542. It remains to mention the principal theories of the origin of totemism that are or have been held, and to ask what part it has played in the history of religion.

543. Theories of the origin of totemism. These may conveniently be divided into such as refer the origin to individual action, and such as refer it to the action of clans.

544. Individualistic theories. Among the earliest of theories were those that explained the totemic constitution as due to a confusion in the minds of savages between names and things. Individuals or families might be named after animals, plants, and other objects, and these, it was supposed, might come to be regarded as intimately associated with human persons, and might be looked on with affection or reverence and even worshiped.[899] Or, more definitely, it was held that, the origin of such names being forgotten, reverence for the ancestors led to reverence for the things after which they were named and identification with them—a man whose ancestor was called "the Tiger" would think of himself as descended from a tiger and as being of the tiger stock.[900] It is now generally recognized, however, that the origin of so widespread and influential a system of organization as totemism cannot be referred to a mere misunderstanding of nicknames; and whether such misunderstanding was general or natural in early times is open to doubt.

545. It sometimes happens that a man (generally a chief) announces that after death he will take the form of this or that animal or plant, and this procedure, it has been supposed, would found a totemic family—his descendants would revere the object in question as the embodiment of the spirit of the ancestor, would take its name, and, when it was edible, would refrain from eating it.[901] It is true that the belief was, and is, not uncommon among savages that a deceased person might take the form of some natural object; but the reported cases are rare in which a man deliberately enjoins on his descendants reverence for such an object with the result that a quasi-totemic group arises.[902] This custom is not frequent enough to account for totemism.

546. A theory suggested by the fact that many clans perform magical ceremonies (for the purpose of increasing the supply of food) is that, when the magical apparatus of some body of persons consisted of parts of an animal, the animal would become sacred, a magical society might be formed by an individual magician, and thus a totemic magic-working clan might be created. For this hypothesis there is no support except in the fact that changes in clan life are sometimes brought about by the old men; but such changes are modifications of existing usages, not new creations. The power of a savage man of genius may be admitted, but to account for the known totemic communities we should have to suppose a vast number of such men, in different parts of the world, all working in the same direction and reaching substantially the same results.

547. The belief that a man might deposit his soul in an animal or a plant or some other object is found in West Africa, North America, and probably elsewhere. As such objects would, as a rule, not be killed (and every individual of a group would be thus respected), it has been supposed that, when various persons deposited their souls in the same object, a totemic body would come into existence.[903] This view would account for totemic reverence and for the sense of kinship, but the objection to it is that in most totemic organizations the belief in question has not been certified.

548. The "conceptional" theory refers the origin of totemism to the belief, found among certain peoples, that conception is produced by the entrance into the mother's womb of some object (animal, plant, or other) with which the child is identified.[904] In Central Australia it is held that what passes into the woman is a spirit child which has a certain object for its totem; but in this case the previous existence of the totem is assumed. In certain islands (Mota and Motlav) of the Banks group, however, there exists, it is said, the belief that a child is the object from which the mother received some influence at conception or at some other period of pregnancy—the child resembles the object, and may not eat it if it is edible.[905] The persons thus identified with a given object would, if united, constitute a group totemic in the respects that they believe themselves to be one with the object in question and refrain from eating it.[906] The totemic object is selected, in the case of every child, by the fancy of the mother, and is, therefore, not inherited; totemic groups, thus, would be found distributed through the larger groups (phratries or tribes), and might also gradually coalesce and form local groups. If the belief in this origin of birth (identity of the child with some object) were found to be widespread, and generally effective as the ground of early social organization, it would furnish a satisfactory explanation of totemistic beginnings. But in point of fact it has so far been found, in full form, only in a small region in Melanesia, and its history in this region is not known; back of it may lie some other system of organization. And in this region clan totemism is lacking or faint. Further testimony is needed before it can be accepted as the solution of the problem of totemic origins.[907]

549. A similar remark must be made in reference to theories based on the belief that the souls of the dead are incarnate in animals and plants. Such a belief is a natural outgrowth from the conception of the identity of nature of human beings and animals, and it occurs in so many parts of the world (Oceania, Africa, America) that it might naturally be regarded as having been at one time universal, though it is not now found everywhere. Reverence for an ancestor might be, and sometimes is, transferred to the object in which he is supposed to be incarnate; from this object a man holds himself to be descended, and he refrains from eating or injuring it.[908] This view, a combination of reverence for ancestors and reverence for animals and plants, thus supplies two features of totemistic organization, but proof is lacking that it is the basis of this organization. If it be the determining consideration in some cases, there are many cases in which its influence is not apparent. There are myths tracing the totemism of clans to ancestors having animal forms, but these myths are relatively late savage philosophical explanations of existing institutions.

550. The relation of the individual patron and guardian to the clan totem has been variously defined. Such a patron, it is sometimes held (obtained by a dream or a vision), descends from the original possessor to his children (or, in a matrilineal system, to his sister's children), and thus becomes the patron (the totem) of a family or kin; and a larger group, formed by the union of several kins, may similarly have its protecting spirit. Cases in which descent is through the mother here make a difficulty—a man's guardian spirit would not then be inherited. Granting that the personal patron of a shaman or of an ordinary man may be inherited, such inheritance appears to be of rare occurrence, and there is no trustworthy evidence that it ever leads to the formation of a totemic clan.

551. It is true there is a resemblance between a man's relation to his clan totem and his relation to his personal guardian—in both cases the sacred object is revered and spared. It is sometimes the case also (as, for example, among the Australian Arunta) that the totem comes through an individual (the mother) and is not transmissible, and yet endogamous clans arise by the union of persons having the same totem. But here the resemblance ceases—the Arunta child's totem is determined for him before his birth, but a man chooses his personal guardian for himself, and joins others having the same guardian, not in a clan but in a secret society. Furthermore, the institution of the personal guardian is very rare except in North America, and there flourishes in inverse proportion to the strength of clan life proper.

552. On the supposition of the primitive predominance of the rule of descent through the mother individualistic theories of the origin of totemism, with one exception, are out of the question—the totem is first chosen by a man, but children would have the totem not of the father but of the mother. The exception is the conceptional theory, in which the totem is determined by the mother—especially the Mota (Banks Islands) form, in which the choice of a sacred object by the woman is unlimited. In a small community a certain number of women would, however, choose the same object, and thus totemic groups would arise. This scheme of organization, though not open to the objection mentioned above, is geographically limited.

553. Theories based on clan action. Here the starting-point is the clan, which is supposed to have come into existence somehow; it is not essential to determine precisely the method of its origination, though the question of method is sometimes included in the discussion of a theory. The clan finds itself confronted by various natural objects with which, it believes, it must form helpful relations; or some sort of relation is forced on it by the conditions of life. The question is how a human group came to enter into the totemic relation.

554. The simplest answer is that the primitive clan deliberately chose among all associated objects some one to be its particular friend or its special associate,[909] naturally valued and respected this object, refrained from eating it when it was edible, took its name, came to regard it as ancestor, and created myths explanatory of these conceptions. This general theory has assumed various forms, but the objection usually made to its central supposition is that such deliberate choice is out of keeping with the known methods of early societies. Though a certain amount of reflection must be assumed for primitive men (the lower animals, indeed, show reflection), it is held that so elaborate a system as totemism, like other institutions, must have been the product of accidental experiences, developed through a long period of time. Something more definite, it is said, is required in order to account for the details of the system—all that can be safely assumed is that early man, constantly on the alert to better his condition, took advantage of every situation to strengthen himself by taking precautions against enemies or by securing the aid of surrounding objects, human and nonhuman.

555. The totem is supposed by some to have been originally merely the mark or badge by which a human group distinguished itself from neighboring groups. In hunting expeditions and migrations such a mark would be necessary or, at any rate, useful.[910] More generally, it was natural for a clan to have a name for itself, as it had names for its individual members and for other objects. It might take its name from an associated animal or plant or heavenly body or from a place. The badge and the name once adopted, other totemic features would follow. Such badges are common in Northwestern America, and are found elsewhere, and the term 'totem' has been explained by natives as meaning 'badge.' But this explanation is late, and the employment of the sacred object as badge is not widely diffused. When it gives a clan its name it is, of course, a distinguishing mark, but this does not show that such distinction was in all cases its original function. Nor would the badge come into use till the name had been fixed.

