Chapter VIII: The Idea of the Soul (1)

In the preceding chapters we have been studying the fundamental principles of the totemic religion. We have seen that no idea of soul or spirit or mythical personality is to be found among these. Yet, even if the idea of spiritual beings is not at the foundation of totemism or, consequently, of religious thought in general, still, there is no religion where this notion is not met with. So it is important to see how it is formed. To make sure that it is the product of a secondary formation, we must discover the way in which it is derived from the more essential conceptions which we have just described and explained.

Among the various spiritual beings, there is one which should receive our attention first of all because it is the prototype after which the others have been constructed: this is the soul.

I

Just as there is no known society without a religion, so there exist none, howsoever crudely organized they may be, where we do not find a whole system of collective representations concerning the soul, its origin and its destiny. So far as we are able to judge from the data of ethnology, the idea of the soul seems to have been contemporaneous with humanity itself, and it seems to have had all of its essential characteristics so well formulated at the very outset that the work of the more advanced religions and philosophy has been practically confined to refining it, while adding nothing that is really fundamental. In fact, all the Australian societies admit that every human body shelters an interior being, the principle of the life which animates it: this is the soul. It sometimes happens, it is true, that women form an exception to this general rule: there are tribes where they are believed to have no souls.[739] If Dawson is to be believed, it is the same with young children in the tribes that he has observed.[740] But these are exceptional and probably late cases;[741] the last one even seems to be suspect and may well be due to an erroneous interpretation of the facts.[742]

It is not easy to determine the idea which the Australian makes of the soul, because it is so obscure and floating; but we should not be surprised at this. If someone asked our own contemporaries, or even those of them who believe most firmly in the existence of the soul, how they represented it, the replies that he would receive would not have much more coherence and precision. This is because we are dealing with a very complex notion, into which a multitude of badly analysed impressions enter, whose elaboration has been carried on for centuries, though men have had no clear consciousness of it. Yet from this come the most essential, though frequently contradictory, characteristics by which it is defined.

In some cases they tell us that it has the external appearance of the body.[743] But sometimes it is also represented as having the size of a grain of sand; its dimensions are so reduced that it can pass through the smallest crevices or the finest tissues.[744] We shall also see that it is represented in the appearance of animals. This shows that its form is essentially inconsistent and undetermined;[745] it varies from one moment to another with the demands of circumstances or according to the exigencies of the myth and the rite. The substance out of which it is made is no less indefinable. It is not without matter, for it has a form, howsoever vague this may be. And in fact, even during this life, it has physical needs: it eats, and inversely, it may be eaten. Sometimes it leaves the body, and in the course of its travels it occasionally nourishes itself on foreign souls.[746] After it has once been completely freed from the organism, it is thought to lead a life absolutely analogous to the one it led in this world; it eats, drinks, hunts, etc.[747] When it flutters among the branches of trees, it causes rustlings and crackings which even profane ears hear.[748] But at the same time, it is believed to be invisible to the vulgar.[749] It is true that magicians or old men have the faculty of seeing souls; but it is in virtue of special powers which they owe either to age or to a special training that they perceive things which escape our senses. According to Dawson, ordinary individuals enjoy the same privilege at only one moment of their existence: when they are on the eve of a premature death. Therefore this quasi-miraculous vision is considered a sinister omen. Now, invisibility is generally considered one of the signs of spirituality. So the soul is conceived as being immaterial to a certain degree, for it does not affect the senses in the way bodies do: it has no bones, as the tribes of the Tully River say.[750] In order to conciliate all these opposed characteristics, they represent it as made of some infinitely rare and subtle matter, like something ethereal,[751] and comparable to a shadow or breath.[752]

It is distinct and independent of the body, for during this life it can leave it at any moment. It does leave it during sleep, fainting spells, etc.[753] It may even remain absent for some time without entailing death; however, during these absences life is weakened and even stops if the soul does not return home.[754] But it is especially at death that this distinction and independence manifest themselves with the greatest clarity. While the body no longer exists and no visible traces of it remain, the soul continues to live: it leads an autonomous existence in another world.

