The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Part 21

CHAPTER III

THE POSITIVE CULT--_continued_

II.--_Imitative Rites and the Principle of Causality_

But the processes which we have just been describing are not the only ones employed to a.s.sure the fecundity of the totemic species. There are others which serve for the same end, whether they accompany the preceding ones or replace them.

I

In the very ceremonies which we have been describing, in addition to the oblations, whether b.l.o.o.d.y or otherwise, there are other rites which are frequently celebrated, whose object is to complete the former ones and to consolidate their effects. They consist in movements and cries whose object is to imitate the different att.i.tudes and aspects of the animal whose reproduction is desired; therefore, we shall call them _imitative_.

Thus the Intichiuma of the Witchetty grub among the Arunta includes more than the rites performed upon the sacred rocks, of which we have already spoken. When these are finished, the men set out to return to camp; but when they still are about a mile away, they halt and all decorate themselves ritually; after this, the march is resumed. The decorations with which they thus adorn themselves announce that an important ceremony is going to take place. And, in fact, while the company was absent, one of the old men who had been left to guard the camp had built a shelter out of branches, called _Umbana_, which represented the chrysalis out of which the insect comes. All of those who had taken part in the previous ceremonies a.s.semble near the spot where this construction has been raised; then they advance slowly, stopping from time to time, until they reach the _Umbana_, which they enter. At once all the men who do not belong to the phratry of the Witchetty grub totem, and who a.s.sist at the scene, though from a distance, lie down on the ground, with their faces against the earth; they must remain in this position without moving until they are allowed to get up again.

Meanwhile, a chant arises from the interior of the Umbana, which describes the different phases through which the animal pa.s.ses in the course of its development, and the myths of which the sacred rocks are the subject. When this hymn ceases, the Alatunja glides out of the _Umbana_, though remaining in a squatting position, and advances slowly over the ground before him; he is followed by all his companions who reproduce gestures whose evident object is to represent the insect as it leaves the chrysalis. Also, a hymn which is heard at just this moment and which is like an oral commentary on the rite, consists in a description of the movements made by the insect at this stage of its development.[1160]

Another Intichiuma,[1161] celebrated in connection with another kind of grub, the _unchalka_[1162] grub, has this character still more clearly.

The actors of this rite decorate themselves with designs representing the _unchalka_ bush upon which this grub lives at the beginning of its existence. Then they cover a buckler with concentric circles of down, representing another kind of bush upon which the insect lays its eggs when it has become adult. When all these preparations are finished, they all sit down on the ground in a semicircle facing the princ.i.p.al officiant. He alternately bends his body double by leaning towards the ground and then rises on his knees; at the same time, he shakes his stretched-out arms, which is a way of representing the wings of the insect. From time to time, he leans over the buckler, imitating the way in which the b.u.t.terfly flies over the trees where it lays its eggs. When this ceremony is finished, another commences at a different spot, to which they go in silence. This time they use two bucklers. Upon one the tracks of the grub are represented by zigzag lines; upon the other, concentric circles of uneven dimensions represent the eggs of the insect and the seed of the Eremophile bush, upon which it is nourished. As in the former ceremony, they all sit down in silence while the officiant acts, representing the movements of the animal when leaving its chrysalis and taking its first flight.

Spencer and Gillen also point out certain a.n.a.logous facts among the Arunta, though these are of a minor importance: in the Intichiuma of the Emu, for example, at a certain moment the actors try to reproduce by their att.i.tude the air and aspect of this bird;[1163] in the Intichiuma of water, the men of the totem utter the characteristic cry of the plover, a cry which is naturally a.s.sociated in the mind with the rainy season.[1164] But in all, the examples of imitative rites which these two explorers have noted are rather few in number. However, it is certain that their relative silence on this point is due either to their not having observed the Intichiuma sufficiently or else to their having neglected this side of the ceremonies; Schulze, on the other hand, has been struck by the essentially imitative nature of the Arunta rites.

