Chapter II: The Totemic Age (4)

In dealing, later, with the soul conceptions of the totemic age, we will consider these several motives in their independent influence as well as in their reciprocal action upon one another. Here we can touch upon them only in so far as they harbour the sources of totemism itself. But in this connection two facts are of decisive importance. In the first place, the original totem, and the one which continues to remain most common, is the animal; and, secondly, the earliest totem animals are identical with soul animals. But in addition to soul animals, other animals also may later readily come to be regarded as totems, particularly such as continually claim man's attention, as, for example, game animals. Thus, the soul motives are brought into interplay with other influences, springing in part from the emotions associated with the search for daily food, though primarily with success or failure in the chase. As a result, the soul motives obviously become less prominent, and the totem animal, freed from this association, acquires its own peculiar significance, which fluctuates between the ancestral idea and that of a protective demon. The concern for food, which was at first operative only as a secondary motive, was heightened in certain localities where the natural environment was poor, and, with the influx of immigrant tribes, it assumed ever greater prominence. In this way, plant totems came to be added to animal totems; finally, as a result of certain relations of these two totems to inanimate objects, there arose a fetishistic offshoot of totemism. This again brought totemism into close connection with ancestor ideas, and contributed also towards the transition from animal to human ancestors.

Thus, then, totemic ideas arise as a result of the diremption of primitive soul ideas into the _corporeal soul_ and the _breath-_ and _shadow-soul_. That the two latter are associated, is proven also by the history of totemism. Folk belief, even down to the present, holds that the soul of the dying person issues in his last breath and that it possesses the form of an animal. The soul of one who has recently died, however, appears primarily in dreams and as a phantom form. Now, the totem animal has its genesis in the transformation of the breath-soul into an animal. The shadow-soul of the dream, moreover, exercises an influence on individual totemism, as it does also on conception totemism and on sex totemism.

Thus, totemism is directly connected with the belief in souls--that is to say, with _animism_. It represents that branch of animism which exercised a long-continuing influence on the tribal organization as well as on the beliefs of peoples. But before turning to these final aspects of totemism and their further developments, it is necessary to consider another group of ideas which, in their beginnings, occupied an important place within the circle of totemic beliefs. The ideas to which I refer are those connected with the custom of _taboo_.

10. THE LAWS OF TABOO.

It is a significant fact that 'totem' and 'taboo' are concepts for which our cultural languages possess no adequate words. Both these terms are taken from the languages of so-called natural peoples, 'totem' from an idiom of the North American Indians, and 'taboo' from the Polynesian languages. The word 'totem' is as yet relatively uncommon in literature, with the exception of books on ethnology and folk psychology; the word 'taboo,' on the other hand, is much in use. A thing is called taboo when it may not be touched, or when it must be avoided for some reason, whether because of its peculiar sanctity or contrariwise because its harmful influence renders it 'impure,' defiling every one who comes into contact with it. Thus, two opposing ideas are combined in the conception of taboo: the idea of the sacred as something to be avoided because of its sanctity, and that of the impure or loathsome, which must be avoided because of its repulsive or harmful nature. These ideas combine in the conception of _fear_. There is, indeed, one sort of fear which we call _awe_, and another termed _aversion_. Now, the history of taboo ideas leaves no doubt that in this case awe and aversion sprang from the same source. That which aroused aversion at a later age was in the totemic period chiefly an object of awe, or, at any rate, of fear--that is, of a feeling in which aversion and awe were still undifferentiated. That which is designated by the simplest word [_Scheu_] is also earliest in origin; awe [_Ehrfurcht_] and aversion [_Abscheu_] developed from fear [_Scheu_].

If, now, we associate the term 'taboo' in a general way with an object that arouses fear, the earliest object of taboo seems to have been the totem animal. One of the most elemental of totemic ideas and customs consists in the fact that the members of a totem group are prohibited from eating the flesh of the totem, and sometimes also from hunting the totem animal. This prohibition, of course, can have originated only in a general feeling of fear, as a result of which the members of a totemic group are restrained from eating or killing the totem animal. In many regions, where the culture, although already totemic, is, nevertheless, primitive, the totem animal appears to be the only object of taboo. This fact alone makes it probable that totemism lies at the basis of taboo ideas. The protective animal of the individual long survived the tribal totem and sometimes spread to far wider regions. Similarly, the taboo, though closely related to tribal organization in origin, underwent further developments which continued after the totemic ideas from which it sprang had either entirely disappeared or had, at any rate, vanished with the exception of meagre traces. This accounts for the fact that it is not in Australia, the original home of the totem, that we find the chief centre of taboo customs, nor in Melanesian territory, where the totem is still fairly common, nor in North America, but in Polynesia.