But howsoever real this duality may be, it is in no way absolute. It would show a grave misunderstanding to represent the body as a sort of habitat in which the soul resides, but with which it has only external relations. Quite on the contrary, it is united to it by the closest bonds; it is separable from it only imperfectly and with difficulty. We have already seen that it has, or at least is able to have, its external aspect. Consequently, everything that hurts the one hurts the other; every wound of the body spreads to the soul.[755] It is so intimately associated with the life of the organism that it grows with it and decays with it. This is why a man who has attained a certain age enjoys privileges refused to young men; it is because the religious principle within him has acquired greater force and efficacy as he has advanced in life. But when senility sets in, and the old man is no longer able to take a useful part in the great religious ceremonies in which the vital interests of the tribe are concerned, this respect is no longer accorded to him. It is thought that weakness of the body is communicated to the soul. Having the same powers no longer, he no longer has a right to the same prestige.[756]

There is not only a close union of soul and body, but there is also a partial confusion of the two. Just as there is something of the body in the soul, since it sometimes reproduces its form, so there is something of the soul in the body. Certain regions and certain products of the organism are believed to have a special affinity with it: such is the case with the heart, the breath, the placenta,[757] the blood,[758] the shadow,[759] the liver, the fat of the liver, the kidneys,[760] etc. These various material substrata are not mere habitations of the soul; they are the soul itself seen from without. When blood flows, the soul escapes with it. The soul is not in the breath; it is the breath. It and the part of the body where it resides are only one. Hence comes the conception according to which a man has a number of souls. Being dispersed in various parts of the organism, the soul is differentiated and broken up into fragments. Each organ has individualized, as it were, the portion of the soul which it contains, and which has thus become a distinct entity. The soul of the heart could not be that of the breath or the shadow or the placenta. While they are all related, still they are to be distinguished, and even have different names.[761]

Moreover, even if the soul is localized especially in certain parts of the organism, it is not absent from the others. In varying degrees, it is diffused through the whole body, as is well shown by the funeral rites. After the last breath has been expired and the soul is believed to be gone, it seems as though it should profit by the liberty thus regained, to move about at will and to return as quickly as possible to its real home, which is elsewhere. Nevertheless, it remains near to the corpse; the bond uniting them has been loosened, but not broken. A whole series of special rites are necessary to induce it to depart definitely. It is invited to go by gestures and significant movements.[762] The way is laid open for it, and outlets are arranged so that it can go more easily.[763] This is because it has not left the body entirely; it was too closely united to it to break away all at once. Hence comes the very frequent rite of funeral anthropophagy; the flesh of the dead is eaten because it is thought to contain a sacred principle, which is really nothing more than the soul.[764] In order to drive it out definitely, the flesh is melted, either by submitting it to the heat of the sun,[765] or to that of an artificial fire.[766] The soul departs with the liquids which result. But even the dry bones still retain some part of it. Therefore they can be used as sacred objects or instruments of magic;[767] or if someone wishes to give complete liberty to the principle which they contain, he breaks these.[768]

But a moment does arrive when the final separation is accomplished; the liberated soul takes flight. But by nature it is so intimately associated with the body that this removal cannot take place without a profound change in its condition. So it takes a new name also.[769] Although keeping all the distinctive traits of the individual whom it animated, his humours and his good and bad qualities,[770] still it has become a new being. From that moment a new existence commences for it.

It goes to the land of souls. This land is conceived differently by different tribes; sometimes different conceptions are found existing side by side in the same society. For some, it is situated under the earth, where each totemic group has its part. This is at the spot where the first ancestors, the founders of the clan, entered the ground at a certain time, and where they live since their death. In the subterranean world there is a geographical disposition of the dead corresponding to that of the living. There, the sun always shines and rivers flow which never run dry. Such is the conception which Spencer and Gillen attribute to the central tribes, Arunta,[771] Warramunga,[772] etc. It is found again among the Wotjobaluk.[773] In other places, all the dead, no matter what their totems may have been, are believed to live together in the same place, which is more or less vaguely localized as beyond the sea, in an island,[774] or on the shores of a lake.[775] Sometimes, finally, it is into the sky, beyond the clouds, that the souls are thought to go. "There," says Dawson, "there is a delectable land, abounding in kangaroos and game of every sort, where men lead a happy life. Souls meet again there and recognize one another."[776] It is probable that certain of the features of this picture have been taken from the paradise of the Christian missionaries;[777] but the idea that souls, or at least some souls, enter the skies after death appears to be quite indigenous; for it is found again in other parts of the continent.[778]

In general, all the souls meet the same fate and lead the same life. However, a different treatment is sometimes accorded them based on the way they have conducted themselves upon earth, and we can see the first outlines of these two distinct and even opposed compartments into which the world to come will later be divided. The souls of those who have excelled, during life, as hunters, warriors, dancers, etc., are not confounded with the common horde of the others; a special place is granted to them.[779] Sometimes, this is the sky.[780] Strehlow even says that according to one myth, the souls of the wicked are devoured by dreadful spirits, and destroyed.[781] Nevertheless, these conceptions always remain very vague in Australia;[782] they begin to have a clarity and determination only in the more advanced societies, such as those of America.[783]

II

Such are the beliefs relative to the soul and its destiny, in their most primitive form, and reduced to their most essential traits. We must now attempt to explain them. What is it that has been able to lead men into thinking that there are two beings in them, one of which possesses these very special characteristics which we have just enumerated? To find the reply to this question, let us begin by seeking the origin attributed to this spiritual principle by the primitive himself: if it is well analysed, his own conception will put us on the way towards the solution.