"The sacred corrobbori," he says, "are generally ceremonies representing animals": he calls them _animal tjurunga_[1165] and his testimony is now confirmed by the doc.u.ments collected by Strehlow. The examples given by this latter author are so numerous that it is impossible to cite them all: there are scarcely any ceremonies in which some imitating gesture is not pointed out. According to the nature of the animals whose feast is celebrated, they jump after the manner of kangaroos, or imitate the movements they make in eating, the flight of winged ants, the characteristic noise of the bat, the cry of the wild turkey, the hissing of the snake, the croaking of the frog, etc.[1166] When the totem is a plant, they make the gesture of plucking it,[1167] or eating it,[1168]

etc.

Among the Warramunga, the Intichiuma generally takes a special form, which we shall describe in the next chapter and which differs from those which we have studied up to the present. However, there is one typical case of a purely imitative Intichiuma among this people; it is that of the black c.o.c.katoo. The ceremony described by Spencer and Gillen commenced at ten o'clock in the evening. All night long the chief of the clan imitated the cry of the bird with a disheartening monotony. He stopped only when he had come to the end of his force, and then his son replaced him; then he commenced again as soon as he felt a little refreshed. These exhausting exercises continued until morning without interruption.[1169]

Living beings are not the only ones which they try to imitate. In a large number of tribes, the Intichiuma of rain consists essentially in imitative rites. One of the most simple of these is that celebrated among the Arabunna. The chief of the clan is seated on the ground, all covered with white down and holding a lance in his hands. He shakes himself, undoubtedly in order to detach from his body the down which is fixed there and which represents clouds when scattered about in the air.

Thus he imitates the men-clouds of the Alcheringa who, according to the legend, had the habit of ascending to heaven and forming clouds there, from which the rain then fell. In a word, the object of the whole rite is to represent the formation and ascension of clouds, the bringers of rain.[1170]

The ceremony is much more complicated among the Kaitish. We have already spoken of one of the means employed: the officiant pours water over the sacred stones and himself. But the action of this sort of oblation is reinforced by other rites. The rainbow is considered to have a close connection with rain: they say that it is its son and that it is always urged to appear to make the rain stop. To make the rain fall, it is therefore necessary that it should not appear; they believe that this result can be obtained in the following manner. A design representing a rainbow is made upon a buckler. They carry this buckler to camp, taking care to keep it hidden from all eyes. They are convinced that by making this image of the rainbow invisible, they keep the rainbow itself from appearing. Meanwhile, the chief of the clan, having beside him a _pitchi_ full of water, throws in all directions flakes of down which represent clouds. Repeated imitations of the cry of the plover complete this ceremony, which seems to have an especial gravity; for as long as it lasts, all those who partic.i.p.ate in it, either as actors or a.s.sistants, may have no relations whatsoever with their wives; they may not even speak to them.[1171]

The processes of figuration are different among the Dieri. Rain is not represented by water, but by blood, which the men cause to flow from their veins on to the a.s.sistants.[1172] At the same time they throw handfuls of white down about, which represent clouds. A hut has been constructed previously, in which they now place two large stones representing piles of clouds, a sign of rain. After they have been left there for a little while, they are carried a little distance away and placed as high as possible in the loftiest tree to be found; this is a way of making the clouds mount into the sky. Powdered gypsum is then thrown into a water-hole, for when he sees this, the rain spirit soon makes the clouds appear. Finally all the men, young and old, a.s.semble around the hut and with heads lowered, they charge upon it; they rush violently through it, repeating the operation several times, until nothing remains of the whole construction except the supporting posts.

Then they fall upon these and shake and pull at them until the whole thing has tumbled down. The operation consisting in running through the hut is supposed to represent clouds bursting; the tumbling down of the construction, the fall of rain.[1173]

In the north-western tribes studied by Clement,[1174] which occupy the district included between the Fontescue and Fitzroy rivers, certain ceremonies are celebrated whose object is exactly the same as that of the Intichiuma of the Arunta, and which seem to be, for the most part, essentially imitative.