It is in Polynesia, therefore, that we can most clearly trace the spread of taboo ideas beyond their original starting-point. The taboo of animals is here only incidental; man himself is the primary object of taboo--not every individual, but the privileged ones, the superiors, the priest, the chieftain. Closely related to the fact that man is thus held taboo, is the development of chieftainship and the gradual growth of class differences. The higher class becomes taboo to the lower class. This fear is then carried over from the man himself to his possessions. The property of the nobleman is taboo to every other person. The taboo has not merely the force of a police law, similar to that whereby, in other localities, men of superior rank prohibit entrance to their parks; it is a religious law, whose transgression is eventually punished by death. It is particularly the chief and his property that are objects of taboo. Where the taboo regulations were strict, no one was allowed to venture close to the chief or even to speak his name. Thus, the taboo might become an intolerable constraint. In Hawaii, the chief was not allowed to raise his own food to his mouth, for he was taboo and his contact with the food rendered this also taboo. Hence the Hawaian chief was obliged to have a servant feed him. The objects which he touched became taboo to all individuals. In short, he became the very opposite of a despotic ruler, namely, the slave of a despotic custom.

From the individual person, the taboo was further extended to localities, houses, and lands. A member of the aristocratic class might render taboo not only his movable property but also his land. The temple, in particular, was taboo, and, together with the priests, it retained this character longer than any other object. The taboo concerned with the eating of certain animals, however, also remained in force for a long time. Though these animals were at first avoided as sacred, the taboo of the sacred, in this case, later developed into that of the impure. Thus, this conception recurs, in a sense, to its beginning. For the fear that is associated with the animals which the totem group regards as sacred, is here combined with the fear that the eating of the flesh is harmful. Sickness or even death is believed to follow a transgression of such a taboo regulation. Even in its original home, however, the taboo assumes wider forms. It subjects to its influence the demon-ideas that reach back even to pretotemic times. The corpse particularly, and the sick person also, are held taboo because of the demoniacal magic proceeding from them. Likewise the priest and the chief are taboo, because of their sacredness. Thus, the taboo gains a circle of influence that widens according as totemic ideas proper recede. The taboo which the upper classes placed upon their property had come to be such a preponderant factor in Polynesian custom that the first investigators of these regions believed the taboo in general to be chiefly an institution whereby the rich aimed to protect their property by taking advantage of the superstition of the masses.

One of the most remarkable extensions of the scope of taboo is the _taboo which rests on relations by marriage._ The history of exogamy, whose earliest stages are represented by the totemic marriage laws of the Australians, clearly teaches that the aversion to marriage between blood relations was not the cause but at most, to a great extent, the effect of exogamous customs that everywhere reach back into a distant past. But there is a second class of marriage prohibitions, and this likewise has found a place even in present-day legislation--the prohibition of unions between relations by marriage. Such prohibitions are from the very beginning outside the pale of exogamous laws. Indeed, it is clear that all unions of this sort--such, for example, as are forbidden by our present laws--were permitted by the totem and clan exogamy of the Australians and that of the American Indians. In the case of maternal descent, the group from which a man must select his wife included his mother-in-law as well as his wife. Similarly, in the case of paternal descent, the husband and father-in-law were totem associates. There is another set of customs, however, which is generally connected with even the earliest forms of exogamy, and which fills out in a very remarkable way the gap that appears in the original totemic exogamy when this is compared with present-day legislation. These customs are no other than the laws of taboo. One of the earliest and most common of these regulations is the _taboo of the mother-in-law_. Corresponding to it, not so common and yet obviously a parallel phenomenon occasionally connected with it, is the _taboo of the father-in-law_. The relative distribution of the two taboos is analogous to that of maternal and paternal descent in the primitive condition of society, for it is maternal descent that is dominant. This is not at all meant to imply that there is any casual[1] relation between these phenomena. Rather is it true, probably, that they are based upon similar motives, and that these motives, just as in the case of marriage between relations, are more potent in the case of the mother than in that of the father. In general, however, the taboo of parents-in-law signifies that the husband must so far as possible avoid meeting his mother-in-law, and the wife, her father-in-law. Now, it is evident that in so far as this avoidance excludes the possibility of marriage, the custom is, in a way, supplementary to exogamy. Wherever maternal descent prevails, no one may marry his mother; and, where taboo of the mother-in-law exists, no one may marry his mother-in-law. The same holds of father and daughter, and of father and daughter-in-law, in the case of paternal descent. This analogy may possibly indicate the correct clue to the interpretation of the phenomena. It would certainly be erroneous to regard the taboo of the mother-in-law as a regulation intentionally formulated to prevent unions between direct relations by marriage. Yet there is evidence here of a natural association by virtue of which the fear of marriage with one's own mother, which, though not caused by the exogamous prohibition, is nevertheless greatly strengthened by it, is directly carried over to the mother-in-law. Between a woman and the husband of her daughter there thus arises a state of taboo such as is impossible between mother and son because, from the time of his birth on, they are in close and constant relation with each other. In consequence of the above-mentioned association, mother and mother-in-law, or father and father-in-law, form a unity analogous to that which obtains between man and wife. What is true of the husband, is also true in the case of the wife; similarly, what holds for the mother of the husband holds no less for the mother of the wife.

