a rudimentary
form. It is made up of individual and optional practices having no
generality. Only magicians are acquainted with the art of creating
mysterious relationships with species of animals to which they are not
related by nature. Ordinary people do not enjoy this privilege.[587] In

America, on the contrary, the collective totem is in full decadence; in the
societies of the North-west especially, its religious character is almost gone.
Inversely, the individual totem plays a considerable rôle among these same
peoples. A very great efficacy is attributed to it; it has become a real public
institution. This is because it is the sign of a higher civilization. This is
undoubtedly the explanation of the inversion of these two forms of
totemism, which Hill Tout believes he has observed among the Salish. If in
those parts where collective totemism is the most fully developed the other
form is almost lacking, it is not because the second has disappeared before
the first, but rather, because the conditions necessary for its existence have
not yet been fully realized.
But a fact which is still more conclusive is that individual totemism, far
from having given birth to the totemism of the clan, presupposes this latter.
It is within the frame of collective totemism that it is born and lives: it is an
integral part of it. In fact, in those very societies where it is preponderating,
the novices do not have the right of taking any animal as their individual
totem; to each clan a certain definite number of species are assigned,
outside of which it may not choose. In return, those belonging to it thus are
its exclusive property; members of other clans may not usurp them.[588]
They are thought to have relations of close dependence upon the one
serving as totem to the clan as a whole. There are even cases where it is
quite possible to observe these relations: the individual aspect represents a
part or a particular aspect of the collective totem.[589] Among the
Wotjobaluk, each member of the clan considers the personal totems of his
companions as being his own after a fashion;[590] so they are probably sub-
totems. Now the sub-totem supposes the totem, as the species supposes the
class. Thus the first form of individual religion met with in history appears,
not as the active principle of all public religion, but, on the contrary, as a
simple aspect of this latter. The cult which the individual organizes for
himself in his own inner conscience, far from being the germ of the
collective cult, is only this latter adapted to the personal needs of the
individual.

III

In a more recent study,[591] which the works of Spencer and Gillen
suggested to him, Frazer has attempted to substitute a new explanation of
totemism for the one he first proposed, and which we have just been
discussing. It rests on the postulate that the totemism of the Arunta is the
most primitive which we know; Frazer even goes so far as to say that it
scarcely differs from the really and absolutely original type.[592]
The singular thing about it is that the totems are attached neither to
persons nor to determined groups of persons, but to localities. In fact, each
totem has its centre at some definite spot. It is there that the souls of the first
ancestors, who founded the totemic group at the beginning of time, are
believed to have their preferred residence. It is there that the sanctuary is
located where the churinga are kept; there the cult is celebrated. It is also
this geographical distribution of totems which determines the manner in
which the clans are recruited. The child has neither the totem of his father
nor that of his mother, but the one whose centre is at the spot where the
mother believes that she felt the first symptoms of approaching maternity.
For it is said that the Arunta is ignorant of the exact relation existing
between generation and the sexual act;[593] he thinks that every conception
is due to a sort of mystic fecundation. According to him, it is due to the
entrance of the soul of an ancestor into the body of a woman and its
becoming the principle of a new life there. So at the moment when a
woman feels the first tremblings of the child, she imagines that one of the
souls whose principal residence is at the place where she happens to be, has
just entered into her. As the child who is presently born is merely the
reincarnation of this ancestor, he necessarily has the same totem; thus his
totem is determined by the locality where he is believed to have been
mysteriously conceived.
Now, it is this local totemism which represents the original form of
totemism; at most, it is separated from this by a very short step. This is how
Frazer explains its genesis.
At the exact moment when the woman realizes that she is pregnant, she
must think that the spirit by which she feels herself possessed has come to
her from the objects about her, and especially from one of those which
attract her attention at the moment. So if she is engaged in plucking a plant,
or watching an animal, she believes that the soul of this plant or animal has
passed into her. Among the things to which she will be particularly inclined

to attribute her condition are, in the first place, the things she has just eaten.
If she has recently eaten emu or yam, she will not doubt that an emu or yam
has been born in her and is developing. Under these conditions, it is evident
how the child, in his turn, will be considered a sort of yam or emu, how he
regards himself as a relative of the plant or animal of the same species, how
he has sympathy and regard for them, how he refuses to eat them, etc.[594]
From this moment, totemism exists in its essential traits: it is the native's
theory of conception that gave rise to it, so Frazer calls this primitive
totemism conceptional.
It is from this original type that all the other forms of totemism are
derived. "When several women had, one after the other, felt the first
premonitions of maternity at the same spot and under the same
circumstances, the place would come to be regarded as haunted by spirits of
a peculiar sort; and so the whole country might in time be dotted over with
totem centres and distributed into totem districts."[595] This is how the local
totemism of the Arunta originated. In order that the totems may
subsequently be detached from their territorial base, it is sufficient to think
that the ancestral souls, instead of remaining immutably fixed to a
determined spot, are able to move freely over the surface of the territory
and that in their voyages they follow the men and women of the same totem
as themselves. In this way, a woman may be impregnated by her own totem
or that of her husband, though residing in a different totemic district.
According to whether it is believed that it is the ancestor of the husband or
of the wife who thus follow the family about, seeking occasions to
reincarnate themselves, the totem of the child will be that of his father or
mother. In fact, it is in just this way that the Guanji and Umbaia on the one
hand, and the Urabunna on the other, explain their systems of filiation.
But this theory, like that of Tylor, rests upon a begging of the question. If
he is to imagine that human souls are the souls of animals or plants, one
must believe beforehand that men take either from the animal or vegetable
world whatever is most essential in them. Now this belief is one of those at
the foundation of totemism. To state it as something evident is therefore to
take for granted that which is to be explained.
Moreover, from this point of view, the religious character of the totem is
entirely inexplicable, for the vague belief in an obscure kinship between the
man and the animal is not enough to found a cult. This confusion of distinct

kingdoms could never result in dividing the world into sacred and profane.
It is true that, being consistent with himself, Frazer refuses to admit that
totemism is a religion, under the pretext that he finds in it neither spiritual
beings, nor prayers, nor invocations, nor offerings, etc. According to him, it
is only a system of magic, by which he means a sort of crude and erroneous
science, a first effort to discover the laws of things.[596] But we know how
inexact this conception, both of magic and of religion, is. We have a
religion as soon as the sacred is distinguished from the profane, and we
have seen that totemism is a vast system of sacred things. If we are to
explain it, we must therefore show how it happened that these things were
stamped with this character.[597] But he does not even raise this problem.
But this system is completely overthrown by the fact that the postulate
upon which it rests can no longer be sustained. The whole argument of
Frazer supposes that the local totemism of the Arunta is the most primitive
we know, and especially that it is clearly prior to hereditary totemism, either
in the paternal or the maternal line. Now as soon as the facts contained in
the first volume of Spencer and Gillen were at our disposal, we were able to
conjecture that there had been a time in the history of the Arunta people
when the totems, instead of being attached to localities, were transmitted
hereditarily from mother to child.[598] This conjecture is definitely proved
by the new facts discovered by Strehlow,[599] which only confirm the
previous observations of Schulze.[600] In fact, both of these authors tell us
that even now, in addition to his local totem, each Arunta has another which
is completely independent of all geographical conditions, and which
belongs to him as a birthright: it is his mother's. This second totem, just like
the first, is considered a powerful friend and protector by the natives, which
looks after their food, warns them of possible dangers, etc. They have the
right of taking part in its cult. When they are buried, the corpse is laid so
that the face is turned towards the region of the maternal totemic centre. So
after a fashion this centre is also that of the deceased. In fact it is given the
name tmara altjira, which is translated: camp of the totem which is
associated with me. So it is certain that among the Arunta, hereditary
totemism in the uterine line is not later than local totemism, but, on the
contrary, must have preceded it. For to-day, the maternal totem has only an
accessory and supplementary rôle; it is a second totem, which explains how
it was able to escape observation as attentive and careful as that of Spencer

and Gillen. But in order that it should be able to retain this secondary place,
being employed along with the local totem, there must have been a time
when it held the primary place in the religious life. It is, in part, a fallen
totem, but one recalling an epoch when the totemic organization of the
Arunta was very different from what it is to-day. So the whole
superstructure of Frazer's system is undermined at its foundation.[601]

IV

Although Andrew Lang has actively contested this theory of Frazer's, the
one he proposes himself in his later works,[602] resembles it on more than
one point. Like Frazer, he makes totemism consist in the belief in a sort of
consubstantiality of the man and the animal. But he explains it differently.
He derives it entirely from the fact that the totem is a name. As soon as
human groups were founded,[603] each one felt the need of distinguishing
between the neighbouring groups with which it came into contact and, with
this end in view, it gave them different names. The names were preferably
chosen from the surrounding flora and fauna because animals and plants
can easily be designated by movements or represented by drawings.[604]
The more or less precise resemblances which men may have with such and
such objects determined the way in which these collective denominations
were distributed among the groups.[605]
Now, it is a well-known fact that "to the early mind names, and the things
known by names, are in a mystic and transcendental connection of
rapport."[606] For example, the name of an individual is not considered as a
simple word or conventional sign, but as an essential part of the individual
himself. So if it were the name of an animal, the man would have to believe
that he himself had the most characteristic attributes of this same animal.
This theory would become better and better accredited as the historic
origins of these denominations became more remote and were effaced from
the memory. Myths arose to make this strange ambiguity of human nature
more easily representable in the mind. To explain this, they imagined that
the animal was the ancestor of the men, or else that the two were descended
from a common ancestor. Thus came the conception of bonds of kinship
uniting each clan to the animal species whose name it bore. With the origins

of this fabulous kinship once explained, it seems to our author that
totemism no longer contains a mystery.
But whence comes the religious character of the totemic beliefs and
practices? For the fact that a man considers himself an animal of a certain
species does not explain why he attributes marvellous powers to this
species, and especially why he renders a cult to the images symbolizing it.
—To this question Lang gives the same response as Frazer: he denies that
totemism is a religion. "I find in Australia," he says, "no example of
religious practices such as praying to, nourishing or burying the totem."[607]
It was only at a later epoch, when it was already established, that totemism
was drawn into and surrounded by a system of conceptions properly called
religious. According to a remark of Howitt,[608] when the natives undertake
the explanation of the totemic institutions, they do not attribute them to the
totems themselves nor to a man, but to some supernatural being such as
Bunjil or Baiame. "Accepting this evidence," says Lang, "one source of the
'religious' character of totemism is at once revealed. The totemist obeys the
decree of Bunjil, or Baiame, as the Cretans obeyed the divine decrees given
by Zeus to Minos." Now according to Lang the idea of these great divinities
arose outside of the totemic system; so this is not a religion in itself; it has
merely been given a religious colouring by contact with a genuine religion.
But these very myths contradict Lang's conception of totemism. If the
Australians had regarded totemism as something human and profane, it
would never have occurred to them to make a divine institution out of it. If,
on the other hand, they have felt the need of connecting it with a divinity, it
is because they have seen a sacred character in it. So these mythological
interpretations prove the religious nature of totemism, but do not explain it.
Moreover, Lang himself recognizes that this solution is not sufficient. He
realizes that totemic things are treated with a religious respect;[609] that
especially the blood of an animal, as well as that of a man, is the object of
numerous interdictions, or, as he says, taboos which this comparatively late
mythology cannot explain.[610] Then where do they come from? Here are
the words with which Lang answers this question: "As soon as the animal-
named groups evolved the universally diffused beliefs about the wakan or
mana, or mystically sacred quality of the blood as the life, they would also
develop the various taboos."[611] The words wakan and mana, as we shall
see in the following chapter, involve the very idea of sacredness itself; the

one is taken from the language of the Sioux, the other from that of the
Melanesian peoples. To explain the sacred character of totemic things by
postulating this characteristic, is to answer the question by the question.
What we must find out is whence this idea of wakan comes and how it
comes to be applied to the totem and all that is derived from it. As long as
these two questions remain unanswered, nothing is explained.