These peoples give the name _tarlow_ to certain piles of stones which are evidently sacred, for, as we shall see, they are the object of important rites. Every animal, every plant, and in fact, every totem or sub-totem,[1175] is represented by a _tarlow_ which a special clan[1176]

guards. The a.n.a.logy between these _tarlow_ and the sacred rocks of the Arunta is easily seen.

When kangaroos, for example, become rare, the chief of the clan to which the _tarlow_ of the kangaroo belongs goes to it with a certain number of companions. Here various rites are performed, the chief of which consist in jumping around the _tarlow_ as kangaroos jump, in drinking as they drink and, in a word, in imitating all their most characteristic movements. The weapons used in hunting the animal have an important part in these rites. They brandish them, throw them against the stones, etc.

When they are concerned for emus, they go to the _tarlow_ of the emu, and walk and run as these birds do. The skill which the natives show in these imitations is, as it appears, really remarkable.

Other _tarlow_ are consecrated to plants, such as the cereals. In this case, they imitate the actions of thres.h.i.+ng and grinding the grain.

Since in ordinary life it is the women who are normally charged with these tasks, it is also they who perform the rite, in the midst of songs and dances.

II

All these rites belong to the same type. The principle upon which they rest is one of those at the basis of what is commonly and incorrectly called sympathetic[1177] magic.

These principles are ordinarily reduced to two.[1178]

The first may be stated thus: _anything touching an object also touches everything which has any relation of proximity or unity whatsoever with this object_. Thus, whatever affects the part also affects the whole; any action exercised over an individual is transmitted to his neighbours, relatives and all those to whom he is united in any way. All these cases are simple applications of the law of contagion, which we have already studied. A condition or a good or bad quality are communicated contagiously from one subject to another who has some connection with the former.

The second principle is ordinarily summed up in the formula: _like produces like_. The representation of a being or condition produces this being or condition. This is the maxim which brings about the rites which we have just been describing, and it is in them that we can best observe its characteristics. The cla.s.sical example of the magic charm, which is ordinarily given as the typical application of this same precept, is much less significant. The charm is, to a large extent, a simple phenomenon of transfer. The idea of the image is a.s.sociated in the mind with that of the model; consequently the effects of an action performed upon a statue are transmitted contagiously to the person whose traits it reproduces. The function of the image is for its original what that of a part is for the whole: it is an agent of transmission. Therefore men think that they can obtain the same result by burning the hair of the person whom they wish to injure: the only difference between these two sorts of operations is that in one, the communication is made through similarity, while in the other it is by means of contiguity. It is different with the rites which concern us. They suppose not only the displacement of a given condition or quality, which pa.s.ses from one object into the other, but also the creation of something entirely new.

The mere act of representing the animal gives birth to this animal and creates it; by imitating the sound of wind or falling water, they cause clouds to form, rain to fall, etc. Of course resemblance plays an important part in each case, but not at all the same one. In a charm, it only gives a special direction to the action exercised; it directs in a certain way an action not originating in it. In the rites of which we have just been speaking, it acts by itself and is directly efficacious.

So, in contradiction to the usual definitions, the real difference between the two principles of the so-called sympathetic magic and the corresponding practices is not that it is contiguity acts in one case and resemblance in the other, but that in the former there is a simple contagious communication, while there is production and creation in the latter.[1179]

The explanation of imitative rites therefore implies the explanation of the second of these principles, and reciprocally.

