Chapter XXXV: Conclusion (5)

[524] Yet according to one passage in Mathews, the individual totem is hereditary among the Wotjobaluk. "Each individual," he says, "claims some animal, plant or inanimate object as his special and personal totem, which he inherits from his mother" (_Journ. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291). But it is evident that if all the children in the same family had the personal totem of their mother, neither they nor she would really have personal totems at all. Mathews probably means to say that each individual chooses his individual totem from the list of things attributed to the clan of his mother. In fact, we shall see that each clan has its individual totems which are its exclusive property; the members of the other clans cannot make use of them. In this sense, birth determines the personal totem to a certain extent, but to a certain extent only.

[525] Heckewelder, _An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania, in Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society_, I, p. 238.

[526] See Dorsey, _Siouan Cults, XIth Rep._, p. 507; Catlin, _op. cit._, I, p. 37; Miss Fletcher, _The Import of the Totem, in Smithsonian Rep._ for 1897, p. 580; Teit, _The Thompson Indians_, pp. 317-320; Hill Tout, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 144.

[527] But some examples are found. The Kurnai magicians see their personal totems revealed to them in dreams (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 387; _On Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 34). The men of Cape Bedford believe that when an old man dreams of something during the night, this thing is the personal totem of the first person he meets the next day (W. E. Roth, _Superstition, Magic and Medicine_, p. 19). But it is probable that only supplementary and accessory totems are acquired in this way; for in this same tribe another process is used at the moment of initiation, as we said in the text.

[528] In certain tribes of which Roth speaks (_ibid._); also in certain tribes near to Maryborough (Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 147).

[529] Among the Wiradjuri (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 406; _On Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, p. 50).

[530] Roth, _loc. cit._

[531] Haddon, _Head Hunters_, pp. 193 ff.

[532] Among the Wiradjuri (same references as above, n. 4).

[533] In general, it seems as though these transmissions from father to son never take place except when the father is a shaman or a magician. This is also the case among the Thompson Indians (Teit, _The Thompson Indians_, p. 320) and the Wiradjuri, of whom we just spoke.

[534] Hill Tout (_J.A.I._, XXXV, pp. 146 f.). The essential rite is the blowing upon the skin: if this were not done correctly, the transmission would not take place. As we shall presently see, the breath is the soul. When both breathe upon the skin of the animal, the magician and the recipient each exhale a part of their souls, which are thus fused, while partaking at the same time of the nature of the animal, who also takes part in the ceremony in the form of its symbol.

[535] N. W. Thomas, _Further Remarks on Mr. Hill Tout's Views on Totemism_, in _Man_, 1904, p. 85.

[536] Langloh Parker, _op. cit._, pp. 20, 29.

[537] Hill Tout, in _J.A.I._, XXXV, pp. 143 and 146; _ibid._, XXXIV, p. 324.

[538] Parker, _op. cit._, p. 30; Teit, _The Thompson Indians_, p. 320; Hill Tout, in _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 144.

[539] Charlevoix, VI, p. 69.

[540] Hill Tout, _ibid._, p. 145.

[541] Thus at the birth of a child, a tree is planted which is cared for piously; for it is believed that its fate and the child's are united. Frazer, in his _Golden Bough_, gives a number of customs and beliefs translating this same idea in different ways. (Cf. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, II, pp. 1-55.)

[542] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 148 ff.; Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 194, 201 ff.; Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 52. Petrie also mentions it in Queensland (_Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland_, pp. 62 and 118).

[543] _Journ. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 339. Must we see a trace of sexual totemism in the following custom of the Warramunga? When a dead person is buried, a bone of the arm is kept. If it is a woman, the feathers of an emu are added to the bark in which it is wrapped up; if it is a man, the feathers of an owl (_Nor. Tr._, p. 169).

[544] Some cases are cited where each sexual group has two sexual totems; thus the Wurunjerri unite the sexual totems of the Kurnai (the emu-wren and the linnet) to those of the Wotjobaluk (the bat and the _nightjar_ owl). See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 150.

[545] _Totemism_, p. 51.

[546] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 215.

[547] Threlkeld, quoted by Mathews, _loc. cit._, p. 339.

[548] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 148, 151.

[549] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 200-203; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 149; Petrie, _op. cit._, p. 62. Among the Kurnai, these bloody battles frequently terminate in marriages of which they are, as it were, a sort of ritual precursor. Sometimes they are merely plays (Petrie, _loc. cit._).

[550] On this point, see our study on _La Prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines_, in the _Année Sociologique_, I, pp. 44 ff.

[551] However, as we shall presently see (ch. ix), there is a connection between the sexual totems and the great gods.

[552] _Primitive Culture_, I, p. 402; II, p. 237; _Remarks on Totemism, with especial reference to some modern theories concerning it_, in _J.A.I._, XXVIII, and I, New Series, p. 138.

[553] _Het Animisme bij den Volken van den indischen Archipel_, pp. 69-75.

[554] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, II, p. 6.

[555] Tylor, _ibid._, II, pp. 6-18.

[556] G. McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, VII. We are acquainted with this work only through an article by Frazer, _South African Totemism_, published in _Man_, 1901, No. III.

[557] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 32 f., and a personal letter by the same author cited by Tylor in _J.A.I._, XXVIII, p. 147.

[558] This is practically the solution adopted by Wundt (_Mythus und Religion_, II, p. 269).

[559] It is true that according to Tylor's theory, a clan is only an enlarged family; therefore whatever may be said of one of these groups is, in his theory, applicable to the other (_J.A.I._, XXVIII, p. 157). But this conception is exceedingly contestable; only the clan presupposes a totem, which has its whole meaning only in and through the clan.

[560] For this same conception, see A. Lang, _Social Origins_, p. 150.

[561] See above, p. 63.

[562] _Primitive Culture_, II, p. 17.