V

We have now passed in review all the principal explanations which have
been given for totemic beliefs,[612] leaving to each of them its own
individuality. But now that this examination is finished, we may state one
criticism which addresses itself to all these systems alike.
If we stick to the letter of the formulæ, it seems that these may be
arranged in two groups. Some (Frazer, Lang) deny the religious character of
totemism; in reality, that amounts to denying the facts. Others recognize
this, but think that they can explain it by deriving it from an anterior
religion out of which totemism developed. But as a matter of fact, this
distinction is only apparent: the first group is contained within the second.
Neither Frazer nor Lang have been able to maintain their principle
systematically and explain totemism as if it were not a religion. By the very
force of facts, they have been compelled to slip ideas of a religious nature
into their explanations. We have just seen how Lang calls in the idea of
sacredness, which is the cardinal idea of all religion. Frazer, on his side, in
each of the theories which he has successively proposed, appeals openly to
the idea of souls or spirits; for according to him, totemism came from the
fact that men thought they could deposit their souls in safety in some
external object, or else that they attributed conception to a sort of spiritual
fecundation of which a spirit was the agent. Now a soul, and still more, a
spirit, are sacred things and the object of rites; so the ideas expressing them
are essentially religious and it is therefore in vain that Frazer makes
totemism a mere system of magic, for he succeeds in explaining it only in
the terms of another religion.
We have already pointed out the insufficiencies of animism and naturism;
so one may not have recourse to them, as Tylor and Jevons do, without
exposing himself to these same objections. Yet neither Frazer nor Lang

seems to dream of the possibility of another hypothesis.[613] On the other
hand, we know that totemism is tightly bound up with the most primitive
social system which we know, and in all probability, of which we can
conceive. To suppose that it has developed out of another religion, differing
from it only in degree, is to leave the data of observation and enter into the
domain of arbitrary and unverifiable conjectures. If we wish to remain in
harmony with the results we have already obtained, it is necessary that
while affirming the religious nature of totemism, we abstain from deriving
it from another different religion. There can be no hope of assigning it non-
religious ideas as its cause. But among the representations entering into the
conditions from which it results, there may be some which directly suggest
a religious nature of themselves. These are the ones we must look for.

CHAPTER VI

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS—continued

The Notion of the Totemic Principle, or Mana,
and the Idea of Force

Since individual totemism is later than the totemism of the clan, and even
seems to be derived from it, it is to this latter form that we must turn first of
all. But as the analysis which we have just made of it has resolved it into a
multiplicity of beliefs which may appear quite heterogeneous, before going
farther, we must seek to learn what makes its unity.

I

We have seen that totemism places the figured representations of the
totem in the first rank of the things it considers sacred; next come the
animals or vegetables whose name the clan bears, and finally the members
of the clan. Since all these things are sacred in the same way, though to

different degrees, their religious character can be due to none of the special
attributes distinguishing them from each other. If a certain species of animal
or vegetable is the object of a reverential fear, this is not because of its
special properties, for the human members of the clan enjoy this same
privilege, though to a slightly inferior degree, while the mere image of this
same plant or animal inspires an even more pronounced respect. The similar
sentiments inspired by these different sorts of things in the mind of the
believer, which give them their sacred character, can evidently come only
from some common principle partaken of alike by the totemic emblems, the
men of the clan and the individuals of the species serving as totem. In
reality, it is to this common principle that the cult is addressed. In other
words totemism is the religion, not of such and such animals or men or
images, but of an anonymous and impersonal force, found in each of these
beings but not to be confounded with any of them. No one possesses it
entirely and all participate in it. It is so completely independent of the
particular subjects in whom it incarnates itself, that it precedes them and
survives them. Individuals die, generations pass and are replaced by others;
but this force always remains actual, living and the same. It animates the
generations of to-day as it animated those of yesterday and as it will
animate those of to-morrow. Taking the words in a large sense, we may say
that it is the god adored by each totemic cult. Yet it is an impersonal god,
without name or history, immanent in the world and diffused in an
innumerable multitude of things.
But even now we have only an imperfect idea of the real ubiquity of this
quasi-divine entity. It is not merely found in the whole totemic species, the
whole clan and all the objects symbolizing the totem: the circle of its action
extends beyond that. In fact, we have seen that in addition to the eminently
holy things, all those attributed to the clan as dependencies of the principal
totem have this same character to a certain degree. They also have
something religious about them, for some are protected by interdictions,
while others have determined functions in the ceremonies of the cult. Their
religiousness does not differ in kind from that of the totem under which
they are classified; it must therefore be derived from the same source. So it
is because the totemic god—to use again the metaphorical expression which
we have just employed—is in them, just as it is in the species serving as
totem and in the men of the clan. We may see how much it differs from the

beings in which it resides from the fact that it is the soul of so many
different beings.
But the Australian does not represent this impersonal force in an abstract
form. Under the influence of causes which we must seek, he has been led to
conceive it under the form of an animal or vegetable species, or, in a word,
of a visible object This is what the totem really consists in: it is only the
material form under which the imagination represents this immaterial
substance, this energy diffused through all sorts of heterogeneous things,
which alone is the real object of the cult. We are now in a better condition
for understanding what the native means when he says that the men of the
Crow phratry, for example, are crows. He does not exactly mean to say that
they are crows in the vulgar and empiric sense of the term, but that the same
principle is found in all of them, which is their most essential characteristic,
which they have in common with the animals of the same name and which
is thought of under the external form of a crow. Thus the universe, as
totemism conceives it, is filled and animated by a certain number of forces
which the imagination represents in forms taken, with only a few
exceptions, from the animal or vegetable kingdoms: there are as many of
them as there are clans in the tribe, and each of them is also found in certain
categories of things, of which it is the essence and vital principle.
When we say that these principles are forces, we do not take the word in
a metaphorical sense; they act just like veritable forces. In one sense, they
are even material forces which mechanically engender physical effects.
Does an individual come in contact with them without having taken proper
precautions? He receives a shock which might be compared to the effect of
an electric discharge. Sometimes they seem to conceive of these as a sort of
fluid escaping by points.[614] If they are introduced into an organism not
made to receive them, they produce sickness and death by a wholly
automatic action.[615] Outside of men, they play the rôle of vital principle; it
is by acting on them, we shall see,[616] that the reproduction of the species is
assured. It is upon them that the universal life reposes.
But in addition to this physical aspect, they also have a moral character.
When someone asks a native why he observes his rites, he replies that his
ancestors always have observed them, and he ought to follow their example.
[617]
So if he acts in a certain way towards the totemic beings, it is not only
because the forces resident in them are physically redoubtable, but because

he feels himself morally obliged to act thus; he has the feeling that he is
obeying an imperative, that he is fulfilling a duty. For these sacred beings,
he has not merely fear, but also respect. Moreover, the totem is the source
of the moral life of the clan. All the beings partaking of the same totemic
principle consider that owing to this very fact, they are morally bound to
one another; they have definite duties of assistance, vendetta, etc., towards
each other; and it is these duties which constitute kinship. So while the
totemic principle is a totemic force, it is also a moral power; so we shall see
how it easily transforms itself into a divinity properly so-called.
Moreover, there is nothing here which is special to totemism. Even in the
most advanced religions, there is scarcely a god who has not kept
something of this ambiguity and whose functions are not at once cosmic
and moral. At the same time that it is a spiritual discipline, every religion is
also a means enabling men to face the world with greater confidence. Even
for the Christian, is not God the Father the guardian of the physical order as
well as the legislator and the judge of human conduct?

II

Perhaps someone will ask whether, in interpreting totemism thus, we do
not endow the native with ideas surpassing the limits of his intellect. Of
course we are not prepared to affirm that he represents these forces with the
relative clarity which we have been able to give to them in our analysis. We
are able to show quite clearly that this notion is implied by the whole
system of beliefs which it dominates; but we are unable to say how far it is
conscious and how far, on the contrary, it is only implicit and confusedly
felt. There is no way of determining just what degree of clarity an idea like
this may have in obscure minds. But it is well shown, in any case, that this
in no way surpasses the capacities of the primitive mind, and on the
contrary, the results at which we have just arrived are confirmed by the fact
that either in the societies closely related to these Australian tribes, or even
in these tribes themselves, we find, in an explicit form, conceptions which
differ from the preceding only by shades and degrees.
The native religions of Samoa have certainly passed the totemic phase.
Real gods are found there, who have their own names, and, to a certain
degree, their own personal physiognomy. Yet the traces of totemism are

hardly contestable. In fact, each god is attached to a group, either local or
domestic, just as the totem is to its clan.[618] Then, each of these gods is
thought of as immanent in a special species of animal. But this does not
mean that he resides in one subject in particular: he is immanent in all at
once; he is diffused in the species as a whole. When an animal dies, the men
of the group who venerate it weep for it and render pious duties to it,
because a god inhabits it; but the god is not dead. He is eternal, like the
species. He is not even confused with the present generation; he has already
been the soul of the preceding one, as he will be the soul of the one which is
to follow.[619] So he has all the characteristics of the totemic principle. He is
the totemic principle, re-clothed in a slightly personal form by the
imagination. But still, we must not exaggerate a personality which is hardly
reconcilable with this diffusion and ubiquity. If its contours were clearly
defined, it could never spread out thus and enter into such a multitude of
things.
However, it is incontestable that in this case the idea of an impersonal
religious force is beginning to change; but there are other cases where it is
affirmed in all its abstract purity and even reaches a higher degree of
generality than in Australia. If the different totemic principles to which the
various clans of a single tribe address themselves are distinct from each
other, they are, none the less, comparable to each other at bottom; for all
play the same rôle in their respective spheres. There are societies which
have had the feeling of this unity with nature and have consequently
advanced to the idea of a unique religious force of which all other sacred
principles are only expressions and which makes the unity of the universe.
As these societies are still thoroughly impregnated with totemism, and as
they remain entangled in a social organization identical with that of the
Australians, we may say that totemism contained this idea in potentiality.
This can be observed in a large number of American tribes, especially
those belonging to the great Sioux family: the Omaha, Ponka, Kansas,
Osage, Assiniboin, Dakota, Iowa, Winnebago, Mandan, Hidatsa, etc. Many
of these are still organized in clans, as the Omaha[620] and the Iowa;[621]
others were so not long since, and, says Dorsey, it is still possible to find
among them "all the foundations of the totemic system, just as in the other
societies of the Sioux."[622] Now among these peoples, above all the
particular deities to whom men render a cult, there is a pre-eminent power

to which all the others have the relation of derived forms, and which is
called wakan.[623] Owing to the preponderating place thus assigned to this
principle in the Siouan pantheon, it is sometimes regarded as a sort of
sovereign god, or a Jupiter or Jahveh, and travellers have frequently
translated wakan by "great spirit." This is misrepresenting its real nature
gravely. The wakan is in no way a personal being; the natives do not
represent it in a determined form. According to an observer cited by Dorsey,
"they say that they have never seen the wakanda, so they cannot pretend to
personify it."[624] It is not even possible to define it by determined attributes
and characteristics. "No word," says Riggs, "can explain the meaning of this
term among the Dakota. It embraces all mystery, all secret power, all
divinity."[625] All the beings which the Dakota reveres, "the earth, the four
winds, the sun, the moon and the stars, are manifestations of this mysterious
life and power" which enters into all. Sometimes it is represented in the
form of a wind, as a breath having its seat in the four cardinal points and
moving everything:[626] sometimes it is a voice heard in the crashing of the
thunder;[627] the sun, moon and stars are wakan.[628] But no enumeration
could exhaust this infinitely complex idea. It is not a definite and definable
power, the power of doing this or that; it is Power in an absolute sense, with
no epithet or determination of any sort. The various divine powers are only
particular manifestations and personifications of it; each of them is this
power seen under one of its numerous aspects.[629] It is this which made one
observer say, "He is a protean god; he is supposed to appear to different
persons in different forms."[630] Nor are the gods the only beings animated
by it: it is the principle of all that lives or acts or moves. "All life is wakan.
So also is everything which exhibits power, whether in action, as the winds
and drifting clouds, or in passive endurance, as the boulder by the wayside."
[631]

