The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Part 16

What makes this question embarra.s.sing is the fact that in itself, the idea of the soul does not imply that of its survival, but rather seems to exclude it. In fact, we have seen that the soul, though being distinguished from the body, is believed, nevertheless, to be closely united to it: it ages along with the body, it feels a reaction from all the maladies that fall upon the body; so it would seem natural that it should die with the body. At least, men ought to have believed that it ceased to exist from the moment when it definitely lost its original form, and when it was no longer what it had been. Yet it is at just this moment that a new life opens out before it.

The myths which we have already described give the only possible explanation of this belief. We have seen that the souls of new-born children are either emanations of the ancestral souls, or these souls themselves reincarnated. But in order that they may either reincarnate themselves, or periodically give off new emanations, they must have survived their first holders. So it seems as though they admitted the survival of the dead in order to explain the birth of the living. The primitive does not have the idea of an all-powerful G.o.d who creates souls out of nothing. It seems to him that souls cannot be made except out of souls. So those who are born can only be new forms of those who have been; consequently, it is necessary that these latter continue to exist in order that others may be born. In fine, the belief in the immortality of the soul is the only way in which men were able to explain a fact which could not fail to attract their attention; this fact is the perpetuity of the life of the group. Individuals die, but the clan survives. So the forces which give it life must have the same perpetuity. Now these forces are the souls which animate individual bodies; for it is in them and through them that the group is realized.

For this reason, it is necessary that they endure. It is even necessary that in enduring, they remain always the same; for, as the clan always keeps its characteristic appearance, the spiritual substance out of which it is made must be thought of as qualitatively invariable. Since it is always the same clan with the same totemic principle, it is necessary that the souls be the same, for souls are only the totemic principle broken up and particularized. Thus there is something like a germinative plasm, of a mystic order, which is transmitted from generation to generation and which makes, or at least is believed to make, the spiritual unity of the clan through all time. And this belief, in spite of its symbolic character, is not without a certain objective truth. For though the group may not be immortal in the absolute sense of the word, still it is true that it endures longer than the individuals and that it is born and incarnated afresh in each new generation.

A fact confirms this interpretation. We have seen that according to the testimony of Strehlow, the Arunta distinguish two sorts of souls: on the one hand are those of the ancestors of the Alcheringa, on the other, those of the individuals who actually compose the active body of the tribe at each moment in history. The second sort only survive the body for a relatively short time; they are soon totally annihilated. Only the former are immortal; as they are uncreated, so they do not perish. It is also to be noticed that they are the only ones whose immortality is necessary to explain the permanence of the group; for it is upon them, and upon them alone, that it is inc.u.mbent to a.s.sure the perpetuity of the clan, for every conception is their work. In this connection, the others have no part to play. So souls are not said to be immortal except in so far as this immortality is useful in rendering intelligible the continuity of the collective life.

Thus the causes leading to the first beliefs in a future life had no connections with the functions to be filled at a later period by the inst.i.tutions beyond the tomb. But when that had once appeared, they were soon utilized for other purposes besides those which had been their original reasons for existence. Even in the Australian societies, we see them beginning to organize themselves for this other purpose. Moreover, there was no need of any fundamental transformation for this. How true it is that the same social inst.i.tution can successively fulfil different functions without changing its nature!

VI

The idea of the soul was for a long time, and still is in part, the popular form of the idea of personality.[865] So the genesis of the former of these ideas should aid us in understanding how the second one was formed.

From what has already been said, it is clear that the notion of person is the product of two sorts of factors. One of these is essentially impersonal: it is the spiritual principle serving as the soul of the group. In fact, it is this which const.i.tutes the very substance of individual souls. Now this is not the possession of any one in particular: it is a part of the collective patrimony; in it and through it, all consciousnesses communicate. But on the other hand, in order to have separate personalities, it is necessary that another factor intervene to break up and differentiate this principle: in other words, an individualizing factor is necessary. It is the body that fulfils this function. As bodies are distinct from each other, and as they occupy different points of s.p.a.ce and time, each of them forms a special centre about which the collective representations reflect and colour themselves differently. The result is that even if all the consciousnesses in these bodies are directed towards the same world, to wit, the world of the ideas and sentiments which brings about the moral unity of the group, they do not all see it from the same angle; each one expresses it in its own fas.h.i.+on.