[563] Wundt, who has revived the theory of Tylor in its essential lines, has tried to explain this mysterious relationship of the man and the animal in a different way: it was the sight of the corpse in decomposition which suggested the idea. When they saw worms coming out of the body, they thought that the soul was incarnate in them and escaped with them. Worms, and by extension, reptiles (snakes, lizards, etc.), were therefore the first animals to serve as receptacles for the souls of the dead, and consequently they were also the first to be venerated and to play the rôle of totems. It was only subsequently that other animals and plants and even inanimate objects were elevated to the same dignity. But this hypothesis does not have even the shadow of a proof. Wundt affirms (_Mythus und Religion_, II, p. 296) that reptiles are much more common totems than other animals; from this, he concludes that they are the most primitive. But we cannot see what justifies this assertion, in the support of which the author cites no facts. The lists of totems gathered either in Australia or in America do not show that any special species of animal has played a preponderating rôle. Totems vary from one region to another with the flora and fauna. Moreover, if the circle of possible totems was so closely limited at first, we cannot see how totemism was able to satisfy the fundamental principle which says that the two clans or sub-clans of a tribe must have two different totems.

[564] "Sometimes men adore certain animals," says Tylor, "because they regard them as the reincarnation of the divine souls of the ancestors; this belief is a sort of bridge between the cult rendered to shades and that rendered to animals" (_Primitive Culture_, II, p. 805, cf. 309, _in fine_). Likewise, Wundt presents totemism as a section of animalism (II, p. 234).

[565] See above, p. 139.

[566] _Introduction to the History of Religions_, pp. 97 ff.

[567] See above, p. 28.

[568] Jevons recognizes this himself, saying, "It is to be presumed that in the choice of an ally he would prefer ... the kind or species which possessed the greatest power" (p. 101).

[569] 2nd Edition, III, pp. 416 ff.; see especially p. 419, n. 5. In more recent articles, to be analysed below, Frazer exposes a different theory, but one which does not, in his opinion, completely exclude the one in the _Golden Bough_.

[570] _The Origin of the Totemism of the Aborigines of British Columbia_, in _Proc. and Transact. of the Roy. Soc. of Canada_, 2nd series, VII, § 2, pp. 3 ff. Also, _Report on the Ethnology of the Statlumh_, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 141. Hill Tout has replies to various objections made to his theory in Vol. IX of the _Transact. of the Roy. Soc. of Canada_, pp. 61-99.

[571] Alice C. Fletcher, _The Import of the Totem_, in _Smithsonian Report for 1897_, pp. 577-586.

[572] _The Kwakiutl Indians_, pp. 323 ff., 336-338, 393.

[573] _The Development of the Clan System_, in _Amer. Anthrop._, N.S. VI, 1904, pp. 477-486.

[574] _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 142.

[575] _Ibid._, p. 150. Cf. _Vth Rep. on the ... N.W. Tribes of Canada_, _B.A.A.S._, p. 24. A myth of this sort has been quoted above.

[576] _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 147.

[577] _Proc. and Transact., etc._, VII, § 2, p. 12.

[578] See _The Golden Bough_,[2] III, pp. 351 ff. Wilken had already pointed out similar facts in _De Simsonsage_, in _De Gids_, 1890; _De Betrekking tusschen Menschen-Dieren en Plantenleven_, in _Indische Gids_, 1884, 1888; _Ueber das Haaropfer_, in _Revue Coloniale Internationale_, 1886-1887.

[579] For example, Eylmann in _Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien_, p. 199.

[580] Mrs. Parker says in connection with the Euahlayi, that if the Yunbeai does "confer exceptional force, it also exposes one to exceptional dangers, for all that hurts the animal wounds the man" (_Euahlayi_, p. 29).

[581] In a later work (_The Origin of Totemism_, in _The Fortnightly Review_, May, 1899, pp. 844-845), Frazer raises this objection himself. "If," he says, "I deposit my soul in a hare, and my brother John (a member of another clan) shoots that hare, roasts and swallows it, what becomes of my soul? To meet this obvious danger it is necessary that John should know the state of my soul, and that, knowing it, he should, whenever he shoots a hare, take steps to extract and restore to me my soul before he cooks and dines upon the animal." Now Frazer believes that he has found this practice in use in Central Australia. Every year, in the course of a ceremony which we shall describe presently, when the animals of the new generation arrive at maturity, the first game to be killed is presented to men of that totem, who eat a little of it; and it is only after this that the men of the other clans may eat it freely. This, says Frazer, is a way of returning to the former the souls they may have confided to these animals. But, aside from the fact that this interpretation of the fact is wholly arbitrary, it is hard not to find this way of escaping the danger rather peculiar. This ceremony is annual; long days may have elapsed since the animal was killed. During all this time, what has become of the soul which it sheltered and the individual whose life depended on this soul? But it is superfluous to insist upon all the inconceivable things in this explanation.

[582] Parker, _op. cit._, p. 20; Howitt, _Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, pp. 34, 49 f.; Hill Tout, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 146.

[583] According to Hill Tout himself, "The gift or transmission (of a personal totem) can only be made or effected by certain persons, such as shamans, or those who possess great mystery power" (_J.A.I._, p. 146). Cf. Langloh Parker, _op. cit._, pp. 29-30.

[584] Cf. Hartland, _Totemism and some recent Discoveries_, in _Folk-Lore_, XI, pp. 59 ff.

[585] Except perhaps the Kurnai; but even in this tribe, there are sexual totems in addition to the personal ones.

[586] Among the Wotjobaluk, the Buandik, the Wiradjuri, the Yuin and the tribes around Maryborough (Queensland). See Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 114-147; Mathews, _J. of the R. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291. Cf. Thomas, _Further Notes on Mr. Hill Tout's Views on Totemism_, in _Man_, 1904, p. 85.

[587] This is the case with the Euahlayi and the facts of personal totemism cited by Howitt, _Australian Medicine Men_, in _J.A.I._, XVI, pp. 34, 35, 49-50.

[588] Miss Fletcher, _A Study of the Omaha Tribe_, in _Smithsonian Report for 1897_, p. 586; Boas, _The Kwakiutl_, p. 322. Likewise, _Vth Rep. of the Committee ... of the N.W. Tribes of the Dominion of Canada, B.A.A.S._, p. 25; Hill Tout, _J.A.I._, XXXV, p. 148.