Striking evidence of the effect of an association of ideas that is perfectly analogous to the one underlying the taboo of the mother-in-law, is offered by a custom which is doubtless generally only local in scope and yet is found in the most diverse parts of the earth, thus showing plainly that it is autochthonous in character. I refer to the custom of so-called father-confinement or 'couvade.' This custom prevails in various places, occurring even in Europe, where it is practised by the Basques of the Pyrenées, a remarkable fragment of a pre-Indo-Germanic population of Europe. Due, probably, to the heavier tasks which these people impose upon women, it here occasionally occurs in an exaggerated form. Even after the mother has already begun to attend to her household duties, the father, lying in the bed to which he has voluntarily retired, receives the congratulations of the relatives. Custom also demands that he subject himself to certain ascetic restrictions, namely, that he avoid the eating of certain kinds of food. The custom of couvade is clearly the result of an ideational association between husband and wife--one that is absolutely analogous to that between the two mothers of the married couple. The child owes its existence to both father and mother. Both, therefore, must obey the regulations which surround birth, and thus they are also subject to the same taboo. Just as there is very commonly a taboo on the mother and her new-born child, so also, in the regions where couvade exists, is this transferred to the husband.

As is well known, the last vestiges of the taboo of the mother-in-law have not yet disappeared, though they survive only in humour, as do many other customs that were once seriously practised. In fact, there is no other form of relationship, whether by blood or by marriage, that is so subjected to the satire of daily life as well as to the witticisms and jokes of comic papers as is that of the unfortunate mother-in-law. Thus, the primitive taboo resting on the mother-in-law and also, even though in lesser degree, on the father-in-law, has registered itself in habits that are relatively well known. Graver results of the regulations of ancient custom are doubtless to be found in those prohibitions of union between relatives by marriage that still constitute essential elements of present-day laws. This, of course, does not mean that these prohibitions are unjustifiable or that they do not reflect natural feelings. They but exemplify the fact that every law presupposes a development which, as a rule, goes back to a distant past, and that the feelings which we to-day regard as natural and original had a definite origin and assumed their present character as the outcome of many changes.

Alongside of these later forms of the taboo, and outlasting them, we have its most primitive form. This is the taboo which rests on the eating of certain foods, particularly the flesh of certain animals, though less frequently it applies also to occasional plants. The latter, however, probably represents a transference, just as does plant totemism. A particular example of such a taboo is the avoidance of the bean by the Grecian sect of Orphians and by the Pythagoreans whom they influenced. The taboo of certain animals survived much longer. But it was just in this case that there came an important shift of ideas which gave to the taboo a meaning almost the opposite of that which it originally possessed. Proof of such a change is offered by the Levitical Priests' Code of Israel. The refined casuistry of the priests prescribed even to details what the Israelite might eat and what was taboo for him. For the Israelite, however, this taboo was not associated with the sacred but with the unclean. The original taboo on the eating of the flesh of an animal related, in the totemic period, to the sacred animal. This is the taboo in its original form. The Australian shrinks from eating the flesh of his totem animal, not because it is unclean, but because he fears the revenge of demons if he consumes the protective animal of his group. In the Priests' Code, the sacred object has become entirely transmuted into an unclean object, supposed to contaminate all who eat of it. It is a striking fact, however, that the animals which are regarded as unclean are primarily the early totem animals--the screech-owl, the bat, the eagle, the owl, etc. Of the animals that live in or near the sea, only those may be eaten that have scales, that is, only fish proper, and not the snake-like fish. The snake itself and the snake-like reptiles are taboo, as well as numerous birds--all of which were at a very early period totem animals. Heading the list of the animals that may be eaten, on the other hand, are the ox, the sheep, the goat--in short, the animals of an agricultural and sheep-raising culture. Thus, as the original magical motives of taboo disappear, their place is taken by the emotion of fear, which causes the object arousing it to appear as unclean. Whoever touches such an object is polluted in a physical as well as a moral sense, and requires a cleansing purification according to rites prescribed by cult. We cannot avoid the impression, accordingly, that the unclean animals held to be taboo by the Priests' Code, are the same as those which this same people regarded as sacred soul and totem animals at an earlier stage of culture. Thus, these prohibitions with reference to food are analogous to the impassioned preaching against false idolatry--both refer back to an earlier cult. In this category belongs also the prohibition of consuming the blood of animals in the eating of their flesh. This likewise is the survival of a very common belief--certainly prevalent also among the Israelites at one time--that with the blood of an animal one might appropriate its spirit-power. The priestly law transforms this motive into its direct opposite. For the text expressly says: "In the blood is the life; but ye shall not destroy the life together with the flesh."

