deceased appears clad in the dress that represents the totem, and is welcomed by the assembly with the cry of the animal.1 Amongst the Iowas, "the Buffalo clan wear two locks of hair in imitation of horns." 2 Various peoples chip their teeth so that they resemble the teeth of cats, crocodiles, or other animals.

It is at the great crises of life that the totem dress is especially worn, for thus the wearer is placed under the close protection of the totem. The child, which at birth is taboo, and as such is outside the community just as much as a person who has been tabooed or outlawed, is received into "the savage church," 3 by being dressed or painted to resemble the tribal totem. The skin of the sheep, on which, at a Roman marriage, the bride and bridegroom were made to sit, may be a relic of totemism.1

6

At death, the clansman was supposed to join his totem and to assume the totem animal's form-this was intimated sometimes by a ceremony such as that of the Thlinkets described above, and sometimes by the grave-post or tombstone. "In Armenia proper the oldest grave-stones are cut into the shape of a crouching ram with the inscription on the side of the body." 5 In Luzon a deceased chieftain is laid in a monument shaped like a buffalo or a pig; and the Negritos bury in a tomb roughly shaped to resemble an ox or a boar.7 Again, the ceremonies which amongst savage races generally accompany "the introduction of the young to complete manhood or womanhood, and to full participation in the savage church," which ceremonies "correspond, in short, to confirmation," "8 are a part of totemism. Their design, or the leading part of their design, is to communicate to him the blood of the totem and the clan, and thus to unite him a second time and more closely to the community in its religious aspect. In the Dieyerie tribe of Australians the ceremony is thus described the boy is taken and his arm bound to the arm of an old man; the latter's vein is opened above the elbow

1 Bastian, Rechtsverhältnisse, 295.

2

Frazer, 27.

3 The phrase is Mr. A. Lang's, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i. 281.

and his blood allowed to flow over the boy. Another and another man is substituted, until the boy is completely covered with blood, and thus is made effectually one blood with the tribe. The blood is the life; and that the ceremony is intended to give a new life to the youth, and to be a new birth for him, is proved by the fact that in some tribes the youth is supposed first to be killed and then after initiation has to pretend to forget all that ever he did or was before the ceremony; whilst in others a mimetic representation of the resurrection of a clansman accompanies the ceremony.

As the totem animal is a member of his human clansmen's tribe and the clansmen are members of the animal's clan, it follows that men and totem animals are descended from a common ancestor, which common ancestor is universally conceived by primitive totem clans to have been animal and not human; and myths are accordingly invented to account for the fact that some of his descendants have assumed human form, "thus the Turtle clan of the Iroquois are descended from a fat turtle, which, burdened by the weight of its shell in walking, contrived by great exertions to throw it off, and thereafter gradually developed into a man." 2 When totemism is decaying, myths are invented with precisely the opposite purpose, namely, to explain how it was that the ancestor ever assumed animal form. The "metamorphoses" of the gods in Greek mythology are probably thus to be accounted for, as Mr. Lang has argued in his Myth, Ritual, and Religion.

Let us now see how this alliance between a human kin and a species of natural objects, conceived as superhuman, affected the parties to it. Man's attitude to the world around him was at once changed: he had gained the supernatural ally he sought, and thus was enabled to make that free use of nature which was the condition of material progress, but which was debarred him by the restrictions imposed upon his action by fear of supernatural terrors. But his ally's place in nature was also changed by the alliance: this supernatural power was distinguished from all others by the fact that it was in alliance with him. It became a permanently friendly power; in a word, it became a god, whereas all other spirits remained evil, or at anyrate hostile powers, by whom a man 1 Bastian, Allerlei, i. 171.

2 Frazer, 3.

could only expect to be treated as he was treated by-and as indeed he himself treated-members of a strange clan. Other tribes might and did have their supernatural allies, as my clan had, and those allies were gods, because they had a definite circle of worshippers whom they permanently assisted, but they were no gods of mine. But these two classes of supernatural powers did not exhaust the world of superhuman spirits there were spirits not attached to any human clan, having no circle of worshippers to whom they were friendly; that is to say, they were hostile to all men, implacable.

