Further verification of this contention may be found in the history of certain incidental products of fetishistic ideas, the amulet and the talisman. These occur at all stages of religious growth, but their development falls principally within the totemic period. The two objects are closely related, yet they differ essentially both from one another and from their parent, the fetish. It has, of course, been denied that a distinction may be drawn between these various objects of magic belief. From a practical point of view, this may doubtless sometimes be true, one and the same object being occasionally used now as a fetish and then again as an amulet or a talisman. But it is precisely their use that distinguishes these objects with sufficient sharpness from one another. The amulet and talisman are purely magical objects, means by which their possessor may produce magical effects. The fetish, however, is a magic-working subject, an independent demoniacal being, which may lend aid but may also refuse it, or, if hostilely disposed, may cause injury. The amulet, on the other hand, always serves the purpose of protection. Not infrequently amulets are held to ward off merely some one particular disease; others are designed to avert sickness in general. In a broadened significance, the amulet then comes to be regarded as a protection against dangers of every sort, against the weapon no less than against malicious magic. Nevertheless, the amulet is always a means of protection to its possessor. It is its passive function, that of protection, which differentiates the amulet from the talisman. The latter, which is far less prominent, particularly in later development, and which is finally to be found only in the world of imaginal tales, is an active means of magic. By means of a talisman, a man is able to perform at will either some one magical act or a number of magical feats. The philosopher's stone of mediæval superstition exemplifies such a means of magic. In this case, the ancient talisman-idea captured even science. The philosopher's stone was supposed to give its possessor the power to unlock all knowledge, and thus to gain control over the objects of nature. This illustrates the talisman in its most comprehensive function. In its restriction to a particular power, it makes its appearance in hero and deity legend, and even to-day in the fairy-tale. Such an active means of magic is represented by the helmet of invisibility, by the sword which brings death to all against whom it is turned, or, finally, by the Tischlein-deck-dich.
The two magical objects are generally also sharply distinct in their mode of use. The amulet is designed to render protection as effectively as possible against external dangers; it must be visible, for every one must see that its bearer is protected. Hence almost all amulets are worn about the neck. This was true of primitive man, and holds also of the survivals of the ancient amulets—women's necklaces, and the badges of fraternal organizations worn by men. The fact that a simple cord was used among primitive peoples and still prevails in present-day superstition, makes it probable that the original amulet was the cord itself, fastened about the neck or, less frequently, about the loins or the arm. Later, this cord was used to support the amulet proper. Even the Australians sometimes wear a piece of dried kidney suspended from a cord of bast—we may recall that the kidney is one of the important seats of the corporeal soul. The hair, teeth, and finger-nails of the dead likewise serve as amulets, all of them being parts of the body which, because of their growth, might well give rise to the idea that they, particularly, possessed soul-like and magical powers. The custom of attaching hair, or a locket containing hair, to a necklace, has survived even down to the present, though, of course, with a far-reaching change of meaning. The magical protection of earlier ages has become a memorial of a loved one who has died. But here likewise we may assume that the change was gradual, and that the present custom, therefore, represents a survival of the primitive amulet. There are other objects also that apparently came to be amulets because of their connection with soul-ideas. Of these, one of the most remarkable is the scarab of the ancient Egyptians, which likewise continues to be worn even to-day. This amulet is a coloured stone shaped like a beetle—more specifically, the scarab. This beetle, with its red wing-coverings, has approximately the form of a heart; for this reason, both it and its representation were thought to be wandering hearts. As an amulet, however, its original significance was that of a vehicle of the soul, designed to protect against external dangers.
Whereas the amulet is worn so as to be visible, the talisman, on the contrary, is hidden so far as possible from the observing eye. It is either placed where it is inconspicuous, as is, for example, the finger ring, or it possesses the appearance of a familiar object. The magical sword gives no visible evidence of its unusual power; the helmet of invisibility resembles an ordinary helmet; the Tischlein-deck-dich of the fairy-tale is in form not unlike any other table. It is with much the same idea that the Soudan negro who sets out upon an undertaking still takes with him some peculiar and accidentally discovered stone, in the hope that it will assist him in danger. This also is an example of a talisman, and not of a fetish.
[13. THE ANIMAL ANCESTOR AND THE HUMAN ANCESTOR.]
