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THE TOTEMIC AGE

The expression 'totemic age' involves a widened application of the term 'totem.' This word is taken from the language of the Ojibways or, as the English call them, the Chippewa Indians. To these Indians of the Algonquin race, the 'totem' signified first of all a group. Persons belong to the same totem if they are fellow-members in a group which forms part of a tribe or of a clan. The term 'clan,' suggested by the clan divisions of the Scottish Highlanders, is the one usually employed by English ethnologists in referring to the smaller divisions of a tribe. The tribe consists of a number of clans, and each clan may include several totems. As a rule, the totem groups bear animal names. In North America, for example, there was an eagle totem, a wolf totem, a deer totem, etc. In this case the animal names regularly refer to particular clans within a tribe; in other places, as, for example, in Australia, they designate separate groups within a clan. Moreover, the totem animal is also usually regarded as the ancestral animal of the group in question. 'Totem,' on the one hand, is a group name, and, on the other, a name indicative of ancestry. In the latter connection it has also a mythological significance. These various ideas, however, interplay in numerous ways. Some of the meanings may recede, so that totems have frequently become a mere nomenclature of tribal divisions, while at other times the idea of ancestry, or, perhaps also, the cult significance, predominates. The idea gained ground until, directly or indirectly, it finally permeated all phases of culture. It is in this sense that the entire period pervaded by this culture may be called the 'totemic age.'

This leads to a number of further changes. Tribal ownership of the land becomes more firmly established, as does also the custom of allotting a particular share to the clan. Personal property, moreover, comes to be more and more differentiated from the possessions of the group. Trade, which in primitive times was almost entirely restricted to secret barter, becomes public, and is finally widened into tribal commerce. When this occurs, great changes in external culture are inaugurated. Implements, weapons, and articles of dress and of adornment are perfected. This stage having been attained, the totemic age advances to a utilization of the soil in a way that is unknown to primitive man. The land is cultivated by means of agricultural implements. Of these, however, the hoe long continues to be the only one; though it supplants the digging-stick, its use depends on human power alone. The care and breeding of animals is also undertaken; the herdsman's or, as it is usually called, the nomadic, life is inaugurated. The breeding of useful domestic animals, in particular, is very closely connected with totemism. The animal, which at the beginning of the period was regarded as sacred, acquires the status of a work animal. It loses its dominion over mankind; instead, it becomes a servant, and, as a result, its cult significance gradually vanishes. The very moment, however, that marks the passing of the sacred animal into the useful animal also signalizes the end of the totemic era and the beginning of the age of heroes and gods.

The second great stage of culture, which we may call, though somewhat inaccurately, the Malayo-Polynesian, offers a radically different picture. To a certain extent, the relation between tribal organization and external culture is here the reverse of that which obtains in the Australian world. In Australia, we find a primitive culture alongside of a highly developed tribal organization; in the Malayo-Polynesian region, there is a fairly well developed culture, but a tribal organization which is partly in a state of dissolution and partly in transition to further political and social institutions, including the separation of classes and the rulership of chiefs. Evidently these latter conditions are the result of extensive racial fusion, which is incomparably greater in the Malayo-Polynesian region than in Australia. True, we no longer harbour the delusion that Australia is inhabited by a uniform population. It also has been subject to great waves of immigration, particularly from New Guinea, from whence came the Papuans, one of the races which itself attained to the Malayo-Polynesian level of culture. Naturally the Papuan influx affected chiefly the northern part of Central Australia. The Tasmanian tribe, now extinct, was probably a remnant of the original Australian population. But migrations and racial fusions have caused even greater changes among those peoples who, culturally, must be classed with the Malayo-Polynesians. Here likewise there are many different levels, the lowest of which, as found among the Malayo-Polynesian mixed population, was yet but slightly higher, in some respects, than Australian culture, whereas the culture of the true Malays and Polynesians has already assumed a more advanced character. Ethnology is not yet entirely able to untangle the complicated problems connected with these racial fusions. Much less, of course, can we undertake to enter into these controversial points. We here call attention merely to certain main stages exhibited by the external culture of these peoples, quite aside from considerations of race and of tribal migrations. The Negritos and the Papuans of various parts of Melanesia possess a culture bordering on the primitive--indeed, they may even be characterized as primitive, since they possess characteristics of pretotemic society. Of these tribes, the Papuans of New Guinea and of the islands of the Torres Straits clearly manifest totemic characteristics, while yet possessing special racial traits that are exceptionally pronounced. They differ but little from primitive man, however, so far as concerns either their method of securing food or their dress, the latter of which is exceedingly scanty and is made, for the most part, of plant materials. But these peoples, just as do the Australians, have weapons indicative of battles and migrations; moreover, they exhibit also other marks of a somewhat developed culture. The Papuans are the first to change the digging-stick into the hoe, a useful implement in tilling the soil. In this first form of the hoe, the point is turned so as to form an acute angle with the handle to which it is attached. Hence the soil is not tilled in the manner of the later hoe-culture proper; nothing more is done than to draw furrows into which the seeds are scattered. In many respects, however, this primitive implement represents a great advance over the method of simply gathering food as practised when the digging-stick alone was known. It is the man who makes the furrows with the hoe, since the loosening of the ground requires his greater strength; he walks ahead, and the woman follows with the seeds, which she scatters into the furrows. For the first time, thus, we discern a provision for the future, and also a common tilling of the soil. The gathering of the fruits generally devolves upon the woman alone. But even among the Papuans this first step in the direction of agriculture is found only here and there. The possibility of external influences therefore remains.

