Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism

by C. Staniland Wake

According to Sir John Lubbock,[337] totemism is the stage of human progress in which natural objects, trees, lakes, stones, animals, &c., are worshipped, and it is regarded as equivalent to nature-worship. Totemism, again,[338] is the deification of classes, so that “the Redskin who regards the bear, or the wolf, as his totem, feels that he is in intimate, though mysterious, association with the whole species.” The explanation given by Sir John Lubbock[339] of the phase of totemism which relates to the worship of animals is, that it originated “from the practice of naming, first individuals, and then their families, after particular animals. A family, for instance, which was called after the bear, would come to look on that animal first with interest, then with respect, and at length with a sort of awe.” This does not go far enough, however, as it is not shown why certain animals and other objects are chosen as totems, or why such totems are not only viewed with veneration but are regarded as friends and protectors. Dr. E. B. Tylor well objects,[340] “as to animal-worship, when we find men paying distinct and direct reverence to the lion, the bear, or the crocodile, as mighty superhuman beings, or adoring other beasts, birds, or reptiles as incarnations of spiritual deities, we can hardly supersede such well-defined developments of animistic religion, by seeking their origin in personal names of deceased ancestors, who chanced to be called Lion, Bear, or Crocodile.”

The fundamental basis of totemism is undoubtedly to be found in that phase of human thought in which spirits are supposed “to inhabit trees and groves, and to move in the winds and stars,” and in which almost every phase of nature is personified. But whether, as asserted by Dr. M’Lennan,[341] “the animition hypothesis, held as a faith, is at the root of all the mythologies,” or whether the ideas of animism, as found expressed in totemism, have been derived from the doctrines of the ancient religions, is a question. According to the religious philosophy of antiquity, as expressed by Pythagoras, “the pure and simple essence of the Deity, was the common source of all the forms of nature, which, according to their various modifications, possess different properties.” The Universe or Great Cause, animated and intelligent, and subdivided into a multitude of partial causes likewise intelligent, was divided also into two great parts, the one active and the other passive. Of these parts, the active comprises the Heavens, and the passive the Earth and the elements. In addition to this division was another, that of principles, of which one, answering to the active cause, was the principle of light or good, and the other, answering to the passive cause, was the principle of darkness or evil.[342] A very practical form of the ancient belief embodied in that philosophical system was entertained by the early Scandinavians, who, says Mallet,[343] supposed that “from the supreme divinity emanated an infinity of inferior deities and spirits, of whom every visible part of the universe was the residence and the temple, which intelligences not only dwell in them, but also direct their operations. Each element had its intelligence or proper deity; the Earth, the Water, the Fire, the Air, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. It was contained also in the trees, the forests, the rivers, the mountains, the rocks, the winds, the thunder, the tempest, which therefore deserved religious worship.” There is no reference here to the twofold division of nature, but it is found in the analogous beliefs of early races. Thus, Lenormant, in his work on “Chaldean Magic and Sorcery,”[344] when comparing the Finnish and Accadian Mythologies, speaks of their having “the same principle of the personification of natural phenomena, objects, and classes of beings belonging to the animated world.” An idea of dualism, however, pervaded this system, which supposed that there was “a bad as well as a good spirit attached to each celestial body, each element, each phenomenon, each object, and each being,” which were ever trying to supplant each other.[345] Thus, both Accadians and Finns “recognised two worlds at enmity with each other; that of the gods together with the propitious spirits, and that of the demons, respectively the kingdom of light and that of darkness, the region of good and that of evil.”[346]

At first sight these ideas have no special bearing on the subject of totemism, but it is different when we consider certain notions entertained by the Australian aborigines.

The Rev. Lorimer Fison remarks,[347] “the Australian totems have a special value of their own. Some of them divide not mankind only, but the whole universe, into what may almost be called gentile divisions.” The natives of Port Mackay, in Queensland, allot everything in nature into one or other of the two classes, Wateroo and Yungaroo, into which their tribe is divided. The wind belongs to one and the rain to the other. The Sun is Wateroo and the Moon is Yungaroo. The stars are divided between them, and the division to which any star belongs can be pointed out. The Mount Gambier tribe of South Australia has a similar arrangement, but natural objects are allied with the totemic subdivisions. Mr. Fison gives examples of this as supplied to him by Mr. D. S. Stewart, from which it appears that rain, thunder, lightning, winter, hail, clouds, &c., are associated with the crow totem, and the stars, moon, &c., belong to the same totemic class as the black cockatoo; while the black, crestless cockatoo subdivision includes the sun, summer, autumn, wind, &c. The native of South Australia thus “looks upon the Universe as a Great Tribe, to one of whose divisions he himself belongs; and all things, animate and inanimate, which belong to his class, are parts of the body corporate whereof he himself is part.”