Among the Iroquois, whose social organization has an even more
pronouncedly totemic character, this, same idea is found again; the word
orenda which expresses it is the exact equivalent of the wakan of the Sioux.
"The savage man," says Hewitt, "conceived the diverse bodies collectively
constituting his environment to possess inherently mystic potence ...
(whether they be) the rocks, the waters, the tides, the plants and the trees,
the animals and man, the wind and the storms, the clouds and the thunders
and the lightnings,"[632] etc. "This potence is held to be the property of all

things ... and by the inchoate mentation of man is regarded as the efficient
cause of all phenomena, all the activities of his environment."[633] A
sorcerer or shaman has orenda, but as much would be said of a man
succeeding in his enterprises. At bottom, there is nothing in the world which
does not have its quota of orenda; but the quantities vary. There are some
beings, either men or things, which are favoured; there are others which are
relatively disinherited, and the universal life consists in the struggles of
these orenda of unequal intensity. The more intense conquer the weaker. Is
one man more successful than his companions in the hunt or at war? It is
because he has more orenda. If an animal escapes from a hunter who is
pursuing it, it is because the orenda of the former was the more powerful.
This same idea is found among the Shoshone under the name of pokunt,
among the Algonquin under the name of manitou,[634] of nauala among the
Kwakiutl,[635] of yek among the Tlinkit[636] and of sgâna among the Haida.
[637]
But it is not peculiar to the Indians of North America; it is in Melanesia
that it was studied for the first time. It is true that in certain of the islands of
Melanesia, social organization is no longer on a totemic basis; but in all,
totemism is still visible,[638] in spite of what Codrington has said about it.
Now among these peoples, we find, under the name of mana, an idea which
is the exact equivalent of the wakan of the Sioux and the orenda of the
Iroquois. The definition given by Codrington is as follows: "There is a
belief in a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all
ways for good and evil; and which it is of the greatest advantage to possess
or control. This is Mana. I think I know what our people mean by it.
... It is a power or influence, not physical and in a way supernatural;
but it shows itself in physical force, or in any kind of power or excellence
which a man possesses. This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be
conveyed in almost anything.
... All Melanesian religion consists, in fact, in getting this
mana for one's self, or getting it used for one's benefit."[639] Is this not the
same notion of an anonymous and diffused force, the germs of which we
recently found in the totemism of Australia? Here is the same
impersonality; for, as Codrington says, we must be careful not to regard it
as a sort of supreme being; any such idea is "absolutely foreign" to
Melanesian thought. Here is the same ubiquity; the mana is located
nowhere definitely and it is everywhere. All forms of life and all the effects

of the action, either of men or of living beings or of simple minerals, are
attributed to its influence.[640]
Therefore there is no undue temerity in attributing to the Australians an
idea such as the one we have discovered in our analysis of totemic beliefs,
for we find it again, but abstracted and generalized to a higher degree, at the
basis of other religions whose roots go back into a system like the
Australian one and which visibly bear the mark of this. The two
conceptions are obviously related; they differ only in degree, while the
mana is diffused into the whole universe, what we call the god or, to speak
more precisely, the totemic principle, is localized in the more limited circle
of the beings and things of certain species. It is mana, but a little more
specialized; yet as a matter of fact, this specialization is quite relative.
Moreover, there is one case where this connection is made especially
apparent. Among the Omaha, there are totems of all sorts, both individual
and collective;[641] but both are only particular forms of wakan. "The
foundation of the Indian's faith in the efficacy of the totem," says Miss
Fletcher, "rested upon his belief concerning nature and life. This conception
was complex and involved two prominent ideas: First, that all things,
animate and inanimate, were permeated by a common life; and second, that
this life could not be broken, but was continuous."[642] Now this common
principle of life is the wakan. The totem is the means by which an
individual is put into relations with this source of energy; if the totem has
any powers, it is because it incarnates the wakan. If a man who has violated
the interdictions protecting his totem is struck by sickness or death, it is
because this mysterious force against which he has thus set himself, that is,
the wakan, reacts against him with a force proportionate to the shock
received.[643] Also, just as the totem is wakan, so the wakan, in its turn,
sometimes shows its totemic origin by the way in which it is conceived. In
fact, Say says that among the Dakota the "wahconda" is manifested
sometimes in the form of a grey bear, sometimes of a bison, a beaver or
some other animal.[644] Undoubtedly, this formula cannot be accepted
without reserve. The wakan repels all personification and consequently it is
hardly probable that it has ever been thought of in its abstract generality
with the aid of such definite symbols. But Say's remark is probably
applicable to the particular forms which it takes in specializing itself in the
concrete reality of life. Now if there is a possibility that there was a time

when these specializations of the wakan bore witness to such an affinity for
an animal form, that would be one more proof of the close bonds uniting
this conception to the totemic beliefs.[645]
It is possible to explain why this idea has been unable to reach the same
degree of abstraction in Australia as in the more advanced societies. This is
not merely due to the insufficient aptitude of the Australian for abstracting
and generalizing: before all, it is the nature of the social environment which
has imposed this particularism. In fact, as long as totemism remains at the
basis of the cultural organization, the clan keeps an autonomy in the
religious society which, though not absolute, is always very marked. Of
course we can say that in one sense each totemic group is only a chapel of
the tribal Church; but it is a chapel enjoying a large independence. The cult
celebrated there, though not a self-sufficing whole, has only external
relations with the others; they interchange without intermingling; the totem
of the clan is fully sacred only for this clan. Consequently the groups of
things attributed to each clan, which are a part of it in the same way the men
are, have the same individuality and autonomy. Each of them is represented
as irreducible into similar groups, as separated from them by a break of
continuity, and as constituting a distinct realm. Under these circumstances,
it would occur to no one that these heterogeneous worlds were different
manifestations of one and the same fundamental force; on the contrary, one
might suppose that each of them corresponded to an organically different
mana whose action could not extend beyond the clan and the circle of
things attributed to it. The idea of a single and universal mana could be born
only at the moment when the tribal religion developed above that of the
clans and absorbed them more or less completely. It is along with the
feeling of the tribal unity that the feeling of the substantial unity of the
world awakens. As we shall presently show,[646] it is true that the Australian
societies are already acquainted with a cult that is common to the tribe as a
whole. But if this cult represents the highest form of the Australian
religions, it has not succeeded in touching and modifying the principles
upon which they repose: totemism is essentially a federative religion which
cannot go beyond a certain degree of centralization without ceasing to be
itself.
One characteristic fact clearly shows the fundamental reason which has
kept the idea of the mana so specialized in Australia. The real religious

forces, those thought of in the form of totems, are not the only ones with
which the Australian feels himself obliged to reckon. There are also some
over which magicians have particular control. While the former are
theoretically considered healthful and beneficent, the second have it as their
especial function to cause sickness and death. And at the same time that
they differ so greatly in the nature of their effects, they are contrasted also
by the relations which they sustain with the social organization. A totem is
always a matter of the clan; but on the contrary, magic is a tribal and even
an intertribal institution. Magic forces do not belong to any special portion
of the tribe in particular. All that is needed to make use of them is the
possession of efficient recipes. Likewise, everybody is liable to feel their
effects and consequently should try to protect himself against them. These
are vague forces, specially attached to no determined social division, and
even able to spread their action beyond the tribe. Now it is a remarkable
fact that among the Arunta and Loritja, they are conceived as simple aspects
and particular forms of a unique force, called in Arunta Arungquiltha or
Arúnkulta.[647] "This is a term," say Spencer and Gillen, "of somewhat
vague import, but always associated at bottom with the possession of
supernatural evil power.... The name is applied indiscriminately to the evil
influence or to the object in which it is, for the time being, or permanently,
resident."[648] "By arúnkulta," says Strehlow, "the native signifies a force
which suddenly stops life and brings death to all who come in contact with
it."[649] This name is given to the bones and pieces of wood from which
evil-working charms are derived, and also to poisonous animals and
vegetables. So it may accurately be called a harmful mana. Grey mentions
an absolutely identical notion among the tribes he observed.[650] Thus
among these different peoples, while the properly religious forces do not
succeed in avoiding a certain heterogeneity, magic forces are thought of as
being all of the same nature; the mind represents them in their generic unity.
This is because they rise above the social organization and its divisions and
subdivisions, and move in a homogeneous and continuous space where they
meet with nothing to differentiate them. The others, on the contrary, being
localized in definite and distinct social forms, are diversified and
particularized in the image of the environment in which they are situated.
From this we can see how thoroughly the idea of an impersonal religious
force enters into the meaning and spirit of Australian totemism, for it

disengages itself with clarity as soon as no contrary cause opposes it. It is
true that the arungquiltha is purely a magic force. But between religious
forces and magic forces there is no difference of kind:[651] sometimes they
are even designated by the same name: in Melanesia, the magicians and
charms have mana just like the agents and rites of the regular cult;[652] the
word oranda is employed in the same way by the Iroquois.[653] So we can
legitimately infer the nature of the one from that of the other.[654]

III

The results to which the above analysis has led us do not concern the
history of totemism only, but also the genesis of religious thought in
general.
Under the pretext that in early times men were dominated by their senses
and the representations of their senses, it has frequently been held that they
commenced by representing the divine in the concrete form of definite and
personal beings. The facts do not confirm this presumption. We have just
described a systematically united scheme of religious beliefs which we have
good reason to regard as very primitive, yet we have met with no
personalities of this sort. The real totemic cult is addressed neither to certain
determined animals nor to certain vegetables nor even to an animal or
vegetable species, but to a vague power spread through these things.[655]
Even in the most advanced religions which have developed out of
totemism, such as those which we find among the North American Indians,
this idea, instead of being effaced, becomes more conscious of itself; it is
declared with a clarity it did not have before, while at the same time, it
attains a higher generality. It is this which dominates the entire religious
system.
This is the original matter out of which have been constructed those
beings of every sort which the religions of all times have consecrated and
adored. The spirits, demons, genii and gods of every sort are only the
concrete forms taken by this energy, or "potentiality," as Hewitt calls it,[656]
in individualizing itself, in fixing itself upon a certain determined object or
point in space, or in centring around an ideal and legendary being, though
one conceived as real by the popular imagination. A Dakota questioned by