Far superior to the Papuan race is the Micronesian population, which, as regards its racial traits, is intermediate between the Melanesians and the Polynesians. Migration and racial fusion here become increasingly important cultural factors. In their beginnings, these factors already manifest themselves in the wanderings of the Papuan and Negrito tribes. One of the most striking discoveries of modern ethnology is the finding of distinct traces of Papuan-Negritic culture in regions, such as the west coast of Africa, which are very remote from the original home of the culture in question. The Papuan races likewise wandered far across the Indian Ocean. Obviously there were Papuan migrations, probably in repeated trains, from New Guinea across the Torres Strait to Northern Australia, where they seem to have influenced social institutions and customs as well as external culture. Above the level of the Negrito and Papuan peoples, who, in their numerous fusions, themselves form several strata, we finally have the Malayo-Polynesian population. The Malayo-Polynesians are widely spread over the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the earth. Because of their significance for the particular stage of totemism now under discussion, we have called the entire cultural period by their name. The fragments of the Negrito and Papuan races, which are scattered here and there over limited sections of the broad territory covered by the wanderings of these tribes, apparently represent remnants of the original inhabitants. As the result of long isolation, certain groups of these peoples have remained on a very primitive plane, as have, for example, the above-described inland tribes of Malacca, or the peoples of Ceylon and of other islands of the Indian archipelago. Others have mingled with the Malays, who have come in from the mainland of India, and with them have formed the numerous levels and divisions of the Malayo-Polynesian race. This accounts for the fact that this Oceanic group of peoples includes a great many forms of culture, which are not, however, susceptible of any sharp demarcation. The culture of the Negritos and the Papuans, on the one hand, is as primitive as is that of the Australians--indeed, isolated fragments of perished races were even more primitive than are the Australians; on the other hand, however, some of the Malayo-Polynesian peoples are already decidedly in advance of any other people whose culture falls within the totemic age.

The chief ethnological problem relating to these groups of peoples concerns the origin of the Malays, who, without doubt, have given the greatest impetus to the cultural development of these mixed races. This problem is as yet unsolved, and is perhaps insolvable. The Malay type, however, particularly on its physical side, points to Eastern Asia. The resemblance to the Mongolians as regards eyes, skull, and colour of skin is unmistakable. At the same time, however, the original Malays probably everywhere mixed with the native inhabitants, remnants of whom have survived in certain places, particularly in the inaccessible forest regions of the Malayan archipelago. Now, the Malays were obviously, even in very early times, a migratory people. Their wanderings, in fact, were far more extensive than any other folk-migrations with which we are familiar in the history of Occidental peoples. Starting, as we may suppose, in Central Asia, that great cradle of the human race, they spread to the coasts, particularly to Indo-China, and then to the large islands of Sunda, Sumatra, and Borneo, to Malacca, and, farther, over the entire region of Oceania. Here, by mixture with the native population, they gave rise to a new race, the Polynesians proper. But the Polynesian portion of the race also preserved the migratory impulse. Thus, the Malayans were the first to create a perfected form of boat, and to it the Polynesians added many new features. Thenceforth the Malay was not restricted to dangerous coast voyages, as was the case with the use of such boats as those of the Australians or the Papuans of New Guinea. It was a boat of increased size, equipped with sails and oars and often artistically fitted out, in which the Malay traversed the seas. With the aid of these boats--which were, at best, small and inadequate for a voyage on the open sea--and at a time when the compass was as yet unheard of and only the starry heavens could give approximate guidance to their course, the Malays and Polynesians traversed distances extending from the Philippines to New Zealand. Of course, these expeditions advanced only stage by stage, from island to island. This is shown by the legends of the Maoris of New Zealand, who were clearly the first of the Polynesians to migrate, and who therefore remained freest from mixture with strange races. The same fact is attested by the great changes in dialect which the Malayan language underwent even in the course of the migrations of the Malays--changes which lead us to infer that to many of the island regions settled by these peoples there were repeated waves of immigration separated by intervals of centuries.