We shall not tarry long to discuss the explanation proposed by the anthropological school, and especially by Tylor and Frazer. Just as in their attempts to account for the contagiousness of a sacred character, they invoke the a.s.sociation of ideas. "Hom[oe]opathic magic," says Frazer, who prefers this expression to imitative magic, "is founded on the a.s.sociation of ideas by similarity; contagious magic is founded on the a.s.sociation of ideas by contiguity. Hom[oe]opathic magic commits the mistake of a.s.suming that things which resemble each other are the same."[1180] But this is a misunderstanding of the special nature of the practices under discussion. On the one hand, the formula of Frazer may be applied with some fitness to the case of charms;[1181] here, in fact, two distinct things are a.s.sociated with each other, owing to their partial resemblance: these are the image and the model which it represents more or less systematically. But in the imitative rites, which we have just been observing, the image alone is given; as for the model, it does not exist, for the new generation of the totemic species is as yet only a hope and even an uncertain hope at that. So there could be no question of a.s.sociation, whether correct or not; there is a real creation, and we cannot see how the a.s.sociation of ideas could possibly lead to a belief in this creation. How could the mere act of representing the movements of an animal bring about the cert.i.tude that this animal will be born, and born in abundance?

The general properties of human nature cannot explain such special practices. So instead of considering the principle upon which they rest in its general and abstract form, let us replace it in the environment of which it is a part and where we have been observing it, and let us connect it with the system of ideas and sentiments which the above rites put into practice, and then we shall be better able to perceive the causes from which it results.

The men who a.s.semble on the occasion of these rites believe that they are really animals or plants of the species whose name they bear. They feel within them an animal or vegetable nature, and in their eyes, this is what const.i.tutes whatever is the most essential and the most excellent in them. So when they a.s.semble, their first movement ought to be to show each other this quality which they attribute to themselves and by which they are defined. The totem is their rallying sign; for this reason, as we have seen, they design it upon their bodies; but it is no less natural that they should seek to resemble it in their gestures, their cries, their att.i.tude. Since they are emus or kangaroos, they comport themselves like the animals of the same name. By this means, they mutually show one another that they are all members of the same moral community and they become conscious of the kins.h.i.+p uniting them. The rite does not limit itself to expressing this kins.h.i.+p; it makes it or remakes it. For it exists only in so far as it is believed in, and the effect of all these collective demonstrations is to support the beliefs upon which they are founded. Therefore, these leaps, these cries and these movements of every sort, though bizarre and grotesque in appearance, really have a profound and human meaning. The Australian seeks to resemble his totem just as the faithful in more advanced religions seek to resemble their G.o.d. For the one as for the other, this is a means of communicating with the sacred being, that is to say, with the collective ideal which this latter symbolizes. This is an early form of the [Greek: h.o.m.oiosis to theo].

However, as this first reason is connected with the most specialized portions of the totemic beliefs, the principle by which like produces like should not have survived totemism, if this had been the only one in operation. Now there is probably no religion in which rites derived from it are not found. So another reason must co-operate with this first one.

And, in fact, the ceremonies where we have seen it applied do not merely have the very general object which we have just mentioned, howsoever essential this may be; they also aim at a more immediate and more conscious end, which is the a.s.surance of the reproduction of the totemic species. The idea of this necessary reproduction haunts the minds of the wors.h.i.+ppers: upon it the forces of their attention and will are concentrated. Now a single preoccupation cannot possess a group of men to this point without being externalized in a material form. Since all think of the animal or plant to whose destinies the clan is united, it is inevitable that this common thought should not be manifested outwardly by gestures,[1182] and those naturally designated for this office are those which represent this animal or plant in one of its most characteristic att.i.tudes; there are no other movements so close to the idea filling every mind, for these are an immediate and almost automatic translation of it. So they make themselves imitate the animal; they cry like it, they jump like it; they reproduce the scenes in which they make daily use of the plant. All these ways of representation are just so many means of ostensibly showing the end towards which all minds are directed, of telling the thing which they wish to realize, of calling it up and of evoking it. And this need belongs to no one time, nor does it depend upon the beliefs of any special religion; it is essentially human. This is why, even in religions very far removed from those we have been studying, the wors.h.i.+ppers, when a.s.sembled to ask their G.o.ds for some event which they ardently desire, are forced to figure it. Of course, the word is also a way of expressing it; but the gesture is no less natural; it bursts out from the organism just as spontaneously; it even precedes the word, or, in any case, accompanies it.

