The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elements of Folk Psychology, by Wilhelm Wundt, Translated by Edward Leroy Schaub
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ELEMENTS OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY
OUTLINES OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL HISTORY
OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANKIND
BY
WILHELM WUNDT
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION
BY
EDWARD LEROY SCHAUB, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy in Northwestern University
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
First published: July 1916.
Revised edition: April 1921.
[TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE]
The keen interest which the present age is manifesting in problems connected with the interpretation of human experience is no less a result than it is a precondition of the fruitful labours of individual scholars. Prominent among these is the distinguished author of the volume which is herewith rendered accessible to English readers. The impetus which Professor Wundt has given to the philosophical and psychological studies of recent years is a matter of common knowledge. Many of those who are contributing richly to these fields of thought received their stimulus from instruction directly enjoyed in the laboratory and the classrooms of Leipzig. But even more than to Wundt, the teacher, is the world indebted to Wundt, the investigator and the writer. The number and comprehensiveness of this author's publications, as well as their range of subjects, are little short of amazing. To gauge the extent of their influence would require an examination of a large part of current philosophical and psychological literature. No small measure of this influence, however, must be credited to those whose labours have made possible the appearance of Wundt's writings in other tongues. Of the English translations, we owe the first to Professors Creighton and Titchener. Succeeding their translation of the "Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology," came the publication, in English, of the first volume of the "Principles of Physiological Psychology," of the two briefer treatises, "Outlines of Psychology" and "Introduction to Psychology," and, in the meantime, of the valuable work on "Ethics."
Though Professor Wundt first won recognition through his investigations in physiology, it was his later and more valuable contributions to physiological psychology, as well as to logic, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, that gained for him his place of eminence in the world of scholarship. One may hazard the prophecy, however, that the final verdict of history will ascribe to his latest studies, those in folk psychology, a significance not inferior to that which is now generally conceded to the writings of his earlier years. The Völkerpsychologie is a truly monumental work. The analysis and interpretation of language, art, mythology, and religion, and the criticisms of rival theories and points of view, which occupy its five large volumes of over three thousand pages, are at once so judicial and so suggestive that they may not be neglected by any serious student of the social mind. The publication of the Völkerpsychologie made necessary a number of defensive and supplementary articles. Two of these, in a somewhat revised form, together with an early article on "The Aim and Methods of Folk Psychology," and an additional essay on "Pragmatic and Genetic Psychology of Religion," were published in 1911 under the title, Probleme der Völkerpsychologie. Finally, in 1912, there appeared the book which we are now presenting in translation, the Elemente der Völkerpsychologie. As regards the difference in method and character between the Elemente and the Völkerpsychologie, nothing need be added to what may be gleaned from the author's Preface and Introduction to this, his latest, work. Here, too, Professor Wundt indicates his conception of the nature and the problem of folk psychology, a fuller discussion of which may be found both in the Völkerpsychologie and in the first essay of the Probleme.
He who attempts to sketch the "Outlines of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind" necessarily incurs a heavy indebtedness, as regards his material, to various more specialized sciences. The success with which the data have been sifted in the present instance and the extent to which the author has repaid the special sciences in terms of serviceable principles of interpretation, must, to a certain extent, be left to the determination of those who are engaged in these specific fields. Human beliefs and institutions, however, as well as all products of art and modes of labour, of food-getting, of marriage, of warfare, etc.—in short, all elements of human culture—even though subject to natural conditions of various sorts, are essentially mental processes or the expression of psychical activities. Hence no theory relating to these phenomena is acceptable, or even respectable, that does violence to well-established psychological principles. The unpsychological character of many of the hypotheses that still abound in ethnological, sociological, and historical literature, in itself renders necessary such discussions as those comprised within the present volume. One of the very valuable, even though not novel, features of the "Elements," therefore, is its clear exposure of the untenability of rationalistic and other similarly erroneous types of explanation.
The dependence of folk psychology, as conceived by Professor Wundt, upon general psychology—or, in this particular case, upon the author's system of physiological psychology—will be apparent. It should not be overlooked, however, that the examination of the mental processes that underlie the various forms in which social experience comes to expression involves a procedure which supplements, in an important way, the traditional psychological methods. More than this. Wundt's Völkerpsychologie is the result of a conviction that there are certain mental phenomena which may not be interpreted satisfactorily by any psychology which restricts itself to the standpoint of individual consciousness. Fundamental to the conclusions of the present volume, therefore, is the assumption of the reality of collective minds. For Professor Wundt, however, this assumption is not in the least of a dogmatic character. On the contrary, its acceptance is necessitated by the failure of opposing theories, and its validity is sustained by the fact that it renders intelligible a large and important body of facts. If this be admitted, it follows that folk psychology supplements not merely the methods of individual or physiological psychology, but also its principles and its laws. As yet, however, the prevailing tendency of psychologists, both in England and in America, is to retain the point of view of individual consciousness even when dealing with those phenomena which Wundt considers to be creations of the social group. That this occurs so frequently without any apparent thought of the necessity of justifying the procedure is—whether the position itself be right or wrong—an illustration of the barriers offered by a foreign language.
For the general reader who professes no acquaintance with the nature or the viewpoint of psychological science, it may not be amiss to remark that the author aims, in this book, to present, not a discussion of the philosophical validity of ideas or of the ethical or religious value of customs and institutions, but merely a descriptive account of human development. The "Elements" is an attempt to answer the question as to what beliefs and practices actually prevailed at the various stages of human development and what psychological explanation may be given of them. Such an investigation is quite distinct from an inquiry as to whether these beliefs and practices are justifiable. It is equally foreign, moreover, to the question as to whether the ideas that are entertained may be held either to bring us into relation with trans-subjective realities or to acquaint us with a truth that is, in any significant sense, eternal. However sacred or profane, true or delusional, experiences may be to the philosopher, the theologian, or the man of practical affairs, to him who is psychologizing they all alike are mental phenomena demanding, not evaluation, but observation, analysis, and reduction to mental laws. Wundt explicitly emphasizes the fact that his psychological account neither represents nor renders unnecessary a philosophy of history; similarly, it may be added, the present work is neither the equivalent nor the negation of ethics, jurisprudence, theology, epistemology, or metaphysics. Nevertheless, while the distinctions which we have suggested should be strictly kept in mind, a just appreciation of the significance of such books as the "Elements" demands that we recognize their notable value to all the various philosophical disciplines. Works of this sort succeed above all others in stimulating and sustaining a keen empirical interest on the part of philosophy, and they supply the latter with a fund of carefully selected and psychologically interpreted facts. Doubtless it is in connection with ethics and the science of religion that these services are most obvious. Even the epistemologist, however, will find much that is suggestive in Wundt's account of the origin and development of language, the characteristics and content of primitive thought, and the relation of mythological and religious ideas to the affective and conative life. That the Völkerpsychologie may contribute largely toward the solution of metaphysical problems has been strikingly demonstrated by Professor Royce in his profound volumes on "The Problem of Christianity."
The trials of the translator have been recounted too often any longer to require detailed mention. President G. Stanley Hall has suggested that the German proclivity to the use of long, involved sentences, loaded with qualifying words and phrases, and with compounds and supplementary clauses of every description, may perhaps be said to have the merit of rendering language somewhat correspondent with the actual course of thought. The significance of this statement can be appreciated by no one quite so keenly as by a translator, for whom the very fact which President Hall mentions causes many German sentences to be objects of despair. In the present instance, the endeavour has been to reproduce as faithfully as possible both the meaning and the spirit of the original, while yet taking such liberties as seemed necessary either to clarify certain passages or to avoid any serious offence to the English language. In a number of cases, no absolutely satisfactory equivalent of the German term seemed available. The very expression 'folk psychology,' for example, may scarcely be said to commend itself in every respect. Its use seemed unescapable, however, in view of the fact that the author, in his Introduction, expressly rejects the terms Sozialpsychologie and Gemeinschaftspsychologie in favour of Völkerpsychologie. Bildende Kunst has been rendered 'formative art,' not in the belief that this translation is wholly unobjectionable, but because it seemed preferable to all possible alternatives, such as 'plastic,' 'shaping,' or 'manual' art. Those who are familiar with, or who will take notice of, the very precise meaning which the present author gives to the terms Märchen, Sage, Legende, and Mythus will understand without explanation our frequent use of the word 'saga' and the necessity of the term 'märchen' in the translation. Wundt has always attached great significance to the distinctions which he has drawn between the various forms of the myth, and, more especially, to his contention that the earliest and, in a sense, the progenitor of these was the märchen. The crying need of exact definition and of clear thinking in a field so confused as that of mythology led him, on one occasion, to enter a plea for a clear-cut and consistent terminology such as that which he was attempting to maintain (vide Völkerpsychologie, Band V, Zweiter Teil, Zweite Auflage, s. 33). In this instance again, therefore, it seemed best to give to the author's own terms a preference over words which, while more familiar to the English reader, are less suited to convey the precise meaning intended.
The most pleasant of the translator's duties consists in acknowledging the very material assistance which he has received from his wife, whose preparation of an enlarged index for this English edition is but the last of many services which she has rendered in connection with the present undertaking.
EDWARD LEROY SCHAUB.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY,
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS,
October 1915.
[PREFACE]
This volume pursues a different method, in its treatment of the problems of folk psychology, from that employed in my more extensive treatment of the subject. Instead of considering successively the main forms of expression of the folk mind, the present work studies the phenomena, so far as possible, synchronously, exhibiting their common conditions and their reciprocal relations. Even while engaged on my earlier task I had become more and more convinced that a procedure of this latter sort was required as its supplement. Indeed, I believed that the chief purpose of investigations in folk psychology must be found in a synthetic survey. The first prerequisite of such a survey is, of course, a separate examination of each of the various fields. The history of the development of the physical organism aims to understand not merely the genesis of the particular organs but primarily their co-operation and the correlation of their functions. An analogous purpose should underlie an account of the mental development of any human community and, finally, of mankind itself. In addition to the problem of the relations of the separate processes to one another, however, we must in this case face also the broader question as to whether or not mental development is at all subject to law. This it is, therefore, that the sub-title of the present volume is intended to suggest. That we can be concerned only with outlines, moreover, and not with an exhaustive presentation of details, follows from the very fact that our aim is a synthetic survey. An exhaustive presentation would again involve us in a more or less detached investigation of single problems. A briefer exposition, on the other hand, which limits itself to arranging the main facts along lines suggested by the subject-matter as a whole, is, without doubt, better adapted both to present a clear picture of the development, and to indicate its general amenability to law, the presence of which even the diversity of events cannot conceal.
This being my main purpose, I believed that I might at once reject the thought of giving the various facts a proportionate degree of attention. In the case of the better known phenomena, it appeared sufficient to sketch their place in the general development. That which was less familiar, however, or was still, perhaps, generally unknown, seemed to me to require a more detailed discussion. Hence the following pages deal at some length with the forms of original tribal organization and of the consummation of marriage, with soul, demon, and totem cults, and with various other phenomena of a somewhat primitive culture. On the other hand, they describe in barest outline the social movements that reach over into historical times, such as the founding of States and cities, the origin of legal systems, and the like. No inference, of course, should be drawn from this with regard to the relative importance of the phenomena themselves. Our procedure, in this matter, has been governed by practical considerations alone.
The above remark concerning the less familiar and that which is as yet unknown, will already have indicated that folk psychology in general, and particularly a history of development in terms of folk psychology, such as this book aims to give, are as yet forced to rely largely on suppositions and hypotheses, if they are not to lose the thread that unites the details. Questions similar to the ones which we have just mentioned regarding the beginnings of human society, or others, which, though belonging to a later development, nevertheless still fall within the twilight dawn of history—such, for example, as those concerning the origin of gods and of religion, the development of myth, the sources and the transformations in meaning of the various forms of cult, etc.—are, of course, as yet largely matters of dispute. In cases of this sort, we are for the most part dealing not so much with facts themselves as with hypotheses designed to interpret facts. And yet it must not be forgotten that folk psychology rests on precisely the same experiential basis, as regards these matters, as do all other empirical sciences. Its position in this respect is similar, more particularly, to that of history, with which it frequently comes into touch in dealing with these problems of origin. The hypotheses of folk psychology never refer to a background of things or to origins that are by nature inaccessible to experiential knowledge; they are simply assumptions concerning a number of conjectured empirical facts that, for some reason or other, elude positive detection. When, for example, we assume that the god-idea resulted from a fusion of the hero ideal with the previously existing belief in demons, this is an hypothesis, since the direct transition of a demon into a god can nowhere be pointed out with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, the conjectured process moves on the factual plane from beginning to end. The same is true, not merely of many of the problems of folk psychology, but in the last analysis of almost all questions relating to the beginning of particular phenomena. In such cases, the result is seldom based on actually given data—these are inaccessible to direct observation, leaving psychological probability as our only guide. That is to say, we are driven to that hypothesis which is in greatest consonance with the sum total of the known facts of individual and of folk psychology. It is this empirical task, constituting a part of psychology and, at the same time, an application of it, that chiefly differentiates a psychological history of development, such as the following work aims briefly to present, from a philosophy of history. In my opinion, the basis of a philosophy of history should henceforth be a psychological history of development, though the latter should not intrude upon the particular problems of the former. The concluding remarks of our final chapter attempt, in a few sentences, to indicate this connection of a psychological history of development with a philosophy of historical development, as it appears from the point of view of the general relation of psychology to philosophical problems.
W. WUNDT.
LEIPZIG,
March 31, 1912.
[CONTENTS]
[INTRODUCTION]—History and task of folk psychology—Its relation to ethnology—Analytic and synthetic methods of exposition—Folk psychology as a psychological history of the development of mankind—Division into four main periods.
[1. THE DISCOVERY OF PRIMITIVE MAN]—Early philosophical hypotheses—Prehistoric remains—Schweinfurth's discovery of the Pygmies of the Upper Congo—The Negritos of the Philippines, the inland tribes of Malacca, the Veddahs of Ceylon.
[2. THE CULTURE OF PRIMITIVE MAN IN ITS EXTERNAL EXPRESSIONS]—Dress, habitation, food, weapons—Discovery of bow and arrow—Acquisition of fire—Relative significance of the concept 'primitive.'
[3. THE ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY]—Bachofen's "Mother-right" and the hypothesis of an original promiscuity—Group-marriage and the Malayan system of relationship—Erroneous interpretation of these phenomena—Polygyny and polyandry—The monogamy of primitive peoples.
[4. PRIMITIVE SOCIETY]—The primitive horde—Its relation to the animal herd—Single family and tribe—Lack of tribal organization.
[5. THE BEGINNINGS OF LANGUAGE]—Languages of primitive tribes of to-day—The gesture-language of the deaf and dumb, and of certain peoples of nature—natural gesture-language—Its syntax—General conclusions drawn from gesture-language.
[6. THE THINKING OF PRIMITIVE MAN]—The Soudan languages as examples of relatively primitive modes of thinking—The so-called 'roots' as words—The concrete character of primitive thought—Lack of grammatical categories—Primitive man's thinking perceptual.
[7. EARLIEST BELIEFS IN MAGIC AND DEMONS]—Indefiniteness of the concept 'religion'—Polytheistic and monotheistic theories of the origin of religion—Conditions among the Pygmies—Belief in magic and demons as the content of primitive thought—Death and sickness—The corporeal soul—Dress and objects of personal adornment as instruments of magic—The causality of magic.
[8. THE BEGINNINGS OF ART]—The art of dancing among primitive peoples—Its importance as a means of magic—Its accompaniment by noise-instruments—-The dance-song—The beginnings of musical instruments—The bull-roarer and the rattle—Primitive ornamentation—Relation between the imitation of objects and simple geometrical drawings (conventionalization)—The painting of the Bushmen—Its nature as a memorial art.
[9. THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE MAN]—Freedom from wants—Significance of isolation—Capacity for observation and reflection—No inferiority as to original endowment demonstrable—Negative nature of the morality of primitive man—Dependence upon the environment.
[1. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF TOTEMISM]—The word 'totem'—Its significance for cult—Tribal organization and the institution of chieftainship—Tribal wars—Tribal ownership of land—The rise of hoe-culture and of the raising of domestic animals.
[2. THE STAGES OF TOTEMIC CULTURE]—Australian culture—Its low level of economic life—Its complicated tribal organization—Perfected weapons—Malayo-Polynesian culture—The origin and migrations of the Malays—Celestial elements in Malayo-Polynesian mythology—The culture of the American Indians and its distinctive features—Perfection of totemic tribal organization—Decline of totem cults—African cultures—Increased importance of cattle raising—Development of despotic forms of rulership—Survivals of totemism in the Asiatic world.
[3. TOTEMIC TRIBAL ORGANIZATION]—Similarity in the tribal organizations of the Australians and the American Indians—Totem groups as cult associations—Retrogression in America—The totem animal as a coat of arms—The principle of dual division—Systems consisting of two, four, and eight groups.
[4. THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY]—Unlimited and limited exogamy—Direct and indirect maternal or paternal descent—Effects upon marriage between relatives—Hypotheses concerning the origin of exogamy—Hygienic theory—Marriage by capture.
[5. MODES OF CONTRACTING MARRIAGE]—Marriage by peaceful capture within the same kinship group—Exogamous marriage by barter—Marriage by purchase and marriage by contract—Survivals of marriage by capture.
[6. THE CAUSES OF TOTEMIC EXOGAMY]—Relation of clan division to totem groups—Totem friendships—Parental and traditional totem alliances—The rise of exogamy with direct and with indirect maternal or paternal descent.
[7. THE FORMS OF POLYGAMY]—Origin of group-marriage—Chief wife and secondary wives—Polyandry and polygyny and their combination—The prevalence and causes of these forms of marriage.
[8. THE DEVELOPMENTAL FORMS OF TOTEMISM]—Two principles of classification—Tribal and individual totemism—Conception and sex totemism—Animal and plant totemism—Inanimate totems (churingas)—Relation to ancestor worship and to fetishism.
[9. THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMIC IDEAS]—Theories based on names—Spencer and Lang—Frazer's theory of conception totemism as the origin of totemism—The animal transformations of the breath soul—Relations to soul belief—Soul animals as totem animals.
[10. THE LAWS OF TABOO]—The concept 'taboo'—The taboo in Polynesia—The taboo of mother-in-law and father-in-law—Connection with couvade—The sacred and the impure—Rites of purification—Fire, water, and magical transference.
[11. SOUL BELIEFS OF THE TOTEMIC AGE]—The psyche as a breath and shadow soul—Its relation to the corporeal soul—Chief bearers of the corporeal soul—Modes of disposition of the dead.
[12. THE ORIGIN OF THE FETISH]—Fetishes in totem cult—Attainment of independence by fetishism—Fetishes as the earliest forms of the divine image—Retrogressive development of cult objects—Fetish cult as a cult of magic and demons—Amulet and talisman.
[13. THE ANIMAL ANCESTOR AND THE HUMAN ANCESTOR]—The Mura-Mura legends of the Australians—The animal ancestor—Transition to the human ancestor—Relation to disposal of the corpse and to cults of the dead—Surviving influences of totemism in ancestor cult.
[14. THE TOTEMIC CULTS]—Customs relating to disposition of the corpse and to sacrifices to the dead—Initiation into manhood—Vegetation cults—Australian Intichiuma festivals—Cults of the soil at the stage of hoe-culture—Underlying factor of community of labour—Unification of cult purposes and their combination with incipient deity cults.
[15. THE ART OF THE TOTEMIC AGE]—Tatooing—Ceramics—Construction of dwellings—Pole-houses—The ceremonial dance—Instruments of concussion and wind Instruments—Cult-songs and work-songs—The märchen-myth and its developmental forms.
[CHAPTER III—THE AGE OF HEROES AND GODS]
[1. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE HEROIC AGE]—Significance of the individual personality—The hero an ideal human being, the god an ideal hero—Changes in economic life and in society—The rise of the State.
[2. THE EXTERNAL CULTURE OF THE HEROIC AGE]—Folk migration and the founding of States—Plough-culture—Breeding of domestic animals—The wagon—The taming of cattle—The ox as a draught animal—The production of milk—Relation of these achievements to cult—Warfare and weapons—Rise of private property—Colonization and trade.
[3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL SOCIETY]—The place of the State in the general development of society—The duodecimal and the decimal systems in the organization of political society—The mark community and military organization.
[4. FAMILY ORGANIZATION WITHIN POLITICAL SOCIETY]—The joint family—The patriarchal family—Paternal descent and paternal dominance—Reappearance of the monogamous family.
[5. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF CLASSES]—Common property and private property—The conquering race and the subjugated population—Distinction in rank and property—The influence of State and of legal system.
[6. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF VOCATIONS]—The priesthood as combining class and vocation—Military and political activity—Agriculture and the lower vocations—-The gradual equalization of respect accorded to vocations.
[7. THE ORIGIN OF CITIES]—The original development of the city—Castle and temple as the signs of a city—The guardian deity of city and State—Secondary developments.
[8. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM]—Custom and law—Civil law as the original province of law—Political and religious factors—The council of elders and the chieftain—The arbitrator and the appointed judge—The religious sanction of legal practices.
[9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENAL LAW]—Blood revenge and its replacement—Wergild—Right of sanctuary—Development of imprisonment out of private custody of wrongdoer—The Jus Talionis—Increase in complexity of rewards and punishments.
[10. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF LEGAL FUNCTIONS]—Division of the judicial function—Influence of social organization—Logical classification of forms of the State lacking in genetic significance—Development of constitutions out of history and custom.
[11. THE ORIGIN OF GODS]—Degeneration theories and developmental theories—Hypotheses of an original monotheism or polytheism—Theory based on nature-mythology—Demon theory of Usener—Characteristics distinguishing the god from the demon and the hero—The god as the result of a fusion of ideal hero and demon.
[12. THE HERO SAGA]—The hero of saga and the hero of märchen—The purely mythical and the historical hero saga—Magic in märchen and saga—The religious legend—The saint legend.
[13. COSMOGONIC AND THEOGONIC MYTHS]—The gods as demoniacal beings—Their struggle with the demons of earliest times—Myths of creation—Sagas of flood and of universal conflagration—Myths of world-destruction.
[14. THE BELIEF IN SOULS AND IN A WORLD BEYOND]—Sequence of ideas of the beyond—The spirit-village—The islands of the blessed—Myths of the underworld—Distinction between dwelling-places of souls—Elysium—The underworld and the celestial regions—Purgatory—Cults of the beyond—The conception of salvation—Transmigration of souls.
[15. THE ORIGIN OF DEITY CULTS]—Relation of myth and cult—Religious significance of cult—Vegetation cults—Union of cult purposes—Mystery cults.
[16. THE FORMS OF CULT PRACTICES]—Prayer—Conjuration and the prayer of petition—Prayer of thanksgiving—Praise—The penitential psalm—Sacrifice—Purpose of sacrifice originally magical—Jewish peace-offering and sin-offering—Development of conception of gift—Connection between value and sacrifice—Votive and consecration gifts—Sacrifice of the first fruits—Sanctification ceremonies—Means of lustration as means of sanctification—Water and fire—Baptism and circumcision—Magical sanctification—Human sacrifice as a means of sanctification.
[17. THE ART OF THE HEROIC AGE]—Temple and palace—The human figure as the subject of formative art—Art as generic and as individualizing—The appreciation of the significant—Expression of subjective mood in landscape painting—The epic—Its influence upon the cult-song—The drama—Music as an accessory and as an independent art.
[CHAPTER IV—THE DEVELOPMENT TO HUMANITY]
[1. THE CONCEPT 'HUMANITY']—Herder's idea of humanity as the goal of history—The concepts 'mankind' and 'human nature'—Humanity as a value-concept—The idea of a cultural community of mankind and its developmental forms.
[2. WORLD EMPIRES]—The empires of Egypt and of Western Asia—The monarch as ruler of the world—The ruler as deity—Apotheosis of deceased rulers—Underlying cause of formation of empires—Disappearance of world empires from history.
[3. WORLD CULTURE]—The world dominion of Alexander—Greek as the universal language—Writing and speech as factors of culture—Travel as symptoatic of culture—Hellenistic world culture and its results—The culture of the Renaissance—Cosmopolitanism and individualism.
[4. WORLD RELIGIONS]—Unity of the world of gods—Cult of Æsculapius and cults of the beyond—Their transition into redemption cults—Buddhism and Christianity—Development of the idea of a superpersonal deity—The incarnate god as the representative of this deity—Three aspects of the concept 'representative.'
[5. WORLD HISTORY]—Twofold significance of the concept 'history'—History as self-conscious experience—The rôle of will in history—Prehistoric and historic periods—Influence of world culture and world religions on the rise of the historical consciousness—The philosophy of history—Its relation to a psychological history of the development of mankind.
[ELEMENTS OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY]
[INTRODUCTION]
The word 'Völkerpsychologie'(folk psychology) is a new compound in our [the German] language. It dates back scarcely farther than to about the middle of the nineteenth century. In the literature of this period, however, it appeared with two essentially different meanings. On the one hand, the term 'folk psychology' was applied to investigations concerning the relations which the intellectual, moral, and other mental characteristics of peoples sustain to one another, as well as to studies concerning the influence of these characteristics upon the spirit of politics, art, and literature. The aim of this work was a characterization of peoples, and its greatest emphasis was placed on those cultural peoples whose civilization is of particular importance to us—the French, English, Germans, Americans, etc. These were the questions of folk psychology that claimed attention during that period, particularly, to which literary history has given the name "young Germany." The clever essays of Karl Hillebrand on Zeiten, Völker und Menschen (collected in eight volumes, 1885 ff.) are a good recent example of this sort of investigation. We may say at the outset that the present work follows a radically different direction from that pursued by these first studies in folk psychology.
Practically coincident with the appearance of these earliest studies, however, was a radically different use of the term 'folk psychology.' The mental sciences began to realize the need of a psychological basis; where a serviceable psychology did not exist, they felt it necessary to establish an independent psychological foundation for their work. It was particularly in connection with the problems of philology and mythology, and at about the middle of the century, that the idea gradually arose of combining into a unified whole the various results concerning the mental development of man as severally viewed by language, religion, and custom. A philosopher and a philologist, Lazarus and Steinthal, may claim credit for the service of having introduced the term 'folk psychology' to designate this new field of knowledge. All phenomena with which mental sciences deal are, indeed, creations of the social community. Language, for example, is not the accidental discovery of an individual; it is the product of peoples, and, generally speaking, there are as many different languages as there are originally distinct peoples. The same is true of the beginnings of art, of mythology, and of custom. The natural religions, as they were at one time called, such as the religions of Greece, Rome, and the Germanic peoples, are, in truth, folk religions; each of them is the possession of a folk community, not, of course, in all details, but in general outline. To us this fact has come to appear somewhat strange, because in our age these universal mental creations have already long transcended the limits of a single people. Though this is true, it does not imply that the folk community is not really the original source of these mental creations. Now, in the works of Lazarus and Steinthal and in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft edited by them and appearing in twenty volumes from 1860 on, the conception had not as yet, it is true, received the precise definition that we must give it to-day. Nevertheless, a beginning was made, and the new venture was successfully launched along several different lines. Some uncertainty still prevailed, especially with regard to the relation of these studies to philosophy, and as to the method which psychology must follow when thus carried over into a new field. It was only gradually, as the psychological point of view gained ground in the special fields of research, that this condition was improved. To-day, doubtless, folk psychology may be regarded as a branch of psychology concerning whose justification and problem there can no longer be dispute. Its problem relates to those mental products which are created by a community of human life and are, therefore, inexplicable in terms merely of individual consciousness, since they presuppose the reciprocal action of many. This will be for us the criterion of that which belongs to the consideration of folk psychology. A language can never be created by an individual. True, individuals have invented Esperanto and other artificial languages. Unless, however, language had already existed, these inventions would have been impossible. Moreover, none of these languages has been able to maintain itself, and most of them owe their existence solely to elements borrowed from natural languages. How, again, could a religion have been created by an individual? There have, indeed, been religions whose founders were individual men: for example, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islamism. But all these religions rest on earlier foundations; they are elaborations of religious motives arising within particular folk communities. Thus, then, in the analysis of the higher mental processes, folk psychology is an indispensable supplement to the psychology of individual consciousness. Indeed, in the case of some questions the latter already finds itself obliged to fall back on the principles of folk psychology. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that just as there can be no folk community apart from individuals who enter into reciprocal relations within it, so also does folk psychology, in turn, presuppose individual psychology, or, as it is usually called, general psychology. The former, however, is an important supplement to the latter, providing principles for the interpretation of the more complicated processes of individual consciousness. It is true that the attempt has frequently been made to investigate the complex functions of thought on the basis of mere introspection. These attempts, however, have always been unsuccessful. Individual consciousness is wholly incapable of giving us a history of the development of human thought, for it is conditioned by an earlier history concerning which it cannot of itself give us any knowledge. For this reason we must also reject the notion that child psychology can solve these ultimate problems of psychogenesis. Among cultural peoples, the child is surrounded by influences inseparable from the processes that arise spontaneously within its own consciousness. Folk psychology, however, in its investigation of the various stages of mental development still exhibited by mankind, leads us along the path of a true psychogenesis. It reveals well-defined primitive conditions, with transitions leading through an almost continuous series of intermediate steps to the more developed and higher civilizations. Thus, folk psychology is, in an important sense of the word, genetic psychology.
In view of the general nature of the task of the science, objection has sometimes been raised to its being called folk psychology. For, the study is concerned, not merely with peoples but also with more restricted, as well as with more comprehensive, social groups. Family, group, tribe, and local community, for example, are more restricted associations; on the other hand, it is to the union and reciprocal activity of a number of peoples that the highest mental values and attainments owe their origin, so that, in this case, folk psychology really becomes a psychology of mankind. But it is self-evident that, if it is not to fade into indefiniteness, a term such as 'folk psychology' must be formulated with reference to the most important conception with which it has to deal. Moreover, scarcely any of the proposed emendations are practicable. 'Gemeinschaftspsychologie' (community psychology) may easily give rise to the misconception that we are concerned primarily with such communities as differ from the folk community; Sozialpsychologie (social psychology) at once reminds us of modern sociology, which, even in its psychological phases, usually deals exclusively with questions of modern cultural life. In an account of the total development of mental life, however—and this is the decisive consideration—the 'folk' is the most important collective concept and the one with which all others are associated. The 'folk' embraces families, classes, clans, and groups. These various communities are not excluded from the concept 'folk,' but are included within it. The term 'folk psychology' singles out precisely the folk as the decisive factor underlying the fundamental creations of the community.
When this point of view is taken, the question, of course, arises whether the problem thus assigned to folk psychology is not already being solved by ethnology, the science of peoples, or whether it ought not to be so solved. But it must be borne in mind that the greatly enlarged scope of modern ethnology, together with the increased number and the deepened character of its problems, necessarily precludes such a psychological investigation as falls to the task of folk psychology. I may here be allowed to refer to one who, perhaps more than any other recent geographer, has called attention to this extension of ethnological problems—Friedrich Ratzel. In his treatise on anthropography and in a number of scattered essays on the cultural creations of peoples, Ratzel has shown that ethnology must not only account for the characteristics and the habitats of peoples, but must also investigate how peoples originated and how they attained their present physical and mental status. Ethnology is the science of the origin of peoples, of their characteristics, and of their distribution over the earth. In this set of problems, psychological traits receive a relatively subordinate place. Apparently insignificant art products and their modifications may be of high importance in the determination of former migrations, fusions, or transferences. It is in this way that ethnology has been of valuable service to history, particularly in connection with prehistoric man. The central problem of ethnology concerns not only the present condition of peoples, but the way in which they originated, changed, and became differentiated. Folk psychology must be based on the results of ethnology; its own psychological interest, however, inclines it to the problem of mental development. Though of diverse origins, peoples may nevertheless belong to the same group as regards the mental level to which they have attained. Conversely, peoples who are ethnologically related may, psychologically speaking, represent very different stages of mental culture. The ethnologist, for example, regards the Magyars and the Ostiaks of Obi as peoples of like origin. Psychologically, they belong to different groups: the one is a cultural people, the other is still relatively primitive. To the folk psychologist, however, 'primitive' always means the psychologically primitive—not that which the ethnologist regards as original from the point of view of the genealogy of peoples. Thus, folk psychology draws upon ethnology, while the latter, in turn, must invoke the aid of the former in investigating mental characteristics. The problems of the two sciences, however, are fundamentally different.
In fulfilling its task, folk psychology may pursue different methods. The course that first suggests itself is to single out one important phenomenon of community life after another, and to trace its development after the usual pattern of general psychology in its analysis of individual consciousness. For example, an attempt is made to trace the psychological development of language by the aid of the facts of linguistic history. This psychology of language is then followed by a study of the development of art, from its beginnings among primitive races down to its early manifestations among cultural peoples, at which point its description is taken up by the history of art. Myth and religion are similarly investigated as regards the development of their characteristics, their reciprocal relations, etc. This is a method which considers in longitudinal sections, as it were, the total course of the development described by folk psychology. For a somewhat intensive analysis this is the most direct mode of procedure. But it has the objection of severing mental development into a number of separate phases, whereas in reality these are in constant interrelation. Indeed, the various mental expressions, particularly in their earlier stages, are so intertwined that they are scarcely separable from one another. Language is influenced by myth, art is a factor in myth development, and customs and usages are everywhere sustained by mythological conceptions.
But there is also a second path of investigation, and it is this which the present work adopts. It consists—to retain the image used above—in taking transverse instead of longitudinal sections, that is, in regarding the main stages of the development with which folk psychology is concerned in their sequence, and each in the total interconnection of its phenomena. Our first task, then, would be the investigation of primitive man. We must seek a psychological explanation of the thought, belief, and action of primitive man on the basis of the facts supplied by ethnology. As we proceed to more advanced stages, difficulties may, of course, arise with regard to the delimitation of the various periods; indeed, it will scarcely be possible to avoid a certain arbitrariness, inasmuch as the processes are continuous. The life of the individual person also does not fall into sharply distinct periods. Just as childhood, youth, and manhood are stages in a continuous growth, so also are the various eras in the development of peoples. Yet there are certain ideas, emotions, and springs of action about which the various phenomena group themselves. It is these that we must single out if the content of folk psychology is to be classified, with any measure of satisfaction, according to periods. Moreover, it should be particularly noticed that, in starting our discussion with primitive man, as we naturally must, the term 'primitive' is to be taken relatively, as representing the lowest grade of culture, particularly of mental culture. There is no specific ethnological characteristic that distinguishes this primitive stage from those that are more advanced; it is only by reference to a number of psychological traits, such as are indicative of the typically original, that we may determine that which is primitive. Bearing in mind this fact, we must first describe the external traits of primitive culture, and then consider the psychological factors of primitive life.
Of the second period in the development of civilization, we may safely say that in many respects it represents a newly discovered world. Historical accounts have nothing, to say concerning it. Recent ethnology alone has disclosed the phenomena here in question, having come upon them in widely different parts of the earth. This period we will call the totemic age. The very name indicates that we are concerned with the discovery of a submerged world. The word 'totem,' borrowed from a distant American tongue, proves by its very origin that our own cultural languages of Europe do not possess any word even approximately adequate to designate the peculiar character of this period. If we would define the concept of totemism as briefly as possible, it might perhaps be said to represent a circle of ideas within which the relation of animal to man is the reverse of that which obtains in present-day culture. In the totemic age, man does not have dominion over the animal, but the animal rules man. Its deeds and activities arouse wonder, fear, and adoration. The souls of the dead dwell within it; it thus becomes the ancestor of man. Its flesh is prohibited to the members of the group called by its name, or, conversely, on ceremonial occasions, the eating of the totem-animal may become a sanctifying cult activity. No less does the totemic idea affect the organization of society, tribal division, and the forms of marriage and family. Yet the elements that reach over from the thought-world of this period into later times are but scanty fragments. Such, for example, are the sacred animals of the Babylonians, Egyptians, and other ancient cultural peoples, the prophetic significance attached to the qualities or acts of animals, and other magical ideas connected with particular animals.
Totemic culture is succeeded—through gradual transitions—by a third period, which we will call the age of heroes and gods. Initial steps towards the latter were already taken during the preceding period, in the development of a rulership of individuals within the tribal organization. This rulership, at first only temporary in character, gradually becomes permanent. The position of the chieftain, which was of only minor importance in the totemic age, gains in power when the tribal community, under the pressure of struggles with hostile tribes, assumes a military organization. Society thus develops into the State. War, as also the guidance of the State in times of peace, calls out men who tower far above the stature of the old chieftains, and who, at the same time, are sharply distinguished from one another through qualities that stamp them as typical personalities. In place of the eldest of the clan and the tribal chieftain of the totemic period, this new age gives rise to the hero. The totemic age possesses only fabulous narratives; these are credited myths dealing, not infrequently, with animal ancestors who have introduced fire, taught the preparation of food, etc. The hero who is exalted as a leader in war belongs to a different world, a world faithfully mirrored in the heroic song or epic. As regards their station in life, the heroes of Homer are still essentially tribal chieftains, but the enlarged field of struggle, together with the magnified characteristics which it develops, exalt the leader into a hero. With the development of poetry, the forms of language also become modified and enriched. The epic is followed by formative and dramatic art. All this is at the same time closely bound up with the origin of the State, which now displaces the more primitive tribal institutions of the preceding period. When this occurs, different customs and cults emerge. With national heroes and with States, national religions come into being; and, since these religions no longer direct the attention merely to the immediate environment, to the animal and plant world, but focus it primarily upon the heavens, there is developed the idea of a higher and more perfect world. As the hero is the ideal man, so the god becomes the ideal hero, and the celestial world, the ideally magnified terrestrial world.
This era of heroes and gods is finally succeeded by a fourth period. A national State and a national religion do not represent the permanent limits of human striving. National affiliations broaden into humanistic associations. Thus there begins a development in which we of the present still participate; it cannot, therefore, be referred to otherwise than as an age that is coming to be. We may speak merely of an advance toward humanity, not of a development of humanity. This advance, however, begins immediately with the fall of the barriers that divide peoples, particularly with regard to their religious views. For this reason, it is particularly the transcendence of the more restricted folk circle on the part of religions that constitutes one of the most significant events of mental history. The national religions—or, as they are generally, though misleadingly, called, the natural religions—of the great peoples of antiquity begin to pass beyond their original bounds and to become religions of humanity. There are three such world religions—Christianity, Islamism, and Buddhism—each of them adapted in character and history to a particular part of mankind. This appears most clearly in the contrast between Christianity and Buddhism, similar as they are in their endeavour to be world religions. The striving to become a world religion, however, is also a symptomatic mental phenomenon, paralleled externally by the extension of national States beyond the original limits set for them by the tribal unit. Corresponding to this expansion, we find those reciprocal influences of cultural peoples in economic life, as well as in custom, art, and science, which give to human society its composite character, representing a combination of national with universally human elements. Hellenism and the Roman Empire afford the first and, for Occidental mental development, the most important manifestations of these phenomena. How immense is the chasm between the secret barter of primitive man who steals out of the primeval forest by night and lays down his captured game to exchange it, unseen by his neighbours, for implements and objects of adornment, and the commerce of an age when fleets traverse the seas, and eventually ships course through the air, uniting the peoples of all parts of the world into one great commercial community! We cannot undertake to delineate all aspects of this development, for the latter includes the entire history of mankind. Our concern is merely to indicate the outstanding psychological factors fundamental to the progression of the later from that which was original, of the more perfect from the primitive, partly under the pressure of external conditions of life and partly as a result of man's own creative power.
[CHAPTER I]
PRIMITIVE MAN
[1. THE DISCOVERY OF PRIMITIVE MAN.]
Who is the primitive man? Where is he to be found? What are his characteristics? These are the important questions which here at once confront us. But they are questions to which, strangely enough, the answer has, up to very recent times, been sought, not in the facts of experience, history, or ethnology, but purely by the path of speculation. At the outset the search was not, for the most part, based on investigations of primitive culture itself, but took as its starting-point contemporary culture and present-day man. It was primarily by means of an abstract opposition of culture to nature that philosophy, and even anthropology, constructed natural man. The endeavour was not to find or to observe, but to invent him. It was simply by antithesis to cultural man that the image of natural man took shape; the latter is one who lacks all the attainments of culture. This is the negative criterion by means of which the philosophy of the Enlightenment, with its conceited estimate of cultural achievements, formed its idea of primitive man. Primitive man is the savage; the savage, however, is essentially an animal equipped with a few human qualities, with language and a fragment of reason just sufficient to enable him to advance beyond his deplorable condition. Man in his natural state, says Thomas Hobbes, is toward man as a wolf. He lives with his fellow-beings as an animal among animals, in a struggle for survival. It is the contrast of wild nature with peaceful culture, of ordered State with unorganized herd or horde, that underlies this conception.
But this antithesis between the concepts of culture and of nature, as objectively considered, is not the only factor here operative; even more influential is the contrast between the subjective moods aroused by the actual world and by the realm disclosed by imagination or reason. Hence it is that the repelling picture of primitive man is modified as soon as the mood changes. To an age that is satiated with culture and feels the traditional forms of life to be a burdensome constraint, the state of nature becomes an ideal once realized in a bygone world. In contrast to the wild creature of Thomas Hobbes and his contemporaries, we have the natural man of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The state of nature is a state of peace, where men, united in love, lead a life that is unfettered and free from want.