The conditions differ in the southern and, to some extent also, in the western portion of the great American continent. Closely related as the various tribes are, the old hypothesis that they migrated from Asia across Behring Strait is untenable. Moreover, in spite of their physical relationship and, in part also, of their linguistic similarities, their culture shows important differences. In the southern and central parts of America particularly, we find widely different cultural levels, ranging from the forest Indians of Brazil, who have made scarcely any essential advance beyond the primitive culture of the Veddahs or of the natives of Malacca, to the tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, who have obviously been influenced by the cultural peoples of the New World, and, under this influence, have undergone an independent development. All advances that they have made, however, clearly depend upon the development of agriculture. In addition to numerous elements of celestial mythology that have found their way from Mexico, we find vegetation cults and agricultural ceremonies. The latter are often closely fused with the borrowed mythology, particularly among the semi-cultural peoples of the central region of America. These cults--sometimes governed by totemic conceptions, while in other cases dominated by celestial mythology--underlie the development of art throughout the whole of America. Whereas the chief expression of the aesthetic impulse in Polynesia is the decoration of the body, particularly by means of tattooing, this practice is secondary, in the case of the American Indian, to the possession of external means of adornment. It is primarily the beautiful plumage of the bird kingdom that furnishes the decorations of the head and of the garment. At the ceremonies of the Zunis and other New Mexican tribes, the altars are decked with the feathers of birds. These festivals exhibit a wealth of colour and a complexity of ceremonial performances that have always aroused the astonishment of the strangers who have been able to witness them. The decoration of garments, of altars, and of festal places is paralleled in its development by that of the pictorial decoration of clay vessels. Here for the first time we have a developed art of ceramics which employs ornamentations, pictures of totemic animals, and combinations of the two or transitional forms. Originally, no doubt, these ornamentations were intended as means of magic, but they came more and more to serve the purposes of decoration. All of these factors exert an influence on the numerous cult dances. All over America, from the Esquimos in the north far down to the south, a very important part of the equipment of the dancers is the mask. This mask reproduces either animal features or some fantastic form intermediate between man and animal. Thus, this culture is of a peculiar nature. Even externally it combines the huntsman's culture with that of the tiller of the soil, although in its agriculture it has not advanced beyond the level of hoe-culture. As compared with Malayo-Polynesian culture, however, it presents an important additional factor. This consists in the community of labour, which is obviously connected with the more stable tribal organization and with the development of more comprehensive cult associations. It is this factor that accounts for those great cult festivals that are associated with sowing and harvest and that extend far down into the higher civilizations, as numerous rudimentary customs still testify.

The changes which we likewise find in mythological conceptions also carry us beyond the narrow circle of original totemism. Again there appear elements of a nature-mythology, particularly of a celestial mythology. These supplant the animal cult, but nevertheless retain some connection with the totem animal; the culture is one in which the totem animal never entirely loses its earlier significance. Thus, the vegetation festivals, especially those of North and Central America, exhibit many cult forms in which ideas that belong to a celestial mythology combine with the worship of animals and of ancestors. The conceptions of ancestors and of gods thus play over into one another, and these god-ancestors are believed to have their seat in the clouds and in the heavens above. However constantly, therefore, totemic ideas may be in evidence within the field of external phenomena, a much superior point of view is attained, by the American races, as regards the inner life.

Thus, the animal has come to be a breeding and a work animal throughout the whole of Africa, though this is particularly the case wherever the cultural influences of the immigrant peoples from the East have been operative. The relations of man to man have likewise undergone a change in this locality, due, in part, to migrations and tribal wars. No region so much as Africa has become the centre of despotic forms of government. It is this factor, together with the potent influence of ideas of personal property associated with it, that has contributed, on the one hand, to the origin of polygyny, and, on the other, to the rise of slavery. Long before Africa became the slave market of the New World it harboured an intertribal traffic in human beings. These changes in culture undermined the older cults, so that, with the dissolution of the totemic tribal organization, the original totem conceptions disappeared from all parts of this region. All the more marked was the progress of animism and fetishism, of which the former is closely connected, in its origin, with totem belief, while the latter is a sort of degenerate totemism. In certain regions, furthermore, as among the Bantus and the Hamitic tribes, another outgrowth of the cult of the dead--namely, ancestor worship--has gained great prominence alongside of elements of a celestial mythology.

In the light of all these facts, the conclusion appears highly probable that at some time totemic culture everywhere paved the way for a more advanced civilization, and, thus, that it represents a transitional stage between the age of primitive man and the era of heroes and gods.

Kamilaroi

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Seneca

Because of the great regularity of its occurrence, the dual form of tribal division must be regarded as everywhere due to the same cause. Concerning its origin there can scarcely be any doubt. Obviously it has no real connection with totemism itself. This explains why the tribal divisions originally derived their names, not from the totem, but from localities or from other external sources, as the conditions among the Australians would seem to indicate. A phenomenon which recurs in widely distant regions with such regularity as does dual division, is scarcely intelligible except by reference to the general conditions attendant upon the spread of peoples. A tribe leading the unsettled life of gatherers and hunters must of inner necessity separate as its numbers increase or as the food-supply begins to fail. It is but natural that the tribe should first separate into two divisions on the basis of the hunting-grounds which the members occupy; the same process may then repeat itself in the case of each division. The fact that when deviations from the principle of dual division are found, they are most likely to occur in the subordinate groups, is also in harmony with the view that the divisions are due to the natural conditions of dispersion. For, in the case of the subordinate groups, one of the smaller units might, of course, easily disintegrate or wander to a distance and lose its connection with the tribe.

