An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

More clearly, perhaps, than any of those occurring at the other crises of our lives, these solemnities are pervaded by common characteristics. Primitive man in Australia, in America, and in Africa, marks the advent of puberty in a manner which is essentially the same. When we rise to the higher class of religions, we find ceremonies of a different kind from which the ruder symbolism of the savage creeds is absent. But from the uniformity of the types of initiation into manhood among uncivilized people, it is highly probable that the progenitors of the Aryan and Semitic races also, at some period of their history, employed similar methods of rendering this epoch in life impressive and remarkable. Two distinguishing features characterize the rites of puberty—cruelty and mystery. There is always some painful ordeal to be undergone by the young men or boys who have attained the requisite age; and this ordeal is to be passed through in extreme secrecy as regards the opposite sex, and with a ceremonial of an unknown character, which is hidden from all but the initiated performers. Sometimes the puberty of women is also sanctified by religious ceremonies, and these follow the same rules, except that the female sex are not required to undergo such severe suffering as is often inflicted upon men. While, however, the cruelty is less, the mystery is the same. Men are not admitted to witness the performances gone through, and these are conducted in secluded places to which no access is allowed.

The meaning of these two features of the rites of puberty is not difficult to divine. Young men enter at that age on a period of their lives in which they are expected to display courage in danger and firmness under pain. Hence the infliction of some kind of suffering is an appropriate symbolical preparation for their future careers. Moreover, the manner in which they endure their agony serves as a test of their fortitude, and may influence the position to be assigned to them in the warlike expeditions of the tribe. But the primary motive, no doubt, is the apparent fitness of the infliction of pain at an age when the necessary pains of manhood are about to begin.

The explanation of the secrecy observed is equally simple. A mysterious change takes place in the physical condition at puberty, the generative functions, which are to play so large a part in the life of the individual, making their appearance then. It is this natural process to which the religious process bears reference. Without doubt the rites performed stand in symbolical relation to the new class of actions of which their subject is, or will be, capable. It is this allusion to the sexual instinct—a subject always tending to be shrouded in mystery—which is the origin of the jealous exclusion of women from the rites undergone by men, and of men from those undergone by women. The members of each sex are, so to speak, prepared alone for the pleasures they are afterwards to enjoy together. Religion, ever ready to seize on the more solemn moments of our existence, seeks to consecrate the time at which the two sexes are ready to enter towards one another on a new and deeply important relationship.

Bearing these characteristics in mind, we may proceed to notice a few of the ceremonies performed at puberty. Let us begin with the most barbarous of all, those witnessed by Mr. Catlin among the Mandans, a tribe of North American Indians now happily extinct. The usual secrecy was observed about the "O-kee-pa," as this great Mandan ceremony is termed, and it was only by a favor, never before accorded to a stranger, that Mr. Catlin was enabled to be present in the "Medicine Lodge," where the operations were conducted. In the first place a mysterious personage, supposed to represent a white man, appeared from the west and opened the lodge. At his approach all women and children were ordered to retire within their wigwams. Next day the young men who had arrived at maturity during the last year were summoned to come forth, the rest of the villagers remaining shut up. After committing the conduct of the ceremonies to a "medicine man," this personage returned to the west with the same mystery with which he had come. The young men were now kept without food, drink, or sleep, for four days and four nights. In the middle of the fourth day two men began to operate upon them, the one making incisions with a knife in their flesh, and the other passing splints through the wounds, from which the blood trickled over their naked, but painted bodies. The parts through which the knife was passed were on each arm, above and below the elbow; on each leg, above and below the knee; on each breast, and each shoulder. The young men not only did not wince, but smiled at their civilized observer during this process. "When these incisions were all made, and the splints passed through, a cord of raw hide was lowered down through the top of the wigwam, and fastened to the splints on the breasts or shoulders, by which the young man was to be raised up and suspended, by men placed on the top of the lodge for the purpose. These cords having been attached to the splints on the breast or the shoulders, each one had his shield hung to some one of the splints: his medicine bag was held in his left hand, and a dried buffalo skull was attached to the splint of each lower leg and each lower arm, that its weight might prevent him from struggling." At a signal, the men were drawn up three or four feet above the ground, and turned round with gradually increasing velocity, by a man with a pole, until they fainted. Although they had never groaned before, they uttered a heart-rending cry, a sort of prayer to the Great Spirit, during the turning. Having ceased to cry, they were let down apparently dead. Left entirely to themselves, they in time were able "partly to rise," and no sooner could they do thus much than they moved to another part of the lodge, where the little finger of the left hand was cut off with a hatchet. But their tortures were not over. The rest of them took place in public, and were perhaps more frightful than any. The victims were taken out of the lodge, and, being each placed between two athletic men, were dragged along, the men holding them with thongs and running with them as fast as they could, until all the buffalo skulls and weights hanging to the splints were left behind. These weights must be dragged out through the flesh, the candidates having the option of running in the race described, or of wandering about the prairies without food until suppuration took place, and the weights came off by decay of the flesh. These horrors concluded, the young men were left alone to recover as best they might. Mr. Catlin could only hear of one who had died "in the extreme part of this ceremony," and his fate was considered rather a happy one: "the Great Spirit had so willed it for some especial purpose, and no doubt for the young man's benefit" (O-kee-pa, p. 9-32).