556. The view just mentioned does not attempt to explain how a particular name came to be attached to a clan. This lack is supplied by the theory that a clan was named by its neighbors after the kind of food on which it chiefly subsisted.[911] The objection to this theory is that no group of men is known to confine itself to one article of food—savages eat whatever they can find—and moreover contiguous groups would feed on the same kinds of food. A view not open to this objection is that names of clans, also given from without, expressed fancied resemblances of the persons named to animals and other objects, or peculiarities of person or speech, or were derived from the place of abode.[912]

557. It is obviously true that human groups have names derived from objects with which they are somehow specially connected; in the lists of clan-names in Oceania, Africa, India, America, animal names predominate, but many are taken from plants, and some from inanimate objects;[913] when groups become settled they are sometimes called after their places of abode. The other supposition in these "name theories"—that the names are given from without—is less certain. There are examples of such naming by outsiders—nicknames, sometimes respectful, sometimes derisive.[914] But the known cases are not numerous enough to establish a general rule—the origin of names of clans and tribes is largely involved in obscurity.[915] There is no improbability in either theory of the method of naming, native or foreign—both modes may have existed, one in one region, one in another, and one group may at different times have been called by different names.

558. "Cooeperative" theories suppose that a number of groups united for economic purposes, to each being assigned the duty of increasing by magical means the supply of a particular sort of food or other necessity, and procuring a portion for the general store.[916] Such cooeperation, however, assumes too great a capacity of organization to be primitive. It is hardly found outside of Central Australia, in which region there are indications of a long period of social development.[917]

559. The theory that the totem is a god, immanent in the clan, incarnate in every member of the clan, a divine ancestor, the center of the clan's religion,[918] is contradicted by the actual relation between a clan and its totem: the latter is cherished as a kinsman and friend, but not worshiped as a god.[919]

560. Summing-up on the origin of totemism. This brief survey of proposed theories of the origin of totemism is sufficient to show the complexity of the problem. Not one of the hypotheses just mentioned is universally accepted, and no one of them appears to account satisfactorily for all the known facts. Some of them are based obviously on data derived from limited areas. Australian usage suggested the cooeperative theory, and Australia and Melanesia the conceptional theory. The identification of totemism with ancestor-worship comes from South Africa; its connection with the belief in transmigration is due to Indonesia; its derivation from the individual guardian is based on a North American institution; and North America probably suggested the badge theory also. It may be frankly confessed that in the present state of knowledge all theories are guesses.

561. As there are communities in which it is probable or possible that totemism has never existed, so it is conceivable that it has been developed in different ways in different places. Considering the variety of circumstances in primitive life, it would not be strange if human groups found themselves impelled to take various paths in their attempts at effective organization. The starting-point being reverence for animals and other objects of nature, and belief in their kinship with men, one human group may have been led by some accidental experience to regard some nonhuman group or object as its ally. In another case a name, adopted by a group of its own accord or given it from without, may have induced such an alliance. Individuals may have imposed their guardian animals or plants on communities. A badge, chosen for convenience, may have been the beginning of a totemic organization. In these and other ways a group of men may have come to form intimate relations with a nonhuman group or other object.

562. This fundamental relation having been established (with aversion to eating or injuring the sacred object), various usages would attach themselves to it in accordance with general laws of social development. In many cases a rule of exogamy, for the better regulation of marriage, would be adopted. When tribes, consisting each of several clans, came into existence, a cooeperative economic system would sometimes arise: magical methods of producing results, common in early stages of life, would be so organized that to every clan would be assigned the duty of producing a supply of some sort of food. Following the general tendency to genealogical construction, the belief in kinship with the sacred object would lead a clan to imagine an ancestor of the same kind, animal or animal-human or plant or rock, and myths explaining the origin would be devised. Various other usages and ideas would coalesce with those belonging to totemism proper: belief in the superhuman power of nonhuman things, including the conception of mana; the belief that every newborn child is the reincarnation of an ancestor; recognition of omens from the movements of such things; belief in the magical power of names; reverence for ancestors—a natural feeling, in itself independent of the totemic conception; totems regarded as creators; the employment of totemic animals as emissaries to the supernatural Powers. Thus the resultant social system would be a congeries of beliefs and usages, and in such a system, when it appears, the totemic element must be distinguished from its attachments, which must be referred each to its appropriate source.

563. Function of totemism in the development of society. The service of totemism to society lies in the aid it has given to the friendly association of men in groups. Common social feeling, the perception of the advantage to be gained by combination in the quest for food and for defense against human enemies, originated the formation of groups. Totemism strengthened union by increasing the sense of brotherhood in the clan and facilitating the coeoperation that is a condition of social progress. This sort of service was rendered in early times by all systems in which social relations were connected with relations to animals and other natural objects; but totemism made a special appeal to the emotions and gave all the members of a human group one and the same object of devotion about which sentiments of loyalty and brotherhood could crystallize. It is a crude, initial political form that has given way to more definite forms.

564. It cannot be said that totemism has contributed to economic progress except in so far as every stable organization may be favorable to general progress. It has been claimed that it effected the domestication of animals and plants.[920] In support of this claim it is urged that, apart from reverence for these objects, there is nothing in savage ideas and customs that could lead to domestication. Early man, seeking food, would try all accessible animals and plants—but why, it is asked, should he desire to keep them as attachments to his home and cultivate them for his own use? Would his purpose be amusement? But, though savages sometimes have animals as pets, the custom is not general, and such pets are freely killed. Could the motive be utility? The answer is that savages have neither the ability to perceive the advantage, for food and labor, that would accrue from domestication, nor knowledge of the fact that seeds must be kept, in order to secure a crop, from one year to another, nor the self-restraint to practice present abstinence for the sake of future good.

565. On the other hand, it is said, semireligious reverence for animals preserves them from injury, they lose their fear of man, and those that are domesticable become tame and are appropriated and used by men; and sacred plants are retained from one year to another for ritual purposes, and their seeds produce a succession of crops. Totem animals are not eaten—a pastoral people does not eat its cattle, it keeps them for their milk. In a word, animals, it is held, are not tamed by man of set purpose, but grow tame when not molested, and those that are edible or capable of rendering service are gradually domesticated; and similarly, through religious use of plants, the possibility of cultivating certain plants becomes known.

566. This argument rests on the assumption of the universal mental incapacity of early men—a subject admittedly obscure. Certainly they appear to be quite lacking in knowledge and reflection in some regards; yet they sometimes show remarkable skill in hunting (so, for example, the African Pygmies), and they have created remarkable languages. But, if we leave the question of intellectual capacity aside, there are facts that seem to throw doubt on the totemic origin of domestication. In the first place, the conditions under which reverence for a totemic animal may make it tame do not appear to have existed in totemic society. For such taming it is necessary that the animal be perfectly safe within a considerable area. But this is not possible where a group of men is composed of various clans, a given animal being spared by one clan but freely hunted and killed by all the other clans[921]—a state of things that was presumably universal.

567. Further, it is difficult to discover any historical connection between the actual cases of domestication of animals and reverence for these as totems. It is unfortunate for the decision of this question that in the two principal totemic centers, Australia and North America, there are very few native domesticable animals—only one (a species of dog) in Australia, and two (dog and bison) in North America. The history of the dog in North America, however, is suggestive: it has been domesticated by totemic Redmen for hunting purposes and by nontotemic Eskimo for drawing sledges—that is, its economic use seems to be independent of totemic considerations. Other cases of divergence between employment of animals and their position as totems have been cited in Uganda, for example;[922] but civilization is relatively far advanced in Uganda, and in such cases we cannot infer original conditions from existing customs.

