Introduction to the History of Religions Part 13

+499+. The coast tribes of Northwest America (in British Columbia and the United States)[852] differ in social organization from the other Indians in several respects, and particularly in the importance they attach to rank, in their employment of the crest or badge, and in the prominence they give to the individual guardian animal or spirit.

+500+. In the civil organization of the Carrier division of the Dene, the Salish, the Kwakiutl, and other tribes, three or four castes or groups are recognized: hereditary n.o.bles; the middle cla.s.s, whose position is based on property; and the common folk; and to these is to be added among some tribes the cla.s.s of slaves. In the summer ceremonies the men are seated according to cla.s.s and rank. The family pride of the n.o.bles is great--every family has its traditions and pedigrees. In such a scheme the zoonymous clan plays an insignificant part. Cla.s.ses and clans are mixed in the villages in which, for the most part, these people live, and trade is prominent in their life. The curious custom of the "potlatch"--a man invites his friends and neighbors to a gathering and makes them magnificent presents, his reputation being great in proportion to the extent of his gifts--appears to be a device for laying up property; the host in his turn receives presents from friends and neighbors.

+501+. The employment of a sacred object as a badge or crest, a sign of tribal or clan position, is found, as is noted above,[853] in various parts of the world: in the Torres Straits islands, in the Aru archipelago (west of New Guinea), and in North America among the Iroquois, the Lenape (Delawares), the Pueblos, and perhaps among the Potawatamies. In these tribes, however, the role of the badge is relatively unimportant--it is employed for decorative purposes, but does not enter fundamentally into the organization of the clan or the tribe.

In Northwest America, on the other hand, it is of prime significance both in decoration and in organization--it, to a great extent, takes the place occupied elsewhere by the totem, and it is not always identical with the eponymous object of the clan, though this may be an accidental result of s.h.i.+fting social relations (new combinations of clans, or a borrowing of a device from a neighbor).

+502+. _The crest._ The origin of this function of the crest and its relation to the function of the totem is not clear; it may have arisen in different ways in different places, or different conceptions may have been combined in the same place. The decorative use is an independent fact, having no necessary connection with clan organization; the demand for decoration is universal among savages, and the employment of sacred objects for this purpose is natural. Figures of such objects are used, however, in magical procedures--abundantly, for example, in Central Australia--and it is conceivable that such use by a clan may have converted the totemic object into a symbol or device. The artistic employment of figures of sacred objects has been developed on the American Pacific Coast to a remarkable extent; the great poles standing in front of houses or erected in memory of the dead have carved on them histories of the relation of the family or of the deceased person to certain animals and events. These so-called totem poles presuppose, it is true, reverence for the sacred symbol, but the custom may possibly have grown simply out of artistic and historical (or biographical) motives.

+503+. Perhaps, however, we must a.s.sume or include another line of development. The crest may be regarded either as the non-artistic modification or degradation of an original true totem (due to diminished reverence for animals and other causes), or as an employment of sacred objects (for purposes of organization) that has not reached the proportions of totemism proper. Which of these views will seem the more probable will depend partly on the degree of importance a.s.signed to certain traditions and folk-stories of the Northwestern tribes, partly on one's construction of the general history of totemistic observances.

In so obscure a subject a definite theory can hardly be maintained. The large number of stories in which the beginnings of clan life are attributed to marriages between clansmen and eponymous animals, or to beneficent or other adventures with such animals, may appear to indicate that there was an underlying belief in the descent of clans from animals. On the other hand, in certain low tribes (in New Britain and the Solomon Islands and elsewhere) the feeling of kins.h.i.+p with animals is said to exist without the belief that they are ancestors, or the animal is regarded as the representative of a human ancestor rather than as itself the ancestor. This latter view may be a bit of euhemeristic rationalism.[854]

+504+. While _guardian spirits_ (generally in animal form) are found abundantly in America and elsewhere,[855] their role in the tribes of the Pacific Coast appears to be specially important, for there they largely take the place occupied in Central Australia by the clan totems.

They are not wholly lacking, however, in Australia. Among the nontotemic Kurnai of Southeast Australia there are animal patrons of the s.e.xes and of shamans and other individuals. In like manner the shamans of the Pacific Coast Haidas and Tlingit have their guardians, and sometimes secret societies are similarly provided; in the winter ceremonies of the Kwakiutl the youth is supposed to be possessed by the patron of the society to which he belongs. We thus have, apparently, similar and mutually independent developments in Australia and America out of the early relations of men with animals.