Of these two equally indispensable factors, the former is certainly not the less important, for this is the one which furnishes the original matter for the idea of the soul. Perhaps some will be surprised to see so considerable a role attributed to the impersonal element in the genesis of the idea of personality. But the philosophical a.n.a.lysis of the idea of person, which has gone far ahead of the sociological a.n.a.lysis, has reached a.n.a.logous results on this point. Among all the philosophers, Leibniz is one of those who have felt most vividly what a personality is; for before all, the nomad is a personal and autonomous being. Yet, for Leibniz, the contents of all the monads is identical. In fact, all are consciousnesses which express one and the same object, the world; and as the world itself is only a system of representations, each particular consciousness is really only the reflection of the universal consciousness. However, each one expresses it from its own point of view, and in its own manner. We know how this difference of perspectives comes from the fact that the monads are situated differently in relation to each other and to the whole system which they const.i.tute.

Kant expresses the same sentiment, though in a different form. For him, the corner-stone of the personality is the will. Now the will is the faculty of acting in conformity with reason, and the reason is that which is most impersonal within us. For reason is not my reason; it is human reason in general. It is the power which the mind has of rising above the particular, the contingent and the individual, to think in universal forms. So from this point of view, we may say that what makes a man a personality is that by which he is confounded with other men, that which makes him a man, not a certain man. The senses, the body and, in a word, all that individualizes, is, on the contrary, considered as the antagonist of the personality by Kant.

This is because individuation is not the essential characteristic of the personality. A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact. It is represented as capable of moving itself, to a certain degree: this is what Leibniz expressed in an exaggerated way when he said that the monad was completely closed to the outside.

Now our a.n.a.lysis permits us to see how this conception was formed and to what it corresponds.

In fact, the soul, a symbolic representation of the personality, has the same characteristic. Although closely bound to the body, it is believed to be profoundly distinct from it and to enjoy, in relation to it, a large degree of independence. During life, it may leave it temporarily, and it definitely withdraws at death. Far from being dependent upon the body, it dominates it from the higher dignity which is in it. It may well take from the body the outward form in which it individualizes itself, but it owes nothing essential to it. Nor is the autonomy which all peoples have attributed to the soul a pure illusion; we know now what its objective foundation is. It is quite true that the elements which serve to form the idea of the soul and those which enter into the representation of the body come from two different sources that are independent of one another. One sort are made up of the images and impressions coming from all parts of the organism; the others consist in the ideas and sentiments which come from and express society. So the former are not derived from the latter. There really is a part of ourselves which is not placed in immediate dependence upon the organic factor: this is all that which represents society in us. The general ideas which religion or science fix in our minds, the mental operations which these ideas suppose, the beliefs and sentiments which are at the basis of our moral life, and all these superior forms of psychical activity which society awakens in us, these do not follow in the trail of our bodily states, as our sensations and our general bodily consciousness do. As we have already shown, this is because the world of representations in which social life pa.s.ses is superimposed upon its material substratum, far from arising from it; the determinism which reigns there is much more supple than the one whose roots are in the const.i.tution of our tissues and it leaves with the actor a justified impression of the greatest liberty. The medium in which we thus move is less opaque and less resistant: we feel ourselves to be, and we are, more at our ease there. In a word, the only way we have of freeing ourselves from physical forces is to oppose them with collective forces.