Though the dual organization of the tribe seems to admit of a comparatively simple and easy explanation, the totemic exogamy which is closely bound up with it offers great difficulties. As we have already seen, totemic exogamy is characterized by the fact that a member of one specific clan, or of a totem group belonging to the clan, may enter into marriage only with a member of another clan or totem group. This restriction of the marriage relationship is generally known as 'exogamy,' a term first introduced by the Scottish ethnologist and historian, McLennan. In order to distinguish this custom from later regulations of marriage, such, for example, as exist in present law, in the prohibition of the union of relatives by blood or by marriage, we may call it more specifically 'totemic exogamy.' Totemic exogamy clearly represents the earliest form of marriage restriction found in custom or law. The phenomena bound up with it may be regarded as having arisen either contemporaneously with the first division of the tribe or, at any rate, soon thereafter, for some of the Australian and Melanesian tribes practise exogamy even though they have not advanced beyond a twofold division of the tribe. On the other hand, the primitive horde of the pretotemic age remains undivided, and, of course, shows no trace of exogamy. True, marriages between parents and children seem to have been avoided as early even as in pretotemic times. But this could hardly have been due to the existence of firmly established norms of custom. Such norms never developed except under the influence of totemic tribal organization, and they are closely related to its various stages of development.

The way in which these various forms of exogamy affect the marriage relations of the children that are born from such unions is fairly obvious. Turning first to form I--unlimited exogamy--it is clear that, in the case of maternal descent, which here appears to be the rule, none of the children of the mother may marry except into the clan of the father; in paternal descent, conversely, they may marry only into the clan of the mother. Marriage between brothers and sisters, thus, is made impossible. Nor may a son marry his mother where maternal descent prevails, or a daughter her father in the case of paternal descent. In the former case, however, the marriage of father and daughter would be permitted, as would that of mother and son in the latter. The marriage of a son or daughter with relatives of the mother who belong to the same clan is not allowed in the case of maternal descent. The son, for example, may not marry a sister of his mother, nor the daughter a brother of the mother, etc. Since it is maternal descent that is dominant in the case of unlimited exogamy, the most important result of the latter is doubtless its prevention of the marriage of brother and sister, in addition to that of a son with his mother. The system of paternal descent, of course, involves a corresponding change in marriage restrictions.

The three forms of exogamy, accordingly, agree in prohibiting the marriage of brothers and sisters and, in so far as maternal descent may be regarded as the prevailing system, the marriage of a son with his mother. Both these prohibitions, doubtless, and especially the latter, reflect a feeling which was experienced by mankind at an early age. The aversion to the marriage of a son with his mother is greater than that to the marriage of brother and sister or even that of father and daughter. Consider the tragedy of OEdipus. It might, perhaps, be less horrible were it father and daughter instead of son and mother who were involved in the incestuous relation. Marriages between brothers and sisters have, of course, sometimes occurred. Thus, as has already been remarked, the Peruvian Incas ordained by law that a king must marry his sister. In the realm of the Ptolemies, likewise, the marriage of brother and sister served the purpose of maintaining purity of blood, and even to-day such marriages occur in some of the smaller despotic negro states. The custom is probably always the result of the subjugation of a people by a foreign line of rulers. Indeed, even the Greeks permitted marriage between half-brothers and half-sisters.

Exogamy as such has generally been approached from a rationalistic point of view. It has been regarded as an institution voluntarily created to obviate the marriage of relatives, and is supposed to have arisen contemporaneously with another institution of like purpose, namely, tribal division. This view is championed, among other scholars, by the able American sociologist, Lewes Morgan, in his book "Ancient Society" , and even by Frazer in his comprehensive work "Totemism and Exogamy" , which includes in its survey all parts of the earth. Frazer says explicitly: 'In the distant past, several wise old men must have agreed to obviate the evils of endogamy, and with this end in view they instituted a system that resulted in exogamous marriage.' Thus, the determinant motive is here supposed to have been aversion to the marriage of relatives. According to Morgan's hypothesis--an extreme example of rationalistic interpretation--the aversion was due to a gradually acquired knowledge that the marriage of relatives was injurious in its effects upon offspring. The entire institution, thus, is regarded as a eugenic provision. We are to suppose that the members of these tribes not only invented this whole complicated system of tribal division, but that they foresaw its results and for this reason instituted exogamous customs. Were people who possess no names for numbers greater than four capable of such foresight, it would indeed be an unparalleled miracle. Great social transformations, of which one of the greatest is unquestionably the transition from the primitive horde to totemic tribal organization, are never effected by the ordinances of individuals, but develop of themselves through a necessity immanent in the cultural conditions. Their effects are never foreseen, but are recognized in their full import only after they have taken place. Moreover, as regards the question of the injurious effects resulting from the marriage of relatives, authorities even to-day disagree as to where the danger begins and how great it really is. That the Australians should have formed definite convictions in prehistoric times with reference to these matters, is absolutely inconceivable. At most, they might have felt a certain instinctive repugnance. Furthermore, if these institutions were established with the explicit purpose of avoiding marriage between relatives, the originators, though manifesting remarkable sagacity in their invention, made serious mistakes in their calculations. For, in the first place, the first two forms of exogamy only partially prevent a union which even endogamous custom avoids, namely, that between parents and children; in the second place, the transition from unlimited to limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent does not involve an increased restriction of marriage between relations, but, as we have already seen, marks a retrogression, in the sense of a reapproach to endogamy.