+505+. The Eskimo live in small groups, and marriage is locally unrestricted. There is the usual reverence for animals, with folk-stories of animal creators and of transformations, but no well-defined marks of totemism, and no recognition of individual protecting animal-spirits.

+506+. In the Californian tribes, which are among the least developed in America, no traces of totemistic organization have been found.[856] The people live, or lived, in villages. The shamans, who are important members of the communities, have their familiar spirits, acquired through dreams and by ascetic observances; but these belong to the widespread apparatus of magic, and differ in their social function from guardian spirits proper.

+507+. There are no definite marks of totemism in Central and Northeastern Asia, and few such marks in Africa. The Siberian Koryaks believe in a reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals, but their social organization is not determined by this belief. Certain clans of the Ainu (inhabiting the northernmost islands of the j.a.pan archipelago) are said to regard as ancestors the animals whose names they bear, but this belief appears to be socially unimportant. Marriage is not controlled by clan relations.

+508+. Throughout savage Africa sacred animals, plants, and other objects play a great part in life, but generally without a.s.suming a specifically totemistic role.

+509+. In the great Bantu family the usages vary greatly.[857] One of the most interesting systems is that of the Bakuana (in the south). Here the eponymous animal approaches divinity--not only is it killed with regret, it is a thing to swear by, and has magical power; but independence of the totem appears in the fact that it may be changed; that is, it is a friend adopted by men at their convenience. It is in accord with this conception that the Bakuana (who are pastoral and agricultural) have clan G.o.ds. Beyond taboos on sacred objects there is nothing in the Bantu territory that clearly indicates a totemistic organization of society.

+510+. In the half-civilized and higher savage communities of the eastern and western parts of the continent totemism proper, if it has ever been predominant, has been expelled or depressed by higher forms of organization. It seems not to exist among the Masai, a vigorous people with an interesting theistic system. The neighboring Nandi, who have clan totems, lay stress rather on the family than on the clan in their marriage laws, and their taboos include more than their totems; their excessive regard for the hyena may be due simply to their fear of the animal.[858]

+511+. The half-civilized Baganda (of the British Uganda Protectorate) refrain from injuring clan totems, but the functions of the clans are now political and religious (relating, for example, to the building of temples) under the control of a quasi-royal government; there is almost complete absence of magical ceremonies for the multiplication or control of sacred objects.[859] Old marriage laws are relaxed--a king may marry his sister (as in ancient Egypt). Free dealing with totems is ill.u.s.trated by the adoption of a new cooking-pot as totem by one clan.

The cult of the python obtains here, as in West Africa. Among the neighboring Banyoro, and among the Bahima (west of Victoria Nyanza), who are herdsmen with a kingly government, there is the usual reverence for animals, but eponymous animals are not important for the social organization.

+512+. In West Africa also definite totemistic organization has not been found. Everywhere there is reverence for the eponymous sacred thing, and, when it is edible, refusal to eat it; but the taboos are sometimes, as in Siena (which is agricultural), more extensive than the list of sacred things. In Southern Nigeria at funerals (and sometimes on other occasions) the totem animal or plant is offered, in the form of soup, to the dead; the animal or plant in such cases is regarded, apparently, simply or mainly as acceptable food for ghosts--the offering is a part of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p. In Congo families have sacred animals (as in Samoa) which they abstain from eating. Here and there occurs belief in the reincarnation of deceased human beings in animals. A negro fetish, becoming intimately a.s.sociated with a clan, sometimes resembles a totem.

The half-civilized Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba have elaborate theistic systems, with monarchical governments that leave no place for a totemistic organization.[860]

+513+. Madagascar, before it came under European control, had a well-defined religious and political hierarchy.[861] Along with its very elaborate tabooism the island has beliefs concerning animals that are found in totemic systems but do not take the form of totemism proper.