But whatever we receive from society, we hold in common with our companions. So it is not at all true that we are more personal as we are more individualized. The two terms are in no way synonymous: in one sense, they oppose more than they imply one another. Pa.s.sion individualizes, yet it also enslaves. Our sensations are essentially individual; yet we are more personal the more we are freed from our senses and able to think and act with concepts. So those who insist upon all the social elements of the individual do not mean by that to deny or debase the personality. They merely refuse to confuse it with the fact of individuation.[866]

CHAPTER IX

THE IDEA OF SPIRITS AND G.o.dS

When we come to the idea of the soul, we have left the circle of purely impersonal forces. But above the soul the Australian religions already recognize mythical personalities of a superior order: spirits, civilizing heroes and even G.o.ds who are properly so-called. While it will be unnecessary to enter into the detail of the mythologies, we must at least seek the form in which these three categories of spiritual beings are presented in Australia, and the way in which they are connected with the whole religious system.

I

A soul is not a spirit. In fact, it is shut up in a determined organism; though it may leave it at certain moments, it is ordinarily a prisoner there. It definitely escapes only at death, and we have already seen the difficulties under which the separation is accomplished. A spirit, on the contrary, though often tied by the closest bonds to some particular object, such as a spring, a rock, a tree, a star, etc., and though residing there by preference, may go away at will and lead an independent existence in free s.p.a.ce. So it has a more extended circle of action. It can act upon the individuals who approach it or whom it approaches. The soul, on the contrary, has almost no influence except over the body it animates; it is very exceptional that it succeeds in influencing outside objects during the course of its terrestrial life.

But if the soul does not have the distinctive characteristics of the spirit, it acquires them, at least in part, at death. In fact, when it has been disincarnated, so long as it does not descend into a body again, it has the same liberty of movement as a spirit. Of course, after the rites of mourning have been accomplished, it is thought to go to the land of souls, but before this it remains about the tomb for a rather long time. Also, even after it has definitely departed, it is believed to prowl about in the brush near the camp.[867] It is generally represented as a rather beneficent being, especially for the surviving members of its family; we have seen that the soul of the father comes to aid the growth of his children or his grandchildren. But it also happens sometimes that it shows signs of a veritable cruelty; everything depends upon its humour and the manner in which it is treated by the living.[868] So it is recommended, especially to women and children, not to venture outside of the camp during the night so as not to expose oneself to dangerous encounters.[869]

However, a ghost is not a real spirit. In the first place, it generally has only a limited power of action; also, it does not have a definite province. It is a vagabond, upon whom no determined task is inc.u.mbent, for the effect of death has been to put it outside of all regular forms; as regards the living, it is a sort of a exile. A spirit, on the other hand, always has a power of a certain sort and it is by this that it is defined; it is set over a certain order of cosmic or social phenomena; it has a more or less precise function to fulfil in the system of the universe.

But there are some souls which satisfy this double condition and which are consequently spirits, in the proper sense of the word. These are the souls of the mythical personages whom popular imagination has placed at the beginning of time, the Altjirangamitjina or the men of the Alcheringa among the Arunta; the Mura-mura among the tribes of Lake Eyre; the Muk-Kurnai among the Kurnai, etc. In one sense, they are still souls, for they are believed to have formerly animated bodies from which they separated themselves at a certain moment. But even when they led a terrestrial life, they already had, as we have seen, exceptional powers; they had a mana superior to that of ordinary men, and they have kept it.

Also, they are charged with definite functions.

In the first place, whether we accept the version of Spencer and Gillen or that of Strehlow, it is to them that the care of a.s.suring the periodical recruiting of the clan falls. They have charge of the phenomena of conception.

Even when the conception has been accomplished, the task of the ancestor is not yet completed. It is his duty to guard over the new-born child.

