Post by Lady Anastasia on Jan 25, 2007 3:29:21 GMT -5
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS
Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system--the system, that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of a tribe (say a clan) after some animal--or sometimes--also after some plant or tree or Nature-element, like fire or rain or thunder; but at best the subject is a difficult one for us moderns to understand.
A careful study has been made of it by Salamon Reinach in his Cultes, Mythes et Religions, 1 where he formulates his conclusions in twelve statements or definitions; but even so--though his suggestions are helpful--he throws very little light on the real origin of the system. 2
There are three main difficulties. The first is to understand why primitive Man should name his Tribe after an animal or object of nature at all; the second, to understand on what principle he selected the particular name (a lion, a crocodile, a lady bird, a certain tree); the third, why he should make of the said totem a divinity, and pay honor and worship to it. It may be worth while to pause for a moment over these.
(1) The fact that the Tribe was one of the early things for which Man found it necessary to have a name is interesting, because it shows how early the solidarity and psychological actuality of the tribe was recognized; and as to the selection of a name from some animal or concrete object of Nature, that was inevitable, for the simple reason that there was nothing else for the savage to choose from.
Plainly to call his tribe "The Wayfarers" or "The Pioneers" or the "Pacifists" or the "Invincibles," or by any of the thousand and one names which modern associations adopt, would have been impossible, since such abstract terms had little or no existence in his mind. And again to name it after an animal was the most obvious thing to do, simply because the animals were by far the most important features or accompaniments of his own life.
As I am dealing in this book largely with certain psychological conditions of human evolution, it has to be pointed out that to primitive man the animal was the nearest and most closely related of all objects. Being of the same order of consciousness as himself, the animal appealed to him very closely as his mate and equal. He made with regard to it little or no distinction from himself. We see this very clearly in the case of children, who of course represent the savage mind, and who regard animals simply as their mates and equals, and come quickly into rapport with them, not differentiating themselves from them.
(2) As to the particular animal or other object selected in order to give a name to the Tribe, this would no doubt be largely accidental. Any unusual incident might superstitiously precipitate a name.
We can hardly imagine the Tribe scratching its congregated head in the deliberate effort to think out a suitable emblem for itself. That is not the way in which nicknames are invented in a school or anywhere else to-day.
At the same time the heraldic appeal of a certain object of nature, animate or inanimate, would be deeply and widely felt. The strength of the lion, the fleetness of the deer, the food-value of a bear, the flight of a bird, the awful jaws of a crocodile, might easily mesmerize a whole tribe. Reinach points out, with great justice, that many tribes placed themselves under the protection of animals which were supposed (rightly or wrongly) to act as guides and augurs, foretelling the future. "Diodorus," he says, "distinctly states that the hawk, in Egypt, was venerated because it foretold the future."
[Birds generally act as weather-prophets.] "In Australia and Samoa the kangaroo, the crow and the owl premonish their fellow clansmen of events to come. At one time the Samoan warriors went so far as to rear owls for their prophetic qualities in war."
[The jackal, or 'pathfinder'--whose tracks sometimes lead to the remains of a food-animal slain by a lion, and many birds and insects, have a value of this kind.]
"The use of animal totems for purposes of augury is, in all likelihood, of great antiquity. Men must soon have realized that the senses of animals were acuter than their own; nor is it surprising that they should have expected their totems--that is to say, their natural allies--to forewarn them both of unsuspected dangers and of those provisions of nature, wells especially, which animals seem to scent by instinct." 1 And again, beyond all this, I have little doubt that there are subconscious affinities which unite certain tribes to certain animals or plants, affinities whose origin we cannot now trace, though they are very real--the same affinities that we recognize as existing between individual persons and certain objects of nature.
W. H. Hudson--himself in many respects having this deep and primitive relation to nature--speaks in a very interesting and autobiographical volume 2 of the extraordinary fascination exercised upon him as a boy, not only by a snake, but by certain trees, and especially by a particular flowering-plant "not more
than a foot in height, with downy soft pale green leaves, and clusters of reddish blossoms, something like valerian." . . . "One of my sacred flowers," he calls it, and insists on the "inexplicable attraction" which it had for him. In various ways of this kind one can perceive how particular totems came to be selected by particular peoples.