The animal is regarded as an ancestor or a patron, but clans do not take their names from animals, there is no general rule of exogamy, and there is no word corresponding exactly to the word 'totem.' The question arises whether the Malagasy system is a stage antecedent to totemism proper or an attenuated survival of it.[862]

+514+. _Alleged survivals of totemism among civilized peoples._ Though totemism, as a system of social organization, is not recognizable in any civilized community, ancient or modern, it is held by some scholars that the fragments or hints of such a system that are certified bear witness to its former existence in these communities.[863]

+515+. In fact certain ideas and customs that occur in connection with savage totemism are found abundantly among ancient Semites, Greeks and Romans, and in Celtic and Teutonic lands. They are such as the following: a tribe or clan bears an animal name, and regards itself as akin to the animal in question and as descended from it; this animal is sacred, not to be killed or eaten (except ceremonially), and, when it dies, is to be buried solemnly; sacred animals aid men by furnis.h.i.+ng omens, or even by protecting from harm; they are sacrificed on critical occasions (sometimes once every year), and in some cases the killing of the sacrificial animal is treated as a crime; animal-G.o.ds are wors.h.i.+ped, and G.o.ds are thought to be incarnate in animals; men change into animals and animals into men; certain animals are sacred to certain deities; human wors.h.i.+pers dress in imitation of animal forms (by wearing skins of beasts and by other devices); a man's tribal mark is derived from the form of an animal; the death of the sacrificial animal comes to be regarded as the death of a G.o.d; the form of social organization in certain ancient communities is similar to that with which totemism is usually found a.s.sociated.

+516+. Not all of these points are found in any one case, but their occurrence over so wide an area, it is argued, is most naturally explicable by the a.s.sumption of an original totemism of which these are the survivals. It is suggested also that they may be an inheritance from savage predecessors of the civilized peoples.

+517+. It will be sufficient to mention a few examples of the beliefs and usages that appear to point to an original totemism.[864] Names of clans and tribes derived from animals or plants are not uncommon: Hebrew Ra?el (Rachel, ewe), perhaps Kaleb (dog) and Yael (Jael, mountain goat);[865] Greek Kunnadai (dog), and perhaps Myrmidon (ant); Roman Porcius (hog), Fabius (bean); Irish Coneely (seal); Teutonic clan-names like Wolfing and the like. Belief in a general kins.h.i.+p of men and animals existed among Semites, Greeks, and Romans. On the other hand, belief in the descent of a clan from an animal rarely appears: it is apparently not found in the Semitic area; the Ophiogeneis of Parium (in Asia Minor) are said to have regarded themselves as akin to snakes and to have traced their genos (family or clan) to a hero who was at first a snake;[866] the Myrmidons, according to one tradition, were transformed ants, and some of the Irish Coneely clan are said to have been changed into seals. Transformations of men into animals are common in Greek mythology. Taboos of certain foods were observed abundantly in the ancient world: by Egyptians,[867] Hebrews,[868] Greeks,[869] and Romans,[870] and by Celts.[871] Among the various omen-giving animals some may have been totems. Solemn annual sacrifices, followed by mourning for the victims, were performed in Egypt,[872] and the slaying of the sacrificial animal was treated as murder in various Greek cities.[873] Living animals were wors.h.i.+ped in Egypt, and everywhere in antiquity G.o.ds a.s.sumed animal forms, and certain animals were sacred to certain G.o.ds. Wors.h.i.+pers clothed themselves in the skins of sacrificed animals in Egypt, Cyprus, and Rome.[874] Tribal marks and ensigns were sometimes derived from figures of animals.[875] Finally, there are traces, in the early history of the ancient civilized peoples, of the form of social organization with which savage totemism is found a.s.sociated.[876]

+518+. It is possible that such facts as these may point to a primitive totemistic stage of ancient civilized society. But it is to be noted that the usages in question almost all relate to the general sacredness of animals (or of plants), not to their specific character as totems.

They occur in lower tribes in cases where totemism does not exist.[877]

Animal clan-names and tribe-names, belief in kins.h.i.+p with animals and plants and in descent from them, exogamy, transformations, refusal to eat certain animals except ceremonially, apologies for killing them, omens derived from them, wors.h.i.+p of animal-G.o.ds, incarnations of G.o.ds in animals, animals sacred to G.o.ds, tribal marks derived from animals--all these are found in such diverse social combinations that it is impossible to infer merely from the occurrence of this or that custom the existence of the peculiar form of social organization to which the name 'totemism' proper is given above. The same remark holds of inferences from the general const.i.tution of early society; a custom of matrilineal descent, for example, by no means carries totemism with it.

