[387] See Bk. III, ch. ii, § 2.
[388] Perhaps there is no religion which makes man an exclusively profane being. For the Christian, the soul which each of us has within him and which constitutes the very essence of our being, has something sacred about it. We shall see that this conception of the soul is as old as religious thought itself. The place of man in the hierarchy of sacred things is more or less elevated.
[389] Nat. Tr., p. 202.
[390] Taplin, The Narrinyeri, pp. 59-61.
[391] Among certain clans of the Warramunga, for example (Nor. Tr., p. 162).
[392] Among the Urabunna (Nor. Tr., p. 147). Even when they tell us that the first beings were men, these are really only semi-human, and have an animal nature at the same time. This is the case with certain Unmatjera (ibid., pp. 153-154). Here we find ways of thought whose confusion disconcerts us, but which must be accepted as they are. We would denature them if we tried to introduce a clarity that is foreign to them (cf. Nat. Tr., p. 119).
[393] Among the Arunta (Nat. Tr., pp. 388 ff.); and among certain Unmatjera (Nor. Tr., p. 153).
[394] Nat. Tr., p. 389. Cf. Strehlow, I, pp. 2-7.
[395] Nat. Tr., p. 389; Strehlow, I, pp. 2 ff. Undoubtedly there is an echo of the initiation rites in this mythical theme. The initiation also has the object of making the young man into a complete man, and on the other hand, it also implies actual surgical operations (circumcision, sub-incision, the extraction of teeth, etc.). The processes which served to form the first men would naturally be conceived on the same model.
[396] This the case with the nine clans of the Moqui (Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, IV, p. 86), the Crain clan among the Ojibway (Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 180), and the Nootka clans (Boas, VIth Rep. on the N.W. Tribes of Canada, p. 43), etc.