(3) As to the tendency to divinize these totems, this arises no doubt partly out of question (2). The animal or other object admired on account of its strength or swiftness, or adopted as guardian of the tribe because of its keen sight or prophetic quality, or infinitely prized on account of its food-value, or felt for any other reason to have a peculiar relation and affinity to the tribe, is by that fact set apart.
It becomes taboo. It must not be killed--except under necessity and by sanction of the whole tribe--nor injured; and all dealings with it must be fenced round with regulations.
It is out of this taboo or system of taboos that, according to Reinach, religion arose. "I propose (he says) to define religion as: A sum of scruples (taboos) which impede the free exercise of our faculties." 1 Obviously this definition is gravely deficient, simply because it is purely negative, and leaves out of account the positive aspect of the subject.
In Man, the positive content of religion is the instinctive sense--w ether conscious or subconscious--of an inner unity and continuity with the world around. This is the stuff out of which religion is made. The scruples or taboos which "impede the freedom" of this relation are the negative forces which give outline and form to the relation. These are the things which generate the rites and ceremonials of religion; and as far as Reinach means by religion merely rites and ceremonies he is correct; but clearly he only covers half the subject. The tendency to divinize the totem is at least as much dependent on the positive sense of unity with it, as on the negative scruples which limit the relation in each particular case. But I shall return to this subject presently, and more than once, with the view of clarifying it. Just now it will be best to illustrate the nature of Totems generally, and in some detail.
As would be gathered from what I have just said, there is found among all the more primitive peoples, and in all parts of the world, an immense variety of totem-names.
The Dinkas, for instance, are a rather intelligent well-grown people inhabiting the upper reaches of the Nile in the vicinity of the great swamps.
According to Dr. Seligman their clans have for totems the lion, the elephant, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, and the hyena, as well as certain birds which infest and damage the corn, some plants and trees, and such things as rain, fire, etc.
"Each clan speaks of its totem as its ancestor, and refrains [as a rule] from injuring or eating it." 1 The members of the Crocodile clan call themselves "brothers of the crocodile." The tribes of Bechuana-land have a very similar list of totem-names--the buffalo, the fish, the porcupine, the wild vine, etc. They too have a Crocodile clan, but they call the crocodile their father!
The tribes of Australia much the same again, with the differences suitable to their country; and the Red Indians of North America the same. Garcilasso della Vega, the Spanish historian, son of an Inca princess by one of the Spanish conquerors of Peru and author of the well-known book Commentarias Reales, says in that book (i, 57), speaking of the pre-Inca period, "An Indian (of Peru) was not considered honorable unless he was descended from a fountain, river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call thingyur (condor), or some other bird of prey." 2 According to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat; pike, catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, snake; reed-grass, sand, rock, and tobacco-plant.
So we might go on rather indefinitely. I need hardly say that in more modern and civilized life, relics of the totem system are still to be found in the forms of the heraldic creatures adopted for their crests by different families, and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and stars and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are flaunted as the insignia of the various nations.
The names may not have been originally adopted from any definite belief in blood-relationship with the animal or other object in question; but when, as Robertson says (Pagan Christs, p. 104), a "savage learned that he was 'a Bear' and that his father and grandfather and forefathers were so before him, it was really impossible, after ages in which totem-names thus passed current, that he should fail to assume that his folk were descended from a bear."
As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman will on no account eat his tribal totem-animal. Such would naturally be deemed a kind of sacrilege.
Also it must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable for eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasionally, and guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it has been an almost universal custom for the tribal elders to call a feast at which an animal (either the totem or some other) is killed and commonly eaten--and this in order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue belonging to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with each other.
The eating of the bear or other animal, the sprinkling with its blood, and the general ritual in which the participants shared its flesh, or dressed and disguised themselves in its skin, or otherwise identified themselves with it, was to them a symbol of their community of life with each other, and a means of their renewal and salvation in the holy emblem. And this custom, as the reader will perceive, became the origin of the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions.
Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords an instance of this. 1 It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century) has left a detailed account of the occasional sacrifice in his time of a spotless white camel among the Arabs of the Sinai region, which closely resembles a totemic communion-feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had to be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak.