Later, when the child has become a man, he accompanies him in the hunt, brings game to him, warns him by dreams of the dangers he may run, protects him against his enemies, etc. On this point, Strehlow is entirely in accord with Spencer and Gillen.[870] It is true that someone may ask how it is possible, according to the version of these latter, for the ancestor to fulfil this function; for, since he reincarnates himself at the moment of conception, it seems as though he should be confounded with the soul of the child and should therefore be unable to protect it from without. But the fact is that he does not reincarnate himself entirely; he merely duplicates himself. One part of him enters the body of the woman and fertilizes her; another part continues to exist outside and, under the special name of Arumburinga, fulfils the office of guardian genius.[871]

Thus we see how great a kins.h.i.+p there is between this ancestral spirit and the _genius_ of the Latins or the [Greek: daimon] of the Greeks.[872] The identification of function is complete. In fact, at first the genius is the one who begets, _qui gignit_; he expresses and personifies the powers of generation.[873] But at the same time, he is the protector and director of the particular individual to whose person he is attached.[874] He is finally confused with the personality itself of this individual; he represents the totality of the proclivities and tendencies which characterize him and give him a distinctive appearance among other men.[875] Hence come the well-known expressions _indulgere genio_, _defraudere genium_ with the sense of _to follow one's natural temperament_. At bottom, the _genius_ is another form or double of the soul of the individual. This is proved by the partial synonomy of _genius_ and _manes_.[876] The manes is the genius after death; but it is also all that survives of the dead man, that is to say, his soul. In the same way, the soul of the Arunta and the ancestral spirit which serves as his genius are only two different aspects of one and the same being.

But it is not only in relation to persons that the ancestor has a definite situation; he also has one in relation to things. Though he is believed to have his real residence under the ground, they think that he is always haunting the place where his nanja-tree or rock is, or the water-hole which was spontaneously formed at the exact spot where he disappeared into the ground, having terminated his first existence. As this tree or rock is believed to represent the body of the hero, they imagine that the soul itself is constantly coming back there, and lives there more or less permanently; it is by the presence of this soul that they explain the religious respect inspired by these localities. No one can break the branch of a nanja-tree without a risk of falling sick.[877] "Formerly the act of breaking it down or injuring it was punished with death. An animal or bird taking refuge there could not be killed. Even the surrounding bushes had to be respected: the gra.s.s could not be burned, the rocks also had to be treated with respect. It was forbidden to remove them or break them."[878] As this sacred character is attributed to the ancestor, he appears as the spirit of this tree or rock, of this water-hole or spring.[879] If the spring is thought of as having some connection with rain,[880] he will become a spirit of rain.

Thus, the same souls which serve as protecting geniuses for men also fulfil cosmic functions at the same time. It is undoubtedly in this sense that we must understand the text of Roth where he says that in northern Queensland, the spirits of nature are the souls of the dead who have chosen to live in the forests or caves.[881]

So we have here some spiritual beings that are different from the wandering souls with no definite powers. Strehlow calls them G.o.ds;[882]

but this expression is inexact, at least in the great majority of cases.

If it were true, then in a society like the Arunta where each one has his protecting ancestor, there would be as many or more G.o.ds than there are individuals. It would merely introduce confusion into our terminology to give the name of G.o.d to a sacred being with only one wors.h.i.+pper. It may be, of course, that the figure of the ancestor grows to a point where it resembles a real divinity. Among the Warramunga, as we have already pointed out,[883] the clan as a whole is thought to be descended from one sole and unique ancestor. It is easily seen how this collective ancestor might, under certain circ.u.mstances, become the object of a collective devotion. To choose a notable example, this is what has happened to the snake Wollunqua.[884] This mythical beast, from whom the clan of the same name is held to be descended, continues to live, they believe, in water-holes which are therefore surrounded with a religious respect. Thus it becomes the object of a cult which the clan celebrates collectively: through determined rites, they attempt to please him and to win his favours, and they address to him all sorts of prayers, etc. So we may say that he is like a G.o.d of the clan. But this is a very exceptional case, or even, according to Spencer and Gillen, a unique one. Normally, the word "spirits" is the only one suitable for designating these ancestral personages.

As to the manner in which this conception has been formed, we may say that it is evident from what has preceded.