Following out the method which we have set before ourselves, we shall study these ideas in a determined group of societies where they have been observed with an especial precision; these are the tribes of Central Australia. Though not narrow, the area of our observations will be limited. But there is good reason for believing that these same ideas are quite generally held, in various forms, even outside of Australia. It is also to be noted that the idea of the soul, as it is found among these central tribes, does not differ specifically from the one found in other tribes; it has the same essential characteristics everywhere. As one effect always has the same cause, we may well think that this idea, which is everywhere the same, does not result from one cause here and another there. So the origin which we shall be led to attribute to it as a result of our study of these particular tribes with which we are going to deal, ought to be equally true for the others. These tribes will give us a chance to make an experiment, as it were, whose results, like those of every well-made experiment, are susceptible of generalization. The homogeneity of the Australian civilization would of itself be enough to justify this generalization; but we shall be careful to verify it afterwards with facts taken from other peoples, both in Australia and America.

As the conceptions which are going to furnish us with the basis of our demonstration have been reported in different terms by Spencer and Gillen on the one hand and Strehlow on the other, we must give these two versions one after the other. We shall see that when they are well understood, they differ in form more than in matter, and that they both have the same sociological significance.

According to Spencer and Gillen, the souls which, in each generation, come to animate the bodies of newly-born children, are not special and original creations; all these tribes hold that there is a definite stock of souls, whose number cannot be augmented at all,[784] and which reincarnate themselves periodically. When an individual dies, his soul quits the body in which it dwelt, and after the mourning is accomplished, it goes to the land of the souls; but after a certain length of time, it returns to incarnate itself again, and these reincarnations are the cause of conception and birth. At the beginning of things, it was these fundamental souls which animated the first ancestors, the founders of the clan. At an epoch, beyond which the imagination does not go and which is considered the very beginning of time, there were certain beings who were not derived from any others. For this reason, the Arunta call them the _Altjirangamitjina_,[785] the uncreated ones, those who exist from all eternity, and, according to Spencer and Gillen, they give the name _Alcheringa_[786] to the period when these fabulous beings are thought to have lived. Being organized in totemic clans just as the men of to-day are, they passed their time in travels, in the course of which they accomplished all sorts of prodigious actions, the memory of which is preserved in the myths. But a moment arrived when this terrestrial life came to a close; singly or in groups, they entered into the earth. But their souls live for ever; they are immortal. They even continue to frequent the places where the existence of their former hosts came to an end. Moreover, owing to the memories attached to them, these places have a sacred character; it is here that the oknanikilla are located, the sorts of sanctuaries where the churinga of the clan is kept, and the centres of the different totemic cults. When one of the souls which wander about these sanctuaries enters into the body of a woman, the result is a conception and later a birth.[787] So each individual is considered as a new appearance of a determined ancestor: it is this ancestor himself, come back in a new body and with new features. Now, what were these ancestors?

In the first place, they were endowed with powers infinitely superior to those possessed by men to-day, even the most respected old men and the most celebrated magicians. They are attributed virtues which we may speak of as miraculous: "They could travel on, or above, or beneath the ground; by opening a vein in the arm, each of them could flood whole tracts of country or cause level plains to arise; in rocky ranges they could make pools of water spring into existence, or could make deep gorges and gaps through which to traverse the ranges, and where they planted their sacred poles (nurtunja), there rocks or trees arose to mark the spot."[788] It is they who gave the earth the form it has at present. They created all sorts of beings, both men and animals. They are nearly gods. So their souls also have a divine character. And since the souls of men are these ancestral souls reincarnated in the human body, these are sacred beings too.

In the second place, these ancestors were not men in the proper sense of the word, but animals or vegetables, or perhaps mixed beings in which the animal or vegetable element predominated: "In the Alcheringa," say Spencer and Gillen, "lived ancestors who, in the native mind, are so intimately associated with the animals or plants the name of which they bear that an Alcheringa man of, say, the kangaroo totem may sometimes be spoken of either as a man-kangaroo or a kangaroo-man. The identity of the human individual is often sunk in that of the animal or plant from which he is supposed to have originated."[789] Their immortal souls necessarily have the same nature; in them, also, the human element is wedded to the animal element, with a certain tendency for the latter to predominate over the former. So they are made of the same substance as the totemic principle, for we know that the special characteristic of this is to present this double nature, and to synthesize and confound the two realms in itself.