"The slaughter of the victim, the sacramental drinking of the blood, and devouring in wild haste of the pieces of still quivering flesh, recall the details of the Dionysiac and other festivals." 2 Robertson-Smith himself says:--"The plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before its life had left the still warm blood and flesh . . . and that thus in the most literal way, all those who shared in the ceremony absorbed part of the victim's life into themselves.
One sees how much more forcibly than any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment or confirmation of a bond of common life between the worshipers, and also, since the blood is shed upon the altar itself, between the worshipers and their god.
In this sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two: the conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the absorption of the living flesh and blood into the flesh and blood of the worshippers. Each of these is effected in the simplest and most direct manner, so that the meaning of the ritual is perfectly transparent."
It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their totems; and it must not by any means be supposed that this practice is (or was) universal; but it undoubtedly obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison says (Themis, p. 123); "you do not as a rule eat your relations," and as a rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but (Miss Harrison continues) "at certain times and under certain restrictions a man not only may, but must, eat of his totem, though only sparingly, as of a thing sacrosanct."
The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the tribe not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), but is held, according to early magical ideas, and when the animal is desired for food, to favor its manipulation.
The human tribe partakes of the mana or life-force of the animal, and is strengthened; the animal tribe is sympathetically renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceedingly. The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) the simultaneous outpouring of human blood seals the compact an confirms the magic. This is well illustrated by a ceremony of the 'Emu' tribe referred to by Dr. Frazer:--
"In order to multiply Emus which are an important article of food, the men of the Emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed as follows: They clear a small spot of level ground, and opening veins in their arms they let the blood stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of about three square yards is soaked with it.
When the blood has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable surface, on which they paint the sacred design of the emu totem, especially the parts of the bird which they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers wearing long head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the emu, mimic the appearance of the bird as it stands aimlessly peering about in all directions." 1
Much has been written on the origin of the Totem-system--the system, that is, of naming a tribe or a portion of a tribe (say a clan) after some animal--or sometimes--also after some plant or tree or Nature-element, like fire or rain or thunder; but at best the subject is a difficult one for us moderns to understand.
A careful study has been made of it by Salamon Reinach in his Cultes, Mythes et Religions, 1 where he formulates his conclusions in twelve statements or definitions; but even so--though his suggestions are helpful--he throws very little light on the real origin of the system. 2
There are three main difficulties. The first is to understand why primitive Man should name his Tribe after an animal or object of nature at all; the second, to understand on what principle he selected the particular name (a lion, a crocodile, a lady bird, a certain tree); the third, why he should make of the said totem a divinity, and pay honor and worship to it. It may be worth while to pause for a moment over these.
(1) The fact that the Tribe was one of the early things for which Man found it necessary to have a name is interesting, because it shows how early the solidarity and psychological actuality of the tribe was recognized; and as to the selection of a name from some animal or concrete object of Nature, that was inevitable, for the simple reason that there was nothing else for the savage to choose from.
Plainly to call his tribe "The Wayfarers" or "The Pioneers" or the "Pacifists" or the "Invincibles," or by any of the thousand and one names which modern associations adopt, would have been impossible, since such abstract terms had little or no existence in his mind. And again to name it after an animal was the most obvious thing to do, simply because the animals were by far the most important features or accompaniments of his own life.
As I am dealing in this book largely with certain psychological conditions of human evolution, it has to be pointed out that to primitive man the animal was the nearest and most closely related of all objects. Being of the same order of consciousness as himself, the animal appealed to him very closely as his mate and equal. He made with regard to it little or no distinction from himself. We see this very clearly in the case of children, who of course represent the savage mind, and who regard animals simply as their mates and equals, and come quickly into rapport with them, not differentiating themselves from them.
(2) As to the particular animal or other object selected in order to give a name to the Tribe, this would no doubt be largely accidental. Any unusual incident might superstitiously precipitate a name.
We can hardly imagine the Tribe scratching its congregated head in the deliberate effort to think out a suitable emblem for itself. That is not the way in which nicknames are invented in a school or anywhere else to-day.
At the same time the heraldic appeal of a certain object of nature, animate or inanimate, would be deeply and widely felt. The strength of the lion, the fleetness of the deer, the food-value of a bear, the flight of a bird, the awful jaws of a crocodile, might easily mesmerize a whole tribe. Reinach points out, with great justice, that many tribes placed themselves under the protection of animals which were supposed (rightly or wrongly) to act as guides and augurs, foretelling the future. "Diodorus," he says, "distinctly states that the hawk, in Egypt, was venerated because it foretold the future."