The ideas fundamental to the cult of human ancestors, though also connected with soul-beliefs, are radically different from those that gave rise to the fetish. Whereas some mythologists have been inclined to regard fetishism as the primitive form of religion, others have made this claim for ancestor worship. The latter have believed that ancestor worship could be traced back to the very beginnings of culture, and that the god-ideas of the higher religions were a metamorphosis of ancestor ideas. This is corroborated, in their opinion, by the fact that in the age of natural religions the ruler or the aristocracy very generally claimed descent from the gods, and that the ruler and the hero were even worshipped as gods. The former is illustrated by the genealogy of Greek families; the latter, by the Roman worship of emperors, which itself but represented an imitation of an Oriental custom that was once very common. All these cases, however, are clearly secondary phenomena, transferences of previously existing god-ideas to men who were either living or had already died. But even apart from this, the hypothesis is rendered completely untenable by the facts with which the history of totemism and of the earlier, more primitive conditions has made us familiar. Not a trace of ancestor worship is to be found among really primitive men. We have clear proof of this in their manner of disposing of the dead. So far as possible, the dead are left lying where they happen to be, and no cult of any kind is connected with them. Totemism, moreover, gives evidence of the fact that the cult of animal ancestors long anteceded that of human ancestors. Thus, then, the theory that ancestor worship was the primitive religion belongs essentially to an age practically ignorant of totemism and its place in myth development, as well as of the culture of primitive man. This era of a purely a priori psychology of religion still entertained the supposition, rooted in Biblical tradition, of an original state of pure monotheism. In so far as this view was rejected, fetishism and ancestor worship were generally rivals as regards the claim to priority in the succession of religious ideas. The only exception occurred when these practices were regarded as equally original, as they were, essentially, in the theories of Herbert Spencer, Julius Lippert, and others. In this event, the original form of the fetish was held to be an ancestral image which had become an object of cult.
True, along with the totemic ideas of animal ancestors we very early find indefinite and not infrequently grotesque ideas of human ancestors. In the 'Mura-mura' legends of southern Australia these ideas are so interwoven that they can scarcely be untangled. These Mura-mura are fanciful beings of an earlier age, who are represented as having transmitted magical implements to the generations of the present era and as having instructed the ancestors of the Australians in magical ceremonies. A few of the legends relate that the Mura-mura also created the totem animals, or transformed themselves into the latter. Here, then, we already find a mutual interplay between ideas of human and conceptions of animal ancestors. As yet, however, no clear-cut idea of a human ancestor has been formed. This never occurs—a fact of prime importance as concerns its development—until the totem ancestor has lost his significance, and the original tribal totemism has therefore become of subordinate importance, even though totemism itself has not as yet completely disappeared. Under such circumstances the totem animal becomes the protective animal of the individual; the animal ancestor is displaced by the demon which mysteriously watches over the individual's life. This transition has already been touched upon in connection with the development of totemic ideas. Coincident with it, there is an important change with respect to the character of the totem animal. The tribal totem is an animal species. The Australian, whose totem, let us say, is the kangaroo, regards all kangaroos which he meets as sacred animals; he may not kill them, nor, above all, eat of their flesh. In the above-mentioned development of totemism (which is at the same time a retrogression) the totem animal becomes individualized. The protective animal—or the animal of destiny, as we might refer to it, in view of its many changes in meaning—is but an individual animal. A person may possibly never have seen the animal that keeps guard over him; nevertheless, he believes that it is always near at hand. The unseen animal which thus accompanies him is therefore sometimes also called his 'bush soul'; it is hidden somewhere in the bushes as a sort of animal double. Whatever befalls the person likewise happens to it, and conversely. For this reason it is very commonly believed that, if this animal should be killed, the person also must die. This makes it clear why the North American Indian calls the animal, not his ancestor, but his 'elder brother.'
In South African districts, especially among the Bantus where the bush soul is common, and in North America, where the tribal totem has become a coat of arms, and fable and legend therefore continue all the more to emphasize the individual relation between a person and an animal, the idea of a human ancestor receives prominence. The totemic tribal organization as a whole, together with the totemic nomenclature of the tribal divisions, may continue to exist, as occasionally happens among the Bantus and in North America, even though the tribal totems proper have disappeared and become mere names, and the animal itself possesses no live importance except as a personal protector. But since the totemic tribal organization perpetuates the idea of a succession of generations, the human ancestor necessarily comes to assume the place of the animal ancestor. This change is vividly represented by the totem poles of the Indians of northwestern America. These totem poles we have already described. The head of the animal whose representation has become the coat of arms here surmounts a series of faces of human ancestors. Such a monument tells us, more plainly than words possibly could: These are the ancestors whom I revere and who, so far as memory reaches back, have found the symbol of their tribal unity in the animal which stands at their head. But totem poles do more than merely to directly perpetuate this memory. Though probably without the conscious intention of the artists who fashioned them, they also suggest something else, lost to the memory of living men. In the belief of earlier ages, this human ancestor was preceded by an animal ancestor to whom the reverence which is now paid to the human ancestors was at one time given. Thus, the animal ancestor was not only prior to the human ancestor from an external point of view, but gave rise to him through a necessity immanent in the course of development itself.
The transition from animal to human ancestors, furthermore, is closely bound up with coincident transformations in tribal organization. Wherever a powerful chieftainship arises, and an individual, overtowering personality obtains supremacy over a tribe or clan—such supremacy as readily tends to pass down to his descendants—it is particularly likely that a cult will be developed in his honour, and, upon his death, to his memory. Since the memory of this personality outlasts that of ordinary men, the individual himself is held to live on after death, even in regions where there is no belief in a universal immortality. Hence, according to a belief prevalent particularly among the negro peoples, the ordinary man perishes with death; the chieftain, however, or a feared medicine-man, continues to live at least until all memory of him has vanished. In some parts of Africa and Oceania, moreover, the cult of the living chieftains not only involves manifestations of a servile subjection but, more characteristically still, causes even his name to be tabooed. No one is allowed to speak it, and whoever bears the same name must lay it aside when the chieftain assumes control.