568. It may fairly be surmised that observation in some cases led to the domestic use of animals. The value of the milk of cattle, goats, and mares as food may have been suggested to men who were acquainted with the life of these animals; and valuing them for their milk, their owners would abstain from eating them except under pressure of hunger or for ceremonial purposes. Such a procedure does not seem to be beyond the capacities of very simple communities. Chance may have suggested the function of seeds in the growth of plants, and, agriculture once entered on, the labor of animals would gradually be utilized. So far as regards artistic representations, these are found everywhere, and their occurrence on totemic poles (as, for example, among the Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands) cannot be regarded as a special product of totemism.

569. Considering the obscurity of the subject, it is doubtless wise to refrain from offering a universal theory of the origin of domestication of animals and plants. All that is here contended for is that the large role sometimes assigned to totemism in this regard is not supported by the facts now known to us. Future investigations may bring with them new constructions of early history.

570. Relation of totemism to religion. As the beginnings of totemism are obscure it is not possible to say exactly what a man's attitude toward his totem was in the earliest period. But, when the totemic relation became a definite feature of social organization, the feeling was that the totem was in the nature of a clansman, of the same blood as the human group, and entitled to all the respect and affection with which men regarded their clan-brethren. The sentiment, in this point of view, was sacred in the sense in which this term may be used of the feeling existing between persons of the same human group; it involved a certain sense of obligation toward fellow members—to respect their rights and to defend them against enemies was an imperative duty.

571. Totemic clanship, however, differed from ordinary human clanship in that the nonhuman clan-brother was regarded as a specially powerful being, endowed with the superhuman qualities with which all animals and plants and certain other objects were credited. Regard for the totem was, thus, part of the regard paid to nonhuman objects in general, only emotionalized and intensified by the belief that the nonhuman group was in a peculiar way allied to the human group. There was not only unwillingness to injure the totem—there was fear that one would suffer by such an act. The totem, it was believed, was able in its turn to inflict injury; and this belief added an element of awe to the feeling with which it was regarded.

572. In another respect, also, the totem shared the powers of other nonhuman objects—it could aid its friends. The expectation of totemic aid is, however, vague in the earlier stages of organization, that is, in communities in which totemism proper is well-defined—it appears to amount to little more than a feeling that things will go well if respect is paid to the totem. In cases where there is more definite aid there is always the question whether the aid is afforded by the totem in its specific character of clan-brother or merely in its character of nonhuman powerful thing. Omens, for example, are given by all natural objects; when an object of this sort happens to be a totem, it is not clear that its capacity of omen-giving belongs to it simply as totem.

573. There is similar uncertainty in the case of the Queensland practice, when a man, on lying down at any time or rising in the morning, whispers the name of the animal after which he is called or the name of the animal belonging to his group-division, in the belief that it will give him success in his affairs;[923] here the animal is not a clan totem, and the evidence does not show that it has come from such a totem—it may be a sacred animal that has somehow been brought into special connection with the man or with his group. Personal guardians that confer magical powers on a man do not here come into consideration.

574. The relation between totemism and the practice of magic appears to be essentially one of coexistence in a community. The two belong to the same stage of culture and the same order of ideas; but the fact that each is found without the other shows that neither is dependent on the other. Naturally they are sometimes combined, as sometimes happens in North America and particularly in Central Australia (where every totemic clan is charged with certain magical ceremonies); yet this close alliance is rare. Magical practice rests on a conception of man's relation to nature that is distinct from the conception of kinship between a human clan and a nonhuman species or individual object.

575. Secret societies sometimes perform magical ceremonies; but such societies are not totemic—either they have risen above the totemic point of view, or they have sprung from ideas and usages that are independent of totemism proper.[924]

576. It is difficult to find a clear case of the offering of religious worship to a totem as totem. There are the ceremonies performed by the Australian Warramunga for the purpose of propitiating or coercing the terrible water snake Wollunqua.[925] This creature is a totem, but a totem of unique character—a fabulous animal, never visible, a creation of the imagination; the totem proper is a visible object whose relations with human beings are friendly, the Wollunqua is savage in nature and often hostile to men. He appears to be of the nature of a god, but an undomesticated one—a demon, adopted by a tribe as totem, or identified with a previously existing totem. The situation is an exceptional one and cannot be regarded as evidence of general totemic worship.

577. The question whether a totem ever develops into a god is a part of the general question whether a sacred animal ever becomes a god.[926] The complications of early ideas and customs and the paucity of data for the formative period of early religion make an answer to these questions difficult. As far as regards the evolution of the totem into a true divine figure the evidence is not decisive. The identification of heroes or gods with animals, their transformations into animals, and their incarnations in animal forms may, indeed, suggest such an evolution. Thus, in the island of Yam (between Australia and New Guinea) two brothers, Sigai and Maiau, have their shrines, in which they are represented by a shark figure and a crocodile figure respectively, and to them food is presented, songs are sung, dances are danced and prayers are offered. Other heroes, Kwoiam (a totem-bringer), Sida (an introducer of the arts of life), Yadzebub (a warrior), and some unnamed are revered in islands of Torres Straits.[927] In the Rewa district in Fiji every village, it is said, has a deity, and these deities have the power of turning into animals, which are then not eaten—that is, it may be supposed, the god is a developed totem.[928] In the Wakelbura tribe of Southeast Australia the totem animal is spoken of as "father," a title frequently given to clan gods. Household gods are considered to be incarnate in animals and other objects in some of the Caroline Islands, in Tonga and Tikopia, and in Samoa, and in these islands, except Samoa, the people are supposed to have descended from the animals in question. Similar ideas seem not to exist in the Americas or in Africa; in India the influence of Hindu cults has largely effaced or greatly modified non-Aryan usages so that their original form cannot generally be determined.[929]

578. The cases just mentioned are susceptible of other explanations than that of an evolution from totem to god. The history of the cult of heroes in Yam and other Torres Straits islands is obscure, but from known facts the indications are that the hero figures have arisen independently of the totem figures and have been, by a natural process, identified with these.[930] The peculiarity of the Rewa deities is that they assume animal forms at will, and such animals, not being eaten, are held to be totems. Whether totems or not they are sacred and might easily be identified with gods who stood alongside of them; an obvious explanation of this identity would be that the god assumed the form of the animal.[931] A similar explanation may be given of incarnations of gods in animals—a metamorphosis is a temporary incarnation. The Samoan Moso is incarnate in half a dozen different objects, and some deities are incarnate in men. As for the title "father," it belongs of course to the object from which a clan is supposed to be descended.

579. The sacramental eating of the totem, where such a custom exists, involves a certain identity of nature of totem and clan god, but the two are regarded as distinct—their distinctness is, indeed, a necessary condition of the sacrificial efficacy of the totem as a means of placating the deity.[932]

580. Our review seems, thus, to lead to the conclusion that there is no good ground for the opinion that a totem has ever grown into a god. The question, belonging, as it does, to a period for which we have no contemporary records, must be admitted to be difficult, and answers to it must be of the nature of hypotheses; but gods and spirits appear to have taken shape through processes of thought different from those that lie at the basis of totemism.[933]

TABOO

581. So far we have been considering the growth of the simpler religious ideas and the parallel development of a quasi-religious social organization. The ethical development is no less important than the religious and the political, with which it has always been closely connected. Ethical ideas and customs are in their origin independent of religion. Religion deals with the relation between human beings and supernatural Powers; ethics has to do with the relation between man and man.[934]

582. Thus, the necessity for the protection of life and property (including wives and children) has produced certain rules of conduct, which are at first handed on orally and maintained by custom, and gradually are formulated in written codes. The protection of the tribal life is secured by the tribal leaders as representatives of society. The protection of individual interests is at first in the hands of the individuals concerned, but always under the sanction of society. The murderer, the thief, and the adulterer are dealt with by the person injured or by his clan or family, in accordance with generally recognized regulations. As social life becomes more elaborate, such regulations become more numerous and more discriminating; every new ethical rule springs from the necessity of providing for some new social situation. In all communities the tendency is toward taking the protection of interests out of the hands of the individual and committing it to the community; this course is held to be for the advantage of society.[935]

583. As men are constituted, to account for the growth of moral customs we need to assume only social life; practically all our requirements that refer to the relations between men are found among early tribes, and it may be taken for granted that any body of human beings, living together and having some form of activity, would work out some such system of rules, mostly negative or prohibitive but also to some extent positive. Even the law of kindness, a product of natural human sympathy, exists among the lowest known peoples. The reference of moral growth to social necessities does not involve the denial of a germinal sense of right and wrong or of germinal moral ideals, but this sense and these ideals arise, through reflection, from experience. We are here concerned only with the actual conduct of men traceable in the early forms of society.