[589] The proper names of the _gentes_, says Boas in regard to the Tlinkit, are derived from their respective totems, each gens having its special names. The connection between the name and the (collective) totem is not very apparent sometimes, but it always exists (_Vth Rep. of the Committee, etc._, p. 25). The fact that individual forenames are the property of the clan, and characterize it as surely as the totem, is also found among the Iroquois (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 78), the Wyandot (Powell, _Wyandot Government_, in _Ist Rep._, p. 59), the Shawnee, Sauk and Fox (Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 72, 76-77) and the Omaha (Dorsey, _Omaha Sociology_, in _IIIrd Rep._, pp. 227 ff.). Now the relation between forenames and personal totems is already known (see above, p. 157).

[590] "For example," says Mathews, "if you ask a Wartwurt man what totem he is, he will first tell his personal totem, and will probably then enumerate those of his clan" (_Jour. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 291).

[591] _The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines_, in _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1905, pp. 162 ff., and Sept., p. 452. Cf. the same author, _The Origin of Totemism_, _ibid._, April, 1899, p. 648, and May, p. 835. These latter articles, being slightly older, differ from the former on one point, but the foundation of the theory is not essentially different. Both are reproduced in _Totemism and Exogamy_, I, pp. 89-172. In the same sense, see Spencer and Gillen, _Some Remarks on Totemism as applied to Australian Tribes_, in _J.A.I._, 1899, pp. 275-280, and the remarks of Frazer on the same subject, _ibid._, pp. 281-286.

[592] "Perhaps we may ... say that it is but one remove from the original pattern, the absolutely original form of totemism" (_Fortnightly Review_, Sept., 1905. p. 455).

[593] On this point, the testimony of Strehlow (II, p. 52) confirms that of Spencer and Gillen. For a contrary opinion, see A. Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_, p. 190.

[594] A very similar idea had already been expressed by Haddon in his _Address to the Anthropological Section_ (_B.A.A.S._, 1902, pp. 8 ff.). He supposes that at first, each local group had some food which was especially its own. The plant or animal thus serving as the principal item of food became the totem of the group.

All these explanations naturally imply that the prohibitions against eating the totemic animal were not primitive, but were even preceded by a contrary prescription.

[595] _Fortnightly Review_, Sept., 1905, p. 458.

[596] _Fortn. Rev._, May, 1899, p. 835, and July, 1905, pp. 162 ff.

[597] Though considering totemism only a system of magic, Frazer recognizes that the first germs of a real religion are sometimes found in it (_Fortn. Rev._, July, 1905, p. 163). On the way in which he thinks religion developed out of magic, see _The Golden Bough_,^2 I, pp. 75-78.

[598] _Sur le totemisme_, in _Année Soc._, V, pp. 82-121. Cf., on this same question, Hartland, _Presidential Address_, in _Folk-Lore_, XI, p. 75; A. Lang, _A Theory of Arunta Totemism_, in _Man_, 1904, No. 44; _Conceptional Totemism and Exogamy_, _ibid._, 1907, No. 55; _The Secret of the Totem_, ch. iv; N. W. Thomas, _Arunta Totemism_, in _Man_, 1904, No. 68; P. W. Schmidt, _Die Stellung der Aranda unter der Australischen Stämmen_, in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1908, pp. 866 ff.

[599] _Die Aranda_, II, pp. 57-58.

[600] Schulze, _loc cit._, pp. 238-239.

[601] In the conclusion of _Totemism and Exogamy_ (IV, pp. 58-59), Frazer says, it must be admitted, that there is a totemism still more ancient than that of the Arunta: it is the one observed by Rivers in the Banks Islands (_Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia_, in _J.A.I._, XXXIX, p. 172). Among the Arunta it is the spirit of an ancestor who is believed to impregnate the mother; in the Banks Islands, it is the spirit of an animal or vegetable, as the theory supposes. But as the ancestral spirits of the Arunta have an animal or vegetable form, the difference is slight. Therefore we have not mentioned it in our exposition.

[602] _Social Origins_, London, 1903, especially ch. viii, entitled _The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs_, and _The Secret of the Totem_, London, 1905.

[603] In his _Social Origins_ especially, Lang attempts to reconstitute by means of conjecture the form which these primitive groups should have; but it seems superfluous to reproduce these hypotheses, which do not affect his theory of totemism.

[604] On this point, Lang approaches the theory of Julius Pickler (see Pickler and Szomolo, _Der Ursprung des Totemismus. Ein Beitrag zur materialistirchen Geschichtstheorie_, Berlin, 36 pp. in 8vo). The difference between the two hypotheses is that Pickler attributes a higher importance to the pictorial representation of the name than to the name itself.

[605] _Social Origins_, p. 166.

[606] _The Secret of the Totem_, p. 121; cf. pp. 116, 117.

[607] _The Secret of the Totem_, p. 136.

[608] _J.A.I._, Aug., 1888, pp. 53-54; cf. _Nat. Tr._, pp. 89, 488, 498.

[609] "With reverence," as Lang says (_The Secret of the Totem_, p. 111).

[610] Lang adds that these taboos are the basis of exogamic practices.

[611] _Ibid._, p. 125.

[612] However, we have not spoken of the theory of Spencer. But this is because it is only a part of his general theory of the transformation of the ancestor-cult into the nature-cult. As we have described that already, it is not necessary to repeat it.

[613] Except that Lang ascribes another source to the idea of the great gods: as we have already said, he believes that this is due to a sort of primitive revelation. But Lang does not make use of this idea in his explanation of totemism.

[614] For example, in a Kwakiutl myth, an ancestral hero pierces the head of an enemy by pointing a finger at him (Boas, _Vth Rep. on the North. Tribes of Canada_, _B.A.A.S._, 1889, p. 30).

[615] References supporting this assertion will be found on p. 128, n. 1, and p. 320, n. 1.

[616] See Bk. III, ch. ii.

[617] See, for example, Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 482; Schürmann, _The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, _Nat. Tr. of S. Australia_, p. 231.

[618] Frazer has even taken many facts from Samoa which he presents as really totemic (See _Totemism_, pp. 6, 12-15, 24, etc.). It is true that we have charged Frazer with not being critical enough in the choice of his examples, but so many examples would obviously have been impossible if there had not really been important survivals of totemism in Samoa.