The above view, therefore, was for the most part abandoned in favour of other, apparently more natural, explanations. Of these we would mention, as a second theory, the biological hypothesis of Andrew Lang. This author assumes that the younger brothers of a joint family were driven out by the stronger and older ones in order to ward off any want that might arise from the living together of a large number of brothers and sisters, and that these younger brothers were thus obliged to marry outside the group. Even this, however, is not an adequate theory of exogamy, since it does not explain how the custom has come to apply also to the older members of the family group. As a final hypothesis, we may mention one which may perhaps be described as specifically sociological. In its fundamental aspects it was proposed by MacLennan, the investigator who also gave us the word 'exogamy.' MacLennan does not regard exogamy as having originated in times of peace, nor even as representing voluntarily established norms of custom. He derives it from war, and in so doing he appeals to the testimony both of history and of legend. As is well known, even the Iliad, the greatest epic of the past, portrays as an essential part of its theme a marriage by capture. The dissension between Achilles and Agamemnon arose from the capture of Briseis, for whom the two leaders of the Achaeans quarrelled with each other. According to MacLennan, the capture of a woman from a strange tribe represents the earliest exogamy. The rape of the Sabines is another incident suggesting the same conclusion. True, this is not an event of actual history. Nevertheless, legend reflects the customs and ideas of the past. Now, in the case under discussion, it is clear that marriage by capture involves a foreign and hostile tribe, for this is the relation which the Sabines originally sustained to the Romans. A significant indication of the connection between marriage by capture and war with hostile tribes occurs also in Deuteronomy , where the law commands the Israelites: 'If in war you see a beautiful woman and desire her in marriage, take her with you. Let her for several weeks bewail her relatives and her home, and then marry her. But if you do not wish to make her your wife, then let her go free; you shall not sell her into slavery.' This is a remarkable passage in that it forbids the keeping and the selling of female slaves, but, on the other hand, permits marriage with a woman of a strange tribe. A parallel is found in Judges , where it is related that the elders of Israel, being prevented by an oath to Jahve from giving their own daughters in marriage to the children of Benjamin, advised the latter to fall, from ambush, upon a Canaanitic tribe and to steal its maidens.

How does this general development of the modes of marriage account for those peculiar laws of exogamy which are universally characteristic of totemic culture, representing strict norms of custom that forbid all marriage except that between specific clans of a tribe, or even only between pairs of totem groups of different clans? Were these marriage ordinances, which have evidently arisen in various places independently of one another, intentionally invented? Or are they the natural outcome of totemic tribal organization, resulting from its inherent conditions, just as did the laws of dual tribal division from the natural growth and partition of the tribes?

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Unless external influences have changed his mode of life, primitive man, as we have seen, is both monogamous and endogamous, the latter term being used in a relative sense as denoting a condition in which marriages are permitted between blood relations as well as between non-relations. As a result of the external conditions of life, however, particularly the common habitation of the same protective cave and the use of adjacent hunting-grounds, unions within a wider joint family generally predominate. Following upon the rise of exogamy, polygamy also regularly appears. These two practices give to the marriage and family relations of totemic society an essentially different character from that which they possess under primitive conditions. Even in the totemic era, indeed, polygamy is not universal; monogamy continues to survive. Monogamy, however, ceases to be a norm of custom. It is everywhere set aside, to a greater or less extent, in favour of the two forms of polygamy--polygyny and polyandry.

Proof that this is the forgotten origin of group-marriage may perhaps be found in a remarkable feature of the customs of these tribes--one that is for the most part regarded as an inexplicable paradox. Marriage with the chief wife is not celebrated by ceremonies or festivals, as is the union with the secondary wife. Thus, the celebration occurs, not in connection with that marriage which is of primary importance even to the Australian, but, on the contrary, on the occasion of the union which is in itself of less importance. The solution of this riddle can lie only in the origin of the two forms of marriage. And, in fact, the two result from radically different causes, if it be true that capture from a friendly clan is the origin of the Tippamalku marriage and that assistance rendered to an allied companion underlies Pirrauru marriage. Capture is an act which precludes all ceremony; alliance with a companion is a contract, perhaps the very first marriage contract that was ever concluded--one that was made, not with the woman or with her parents, but with her husband. The consummation of such a contract, however, is an act which in early times was always accompanied by ceremonial performances. These accompanying phenomena may also, of course, persist long after their source has been lost to memory. Thus, the difference between the two forms of primitive group-marriage also indirectly confirms the supposition that monogamy lies at the basis of group-marriage in general.