Since no other souls than these exist, we reach the conclusion that, in a general way, the soul is nothing other than the totemic principle incarnate in each individual. And there is nothing to surprise us in this derivation. We already know that this principle is immanent in each of the members of the clan. But in penetrating into these individuals, it must inevitably individualize itself. Because the consciousnesses, of which it becomes thus an integral part, differ from each other, it differentiates itself according to their image; since each has its own physiognomy, it takes a distinct physiognomy in each. Of course it remains something outside of and foreign to the man, but the portion of it which each is believed to possess cannot fail to contract close affinities with the particular subject in which it resides; it becomes his to a certain extent. Thus it has two contradictory characteristics, but whose coexistence is one of the distinctive features of the notion of the soul. To-day, as formerly, the soul is what is best and most profound in ourselves, and the pre-eminent part of our being; yet it is also a passing guest which comes from the outside, which leads in us an existence distinct from that of the body, and which should one day regain its entire independence. In a word, just as society exists only in and through individuals, the totemic principle exists only in and through the individual consciousnesses whose association forms the clan. If they did not feel it in them it would not exist; it is they who put it into things. So it must of necessity be divided and distributed among them. Each of these fragments is a soul.

A myth which is found in a rather large number of the societies of the centre, and which, moreover, is only a particular form of the preceding ones, shows even better that this is really the matter out of which the idea of the soul is made. In these tribes, tradition puts the origin of each clan, not in a number of ancestors, but in only two,[790] or even in one.[791] This unique being, as long as he remained single, contained the totemic principle within him integrally, for at this moment there was nothing to which this principle could be communicated. Now, according to this same tradition, all the human souls which exist, both those which now animate the bodies of men and those which are at present unemployed, being held in reserve for the future, have issued from this unique personage; they are made of his substance. While travelling over the surface of the ground, or moving about, or shaking himself, he made them leave his body and planted them in the various places he is believed to have passed over. Is this not merely a symbolic way of saying that they are parts of the totemic divinity?

But this conclusion presupposes that the tribes of which we have just been speaking admit the doctrine of reincarnation. Now according to Strehlow, this doctrine is unknown to the Arunta, the society which Spencer and Gillen have studied the longest and the best. If, in this particular case, these two observers have misunderstood things to such an extent, their whole testimony would become suspect. So it is important to determine the actual extent of this divergence.

According to Strehlow, after the soul has once been definitely freed from the body by the rites of mourning, it never reincarnates itself again. It goes off to the isles of the dead, where it passes its days in sleeping and its nights in dancing, until it returns again to earth. Then it comes back into the midst of the living and plays the rôle of protecting genius to the young sons, or if such are lacking, to the grandsons whom the dead man left behind him; it enters their body and aids their growth. It remains thus in the midst of its former family for a year or two, after which it goes back to the land of the souls. But after a certain length of time it goes away once more to make another sojourn upon earth, which is to be the last. A time will come when it must take up again, and with no hope of return this time, the route to the isles of the dead; then, after various incidents, the details of which it is useless to relate, a storm will overtake it, in the course of which it will be struck by a flash of lightning. Thus its career is definitely terminated.[792]

So it cannot reincarnate itself; nor can conceptions and births be due to the reincarnation of souls which periodically commence new existences in new bodies. It is true that Strehlow, as Spencer and Gillen, declares that for the Arunta commerce of the sexes is in no way the determining condition of generation,[793] which is considered the result of mystic operations, but different from the ones which the other observers told us about. It takes place in one or the other of the two following ways:

Wherever an ancestor of the Alcheringa[794] times is believed to have entered into the ground, there is either a stone or a tree representing his body. The tree or rock which has this mystic relation with the departed hero is called _nanja_ according to Spencer and Gillen,[795] or _ngarra_ according to Strehlow.[796] Sometimes it is a water-hole which is believed to have been formed in this way. Now, on each of these trees or rocks and in each of these water-holes, there live embryo children, called _ratapa_,[797] which belong to exactly the same totem as the corresponding ancestor. For example, on a gum-tree representing an ancestor of the kangaroo totem there are ratapa, all of which have the kangaroo as their totem. If a woman happens to pass it, and she is of the matrimonial class to which the mothers of these ratapa should belong,[798] one of them may enter her through the hip. The woman learns of this act by the characteristic pains which are the first symptoms of pregnancy. The child thus conceived will of course belong to the same totem as the ancestor upon whose mystical body he resided before becoming incarnate.[799]

In other cases, the process employed is slightly different: the ancestor himself acts in person. At a given moment he leaves his subterranean retreat and throws on to the passing woman a little churinga of a special form, called _namatuna_.[800] The churinga enters the body of the woman and takes a human form there, while the ancestor disappears again into the earth.[801]