[619] See Turner, _Samoa_, p. 21 and ch. iv and v.

[620] Alice Fletcher, _A Study of the Omaha Tribe_, in _Smithsonian Rep._ for 1897, pp. 582 f.

[621] Dorsey, _Siouan Sociology_, in _XVth Rep._, p. 238.

[622] _Ibid._, p. 221.

[623] Riggs and Dorsey, _Dakota-English Dictionary_, in _Contrib. N. Amer. Ethnol._, VII, p. 508. Many observers cited by Dorsey identify the word wakan with the words wakanda and wakanta, which are derived from it, but which really have a more precise signification.

[624] _XIth Rep._, p. 372, § 21. Miss Fletcher, while recognizing no less clearly the impersonal character of the wakanda, adds nevertheless that a certain anthropomorphism has attached to this conception. But this anthropomorphism concerns the various manifestations of the wakanda. Men address the trees or rocks where they think they perceive the wakanda, as if they were personal beings. But the wakanda itself is not personified (_Smithsonian Rep. for 1897_, p. 579).

[625] Riggs, _Tah-Koo Wah-Kon_, pp. 56-57, quoted from Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, p. 433, § 95.

[626] _XIth Rep._, p. 380, § 33.

[627] _Ibid._, p. 381, § 35.

[628] _Ibid._, p. 376, § 28; p. 378, § 30; cf. p. 449, § 138.

[629] _Ibid._, p. 432, § 95.

[630] _Ibid._, p. 431, § 92.

[631] _Ibid._, p. 433, § 95.

[632] _Orenda and a Definition of Religion_, in _American Anthropologist_, 1902, p. 33.

[633] _Ibid._, p. 36.

[634] Tesa, _Studi del Thavenet_, p. 17.

[635] Boas, _Kwakiutl_, p. 695.

[636] Swanton, _Social Condition, etc, of the Tlinkit Indians_, _XXVIth Rep._, 1905, p. 451, n. 2.

[637] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_, p. 14; cf. _Social Condition, etc._, p. 479.

[638] In certain Melanesian societies (Banks Islands, North New Hebrides) the two exogamic phratries are found which characterize the Australian organization (Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 23 ff.). In Florida, there are regular totems, called _butos_ (_ibid._, p. 31). An interesting discussion of this point will be found in Lang, _Social Origins_, pp. 176 ff. On the same subject, and in the same sense, see W. H. R. Rivers, _Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia_, in _J.A.I._, XXXIX, pp. 156 ff.

[639] _The Melanesians_, p. 118, n. 1. Cf. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, pp. 178, 392, 394, etc.

[640] An analysis of this idea will be found in Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie Générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, p. 108.

[641] There are not only totems of clans but also of guilds (A. Fletcher, _Smithsonian Rep. for 1897_, pp. 581 ff.).

[642] Fletcher, _op. cit._, pp. 578 f.

[643] _Ibid._, p. 583. Among the Dakota, the totem is called Wakan. See Riggs and Dorsey, _Dakota Grammar, Texts and Ethnol._, in _Contributions N. Amer. Ethn._, 1893, p. 219.

[644] _James's Account of Long's Expedition in the Rocky Mountains_, I, p. 268. (Quoted by Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, p. 431, § 92.)

[645] We do not mean to say that in principle every representation of religious forces in an animal form is an index of former totemism. But when we are dealing with societies where totemism is still apparent, as is the case with the Dakota, it is quite natural to think that these conceptions are not foreign to it.

[646] See below, same book, ch. ix, § 4, pp. 285 ff.

[647] The first spelling is that of Spencer and Gillen; the second, that of Strehlow.

[648] _Nat. Tr._, p. 548, n. 1. It is true that Spencer and Gillen add: "The idea can be best expressed by saying that an Arungquiltha object is possessed of an evil spirit." But this free translation of Spencer and Gillen is their own unjustified interpretation. The idea of the arungquiltha in no way implies the existence of spiritual beings, as is shown by the context and Strehlow's definition.

[649] _Die Aranda_, II, p. 76, n.

[650] Under the name Boyl-ya (see Grey, _Journal of Two Expeditions_, II, pp. 337-338).

[651] See above, p. 42. Spencer and Gillen recognize this implicitly when they say that the arungquiltha is a "supernatural force." Cf. Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie Générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, p. 119.

[652] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 191 ff.

[653] Hewitt, _loc. cit._, p. 38.

[654] There is even ground for asking whether an analogous notion is completely lacking in Australia. The word churinga, or tjurunga as Strehlow writes, has a very great similarity, with the Arunta. Spencer and Gillen say that it designates "all that is secret or sacred. It is applied both to the object and to the quality it possesses" (_Nat. Tr._, p. 648, s.v. churinga). This is almost a definition of mana. Sometimes Spencer and Gillen even use this word to designate religious power or force in a general way. While describing a ceremony among the Kaitish, they say that the officiant is "_full of churinga_," that is to say, they continue, of the "magic power emanating from the objects called churinga." Yet it does not seem that the notion of churinga has the same clarity and precision as that of the mana in Melanesia or of the wakan among the Sioux.

[655] Yet we shall see below (this book, ch. viii and ix) that totemism is not foreign to all ideas of a mythical personality. But we shall show that these conceptions are the product of secondary formations: far from being the basis of the beliefs we have just analysed, they are derived from them.

[656] _Loc. cit._, p. 38.

[657] _Rep. Peabody Museum_, III, p. 276, n. (quoted by Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, p. 435).

[658] See above, p. 35.

[659] In the expressions such as [Greek: Zeus yei] or _Ceres succiditur_, it is shown that this conception survived in Greece as well as in Rome. In his _Götternamen_, Usener has clearly shown that the primitive gods of Greece and Rome were impersonal forces thought of only in terms of their attributes.

[660] _Définition du phénomène religieux_, in _Année Sociol._, II, pp. 14-16.

[661] _Preanimistic Religion_, in _Folk-Lore_, 1900, pp. 162-182.