+519+. The evidence for the existence of totemism among the ancient civilized peoples, consisting, as it does, of detached statements of customs that are found elsewhere without totemism, is not decisive.

Animal-wors.h.i.+p has played a great role in religious history, but the special part a.s.signed to totemism has often been exaggerated. It has been held that the latter is at the base of all beliefs in the sacredness of animals and plants, or that certain usages (such as those mentioned above) are inexplicable except on the supposition of an original totemism. These positions are not justified by known facts, and it will conduce to clearness to give totemism its distinct place in that general regard for animals and plants of which it is a peculiar part.

+520+. Totemistic forms of society, as far as our present knowledge goes, are found only among the lower peoples, and among these a perplexing variety of conditions exists. As our review of what may be called totemistic features shows,[878] the one permanent element in the relation between men and nonhuman, nondivine objects is reverence for these last on men's part; and the conception of an alliance, defensive and offensive, between the two groups has been proposed above as an additional differentia of totemism, a sense of kins.h.i.+p being involved.

If we further add the condition that the social organization (not necessarily exogamous) must be determined by this alliance, we have all that can safely be demanded in a definition of totemism; but as much as this seems necessary if totemism is to be marked off as a definite inst.i.tution.

+521+. From the point of view of religious history the important thing in any social organization is its character as framework for religious ideas and customs. If the central social fact is an intimate relation between a human group and a nonhuman cla.s.s of natural objects, then conceptions regarding this relation may gather about it, and these will be as various as the tribes of men. The elements of social and religious inst.i.tutions spring from the universal human nature and attach themselves to any form of life that may have been suggested by circ.u.mstances. Thus the term 'totemism' may be used loosely to denote any combination of customs connected with the idea of an alliance between man and other things, and the alliance itself may exist in various degrees of intimacy. The restricted definition suggested above is in part arbitrary, but it may serve as a working hypothesis and as a norm by which to estimate and define the various systems or cults involving a relation between human groups and individuals on the one side and nonhuman things on the other side.

+522+. _Conditions favorable and unfavorable to totemistic organization._ The questions whether totemism was the earliest form of human social life and whether existing freer forms are developments out of definite totemism may be left undetermined. Data for the construction of primitive life are not accessible, and how far decay or decadence of inst.i.tutions is to be recognized must be determined in every case from such considerations as are offered by the circ.u.mstances. We may, however, distinguish between social conditions in connection with which some sort of totemism flourishes and those under which it is nonexistent or feeble; we may thus note unfavorable and, by contrast, favorable general accompaniments. These may be roughly described as economic, individualistic, political, and religious.

+523+. _Economic conditions._ Of savage and slightly civilized tribes some live by hunting or fis.h.i.+ng, some are pastoral (nomadic or settled), some practice agriculture. Without undertaking to trace minutely the history of these economic practices it may be a.s.sumed that they are fixed in general by climatic and topographical conditions. Where food is plentiful, thought and life are likely to be freer. In general, savage peoples are constantly on the alert to discover supplies of food, and they show ingenuity in devising economic methods--when one resource fails they look for another. Hunters and fishers are dependent on wild animals for food, and stand in awe of them. The domestication of animals leads men to regard them simply as material for the maintenance of life--the mystery that once attached to them vanishes; they are considered not as man's equals or superiors but as his servants. The same result follows when they are used as aids in tilling the soil or in transportation. Agricultural peoples also have generally some knowledge of the arts of life and a somewhat settled civil and political organization, and these tend to separate them from the lower animals and to diminish or destroy their sense of kins.h.i.+p with them.

+524+. We find, in fact, that in many cases totemic regulations are less strict where the food supply is plentiful and where agriculture is practiced. The correspondence is not exact--other considerations come in, such as isolation and the unknown quant.i.ty of natural tribal endowments; but the relation between the economic and totemic conditions is so widespread that it cannot be considered as accidental.

