Elements of Folk Psychology / Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

by Wilhelm Max Wundt

Connected with another life-event to which this age attaches particular importance is a further significant group of totemic cults. This consists in the celebration of the adolescence of youths in the so-called initiation ceremonies. In a period such as this, when intertribal struggles are a matter of increasing concern, the reception of a youth into the association of men, into the community of the hunt and of war, represents the outstanding event of his life. Beginnings of such celebrations were transmitted by the primitive age to the totemic era, but it is only at this later period that they are developed into great cult festivals. It is these festivals, particularly, which everywhere recur in essentially the same form among all the tribes of Australia. They are great folk festivals, frequently assembling the clans of friendly tribes. Their celebration consists of dances and songs, though primarily of ceremonies centring about the youths who are reaching the age of maturity. For a considerable period these youths have been prepared for the festival by the older men. They have been subjected to a strict asceticism for weeks beforehand; meanwhile they have also been trained in the use of weapons, and instructed in certain matters of which the young are kept in ignorance. The actual celebration, which always occurs at night, includes ceremonies which, in part, involve extreme pain to the novices. The youths are obliged to stand very close to a fire kindled in the centre of the ceremonial ground. The older men, with painted faces, then execute dances, in which the women are forbidden to participate. An important feature of these dances is the imitation of totem animals. This also provides an opportunity for humorous episodes. During these pranks, however, the youths are compelled to remain serious. Moreover, they must give evidence of fortitude by fearlessly leaping over the fire. In many of these regions, there is a further ceremony, which is extremely peculiar and of uncertain significance. This consists in the knocking out of teeth. Generally the operation is performed by the medicine-man or, as he ought perhaps to be called in this capacity, the priest. The latter presses the teeth of his own lower jaw against one of the incisors of the upper jaw of the novice, thus loosening the tooth so that it may easily be knocked out with a stone hammer. This is the most primitive form of tooth deformation, a practice common to numerous peoples of nature as a means of beautification. That the original purpose was not cosmetic is clear. Whatever other end it was intended to serve, however, is uncertain, though it was doubtless connected with cult. Perhaps its meaning is suggested in the fact that, before marriage, girls also were frequently deprived of a front tooth, and that the idea prevailed, possibly in connection with this custom, that the exchange of breath, and thus the breath-soul, may play a part in the act of procreation. It is not unreasonable to suppose that these ideas may represent the origin of the kiss. At any rate, as Preusz has pointed out, ancient Mexican pictures represent two deities engaged, apparently, in the act of kissing while (perhaps in reminiscence also of the blood-soul) red smoke passes from the mouth of the one to that of the other. Moreover, it may well be that this exchange of souls in the kiss has its analogue in many regions, particularly in Melanesia, in the exchange of breath through the nose—the so-called nose-greeting which might therefore better be called the nose-kiss. That this exchange is mediated through the nose may be due to the fact that among many of these tribes kissing with the lips is impossible because of mouth-rings, lip-blocks, and other deformations, doubtless originally intended as means of magic. Similar ideas concerning the mouth and the nose, moreover, and their relation to the psyche, are suggested even by the Biblical history of the Creation, according to which God rouses Adam to life by breathing a soul into him through his nose. Through the mouth, man breathes out his soul; through the nose, he received it.

Though the festival of initiation into manhood was once associated with magical acts of cult, as the above ceremony seems to show, the meaning of this magic has for the most part been lost to the memory of the natives. For this reason they generally regard the ceremonies, including that of striking out the teeth, as a means of testing the fortitude of the young men. This was doubtless a secondary motive even at a very early time, and when the magical significance dropped out, it remained as the sole purpose. Nevertheless, the character of these alleged tests is much too peculiar to be intelligible on the hypothesis that they were originally intended merely to arouse fear or pain. And so, in view of the widely prevalent use of fire as a means of lustration, we may be allowed to regard also the fire-test, which occupies a central place in these cult forms, as having originally been a means of magical purification.