These two ways of conception are believed to be equally frequent. The features of the child will reveal the manner in which he was conceived; according to whether his face is broad or long, they say that he is the incarnation of a ratapa or a namatuna. Beside these two means of fecundation, Strehlow places a third, which, however, is much more rare. After his namatuna has penetrated into the body of the woman, the ancestor himself enters her and voluntarily submits to a new birth. So in this case, the conception is due to a real reincarnation of the ancestor. But this is very exceptional, and when a man who has been conceived thus dies, the ancestral soul which animated him goes away, just like ordinary souls, to the isles of the dead where, after the usual delays, it is definitely annihilated. So it cannot undergo any further reincarnations.[802]

Such is the version of Strehlow.[803] In the opinion of this author it is radically opposed to that of Spencer and Gillen. But in reality it differs only in the letter of the formulæ and symbols, while in both cases we find the same mythical theme in slightly different forms.

In the first place, all the observers agree that every conception is the result of an incarnation. Only according to Strehlow, that which is incarnated is not a soul but a ratapa or a namatuna. But what is a ratapa? Strehlow says that it is a complete embryo, made up of a soul and a body. But the soul is always represented in material forms; it sleeps, dances, hunts, eats, etc. So it, too, has a corporal element. Inversely, the ratapa is invisible to ordinary men; no one sees it as it enters the body of the woman;[804] this is equivalent to saying that it is made of a matter quite similar to that of the soul. So it hardly seems possible to differentiate the two clearly in this regard. In reality, these are mythical beings which are obviously conceived after the same model. Schulze calls them the souls of children.[805] Moreover, the ratapa, just like the soul, sustains the closest relations with the ancestor of which the sacred tree or rock is the materialized form. It is of the same totem as this ancestor, of the same phratry and of the same matrimonial class.[806] Its place in the social organization of the tribe is the very one that its ancestor is believed to have held before it. It bears the same name,[807] which is a proof that these two personalities are at least very closely related to one another.

But there is more than this; this relationship even goes as far as a complete identification. In fact, it is on the mystic body of the ancestor that the ratapa is formed; it comes from this; it is like a detached portion of it. So it really is a part of the ancestor which penetrates into the womb of the mother and which becomes the child. Thus we get back to the conception of Spencer and Gillen: birth is due to the reincarnation of an ancestral personage. Of course it is not the entire person that is reincarnated, it is only an emanation from him. But this difference has only a secondary interest, for when a sacred being divides and duplicates itself, all of its essential characteristics are to be found again in each of the fragments into which it is broken up. So really the Alcheringa ancestor is entire in each part of himself which becomes a ratapa.[808]

The second mode of conception distinguished by Strehlow has the same significance. In fact, the churinga, and more especially the particular churinga that is called the namatuna, is considered a transformation of the ancestor; according to Strehlow,[809] it is his body, just as the nanja tree is. In other words, the personality of the ancestor, his churinga and his nanja tree, are sacred things, inspiring the same sentiments and to which the same religious value is attributed. So they transmute themselves into one another: in the spot where an ancestor lost his churinga, a sacred tree or rock has come out of the soil, just the same as in those places where he entered the ground himself.[810] So there is a mythological equivalence of a person of the Alcheringa and his churinga; consequently, when the former throws a namatuna into the body of a woman, it is as if he entered into it himself. In fact, we have seen that sometimes he does enter in person after the namatuna; according to other stories he precedes it; it might be said that he opens up the way for it.[811] The fact that these two themes exist side by side in the same myth completes the proof that one is only a doublet of the other.

Moreover, in whatever way the conception may have taken place, there can be no doubt that each individual is united to some determined ancestor of the Alcheringa by especially close bonds. In the first place, each man has his appointed ancestor; two persons cannot have the same one simultaneously. In other words, a being of the Alcheringa never has more than one representative among the living.[812] More than that, the one is only an aspect of the other. In fact, as we already know, the churinga left by the ancestor expresses his personality; if we adopt the interpretation of Strehlow, which, perhaps, is the more satisfactory, we shall say that it is his body. But this same churinga is related in the same way to the individual who is believed to have been conceived under the influence of this ancestor, and who is the fruit of his mystic works. When the young initiate is introduced into the sanctuary of the clan, he is shown the churinga of his ancestor, and someone says to him, "You are this body; you are the same thing as this."[813] So, in Strehlow's own expression, the churinga is "the body common to the individual and his ancestor."[814] Now if they are to have the same body it is necessary that on one side at least their two personalities be confounded. Strehlow recognizes this explicitly, moreover, when he says, "By the tjurunga (churinga) the individual is united to his personal ancestor."[815]