584. But while social life is the basis of ethical construction, the actual ethical constitution of men has been influenced by religion, in later times by the supplying of lofty ideals and sanctions, in early times by a magical determination of things injurious. It is this second category that is covered by the term 'taboo,' a Polynesian word said to mean 'what is prohibited.' Prohibitions arising from natural human relations constitute civil law; those arising from extrahuman or other magical influences constitute taboo.[936]

585. Early man, regarding all objects as possibly endowed with power, selects out of the whole mass by observation and experience certain objects which affect his life, his relations with which he finds it desirable to define. These are all mysterious;[937] some are helpful, some harmful. The helpful objects become lucky stones, amulets. The injurious or dangerous objects are the more numerous; in an atmosphere of uncertainty the mysterious is dreaded, avoided, and guarded against by rules.[938]

586. The objects affected by the conception of taboo are as various as the conditions of human life—they include things inanimate and animate, and events and experiences of all sorts. Sometimes the danger is supposed to be inherent in the object, sometimes the quality of dangerousness is imposed on it or infused into it by some authority; but in all cases there is present the force (mana) that, in savage theory, makes the external world a factor in human destinies.[939] This force may be transmitted from one object to another (usually by contact[940]), and thus the taboo infection may spread indefinitely, a silent and terrible source of misfortune, sometimes to a single person, sometimes to a whole community. Ceremonies connected with taboo are designed to protect against this destructive influence.

587. The principal taboo usages may be classed roughly under certain heads, which, however, will sometimes overlap one another.

588. Taboos connected with the conception of life. For early man the central mystery of the world was life, and mystery and danger attached to all things connected with its genesis, maintenance, and cessation—to pregnancy, birth, death, corpses, funerals, blood. Against these things precautions, in the form of various restrictions, had to be taken. Pregnancy was sometimes regarded as due to supernatural agency, and in all cases was noted as a mysterious condition in which the woman was peculiarly exposed to evil influences; she was sometimes required to keep her head covered or to avoid moonshine, or to live separated from her husband.[941]

589. Care for women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child might be induced by natural human kindliness. But certain usages in connection with birth indicate fear of superhuman dangers. In many regions (Central Asia, Africa, Oceania, China) the mother is taboo for a certain time, being regarded apparently as a source of danger to others, as well as being herself exposed to danger. The child also is surrounded by perils. Mother and child are protected by isolation, ablutions (baptism), amulets, conjurations, and by consecration to a deity.[942] The intimate relation between father and child may make it necessary to impose taboos on the former—he is sometimes required to go to bed (the couvade, or man-childbed), to abstain from work and from certain foods held to be injurious, and to avoid touching weapons and other dangerous things; thus, through the identity of father and child, the latter is guarded against the hostile mana that may be lurking near. The seclusion of the mother sometimes varies in duration according to the sex of the child; in most cases, apparently, the period is longer for a male child;[943] in the Jewish ritual the period for the maid-child is twice as great (eighty days) as that for the male;[944] the difference in the points of view, perhaps, is that the evil influence may direct itself particularly against, or be more serious for, the male as socially the more important, or it may be more dangerous for the female as the weaker.[945]

590. Taboos connected with death. The danger to the living arising from a death is of a twofold nature: the corpse, as a strange, uncanny thing, is a source of peril; and there are possible external enemies—the spirit that produced the death, and the ghost of the departed. Against these dangerous things avoidance of the corpse is the common precaution—a dead body must not be touched, or, if it is touched, he who touches must undergo purification.[946] Perhaps the various modes of disposing of corpses (exposure, inhumation, cremation) were originally attempts to get rid of their dangerous qualities; later other motives came in. The body of a suicide was especially feared, and was staked down on a public way to prevent its reappearance; it was perhaps the abnormal and desperate character of the death that produced this special fear. The dread of a corpse is, however, not universal among savages—in many cases it is eaten, simply as food or to acquire the qualities of the deceased, or for other reasons. It is feared as having hurtful power, it is eaten as being sacred or helpful.

591. The house in which a death occurs shares the evil power of the dead body, and sometimes must be destroyed, together with all its furniture, or abandoned or purified.[947] Death diffuses its baleful influence through the atmosphere, making it unfavorable for ordinary work, which, accordingly, is often then suspended for a time.[948] Seclusion is sometimes enjoined on widower or widow,[949] and mention of the name of the deceased is forbidden—the identity of spouse or name with the dead effects the transmission of what is dangerous in him. In another direction the earthly dwelling of a dead person is protected—a curse is pronounced on one who violates it.[950]

592. Taboos connected with woman and the relations between the sexes. Among many peoples there is dread of the presence of women and of their belongings under certain circumstances.[951] The ground of this fear may lie in those physiological peculiarities of woman which are regarded as mysterious and dangerous, and the antagonism of feeling may have been increased by the separation between the sexes consequent on the differences in their social functions and their daily pursuits. Woman seems to move in a sphere different from that of man; she acts in ways that are strange to him. Whatever its ground, the feeling of dread is a real one: a case is reported of a man who, on learning that he had lain down on his wife's blanket, became violently ill.

593. Various restrictions are imposed on women at periods of sexual crisis. The girl on reaching the age of puberty is generally (though not always[952]) immured, sometimes for weeks or months, to shield her from noxious influences, human and nonhuman. During menstruation a woman is isolated, may not be looked on by the sun, must remain apart from her husband, and her food is strictly regulated.[953] It is not infrequently the case that certain foods are permanently forbidden women, for what special reasons is not clear.[954] The rule forbidding a wife to eat with her husband may have come originally from nonreligious social considerations (her subordination to the man, or the fact that she belonged to a social group different from his), but in that case it later acquired a religious character. Women have commonly been excluded in savage communities from solemn ceremonies (as those of the initiation of males) and from tribal councils;[955] such rules may have originated in the natural differentiation of social functions of the sexes or in the desire of men to keep the control of tribal life in their own hands, but in many cases the presence of women was supposed to vitiate the proceedings supernaturally. In industrial enterprises, such as hunting and fishing, they are sometimes held to be a fatal influence.[956] In family life a wife's mother was debarred from all social intercourse with her son-in-law.[957]

594. Where procreation was ascribed to the union of the sexes, sexual intercourse, as being intimately connected with life, was credited with supernatural potency, generally unfavorable to vigor.[958] It has been largely prohibited on all important public occasions, such as hunting and war, and particularly in connection with religious ceremonies.[959] Various considerations may have contributed to the establishment of such customs, but in their earliest form we have, probably, to recognize not any moral effort to secure chastity, but a dread of injurious mana resident in women.[960] We may compare the fact that women have often been regarded as specially gifted in witchcraft.[961]

595. Taboos connected with great personages. The theory of mana includes the belief that special supernatural power resides in the persons of tribal leaders, such as magicians, chiefs, priests. It follows that danger attaches to their bodies (particularly to head, hair, and nails), to their names, and to their food and other belongings. These things must be avoided: their food must not be eaten by common folk; their houses and other property must not be used; their nail-cuttings must be buried so that danger may be averted from the community; their names must not be mentioned. They themselves, being peculiarly sensitive to malign influences, must be protected in the house and when they walk out; and it is in some cases not safe for the common man to look on the chief as he passes through the village.

596. Not all these regulations are found in any one community, but the principle is the same everywhere. The greatest development of taboo power in chiefs occurs in Polynesia, the home of taboo. There they are all-powerful. Whatever a chief touches becomes his property. If he enters a house, steps into a canoe, affixes his name to a field, it is his. His control appears to be limited only by the accident of his momentary desire. No one thinks of opposing his decisions—that would be fatal to the opposer. This social situation passes when a better form of civil government is established, but some features of the old conception cling to later dignitaries: till recently the nail-parings of the emperor of Japan were carefully disposed of lest, being inadvertently touched, they should bring misfortune.