[662] _Ibid._, p. 179. In a more recent work, _The Conception of Mana_ (in _Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions_, II, pp. 54 ff.), Marrett tends to subordinate still further the animistic conception of mana, but his thought on this point remains hesitating and very reserved.

[663] _Ibid._, p. 168.

[664] This return of preanimism to naturism is still more marked in Clodd, _Preanimistic Stages of Religion_ (_Trans. Third Inter. Congress for the H. of Rel._, I, p. 33).

[665] _Théorie générale de la Magie_, in _Année Sociol._, VII, pp. 108 ff.

[666] _Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst_, in _Globus_, 1904, Vol. LXXXVI, pp. 321, 355, 376, 389; 1905, Vol. LXXXVII, pp. 333, 347, 380, 394, 413.

[667] _Globus_, LXXXVII, p. 381.

[668] He clearly opposes them to all influences of a profane nature (_Globus_, LXXXVI, p. 379a).

[669] It is found even in the recent theories of Frazer. For if this scholar denies to totemism all religious character, in order to make it a sort of magic, it is just because the forces which the totemic cult puts into play are impersonal like those employed by the magician. So Frazer recognizes the fundamental fact which we have just established. But he draws different conclusions because he recognizes religion only where there are mythical personalities.

[670] However, we do not take this word in the same sense as Preuss and Marrett. According to them, there was a time in religious evolution when men knew neither souls nor spirits: a _preanimistic_ phase. But this hypothesis is very questionable: we shall discuss this point below (Bk. II, ch. viii and ix).

[671] On this same question, see an article of Alessandro Bruno, _Sui fenomeni magico-religiosi della communità primitive_, in _Rivista italiana di Sociologia_, XII Year, Fasc. IV-V, pp. 568 ff., and an unpublished communication made by W. Bogoras to the XIV Congress of the Americanists, held at Stuttgart in 1904. This communication is analysed by Preuss in the _Globus_, LXXXVI, p. 201.

[672] "All things," says Miss Fletcher, "are filled with a common principle of life," _Smiths. Rep. for 1897_, p. 579.

[673] Hewitt, in _American Anthropologist_, 1902, p. 36.

[674] _The Melanesians_, pp. 118-120.

[675] _Ibid._, p. 119.

[676] See above, p. 103.

[677] Pickler, in the little work above mentioned, had already expressed, in a slightly dialectical manner, the sentiment that this is what the totem essentially is.

[678] See our _Division du travail social_, 3rd ed., pp. 64 ff.

[679] _Ibid._, p. 76.

[680] This is the case at least with all moral authority recognized as such by the group as a whole.

[681] We hope that this analysis and those which follow will put an end to an inexact interpretation of our thought, from which more than one misunderstanding has resulted. Since we have made constraint the _outward sign_ by which social facts can be the most easily recognized and distinguished from the facts of individual psychology, it has been assumed that according to our opinion, physical constraint is the essential thing for social life. As a matter of fact, we have never considered it more than the material and apparent expression of an interior and profound fact which is wholly ideal: this is _moral authority_. The problem of sociology--if we can speak of _a_ sociological problem--consists in seeking, among the different forms of external constraint, the different sorts of moral authority corresponding to them and in discovering the causes which have determined these latter. The particular question which we are treating in this present work has as its principal object, the discovery of the form under which that particular variety of moral authority which is inherent in all that is religious has been born, and out of what elements it is made. It will be seen presently that even if we do make social pressure one of the distinctive characteristics of sociological phenomena, we do not mean to say that it is the only one. We shall show another aspect of the collective life, nearly opposite to the preceding one, but none the less real (see p. 212).

[682] Of course this does not mean to say that the collective consciousness does not have distinctive characteristics of its own (on this point, see _Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives_, in _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1898, pp. 273 ff.).

[683] This is proved by the length and passionate character of the debates where a legal form was given to the resolutions made in a moment of collective enthusiasm. In the clergy as in the nobility, more than one person called this celebrated night the dupe's night, or, with Rivarol, the St. Bartholomew of the estates (see Stoll, _Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Völkerpsychologie_, 2nd ed., p. 618, n. 2).

[684] See Stoll, _op. cit._, pp. 353 ff.

[685] _Ibid._, pp. 619, 635.

[686] _Ibid._, pp. 622 ff.

[687] The emotions of fear and sorrow are able to develop similarly and to become intensified under these same conditions. As we shall see, they correspond to quite another aspect of the religious life (Bk. III, ch. v).

[688] This is the other aspect of society which, while being imperative, appears at the same time to be good and gracious. It dominates us and assists us. If we have defined the social fact by the first of these characteristics rather than the second, it is because it is more readily observable, for it is translated into outward and visible signs; but we have never thought of denying the second (see our _Règles de la Méthode Sociologique_, preface to the second edition, p. xx, n. 1).

[689] Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 50, 103, 120. It is also generally thought that in the Polynesian languages, the word _mana_ primitively had the sense of authority (see Tregear, _Maori Comparative Dictionary_, s.v.).

[690] See Albert Mathiez, _Les origines des cultes révolutionnaires_ (1789-1792).

[691] _Ibid._, p. 24.

[692] _Ibid._, pp. 29, 32.

[693] _Ibid._, p. 30.

[694] _Ibid._, p. 46.

[695] See Mathiez, _La Théophilanthropie et la Culte décadaire_, p. 36.

[696] See Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, p. 33.

[697] There are even ceremonies, for example, those which take place in connection with the initiation, to which members of foreign tribes are invited. A whole system of messages and messengers is organized for these convocations, without which the great solemnities could not take place (see Howitt, _Notes on Australian Message-Sticks and Messengers_, in _J.A.I._, 1889; _Nat. Tr._, pp. 83, 678-691; Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 159; _Nor. Tr._, p. 551).

[698] The corrobbori is distinguished from the real religious ceremonies by the fact that it is open to women and uninitiated persons. But if these two sorts of collective manifestations are to be distinguished, they are, none the less, closely related. We shall have occasion elsewhere to come back to this relationship and to explain it.

[699] Except, of course, in the case of the great bush-beating hunts.

[700] "The peaceful monotony of this part of his life," say Spencer and Gillen (_Nor. Tr._, p. 33).