Miss Fletcher expressed this essential consubstantiability of all sacred
things in language that is full of relief. "Every thing as it moves, now and
then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to
make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth
stops when he wills. So the god has stopped. The sun, which is so bright
and beautiful, is one place where he has stopped. The trees, the animals, are
where he has stopped, and the Indian thinks of these places and sends his
prayers to reach the place where the god has stopped and to win help and a
blessing."[657] In other words, the wakan (for this is what he was talking
about) comes and goes through the world, and sacred things are the points
upon which it alights. Here we are, for once, just as far from naturism as
from animism. If the sun, the moon and the stars have been adored, they
have not owed this honour to their intrinsic nature or their distinctive
properties, but to the fact that they are thought to participate in this force
which alone is able to give things a sacred character, and which is also
found in a multitude of other beings, even the smallest. If the souls of the
dead have been the object of rites, it is not because they are believed to be
made out of some fluid and impalpable substance, nor is it because they
resemble the shadow cast by a body or its reflection on a surface of water.
Lightness and fluidity are not enough to confer sanctity; they have been
invested with this dignity only in so far as they contained within them
something of this same force, the source of all religiosity.
We are now in a better condition to understand why it has been
impossible to define religion by the idea of mythical personalities, gods or
spirits; it is because this way of representing religious things is in no way
inherent in their nature. What we find at the origin and basis of religious
thought are not determined and distinct objects and beings possessing a
sacred character of themselves; they are indefinite powers, anonymous
forces, more or less numerous in different societies, and sometimes even
reduced to a unity, and whose impersonality is strictly comparable to that of
the physical forces whose manifestations the sciences of nature study. As
for particular sacred things, they are only individualized forms of this
essential principle. So it is not surprising that even in the religions where
there are avowed divinities, there are rites having an efficient virtue in
themselves, independently of all divine intervention. It is because this force
may be attached to words that are pronounced or movements that are made
just as well as to corporal substances; the voice or the movements may

serve as its vehicle, and it may produce its effects through their
intermediacy, without the aid of any god or spirit. Even should it happen to
concentrate itself especially in a rite, this will become a creator of divinities
from that very fact.[658] This is why there is scarcely a divine personality
who does not retain some impersonality. Those who represent it most
clearly in a concrete and visible form, think of it, at the same time, as an
abstract power which cannot be defined except by its own efficacy, or as a
force spread out in space and which is contained, at least in part, in each of
its effects. It is the power of producing rain or wind, crops or the light of
day; Zeus is in each of the raindrops which falls, just as Ceres is in each of
the sheaves of the harvest.[659] As a general rule, in fact, this efficacy is so
imperfectly determined that the believer is able to form only a very vague
notion of it. Moreover, it is this indecision which has made possible these
syncretisms and duplications in the course of which gods are broken up,
dismembered and confused in every way. Perhaps there is not a single
religion in which the original mana, whether unique or multiform, has been
resolved entirely into a clearly defined number of beings who are distinct
and separate from each other; each of them always retains a touch of
impersonality, as it were, which enables it to enter into new combinations,
not as the result of a simple survival but because it is the nature of religious
forces to be unable to individualize themselves completely.
This conception, to which we have been led by the study of totemism
alone, has the additional recommendation that many scholars have recently
adopted it quite independently of one another, as a conclusion from very
different sorts of studies. There is a tendency towards a spontaneous
agreement on this point which should be remarked, for it is a presumption
of objectivity.
As early as 1899, we pointed out the impossibility of making the idea of
a mythical personality enter into the definition of religious phenomena.[660]
In 1900, Marrett showed the existence of a religious phase which he called
preanimistic, in which the rites are addressed to impersonal forces like the
Melanesian mana and the wakan of the Omaha and Dakota.[661] However,
Marrett did not go so far as to maintain that always and in every case the
idea of a spirit is logically and chronologically posterior to that of mana and
is derived from it; he even seemed disposed to admit that it has sometimes
appeared independently and consequently, that religious thought flows from

a double source.[662] On the other hand, he conceived the mana as an
inherent property of things, as an element of their appearance; for,
according to him, this is simply the character which we attribute to
everything out of the ordinary, and which inspires a sentiment of fear or
admiration.[663] This practically amounts to a return to the naturist theory.
[664]

A little later, MM. Hubert and Mauss, while attempting to formulate a
general theory of magic, established the fact that magic as a whole reposes
on the notion of mana.[665] The close kinship of the magic rite and the
religious rite being known, it was even possible to foresee that the same
theory should be applied to religion. This was sustained by Preuss in a
series of articles in the Globus[666] that same year. Relying chiefly upon
facts taken from American civilizations, Preuss set out to prove that the
ideas of the soul and spirit were not developed until after those of power
and impersonal force, that the former are only a transformation of the latter,
and that up to a relatively late date they retain the marks of their original
impersonality. In fact, he shows that even in the advanced religions, they
are represented in the form of vague emanations disengaging themselves
automatically from the things in which they reside, and even tending to
escape by all the ways that are open to them: the mouth, the nose and all the
other openings of the body, the breath, the look, the word, etc. At the same
time, Preuss pointed out their Protean forms and their extreme plasticity
which permits them to give themselves successively and almost
concurrently to the most varied uses.[667] It is true that if we stick to the
letter of the terminology employed by this author, we may believe that for
him the forces have a magic, not a religious nature: he calls them charms
(Zauber, Zauberkräfte). But it is evident that in expressing himself thus, he
does not intend to put them outside of religion; for it is in the essentially
religious rites that he shows their action, for example, in the great Mexican
ceremonies.[668] If he uses these expressions, it is undoubtedly because he
knows no others which mark better the impersonality of these forces and
the sort of mechanism with which they operate.
Thus this same idea tends to come to light on every side.[669] The
impression becomes more and more prevalent that even the most
elementary mythological constructions are secondary products[670] which
cover over a system of beliefs, at once simpler and more obscure, vaguer

and more essential, which form the solid foundations upon which the
religious systems are built. It is this primitive foundation which our analysis
of totemism has enabled us to reach. The various writers whose studies we
have just mentioned arrived at this conclusion only through facts taken from
very diverse religions, some of which even correspond to a civilization that
is already far advanced: such is the case, for example, with the Mexican
religions, of which Preuss makes great use. So it might be asked if this
theory is equally applicable to the most simple religions. But since it is
impossible to go lower than totemism, we are not exposed to this risk of
error, and at the same time, we have an opportunity of finding the initial
notion from which the ideas of wakan and mana are derived: this is the
notion of the totemic principle.[671]

IV

But this notion is not only of primary importance because of the rôle it
has played in the development of religious ideas; it also has a lay aspect in
which it is of interest for the history of scientific thought. It is the first form
of the idea of force.
In fact, the wakan plays the same rôle in the world, as the Sioux
conceives it, as the one played by the forces with which science explains
the diverse phenomena of nature. This, however, does not mean that it is
thought of as an exclusively physical energy; on the contrary, in the next
chapter we shall see that the elements going to make up this idea are taken
from the most diverse realms. But this very compositeness of its nature
enables it to be utilized as a universal principle of explanation. It is from it
that all life comes;[672] "all life is wakan"; and by this word life, we must
understand everything that acts and reacts, that moves and is moved, in both
the mineral and biological kingdoms. The wakan is the cause of all the
movements which take place in the universe. We have even seen that the
orenda of the Iroquois is "the efficient cause of all the phenomena and all
the activities which are manifested around men." It is a power "inherent in
all bodies and all things."[673] It is the orenda which makes the wind blow,
the sun lighten and heat the earth, or animals reproduce and which makes
men strong, clever and intelligent. When the Iroquois says that the life of all
nature is the product of the conflicts aroused between the unequally intense

orenda of the different beings, he only expresses, in his own language, this
modern idea that the world is a system of forces limiting and containing
each other and making an equilibrium.
The Melanesian attributes this same general efficacy to his mana. It is
owing to his mana that a man succeeds in hunting or fighting, that gardens
give a good return or that flocks prosper. If an arrow strikes its mark, it is
because it is charged with mana; it is the same cause which makes a net
catch fish well, or a canoe ride well on the sea,[674] etc. It is true that if
certain phrases of Codrington are taken literally, mana should be the cause
to which is attributed "everything which is beyond the ordinary power of
men, outside the common processes of nature."[675] But from the very
examples which he cites, it is quite evident that the sphere of the mana is
really much more extended. In reality, it serves to explain usual and
everyday phenomena; there is nothing superhuman or supernatural in the
fact that a ship sails or a hunter catches game, etc. However, among these
events of daily life, there are some so insignificant and familiar that they
pass unperceived: they are not noticed and consequently no need is felt of
explaining them. The concept of mana is applied only to those that are
important enough to cause reflection, and to awaken a minimum of interest
and curiosity; but they are not marvellous for all that. And what is true of
the mana as well as the orenda and wakan, may be said equally well of the
totemic principle. It is through this that the life of the men of the clan and
the animals or plants of the totemic species, as well as all the things which
are classified under the totem and partake of its nature, is manifested.
So the idea of force is of religious origin. It is from religion that it has
been borrowed, first by philosophy, then by the sciences. This has already
been foreseen by Comte and this is why he made metaphysics the heir of
"theology." But he concluded from this that the idea of force is destined to
disappear from science; for, owing to its mystic origins, he refused it all
objective value. But we are going to show that, on the contrary, religious
forces are real, howsoever imperfect the symbols may be, by the aid of
which they are thought of. From this it will follow that the same is true of
the concept of force in general.

CHAPTER VII

ORIGINS OF THESE BELIEFS—end

Origin of the Idea of the Totemic Principle or
Mana

The proposition established in the preceding chapter determines the terms
in which the problem of the origins of totemism should be posed. Since
totemism is everywhere dominated by the idea of a quasi-divine principle,
imminent in certain categories of men and things and thought of under the
form of an animal or vegetable, the explanation of this religion is essentially
the explanation of this belief; to arrive at this, we must seek to learn how
men have been led to construct this idea and out of what materials they
have constructed it.