+525+. Thus, for example, the contrast between the social system of sterile Central Australia and that of certain tribes on the comparatively fertile southeast coast is marked; the Kurnai have practically no clan totemism. In the islands of Torres Straits and in New Guinea agriculture marks a dividing line between stricter and looser organizations based on regard for the totem. The agricultural Melanesian and Polynesian tribes, with great regard for animal patrons, lay stress on the family or on voluntary a.s.sociations rather than on the clan. In Africa the partially civilized peoples, such as the Baganda and adjacent tribes in the east, and Yoruba, Dahomi, and Ashanti in the west, have fairly well-developed religious organizations, in which totems play a subordinate part. The customs of certain tribes in the south are especially worthy of note: the pastoral Herrero have a double system of clans, maternal and paternal, and their food restrictions are curiously minute, relating to parts of animals or to their color; the Bakuana, who are pastoral and agricultural, kill the clan eponymous animals, though unwillingly, and appear not to regard them as ancestors. The non-Aryan tribes of India have been so long in contact with Aryan civilization that in many cases, as it seems, their original customs have been obscured, but at present among such agricultural tribes as the Hos, the Santhals, and the Khonds of Bengal, and some others, totemic organizations are not prominent, and the Todas, with their buffalo-cult, show no signs of totemism.

+526+. In North America the variety of climatic and other economic conditions might lead us to expect clear testimony as to the relation between these conditions and totemic development; but the value of such testimony is impaired by the absence of information concerning early forms of organization. In the period for which there are details it appears that in the Eastern groups (Iroquois, Algonkin, Creek, Natchez, Siouan, Pueblo) the effective role of totemism is in inverse proportion to the development of agriculture and to stable civil organization: there are clans bearing the names of animals and other objects, with mythical stories of descent from such objects, and rules of exogamy, but the civil, political, and religious life is largely independent of these conditions; there are great confederations of tribes with well-devised systems of government that look to the well-being of the whole community, the clan-division being of small importance. The mode of life appears to be determined or greatly influenced by climate, though different climatic situations sometimes lead to similar results: agriculture naturally arises from fertility of soil, but the Pueblo tribes have been driven (perhaps under civilized influences), by the aridness of their land, to till the soil. Throughout the East the known facts suggest that a nontotemic organization has followed an earlier form in which quasi-totemic elements are recognizable.

+527+. The interesting social organization of the Northern Pacific Coast, on the other hand, appears to be independent of agriculture. The people live by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng; families and villages are the important social units; instead of totems there are crests or badges; society in some tribes is marked by a division into cla.s.ses differing in social rank. The history of all these tribes, however, is obscure: there have been modifications of organization through the influence of some tribes on others; the details of the various social schemes are not all accurately known. The settled village life and the half-commercial, half-aristocratic const.i.tution of society must be referred to racial characteristics and other conditions with which we are not acquainted.

As in the East, so here there is the suggestion of a movement away from a form of organization that resembles true totemism. The Northwest has a remarkable system of ceremonies, but in definiteness and elevation of religious conceptions it is greatly inferior to the East.

+528+. The fact that some of the least-advanced American tribes, particularly the Eskimo and the California tribes, show no signs of totemistic organization[879] makes against the view that totemism was the initial form of human society, but its historical background is not known. In any case it does not invalidate what is said above of the role of agriculture in the modification of savage inst.i.tutions. The lines of savage growth have been various--a general law of development cannot be laid down; the history of every community must be studied for itself, and its testimony must be given its appropriate value. In this way it will be possible to give a sketch of totemistic forms and suggestions, if not a history of totemism.

+529+. _Individualistic inst.i.tutions._ The development of individualism, a universal accompaniment of general social progress, is unfavorable to totemism, since in this latter the individual is subordinated to the clan. To a.s.sert one's self as an individual is practically to ignore the totem, whose function pertains to the clan as a whole, without separate recognition of its members. Revolt against the supremacy of the clan (if that expression is allowable) has shown itself from an early social stage and in all parts of the world. The princ.i.p.al forms in which it appears are the inst.i.tution of voluntary societies, and the adoption of personal guardians by individuals.

+530+. _Secret societies._ It is a common custom in the lower tribes to keep the s.e.xes separate and to distinguish between the initiated and the uninitiated. There are often men's houses in which the young unmarried males are required to live.[880] Women and boys are forbidden to be present at ceremonies of initiation when, as in some instances, the secrets of the tribe are involved. Thus there arise frequently secret a.s.sociations of males, who conduct tribal affairs. But these a.s.sociations are not voluntary--all initiated men belong to them perforce--and they are not divorced from totemic relations. The real voluntary society is of a quite different character. In general, in its most developed form, it ignores differences of age, s.e.x, and clan. There are, however, diversities in the const.i.tution of the various organizations that may be called voluntary;[881] conditions of members.h.i.+p and functions vary.

