II
Perhaps someone will ask whether, in interpreting totemism thus, we do not endow the native with ideas surpassing the limits of his intellect. Of course we are not prepared to affirm that he represents these forces with the relative clarity which we have been able to give to them in our analysis. We are able to show quite clearly that this notion is implied by the whole system of beliefs which it dominates; but we are unable to say how far it is conscious and how far, on the contrary, it is only implicit and confusedly felt. There is no way of determining just what degree of clarity an idea like this may have in obscure minds. But it is well shown, in any case, that this in no way surpasses the capacities of the primitive mind, and on the contrary, the results at which we have just arrived are confirmed by the fact that either in the societies closely related to these Australian tribes, or even in these tribes themselves, we find, in an explicit form, conceptions which differ from the preceding only by shades and degrees.
The native religions of Samoa have certainly passed the totemic phase. Real gods are found there, who have their own names, and, to a certain degree, their own personal physiognomy. Yet the traces of totemism are hardly contestable. In fact, each god is attached to a group, either local or domestic, just as the totem is to its clan.[618] Then, each of these gods is thought of as immanent in a special species of animal. But this does not mean that he resides in one subject in particular: he is immanent in all at once; he is diffused in the species as a whole. When an animal dies, the men of the group who venerate it weep for it and render pious duties to it, because a god inhabits it; but the god is not dead. He is eternal, like the species. He is not even confused with the present generation; he has already been the soul of the preceding one, as he will be the soul of the one which is to follow.[619] So he has all the characteristics of the totemic principle. He is the totemic principle, re-clothed in a slightly personal form by the imagination. But still, we must not exaggerate a personality which is hardly reconcilable with this diffusion and ubiquity. If its contours were clearly defined, it could never spread out thus and enter into such a multitude of things.
However, it is incontestable that in this case the idea of an impersonal religious force is beginning to change; but there are other cases where it is affirmed in all its abstract purity and even reaches a higher degree of generality than in Australia. If the different totemic principles to which the various clans of a single tribe address themselves are distinct from each other, they are, none the less, comparable to each other at bottom; for all play the same rôle in their respective spheres. There are societies which have had the feeling of this unity with nature and have consequently advanced to the idea of a unique religious force of which all other sacred principles are only expressions and which makes the unity of the universe. As these societies are still thoroughly impregnated with totemism, and as they remain entangled in a social organization identical with that of the Australians, we may say that totemism contained this idea in potentiality.
This can be observed in a large number of American tribes, especially those belonging to the great Sioux family: the Omaha, Ponka, Kansas, Osage, Assiniboin, Dakota, Iowa, Winnebago, Mandan, Hidatsa, etc. Many of these are still organized in clans, as the Omaha[620] and the Iowa;[621] others were so not long since, and, says Dorsey, it is still possible to find among them "all the foundations of the totemic system, just as in the other societies of the Sioux."[622] Now among these peoples, above all the particular deities to whom men render a cult, there is a pre-eminent power to which all the others have the relation of derived forms, and which is called wakan.[623] Owing to the preponderating place thus assigned to this principle in the Siouan pantheon, it is sometimes regarded as a sort of sovereign god, or a Jupiter or Jahveh, and travellers have frequently translated wakan by "great spirit." This is misrepresenting its real nature gravely. The wakan is in no way a personal being; the natives do not represent it in a determined form. According to an observer cited by Dorsey, "they say that they have never seen the wakanda, so they cannot pretend to personify it."[624] It is not even possible to define it by determined attributes and characteristics. "No word," says Riggs, "can explain the meaning of this term among the Dakota. It embraces all mystery, all secret power, all divinity."[625] All the beings which the Dakota reveres, "the earth, the four winds, the sun, the moon and the stars, are manifestations of this mysterious life and power" which enters into all. Sometimes it is represented in the form of a wind, as a breath having its seat in the four cardinal points and moving everything:[626] sometimes it is a voice heard in the crashing of the thunder;[627] the sun, moon and stars are wakan.[628] But no enumeration could exhaust this infinitely complex idea. It is not a definite and definable power, the power of doing this or that; it is Power in an absolute sense, with no epithet or determination of any sort. The various divine powers are only particular manifestations and personifications of it; each of them is this power seen under one of its numerous aspects.[629] It is this which made one observer say, "He is a protean god; he is supposed to appear to different persons in different forms."[630] Nor are the gods the only beings animated by it: it is the principle of all that lives or acts or moves. "All life is wakan. So also is everything which exhibits power, whether in action, as the winds and drifting clouds, or in passive endurance, as the boulder by the wayside."[631]
Among the Iroquois, whose social organization has an even more pronouncedly totemic character, this, same idea is found again; the word orenda which expresses it is the exact equivalent of the wakan of the Sioux. "The savage man," says Hewitt, "conceived the diverse bodies collectively constituting his environment to possess inherently mystic potence ... (whether they be) the rocks, the waters, the tides, the plants and the trees, the animals and man, the wind and the storms, the clouds and the thunders and the lightnings,"[632] etc. "This potence is held to be the property of all things ... and by the inchoate mentation of man is regarded as the efficient cause of all phenomena, all the activities of his environment."[633] A sorcerer or shaman has orenda, but as much would be said of a man succeeding in his enterprises. At bottom, there is nothing in the world which does not have its quota of orenda; but the quantities vary. There are some beings, either men or things, which are favoured; there are others which are relatively disinherited, and the universal life consists in the struggles of these orenda of unequal intensity. The more intense conquer the weaker. Is one man more successful than his companions in the hunt or at war? It is because he has more orenda. If an animal escapes from a hunter who is pursuing it, it is because the orenda of the former was the more powerful.