So for Strehlow as well as for Spencer and Gillen, there is a mystic, religious principle in each new-born child, which emanates from an ancestor of the Alcheringa. It is this principle which forms the essence of each individual, therefore it is his soul, or in any case the soul is made of the same matter and the same substance. Now it is only upon this one fundamental fact that we have relied in determining the nature and origin of the idea of the soul. The different metaphors by means of which it may have been expressed have only a secondary interest for us.[816]

Far from contradicting the data upon which our theory rests, the recent observations of Strehlow bring new proofs confirming it. Our reasoning consisted in inferring the totemic nature of the human soul from the totemic nature of the ancestral soul, of which the former is an emanation and a sort of replica. Now, some of the new facts which we owe to Strehlow show this character of both even more categorically than those we had at our disposal before do. In the first place, Strehlow, like Spencer and Gillen, insists on "the intimate relations uniting each ancestor to an animal, to a plant, or to some other natural object." Some of these Altjirangamitjina (these are Spencer and Gillen's men of the Alcheringa) "should," he says, "be manifested directly as animals; others take the animal form in a way."[817] Even now they are constantly transforming themselves into animals.[818] In any case, whatever external aspect they may have, "the special and distinctive qualities of the animal clearly appear in each of them." For example, the ancestors of the Kangaroo clan eat grass just like real kangaroos, and flee before the hunter; those of the Emu clan run and feed like emus,[819] etc. More than that, those ancestors who had a vegetable as totem become this vegetable itself on death.[820] Moreover, this close kinship of the ancestor and the totemic being is so keenly felt by the natives that it is shown even in their terminology. Among the Arunta, the child calls the totem of his mother, which serves him as a secondary totem,[821] _altjira_. As filiation was at first in the uterine line, there was once a time when each individual had no other totem than that of his mother; so it is very probable that the term _altjira_ then designated the real totem. Now this clearly enters into the composition of the word which means great ancestor, _altjirangamitjina_.[822]

The idea of the totem and that of the ancestor are even so closely kindred that they sometimes seem to be confounded. Thus, after speaking of the totem of the mother, or _altjira_, Strehlow goes on to say, "This altjira appears to the natives in dreams and gives them warnings, just as it takes information concerning them to their sleeping friends."[823] This _altjira_, which speaks and which is attached to each individual personally, is evidently an ancestor; yet it is also an incarnation of the totem. A certain text in Roth, which speaks of invocations addressed to the totem, should certainly be interpreted in this sense.[824] So it appears that the totem is sometimes represented in the mind in the form of a group of ideal beings or mythical personages who are more or less indistinct from the ancestors. In a word, the ancestors are the fragments of the totem.[825]

But if the ancestor is so readily confused with the totemic being, the individual soul, which is so near the ancestral soul, cannot do otherwise. Moreover, this is what actually results from the close union of each man with his churinga. In fact, we know that the churinga represents the personality of the individual who is believed to have been born of it;[826] but it also expresses the totemic animal. When the civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, presented each member of the Kangaroo clan with his personal totem, he spoke as follows: "Here is the body of a kangaroo."[827] Thus the churinga is at once the body of the ancestor, of the individual himself and of the totemic animal; so, according to a strong and very just expression of Strehlow, these three beings form a "solid unity."[828] They are almost equivalent and interchangeable terms. This is as much as to say that they are thought of as different aspects of one and the same reality, which is also defined by the distinctive attributes of the totem. Their common essence is the totemic principle. The language itself expresses this identity. The word ratapa, and the _aratapi_ of the Loritja language, designate the mythical embryo which is detached from the ancestor and which becomes the child; now these same words also designate the totem of this same child, such as is determined by the spot where the mother believes that she conceived.[829]

III

Up to the present we have studied the doctrine of reincarnation only in the tribes of Central Australia; therefore the bases upon which our inference rests may be deemed too narrow. But in the first place, for the reasons which we have pointed out, the experiment holds good outside of the societies which we have observed directly. Also, there are abundant facts proving that the same or analogous conceptions are found in the most diverse parts of Australia or, at least, have left very evident traces there. They are found even in America.