There is a curious parallelism between this system and the ancient doctrine of the separation of the intelligent Universe into two great divisions, the celestial and terrestrial, or that of light and that of darkness. In the totemic system one great division includes the sun and summer, answering to the realm of light, and the other division comprises moon, stars, winter, thunder, clouds, rain, hail, answering to the realm of darkness. The American aborigines also show traces of the notion of the dual division of nature in their hero-myths, which, according to Dr. Brinton,[348] are intended to express “the daily struggle which is ever going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm and Sunshine.” It is not improbable that the American totem system is based on the idea of duality. Although the totem divisions or gentes are now so numerous, there is no reason to believe that, as long since mentioned by Lafitau[349] in relation to the Iroquois and Hurons, that they had at one time not more than three gentes. Mr. Morgan states, indeed, that the Iroquois commenced with two gentes, and it is possible that the original totems of all the North Americans were only two in number. The Wolf and the Bear, which probably answer to Light and Darkness,[350] are the only totems common to all the great families of tribes of that area.

The dualism of the American mythology possesses the element of antagonism between the powers of light and those of darkness, which was met with in the ancient mythologies. The Australian dualism appears to lose sight of that opposition, and to look upon the two great divisions of nature represented by light and darkness as forming parts of a great whole. This idea is not wanting, however, to one phase of what Lenormant terms the “naturalistic pantheism” of ancient religions. The French historian states[351] that, although the Magi “preserved the dualistic form which the old Proto-Medic religion must have admitted,” yet they considered the antagonism between the good and the bad spirits to be only superficial, “for they regarded the representatives of the two opposing principles as consubstantial, equal in power, and emanating both from one and the same pre-existent principle.” Lenormant finds traces of this notion in the old Accadian system, and he affirms[352] that Magism goes further than the perception of a common principle from which both the evil and the good principles emanated, seeing that it did not bind itself to the worship of the latter, but rendered equal homage to the two principles. This fact has an important bearing on the worship of the Evil Being so prevalent among the lower races, in combination with the simple recognition of the existence of a Good Being.

What has been said throws great light on the fundamental ideas of totemism, but it does not account for the notion of protection, which forms the real practical feature of that system. This notion can, however, be found in certain doctrines of the ancient Persian religion. Dr. M’Lennan refers,[353] in support of his hypothesis, that animal gods were prolongations of the totems, to the opinion said to have been entertained by the Peruvians, that “there was not any beast or bird upon the earth whose shape or image did not shine in the heavens, by whose influence its similitude was generated on the earth, and its species increased.” From this he assumes “that the celestial beings were conceived to be in the shape of the animals, and to have special relations to their breed on the earth.” The Peruvian notion is, however, rather a phase of the ancient belief, expressed in the cosmogony of Zoroaster, that all things on earth had celestial prototypes which emanated from the Deity. As Lenormant remarks,[354] “stars, animals, men, angels themselves—in one word, every created being had his Fravishi, who was invoked in prayers and sacrifices, and was the invisible protector who watched untiringly over the being to whom he was attached.” The Mazdian fravishis answer to the personal spirits of nature-worship, and, according to the Accadian Magical Table, every man had “from the hour of his birth a special god attached to him, who lived as his protector and his spiritual type.”[355] We have here the idea of guardianship by a mysterious being which is so important in connection with the totem, but there is no suggestion that the fravishi itself ever became embodied in a terrestrial form, although there does not appear to be any reason why it should not do so.

We have, in the doctrine of transmigration of souls, however, a sufficient explanation of the special association between a particular totem and the members of the gens or family group to which it gives name. According to that doctrine,[356] as stated in the Hindoo code, known as the Laws of Menu (chap. xii.), “with whatever disposition of mind a man shall perform in this life any act, religious or moral, in a future body endued with the same quality, shall he receive his retribution.” Numerous animals are named as proper for such re-incarnation, and even vegetables and mineral substances appear among them. Transmigration seems to have been considered by Oriental teaching essential to the attainment of perfection by the human soul, and the forms through which it is supposed to pass, include not only beasts, birds, and fishes, but also trees, stones, and other inanimate objects. The great Gautama himself is said to have passed through all the existences of earth, air, and sea, as well as through all the conditions of human life, before he became the Buddha. Dr. M’Lennan says[357] it is of the essence of the doctrine of transmigration that “everything has a soul or spirit, and that the spirits are mostly human in the sense of having once been in human bodies.” We have here the key to the problem of totemism, which receives its solution in the idea that the totem is the re-incarnated form of the legendary ancestor of the gens or family group allied to the totem. The belief that the spirits of the dead do take on themselves animal forms is widely spread.[358] The most remarkable example of this belief is that which views certain snakes, not merely as re-incarnations of human souls, but as re-embodiments of ancestors of the people by whom such snakes are venerated. Serpent-worship is, indeed, closely connected with the worship of ancestors. The followers of the serpent believed themselves “to be of the serpent-breed, derived from a serpent ancestor,” and we know that peoples have claimed to belong to the serpent race. Such a claim, or that to a monkey relationship made by some of the dark tribes of India, would be readily admitted by the savage mind, and it may be explained on the principle that the legendary ancestor of the race is supposed to have become re-incarnated in monkey or snake form, and that monkeys or snakes as well as men are his descendants.

At the same time it is very probable that some savages do not distinguish between the man and the animal incarnation, and that if they think at all of the ancestor of the race, it is under the animal form. It must be remembered, however, that what to us is a monkey or a bear is to the uncultured mind an incarnate spirit, and it is this spirit-existence which is referred to when men speak of their ancestors as animals or plants. This explanation is applicable also to the case where descent is claimed from one of the heavenly bodies. Particular stars are often identified with persons who, distinguished while on earth, are thought to be no less distinguished after death. The spirit of the dead person thus becomes identified with the star. When, therefore, a man or family claims the Sun or the Moon as an ancestor, the spirit of the luminary is really referred to. In fact, to the lower races the Sun and the Moon are great beings, and there is no apparent reason to them why a great man should not be descended from the spirit of the Sun or Moon, or after death be identified as that spirit. Perhaps, when the Egyptian Monarch was called Pharaoh, he was thought to be actually a descendant of Phra, the Sun.[359] Such may have been the case also with the Incas and other royal families who have claimed to be of solar descent. Whether the Sun was regarded as the great ancestor of the race, or only as the re-embodiment of his spirit, it would be an equally powerful totem, a remark which applies as well to the Moon or other heavenly bodies. In ancient times the Solar and Lunar races were very powerful in the East, and their representatives are still to be found in India among the Rajpoots and Jats.[360] In ancient philosophy, the Sun and the Moon would represent the two realms of Light and Darkness, into which the visible Universe was divided, and as totems they probably stood at first in the same relation to other totems as those of the Australian primary classes stand to the totems of the secondary groups or gentes. It is known that various animals were anciently associated with the Sun or the Moon, or were venerated as emblems of the Solar or Lunar Deity. Thus, the Lion, the Bull, the Horse, the Elephant, the Monkey, the Ram, and the Eagle, with others, were solar animals; while, among other animals, the Cow, the Hare, the Dog, the Beaver, the Dove, and the Fish, were lunar animals.[361] An example of the process by which certain creatures became associated with those heavenly bodies is noted by Macrobius, who says of the Lion, “this beast seems to derive his own nature from the Sun, being, in force and heat, as superior to all other animals as the Sun is to the Stars.” Another example, but of a different character, and taken from a very different quarter, may be cited.

The Mount Gambier tribe of South Australia, as we have already seen, divides everything in nature between two great classes, and although Mr. Stewart, who is responsible for the information, could not find any reason for the arrangement, it appears from his remarks that the natives knew to which division any object belongs. Mr. Stewart asked what division a bullock belongs to. The answer was, “It eats grass, it is Bourtwerio.” He then said, “A Crayfish does not eat grass: Why is it Bourtwerio?” but the only reply he could get was, “That is what our fathers said it was.”[362]