This same idea is found among the Shoshone under the name of pokunt, among the Algonquin under the name of manitou,[634] of nauala among the Kwakiutl,[635] of yek among the Tlinkit[636] and of sgâna among the Haida.[637] But it is not peculiar to the Indians of North America; it is in Melanesia that it was studied for the first time. It is true that in certain of the islands of Melanesia, social organization is no longer on a totemic basis; but in all, totemism is still visible,[638] in spite of what Codrington has said about it. Now among these peoples, we find, under the name of mana, an idea which is the exact equivalent of the wakan of the Sioux and the orenda of the Iroquois. The definition given by Codrington is as follows: "There is a belief in a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all ways for good and evil; and which it is of the greatest advantage to possess or control. This is Mana. I think I know what our people mean by it.
... It is a power or influence, not physical and in a way supernatural;
but it shows itself in physical force, or in any kind of power or excellence which a man possesses. This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything.
... All Melanesian religion consists, in fact, in getting this
mana for one's self, or getting it used for one's benefit."[639] Is this not the same notion of an anonymous and diffused force, the germs of which we recently found in the totemism of Australia? Here is the same impersonality; for, as Codrington says, we must be careful not to regard it as a sort of supreme being; any such idea is "absolutely foreign" to Melanesian thought. Here is the same ubiquity; the mana is located nowhere definitely and it is everywhere. All forms of life and all the effects of the action, either of men or of living beings or of simple minerals, are attributed to its influence.[640]
Therefore there is no undue temerity in attributing to the Australians an idea such as the one we have discovered in our analysis of totemic beliefs, for we find it again, but abstracted and generalized to a higher degree, at the basis of other religions whose roots go back into a system like the Australian one and which visibly bear the mark of this. The two conceptions are obviously related; they differ only in degree, while the mana is diffused into the whole universe, what we call the god or, to speak more precisely, the totemic principle, is localized in the more limited circle of the beings and things of certain species. It is mana, but a little more specialized; yet as a matter of fact, this specialization is quite relative.