As we have already shown, the existence of individual souls, when once admitted, cannot be understood unless one imagines an original supply of fundamental souls at the origin of things, from which all the others were derived. Now these architype souls had to be conceived as containing within them the source of all religious efficacy; for, since the imagination does not go beyond them, it is from them and only from them that all sacred things are believed to come, both the instruments of the cult, the members of the clan and the animals of the totemic species. They incarnate all the sacredness diffused in the whole tribe and the whole world, and so they are attributed powers noticeably superior to those enjoyed by the simple souls of men. Moreover, time by itself increases and reinforces the sacred character of things. A very ancient churinga inspires much more respect than a new one, and is supposed to have more virtues.[885] The sentiments of veneration of which it has been the object during the series of successive generations who have handled it are, as it were, acc.u.mulated in it. For the same reason, the personages who for centuries have been the subject of myths respectfully pa.s.sed on from mouth to mouth, and periodically put into action by the rites, could not fail to take a very especial place in the popular imagination.

But how does it happen that, instead of remaining outside of the organized society, they have become regular members of it?

This is because each individual is the double of an ancestor. Now when two beings are related as closely as this, they are naturally conceived as incorporated together; since they partic.i.p.ate in the same nature, it seems as though that which affects one ought to affect the other as well. Thus the group of mythical ancestors became attached to the society of the living; the same interests and the same pa.s.sions were attributed to each; they were regarded as a.s.sociates. However, as the former had a higher dignity than the latter, this a.s.sociation takes, in the public mind, the form of an agreement between superiors and inferiors, between patrons and clients, benefactors and recipients. Thus comes this curious idea of a protecting genius who is attached to each individual.

The question of how this ancestor came to have relations not only with men, but also with things, may appear more embarra.s.sing; for, at the first glance, we do not see what connection there can be between a personage of this sort and a rock or tree. But a fact which we owe to Strehlow furnishes us with a solution of this problem, which is at least probable.

These trees and rocks are not situated at any point in the tribal territory, but, for the most part, they are grouped around the sanctuaries, called ertnatulunga by Spencer and Gillen and arknanaua by Strehlow, where the churinga of the clan is kept.[886] We know the respect with which these localities are enhaloed from the mere fact that the most precious instruments of the cult are there. Each of these spreads sanct.i.ty all about it. It is for this reason that the neighbouring trees and rocks appear sacred, that it is forbidden to destroy or harm them, and that all violence used against them is a sacrilege. This sacred character is really due to a simple phenomenon of psychic contagiousness; but in order to explain it, the native must admit that these different objects have relations with the different beings in whom he sees the source of all religious power, that is to say, with the ancestors of the Alcheringa. Hence comes the system of myths of which we have spoken. They imagined that each ertnatulunga marked the spot where a group of ancestors entered into the ground. The mounds or trees which covered the ground were believed to represent their bodies. But as the soul retains, in a general way, a sort of affinity for the body in which it dwelt, they were naturally led to believe that these ancestral souls continued to frequent these places where their material envelope remained. So they were located in the rocks, the trees or the water-holes. Thus each of them, though remaining attached to some determined individual, became transformed into a sort of _genius loci_ and fulfilled its functions.[887]

The conceptions thus elucidated enable us to understand a form of totemism which we have left unexplained up to the present: this is individual totemism.

An individual totem is defined, in its essence, by the two following characteristics: (1) it is a being in an animal or vegetable form whose function is to protect an individual; (2) the fate of this individual and that of his patron are closely united: all that touches the latter is sympathetically communicated to the former. Now the ancestral spirits of which we have just been speaking answer to this same definition. They also belong, at least in part, to the animal or vegetable kingdoms.

They, too, are protecting geniuses. Finally, a sympathetic bond unites each individual to his protecting ancestor. In fact, the nanja-tree, representing the mystical body of this ancestor, cannot be destroyed without the man's feeling himself menaced. It is true that this belief is losing its force to-day, but Spencer and Gillen have observed it, and in any case, they are of the opinion that formerly it was quite general.[888]

The ident.i.ty of these two conceptions is found even in their details.