Alongside of these constructions of the character of natural man, however, there early appeared a different method of investigation, whose aim it was to adhere more closely to empirical facts. Why should we not regard those of our human institutions which still appear to be a direct result of natural conditions as having existed in the earliest period of our race? Marriage and the family, for example, are among such permanent cultural institutions, the one as the natural union of the sexes, the other as its necessary result. If marriage and family existed from the beginning, then all culture has grown out of the extension of these primitive associations. The family first developed into the patriarchal joint family; from this the village community arose, and then, through the union of several village communities, the State. The theory of a natural development of society from the family was first elaborated by Aristotle, but it goes back in its fundamental idea to legend and myth. Peoples frequently trace their origin to an original pair of ancestors. From a single marriage union is derived the single tribe, and then, through a further extension of this idea, the whole of mankind. The legend of an original ancestral pair, however, is not to be found beyond the limits of the monogamous family. Thus, it is apparently a projection of monogamous marriage into the past, into the beginnings of a race, a tribe, or of mankind. Wherever, therefore, monogamous marriage is not firmly established, legend accounts for the origin of men and peoples in various other ways. It thinks of them as coming forth from stones, from the earth, or from caverns; it regards animals as their ancestors, etc. Even the Greek legend of Deukalion and Pyrrha contains a survival of such an earlier view, combined with the legend of an original ancestral pair. Deukalion and Pyrrha throw stones behind them, from which there springs a new race of men.
The thought of an original family, thus, represents simply a projection of the present-day family into an inaccessible past. Clearly, therefore, it is to be regarded as only an hypothesis or, rather, a fiction. Without the support which it received from the Biblical legend, it could scarcely have maintained itself almost down to the present, as it did in the patriarchal theory of the original state of man to which it gave rise. The Aristotelian theory of the gradual origin of more comprehensive organizations, terminating in the State, is no less a fiction; the social communities existing side by side in the period of Greece were arbitrarily represented as having emerged successively in the course of history. Quite naturally, therefore, this philosophical hypothesis, in common with the corresponding legend of the original family, presupposes primitive man to have possessed the same characteristics as the man of to-day. Thus, it gives no answer at all to the question concerning the nature of this primitive man.
When, therefore, modern anthropology made the first attempt to answer this question on the basis of empirical facts, it was but natural to assume that the characteristics of original man were not to be learned from a study of existing peoples, nor, indeed, from history, but that the data for the solution of the problem were of a prehistoric nature, to be found particularly in those human remains and those products of man's activity that have been preserved in the strata of the earth's crust. What we no longer find on the earth, so it was held, we must seek under the earth. And thus, about six decades ago, prehistoric anthropology began to gather material, and this has gradually grown to a considerable bulk. Upon the completion of this task, however, it appeared, as might, of course, have been expected, that psychology could gain but little in this way. The only source from which it might derive information lay in the exhumed objects of art. Then, however, the very disappointing discovery was made that, as regards implements of stone, drawings on the walls of caves which he inhabited, and pictures cut into horn or bone, the artistic achievements of the man of diluvial times did not differ essentially from those of the present-day savage. In so far as physical characteristics are concerned, however, the discovered remains of bones seemed to point to certain differences. While these differences, of course, were incapable of establishing any direct psychological conclusions, the fact that the measurements of the skeletal parts more closely resembled those of animals, and, in particular, that the measurements of the interior of the skull were smaller than those of the savages of our own time, offered indirect evidence of a lower development. Because of the close relation of cranial capacity to size of brain, moreover, a lower degree of intelligence was also indicated. Nevertheless, the remains that have been brought to light have not as yet led to any indubitable conclusions. There have been fairly numerous discoveries pointing to races that resemble the lower tribes among contemporary peoples, and but a few cases in which uncertainty is possible, and concerning which, therefore, there exists a conflict of opinions. A typical instance is the history of one of the first discoveries made in Europe of the remains of a prehistoric man. It was in 1856, in German territory, that there was discovered, in a grotto or cave in the Neander valley, near Duesseldorf, a very remarkable skull, though only, of course, the bones of the cranium and not the facial bones. All were at once agreed that these were the remains of a very primitive man. This was indicated particularly by characteristics which are still to be found, though scarcely in so pronounced a form, among certain lower races of men. Of special significance were the strongly developed, prominent bone-elevations above the eye-sockets. Some of the investigators believed that the long-sought 'homo primigenius' had perhaps at last been discovered. It was generally agreed that the form of the skull resembled most closely that of the modern Australian. In more recent years, however, anthropologists have developed somewhat more exact methods of measurement and of the reconstruction of a skeleton from parts only incompletely given. When Hermann Klaatsch, equipped with this knowledge, carried out such a reconstruction of the Neanderthal skull, he came upon the surprising fact that its capacity was somewhat greater than that of the present-day Australian. Little as this tells us concerning the actual intelligence of these primitive men, it nevertheless clearly indicates how uncertain the conclusions of prehistoric anthropology still are. A number of other recent discoveries in Germany, France, and elsewhere, have proved that several prehistoric races of men once lived in Europe. Some of these, no doubt, date back far beyond the last glacial period, and perhaps even beyond the period preceding this, for we now know that several glacial periods here succeeded one another. Nevertheless, no important divergencies from still existent races of men have been found. This, of course, does not imply that no differences exist; it means merely that none has as yet been positively detected, and that therefore the anatomy of prehistoric man can give us no information concerning the psychological aspect of the question regarding the nature of primitive man.
Considerably more light is thrown on this question when we examine the products of human activity, such as implements, weapons, and works of art. Traces of man, in the form of objects hammered out of flint and shaped into clubs, chisels, knives, and daggers, capable of serving as implements of daily use no less than as weapons, are to be found as far back as the first diluvian epoch, and, in their crudest forms, perhaps even as early as the tertiary period. The more polished objects of similar form belong to a later age. Still more remarkable are the works of art—in particular, the cave pictures of prehistoric animals, such as the cave bear and the mammoth. Nevertheless, none of these achievements is of such a nature as to afford positive evidence of a culture essentially different from, or lower than, that of the primitive man of to-day. Two outstanding facts, especially, make a comparison difficult. On the one hand, wood plays an important rôle in the life of modern primitive man, being used for the construction of tools, weapons, and, in part, also of baskets and vessels. But the utensils of wood that may have existed in prehistoric times could not have withstood the destructive forces of decomposition and decay. All such utensils, therefore, that prehistoric man may have possessed have been lost. Thus, for example, it will be difficult ever to ascertain whether or not he was familiar with the bow and arrow, since the arrow, as well as the bow, was originally made of wood. Secondly, there is at the present time no primitive tribe, however much shut off from its more remote environment, into which barter, which is nowhere entirely absent, may not introduce some objects representing a higher form of civilization, particularly metals and metal implements. If, however, we bear in mind that, in the one case, products have suffered destruction and that, in the other, articles have been introduced from without, the impression made by prehistoric utensils and products of art—aside from certain doubtful remains dating back beyond the diluvial epoch—is not essentially different from that made by the analogous products of the Negritos of the Philippines or the inland tribes of Ceylon. Though the material of which the implements are constructed differs, the knives, hammers, and axes in both instances possess the usual form. Thus, the wooden knife which the Veddah of Ceylon still carves out of bamboo is formed precisely like some of the stone knives of the diluvial period. We find a similar correspondence when we examine the traces of dwellings and decorations that have been preserved, as well as certain remains that throw light upon customs. The oldest prehistoric people of Europe dwelt in caves, just as the primitive man of the tropics does to-day in the rainy season. In a rock cavern near Le Moustier, in France, there was discovered a skeleton whose crouching position points to a mode of burial still prevalent among primitive peoples, and one which is doubtless always a fairly positive indication of a belief in demons such as arises in connection with the impression made by death. The dead person is bound in the position that will best prevent his return. Thus, all these prehistoric remains suggest a culture similar to that of primitive tribes of to-day. But, just because they reveal conditions not essentially different from those of the present, these remains make another important contribution to our knowledge of primitive man. They indicate the great stability of primitive culture in general, and render it probable that, unless there are special conditions making for change, such as migrations and racial fusions, the stability increases in proportion to the antiquity. Though this may at first glance seem surprising, it becomes intelligible when we consider that isolation from his surroundings is an important characteristic of primitive man. Having very little contact with other peoples, he is in no wise impelled to change the modes of action to which his environment has led him from immemorial times.
Thus, the correspondence of the prehistoric with that which is to-day primitive indicates a high degree of permanence on the part of primitive culture. But, even apart from this consideration, it is apparent that we must really seek primitive man in the inhabited world of the present, since it is here alone that we can gain a relatively accurate knowledge of his characteristics. Our information concerning primitive man, therefore, must be derived from ethnology. We must not seek him under the earth, but on the earth. Just where, however, is he to be found? For decades the natives of Australia were believed to represent a perfect example of primitive culture. And, as a matter of fact, their material culture and some of their mythological ideas still seem to be of a very primitive character. Because of the conjecture that it was here dealing with a relatively primitive type of man, modern anthropology has for two decades applied itself with great partiality to the study of Australian tribes. English and German investigators have given us many works, some of them excellent, treating of the continent of Australia, which appears almost as unique with respect to its population as in its flora and its fauna. From these investigations, however, which are reported particularly in the volume by Howitt published in 1900, in the works of Spencer and Gillen, and, finally, in those of Strehlow, a German missionary, it is apparent that the Australian culture is anything but primitive: it represents, rather, a stage of development already somewhat advanced. In certain respects, indeed, it may contain very primitive elements, such as are not to be found even among tribes that are, on the whole, on a lower level. Australian culture, however, possesses an enormously complex social organization, and this places it above that which may be called primitive. In its present form, it presupposes a development of probably thousands of years. Assuredly, therefore, the Australian should not be included in a chapter on primitive man. He will rather claim our attention in the next chapter, as a well-defined type of the totemic age. Indeed, he is beginning, in part, to lose even the characteristics of this age, mainly, no doubt as a result of racial fusion, whose influence is here also in evidence.
Although the races of Australia are unquestionably not primitive, as was formerly believed and is still held in certain quarters, there are other parts of the earth which, in all probability, really harbour men who are primitive in that relative sense of the term which alone, of course, we are justified in using. If one were to connect the discovery of this primitive man with any single name, the honour would belong to a German traveller and investigator, George Schweinfurth. He was the first to discover a really primitive tribe—that is, one which remained practically untouched by external cultural influences. When Schweinfurth, sailing up the Upper Nile in 1870, listened to the narratives of the Nubian sailors in charge of his boat, he repeatedly heard accounts of a nation of dwarfs, of people two feet tall (so the exaggerated reports went), living in the impenetrable forests beyond the great lakes which constitute the source of the Nile. Schweinfurth was at once reminded of the old legends regarding pygmies. Such legends are mentioned even by Homer and are introduced also into the writings of Herodotus and of Aristotle. Aristotle, indeed, expressly says that these dwarf peoples of Central Africa exist in reality, and not merely in tales. When Schweinfurth arrived in the country of the Monbuttus, he was actually fortunate enough to gain sight of these pygmies. It is true, they did not exactly correspond to the fantastic descriptions of the sailors—descriptions such as are current here and there even to-day. The sailors represented the pygmies as having long beards, reaching to the earth, and gigantic heads; in short, they imputed to them the characteristics of the dwarf gnome, who appears also in German folk-lore. In reality, it was found that the pygmies are, indeed, small—far below the average normal size of man—but that they are of excellent proportions, have small heads, and almost beardless faces.
Subsequent to Schweinfurth's discovery, similar tribes were found in various parts of the earth. Emin Pasha, together with his companion Stuhlmann, had the good fortune to be able to observe the pygmies of the Congo more closely even than had been possible for Schweinfurth. In the Negritos of the Philippines a similar dwarf people was discovered. They also are of small stature, and, according to their own belief and that of the neighbouring Malays, are the original inhabitants of their forests. Besides these, there are the inland tribes of the Malay Peninsula, the Semangs and Senoi, and, finally, the Veddahs of Ceylon, studied particularly by the cousins Paul and Fritz Sarasin. All of the peoples just mentioned live in forests and have probably been isolated from civilization for thousands of years. The Bushmen of South Africa, of whom we have long known, also belong to this group, although they have not to the same extent been free from the influence of surrounding peoples. In all these cases we have to do with tribes which at one time probably occupied wider territories, but which have now been crowded back into the forest or wilderness. In addition to these tribes, furthermore, there are remnants of peoples in Hindustan, in Celebes, Sumatra, the Sunda Islands, etc. Concerning these, however, we as yet have little knowledge. In some respects, doubtless, the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands should also be here included, although they cannot, on the whole, be regarded as primitive in the strict sense of the word. This is precluded by their external culture, and especially by their legends, the latter of which point to the influence of Asiatic culture.
Observations of these relatively most primitive tribes—and this is especially worth noting—-show them to be remarkably similar. If we read a description of the characteristics, habits, and customs of the Negritos of the Philippines and then pass on to the Malaccans, to the Semangs and Senoi, or, further, to the Veddahs of Ceylon, we constantly meet with almost the same phenomena, there being but slight differences depending on the specific character of the natural environment. We are thus in possession of data that are now observable. The statements and conclusions which these enable us to make are more than mere speculations with regard to the past; and they are more than inferences drawn from the silent fragments of the bones and from a few of the art products of primitive man. According as the phenomena are simpler in character and require fewer antecedent conditions for their explanation, may we be confident that we are really dealing with primitive conditions. This in itself implies that the criteria of primitive culture are essentially psychological in nature, and that racial characteristics and original tribal relationships are probably negligible so far as this question is concerned. A culture would be absolutely primitive if no antecedent mental development whatsoever could be presupposed. Such an absolute concept can never be realized in experience, here any more than elsewhere. We shall, therefore, call that man primitive in the relative sense of the term—our only remaining alternative—whose culture approximates most nearly to the lowest mental achievements conceivable within the limits of universal human characteristics. The most convenient measure of these achievements, and the one lying nearest at hand, is that afforded by external culture, as expressed in dress, habitation, and food, in self-made implements, weapons, and other productions serving to satisfy the most urgent needs of life.
[2. THE CULTURE OF PRIMITIVE MAN IN ITS EXTERNAL EXPRESSIONS.]
Following the above-mentioned criteria as to what may be regarded as primitive, the question concerning the external culture of primitive man may, in general, be briefly answered. Of dress there are only meagre beginnings: about the loins a cord of bast, to which twigs of trees are attached to cover the genitals—that is generally all, unless, through secret barter with neighbouring peoples, cotton goods, leather, and the like, have been imported. As regards personal decoration, conditions are much the same. On the next stage of development, the totemic, there is, as we shall later see, a desire for lavish decoration, especially as regards the adornment of the body by painting and tatooing. Little of this, however, is to be found among primitive tribes, and that which exists has probably been introduced from without. Some examples of such decoration are the scanty tatooing in single lines, the painting of the face with several red and white dots, and the wooden plug bored through the bridge of the nose. The Negritos of the Philippines bore holes through their lips for the insertion of a row of blades of grass. Other decorations found are necklaces and bracelets, fillets, combs, hair ornaments made of twigs and flowers, and the like.
What is true of his dress holds also of the dwelling of primitive man. Everything indicates that the first permanent dwelling was the cave. Natural caves in the hillsides, or, less frequently, artificially constructed hollows in the sand, are the places of refuge that primitive man seeks when the rainy season of the tropics drives him to shelter. During the dry season, no shelter at all is necessary; he makes his bed under a tree, or climbs the tree to gain protection from wild animals. Only in the open country, under the compulsion of wind and rain, does he construct a wind-break of branches and leaves after the pattern supplied by nature in the leafy shelter of the forest. When the supports of this screen are inclined toward one another and set up in a circle, the result is the original hut.
Closely connected with the real dwelling of primitive man, the cave, are two further phenomena that date back to earliest culture. As his constant companion, primitive man has a single animal, the dog, doubtless the earliest of domestic animals. Of all domestic animals this is the one that has remained most faithful to man down to the present time. The inhabitant of the modern city still keeps a dog if he owns any domestic animal at all, and as early as primitive times the dog was man's faithful companion. The origin of this first domestic animal remains obscure. The popular notion would seem to be that man felt the need of such a companion, and therefore domesticated the dog. But if one calls to mind the dogs that run wild in the streets of Constantinople, or the dog's nearest relative, the wolf, one can scarcely believe that men ever had a strong desire to make friends of these animals. According to another widely current view, it was man's need of the dog as a helper in the chase that led to its domestication. But this also is one of those rationalistic hypotheses based on the presupposition that man always acts in accordance with a preconceived plan, and thus knew in advance that the dog would prove a superior domestic animal, and one especially adapted to assist in the chase. Since the dog possessed these characteristics only after its domestication, they could not have been known until this had occurred, and the hypothesis is clearly untenable. How, then, did the dog and man come together in the earliest beginnings of society? The answer to this question, I believe, is to be found in the cave, the original place of shelter from rain and storm. Not only was the cave a refuge for man, but it was equally so for animals, and especially for the dog. Thus it brought its dwellers into companionship. Furthermore, the kindling of the fire, once man had learned the art, may have attracted the animal to its warmth. After the dog had thus become the companion of man, it accompanied him in his activities, including that of the chase. Here, of course, the nature of the carnivorous animal asserted itself; as man hunted, so also did the animal. The dog's training, therefore, did not at all consist in being taught to chase the game. It did this of itself, as may be observed in the case of dogs that are not specifically hunting dogs. The training consisted rather in breaking the dog of the habit of devouring the captured game. This was accomplished only through a consciously directed effort on the part of man, an effort to which he was driven by his own needs. Thus, it is the cave that accounts for the origin of the first domestic animal, and also, probably, for the first attempt at training an animal. But there is still another gain for the beginnings of culture that may probably be attributed to the cave in its capacity of a permanent habitation. Among primitive peoples, some of whom are already advanced beyond the level here in question, it is especially in caves that artistic productions may be found. These consist of crude drawings of animals and, less frequently, of men. Among the Bushmen, such cave pictures are frequently preserved from destruction for a considerable period of time. Natural man, roaming at will through the forests, has neither time nor opportunity to exercise his imagination except upon relatively small objects or upon the adornment of his own body. But the semi-darkness of the cave tends, as do few other places, to stimulate the reproductive imagination. Undisturbed by external influences, and with brightnesses and colours enhanced by the darkness, the memory images of things seen in the open, particularly those of the animals of the primeval forest, rise to consciousness and impel the lonely and unoccupied inhabitant to project them upon the wall. Such activity is favoured by the fact, verifiable by personal introspection, that memory images are much more vivid in darkness and semi-darkness than in the light of day. Thus, it was in the cave, the first dwelling-place of man, that the transition was made, perhaps for the first time, from the beginnings of a graphic art, serving the purposes of adornment or magic, to an art unfettered except by memory. It was an art of memory in a twofold sense: it patterned its objects after the memory of things actually observed, and it sought to preserve to memory that which it created.
From the consideration of dress and habitation we turn to that of food. Primitive man was not bound to fixed hours for his meals. Among civilized peoples, so close a connection has grown up between meals and definite hours of the day that the German word for meal, Mahlzeit, reminds us of this regularity by twice repeating the word for time—-for Mahl also means time. Primitive man knew nothing of the sort. If he found food and was hungry, he ate; if he found none, he went hungry. Sometimes, moreover, in order to provide for the future, he gorged to such an extent as to injure his health. As concerns the food itself, there is an old theory which has led to misconceptions concerning primitive man. He was a hunter, we are told; the chase supplied him with food; only incidentally and occasionally did he enjoy parts of plants or fruits that he had gathered or accidentally discovered. It is scarcely correct, however, to assume that systematic hunting was practised by primitive man. Doubtless he did engage in this occupation. Yet this furnished him with only an incidental part of his food supply—apart with which, living as he did from hand to mouth, he satisfied only his momentary needs. It was with plant food, if at all, that he made provision for the future. Here may be found also the first traces of a division of labour: woman gathered the plant food—roots, bulbs, and berries—while man occasionally found it necessary to hunt. Plant food being capable of longer preservation, it was woman who first learned to economize and to make provision for the future. In part, indeed, the influence of these cultural beginnings persists even to-day. Moreover, just as mixed food, part plant and part animal, is by far the most common to-day, so also was it the original diet of man. The proportion, however, varied more than in later times, according as the external conditions of life were propitious or otherwise. Of this the Bushmen afford a striking illustration. Fifty years ago they were still by preference huntsmen. Armed with their bows, they dared to hunt the elephant and the giraffe. But after the surrounding peoples of South Africa—the Hottentots, Betschuans, and Herero—came into the possession of firearms, which the Bushman scornfully rejects, the game was, in part, exterminated, and to-day the Bushmen, crowded back into rocky wastes, derive but a small part of their living from the chase. They gather bulbs, roots, and other parts of plants, such as can be rendered edible by boiling or roasting. Their animal food, moreover, is no longer wild game, but consists, for the most part, of small animals found while gathering the plant food—frogs, lizards, worms, and even insects. Hunting, therefore, was never more than one of the customary means of providing food; and primitive man, especially, was a gatherer rather than a hunter. The word 'gatherer' implies also that he took from nature only what it directly offered, and that he was familiar neither with agriculture nor with the raising of animals. In procuring his food, moreover, he was aided by a knowledge, often surprising, of the properties of the objects gathered. This knowledge, probably gained as a result of many disastrous experiences in his search for food, enabled primitive man to utilize even such roots and fruits as are not wholesome in their raw state, either because they are not edible until prepared by means of fire, or because they are poisonous. Primitive man learned to overcome the injurious effects of many of these plants. By reducing them to small pieces, washing them in a solution of lye, and heating them, he converted them into palatable food. The bulbs and roots were secured from beneath the surface of the ground by means of the most primitive of all agricultural implements and the progenitor of all succeeding ones, the digging-stick. This is a wooden stick, with a pointed end that has been hardened by fire.
Connected with the removal of poison, by means of water and fire, from parts of plants that are otherwise edible, is still another primitive discovery—the utilization of the poisons themselves. Only when the arrow is smeared with plant poisons does the bow become a real weapon. In itself the arrow wound is not sufficient to kill either game or enemy; the arrow must be poisoned if the wound is to cause death or even temporary disability. The Veddahs and the inland tribes of Malacca therefore use the juice of the upas-tree mixed with that of strychnos-trees. The best known of these arrow poisons, curare, used in South America and especially in Guiana, is likewise prepared from the juice of strychnos-trees.
This brings us to the weapons of primitive man. In this connection it is highly important to note that all of the primitive peoples mentioned above are familiar with the use of bow and arrow, but we must also bear in mind that this is practically their only weapon. Contrary to what archæological excavations would suggest concerning the earliest age of peoples, primitive culture, in respect to implements and weapons, depended only to a small extent upon the working of stone. We might better speak of this period as an age of wood. Wood is not only decidedly easier to manipulate than stone, but it is always more easily obtainable in shapes suitable for constructive purposes. Possibly even the arrow-head was originally always made of wood, as it sometimes is even to-day. Only in later times was the wood replaced by a sharpened stone or by iron acquired through barter.
It is not difficult to see how wood, in the forms which it possesses by nature, came to be fashioned into clubs, axes, and digging-sticks, and how bones, horns, shells, and the like were converted into tools and objects of adornment. But how did primitive man acquire bow and arrow? The general belief seems to be that this weapon was invented by some resourceful mind of an early age. But an inventor, in the proper sense of the word, must know in advance what he wishes to invent. The man, therefore, who constructed the bow and arrow for the first time must already have had some previous idea of it. To effect a combination of existing implements, or to improve them in useful ways, is a comparatively easy matter. But no one can manufacture implements if he possesses nothing over and above material that is in itself somehow suitable for the purpose. The most primitive implements, therefore, such as the digging-stick, the club, and the hammer, are all products of nature, at most changed slightly by man as their use requires. But this is obviously not true of bow and arrow. We may, perhaps, find a suggestion for the solution of our problem in a hunting weapon which, though belonging, of course, to the later totemic culture, is in principle simpler than the bow and arrow—the boomerang of the Australians. The word is probably familiar to all, but the nature of the weapon is not so well known, especially its peculiarly characteristic form by virtue of which, if it fails to strike its object, it flies back to the one who hurled it. The boomerang, which possesses this useful characteristic, is, in the first place, a bent wooden missile, pointed at both ends. That this curved form has a greater range and strikes truer to aim than a straight spear, the Australian, of course, first learned from experience. The boomerang, however, will not return if it is very symmetrically constructed; on the contrary, it then falls to the ground, where it remains. Now it appears that the two halves of this missile are asymmetrical. One of the halves is twisted spirally, so that the weapon, if thrown forward obliquely, will, in accordance with the laws of ballistics, describe a curve that returns upon itself. This asymmetry, likewise, was discovered accidentally. In this case, the discovery was all the more likely, for primitive weapons were never fashioned with exactitude. That this asymmetry serves a useful purpose, therefore, was first revealed by experience. As a result, however, primitive man began to copy as faithfully as possible those implements which most perfectly exhibited this characteristic. Thus, this missile is not a weapon that required exceptional inventive ability, though, of course, it demanded certain powers of observation. The characteristics, accordingly, that insured the survival of the boomerang were discovered accidentally and then fixed through an attentive regard to those qualities that had once been found advantageous. Now, can we conceive of the origin of bow and arrow in an analogous way? Surely this weapon also was not devised in all its parts at a single time. The man of nature, pressing his way through the dense underbrush of the forest and experiencing in person the hard blows of branches that he has bent back, gains a lively impression of the elastic power of bent wood. How easily the attention is forced to the observation that this effect increases when the wood is bent out of its natural shape, appears strikingly in the case of a kind of bow found in Asia and the Asiatic islands. The bow is here constructed out of a piece of wood bent by nature, not in such a way, however, that the natural curve of the wood forms the curve of the bow, but contrariwise. Thus arises a reflexive bow, whose elastic power is, of course, considerably increased. In order that such a bow may be bent back more easily, some people of a more advanced culture construct it out of several layers of wood, horn, sinew, or the like. Having first observed the powerful impulsive force which a rod gains through being bent, it was a simple matter to render this force permanently available by bending the rod back and binding its ends together with a cord of bast, or, if bamboo was used, with strips torn from the bamboo itself. Thus originated the common form of the bow. Next, it was, of course, easy to observe that the bowstring thus contrived would communicate a powerful impetus to a lighter piece of wood placed against it. In addition to the bow, we then have the arrow, which is hurled into the distance by the combined propelling power of the bow and its string. But at this point a new factor appeared, clearly indicating that several motives generally co-operated in the case of such so-called primitive inventions. In these inventions nature itself played no less a part than did the inventive genius of the individual. The arrow but rarely consists merely of a piece of wood one of whose ends is somehow pointed or provided with a stone head, or, at a later period, with an iron head. As is well known, the other end is feathered, either with genuine bird feathers or, as in the case of the pygmies of Central Africa, with an imitation of bird feathers made of palm-leaves. The feathers are usually supposed to have been added to insure the accurate flight of the arrow. And this accuracy is, indeed, the resultant effect. As in the case of the boomerang, however, we must again raise the question: How did man come to foresee this effect, of whose mechanical conditions he had, of course, not the slightest knowledge? The solution of this problem probably lies in the fact of an association of the discharged arrow with a flying bird that pierces the air by the movement of its feathers. Thus, in the arrow, man copied the mode of movement of the bird. He certainly did not copy it, however, with the thought that he was causing movement in a mechanical way. We must bear in mind that for primitive man the image of a thing is in reality always equivalent to the thing itself. Just as he believes that his spirit resides in his picture, with the result that he is frequently seized with fright when a painter draws his likeness and carries it away with him, so also does the feathered arrow become for him a bird. In his opinion, the qualities of the bird are transferred by force of magic to the arrow. In this case, indeed, the magical motive is in harmony with the mechanical effect.
Nature directly supplies primitive man not only with the patterns of his implements and weapons, but also with those of the vessels which he uses. Of the primitive tribes none is familiar, at the outset, with pottery. In its stead, suitable natural objects are utilized for storing what is gathered. The Negritos of the Philippines, for example, employ coconut shells. The inland tribes of the Malay Peninsula use bamboo, whose varying thicknesses, and, particularly, whose internodes enable it to be converted into the desired vessels by cutting the stem at the upper end of an internode and immediately below it, thus securing a vessel with a bottom. Wherever primitive peoples cut vessels out of wood, as occurs among the Veddahs and the Bushmen, we may be sure that this represents a comparatively late acquirement, following upon a knowledge of metals and the use of stone implements. Primitive man possesses no vessels for cooking purposes. He prepares his food directly in the fire or in hot ashes.
We are now confronted by a final and an especially interesting question of primitive culture, that of the acquisition of fire. This acquisition made a deep impression on the human mind, and one whose effects long survived in legend. The totemic age, as we shall see, is replete with legends of beneficent animals which brought fire to man. In the heroic age, the fire-bringing animal is displaced by the fire-bringing hero. We may call to mind Prometheus, who brought fire from heaven, and by so doing drew upon himself the vengeance of the gods. Nevertheless, the question concerning the original production of fire is a very simple one. As in the case of very many utensils and tools, we must look to natural conditions that present themselves in the course of experience. Man did not invent the art of kindling fire; it would be nearer the truth to say that he found it, inasmuch as he discovered it while making his utensils. In this connection, particularly, it is highly important to note that the first age, if we would designate it by its tools, was not an age of stone but an age of wood. We have already referred to the way in which bamboo was worked up into vessels for the storing of fruits and liquids. With a sharp sliver of bamboo, a bamboo-stem is sawed into pieces in order that its parts may be utilized. If this sawing occurs during dry weather, the wood is pulverized and the heated sawdust finally becomes ignited. As soon as it begins to glow, the worker blows upon it and the fire flames up. This mode of kindling fire has been called that of sawing, and is probably the oldest in origin. After fire was thus accidentally produced, it became possible to kindle it at will, and this developed into a skilful art. At a later stage, however, there came the further need of drilling holes into wood. This gave rise to a second method of kindling fire, that of drilling. A piece of wood is bored through with a sharpened stick of hard wood, and the same results occur as in the case of the sawing. The method of drilling is the more effective; it produces fire more quickly. Nevertheless, both methods are laborious and tedious, and we cannot blame the savage for regarding as a magician the European who before his very eyes lights a match by friction. Because of the difficulty in producing fire, its preservation plays an important rôle in the life of the savage. When he changes his dwelling-place, his first consideration, as a rule, is to take with him some live fire so that he will not be obliged to kindle it anew.
In conclusion, we may supplement these sketches of external culture by mention of a feature that is particularly characteristic of the relation of primitive man to his environment. Primitive man lives in close association with his fellow-tribesmen, but he secludes himself from other tribes of the neighbourhood. He is led to do so because they threaten his means of subsistence; indeed, he himself may fall a prey to them, as do the Pygmies of Central Africa to the anthropophagic customs of the Monbuttus. And yet, primitive man early feels the need of such useful articles as he cannot himself produce but with which he has, in some accidental manner, become acquainted. This gives rise to what is generally called 'secret barter.' An illuminating example of this occurs in the records of the Sarasin cousins as relating to the Veddahs. The Veddah goes by night to the house of a neighbouring Singhalese smith and there deposits what he has to offer in barter, such as captured game, ivory, etc. With this he places a representation of an arrow-head, made of palm-leaves. The next night he returns and finds real arrows of iron which the smith has laid out in exchange for the proffered goods. It might be thought that such a system of barter would imply an excessive measure of confidence. The smith, however, knows that, should he take away that which was brought to him without delivering the arrows, he would himself be struck by an arrow shot from some sheltered ambush. Thus, many things, especially iron, materials for clothing, and articles of adornment, come into the possession of primitive man through secret barter, raising his external culture to a somewhat higher level.
A retrospective survey of this culture brings to notice especially the fact that the concept 'primitive' is never valid, as applied to man, except in a relative sense. Of an absolutely primitive man we know nothing at all. Moreover, the knowledge of such a being could hardly render explicable his further development, since he would really belong to the animal level and therefore to the prehuman stage of existence. Primitive man is relatively primitive, for, while he does possess certain beginnings of culture, these are in no respect more than mere beginnings, all of which are borrowed from nature and from the direct means of assistance which it offers. It is precisely these elementary acquisitions, however, that already differentiate primitive man from the animal. He has the beginnings of a dwelling and of dress, even though he does no more in either case than merely to utilize the means which nature offers, or than partly to imitate and partly to combine these means, as he does in the case of the leafy wind-break and of the weapons which doubtless represent the highest achievement of this age—namely, the bow and arrow. But these are all beginnings which already contain within themselves the possibilities of higher achievements. The development of the hut out of the wind-break, of the lance out of the staff and the arrow, of the woven basket out of the coconut or the gourd, severally represent easy steps in the advance from nature to culture. Next there comes the preparation of food by means of fire. This is closely connected with the discovery of the art of kindling fire, which, in its turn, was partly an accidental discovery connected with the manufacture of primitive tools out of wood and partly a real invention. Thus, the manufacture of tools, on the one hand, and the kindling of fire, which was connected with it, on the other, are the two primary features which from early times on distinguished primitive man from animals. Furthermore, there is the bow and arrow, which is the first real weapon and differs markedly from all other implements. Its construction also was dependent upon the assistance of nature. The fact that this was the only weapon of primitive society throws an important light on the nature of the latter. The bow and arrow continued to be used for a long time afterwards—indeed, even down to the appearance of firearms; it served not only as a weapon of warfare but also as an implement for hunting. With it alone, however, no organized strife or warfare of any sort is possible. While, therefore, it is true that the archer appears on the earliest monuments of cultural peoples, it is only as the fellow-combatant of the warrior who is armed with shield and lance. With lance and shield it is possible to fight in closed ranks. The archer must fight single-handed. Primitive man, therefore, does not engage in tribal wars; he is familiar only with the strife of individual with individual. In fact, wherever the bow and arrow is used exclusively, open warfare is impossible. With it, primitive man slays his enemy from behind a sheltering bush. It is thus that the Veddah of nature serves the cultural Veddah, or the Singhalese who has deceived him in secret barter, or even the fellow-tribesman who steals his wife. Just as secret barter is carried on in concealment, so also is warfare. This, however, indicates that the bow and arrow was originally intended for hunting and not for warfare. From this consideration alone it is evident that primitive life was not a war of all against all, as it was described by Thomas Hobbes. On the contrary, there doubtless existed a state of peace, interrupted only occasionally by the strife of individual with individual—a strife that resulted from a conflict of interests, such as occurred even during this early period.
[3. THE ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY.]
That the origin of marriage and the family really constitutes a problem, long failed to be recognized. Because of the natural relations of the sexes it was supposed that man lived in a state of marriage from the very beginning. Furthermore, the monogamous marriage of the present was projected back into an indefinite past, where it found final termination in the idea of a primal pair of ancestors. But, even apart from this mythological belief, there were also positive grounds for supposing an original state of monogamy. Do not many animals live in monogamous union? In addition to nest-building birds, monogamy prevails particularly among mammals, and, of the latter, among those that have the closest physical relationship to man. We might cite the gorilla, the primate that most resembles man, and probably also the chimpanzee, although in this case we lack positive proof. Why, then, should not man have carried over monogamous marriage from his animal state into his primitive culture? This theory, therefore, was regarded as almost self-evident until after the middle of the last century. But in 1861, a Swiss jurist and antiquarian, J. Bachofen, published a remarkable work on "Mother-right." In this book Bachofen attempted to prove the falsity of the doctrine—previously almost uncontested—that monogamy was the original form of marriage, and to refute the view, regarded as equally self-evident, that within this marriage union man held the supremacy—in brief, the patriarchal theory. Bachofen started with a discussion of the Lycians as described by Herodotus. According to this writer, the kinship of the children, among the Lycians, was determined by the mother, not by the father. The sons and daughters belonged to the family of the mother, and descent was traced through her instead of through the father. Bachofen found similar indications among other peoples also. He called attention, for example, to Tacitus's reports in the Germania of some of the German tribes in which a son stands closer to the brother of his mother than he does to his father. Similar statements occur in Cæsar's Bellum Gallicum concerning the Britons. Bachofen collected other examples of the same nature, and also especially emphasized certain elements in myth and legend that seemed to indicate a like ascendancy of woman in early times. In his opinion, legend is esteemed too lightly if, as occurred in his day, it is regarded as entirely meaningless. Of course, legend is not history; yet it gives a picture, even though in fanciful terms, of the real conditions of earlier times. On the basis of these detached observations, Bachofen at once constructed a general theory. Preceding the patriarchal period of paternal rule, there was maternal rule, gynecocracy. In earliest times the mother was the head of the family. In romantic colours Bachofen pictures the era in which the fair sex guided the destinies of humanity. Later, man, with his rougher nature but greater intelligence, displaced her and seized the dominion for himself. Bachofen then asks, How did it come about that, in spite of this natural superiority of man, woman ruled the family earlier than he? To this he gives an extremely prosaic and realistic reply, contrasting sharply with his romantic ideas in connection with the dominance of woman. We must find a clue, he believes, in those cases of our own day in which mothers still determine the name, descent, etc., of their children. This happens when the children are born out of wedlock. Under such conditions, the child does not know its father, nor does, perhaps, even the mother. To understand the origin of maternal descent, therefore, we must suppose that children were universally born out of wedlock. Thus, prior to the ascendancy of woman, there existed a state of agamy, in which there was no marriage but only a promiscuous relation of the sexes. We thus have, as it were, a picture whose outlines are determined by contrast with the family of civilized peoples, and which reminds us of Hobbes's account of the earliest political relations, there being in both cases an entire absence of order. But it is precisely in this fact, Bachofen believes, that we have a clue to the origin of gynecocracy if only we bear in mind the actual characteristics of woman. Woman's nature is such that this universal promiscuity of the sexes must have become repulsive, first of all, to her. Turning away all other men, she accepted but a single one. In so doing, woman proved herself the champion of chastity and morals which she has since remained. To her, and not to man, is due the honour of having founded the monogamous family. At the outset she was also its natural preserver and guardian. The children were counted to her kin; her kin determined descent; and, in Bachofen's view, this condition, which arose out of causes of a universal nature, long prevailed throughout the world generally. But why was it not maintained? It was not possible, so runs the answer, because, though woman alone was psychically fitted to establish it—man could never have instituted monogamy—she was not equally fitted to render it permanent. Woman is not born to rule. In intelligence, as well as in physical strength, she is inferior to man. Altogether, therefore, there are three periods of development: agamy or promiscuity, followed by female supremacy or mother-right, and, finally, by the dominance of man, or father-right.
These hypotheses of Bachofen created much dispute in succeeding years. Some of the facts could not be denied from the standpoint of the antiquarian. Nevertheless, the supposition of the universality of an early mother-right was quite rightly questioned, and its origin out of the completely unrestrained condition of the horde was even more vigorously contested. And so the theory of the Swiss jurist, which was based essentially on philologic-antiquarian arguments, gradually fell into the background, until, in the seventies of the nineteenth century, it suddenly seemed to find important corroboration and a new basis from an entirely different quarter. It was ethnology that supplied the new facts, and these were again derived from a study of Australia, that field of ethnological observation which was generally regarded as more particularly exemplifying primitive culture. Bachofen believed to have demonstrated that maternal descent was originally a universal custom, even in the case of those who are now cultural peoples. Ethnology revealed the fact that this system of kinship is still very prevalent in Australia. Indeed, it is so prevalent that even to-day about three-fifths of the tribes trace descent through the mother and only two-fifths through the father. In some of the cases in which the system of paternal descent is now established, moreover, it is probable that the mother once determined the kinship of the children. It was on the basis of these facts that, in his volume on the natives of south-eastern Australia, Howitt, the most thorough investigator of the social conditions of the Australians, came to a conclusion similar to that previously reached by Bachofen on the basis of his antiquarian investigations. In Howitt's view, all family relations were originally based on the system of maternal descent. This system, though generally restricted to narrower bounds than in Australia, is likewise to be found in America, Melanesia, Polynesia, and in several parts of the Old World, especially among the peoples of northern Siberia and among the Dravidian tribes in the southern part of Hindustan. These facts have more and more led present-day ethnologists to a view that is in essential agreement with Bachofen's theory. Again the question was raised how such a system of maternal descent was possible. The answer was that it could be possible only if the mother, but not the father, was known to son and daughter—again an analogical conclusion from conditions prevailing in present-day society outside the marriage tie. Accordingly, the idea was again adopted that, anteceding marriage, there was an original state of promiscuity. It was believed that there was originally neither marriage nor family, but merely a condition in which there were sexual relations of all with all—a picture of the relations between man and woman suggested by the idea of an original state of natural rights and of freedom from political restraints, and forming, as it were, the counterpart of the latter.
But ethnology then discovered other phenomena also that seemed to favour this view. Two lines of argument, particularly, have here played an important rôle, and still retain a measure of influence. The first argument was again derived from the ethnology of Australia. This region possesses a remarkable institution, describable neither as monogamy nor as agamy, but appearing, at first glance, to be an intermediate form of association. This is the so-called group marriage; several men are united in common marriage with several women. Either a number of brothers marry a number of sisters, or a number of men belonging to one kinship group marry in common women of another. Group marriage, therefore, may seem to represent a sort of transitional stage between promiscuity and monogamy. At first, so we might picture it to ourselves, the union of all with all became restricted to more limited groups, and only later to the union of one man with one woman.
But had not a further argument been added, perhaps neither female descent alone nor group marriage would have attracted to this theory so many prominent ethnologists, including, besides Howitt, the two able investigators of Australia, Spencer and Gillen, the learned exponent of comparative ethnology, J. G. Frazer, and a number of others. This further argument was presented with particular thoroughness by the American ethnologist Lewes Morgan, in his history of primitive man, "Ancient Humanity" (1870). It is based upon what Morgan has termed the 'Malayan system of relationship.' We are not, of course, familiar with this as a system of actual relationship; it occurs only in the languages of certain peoples, as a system of names—in short, as a nomenclature—referring in part to relations of kinship, but chiefly to age-relations within one and the same kinship group. The name 'Malayan' is not entirely appropriate as applied to this system. The nomenclature is found particularly on the island of Hawaii, though it also occurs in Micronesian territory. Its essential characteristic may be very simply described. It consists, or consisted, in the fact that a native of Hawaii, for example, calls by the name of 'father,' not only his actual father but also every man of an age such that he could be his father—that is, every man in the kinship group of the next older generation. Similarly, he calls by the name 'mother,' not only his own mother but every woman who might possibly, as regards age, be his mother. He calls brother and sister the men and women of his own generation, son and daughter those of the next younger generation, and so on up to grandfather and grandmother, grandson and grand-daughter. The Hawaiian native does not concern himself about more distant generations; great-grandfather is for him the same as grandfather, and great-grandchild the same as grandchild. The terms, thus, are of the simplest sort. The brothers and sisters of a man, whom we designate in the accompanying diagram by M, are placed alongside of him in the same generation; above, as an older generation, are fathers and mothers; still
higher, are grandfathers and grandmothers; below, are sons and daughters and the grandsons and granddaughters. The same, of course, holds also for women. Thus, the system as a whole comprises five generations.