After a man has won one or more secondary wives in addition to his chief wife, in Pirrauru marriage, there will doubtless be a tendency for him to seek additional chief wives. This will be particularly apt to occur where, on the one hand, marriage by capture gives way to marriage by barter and later to marriage by purchase, and where, on the other hand, group-marriage is on the wane. Custom may then either recur to monogamy, or it may advance to a polygyny which is pure and not, as in the case of group-marriage, combined with polyandry. Whether the former or the latter will occur, will depend, now that marriage by purchase has become predominant, upon might and property. Since these are also the factors which insure man's supremacy within the family, the older forms of combined polyandry and polygyny almost universally give way, with the advance of culture, to simple polygyny, which is then practised alongside of monogamy. This polygyny, in turn, also finally recedes in favour of monogamy. The circle of development, accordingly, may be represented by the following diagram:--

Monogamy | Polyandry | Polyandry with Polygyny | Polygyny | Monogamy.

As an intermediate stage between monogamy and group-marriage, pure polyandry, it should be remarked, is doubtless a very transitory phenomenon. Nevertheless, it has a priority over polygyny in so far as it first furnishes the motives for the additional practice, and thus for the very origin, of the latter.

As a matter of fact, the ethnological distribution of the forms of marriage entirely confirms, as a general rule, the truth of this diagram. Even in Australia the phenomena of Pirrauru and of group-marriage are confined particularly to the southern regions. In the northerly regions, where immigration and racial fusion have played a greater r?le, both monogamy and polygyny may be found. The same is true of America and of Africa, monogamy decidedly predominating in the former and polygyny in the latter. The influence of marriage by purchase then constantly becomes stronger, with the result that the woman comes to be regarded from the point of view of property. The rich man is able to buy more wives than the poor man. In all polygynous countries and fields of culture, therefore, even in the present domain of Islamism, the poor man, as a rule, lives in monogamy, the rich man in polygyny. Only the wealthiest and most aristocratic allow themselves a real harem with a considerable number of wives.

Intercrossing with this classification based on the social factor, on whether the totem is associated with the tribe, the individual, or the procreation of the individual, there is a second classification. The latter concerns itself with the nature of the objects that are regarded as totems. These objects are of various sorts. Here again, moreover, we must doubtless recognize a development in totemic conceptions. The original totem, and the one that is by far the most common, is the animal. Numerous peoples possess no totems except animals. In many communities, however, plant totems have been adopted, and in certain regions they have gradually become predominant. Of the plant totems, the most important are the nutritious plants. In addition to these two classes of totemic objects, there is, finally, another, though an exceedingly rare, sort of totem. The totem that is conceived as an animal ancestor may give way to other fanciful ancestral ideas or may intercross with them. Various forms of such phenomena are to be found, particularly in Australia. In this region, such ancestors, which, doubtless, are for the most part regarded as anthropomorphic, are sometimes called Mura-mura or also Alcheringa. They are apparently imaged as mighty human beings possessed of magic powers. They are believed to have introduced totemism and to have instructed the forbears of the Australians in magic ceremonies. Mura-mura is the name that occurs especially in Southern Australia; the term, Alcheringa, prevails in the north, where the age of these mythical ancestors is often directly referred to as the Alcheringa age. At times, apparently, it is believed that these ancestors merely singled out as totems certain already existing animals. In other cases, however, animals, as well as mankind, are held to have been created by the magic-working beings out of formless matter, doubtless earth. It is commonly believed that the creatures that were thus created were at first lifeless, but became animals and men when placed in the sun. These various ideas are for the most part so intertangled in Australian legend that no coherent history of creation is anywhere discoverable. The legends plainly embody merely a number of detached fanciful ideas.