597. A priest also may carry taboo infection on his person. In Ezekiel's scheme of ritual organization it is ordered that when the priest, having offered sacrifice, goes forth into the outer court where the people are, he shall put off the garments in which he ministered and lay them in a sacred place, and put on other garments, lest some one touching him should be made ritually unclean, that is taboo, forbidden to mingle with his fellows or to do his ordinary work for a certain time (generally till the evening).[962] In many regions there have been and are numerous restrictions on priests, some of which are in their own interests (to preserve their ritual purity), some in the interests of others (to guard them against the infection of taboo).[963] Other quasi-official or devoted persons (as, for example, the Hebrew Nazirite[964]) were subject to restrictions of food. Strangers, who in a primitive period were frequently put to death, in a more humane period were subjected to purifying processes in order to remove the taboo infection that might cling to them.[965]

598. Industrial taboos. The customs of certain Polynesian chiefs, described above, cannot be said to aid industry, but there are taboo usages designed to protect and further popular occupations. These doubtless have a natural nonmagical basis—the necessity of making good crops and protecting private property would be recognized everywhere, and would call forth legal enactments; but it was inevitable, in certain communities, that such enactments should be strengthened by supernatural sanctions such as those offered by the conception of taboo.

599. Protective arrangements of this sort abound in Oceania and Indonesia. In Samoa the sweet-potato fields are taboo till the crop is gathered.[966] Hawaiian fisheries are protected by the simple device of forbidding the taking of certain fish at certain seasons; here the economic motive is obvious, but taboo penalties are annexed.[967] During planting time in New Zealand all persons employed in the work were taboo for other occupations and obliged to give all their time to the planting; and the same rule held for hunting and fishing.[968] The Borneo Kayans refrain from their usual occupations during planting, harvesting, and the search for camphor.[969] Similar restrictions, of an elaborate kind, are in force in Sumatra,[970] and in Assam.[971]

600. The property of private persons was protected: the common man might impose a taboo on his land, crops, house, and garments, and these were then safe from depredation. It was true, however, in New Zealand as elsewhere, that the potency of the imposed taboo depended on the influence of him who imposed it; chiefs, as uniting in their persons civil and religious authority, were the most powerful persons in the community, and taboos ordered by them were the most effective. In Melanesia taboo is largely employed for the protection of private property—curses are pronounced against trespassers, and the authority of the tabooer is reenforced by that of the local spirit or ghost (tindalo);[972] here taboo has become definitely an element of civil law, in which it tends to be absorbed.

601. Taboos connected with other important social events. It appears that all occurrences supposed to affect the life of the community have been, and often still are, regarded as bringing with them, or as attended by, supernatural influences (resident in mana or in spirits) that may be dangerous. Against these perils the usual precautions are taken, one of the commonest (as in cases mentioned in the preceding paragraphs) being abstinence from ordinary work; the belief, apparently, is that such work is tainted with the injurious influence with which the atmosphere is charged.

602. Among religious ceremonies the expulsion of evil spirits was naturally attended with danger, and work was prohibited. Such was the custom in Athens at the Anthesteria and on the sixth day of the Thargelia, and in Rome at the Lemuria.[973] Among existing tribes there are numerous examples of this sort of restriction: it is found in West Africa[974] and in Indonesia (Kar Nicobar, Bali[975]); in Assam it takes the form of a taboo (genna) for laying to rest the ghosts of all who have died within the year[976] (an All Souls ceremony).

603. In general, sacred seasons, times of great communal ceremonies, demand the avoidance of ordinary pursuits, which, it is feared, may imperil the success of the ceremonies by necessitating contact with things infected or nonsacred. The earlier Hebrew usage recognized such seasons (new moon, sabbath, and perhaps others); the later usage increased the number of tabooed days as the ritual was expanded and organised.[977] For Greece we have the Plynteria, on the principal day of which work was suspended;[978] in Rome the feriae were such days, regular or occasional.[979] The inbringing of first fruits was a peculiarly solemn occasion, when gratitude to the deity mingled with fear of hostile influences; so among the Hebrews[980] and at Athens[981] and in Tonga.[982] Polynesian restrictions on the occasion of ceremonies are given by Ellis.[983] All such days of abstinence from ordinary work tend to become holidays, times of popular amusement, and a taboo element may be suspected in such festivals as those of the later Hindu period.[984] Naturally, also, days of restriction become sacred to deities.

604. Great nonreligious tribal events and peculiar situations demand restrictive precautions. Warriors prepare for an expedition by remaining apart from their wives.[985] Women whose husbands are absent are sometimes immured or forbidden all intercourse with human beings; by reason of the identity of husband and wife supernatural harm to the latter will affect the former. Afflictive occurrences, such as famines, pestilences, earthquakes, are signs of some hostile supernatural power, defense against which requires the avoidance of ordinary pursuits. Arbitrary enactments by chiefs may attach restrictions to a particular day. Sometimes restrictive usages, of obscure origin, become communal law. Thus, every Toda clan has certain days of the week (not the occasion of special ceremonies) in which it is forbidden to follow ordinary occupations; among the things forbidden are the giving of feasts, the performance of funeral ceremonies, the cutting of nails, and shaving; women and dairymen may not leave the village, and the people and buffaloes may not move from one place to another.[986] Doubtless this system of prohibitions is the outcome of many generations of experience—the organization of various local usages.

605. Taboos connected with the moon. Unusual celestial phenomena, such as eclipses, meteors, and comets, have always excited terror, being referred to some hostile supernatural agency, and have called forth special placative and restrictive ceremonies. They are accounted for in savage lore by various myths.[987] But the permanently important taboos have been those that are associated with the phases of the moon. These periodical transformations, unexplained and mysterious, seemed to early man to have vital relation with all earthly life—the waxing and waning of the moon was held to determine, through the sympathy existing between all things, the growth and decay of plants, animals, and men.[988] Hence arose the widely diffused belief that all important undertakings should be begun while the moon was increasing, and innumerable regulations for the conduct of affairs were established, not a few of them surviving in civilized popular belief and practice to the present day.

606. Sometimes the changes in the moon are minutely observed. The Nandi describe every day of the month by the appearance of the moon or by its relation to occupations.[989] Natural observation in some cases divided the lunar month into four parts: the Buddhist uposatha days are the four days in the lunar month when the moon is full or new or halfway between the two;[990] in Hawaii the 3d-6th, 14th-15th, 24th-25th, 27th-28th days of every month were taboo periods;[991] the Babylonians had five such periods in certain months (four periods with one period intercalated). But, though the quartering of the lunation may seem to us the most natural division of the month, in actual practice it is rather the exception.[992] The simplest division, indeed, is that into two parts, determined by new moon and full moon (Cambodia, Siam; cf. the Mexican period of thirteen days). The division into three periods of ten days each (Egypt, Greece, Annam, Japan) ignores lunar phases and seeks a convenient and symmetrical arrangement. With this decimal system is perhaps connected the division of the month into six periods of five days each (Yoruba, Java, Sumatra, and perhaps Babylonia). The Romans had a somewhat irregular official division of the first half of the month into three parts (Kalends, Nones, Ides) corresponding in a general way to lunar phases, and also commercial periods of eight days (nundinae), perhaps of similar origin. A seven-day division is found in Ashantiland (and perhaps in Peru), and in Java there is reported a division of a year into thirty periods of seven days each.

607. It appears, then, that in several communities there has been a division of the month in the interests of convenience, without regard to lunar phases; that in several cases a seven-day week has been fallen upon; and that of the phases of the moon new moon and full moon have been most frequently looked to as chronological marks. The new moon, apart from its function of indicating the beginning of the lunar month, has also by many tribes been hailed with joy as a friend restored to life after seeming extinction.[993] The full moon, while it has not entered so intimately into the emotional life of man, has played an important part by marking the division of the month into two equal parts.