The ancestral souls reside in trees or rocks which are considered sacred. Likewise, among the Euahlayi, the spirit of the animal serving as individual totem is believed to inhabit a tree or stone.[889] This tree or stone is sacred; no one may touch it except the proprietor of the totem; when it is a stone or rock, this interdiction is still absolute.[890] The result is that they are veritable places of refuge.

Finally, we have seen that the individual soul is only another aspect of the ancestral spirit, according to Strehlow, this serves after a fas.h.i.+on, as a second self.[891] Likewise, following an expression of Mrs. Parker, the individual totem of the Euahlayi, called Yunbeai, is the _alter ego_ of the individual: "The soul of a man is in his Yunbeai and the soul of his Yunbeai is in him."[892] So at bottom, it is one soul in two bodies. The kins.h.i.+p of these two notions is so close that they are sometimes expressed by one and the same word. This is the case in Melanesia and in Polynesia: _atai_ in the island Mota, _tamaniu_ in the island Aurora, and _talegia_ in Motlaw all designate both the soul of the individual and his personal totem.[893] It is the same with _aitu_ in Samoa.[894] This is because the individual totem is merely the outward and visible form of the ego or the personality, of which the soul is the inward and invisible form.[895]

Thus the individual totem has all the essential characteristics of the protecting ancestor and fills the same role: this is because it has the same origin and proceeds from the same idea.

Each of them, in fact, consists in a duplication of the soul. The totem, as the ancestor, is the soul of the individual, but externalized and invested with powers superior to those it is believed to possess while within the organism. Now this duplication is the result of a psychological necessity; for it only expresses the nature of the soul which, as we have seen, is double. In one sense, it is ours: it expresses our personality. But at the same time, it is outside of us, for it is only the reaching into us of a religious force which is outside of us. We cannot confound ourselves with it completely, for we attribute to it an excellence and a dignity by which it rises far above us and our empirical individuality. So there is a whole part of ourselves which we tend to project into the outside. This way of thinking of ourselves is so well established in our nature that we cannot escape it, even when we attempt to regard ourselves without having recourse to any religious symbols. Our moral consciousness is like a nucleus about which the idea of the soul forms itself; yet when it speaks to us, it gives the effect of an outside power, superior to us, which gives us our law and judges us, but which also aids and sustains us. When we have it on our side, we feel ourselves to be stronger against the trials of life, and better a.s.sured of triumphing over them, just as the Australian who, when trusting in his ancestor or his personal totem, feels himself more valiant against his enemies.[896]

So there is something objective at the basis of these conceptions, whether we have in mind the Roman _genius_, the individual totem, or the Alcheringa ancestor; and this is why they have survived, in various forms, up to the present day. Everything goes just as if we really had two souls; one which is within us, or rather, which is us; the other which is above us, and whose function it is to control and a.s.sist the first one. Frazer thought that the individual totem was an external soul; but he believed that this exteriority was the result of an artifice and a magic ruse. In reality, it is implied in the very const.i.tution of the idea of the soul.[897]

II

The spirits of which we have just been speaking are essentially benefactors. Of course they punish a man if he does not treat them in a fitting manner;[898] but it is not their function to work evil.

However, a spirit is in itself just as capable of doing evil as good.

This is why we find a cla.s.s of evil geniuses forming itself naturally, in opposition to these auxiliary and protecting spirits, which enables men to explain the permanent evils that they have to suffer, their nightmares[899] and illnesses,[900] whirlwinds and tempests,[901] etc.

Of course this is not saying that all these human miseries have appeared as things too abnormal to be explained in any way except by supernatural forces; but it is saying that these forces are thought of under a religious form. As it is a religious principle which is considered the source of life, so, all the events which disturb or destroy life ought logically to be traced to a principle of the same sort.