[701] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 683. He is speaking of the demonstrations which take place when an ambassador sent to a group of foreigners returns to camp with news of a favourable result. Cf. Brough Smyth, I, p. 138; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 222.

[702] See Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 96 f.; _Nor. Tr._, p. 137; Brough Smyth, II, p. 319.--This ritual promiscuity is found especially in the initiation ceremonies (Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 267, 381; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 657), and in the totemic ceremonies (_Nor. Tr._, pp. 214, 298, 237). In these latter, the ordinary exogamic rules are violated. Sometimes among the Arunta, unions between father and daughter, mother and son, and brothers and sisters (that is in every case, relationship by blood) remain forbidden (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 96 f.).

[703] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 535, 545. This is extremely common.

[704] These women were Kingilli themselves, so these unions violated the exogamic rules.

[705] _Nor. Tr._, p. 237.

[706] _Nor. Tr._, p. 391. Other examples of this collective effervescence during the religious ceremonies will be found in _Nat. Tr._, pp. 244-246, 365-366, 374, 509-510 (this latter in connection with a funeral rite). Cf. _Nor. Tr._, pp. 213, 351.

[707] Thus we see that this fraternity is the logical consequence of totemism, rather than its basis. Men have not imagined their duties towards the animals of the totemic species because they regarded them as kindred, but have imagined the kinship to explain the nature of the beliefs and rites of which they were the object. The animal was considered a relative of the man because it was a sacred being like the man, but it was not treated as a sacred being because it was regarded as a relative.

[708] See below, Bk. III, ch i, § 3.

[709] At the bottom of this conception there is a well-founded and persistent sentiment. Modern science also tends more and more to admit that the duality of man and nature does not exclude their unity, and that physical and moral forces, though distinct, are closely related. We undoubtedly have a different conception of this unity and relationship than the primitive, but beneath these different symbols, the truth affirmed by the two is the same.

[710] We say that this derivation is sometimes indirect on account of the industrial methods which, in a large number of cases, seem to be derived from religion through the intermediacy of magic (see Hubert and Mauss, _Théorie générale de la Magie_, _Année Sociol._, VII, pp. 144 ff.); for, as we believe, magic forces are only a special form of religious forces. We shall have occasion to return to this point several times.

[711] At least after he is once adult and fully initiated, for the initiation rites, introducing the young man to the social life, are a severe discipline in themselves.

[712] Upon this particular aspect of primitive societies, see our _Division du travail social_, 3rd ed., pp. 123, 149, 173 ff.

[713] We provisionally limit ourselves to this general indication: we shall return to this idea and give more explicit proof, when we speak of the rites (Bk. III).

[714] On this point, see Achelis, _Die Ekstase_, Berlin, 1902, especially ch. i.

[715] Cf. Mauss, _Essai sur les variations saisonnières des sociétés eskimos_, in _Année Sociol._, IX, p. 127.

[716] Thus we see how erroneous those theories are which, like the geographical materialism of Ratzel (see especially his _Politische Geographie_), seek to derive all social life from its material foundation (either economic or territorial). They commit an error precisely similar to the one committed by Maudsley in individual psychology. Just as this latter reduced all the psychical life of the individual to a mere epiphenomenon of his physiological basis, they seek to reduce the whole psychical life of the group to its physical basis. But they forget that ideas are realities and forces, and that collective representations are forces even more powerful and active than individual representations. On this point, see our _Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives_, in the _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, May, 1898.

[717] See above, pp. 188 and 194.

[718] Even the _excreta_ have a religious character. See Preuss, _Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst_, especially ch. ii, entitled _Der Zauber der Defäkation_ (_Globus_, LXXXVI, pp. 325 ff.).

[719] This principle has passed from religion into magic: it is the _totem ex parte_ of the alchemists.

[720] On this point see _Règles de la méthode sociologique_, pp. 5 ff.

[721] Procopius of Gaza, _Commentarii in Isaiam_, 496.

[722] See Thévenot, _Voyage au Levant_, Paris, 1689, p. 638. The fact was still round in 1862.

[723] Lacassagne, _Les Tatouages_, p. 10.

[724] Lombroso, _L'homme criminel_, I, p. 292.

[725] Lombroso, _ibid._, I, pp. 268, 285, 291 f.; Lacassagne, _op. cit._, p. 97.

[726] See above, p. 127.

[727] For the authority of the chiefs, see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, p. 10; _Nor. Tr._, p. 25; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 295 ff.

[728] At least in Australia. In America, the population is more generally sedentary; but the American clan represents a relatively advanced form of organization.

[729] To make sure of this, it is sufficient to look at the chart arranged by Thomas, _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_, p. 40. To appreciate this chart properly, it should be remembered that the author has extended, for a reason unknown to us, the system of totemic filiation in the paternal line clear to the western coast of Australia, though we have almost no information about the tribes of this region, which is, moreover, largely a desert.

[730] The stars are often regarded, even by the Australians, as the land of souls and mythical personages, as will be established in the next chapter: that means that they pass as being a very different world from that of the living.

[731] _Op. cit._, I, p. 4. Cf. Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 243.

[732] Of course it is to be understood that, as we have already pointed out (see above, p. 155), this choice was not made without a more or less formal agreement between the groups that each should take a different emblem from its neighbours.

[733] The mental state studied in this paragraph is identical to the one called by Lévy-Bruhl the law of participation (_Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures_, pp. 76 ff.). The following pages were written when this work appeared and we publish them without change; we confine ourselves to adding certain explanations showing in what we differ from M. Lévy-Bruhl in our understanding of the facts.

[734] See above, p. 230.

[735] Another cause has contributed much to this fusion; this is the extreme contagiousness of religious forces. They seize upon every object within their reach, whatever it may be. Thus a single religious force may animate the most diverse things which, by that very fact, become closely connected and classified within a single group. We shall return again to this contagiousness, when we shall show that it comes from the social origins of the idea of sacredness (Bk. III, ch. i, _in fine_).

[736] Lévy-Bruhl, _op. cit._, pp. 77 ff.

[737] _Ibid._, p. 79.