608. The Hebrew sabbath. Taboo days are days of abstinence from work, set apart as seasons of rest.[994] Such was the original form of the Hebrew sabbath—it is described in the earlier Old Testament notices simply as a day on which ordinary work was unlawful.[995] The history of its precise origin and development is, however, by no means clear. Theories that derive it from the cult of some particular deity or regard it as primarily a day for placating a supernatural Power[996] may be set aside. It may be assumed that it is an early institution somehow connected with the moon, and a definite indication of origin appears to be furnished by the fact that in a Babylonian inscription the term shabattu[997] is used for the full moon. The identification of Hebrew sabbath with full moon is favored by the collocation of new moon and sabbath in early Old Testament documents[998] as days on which trading was unlawful. These, obviously, were the two chief taboo days of the month; the fact that new moon stands first is doubtless due to its position in the month.

609. It is uncertain whether the Babylonian full-moon day was ritually particularly important, and it is not clear how the Hebrews came to invest this day, if it was their sabbath, with peculiar significance. In the earlier legal documents it is merely a restrictive period—man and beast are to rest from toil;[999] in later codes religious motives for the observance of the day are introduced—first, gratitude to Yahweh for the rescue of the nation from Egyptian bondage, and then respect for the fact that Yahweh worked in creating the world six days and stopped work on the seventh day.[1000] In the sixth century we find the sabbath elevated to the position of specific sign of Yahweh's protective relation to the people, and still later it is regarded as a day of joyous obedience to divine law.[1001] Thus, the process of moralization of the day was probably a long-continued one.[1002]

610. In the various experimental divisions of the month, as we have seen, a week of seven days has been approached independently in several places (Babylonia, Hawaii, Java, Ashantiland). The basis of this division is doubtless the quartering of the lunation, and it has been reenforced, probably, by considerations of convenience—seven is an intermediate number, six days of work and one of abstinence and rest (holiday) commends itself as a practical arrangement. It appears among the Hebrews as early as the eighth century B.C.;[1003] it may have been derived from or suggested by Babylonian usage, or it may have been an ancient Hebrew custom—data on this point are lacking. In any case the Jewish genius for religious organization seized on the seven-day scheme and wove it into the system of worship. A more important step taken by the Jews was the ignoring of lunar phases (except, of course, new moon as the beginning of the month) and reckoning the week and the seventh day (the sabbath) in a continuous line. We have noted cases in which lunar phases were ignored, but this Jewish arrangement appears to be unique, and its simplicity and convenience have commended it to the world.

611. Lucky and unlucky days. The malefic influences emanating from various objects and resident in the air attached themselves to certain days, and out of the vast mass of experiences in every community there grew up systems of days when things might or might not be done with safety and advantage. There were the great occasions, economic and astronomical, referred to above, and there were particular occurrences, such as a death or a defeat, that stamped a day as unlucky. There are many such beliefs, the origin of which is lost in a remote antiquity. The ancient civilized nations had their codes of luck. Egypt had a long list of unlucky days.[1004] In Babylonia onerous restrictions were imposed on kings, seers, and physicians on certain days (the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, 28th) of the sixth and eighth months[1005] (and perhaps of other months). A brief list of days favorable and unfavorable to work is given by Hesiod.[1006] The Roman dies nefasti, properly 'irreligious days,' were inauspicious, unlucky.[1007] Similar lists of lucky and unlucky days are found among existing tribes,[1008] and the popular luck codes in Christian communities are numerous and elaborate.[1009] These have done, and still do, great harm by substituting irrational for rational rules of conduct.

612. In many of the cases cited above and in many totemistic regulations there are prohibitions of particular sorts of food. Such prohibitions, very numerous, are found in all grades of civilization.[1010] They have arisen from various causes—climatic conditions, hygienic beliefs, religious conceptions (as, for example, the recognition of the sacred character of certain animals, and the connection of certain foods with supernatural beings and ceremonies[1011]), sometimes, perhaps, from accidental experiences; the history of most of the particular usages escapes us. The fundamental principle involved is the identity of the food with him who eats it—when it is charged with supernatural power (by its own sacredness, or by its connection with a sacred person, or by ecclesiastical decree) it becomes malefic to an unauthorized person who partakes of it.

613. A peculiar form of prohibition of foods appears when a society is divided into groups that are kept apart from one another by social and religious traditions that have hardened into civic rules. In such cases the diet of every group may be regulated by law, and it may become dangerous and abhorrent for a superior to eat what has been touched by an inferior. The best example of this sort of organization is the Hindu system of castes, which has a marked and unhappy effect on the life of the people.[1012] All such arbitrary social divisions yield gradually to the influence of education and civic freedom, and this appears to be the tendency in India at the present day.

614. Punishment of violation of taboo. Where the hostile power is inherent in an object, punishment is supposed to follow violation automatically—through contact the malefic influence passes into the man's body and works destruction. Many experiences seem to the savage to establish the certainty of such a result. Fervid belief, moreover, produced by long tradition, acts powerfully on the imagination, and in taboo-ridden communities thus often brings about the bodily ill called for by the theory: a man who ate of food that he found on the roadside, learning afterwards that it belonged to a chief, fell ill and died in a few hours.[1013] When taboo regulations have been taken up into the civil law,[1014] punishment for violations is inflicted by the civil authorities. The tendency to make taboo a part of the civil law, and to subordinate the former to the latter, increases with the advance of knowledge and political organization; and one result of this movement is that great personages are sometimes permitted to violate with impunity taboos imposed by inferiors. The native theory in such cases doubtless is that the great man's mana overcomes the taboo infection; but at bottom, we may surmise, lies the sense of the dominance of civil authority.

615. The chief's mana, however, sometimes comes into play as a means of relief. A man who has inadvertently (or perhaps, in some instances, purposely) violated a taboo may escape punishment by touching some part of a chief's body. Here the innate potency of the superior man expels or destroys the taboo force that has entered the inferior—another example of how the primitive theory of taboo is modified by conceptions of social rank and authority.

616. Removal of taboo. In general, magical ceremonies may be employed to counteract the injurious influence resident in a thing or an act, or to destroy the evil consequences resulting from a violation of the taboo law. For this purpose sprinkling with water, bathing in water, and the employment of charms are held to be effective. Thus in the old Hebrew code the taboo resting on a house supposed to be infected with the plague is removed by sprinkling the house with water and the blood of a slain bird, and setting free a second bird alive, which is supposed to carry the plague-power off with it.[1015] A woman is tabooed forty days at the birth of a male child, and eighty days at the birth of a female child; the taboo is removed by a holocaust and a sin-offering.[1016]

617. A general taboo regulation may be set aside by tribal agreement in the interests of convenience or pleasure. On certain occasions the restrictions on the intercourse of the sexes are removed for a brief period, at the expiration of which the prohibitory law resumes its place.[1017] Many special ceremonies in various parts of the world have to do with modifications of marriage laws.[1018]

618. Taboo and magic. Reference is made above to magical procedures in connection with taboo customs. Taboo and magic have a common basis in the conception of an occult force (which may conveniently be called mana) resident in all things, but they contemplate different sides of this force, and their social developments are very different. Taboo recognizes the inherent malefic manifestations of the force (known by supposed experience), and avoids them; magic uses the mana energy to effect results impossible for unaided human power. In taboo man feels himself to be under the dominance of an occult law, and his virtue is blind obedience; in magic he feels himself to be the master of a great energy, and what he needs is knowledge. Taboo has originated a mass of irrational rules for the guidance of everyday life; magic has grown into a quasi-science, with an organized body of adepts, touching religion on one side and real science on another side.