But if we can thus understand how the gestures acquired a place in the ceremony, we still must explain the efficacy attributed to them. If the Australian repeats them regularly each new season, it is because he believes them essential to the success of the rite. Where could he have gotten the idea that by imitating an animal, one causes it to reproduce?

So manifest an error seems hardly intelligible so long as we see in the rite only the material end towards which it seems to aim. But we know that in addition to the effect which it is thought to have on the totemic species, it also exercises a profound influence over the souls of the wors.h.i.+ppers who take part in it. They take away with them a feeling of well-being, whose causes they cannot clearly see, but which is well founded. They feel that the ceremony is good for them; and, as a matter of fact, they reforge their moral nature in it. How could this sort of well-being fail to give them a feeling that the rite has succeeded, that it has been what it set out to be, and that it has attained the ends at which it was aimed? As the only end which was consciously sought was the reproduction of the totemic species, this seems to be a.s.sured by the means employed, the efficacy of which is thus proven. Thus it comes about that men attribute creative virtues to their gestures, which in themselves are vain. The moral efficacy of the rite, which is real, leads to the belief in its physical efficacy, which is imaginary; that of the whole, to the belief in that of each part by itself. The truly useful effects produced by the whole ceremony are like an experimental justification of the elementary practices out of which it is made, though in reality, all these practices are in no way indispensable to its success. A certain proof, moreover, that they do not act by themselves is that they may be replaced by others, of a very different nature, without any modification of the final result. It appears that there are Intichiuma which include only oblations, with no imitative rites; others are purely imitative, and include no oblations.

However, both are believed to have the same efficacy. So if a price is attached to these various man[oe]uvres, it is not because of their intrinsic value, but because they are a part of a complex rite, whose utility as a whole is realized.

We are able to understand this state of mind all the easier because we can still observe it about us. Especially among the most cultivated peoples and environments, we frequently meet with believers who, though having doubts as to the special efficacy attributed by dogma to each rite considered separately, still continue to partic.i.p.ate in the cult.

They are not sure that the details of the prescribed observances are rationally justifiable; but they feel that it would be impossible to free oneself of them without falling into a moral confusion before which they recoil. The very fact that in them the faith has lost its intellectual foundations throws into eminence the profound reasons upon which they rest. This is why the easy criticisms to which an unduly simple rationalism has sometimes submitted ritual prescriptions generally leave the believer indifferent: it is because the true justification of religious practices does not lie in the apparent ends which they pursue, but rather in the invisible action which they exercise over the mind and in the way in which they affect our mental status. Likewise, when preachers undertake to convince, they devote much less attention to establis.h.i.+ng directly and by methodical proofs the truth of any particular proposition or the utility of such and such an observance, than to awakening or reawakening the sentiment of the moral comfort attained by the regular celebration of the cult. Thus they create a predisposition to belief, which precedes proofs, which leads the mind to overlook the insufficiency of the logical reasons, and which thus prepares it for the proposition whose acceptance is desired. This favourable prejudice, this impulse towards believing, is just what const.i.tutes faith; and it is faith which makes the authority of the rites, according to the believer, whoever he may be, Christian or Australian. The only superiority of the former is that he better accounts for the psychological process from which his faith results; he knows that "it is faith that saves."

It is because faith has this origin that it is, in a sense, "impermeable to experience."[1183] If the intermittent failures of the Intichiuma do not shake the confidence of the Australian in his rite, it is because he holds with all the strength of his soul to these practices in which he periodically recreates himself; he could not deny their principle without causing an upheaval of his own being, which resists. But howsoever great this force of resistance may be, it cannot radically distinguish religious mentality from the other forms of human mentality, even those which are the most habitually opposed to it. In this connection, that of a scholar differs from the preceding only in degree.