[Birds generally act as weather-prophets.] "In Australia and Samoa the kangaroo, the crow and the owl premonish their fellow clansmen of events to come. At one time the Samoan warriors went so far as to rear owls for their prophetic qualities in war."
[The jackal, or 'pathfinder'--whose tracks sometimes lead to the remains of a food-animal slain by a lion, and many birds and insects, have a value of this kind.]
"The use of animal totems for purposes of augury is, in all likelihood, of great antiquity. Men must soon have realized that the senses of animals were acuter than their own; nor is it surprising that they should have expected their totems--that is to say, their natural allies--to forewarn them both of unsuspected dangers and of those provisions of nature, wells especially, which animals seem to scent by instinct." 1 And again, beyond all this, I have little doubt that there are subconscious affinities which unite certain tribes to certain animals or plants, affinities whose origin we cannot now trace, though they are very real--the same affinities that we recognize as existing between individual persons and certain objects of nature.
W. H. Hudson--himself in many respects having this deep and primitive relation to nature--speaks in a very interesting and autobiographical volume 2 of the extraordinary fascination exercised upon him as a boy, not only by a snake, but by certain trees, and especially by a particular flowering-plant "not more
than a foot in height, with downy soft pale green leaves, and clusters of reddish blossoms, something like valerian." . . . "One of my sacred flowers," he calls it, and insists on the "inexplicable attraction" which it had for him. In various ways of this kind one can perceive how particular totems came to be selected by particular peoples.
(3) As to the tendency to divinize these totems, this arises no doubt partly out of question (2). The animal or other object admired on account of its strength or swiftness, or adopted as guardian of the tribe because of its keen sight or prophetic quality, or infinitely prized on account of its food-value, or felt for any other reason to have a peculiar relation and affinity to the tribe, is by that fact set apart.
It becomes taboo. It must not be killed--except under necessity and by sanction of the whole tribe--nor injured; and all dealings with it must be fenced round with regulations.
It is out of this taboo or system of taboos that, according to Reinach, religion arose. "I propose (he says) to define religion as: A sum of scruples (taboos) which impede the free exercise of our faculties." 1 Obviously this definition is gravely deficient, simply because it is purely negative, and leaves out of account the positive aspect of the subject.
In Man, the positive content of religion is the instinctive sense--w ether conscious or subconscious--of an inner unity and continuity with the world around. This is the stuff out of which religion is made. The scruples or taboos which "impede the freedom" of this relation are the negative forces which give outline and form to the relation. These are the things which generate the rites and ceremonials of religion; and as far as Reinach means by religion merely rites and ceremonies he is correct; but clearly he only covers half the subject. The tendency to divinize the totem is at least as much dependent on the positive sense of unity with it, as on the negative scruples which limit the relation in each particular case. But I shall return to this subject presently, and more than once, with the view of clarifying it. Just now it will be best to illustrate the nature of Totems generally, and in some detail.
As would be gathered from what I have just said, there is found among all the more primitive peoples, and in all parts of the world, an immense variety of totem-names.
The Dinkas, for instance, are a rather intelligent well-grown people inhabiting the upper reaches of the Nile in the vicinity of the great swamps.
According to Dr. Seligman their clans have for totems the lion, the elephant, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, and the hyena, as well as certain birds which infest and damage the corn, some plants and trees, and such things as rain, fire, etc.
"Each clan speaks of its totem as its ancestor, and refrains [as a rule] from injuring or eating it." 1 The members of the Crocodile clan call themselves "brothers of the crocodile." The tribes of Bechuana-land have a very similar list of totem-names--the buffalo, the fish, the porcupine, the wild vine, etc. They too have a Crocodile clan, but they call the crocodile their father!
The tribes of Australia much the same again, with the differences suitable to their country; and the Red Indians of North America the same. Garcilasso della Vega, the Spanish historian, son of an Inca princess by one of the Spanish conquerors of Peru and author of the well-known book Commentarias Reales, says in that book (i, 57), speaking of the pre-Inca period, "An Indian (of Peru) was not considered honorable unless he was descended from a fountain, river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call thingyur (condor), or some other bird of prey." 2 According to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat; pike, catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, snake; reed-grass, sand, rock, and tobacco-plant.