+531+. Such organizations are of two sorts, one mainly political or governmental, the other mainly religious. The best examples of the first sort are found in Melanesia, Polynesia, and West Africa. The clan government by the old men, of which a simple form exists in Central Australia, has pa.s.sed into, or is represented by, a society of men that undertakes to maintain order, exact contributions, and provide amus.e.m.e.nts for the people. The Dukduk of the Bismarck Archipelago,[882]

the Egbo of Old Calabar, and the Ogboni of Yoruba,[883] to take prominent examples, are police a.s.sociations that have managed to get complete control of their respective communities and have naturally become instruments of oppression and fraud. They have elaborate ceremonies of initiation, are terrible to women and uninitiated males, and religion usually enters only casually and subordinately into their activities, chiefly in the form of magical ceremonies. A partial exception, in regard to this last point, occurs in the case of the Areoi society of Tahiti, which, as it is the best-organized society in Polynesia, is also the most tyrannical, and the broadest in its scope; its members enjoy not only a large share of the good things of this life, but also the most desirable positions in the future life.[884]

+532+. On the other hand, the North American voluntary societies are mainly concerned with the presentation of religious ideas by the dramatization of myths, and by demanding for members.h.i.+p some sort of religious experience. How far such societies existed in the Eastern tribes it is not possible to say. Among these tribes, as among the Skidi p.a.w.nee, the Navahos, and other groups of the Middle West, the control of religion has largely pa.s.sed into the hands of priests--an advance in religious organization. Where ceremonies are conducted by societies, members.h.i.+p in these is often conditioned on the adoption of a personal divine patron by every member.

+533+. This adoption of a _guardian spirit_ by the individual is the most definite early divergence from the totemistic clan organization. An intermediate stage is represented by the s.e.x-patrons of Southeast Australia,[885] who embody a declaration of independence by the women.

In this region, moreover, among the Kurnai, not only shamans but all other men have each his special "brother" and protector.[886] Naturally, where the family, in distinction from the clan, is the social unit, family protectors arise. The Koryaks of Northeastern Asia have a guardian spirit for every family and also for every person.[887] A curious feature of Dahomi religion is the importance that is attached to the family ghost as protector, the ghost, that is, of a former member of the family, ordinarily its head; he has a shrine, and becomes practically an inferior deity. Still more remarkable is the wors.h.i.+p that the West African native, both on the Gold Coast and on the Slave Coast (communities with well-developed systems of royal government), offers to his own indwelling spirit;[888] the man's birthday is sacred to the spirit and is commenced with a sacrifice.[889] In Samoa a guardian spirit (conceived of as incarnate in some animal) is selected for a child at its birth.[890] Some such custom is said to exist among the Eskimo of the Yukon district in Alaska; a guardian animal is selected by a boy when he arrives at the age of p.u.b.erty, or it is selected for him in his early childhood by his parents.[891]

+534+. While these examples indicate a tendency toward the adoption of individual patrons, and may suggest that the custom is, or was, more widespread than now appears, it is among the North American Redmen that this sort of individualism is best developed and most effective socially and religiously.[892] There are traces of it in the Eastern tribes; but it is in its Western form that it is best known--it is explicit among the Western Algonkins and the Siouan tribes, and on the Northwest Pacific Coast. Most men, though not all, seek and obtain a guardian spirit (usually represented by an animal) which shall protect from injury and bestow prowess in war, success in love, and all other goods of life. The spirit is, as a rule, independent of the clan totem--is found, indeed, in nontotemic tribes; it is often identical with the eponymous animal of some religious society. It is sometimes inherited, but rarely--the essence of the inst.i.tution is that the guardian shall be sought and found. The preparation for the quest is by fasting; the revelation of the guardian comes in a dream or a vision, or by some strong impression made otherwise on the mind.