[738] See above, p. 146.

[739] This is the case with the Gnanji; see _Nor. Tr._, pp. 170, 546; cf. a similar case in Brough Smyth, II, p. 269.

[740] _Australian Aborigines_, p. 51.

[741] There certainly was a time when the Gnanji women had souls, for a large number of women's souls still exist to-day. However, they never reincarnate themselves; since in this tribe the soul animating a new-born child is an old reincarnated soul, it follows from the fact that women's souls do not reincarnate themselves, that women cannot have a soul. Moreover, it is possible to explain whence this absence of reincarnation comes. Filiation among the Gnanji, after having been uterine, is now in the paternal line: a mother no longer transmits her totem to her child. So the woman no longer has any descendants to perpetuate her; she is the _finis familiæ suæ_. To explain this situation, there are only two possible hypotheses; either women have no souls, or else they are destroyed after death. The Gnanji have adopted the former of these two explanations; certain peoples of Queensland have preferred the latter (see Roth, _Superstition, Magic and Medicine_, in _N. Queensland Ethnog._, No. 5, § 68).

[742] "The children below four or five years of age have neither soul nor future life," says Dawson. But the fact he thus relates is merely the absence of funeral rites for young children. We shall see the real meaning of this below.

[743] Dawson, p. 51; Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 35; Eylmann, p. 188.

[744] _Nor. Tr._, p. 542; Schürmann, _The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235.

[745] This is the expression used by Dawson, p. 50.

[746] Strehlow, I, p. 15, n. 1; Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 246; this is the theme of the myth of the vampire.

[747] Strehlow, I, p. 15; Schulze, p. 244; Dawson, p. 51. It is true that it is sometimes said that souls have nothing corporeal; according to certain testimony collected by Eylmann (p. 188), they are _ohne Fleisch und Blut_. But these radical negations leave us sceptical. The fact that offerings are not made to the souls of the dead in no way implies, as Roth thinks (_Superstition, Magic_, etc., § 65), that they do not eat.

[748] Roth, _ibid._, § 65; _Nor. Tr._, p. 530. It sometimes happens that the soul emits odours (Roth, _ibid._, § 68).

[749] Roth, _ibid._, § 67; Dawson, p. 51.

[750] Roth, _ibid._, § 65.

[751] Schürmann, _Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235.

[752] Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 29, 35; Roth, _ibid._, §§ 65, 67, 68.

[753] Roth, _ibid._, § 65; Strehlow, I, p. 15.

[754] Strehlow, I, p. 14, n. 1.

[755] Frazer, _On Certain Burial Customs, as Illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul_, in _J.A.I._, XV, p. 66.

[756] This is the case with the Kaitish and the Unmatjera; see _Nor. Tr._, p. 506; and _Nat. Tr._, p. 512.

[757] Roth, _ibid._, §§ 65, 66, 67, 68.

[758] Roth, _ibid._, § 68; this says that when someone faints after a loss of blood, it is because the soul is gone. Cf. Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 38.

[759] Parker, _The Euahlayi_, pp. 29, 35; Roth, _ibid._, § 65.

[760] Strehlow, I, pp. 12, 14. In these passages he speaks of evil spirits which kill little children and eat their souls, livers and fat, or else their souls, livers and kidneys. The fact that the soul is thus put on the same plane as the different viscera and tissues and is made a food like them shows the close connection it has with them. Cf. Schulze, p. 245.

[761] For example, among the peoples on the Pennefather River (Roth, _ibid._, § 68), there is a name for the soul residing in the heart (_Ngai_), another for the one in the placenta (_Cho-i_), and a third for the one which is confounded with the breath (_Wanji_). Among the Euahlayi, there are three or even four souls (Parker, _The Euahlayi_, p. 35).

[762] See the description of the _Urpmilchima_ rite among the Arunta (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 503 ff.).

[763] Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 497 and 508.

[764] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 547, 548.

[765] _Ibid._, pp. 506, 527 ff.

[766] Meyer, _The Encounter Bay Tribe_, in Woods, p. 198.

[767] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 551, 463; _Nat. Tr._, p. 553.

[768] _Nor. Tr._, p. 540.

[769] Among the Arunta and Loritja, for example (Strehlow, I, p. 15, n. 2; II, p. 77). During life, the soul is called _gumna_, and _ltana_ after death. The _ltana_ of Strehlow is identical with the _ulthana_ of Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, pp. 514 ff.). The same is true of the tribes on the Bloomfield River (Roth, _Superstition_, etc., §66).

[770] Eylmann, p. 188.

[771] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 524, 491, 496.

[772] _Nor. Tr._, pp. 542, 504.

[773] Mathews, _Ethnol. Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria_, in _Journal and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales_, XXXVIII, p. 287.

[774] Strehlow, I, pp. 15 ff. Thus, according to Strehlow, the dead live in an island in the Arunta theory, but according to Spencer and Gillen, in a subterranean place. It is probable that the two myths coexist and are not the only ones. We shall see that even a third has been found. On this conception of an island of the dead, see Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498; Schürmann, _Aborig. Tr. of Port Lincoln_, in Woods, p. 235; Eylmann, p. 189.

[775] Schulze, p. 244.

[776] Dawson, p. 51.

[777] In these same tribes evident traces of a more ancient myth will be found, according to which the dead live in a subterranean place (Dawson, _ibid._).

[778] Taplin, _The Narrinyeri_, pp. 18 f.; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 473; Strehlow, I, p. 16.

[779] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 498.

[780] Strehlow, I, p. 16; Eylmann, p. 189; Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 473.

[781] These are the spirits of the ancestors of a special clan, the clan of a certain poisonous gland (_Giftdrüsenmänner_).

[782] Sometimes the work of the missionaries is evident. Dawson speaks of a real hell opposed to paradise; but he too tends to regard this as a European importation.

[783] Dorsey, _XIth Rep._, pp. 419-420, 422, 485. Cf. Marillier, _La survivance de l'âme et l'idée de justice chez les peuples non-civilisés_, _Rapport de l'Ecole des Hautes Études_, 1893.

[784] They may be doubled temporarily, as we shall see in the next chapter: but these duplications add nothing to the number of the souls capable of reincarnation.