I

It is obviously not out of the sensations which the things serving as
totems are able to arouse in the mind; we have shown that these things are
frequently insignificant. The lizard, the caterpillar, the rat, the ant, the frog,
the turkey, the bream-fish, the plum-tree, the cockatoo, etc., to cite only
those names which appear frequently in the lists of Australian totems, are
not of a nature to produce upon men these great and strong impressions
which in a way resemble religious emotions and which impress a sacred
character upon the objects they create. It is true that this is not the case with
the stars and the great atmospheric phenomena, which have, on the contrary,
all that is necessary to strike the imagination forcibly; but as a matter of
fact, these serve only very exceptionally as totems. It is even probable that
they were very slow in taking this office.[676] So it is not the intrinsic nature
of the thing whose name the clan bears that marked it out to become the
object of a cult. Also, if the sentiments which it inspired were really the
determining cause of the totemic rites and beliefs, it would be the pre-
eminently sacred thing; the animals or plants employed as totems would
play an eminent part in the religious life. But we know that the centre of the

cult is actually elsewhere. It is the figurative representations of this plant or
animal and the totemic emblems and symbols of every sort, which have the
greatest sanctity; so it is in them that is found the source of that religious
nature, of which the real objects represented by these emblems receive only
a reflection.
Thus the totem is before all a symbol, a material expression of something
else.[677] But of what?
From the analysis to which we have been giving our attention, it is
evident that it expresses and symbolizes two different sorts of things. In the
first place, it is the outward and visible form of what we have called the
totemic principle or god. But it is also the symbol of the determined society
called the clan. It is its flag; it is the sign by which each clan distinguishes
itself from the others, the visible mark of its personality, a mark borne by
everything which is a part of the clan under any title whatsoever, men,
beasts or things. So if it is at once the symbol of the god and of the society,
is that not because the god and the society are only one? How could the
emblem of the group have been able to become the figure of this quasi-
divinity, if the group and the divinity were two distinct realities? The god of
the clan, the totemic principle, can therefore be nothing else than the clan
itself, personified and represented to the imagination under the visible form
of the animal or vegetable which serves as totem.
But how has this apotheosis been possible, and how did it happen to take
place in this fashion?

II

In a general way, it is unquestionable that a society has all that is
necessary to arouse the sensation of the divine in minds, merely by the
power that it has over them; for to its members it is what a god is to his
worshippers. In fact, a god is, first of all, a being whom men think of as
superior to themselves, and upon whom they feel that they depend. Whether
it be a conscious personality, such as Zeus or Jahveh, or merely abstract
forces such as those in play in totemism, the worshipper, in the one case as
in the other, believes himself held to certain manners of acting which are
imposed upon him by the nature of the sacred principle with which he feels
that he is in communion. Now society also gives us the sensation of a

perpetual dependence. Since it has a nature which is peculiar to itself and
different from our individual nature, it pursues ends which are likewise
special to it; but, as it cannot attain them except through our intermediacy, it
imperiously demands our aid. It requires that, forgetful of our own interests,
we make ourselves its servitors, and it submits us to every sort of
inconvenience, privation and sacrifice, without which social life would be
impossible. It is because of this that at every instant we are obliged to
submit ourselves to rules of conduct and of thought which we have neither
made nor desired, and which are sometimes even contrary to our most
fundamental inclinations and instincts.
Even if society were unable to obtain these concessions and sacrifices
from us except by a material constraint, it might awaken in us only the idea
of a physical force to which we must give way of necessity, instead of that
of a moral power such as religions adore. But as a matter of fact, the empire
which it holds over consciences is due much less to the physical supremacy
of which it has the privilege than to the moral authority with which it is
invested. If we yield to its orders, it is not merely because it is strong
enough to triumph over our resistance; it is primarily because it is the object
of a venerable respect.
We say that an object, whether individual or collective, inspires respect
when the representation expressing it in the mind is gifted with such a force
that it automatically causes or inhibits actions, without regard for any
consideration relative to their useful or injurious effects. When we obey
somebody because of the moral authority which we recognize in him, we
follow out his opinions, not because they seem wise, but because a certain
sort of physical energy is imminent in the idea that we form of this person,
which conquers our will and inclines it in the indicated direction. Respect is
the emotion which we experience when we feel this interior and wholly
spiritual pressure operating upon us. Then we are not determined by the
advantages or inconveniences of the attitude which is prescribed or
recommended to us; it is by the way in which we represent to ourselves the
person recommending or prescribing it. This is why commands generally
take a short, peremptory form leaving no place for hesitation; it is because,
in so far as it is a command and goes by its own force, it excludes all idea of
deliberation or calculation; it gets its efficacy from the intensity of the
mental state in which it is placed. It is this intensity which creates what is
called a moral ascendancy.

Now the ways of action to which society is strongly enough attached to
impose them upon its members, are, by that very fact, marked with a
distinctive sign provocative of respect. Since they are elaborated in
common, the vigour with which they have been thought of by each
particular mind is retained in all the other minds, and reciprocally. The
representations which express them within each of us have an intensity
which no purely private states of consciousness could ever attain; for they
have the strength of the innumerable individual representations which have
served to form each of them. It is society who speaks through the mouths of
those who affirm them in our presence; it is society whom we hear in
hearing them; and the voice of all has an accent which that of one alone
could never have.[678] The very violence with which society reacts, by way
of blame or material suppression, against every attempted dissidence,
contributes to strengthening its empire by manifesting the common
conviction through this burst of ardour.[679] In a word, when something is
the object of such a state of opinion, the representation which each
individual has of it gains a power of action from its origins and the
conditions in which it was born, which even those feel who do not submit
themselves to it. It tends to repel the representations which contradict it, and
it keeps them at a distance; on the other hand, it commands those acts which
will realize it, and it does so, not by a material coercion or by the
perspective of something of this sort, but by the simple radiation of the
mental energy which it contains. It has an efficacy coming solely from its
psychical properties, and it is by just this sign that moral authority is
recognized. So opinion, primarily a social thing, is a source of authority,
and it might even be asked whether all authority is not the daughter of
opinion.[680] It may be objected that science is often the antagonist of
opinion, whose errors it combats and rectifies. But it cannot succeed in this
task if it does not have sufficient authority, and it can obtain this authority
only from opinion itself. If a people did not have faith in science, all the
scientific demonstrations in the world would be without any influence
whatsoever over their minds. Even to-day, if science happened to resist a
very strong current of public opinion, it would risk losing its credit there.
[681]

Since it is in spiritual ways that social pressure exercises itself, it could
not fail to give men the idea that outside themselves there exist one or

several powers, both moral and, at the same time, efficacious, upon which
they depend. They must think of these powers, at least in part, as outside
themselves, for these address them in a tone of command and sometimes
even order them to do violence to their most natural inclinations. It is
undoubtedly true that if they were able to see that these influences which
they feel emanate from society, then the mythological system of
interpretations would never be born. But social action follows ways that are
too circuitous and obscure, and employs psychical mechanisms that are too
complex to allow the ordinary observer to see whence it comes. As long as
scientific analysis does not come to teach it to them, men know well that
they are acted upon, but they do not know by whom. So they must invent by
themselves the idea of these powers with which they feel themselves in
connection, and from that, we are able to catch a glimpse of the way by
which they were led to represent them under forms that are really foreign to
their nature and to transfigure them by thought.

But a god is not merely an authority upon whom we depend; it is a force
upon which our strength relies. The man who has obeyed his god and who,
for this reason, believes the god is with him, approaches the world with
confidence and with the feeling of an increased energy. Likewise, social
action does not confine itself to demanding sacrifices, privations and efforts
from us. For the collective force is not entirely outside of us; it does not act
upon us wholly from without; but rather, since society cannot exist except
in and through individual consciousnesses,[682] this force must also
penetrate us and organize itself within us; it thus becomes an integral part of
our being and by that very fact this is elevated and magnified.
There are occasions when this strengthening and vivifying action of
society is especially apparent. In the midst of an assembly animated by a
common passion, we become susceptible of acts and sentiments of which
we are incapable when reduced to our own forces; and when the assembly
is dissolved and when, finding ourselves alone again, we fall back to our
ordinary level, we are then able to measure the height to which we have
been raised above ourselves. History abounds in examples of this sort. It is
enough to think of the night of the Fourth of August, 1789, when an
assembly was suddenly led to an act of sacrifice and abnegation which each
of its members had refused the day before, and at which they were all

surprised the day after.[683] This is why all parties, political, economic or
confessional, are careful to have periodical reunions where their members
may revivify their common faith by manifesting it in common. To
strengthen those sentiments which, if left to themselves, would soon
weaken, it is sufficient to bring those who hold them together and to put
them into closer and more active relations with one another. This is the
explanation of the particular attitude of a man speaking to a crowd, at least
if he has succeeded in entering into communion with it. His language has a
grandiloquence that would be ridiculous in ordinary circumstances; his
gestures show a certain domination; his very thought is impatient of all
rules, and easily falls into all sorts of excesses. It is because he feels within
him an abnormal over-supply of force which overflows and tries to burst
out from him; sometimes he even has the feeling that he is dominated by a
moral force which is greater than he and of which he is only the interpreter.
It is by this trait that we are able to recognize what has often been called the
demon of oratorical inspiration. Now this exceptional increase of force is
something very real; it comes to him from the very group which he
addresses. The sentiments provoked by his words come back to him, but
enlarged and amplified, and to this degree they strengthen his own
sentiment. The passionate energies he arouses re-echo within him and
quicken his vital tone. It is no longer a simple individual who speaks; it is a
group incarnate and personified.
Beside these passing and intermittent states, there are other more durable
ones, where this strengthening influence of society makes itself felt with
greater consequences and frequently even with greater brilliancy. There are
periods in history when, under the influence of some great collective shock,
social interactions have become much more frequent and active. Men look
for each other and assemble together more than ever. That general
effervescence results which is characteristic of revolutionary or creative
epochs. Now this greater activity results in a general stimulation of
individual forces. Men see more and differently now than in normal times.
Changes are not merely of shades and degrees; men become different. The
passions moving them are of such an intensity that they cannot be satisfied
except by violent and unrestrained actions, actions of superhuman heroism
or of bloody barbarism. This is what explains the Crusades,[684] for
example, or many of the scenes, either sublime or savage, of the French
Revolution.[685] Under the influence of the general exaltation, we see the

most mediocre and inoffensive bourgeois become either a hero or a butcher.
[686]
And so clearly are all these mental processes the ones that are also at
the root of religion that the individuals themselves have often pictured the
pressure before which they thus gave way in a distinctly religious form. The
Crusaders believed that they felt God present in the midst of them,
enjoining them to go to the conquest of the Holy Land; Joan of Arc believed
that she obeyed celestial voices.[687]
But it is not only in exceptional circumstances that this stimulating action
of society makes itself felt; there is not, so to speak, a moment in our lives
when some current of energy does not come to us from without. The man
who has done his duty finds, in the manifestations of every sort expressing
the sympathy, esteem or affection which his fellows have for him, a feeling
of comfort, of which he does not ordinarily take account, but which sustains
him, none the less. The sentiments which society has for him raise the
sentiments which he has for himself. Because he is in moral harmony with
his comrades, he has more confidence, courage and boldness in action, just
like the believer who thinks that he feels the regard of his god turned
graciously towards him. It thus produces, as it were, a perpetual sustenance
for our moral nature. Since this varies with a multitude of external
circumstances, as our relations with the groups about us are more or less
active and as these groups themselves vary, we cannot fail to feel that this
moral support depends upon an external cause; but we do not perceive
where this cause is nor what it is. So we ordinarily think of it under the
form of a moral power which, though immanent in us, represents within us
something not ourselves: this is the moral conscience, of which, by the way,
men have never made even a slightly distinct representation except by the
aid of religious symbols.
In addition to these free forces which are constantly coming to renew our
own, there are others which are fixed in the methods and traditions which
we employ. We speak a language that we did not make; we use instruments
that we did not invent; we invoke rights that we did not found; a treasury of
knowledge is transmitted to each generation that it did not gather itself, etc.
It is to society that we owe these varied benefits of civilization, and if we do
not ordinarily see the source from which we get them, we at least know that
they are not our own work. Now it is these things that give man his own
place among things; a man is a man only because he is civilized. So he

could not escape the feeling that outside of him there are active causes from
which he gets the characteristic attributes of his nature and which, as
benevolent powers, assist him, protect him and assure him of a privileged
fate. And of course he must attribute to these powers a dignity
corresponding to the great value of the good things he attributes to them.
[688]