Thus, the significance of the taboo shifts from the sacred, which evokes man's fear, to the unclean and demoniacal, which also arouse fear but in the form of aversion. Closely related to this change is a group of views and customs resulting from this last form of taboo and reaching down, as its after-effects, far into the later religious development. These are the _purification rites_ connected with the ideas of clean and unclean. The word _lustratio_, by which the Romans designated these rites, is really more appropriate than the German word _Reinigung_, since it suggests more than merely the _one_ aspect of these usages. Indeed, the idea of purification is not even primary, any more than the conception of the unclean is the initial stage in the development of the taboo. On the other hand, the idea that a man might be exposed to demoniacal powers by touching an object or by eating a certain food, such, for example, as the flesh of certain animals, is in entire accord with such primitive notions as are expressed in the fear of the corpse and of sickness, as well as in other similar phenomena. The essential thing is to escape the demon who is harboured in the particular object of concern. This impulse is so irresistible that, whenever the idea of taboo arises, the conception of lustration, of a magic counteraction to the demoniacal power, is also evolved. Thus, magic and counter-magic, here, as everywhere, stand in antithesis. The means of such counter-magic are not only very similar throughout the most remote parts of the earth, but externally they remain the same even throughout the various stages of culture. There are only _three_ means by which an individual may free himself from the effects of a violation of taboo--_water, fire_, and _magical transference_.

Of these means, the one which is the most familiar to us is water. Just as water removes physical uncleanness, so also does it wash away soul or demoniacal impurity--not symbolically, for primitive man has no symbols in our sense of the word, but magically. As water is the most common element, so also is it the most common magical means of lustration. Besides water, fire also is employed; generally it is regarded as the more potent element--in any event, its use for this purpose anteceded that of water. Fire, no less than water, is supposed to remove the impurity or the demoniacal influences to which a man has been exposed. It is especially peculiar to fire, however, that it is held not only to free an individual from an impurity which he has already contracted, but also to protect him from the possibility of contamination. This preventive power, of course, later came to be ascribed to water also. Indeed, all the various means of lustration may come to be substituted for one another, so that each of them may eventually acquire properties that originally belonged exclusively to one of the others. The third form of purification, finally, consists in a magical transference of the impurity from man to other objects or to other beings, as, for example, from a man to an animal. Closely associated with such a transference are a considerable number of other magic usages. These have even found their way down into modern superstition. We need but refer to the above-mentioned cord-magic, by which a sickness, for example, is transferred to a tree by tying a cord around it.

In the primitive cult ceremonies of the Australians, lustration is effected almost exclusively by fire. In America also fire still plays an important rôle, particularly in the cult ceremonies of the Pueblo peoples. They kindle a great fire, about which they execute dances. In the initiation ceremonies of the Australians, the youths must approach very close to the fire or, at times, leap over it. In this way they are made proof against future attacks. Such fire-magic reaches down even into later civilizations. A survival of this sort is the St. John's fire still prevalent in many regions of Europe and, in view of its origin, still frequently called 'solstice fire' in southern Germany. On these occasions also, the young men and maidens leap over the fire and expose themselves to the danger of its flames, in the belief that whatever they may wish at the time will come to pass. Here again, as in the Australian initiation ceremonies, lustration by fire signifies a magic act having reference to the future.

Water is a far more common means of lustration than fire. It everywhere gained the ascendancy and at the same time very largely preserved its original significance. From early times on it combined the power of removing the impurities resulting from the violation of a taboo, or, more widely applied, of cleansing from guilt, with the power of protecting against impending impurity and guilt. Thus, even in the beginnings of taboo usages, the bath, or ablution, was a universal means of purification. The _sprinkling_ with water, on the other hand, which has held its place even in Christian cult, is a means of purification directed primarily to the future. In the so-called Jordan festivals of the Greek Catholic Church, ordinary water is changed into Jordan water by the magic of the priest. The believer is confident that if he is sprinkled with this water he will commit no sin in the course of the following year.

Less common, on the whole, is the third form of lustration, that by magical transference. Israelitic legend affords a striking example of such lustration in the goat which, laden with the sins of Israel, is driven by Aaron into the wilderness. He takes the goat, lays both his hands on its head, and whispers the sins of Israel into its ear. The goat is then driven into the wilderness, where it is to bury the sins in a distant place. An analogous New Testament story, moreover, is related in St. Matthew's Gospel. We are here told that, in Galilee, a man who was possessed of many demons was freed from them by Jesus, who commanded them to pass into a herd of swine that happened to be near by. Since the demons had previously begged Jesus not to destroy them, they were banished into these animals. The swine, however, plunged into an adjacent sea, and thus the demons perished with them.