Howitt mentions them among the Dieri of South Australia.[830] The word _Mura-mura_, which Gason translates with Good Spirit and which he thinks expresses a belief in a god creator,[831] is really a collective word designating the group of ancestors placed by the myth at the beginning of the tribe. They continue to exist to-day as formerly. "They are believed to live in trees, which are sacred for this reason." Certain irregularities of the ground, rocks and springs are identified with these Mura-mura,[832] which consequently resemble the Altjirangamitjina of the Arunta in a singular way. The Kurnai of Gippsland, though retaining only vestiges of totemism, also believe in the existence of ancestors called _Muk-Kurnai_, and which they think of as beings intermediate between men and animals.[833] Among the Nimbaldi, Taplin has observed a theory of conception similar to that which Strehlow attributes to the Arunta.[834] We find this belief in reincarnation held integrally by the Wotjobaluk in Victoria. "The spirits of the dead," says Mathews, "assemble in the _miyur_[835] of their respective clans; they leave these to be born again in human form when a favourable occasion presents itself."[836] Mathews even affirms that "the belief in the reincarnation or transmigration of souls is strongly enrooted in all the Australian tribes."[837]

If we pass to the northern regions we find the pure doctrine of the Arunta among the Niol-Niol in the north-west; every birth is attributed to the incarnation of a pre-existing soul, which introduces itself into the body of a woman.[838] In northern Queensland myths, differing from the preceding only in form, express exactly the same ideas. Among the tribes on the Pennefather River it is believed that every man has two souls: the one, called _ngai_, resides in the heart; the other, called _choi_, remains in the placenta. Soon after birth the placenta is buried in a consecrated place. A particular genius, named Anje-a, who has charge of the phenomena of procreation, comes to get this _choi_ and keeps it until the child, being grown up, is married. When the time comes to give him a son, Anje-a takes a bit of the choi of this man, places it in the embryo he is making, and inserts it into the womb of the mother. So it is out of the soul of the father that that of the child is made. It is true that the child does not receive the paternal soul integrally at first, for the _ngai_ remains in the heart of the father as long as he lives. But when he dies the _ngai_, being liberated, also incarnates itself in the bodies of the children; if there are several children it is divided equally among them. Thus there is a perfect spiritual continuity between the generations; it is the same soul which is transmitted from a father to his children and from these to their children, and this unique soul, always remaining itself in spite of its successive divisions and subdivisions, is the one which animated the first ancestor at the beginning of all things.[839] Between this theory and the one held by the central tribes there is only one difference of any importance; this is that the reincarnation is not the work of the ancestors themselves but that of a special genius who takes charge of this function professionally. But it seems probable that this genius is the product of a syncretism which has fused the numerous figures of the first ancestors into one single being. This hypothesis is at least made probable by the fact that the words Anje-a and Anjir are evidently very closely related; now the second designates the first man, the original ancestor from whom all men are descended.[840]

These same ideas are found again among the Indian tribes of America. Krauss says that among the Tlinkit, the souls of the departed are believed to come back to earth and introduce themselves into the bodies of the pregnant women of their families. "So when a woman dreams, during pregnancy, of some deceased relative, she believes that the soul of this latter has penetrated into her. If the young child has some characteristic mark which the dead man had before, they believe that it is the dead man himself come back to earth, and his name is given to the child."[841] This belief is also general among the Haida. It is the shaman who reveals which relative it was who reincarnated himself in the child and what name should consequently be given to him.[842] Among the Kwakiutl it is believed that the latest member of a family who died comes back to life in the person of the first child to be born in that family.[843] It is the same with the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Tinneh, and many other tribes of the United States.[844]

The universality of these conceptions extends, of course, to the conclusion which we have deduced from them, that is, to the explanation of the idea of the soul which we have proposed. Its general acceptability is also proved by the following facts.

We know[845] that each individual contains within him something of that anonymous force which is diffused in the sacred species; he is a member of this species himself. But as an empirical and visible being, he is not, for, in spite of the symbolic designs and marks with which he decorates his body, there is nothing in him to suggest the form of an animal or plant. So it must be that there is another being in him, in whom he recognizes himself, but whom he represents in the form of an animal or vegetable species. Now is it not evident that this double can only be the soul, since the soul is, of itself, already a double of the subject whom it animates? The justification of this identification is completed by the fact that the organs where the fragment of the totemic principle contained in each individual incarnates itself the most eminently are also those where the soul resides. This is the case with the blood. The blood contains something of the nature of the totem, as is proved by the part it takes in the totemic ceremonies.[846] But at the same time, the blood is one of the seats of the soul; or rather, it is the soul itself, seen from without. When blood flows, life runs out and, in the same process, the soul escapes. So the soul is confused with the sacred principle which is imminent in the blood.