Thus the environment in which we live seems to us to be peopled with
forces that are at once imperious and helpful, august and gracious, and with
which we have relations. Since they exercise over us a pressure of which
we are conscious, we are forced to localize them outside ourselves, just as
we do for the objective causes of our sensations. But the sentiments which
they inspire in us differ in nature from those which we have for simple
visible objects. As long as these latter are reduced to their empirical
characteristics as shown in ordinary experience, and as long as the religious
imagination has not metamorphosed them, we entertain for them no feeling
which resembles respect, and they contain within them nothing that is able
to raise us outside ourselves. Therefore, the representations which express
them appear to us to be very different from those aroused in us by collective
influences. The two form two distinct and separate mental states in our
consciousness, just as do the two forms of life to which they correspond.
Consequently, we get the impression that we are in relations with two
distinct sorts of reality and that a sharply drawn line of demarcation
separates them from each other: on the one hand is the world of profane
things, on the other, that of sacred things.
Also, in the present day just as much as in the past, we see society
constantly creating sacred things out of ordinary ones. If it happens to fall
in love with a man and if it thinks it has found in him the principal
aspirations that move it, as well as the means of satisfying them, this man
will be raised above the others and, as it were, deified. Opinion will invest
him with a majesty exactly analogous to that protecting the gods. This is
what has happened to so many sovereigns in whom their age had faith: if
they were not made gods, they were at least regarded as direct
representatives of the deity. And the fact that it is society alone which is the
author of these varieties of apotheosis, is evident since it frequently chances
to consecrate men thus who have no right to it from their own merit. The
simple deference inspired by men invested with high social functions is not
different in nature from religious respect. It is expressed by the same

movements: a man keeps at a distance from a high personage; he
approaches him only with precautions; in conversing with him, he uses
other gestures and language than those used with ordinary mortals. The
sentiment felt on these occasions is so closely related to the religious
sentiment that many peoples have confounded the two. In order to explain
the consideration accorded to princes, nobles and political chiefs, a sacred
character has been attributed to them. In Melanesia and Polynesia, for
example, it is said that an influential man has mana, and that his influence
is due to this mana.[689] However, it is evident that his situation is due
solely to the importance attributed to him by public opinion. Thus the moral
power conferred by opinion and that with which sacred beings are invested
are at bottom of a single origin and made up of the same elements. That is
why a single word is able to designate the two.
In addition to men, society also consecrates things, especially ideas. If a
belief is unanimously shared by a people, then, for the reason which we
pointed out above, it is forbidden to touch it, that is to say, to deny it or to
contest it. Now the prohibition of criticism is an interdiction like the others
and proves the presence of something sacred. Even to-day, howsoever great
may be the liberty which we accord to others, a man who should totally
deny progress or ridicule the human ideal to which modern societies are
attached, would produce the effect of a sacrilege. There is at least one
principle which those the most devoted to the free examination of
everything tend to place above discussion and to regard as untouchable, that
is to say, as sacred: this is the very principle of free examination.
This aptitude of society for setting itself up as a god or for creating gods
was never more apparent than during the first years of the French
Revolution. At this time, in fact, under the influence of the general
enthusiasm, things purely laïcal by nature were transformed by public
opinion into sacred things: these were the Fatherland, Liberty, Reason.[690]
A religion tended to become established which had its dogmas,[691]
symbols,[692] altars[693] and feasts.[694] It was to these spontaneous
aspirations that the cult of Reason and the Supreme Being attempted to give
a sort of official satisfaction. It is true that this religious renovation had only
an ephemeral duration. But that was because the patriotic enthusiasm which
at first transported the masses soon relaxed.[695] The cause being gone, the
effect could not remain. But this experiment, though short-lived, keeps all

its sociological interest. It remains true that in one determined case we have
seen society and its essential ideas become, directly and with no
transfiguration of any sort, the object of a veritable cult.
All these facts allow us to catch glimpses of how the clan was able to
awaken within its members the idea that outside of them there exist forces
which dominate them and at the same time sustain them, that is to say in
fine, religious forces: it is because there is no society with which the
primitive is more directly and closely connected. The bonds uniting him to
the tribe are much more lax and more feebly felt. Although this is not at all
strange or foreign to him, it is with the people of his own clan that he has
the greatest number of things in common; it is the action of this group that
he feels the most directly; so it is this also which, in preference to all others,
should express itself in religious symbols.
But this first explanation has been too general, for it is applicable to
every sort of society indifferently, and consequently to every sort of
religion. Let us attempt to determine exactly what form this collective
action takes in the clan and how it arouses the sensation of sacredness there.
For there is no place where it is more easily observable or more apparent in
its results.

III

The life of the Australian societies passes alternately through two distinct
phases.[696] Sometimes the population is broken up into little groups who
wander about independently of one another, in their various occupations;
each family lives by itself, hunting and fishing, and in a word, trying to
procure its indispensable food by all the means in its power. Sometimes, on
the contrary, the population concentrates and gathers at determined points
for a length of time varying from several days to several months. This
concentration takes place when a clan or a part of the tribe[697] is summoned
to the gathering, and on this occasion they celebrate a religious ceremony,
or else hold what is called a corrobbori[698] in the usual ethnological
language.
These two phases are contrasted with each other in the sharpest way. In
the first, economic activity is the preponderating one, and it is generally of a

very mediocre intensity. Gathering the grains or herbs that are necessary for
food, or hunting and fishing are not occupations to awaken very lively
passions.[699] The dispersed condition in which the society finds itself
results in making its life uniform, languishing and dull.[700] But when a
corrobbori takes place, everything changes. Since the emotional and
passional faculties of the primitive are only imperfectly placed under the
control of his reason and will, he easily loses control of himself. Any event
of some importance puts him quite outside himself. Does he receive good
news? There are at once transports of enthusiasm. In the contrary
conditions, he is to be seen running here and there like a madman, giving
himself up to all sorts of immoderate movements, crying, shrieking, rolling
in the dust, throwing it in every direction, biting himself, brandishing his
arms in a furious manner, etc.[701] The very fact of the concentration acts as
an exceptionally powerful stimulant. When they are once come together, a
sort of electricity is formed by their collecting which quickly transports
them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation. Every sentiment expressed
finds a place without resistance in all the minds, which are very open to
outside impressions; each re-echoes the others, and is re-echoed by the
others. The initial impulse thus proceeds, growing as it goes, as an
avalanche grows in its advance. And as such active passions so free from all
control could not fail to burst out, on every side one sees nothing but violent
gestures, cries, veritable howls, and deafening noises of every sort, which
aid in intensifying still more the state of mind which they manifest. And
since a collective sentiment cannot express itself collectively except on the
condition of observing a certain order permitting co-operation and
movements in unison, these gestures and cries naturally tend to become
rhythmic and regular; hence come songs and dances. But in taking a more
regular form, they lose nothing of their natural violence; a regulated tumult
remains tumult. The human voice is not sufficient for the task; it is
reinforced by means of artificial processes: boomerangs are beaten against
each other; bull-roarers are whirled. It is probable that these instruments,
the use of which is so general in the Australian religious ceremonies, are
used primarily to express in a more adequate fashion the agitation felt. But
while they express it, they also strengthen it. This effervescence often
reaches such a point that it causes unheard-of actions. The passions released
are of such an impetuosity that they can be restrained by nothing. They are
so far removed from their ordinary conditions of life, and they are so

thoroughly conscious of it, that they feel that they must set themselves
outside of and above their ordinary morals. The sexes unite contrarily to the
rules governing sexual relations. Men exchange wives with each other.
Sometimes even incestuous unions, which in normal times are thought
abominable and are severely punished, are now contracted openly and with
impunity.[702] If we add to all this that the ceremonies generally take place
at night in a darkness pierced here and there by the light of fires, we can
easily imagine what effect such scenes ought to produce on the minds of
those who participate. They produce such a violent super-excitation of the
whole physical and mental life that it cannot be supported very long: the
actor taking the principal part finally falls exhausted on the ground.[703]
To illustrate and make specific this necessarily schematic picture, let us
describe certain scenes taken from Spencer and Gillen.
One of the most important religious ceremonies among the Warramunga
is the one concerning the snake Wollunqua. It consists in a series of
ceremonies lasting through several days. On the fourth day comes the
following scene.
According to the ceremonial used among the Warramunga,
representatives of the two phratries take part, one as officiants, the other as
preparers and assistants. Only the members of the Uluuru phratry are
qualified to celebrate the rite, but the members of the Kingilli phratry must
decorate the actors, make ready the place and the instruments, and play the
part of an audience. In this capacity, they were charged with making a sort
of mound in advance out of wet sand, upon which a design is marked with
red down which represents the snake Wollunqua. The real ceremony only
commenced after nightfall. Towards ten or eleven o'clock, the Uluuru and
Kingilli men arrived on the ground, sat down on the mound and
commenced to sing. Everyone was evidently very excited. A little later in
the evening, the Uluuru brought up their wives and gave them over to the
Kingilli,[704] who had intercourse with them. Then the recently initiated
young men were brought in and the whole ceremony was explained to them
in detail, and until three o'clock in the morning singing went on without a
pause. Then followed a scene of the wildest excitement. While fires were
lighted on all sides, making the whiteness of the gum-trees stand out
sharply against the surrounding darkness, the Uluuru knelt down one behind
another beside the mound, then rising from the ground they went around it,

with a movement in unison, their two hands resting upon their thighs, then a
little farther on they knelt down again, and so on. At the same time they
swayed their bodies, now to the right and now to the left, while uttering at
each movement a piercing cry, a veritable yell, "Yrrsh! Yrrsh! Yrrsh!" In the
meantime the Kingilli, in a state of great excitement, clanged their
boomerangs and their chief was even more agitated than his companions.
When the procession of the Uluuru had twice gone around the mound,
quitting the kneeling position, they sat down and commenced to sing again;
at moments the singing died away, then suddenly took up again. When day
commenced to dawn, all leaped to their feet; the fires that had gone out
were relighted and the Uluuru, urged on by the Kingilli, attacked the mound
furiously with boomerangs, lances and clubs; in a few minutes it was torn to
pieces. The fires died away and profound silence reigned again.[705]
A still more violent scene at which these same observers assisted was in
connection with the fire ceremonies among the Warramunga.
Commencing at nightfall, all sorts of processions, dances and songs had
taken place by torchlight; the general effervescence was constantly
increasing. At a given moment, twelve assistants each took a great lighted
torch in their hands, and one of them holding his like a bayonet, charged
into a group of natives. Blows were warded off with clubs and spears. A
general mêlée followed. The men leaped and pranced about, uttering savage
yells all the time; the burning torches continually came crashing down on
the heads and bodies of the men, scattering lighted sparks in every
direction. "The smoke, the blazing torches, the showers of sparks falling in
all directions and the masses of dancing, yelling men," say Spencer and
Gillen, "formed altogether a genuinely wild and savage scene of which it is
impossible to convey any adequate idea in words."[706]
One can readily conceive how, when arrived at this state of exaltation, a
man does not recognize himself any longer. Feeling himself dominated and
carried away by some sort of an external power which makes him think and
act differently than in normal times, he naturally has the impression of
being himself no longer. It seems to him that he has become a new being:
the decorations he puts on and the masks that cover his face figure
materially in this interior transformation, and to a still greater extent, they
aid in determining its nature. And as at the same time all his companions
feel themselves transformed in the same way and express this sentiment by

their cries, their gestures and their general attitude, everything is just as
though he really were transported into a special world, entirely different
from the one where he ordinarily lives, and into an environment filled with
exceptionally intense forces that take hold of him and metamorphose him.
How could such experiences as these, especially when they are repeated
every day. for weeks, fail to leave in him the conviction that there really
exist two heterogeneous and mutually incomparable worlds? One is that
where his daily life drags wearily along; but he cannot penetrate into the
other without at once entering into relations with extraordinary powers that
excite him to the point of frenzy. The first is the profane world, the second,
that of sacred things.
So it is in the midst of these effervescent social environments and out of
this effervescence itself that the religious idea seems to be born. The theory
that this is really its origin is confirmed by the fact that in Australia the
really religious activity is almost entirely confined to the moments when
these assemblies are held. To be sure, there is no people among whom the
great solemnities of the cult are not more or less periodic; but in the more
advanced societies, there is not, so to speak, a day when some prayer or
offering is not addressed to the gods and some ritual act is not performed.
But in Australia, on the contrary, apart from the celebrations of the clan and
tribe, the time is nearly all filled with lay and profane occupations. Of
course there are prohibitions that should be and are preserved even during
these periods of temporal activity; it is never permissible to kill or eat freely
of the totemic animal, at least in those parts where the interdiction has
retained its original vigour; but almost no positive rites are then celebrated,
and there are no ceremonies of any importance. These take place only in the
midst of assembled groups. The religious life of the Australian passes
through successive phases of complete lull and of super-excitation, and
social life oscillates in the same rhythm. This puts clearly into evidence the
bond uniting them to one another, but among the peoples called civilized,
the relative continuity of the two blurs their relations. It might even be
asked whether the violence of this contrast was not necessary to disengage
the feeling of sacredness in its first form. By concentrating itself almost
entirely in certain determined moments, the collective life has been able to
attain its greatest intensity and efficacy, and consequently to give men a
more active sentiment of the double existence they lead and of the double
nature in which they participate.

But this explanation is still incomplete. We have shown how the clan, by
the manner in which it acts upon its members, awakens within them the
idea of external forces which dominate them and exalt them; but we must
still demand how it happens that these forces are thought of under the form
of totems, that is to say, in the shape of an animal or plant.
It is because this animal or plant has given its name to the clan and serves
it as emblem. In fact, it is a well-known law that the sentiments aroused in
us by something spontaneously attach themselves to the symbol which
represents them. For us, black is a sign of mourning; it also suggests sad
impressions and ideas. This transference of sentiments comes simply from
the fact that the idea of a thing and the idea of its symbol are closely united
in our minds; the result is that the emotions provoked by the one extend
contagiously to the other. But this contagion, which takes place in every
case to a certain degree, is much more complete and more marked when the
symbol is something simple, definite and easily representable, while the
thing itself, owing to its dimensions, the number of its parts and the
complexity of their arrangement, is difficult to hold in the mind. For we are
unable to consider an abstract entity, which we can represent only
laboriously and confusedly, the source of the strong sentiments which we
feel. We cannot explain them to ourselves except by connecting them to
some concrete object of whose reality we are vividly aware. Then if the
thing itself does not fulfil this condition, it cannot serve as the accepted
basis of the sentiments felt, even though it may be what really aroused
them. Then some sign takes its place; it is to this that we connect the
emotions it excites. It is this which is loved, feared, respected; it is to this
that we are grateful; it is for this that we sacrifice ourselves. The soldier
who dies for his flag, dies for his country; but as a matter of fact, in his own
consciousness, it is the flag that has the first place. It sometimes happens
that this even directly determines action. Whether one isolated standard
remains in the hands of the enemy or not does not determine the fate of the
country, yet the soldier allows himself to be killed to regain it. He loses
sight of the fact that the flag is only a sign, and that it has no value in itself,
but only brings to mind the reality that it represents; it is treated as if it were
this reality itself.

Now the totem is the flag of the clan. It is therefore natural that the
impressions aroused by the clan in individual minds—impressions of
dependence and of increased vitality—should fix themselves to the idea of
the totem rather than that of the clan: for the clan is too complex a reality to
be represented clearly in all its complex unity by such rudimentary
intelligences. More than that, the primitive does not even see that these
impressions come to him from the group. He does not know that the coming
together of a number of men associated in the same life results in
disengaging new energies, which transform each of them. All that he knows
is that he is raised above himself and that he sees a different life from the
one he ordinarily leads. However, he must connect these sensations to some
external object as their cause. Now what does he see about him? On every
side those things which appeal to his senses and strike his imagination are
the numerous images of the totem. They are the waninga and the nurtunja,
which are symbols of the sacred being. They are churinga and bull-roarers,
upon which are generally carved combinations of lines having the same
significance. They are the decorations covering the different parts of his
body, which are totemic marks. How could this image, repeated everywhere
and in all sorts of forms, fail to stand out with exceptional relief in his
mind? Placed thus in the centre of the scene, it becomes representative. The
sentiments experienced fix themselves upon it, for it is the only concrete
object upon which they can fix themselves. It continues to bring them to
mind and to evoke them even after the assembly has dissolved, for it
survives the assembly, being carved upon the instruments of the cult, upon
the sides of rocks, upon bucklers, etc. By it, the emotions experienced are
perpetually sustained and revived. Everything happens just as if they
inspired them directly. It is still more natural to attribute them to it for, since
they are common to the group, they can be associated only with something
that is equally common to all. Now the totemic emblem is the only thing
satisfying this condition. By definition, it is common to all. During the
ceremony, it is the centre of all regards. While generations change, it
remains the same; it is the permanent element of the social life. So it is from
it that those mysterious forces seem to emanate with which men feel that
they are related, and thus they have been led to represent these forces under
the form of the animate or inanimate being whose name the clan bears.
When this point is once established, we are in a position to understand all
that is essential in the totemic beliefs.

Since religious force is nothing other than the collective and anonymous
force of the clan, and since this can be represented in the mind only in the
form of the totem, the totemic emblem is like the visible body of the god.
Therefore, it is from it that those kindly or dreadful actions seem to
emanate, which the cult seeks to provoke or prevent; consequently, it is to it
that the cult is addressed. This is the explanation of why it holds the first
place in the series of sacred things.
But the clan, like every other sort of society, can live only in and through
the individual consciousnesses that compose it. So if religious force, in so
far as it is conceived as incorporated in the totemic emblem, appears to be
outside of the individuals and to be endowed with a sort of transcendence
over them, it, like the clan of which it is the symbol, can be realized only in
and through them; in this sense, it is imminent in them and they necessarily
represent it as such. They feel it present and active within them, for, it is
this which raises them to a superior life. This is why men have believed that
they contain within them a principle comparable to the one residing in the
totem, and consequently, why they have attributed a sacred character to
themselves, but one less marked than that of the emblem. It is because the
emblem is the pre-eminent source of the religious life; the man participates
in it only indirectly, as he is well aware; he takes into account the fact that
the force that transports him into the world of sacred things is not inherent
in him, but comes to him from the outside.

But for still another reason, the animals or vegetables of the totemic
species should have the same character, and even to a higher degree. If the
totemic principle is nothing else than the clan, it is the clan thought of under
the material form of the totemic emblem; now this form is also that of the
concrete beings whose name the clan bears. Owing to this resemblance,
they could not fail to evoke sentiments analogous to those aroused by the
emblem itself. Since the latter is the object of a religious respect, they too
should inspire respect of the same sort and appear to be sacred. Having
external forms so nearly identical, it would be impossible for the native not
to attribute to them forces of the same nature. It is therefore forbidden to
kill or eat the totemic animal, since its flesh is believed to have the positive
virtues resulting from the rites; it is because it resembles the emblem of the
clan, that is to say, it is in its own image. And since the animal naturally
resembles the emblem more than the man does, it is placed on a superior
rank in the hierarchy of sacred things. Between these two beings there is
undoubtedly a close relationship, for they both partake of the same essence:
both incarnate something of the totemic principle. However, since the
principle itself is conceived under an animal form, the animal seems to
incarnate it more fully than the man. Therefore, if men consider it and treat
it as a brother, it is at least as an elder brother.[707]
But even if the totemic principle has its preferred seat in a determined
species of animal or vegetable, it cannot remain localized there. A sacred
character is to a high degree contagious;[708] it therefore spreads out from
the totemic being to everything that is closely or remotely connected with it.
The religious sentiments inspired by the animal are communicated to the
substances upon which it is nourished and which serve to make or remake
its flesh and blood, to the things that resemble it, and to the different beings
with which it has constant relations. Thus, little by little, sub-totems are
attached to the totems and from the cosmological systems expressed by the
primitive classifications. At last, the whole world is divided up among the
totemic principles of each tribe.
We are now able to explain the origin of the ambiguity of religious forces
as they appear in history, and how they are physical as well as human,
moral as well as material. They are moral powers because they are made up
entirely of the impressions this moral being, the group, arouses in those
other moral beings, its individual members; they do not translate the

manner in which physical things affect our senses, but the way in which the
collective consciousness acts upon individual consciousnesses. Their
authority is only one form of the moral ascendancy of society over its
members. But, on the other hand, since they are conceived of under material
forms, they could not fail to be regarded as closely related to material
things.[709] Therefore they dominate the two worlds. Their residence is in
men, but at the same time they are the vital principles of things. They
animate minds and discipline them, but it is also they who make plants
grow and animals reproduce. It is this double nature which has enabled
religion to be like the womb from which come all the leading germs of
human civilization. Since it has been made to embrace all of reality, the
physical world as well as the moral one, the forces that move bodies as well
as those that move minds have been conceived in a religious form. That is
how the most diverse methods and practices, both those that make possible
the continuation of the moral life (law, morals, beaux-arts) and those
serving the material life (the natural, technical and practical sciences), are
either directly or indirectly derived from religion.[710]

IV

The first religious conceptions have often been attributed to feelings of
weakness and dependence, of fear and anguish which seized men when they
came into contact with the world. Being the victims of nightmares of which
they were themselves the creators, they believed themselves surrounded by
hostile and redoubtable powers which their rites sought to appease. We have
now shown that the first religions were of a wholly different origin. The
famous formula Primus in orbe deos fecit timor is in no way justified by the
facts. The primitive does not regard his gods as foreigners, enemies or
thoroughly and necessarily malevolent beings whose favours he must
acquire at any price; quite on the contrary, they are rather friends, kindred
or natural protectors for him. Are these not the names he gives to the beings
of the totemic species? The power to which the cult is addressed is not
represented as soaring high above him and overwhelming him by its
superiority; on the contrary, it is very near to him and confers upon him
very useful powers which he could never acquire by himself. Perhaps the
deity has never been nearer to men than at this period of history, when it is

present in the things filling their immediate environment and is, in part,
imminent in himself. In fine, the sentiments at the root of totemism are
those of happy confidence rather than of terror and compression. If we set
aside the funeral rites—the sober side of every religion—we find the
totemic cult celebrated in the midst of songs, dances and dramatic
representations. As we shall see, cruel expiations are relatively rare; even
the painful and obligatory mutilations of the initiations are not of this
character. The terrible and jealous gods appear but slowly in the religious
evolution. This is because primitive societies are not those huge Leviathans
which overwhelm a man by the enormity of their power and place him
under a severe discipline;[711] he gives himself up to them spontaneously
and without resistance. As the social soul is then made up of only a small
number of ideas and sentiments, it easily becomes wholly incarnate in each
individual consciousness. The individual carries it all inside of him; it is a
part of him and consequently, when he gives himself up to the impulses
inspired by it, he does not feel that he is giving way before compulsion, but
that he is going where his nature calls him.[712]
This way of understanding the origins of religious thought escapes the
objections raised against the most accredited classical theories.
We have seen how the naturists and animists pretend to construct the idea
of sacred beings out of the sensations evoked in us by different phenomena
of the physical or biological order, and we have shown how this enterprise
is impossible and even self-contradictory. Nothing is worth nothing. The
impressions produced in us by the physical world can, by definition, contain
nothing that surpasses this world. Out of the visible, only the visible can be
made; out of that which is heard, we cannot make something not heard.
Then to explain how the idea of sacredness has been able to take form
under these conditions, the majority of the theorists have been obliged to
admit that men have superimposed upon reality, such as it is given by
observation, an unreal world, constructed entirely out of the fantastic
images which agitate his mind during a dream, or else out of the frequently
monstrous aberrations produced by the mythological imagination under the
bewitching but deceiving influence of language. But it remained
incomprehensible that humanity should have remained obstinate in these
errors through the ages, for experience should have very quickly proven
them false.

But from our point of view, these difficulties disappear. Religion ceases
to be an inexplicable hallucination and takes a foothold in reality. In fact,
we can say that the believer is not deceived when he believes in the
existence of a moral power upon which he depends and from which he
receives all that is best in himself: this power exists, it is society. When the
Australian is carried outside himself and feels a new life flowing within him
whose intensity surprises him, he is not the dupe of an illusion; this
exaltation is real and is really the effect of forces outside of and superior to
the individual. It is true that he is wrong in thinking that this increase of
vitality is the work of a power in the form of some animal or plant. But this
error is merely in regard to the letter of the symbol by which this being is
represented to the mind and the external appearance which the imagination
has given it, and not in regard to the fact of its existence. Behind these
figures and metaphors, be they gross or refined, there is a concrete and
living reality. Thus religion acquires a meaning and a reasonableness that
the most intransigent rationalist cannot misunderstand. Its primary object is
not to give men a representation of the physical world; for if that were its
essential task, we could not understand how it has been able to survive, for,
on this side, it is scarcely more than a fabric of errors. Before all, it is a
system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves the
society of which they are members, and the obscure but intimate relations
which they have with it. This is its primary function; and though
metaphorical and symbolic, this representation is not unfaithful. Quite on
the contrary, it translates everything essential in the relations which are to
be explained: for it is an eternal truth that outside of us there exists
something greater than us, with which we enter into communion.
That is why we can rest assured in advance that the practices of the cult,
whatever they may be, are something more than movements without
importance and gestures without efficacy. By the mere fact that their
apparent function is to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to his
god, they at the same time really strengthen the bonds attaching the
individual to the society of which he is a member, since the god is only a
figurative expression of the society. We are even able to understand how the
fundamental truth thus contained in religion has been able to compensate
for the secondary errors which it almost necessarily implies, and how
believers have consequently been restrained from tearing themselves off
from it, in spite of the misunderstandings which must result from these

errors. It is undeniably true that the recipes which it recommends that men
use to act upon things are generally found to be ineffective. But these
checks can have no profound influence, for they do not touch religion in its
fundamentals.[713]
However, it may be objected that even according to this hypothesis,
religion remains the object of a certain delirium. What other name can we
give to that state when, after a collective effervescence, men believe
themselves transported into an entirely different world from the one they
have before their eyes?
It is certainly true that religious life cannot attain a certain degree of
intensity without implying a psychical exaltation not far removed from
delirium. That is why the prophets, the founders of religions, the great
saints, in a word, the men whose religious consciousness is exceptionally
sensitive, very frequently give signs of an excessive nervousness that is
even pathological: these physiological defects predestined them to great
religious rôles. The ritual use of intoxicating liquors is to be explained in
the same way.[714] Of course this does not mean that an ardent religious
faith is necessarily the fruit of the drunkenness and mental derangement
which accompany it; but as experience soon informed people of the
similarities between the mentality of a delirious person and that of a seer,
they sought to open a way to the second by artificially exciting the first. But
if, for this reason, it may be said that religion is not without a certain
delirium, it must be added that this delirium, if it has the causes which we
have attributed to it, is well-founded. The images out of which it is made are
not pure illusions like those the naturists and animists put at the basis of
religion; they correspond to something in reality. Of course it is only natural
that the moral forces they express should be unable to affect the human
mind powerfully without pulling it outside itself and without plunging it
into a state that may be called ecstatic, provided that the word be taken in
its etymological sense (ἔκστασις); but it does not follow that they are
imaginary. Quite on the contrary, the mental agitation they cause bears
witness to their reality. It is merely one more proof that a very intense social
life always does a sort of violence to the organism, as well as to the
individual consciousness, which interferes with its normal functioning.
Therefore it can last only a limited length of time.[715]

Moreover, if we give the name delirious to every state in which the mind
adds to the immediate data given by the senses and projects its own
sentiments and feelings into things, then nearly every collective
representation is in a sense delirious; religious beliefs are only one
particular case of a very general law. Our whole social environment seems
to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds. We
know what the flag is for the soldier; in itself, it is only a piece of cloth.
Human blood is only an organic liquid, but even to-day we cannot see it
flowing without feeling a violent emotion which its physico-chemical
properties cannot explain. From the physical point of view, a man is nothing
more than a system of cells, or from the mental point of view, than a system
of representations; in either case, he differs only in degree from animals.
Yet society conceives him, and obliges us to conceive him, as invested with
a character sui generis that isolates him, holds at a distance all rash
encroachments and, in a word, imposes respect. This dignity which puts
him into a class by himself appears to us as one of his distinctive attributes,
although we can find nothing in the empirical nature of man which justifies
it. A cancelled postage stamp may be worth a fortune; but surely this value
is in no way implied in its natural properties. In a sense, our representation
of the external world is undoubtedly a mere fabric of hallucinations, for the
odours, tastes and colours that we put into bodies are not really there, or at
least, they are not such as we perceive them. However, our olfactory,
gustatory and visual sensations continue to correspond to certain objective
states of the things represented; they express in their way the properties,
either of material particles or of ether waves, which certainly have their
origin in the bodies which we perceive as fragrant, sapid or coloured. But
collective representations very frequently attribute to the things to which
they are attached qualities which do not exist under any form or to any
degree. Out of the commonest object, they can make a most powerful
sacred being.
Yet the powers which are thus conferred, though purely ideal, act as
though they were real; they determine the conduct of men with the same
degree of necessity as physical forces. The Arunta who has been rubbed
with his churinga feels himself stronger; he is stronger. If he has eaten the
flesh of an animal which, though perfectly healthy, is forbidden to him, he
will feel himself sick, and may die of it. Surely the soldier who falls while
defending his flag does not believe that he sacrifices himself for a bit of

cloth. This is all because social thought, owing to the imperative authority
that is in it, has an efficacy that individual thought could never have; by the
power which it has over our minds, it can make us see things in whatever
light it pleases; it adds to reality or deducts from it according to the
circumstances. Thus there is one division of nature where the formula of
idealism is applicable almost to the letter: this is the social kingdom. Here
more than anywhere else, the idea is the reality. Even in this case, of course,
idealism is not true without modification. We can never escape the duality
of our nature and free ourselves completely from physical necessities: in
order to express our own ideas to ourselves, it is necessary, as has been
shown above, that we fix them upon material things which symbolize them.
But here the part of matter is reduced to a minimum. The object serving as
support for the idea is not much in comparison with the ideal superstructure,
beneath which it disappears, and also, it counts for nothing in the
superstructure. This is what that pseudo-delirium consists in, which we find
at the bottom of so many collective representations: it is only a form of this
essential idealism.[716] So it is not properly called a delirium, for the ideas
thus objectified are well founded, not in the nature of the material things
upon which they settle themselves, but in the nature of society.
We are now able to understand how the totemic principle, and in general,
every religious force, comes to be outside of the object in which it resides.
[717]
It is because the idea of it is in no way made up of the impressions
directly produced by this thing upon our senses or minds. Religious force is
only the sentiment inspired by the group in its members, but projected
outside of the consciousnesses that experience them, and objectified. To be
objectified, they are fixed upon some object which thus becomes sacred;
but any object might fulfil this function. In principle, there are none whose
nature predestines them to it to the exclusion of all others; but also there are
none that are necessarily impossible.[718] Everything depends upon the
circumstances which lead the sentiment creating religious ideas to establish
itself here or there, upon this point or upon that one. Therefore, the sacred
character assumed by an object is not implied in the intrinsic properties of
this latter: it is added to them. The world of religious things is not one
particular aspect of empirical nature; it is superimposed upon it.
This conception of the religious, finally, allows us to explain an
important principle found at the bottom of a multitude of myths and rites,

and which may be stated thus: when a sacred thing is subdivided, each of its
parts remains equal to the thing itself. In other words, as far as religious
thought is concerned, the part is equal to the whole; it has the same powers,
the same efficacy. The debris of a relic has the same virtue as a relic in good
condition. The smallest drop of blood contains the same active principle as
the whole thing. The soul, as we shall see, may be broken up into nearly as
many pieces as there are organs or tissues in the organism; each of these
partial souls is worth a whole soul. This conception would be inexplicable if
the sacredness of something were due to the constituent properties of the
thing itself; for in that case, it should vary with this thing, increasing and
decreasing with it. But if the virtues it is believed to possess are not intrinsic
in it, and if they come from certain sentiments which it brings to mind and
symbolizes, though these originate outside of it, then, since it has no need
of determined dimensions to play this rôle of reminder, it will have the
same value whether it is entire or not. Since the part makes us think of the
whole, it evokes the same sentiments as the whole. A mere fragment of the
flag represents the fatherland just as well as the flag itself: so it is sacred in
the same way and to the same degree.[719]

V

But if this theory of totemism has enabled us to explain the most
characteristic beliefs of this religion, it rests upon a fact not yet explained.
When the idea of the totem, the emblem of the clan, is given, all the rest
follows; but we must still investigate how this idea has been formed. This is
a double question and may be subdivided as follows: What has led the clan
to choose an emblem? and why have these emblems been borrowed from
the animal and vegetable worlds, and particularly from the former?
That an emblem is useful as a rallying-centre for any sort of a group it is
superfluous to point out. By expressing the social unity in a material form,
it makes this more obvious to all, and for that very reason the use of
emblematic symbols must have spread quickly when once thought of. But
more than that, this idea should spontaneously arise out of the conditions of
common life; for the emblem is not merely a convenient process for
clarifying the sentiment society has of itself: it also serves to create this
sentiment; it is one of its constituent elements.