Totem, taboo, lustration, and counter-magic, accordingly, were originally closely related to one another, though each of them proved capable of initiating new tendencies and of undergoing a further independent development. The totem, for example, gave rise to numerous sorts of protective demons; the taboo was transferred to the most diverse objects, such as aroused feelings of fear and aversion; lustration led to the various counter agencies that freed men's minds from the ideas of contamination and guilt. These institutions, however, were themselves based upon certain more elementary ideas whose influence was far from being exhausted in them. On the one hand, totemic belief grew out of the belief in souls; on the other hand, totemic ideas were the precursors of further developments. The activity of totem ancestors was associated with certain inanimate objects, such as the Australian churingas, to which magical powers were held to have been transmitted. Inasmuch as the totem animal was also an ancestral animal, it formed the transition to the elevation of human ancestors into cult objects, first on a par with animal ancestors and later exalted above them. Thus, there are three sets of ideas which, in part, form the bases of totemism, and, in part, reach out beyond it, constituting integral factors of further developments of the most diverse character. These ideas may be briefly designated as _animism, fetishism,_ and _ancestor worship_. Animism, as here used, refers to the various forms of the belief in souls. By fetishism, on the other hand, is universally meant the belief in the demoniacal power of inanimate objects. Ancestor worship, finally, is the worship in cult of family or tribal ancestors. The original totemism passes over into the higher ancestor worship, which, in turn, issues in hero cult, and finally in the cult of the gods.

[1] transcribers' note: "causal" is probably meant here.

11. SOUL BELIEFS OF THE TOTEMIC AGE.

Soul ideas, as we have already noted, constitute the basis of totem belief, and may thus be said to date back into the pretotemic age, even though it is obviously only within the totemic period that they attain to their more complete development. If we include the whole of the broad domain of soul belief under the term _animism_, the latter, in its many diverse forms, may be said to extend from the most primitive to the highest levels of culture. It is fitting, however, to enter upon a connected account of animism at this point, because the development of the main forms of soul belief and of their transformations takes place within the totemic age. Moreover, not only is totemism closely dependent from the very beginning upon soul conceptions, but the development of soul conceptions is to an equal degree affected by totemism.

Soul belief, thus, constitutes an imperishable factor in all mythology and religion. This accounts for the fact that there are some mythologists as well as certain psychologists of religion who actually trace all mythology and religion to animism, believing that soul ideas first gave rise to demon and ancestor cults, and then to the worship of the gods. This view is maintained by Edward Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Julius Lippert, and a number of others. Undeniable as it is that soul belief has exerted an important influence upon mythological and religious thought, it nevertheless represents but one factor among others. For this very reason, however, we must consider separately its own peculiar conditions, since it is thus alone that we can gain an understanding of its relation to the other factors of mythological thought. The fittest place for examining this general interconnection is just at this point, where we are in the very midst of totemic ideas, and where we encounter the transformations of soul ideas in a specially pronounced form. Everything goes to show that the most important change in the history of the development of soul belief falls within the totemic period. This change consists in the distinction between a soul that is bound to the body, and which, because of this permanent attachment, we will briefly call the _corporeal soul_, and a soul which may leave the body and continue its existence independently of it. Moreover, according to an idea particularly peculiar to the totemic age, this latter soul may become embodied in other living beings, especially in animals, but also in plants, and even in inanimate objects. We will call this soul _psyche_, the breath or shadow soul. It is a breath soul because it was the exhalation of the breath, perhaps, that first suggested these ideas; it is a shadow soul since it was the dream image, in particular, that gave to this soul the form of a shadowy, visible but intangible, counterpart of man. As a fleeting form, rapidly appearing and again disappearing, the shadow soul is a variety of breath soul. The two readily pass over into each other, and are therefore regarded as one and the same psyche.