[785] Strehlow, I, p. 2.

[786] _Nat. Tr._, p. 73, n. 1

[787] On this set of conceptions, see _Nat. Tr._, pp. 119, 123-127, 387 ff.; _Nor. Tr._, pp. 145-174. Among the Gnanji, it is not necessarily near the oknanikilla that the conception takes place. But they believe that each couple is accompanied in its wanderings over the continent by a swarm of souls of the husband's totem. When the time comes, one of these souls enters the body of the wife and fertilizes it, wherever she may be (_Nor. Tr._, p. 169).

[788] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 512 f.; cf. ch. x and xi.

[789] _Nat. Tr._, p. 119.

[790] Among the Kaitish (_Nor. Tr._, p. 154) and the Urabunna (_Nor. Tr._, p. 146).

[791] This is the case among the Warramunga and the related tribes, the Walpari, Wulmala, Worgaia, Tjingilli (_Nor. Tr._, p. 161), and also the Umbaia and the Gnanji (_ibid._, p. 170).

[792] Strehlow, I, pp. 15-16. For the Loritja, see Strehlow, p. 7.

[793] Strehlow even goes so far as to say that sexual relations are not even thought to be a necessary condition or sort of preparation for conception (II, p. 52, n. 7). It is true that he adds a few lines below that the old men know perfectly well the connection which unites sexual intercourse and generation, and that as far as animals are concerned, the children themselves know it. This lessens the value of his first assertion a little.

[794] In general, we employ the terminology of Spencer and Gillen rather than that of Strehlow because it is now consecrated by long usage.

[795] _Nat. Tr._, pp. 124, 513.

[796] I, p. 5. _Ngarra_ means eternal, according to Strehlow. Among the Loritja, only rocks fulfil this function.

[797] Strehlow translates it by _Kinderkeime_ (children-germs). It is not true that Spencer and Gillen have ignored the myth of the _ratapa_ and the customs connected with it. They explicitly mention it in _Nat. Tr._, pp. 336 ff. and 552. They noticed, at different points of the Arunta territory, the existence of rocks called _Erathipa_ from which the _spirit children_, or the children's souls, disengage themselves, to enter the bodies of women and fertilize them. According to Spencer and Gillen, _Erathipa_ means child, though, as they add, it is rarely used in this sense in ordinary conversation (_ibid._, p. 338).

[798] The Arunta are divided into four or eight matrimonial classes. The class of a child is determined by that of his father; inversely, that of the latter may be deduced from the former (see Spencer and Gillen, _Nat. Tr._, pp. 70 ff.; Strehlow, I, pp. 6 ff.). It remains to be seen how the ratapa has a matrimonial class; we shall return to this point again.

[799] Strehlow, II, p. 52. It happens sometimes, though rarely, that disputes arise over the nature of the child's totem. Strehlow cites such a case (II, p. 53).

[800] This is the same word as the _namatwinna_ found in Spencer and Gillen (_Nat. Tr._, p. 541).

[801] Strehlow, II, p. 53.

[802] Strehlow, II, p. 56.

[803] Mathews attributes a similar theory of conception to the Tjingilli (_alias_ Chingalee) (_Proc. Roy. Geogr. Trans. and Soc. Queensland_, XXII (1907), pp. 75-76).

[804] It sometimes happens that the ancestor who is believed to have thrown the namatuna shows himself to the woman in the form of an animal or a man; this is one more proof of the affinity of the ancestral soul for a material form.

[805] Schulze, _loc. cit._, p. 237.

[806] This results from the fact that the ratapa can incarnate itself only in the body of a woman belonging to the same matrimonial class as the mother of the mythical ancestor. So we cannot understand how Strehlow could say (I, p. 42, _Anmerkung_) that, except in one case, the myths do not attribute determined matrimonial classes to the Alcheringa ancestors. His own theory of conception proves the contrary (cf. II, pp. 53 ff.).

[807] Strehlow, II, p. 58.

[808] The difference between the two versions becomes still smaller and is reduced to almost nothing, if we observe that, when Spencer and Gillen tell us that the ancestral soul is incarnated in the woman, the expressions they use are not to be taken literally. It is not the whole soul which comes to fertilize the mother, but only an emanation from this soul. In fact, according to their own statement, a soul equal or even superior in power to the one that is incarnated continues to live in the nanja tree or rock (see _Nat. Tr._, p. 514); we shall have occasion to come back to this point again (cf. below, p. 275).

[809] II, pp. 76, 81. According to Spencer and Gillen, the churinga is not the soul of the ancestor, but the object in which his soul resides. At bottom, these two mythological interpretations are identical, and it is easy to see how one has been able to pass into the other: the body is the place where the soul resides.

[810] Strehlow, I, p. 4.

[811] Strehlow, I, pp. 53 f. In these stories, the ancestor begins by introducing himself into the body of the woman and causing there the troubles characteristic of pregnancy. Then he goes out, and only then does he leave his namatuna.

[812] Strehlow, II, p. 76.

[813] _Ibid._, p. 81. This is the word for word translation of the terms employed, as Strehlow gives them: _Dies du Körper bist; dies du der nämliche._ In the myth, a civilizing hero, Mangarkunjerkunja, says as he presents to each man the churinga of his ancestor: "You are born of this churinga" (_ibid._, p. 76).

[814] Strehlow, II, p. 76.

[815] Strehlow, _ibid._

[816] At bottom, the only real difference between Strehlow and Spencer and Gillen is the following one. For these latter, the soul of the individual, after death, returns to the nanja tree, where it is again confounded with the ancestor's soul (_Nat. Tr._, p. 513); for Strehlow, it goes to the isle of the dead, where it is finally annihilated. In neither myth does it survive individually. We are not going to seek the cause of this divergence. It is possible that there has been an error of observation on the part of Spencer and Gillen, who do not speak of the isle of the dead. It is also possible that the myth is not the same among the eastern Arunta, whom Spencer and Gillen observed particularly, as in the other parts of the tribe.

[817] Strehlow, II, p. 51.

[818] _Ibid._, II, p. 56.