The second class of ceremonial festivals and cults, as above remarked, is associated with certain objective natural phenomena which exercise a decisive influence upon human life. The natural phenomena most likely to originate a cult, because representing the most important objects of desire and fear, are those connected with the need for food, with the growth of plants, and with the increase of animals, particularly the animals of the chase. For this reason vegetation cults date back to the very beginnings of the totemic period. Very probably they originated in the desire for plant food. Under relatively primitive conditions there was seldom a lack of game, though there was probably a scarcity of the vegetables necessary to supplement the food derived from animals. For plants frequently suffer from unfavourable weather, whether it be from the heat of the sun and from drought, as in tropical and sub-tropical regions, or from deluging rains, as in the temperate zones. Our interpretation of vegetation cults is supported particularly by the conditions prevailing in the original home of totemism, Australia. These cults here occur chiefly in the northern districts, into which there were early Melanesian immigrations; towards the south, they have gained but a relatively small foothold. The more northerly regions, as we have seen, are the very ones in which plant totems also are numerous, whereas they are lacking in the south. The cults of which we have been speaking are called Intichiuma ceremonies—an expression of Australian derivation. These ceremonies, moreover, involve the magical use of churingas, the Australian fetishes.

The character of these vegetation festivals is always very much the same. They include dances, in which, in essential distinction from those of the initiation ceremonies, women are generally allowed to participate; their central feature consists of specific magical acts designed to effect an increase of the food supply. In Australia, these acts, in part, take the form of ceremonies in which pieces of artificial animals are strewn about. We speak of them as artificial, of course, only from our own standpoint; to the Australian the material that is scattered represents an actual living being. Thus, for example, a heap of sand is moulded into the form of a large lizard, and, of this, various parts are thrown into the air by those who participate in the festival. The animal germs thus scattered are supposed to effect an increase in the animals of the lizard totem. These vegetation festivals, therefore, are also totem festivals, and their celebration has the secondary significance of a cult dedicated to the totem. The celebration connected with a fish totem is similar to the above, though somewhat more complicated. A member of the clan, whose arms or other parts of the body have been bored through with bone daggers, descends into the water and allows his blood to mingle with it. The totem germs that are to bring about an increase in fish are supposed to emanate from the blood.

In the case of plant totems, the cults are of a simpler nature. The plants themselves, or sometimes their seeds, which, moreover, also serve directly as food, are strewn to the winds. The grass-seed totem, for example, is particularly common in Australia. The seeds of the Australian grasses are gathered in large quantities and constitute an important part of the vegetable food. Thrown into the air, they are supposed to bring about an increased supply of these grasses. Externally regarded, this magical ceremony, primitive as it is, completely represents an act of sowing. It would be incorrect, however, as yet to speak of it as such, in the sense of the later tiller of the soil; the significance of the ceremony is purely magical. An age which merely gathers wild seeds and fruits does not prepare the soil in the way that sowing presupposes. Nevertheless, the magical cult involves an act which later forms an important part of agricultural tasks. Indeed, it is not at all improbable that these magical ceremonies, which in any event already involve the recognition that the strewing of seed conditions the increase of plants, have elsewhere constituted a preparatory step to the development of agriculture. In general it may be said that the ceremony probably originated in connection with plant totems, where the idea of such an increase is very especially apt to suggest itself; doubtless it was only later connected, through a process of external association, with animal totems. In harmony with such a view is the fact that Intichiuma festivals are chiefly prevalent in the regions of plant totemism.

The vegetation cults which preceded the rise of agriculture were finally superseded by true cults of the soil. The latter presuppose the preparation of the soil by the efforts of man. This is clear from the fact that they occur more regularly, and at definite seasons of the year; moreover, they are of a more complex character, serving in part a number of other purposes. Typical of the transition are the vegetation festivals of the natives of Central America. These festivals are unique in that they embody elements of celestial mythology; thus they constitute important transitional stages between the demon cults of the totemic era and deity cults. The relation which the seeds are supposed to bear to the sprouts of the various grains is now no longer merely of a magical nature. The hoe-culture, to which the American Indian has attained, has taught him the dependence of the growth of plants upon the act of sowing. But here also there can be no cult until there is community labour. The original hoe-culture carried on by the individual about his hut no more tends to originate a cult than does the erection of the hut, the weaving of baskets, or the other tasks set by the needs of daily life. Individuals, however, frequently till the soil even prior to the rise of systematic agriculture, as occurs in certain regions of Melanesia, among the prairie peoples of North America, and elsewhere. Besides leading to more advanced ideas concerning the processes of germination and growth, these beginnings of agriculture, which still form part of the household duties of individuals, serve to engender what proves to be a permanent and basal factor in all further development—namely, provision for the future. However primitive may be the hoe-culture which the individual carries on about his hut, it is not concerned exclusively with the immediate present, as is the mere gathering of food, but it aims to satisfy a future need. True, even in this case, the beginnings may be traced back to the preceding age. Even such ceremonies as the Intichiuma festivals, in which the totems are strewn about in order magically to influence their growth and increase, are already thoroughly inspired by a regard for the future. Perhaps all human action concerned with the distant future was at first magical in aim.