There is ground for the conjecture that the distinction between these two main forms of the soul, the corporeal and the breath or shadow soul, is closely bound up with the changed culture of the totemic age. Primitive man flees from the corpse--indeed, even from those who are sick, if he sees that death is approaching. The corpse is left where it lies, and even the mortally ill are abandoned in their helpless condition. The living avoid the places where death has entered. All this changes in an age that has become familiar with struggle and death, and particularly with the sudden death which follows upon the use of weapons. This is exemplified even by the natives of Australia, who are armed with spear and shield. The warrior who falls before the deadly weapon, whose blood flows forth, and who expires in the midst of his fellow-combatants, arouses an entirely different impression from the man of the most primitive times who dies in solitude, and from whose presence the living flee. In addition to the original ideas of a soul that is harboured in the body, and that after death wanders about the neighbourhood as an invisible demon, we now have a further set of ideas. The soul is believed to leave the body in the form of the blood. But it may take an even more sudden departure, being sometimes supposed to leave in the last breath. In this case, it is held to be directly perceptible as a small cloud or a vapour, or as passing over into some animal that is swift of movement or possesses such characteristics as arouse an uncanny feeling. This idea of a breath soul readily leads to the belief that the psyche, after its separation from the body, appears in the dream image, again temporarily assuming, in shadowy form, the outlines of its original body.

Now the most remarkable feature of this entire development is the fact that the idea of the corporeal soul in no wise disappears, as one might suppose, with the origin of the breath or shadow soul. On the contrary, both continue to exist without any mutual interference. This is noticeable particularly in the case of death in war. The belief that the soul leaves the body with the blood may here be directly combined with the belief that it departs with the breath, though the two ideas fall under entirely different categories. Even in Homer this combination of ideas is still clearly in evidence. The breath soul is said to descend to Hades, there to continue its unconscious existence as a dreamlike shadow, while at the same time the corporeal soul is thought to inhere not only in the blood but also in other parts of the body. Certain particular organs of the body are held to be vehicles of the soul; among these are the heart, the respiratory organs, and the diaphragm, the latter probably in connection with the immediately adjacent kidneys, which these primitive soul ideas usually represent as an important centre of soul powers. The believer in animism was not in the least aware of any contradiction in holding, as he did for a long time, that these two forms, the corporeal soul and the breath soul, exist side by side. His concern was not with concepts that might be scientifically examined in such a way as to effect a reconciliation of the separate ideas or a resolution of their contradictions. Even the ancient Egyptians, with their high civilization, preserved a firm belief in a corporeal soul, and upon this belief they based their entire practice of preserving bodies by means of embalmment. The reason for leaving the mouth of the mummy open was to enable the deceased person to justify himself before the judge of the dead. That the mummy was very carefully enclosed in its burial chamber and thus removed from the sphere of intercourse of the living, indicates a survival of the fear of demoniacal power which is characteristic of the beginnings of soul belief. The Egyptians, however, also developed the idea of a purely spiritual soul. The latter was held to exist apart from the body in a realm of the dead, from which it was supposed occasionally to return to the mummy. It was by this simple expedient of an intercourse between the various souls that mythological thought here resolved the contradiction between unity and multiplicity as affecting its soul concepts--a contradiction which even later frequently claimed the attention of philosophy.

When, on a more advanced cultural level, the structure of the body came to be more closely observed, a strong impetus was given towards a progressive differentiation of the corporeal soul. Certain parts of the body, in particular, were singled out as vehicles of the soul. Those that are separable from the body, such, for example, as certain secretions and the products of growth, received a sort of intermediate position between the corporeal soul proper and the breath soul. Chief among these was the blood. Among some peoples, particularly the Bantus of South Africa, the saliva rivals the blood in importance, possibly because of the readily suggested association with the soul that departs in the vapour of the breath. The blood soul, however, is by far the most universal and most permanent of these ideas. In its after-effects it has survived even down to the present. For, when we speak of a 'blood relationship' uniting those persons who stand close to one another through ancestry, the word 'blood' doubtless represents a sort of reminiscence of the old idea of a blood soul. To the dispassionate eye of the physiologist, the blood is one of the most unstable elements of the body, so that, so far as the blood is concerned, the father and mother certainly transmit nothing of a permanent nature to their descendants. More stable parts of the organism are much more likely to be inherited. But, in spite of the fact that blood is one of the most transitory of structures, it continues to be regarded as the vehicle of the relationship existing between members of a family, and even between tribally related nations. More striking expressions of the idea of a blood soul are to be found on primitive levels. In concluding the so-called blood brotherhood, the exchange of blood, according to prevalent belief, mediates the establishment of an actual blood relationship. In accordance with a custom which probably sprang up independently in many different parts of the earth, each of the two parties to the compact, upon entering this brotherhood, took a drop of blood from a small, self-inflicted wound and transferred it to the corresponding wound of the other. Since the drop of exchanged blood represents the blood in general--not merely symbolically, as it were, but in real actuality--the two who have entered into the alliance have become nearest blood relatives, and thus brothers.