In a previous chapter 1 we have examined and combated the view that man begins by endeavouring to constrain and coerce the supernatural powers by which he conceives himself to be surrounded; and that he is encouraged to use such compulsion either because he has not yet learnt to distinguish between the natural and the supernatural, and therefore believes himself to be as strong as these spirits, or because he thinks himself to possess magical powers and so to be stronger than they. Now, this view, that man feels himself a match or more than a match for the non-human powers by which he is surrounded, is absolutely opposed to the abject terror in which savages stand towards these spirits. What Mr. Im Thurn says of the Indians of Guiana is true of all savages: "It is almost impossible to overestimate the dreadful sense of constant and unavoidable danger in which the Indian would live, were it not for his trust in the protecting power of his peaiman." 2 There is, however, an argument in support of this view, which we did not mention at the time, because the proper reply to it would have required us to anticipate this chapter. The argument is that the lowest savages having none but material conceptions of the universe-evil spirits originally "are dealt with by mere physical force"; and instances may be found of the forcible, physical expulsion of evil spirits. But-to say nothing of the fact that taboo, the most potent influence over the savage mind, is not a material

1 Supra, pp. 24 ff., 35 ff.

2 Im Thurn, Indians of Guiana, 333. The peaiman "is not simply the doctor, but also in some sense the priest," p. 328.

3 Payne, New World, i. 390.

4 Payne, loc. cit., and Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 158-182.

conception 1-forcible expulsion of evil spirits is in the majority of cases one part of an annual ceremony, of which an essential feature is some rite or other for gaining the protection of the friendly god as a preliminary to this combat with the evil spirits. Probably more accurate observation would show that the assistance of a supernatural ally is a sine qua non of all such demonstrations. At anyrate, if totemism may be taken to be a stage of development through which all peoples have passed, we may fairly argue that it was the consciousness of possessing a supernatural ally which first nerved the savage to attack a supernatural power.

Other writers, again, rightly recognising that the ruling desire of the savage is to avoid giving offence to the many evil spirits, have not only jumped to the conclusion that religion was born of fear-primus in orbe timor fecit deos— but have been led by the prejudice to mal-observation of the facts of savage life. For instance, it was in North America that totemism flourished to a degree unequalled elsewhere save in Australia; and yet "amongst all of the American tribes the worship of spirits that are malicious and not of those that are good, is a characteristic that has been noticed with much astonishment, and commented upon by travellers and other writers "2-the fact being simply that the totemgod is left out of account by these writers. "Pure unmixed devil-worship prevails through the length and breadth of the land," says another writer, who perhaps, however, only means by "devil-worship" the worship of false gods, just as so many travellers apply the term sorcerer to men whose function in the community is actually to counteract magic and sorcery, and who are then quoted to show that the priest is evolved out of the sorcerer and religion out of magic. "But however true it is that savage man feels himself to be environed by innumerable dangers which he does not understand, and so personifies as invisible or mysterious enemies of more than human power, it is not true that the attempt to appease these powers is the foundation of religion. From the earliest times, religion, as distinct from magic or sorcery, addresses itself to kindred and friendly beings, who may indeed be angry with 1 Supra, p. 68. 2 Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, 30.

3 Shea, Catholic Missions, 25.

"1

their people for a time, but are always placable except to the enemies of their worshippers or to renegade members of the community. It is not with a vague fear of unknown powers, but with a loving reverence for known gods who are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship, that religion in the only true sense of the word begins." When the Spanish missionaries questioned the Indians as to the origin of their gods, the usual reply was that they had come from the air or heaven to dwell among them and do them good."2 The last words, which are not quite reconcilable with the view that religion sprang from fear, express the native view.

In virtue of the kinship between the god and his worshippers, the killing of a fellow-clansman comes to be regarded in a totem-clan as the same thing as killing the god. In Mangaia "such a blow was regarded as falling upon the god [totem] himself; the literal sense of ta atua [to kill a member of the same totem-clan] being god-striking or godkilling." 3 Thus the blood-taboo, which became an element of morality when it lent its force to the respect for kindred blood, is now taken up into religion, and murder becomes not only a moral but a religious offence. That the taboo on new-born children and immature youths was made to yield a higher significance when taken up by totemism, we have already noted. Here we need only add that the initiation to which the youth was subjected is not merely ceremonial, but is generally accompanied by such moral teaching as the savage is capable of. Amongst the Koranas the boy is taught not to steal, not to jeer at the weak or unfortunate, not to drink the milk of goat or sheep, and not to eat the flesh of jackal or hare.5

Thus loyalty to the clan-god is loyalty not merely to the totem, but to the morality which, though elementary, is the highest the savage knows; and fidelity to the clan-god involved hostility to false gods, for as the clans of men were

1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 55.

2 Payne, New World, i. 397.

3 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, 38, and Frazer, 58.

4 Supra, p. 103. Children are often considered taboo, and therefore outside the community, until they grow up and are initiated.

5 Bastian, Ocst. Asien, v. 291.