The establishment of a cult, however, is due not merely to the foresight which provides for a future harvest by the tilling of the soil; it is conditioned also by a second factor—namely, community labour. Just as entrance into manhood gives rise to initiation cults only when it becomes of tribal importance, precisely so is the development of cults of the soil dependent upon the association of members of a tribe or a mark in common labour. Moreover, initiation into manhood early came to be of common concern because of the community life of age-associates and of the need for military training created by tribal warfare; the same is true, though at a later stage and, of course, for essentially different reasons, of the tilling of the soil. The most important factor in the latter case is the fact that because the natural conditions are common to all, all are obliged to select the same time both for the sowing and later for the harvest. This is of little moment so long as the population is sparse and the property of one individual is separated from that of the others by wide stretches of uncultivated land. The more closely the members of the mark live together, however, the more do they share in common labour. Whenever a migrating tribe takes possession of a new territory, moreover, there is a further decisive consideration, namely, the fact that at the outset the soil is common property. In this case, not merely the natural conditions, but also the very ground on which the work of the field is performed, is identical for all the members of a mark. Added to this objective factor there more and more comes to be one of a subjective nature. In common labour, the individual determines his activities by reference to a common end; moreover, he regulates these activities, as to rhythm, tempo, and the accompanying expressive movements, so as to conform to the group in which he finds himself. Since, moreover, the activity of sowing and the subsequent growth of the crop preserve the magical character acquired in an earlier period, the work itself comes to be a cult activity. Just as initiation rites are not merely a declaration of manhood but a cult, designed magically to equip the novice with manly power and fortitude, so the tilling of the soil becomes a cult act through whose inherent magical power the prosperity of the crop is supposed to be secured. There are two factors which are of prime importance for the beginning of agricultural cults, and which give to their further development its peculiar stamp. In the first place, the labour whose performance in common engenders the cults of the soil is always connected with hoe-culture, the initial stage of agriculture. It is only because they work with the hoe that the members of the mark come into such close relations that they easily fuse into a cult community. When the plough, which is drawn by an animal, comes into use, the individuals are again separated. For the field which is tilled is larger, and, furthermore, the activity of the ploughman is confined to the guidance of his animals and implements, so that he personally is no longer directly concerned with the soil as in the case of hoe-culture. Moreover, since hoe-culture demands a very much greater expenditure of human energy, it arouses stronger emotions. The plough trains to reflection and brooding; the hoe stirs violent emotions. Furthermore, it is only when hoe-culture becomes common labour on a common field that the sexes are brought together. The early hoe-culture carried on about the hut of the individual generally devolves upon the woman alone, who thus merely continues the duty of food-getting which rested with her, as the gatherer of food, under still more primitive economic conditions. With the appearance of more intensive hoe-culture the labour is divided. Man cuts up and loosens the soil with his hoe; woman follows after, strewing the seed between the clods. With the invention of the plough, agriculture finally becomes the exclusive concern of man. The furrowing and loosening of the soil is now done by means of an implement, and man, freed from this labour, assumes the duty of strewing the seed.

This twofold community of labour, that on the part of the holders of common property and that of the two sexes, undoubtedly underlies the peculiar character which the cults of the soil continue to preserve long after the period of their origin. On the one hand, the work of the field itself assumes the character of a cult act; combined with it, on the other hand, there come to be additional ceremonies. That which brings the men and women together and converts the labour into a cult act is primarily the dance. The fertilization and growth of plants are regarded as processes resembling the procreation of man. When the cult members give themselves up to ecstatic and orgiastic dances, therefore, they believe that they are magically influencing the sprouting and growth of the seeds. According to their belief, sprouting and growth are due to the demons of the soil. These demons the orgiastic cult arouses to heightened activity, just as the labourers and dancers mutually excite one another to increased efforts. In this ecstasy of the cult, man feels himself one with external nature. His own activity and the processes of nature become for him one and the same magical potency. In addition to the terrestrial demons of growth, there are the celestial demons, who send fructifying rains from the clouds to the soil. Particularly in regions such as New Mexico and Arizona, where a successful harvest depends in large measure upon the alternation of rains with the withering heat of the sun, these vegetation festivals are combined with elements of celestial cults. The latter, of course, are also essentially demon cults, yet they everywhere exhibit distinct traces of a transition into deity cults. Particularly typical are the cults of the Zuni and Hopi, described in detail by various American scholars. The direction of these cult festivals is vested in a body of rain-priests, in conjunction with other associations of priests, named for the most part after animals, and with secret societies. In the vegetation ceremonies of the Hopi, the members of the rain-group, naked and with faces masked to represent clouds, parade through a neighbouring village and thence to the festival place. In their procession through the village, the women throw water over them from the windows of the houses. This is a magical ceremony intended to secure the blessings of rain upon the crops. The investigations of W. Mannhardt concerning the field cults of ancient and more recent times have shown that survivals of such conceptions are still present in the sowing and harvest usages of modern Europe. Mannhardt's collection of customs deals particularly with East Prussia and Lithuania. In these localities it is customary for the maid-servants to return from the harvest earlier than the men, and to drench the latter with water as they enter the house. Though this custom has become a mere form of play, it nevertheless still vividly recalls the very serious magical ceremonies of earlier vegetation cults. But over and above this change from the serious to the playful, of which there are beginnings even in the festival celebrations of early cultural peoples, there is still another important difference between the earliest vegetation cults and their later recrudescences. The former are connected particularly with sowing, the latter primarily with the harvest. This again reflects the difference between hoe-culture and plough-culture. Hoe-culture unites the members of the mark in the activity of sowing, whereas labour with the plough separates them and imposes the work exclusively on the men. Harvesting the grain, on the other hand, long continues to remain a task in which individuals work in groups, women and men together. Moreover, as the magical beliefs associated with the activity of sowing gradually disappear, their place is taken by joy over the assured harvest. This also factors towards changing the time of the main festival from the beginning to the end of the season.

Since both earth and heaven must co-operate if the sowing is to be propitious and the harvest bountiful, vegetation festivals are intermediate between demon cults and celestial cults. In respect to origin, they belong to the former; in the degree in which more adequate conceptions of nature are attained, they give rise to the latter. In many cases, moreover, elements of ancestor cult still exercise an influence towards bringing about this transition. The cloud that bestows rain and blessing is regarded as dependent upon a controlling will. Back of the clouds, therefore, according to the ideas of the Zuni and other Pueblo tribes, dwell the ancestors. The prayer of the priests to the clouds is also a prayer to the ancestors for protection and aid. The procession of the rain-priesthood through the village is a representation of the ancestors who are hidden behind the mask of clouds, and is supposed to exercise a magical influence. These cult festivals also include invocations to the sun, whose assistance is likewise necessary to the prosperity of the crop. Thus, in the ceremonial customs of the Navajos, who occupy the same territory, the yellow sand that covers the festival place represents the coloured expanse of the rainbow, the sun, and the moon. All the heavenly forces are to co-operate in bringing about the ripening of the harvest. In this wise it is possible to trace an advance, stage by stage, from the cults of terrestrial demons, who dwell within the growing grain itself, to celestial cults. The fact that the aid of the heavens is indispensable draws the attention upwards. If, now, there are other causes such as give rise to the idea of a celestial migration of the souls of departed ancestors, the cloud demons become merged with ancestor spirits, and there are combined with them the supra-terrestrial powers that are conceived as inherent in the other celestial phenomena.

It is due to this synthesis of vegetation cults with celestial cults that these festivals, which are the most highly developed of any in the totemic age, continue to become more and more complex. They gradually incorporate other cults in so far as these are not associated with specific, undeferable circumstances, as are the death cults. Among the Zuni and Navajos, the most important ceremony thus incorporated into these festivals is the initiation of youths into manhood and their subsequent reception into the community of men. There are analogous ceremonies for the women. In this complex of cult elements, the emphasis more and more falls on the celestial phenomena, of which the more important force themselves upon the observation and therefore determine the time at which these festivals are held. Instead of at seedtime and harvest, which vary somewhat with weather conditions, the two main festivals are held at fixed dates corresponding to the summer and winter solstices. Thus, the cults become independent of variable circumstances. All the more are they able to assimilate other cults. Among the Zuni, for example, there is a ceremony which, though analogous to the declaration of manhood, is not held at the time when the youths reach manhood or the maidens arrive at the age of puberty, but occurs much earlier, and signifies reception into the cult community. This first consecration, which might be compared to our baptism, does not take place immediately after birth, but when the child is four or five years of age. Following upon this consecration, in the course of the same festival, comes the celebration of the adulthood of fully matured youths and maidens, set for the fourteenth or fifteenth year of life. In this ceremony the youths and maidens are beaten with consecrated rods. The present generation, which has no knowledge concerning the origin of this practice, generally regards these blows as a test of hardihood and courage. But the fact that specially consecrated rods are used by the priests shows unmistakably that their original purpose was to exercise a magical influence upon those who were being initiated. Indeed, the fact that many adults crowd in to receive some of the blows, in the belief that these possess a protective influence, proves that the original meaning of the ceremony has maintained itself to a certain extent even down to the present. In addition to these features of the cult-celebration, which are connected in general with the tribal or mark community as such, there are other ceremonies that are designed for the satisfaction of the wants of individuals. Sick persons drag themselves painfully to the festival, or are brought to it by their relatives, in search of healing. In America, the desire for magical healing has very commonly given rise to so-called sweat-lodges, which are located near the festival places. These lodges serve a twofold purpose. The primary aim of the sweat cure is to expel sickness demons. But healthy persons also subject themselves to the treatment. In this case the sole purpose of the sweating is obviously that of lustration. Just as we ourselves occasionally experience relief from the flow of perspiration, so also may the one who has passed through the ceremony of the sweat-lodge feel himself reborn, as it were. This would tend to strengthen the naturally suggested association between this ceremony and lustration by water. The ceremony, therefore, serves the same purpose as the other forms of lustration. The individual wishes either to purify himself from a guilt which he has incurred, or, if there is no particular element of guilt, to protect himself against future impurities. The custom thus acquires the significance of a sanctification ceremony, similar to baptism or to the bath of the Brahman. Because of the combination of these various cult motives and cult forms, the cult association which unites in the performance of the vegetation festivals comes to be the representative of the cult, as well as of the belief, of the tribal community in general. This likewise prepares the way for the transition from totemic to deity cults, as is indicated, among other things, by the sacrificial activities of these cult festivals. Sacrifice itself, as has already been mentioned, probably originated as sacrifice to the dead. Its further development occurs primarily in connection with the higher forms of vegetation cults. The Zuni and Navajos erect altars for their festivals. These they adorn with gaily coloured cloths and with the gorgeous plumage of birds. On them they place the plants and grains which the cult is designed to prosper. This is the typical form of the vegetable sacrifice as it passes on from these early practices into all higher cults. The sacrifice consists in offering the particular plants and grains whose increase is desired. At the outset, its character is exclusively magical; it is not a gift to the deity. Just as rain-magic is supposed to result from drenching the rain-association with water, so this offering of grains is held to have a magic effect upon the prosperity of the same sorts of grains. There is no indication or suggestion that the sacrifice represents an offering to the gods. This idea arises only later, when the magical sacrifice of grains, as well as that of animals, is connected with a further conception whose origin is apparently also to be found in sacrifice to the dead. The dead are presented with gifts, which they carry along into a world beyond. Similarly, the magical sacrifice connected with vegetation festivals and their associated cults more and more ceases to be regarded as purely magical in nature and comes to be an offering to the deity whose favour is thereby sought.