The idea that a soul exists in the blood, however, has also a converse aspect. This consists in the fear of shedding blood, since the wounded person would thus be robbed of his soul. The belief then arises that one who consumes the blood of a sacrificed person or animal also gains his soul powers--an idea which likewise comes to have reference to other parts of the body, particularly to the specific bearers of the soul, such as the heart and the kidneys. Thus, between fear, on the one hand, and this striving for power, on the other, a conflict of emotions may arise in which the victory leans now to the one and now to the other side. But the striving to appropriate the soul which is contained in the blood tends to become dominant, since the struggle which enkindles the passion for the annihilation of the enemy is also probably the immediate cause for acting in accordance with this belief concerning the blood. To drink the blood of the slain enemy, to consume his heart--these are impulses in which the passion to annihilate the foe and the desire to appropriate his soul powers intensify each other. These ideas, therefore, also probably represent the origin of anthropophagy. Anthropophagy is not at all a prevalent custom among primitive tribes, as is generally believed. On the contrary, it is just among primitive peoples that it seems to be entirely lacking. It appears in its primary forms, as well as in its modifications, only where weapons and other phenomena point to intertribal wars, and the latter do not occur until the beginning of the totemic age. The totemic age, however, is the period which marks the development not only of the idea of the blood soul but of other soul ideas as, well. Accordingly, anthropophagy is, or was until recently, to be found, not among the most primitive peoples such as have not attained to the level of totemism, but precisely within the bounds of totemic culture, and, in part, in connection with its cults. In these cults, man, as well as the animal, becomes an object of sacrifice in the blood offering. Human sacrifice of this sort continues to be practised under conditions as advanced as deity cult. In the latter, anthropophagy even finds a temporary religious sanction, inasmuch as the priest, particularly, is permitted to eat of the flesh of the sacrifice. Of course, the perpetuation and extension of anthropophagy was not due merely to magical motives; even at a very early period, the food impulse was a contributing factor. The very fact of the relatively late origin of the custom, however, makes it highly improbable that the food impulse would, of itself and apart from magical and cult motives, ever have led to it, though such an explanation has been offered, especially as regards the regions of Oceania where animals are scarce.

In the course of religious development, human sacrifice gave way to animal sacrifice, and cult anthropophagy was displaced by the eating of the flesh of the sacrificial animal. Inasmuch as the latter cult was not only more common than the former but everywhere probably existed prior to the rise of human sacrifice, this later period involved a recurrence of earlier conditions. Nevertheless, there were phenomena which clearly indicated the influence of the fear of the blood, and this militated against the appropriation of the blood soul. Of extreme significance, for example, was the injunction of the Israelitic Priests' Code against partaking of the blood of animals. The original motive for drinking the blood became a motive for abstaining from it--a counter-motive, in which the prohibition, as in many other cases, may also indicate an intentional abandonment of an earlier custom. Among the Israelites, as among many other Semitic tribes, the blood of the animals was poured out at the sacrificial altar. That which was denied man was fitly given to the gods, to whom the life of the animal was offered in its blood.

In early ages, reaching down probably into the beginnings of totemic culture, _two_ organ complexes, in addition to the blood, were held, in an especial degree, to be vehicles of the corporeal soul--the kidneys with their surrounding fat, and the external sexual organs. The fact that, in many languages, kidneys and testicles were originally denoted by the same name, indicates that these two organs were probably regarded as essentially related, a view that may possibly be due to the position of the urethra, which apparently connects the kidneys with the sexual organs. The Bible also offers remarkable testimony in connection with the history of the belief that soul powers are resident in the kidneys and their appended organs. In the earlier writings of the Old Testament, the kidneys, as well as the heart, are frequently referred to as bearers of the soul. It is said of God that he searches the heart and tries the reins; and Job, afflicted with sorrow and disease, complains, "He cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare." The sacrificial laws of the Israelites, therefore, state that, in addition to the blood, the kidneys with their surrounding fat are the burnt offering which is most acceptable to God. Rationalistic interpretation has sometimes held that man retains the choice parts of the flesh of the sacrificial animal for himself and devotes the less agreeable parts to the gods. Such motives may have played a rôle when sacrificial conceptions were on the wane. The original condition, however, was no doubt the reverse. The most valuable part belonged to the gods, and this consisted of the organs that were pre-eminently the vehicles of the soul. Though man first aimed to appropriate the soul of the sacrifice for himself, the developed religious cult of a later period made this the privilege of the deity.