Adherents of the theory of original promiscuity have interpreted these ideas also as a survival of unrestrained sexual conditions, and thus as indicative of the fact that paternity was at one time unknown. A closer acquaintance with the phenomena, however, shows that this can scarcely be the case. Thus, the idea of the Warramunga that it is the totem ancestors of a woman's husband and not those of any other man that pass over into her, clearly presupposes a state of marriage, as does also the further fact that these same tribes reckon descent in the line of the father and not in that of the mother. Moreover, the passing of the totem ancestor into the woman is generally accompanied by magical ceremonies, such as the swinging of bull-roarers, or contact with churingas. Or, the totem ancestor may appear to the woman in sleep or in a waking vision. On the Banks Islands, strange to say, we find conception totemism without any trace of tribal totemism. The manner of reception of the totem ancestor also differs; the woman eats of the flesh of her husband's totem animal, which, since there is no tribal totemism, is in this case a personal, protective totem. Thus, conception totemism represents something of an exception in that the eating of the totem is not forbidden, as it generally is, but rather constitutes a sort of cult act, as it also does in certain other cases. In Australia, moreover, conception totemism is to be found only among several of the northern tribes, to whom it may at one time have come from Melanesia. Because of the primitive nature of the ideas connected with conception totemism, particularly when, as among the Aranda, the husband is ignored and it is believed that conception is mediated only by the totem ancestor, the northern tribes just referred to have sometimes been regarded as the most primitive. There are some writers, on the other hand, by whom the possibility of such ideas is denied on the ground that these very tribes must be familiar with the process of procreation in the animal world. But this does not prove the case. When, however, we learn that the older men of the tribe themselves no longer entertain the belief in magical generation, particularly as the exclusive factor, whereas, on the other hand, this is still taught to the young men, and especially to the children, we may well call to mind our own childish notions about the stork that brings the babies. Why might something similar not occur among the Australians, and the belief possibly retain credence somewhat beyond the age of childhood?

Sex totemism, similarly to conception totemism, is also of somewhat limited distribution, and seems to occur principally in those regions where tribal totemism proper is lacking or is at least strongly recedent. Among the Kurnai of southern Australia, for example, no tribal totemism has been discovered, though sex totemism occurs and actually forms the basis of certain marriage ceremonies. Sex totemism probably has its origin in the individual totem, especially in the appearance of this totem in dreams. If, after such a totem has appeared to an individual man or woman, it is then adopted by others of the same sex, specific sex totems may well come into being, particularly under the influence of the separate associations of men and women. It is also significant that in the case of sex totemism nocturnal animals predominate. The totem of the women is usually the bat; that of the men, the owl. This fact is indicative of a dream origin and of a genesis from the individual totem. Diurnal birds may, of course, also appear in dreams. Whether or not this occurs depends solely upon concomitant circumstances. At the stage of culture, however, when man is accustomed to sleep in the open, it is probable that the nocturnal birds which circle about him will also appear in his dreams. A further characteristic phenomenon of the regions where sex totemism prevails, is the manner in which marriage is consummated. In this case also, the woman eats of the totem of the man. This causes a struggle between the man and the woman, which is really a mere mock-fight ending with an offer of reconciliation on the part of the man. With this, the marriage is concluded. Such customs likewise point back to individual totemism as their original source, and probably also to marriage by capture. The fact that tribal totemism everywhere receded with the dominance of individual totems, explains why sex and tribal totemism seem to be mutually exclusive. Of the two rare forms of totemism, accordingly, it is probable that conception totemism was the earlier, and that sex totemism belongs to a relatively late stage of development. A further indication of the primitive nature of conception totemism is to be found in the fact that the Aranda possess a tribal organization in which the grouping of totems to form clan divisions follows a principle which elsewhere obtains only in the case of the two tribal halves. Two clans, A and B, that enjoy exogamous relations with each other, do not have different totem groups, as they do among all other tribes; their totem groups are largely the same. Among the Aranda, therefore, a man of one totem may, under certain circumstances, marry a woman of the same totem, provided only she belongs to the other clan. True, phenomena are not lacking--such particularly as those of plant totems, to be mentioned below, and the ceremonial festivals connected with them--which indicate that these northern tribes were affected by Papuan immigrations and by race-mixture. But influences of this kind are the less apt to lead to the submergence of primitive views and customs according as they are instrumental, particularly when they are operative at an early age, in maintaining conditions which might otherwise possibly disappear as a result of further development.

Each of the three kinds of totem objects just described, the plant totem, the animal totem, and the totemic fetish, may assert itself in connection with the three above-mentioned social forms of totemism. Moreover, the three kinds of objects may also, to a certain extent, combine with one another. For, though the animal is very commonly the only totem, plant totems never occur except in connection with animal totems, even though there are certain conditions under which they attain the dominance. Finally, the totemic fetish is always associated in totemic regions with animal and plant totems, and is also closely connected with the idea, even here permeating totemic belief, that there were anthropomorphic ancestors who left these fetishes as magic-working legacies. Thus, totemism passes over, on the one hand, into ancestor-worship, and, on the other, into fetishism, with which it combines, particularly in the 'Intichiuma' festivals, to form a composite cult. Tribal totemism is the source of the individual totem; the latter, probably as a result of animistic ideas that displace tribal totemism, gives rise, as an occasional offshoot, to the sex totem. This is the conclusion to which we are led by the fact that the choice of the sex totem is influenced by the dream. The last important product of individual totemism, in combination with tribal totemism, is an incipient ancestor worship, which is accompanied by peculiar forms of fetishism. In view of its origin, we may perhaps refer to this cult as 'totemic fetishism.' The following diagram illustrates this genetic relationship:--