+535+. Among the Siouan Indians there are religious societies, each of which bears the name of some animal and has a ritual composed of chants and songs which, it is often claimed, have been received in a supernatural manner.[893] The youth who aspires to become a member of one of these societies goes off alone to the forest, and there, fasting and meditating, waits for the vision of the sign. This comes usually in the form of an animal, and the youth enters the society whose distinguis.h.i.+ng mark this animal is. First, however, he must travel until he meets the animal he saw, when he must slay it and preserve the whole or a part of it. This trophy is the sign of his vision and is the most sacred thing he can possess, marking as it does his personal relation to the supernatural being who has appeared to him.

+536+. A similar ceremony is found among the Kwakiutl in Northwestern America.[894] The novice is supposed to stay some time with the supernatural being who is the protector of his society. From this interview he returns in a state of ecstasy, and is brought to a normal state by the songs and dances and magical performances of the shaman; but before he is permitted to take part in the ordinary pursuits of life he must undergo a ceremonial purification. In these tribes, as is remarked above, the totemic groups have been replaced by clans, and in the winter ceremonial these clans (according to one report) are again replaced by the secret societies, whose function is political only in the sense that its members form a part of the aristocracy. Recently societies of women have been established--a fact that ill.u.s.trates the divergence of the new system from the old.

+537+. The details of initiation or of acquisition of the guardian spirit vary (for example, it is not always required that the youth kill his patron animal), but in all cases there is recognition of the emotional independence of the individual, and there is involved a certain largeness of religious experience in the modern sense of the term. The demand for the supernatural friend represents a germinal desire for intimate personal relations with the divine world; and, though the particular form that embodied the conception has given way before more refined ideas, the conception itself has survived in higher religions in the choice of patron saints.[895]

+538+. _Political conditions._ Political organization, in unifying a community under the control of a central authority, tends to efface local self-governing groups. This process is visible in the increased power of Melanesian chiefs, in the royal governments of Polynesia and Western and Eastern Africa, and in the inchoate const.i.tutional federations of Eastern North America. In all these cases the simple clan system is reduced to small proportions, and totemism loses its social significance. The way in which the functions of totemic groups are thus modified appears plainly in such governmental systems as that of the East African Baganda (in which heads of clans have become officers of the king's household)[896] and the Iroquois Confederation (in which the tribes act through their representatives in a national Council or Parliament).

+539+. _Religious conditions._ The personal guardian spirit and the totem, when it a.s.sumes this character, sometimes receive wors.h.i.+p--they are treated as G.o.ds. But their role as divinities is of an inferior nature, and it does not last long. Deities proper came into existence as embodiments of the sense of an extrahuman government of the world by anthropomorphic beings; they are direct products of the constructive imagination.[897] When the true G.o.ds appear the totemic and individual half-G.o.ds disappear. We find that totemism is feeble in proportion as theistic systems have taken shape, and that where personal guardians are prominent there are no well-defined G.o.ds. In Central Australia there is only a vague, inactive form that may be called divine; a more definite conception is found in Southeastern Australia, where the strictness of totemism is relaxed. Melanesia and Polynesia show an increased definiteness of theistic figures. Northwestern North America is, in comparison with the East, undeveloped in this regard. Similar relations between totemism and theism appear in India and South America. In a certain number of cases the facts suggest that the former system has been superseded by the latter.

+540+. Cults of the totem and of individual guardian spirits are to be distinguished from certain other forms of wors.h.i.+p with which they have points of connection. The West African fetish is the abode of a tutelary spirit, and finally is absorbed by local G.o.ds; it arises, however, from belief in the sacredness and power of inanimate things, and is without the sense of ident.i.ty with the spirit that characterizes the North American relation. The family sacred symbols that are wors.h.i.+ped in some places[898] are really family G.o.ds (whether or not they were originally totems), developed, probably, under Brahmanic influence. The wors.h.i.+p of a tutelary spirit has sometimes coalesced with that of an ancestor, but this is doubtless due to the collocation of two distinct cults; at a certain stage an ancestor is naturally regarded as friend and protector.

The general potency termed "mana" is not to be connected particularly with any one cult; it represents a conception that probably underlies all ancient forms of wors.h.i.+p.

+541+. It thus appears that several lines of social progress have proved unfavorable to totemism, and to these movements it has generally succ.u.mbed. Its home has been, and is, in isolated hunting communities; agriculture and social intercourse have been fatal to it as to all early forms of society based on a belief in kins.h.i.+p with nonhuman natural objects.