Moreover, there is one case where this connection is made especially apparent. Among the Omaha, there are totems of all sorts, both individual and collective;[641] but both are only particular forms of wakan. "The foundation of the Indian's faith in the efficacy of the totem," says Miss Fletcher, "rested upon his belief concerning nature and life. This conception was complex and involved two prominent ideas: First, that all things, animate and inanimate, were permeated by a common life; and second, that this life could not be broken, but was continuous."[642] Now this common principle of life is the wakan. The totem is the means by which an individual is put into relations with this source of energy; if the totem has any powers, it is because it incarnates the wakan. If a man who has violated the interdictions protecting his totem is struck by sickness or death, it is because this mysterious force against which he has thus set himself, that is, the wakan, reacts against him with a force proportionate to the shock received.[643] Also, just as the totem is wakan, so the wakan, in its turn, sometimes shows its totemic origin by the way in which it is conceived. In fact, Say says that among the Dakota the "wahconda" is manifested sometimes in the form of a grey bear, sometimes of a bison, a beaver or some other animal.[644] Undoubtedly, this formula cannot be accepted without reserve. The wakan repels all personification and consequently it is hardly probable that it has ever been thought of in its abstract generality with the aid of such definite symbols. But Say's remark is probably applicable to the particular forms which it takes in specializing itself in the concrete reality of life. Now if there is a possibility that there was a time when these specializations of the wakan bore witness to such an affinity for an animal form, that would be one more proof of the close bonds uniting this conception to the totemic beliefs.[645]
It is possible to explain why this idea has been unable to reach the same degree of abstraction in Australia as in the more advanced societies. This is not merely due to the insufficient aptitude of the Australian for abstracting and generalizing: before all, it is the nature of the social environment which has imposed this particularism. In fact, as long as totemism remains at the basis of the cultural organization, the clan keeps an autonomy in the religious society which, though not absolute, is always very marked. Of course we can say that in one sense each totemic group is only a chapel of the tribal Church; but it is a chapel enjoying a large independence. The cult celebrated there, though not a self-sufficing whole, has only external relations with the others; they interchange without intermingling; the totem of the clan is fully sacred only for this clan. Consequently the groups of things attributed to each clan, which are a part of it in the same way the men are, have the same individuality and autonomy. Each of them is represented as irreducible into similar groups, as separated from them by a break of continuity, and as constituting a distinct realm. Under these circumstances, it would occur to no one that these heterogeneous worlds were different manifestations of one and the same fundamental force; on the contrary, one might suppose that each of them corresponded to an organically different mana whose action could not extend beyond the clan and the circle of things attributed to it. The idea of a single and universal mana could be born only at the moment when the tribal religion developed above that of the clans and absorbed them more or less completely. It is along with the feeling of the tribal unity that the feeling of the substantial unity of the world awakens. As we shall presently show,[646] it is true that the Australian societies are already acquainted with a cult that is common to the tribe as a whole. But if this cult represents the highest form of the Australian religions, it has not succeeded in touching and modifying the principles upon which they repose: totemism is essentially a federative religion which cannot go beyond a certain degree of centralization without ceasing to be itself.
One characteristic fact clearly shows the fundamental reason which has kept the idea of the mana so specialized in Australia. The real religious forces, those thought of in the form of totems, are not the only ones with which the Australian feels himself obliged to reckon. There are also some over which magicians have particular control. While the former are theoretically considered healthful and beneficent, the second have it as their especial function to cause sickness and death. And at the same time that they differ so greatly in the nature of their effects, they are contrasted also by the relations which they sustain with the social organization. A totem is always a matter of the clan; but on the contrary, magic is a tribal and even an intertribal institution. Magic forces do not belong to any special portion of the tribe in particular. All that is needed to make use of them is the possession of efficient recipes. Likewise, everybody is liable to feel their effects and consequently should try to protect himself against them. These are vague forces, specially attached to no determined social division, and even able to spread their action beyond the tribe. Now it is a remarkable fact that among the Arunta and Loritja, they are conceived as simple aspects and particular forms of a unique force, called in Arunta Arungquiltha or Arúnkulta.[647] "This is a term," say Spencer and Gillen, "of somewhat vague import, but always associated at bottom with the possession of supernatural evil power.... The name is applied indiscriminately to the evil influence or to the object in which it is, for the time being, or permanently, resident."[648] "By arúnkulta," says Strehlow, "the native signifies a force which suddenly stops life and brings death to all who come in contact with it."[649] This name is given to the bones and pieces of wood from which evil-working charms are derived, and also to poisonous animals and vegetables. So it may accurately be called a harmful mana. Grey mentions an absolutely identical notion among the tribes he observed.[650] Thus among these different peoples, while the properly religious forces do not succeed in avoiding a certain heterogeneity, magic forces are thought of as being all of the same nature; the mind represents them in their generic unity. This is because they rise above the social organization and its divisions and subdivisions, and move in a homogeneous and continuous space where they meet with nothing to differentiate them. The others, on the contrary, being localized in definite and distinct social forms, are diversified and particularized in the image of the environment in which they are situated.
From this we can see how thoroughly the idea of an impersonal religious force enters into the meaning and spirit of Australian totemism, for it disengages itself with clarity as soon as no contrary cause opposes it. It is true that the arungquiltha is purely a magic force. But between religious forces and magic forces there is no difference of kind:[651] sometimes they are even designated by the same name: in Melanesia, the magicians and charms have mana just like the agents and rites of the regular cult;[652] the word oranda is employed in the same way by the Iroquois.[653] So we can legitimately infer the nature of the one from that of the other.[654]