Tribal and Animal Totemism / Tribal Totemism--Animal Individual Animal and Plant Totemism Totemism / | Ancestor Worship Sex Totemism | Totemic Fetishism

The view held by Howitt and by Spencer and Gillen, scholars deserving of high esteem for their knowledge of Australian totemism, is an essentially different one. In their opinions, it is the conditions of a hunting life that are reflected in totemic beliefs. They maintain that the animals of the chase were the first to become totem animals. Wherever plant food gained great importance, plant totems were then added. The evidence for this view is based mainly on those Intichiuma ceremonies and festivals by means of which the Australians aim to secure a multiplication of the totems. In these festivals, for example, grass seed is scattered broadcast by members of the grass seed totem, or a huge lizard is formed of clay by the members of the lizard totem, and pieces of it are strewn about. These are magic ceremonies that, in a certain sense, anticipate the sowing and harvest festivals of later times. The only difference consists in the fact that these primitive magic usages are not directed to the rain-bringing clouds or to celestial deities in petition for a blessing upon the crops, but to the objects themselves, to the animals and plants. Magic powers are ascribed to the latter; by virtue of these powers they are to multiply themselves. In regions where sowing and harvest do not as yet exist, but where man gains his food solely by gathering that which the earth of itself brings forth, such festivals and ceremonies are to a certain extent the natural precursors of the later vegetation festivals.

In view of these facts, the hypothesis of the above-mentioned investigators seems to have much in its favour. There is a very important consideration, however, that obviously speaks against it. It is highly probable that these very ceremonies for the multiplication of totem objects are not indigenous to Australia, the chief centre of totemism, but that they, along with the plant totem, were introduced from without. These plant totems, as was remarked above, appear to have come from the Melanesian Islands, where the animal totem plays a small r?le, because the fauna is meagre and man is dependent in great measure upon plant food. Besides animal and particularly bird totems, therefore, which also occur on the Melanesian Islands, we find plant totems throughout the whole of northern Australia. These totems, as we may suppose, are the result of Papuan immigrations, to which are due also other objects of Melanesian culture to be found in the Australian continent. In the south, where there are no totems other than animals, Intichiuma ceremonies receive small emphasis. In entire harmony with our contentions are the conditions in America, where no festivals of this sort are connected with the totems themselves; an analogous significance is gained only later by the great vegetation festivals, and these presuppose agriculture, together with the beginnings of a celestial mythology.

In more recent times, therefore, Frazer, whose great work, "Totemism and Exogamy," has assembled the richest collection of facts concerning totemic culture, has turned to an essentially different theory. He traces all forms of totemism back to conception totemism. Since the latter, as we have already stated, probably arose out of individual totemism, we are again confronted by an individualistic view, much as in the hypothesis of the origin from names. Frazer derives conception totemism from the dreams which mothers are supposed occasionally to have experienced before the birth of a child. The animal appearing in such a dream is thought to have become the totem or guardian animal of the child. But, though conception totemism, as well as sex totemism, may possibly have some connection with such phenomena--the fact that the animals here concerned are chiefly nocturnal animals suggests that such may be the case--totemism as a whole may, nevertheless, scarcely be derived from dreams. Still less can this hypothesis be harmonized with the fact that conception totemism is an anomaly. The ideas centred about it are but of rare occurrence within the system of totemic culture as a whole. Moreover, as Frazer also has assumed, they never appear except as an offshoot of individual totemism, and this in turn, when viewed in all its phases, cannot be regarded otherwise than as a product of tribal totemism. In its reference to the dream, however, this hypothesis may perhaps contain an element of truth, inasmuch as it involves ideas that obviously play an important r?le in totemism. This is shown particularly by reference to the totem animals that are found most commonly in Australia, and that suggest a relation between totemism and animistic ideas of the soul.

As a matter of fact, the totem is already itself the embodiment of a soul. Either the soul of an ancestor or that of a protective being is regarded as incorporated in the animal. The other totems, such as plants or totem fetishes , are obviously derivative phenomena, and the same is true of those legendary beings that inhabit the churingas as spirits, or that gave them to the ancestors for the purposes of magic. Now, originally, the totem was probably always an animal. But a survey of the great mass of animistic conceptions prevalent in all parts of the world shows that in this case also it is particularly the animal that is represented as capable of becoming the receptacle of a human soul after death. Animals, of course, are not all equally suited to this purpose. Some are more apt than others to be regarded as soul animals, particularly such as are characterized by rapid movement, flight through the air, or by other features that arouse surprise or uncanny dread. Thus, even in the popular belief of to-day, it is especially the snake, the lizard, and the mouse, in addition to the birds, that are counted among the soul animals. If, now, with these facts in mind, we cast a glance over the list of totem animals, we are at once struck by the fact that the most common among them are soul animals. In Australia, we find the hawk, the crow, and the lizard; in America, the eagle, the falcon, and the snake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

transcribers' note: "causal" is probably meant here.

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

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

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

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

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