When a scientific law has the authority of numerous and varied experiments, it is against all method to renounce it too quickly upon the discovery of a fact which seems to contradict it. It is still necessary to make sure that the fact does not allow of a single interpretation, and that it is impossible to account for it, without abandoning the proposition which it seems to invalidate. Now the Australian does not proceed otherwise when he attributes the failure of the Intichiuma to some sorcery, or the abundance of a premature crop to a mystic Intichiuma celebrated in the beyond. He has all the more reason for not doubting his rite on the belief in a contrary fact, since its value is, or seems to be, established by a larger number of harmonizing facts. In the first place, the moral efficacy of the ceremony is real and is felt directly by all who partic.i.p.ate in it; there is a constantly renewed experience in it, whose importance no contradictory experience can diminish. Also, the physical efficacy itself is not unable to find an at least apparent confirmation in the data of objective observation.

As a matter of fact, the totemic species normally does reproduce regularly; so in the great majority of cases, everything happens just as if the ritual gestures really did produce the effects expected of them.

Failures are the exception. As the rites, and especially those which are periodical, demand nothing more of nature than that it follow its ordinary course, it is not surprising that it should generally have the air of obeying them. So if the believer shows himself indocile to certain lessons of experience, he does so because of other experiences which seem more demonstrative. The scholar does not do otherwise; only he introduces more method.

So magic is not, as Frazer has held,[1184] an original fact, of which religion is only a derived form. Quite on the contrary, it was under the influence of religious ideas that the precepts upon which the art of the magician is based were established, and it was only through a secondary extension that they were applied to purely lay relations. Since all the forces of the universe have been conceived on the model of the sacred forces, the contagiousness inherent in the second was extended to the first, and men have believed that all the properties of a body could be transmitted contagiously. Likewise, when the principle according to which like produces like had been established, in order to satisfy certain religious needs, it detached itself from its ritual origins to become, through a sort of spontaneous generalization, a law of nature.[1185] But in order to understand these fundamental axioms of magic, they must be replaced in the religious atmosphere in which they arose and which alone enables us to account for them. When we regard them as the work of isolated individuals or solitary magicians, we ask how they could ever have occurred to the mind of man, for nothing in experience could either suggest or verify them; and especially we do not explain how so deceiving an art has been able to impose itself for so long a time in the confidence of men. But this problem disappears when we realize that the faith inspired by magic is only a particular case of religious faith in general, and that it is itself the product, at least indirectly, of a collective effervescence. This is as much as to say that the use of the expression sympathetic magic to designate the system of rites which we have just been speaking is not very exact. There are sympathetic rites, but they are not peculiar to magic; not only are they to be found in religion, but it was from religion that magic received them. So we only risk confusion when, by the name we give them, we have the air of making them something which is specifically magic.

The results of our a.n.a.lysis thus attach themselves to and confirm those attained by MM. Hubert and Mauss when they studied magic directly.[1186]

They have shown that this is nothing more nor less than crude industry based on incomplete science. Behind the mechanisms, purely laical in appearance, which are used by the magician, they point out a background of religious conceptions and a whole world of forces, the idea of which has been taken by magic from religion. We are now able to understand how it comes that magic is so full of religious elements: it is because it was born of religion.

III

But the principle which has just been set forth does not merely have a function in the ritual; it is of direct interest for the theory of knowledge. In fact, it is a concrete statement of the law of causality and, in all probability, one of the most primitive statements of it which has ever existed. A full conception of the causal relation is implied in the power thus attributed to the like to produce the like; and this conception dominates primitive thought, for it is the basis both of the practices of the cult and the technique of the magician. So the origins of the precept upon which the imitative rites depend are able to clarify those of the principle of causality. The genesis of one should aid us in understanding the genesis of the other. Now we have shown how the former is a product of social causes: it was elaborated by groups having collective ends in view, and it translates collective sentiments. So we may a.s.sume that the same is true for the second.

In fact, an a.n.a.lysis of the principle of causality is sufficient to a.s.sure us that the diverse elements of which it is composed really did have this origin.