Nor were the Mandans alone on the American continent in marking the entrance upon manhood by distinctive observances. On the contrary, a writer of the highest authority on Red Indian subjects, states that no young man among the native tribes was considered fit to begin the career of life until he had accomplished his great fast. Seven days were considered the maximum time during which a young man could fast, and the success of the devotee was inferred from the length of his abstinence. These fasts, says Mr. Schoolcraft, "are awaited with interest, prepared for with solemnity, and endured with a self-devotion bordering on the heroic.... It is at this period that the young men and young women 'see visions and dream dreams,' and fortune or misfortune is predicted from the guardian spirit chosen during this, to them, religious ordeal. The hallucinations of the mind are taken for divine inspiration. The effect is deeply felt and strongly impressed on the mind; too deeply, indeed, ever to be obliterated in after life." It appears that they always in after life trust to, and meditate on, the guardian spirit whom they have chosen at this critical moment; but that "the name is never uttered, and every circumstance connected with its selection, and the devotion paid to it, are most studiously and professedly concealed, even from their nearest friends" (A. R., vol. i. pp. 149, 150). Mystery is certainly pushed to its highest point, when the name of the spirit chosen at puberty, and the very circumstances of the choice, are preserved as an inviolable secret within the breast of the devotee.

New South Wales is distinguished by a ceremony which, though far less severe than that of the Mandans, is nevertheless sufficiently painful. "Between the ages of eight and sixteen the males and females undergo the operation which they term Gnanoong; viz., that of having the septum of the nose bored to receive a bone or reed.... Between the same years, also, the males receive the qualifications which are given to them by losing one front tooth." The loss of a tooth is not in itself a very serious matter, but the intention of the extraction being religious, the natives contrive to get rid of it in the most barbarous mode. The final event is led up to by a series of performances of a more or less emblematic nature. One of them, for instance, is supposed to give power over the dog; another refers to the hunting of the kangaroo. There is the usual mystery about some part of the proceedings. When the boys were being arranged for the removal of the tooth "the author [Collins] was not permitted to witness this part of the business, about which they appeared to observe a greater degree of mystery and preparation than he had noticed in either of the preceding ceremonies." After this, some of the performers in the rite went through a number of extraordinary motions, and made strange noises. "A particular name, boo-roo-moo-roong, was given to this scene; but of its import very little could be learned. To the inquiries made respecting it no answer could be obtained, but that it was very good; that the boys would now become brave men; that they would see well and fight well." When the tooth was to be taken out, the gum was first prepared by a sharply-pointed bone; and a throwing-stick, cut for the purpose with "much ceremony," was then applied to the tooth, and knocked against it by means of a stone in the hand of the operator. The tooth was thus struck out of the gum, the operation taking ten minutes in the case of the first boy on whom the author witnessed this process being performed. After the tooth was gone, "the gum was closed by his friends, who now equipped him in the style that he was to appear in for some days. A girdle was tied round his waist, in which was stuck a wooden sword; a ligature was bound round his head, in which were stuck slips of the grass-gum tree." The boy "was on no account to speak, and for that day he was not to eat." The sufferers in this ceremonial did not long remain quiescent. In the evening they had fresh duties to discharge. "Suddenly, on a signal being given, they all started up, and rushed into the town, driving before them men, women, and children, who were glad to get out of their way. They were now received into the class of men; were privileged to wield the sword and the club, and to oppose their persons in combat; and might now seize such females as they chose for wives." The sexual import of the ceremony is clearly brought into view by the last words of the writer. He adds that, having expressed a wish to possess some of the teeth, they were given him by two men with extreme secrecy, and injunctions not to betray them (N. S. W., p. 364-374).

