This idea of a New Birth at initiation explains the prevalent pagan custom of subjecting the initiates to serious ordeals, often painful and even dangerous. If one is to be born again, obviously one must be ready to face death; the one thing cannot be without the other. One must be able to endure pain, like the Red Indian braves; to go long periods fasting and without food or drink, like the choupan among the Western Inoits—who, wanders for whole nights over the ice-fields under the moon, scantily clothed and braving the intense cold; to overcome the very fear of death and danger, like the Australian novices who, at first terrified by the sound of the bull-roarer and threats of fire and the knife, learn finally to cast their fears away. (1) By so doing one puts off the old childish things, and qualifies oneself by firmness and courage to become a worthy member of the society into which one is called. (2) The rules of social life are taught—the duty to one’s tribe, and to oneself, truth-speaking, defence of women and children, the care of cattle, the meaning of sex and marriage, and even the mysteries of such religious ideas and rudimentary science as the tribe possesses. And by so doing one really enters into a new life. Things of the spiritual world begin to dawn. Julius Firmicus, in describing the mysteries of the resurrection of Osiris, (3) says that when the worshipers had satiated themselves with lamentations over the death of the god then the priest would go round anointing them with oil and whispering, “Be of good cheer, O Neophytes of the new-arisen God, for to us too from our pains shall come salvation.” (4)
(1) According to accounts of the Wiradthuri tribe of Western Australia, in their initiations, the lads were frightened by a large fire being lighted near them, and hearing the awful sound of the bull-roarers, while they were told that Dhuramoolan was about to burn them; the legend being that Dhuramoolan, a powerful being, whose voice sounded like thunder, would take the boys into the bush and instruct them in all the laws, traditions and customs of the community. So he pretended that he always killed the boys, cut them up, and burnt them to ashes, after which he moulded the ashes into human shape, and restored them to life as new beings. (See R. H. Matthews, “The Wiradthuri tribes,” Journal Anthrop. Inst., vol. xxv, 1896, pp. 297 sq.)
(2) See Catlin’s North-American Indians, vol. i, for initiations and ordeals among the Mandans.
(3) De Errore, c. 22.
(4) [gr Qarreite, mustai ton qeou seswsmenou,] [gr Estai gar hmin ek ponwn swthria.]
It would seem that at some very early time in the history of tribal and priestly initiations an attempt was made to impress upon the neophytes the existence and over-shadowing presence of spiritual and ghostly beings. Perhaps the pains endured in the various ordeals, the long fastings, the silences in the depth of the forests or on the mountains or among the ice-floes, helped to rouse the visionary faculty. The developments of this faculty among the black and colored peoples—East-Indian, Burmese, African, American-Indian, etc.—are well known. Miss Alice Fletcher, who lived among the Omaha Indians for thirty years, gives a most interesting account (1) of the general philosophy of that people and their rites of initiation. “The Omahas regard all animate and inanimate forms, all phenomena, as pervaded by a common life, which was continuous with and similar to the will-power they were conscious of in themselves. This mysterious power in all things they called Wakonda, and through it all things were related to man and to each other. In the idea of the continuity of life a relation was maintained between the seen and the unseen, the dead and the living, and also between the fragment of anything and its entirety.” (2) Thus an Omaha novice might at any time seek to obtain Wakonda by what was called THE RITE OF THE VISION. He would go out alone, fast, chant incantations, and finally fall into a trance (much resembling what in modern times has been called COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS) in which he would perceive the inner relations of all things and the solidarity of the least object with the rest of the universe.
(1) Summarized in Themis, pp. 68-71.
(2) A. C. Fletcher, The Significance of the Scalp-lock, Journal of Anthropological Studies, xxvii (1897-8), p. 436.
Another rite in connection with initiation, and common all over the pagan world—in Greece, America, Africa, Australia, New Mexico, etc.—was the daubing of the novice all over with clay or chalk or even dung, and then after a while removing the same. (1) The novice must have looked a sufficiently ugly and uncomfortable object in this state; but later, when he was thoroughly WASHED, the ceremony must have afforded a thrilling illustration of the idea of a new birth, and one which would dwell in the minds of the spectators. When the daubing was done as not infrequently happened with white clay or gypsum, and the ritual took place at night, it can easily be imagined that the figures of young men and boys moving about in the darkness would lend support to the idea that they were spirits belonging to some intermediate world—who had already passed through death and were now waiting for their second birth on earth (or into the tribe) which would be signalized by their thorough and ceremonial washing. It will be remembered that Herodotus (viii) gives a circumstantial account of how the Phocians in a battle with the Thessalians smeared six hundred of their bravest warriors with white clay so that, looking like supernatural beings, and falling upon the Thessalians by night, they terrified the latter and put them to instant flight.
(1) See A. Lang’s Myth, Ritual and Religion, i, 274 sq.