Now, it was maintained that this system could have arisen only out of a previous condition of general promiscuity. For, unless the actual father were universally unknown, how could it be possible that a person would call by the name of father every man within the same kinship group who might, as regards age, be his father? If, however, we propose this argument, we immediately strike a weak point in the hypothesis, since all women of the older generation are called mother just as its men are called father. We should certainly expect that the real mother would be known, because the child derives its nourishment from her during a period which is especially long among primitive peoples, and because it grows up close to her. And, furthermore, the hypothesis is hardly reconcilable with the fact that, for the most part, Malayo-Polynesian languages differentiate relations by marriage even more sharply than do our own. An Hawaiian man, for example, calls the brother of his wife by a different name than does a woman the brother of her husband. Thus, in place of our word 'brother-in-law' they have two expressions. In any event, the term 'brother-in-law' is applied to an individual, and therefore implies marriage. To meet this point, we would be obliged to fall back on the supposition that these terms represent later additions to the original nomenclature of relationship. But even then the fact would remain that, in their direct reference, these terms are merely names for differences in age. It therefore remains an open question whether the terms also designate relationship; to the extent of our observation, this is certainly not the case. The native of Hawaii, so far as we know anything about him, knew his father and mother: what he lacked was merely a specific name for them. Whenever he did not call his father by his given name, he evidently called him by the same name that he applied to the older men of his immediate group. Among European peoples also, the terms 'father' and 'mother' are sometimes used in connection with men and women outside this relationship. For example, the Russians, particularly, have a custom of addressing as 'little father' and 'little mother' persons who are not in the least related to them. That which makes it highly probable that in the so-called Malayan system of relationship we are dealing not with degrees of relationship but with age-periods, is, in the last event, a different phenomenon—one that has hitherto been overlooked in connection with these discussions. In the very regions whose languages employ this nomenclature, custom prescribes that the youths and men live in separation from the women and children from their earliest years on. This is the institution of the men's club with its age-groups. Its social rôle is an important one, crowding even the family association into the background. Under such circumstances, the individual is naturally interested first of all in his companions of the same age-group, for each of these usually occupies a separate apartment in the men's house. Thus, the so-called Malayan system of relationship is really not a system of relationship at all, but a nomenclature of age-groups based on social conditions. These conditions bring it about that companions of the same sex are more closely associated than are men and women. In the men's houses a companion of the same group is a brother, one of the next older group, a father. Together with these men the individual goes to war and to the hunt. Thus, these phenomena cannot be said to belong to the lowest stage of culture. Nor, obviously, does this terminology, which has reference to differences of age, exclude any particular form of marriage. In this case it is a mistake to associate the names 'father,' 'mother,' 'brother,' etc., with the concepts that we attach to these words.
The hypothesis that the family, whether of monogamous or of polygamous organization, was preceded by a state of unrestricted sexual intercourse, so-called agamy or promiscuity, is, however, as was remarked above, based not only on the fact of maternal descent and of the Malayo-Polynesian method of designating ages, but also on that of group-marriage. In this form of marriage, a number of men marry in common a number of women. This is interpreted as a transitional stage between an unrestricted sexual intercourse within the tribe and the limited marriage unions of later times. At first glance, indeed, this might appear probable. In order, however, to decide whether such a transition could take place, and how it might occur, we must first of all consider the relation which group-marriage sustains, among the peoples who practise it, to the other forms of marriage. It then appears at once that it is a particular form of polygamy. True, it is not identical with the form of polygamy most familiar to us, in which one man possesses several wives. But there is also a second form, which, though less frequent, is of greatest importance for an interpretation of group-marriage. One woman may have several husbands. The two forms of polygamy may conveniently be called polygyny and polyandry, and these terms should always be distinguished in any attempt at a precise account of polygamous marriage. Polygyny is very prevalent even in our day, occurring particularly in the Mohammedan world, but also among the heathen peoples of Africa, and in other regions as well. It was likewise practised by the ancient Israelites, and also by the Greeks, although the Indo-Germanic tribes for the most part adhered to monogamy from early times on. Polyandry is much less common, and is, indeed, to be found only among relatively primitive peoples. It occurs in Australia and, in the southern part of Hindustan, among the Dravidians, a tribe of people crowded back to the extreme end of the continent by peoples who migrated into India; it is found also far in the north among the Esquimos of Behring Strait and among the Tchuktchis and Ghilyaks of Siberia, and, finally, here and there in the South Sea Islands.
If, now, we wish to understand the relation of these two forms of polygamy to each other, we must first of all attempt to picture to ourselves the motives that underlie them, or, wherever the custom has become fixed through age, to bring to light the motives that were originally operative. In the case of polygamy, the immediate motive is evidently the sexual impulse of man which is more completely satisfied by the possession of several wives than by that of a single one. This motive, however, does not stand alone; as a rule other contributing circumstances are present. Two such important factors, in particular, are property rights and the power of authority. Polygyny flourishes particularly wherever the general conceptions of property and of authority, and, connected with the latter, that of the supremacy of man within the family, have attained undue importance. Under the co-operation of these motives, the wife becomes the absolute property of the husband, and may, therefore, wherever polygyny prevails among barbaric peoples, be given away or exchanged. Bound up with this, moreover, is the fact that, wherever there are considerable social differences, dependent on differences in property and rank, it is principally the wealthy or the aristocratic man who possesses many wives. In the realm of Islam, the common man is, as a rule, content with a single wife, so that monogamy here prevails in the lowest stratum of society.
With polyandry the case is essentially otherwise. In it, entirely different motives are operative; it might, indeed, be said that they are the exact opposite of those that bring about polygyny. It is particularly significant that polyandry is found in regions where there is a scarcity of women. This scarcity, however, is, in turn, generally due to an evil custom of barbaric culture, namely, infanticide. In Polynesia, where polyandry was very prevalent, this custom was at one time fairly rampant. Even to-day infanticide still appears to be practised by some of the Dravidian tribes of Hindustan. Similar conditions prevail among the Australians. In Polynesia, however, and probably in other localities as well, it was chiefly the female children who were the victims of infanticide. The natural result was a decrease in women and a striking numerical disproportion between the sexes. Thus, Ellis, one of the older English investigators of conditions in these territories, estimated the relation of men to women as about six to one. Under such circumstances the custom of polyandry is intelligible without further explanation. It was not possible for every one to possess a wife of his own, and so several men united to win one wife in common.
We might ask why it was chiefly girls who fell victims to this murder. That children in general should be sacrificed, under the rough conditions of nature, is not inexplicable. It is due to the struggle for the necessities of life and to the indolence that shrinks from the labour of raising children. The desire is to preserve the lives of only a limited number; the remainder are killed immediately after birth. In Polynesia, the murder was forbidden if the child had lived but a single hour. Occasionally, magical motives are operative, as in the case of the horror which the man of nature feels towards deviations from the normal and towards the birth of twins. That male children are more often spared than female, however, can scarcely be explained otherwise than on the ground that a particular value is placed on men. The man is a companion in sport and in the chase, and is regarded as more valuable for the further reason that he aids in tribal warfare. This higher value reverts back even to the child. It is evidenced also in the fact that, in the case of women, the arrival of adolescence is not celebrated with the same solemn ceremonies as are held in the case of young men. Whereas great celebrations are held when the youth reaches the age of manhood, little notice is taken, as a rule, of the maiden's entrance into womanhood. By means of these celebrations, the youths are received into the society of men, and, together with companions of their own age, are initiated into the traditional ceremonies. In these ceremonies women are not allowed to participate.
Though the causes of polyandry are thus entirely different from those of polygyny, it does not at all follow that these forms of marriage are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they may very well exist side by side, as, indeed, they actually do in many places. But how, then, is so-called group-marriage related to these two forms? It is obviously nothing but a combination of polyandry and polygyny. In fact, whenever a group of men marries a group of women, these two forms of polygamy are both involved. Every man has several wives, and every wife has several husbands. Only, indeed, on the basis of a purely external and superficial consideration could one look upon polygyny and polyandry as unconjoinable, because they are, in a certain sense, opposing ideas. As a matter of fact, they do not really exclude each other. If we bear in mind the causes mentioned above, it is obvious that under certain conditions of life, such as occur particularly in a more primitive environment, their combination is more probable than their mutual exclusion. If, especially among tribes who have not yet developed sharply defined distinctions based on property and power, as, for example, among the Australians, every man strives to obtain several wives (which is the state of polygyny), while, on the other hand, there actually exists a dearth of women (which means that motives to polyandry are present), the two forms naturally combine with each other. This is frequently verified, moreover, whenever we are able to gain any degree of insight into the particular conditions surrounding the origin of such group-marriages, and also whenever their forms undergo a modification of details. Among Australian tribes, for example, particularly in the southern part of the continent, there is a common form of group-marriage, in which a man possesses either one or several chief wives, together with secondary wives; the latter are the chief wives of other men, whereas his own chief wife is in turn the secondary wife of those men or of others. This custom is very similar to what is probably the most common form of polygyny, namely, the possession by a man of only one chief wife in addition to several secondary wives,—a form of marriage that is obviously derived from monogamy. One agency that is particularly apt to bring about such a form of marriage, transitional between monogamy and polygyny, is war. We know from the Iliad that in barbaric times woman was the booty of the conqueror, and became his slave or secondary wife. So also, according to the Biblical legend, Abraham possessed a chief wife, Sarah, who belonged to his own tribe, but also a secondary wife, Hagar, who was an Egyptian slave. Wherever the concept of property became prominent, the purchase of women proved to be a further source of polygyny. In this case also, there was generally one chief wife, wherever polyandry did not interfere. When the Mohammedan of modern times calls his chief wife 'favourite,' it is merely another indication that this form of polygyny developed from monogamy, since, according to the old custom, there was but one chief wife. Here, however, the chief wife is no longer necessarily the wife belonging to a man's own tribe, as was the case among the ancient Israelites; the favour of the master determines which wife shall be given the privileged place.
Thus, from whatever angle we view group-marriage, its polygyny and its polyandry seem to rest on monogamy. This is true also of forms of group-marriage other than those mentioned above. Where the theft of women still continues to be a practice more serious than are the somewhat playful survivals that occur in the marriage ceremonies of cultural peoples, the one who wishes to steal a wife not infrequently secures confederates for his undertaking. Custom then commonly gives these companions a certain right to the stolen woman. This right, of course, is for the most part temporary, but it may nevertheless come to approximate the conditions of group-marriage in case the first man assists his confederates in the same way in which they have aided him. There is still another and a related motive that may lead to the same result. When a woman enters into marriage with a man of a certain tribe, she at once enters into very close relations with the tribe itself. Where tribal association has gained a preponderant importance, custom sometimes grants to all the male members of the tribe certain transient rights with respect to the woman on the occasion of her marriage. This occurs particularly when the man and woman belong to different tribes—that is, in the case of exogamy, an institution characteristic of the totemic age and to be considered later. For, the lively consciousness of kinship differences naturally tends to strengthen the right of appropriation belonging to the entire tribe. A similar thought is reflected in the mediæval jus primæ noctis of certain provinces of France and Scotland, except that in place of the right of the kinship group to the possession of the individual we here find the authority of the lord over his vassals.
Thus, all these phenomena, belonging in part to the transitional stage between monogamy and polygamy and in part to a combination of the two forms of polygamy, namely, polygyny and polyandry, point to monogamy as the basal form of marriage, and that form from which, under the influence of particular conditions, all others have developed. Whether or not we regard it as probable that the system of maternal descent was at one time universal, no argument for the existence of an original promiscuity can be based upon it. If we call to mind the close association of the youths and men of the kinship group in the men's house, it will be apparent that such conditions of social intercourse make for a particularly intimate bond between mother and children. Before his entrance into the community of men, the boy lives in the company of the women. This close association between mother and children is sufficient to account for the origin of maternal descent. But, owing to the gradual change of cultural conditions, it is to be expected that maternal descent should pass over into paternal descent as soon as more positive conceptions of authority and property are formed. Moreover, the possibility also remains that among some tribes paternal descent prevailed from the very outset; positive proof is here not available. We cannot, of course, deny the possibility that under certain cultural conditions man exercised the decisive influence from the very beginning, as early, indeed, as one may speak of clan membership and hereditary succession. The most primitive stage of culture, as we shall see in the following discussion, lacks the conditions for either maternal or paternal descent, inasmuch as it possesses neither clearly defined clans nor any personal property worth mention.
Thus, the arguments based on the existing conditions of primitive peoples, and contending that the original condition of mankind was that of a horde in which both marriage and the family were lacking, are untenable. On the contrary, the phenomena, both of group-marriage, valued as the most important link in the chain of proof, and of the simpler forms of polygamy, everywhere point to monogamy as their basis. Furthermore, these arguments all rest on the assumption that the peoples among whom these various phenomena occur, particularly the combination of polygyny and polyandry in group-marriage, occupy a primitive plane of social organization. This presupposition also has proven fallacious, since it has become evident that this organization, especially among the Australian tribes, is an extremely complicated one, and points back to a long history involving many changes of custom.
Meanwhile, primitive man, in so far as we may speak of him in the relative sense already indicated, has really been discovered. But the Australian does not belong to this class, nor, even less, can many of the peoples of Oceania be counted within it. It includes only those tribes which, having probably been isolated for many centuries and cut off from the culture of the rest of the world, have remained on the same primitive level. We have become familiar with them in the preceding account of the external culture of primitive man. We find them to be forest peoples who have, for the most part, been crowded back into inaccessible territory and who have entered but slightly into intercourse with the outside world, inasmuch as their needs are limited. They generally call themselves, whether rightly or wrongly we need not inquire, the original inhabitants of these regions, and they are regarded as such by their neighbours. They include, in addition to several tribes of Hindustan (as yet insufficiently studied), particularly the Semangs and Senoi of the interior of the Malay Peninsula, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Negritos of the Philippines and Central Africa, and, finally, to some extent, also the Bushmen. This is certainly a considerable number of peoples, some of whom live at great distances from the others. In spite of this, however, even their external culture is largely the same. Considering the primitive character of their social institutions and customs, it would seem safe to say that without doubt they approach the lowest possible level of human culture. Besides bow and arrow they have scarcely a weapon, no vessels of clay, and practically only such implements as are presented directly by nature herself. At this stage there is scarcely anything to distinguish man from the animal except the early discovered art of kindling fire, with its influence on the utilization of the food that is gathered. Briefly summarized, these are the main traits of primitive culture that are known to us.
What, now, is the status of marriage and the family at this period? The answer to this question will come as a surprise to those who are imbued with the widespread hypotheses that presuppose the primitive state to be that of the horde. And yet, if these hypotheses be regarded in the proper light, our answer might almost be expected. Among the primitive tribes that we have mentioned, monogamy is everywhere found to be not only the exclusive mode of marriage, but that which is always, so to speak, taken for granted; and this monogamy, indeed, takes the form of single marriage. It is but rarely that related families live together more or less permanently, forming the beginning of the joint family. The Bushmen alone offer something of an exception to this rule. Among them, polygyny, together with other practices, has been introduced. This is probably due to the influence of neighbouring African peoples, such as the Hottentots and the Bantus. Elsewhere conditions are different. This is true especially of the Semangs and Senoi, whose isolation has remained more complete, and of the Veddahs of nature, as the Sarasin cousins call them in distinction from the surrounding Veddahs of culture. Among these peoples, monogamy—indeed, lifelong monogamy—has remained the prevailing form of marriage. Connected with it is found the original division of labour, which is based on sex. Man provides the animal food by hunting; woman gathers the vegetable food—fruits, tubers, and seeds—and, by the employment of fire, if necessary, renders both it and the game edible. This basis of division of labour, which appears natural and in harmony with the endowment of the sexes, contrasts with the conditions of later culture in that it indicates an approximate equality of the sexes. Furthermore, Rudolf Martin and the two Sarasins, investigators of the primitive Asiatic tribes of Malacca and Ceylon, commend the marriage of these peoples as being a union of husband and wife strictly guarded by custom. In forming a moral estimate of these conditions, it should not be overlooked that the exclusive possession of the wife is probably due to jealousy as much as it is to mutual faithfulness. Among the Veddahs, the intruder who threatens this possession is struck to earth by a well-aimed arrow shot from behind ambush, and custom approves this act of vengeance as a justifiable measure on the part of the injured man. Therefore, even though a French traveller and investigator may, to a certain extent, have confused cause and effect when he stated that the monogamy of these tribes had its origin in jealousy, the exercise of the right of revenge may, nevertheless, have helped to strengthen the custom. But, of course, in view of the primitive state of culture that here prevails, this custom of revenge is itself merely an indication of the undisputed supremacy of monogamy. Even as the individual, and not the clan, exercises this vengeance, so also does marriage continue to be restricted to single marriage. Of the formation of joint families, which arise out of the union of immediate blood relations, we find at most, as has been remarked, only the beginnings.
[4. PRIMITIVE SOCIETY.]
The more extensive social groups generally result from the fact that during the rainy season families withdraw into caves among the hills. The larger caves are frequently occupied in common by a number of families, particularly by such as are most closely related. Yet the groups of co-dwellers are not so much determined by considerations of kinship as by the size of the places of refuge; a single family occasionally occupies a small cave by itself. Nevertheless, this community life plainly furnishes the incentive to a gradual formation of wider social groups. This, no doubt, accounts for the fact that during the favourable season of the year several families of the Veddahs claim for themselves a specific plot of ground, whose supply of game, as well as of the products of the soil, which the women gather, belongs exclusively to them. Thus, there is a division of the people into districts, and these are determined geographically rather than ethnologically. Every one is entitled to obtain his food, whether game or products of the soil, from a specified territory. Custom strictly guards this communal property, just as it protects the single marriage. The Veddah, for example, who encroaches upon the territory belonging to a group other than his own, is in no less danger of falling a victim to an arrow shot from an ambush than is the one who trespasses on marriage ties.
These various institutions form the beginnings of social organization, but as yet they do not represent developed clan groups or established joint families of the patriarchal type. On the contrary, as they arise through the free association of individuals, so also may they be freely dissolved. Each man has exclusive possession of his wife. Without interference on the part of his clan, moreover, he exercises absolute control over his children, who remain with the individual family just as in the case of a developed monogamy. There is no trace of sex-groups, such as are later to be found in the case of the men's houses and the age-groups. Only temporarily, on the occasion of common undertakings, such as the hunting of large animals, which requires a considerable measure of strength, or when new hunting-grounds are being sought, is a leader appointed from among the older men. His leadership, however, ceases with the completion of the undertaking. There are no permanent chiefs, any more than there are clans or tribal organizations.
Thus, in summary, we might say: Whenever the social organization of primitive man has remained uninfluenced by peoples of a higher culture, it consists in a firmly established monogamy of the form of single marriage—a mode of existence that was probably carried over from a prehuman stage resembling that of the present-day anthropoids. There are also scanty beginnings of social groups. If we consider these tribes as a whole, they still continue to lead the life of a horde, meaning by this an unorganized, in contrast to an organized, tribe of people. Indeed, it was through a curious change of meaning that this word acquired its present significance. It is supposed to have originated in a Mongolian idiom, whence it found its way first into the Russian and later into other European languages. The Tartars called a division of warriors a horda. First used in this sense, the word apparently did not receive its present meaning in Germany until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Having in mind the "Golden Horde" of the Tartars, a horde was understood to mean a particularly dreaded division of warriors. The furious force of these Asiatic hordes, and the terror which they spread, later caused the concept to be extended to all unorganized, wild, and unrestrained masses of men. Taking the word in this wider significance, we may now say that the horde, as a fairly large social group in which only very meagre suggestions of an organized tribal system occur, is characteristic of primitive times, no less than are the isolated single family and the beginnings of the joint family. Thus defined, however, the horde does not differ essentially from the animal herd, in the meaning which the latter concept would possess when applied to human-kind. And it is not impossible that in the extension of the meaning of the term 'horde,' this association of the foreign word with the original Germanic word 'herd' played a part. A horde, we might say, is a human herd, but it is precisely a human herd. Between the members of a horde, therefore, there exists a relation that is lacking in the animal herd, in flocks of migratory birds, for example, or in herds of sheep and cattle. This relation is established and preserved through a community of language. Herder, therefore, truthfully remarks that man was from the beginnings a 'herding animal,' in so far as he possessed social instincts. Even in the formation of language these social instincts were operative. Without a community life, and, we may add, without the mental interaction of individuals, language would be impossible. Language, however, in turn, strengthened this community life, and elevated it above the status of the animal herd or of an association concerned merely with momentary needs.
Thus, these reflections concerning the social relations of primitive man lead us to a further field of phenomena which likewise affords a glimpse into the mental characteristics of primitive peoples. For that which differentiates the horde from the herd is the language of primitive man, together with the activity most closely bound up with language, namely, thinking.
[5. THE BEGINNINGS OF LANGUAGE.]
Our knowledge of those peoples whom we, avoiding the errors of the past, may now regard as primitive, led to the conviction that the Asiatic and African tribes described above were actually primitive, in the above-mentioned relative sense of the word. Naturally the question concerning the language of these peoples then began to arouse considerable attention, on the part, not only of ethnologists, but also of those interested in philology. The question is of equal importance, to say the least, for the psychologist. For language is bound up with thought. From the phenomena of language, therefore, we may draw inferences concerning the most general characteristics of thought. Such fundamental differences of language as exist, for example, between the Chinese and the Indo-Germanic tongues do not, of course, allow the direct conclusion that there are quantitative differences in mental culture. They do imply, however, that there are divergent directions and forms of thought. In their ceaseless change, the latter react upon language, and this, in turn, again influences mental characteristics. We cannot suppose that, in the period of Old High German, much less in that of the original German, our ancestors employed the same forms of thought with which we of to-day are familiar. To a lesser degree, similar changes have undoubtedly transpired within much shorter spaces of time.
These considerations make the question concerning the language of primitive man of the utmost psychological importance. Linguistic investigations, however, so far as they, in their early attempts, had been able to survey the field, had brought to light a fact which discouraged all efforts to discover an original language. Indeed, it was inevitable that at first glance this discovered fact should have appeared exceedingly strange, particularly when viewed in connection with the life of primitive man. It appeared that, for the most part, the original languages of primitive tribes no longer exist. It is true that in the vocabularies of the Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, of the Veddahs of Ceylon, of the Negritos of the Philippines, and in other vocabularies that have been collected, single words may be found which do not occur in the languages of the neighbouring tribes; and it is noteworthy that the bow and arrow are the objects most frequently designated by such words, a proof of the fact that these are really relatively primitive inventions. On the whole, however, the Veddahs speak the language of the Singhalese and Tamils; the Semangs and Senoi, as well as the Negritos of the Philippines, that of their neighbours, the Malays; similarly, among the African tribes, the Pygmies of Central Africa have apparently appropriated the language of the Monbuttus and other negro races, and the Bushmen that of the Hottentots.
How may this remarkable fact be explained? That these tribes formerly possessed languages of their own can scarcely be doubted. For, as respects physical characteristics, they are absolutely distinct races. Considering their characteristics as a whole, moreover, it is utterly impossible that they could have lacked language before coming into contact with the peoples who entered the country at a later period. How, then, did these people come apparently to lose their original language? To this we may briefly reply that there here transpired what always occurs when the well-known principle of the struggle for existence is applied to the field of mental phenomena. The stronger race crowded out the most important mental creation of the weaker, its language. The language of the weaker race, which was probably very meagre, succumbed to a language that was more highly developed. At first glance, this explanation would appear to contradict what we know concerning the life of these primitive tribes. With what anxiety they isolate themselves from their neighbours! A striking proof of this is offered by the practice of secret barter, in which primitive man sets out from the forest, if possible by night, and deposits his captured game at a place which custom has set apart for this purpose, returning the next night to take whatever the more civilized neighbouring tribes have left in exchange—iron implements and weapons, material for clothing, and especially articles of adornment. The participants in this barter do not see each other, much less speak with each other. But where such seclusion exists, how is it possible for a strange language to penetrate? This problem appears almost insoluble. Nevertheless, a solution that appears at least probable was suggested by the investigations of Kern, an able Dutch scholar. His studies were based mainly on the development of the various Malayan idioms. A remarkable exception to the rule that primitive tribes have adopted the language of their more civilized neighbours came to light in the case of the Negritos of the Philippines. Their neighbours, as well as those of the tribes of the interior of Malacca, belong to that much-migrating race, the Malayans. If we compare the Negrito word-formations that have been collected during the past forty years with the vocabulary of the neighbouring Malayans, it is evident that all the words are entirely different, or at least seem to be so with few exceptions. When, however, Kern traced the probable development of these words, and compared them, not with the present-day usage of the Malays but with older stages of their language, he found that the latter invariably contained the counterparts of the Negrito words. Thus, while these Negritos have remained untouched by the present-day Malays, who probably entered the country at least several centuries ago, they have evidently derived their language from a Malayan influx that occurred much earlier still. To this may be added the demonstrable fact, gleaned from another source, that from very early times the Malayan tribes undertook migrations at widely separated intervals. Traversing the seas in their unsteady boats, they at various times peopled such islands, in particular, as were not too remote from the mainland. Now the testimony of language, to which we have referred, demonstrates that there were at least two such migrations to the Philippines, and that they occurred at widely different times. The original Malayan dialect, which has now become extinct or unknown to the modern Malays, was assimilated by the Negrito peoples, who probably occupied this territory before the arrival of any of the Malays. But this leads to a further inference. If the language was appropriated in prehistoric times and if the conditions of the present are such as would make this scarcely possible, we must conclude that the interrelations of the immigrants and the original inhabitants were formerly not the same as those that now prevail. And, as a matter of fact, this seems altogether probable, if we call to mind the descriptions which modern travellers give of their experiences among these primitive peoples. The traits of character that particularly distinguish them are fear and hatred of their more civilized neighbours; corresponding to this, is the contempt felt by the latter, because of their higher culture, for the more primitive peoples. The only thing that restrains the immigrant people from waging a war of extermination against the original inhabitants is the fear of the poisoned arrow which the Negrito directs against his enemy from behind an ambush. In view of these facts it is not difficult to understand the almost universal isolation of primitive man at the present time. On the other hand, travellers who have been admitted into the lives of the primitive tribes of Malacca and Ceylon and have sought to gain their friendship, unanimously assure us that, whenever a person has once succeeded in coming close to these people and in overcoming their distrust, he finds their outstanding characteristics to be good nature and readiness to render assistance. We may, therefore, be justified in assuming that the seclusion of primitive man was not an original condition, but that it grew up, here and elsewhere, as a result of the war of extermination to which he was exposed on the part of the races attempting to crowd him out of a large part of his territory. Before this state of affairs arose, barter also could scarcely have possessed that character of secrecy which only fear and hatred could give it. In all probability the intercourse which necessarily took place in early times between the older inhabitants and the newer peoples, led to a competition of languages in which the poorer and less developed language of primitive man inevitably succumbed. Nevertheless, the primitive language may also have quietly exercised a reciprocal influence upon the more advanced language. An observation that we cannot escape, even on far higher stages of linguistic development, is the fact that, in such a struggle between a superior minority and a less civilized majority, the former determines the main stock of words, and even, under favourable conditions, the grammatical form, whereas the latter exercises a decisive influence on pronunciation. That a similar process occurred in connection with the displacement of primitive languages, the language of the Bushmen offers proof. This is essentially a Hottentot dialect, even though it is characterized by certain traits of primitive thought. The Hottentots, however, have derived their well-known clacking sounds from the Bushmen, who also gave these sounds to the languages of the Bantu peoples.
But are we deprived of all knowledge concerning the most primitive grammatical forms and concerning the related question of the origin of language, by virtue of the fact that the languages of primitive peoples have, with the exception of meagre remnants, apparently been lost? There is a consideration touching the question of primitive forms of thought and language that enables us, in spite of the difficulty suggested, to answer this question in the negative. The development of language does not at all keep pace with that of the other forms of culture. Primitive forms of thought especially, and the corresponding expression which they receive in language, may long persist after external culture is relatively advanced. And thus, among tribes that are in general far beyond the primitive stage, linguistic forms may still be found which are exact counterparts of phenomena that, from a psychological point of view, must be regarded as primitive. As regards this point, it is especially the African languages of the Soudan that offer a typical field for linguistic study. If we analyse the syntax of such a language and the forms of thought which the sentence structure allows us to infer, we gain the impression that it is hardly possible to imagine a form of human thought whose essential characteristics could be more primitive. This is clearly apparent from a consideration of the Ewe language of the peoples of Togo, a German colonial possession. This is a Soudan language, on whose grammar D. Westermann, a German missionary, has given us a valuable treatise. While the Ewe language does not contain all the essential features apparently characteristic of relatively primitive thought, it does exemplify some of them. We are led to this conclusion particularly when we compare it, together with other Soudan languages, with a form of language which, though it arises under highly advanced cultural conditions, may nevertheless be regarded as primitive, since it is actually formed anew before our very eyes. I refer to gesture-language. In this case, it is not sounds, but expressive movements, imitative and pantomimic, that form the means by which man communicates his thoughts to man. Though we may regard gesture-language as an original form of language, in so far as we can observe it at the moment of its creation, we must not, of course, forget that the genesis of the forms of gesture communication familiar to us belongs to a higher culture whose conditions differ widely from those of primitive thought.
Now, of the various forms of gesture-language, the one that is least subject to change is doubtless the means of communication employed by those who are bereft of hearing, and therefore of speech as well, namely, the deaf and dumb. A similar means of communication through signs and gestures may also be observed among peoples of low culture. Especially when they consist of tribes with markedly different dialects, do such peoples make use of gestures in communicating with one another. Investigations of the spontaneously arising gesture-language of deaf-mutes date largely from the first half of the nineteenth century. More recent studies have been made of the gestures of the North American Indian tribes, and similar, though less complete, observations have been reported concerning the Australians. In these cases, however, gestures sometimes serve also as a sort of secret language. This is even more true of certain signs that occur among some of the peoples of southern Europe, as, for example, among the Neapolitans. In considering the question before us, such cases must, of course, be excluded, since the motive of communicating ideas may here be entirely displaced by that of keeping them secret; instead of a language that arises spontaneously, we have a means which is, on the whole, consciously elaborated for purposes of mutual understanding. If we disregard these cases, which belong to an entirely different order of facts, and examine the data gathered from widely different parts of the earth and from very diverse conditions of culture, we find a remarkable agreement. In certain details, of course, there are differences. The ideas of the Indian are not in all respects like those of the civilized European or those of the Australian. Nevertheless, the gestures that refer to specific concrete objects are frequently so similar that many of the signs employed by the gesture-language of the deaf-mutes of Europe may be found among the Dakota Indians. Could we transfer one of these deaf and dumb persons to this group of Indians, he would probably have no difficulty at all in communicating with them. In more recent times the opportunity of investigating spontaneous gesture-language has not been so great, because deaf-mutes have become more and more educated to the use of verbal language. The principal material for the study of the natural gesture-language of deaf-mutes is, therefore, still to be found in the older observations of Schmalz (1838, 2nd ed. 1848), a German teacher of people thus afflicted, and in the somewhat later reports of an Englishman by the name of Scott (1870).
What, now, do these observations teach us concerning the origin of gesture-language, and therefore probably also concerning the factors underlying the origin of language in general? According to the popular notion, a so-called impulse for communication or, perhaps, certain intellectual processes, voluntary reflections, and actions, account for the fact that the contents of one's own consciousness come to be communicated to other individuals. If, however, we observe gesture-language in its origin, we obtain an entirely different view. This mode of communication is not the result of intellectual reflections or conscious purposes, but of emotion and the involuntary expressive movements that accompany emotion. Indeed, it is simply a natural development of those expressive movements of human beings that also occur where the intention of communicating is obviously absent. As is well known, it is not only emotions that are reflected in one's movements, particularly in mimetic movements of the face, but also ideas. Whenever ideas strongly tinged with feeling enter into the course of emotions, the direct mimetic expressions of the face are supplemented by movements of the arms and hands. The angry man gesticulates with movements which clearly indicate the impulse to attack that is inherent in anger. Or, when we have an ideational process of an emotional nature, and ideas arise referring to objects that are present to us, we point to the objects, even though there be no intention of communicating the ideas. Directions in space, likewise, as well as past time and futurity, are involuntarily expressed by means of backward and forward pointing movements; 'large' and 'small' are expressed by the raising and lowering of the hands. When further movements are added, indicating the form of an object by describing its image in the air with the hands, all the elements of a gesture-language are complete. What is lacking is only that the emotionally coloured idea be not a mere expression of one's own emotion, but that it evoke the same emotion and, through this, the same idea, in the minds of others. Under the influence of the emotion aroused within them, those addressed must then reply with the same, or slightly different, expressive movements. When this occurs, there is developed a common thinking in which impulsive movements are more and more displaced by voluntary actions, and ideational contents, together with the corresponding gestures, enter into the foreground of attention. By virtue of this ideational content, movements expressive of emotions come to be expressions of ideas; the communication of an individual's experiences to others results in an exchange of thought—that is, in language. This development, however, is influenced by that of all the other psychical functions, and especially by the transition of emotional and impulsive movements into voluntary actions.
Of what nature, now, is the content of such a gesture-language as arises independently within a community, and which may, in so far, be regarded as primitive? To this we may briefly reply that all elements of this language are perceptible to the senses, and therefore immediately intelligible. Hence it is that deaf-mutes, though of different nationalities, can make themselves understood without difficulty, even upon meeting for the first time. This intelligibility of gesture-language, however, rests upon the fact that the signs it employs—or, translated into the terminology of spoken language, its words—are direct representations of the objects, the qualities, or the events referred to. Whenever the object discussed is present, the gesture of pointing with the hand and finger is itself the clearest way of designating the object. Thus, for instance, 'I' and 'you' are expressed by the speaker's pointing to himself or to the other person. This suggests a similar movement to designate a 'third person' who is not present. The sign in this case is a backward movement of the finger. Whenever the objects of conversation are present in the field of vision, the dumb person, as a rule, dispenses with every other form of representation but that of merely pointing to them.
Since the objects under discussion are, on the whole, only rarely present, there is a second and important class of gestures, which, for the sake of brevity, we may call graphic. The deaf-mute, as also the Indian and the Australian, represents an absent object by pictures outlined in the air. What he thus sketches in only very general outlines is intelligible to one practised in gesture-language. Moreover, there is a marked tendency for such gestures to become permanent within a particular social group. For the word 'house,' the outlines of roof and walls are drawn; the idea of walking is communicated by imitating the movements of walking with the index and middle fingers of the right hand upon the left arm, which is held out horizontally; the idea of striking is represented by causing the hand to go through the movements of striking. Not infrequently, however, several signs must be combined to make a gesture intelligible. In the German and English deaf and dumb language, the word 'garden,' for example, is expressed by first describing a circle with the index finger to indicate a place, and by then lifting the thumb and the index finger to the nose as the gesture for smelling. 'Garden,' thus, is, as it were, a place where there are flowers to smell. The idea 'teacher' cannot, of course, be directly represented or pictured; it is too complicated for a language of representation. The deaf and dumb person, therefore, is likely to proceed by first making the gesture for man. For this purpose, he singles out an incidental characteristic, his gesture being that of lifting his hat. Since women do not remove their hats in greeting, this gesture is highly typical. The distinctive sign for woman consists in laying the hands upon the breast. Now, in order to communicate the idea of 'male teacher,' the hat is first lifted as the above gesture for man, and then the index finger is raised. This is done either because pupils in school raise the index finger to indicate their knowledge of a certain thing or, perhaps, because the teacher occasionally raises his finger when he wishes to command attention or to threaten punishment.
Pointing and graphic gestures thus represent the two means which gesture-language employs. Within the second of these classes of gestures, however, we may distinguish a small sub-group that may be called significant; in this case, the object is not represented by means of a direct picture, but by incidental characteristics—man, for example, is expressed by lifting the hat. The signs are all directly perceptible. The most important characteristic of gesture-language, as well as the most distinctive feature of an original language, is the fact that there is no trace of abstract concepts, there being merely perceptual representations. And yet some of these representations—and this is a proof of how insistently human thought, even in its beginnings, presses on to the formation of concepts—have acquired a symbolical meaning by virtue of which they become sensuous means, in a certain sense, of expressing concepts which in themselves are not of a perceptual nature. We may here mention only one such gesture, noteworthy because it occurs independently in the language of the European deaf and dumb and in that of the Dakota Indians. 'Truth' is represented by moving the index finger directly forward from the lips, while 'lie' is indicated by a movement towards the right or left. The former is thus held to be a straight speech and the latter a crooked speech, transcriptions which also occur, as poetical expressions, in spoken language. On the whole, however, such symbolical signs are rare if the natural gesture-language has not been artificially reconstructed; moreover, they always remain perceptual in character.
Corresponding to this feature is also another characteristic which all natural gesture-languages will be found to possess. In vain we search them for the grammatical categories either of our own or of other spoken languages—none may be found. No distinction is made between noun, adjective, or verb; none between nominative, dative, accusative, etc. Every representation retains its representative character, and that to which it refers may exemplify any of the grammatical categories known to us. For example, the gesture for walking may denote either the act of walking or the course or path; that for striking, either the verb 'to strike' or the noun 'blow.' Thus, in this respect also, gesture-language is restricted to perceptual signs expressing ideas capable of perceptual representation. The same is true, finally, of the sequence in which the ideas of the speaker are arranged, or, briefly, of the syntax of gesture-language. In various ways, depending on fixed usages of language, our syntax, as is well known, permits us to separate words that, as regards meaning, belong together, or, conversely, to bring together words that have no immediate relation. Gesture-language obeys but one law. Every single sign must be intelligible either in itself or through the one preceding it. It follows from this that if, for example, an object and one of its qualities are both to be designated, the quality must not be expressed first, since, apart from the object, it would be unmeaning; its designation, therefore, regularly occurs after that of the object to which it belongs. Whereas, for example, we say 'a good man,' gesture-language says 'man good.' Similarly, in the case of verb and object, the object generally precedes. When, however, the action expressed by the verb is thought of as more closely related to the subject, the converse order may occur and the verb may directly follow the subject. How, then, does gesture-language reproduce the sentence 'The angry teacher struck the child'? The signs for teacher and for striking have already been described; 'angry' is expressed mimetically by wrinkling the forehead; 'child' by rocking the left forearm supported by the right. Thus, the above sentence is translated into gesture-language in the following manner: First, there are the two signs for teacher, lifting the hat and raising the finger; then follows the mimetic gesture for anger, succeeded by a rocking of the arm to signify child, and, finally, by the motion of striking. If we indicate the subject of the sentence by S, the attribute by A, the object by O, and the verb by V, the sequence in our language is ASVO; in gesture-language it is SAOV, 'teacher angry child strikes,' or, in exceptional cases, SAVO. Gesture-language thus reverses the order of sequence in the two pairs of words. A construction such as 'es schlug das Kind der Lehrer (VOS), always possible in spoken language and occurring not infrequently (for example, in Latin), would be absolutely impossible in gesture-language.
If, then, gesture-language affords us certain psychological conclusions regarding the nature of a primitive language, it is of particular interest, from this point of view, to compare its characteristics with the corresponding traits of the most primitive spoken languages. As already stated, the so-called Soudan languages typify those that bear all the marks of relatively primitive thought. These languages of Central Africa obviously represent a much more primitive stage of development than do those of the Bantu peoples of the south or even those of the Hamitic peoples of the north. The language of the Hottentots is related to that of these Hamitic peoples. It is, in fact, because of this relationship, and also because of characteristics divergent from the negro type, that the Hottentots are regarded as a race that immigrated from the north and underwent changes by mixture with native peoples. If, now, we compare one of the Soudan languages, the Ewe, for example, with gesture-language, one difference will at once be apparent. The words of this relatively primitive spoken language do not possess the qualities of perceptibility and immediate intelligibility that characterize each particular gesture-sign. This is readily explicable as a result of processes of phonetic change, which are never absent, as well as of the assimilation of foreign elements and of the replacement of words by conceptual symbols that are accidental and independent of the sound. These changes occur in the history of every language. Every spoken language is the outcome of recondite processes whose beginnings are no longer traceable. And yet the Soudan languages, particularly, have preserved characteristics that show much more intimate connections between sound and meaning than our cultural languages possess. The very fact is noteworthy that certain gradations or even antitheses of thought are regularly expressed by gradations or antitheses of sound whose feeling tone plainly corresponds to the relation of the ideas. While our words 'large' and 'small,' 'here' and 'there,' show no correspondence between the character of the sound and the meaning, the case is entirely different with the equivalent expressions in the Ewe language. In this language large and small objects are designated by the same word. In the one case, however, the word is uttered in a deep tone, while in the other a high tone is used. Or, in the case of indicative signs, the deep tone signifies greater remoteness, the high tone, proximity. Indeed, in some Sudan languages three degrees of remoteness or of size are thus distinguished. 'Yonder in the distance' is expressed by a very deep tone; 'yonder in the middle distance,' by a medium tone; and 'here,' by the highest tone. Occasionally, differences of quality are similarly distinguished by differences of tone, as, for example, 'sweet' by a high tone, 'bitter' by a deep tone, 'to be acted upon' (that is, our passive) by a deep tone, and activity (or our active) by a high tone. This accounts for a phenomenon prevalent in other languages remote from those of the Soudan. In Semitic and Hamitic languages, the letter 'U,' particularly, has the force of a passive when occurring either as a suffix to the root of a word or in the middle of the word itself. For example, in the Hebrew forms of the so-called 'Pual' and 'Piel,' as well as 'Hophal' and 'Hiphil,' the first of each pair is passive, and the second, active in meaning. It was frequently supposed that this was accidental, or was due to linguistic causes of phonetic change other than the above. But when we meet the same variations of sound and meaning in other radically different languages, we must stop to ask ourselves whether this is not the result of a psychological relationship which, though generally lost in the later development of language, here still survives in occasional traces. In fact, when we recall the way in which we relate stories to children, we at once notice that precisely the same phenomenon recurs in child-language—a language, of course, first created, as a rule, by adults. This connection of sound and meaning is clearly due to the unconscious desire that the sound shall impart to the child not merely the meaning of the idea, but also its feeling-tone. In describing giants and monsters, she who relates fairy-tales to the child deepens her tone; when fairies, elves, and dwarfs appear in the narrative, she raises her voice. If sorrow and pain enter, the tone is deepened; with joyous emotions, high tones are employed. In view of these facts, we might say that this direct correlation of expression and meaning, observed in that most primitive of all languages, gesture-language, has disappeared even from the relatively primitive spoken languages; nevertheless, the latter have retained traces of it in greater abundance than have the cultural languages. In the cultural languages they recur, if at all, only in the onomatopoetic word-formations of later origin. We may recall such words as sausen (soughing), brummen (growling), knistern (crackling), etc.