619. A closer relationship between magic and taboo has been assumed in view of the fact that both rest to some extent on the principle of the association of ideas, the principle that like procedures produce like results. It is true that some taboo rules depend on this conception:[1019] the flesh of timid animals is avoided, that of courageous animals is eaten, under the belief that the man partakes of the character of the food he eats; association with women is sometimes supposed to make a man or a boy effeminate. It is to be expected that in the immense number of taboo prohibitions and precautions some should be found in which the association of ideas is the determining factor. But for the majority of taboo regulations this explanation does not hold. In the economic and sexual taboos mentioned above, in the dread of corpses, in the fear of touching things belonging to a chief, and in other cases there are customs that can only be referred to a belief in an injurious potency residing in certain objects.[1020] Practically, savage tribes distinguish between taboo and magic.

620. Contamination of customs has always been the rule in human communities, early and late, savage and civilized. We have seen how there has often been a coalescence between taboo regulations proper and ordinary civil law. To state the case more fully, these have been fused into a unity of social life with individual initiative, magical notions, arbitrary enactments. The actual social constitution even of slightly developed tribes is composite, the outcome of long experience and experiment in which all the lines of social feeling and thought have gradually drawn together and been compacted into a more or less unitary mass. While these lines have influenced each the others, it is possible, to a considerable extent, to distinguish the sphere of each. Thus we can, in many cases, see where ordinary civil law comes in to adopt, modify, or set aside taboo rules, and so we can generally recognize the line of demarcation between definite taboo and the conception of association of ideas. In some cases the explanations offered of taboo customs are afterthoughts—imagined hypotheses to account for things already in existence.[1021]

621. The despotism exercised by taboo systems over certain Polynesian communities is one of the extraordinary facts of human history. In New Zealand and Hawaii the restrictions on conduct were so numerous and were carried out so mercilessly that life under these conditions would seem to us intolerable.[1022] In addition to a great number of particular prohibitions and to the constant fear of violating the sacredness of the persons of chiefs and trenching on their prerogatives, we find in New Zealand the amazing rule that on the occasion of a great misfortune (as a fire) the sufferer was to be deprived of his possessions—the blow that fell on him was held to affix a stigma to all that he owned. Besides the traditional taboos there were the arbitrary enactments of chiefs which might constantly introduce new possibilities of suffering. Yet with all this the people managed to live in some degree of comfort, somewhat as in civilized communities life goes on in spite of earthquakes, epidemics, bank failures, the injustices of law, and the tyranny of the powerful.

622. The duration of certain taboo periods among various peoples in various ages has varied greatly. Taboos relating to foods, chiefs, and the intercourse of the sexes are usually permanent everyday customs; those that relate to economic procedures are in force for the time demanded by each industry. In Hawaii the catching of certain species of fish was forbidden for half the year, and the Borneo harvest taboo (carrying prohibition of other work) lasts sometimes for weeks. There is mention in a Maori legend of a taboo of three years.[1023] According to the later Hebrew law, in every seventh year all agricultural operations ceased.[1024] A portent may demand a long period of restriction, as in the case of the Roman nine-day ceremony (novendiales feriae).[1025] As has been remarked above, economic taboos are often dictated by convenience—they are prudential rules to which a supernatural sanction has been attached.

623. Diffusion of taboo. Polynesia, particularly New Zealand and Hawaii, is the special home of taboo—the only region in which it is known to have taken the form of a well-compacted, all-embracing system. It exists in Melanesia, but it is there less complicated and general,[1026] and the same thing is true of British New Guinea.[1027] In parts of Borneo it is found in modified form: there are two sorts of taboo, one, called mali, absolutely forbidding work on certain occasions, the other, called penti, allowing work if it is begun by a person not penti; before the birth of a child the latter form of taboo rests on both parents.[1028] The Land Dyaks have their lali days and the Sea Dyaks their pemate,[1029] these terms being the equivalents of taboo.

624. Though there is no proof of the existence of all-pervading taboo systems among the peoples of Asia and America, there are notices of taboo regulations in particular cases in these regions. At the birth of a child the Hindu father was subject to certain restrictions along with the mother, and his taboo was removed by bathing.[1030] Among the Sioux Indians on the death of a child the father is taboo for a period of six months or a year.[1031] In West African Calabar there are taboos (called ibet) on individuals, connected with spirits, the guardians of children.[1032] In Assam economic and other taboos are elaborate and well organized.[1033] Such observances, in connection with death, are found among the Kafirs[1034] and the Eskimo.[1035]

625. For the ancient civilized peoples there is no proof of the existence of general taboo systems. Various particular prohibitions, involving a sense of danger in certain things, are mentioned above; they relate chiefly to corpses, to infected houses, to women in connection with menstruation and childbirth,[1036] to certain official persons (as the Roman flamen dialis). There are also the lists of unlucky days (Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman). The origin of food prohibitions (Hebrew, Pythagorean) is uncertain;[1037] they may have arisen, as is suggested above, from general regard for sacred animals and plants, or from totemistic relations, or from other conditions unknown to us; the Hebrew lists of forbidden animals may have been gradually expanded under the guidance of antagonism to surrounding non-Yahwistic cults. Whether the ancient taboo usages are the remains of older more extensive systems or represent the extreme point to which tabooism was carried by the communities in question the data do not enable us to decide.

626. In various places, outside of the Polynesian area, we find terms that bear a more or less close resemblance in signification to taboo.[1038] Melanesian tambu is that which has a sacred character.[1039] The Borneo terms (lali, pemate, mali, penti) are mentioned just above, and there is the pomali of Timor (in the Malayan Archipelago). The Malagasy fady is defined as 'dangerous, prohibited.'[1040] In Gabun (West Africa) orunda is said to mean 'prohibited to human beings.'[1041] The Hebrew tamē is used of things dangerous, not to be touched, ritually defiling,[1042] and this sense sometimes attaches to the term qadosh (rendered in the English version by 'holy'), which involves the presence of a supernatural (and therefore dangerous) quality.[1043]

627. From all the facts known it may be concluded that the conception of taboo exists or has existed in some form in a great part of the world,[1044] though its development has differed greatly in different regions. In general its prevalence appears to have been in inverse proportion to that of totemism—it is lacking or feeble in the chief totemic centers, Australia and North America, and strongest in Polynesia, where totemism is hardly recognizable. It may be said that, while totemism appears in those forms of social life that have been created by hunting communities,[1045] taboo is the product of more settled societies, in which agriculture plays an important part. But while this is true, at least in a general way, we are not able to trace all the influences that have determined the development of totemism and taboo; some of these are lost in the obscurity of the remote past, and, unfortunately for purposes of investigation, both taboo and totemism, as we now meet them in actual operation, are in process of decay. Why, for instance, taboo has flourished in Hawaii with its fishing industries and has not flourished in certain half-civilized, partly agricultural North American tribes we are unable to explain precisely. We may fall back on the vague statement that every community has accomplished that for which its genius fitted it, but how the genius of any one people has fitted it for this or that particular task it is not always possible to say.

628. The disappearance of the taboo system in civilized nations is to be referred to the general advance in intelligence and morality. Usually this movement is a gradual and silent one, marked by a quiet dropping of usages as they come to be held unnecessary or oppressive. Sometimes a bold individual rebels against the established custom and successfully introduces a new era: thus in Yoruba, under an old custom, when a king died his eldest son was obliged to commit suicide; this custom was set at defiance by a certain Adelu in 1860, and has not since been observed.[1046] All the influences that tend to broaden thought go to displace taboo. The growth of clans into tribes, the promotion of voluntary organizations, secret societies, which displace the old totemistic groups, the growth of agriculture and of commercial relations—all things, in a word, that tend to make the individual prominent and to further family life lead naturally to the abrogation of oppressive taboos.

629. Doubtless also among lower tribes intercourse with higher communities has had the same result. One of the most remarkable episodes in the history of taboo is its complete overthrow in the Hawaiian Islands in the year 1819 by a popular movement.[1047] The movement was begun by members of the royal family, particularly by one of the queens, and was eagerly followed by almost the whole population—the result was the final overthrow of the system. This was before the arrival of Christian missionaries; but as foreigners had visited the islands many years before (Captain Cook first came in 1778), it is possible that the suggestion of the reform came from observation of the fact that the taboos were disregarded by those men without evil effects. In any case it was the acceptance of better ideas by the people that led to the revolutionary movement.