Regarding matters from another point of view, if our explanation is well-founded, the totemic principle, in penetrating into the individual as we suppose, should retain a certain amount of autonomy there, since it is quite distinct from the subject in whom it is incarnated. Now this is just what Howitt claims to have observed among the Yuin: "That in this tribe the totem is thought to be in some way part of a man is clearly seen by the case of Umbara, before mentioned, who told me that, many years ago, someone of the Lace-lizard totem sent it while he was asleep, and that it went down his throat and almost ate his totem, which was in his breast, so that he nearly died."[847] So it is quite true that the totem is broken up in individualizing itself and that each of the bits thus detached plays the part of a spirit or soul residing in the body.[848]

But there are other more clearly demonstrative facts. If the soul is only the totemic principle individualized, it should have, in certain cases at least, rather close relations with the animal or vegetable species whose form is reproduced by the totem. And, in fact, "the Geawe-Gal (a tribe of New South Wales) had a superstition that everyone had within himself an affinity to the spirit of some bird, beast or reptile. Not that he sprung from the creature in any way, but that the spirit which was in him was akin to that of the creature."[849]

There are even cases where the soul is believed to emanate directly from the animal or vegetable serving as totem. Among the Arunta, according to Strehlow, when a woman has eaten a great deal of fruit, it is believed that she will give birth to a child who will have this fruit as totem. If, at the moment when she felt the first tremblings of the child, she was looking at a kangaroo, it is believed that the ratapa of the kangaroo has entered her body and fertilized her.[850] H. Basedow reported the same fact from the Wogait.[851] We know, also, that the ratapa and the soul are almost indistinguishable things. Now, such an origin could never have been attributed to the soul if men did not think that it was made out of the same substances as the plants and animals of the totemic species.

Thus the soul is frequently represented in an animal form. It is known that in inferior societies, death is never considered a natural event, due to the action of purely physical causes; it is generally attributed to the evil workings of some sorcerer. In a large number of Australian societies, in order to determine who is the responsible author of this murder, they work on the principle that the soul of the murderer must inevitably come to visit its victim. Therefore, the body is placed upon a scaffolding; then, the ground under the corpse and all around it is carefully smoothed off so that the slightest mark becomes easily perceptible. They return the next day; if an animal has passed by there during the interval, its tracks are readily recognizable. Their form reveals the species to which it belongs, and from that, they infer the social group of which the guilty man is a member. They say that it is a man of such a class or such a clan,[852] according to whether the animal is the totem of this or that class or clan. So the soul is believed to have come in the form of the totemic animal.

In other societies where totemism has weakened or disappeared, the soul still continues to be thought of in an animal form. The natives of Cape Bedford (North Queensland) believe that the child, at the moment of entering the body of its mother, is a curlew if it is a girl, or a snake if it is a boy.[853] It is only later that it takes a human form. Many of the Indians of North America, says the Prince of Wied, say that they have an animal in their bodies.[854] The Bororo of Brazil represent the soul in the form of a bird, and therefore believe that they are birds of the same variety.[855] In other places, it is thought of as a snake, a lizard, a fly, a bee, etc.[856]

But it is especially after death that this animal nature of the soul is manifested. During life, this characteristic is partially veiled, as it were, by the very form of the human body. But when death has once set it free, it becomes itself again. Among the Omaha, in at least two of the Buffalo clans, it is believed that the souls of the dead go to rejoin the buffalo, their ancestors.[857] The Hopi are divided into a certain number of clans, whose ancestors were animals or beings with animal forms. Now Schoolcraft tells us that they say that at death, they take their original form again; each becomes a bear or deer, according to the clan to which he belongs.[858] Very frequently the soul is believed to reincarnate itself in the body of an animal.[859] It is probably from this that the widely-spread doctrine of metempsychosis was derived. We have already seen how hard pressed Tylor is to account for it.[860] If the soul is an essentially human principle, what could be more curious than this marked predilection which it shows, in so large a number of societies, for the animal form? On the other hand, everything is explained if, by its very constitution, the soul is closely related to the animal, for in that case, when it returns to the animal world at the close of this life, it is only returning to its real nature. Thus the generality of the belief in metempsychosis is a new proof that the constituent elements of the idea of the soul have been taken largely from the animal kingdom, as is presupposed by the theory which we have just set forth.

IV

Thus the notion of the soul is a particular application of the beliefs relative to sacred beings. This is the explanation of the religious character which this idea has had from the moment when it first appeared in history, and which it still retains to-day. In fact, the soul has always been considered a sacred thing; on this ground, it is opposed to the body which is, in itself, profane. It is not merely distinguished from its material envelope as the inside from the outside; it is not merely represented as made out of a more subtle and fluid matter; but more than this, it inspires those sentiments which are everywhere reserved for that which is divine. If it is not made into a god, it is at least regarded as a spark of the divinity. This essential characteristic would be inexplicable if the idea of the soul were only a pre-scientific solution given to the problem of dreams; for there is nothing in the dream to awaken religious emotions, so the cause by which these are explained could not have such a character. But if the soul is a part of the divine substance, it represents something not ourselves that is within us; if it is made of the same mental matter as the sacred beings, it is natural that it should become the object of the same sentiments.