It was only in early custom and cult, however, that the kidneys played this rôle. Indeed, as already indicated, it is not improbable that they owe their importance to the fact that their position led to the belief that they are a central organ governing particularly the sexual functions. That this is the case is corroborated by the fact that, in the further development of these ideas of a corporeal soul, the kidneys more and more became secondary to the external sexual organs, and that the latter long continued to retain the dominant importance. Thus, the _phallus cult_, which was prevalent in numerous Oriental countries and which penetrated from these into the Greek and Roman worlds, may doubtless be regarded as the last, as well as the most permanent, expression of those ideas of a central corporeal soul that were originally associated with the kidneys and their surrounding parts. At the outset, the representation of the phallus was held to be not a mere symbol, as it were, but the very vehicle of masculine power. As a productive, creative potency, it was regarded as very especially characteristic of the deity, and, just as the attributes of deities were supposed to be vested in their images, so also was this divine power thought to be communicated to the phallus. In addition to and anteceding these ideas relating to gods, the phallus was held to be the perfect embodiment of demons, particularly of field-demons, who cause the ripening and growth of the seed. The belief in phallus-bearing demons of fertility probably dates back to the totemic age. The cults, however, to which such ideas of the corporeal soul gave rise, reached their mature development only in the following period. It was then that deity belief was elaborated, and it was in connection with the latter that the phallus became a universal magic symbol of creative power. With the decline of these cults, the symbol, according to a law observable in the case of other phenomena also, was again relegated, for the most part, to the more restricted field of its origin.

Vestiges and survivals of the primitive forms of the corporeal soul extend far down into later culture. Nevertheless, the second main form of soul-belief, that of the _psyche_, comes to gain the prepondering influence, at first alongside of the corporeal soul, and then more and more displacing it. In this case, the earliest form of the belief, that in a _breath soul_, proves to be also the most permanent. The idea that the soul leaves the dying person in his last breath, and that the breath, therefore, exercises animating or magical effects, or that in it the soul may pass over from one person to another, is a very common belief. Probably, moreover, it arose independently in many different localities. Some primitive tribes have the custom of holding a child over the bed of a dying person in order that the soul may pass over into it; or, a member of the family stoops over the expiring one to receive his soul. Virgil's _Æneid_ contains an impressive account relating that upon Dido's death her sister attempted to catch the soul, which, as she assumed, roams about as an aerial form, while she also carefully removed the blood from the wound in order that the soul might not remain within the body. Thus, the blood soul and the breath soul are here closely connected.

In the further destinies of the breath soul, a particularly important incident is its passage into some swiftly moving animal, perhaps a bird hovering in the air, or, again, some creeping animal, such as the lizard or the snake, whose manner of movement arouses uncanny fear. It is these animals, chiefly, that are regarded as metamorphoses of the psyche. Remarkable evidence that the bird and snake in combination were regarded as vehicles of the soul may be found in the pictorial representations of the natives of northwestern America. The escape of the soul from the body is here portrayed as the departure of a snake from the mouth of a human figure seated in a birdlike ship. This picture combines three ideas, which occur elsewhere also, either singly or in combination, in connection with the wandering of the soul. There is, in the first place, the soul-bird; then the soul-ship, readily suggested by association with a flying bird, and recurring in the ship which was thought in ancient times to cross the Styx of the underworld; finally, the soul-snake, representing the soul in the act of leaving the body. This very common idea of the soul as a snake and, by further association, its conception as a fish, may be ascribed not only to the fear aroused by the creeping snake, but also to the circumstances attending the decomposition of the corpse. The worm which creeps out of the decaying body is directly perceived as a snake. Thus, corporeal soul and psyche are again united; in this union they mediate the idea of an embodied soul, which, in a certain sense, of course, is a psyche retransformed into a corporeal soul.

With the appearance of these ideas of an embodied soul, totemism merges directly into soul-belief. Under the influence of the remaining elements of totemism, however, the soul-ideas come to be associated with more and more animals. The soul is no longer held to be embodied merely in the earliest soul-animals--bird, snake, and lizard--but other animals are added, such particularly as those of the chase, which have a closer relation to the life of man. Following upon this change are also the further developments mentioned above. When interest in the production of vegetable food is added to that of the chase, the same ideas become associated with plants. Their sprouting and growth continue to suggest soul-powers; and, even though the ancestor idea characteristic of the animal totem cannot attain to prominence because of the greater divergence of plants from man, this very fact causes the phenomena of sprouting and growth all the more to bring into emphasis the magical character of these vegetable totems. Hence it is mainly the plant totem that gives rise to those ceremonies and cult festivals which are designed for the magical increase of the totems. With the wane of the soul-beliefs connected with animal totemism, it is not only plants to which demoniacal powers are ascribed. Even inanimate objects come to be associated with magical ideas, either because of certain peculiar characteristics or because of the function which they perform. It is in this way that the introduction of the plant into the realm of totemic ideas mediates the transition from the totem to the _fetish_. On the other hand, as the totem animal comes more and more to be an ancestral animal, and as the memory of human forefathers gains greater prominence with the rise of culture, the animal ancestor changes into the _human ancestor_. Thus, fetishism and ancestor worship are logical developments of totemism. Though differing in tendency, they nevertheless constitute developmental forms which are not at all mutually exclusive, but which may become closely related, just as is the case with the animal and the plant totems from which they have proceeded.