630. Role of taboo in the history of religion. The relation of taboo to morality and religion and to the general organization of society appears from the facts stated above. It has created neither the sense of obligation nor the determination of what is right or wrong in conduct. The sense of obligation is coeval with human society—man, at the moment when he became man, was already potentially a moral being (and a religious being as well).[1048] His experience of life induced rules of conduct, and these, with the concurrence of some hardly definable instincts, became imperative for him—the conception involved in the word 'ought' gradually took shape. The practical content of the conception was determined by all sorts of experience; the decisive consideration was whether or not a given thing was advantageous. The belief arose that certain disadvantageous things were to be referred to extrahuman influences, and such things were of course to be avoided—this belief produced the taboo system.

631. The prohibitions of morality sprang from social relations with human beings, the prohibitions of taboo from social relations with superhuman beings—duties to both classes of beings were defined by experience. The rule "thou shalt not kill thy clansman" was a necessity of human society; the rule "thou shalt not touch a corpse" sprang from the fear of a superhuman, malign, death-dealing Power. Avoidance of poisonous herbs was an obligation founded on common experience; avoidance of a chief's food and certain other foods arose from dread of offending a spirit or some occult Power. And so with all taboo prescriptions as contrasted with others relating to conduct.[1049]

632. Taboo is in essence religious, not moral. In so far as it supplies a supernatural sanction for moral conduct proper and maintains rational social relations (as when a man's wife and other property are made taboo to all but himself), it is often beneficent. On the other hand, it is antimoral when it elevates to the rank of duties actions that have no basis in human relations or are in any way antagonistic to a healthy human instinct of right. This it has often done, and there has accordingly resulted a conflict between it and morality—a conflict that has formed no small part of the ethical history of the race, its echoes remaining to the present day. In all religions it has been hard to bring about an intelligent harmony between the moral and the ritual. Taboo was not originally irrational—it sprang from the belief (rational for the early time) in the presence of the supernatural in certain objects, and this belief was held to be supported by early experience, according to which it seemed that violations of taboo were followed by sickness or death or other misfortunes. It came to be thought irrational with the progress of knowledge and reflection.

633. Taboo, being a religious conception, has been adopted and fostered by all popular systems of religion. It has been set aside not by religion as such but by all the influences that have tended to rationalize religion. Religious leaders have modified it so far as modification has been demanded by public opinion. So enlightened and spiritual minded a man as the apostle Paul declared that an unworthy participation in the eucharistic celebration produced sickness and death.[1050] Innumerable are the taboos that have passed silently into oblivion.

634. Taboo, then, is a concomitant of man's moral life that has sometimes opposed, sometimes coalesced with natural morality. Like all widely extending institutions it has tended in part to weld men together; like all irrational restrictions it has tended also to hold men apart. Like all positive law it has fostered the sense of moral obligation, but like all arbitrary law it has weakened the power of intelligent and moral obedience. It has been not the guardian of morality, but a temporary form (useful in a primitive stage of society) in which a part of the moral law expressed itself. The real moral force of society has been sympathetic social intercourse, which, under the guidance of an implicit moral ideal, has been constantly employed in trying to spiritualize or to reject those enactments of taboo that have been proved by experience, observation, and reflection to be injurious.[1051]



CHAPTER VI

GODS

635. The climax of the organization of external religion appears in the conception of gods proper; this conception is always associated with more or less well-developed institutions. Early religious life expresses itself in ceremonies; the god is the embodiment of man's ideal of the extrahuman power that rules the world. It is not always easy to distinguish the true gods from the other supernatural beings with which early man's world is peopled.[1052] As far as concerns power, the ghosts and the spirits appear to do all that the gods are credited with doing; the sphere of ghostly action is practically unlimited, and the spirit that dwells in a spring, in a river, or in a mountain, is as mighty in his sphere as Indra or Apollo in his sphere; the difference between them and gods is a difference of intellectual and moral culture and of the degree of naturalization in a human society—a god might be defined as a superhuman Being fashioned by the thought of a civilized people (the term 'civilized' admitting, however, of many gradations). Still, gods proper may be distinguished from other Powers by certain characteristics of person and function. Ghosts are shadowy doubles of human beings, sometimes nameless, wandering about without definite purpose except to procure food for themselves, uncertain of temper, friendly or unfriendly according to caprice or other circumstances, able to help or to harm, and requiring men to be constantly on the alert so as not in an unguarded moment to offend them. Souls of recently deceased ancestors, more highly organized ghosts, conceived of also as attenuated bodies, have powers not essentially different from those of the simpler ghosts, but are differentiated from these in function by their intimate relations with the family or clan to which they belong, and by their more definite human nature; they are as a rule permanently friendly, are capable of definite sympathetic social intercourse with living men, and are sometimes controllers and patrons, hardly to be distinguished from local or departmental gods. Spirits are ethereal beings residing in, or closely connected with, certain objects (trees, rivers, springs, stones, mountains, etc.), sometimes permanently attached to these objects, sometimes detached; roaming about, sometimes kindly, more generally inimical, authors of disease and death, to be feared and to be guarded against, but sometimes in function (though not in origin) identical with ancestral ghosts. Totems, in their developed form, are revered, but rarely if ever worshiped. The term 'animal-gods' may mean either living animals regarded as divine, or animals believed to be the forms assumed by gods; in the latter case they may be taken to be real gods of an inferior type.

In distinction from the four classes of Powers just mentioned, a true god is a supernatural being with distinct anthropomorphic personality, with a proper name or a distinctive title, exercising authority over a certain land or people or over a department of nature or a class of phenomena, dwelling generally in a sanctuary on the earth, or in the sky, or in the other world, and in general sympathetic with men. Gods have rational human qualities, human modes of procedure, and are human beings in all things except power.[1053]

636. The god appears to have been at the outset a well-formed anthropomorphic being. His genesis is different from that of the ghost, spirit, ancestor, or totem. These, except the spirit, are all given by experience: totems are familiar objects plainly visible to the eye; ghosts and ancestors are known through dreams and appearances by day, and by tradition; and the conception of the spirit is closely allied to that of the ghost, though it is in part a scientific inference rather than a fact of experience. In distinction from these a god is a larger product of imagination, springing from the necessity of accounting for the existence of things in a relatively refined way. The creator is a beast only in low tribes, and in process of time, if the tribe continues to grow in culture, is absorbed in the cult of a true god. It is rarely, if ever, that a beast, whether a totem or only a sacred thing, becomes a god proper.

The best apparent examples of such a growth are the Egyptian bull Apis, who had his temple and ministers, the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, and the divine snake of the Nagas of India.[1054] But, though in these cases the beast forms receive divine worship, it is not clear whether it is the beast that is worshiped or a god incarnate in the beast; the question is difficult, the data being meager. The myths in which gods appear in beast forms do not prove a development of the former out of the latter. It is not necessary to suppose that Zeus was once a bull, Artemis a bear or a sow, Adonis a boar, and Aphrodite a sow or a dove. The myths may be naturally explained as arising from the coalescence of cults, the local sacred beast becoming attached to a local deity who had a different birth.

The god is a figure of slow growth. Beginning as a sort of headman, identified sometimes with an ancestor, sometimes with a beast, his character is shaped by all the influences that go to form the tribal life, and he thus embodies from generation to generation the tribe's ideals of virtue.

637. The list of classes of supernatural Powers given above must be regarded, as is there intimated, as a general one. One class appears sometimes to shade into another; in the theistic schemes of low tribes it is often difficult to define the conceptions of supernatural beings with precision.

Early mythical founders of culture. Before proceeding to a consideration of true gods, a class of beings must be mentioned that appears to stand on the borderland between divine animals, spirits, and gods. There are various sorts of beings that appear sometimes in animal form, sometimes in human form, their function being the arranging of the affairs of the world, the origination of institutions, and sometimes a definite creation of various things. The title "founders" or "transformers" or "culture-heroes" has been given them. They arise, just as the true gods do, from the necessity of accounting for the beginnings of things,[1055] and, from a comparison of the ideas of various tribes, a certain growth in the conception may be recognized.