Another observer has described the same rite as performed in a somewhat different manner, "by the tribes of the Macquarrie district" farther north. When these tribes assemble "to celebrate the mysteries of Kebarrah," as it is termed, all hostility which may exist at the time is laid aside for the nonce. "When the cooi or cowack sounds the note of preparation, the women and children in haste make their way towards the ravines and gulleys, and there remain concealed." The dentistry of these tribes is less scientific than that of New South Wales. The tooth is knocked out "by boring a hole in a tree, and inserting into it a small hard twig; the tooth is then brought into contact with the end, and one individual holds the candidate's head in a firm position against it, whilst another, exerting all his strength, pushes the boy's head forwards; the concussion causes the tooth, with frequently a portion of the gum adhering to it, to fall out." But this is not all the poor boy has to endure, for while "some men stand over him, brandishing their waddies, menacing him with instant death if he utters any complaint," others cut his back in stripes, and make incisions on his shoulders with flints. It is an interesting part of these ceremonies, that the least groan or indication of pain is summarily punished by the utterance, on the part of the operators, of three yells to proclaim the fact, and by the transfer of the boy to the care of the women, who are summoned to receive him. If he does not shrink, "he is admitted to the rank of a huntsman and a warrior" (S. L. A., vol. ii. p. 216-224).

In other parts of Australia, different ceremonies prevail. Thus, in one of the districts visited by Mr. Angas, when boys arrive at the age of fourteen or sixteen, they are "selected and caught by stealth," and the hairs of their body are plucked out, and green gum-bushes are placed "under the arm-pits and over the os pubis." Among the privileges conferred on those who have undergone this treatment, is that of wearing "two kangaroo teeth, and a bunch of emu feathers in their hair." More significant still is the permission to "possess themselves of wives," which the young men now obtain. The "scrub-natives" vary the initiation again. Among them the boy, brought by an old man, is laid upon his back in the midst of five fires which are lighted around him. An instrument, called a wittoo wittoo, is whirled round over the fires, with the intention of keeping off evil spirits. Lastly, "with a sharp flint, the old man cuts off the foreskin, and places it on the third finger of the boy's left hand, who then gets up, and with another native, selected for the purpose, goes away into the hills to avoid the sight of women for some time. No women are allowed to be present at this rite" (S. L. A., vol. i. pp. 98, 99).

Elsewhere on the same continent, there are three stages to be passed on the road from boyhood to manhood. At the age of twelve or fifteen the boys are removed to a place apart from the women, whom they are not permitted to see, and then blindfolded. Among some other ceremonies their faces are blackened, and they are told to whisper, an injunction peculiarly characteristic of the mysteriousness which is so constant a feature of the rites of puberty. For several months this whispering continues, and it is noteworthy, as a sign of the sexual nature of these proceedings, that the place where the whispers have been "is carefully avoided by the women and children." In the second ceremony, which occurs two or three years later, "the glans penis is slit open underneath, from the extremity to the scrotum, and circumcision is also performed." After this second stage, the Partnapas, as the youths are now styled, "are permitted to take a wife." In the third ceremony each man has a sponsor, by whom he is tatooed with a sharp quartz. These sponsors, moreover, bestow on each lad a new name, which he retains during the remainder of his life. Certain other performances are gone through, such as putting an instrument termed a witarna round the lads' necks, and then "the ceremony concludes by the men all clustering round the initiated ones, enjoining them again to whisper for some months, and bestowing upon them their advice as regards hunting, fighting, and contempt of pain. All these ceremonies are carefully kept from the sight of the women and the children; who, when they hear the sound of the witarna, hide their heads and exhibit every outward sign of terror" (S. L. A., vol. i. p. 113-116).

Leaving Australia, let us pass to Africa, and call Mr. Reade as a witness to some of the rites of puberty existing among the savages of that continent. The following extract is doubly interesting, as furnishing some account of the application to girls of the general principles involved in these rites, and also as supplying, in the author's opinion, that they are of a Phallic nature, a confirmation of the conclusions we had reached from a survey of the evidence as a whole: