Coincident with these changes in sacrificial usages, the cult community which develops in the course of the transitional stages of cult—the best representatives are the semi-cultural peoples of America—undergoes a more thorough organization. Separate associations are formed within the wider circle of cult membership. These severally assume the various functions involved in the cult; as a rule, they are under the guidance of priests. Even apart from their connection with these cult festivals, the priests serve as magic-priests and magic-doctors, and it is they who preserve the traditions of the general cult ceremonies as well as of the means requisite on the part of the individual for the exercise of this twofold profession. This represents the typical figure of the medicine-man. He is to be found even in primitive culture, but his function more and more changes from that of the ordinary magician into that of the priest. As such, he attains to a position of authority that is publicly acknowledged and protected. Associated with him is a restricted group of those cult members who are most familiar with the secrets of the cult, and are his immediate assistants in the festal ceremonies. It is these individuals that compose the secret societies. These societies occur even among the tribes of the northern parts of America, and have their analogues particularly on the semi-cultural level which forms the threshold of the totemic age. Presumably they derive from the more primitive institution of men's clubs, within which the male members of a clan are united into age-groups. Membership in secret societies also continues to be limited to men, more especially to such as have reached a mature age. As tribal organization developed, and particularly as family bonds became firmer, age associations were dissolved. The association which originally included all men gave way to more restricted societies. Besides this numerical limitation, there was naturally also a qualitative restriction. In the first place, those who thus deliberately segregated themselves from the total body were the privileged members of the tribal community, or at least such as laid claim to special prerogatives; these associations, furthermore, were formed for certain more specialized purposes connected with the particular needs of their members. The first of these considerations accounts for the respect, occasionally mingled with fear or reverence, which was accorded to these societies, a respect which was heightened by the secrecy in which they shrouded themselves. The fact that certain customs and traditions were surrounded with secrecy caused every such association to be organized into various ranks, graded according to the extent with which the individuals were familiar with the secret doctrines. This type of organization occurs as early as the associations of medicine-men among the Africans and the American Indians; later, it is to be found in connection with the Eleusynian and Orphic mysteries; it is represented also by the Christian and Buddhistic orders, and by their various secular counterparts, such as the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. Not infrequently these societies, in contradiction to their secrecy, have special emblems indicative of membership and of rank. Among the American Indians, this purpose is generally served by special drawings on the body; in other places, by specific tattooings as well as by the wearing of distinctive dress. The second restriction of membership on the part of the secret society is connected with the limited purpose which the society serves. The men's club includes all the interests of the clan or tribal community; the secret society is held together by a specific aim or by a limited circle of related tasks. Here also it is universally true that these tasks are connected with cult, and are thus of a religious nature. Even the Greek phratries underwent a change of purpose analogous to that which occurred in the transition from the age-group to the secret society, for, after losing their earlier political significance, they continued to exist as cultural associations.
The men's group belongs exclusively to the totemic age. Secret societies, however, are organizations which, together with the cults that they maintain, belong to a stage transitional between totemic and deity cults. The emblems worn by the cult members are for the most part totemic; totemic also are the cult usages, and likewise, particularly among the American Indians, the name which the group adopts. The feathers of birds and the hides of other totem animals—the same as those which also adorn the festival altars—constitute a chief part of the dress. In addition to the general tribal festival in which they co-operate, these societies also maintain their special cults. It is particularly in these latter cults that ancient totemic survivals are in evidence. A remarkable example of such a totem group is the snake society of the Hopi Indians, who dwell, as do the Zuni and Navajos, in the regions of New Mexico. The totem animal of this society is the rattlesnake. In the snake festival, a procession is formed in which every member participates; each carries a rattlesnake in his mouth, holding it in his teeth directly back of its head. It is firmly believed that no snake will kill a member of the society which holds it sacred. Of course, as observers of the festival have noticed, an ingenious expedient is employed to avert the danger. Each snake-bearer is followed by an associate who diverts the attention of the snake by continually tickling its tail with a small stick. If a snake-bearer is bitten, as rarely occurs, his companion always sucks out the wound, by which act, as is well known, the snake-bite is rendered relatively innocuous.
[15. THE ART OF THE TOTEMIC AGE.]
The most prominent of the artistic activities of the totemic age is formative art. In this field, the lowest stages of totemic development show little advance beyond the achievements of primitive man. True, even Australia possesses cave drawings which, perhaps have some sort of cult significance. As yet, however, we have not succeeded in interpreting these drawings. With this exception, the formative art of the totemic period is limited to carvings upon weapons or other implements—obviously thought, just as in primitive times, to possess magical potencies—and to the painting of the face on the occasion of cult festivals.
In the regions of Oceania, particularly the Polynesian Islands, we find a far richer development of that form of pictorial art which aims at the adornment of the body, or, as we ought rather to say with reference to the beginnings of this artistic practice, at the exercise on the part of the body of a magical influence upon external things. Polynesia is the chief centre of artistic tattooing. Throughout these regions this practice has universally taken the form of prick tattooing. By means of separate, close-lying prick points filled with colour, various symmetrical designs are formed. This tattooing is the only art whose highest perfection is reached at the beginning of culture. As soon as clothing appears, the decoration of the body itself gives way to that of dress. On particular occasions, as, for example, in connection with certain cult practices of the American Indians, custom may continue to demand entire nakedness. Under these circumstances, there is a sort of retrogressive development in which the painting necessitated by the festivals takes the place of tattooing. This occurs even among the Australians. Moreover, even after clothing has appeared, it long remains a favourite custom to tattoo certain exposed parts of the skin, particularly the face and the arms and hands. Even to-day, indeed, the arms are sometimes tattooed. The fact that tattooing is now practised almost exclusively by criminals and prostitutes, and, occasionally, by sailors, finds its explanation in a circumstance which was also of influence at the time when tattooing was in its first flower, namely, in the interruption of occupational activity by long periods of leisure.
There is an additional factor which obviously favours the development of the art of tattooing, particularly in the territory of the Polynesian Islands. I refer to the combination of totemism with celestial mythology, which is peculiar to these peoples, and to the consequent recedence of totemism. Particularly illuminative as regards this point is the tattooing of the Maoris. The mythology of this people gives an important place to the sun, and their bodily decorations frequently include pictures of this celestial body, in the form of spiral ornamentations. Some two years ago travelling investigators brought back copies of the tattooing of other islanders, particularly those of the Marquesas group. These tattoo-patterns contain many significant elements of a celestial mythology; those of to-day, however, in so far as the custom has not been entirely effaced by the Europeans, consist almost entirely of simple geometrical ornamentations. The tattooings of early times frequently included also representations of animals. Plants were less common, as might be expected from the fact that it was only later that they acquired importance for totemic cults. At the same time, it is evident that a sort of reversal took place as regards the pictorial representation of objects. This is even more striking in the tattooing of the American Indians, a tattooing restricted to certain parts of the body. In the preceding chapter the fact has already been noted that, among the primitive peoples of the pretotemic age, as, for example, the Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, the multiplication of simple parallel lines, triangles, arcs, etc., gives rise to plant-like and animal-like forms. Doubtless the primitive artist himself discovers such figures in his drawings and then sometimes consciously sets about to imitate more closely the actual forms of the natural objects. At the stage of development now under discussion, we find, conversely, that animal forms, particularly, are retranslated into geometrical objects in that they become, as we would to-day express it, more and more conventionalized. Since only the simplest outlines of the objects are retained, it may eventually become a matter of doubt whether these really are schematic representations of natural objects, and whether they are not, even from the very beginning, geometrical ornamentations. Nevertheless the fact that there are continuous transitions from the developed animal form to the geometrical ornament, as occurs particularly in America, is incontrovertible proof that such a conventionalization took place, though in many cases, doubtless, very slowly. This process of conventionalization, however, may be more clearly traced in connection with a different art, one that is related to tattooing but whose development is not limited, as is that of the latter, and destined from the very outset to become obsolete. I refer to ceramics, the art of decorating the vessels which were at first intended for the preservation, and later for the preparation, of food.
Even though the art of making pottery is not to be found in primitive culture proper, it nevertheless dates back to a very early age. It is not impossible that this age coincides approximately with the beginning of the totemic period. At any rate, it was totemic cult which, from earliest times on, furnished the motives for the decoration or—as is here also doubtless generally true of the early beginnings—for the magical protection of the vessels, or for the imparting of magical potencies to their contents. Doubtless the clay vessel was originally modelled partly after the natural objects that were used for storing food, and partly after the woven basket. The latter, in turn, may, in its beginnings, have been copied from the bird's nest. When it was discovered, probably accidentally, that clay is hardened by fire, the clay vessel came to be used not merely for the preservation of food but also for its preparation by means of fire. Or, perhaps it would be truer to say that the attempt to accomplish this latter purpose with the unhardened clay vessel led to the art of baking clay. Now, even before the art of making pottery was known, implements, weapons, women's combs, and even the body itself were marked with simple and regular linear drawings to which a magical significance was attached. These geometrical forms, which arose semi-accidentally, were, even from very early times, apperceived as the outlines of animal or plant forms, and it was under the influence of these ideas that they attained a further development. Precisely the same process was repeated in the case of ceramics, only, as it were, upon a broader scale, challenging a richer play of imagination. It is precisely here, however, particularly in the ceramics of the American Indians, that we can trace the ascending and the descending developments of primitive linear drawings, first into completely developed animal designs with meagre suggestions of attempts at plant ornamentation, and then regressively, through a continued conventionalization, into purely geometrical figures. At the same time, it was ceramics, especially, that developed a combination of these two designs, the systematic arrangement of which marks the perfection of this art. Thus arose representations of natural objects framed in by geometrical ornamentations. In this respect also, tattooing furnished a preparation, even though imperfectly, for ceramics. In inner significance, moreover, the latter was a direct outgrowth of the former. By tattooing, man originally guarded his own person with protective magic; in ceramics, this magic was brought into connection with man's utensils, with the food necessary for his life, and with its preparation. In ceramics, therefore, just as in tattooing, the animals represented were at first primarily totem animals. Among them we find particularly snakes, fish, and birds, and, in America, the alligator. Especially characteristic of the totemic age is the fact that the decorations scarcely ever include the representation of the human figure. It is by this mark that the art products, even of the earliest age of Greece, may be distinguished at first glance from those of totemic culture. In the former case, the human figure is introduced, either along with that of the animal or even alone; in the latter case, only animal representations occur. Strange to say, it is in only one respect that the ceramics, more particularly of the American Indians, copy man—the vessel as a whole represents a head or a skull. Doubtless this is connected with the obnoxious custom of head-hunting. Just as the Indian adorns the roof of his hut with the heads of his conquered foes, so he perpetuates the memory of his feats of war in his ceramic objects. No portrayal of activities in which human beings participate, is to be found in the totemic age.
Connected with this, no doubt, is the lack of any real sculpture, with the exception of crude idols representing animal or human forms. These idols, on the whole, are of the nature of fetishes, and as such may, of course, be regarded as the precursors of the divine images of a later period. As there is no sculpture, so also is there, strictly speaking, no architecture. In this respect, again, there is a wide difference between this age and the succeeding one. In its higher forms, architecture presupposes gods who are worshipped in a temple. In the totemic period, however, there are no temples. True, the Australian preserves his magic wands and pieces of wood, the churingas, in caves or huts, but the latter differ in no wise from other huts. In the totemic age, therefore, man alone has a dwelling-place. Of such structures there are, in general, two types, the conical and the spherical. The conical hut apparently had its origin in the tent. The rounded or beehive hut, as it has been called in Africa, may originally have been copied from a natural cave built in the sand. The two forms, moreover, are not always mutually exclusive. In winter, for example, the Esquimo of Behring Strait lives in a round hut made of snow; in summer, he pitches a tent. In Melanesia, Polynesia, and other regions, the erection of dwelling-places on the seashore or on the shores of large rivers led to the pole-hut, a modification which came to resemble the houses of later times. This hut, which is generally occupied jointly by several families, is erected on poles that are firmly driven into the ground and reach far up into the air. Such a pole-hut, even at this early age, develops the typical form of a commodious dwelling. One of the factors here operative is the institution of men's clubs, which is prevalent in these regions: the necessity that many individuals live together leads to the erection of buildings of considerable size. In this connection, we note a characteristic difference between the beginnings of architectonic art and that of the other arts. The latter, whether in the case of tattooing, ceramics, or the fetishistic precursors of sculpture, always originate in mythological and, primarily, in magical motives; the sole impetus to architecture is furnished by the immediate needs of practical life. Thus, then, it is not to religious impulses but to the social conditions which require that many individuals shall live together, that we must trace a more perfected technique of building than that of primitive times.
Much more nearly parallel to the development of the other forms of art is that of the musical arts, meaning by this all those arts which consist in the direct activity of man himself. The musical arts include the dance, poetry, and music, as well as the various combinations into which these enter with one another. Since it is the third of these arts, music, that manifests a particular tendency to combine with and to supplement the other two, all three may be comprehended under its name. This will also serve to suggest the fact that, just as the formative arts are closely related in that they give objective embodiment to the creations of the imagination, so also are the musical arts allied by virtue of their reliance on subjective expression. Of all these various arts, the dance preserves the closest connection with the more primitive age. In the cult dance of the totemic period, however, the dance receives an extraordinarily rich development, reaching a stage of perfection comparable to that to which formative art attains in the external adornment of the body—that is, in tattooing. The dance and tattooing, indeed, are closely related, since nowhere else is the personal body so directly the object and the means of artistic activity. To the dances of the primitive period, however, the totemic dance adds one external feature—the mask—whose origin is directly due to totem belief. Even the Australians, of course, are not familiar with the mask-dance. They sometimes paint the face or mark it with single lines, and this may be regarded as the precursor of the mask; the mask itself however appears only in the later development of totemism, and continues far into the succeeding age. Moreover, as regards its distribution, there are considerable differences. It plays its most important rôle in American and Polynesian regions, a less prominent one in Africa. In America, the mask-dance and the elevation of masks into cult objects, to which the mask-dance occasionally gives rise, extend from the Esquimos of the north far down to the south. Koch-Grünberg has given a clear picture of the mask-dances and the mask-cult of the natives of the Brazilian forests. Here the masks are not a secondary means of magic, as it were—much less an occasional object of adornment. Every mask is a sort of sacred object. When the youth attains to manhood, he receives a mask, which is sacred to him throughout his entire life. After the great cult festivals, which are celebrated with mask-dances, the masks are carefully preserved. In the mask there is supposed to reside the demon who is represented by it, and the fear of the demon is transferred to the mask. The dancing of this period consists primarily of the animal dance, which is a rhythmic imitation, often wonderfully skilful, of the movements of an animal. The mask also, therefore, always represents, in a more or less altered or grotesquely exaggerated form, an animal's head, or a being intermediate between animal and man, thus vividly calling to mind certain totemic legends whose heroes are sometimes animals and sometimes human beings. On the more advanced stages of totemic culture, there are also masks representing objects of external nature. Mention has already been made of the cloud masks used in the vegetation festivals of the Hopi and Zuni. The rain-priests of these tribes, with these masks on their heads and with pictures of zigzag lightning on their garments, are the living representatives of storm demons. Thus, the mask imparts to its wearer the character of the demon represented by it. The characteristics of face-masks, such as enormous beards and teeth, huge eyes, noses, etc., cause them, particularly, to be the living embodiments of the fear of demons, and thus to be themselves regarded as demoniacal beings. Whatever may be their more specific nature, whether, for example, they represent demons of sickness or of fertility, they always present the same fear-inspiring features. A certain diversity of expression is much more likely to come as a result of the external character of the dance in which the masks are used. This may give rise to expressions portraying surprise and astonishment, or the more lively emotions of fear, terror, or exalted joy. In the latter case, we must bear in mind that representations of grinning laughter differ in but a few characteristic marks from those of violent weeping.