So we might go on rather indefinitely. I need hardly say that in more modern and civilized life, relics of the totem system are still to be found in the forms of the heraldic creatures adopted for their crests by different families, and in the bears, lions, eagles, the sun, moon and stars and so forth, which still adorn the flags and are flaunted as the insignia of the various nations.
The names may not have been originally adopted from any definite belief in blood-relationship with the animal or other object in question; but when, as Robertson says (Pagan Christs, p. 104), a "savage learned that he was 'a Bear' and that his father and grandfather and forefathers were so before him, it was really impossible, after ages in which totem-names thus passed current, that he should fail to assume that his folk were descended from a bear."
As a rule, as may be imagined, the savage tribesman will on no account eat his tribal totem-animal. Such would naturally be deemed a kind of sacrilege.
Also it must be remarked that some totems are hardly suitable for eating. Yet it is important to observe that occasionally, and guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it has been an almost universal custom for the tribal elders to call a feast at which an animal (either the totem or some other) is killed and commonly eaten--and this in order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue belonging to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with each other.
The eating of the bear or other animal, the sprinkling with its blood, and the general ritual in which the participants shared its flesh, or dressed and disguised themselves in its skin, or otherwise identified themselves with it, was to them a symbol of their community of life with each other, and a means of their renewal and salvation in the holy emblem. And this custom, as the reader will perceive, became the origin of the Eucharists and Holy Communions of the later religions.
Professor Robertson-Smith's celebrated Camel affords an instance of this. 1 It appears that St. Nilus (fifth century) has left a detailed account of the occasional sacrifice in his time of a spotless white camel among the Arabs of the Sinai region, which closely resembles a totemic communion-feast. The uncooked blood and flesh of the animal had to be entirely consumed by the faithful before daybreak.
"The slaughter of the victim, the sacramental drinking of the blood, and devouring in wild haste of the pieces of still quivering flesh, recall the details of the Dionysiac and other festivals." 2 Robertson-Smith himself says:--"The plain meaning is that the victim was devoured before its life had left the still warm blood and flesh . . . and that thus in the most literal way, all those who shared in the ceremony absorbed part of the victim's life into themselves.
One sees how much more forcibly than any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment or confirmation of a bond of common life between the worshipers, and also, since the blood is shed upon the altar itself, between the worshipers and their god.
In this sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two: the conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the absorption of the living flesh and blood into the flesh and blood of the worshippers. Each of these is effected in the simplest and most direct manner, so that the meaning of the ritual is perfectly transparent."
It seems strange, of course, that men should eat their totems; and it must not by any means be supposed that this practice is (or was) universal; but it undoubtedly obtains in some cases. As Miss Harrison says (Themis, p. 123); "you do not as a rule eat your relations," and as a rule the eating of a totem is tabu and forbidden, but (Miss Harrison continues) "at certain times and under certain restrictions a man not only may, but must, eat of his totem, though only sparingly, as of a thing sacrosanct."
The ceremonial carried out in a communal way by the tribe not only identifies the tribe with the totem (animal), but is held, according to early magical ideas, and when the animal is desired for food, to favor its manipulation.
The human tribe partakes of the mana or life-force of the animal, and is strengthened; the animal tribe is sympathetically renewed by the ceremonial and multiplies exceedingly. The slaughter of the sacred animal and (often) the simultaneous outpouring of human blood seals the compact an confirms the magic. This is well illustrated by a ceremony of the 'Emu' tribe referred to by Dr. Frazer:--
"In order to multiply Emus which are an important article of food, the men of the Emu totem in the Arunta tribe proceed as follows: They clear a small spot of level ground, and opening veins in their arms they let the blood stream out until the surface of the ground for a space of about three square yards is soaked with it.
When the blood has dried and caked, it forms a hard and fairly impermeable surface, on which they paint the sacred design of the emu totem, especially the parts of the bird which they like best to eat, namely, the fat and the eggs. Round this painting the men sit and sing. Afterwards performers wearing long head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the emu, mimic the appearance of the bird as it stands aimlessly peering about in all directions." 1