The question still remains how the other characteristics of gesture-language, particularly the absence of grammatical categories and a syntax which follows the principle of immediate and perceptual intelligibility, compare with the corresponding characteristics of the relatively primitive spoken languages. These characteristics, indeed, are of incomparably greater importance than the relations of sound and meaning. The latter are more strongly exposed to external, transforming influences. Word-formations, however, and the position of the words within the sentence, mirror the forms of thought itself; whenever the thought undergoes vital changes, the latter inevitably find expression in the grammatical categories of the language, and in the laws of syntax which it follows.
[6. THE THINKING OF PRIMITIVE MAN.]
From the point of view just developed, the investigation of the grammatical forms of primitive language is of particular importance for the psychology of primitive man. True, as has already been remarked, the languages of the most primitive tribes have not been preserved to us in their original form. And yet it is in this very realm of grammatical forms, far more even than in that of sound pictures and onomatopoetic words, that the Soudan languages possess characteristics which mark them as the expression of processes of thought that have remained on a relatively primitive level. This is indicated primarily by the fact that these languages lack what we would call grammatical categories. As regards this point, Westermann's grammar of the Ewe language is in entire agreement with the much earlier results which Steinthal reached in his investigation of the Manda language, which is also of the Soudan region. These languages consist of monosyllabic words which follow one another in direct succession without any intermediate inflectional elements to modify their meaning. Philologists usually call such languages 'root-languages,' because a sound complex that carries the essential meaning of a word, apart from all modifying elements, is called by their science a verbal root. In the Latin word fero, fer, meaning 'to bear,' is the root from which all modifications of the verb ferre (to carry) are formed by means of suffixal elements. If, therefore, a language consists of sound complexes having the nature of roots, it is called a root-language. As a matter of fact, however, the languages under discussion consist purely of detached, monosyllabic words; the conception 'root,' which itself represents the product of a grammatical analysis of our flectional languages, may only improperly be applied to them. Such a language is composed of detached monosyllabic words, each of which has a meaning, yet none of which falls under any particular grammatical category. One and the same monosyllabic word may denote an object, an act, or a quality, just as in gesture-language the gesture of striking may denote the verb 'to strike' and also the noun 'blow.' From this it is evident to what extent the expressions 'root' and 'root-language' carry over into this primitive language a grammatical abstraction which is entirely inappropriate in case they suggest the image of a root. This image originated among grammarians at a time when the view was current that, just as the stem and branches of a plant grow out of its root, so also in the development of a language does a word always arise out of a group of either simple or composite sounds that embody the main idea. But the component parts of a language are certainly not roots in this sense; every simple monosyllabic word combines with others, and from this combination there result, in part, modifications in meaning, and, in part, sentences. Language, thus, does not develop by sprouting and growing, but by agglomeration and agglutination. Now, the Soudan languages are characterized by the fact that they possess very few such fixed combinations in which the individual component parts have lost their independence. In this respect, accordingly, they resemble gesture-language. The latter also is unfamiliar with grammatical categories in so far as these apply to the words themselves; the very same signs denote objects, actions, and qualities—indeed, generally even that for which in our language we employ particles. This agreement with gesture-language is brought home to us most strikingly if we consider the words which the primitive spoken languages employ for newly formed ideas—such, for instance, as refer to previously unknown objects of culture. Here it appears that the speaker always forms the new conception by combining into a series those ideas with which he is more familiar. When schools were introduced into Togo, for example, and a word for 'slate-pencil' became necessary, the Togo negroes called it 'stone scratch something'—that is, a stone with which we scratch something. Similarly 'kitchen,' an arrangement unknown to these tribes, was referred to as 'place cook something'; 'nail,' as 'iron head broad.' The single word always stands for a sensibly perceptual object, and the new conception is formed, not, as epistemologists commonly suppose, by means of a comparison of various objects, but by arranging in sequence those perceptual ideas whose combined characteristics constitute the conception. The same is true with regard to the expressions for such thought relations as are variously indicated in our language by the inflections of substantive, adjective, and verb. The Soudan languages make no unambiguous distinction between noun and verb. Much less are the cases of the substantive, or the moods and tenses of the verb, distinguished; to express these distinctions, separate words are always used. Thus, 'the house of the king' is rendered as 'house belong king.' The conception of case is here represented by an independent perception that crowds in between the two ideas which it couples together. The other cases are, as a rule, not expressed at all, but are implied in the connection. Similarly, verbs possess no future tense to denote future time. Here also a separate word is introduced, one that may be rendered by 'come.' 'I go come' means 'I shall go'; or, to mention the preterit, 'I go earlier' means 'I went.' Past time, however, may also be expressed by the immediate repetition of the word, a sensibly perceptual sign, as it were, that the action is completed. When the Togo negro says 'I eat,' this means 'I am on the point of eating'; when he says 'I eat eat,' it means 'I have eaten.'
But ideas of such acts and conditions as are in themselves of a perceptual nature are also occasionally expressed by combining several elements which are obtained by discriminating the separate parts of a perceptual image. The idea to bring, for example, is expressed by the Togo negro as 'take, go, give.' In bringing something to some one, one must first take it, then go to him and give it to him. It therefore happens that the word 'go,' in particular, is frequently added even where we find no necessity for especially emphasizing the act of going. Thus, the Togo negro would very probably express the sentence, 'The angry teacher strikes the child,' in the following way: 'Man-school-angry-go-strike-child.' This is the succession that directly presents itself to one who thinks in pictures, and it therefore finds expression in language. Whenever conceptions require a considerable number of images in order to be made picturable, combinations that are equivalent to entire sentences may result in a similar manner. Thus, the Togo negro expresses the concept 'west' by the words 'sun-sit-place'—that is, the place where the sun sits down. He thinks of the sun as a personal being who, after completing his journey, here takes a seat.
These illustrations may suffice to indicate the simplicity and at the same time the complexity of such a language. It is simple, in that it lacks almost all grammatical distinctions; it is complicated, because, in its constant reliance on sensibly perceptual images, it analyses our concepts into numerous elements. This is true not merely of abstract concepts, which these languages, as a rule, do not possess, but even of concrete empirical concepts. We need only refer to the verb 'to bring,' reduced to the form of three verbs, or the concept 'west,' for whose expression there is required not only the sun and the location which we must give it but also its act of seating itself. In all of these traits, then, primitive language is absolutely at one with gesture-language.
The same is true of the syntax of the two kinds of language. This also is no more irregular and accidental in the Soudan language than it is in gesture-language. As a rule, indeed, it is stricter than the syntax of our languages, for in the latter inflection makes possible a certain variation in the arrangement of words within a sentence according to the particular shade of meaning desired. In primitive language, the arrangement is much more uniform, being governed absolutely and alone by the same law as prevails in gesture-language—namely, the arrangement of words in their perceptual order. Without exception, therefore, object precedes attribute, and substantive, adjective. Less constant, however, is the relation of verb and object, in the Ewe language; the verb generally precedes, but the object may come first; the verb, however, always follows the subject whose action it expresses. This perceptual character of primitive language appears most strikingly when we translate any thought that is at all complicated from a primitive language into our own, first in its general meaning, and then word for word. Take an illustration from the language of the Bushmen. The meaning would be substantially this: 'The Bushman was at first received kindly by the white man in order that he might be brought to herd his sheep; then the white man maltreated the Bushman; the latter ran away, whereupon the white man took another Bushman, who suffered the same experience,' The language of the Bushmen expresses this in the following way: 'Bushman-there-go, here-run-to-white man, white man-give-tobacco, Bushman-go-smoke, go-fill-tobacco-pouch, white man-give-meat-Bushman, Bushman-go-eat-meat, stand-up-go-home, go happily, go-sit-down, herd-sheep-white man, white man-go-strike Bushman, Bushman-cry-loud-pain, Bushman-go-run-away-white man, white man-run-after-Bushman, Bushman-then-another, this one-herd-sheep, Bushman-all-gone.' In this complaint of the man of nature against his oppressor, everything is concrete, perceptual. He does not say, The Bushman was at first kindly taken up by the white man, but, The white man gives him tobacco, he fills his pouch and smokes; the white man gives him meat, he eats this and is happy, etc. He does not say, The white man maltreats the Bushman, but, He strikes him, the Bushman cries with pain, etc. What we express in relatively abstract concepts is entirely reduced by him to separate perceptual images. His thought always attaches to individual objects. Moreover, just as primitive language has no specific means for expressing a verb, so also are change and action overshadowed in primitive thought by the concrete image. The thinking itself, therefore, may be called concrete. Primitive man sees the image with its separate parts; and, as he sees it, so he reproduces it in his language. It is for this very reason that he is unfamiliar with differences of grammatical categories and with abstract concepts. Sequence is still governed entirely by the pure association of ideas, whose order is determined by perception and by the recollection of that which has been experienced. The above narrative of the Bushman expresses no unitary thought, but image follows upon image in the order in which these appear to consciousness. Thus, the thinking of primitive man is almost exclusively associative. Of the more perfect form of combining concepts, the apperceptive, which unites the thoughts into a systematic whole, there are as yet only traces, such as occur in the combination of the separate memory images.
Many analogues to the formal characteristics of primitive thought revealed in these linguistic phenomena may be met in child-language. There is a wide divergence, however, with respect to the very element which has already disappeared, with the exception of slight traces, from the language of primitive peoples. I refer to the close correlation of sound and meaning. As regards this feature, child-language is much more similar to gesture-language than is possible in the case of forms of speech that have undergone a long historical development. For, child-language, like gesture-language, is, in a certain sense, continually being created anew. Of course, it is not created, as is sometimes supposed, by the children themselves. It is a conventionalized language of the mothers and nurses who converse with the child, supplemented, in part, by the child's associates along the lines of these traditional models. The sound-complexes signifying animals, 'bow-wow' for the dog, 'hott-hott' for the horse, 'tuk-tuk' for the chicken, etc., as also 'papa' and 'mamma' for father and mother, are sounds that are in some way fitted to the meaning and at the same time resemble so far as possible the babbling sounds of the child. But this entire process is instituted by the child's associates, and is at most supplemented by the child himself to the extent of a few incidental elements. For this reason, child-language has relatively little to teach us concerning the development of speaking and thinking; those psychologists and teachers who believe that it affords an important source of information concerning the origin of thought are in error. Such information can be gained only from those modes of expressing thought which, like gesture-language, are originated anew by the speaker and are not externally derived, or from those which, like the spoken languages of primitive peoples, have retained, in their essential characteristics, primitive modes of thinking. Even in these cases it is only the forms of thought that are thus discoverable. The content, as is implied by the formal characteristics themselves, is, of course, also of a sense-perceptual, not of a conceptual, nature. And yet the particular character or quality of this content is not inherent in the forms of the language as such. To gain a knowledge of its nature we must examine the specific ideas themselves and the associated feelings and emotions.
Thus, then, the further question arises: Wherein consists the content of primitive thought? Two sorts of ideas may be distinguished. The one comprises that stock of ideas which is supplied to consciousness by the direct perceptions of daily life—ideas such as go, stand, lie, rest, etc., together with animal, tree (particularly in the form of individual animals and trees), man, woman, child, I, thou, you, and many others. These are objects of everyday perception that are familiar to all, even to the primitive mind. But there is also a second class of ideas. These do not represent things of immediate perception; briefly expressed, they originate in feeling, in emotional processes which are projected outward into the environment. This is an important and particularly characteristic group of primitive ideas. Included within it are all references to that which is not directly amenable to perception but, transcending this, is really supersensuous, even though appearing in the form of sensible ideas. This world of imagination, projected from man's own emotional life into external phenomena, is what we mean by mythological thinking. The things and processes given to perception are supplemented by other realities that are of a non-perceptible nature and therefore belong to an invisible realm back of the visible world. These are the elements, furthermore, which very early find expression in the art of primitive man.
[7. EARLIEST BELIEFS IN MAGIC AND DEMONS.]
In entering upon a consideration of the development of primitive myths, we are at once confronted by the old question disputed by mythologists, ethnologists, and students of religion, Where and when did religion originate? For is not religion always concerned with the supernatural? Now, in certain cases, even primitive man supplements the sensuous world in which he lives and whose impressions he has not so much as elaborated into abstract concepts, with supersensuous elements, though he himself, of course, is unaware of their supersensuous character. The question, therefore, lies near at hand: Is religion already present at this stage, or is there at most a potentiality of religion, the germ of its future development? If the latter should be true, where, then, does religion begin? Now, our interest in the history of myth-formation derives largely from the very fact that the problem is intimately bound up with that of the origin of religion. Merely in itself the origin of the myth might have relatively little interest for us. The question, however, as to how religion arose acquires its great importance through its connection with the two further questions as to whether or not religion is a necessary constituent of human consciousness and whether it is an original possession or is the result of certain preconditions of mythological thought.
It is interesting to follow this ancient dispute, particularly its course during the last few decades. In 1880, Roskoff wrote a book entitled "The Religion of the Most Primitive Nature-Peoples." In this work he assembled all the available facts, and came to the conclusion that no peoples exist who have not some form of religion. About ten years ago, however, the two Sarasins, students of Ceylon and of the primitive Veddah tribes, summed up their conclusions in the proposition: The Veddahs have no religion. If, however, we compare Roskoff's facts concerning primitive peoples with those reported by the Sarasins concerning the belief of the Veddahs in demons and magic, it appears that the facts mentioned by these investigators are essentially the same. What the former calls religion, the latter call belief in magic; but in neither case is there a statement as to what is really meant by religion. Now, we cannot, of course, come to an understanding with reference to the presence or absence of anything until we are agreed as to what the thing itself really is. Hence, the question under dispute is raised prematurely at the present stage of our discussion; it can be answered only after we have examined more of the steps in the development of myth and of the preconditions of the religion of later times. We shall therefore recur to this point in our third chapter, after we have become acquainted with such religions as may indubitably lay claim to the name. Postponing the question for the present, we will designate the various phenomena that must be discussed at this point by the specific names attaching to them on the basis of their peculiar characteristics. In this sense, there is no doubt that we may speak of ideas of magic and of demons even in the case of primitive peoples; it is generally conceded that such ideas are universally entertained at this stage of culture. But the further question at once arises as to the source of this belief in magic and in demons, and as to the influences by which it is sustained. Now, in respect to this point two views prevail, even among the ethnologists who have made an intensive study of primitive peoples. The one view may briefly be called that of nature-mythology. It assumes that even far back under early conditions the phenomena of the heavens were the objects that peculiarly fascinated the thought of man and elevated it above its immediate sensible environment. All mythology, therefore, is supposed originally to have been mythology of nature, particularly of the heavens. Doubtless this would already involve a religious element, or, at least, a religious tendency. The second view carries us even farther in the same direction. It holds that the ideas of primitive man, so far as they deal with the supersensuous, are simpler than those of the more highly developed peoples. Just for this reason, however, it regards these ideas as more perfect and as approaching more nearly the beliefs of the higher religions. As a matter of fact, if we compare, let us say, the Semangs and the Senoi, or the Veddahs, with the natives of Australia, we find a very great difference as regards this point. Even the mythology of the Australians is undoubtedly much more complex than that of these peoples of nature, and the farther we trace this myth development the greater the complexity becomes. That which is simple, however, is supposed to be also the higher and the more exalted, just as it is the more primitive. The beginning is supposed to anticipate the end, as a revelation not yet distorted by human error. For, the highest form of religion is not a mythology including a multitude of gods, but the belief in one God—that is, monotheism. It was believed, therefore, that the very discovery of primitive man offered new support for this view. This theory, however, is bound up with an important anthropological consideration—the question concerning the place of the so-called Pygmies in the history of human development. It was on the basis of their physical characteristics that these dwarf peoples of Africa and Asia, of whom it is only in comparatively recent times that we have gained any considerable knowledge, were first declared by Julius Kollman to be the childhood peoples of humanity, who everywhere preceded the races of larger stature. Such childhood characteristics, indeed, are revealed not only in their small stature but in other traits as well. Schweinfurth observed that the entire skin of the Pygmies of Central Africa is covered with fine, downy hair, much as is that of the newly born child. It is by means of these downy hairs that the Monbuttu negro of that region distinguishes the Pygmy from a youth of his own tribe. The Negrito is primitive also in that his dermal glands are abnormally active, causing a bodily odour which is far greater than that of the negro, and which, just as in the case of some animals, increases noticeably under the stress of emotion. If, in addition to these physical characteristics, we consider the low cultural level of all these dwarf peoples, the hypothesis that the Pygmies are a primitive people does not, indeed, seem altogether strange. Starting with this hypothesis, therefore, William Schmidt, in his work, "The Place of the Pygmies in the Development of Mankind" (1910), attempted to prove the proposition that the Pygmies are the childhood peoples of humanity in their mental culture no less than in their physical development. This being their nature, they are, of course, limited intellectually; morally, however, they are in a state of innocence, as is demonstrated among other things by the pure monogamy prevailing among them, as well as by their highest possession, their monotheistic belief.
Now, the supposition of moral innocence rests essentially on the twofold assumption of the identity of primitive man with the Pygmy and of the legitimacy of holding that what has been observed of one tribe of Pygmies is true of the primitive condition generally. But this identity of primitive man with the Pygmy cannot be maintained. The most typical traits of primitive mental culture are doubtless to be found among the Veddahs of Ceylon. The Veddahs, however, are not really Pygmies, but are of large stature. Moreover, there are primitive people who are so far from being Pygmies that they belong rather to the tall races. We might cite the extinct Tasmanians, whose culture was probably a stage lower than that of the modern Australians. In most respects, many of the tribes of Central Australia exhibit traits of primitive culture, even though their social organization is of a far more complicated nature. Finally, all the peoples whose remains have been found in the oldest diluvial deposits of Europe belong to the tall races. On the other hand, there are peoples of small stature, the Chinese and the Japanese, who must be counted in the first ranks of cultured peoples. Thus, mental culture certainly cannot be measured in terms of physical size but only in terms of itself. Mental values can never be determined except by mental characteristics. It is true that W. Schmidt has sought to support his theory regarding the Pygmies by reference to the reports of E.H. Man, a reliable English observer. According to these reports, the Andamanese, one of these dwarf peoples, possess some remarkable legends that are doubtless indicative of monotheistic ideas. Since the Andamans are a group of islands in the Sea of Bengal and the inhabitants are therefore separated from other peoples by an expanse of sea, Schmidt regarded as justifiable the assumption that these legends were autochthonous; since, moreover, the legends centre about the belief in a supreme god, he contended that we here finally had proof of the theory of an original monotheism. The main outlines of the Andamanese legends as given by E.H. Man are as follows: The supreme god, Puluga, first created man and subsequently (though with regard to this there are various versions) he created woman. She was either created directly, as was man, or man himself created her out of a piece of wood, possibly a reminiscence of Adam's rib. Then God gave man laws forbidding theft, murder, adultery, etc., forbidding him, furthermore, to eat of the fruits of the first rainy season. But man did not keep the Divine commandments. The Lord therefore sent a universal flood, in which perished all living things with the exception of two men and two women who happened to be in a boat. In this story, much is naturally distorted, confused, and adapted to the medium into which the legend is transplanted. But that it points to the Biblical accounts of the Creation, Paradise, and the Flood, there cannot, in my opinion, be the slightest doubt. If it is objected that the Andamans are altogether too far separated from the rest of the world by the sea, and also that no missionaries have ever been seen on these islands, our answer would be: Whatever may be the 'when' and the 'how,' the fact that the Biblical tradition at some time did come to the Andamanese is proven by the legend itself. This conclusion is just as incontestable as is the inference, for example, that the correspondence of certain South American and Asiatic myths is proof of a transmission. Indeed, the two latter regions are separated by an incomparably wider expanse of sea than that which divides the Andamans from Indo-China and its neighbouring islands. It should also be added that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands have obviously progressed far beyond the condition in which we find the inland tribes of Malacca, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Negritos of the Philippines. They practise the art of making pottery—an art never found among peoples who are properly called primitive; they have a social organization, with chiefs. These phenomena all characterize a fairly advanced culture. When, therefore, we are concerned with the beliefs of peoples who are really primitive, the Andamanese must be left out of consideration. According to the available proofs, however, these people possess a belief neither in one god nor in many gods. Moreover, even far beyond the most primitive stage, no coherent celestial mythology may be found, such as could possibly be regarded as an incipient polytheism. No doubt, there are ideas concerning single heavenly phenomena, but these always betray an association with terrestrial objects, particularly with human beings or animals. And, to all appearances, these ideas change with great rapidity. Nowhere have they led to the actual formation of myths. Among the Indians of the Brazilian forests, for example, the sun and moon are called leaves or feather-balls; by several of the Soudan tribes they are conceived as balls that have been thrown to the sky by human beings and have stuck there. Such ideas alternate with others in which the sun and moon are regarded as brothers or as brother and sister, or the sun is said to be chasing the moon—images influenced particularly by the phenomena of the moon's phases. As a matter of fact, this whole field of ideas reveals only one belief that is practically universal, appearing among peoples of nature and recurring even among civilized peoples. Because of the rare occurrence of the phenomenon, however, it has never led to a real mythology. I refer to the belief that in an eclipse of the sun, the sun is swallowed by a dark demon. This belief, obviously, is very readily suggested to the primitive imagination; it occurs in Central Africa, in Australia, and in America, and is found even in Indian mythology. Taken by itself, however, the notion is incapable of engendering a myth. It is to be regarded merely as an isolated case to be classed with a more richly developed set of demon-ideas that dominate the daily life of primitive man. At this stage, these ideas are the only elements of an incipient mythology that are clearly discernible and that at the same time exercise an important influence upon life. In so far as the mythology of primitive man gains a permanent foothold and influence, it consists of a belief in magic and demons. There are, however, two motives which engender this belief and give form and colour to the ideas and emotions springing from them. These are death and sickness.
Death! There are doubtless few impressions that have so powerful an effect upon the man of nature; indeed, civilized man as well is still very greatly stirred by the phenomenon of death. Let his companion meet with death, and even the outward actions of a primitive man are significant. The moment a person dies, the immediate impulse of primitive man is to leave him lying where he is and to flee. The dead person is abandoned, and the place where he died continues to be avoided for a long time—if possible, until animals have devoured the corpse. Obviously the emotion of fear is regnant. Its immediate cause is apparently the unusual and fear-inspiring changes which death makes in the appearance of a man. The suspension of movements, the pallor of death, the sudden cessation of breathing—these are phenomena sufficient to cause the most extreme terror. But what is the nature of the ideas that associate themselves with this fearsome impression? The flight from the corpse is evidence that man's fears are primarily for himself. To tarry in the presence of a dead person exposes the living man to the danger of being himself overtaken by death. The source of this danger is evidently identical with that which has brought death to the recently deceased person himself. Primitive man cannot think of death except as the sudden departure from the dying person of that which originally brought life. Nevertheless, there is evidently bound up with this conception the further idea that powers of life are still resident in the body; the latter remains firmly associated in the mind of primitive man with the impression of life. Here, then, we have the original source of the contradictory idea of a something that generates life and is therefore independent of the body, while nevertheless being connected with it. So far as we can gain knowledge of the impression which death makes on the mind of primitive man, two disparate motives are indissolubly united. He regards life as something that, in part, continues in some mysterious manner to dwell within the corpse, and, in part, hovers about, invisible, in its vicinity. For this reason, the dead person becomes to him a demon, an invisible being capable of seizing upon man, of overpowering or killing him, or of bringing sickness upon him. In addition to this primitive idea of demons, we also find the conception of a corporeal soul, meaning by this the belief that the body is the vehicle of life, and that, so long as it has not itself disappeared, it continues to harbour the life within itself. The corporeal soul is here still regarded as a unit which may, by separating itself from the body, become a demon and pass over into another person. No certain traces are as yet to be found of belief in a breath or shadow-like soul. As will appear later, this is a characteristic feature of the transition from primitive to totemic culture. When some investigators report that the soul is occasionally referred to by the Semangs of Malacca as a small bird that soars into the air at the death of a person, it is not improbable that we here have to do either with the Semangs of culture, who have undergone marked changes under Malayan influence, or with the presence of an isolated idea that belongs to a different cultural circle. For in no other case are ideas similar to that of the psyche to be found on the level of primitive culture. On the other hand, the burial customs of the Malays and of the mixed races living in the immediate vicinity of the primitive peoples of the Malay Peninsula, already exhibit a striking contrast to the flight of primitive man from the corpse.
The next group of ideas, those arising from the impression made by sickness, particularly by such sicknesses as attack man suddenly, are also restricted to the conception of a corporeal soul. For, one of the most characteristic marks of this conception is that magical, demoniacal powers are believed to issue from the body of the dead person. These powers, however, are not, as occurs in the above case, regarded as embodied in any visible thing—such as the exhalations of the breath or an escaping animal—that separates itself from the person. On the contrary, the demon that leaves the corpse and attacks another person in the form of a fatal sickness, is invisible. He is purely the result of an association between the fear aroused by the occurrence of death and the fright caused by an unexpected attack of sickness. The dead person, therefore, continues to remain the seat of demoniacal powers; these he can repeatedly direct against the living persons who approach him. Primitive man believes that the demon may assume any form whatsoever within the body, and deceitful medicine-men take advantage of this in ostensibly removing the sickness in the form of a piece of wood or of a stone. But it is precisely these ideas that are totally unrelated to that of a psyche and its embodiments. Though the corpse is perhaps the earliest object that suggests sickness-demons, it is in no wise the only one. Indeed, the attack of sickness is in itself sufficient to arouse fear of a demon. Thus, the Semangs and Senoi distinguish a vast number of different sickness-demons. Such ideas of demons, however, as we find among the Malays and the Singhalese, where demons are regarded as counter-agents to sickness-magic and usually take the form of fantastical animal monsters, never occur except at a later cultural stage. Any resemblance of these demons to 'soul animals,' which, as we shall find in our next chapter, are always actual animals, is confined to the fact that they have some similarity to animals. Obviously they are creations of the imagination, due to fear and terror. Their only difference from the monsters of similar origin that are projected into the outward world is that they are reduced to proportions which fit the dimensions of the human body.
Closely connected with the magic of sickness is counter-magic, an agency by which disease is removed or the attack of sickness-demons warded off. Even primitive man seeks for such modes of relief. Hence, probably, the original formation of a special group of men, which, though not, of course, at the very first a fixed professional class, was nevertheless the precursor of the latter. Among the American Indians, these were the 'medicine-men'; the peoples of northern Asia called them 'shamans'—more generally expressed, they were magicians. The name 'medicine-man,' indeed, is not inappropriate. The medicine-man of the savages is, in truth, the predecessor of the modern physician, and also, in a certain sense, of the modern priest. He not only ministers to the individual whom he restores to health by means of his counter-magic, but he can himself directly practise magic. Since he has power over demons, he can exorcise them from the body; but he can also magically cause them to enter it. Thus, the medicine-man has a twofold calling. He is feared, but he is also valued as a helper in need. His position differs according as the one or the other emotion predominates. He was the first to investigate the effect of herbs on man. He probably discovered the poisons, and, by rendering the arrow poisonous, gained a still higher authority in the eyes of the savage. For the arrow, too, is a means of magic. But he also discovered methods of removing poisons, and thereby transformed poisonous plants into articles of food. His calling, then, is a supremely important one, though also at all times dangerous for the one who practises it. He is not only exposed to persecution if he fails to accomplish what is expected of him, or if he is suspected of evil magic, but the magician, when pressed by need, also becomes a deceiver. The deception of the medicine-man, indeed, apparently dates back to the very earliest times. Koch-Grünberg tells us that among the Central Brazilians the medicine-men expel disease by carrying about with them a piece of wood, which they bring forth, after various manipulations, as the alleged seat of the demon. If the suggestion thus given is effective, the patient may, of course, feel himself improved. At any rate, we must not think that the mass of the people is led to lose belief in magic; in most cases, perhaps, the medicine-man himself remains a deceived deceiver.
Nevertheless, on the primitive stage, death and sickness are the main sources of belief in magic and in demons. From this as a centre, the belief radiates far out into all departments of life. The belief in magic, for example, assumes the form of protective magic, of magical defence against demoniacal influences. In this form, it probably determines the original modes of dress, and, more obviously and permanently still, the adornment of the body. In fact, in its beginnings, this adornment was really designed less for decoration than for purposes of magic.
In connection with the external culture of primitive man we have already noted his meagre dress, which frequently consisted merely of a cord of bast about the loins, with leaves suspended from it. What was the origin of this dress? In the tropical regions, where primitive man lives, it was surely not the result of need for protection; nor can we truthfully ascribe it to modesty, as is generally done on the ground that it is the genital parts that are most frequently covered. In estimating the causes, the questions of primary importance are rather those as to where the very first traces of dress appear and of what its most permanent parts consist. The answer to the latter question, however, is to be found not in the apron but in the loin-cord, which is occasionally girt about the hips without any further attempt at dress. Obviously this was not a means of protection against storm and cold; nor can modesty be said to have factored in the development of this article, which serves the purposes both of dress and of adornment. But what was its real meaning? An incident from the life of the Veddahs may perhaps furnish the answer to this question. When the Veddah enters into marriage, he binds a cord about the loins of his prospective wife. Obviously this is nothing else than a form of the widely current 'cord-magic,' which plays a not inconsiderable rôle even in present-day superstition. Cord-magic aims to bring about certain results by means of a firmly fastened cord. This cord is not a symbol, but is, as all symbols originally were, a means of magic. When a cord is fastened about a diseased part of the body and then transferred to a tree, it is commonly believed that the sickness is magically transplanted into the tree. If the tree is regarded as representing an enemy, moreover, this act, by a further association, is believed to transfer sickness or death to the enemy through the agency of the tree. The cord-magic of the Veddah is obviously of a simpler nature than this. By means of the cord which he has himself fastened, the Veddah endeavours to secure the faithfulness of his wife. The further parts of primitive dress were developments of the loin-cord, and were worn suspended from it. Coincidentally with this, the original means of adornment make their appearance. Necklaces and bracelets, which have remained favourite articles of feminine adornment even within our present culture, and fillets about the head which, among some of the peoples of nature, are likewise worn chiefly by the women, are further developments of the loin-cord, transferred, as it were, to other parts of the body. And, as the first clothing was attached to the loin-cord, so also were the bracelet and fillet, and particularly the necklace, employed to carry other early means of protective magic, namely, amulets. Gradually the latter also developed into articles of adornment, preferably worn, even to-day, about the neck.
The assumption that the present purpose of clothing is also the end that it originally served led naturally to the theory that when the loin-cord alone is worn—as a mere indication, seemingly, of the absence of clothing—this is to be regarded not as an original custom but as the remnant of an earlier dress now serving solely as an adornment. But this supposition is contradicted, in the first place, by the fact that the loin-cord occasionally occurs by itself precisely amidst the most primitive conditions, and, in the second place, by the general development not only of clothing as such but also of certain means of adorning the surface of the body, particularly painting and tattooing. Now, there is a general rule that development proceeds not from the composite to the simple, but, conversely, from the simple to the complex. Moreover, indications of the influence of magical ideas are generally the more marked according as the stages on which the phenomenal occur are the earlier. The loin-cord, particularly, is occasionally put to certain magical uses which are scarcely intelligible without reference to the widely prevalent cord-magic. If the binding of a cord of bast of his own weaving about the hips of his prospective wife signifies a sort of marriage ceremony for the Veddah, as it undoubtedly does, this must imply that the cord is a means of magic that binds her for life. Instances have been found of another remarkable and complex custom that substantiates this 'magical' interpretation. A man binds a loin-cord of his own weaving about the woman and she does the same to him—an exchange of magic-working fetters which is a striking anticipation of the exchange of rings still customary with us upon betrothal or marriage. For the exchange of rings, to a certain extent, represents in miniature the exchange of cords practised by primitive man, though there is, of course, this enormous difference that, in the primitive ceremony the binding has a purely magical significance, whereas the later act is merely symbolical. All these phenomena indicate that even the beginnings of clothing involve ideas of magic. Later, of course, a number of other motives also enter in, gradually leading to a change in meaning and to a wide departure from the idea originally entertained. Owing to the influence of climatic changes, there arises, in the first place, the need of protection; and the greater this becomes, the more does magic recede. And so, even among primitive tribes, the loin-cord is gradually replaced by the apron proper, which no longer requires a special cord for its support. In the course of this transition into a means of protection, the feeling of modesty more and more enters into the development as a contributing factor. According to a law operative everywhere, even under very different conditions, modesty is always connected with such parts of the body as are required by custom to be kept covered. To do what custom forbids arouses the feeling of shame, particularly in such cases as this, where the violation is so direct and apparent. It is for this reason that the feeling of shame may be aroused by the exposure of very different parts of the body. Thus, the Hottentot woman wears an apron in front and also one behind. The latter covers a cushion of fat over the seat, which is greatly developed in the case of the Hottentot woman and is regarded by these tribes as a particular mark of beauty. To a Hottentot woman it is no worse to have the front apron removed than for some one to take away the rear apron. In the latter case, she seats herself on the ground and cannot be made to get up until the apron has been restored to her. When Leonard Schultze was travelling in the Hottentot country of Namaqua Land, he noticed a certain Hottentot custom which strictly prescribes that the legs must be stretched out when one sits down upon the ground—they are not to be bent at the knees. When one of his companions, unfamiliar with the custom, sat differently, a Hottentot struck him on the knees so that they straightened out; when the reason was asked, the answer was that "this manner of sitting brings misfortune." The reply is significant, particularly because it shows how the feeling of shame, which arises at a later period in the development of the original idea of magic and is due to the influence of custom, itself, in turn, reacts associatively on the older magical ideas. The violation of custom is regarded as dangerous, and as a matter requiring, wherever possible, the employment of protective magic. The reasons for guarding against a violation of custom are not merely subjective, but also objective, for guilt is followed by punishment. Thus, there is here an intertwining of motives.
The necklace, bracelet, finger-ring, and sometimes the head-fillet, occur as specific means of magic, in addition to, and in substitution for, the loin-cord. In more restricted localities we find also earrings and nose-rings, the boring through of the lips, and combs to which twigs and leaves are attached. Of these, the necklace has maintained itself far down into later culture, for it is the necklace that gives support to the amulet. The latter is supposed to afford protective magic against all possible dangers; the finger-ring, on the other hand, is the favourite vehicle of an active magic, changing things in accordance with the wishes of the owner—that is to say, it is a talisman. Similar in its powers to the necklace, furthermore, is the bracelet—found even in primitive culture—and also the head-fillet, which encircles the forehead and the back part of the head. The Semangs and Senoi of the Malaccan forests are invested with the head-fillet by the medicine-man, who exchanges it for another at particularly important turning-points of life, such, for example, as the entrance of the youth into manhood, or of the woman upon marriage. The head-fillets that have been removed are preserved in the house of the medicine-man. If the woman is widowed, her former fillet is placed on her head. This signifies the annulment of the magical union that existed throughout the period of marriage. Evidently this magic custom is closely connected with the strict observance of monogamy. These ceremonial changes in dress are accompanied by a similar change in name. On entering the married state a woman changes her name, as does also the youth who passes into manhood. Moreover, this change is not in the least a mere symbol, but represents a magical act. With the change in name, the individual himself becomes another person. The name is so closely connected with the person that even the speaking of it may exercise a magical influence upon him.
But the magical ideas radiating from death and sickness come to be associated also with other external objects—objects not attached to the individual's person, as are clothing and adornment. Examples of this are implements, and, in particular, the weapon of primitive man, namely, the bow and arrow. The magical significance has, of course, frequently disappeared from the memory of the natives. The Sarasins saw the Veddahs execute dances about an arrow that had been set upright. On inquiring, the reason, they were told: 'This was done even by our fathers and grandfathers; why should we not also do it?' A similar answer could be given in the case of many, indeed, of most of these magical ceremonies. Those ceremonies particularly that are in any way complicated are passed down from generation to generation, being scrupulously guarded and occasionally augmented by additional magical elements. It is for this reason that, in the presence of the extraordinarily complicated dances and magical ceremonies of primitive peoples, we sometimes ask in amazement: How could such a wealth of connected ideas possibly arise and become expressed in action? To this it might briefly be replied that they did not arise at all as creations of a single moment. The meaning of the ceremonies has for the most part long been lost to the participants themselves, and was probably unknown even to their ancestors. The general reason for the various acts that are executed according to ancient usage is that they serve a magical purpose. The performers firmly believe that the acts will secure that which is desired, whether it be good fortune or protection from evil, and that the greater the care and exactitude with which the act is performed, the more certainly will the magical purpose be attained. The conditions here are really not essentially different from those that still prevail everywhere in the cult ceremonies of civilized peoples. It is the very fact that the motives are forgotten that leads to the enormous complexity of the phenomena. Even in the case of the above-mentioned dance about the arrow, there may have entered a considerable number of motives that were later forgotten. Of them all, nothing was eventually remembered except that, to insure the welfare of the individual and that of the group, the act prescribed by custom must be performed at stated times or under particular conditions.
Quite secondary to these numerous irradiations of magical ideas among primitive peoples are the general notions connected with natural phenomena. A cloud may, no doubt, occasionally be regarded as a demon. And, as already stated, an unusual natural phenomenon, such as an eclipse of the sun, is likewise almost everywhere regarded as a demoniacal event. But, on the whole, celestial phenomena play a passing and an exceedingly variable rôle in the beliefs of primitive man. Moreover, while the ideas and the resultant acts engendered by death and sickness are, on the whole, of a uniform character, the fragments of celestial mythology vary in an irregular and self-contradictory manner. For this reason the latter cannot be regarded as having any important significance on the earliest plane of culture. This flatly contradicts a theory, still prevalent in the scientific world, to the effect that all mythological thinking is due to the influence of celestial phenomena, whether it be the moon in its changing phases, or the sun, the thunderstorm, or the clouds. This theory is certainly not valid as regards primitive man. It can be maintained only if we distinguish—as has, indeed, sometimes been done—between two completely disparate realms, a 'higher' mythology, exemplified by the above, and a 'lower' mythology. We shall return to this point later. We are here concerned with the standpoint of nature-mythology only in so far as it has exercised a decisive influence on the interpretation of the earliest manifestations of the 'lower' mythology. With respect to the ultimate psychological motives of mythology as a whole, including that of primitive man, the idea is even to-day widely current that mythological thought was from the very beginning a naïve attempt at an interpretation of the phenomena which man encounters in nature or in his own life. That is to say, all mythology is regarded as a sort of primitive science, or, at any rate, as a precursor of philosophy. This innate need for explanation is then usually associated with an alleged a priori principle of causality inherent in the mind. The mythological view of nature, therefore, is supposed to be nothing but an application—imperfect as yet, to be sure—of the causal law to the nexus of phenomena. But if we call to mind the condition of natural man as revealed in his actions, no trace can be found of any need for explanation such as requires the initial employment of the concept of causality. Indeed, as regards the phenomena of daily life and those that surround him on all hands and constantly recur in a uniform manner, primitive man experiences no need at all for explanation. For him everything is as it is just because it has always been so. Just as he dances about an arrow because his father and his grandfather practised this custom in the past, so also does he hold that the sun rises to-day because it rose yesterday. The regularity with which a phenomenon recurs is for him sufficient testimony and explanation of its existence. Only that which arouses his emotion and calls forth particularly fear and terror comes to be an object of magical and demoniacal belief. The primitive level of mythological thought differs from the more developed stage in also another respect. In the former case, the phenomena that are most apt to arouse ideas of magic and of demons are those that concern man himself and that arouse fear and terror. But here again death and sickness are of greatest importance. True, a thunderstorm may occasionally find a place in the nexus of magical ideas, or an eclipse of the sun, or some other natural phenomenon—and this occurs the more readily according as the phenomenon is the more unusual and striking. The regularly recurring features of the primitive myth, however, have their source in the immediate environment and in the facts of personal experience, in fear and terror. Thus, it is not intelligence nor reflection as to the origin and interconnection of phenomena that gives rise to mythological thinking, but emotion; ideas are only the material which the latter elaborates. The idea of a corporeal soul, present in the corpse yet also capable of abandoning it and of becoming a dangerous demon, is a creation of the emotion of fear. The demons who possess the sick man and cause his death, or who depart from him in convalescence, are products of emotion. They are supersensible, as is the soul, because they are born purely of emotion. Nevertheless, they always tend to assume a sensible nature, being imaged either as men, or as external things, such as animals, plants, weapons, and implements. Only in the course of later development are the demons themselves equipped with relatively permanent qualities that differ from the characteristics of the vehicles in which they are regarded as embodied.
Thus, then, we utterly confuse primitive thinking with our own scientific standpoint when we explain it by the need for the interpretation of phenomena. Causality, in our sense of the word, does not exist for primitive man. If we would speak of causality at all on his level of experience, we may say only that he is governed by the causality of magic. This, however, receives its stamp, not from the laws that regulate the connection of ideas, but from the forces of emotion. The mythological causality of emotional magic is no less spasmodic and irregular than the logical causality arising out of the orderly sequence of perceptions and ideas is constant. That the former preceded the latter is, nevertheless, of great importance. For the causality of natural law, as we know it, would hardly have been possible had not magical causality prepared the way for it. Yet the later arose from the earlier just at that moment in which the attention of men ceased to be held by the unusual, the startling, and the fearful, and occupied itself with the orderly, the regular, and commonplace. For this reason the very greatest advance in the investigation of natural laws was made by Galileo, when he took as the object of his research that which was the most commonplace, the falling of a body to the earth. Primitive man did not reflect about this phenomenon nor, until a long time afterwards, did civilized man. That a body should fall to the earth when thrown upwards 'is self-evident' because it is thus that bodies have always acted. An echo of this primitive view remains even in the older physics, which, following Aristotle, tells us that a body falls because the centre of the earth is its natural point of rest—that is, to put it otherwise, it must behave as it does because it has always done so.
[8. THE BEGINNINGS OF ART.]
Though mythological thinking, particularly on the level of belief in demons and magic, has but slight connection with later science, it stands in close relation to the beginnings of art. This relation appears, among other things, in the fact that the simplest forms of the one are connected with the simplest forms of the other. This connection is twofold. Ideas of magic are, in a certain sense, projected into the products of art; art, on the other hand, being the means whereby mythological thinking finds expression, reacts upon magical ideas and brings about an enhancement of their motives. This is particularly apparent, in the beginnings of art, in the fact that, as viewed by civilized man, primitive peoples have brought but one art to a high degree of perfection, the art of dancing. For no other form of artistic expression is early man better endowed. His body is incomparably more supple than that of civilized races. The life of the forest, the climbing of trees, and the capturing of game qualify him for performances that would prove difficult to a modern art-dancer. All who have witnessed the dancing of men of nature have marvelled at their great skill and dexterity, and especially at their wonderful ability in respect to postures, movements, and mimetic expression. Originally, the dance was a means for the attainment of magical ends, as we may conjecture from the fact that even at a very early stage it developed into the cult dance. Nevertheless, from the very beginning it obviously also gave rise to pleasure, and this caused it to be re-enacted in playful form. Thus, even the earliest art ministered not only to external needs but also to the subjective life of pleasure. The direct source of the latter is one's own movements and their accompanying sensations. The dance of the group enhances both the emotion and the ability of the individual. This appears clearly in the dances executed by the inland tribes of Malacca. These peoples do not seem to have any round dances. The individual dancer remains at a fixed spot, though he is able, without leaving his place, to execute marvellous contortions and movements of the limbs. These movements, moreover, combine with those of his companions to form an harmonious whole. They are controlled, however, by still another factor, the attempt to imitate animals. It is true that, on the primitive level proper, the animal does not play so dominant a rôle as in later times. Nevertheless, the imitation of animals in the dance already foreshadows the totemic period. Some individuals are able, while remaining at a fixed spot, to imitate with striking life-likeness the movements of even small animals, and this is regarded as art of the highest order. Yet the animal-mask, which is later commonly used in cult and magic, is here as yet entirely lacking. These very mimic and pantomimic dances, however, unquestionably bear the traces of magic. When the Veddah imitates game-animals while executing his dance about the arrow, the arrow is without doubt regarded as a means of magic, and we may conjecture that the game-animals that are struck by an arrow are supposed actually to succumb as a result of this mimetic performance.
Among primitive peoples, the dance is not, as a rule, accompanied by music. At most, means of producing noise are introduced, their purpose being to indicate the rhythm. The simplest of these noise-instruments consists of two wooden sticks that are beaten together. The drum is also common at a very early time; yet it was probably introduced from without. The real musical accompaniment of the dance is furnished by the human voice in the dance-song. It would, of course, be wrong to suppose that because the dance originally served purposes of magic, the dance-song was a sort of primitive cult-song. Of such songs as the latter no traces occur until later. The contents of the early songs are derived from the most commonplace experiences of life. The songs really consist of detached fragments of purely descriptive or narrative prose, and have no inner connection with the motives of the dance. That which characterizes them as songs is the refrain. One might say without qualification that this poetic form of speech begins with the refrain. The song has grown up out of selected natural sounds. Anything that has been done or observed may serve as content of the song. After such material has once been employed, it is continually repeated. Thus it becomes a folk-song that is sung particularly during the dance. The melody is of a very monotonous character; could it be translated into our notes, we would find that in the songs of the Veddahs or of the inland tribes of Malacca, the melody moves at most within the range of a sixth. Moreover, there is an absence of harmonic intervals, so that, not having been phonographically recorded, the songs cannot be reproduced in our notes except with great uncertainty. Of their content, the following illustrations may give us some idea. One, of the songs of the Veddahs runs as follows:—
The doves of Taravelzita say kuturung.
Where the talagoya is roasted and eaten, there blew a wind,
Where the memmina is roasted and eaten, there blew a wind,
Where the deer is roasted and eaten, there blew a wind.
On a somewhat higher level stands the following song of the Semangs. It refers to the ring-tailed lemur (macaco), a monkey species very common in the forests of Malacca; by the Semangs it is called 'kra':—
He runs along the branches, the kra,
He carries the fruit with him, the kra,
He runs to and fro, the kra;
Over the living bamboo, the kra,
Over the dead bamboo, the kra;
He runs along the branches, the kra,
He leaps about and screams, the kra,
He permits glimpses of himself, the kra,
He shows his grinning teeth, the kra.
As is clear, we have here simply observations, descriptions of that which the Semang has seen when watching the lemur in the forest. This description, of course, serves only as the material for the music of speech; that which is really musical is the refrain, which in this case consists simply of the word kra. This music of speech exalts and supplements the dance; when all parts of the body are in motion the articulatory organs also tend to participate. It is only the modern art-dance which has substituted an instrumental accompaniment for the voice and has thus been able to suppress the natural expression of emotions. But, even in our culture, the emotions receive active, vocal expression in the folk-dances of our villages.
Musical instruments, in the strict sense of the word, are almost unknown to primitive man. Where somewhat complex forms occur, they appear to have been imported. Such, for example, is the bamboo nose-flute, occasionally found among the inland tribes of the Malay Peninsula. The nose-flute is similar to our flutes, except that it is blown from above instead of from the side, and is not played by means of the mouth, but is placed against one of the nostrils, so that the side of the nose serves as the tone-producing membrane. It has from three to five holes that may be covered with the fingers. This instrument is a genuine product of Melanesia, and was doubtless acquired from this region by the Malayan tribes. Of earlier origin, no doubt, are stringed instruments. These are to be found even among primitive peoples. The forms that occur in Malacca have, in this case also, obviously come from Oceania. But, on the other hand, an instrument has been found among the Bushmen and the neighbouring peoples which may be regarded as the most primitive of its kind and which throws important light on the origin of musical instruments of this sort. A bow, essentially similar to that which he employs in the chase, affords the Bushman a simple stringed instrument. The string of the bow now becomes the string of a musical instrument. Its tones, however, cannot be heard distinctly by any one except the player himself. He takes one end of the bow between his teeth and sets the string into vibration with his finger. The resonance of the bones of his head then causes a tone, whose pitch he may vary by holding the string at the middle or at some other point, and thus setting only a part of the string into vibration. Of this tone, however, practically no sound reaches the external world. On the other hand, the tone produces a very strong effect on the player himself, being powerfully transmitted through the teeth to the firm parts of the skull and reaching the auditory nerves through a direct bone-conduction. Thus, then, it is a remarkable fact that music, the most subjective of the arts, begins with the very stringed instruments which are the most effective in arousing subjective moods, and with a form in which the pleasure secured by the player from his playing remains purely subjective. But, from this point on, the further development to tone-effects that are objective and are richer in gradations is reached by simple transitions effected by association. The one string, taken over from the bow used in the chase, is no longer sufficient. Hence the bridge appears, which consists of a piece of wood whose upper side is fastened at the middle of the bow and whose lower side is toothed for the reception of several strings. The strings also are perfected, by being made of threads detached from the bamboo of which the bow is constructed. Then follows a second important advance. Instead of taking the end of the bow in his mouth and using his own head as a resonator, the player makes use of a hollow gourd and thus renders the tone objectively audible. The best and most direct point of connection between the gourd and the bow proves to be the end of the stick that carries the bridge. It is now no longer the head of the player that furnishes the resonance, but the substituted calabash. In its external appearance the calabash resembles the head—indeed, upon other occasions also, it is sometimes regarded as a likeness of the head, and eyes, mouth, and nose are cut into its rind. Thus, the association of the gourd with the head may possibly have exerted an influence upon this step in the development of the musical instrument. Perhaps the inventor himself did not realize until after the artificial head came into use that he had made a great advance in the perfection of his instrument. His music was now audible to others as well as to himself.
Another instrument also, the bull-roarer, dates back to the beginnings of music, though its development, of course, differed from that of the zither. The bull-roarer, indeed, is an instrument of tone and noise that is to be found only among relatively primitive peoples. True, it does not reach its highest development among those peoples who, from a sociological point of view, occupy the lowest plane of culture; it becomes an instrument of magic, as we shall see, only within the totemic culture of Australia. Nevertheless, there has been discovered, again among the Bushmen, a form of bull-roarer of an especially primitive character. Doubtless that which led primitive man to the invention of the zither was the tone which he heard in his everyday experience in war or in the hunt when he applied an arrow to his bow. No doubt, also, it was the whirring noise of the arrow, or that, perhaps, of the flying bird which the arrow imitates, that led him to reproduce this noise in a similar manner. Indeed, in South Africa, the bull-roarer, though, of course, used only as a plaything, occurs in a form that at once reminds one of a flying bird or arrow. The feather of a bird is fastened at right angles to a stick of wood. When the stick is vigorously swung about in a circle, a whistling noise is produced, accompanied, particularly when swung with great rapidity, by a high tone. This tone, however, is not capable of further perfection, so that no other musical instrument developed from the bull-roarer. The contrary, rather, is true. In other forms of the bull-roarer in which the feathers were displaced by a flat wooden board—whose only resemblance to a bird was a slight similarity in form—the noise was more intense but the tone less clear. For this reason the bull-roarer soon lost its place in the ranks of musical instruments and became purely an instrument of magic, in which function also it was used only temporarily. In many parts of the world, moreover, there is a similar primitive implement, the rattle, whose status is the same as that of the bull-roarer.
It was in connection with ideas of magic and of demons that formative art or, as it would perhaps be truer to say, the elements from which this art proceeded, was developed. Such art was not unknown even to the primitive peoples of the pretotemic age. If anywhere, it is doubtless among the primitive tribes of Malacca and Ceylon that we can, in some measure and with some certainty, trace formative art to its earliest beginnings and to the causes back of these. The Bushman must here be excluded from consideration, since, as we shall see, he was clearly affected by external influences. The Veddahs, as well as the Senoi and Semangs, are familiar with only the simplest forms of linear decoration. Yet this makes it evident that simple lines, such as can be produced by cutting or by scratching, form the starting-point of almost all later development. Here again it is the bamboo that is utilized, its wood being a material suitable for these simple artistic attempts. Its connection with art is due also to the fact that it is used in the manufacture of implements and weapons, such as the bow and the digging-stick, and, later, the blow-pipe and the flute. As important objects of adornment, we find the combs of the women, which, among the Malaccan tribes, are extremely rich in linear decorations. At first, the dominant motive is the triangle. Just as the triangle is the simplest rectilinear figure of geometry, so also is it the simplest closed ornamental pattern. The weapons not infrequently have a series of triangles included within two parallel straight lines. This illustrates in its simplest form the universal characteristic of primitive ornaments, namely, uniform repetition. The pattern later becomes more complicated; the triangles are crossed by lines between which there are spaces that are also triangular in form. Such figures are then further combined into double triangles having a common base, etc. These are followed by other forms, in which simple arcs take the place of straight lines. For example, an arc is substituted for the base of each triangle, again with absolute uniformity. Finally, the arc, in the form of the segment of a circle, is utilized independently, either in simple repetition or in alternation. These simple designs then become increasingly complex by the combination either of the forms as a whole or of some of their parts. This multiplication of motives reaches its most artistic development in the women's combs found among the tribes of the Malay Peninsula. The comb, in some form or other, is a very common article of adornment among peoples of nature. But it is just in the form in which it occurs among the Senoi and Semangs that the comb gives evidence of having originally been, at most, only incidentally an article of adornment and of having only gradually come to be exclusively a decoration. In shape, it is like the women's combs of to-day. The teeth are pointed downwards, and serve the purpose of fastening the hair. The upper part forms a broad crest. But among these peoples the crest is the main part of the comb, the function of the teeth being merely to hold it to the head. For the crest is decorated in rich profusion with the above-mentioned ornamentations, and, if we ask the Semangs and the Senoi what these mean, we are told that they guard against diseases. In the Malay Peninsula, the men do not wear combs, evidently for the practical reason that, because of their life in the forest and their journeys through the underbrush, they cut their hair short. In other regions which have also evolved the comb, as in Polynesia, such conditions do not prevail; the comb, therefore, is worn by both men and women. In this, its earliest, use, however, the comb as such is clearly less an object of adornment than a means of magic. It serves particularly as a sort of amulet, to protect against sickness-demons. For this reason the ornamental lines in their various combinations are regarded as referring to particular diseases. The marks which a Semang woman carries about with her on her comb are really magical signs indicating the diseases from which she wishes to be spared. The head would appear to be a particularly appropriate place for wearing these magical signs. It is to magical ideas, therefore, that we must probably look for the origin of this very common means of adornment. In Malacca, indeed, the combs are carefully preserved; the drawings made upon them render them, as it were, sacred objects. But it is impossible to learn directly from the statements of the natives just how primitive articles of adornment came to acquire the significance of ornaments. Our only clue is the fact that the decorations on the bows and blow-pipes are supposed to be magical aids to a successful hunt; for, among the representations, there are occasionally those of animals. This fact we may bring into connection with observations made by Karl von den Steinen among the Bakairi of Central Brazil. This investigator here found remarkable ornamentations on wood. All of these were of a simple geometrical design, just as in the case of other primitive peoples, yet they were interpreted by the natives not as means of magic but as representations of objects. A consecutive series of triangles whose angles were somewhat rounded off, was interpreted as a snake, and a series of squares whose angles touched, as a swarm of bees. But the representations included also other things besides animals. For example, a vertical series of triangles in which the apexes pointed downwards and touched the bases of the next lower triangles, was regarded as a number of women's aprons—the upper part was the girdle, and, attached to this, the apron. In a word, primitive man is inclined to read concrete objects of this kind into his simple ornamental lines. That we also can still voluntarily put ourselves into such an attitude, is testified to by Karl von den Steinen himself, when he tells us that he succeeded without particular effort in discovering similar objects in certain simple ornamentations. We here have a case of the psychical process of assimilation. This is characteristic of all consciousness, but, as might be supposed, from the fact that primitive peoples live continuously in the open, it is more strongly in evidence among them than among civilized races.
But the question now arises, Which came first? Did the Bakairi really wish to represent snakes, bees, women's aprons, etc., and reduce these to geometrical schematizations? Or did he, without such intention, first make simple linear decorations, and later read into them, through imaginative association, the memory images of objects? The latter is doubtless the case. For it is much easier first to draw simple lines and then to read complicated objects into them than it is, conversely, to reduce these pictures at the outset to abstract geometrical schemata. Indeed, when the Bakairi wishes to draw real objects, he proceeds just as our children do: he copies them as well as he can. For example, the Bakairi occasionally draws fishes in the sand for the purpose of marking out a path, or he attempts to reproduce men and animals in a way strikingly similar to our children's drawings. Evidently, therefore, it was not inability to draw the objects themselves that gave rise to these primitive geometrical decorations. The decorations came first, and the memory images of the objects of daily perception were then read into them. The answer, however, to the question as to why primitive man produces decorations at all, is easily found by calling to mind the motives discernible in such uniform and simple series of figures as the triangles and arcs which the Senoi and the Semangs cut into bamboo. Because of the character of his locomotor organs, primitive man repeats the movements of the dance at regular intervals, and this rhythm gives him pleasure. Similarly, he derives pleasure even from the regularly repeated movements involved in making the straight lines of his drawings, and this pleasure is enhanced when he sees the symmetrical figures that arise under his hand as a result of his movements. The earliest æsthetic stimuli are symmetry and rhythm. We learn this even from the most primitive of all arts, the dance. Just as one's own movements in the dance are an æsthetic expression of symmetry and rhythm, so also are these same characteristics embodied in the earliest productions of pictorial art—in the beginning indeed, they alone are to be found. The primitive song comes to be a song only as a result of the regular repetition of a refrain that in itself is unimportant. As soon as primitive man produces lines on wood, his pleasure in rhythmic repetition at once leads him to make these symmetrical. It is for this reason that we never find decorations that consist merely of a single figure—a single triangle, for instance—but always find a considerable number of figures together, either above one another, or side by side, or both combined, though the last arrangement occurs only at a somewhat more advanced stage. If, now, these decorations are more and more multiplied by reason of the increasing pleasure in their production, we naturally have figures that actually resemble certain objects. This resemblance is strengthened particularly by the repetition of the figures. A single square with its angles placed vertically and horizontally would scarcely be interpreted as a bee, even by a Bakairi; but in a series of such squares we ourselves could doubtless imagine a swarm of bees. Thus there arise representations resembling animals, plants, and flowers. Because of their symmetrical form, the latter particularly are apt to become associated with geometrical designs. Yet on the whole the animal possesses a greater attraction. The animal that forms the object of the hunt is carved upon the bow or the blow-pipe. This is a means of magic that brings the animal within range of the weapon. It is magic, likewise, that affords the explanation of the statement of the Senoi and the Semangs that the drawings on the combs of their women are a means of protection against diseases. These two sorts of purposes illustrate the two forms of magic that are still exemplified on higher cultural levels by the amulet, on the one hand, and the talisman, on the other—protection from danger, and assistance in one's personal undertakings. Now it is easy to understand how especially the complicated decorations on the combs of the Malaccan tribes may, through the familiar processes of psychical assimilation, come to be regarded as living beings, in the form either of animals or of plants, and how these forms in turn may come to be interpreted as sickness-demons. For, these demons are beings that have never been seen; hence the terrified imagination may all the more readily give them the most fantastic shapes. Indeed, we still find examples of this in the more elaborate pictures of the art of some semi-cultural peoples. Thus also are explained many of the masks used among the most diverse peoples. It is almost always grotesque animal or human masks that are employed to represent fear-demons. The freer the sway of the imagination, the easier it is to see the figure of a demon in any decoration whatsoever. The multiplicity of the ornamental drawings, moreover, meets the need for distinguishing a great number of such demons, so that a woman of the Senoi or the Semangs carries about on her head the demoniacal representation of all known diseases. For, according to an ancient law of magic, the demon himself has a twofold rôle—he both causes the sickness and protects against it. Just as a picture is identified with its object, so also is the drawing that represents or portrays the sickness-demon regarded as the demon itself. Whoever carries it about is secure against its attack. Both magic and counter-magic spring from a common source. The medicine-man who exercises counter-magic must also be familiar with magic. The two are but divergent forms of the same magical potency that has its birth in the emotions of fear and terror.
In summary of what we have thus far learned with regard to the art of drawing among primitive men, it may be said that this art is throughout one of magic and adornment. These are the two motives from which it springs, and which, apparently, co-operate from the outset. The mere drawing of lines in regular and symmetrical repetition is due to that regularity of movement which also finds expression in the dance and, even prior to this, in ordinary walking and running. But the artist himself then attributes a hidden meaning to that which he has created. Astonishment at his creation fuses with his pleasure in it, and his wonder at the picture that he has produced makes of it, when animated and retransformed by the imagination, a magical object. The pictures carried about on the person, or wrought on an object of daily use, assist in guarding against diseases and other injuries, or they assure the success of the weapon and the implement.
In view of these characteristics of a purely magical and decorative art, it may perhaps at first glance cause surprise that there should be a people which, although primitive in other essential respects, has far transcended this stage in artistic attainment, and has, apparently, followed an entirely different direction in its pathway to art. Such are the Bushmen. The primitive tribes mentioned above show no traces of an art of drawing; beyond suggestions of a single object, it is absolutely impossible to find representations of objects and their groupings such as are common in the pictures of the Bushmen, which portray particularly animals and, to a less extent, men. This is all the more significant in view of the fact that, while the Bushmen also decorate their weapons and utensils with magical and ornamental designs, these are of far less importance than in the case of the primitive tribes referred to above. The painting of the Bushmen, however, is obviously neither magical nor decorative in character. Originally these pictures seem to have been drawn in caves; at any rate, it is here that many of them have been found. We have already indicated the importance of this primitive dwelling for the beginnings of a memorial art. When external impressions are absent, as in the cave, the imagination is all the more impelled to preserve memories in self-created pictures. The simpler of these resemble, in their characteristics, the drawings and paintings of present-day children. But we can plainly distinguish the more primitive work from that which is more advanced; the latter frequently reproduces its objects with accuracy, particularly animals, such, for example, as the elk and also the giraffe, which is a favourite object, probably because of its long neck. Occasionally, indeed, a quadruped is still represented in profile with only two legs, but most of the pictures are certainly far beyond this childish mode of drawing. In general, mineral pigments were used from the very outset, particularly red iron ore, blue vitriol, etc. We also find mixtures of pigments, so that almost all colours occur. Now it might, of course, be supposed that such a picture of an animal has the same significance as attaches to the drawing occasionally executed on the bow of a primitive man for the purpose of magically insuring the weapon of its mark. But the very places where these paintings occur, far removed as they are from chase and battle, militate against such a supposition. An even greater objection is the fact that the more perfect pictures represent scenes from life. One of them, for example, portrays the meeting of Bushmen with white men, as is evident partly from the colour and partly from the difference in the size of the figures. Another well-known picture represents the way in which the Bushmen steal cattle from a Bantu tribe. The Bantus are represented by large figures, the Bushmen by small ones; in a lively scene, the latter drive the animals away, while the far-striding Bantus remain far in the rear. The picture reveals the joy of the primitive artist over the successful escapade. This is not magical art, but plainly exemplifies the first products of a memorial art. The one who painted these pictures desired first of all to bring before his memory that which he had experienced, and he doubtless also wished to preserve these scenes to the memory of his kinsmen. This is memorial art in a twofold sense. Memory renews the experiences of the past, and it is for memory that the past is to be retained. But this art also must still be classed as primitive, for it has not as yet attained to the level of imitative art. It is not an art that reproduces an object by a direct comparison of picture with copy. This is the sense in which the present-day portrait or landscape painter practises imitation. Even where the primitive era transcended a merely magical or decorative art, it did not advance beyond memorial art. The Bushman did not have the objects themselves before him, but created his pictures in accordance with his memory of them. Moreover, suited as the cave is to the development of a memorial art, it of itself makes imitative art impossible. But how can we account for the fact that the primitive tribe of Bushmen attained to a level of art whose exclusion of magical motives ranks it as relatively advanced, and which must be estimated all the more highly because it is not shared by the neighbouring African tribes? The Hottentots, for example, no less than the Bechuanas and the Bantus, are inferior in artistic accomplishments to the Bushmen, although the culture of the latter is in other respects far below the level of that of the former. May we say of this memorial art what seems probable as regards the magical and decorative art of the inland tribes of Malacca and of Ceylon, namely, that it arose independently from the same original motives as the dance? The answer to this question depends primarily upon the antiquity of these art productions. Do they date back to an immemorial past, as we may suppose to be the case with the decorations of the Veddahs and the Malaccan tribes? There are two considerations, principally, that prove the contrary, namely, that they are relatively recent creations. In the first place, the paintings present the pictures of animals, in particular of the horse and the sheep, with which the Bushman has been acquainted at farthest since the latter part of the eighteenth century. True, these animals were brought into Cape Colony as early as the seventeenth century; it was clearly not until later, however, that the Bushmen became familiar with them. A second consideration is the remarkable circumstance that these primitive painters employ essentially the same tools as the Europeans. This art has now, indeed, almost disappeared, the race having been crowded back and depleted. But the remains show that the painters possessed a stone plate on which they mixed their paints and also a stone pounder with which the mixing was done—that is, a palette and a pestle. Indeed, for applying the colours they occasionally utilized a paint-brush made of fine splinters of bone, though some, no doubt, were content to do this with the fingers.
These are all signs which certainly suggest a not very distant past. Moreover, art products cannot resemble each other in so many respects without having some connection in origin. Added to this is the fact that the very character of such pictures as are still in existence scarcely allows us to regard them as more than sixty to seventy years old. From all of this we must conclude that this art is not primitive at all, but was imported, resembling in this many other things that gain entrance into the life of a primitive tribe. If the essential elements of the Biblical account of the Creation reached the Andamanese, who in other respects are primitive, why may we not also suppose that a wandering European artist at one time came to the Bushmen, even before any other elements of European culture had become accessible to them? Nevertheless, the fact that this painting exists indicates the presence of a remarkable talent. This brings us to our last problem in the psychology of primitive man, to the question concerning his mental equipment in general.
[9. THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE MAN.]
For a general estimate of the mental characteristics of a race or a tribe, the observation of a single individual or of several individuals is not adequate. Judgment can be based only on the totality of the various mental phases of culture—language, custom, myth, and art. But, if we would also obtain a conception of the mental capacities of a people or a tribe, we must take into further consideration the mental endowment of the individual. For, in the case of mental capacity, we must consider not merely that which has actually been achieved but also everything within the possibility of attainment. Here, again, the standpoint differs according as we are concerned (to limit ourselves to the two most important and typical aspects) with an intellectual or a moral estimate. These two aspects, the intellectual, taken in its widest sense, and the moral, are not only of supreme importance, but, as experience shows, they in no wise run parallel courses. For an understanding of mental development in general, therefore, and of the relation of these its aspects, the early conditions of human culture are particularly significant.
If, now, we consider the general cultural conditions of primitive man, and recall the very meagre character of his external cultural possessions as well as his lack of any impulse to perfect these, we may readily be led to suppose that his intellectual capacities also have remained on a very low plane of development. How, some have asked, could the Bushman have dispensed for decades with firearms—just as accessible to him as to the surrounding tribes—unless he possessed a low degree of intelligence? Even more true is this of the Negritos of the Philippines or the Veddahs of Ceylon. How, unless their mental capacities were essentially more limited than those of their neighbours, could they have lived in the midst of highly cultivated tribes and have remained for decades on an unchanged mental level? But we need to bear in mind two considerations that are here decisive. The first of these is the limited nature of the wants of primitive man, a condition fostered, no doubt, by his relatively small intercourse with neighbouring peoples. Added to this is the fact that up to very recent times—for here also many changes have arisen—the primitive man of the tropics has found plenty of game and plant food in his forests, as well as an abundance of material for the clothing and adornment to which he is accustomed. Hence he lacks the incentive to strive for anything beyond these simple means of satisfying his wants. It is agreed, particularly by the investigators who have studied those tribes of Malacca and Ceylon that have remained primitive, that the most outstanding characteristic of primitive man is contentment. He seeks for nothing further, since he either finds all that he desires in his environment, or, by methods handed down from the ancient past, knows how he may produce it out of the material available to him. For this reason the Semangs and Senoi, no less than the Veddahs, despise as renegades those mixed tribes that have arisen through union, in the one case, with the Malays, and, in the other, with the Singhalese and Tamils. All the more firmly, therefore, do they hold to that which was transmitted to them by their fathers. Together with this limited character of their wants, we find a fixity of conditions, due to their long isolation. The longer a set of customs and habits has prevailed among a people, the more difficult it is to overturn. Prior to any change we must, in such cases, first have mighty upheavals, battles, and migrations. To what extent all deeper-going changes of culture are due to racial fusions, migrations, and battles we shall presently see. The tribes that have remained relatively primitive to this day have led a peaceful existence since immemorial times. Of course, the individual occasionally slays the man who disturbs his marriage relations or trespasses upon his hunting-grounds. Otherwise, however, so long as he is not obliged to protect himself against peoples that crowd in upon him, primitive man is familiar with the weapon only as an implement of the chase. The old picture of a war of all with all, as Thomas Hobbes once sketched the natural state of man, is the very reverse of what obtained. The natural condition is one of peace, unless this is disturbed by external circumstances, one of the most important of which is contact with a higher culture. The man of nature, however, suffers less from an advanced culture than he does from the barbarism of semi-culture. But whenever a struggle arises for the possession of the soil and of the means of subsistence which it furnishes, semi-culture may come to include more peoples than are usually counted as belonging to it. The war of extermination against the red race was carried on by the pious New England Puritans with somewhat different, though with scarcely better, weapons than the Hottentots and Herero to-day turn against the Bushmen, or the Monbuttus against the Negritos of Central Africa.
It is characteristic of primitive culture that it has failed to advance since immemorial times, and this accounts for the uniformity prevalent in widely separated regions of the earth. This, however, does not at all imply that, within the narrow sphere that constitutes his world, the intelligence of primitive man is inferior to that of cultural man. If we call to mind the means which the former employs to seek out, to overtake, and to entrap his game, we have testimony both of reflection and, equally so, of powers of observation. In order to capture the larger game, for example, the Bushman digs large holes in the ground, in the middle of which he constructs partitions which he covers with brush. An animal that falls into such a hole cannot possibly work its way out, since two of its legs will be on one side of the partitional division and two on the other. Smaller animals are captured by traps and snares similar to those familiar to us. The Negritos of the Philippines, furthermore, employ a very clever method for securing wild honey from trees without exposing themselves to injury from the bees. They kindle a fire at the foot of the tree, causing a dense smoke. Enveloped by this, an individual climbs the tree and removes the object of his desire, the smoke rendering the robber invisible to the scattering swarm. It is thus that the Negritos secure honey, their most precious article of food. How great, moreover, is the inventive ability required by the bow and arrow, undoubtedly fashioned even by primitive men! We have seen, of course, that these inventions were not snatched from the blue, but that they were influenced by all sorts of empirical elements and probably also by magical ideas, as in the case of the feathering of the arrow. Nevertheless, the assembling and combining of these elements in the production of a weapon best suited to the conditions of primitive life is a marvellous achievement, scarcely inferior, from an intellectual point of view, to the invention of modern firearms. Supplementing this, we have the testimony of observers concerning the general ability of these races. A missionary teacher in Malacca, whose school included Chinese, Senoi, and Malays, gave first rank to the Chinese as regards capacity, and second place to the Senoi, while the Malays were graded last, though they, as we know, are held to be a relatively talented race. Now, this grading, of course, may have been more or less accidental, yet it allows us to conclude that the intellectual endowment of primitive man is in itself approximately equal to that of civilized man. Primitive man merely exercises his ability in a more restricted field; his horizon is essentially narrower because of his contentment under these limitations. This, of course, does not deny that there may have been a time, and, indeed, doubtless was one, when man occupied a lower intellectual plane and approximated more nearly to the animal state which preceded that of human beings. This earliest and lowest level of human development, however, is not accessible to us.
But what, now, may be said concerning the moral characteristics of primitive man? It is clear that we must here distinguish sharply between those tribes that have hitherto remained essentially unaffected by external influences and those that have for some time past eked out a meagre existence in their struggle with surrounding peoples of a higher culture. The primitive man who still lives uninfluenced by surrounding peoples—typical examples are, in general, the natural Veddahs of Ceylon and the inland tribes of the Malay Peninsula—presents an entirely different picture from that of the man who seeks in the face of difficulties to protect himself against his environment. In the case of the tribes of Ceylon and Malacca, the somewhat civilized mixed peoples constitute a sort of protective zone, in the former case against the Singhalese and Tamils, in the latter, against the Malays. These mixed peoples are despised, and therefore they themselves hesitate to enter into intercourse with the primitive tribes. Thus they offer an outer buttress against inpressing culture. The result is that these primitive peoples continue to live their old life essentially undisturbed. Now, the testimony of unprejudiced observers is unanimous in maintaining that primitive man is frank and honest, that lying is unknown to him, and that theft does not exist. He may, of course, be strongly moved by emotion, so that the man who disturbs the Veddah's marriage relation may be sure of a poisoned arrow, as may also the strange huntsman who encroaches unbidden upon his hunting-grounds. This reprisal is not based upon legal enactments—of such there are none; it is custom that allows this summary procedure. Many investigators have believed that these various characteristics exhibited by unmixed primitive culture indicate a high state of morality. In this they agree with Wilhelm Schmidt, for whom primitive men are the infant peoples of the world, in that they possess the innocence of childhood. It is not only man's moral outlook, however, but also his moral character, as this very illustration shows, that depends upon the environment in which he lives. Since the primitive man who lives undisturbed by external conditions has no occasion to conceal anything, his honesty and frankness ought scarcely to be counted to his particular credit; so far as theft is concerned, how can there be a thief where there is no property? It may, of course, happen that an individual takes the weapon of his companion for a short time and uses it. This action, however, is all the more permissible since each man makes his own bow and arrow. The same is true of clothing and articles of adornment. Thus, the rather negative morality of primitive man also has its origin in his limited wants, in the lack of any incentives to such action as we would call immoral. Such a positive situation, however, is, no doubt, afforded by the strict monogamy, which probably originated in the prehuman natural state and was thenceforth maintained.
Quite different is the moral picture of primitive man wherever he is at strife with surrounding peoples. Here, as was noted particularly by Emin Pasha and Stuhlmann in the case of the Negritos of the Upper Nile, the outstanding characteristics are, in the first place, fear, and then deception and malice. But can we wonder at this when we learn that the flesh of the Pygmies is especially prized by the anthropophagic Monbuttus of that region, and that the pursuit of this human game on the part of the latter is absolutely unrestrained, except by the fear of the arrows which the Pygmies shoot from behind ambush? Here, of course, innocence, frankness, and honesty are not to be expected; under these circumstances, theft also comes to be a justifiable act. Wherever the Negrito finds something to take, he takes it. The same is true of the South African Bushmen, who occupy a similarly precarious position with respect to the Bantus and Hottentots. The Bushmen are the most notorious thieves of South Africa. Of this we have striking evidence in the above-mentioned picture of the Bushman who glorifies and preserves to memory the theft of cattle. The Bushman is crafty and treacherous, and steals whenever there is opportunity. But what else could be expected, when we consider that, by killing off the game with their firearms, the Hottentots and Bantus deprive the Bushman of that which was once his source of food, and that they shoot the Bushman himself if he resists?
To summarize: The intelligence of primitive man is indeed restricted to a narrow sphere of activity. Within this sphere, however, his intelligence is not noticeably inferior to that of civilized man. His morality is dependent upon the environment in which he lives. Where he lives his life of freedom, one might almost call his state ideal, there being few motives to immoral conduct in our sense of the word. On the other hand, whenever primitive man is hunted down and hard pressed, he possesses no moral principles whatsoever. These traits are worth noting, if only because they show the tremendous influence which external life exerts, even under the simplest conditions, upon the development of the moral nature.
[CHAPTER II]
THE TOTEMIC AGE
[1. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF TOTEMISM.]
The expression 'totemic age' involves a widened application of the term 'totem.' This word is taken from the language of the Ojibways or, as the English call them, the Chippewa Indians. To these Indians of the Algonquin race, the 'totem' signified first of all a group. Persons belong to the same totem if they are fellow-members in a group which forms part of a tribe or of a clan. The term 'clan,' suggested by the clan divisions of the Scottish Highlanders, is the one usually employed by English ethnologists in referring to the smaller divisions of a tribe. The tribe consists of a number of clans, and each clan may include several totems. As a rule, the totem groups bear animal names. In North America, for example, there was an eagle totem, a wolf totem, a deer totem, etc. In this case the animal names regularly refer to particular clans within a tribe; in other places, as, for example, in Australia, they designate separate groups within a clan. Moreover, the totem animal is also usually regarded as the ancestral animal of the group in question. 'Totem,' on the one hand, is a group name, and, on the other, a name indicative of ancestry. In the latter connection it has also a mythological significance. These various ideas, however, interplay in numerous ways. Some of the meanings may recede, so that totems have frequently become a mere nomenclature of tribal divisions, while at other times the idea of ancestry, or, perhaps also, the cult significance, predominates. The idea gained ground until, directly or indirectly, it finally permeated all phases of culture. It is in this sense that the entire period pervaded by this culture may be called the 'totemic age.'
Even in its original significance—as a name for a group of members of a tribal division or for the division itself—the conception of the totem is connected with certain characteristic phenomena of this period, distinguishing it particularly from the culture of primitive man. I refer to tribal division and tribal organization. The horde, in which men are united purely by chance or at the occasional call of some undertaking, only to scatter again when this is completed, has disappeared. Nor is it any longer merely the single family that firmly binds individuals to one another; in addition to it we find the tribal division, which originates in accordance with a definite law of tribal organization and is subject to specific norms of custom. These norms, and their fixed place in the beliefs and feelings of the tribal members, are connected with the fact that originally, at all events, the totem animal was regarded, for the most part, as having not merely given its name to a group of tribal members but as having actually been its forefather. In so far, animal ancestors apparently preceded human ancestors. Bound up with this is the further fact that these animal ancestors possessed a cult. Thus, ancestor cult also began with the cult of animals, not with that of human ancestors. Aside from specific ceremonies and ceremonial festivals, this animal cult originally found expression primarily in the relations maintained toward the totem animal. It was not merely a particular animal that was to a certain extent held sacred, but every representative of the species. The totem members were forbidden to eat the flesh of the totem animal, or were allowed to do so only under specific conditions. A significant counter-phenomenon, not irreconcilable with this, is the fact that on certain occasions the eating of the totem flesh constituted a sort of ceremony. This likewise implies that the totem animal was held sacred. When this conception came into the foreground, the totem idea became extended so as to apply, particularly in its cult motives and effects, to plants, and sometimes even to stones and other inanimate objects. This, however, obviously occurred at a later time.
From early times on, the phenomena of totemism have been accompanied by certain forms of tribal organization. Every tribe is first divided, as a rule, into two halves. Through a further division, a fairly large number of clans arise, which, in turn, eventually split up into subclans and separate totem groups. Each of these groups originally regarded some particular totem animal or other totem object as sacred. The most important social aspect of this totemic tribal organization, however, consists in the fact that it involved certain norms of custom regulating the intercourse of the separate groups with one another. Of these norms, those governing marriage relations were of first importance. The tribal organization of this period was bound up with an important institution, exogamy, which originated in the totemic age. In the earliest primitive period every tribal member could enter into marriage with any woman of the tribe whom he might choose; according to the Veddahs, even marriage between brother and sister was originally not prohibited. Thus, endogamy prevailed within the primitive horde. This, of course, does not mean that there was no marriage except within the narrow circle of blood relationship, but merely that marriage was permitted between close relatives, more particularly between brothers and sisters. The exogamy characteristic of totemic tribal organization consists in the fact that no marriages of any kind are allowed except between members of different tribal divisions. A member of one particular group can enter into marriage only with one of another group, not with a person belonging to his own circle. By this means, totemic tribal organization gains a powerful influence on custom. Through marriage it comes into relation with all phenomena connected with marriage, with birth and death and the ideas bound up with them, with the initiation ceremonies in which the youths are received into the association of men, etc. As a result of the magical significance acquired by the totem animal, special associations are formed. These become united under the protection of a totem animal and give impetus to the exoteric cult associations, which, in their turn, exercise a profound influence upon the conditions of life. Though it is probable that these associations had their origin in the above-mentioned men's clubs, their organizing principle was the totem animal and its cult.
Besides its influence on matters connected with the relations of the sexes, the totem animal was the source of several other ideas. After the separate tribal group has come to feel itself united in the cult of the totem animal, a single individual may acquire a particular guardian animal of his own. Out of the tribal totem there thus develops the individual totem. Then, again, the different sexes, the men and the women of the tribe, acquire their special totem animals. These irradiations of the totemic conception serve partly to extend it and partly to give it an irregular development. Of the further phenomena that gradually come to the foreground during the totemic age, one of the most important is the growing influence of dominant individual personalities. Such personalities, of course, were not unknown even to the primitive horde, on the occasion of important undertakings. But tribal organization for the first time introduces a permanent leadership on the part of single individuals or of several who share the power. Thus, totemism leads to chieftainship as a regular institution—one that later, of course, proves to be among the foremost factors in the dissolution of the age that gave it birth. For chieftainship gives rise to political organization; the latter culminates in the State, which, though destroying the original tribal organization, is, nevertheless, itself one of the last products of totemic tribal institutions.
With the firmer union of tribal members there comes also tribal warfare. So long as primitive man remains comparatively unaffected by other peoples, and particularly by those of a different cultural level, he lives, on the whole, in a state of peace. An individual may, of course, occasionally raise his weapon against another person, but there are no tribal wars. These do not appear until the period of totemism, with whose firm social organization they are closely connected. The tribe feels itself to be a unit, as does likewise each subordinate clan and group. Hence, related tribes may unite in common undertakings. More frequently, however, they fall into dissension, and warfare must decide their claims to the possession of territory or to a disputed hunting-ground. This warfare finds contributory causes in tribal migrations. New peoples, some of them perhaps from strange tribes, enter into a territory and crowd out its inhabitants. Thus, war and migration are closely connected. Strife between tribes and peoples—that is, warfare—begins with culture in general, particularly with the most primitive social culture, as we may doubtless designate totemism in distinction from the still more primitive life of the horde.
This leads to a number of further changes. Tribal ownership of the land becomes more firmly established, as does also the custom of allotting a particular share to the clan. Personal property, moreover, comes to be more and more differentiated from the possessions of the group. Trade, which in primitive times was almost entirely restricted to secret barter, becomes public, and is finally widened into tribal commerce. When this occurs, great changes in external culture are inaugurated. Implements, weapons, and articles of dress and of adornment are perfected. This stage having been attained, the totemic age advances to a utilization of the soil in a way that is unknown to primitive man. The land is cultivated by means of agricultural implements. Of these, however, the hoe long continues to be the only one; though it supplants the digging-stick, its use depends on human power alone. The care and breeding of animals is also undertaken; the herdsman's or, as it is usually called, the nomadic, life is inaugurated. The breeding of useful domestic animals, in particular, is very closely connected with totemism. The animal, which at the beginning of the period was regarded as sacred, acquires the status of a work animal. It loses its dominion over mankind; instead, it becomes a servant, and, as a result, its cult significance gradually vanishes. The very moment, however, that marks the passing of the sacred animal into the useful animal also signalizes the end of the totemic era and the beginning of the age of heroes and gods.
These various traits are far from giving us a complete picture of the wide ramifications of totemic ideas and customs. Enough has been said, however, to indicate how the totemic conception first widens and deepens its influence, permeating the external social organization no less than the separate phases of society, and then finally leads on to its own dissolution. It is precisely this that justifies us in calling the entire period the totemic age. Yet the boundaries of this period are naturally much less clearly defined, or sharply demarcated as to beginning and end, than are those of the preceding primitive age. Man is primitive so long as he is essentially limited in his immediate means of support to that which nature directly offers him or to the labour of his own hands. But even in its beginnings the totemic age transcends these conditions. Tribal organization and the connected phenomena of war, migration, and the beginnings of open trade relations are cultural factors which from the outset represent an advance beyond the primitive state. But the lower limit of the age cannot be definitely fixed; still less can we determine the point at which it terminates. The chieftain of the totemic age is the forerunner of the ruler who appears in the succeeding period. Similarly, totem animals are even more truly the precursors of the later herd, and of agricultural animals. Thus, it is not at all permissible to speak merely of a culture, as one may do in the case of the primitive age. There are a number of different cultures—indeed, several levels of culture, which are in part co-existent but in part follow upon one another. Their only similarity is the fact that they all exhibit the fundamental characteristics of the totemic age. Consider the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Negritos of the Philippines, the inland and forest-dwelling tribes of Malacca. When we have described the general cultural conditions of one of these tribes, we have given the essential features of all. This, however, is far from true in the case of totemism, for this includes many forms of culture and various periods of development. Even in speaking of levels of culture we may do so only with the reservation that each level in its turn includes within it a large number of separate forms of culture, of numerous sorts and gradations. Moreover, the external culture, reflected in dress and habitation, in personal decoration, in implements and weapons, in food and its preparation, does not in the least parallel the social phenomena represented by tribal organization, marriage relations, and forms of rulership. Though the general character of the Polynesian peoples permits their inclusion within the totemic age, their tribal organization exhibits the characteristics of totemic society only imperfectly. In other aspects of their culture, however, they rank far higher than the Australians or some of the Melanesian tribes; these possess a very complex social organization, but are, nevertheless, only slightly superior, on the whole, to primitive peoples. Thus, the various phases of totemic culture may develop in relative independence of one another, even though they are in constant interaction. This is true particularly in the sense that the more developed totemic customs and cults occur even on low cultural levels, whereas, on the other hand, they more and more disappear with the progress of culture.
[2. THE STAGES OF TOTEMIC CULTURE.]
We cannot undertake to describe the extraordinarily rich external culture attained by those groups of peoples who may, in the main, be counted as belonging to the domain of totemism. This is the task of ethnology, and is not of decisive importance for folk psychology. True, in the case of primitive man, the conditions of external culture were described in some detail. This was necessary because of the close connection between these conditions and the psychical factors fundamental to all further development. The beginning of the totemic period marks a great change. New forces now come into play, such as are not to be found among the universal motives that have controlled the life of man from its very beginning. Of these forces there is one in particular that should be mentioned—one that is practically lacking among primitive tribes. This consists in the reciprocal influences exercised upon one another by peoples who occupy approximately the same plane of culture but who nevertheless exhibit certain qualitative differences. Migrations are also an important factor in the totemic age, as well as is the tribal warfare with which migrations are connected.
If we disregard these qualitative differences and attempt to introduce a degree of order into the profusion of the totemic world solely on the basis of general cultural characteristics, we may distinguish three great cultural stages, of which the third, again, falls into two markedly different divisions. We may ignore certain isolated remnants of peoples that are scattered over almost all parts of the world and exhibit very unlike stages of civilization, in order to give our exclusive attention to those forms of culture that belong to compact groups. In this event we shall find that the lowest stage is unquestionably exemplified in the Australian region, as well as by some of the Melanesian peoples. Above this, we have a second level of culture, the Malayo-Polynesian. Wide as is the difference between these cultures, they are nevertheless connected by numerous transitional steps, to be found particularly in Melanesian and Micronesian regions. The third stage of totemic culture itself falls into two essentially different divisions, the American, on the one hand, and the African, on the other. These divisions, of course, include only the so-called natural peoples of these countries, or, more accurately expressed, those tribes which, as regards the characteristics of their social and particularly of their religious development, still belong to totemic culture.
The fact that Australian culture, in spite of its highly complex tribal organization, occupies the lowest plane of all, itself indicates how great may be the discrepancy between totemism in general and the direct influence which it exerts upon tribal organization and external culture. This explains why the Australian native was regarded, up to very recent times, as the typical primitive man. As a matter of fact, his general culture differs but slightly from that of primitive races. The Australian also is a gatherer and a hunter, and shows no trace of a knowledge of agriculture nor, much less, of cattle-raising. Even his faithful domestic animal, the dog, is rarely used for hunting, but is regarded solely as the companion of man. Among the Australians, therefore, the woman still goes about with digging-stick in hand, seeking roots and bulbs for food. Man's life still centres about the chase, and, when one hunting-ground becomes impoverished, he seeks another. Likewise, there is no systematic care for the future. The food is prepared directly in the ashes of the fire or between hot stones—for cooking is not yet customary—and fire is produced by friction or drilling just as it is by primitive man. His utensils also are in essential harmony with his general culture.
But there is one important difference. There has come a change of weapon. This change points to a great revolution inaugurated at the beginning of the totemic age. Primitive man possesses only a long-distance weapon; for the most part he uses bow and arrow. With this weapon he kills his game; with it the individual slays his enemy from ambush. On the other hand, war between tribes or tribal divisions, in which large numbers are opposed, may scarcely be said to exist. This would not be possible with bow and arrow. Thus, the very fact that this is the only weapon indicates that relatively peaceful conditions obtained in primitive culture. Quite otherwise with the Australian! His weapons are markedly different from those of primitive man. Bow and arrow are practically unknown to him; they are found only among the tribes of the extreme north, having probably entered from Melanesia. The real weapons of the Australian are the wooden missile and the javelin. The wooden missile, bent either simply or in the form of a boomerang, whose above-mentioned asymmetrical curve is designed to cause its return to the thrower, is a long-distance weapon. For the most part, however, it is employed only in hunting or in play. The same remains true, to some extent, also of the javelin. The latter has reached a perfected form, being hurled, not directly from the hand, but from a grooved board. The pointed end of the javelin extends out beyond this groove; at its other end there is a hollow into which is fitted a peg, usually consisting of a kangaroo tooth. When the spear is hurled from the board this peg insures the aim of the shot, just as does the gun-barrel that of the bullet; the leverage increases the range. There are also other weapons which are designed for use at close range—the long spear, the club, and, what is most indicative of battle, the shield. The latter cannot possibly be a hunting implement, as might still be the case with the spear and the club, but is a form of weapon specifically intended for battle. The shield of the Australian is long, and usually raised toward the centre. It covers the entire body, the enemy being attacked with spear or club. Thus, the weapons reflect a condition of tribal warfare.
The second great stage of culture, which we may call, though somewhat inaccurately, the Malayo-Polynesian, offers a radically different picture. To a certain extent, the relation between tribal organization and external culture is here the reverse of that which obtains in the Australian world. In Australia, we find a primitive culture alongside of a highly developed tribal organization; in the Malayo-Polynesian region, there is a fairly well developed culture, but a tribal organization which is partly in a state of dissolution and partly in transition to further political and social institutions, including the separation of classes and the rulership of chiefs. Evidently these latter conditions are the result of extensive racial fusion, which is incomparably greater in the Malayo-Polynesian region than in Australia. True, we no longer harbour the delusion that Australia is inhabited by a uniform population. It also has been subject to great waves of immigration, particularly from New Guinea, from whence came the Papuans, one of the races which itself attained to the Malayo-Polynesian level of culture. Naturally the Papuan influx affected chiefly the northern part of Central Australia. The Tasmanian tribe, now extinct, was probably a remnant of the original Australian population. But migrations and racial fusions have caused even greater changes among those peoples who, culturally, must be classed with the Malayo-Polynesians. Here likewise there are many different levels, the lowest of which, as found among the Malayo-Polynesian mixed population, was yet but slightly higher, in some respects, than Australian culture, whereas the culture of the true Malays and Polynesians has already assumed a more advanced character. Ethnology is not yet entirely able to untangle the complicated problems connected with these racial fusions. Much less, of course, can we undertake to enter into these controversial points. We here call attention merely to certain main stages exhibited by the external culture of these peoples, quite aside from considerations of race and of tribal migrations. The Negritos and the Papuans of various parts of Melanesia possess a culture bordering on the primitive—indeed, they may even be characterized as primitive, since they possess characteristics of pretotemic society. Of these tribes, the Papuans of New Guinea and of the islands of the Torres Straits clearly manifest totemic characteristics, while yet possessing special racial traits that are exceptionally pronounced. They differ but little from primitive man, however, so far as concerns either their method of securing food or their dress, the latter of which is exceedingly scanty and is made, for the most part, of plant materials. But these peoples, just as do the Australians, have weapons indicative of battles and migrations; moreover, they exhibit also other marks of a somewhat developed culture. The Papuans are the first to change the digging-stick into the hoe, a useful implement in tilling the soil. In this first form of the hoe, the point is turned so as to form an acute angle with the handle to which it is attached. Hence the soil is not tilled in the manner of the later hoe-culture proper; nothing more is done than to draw furrows into which the seeds are scattered. In many respects, however, this primitive implement represents a great advance over the method of simply gathering food as practised when the digging-stick alone was known. It is the man who makes the furrows with the hoe, since the loosening of the ground requires his greater strength; he walks ahead, and the woman follows with the seeds, which she scatters into the furrows. For the first time, thus, we discern a provision for the future, and also a common tilling of the soil. The gathering of the fruits generally devolves upon the woman alone. But even among the Papuans this first step in the direction of agriculture is found only here and there. The possibility of external influences therefore remains.
Far superior to the Papuan race is the Micronesian population, which, as regards its racial traits, is intermediate between the Melanesians and the Polynesians. Migration and racial fusion here become increasingly important cultural factors. In their beginnings, these factors already manifest themselves in the wanderings of the Papuan and Negrito tribes. One of the most striking discoveries of modern ethnology is the finding of distinct traces of Papuan-Negritic culture in regions, such as the west coast of Africa, which are very remote from the original home of the culture in question. The Papuan races likewise wandered far across the Indian Ocean. Obviously there were Papuan migrations, probably in repeated trains, from New Guinea across the Torres Strait to Northern Australia, where they seem to have influenced social institutions and customs as well as external culture. Above the level of the Negrito and Papuan peoples, who, in their numerous fusions, themselves form several strata, we finally have the Malayo-Polynesian population. The Malayo-Polynesians are widely spread over the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the earth. Because of their significance for the particular stage of totemism now under discussion, we have called the entire cultural period by their name. The fragments of the Negrito and Papuan races, which are scattered here and there over limited sections of the broad territory covered by the wanderings of these tribes, apparently represent remnants of the original inhabitants. As the result of long isolation, certain groups of these peoples have remained on a very primitive plane, as have, for example, the above-described inland tribes of Malacca, or the peoples of Ceylon and of other islands of the Indian archipelago. Others have mingled with the Malays, who have come in from the mainland of India, and with them have formed the numerous levels and divisions of the Malayo-Polynesian race. This accounts for the fact that this Oceanic group of peoples includes a great many forms of culture, which are not, however, susceptible of any sharp demarcation. The culture of the Negritos and the Papuans, on the one hand, is as primitive as is that of the Australians—indeed, isolated fragments of perished races were even more primitive than are the Australians; on the other hand, however, some of the Malayo-Polynesian peoples are already decidedly in advance of any other people whose culture falls within the totemic age.
The chief ethnological problem relating to these groups of peoples concerns the origin of the Malays, who, without doubt, have given the greatest impetus to the cultural development of these mixed races. This problem is as yet unsolved, and is perhaps insolvable. The Malay type, however, particularly on its physical side, points to Eastern Asia. The resemblance to the Mongolians as regards eyes, skull, and colour of skin is unmistakable. At the same time, however, the original Malays probably everywhere mixed with the native inhabitants, remnants of whom have survived in certain places, particularly in the inaccessible forest regions of the Malayan archipelago. Now, the Malays were obviously, even in very early times, a migratory people. Their wanderings, in fact, were far more extensive than any other folk-migrations with which we are familiar in the history of Occidental peoples. Starting, as we may suppose, in Central Asia, that great cradle of the human race, they spread to the coasts, particularly to Indo-China, and then to the large islands of Sunda, Sumatra, and Borneo, to Malacca, and, farther, over the entire region of Oceania. Here, by mixture with the native population, they gave rise to a new race, the Polynesians proper. But the Polynesian portion of the race also preserved the migratory impulse. Thus, the Malayans were the first to create a perfected form of boat, and to it the Polynesians added many new features. Thenceforth the Malay was not restricted to dangerous coast voyages, as was the case with the use of such boats as those of the Australians or the Papuans of New Guinea. It was a boat of increased size, equipped with sails and oars and often artistically fitted out, in which the Malay traversed the seas. With the aid of these boats—which were, at best, small and inadequate for a voyage on the open sea—and at a time when the compass was as yet unheard of and only the starry heavens could give approximate guidance to their course, the Malays and Polynesians traversed distances extending from the Philippines to New Zealand. Of course, these expeditions advanced only stage by stage, from island to island. This is shown by the legends of the Maoris of New Zealand, who were clearly the first of the Polynesians to migrate, and who therefore remained freest from mixture with strange races. The same fact is attested by the great changes in dialect which the Malayan language underwent even in the course of the migrations of the Malays—changes which lead us to infer that to many of the island regions settled by these peoples there were repeated waves of immigration separated by intervals of centuries.
Connected with this is a further important factor—one which exercised a destructive influence upon the original totemism, only a few traces of which have survived among these tribes. The boatman, alone on the broad seas, with only the starry firmament to direct his course, turns his gaze involuntarily to the world of stars which serves as his guide. Thus, particularly in Polynesia, there sprang up a celestial mythology. This, in turn, again reacted upon the interpretation of terrestrial objects. By breaking up tribes and their divisions, furthermore, the migrations destroyed the former tribal organization and, through the influence gained by occasional bold leaders on such expeditions, gave rise to new forms of rulership. An added factor was the change of environment, the effect of which was noticeable even at the beginning of totemic culture in the influence which the Papuan migration exercised upon the northern parts of Australia—the parts most accessible to it. The Oceanic Islands are as poor in animal life as they are rich in plants. The totemic ideas prevalent in these regions, therefore, came more and more to lose their original basis. This accounts for the fact that the entire domain is characterized by two phenomena which are far in advance of anything analogous that may be found on similar cultural levels in other parts of the earth. One of these—namely, the development of a celestial mythology—scarcely occurs anywhere else in so elaborate a form. Of course, we also find many clear traces of the influence of celestial phenomena in the mythological conceptions of the Babylonians and Egyptians, of the Hindoos, the Greeks, the Germans, etc. But the elements of celestial mythology have here been so assimilated by terrestrial legend-material and by heroic figures as to be inseparable from them. Thus, the celestial elements have in general become secondary features of mythological conceptions whose characteristic stamp is derived from the natural phenomena of man's immediate environment. Even the celestial origin of these elements has been almost entirely lost to the popular consciousness which comes to expression in the legend. The case is entirely different with the celestial mythology of the Polynesians, particularly as it occurs in the legends of the Maoris. In the latter, the celestial movements, as directly perceived, furnish a large part of the material for the mythical tales. These deal with the ascent of ancestors into the heavens or their descent from heaven, and with the wanderings and destinies of the original ancestors, who are regarded as embodied in the sun, moon, and stars; thus, they differ from the mythologies of most cultural peoples, in that they are not simply deity legends that suggest celestial phenomena in only occasional details. Moreover, no mention of ancestral or totem animal occurs in Polynesian mythology. There are only occasional legends, associated with the mighty trees of this island-world, that may perhaps be traceable to the plant totems of Melanesia. Such being the conditions, it might seem that, in any case, we are not justified in including the entire Malayo-Polynesian culture within the totemic age. Nevertheless, quite apart from the fact that the other phases of external culture are all such as indicate the totemic stage of development, the obviously primitive character of the celestial legends themselves—for they have not as yet developed true hero and deity conceptions—marks this culture as one of transition. Its totemic basis has almost disappeared; yet the earlier manner of securing food, the modes of dress, the decoration, and the belief in spirits and magic have essentially remained, even though decoration and weapons, particularly, have undergone a far richer development. Thus, the external decoration of the body reached its highest perfection in the artistic dot-patterns exemplified in the tattooing of the Polynesians. The origin of this bodily adornment is here again probably to be traced to magical beliefs. The Polynesians also possess carved wooden idols and fantastically shaped masks. To the bow and the lance they have added the knife and the sword; to the long shield, the small, round shield, which serves for defence in the more rapid movements of single combat. Many localities also have a peculiar social institution, likewise bound up with the development of warfare initiated by migration and strife. This institution consists in an exclusive organization comprising age-groups and the men's club. The latter, in turn, are themselves symptomatic of the disintegration of the original totemic tribal divisions. There is, moreover, one further custom, taboo, which has grown up under totemic influences and has received its richest development with manifold transformations and ramifications within this very transitional culture of Polynesia. The earliest form of taboo, which consists in the prohibition of eating the flesh of the totem animal, has, it is true, disappeared. But the idea of taboo has been transferred to a great number of other things, to sacred places, to objects and names, to the person and property of individuals, particularly of chiefs and priests. The tremendous influence of these phenomena, whose origin is closely intertwined with totemism, clearly shows that this entire culture belongs essentially to the totemic age.
Very different is the third stage of totemic culture. As was remarked above, this falls into two essentially distinct divisions of apparently very different origin. American culture, on the one hand, represents a remarkable offshoot of totemic beliefs; besides this there is the African culture, which, because of peculiar conditions, again connected with racial fusion, is, in part, far in advance of the totemic age, though in some details it clearly represents a unique development of it. To one who wishes to gain a coherent picture of totemic culture, nothing, indeed, is more surprising than the fact that foremost among the peoples who may be regarded as the representatives of this great epoch are the Australians. Strange to say, the condition of the Australians approximates to that of primitive man. On the other hand, the North American Indians, particularly those of the Atlantic Coast regions, may be classed among semi-cultural peoples, and yet they seem, at first glance, to have made exactly the same social application of totemic ideas as have the Australians. The typical tribal organization of the Australians and that of the Iroquois tribes who formerly lived in the present state of New York, are, in fact, so very similar that a superficial view might almost cause them to appear identical. This is all the more surprising since we have not the slightest ground for supposing any transference of institutions. That which makes the similarity so striking is primarily the fact that the single groups or clans are designated by animal names, that they entertain the conception of an animal ancestor, and that the regular tribal organization is based on the principle of dual division. Nevertheless, the more advanced culture of the Iroquois has already led to certain changed conditions. The animal ancestor recedes to some extent. In its stead, there are associated with the animal other conceptions, such as are connected with more systematically conducted hunting. The American Indian, in contrast to the Australian, no longer regards the totem animal as a wonderful and superior being, to be hunted only with fear and not to be used for food if this can possibly be avoided. He requires for his subsistence all the game available. Hence he does not practise the custom of abstaining from the flesh of the totem animal. On the other hand, he observes ceremonies of expiation, such as are unknown to the Australian. The totem ceremonies of the latter are chiefly objective means of magic designed to bring about the increase of the totem animals. This idea appears among the Indians likewise. Their totem ceremony, however, has also an essentially subjective significance and is concerned with the past no less than with the future. Its object is to obtain forgiveness for the slaying of the animal, whether this has preceded or is to follow the act of expiation. Connected with these customs is a further difference, which is seemingly insignificant but which is nevertheless characteristic. Whereas the Australian, in many regions, thinks of the totem animal as his ancestor, the Indian of the prairies speaks of the buffaloes as his elder brothers. Thus, among the Indian tribes, man and animal still stand on an equal footing. Hence the animal must be conciliated if it is to serve as food for man. In many of the myths of the American Indians, a man is transformed into an animal or, conversely, an animal assumes the human form. Hand in hand with this change in cult ideas and customs appear the richer forms of external culture. The weapons are perfected; dress becomes more complete; decoration of the body itself, though it does not disappear, more and more finds its substitute in the rich embellishment of the clothing. Social organization becomes stable, and advances beyond the original tribal limits. The tribes choose permanent chieftains and, in times of war, enter into group alliances with one another. Thus, tribal organization paves the way for the formation of States, though fixed rulership has not as yet been established. In so far, the democratic organization of North America later instituted by the Europeans, shows a trace of similarity to the free tribal alliances of the natives who had inhabited the country for centuries. For the most part, moreover, the Indians were familiar with agriculture, though, of course, in the primitive form of hoe-culture. Man himself tilled his field with the hoe, since plough and draught animals were wanting. But a firmer organization is revealed in the fact that the individual did not go to the field alone, followed by the woman who scatters the seed, but that the land was prepared by the common labour of the clan. This caused the rise of great vegetation festivals, with their accompanying ceremonies. In external details also these far surpassed the cult festivals which the Australians hold in connection with the adolescence of the youths or for the purpose of multiplying the animal or plant totems which serve as human food.
The conditions differ in the southern and, to some extent also, in the western portion of the great American continent. Closely related as the various tribes are, the old hypothesis that they migrated from Asia across Behring Strait is untenable. Moreover, in spite of their physical relationship and, in part also, of their linguistic similarities, their culture shows important differences. In the southern and central parts of America particularly, we find widely different cultural levels, ranging from the forest Indians of Brazil, who have made scarcely any essential advance beyond the primitive culture of the Veddahs or of the natives of Malacca, to the tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, who have obviously been influenced by the cultural peoples of the New World, and, under this influence, have undergone an independent development. All advances that they have made, however, clearly depend upon the development of agriculture. In addition to numerous elements of celestial mythology that have found their way from Mexico, we find vegetation cults and agricultural ceremonies. The latter are often closely fused with the borrowed mythology, particularly among the semi-cultural peoples of the central region of America. These cults—sometimes governed by totemic conceptions, while in other cases dominated by celestial mythology—underlie the development of art throughout the whole of America. Whereas the chief expression of the æsthetic impulse in Polynesia is the decoration of the body, particularly by means of tattooing, this practice is secondary, in the case of the American Indian, to the possession of external means of adornment. It is primarily the beautiful plumage of the bird kingdom that furnishes the decorations of the head and of the garment. At the ceremonies of the Zunis and other New Mexican tribes, the altars are decked with the feathers of birds. These festivals exhibit a wealth of colour and a complexity of ceremonial performances that have always aroused the astonishment of the strangers who have been able to witness them. The decoration of garments, of altars, and of festal places is paralleled in its development by that of the pictorial decoration of clay vessels. Here for the first time we have a developed art of ceramics which employs ornamentations, pictures of totemic animals, and combinations of the two or transitional forms. Originally, no doubt, these ornamentations were intended as means of magic, but they came more and more to serve the purposes of decoration. All of these factors exert an influence on the numerous cult dances. All over America, from the Esquimos in the north far down to the south, a very important part of the equipment of the dancers is the mask. This mask reproduces either animal features or some fantastic form intermediate between man and animal. Thus, this culture is of a peculiar nature. Even externally it combines the huntsman's culture with that of the tiller of the soil, although in its agriculture it has not advanced beyond the level of hoe-culture. As compared with Malayo-Polynesian culture, however, it presents an important additional factor. This consists in the community of labour, which is obviously connected with the more stable tribal organization and with the development of more comprehensive cult associations. It is this factor that accounts for those great cult festivals that are associated with sowing and harvest and that extend far down into the higher civilizations, as numerous rudimentary customs still testify.
The changes which we likewise find in mythological conceptions also carry us beyond the narrow circle of original totemism. Again there appear elements of a nature-mythology, particularly of a celestial mythology. These supplant the animal cult, but nevertheless retain some connection with the totem animal; the culture is one in which the totem animal never entirely loses its earlier significance. Thus, the vegetation festivals, especially those of North and Central America, exhibit many cult forms in which ideas that belong to a celestial mythology combine with the worship of animals and of ancestors. The conceptions of ancestors and of gods thus play over into one another, and these god-ancestors are believed to have their seat in the clouds and in the heavens above. However constantly, therefore, totemic ideas may be in evidence within the field of external phenomena, a much superior point of view is attained, by the American races, as regards the inner life.
Among the African peoples we find the second important form of culture belonging to this third stage—a culture which in many respects diverges from the one which we have just described. More clearly even than in the case of America has the idea been disproven that the inhabitants of the interior of Africa are essentially a homogeneous race that has developed independently of external influences. Even more than other peoples, the Africans show the effects of great and far-reaching external influences. Hamitic and Semitic tribes entered the country from the north at an early time; even from the distant south of Asia, probably from Sumatra and its neighbouring islands, great waves of immigration, crossing Madagascar in the distant past, swept on towards the west even to the Gold Coast, introducing elements of Papuan-Negritic culture into Africa. There were frequent fusions between these tribes and the negro peoples proper, as well as with the Hamites, the Semites, and also with those who were probably the original inhabitants of this region, remnants of whom are still to be found in the Bushmen. The negro race, which, relatively speaking, has remained the purest, lives in the Soudan region; the Bantus inhabit the south of Africa; the north is occupied mostly by Hamitic tribes, whose advent into this region was followed by that of a people of related origin, the Semites. Corresponding to the racial mixtures that thus arose, there are various forms of culture. As regards the Bantus, it is highly probable that they are a mixed people, sprung from a union of the Soudan negroes with the Hamites. That the Hamites pressed on, in very early times, into southern Africa, is proved by the Hottentot tribe, whose language exhibits Hamitic characteristics, and the colour of whose skin, furthermore, is lighter than that of the negro proper or that of the Bantu. The language of the Bantus shows traits resembling partly the negro idioms of the Soudan and partly Hamitic-Asiatic characteristics. The element of culture, however, which is peculiar to the Hamites and which was introduced by them into the northern part of the continent, is the raising of cattle and of sheep. There can be scarcely any doubt that the African cattle originally came from Asia. Probably, however, cattle were brought to Africa on the occasion of two different Hamitic migrations; this is indicated by the fact that two breeds of cattle are found in Africa. Moreover, it is clear that, at the time of their introduction, cattle were not totem animals, but had already gained a position intermediate between the totem and the breeding animal. The Hottentot, as well as the Bantu, prizes his cattle as his dearest possession. Since, however, he slaughters them only in times of extreme necessity, he has progressed only to the point of obtaining a milk supply. Yet even this represents an important advance. Owing to his efforts, the cow no longer merely provides the calf with milk, as in the natural state, but, long after the time of suckling has passed, places the milk at man's disposal. Everywhere in the interior of Africa the cow is still a common milk animal. As such, it is a highly prized source of nourishment, but it is not used for agricultural purposes. Thus, its position is midway between that of the original totem animal of cult and that of the draught animal. For the Hottentot, cattle are objects of supreme value. As such, they are accorded a certain degree of reverence. They are not utilized as beasts of burden nor for slaughter, but only as a source of such means of nourishment as do not cost their lives. South Africa, therefore, has remained on the level of hoe-culture. The boundary between these southern districts in which hoe-culture and the nomadic life prevail and the northern regions into which the Hamites and Semites have introduced plough-culture is, practically speaking, the desert of Sahara. It is only when the animal is used to draw the plough that it becomes in all respects a useful animal. Thenceforth it no longer merely gives its milk for food, but it performs the work that is too hard for man, and, finally, as an animal of slaughter, it takes the place of the gradually disappearing wild animal of the chase. Coincident with this development, totemic ideas and customs disappear. Though these have still left distinct traces in the south, particularly among the Bantus, it is, at most, isolated survivals that remain among the Hamitic population of the north.
Thus, the animal has come to be a breeding and a work animal throughout the whole of Africa, though this is particularly the case wherever the cultural influences of the immigrant peoples from the East have been operative. The relations of man to man have likewise undergone a change in this locality, due, in part, to migrations and tribal wars. No region so much as Africa has become the centre of despotic forms of government. It is this factor, together with the potent influence of ideas of personal property associated with it, that has contributed, on the one hand, to the origin of polygyny, and, on the other, to the rise of slavery. Long before Africa became the slave market of the New World it harboured an intertribal traffic in human beings. These changes in culture undermined the older cults, so that, with the dissolution of the totemic tribal organization, the original totem conceptions disappeared from all parts of this region. All the more marked was the progress of animism and fetishism, of which the former is closely connected, in its origin, with totem belief, while the latter is a sort of degenerate totemism. In certain regions, furthermore, as among the Bantus and the Hamitic tribes, another outgrowth of the cult of the dead—namely, ancestor worship—has gained great prominence alongside of elements of a celestial mythology.
To a far greater extent than in Africa, totemic culture has almost entirely disappeared throughout the entire Asiatic world. Only in the extreme north among the Tchuktchis, the Yakutes, and Ghilyaks, and in the far south among the Dravidian tribes of Hindustan who were pushed back by the influx of Hindoos, have remnants of totemic institutions survived. In addition to these, only scanty fragments of totemism proper may be found in Asia—the home of the great cultural peoples of the Old World. Surviving effects of totemic culture, however, are everywhere apparent, no less in the sacred animals of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hindoos, Greeks, and the Germanic peoples, than in the significance attached by the Romans to the flight of birds and to the examination of entrails, and in the Israelitic law which forbids the eating of the flesh of certain animals.
In the light of all these facts, the conclusion appears highly probable that at some time totemic culture everywhere paved the way for a more advanced civilization, and, thus, that it represents a transitional stage between the age of primitive man and the era of heroes and gods.
[3. TOTEMIC TRIBAL ORGANIZATION.][1]
As has already been stated, the beginning of the totemic age is not marked by any essential change in external culture. As regards dress, decoration, and the acquisition of food, the conditions that we meet, particularly among the natives of Central Australia, differ scarcely at all from those of the primitive races of the pretotemic age. It is only in the weapons, which are already clearly indicative of tribal warfare, that we find an unmistakable external indication of deeper-going differences in social culture. At the same time, however, the totemic age includes peoples whose general manner of life we are accustomed to call semi-cultural. The greatest contrast occurs between the natives of Australia and of some of the portions of Melanesia, on the one hand, and those of North America, particularly of the eastern part, on the other. While the former still live the primitive life of the gatherer and the hunter, the latter possess the rudiments of agriculture, as well as the associated cult festivals, the beginnings of a celestial mythology, and richer forms of legend and poetry. Nevertheless, as regards the most universal characteristic of totemic culture, namely, the form of tribal organization, the two groups of peoples differ but slightly, although conditions in Australia have on the whole remained more primitive. This is most clearly shown by the fact that, among the Australian natives, the totem animal possesses the significance of a cult object, whereas in America, and particularly among the Atlantic tribes, whose totemic practices have received the most careful study, the totem animal has obviously come to be a mere coat of arms. The difference might, perhaps, be briefly stated thus: In Australia, the totem names signify groups of cult members within a clan; in America, they are the designations of clans themselves, but these as such possess no cult significance. In both regions, however, tribal organization follows the principle of dual division. The tribe first divides into two tribal halves (I and II); then each of these separates into two clans (A and B, C and D); finally, the latter again break up into subclans, so that eventually we may have eight tribal divisions. In certain cases, the division has not advanced beyond the dual form; the upper limit, on the other hand, seems to be eight distinct groups. The schemata representing tribal organization in Australia and in America are so similar that it is easy to
understand how most authors have come to regard conditions in the two countries as essentially identical. Yet the divergence in the nomenclature of the tribal divisions points to significant differences. The fact is that the clan names of the Australians are entirely different from the totem names. The former have, as a rule, become unintelligible to the present-day native, and, since many of them recur among distinct tribes who now speak different dialects, they probably derive from an older age. Words such as Ipai, Kumbo, Murri, Kubbi, etc., may originally, perhaps, have possessed a local significance. At any rate, clan names but rarely consist of the names of animals. On the other hand, such words as emu, kangaroo, opossum, eagle-hawk, and others, are the regular designations of the clans composing the totem groups. The case is otherwise among the North American Indians. Here the clans all have animal names. Nor can we anywhere find alongside of the clans any particular totem groups which might be regarded as cult alliances. The schema shown on p. 141 exhibits these relations. The tribal halves are designated by I and II, the clans by A, B, C, etc, and the independent totem groups existing within the individual clans by m, n, o, p, etc.
Owing to the external similarity of the tribal organizations, it has generally been thought that the totem groups of the Australians are merely clans or subclans, such as are, doubtless, the social groups of the American Indians, designated by similar totem names. This interpretation, however, has unquestionably led to serious confusion, particularly in the description of the tribal organization of the Australians. A study of the detailed and very valuable contributions of Howitt and of other early investigators of the sociological conditions of Australia, inevitably leaves the impression that, particularly as regards the interpretation of the various group names, the scholars were labouring under misconceptions which caused the relations to appear more complex than they really are. Such misconceptions were all the more possible because the investigators in question were entirely ignorant of the languages of the natives, and were therefore practically dependent upon the statements of their interpreters. Under these circumstances we may doubtless be allowed a certain degree of scepticism as to the acceptance of these reports, especially when they also involve an interpretation of phenomena; and we may be permitted an attempt to discover whether a different conception of the significance of the various group names may not give us a clearer picture of the phenomena, and one that is also more adequate when the general condition of the inhabitants is taken into account. The conditions prevalent among the American Indians are in general much easier to understand than are those of the Australians, particularly where the old tribal organization has been preserved with relative purity, as among the Iroquois. In this case, however, the totem names have obviously become pure clan designations without any cult significance. Now this has not occurred among the Australians; for them, the totem animal has rather the status of a cult object common to the members of a group. The fact that the Australians have separate names for the clans, as was remarked above, whereas the American Indians have come to designate clans by totem names, provides all the more justification for attributing essentially different meanings to the two groups that bear totem names. In attempting to reach a more satisfactory interpretation of totemic tribal organization, therefore, we shall consider those totem groups which are obviously in a relatively early stage of development—namely, the Australian groups—simply as cult associations which have found a place within the tribal divisions or clans, but whose original significance is of an absolutely different nature. In the above schema, therefore, A, B, C, D, etc., represent tribal divisions or clans, m, n, o, p, etc., cult groups. The latter are lacking in the part of the diagram which refers to the American Indians, since these have no cult associations that are independent of the tribal divisions; indeed, the old totem names have lost their former cult significance and have become mere clan names. Thus, the conception here advanced differs from the usual one in that it gives a different significance to the totem names on the two levels of development. In the case of the Australians, we regard them as the names of cult groups; in America, where the totem cult proper has receded or has disappeared, we regard them as mere clan names. But the extension of totem names to the entire clan organization in the latter case is not, as it were, indicative of a more developed totemism, but rather of a totemism in the state of decline. The totem animal, though here also at one time an object of cult, is such no longer, but has become a mere coat of arms. In support of this view of American totem names, we might doubtless also refer to the so-called totem poles. Such a pole consists of a number of human heads representing the ancestors of the clan, and is crowned by the head of the totem animal. This is obviously symbolic of the idea that this succession of generations has as its symbol the totem animal that surmounts it—that is, the totem pole is an enlarged coat of arms.
Because of the great regularity of its occurrence, the dual form of tribal division must be regarded as everywhere due to the same cause. Concerning its origin there can scarcely be any doubt. Obviously it has no real connection with totemism itself. This explains why the tribal divisions originally derived their names, not from the totem, but from localities or from other external sources, as the conditions among the Australians would seem to indicate. A phenomenon which recurs in widely distant regions with such regularity as does dual division, is scarcely intelligible except by reference to the general conditions attendant upon the spread of peoples. A tribe leading the unsettled life of gatherers and hunters must of inner necessity separate as its numbers increase or as the food-supply begins to fail. It is but natural that the tribe should first separate into two divisions on the basis of the hunting-grounds which the members occupy; the same process may then repeat itself in the case of each division. The fact that when deviations from the principle of dual division are found, they are most likely to occur in the subordinate groups, is also in harmony with the view that the divisions are due to the natural conditions of dispersion. For, in the case of the subordinate groups, one of the smaller units might, of course, easily disintegrate or wander to a distance and lose its connection with the tribe.
[1] The survey presented in this and in the following section aims to give only a general outline of the relations between totemism and tribal organization, as based particularly on several tribes of Central Australia. For a more detailed account of the conditions and of their probable interpretation, I would refer to a paper on "Totemism and Tribal Organization in Australia," published, in 1914, in Anthropos, an international journal.
[4. THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY.]
Though the dual organization of the tribe seems to admit of a comparatively simple and easy explanation, the totemic exogamy which is closely bound up with it offers great difficulties. As we have already seen, totemic exogamy is characterized by the fact that a member of one specific clan, or of a totem group belonging to the clan, may enter into marriage only with a member of another clan or totem group. This restriction of the marriage relationship is generally known as 'exogamy,' a term first introduced by the Scottish ethnologist and historian, McLennan. In order to distinguish this custom from later regulations of marriage, such, for example, as exist in present law, in the prohibition of the union of relatives by blood or by marriage, we may call it more specifically 'totemic exogamy.' Totemic exogamy clearly represents the earliest form of marriage restriction found in custom or law. The phenomena bound up with it may be regarded as having arisen either contemporaneously with the first division of the tribe or, at any rate, soon thereafter, for some of the Australian and Melanesian tribes practise exogamy even though they have not advanced beyond a twofold division of the tribe. On the other hand, the primitive horde of the pretotemic age remains undivided, and, of course, shows no trace of exogamy. True, marriages between parents and children seem to have been avoided as early even as in pretotemic times. But this could hardly have been due to the existence of firmly established norms of custom. Such norms never developed except under the influence of totemic tribal organization, and they are closely related to its various stages of development.
Taking as the basis of consideration the above-mentioned conditions in Australia, where an approximate regularity in the successive stages of this development is most clearly in evidence, we may distinguish particularly three main forms of exogamy. The first is the simplest. If we designate the two divisions of the tribe between which exogamic relations obtain, by A and B, and the various subgroups of A by l, m, n, o, and of B by p, q, r, s, we have, as this simplest form, unlimited exogamy. It corresponds to the following schema:—
This means: A man belonging to Class A may take in marriage a woman from any of the subgroups of Class B, and conversely. Marriage is restricted to the extent that a man may not take a wife from his own class; it is unrestricted, however, in so far as he may select her from any of the subgroups of the other class. This form of exogamy does not appear to occur except where the divisions of the tribe are not more than two in number. The marriage classes, A and B, then represent the two divisions of the tribe; the subgroups l, m, n, o, p,... are totem groups—that is to say, according to the view maintained above, cult groups. For the most part, marriage relationships between the specific cult groups meet with no further restrictions. A man of Class A may marry a woman belonging to any of the totem groups p, q, r, s, of Class B—it is only union with a woman belonging to one of the totem groups of Class A that is denied him. Nevertheless, as we shall notice later, we even here occasionally find more restricted relations between particular totem groups, and it is these exceptions that constitute the transitional steps to limited exogamy. Such transitions to the succeeding form of exogamy are to be found, for example, among the Australian Dieri, some of whose totem groups intermarry, only with some one particular group of the other tribal division.
The second form of exogamy occurs when a member of Class A is not allowed to take in marriage any woman he may choose from Class B, but only one from some specific sub-group of B. For example, a man of group n is restricted to a woman of group r.
Both forms of exogamy, the unlimited and the limited, observe the same law with respect to the group affiliation of children. If, as universally occurs in Australia, A and B are clans having exogamous relations, and l, m, n, o, p,... are totem groups within these clans, then, if maternal descent prevails, the children remain both in the clan and in the totem of the mother; in the case of paternal descent, they pass over to the clan and to the totem of the father. Of these modes of reckoning descent, the former is dominant, and was everywhere, probably, the original custom. One indication of this is the connection of paternal descent with other phenomena representing a change of conditions due to external influences—the occurrence of the same totem groups, for example, in the two clans, A and B, that enjoy exogamous relations. The latter phenomenon is not to be found under the usual conditions, represented by diagrams I and II. In the case of unlimited exogamy (I), no less than in that of limited exogamy, we find that if, for example, maternal descent prevails, and, the mother belongs to clan B and to totem group r, the children likewise belong to this group r. This condition is much simplified in the case of the American Indians. With them, totem group and clan coincide, the totem names having become the names of the clans themselves. The particular totem groups, l, m, n, o, p,... do not exist. Exogamous relations between clans A and B consist merely in the fact that a man of the one clan is restricted in marriage to women of the other clan. Wherever maternal descent prevails, as it does, for example, among the Iroquois, the children are counted to the clan of the mother; in the case of paternal descent, they belong to the clan of the father.
In the Australian system, however, which distinguishes clan and totem, and therefore, as we may suppose, still exemplifies, on the whole, an uninterrupted development, we find also a third form of exogamous relationship. This last form of exogamy seems to be the one which is most common in Australia, whereas, of course, it has no place in the pure clan exogamy of the American Indians. The system indicated in diagram II, in which children belong directly to the clan of the mother in maternal descent and to that of the father in paternal descent, may be designated as limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent. There developed from this a third system, in which, while the children are counted to the clan of the parent who determines descent, they nevertheless become members of a different totem group. Thus arises a limited exogamy with indirect maternal or paternal descent, as represented in diagram III.
A man of clan A and totem group l may marry only a woman of clan B and totem group p; the children, however, do not belong to the totem p, but to another specifically defined totem group, q, of clan B.
The way in which these various forms of exogamy affect the marriage relations of the children that are born from such unions is fairly obvious. Turning first to form I—unlimited exogamy—it is clear that, in the case of maternal descent, which here appears to be the rule, none of the children of the mother may marry except into the clan of the father; in paternal descent, conversely, they may marry only into the clan of the mother. Marriage between brothers and sisters, thus, is made impossible. Nor may a son marry his mother where maternal descent prevails, or a daughter her father in the case of paternal descent. In the former case, however, the marriage of father and daughter would be permitted, as would that of mother and son in the latter. The marriage of a son or daughter with relatives of the mother who belong to the same clan is not allowed in the case of maternal descent. The son, for example, may not marry a sister of his mother, nor the daughter a brother of the mother, etc. Since it is maternal descent that is dominant in the case of unlimited exogamy, the most important result of the latter is doubtless its prevention of the marriage of brother and sister, in addition to that of a son with his mother. The system of paternal descent, of course, involves a corresponding change in marriage restrictions.
What, now, are the results of form II—limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent? It is at once clear that such exogamy prohibits all the various marriage connections proscribed by unlimited exogamy. Marriage between brothers and sisters is rendered impossible, as is also, in the case of maternal descent, that between a son and his mother or the relatives in her clan. Marriage between father and daughter, however, is permitted. Where paternal descent prevails, these latter conditions are reversed. Although forms I and II are to this extent in complete agreement, they nevertheless show a very important difference with respect to the prohibitions which they place on marriage. In unlimited exogamy, a man is at liberty to marry into any totem that belongs to the clan with which his own has exogamous relations; in limited exogamy, however, he may marry into only one of the totems of such a clan. Thus, the circle within which he may select a wife is very materially reduced. Limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent, accordingly, means a reapproach to endogamy. The wife must be chosen from an essentially smaller group, narrowed down, in the case of maternal descent, to the more immediate relatives of the father, or, in paternal descent, to those of the mother. Such a condition is not at all a strict form of exogamy, as is maintained by some ethnologists, but is, on the contrary, something of a return to endogamy. This point is of decisive importance in determining the motives of the remarkable institution of exogamy.
What are the conditions, finally, which obtain in form III—limited exogamy with indirect maternal or paternal descent? It is at once obvious that marriage between brother and sister is here also excluded. Furthermore, another union is prohibited which was permitted in form II. For son and daughter, in the case of maternal descent, no longer belong to the totem group of the mother, p, but pass over into another group, say q. Not only, therefore, is a son prevented from marrying his mother because they both belong to the same clan, but a father is forbidden to marry his daughter because he may take only a woman of group p, to which his wife belongs. No less true is this of the son, who now likewise belongs to group q, and may therefore no longer marry a female relative of his father's, since the group q into which he has entered has exogamous connections with another totem group of the paternal clan, say with m. With this change a step to a stricter exogamy is again taken; the earlier restrictions on marriage remain, and the possibilities of marriage between relations are further reduced by changing the totem of the children. Cousins may not marry each other. Thus, the limits of exogamy are here narrower than those, for example, which obtain in Germany. It is evident that such limitations might become a galling constraint, particularly where there is a scarcity of women, as is the case, for the most part, in Australia. This has led some of the Australian tribes to the remarkable expedient of declaring that a man is not to be regarded as the son of his father, but, in the case of maternal descent, as the son of his paternal grandfather—a step which practically amounts to transferring him into the totem of his father and allowing him to enter into marriage with his mother's relatives. This circumvention, reminding one of the well-known fictions of Roman law, may have its justification in the eyes of the Australians in the fact that they draw practically no distinction between the various generations of ancestors.
The three forms of exogamy, accordingly, agree in prohibiting the marriage of brothers and sisters and, in so far as maternal descent may be regarded as the prevailing system, the marriage of a son with his mother. Both these prohibitions, doubtless, and especially the latter, reflect a feeling which was experienced by mankind at an early age. The aversion to the marriage of a son with his mother is greater than that to the marriage of brother and sister or even that of father and daughter. Consider the tragedy of Œdipus. It might, perhaps, be less horrible were it father and daughter instead of son and mother who were involved in the incestuous relation. Marriages between brothers and sisters have, of course, sometimes occurred. Thus, as has already been remarked, the Peruvian Incas ordained by law that a king must marry his sister. In the realm of the Ptolemies, likewise, the marriage of brother and sister served the purpose of maintaining purity of blood, and even to-day such marriages occur in some of the smaller despotic negro states. The custom is probably always the result of the subjugation of a people by a foreign line of rulers. Indeed, even the Greeks permitted marriage between half-brothers and half-sisters.
Though these natural instincts were less potent in early times than in later culture, they may not have been entirely inoperative in the development from original endogamy to exogamy. Nevertheless, one would scarcely attempt to trace to the blind activity of such instincts those peculiar forms of exogamy that appear particularly among the Australian tribes. On the contrary, we would here also at once be inclined to maintain that the reverse is true, thus following a principle that has approved itself in so many other cases. The aversion to marriage with relatives has left its impress on our present-day legislation, not so much, indeed, in the positive form of exogamy, as in the negative form which forbids endogamy within certain limits. This aversion, however, is not the source so much as it is the effect—at least in great measure—of the exogamous institutions of early culture. All the more important is the question concerning the origin of these institutions. This question, in fact, has already received much attention on the part of ethnologists, particularly since the beginning of the present century, when it has become more and more possible to study the tribal organization of the Australians. Here, however, we must distinguish between the general theories that have been advanced concerning the causes of exogamy as such—theories which date back in part even to a fairly early period—and hypotheses concerning the origin of the various forms of exogamy.
Exogamy as such has generally been approached from a rationalistic point of view. It has been regarded as an institution voluntarily created to obviate the marriage of relatives, and is supposed to have arisen contemporaneously with another institution of like purpose, namely, tribal division. This view is championed, among other scholars, by the able American sociologist, Lewes Morgan, in his book "Ancient Society" (1870), and even by Frazer in his comprehensive work "Totemism and Exogamy" (1910), which includes in its survey all parts of the earth. Frazer says explicitly: 'In the distant past, several wise old men must have agreed to obviate the evils of endogamy, and with this end in view they instituted a system that resulted in exogamous marriage.' Thus, the determinant motive is here supposed to have been aversion to the marriage of relatives. According to Morgan's hypothesis—an extreme example of rationalistic interpretation—the aversion was due to a gradually acquired knowledge that the marriage of relatives was injurious in its effects upon offspring. The entire institution, thus, is regarded as a eugenic provision. We are to suppose that the members of these tribes not only invented this whole complicated system of tribal division, but that they foresaw its results and for this reason instituted exogamous customs. Were people who possess no names for numbers greater than four capable of such foresight, it would indeed be an unparalleled miracle. Great social transformations, of which one of the greatest is unquestionably the transition from the primitive horde to totemic tribal organization, are never effected by the ordinances of individuals, but develop of themselves through a necessity immanent in the cultural conditions. Their effects are never foreseen, but are recognized in their full import only after they have taken place. Moreover, as regards the question of the injurious effects resulting from the marriage of relatives, authorities even to-day disagree as to where the danger begins and how great it really is. That the Australians should have formed definite convictions in prehistoric times with reference to these matters, is absolutely inconceivable. At most, they might have felt a certain instinctive repugnance. Furthermore, if these institutions were established with the explicit purpose of avoiding marriage between relatives, the originators, though manifesting remarkable sagacity in their invention, made serious mistakes in their calculations. For, in the first place, the first two forms of exogamy only partially prevent a union which even endogamous custom avoids, namely, that between parents and children; in the second place, the transition from unlimited to limited exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent does not involve an increased restriction of marriage between relations, but, as we have already seen, marks a retrogression, in the sense of a reapproach to endogamy.
The above view, therefore, was for the most part abandoned in favour of other, apparently more natural, explanations. Of these we would mention, as a second theory, the biological hypothesis of Andrew Lang. This author assumes that the younger brothers of a joint family were driven out by the stronger and older ones in order to ward off any want that might arise from the living together of a large number of brothers and sisters, and that these younger brothers were thus obliged to marry outside the group. Even this, however, is not an adequate theory of exogamy, since it does not explain how the custom has come to apply also to the older members of the family group. As a final hypothesis, we may mention one which may perhaps be described as specifically sociological. In its fundamental aspects it was proposed by MacLennan, the investigator who also gave us the word 'exogamy.' MacLennan does not regard exogamy as having originated in times of peace, nor even as representing voluntarily established norms of custom. He derives it from war, and in so doing he appeals to the testimony both of history and of legend. As is well known, even the Iliad, the greatest epic of the past, portrays as an essential part of its theme a marriage by capture. The dissension between Achilles and Agamemnon arose from the capture of Briseis, for whom the two leaders of the Achæans quarrelled with each other. According to MacLennan, the capture of a woman from a strange tribe represents the earliest exogamy. The rape of the Sabines is another incident suggesting the same conclusion. True, this is not an event of actual history. Nevertheless, legend reflects the customs and ideas of the past. Now, in the case under discussion, it is clear that marriage by capture involves a foreign and hostile tribe, for this is the relation which the Sabines originally sustained to the Romans. A significant indication of the connection between marriage by capture and war with hostile tribes occurs also in Deuteronomy (ch. xxi.), where the law commands the Israelites: 'If in war you see a beautiful woman and desire her in marriage, take her with you. Let her for several weeks bewail her relatives and her home, and then marry her. But if you do not wish to make her your wife, then let her go free; you shall not sell her into slavery.' This is a remarkable passage in that it forbids the keeping and the selling of female slaves, but, on the other hand, permits marriage with a woman of a strange tribe. A parallel is found in Judges (ch. xxi.), where it is related that the elders of Israel, being prevented by an oath to Jahve from giving their own daughters in marriage to the children of Benjamin, advised the latter to fall, from ambush, upon a Canaanitic tribe and to steal its maidens.
In spite of all these proofs, exogamy and the capture of women from strange tribes differ as regards one feature of paramount importance. In both legend and history the captured woman is universally of a strange tribe, whereas totemic exogamy never occurs except between clans of the same tribe. Added to this is a further consideration. The above-mentioned passage from Deuteronomy certainly presupposes that the Israelite who captures a wife in warfare with a strange tribe already possesses a wife from among his own tribe. This is his chief wife, in addition to whom he may take the strange woman as a secondary wife. We may refer to Hagar, the slave, and to Sarah, Abraham's rightful wife, who belonged to his own tribe. The resemblance between exogamy and the capture of women in warfare is so far from being conclusive that exogamy is permitted only between clans of the same tribal group; hence, in cases where there are four or eight subgroups, it is not even allowed between members of the two tribal halves. Indeed, the essential characteristic of exogamous tribal organization, marriage between specific social groups, is entirely lacking in the marriage by capture that results from war. Moreover, the woman married under exogamous conditions is either the only wife or, if she is the first, she is the chief wife; in the case of marriage by capture in war, the captured woman is the secondary wife.
[5. MODES OF CONTRACTING MARRIAGE.]
Though the theory that exogamy originated in the capture of women in warfare is clearly untenable, it has without doubt seized upon one element of truth. Marriage by capture may also occur within one and the same tribe, and under relatively savage conditions this happens very frequently. Indeed, it is precisely in the case of the Australians, to judge from reports, that such marriage is probably as old as the institution of exogamy itself, if not older. Early accounts, in particular, give abundant testimony to this effect. That later writings give less prominence to the phenomenon does not imply its disappearance. The decreased emphasis is due rather to the fact that in more recent years the attention of investigators has been directed almost exclusively to the newly discovered conditions of tribal organization. Even on a more advanced and semi-cultural stage we find struggles for the possession of a wife. The struggle, however, is regularly carried on, not between members of different groups, much less between entirely strange peoples of widely differing language and culture, but between members of one and the same tribe. Two or more members of a tribe fall into a quarrel for the possession of a woman who, though not belonging to their own clan, is nevertheless a member of a neighbouring clan of the same tribe. Such conditions are doubtless to be traced back to earliest times. The victor wins the woman for himself. The custom of marriage by capture has left its traces even down to the present, in practices that have for the most part assumed a playful character. Originally, however, these practices were without doubt of a serious nature, as were all such forms of play that originated in earlier customs. Just as ancient exogamous restrictions are still operative in the prohibitions which the statutes of all cultural peoples place on the marriage of relatives, so the influence of marriage by capture is reflected in some of the usages attending the consummation of marriage, as well as in various customs, such as the purchase of wives and its converse, the dowry, which succeeded marriage by capture. Moreover, the fact that marriage by capture occasionally occurs even in primitive pretotemic culture and that it is practised beyond that circle of tribal organization whose totemic character can be positively proved, indicates that it is presumably older than an exogamy regulated by strict norms of custom. It is just in Australia, that region of the earth where, to a certain extent, the various stages of development of exogamy still exist side by side, that we find other cultural conditions which make it practically impossible to hold that marriage by capture originated in warfare between tribes. Though the woman who is here most likely to become an object of dissension between brothers or other kinsmen may not belong to the same clan and the same totem as the latter, she is nevertheless a member of one of the totems belonging to one of the most closely related clans. A woman of their own clan is too close to the men of the group to be desired as a wife; a woman of a strange tribe, too remote. In the ordinary course of events, moreover, there is no opportunity for meeting women of other tribes. The slave who is captured in war and carried away as a concubine appears only at a far later stage of culture. The original struggle for the possession of a woman, therefore, was not carried on with members of a strange tribe, as though it were to this that the woman belonged. Doubtless also it was only to a slight degree a struggle with the captured woman herself—this perhaps represents a later transference that already paves the way for the phenomena of mere mock-struggles. The real struggle took place between fellow-tribesmen, between men of the same clan, both of whom desired the woman. There is a possibility, of course, that the kinsmen of the woman might oppose her capture. This aspect of the struggle, however, like the opposition of the woman herself, was probably unknown prior to the cultural stage, when the female members of the clan came to be valued, as they are among agricultural and nomadic peoples, because of the services which they render to the family. The theory just outlined, moreover, readily explains the further development of the conditions that precede the consummation of marriage, whereas the theory that marriage by capture originated in warfare is in this respect a complete failure. Valuable information concerning the later stages in the development of the marriage by capture which originates during a state of tribal peace, is again furnished by Australian ethnology. Among these peoples, the original capture has in many instances passed over into an exchange in which the suitor offers his own sister to the brother of the woman whom he desires for himself. If this proposal for exchange is accepted and he has thereby won the kinsmen of the woman to his side, his fellow-contestants may as well give up the struggle. Thus, exogamous marriage by capture here gives way to exogamous marriage by barter, an arrangement in entire harmony with the development of trade in general, which always begins with barter. At the same time, the form of this barter is the simplest conceivable: a woman is exchanged for a woman; the objects of exchange are the same and there is no necessity for estimating the values in order to equalize them.
There may be some, however, who do not possess sisters whom they may offer in exchange to the men of other clans. What then occurs? In this case also it is in Australia that we find the beginnings of a new arrangement. In place of offering his sister in exchange, the suitor presents a gift to the parents of the bride, at first to the mother. Gift takes the place of barter. Since there is no woman who may be bartered in exchange, a present is given as her equivalent. Thus we have exogamous marriage by gift, and, as the custom becomes more general and the gift is fixed by agreement, this becomes exogamous marriage by purchase. The latter, however, probably occurs only at a later stage of culture. The man buys the woman from her parents. Sometimes, as we know from the Biblical example of Jacob and from numerous ethnological parallels, he enters into service in order to secure her—he labours for a time in the house of her parents. In an age unfamiliar with money, one who has possessions purchases the woman with part of his herd or of the produce of his fields. Whoever owns no such property, as, for instance, the poor man or the dependent son, purchases the woman with his labour.
Marriage by purchase, however, does not represent the terminus of the development. On the contrary, it prepares the way for marriage by contract, an important advance that was already, to a certain extent, made by the Greeks, and later particularly by the Romans. Not purchase, but a contract between him who concludes the marriage and the parents of the woman—this is an arrangement which still finds acceptance with us to-day. Now, the marriage contract determines the conditions for both bride and groom, and eventually also the marriage portion which the man brings to the union, as well as the dowry of the wife. As soon, therefore, as property considerations come to be dominant within the field of marriage, marriage by contract opens the way for a twofold marriage by purchase. The man may either buy the woman, as was done in the case of the earlier marriage by purchase, or the woman may buy the man with the dowry that she brings. At first, in the days of marriage by capture, the struggle with fellow-clansmen or with strangers was of decisive importance; at a later time, however, differences in property, rank, and occupation came to be the determining factors in the case of marriage. Thus, if we regard marriage by gift as a mode of marriage by purchase, though, in part, more primitive, and, in part, more spontaneous, our summary reveals three main stages: marriage by capture, marriage by purchase, and marriage by contract. Between these modes of marriage, of course, there are transitional forms, which enable us to regard the course of development as constant. The fact, however, that the entire development bears the character of a more or less thorough-going exogamy, is due to the oldest of these modes of marriage—a mode which, as we may assume, was prevalent at the beginning of the totemic age. This is a form of marriage by capture in which the woman belonged, not to a strange tribe, but to a neighbouring clan of the same tribe, or to one with which there were other lines of intercourse. When capture disappeared, the exogamy to which it gave rise remained. The old customs connected with the former passed over, though more and more in the form of play, into the now peaceful mode of marriage by purchase; their survivals continued here and there even in the last form of marriage, that by contract.
[6. THE CAUSES OF TOTEMIC EXOGAMY.]
How does this general development of the modes of marriage account for those peculiar laws of exogamy which are universally characteristic of totemic culture, representing strict norms of custom that forbid all marriage except that between specific clans of a tribe, or even only between pairs of totem groups of different clans? Were these marriage ordinances, which have evidently arisen in various places independently of one another, intentionally invented? Or are they the natural outcome of totemic tribal organization, resulting from its inherent conditions, just as did the laws of dual tribal division from the natural growth and partition of the tribes?
Now, the forms of totemic exogamy unmistakably constitute a developmental series. In the simplest arrangement, there are no restrictions whatever upon marriage between members of one clan and those of another with which marriage relations exist. Such exogamy, however, is relatively rare in Australia, the land in which the developmental forms of exogamy are chiefly to be found. It seems to be limited to tribes that have merely a dual organization, in which event the clan coincides with one-half the tribe. Even in such cases we find transitions to the next form of exogamy. In this second system, exogamy is restricted to particular totems of the two clans of one and the same tribal division; and, just as in the first case, the children are, as a rule, born directly into the totem group of the mother, or, less commonly, into that of the father. Following this exogamy with direct maternal or paternal descent and undeniably proceeding out of it, we finally have, as the third main form, exogamy with indirect maternal or paternal descent. In this form of exogamy, as in the preceding ones, the children belong to the totem of the mother or to that of the father so far as birth is concerned; as respects their exogamous totem relation, however, they pass over into another totem of the same clan. Thus, birth-totem and marriage-totem are here distinct, and every member of a group belongs to two totems that differ in significance. Now, in the case of a marriage by capture in which the individuals belong to different clans, the question of the totem does not enter. When, therefore, this mode of marriage remains undisturbed by further conditions, we have exogamy of the first form. When a suitor seeks to win the favour of the clan by means of a gift presented to the parents or the kin, marriage by capture passes over directly and without further change into the simple marriage by purchase. The two more exclusive forms of exogamy, on the other hand, are obviously connected with the rise of totemism; they are the result both of the clan divisions which follow from tribal partition and of the accompanying separation into totem groups. The question, therefore, concerning the development of these forms of exogamy, dependent as they are both upon clan divisions and upon totem groups, is essentially bound up with the question concerning the temporal relation of the two important phenomena last mentioned. An unambiguous answer to the latter question, however, may be gathered precisely by a study of Australian conditions, at least so far as the development in these regions is concerned. If we recall our previous schema (p. 141), representing the tribal organization of the Kamilaroi, and here, as there, designate the totemic groups (emu, kangaroo, opossum, etc.) comprised within the clan by m n o p..., it is apparent that the totems must be at least as old as the division into the two tribal halves. Unless this were the case, we could not explain the fact that, with very minor exceptions, precisely the same totems exist in the two tribal divisions. The condition might be represented thus:—
It is also evident, however, that the totems could not have influenced this first division, otherwise their members would not have separated and passed over into the two tribal divisions, as they did in almost every case. Remembering that the totemic groups are also cult associations, we might express the matter thus: At the time of the first tribal division, the cult groups were not yet strong enough to offer resistance to the separation of the tribal divisions, or to determine the mode of division; therefore, members of totem m, for example, went here or there according as other external conditions determined. Conditions were quite different at the time of the second division, when the tribal half I separated into clans A and B, and II into C and D, according to the schema:—
These clans, as we see, separated strictly according to totems. The bond of cult association had now become so strong that all members of a particular totem regularly affiliated themselves with the same clan, though the grouping of the totem divisions within the clans of the two tribal halves proceeded along absolutely independent lines, as may be concluded from the fact that the totems composing the clans within the two tribal divisions are grouped differently. The formation of such cult or totem groups, thus, may already have begun in the primitive horde. At that time, however, these cult groups were probably loosely knit, so that when the horde split up, its members separated, each of the two tribal divisions, generally speaking, including individuals of all the various tribes. Not so in the case of those divisions of the tribe which originated later, after mankind had advanced further beyond the condition of the horde. By this time the totem unions must have become stronger, so that the members of a cult group no longer separated but, together with other similar groups, formed a clan. When the growth of the tribe, together with the conditions of food supply and the density of population, led to a separation of the tribe, certain totem groups invariably joined one division and others, the other, but the more firmly organized groups remained intact.
A further phenomenon of great importance for the development of exogamous marriage laws must here be mentioned—one that occurs throughout the entire realm of totemic culture but is particularly prominent among the Australian totem groups. This phenomenon consists in totem friendships. Certain totem groups regard themselves as in particularly close relations with certain other groups. Friendships similar to these, in a general way, are to be found even in connection with the highest forms of political organization. For modern States themselves enter into political alliances or friendships, and these, as is well known, are subject to change. Such alliances occur from the beginnings of totemism on up to the advanced plane of modern international culture. Though these affiliations eventually come to be determined primarily by the commercial relations of peoples, the determining factors at the outset were faith and cult. In both cases, however, the friendships are not of a personal nature, but are relations based on common interests. This common interest may consist, for example, in the fact that, as has been observed among some of the Australian totem alliances, the member of a totem may slay the totem animal in the hunt, but may not eat of it, though the member of the friendly totem may do so. Thus, the interest in cult becomes also a means for the satisfaction of wants, as well as a bond that unites more closely the particular totem groups.
These facts help to explain how the unlimited exogamy which first arises from marriage by capture comes to pass over into a 'limited exogamy,' as it does immediately upon the appearance of conditions that regulate the forceful capture and substitute for it the friendly exchange of women. These factors, however, always come into play whenever the intercourse between tribal members becomes closer, and particularly when the struggle with strange tribes keeps in check the strife between individuals of the same tribal association. In such cases, exchange, or, in later development, purchase, proves the means of putting an end to force. Thus, blood revenge, which persists into far later times, is displaced by the wergild which the murderer pays to the kin of his victim. This transition is precisely the same, in its own field, as that which occurs in the institution of marriage, for in the former case also the strife involves members of the same tribe. The passion, however, which causes the murder and which creates the demand for vengeance, sometimes prevented the introduction of peaceful means of settlement. In the case of marriage by capture, however, a marriage relationship, unrestricted and friendly in character, was doubtless first developed between the two clans, particularly wherever tribal division and clan were identical. And though marriage by capture was for a time still occasionally practised—since all changes of this sort are gradual—such marriages, nevertheless, more and more assumed a playful character. The actual capture everywhere finally gave way to exchange and later to the gift. When, however, the totem groups, and with them the cult associations that established a bond between clan and clan, gained the ascendancy, the totem groups naturally displaced the clan in respect to marriage arrangements; those totems who maintained close cult relations with one another, entered also into a marriage relationship. Thus, exogamy became limited; the members of a totem of clan A married only into the friendly totem of clan B, and this usage became an established norm whose violation might result in the death of the guilty person, unless he escaped this fate by flight. This transition of exogamy from clan to totem group, and from the unlimited to the limited form, came only gradually. This is clearly shown by the conditions among the Dieri. Certain of their totems have already entered upon the stage of limited marriage relationship, whereas others have not advanced beyond unlimited exogamy.
But even after the development had reached its final form and limited totemic exogamy was completely established, further changes ensued. For the basis of such exogamy, we may conjecture, is the fact that certain totem groups of associated clans enjoy particularly close relations with one another. Even on these primitive levels, however, the friendships of such groups are not absolutely permanent any more than are the political friendships of modern civilized states, though their degree of permanence is probably greater than that of the latter. Migrations, changes in hunting-grounds, and other conditions, were doubtless operative also in totemic culture, loosening the bonds between friendly totems and cementing others in their stead. This led to changes in the exogamous relations of totem groups. Instead of groups n and r of clans A and B, n and q might then come to have exogamous connections (see diagram III on p. 148). But the severance of the old connection did not immediately obliterate the tradition of the former relationship. The influence of the latter would naturally continue to be felt, not in connection with acts of a transitory nature, such as wooing and marriage, but in matters permanent in character and thus affecting the traditional organization of the tribe. Such a permanent relation, however, is totem affiliation. This explains how it happens that, even after the old totem connection gave way to the new, it nevertheless continued to exercise a claim on the totem membership of the children born under the new marriage conditions; hence also the recognition of the claim on the part of custom. In one respect, indeed, such recognition was impossible. More firmly established than any form of exogamy was the law that children belonged to the mother, or, in the case of paternal descent, to the father. This law could not be violated. Hence exogamous and parental tribal membership became differentiated. The latter ordained that children in every case belong to the totem of the parent who determines descent; the tradition of the former decreed that children belong, not to the parental totem, but to some other totem of the same clan. Such a condition of dual totem membership might, of course, arise from a great variety of conditions, just as may the similarly overlapping social relations within our own modern culture—such, for example, as the military and the so-called civil station of a man. The customary designation of the first two forms of limited exogamy as exogamy with direct maternal descent, and of the third as exogamy with indirect maternal descent, is plainly inappropriate and may easily give rise to misunderstandings. For it may suggest that the maternal totem disposes of its rights in respect to marriage arrangements to another totem group, and that eventually this even occurs in accordance with a definite agreement. But this is certainly not the case. For maternal descent or, speaking more generally, the fact that children belong to the parents, obtains invariably. It would be preferable, therefore, simply to distinguish the parental totem connection from the traditional exogamous connection, or one system in which the exogamous and the parental connections coincide, from a second in which they differ.
The conjecture, therefore, that a traditional marriage relation, differing from that based on parentage, grew up out of a previous totem friendship, is based primarily on the importance which totemic cult alliances in general possessed within the totemic tribal organization. Other causes, of course, may also have co-operated. Two further points must be noticed. In the first place, it is not at all likely that the transition from the parental exogamous relation to the traditional form occurred at the same time in all the totem groups. This is not only highly improbable in itself, but is also absolutely irreconcilable with the fact, shown by the example of the Dieri, that the earlier transition from unlimited to limited exogamy was gradual. Moreover, one must bear in mind that the transition from parental to traditional exogamy, represented by diagram III (p. 148), not only underwent several repeated transformations, but that, due to the power which tradition always exerts, a traditional exogamous union of two totems, after it once arose, may have persisted throughout several changing cult friendships. An existing marriage relation may not at all have corresponded to the cult friendship that immediately preceded it; it may have been based on any earlier friendship whatsoever that had been favoured by conditions and that had received a firm place in tradition. These facts show that the hypothetical 'wise ancestors' of the present-day Australians—sages who are said to have invented this complicated organization in the immemorial past for the purpose of avoiding endogamy—are just as superfluous as they are improbable. The phenomena arose in the course of a long period of time, out of conditions immanent in the life and in the cult of these tribes. The various forms of exogamy appearing in the course of this period were not the causes but the effects of the phenomena in question.
[7. THE FORMS OF POLYGAMY.]
Unless external influences have changed his mode of life, primitive man, as we have seen, is both monogamous and endogamous, the latter term being used in a relative sense as denoting a condition in which marriages are permitted between blood relations as well as between non-relations. As a result of the external conditions of life, however, particularly the common habitation of the same protective cave and the use of adjacent hunting-grounds, unions within a wider joint family generally predominate. Following upon the rise of exogamy, polygamy also regularly appears. These two practices give to the marriage and family relations of totemic society an essentially different character from that which they possess under primitive conditions. Even in the totemic era, indeed, polygamy is not universal; monogamy continues to survive. Monogamy, however, ceases to be a norm of custom. It is everywhere set aside, to a greater or less extent, in favour of the two forms of polygamy—polygyny and polyandry.
Now it is apparent that precisely the same conditions that underlie the development of the various forms of exogamy also generate polygyny and polyandry. From the standpoint of the general human impulses determining the relations of the sexes, both sorts of polygamy are manifestly connected very closely with the origin of exogamy. Here, again, the fact that exogamy originated in marriage by capture from within the tribe is of decisive importance. It is precisely this friendly form of the capture of brides, as we may learn from the example of the Australians and of others, that is never carried out by the individual alone, whether the custom be still seriously practised or exists only in playful survivals. The companions of the captor aid him, and he, in turn, reciprocates in similar undertakings. Thereby the companion, according to a view that long continued to be held, gains a joint right to the captured woman. Hence the original form of polygamy was probably not polygyny—the only form, practically, that later occurs—but polyandry. At first this polyandry, which originates in capture, was probably only temporary in character. Nevertheless it inevitably led to a loosening of the marriage bond, the result of which might easily be the introduction of polygyny. The man who has gained a wife for his permanent possession seeks to indemnify himself, so far as possible, for the partial loss which he suffers through his companions. Here, then, two motives co-operate to introduce the so-called 'group-marriage'—the dearth of women, which may also act as a secondary motive in the claim of the companions to the captured woman, and the impulse for sexual satisfaction, which is, in turn, intensified by the lack of women. Similarly, the right to the possession of a woman, even though only temporarily, also has two sources. In the first place, the helper demands a reward for his assistance. This reward, according to the primitive views of barter and exchange, can consist only in a partial right to the spoils, which, in this case, means the temporary joint possession of the woman. In the second place, however, the individual is a member of the clan, and what he gains is therefore regarded as belonging also to the others. Thus the right of the closest companions may broaden into a right of the clan. Indeed, where strict monogamy does not prevent, phenomena similar to marriage by capture persist far beyond this period into a later civilization. Thus, in France and Scotland, down to the seventeenth century, the lord possessed the right of jus primæ noctis in the case of all his newly married vassals. In place of the clan of an earlier period we here find the lord; to him has been transmitted the right of the clan. At the time when these phenomena were in their early beginnings, the temporary relation might very easily have become permanent. It is thus that group-marriage originates—an institution of an enduring character which not only survives the early marriage by capture but which is reinforced and probably first made permanent by its substitute, namely, marriage by purchase. In this instance again, Australian custom offers the clearest evidence. In the so-called 'Pirrauru marriage' of Australia, a man, M, possesses a chief wife, C1, called 'Tippamalku.' Another man, N, likewise has a chief wife, C2. This wife, C2, is, however, at the same time a secondary wife, S1, or 'Pirrauru' of M. In like manner the chief wife, C1, may, in turn, be a secondary wife, S2, of N. This is the simplest form of group-marriage. Two men have two wives, of whom one is the chief wife of M and the secondary wife of N, and the other is the chief wife of N and the secondary wife of M. Into such a group yet a third man, O, may occasionally enter with a chief wife, C3, whom he gives to M as a secondary wife, S3, and eventually to N as a secondary wife, S4, without himself participating further in the group. In this way there may well be innumerable different relations. But the marriage is a 'Pirrauru marriage' whenever a man possesses not only a chief wife but also one or more secondary wives who are at the same time the wives of other men. 'Pirrauru marriage' is a
form of group-marriage, for it involves an exchange of women between the men of a group according to the reciprocal relation of chief and secondary wives. The very manner in which 'Pirrauru marriage' originates, however, indicates that in all probability its basis is monogamy, and not, as is supposed by many ethnologists and sociologists, 'promiscuity,' or the total absence of all marriage. In harmony with this interpretation is the fact that in numerous regions of Australia, especially in the northern districts, it is not group-marriage but monogamy that prevails. There is also, of course, a form of group-marriage that differs from 'Pirrauru marriage,' and is apparently simpler. In it, the differences between chief and secondary wives disappear; several men simply possess several wives in common. Because this form of group-marriage is the simpler, it is also usually regarded as the earlier. This view, however, is not susceptible of proof. The supposition rests simply and alone upon the consideration that, if a state of absolutely promiscuous sexual intercourse originally prevailed, the transition to an undifferentiated group-marriage without distinction of chief and secondary wives would be the next stage of development. The reverse, however, would obtain were monogamy the original custom. For the group-marriage with chief and secondary wives is, of course, more similar to monogamy than is undifferentiated group-marriage. Moreover, this order of succession is also in greater consonance with the general laws underlying social changes of this sort. As a matter of fact, it would scarcely be possible to find grounds for a transition from undifferentiated group-marriage to the 'Pirrauru system.' If we assume that there was a growing inclination for single marriage, it would be difficult to understand why the circuitous path of 'Pirrauru marriage' should have been chosen. On the other hand, it is very easy to see that the distinction between chief and secondary wives might gradually disappear. Indeed, this is what has almost universally happened wherever pure polygyny prevails. Wherever polygyny may be traced back to its beginnings, it always seems to have its origin in the combination of a chief wife with several secondary wives. Later, however, when the wife comes to be regarded as property, we find a formal co-ordination of the wives. Or, there may be a distinction that arises from the accidental preference of the husband, as in the case of the Sultan's favourite wife, though in modern times such choice has again been displaced by a law of more ancient tradition. The latter change, however, was the result of the external influence of the culture of Western Europe. Such a retrogressive movement, in the sense of a reapproach to monogamy, is foreign to the motives immanent in the development itself. Furthermore, 'Pirrauru marriage' is very easily explicable by reference to the same condition that best explains the origin of exogamy, namely, the custom of marriage by capture as practised between groups enjoying a tribal or cult relationship. The captured wife is the Tippamalku, or chief wife, of the captor; to the companions who assist the latter she becomes a Pirrauru, or secondary wife. This latter relation is at first only temporary, though it later becomes permanent, probably as a result, in part, of a dearth of women. By rendering his companions a similar service, the original captor in turn gains the chief wives of the former as his secondary wives. As frequently happens, the custom which thus arises outlives the conditions of its origin. This is all the more likely to happen in this case, because the general motives to polyandry and polygyny persist and exercise a constant influence.
Proof that this is the forgotten origin of group-marriage may perhaps be found in a remarkable feature of the customs of these tribes—one that is for the most part regarded as an inexplicable paradox. Marriage with the chief wife is not celebrated by ceremonies or festivals, as is the union with the secondary wife. Thus, the celebration occurs, not in connection with that marriage which is of primary importance even to the Australian, but, on the contrary, on the occasion of the union which is in itself of less importance. The solution of this riddle can lie only in the origin of the two forms of marriage. And, in fact, the two result from radically different causes, if it be true that capture from a friendly clan is the origin of the Tippamalku marriage and that assistance rendered to an allied companion underlies Pirrauru marriage. Capture is an act which precludes all ceremony; alliance with a companion is a contract, perhaps the very first marriage contract that was ever concluded—one that was made, not with the woman or with her parents, but with her husband. The consummation of such a contract, however, is an act which in early times was always accompanied by ceremonial performances. These accompanying phenomena may also, of course, persist long after their source has been lost to memory. Thus, the difference between the two forms of primitive group-marriage also indirectly confirms the supposition that monogamy lies at the basis of group-marriage in general.
After a man has won one or more secondary wives in addition to his chief wife, in Pirrauru marriage, there will doubtless be a tendency for him to seek additional chief wives. This will be particularly apt to occur where, on the one hand, marriage by capture gives way to marriage by barter and later to marriage by purchase, and where, on the other hand, group-marriage is on the wane. Custom may then either recur to monogamy, or it may advance to a polygyny which is pure and not, as in the case of group-marriage, combined with polyandry. Whether the former or the latter will occur, will depend, now that marriage by purchase has become predominant, upon might and property. Since these are also the factors which insure man's supremacy within the family, the older forms of combined polyandry and polygyny almost universally (with few exceptions, conditioned by the dearth of women) give way, with the advance of culture, to simple polygyny, which is then practised alongside of monogamy. This polygyny, in turn, also finally recedes in favour of monogamy. The circle of development, accordingly, may be represented by the following diagram:—
As an intermediate stage between monogamy and group-marriage, pure polyandry, it should be remarked, is doubtless a very transitory phenomenon. Nevertheless, it has a priority over polygyny in so far as it first furnishes the motives for the additional practice, and thus for the very origin, of the latter.
As a matter of fact, the ethnological distribution of the forms of marriage entirely confirms, as a general rule, the truth of this diagram. Even in Australia the phenomena of Pirrauru and of group-marriage are confined particularly to the southern regions. In the northerly regions, where immigration and racial fusion have played a greater rôle, both monogamy and polygyny may be found. The same is true of America and of Africa, monogamy decidedly predominating in the former and polygyny in the latter. The influence of marriage by purchase then constantly becomes stronger, with the result that the woman comes to be regarded from the point of view of property. The rich man is able to buy more wives than the poor man. In all polygynous countries and fields of culture, therefore, even in the present domain of Islamism, the poor man, as a rule, lives in monogamy, the rich man in polygyny. Only the wealthiest and most aristocratic allow themselves a real harem with a considerable number of wives.
Linked with these influences is yet a further change. Its beginnings are to be found as early as Australian culture; in America, it has progressed somewhat farther; in the other regions of totemism, it has finally succeeded in crowding out the original conditions with the exception of meagre remnants and survivals of customs. The change to which I refer is the transition from maternal descent, which, in all probability, was originally universal, to paternal descent. Maternal descent is in direct harmony with the natural feeling that the children who are born of the mother, and whose early care rests with her alone, should also belong to her. In this sense, mother-right represents the earliest of all conceptions of property. At the same time it precludes the possibility of that marriage which was avoided even by primitive man, and which, on higher cultural levels, is abhorred beyond all the other unions forbidden by the exogamous norms of custom—marriage between son and mother. The decisive external factor in connection with maternal descent, however, is the subordinate position of the family as compared with the association of the age-companions of the same sex, particularly the men's club. Because of its tribal struggles, whose increasing importance is externally reflected in the character of the weapon, it is precisely the totemic era that tends to loosen the natural family ties of the preceding primitive age, and, as a result, to allot the child to the mother. This tendency is clearly expressed in certain transitional phenomena that may occasionally be observed; they occur more frequently in Melanesia and America, however, than in Australia. The child, in these cases, inherits the totem of the mother as well as that of the father; or the son, though continuing to inherit the totem of the mother, nevertheless passes over into the clan of the father. These are intermediate phenomena, preparatory to the general transition from maternal to paternal descent. At the same time, the fact that membership is inherited in the paternal clan, in spite of the custom whereby the mother determines the totem, directly suggests that the bond uniting the men may become a force which counteracts maternal descent and then readily leads to paternal descent. This transition is bound to occur, particularly under the co-operation of other favouring conditions. Such conditions, as a matter of fact, are present; for social organization gains an increasing influence upon the whole of life's relations. There are primarily three factors that militate against the original custom of maternal descent. The first of these consists in the increasing authority of the man over his family, particularly over the son, who was generally subject to stricter regulations than was the daughter. This authority begins to manifest itself at that time, especially, when the man's relations with his family again become closer, and the associations which originally embraced, without exception, all the men of the clan, are displaced by family groups subject to the control of a family elder. Coincident with these changes and with the resulting transition to a patriarchal order, there occurs also the gradual dissolution of the general system of totemic tribal organization. Now, the system of maternal descent was closely bound up with totemic tribal organization from the very beginning. With the disappearance of the latter, therefore, the former loses its power of resistance against the forces making for its destruction. Finally, as a third factor, there is the gradually increasing prominence of personal property. Just as the wife becomes the property of the man, so also does the child. So great was this emphasis of the property conception, combined with the notion of authority, that even among the Romans the pater familias had power extending over the life of his children. Beginnings of such conceptions, however, are to be found even in more primitive societies. Polynesian custom, for example, permitted the murder of new-born children, and free advantage was taken of the permission. Only after the child had lived for a short time was infanticide prohibited. The decision, however, as to whether or not the child should be allowed to live rested primarily with the father.
[8. THE DEVELOPMENTAL FORMS OF TOTEMISM.]
Our discussions thus far have been restricted to those aspects of totemism which are directly related to tribal organization. But however important these phases may be, particularly in so far as they affect marriage regulations, they are, after all, but an external indication of the all-pervading influence of totemism upon life as a whole. Moreover, tribal totemism leaves many things unexplained, especially the origin of totemic belief. At any rate, the fact that totem groups were originally cult associations unmistakably points to inner motives of which the influence of totemism upon tribal organization and upon exogamy is but the outer expression. To answer the question concerning the nature of these motives, however, we must first call to mind the various sorts of totemic ideas. An analysis of these ideas may proceed in either of two directions. It may concern itself either with the social unit that regards itself as in relation to the totem or with the nature of the object that constitutes the totem. So far as the social unit is concerned, it may be a particular group of individuals—whether constituting a cult association independent of the real tribal organization, as in Australia, or, as in America, representing one of the tribal divisions themselves—that takes the name of a particular animal or, less frequently, of a plant for its totemic designation. The individual, however, may also possess a personal totem. Furthermore, the totemic idea may be associated with the birth of an individual, conception being regarded as an act in which the totem ancestor passes over into the germ as a magic being. This particular form of totemic belief is generally known as conception totemism. It supposes either that the totem ancestor co-operates with the father in the begetting of the child or that the father has no connection with procreation, the child being the direct offspring of the mother and the totem ancestor. There is, finally, also a fourth, though a relatively uncommon, form of totemism, generally called 'sex totemism.' Sex totemism also is social in nature, though in this case it is not different cult or tribal associations that possess separate totems, but the sexes, the men and women of a tribe or clan. The men have a totem, as have also the women, or there may be several totems for each sex.
Intercrossing with this classification based on the social factor, on whether the totem is associated with the tribe, the individual, or the procreation of the individual, there is a second classification. The latter concerns itself with the nature of the objects that are regarded as totems. These objects are of various sorts. Here again, moreover, we must doubtless recognize a development in totemic conceptions. The original totem, and the one that is by far the most common, is the animal. Numerous peoples possess no totems except animals. In many communities, however, plant totems have been adopted, and in certain regions they have gradually become predominant. Of the plant totems, the most important are the nutritious plants. In addition to these two classes of totemic objects, there is, finally, another, though an exceedingly rare, sort of totem. The totem that is conceived as an animal ancestor may give way to other fanciful ancestral ideas or may intercross with them. Various forms of such phenomena are to be found, particularly in Australia. In this region, such ancestors, which, doubtless, are for the most part regarded as anthropomorphic, are sometimes called Mura-mura or also Alcheringa. They are apparently imaged as mighty human beings possessed of magic powers. They are believed to have introduced totemism and to have instructed the forbears of the Australians in magic ceremonies. Mura-mura is the name that occurs especially in Southern Australia; the term, Alcheringa, prevails in the north, where the age of these mythical ancestors is often directly referred to as the Alcheringa age. At times, apparently, it is believed that these ancestors merely singled out as totems certain already existing animals. In other cases, however, animals, as well as mankind, are held to have been created by the magic-working beings out of formless matter, doubtless earth. It is commonly believed that the creatures that were thus created were at first lifeless, but became animals and men when placed in the sun. These various ideas are for the most part so intertangled in Australian legend that no coherent history of creation is anywhere discoverable. The legends plainly embody merely a number of detached fanciful ideas.
Closely connected with these original ancestors there is a third sort of totem or of totemic objects which we may briefly designate as inanimate. The objects are regarded as possessing magical powers and as having been bequeathed by the original ancestors, thus representing a legacy of the magical Alcheringa age. It is particularly stones and pieces of wood that are held to be the abode of these totemic spirits and that are represented by legend as having at one time been entrusted to the custody of the forefathers. These ideas abound particularly in northern Australia, where the magical objects are called churingas (or tjurungas). Churingas play an important rôle in the ceremonies of the totem festivals. For the most part, they consist of symmetrically shaped stones, somewhat similar to the boomerang; yet other objects also may be found, particularly such as are somehow striking in form. These churingas are also associated with other totemic ideas, particularly with conception totemism. The original ancestor is supposed to continue his existence, as it were, in the churinga, so that when this comes into contact with the mother he may pass over directly into the child.
If, now, we compare with each other the two extreme forms of the first class of totemic ideas—namely, tribal and individual totemism—we at once face the question, Which is the earlier, the original form? The ideas connected with the individual totem are certainly much more widely disseminated than is tribal totemism. Guardian spirits, particularly demoniacal, protective animals, may be found in many regions of the earth where there is little or no trace of the tribal totem. This is true especially of many regions of North America and of southern Africa, and likewise of numerous islands of Oceania. In these localities the individual totem is sometimes regarded as a sort of double of the individual person. If the totem animal dies, the man whose totem it is must also die. Closely related to this conception are a vast number of ideas reaching far down into later mythology, particularly into Germanic lore—ideas according to which the soul of a man lies hidden in some external object, perhaps in a plant or in an animal, and, when this vehicle of the soul is destroyed, the man, or the god or demon who has assumed human form, must die.
In these various modifications, individual totemism is doubtless more widespread than is tribal totemism. Nevertheless, this by no means implies that the latter developed from the former. On the contrary, both may possibly be equally original, grounded as they are in universal human motives that run parallel and independent courses. For this very reason, however, it is also possible that tribal totemism is the older form, for on somewhat higher cultural levels it recedes in favour of the belief in protective spirits of individuals. In questions such as this it is helpful to adduce parallels from later cults whose mode of origin is more familiar. In the present instance, leaving out of account the animal ideas, the two forms of totemism are closely analogous to the Roman Catholic worship of saints. The saints also are regarded partly as guardians of communities and partly as personal protectors. Thus, on the one hand, we have the patrons of cities, of monasteries, of vocations, and of classes; on the other hand, the individual also may possess a particular patron saint. We know of a certainty, however, that the patron saints of individuals did not antecede those of the Church itself. It was this most inclusive community that first elected the saints, whereupon smaller groups and finally individuals, guided by motives that were frequently quite external, selected specific patron saints from among the number of ecclesiastical saints. When the Church set apart a certain day of the year for the particular worship of one of its saints, this day was called by the name of the saint; to those individuals who were named after him, the day became sacred. Thus, the patron saint of the individual appeared later than the more universal saint. This order of development, moreover, is in harmony with the general nature of custom, language, and myth, according to which the individual succeeds the universal; only secondarily may the process occasionally be reversed. Usually, however, it is cult associations and their common cult objects that are first in origin. Our contention is unaffected by the fact that individual cult objects, as well as individual totems, may continue to survive after tribal cults and tribal totems have disappeared. For the need of a personal protector is generally much more permanent than are the social conditions that gave it birth. Again we may find verification in the analogous development of saint worship. Nowadays the patron saints of the vocations, classes, and cities have more and more passed into oblivion. Among the Roman Catholic rural population, however, the individual still frequently has his patron saint, and, even where the saint has disappeared, the celebration of the 'name-day' has been retained. It is particularly in the religious realm that personal need gains a greater and greater ascendancy over community need. Everything seems to indicate that such a change took place even within totemism, especially under the influence of the gradual dissolution of the original totemic tribal organization—a change analogous to that which occurred in the case of saint worship as a result of the decay of mediæval guilds. These arguments, of course, cannot lay claim to more than probability. No one can show how the individual totem developed out of the group totem. Certain indications, however, suggest that the above was the course of development. In Australia, the stronghold of original tribal totemism, a youth is frequently given a personal totem, in addition to the tribal totem, upon the occasion of his initiation into manhood. The personal totem is frequently a matter of secrecy, being known only to the medicine-men or to the elders of the tribe. The fact that this is true indicates that such a personal totem possesses no public significance and, moreover, that it is probably bound up with the idea that the real essence of a man is contained in his name, just as it is in his picture, so that the mere speaking of the name might bring harm to the person. It is doubtless probable, therefore, that, after groups came to be formed within the primitive horde, they were at once bound together by relations of cult. As Australian conditions indicate, the origin of totems in the sense of cult groups is at least as old as tribal organization, if not older.
The same cannot be said of the much more remarkable, though also rarer, forms of totemism, conception and sex totemism. The former of these may be regarded as a modification of individual totemism, inasmuch as it relates to the procreation of the individual. However, it also forms a sort of intermediate stage between tribal and individual totemism. A woman receives the totem of the child on a specific occasion, of which she usually has knowledge. Among the Aranda, the conception may occur at any place whatsoever; among the Warramunga, the woman retires to a certain spot, the totem place, where the ancestral spirits dwell. Either during the day or, especially, during the night and in sleep, the spirit of the ancestor passes over into her. The word 'spirit,' which is employed by English writers, is not, of course, an accurate rendering of the Australian term, and may easily lead to a misconception. The German missionary Strehlow has probably done better in using the word 'germ.' The germ of the child is thought to pass over into the body of the mother independently of any act of the father, or, at most, the participation of the latter is held to be merely secondary, and not essential.
Adherents of the theory of original promiscuity have interpreted these ideas also as a survival of unrestrained sexual conditions, and thus as indicative of the fact that paternity was at one time unknown. A closer acquaintance with the phenomena, however, shows that this can scarcely be the case. Thus, the idea of the Warramunga that it is the totem ancestors of a woman's husband and not those of any other man that pass over into her, clearly presupposes a state of marriage, as does also the further fact that these same tribes reckon descent in the line of the father and not in that of the mother. Moreover, the passing of the totem ancestor into the woman is generally accompanied by magical ceremonies, such as the swinging of bull-roarers, or contact with churingas. Or, the totem ancestor may appear to the woman in sleep or in a waking vision. On the Banks Islands, strange to say, we find conception totemism without any trace of tribal totemism. The manner of reception of the totem ancestor also differs; the woman eats of the flesh of her husband's totem animal, which, since there is no tribal totemism, is in this case a personal, protective totem. Thus, conception totemism represents something of an exception in that the eating of the totem is not forbidden, as it generally is, but rather constitutes a sort of cult act, as it also does in certain other cases. In Australia, moreover, conception totemism is to be found only among several of the northern tribes, to whom it may at one time have come from Melanesia. Because of the primitive nature of the ideas connected with conception totemism, particularly when, as among the Aranda, the husband is ignored and it is believed that conception is mediated only by the totem ancestor, the northern tribes just referred to have sometimes been regarded as the most primitive. There are some writers, on the other hand, by whom the possibility of such ideas is denied on the ground that these very tribes must be familiar with the process of procreation in the animal world. But this does not prove the case. When, however, we learn that the older men of the tribe themselves no longer entertain the belief in magical generation, particularly as the exclusive factor, whereas, on the other hand, this is still taught to the young men, and especially to the children, we may well call to mind our own childish notions about the stork that brings the babies. Why might something similar not occur among the Australians, and the belief possibly retain credence somewhat beyond the age of childhood?
Sex totemism, similarly to conception totemism, is also of somewhat limited distribution, and seems to occur principally in those regions where tribal totemism proper is lacking or is at least strongly recedent. Among the Kurnai of southern Australia, for example, no tribal totemism has been discovered, though sex totemism occurs and actually forms the basis of certain marriage ceremonies. Sex totemism probably has its origin in the individual totem, especially in the appearance of this totem in dreams. If, after such a totem has appeared to an individual man or woman, it is then adopted by others of the same sex, specific sex totems may well come into being, particularly under the influence of the separate associations of men and women. It is also significant that in the case of sex totemism nocturnal animals predominate. The totem of the women is usually the bat; that of the men, the owl. This fact is indicative of a dream origin and of a genesis from the individual totem. Diurnal birds may, of course, also appear in dreams. Whether or not this occurs depends solely upon concomitant circumstances. At the stage of culture, however, when man is accustomed to sleep in the open, it is probable that the nocturnal birds which circle about him will also appear in his dreams. A further characteristic phenomenon of the regions where sex totemism prevails, is the manner in which marriage is consummated. In this case also, the woman eats of the totem of the man. This causes a struggle between the man and the woman, which is really a mere mock-fight ending with an offer of reconciliation on the part of the man. With this, the marriage is concluded. Such customs likewise point back to individual totemism as their original source, and probably also to marriage by capture. The fact that tribal totemism everywhere receded with the dominance of individual totems, explains why sex and tribal totemism seem to be mutually exclusive. Of the two rare forms of totemism, accordingly, it is probable that conception totemism was the earlier, and that sex totemism belongs to a relatively late stage of development. A further indication of the primitive nature of conception totemism is to be found in the fact that the Aranda possess a tribal organization in which the grouping of totems to form clan divisions follows a principle which elsewhere obtains only in the case of the two tribal halves. Two clans, A and B, that enjoy exogamous relations with each other, do not have different totem groups, as they do among all other tribes; their totem groups are largely the same. Among the Aranda, therefore, a man of one totem may, under certain circumstances, marry a woman of the same totem, provided only she belongs to the other clan. True, phenomena are not lacking—such particularly as those of plant totems, to be mentioned below, and the ceremonial festivals connected with them—which indicate that these northern tribes were affected by Papuan immigrations and by race-mixture. But influences of this kind are the less apt to lead to the submergence of primitive views and customs according as they are instrumental, particularly when they are operative at an early age, in maintaining conditions which might otherwise possibly disappear as a result of further development.
The second mode of classifying the forms of totemism is based on the objects which are used as totems and leads to an essentially different analysis of totem beliefs. Each of the forms which the classification distinguishes is, of course, also subsumable under one of the kinds of totemism already discussed. The earliest totem objects, as has already been mentioned, are without doubt animals. In America, as in Australia, there are practically no totems except animals; in other places also it is the animal that plays the principal rôle in totemic mythology. In part, the animal continues to remain predominant even after the age of actual totemism has passed. Nevertheless, plant totemism has found its way into certain regions. Here also the facts are most clearly traceable in Australia, our most important source of information regarding the history of the development of totemic ideas. In southern Australia, there are no totems except animals; towards the north, plant totems gradually begin to make their appearance, until finally, among the most northerly peoples of central Australia, such totems have the dominance. Plant totems, moreover, are also found particularly in Melanesia, from which place they might easily have come to Australia across the chain of islands which extends from New Guinea to the north coast of the island-continent. That plants play an unusually large rôle in the regions of Oceania, in connection with totemism as well as otherwise, is directly due to external conditions. These islands are poor in fauna; true, they possess great numbers of birds, but these are of little value to the hunter. On the other hand, they have a luxuriant flora. From early times on, therefore, it is chiefly the plant world that has been the centre of interest and that has left its stamp upon myth and custom. Clearly, plant totemism had its origin on these islands. From them it was introduced into Australia, where it combined with animal totemism. But the regions into which plant totemism was introduced underwent a great change in their totemic cults. It is probably only with the appearance of plant totems that those cult ceremonies arose which are celebrated, not, as the festivals of tribal totemism originally were, mainly at the adolescence of youths, but primarily for the sake of effecting a multiplication of the totems. Annually, at stated times, the members of allied clans unite in magical ceremonies and cult dances, the well-known 'corroborees,' as they are called by those who practise them. The primary aim of such cults is to bring about by magical means an increase of the totem plants and animals. Doubtless we may regard it as highly probable that this ceremony represents a borrowing on the part of animal totemism from plant totemism. For the hunter, similarly, desires that there be a very great abundance of game animals. Yet it is mainly plants that are the object of concern—a concern caused by the changes in weather, with its incalculable oscillations between life-bringing rain and the withering glare of the sun. These are the motives that find expression in the festivals designed for the multiplication of the totems, the 'Intichiuma' festivals. The motives to these ancient cults still frequently find their counterparts in the customs of the cultural peoples of the present. When, in times of a long drought, processions pass over the fields and supplicate Heaven for rain, as occurs even to-day in some regions, we certainly have an analogous phenomenon. The only difference is that the Australian tribes invoke their totems instead of Heaven; they call upon the plants which are to increase and upon the animals which are to be available for hunting, with the aim of thus exercising a magical influence upon them.
In connection with the Australian ceremonies designed to multiply the food plants and game animals, we come upon still a third kind of totem objects. They differ from those of the two preceding classes in that they are not regarded as independent totems, but merely as vehicles of the same sort of magical power as is possessed by animal and plant totems. In distinction from the latter, we may briefly call them inanimate totems. They consist of stones and sticks. These are utilized as magical objects in the Australian Intichiuma festivals, and also, under the above-mentioned name of 'churingas,' in connection with conception totemism. They differ from animate totems in that the latter are in themselves endowed with magical properties, whereas the former are always held to derive these powers from living magicians, from the anthropomorphic or zoömorphic ancestors of antiquity. These magicians are thought to have transmitted the objects to later generations for the use of the latter in the practice of magic. Thus, the churingas have a peculiar status, intermediate between magical beings and magical implements. They are carefully preserved because—as is indicated by their use in connection with conception totemism—they are regarded as legacies left by ancestors; moreover, they are also supposed to harbour the demoniacal power of these ancestors. One of the factors determining the selection of these objects is doubtless generally their shape, which is frequently of a striking nature, such as to arouse astonishment. Ejected into the object itself, this astonishment becomes a wonder-working power. Later, the desire to secure such magical means of aid may become a supplementary factor in the selection of these objects, and, as widespread phenomena of a similar nature show, may eventually suffice of itself to constitute an object the bearer of magical powers. Thus, it is these inanimate vehicles of a magic derived from totem ancestors, that form the transition from the totem object to the so-called fetish.
Each of the three kinds of totem objects just described, the plant totem, the animal totem, and the totemic fetish, may assert itself in connection with the three above-mentioned social forms of totemism. Moreover, the three kinds of objects may also, to a certain extent, combine with one another. For, though the animal is very commonly the only totem, plant totems never occur except in connection with animal totems, even though there are certain conditions under which they attain the dominance. Finally, the totemic fetish is always associated in totemic regions with animal and plant totems, and is also closely connected with the idea, even here permeating totemic belief, that there were anthropomorphic ancestors who left these fetishes as magic-working legacies. Thus, totemism passes over, on the one hand, into ancestor-worship, and, on the other, into fetishism, with which it combines, particularly in the 'Intichiuma' festivals, to form a composite cult. Tribal totemism is the source of the individual totem; the latter, probably as a result of animistic ideas that displace tribal totemism, gives rise, as an occasional offshoot, to the sex totem. This is the conclusion to which we are led by the fact that the choice of the sex totem is influenced by the dream. The last important product of individual totemism, in combination with tribal totemism, is an incipient ancestor worship, which is accompanied by peculiar forms of fetishism. In view of its origin, we may perhaps refer to this cult as 'totemic fetishism.' The following diagram illustrates this genetic relationship:—
[9. THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMIC IDEAS.]
We have attempted to trace the succession of the various forms of totemism by reference to the characteristics which these forms reveal. Closely connected with this problem is the question concerning the origin of totemic ideas. With respect to this question, however, widely different hypotheses have been proposed. Of these, those that belong to an earlier stage of our ethnological knowledge concerning this subject can here receive but brief mention. Herbert Spencer held that the entire institution of totemism arose out of the totem names of individuals, such, for example, as wolf, deer, eagle, or, among the Australians, emu, kangaroo, etc. These animal names, according to him, were at first perhaps nicknames, such as are occasionally to be found even to-day. Out of the individual totem arose the tribal totem. The name then became identical with the thing itself—that is, with the animal, which thus became a protective and ancestral animal. Though rejecting the idea that the origin of totemism is to be found in nicknames and epithets, Andrew Lang retained the belief that the name was primary, and that the substitution of the animal or the plant for the name occurred only later. This theory is not so strange as it might appear. As a matter of fact, it is quite characteristic of primitive thought closely to associate a name and its object. Primitive man regards his name as a part of himself; this idea is similar to that which underlies the terror that he sometimes manifests when a sketch is made of him, a terror due to the belief that a part of his soul is being carried away in the picture of the artist. And yet there is prima facie little probability that a phenomenon so widely prevalent and so highly ramified as totemism could have its source in a fact of this kind, which is, after all, only incidental. Moreover, in one of the chief centres of tribal totemism, in the eastern part of North America, as, for example, among the Iroquois, we find very clearly defined personal names. These names, however, are never identical with those of the totems, nor even, as a rule, with those of animals. Sometimes they are borrowed from the names of flowers, although there are no plant totems in America; or, they are flattering appellatives such as we still find in higher civilizations. Moreover, there is no indication that they ever came to be used for the designation of totems.
The view held by Howitt and by Spencer and Gillen, scholars deserving of high esteem for their knowledge of Australian totemism, is an essentially different one. In their opinions, it is the conditions of a hunting life that are reflected in totemic beliefs. They maintain that the animals of the chase were the first to become totem animals. Wherever plant food gained great importance, plant totems were then added. The evidence for this view is based mainly on those Intichiuma ceremonies and festivals by means of which the Australians aim to secure a multiplication of the totems. In these festivals, for example, grass seed is scattered broadcast by members of the grass seed totem, or a huge lizard is formed of clay by the members of the lizard totem, and pieces of it are strewn about. These are magic ceremonies that, in a certain sense, anticipate the sowing and harvest festivals of later times. The only difference consists in the fact that these primitive magic usages are not directed to the rain-bringing clouds or to celestial deities in petition for a blessing upon the crops, but to the objects themselves, to the animals and plants. Magic powers are ascribed to the latter; by virtue of these powers they are to multiply themselves. In regions where sowing and harvest do not as yet exist, but where man gains his food solely by gathering that which the earth of itself brings forth, such festivals and ceremonies are to a certain extent the natural precursors of the later vegetation festivals.
In view of these facts, the hypothesis of the above-mentioned investigators seems to have much in its favour. There is a very important consideration, however, that obviously speaks against it. It is highly probable that these very ceremonies for the multiplication of totem objects are not indigenous to Australia, the chief centre of totemism, but that they, along with the plant totem, were introduced from without. These plant totems, as was remarked above, appear to have come from the Melanesian Islands, where the animal totem plays a small rôle, because the fauna is meagre and man is dependent in great measure upon plant food. Besides animal and particularly bird totems, therefore, which also occur on the Melanesian Islands, we find plant totems throughout the whole of northern Australia. These totems, as we may suppose, are the result of Papuan immigrations, to which are due also other objects of Melanesian culture to be found in the Australian continent. In the south, where there are no totems other than animals, Intichiuma ceremonies receive small emphasis. In entire harmony with our contentions are the conditions in America, where no festivals of this sort are connected with the totems themselves; an analogous significance is gained only later by the great vegetation festivals, and these presuppose agriculture, together with the beginnings of a celestial mythology.
In more recent times, therefore, Frazer, whose great work, "Totemism and Exogamy," has assembled the richest collection of facts concerning totemic culture, has turned to an essentially different theory. He traces all forms of totemism back to conception totemism. Since the latter, as we have already stated, probably arose out of individual totemism, we are again confronted by an individualistic view, much as in the hypothesis of the origin from names. Frazer derives conception totemism from the dreams which mothers are supposed occasionally to have experienced before the birth of a child. The animal appearing in such a dream is thought to have become the totem or guardian animal of the child. But, though conception totemism, as well as sex totemism, may possibly have some connection with such phenomena—the fact that the animals here concerned are chiefly nocturnal animals suggests that such may be the case—totemism as a whole may, nevertheless, scarcely be derived from dreams. Still less can this hypothesis be harmonized with the fact that conception totemism is an anomaly. The ideas centred about it are but of rare occurrence within the system of totemic culture as a whole. Moreover, as Frazer also has assumed, they never appear except as an offshoot of individual totemism, and this in turn, when viewed in all its phases, cannot be regarded otherwise than as a product of tribal totemism. In its reference to the dream, however, this hypothesis may perhaps contain an element of truth, inasmuch as it involves ideas that obviously play an important rôle in totemism. This is shown particularly by reference to the totem animals that are found most commonly in Australia, and that suggest a relation between totemism and animistic ideas of the soul.
As a matter of fact, the totem is already itself the embodiment of a soul. Either the soul of an ancestor or that of a protective being is regarded as incorporated in the animal. The other totems, such as plants or totem fetishes (churingas), are obviously derivative phenomena, and the same is true of those legendary beings that inhabit the churingas as spirits, or that gave them to the ancestors for the purposes of magic. Now, originally, the totem was probably always an animal. But a survey of the great mass of animistic conceptions prevalent in all parts of the world shows that in this case also it is particularly the animal that is represented as capable of becoming the receptacle of a human soul after death. Animals, of course, are not all equally suited to this purpose. Some are more apt than others to be regarded as soul animals, particularly such as are characterized by rapid movement, flight through the air, or by other features that arouse surprise or uncanny dread. Thus, even in the popular belief of to-day, it is especially the snake, the lizard, and the mouse, in addition to the birds, that are counted among the soul animals. If, now, with these facts in mind, we cast a glance over the list of totem animals, we are at once struck by the fact that the most common among them are soul animals. In Australia, we find the hawk, the crow, and the lizard; in America, the eagle, the falcon, and the snake.
In respect to these ideas, the totemic age marks an important turning-point in the history of soul conceptions. Primitive man regards that which we have succinctly called the 'corporeal soul' (p. 82) as the principal, and perhaps originally as the only, soul. At death, the soul is believed to remain in the body, wherefore primitive man flees in terror from the corpse. Even at this stage, of course, we occasionally find traces of a different idea. The soul may also be regarded as active outside of the body, in the form of a demoniacal being. But as yet these ideas are generally fluctuating and undefined. There then comes a change, dependent, just as are the other cultural transformations, on the strife and warfare arising as a result of tribal migrations. This change, as we may suppose, is due to the fact that tribal struggles bring with them the impressive spectacle of sudden death. One who is killed in battle exhibits the contrast between life and death so directly that, even though the belief in the continued existence of the soul within the body still survives, it nevertheless permits the co-presence of other more advanced conceptions. Thus two sets of ideas come to be developed. On the one hand, the soul is believed to depart with the blood. In place of the entire body, therefore, the blood comes to be the chief vehicle of the soul. Blood magic, which by itself constitutes an extensive chapter in the history of magic beliefs, and which is prevalent in all periods of culture, has its source in this conception. Further factors then enter into the development. In addition to the blood, the inner parts of the body, which are exposed in cases of violent death, become vehicles of the soul. The idea of the sudden departure of the soul is then transferred from the one who is killed to the dying person in general. With the exhalation of his last breath, his soul is thought to depart from him. The soul is therefore conceived as a moving form, particularly as an animal, a bird, a rapidly gliding snake, or a lizard.
In dealing, later, with the soul conceptions of the totemic age, we will consider these several motives in their independent influence as well as in their reciprocal action upon one another. Here we can touch upon them only in so far as they harbour the sources of totemism itself. But in this connection two facts are of decisive importance. In the first place, the original totem, and the one which continues to remain most common, is the animal; and, secondly, the earliest totem animals are identical with soul animals. But in addition to soul animals, other animals also may later readily come to be regarded as totems, particularly such as continually claim man's attention, as, for example, game animals. Thus, the soul motives are brought into interplay with other influences, springing in part from the emotions associated with the search for daily food, though primarily with success or failure in the chase. As a result, the soul motives obviously become less prominent, and the totem animal, freed from this association, acquires its own peculiar significance, which fluctuates between the ancestral idea and that of a protective demon. The concern for food, which was at first operative only as a secondary motive, was heightened in certain localities where the natural environment was poor, and, with the influx of immigrant tribes, it assumed ever greater prominence. In this way, plant totems came to be added to animal totems; finally, as a result of certain relations of these two totems to inanimate objects, there arose a fetishistic offshoot of totemism. This again brought totemism into close connection with ancestor ideas, and contributed also towards the transition from animal to human ancestors.
Thus, then, totemic ideas arise as a result of the diremption of primitive soul ideas into the corporeal soul and the breath- and shadow-soul. That the two latter are associated, is proven also by the history of totemism. Folk belief, even down to the present, holds that the soul of the dying person issues in his last breath and that it possesses the form of an animal. The soul of one who has recently died, however, appears primarily in dreams and as a phantom form. Now, the totem animal has its genesis in the transformation of the breath-soul into an animal. The shadow-soul of the dream, moreover, exercises an influence on individual totemism, as it does also on conception totemism and on sex totemism.
Thus, totemism is directly connected with the belief in souls—that is to say, with animism. It represents that branch of animism which exercised a long-continuing influence on the tribal organization as well as on the beliefs of peoples. But before turning to these final aspects of totemism and their further developments, it is necessary to consider another group of ideas which, in their beginnings, occupied an important place within the circle of totemic beliefs. The ideas to which I refer are those connected with the custom of taboo.
[10. THE LAWS OF TABOO.]
It is a significant fact that 'totem' and 'taboo' are concepts for which our cultural languages possess no adequate words. Both these terms are taken from the languages of so-called natural peoples, 'totem' from an idiom of the North American Indians, and 'taboo' from the Polynesian languages. The word 'totem' is as yet relatively uncommon in literature, with the exception of books on ethnology and folk psychology; the word 'taboo,' on the other hand, is much in use. A thing is called taboo when it may not be touched, or when it must be avoided for some reason, whether because of its peculiar sanctity or contrariwise because its harmful influence renders it 'impure,' defiling every one who comes into contact with it. Thus, two opposing ideas are combined in the conception of taboo: the idea of the sacred as something to be avoided because of its sanctity, and that of the impure or loathsome, which must be avoided because of its repulsive or harmful nature. These ideas combine in the conception of fear. There is, indeed, one sort of fear which we call awe, and another termed aversion. Now, the history of taboo ideas leaves no doubt that in this case awe and aversion sprang from the same source. That which aroused aversion at a later age was in the totemic period chiefly an object of awe, or, at any rate, of fear—that is, of a feeling in which aversion and awe were still undifferentiated. That which is designated by the simplest word [Scheu] is also earliest in origin; awe [Ehrfurcht] and aversion [Abscheu] developed from fear [Scheu].
If, now, we associate the term 'taboo' in a general way with an object that arouses fear, the earliest object of taboo seems to have been the totem animal. One of the most elemental of totemic ideas and customs consists in the fact that the members of a totem group are prohibited from eating the flesh of the totem, and sometimes also from hunting the totem animal. This prohibition, of course, can have originated only in a general feeling of fear, as a result of which the members of a totemic group are restrained from eating or killing the totem animal. In many regions, where the culture, although already totemic, is, nevertheless, primitive, the totem animal appears to be the only object of taboo. This fact alone makes it probable that totemism lies at the basis of taboo ideas. The protective animal of the individual long survived the tribal totem and sometimes spread to far wider regions. Similarly, the taboo, though closely related to tribal organization in origin, underwent further developments which continued after the totemic ideas from which it sprang had either entirely disappeared or had, at any rate, vanished with the exception of meagre traces. This accounts for the fact that it is not in Australia, the original home of the totem, that we find the chief centre of taboo customs, nor in Melanesian territory, where the totem is still fairly common, nor in North America, but in Polynesia.
It is in Polynesia, therefore, that we can most clearly trace the spread of taboo ideas beyond their original starting-point. The taboo of animals is here only incidental; man himself is the primary object of taboo—not every individual, but the privileged ones, the superiors, the priest, the chieftain. Closely related to the fact that man is thus held taboo, is the development of chieftainship and the gradual growth of class differences. The higher class becomes taboo to the lower class. This fear is then carried over from the man himself to his possessions. The property of the nobleman is taboo to every other person. The taboo has not merely the force of a police law, similar to that whereby, in other localities, men of superior rank prohibit entrance to their parks; it is a religious law, whose transgression is eventually punished by death. It is particularly the chief and his property that are objects of taboo. Where the taboo regulations were strict, no one was allowed to venture close to the chief or even to speak his name. Thus, the taboo might become an intolerable constraint. In Hawaii, the chief was not allowed to raise his own food to his mouth, for he was taboo and his contact with the food rendered this also taboo. Hence the Hawaian chief was obliged to have a servant feed him. The objects which he touched became taboo to all individuals. In short, he became the very opposite of a despotic ruler, namely, the slave of a despotic custom.
From the individual person, the taboo was further extended to localities, houses, and lands. A member of the aristocratic class might render taboo not only his movable property but also his land. The temple, in particular, was taboo, and, together with the priests, it retained this character longer than any other object. The taboo concerned with the eating of certain animals, however, also remained in force for a long time. Though these animals were at first avoided as sacred, the taboo of the sacred, in this case, later developed into that of the impure. Thus, this conception recurs, in a sense, to its beginning. For the fear that is associated with the animals which the totem group regards as sacred, is here combined with the fear that the eating of the flesh is harmful. Sickness or even death is believed to follow a transgression of such a taboo regulation. Even in its original home, however, the taboo assumes wider forms. It subjects to its influence the demon-ideas that reach back even to pretotemic times. The corpse particularly, and the sick person also, are held taboo because of the demoniacal magic proceeding from them. Likewise the priest and the chief are taboo, because of their sacredness. Thus, the taboo gains a circle of influence that widens according as totemic ideas proper recede. The taboo which the upper classes placed upon their property had come to be such a preponderant factor in Polynesian custom that the first investigators of these regions believed the taboo in general to be chiefly an institution whereby the rich aimed to protect their property by taking advantage of the superstition of the masses.
One of the most remarkable extensions of the scope of taboo is the taboo which rests on relations by marriage. The history of exogamy, whose earliest stages are represented by the totemic marriage laws of the Australians, clearly teaches that the aversion to marriage between blood relations was not the cause but at most, to a great extent, the effect of exogamous customs that everywhere reach back into a distant past. But there is a second class of marriage prohibitions, and this likewise has found a place even in present-day legislation—the prohibition of unions between relations by marriage. Such prohibitions are from the very beginning outside the pale of exogamous laws. Indeed, it is clear that all unions of this sort—such, for example, as are forbidden by our present laws—were permitted by the totem and clan exogamy of the Australians and that of the American Indians. In the case of maternal descent, the group from which a man must select his wife included his mother-in-law as well as his wife. Similarly, in the case of paternal descent, the husband and father-in-law were totem associates. There is another set of customs, however, which is generally connected with even the earliest forms of exogamy, and which fills out in a very remarkable way the gap that appears in the original totemic exogamy when this is compared with present-day legislation. These customs are no other than the laws of taboo. One of the earliest and most common of these regulations is the taboo of the mother-in-law. Corresponding to it, not so common and yet obviously a parallel phenomenon occasionally connected with it, is the taboo of the father-in-law. The relative distribution of the two taboos is analogous to that of maternal and paternal descent in the primitive condition of society, for it is maternal descent that is dominant. This is not at all meant to imply that there is any casual[1] relation between these phenomena. Rather is it true, probably, that they are based upon similar motives, and that these motives, just as in the case of marriage between relations, are more potent in the case of the mother than in that of the father. In general, however, the taboo of parents-in-law signifies that the husband must so far as possible avoid meeting his mother-in-law, and the wife, her father-in-law. Now, it is evident that in so far as this avoidance excludes the possibility of marriage, the custom is, in a way, supplementary to exogamy. Wherever maternal descent prevails, no one may marry his mother; and, where taboo of the mother-in-law exists, no one may marry his mother-in-law. The same holds of father and daughter, and of father and daughter-in-law, in the case of paternal descent. This analogy may possibly indicate the correct clue to the interpretation of the phenomena. It would certainly be erroneous to regard the taboo of the mother-in-law as a regulation intentionally formulated to prevent unions between direct relations by marriage. Yet there is evidence here of a natural association by virtue of which the fear of marriage with one's own mother, which, though not caused by the exogamous prohibition, is nevertheless greatly strengthened by it, is directly carried over to the mother-in-law. Between a woman and the husband of her daughter there thus arises a state of taboo such as is impossible between mother and son because, from the time of his birth on, they are in close and constant relation with each other. In consequence of the above-mentioned association, mother and mother-in-law, or father and father-in-law, form a unity analogous to that which obtains between man and wife. What is true of the husband, is also true in the case of the wife; similarly, what holds for the mother of the husband holds no less for the mother of the wife.
Striking evidence of the effect of an association of ideas that is perfectly analogous to the one underlying the taboo of the mother-in-law, is offered by a custom which is doubtless generally only local in scope and yet is found in the most diverse parts of the earth, thus showing plainly that it is autochthonous in character. I refer to the custom of so-called father-confinement or 'couvade.' This custom prevails in various places, occurring even in Europe, where it is practised by the Basques of the Pyrenées, a remarkable fragment of a pre-Indo-Germanic population of Europe. Due, probably, to the heavier tasks which these people impose upon women, it here occasionally occurs in an exaggerated form. Even after the mother has already begun to attend to her household duties, the father, lying in the bed to which he has voluntarily retired, receives the congratulations of the relatives. Custom also demands that he subject himself to certain ascetic restrictions, namely, that he avoid the eating of certain kinds of food. The custom of couvade is clearly the result of an ideational association between husband and wife—one that is absolutely analogous to that between the two mothers of the married couple. The child owes its existence to both father and mother. Both, therefore, must obey the regulations which surround birth, and thus they are also subject to the same taboo. Just as there is very commonly a taboo on the mother and her new-born child, so also, in the regions where couvade exists, is this transferred to the husband.
As is well known, the last vestiges of the taboo of the mother-in-law have not yet disappeared, though they survive only in humour, as do many other customs that were once seriously practised. In fact, there is no other form of relationship, whether by blood or by marriage, that is so subjected to the satire of daily life as well as to the witticisms and jokes of comic papers as is that of the unfortunate mother-in-law. Thus, the primitive taboo resting on the mother-in-law and also, even though in lesser degree, on the father-in-law, has registered itself in habits that are relatively well known. Graver results of the regulations of ancient custom are doubtless to be found in those prohibitions of union between relatives by marriage that still constitute essential elements of present-day laws. This, of course, does not mean that these prohibitions are unjustifiable or that they do not reflect natural feelings. They but exemplify the fact that every law presupposes a development which, as a rule, goes back to a distant past, and that the feelings which we to-day regard as natural and original had a definite origin and assumed their present character as the outcome of many changes.
Alongside of these later forms of the taboo, and outlasting them, we have its most primitive form. This is the taboo which rests on the eating of certain foods, particularly the flesh of certain animals, though less frequently it applies also to occasional plants. The latter, however, probably represents a transference, just as does plant totemism. A particular example of such a taboo is the avoidance of the bean by the Grecian sect of Orphians and by the Pythagoreans whom they influenced. The taboo of certain animals survived much longer. But it was just in this case that there came an important shift of ideas which gave to the taboo a meaning almost the opposite of that which it originally possessed. Proof of such a change is offered by the Levitical Priests' Code of Israel. The refined casuistry of the priests prescribed even to details what the Israelite might eat and what was taboo for him. For the Israelite, however, this taboo was not associated with the sacred but with the unclean. The original taboo on the eating of the flesh of an animal related, in the totemic period, to the sacred animal. This is the taboo in its original form. The Australian shrinks from eating the flesh of his totem animal, not because it is unclean, but because he fears the revenge of demons if he consumes the protective animal of his group. In the Priests' Code, the sacred object has become entirely transmuted into an unclean object, supposed to contaminate all who eat of it. It is a striking fact, however, that the animals which are regarded as unclean are primarily the early totem animals—the screech-owl, the bat, the eagle, the owl, etc. Of the animals that live in or near the sea, only those may be eaten that have scales, that is, only fish proper, and not the snake-like fish. The snake itself and the snake-like reptiles are taboo, as well as numerous birds—all of which were at a very early period totem animals. Heading the list of the animals that may be eaten, on the other hand, are the ox, the sheep, the goat—in short, the animals of an agricultural and sheep-raising culture. Thus, as the original magical motives of taboo disappear, their place is taken by the emotion of fear, which causes the object arousing it to appear as unclean. Whoever touches such an object is polluted in a physical as well as a moral sense, and requires a cleansing purification according to rites prescribed by cult. We cannot avoid the impression, accordingly, that the unclean animals held to be taboo by the Priests' Code, are the same as those which this same people regarded as sacred soul and totem animals at an earlier stage of culture. Thus, these prohibitions with reference to food are analogous to the impassioned preaching against false idolatry—both refer back to an earlier cult. In this category belongs also the prohibition of consuming the blood of animals in the eating of their flesh. This likewise is the survival of a very common belief—certainly prevalent also among the Israelites at one time—that with the blood of an animal one might appropriate its spirit-power. The priestly law transforms this motive into its direct opposite. For the text expressly says: "In the blood is the life; but ye shall not destroy the life together with the flesh."
Thus, the significance of the taboo shifts from the sacred, which evokes man's fear, to the unclean and demoniacal, which also arouse fear but in the form of aversion. Closely related to this change is a group of views and customs resulting from this last form of taboo and reaching down, as its after-effects, far into the later religious development. These are the purification rites connected with the ideas of clean and unclean. The word lustratio, by which the Romans designated these rites, is really more appropriate than the German word Reinigung, since it suggests more than merely the one aspect of these usages. Indeed, the idea of purification is not even primary, any more than the conception of the unclean is the initial stage in the development of the taboo. On the other hand, the idea that a man might be exposed to demoniacal powers by touching an object or by eating a certain food, such, for example, as the flesh of certain animals, is in entire accord with such primitive notions as are expressed in the fear of the corpse and of sickness, as well as in other similar phenomena. The essential thing is to escape the demon who is harboured in the particular object of concern. This impulse is so irresistible that, whenever the idea of taboo arises, the conception of lustration, of a magic counteraction to the demoniacal power, is also evolved. Thus, magic and counter-magic, here, as everywhere, stand in antithesis. The means of such counter-magic are not only very similar throughout the most remote parts of the earth, but externally they remain the same even throughout the various stages of culture. There are only three means by which an individual may free himself from the effects of a violation of taboo—water, fire, and magical transference.
Of these means, the one which is the most familiar to us is water. Just as water removes physical uncleanness, so also does it wash away soul or demoniacal impurity—not symbolically, for primitive man has no symbols in our sense of the word, but magically. As water is the most common element, so also is it the most common magical means of lustration. Besides water, fire also is employed; generally it is regarded as the more potent element—in any event, its use for this purpose anteceded that of water. Fire, no less than water, is supposed to remove the impurity or the demoniacal influences to which a man has been exposed. It is especially peculiar to fire, however, that it is held not only to free an individual from an impurity which he has already contracted, but also to protect him from the possibility of contamination. This preventive power, of course, later came to be ascribed to water also. Indeed, all the various means of lustration may come to be substituted for one another, so that each of them may eventually acquire properties that originally belonged exclusively to one of the others. The third form of purification, finally, consists in a magical transference of the impurity from man to other objects or to other beings, as, for example, from a man to an animal. Closely associated with such a transference are a considerable number of other magic usages. These have even found their way down into modern superstition. We need but refer to the above-mentioned cord-magic, by which a sickness, for example, is transferred to a tree by tying a cord around it.