Chapter XII · TOTEMISM—THE BLOOD COVENANT—CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH SALIVA.

Thus far, in pursuing our investigations into the significance of the Life-token, we have arrived at the conclusion that the reason of the mysterious sympathy between the hero and an object external to himself is not merely that, actually or by imputation, the Life-token has been part of his substance, but further that, notwithstanding severance, it is still in unapparent but real connection with him, and consequently any mischance he may suffer will be felt by the Life-token and reflected in its condition. The converse is also true. Any portion, actual or imputed, of the hero’s substance, detached from him in appearance, continues in effect so united to him that injury to it will redound to his injury and perhaps to his death. The Life-token and the External Soul are thus equivalent; and they are equivalent not merely in story, but also, and first of all, in human customs and belief.

Moreover, the possibility of evil implies the contrary possibility of good being received by a man through severed pieces of himself. This belief has led to the practices we have considered in our last two chapters. Whether for the healing of a specific disease, or for the more general purpose of promoting his wellbeing, anything which has once been his, as a scrap of his body, his excrements or his clothing, or which has simply been in contact, though only for a moment, with him, is subjected to influences held to be beneficial, with the expectation that they will in this way act upon him. The belief and the practices it has engendered have thus to our eyes a double aspect, physical and spiritual. But we must not forget that everywhere in the earliest times, and among the lowest races even yet—nay, the limitation need not be by any means so strict—among peoples in all but the highest state of civilisation, no substantive distinction is drawn between the physical and the spiritual. The abstract entity we call a soul has no existence for them: it is a philosophical speculation, whereof they have no conception. The soul, to them, is but another body which quits at times in life this visible frame, as a man quits his dwelling, on errands of business or pleasure, and forsakes it finally at death, as a corpse is carried out of doors. It is but a fragment of the man. It may take a fresh form, become a new whole, new but the same; for it will differ only in form, if indeed it will differ so much as in form. And the conception of divinity current in the lower culture corresponds with that of the soul. The god is precisely “a magnified, non-natural man,” though not always in human shape, corporeal and subject to all corporeal wants and infirmities, but endowed with potencies and privileges far beyond those of ordinary men: potencies and privileges, however, the like of which are attained sometimes with much fasting and striving and patience by the greatest shamans. This corporeal nature of the god enables man to enter into communion with him, to put and keep himself in touch with him, to become united with him. In the last chapter we considered some methods whereby this may be done. Some other methods remain to be mentioned; but it will be needless to discuss them at length, because they have not long ago been made the subject of a brilliant exposition by the late Professor Robertson Smith, to which little or nothing can be added.

What seems, however, desirable for the purpose of completing our view of the Life-token and the ideas connected with it, is to turn our attention to some points in the social organisation of savage races, and their survivals in societies, like our own, which have long been organised on principles of a wholly different character. To these points the next four chapters will be devoted. But the organisation of archaic communities is bound up with their tribal worship. It is accordingly necessary to have distinctly before our minds the relation of the tribe to its god, and some at least of the usages expressive of that relation. I shall therefore begin by summarising the results of Professor Robertson Smith’s examination of Semitic institutions, as far as they are relevant to our present inquiry, contributing only a few further illustrations drawn from the usages of nations outside the Semitic sphere.

At a certain period in the evolution of human institutions men are organised in kindreds, called clans or gentes, deriving descent and reckoning kinship exclusively through the mother. As a matter of fact, hardly anywhere throughout the world is this organisation found in an absolutely unadulterated condition; for it seems to have constantly tended to pass over into an organisation where the kinship was reckoned exclusively through the father. But in almost all parts of the world many existing institutions, and institutions described, or incidentally mentioned, by writers ancient and modern, can only be accounted for by postulating the former existence of a system of kinship reckoned exclusively through females. The kindred or clan thus formed believes itself to be descended from a totem, or ancestor to whom honours are paid of a kind for which we have no other word than divine—a word, however, implying a more exalted conception than any to which the clan has yet attained. The totem is not in human shape. Very generally it is an animal, sometimes a tree or other vegetable, occasionally an inanimate object, such as the sun, the earth, wind, salt, or even the rain or thunder. For the savage believes in metamorphosis. We have already investigated at some length this belief, in so far as it relates to changes effected by death and birth. But it is by no means confined to these. Broadly speaking, every object in the universe is regarded as alive; and every object is capable of changing its shape without losing its identity. Death is merely one way of doing so. To the savage, therefore, there is no difficulty in believing that his ancestor is a turtle or a pine-tree, for he knows no distinction between animal and vegetable, between genus and genus. Nay, he will even hold with as little difficulty that the same ancestor is both a turtle and a pine-tree, and will worship him now under the one, and now under the other, form.

The clan bears a representation of the totem as its symbol or crest; is usually called after its name; and the individual members dress and adorn themselves to resemble it in their persons. It is forbidden to kill, injure or treat with disrespect any animal or vegetable of the species to which the totem belongs, for they are all akin. But, at least when an animal, it is customary at stated times to slay and eat it in solemn festival wherein all the kin join.

The home of the clan is the home of its god; and wherever a society has passed beyond the nomadic stage it will be found to have a definite place consecrated to social reunion and worship. There the totem-god is represented by an idol of some kind—ordinarily, in an archaic stage of civilisation, by a post or a rough stone. This is his dwelling-place, or the embodiment he chooses for the convenience of his worshippers,—the god himself. Later, it becomes by degrees a simulacrum, a piece of sculpture, until, in the most elevated form to which paganism has attained, we arrive at masterpieces like those of Phidias.

The stone god is also at first the altar. There the totem-beast is slain, some of its blood is dashed upon the stone, and around it the rest of the blood is drunk and the flesh is eaten by the clansmen. This is probably the primitive form of sacrifice. It is not a gift to the god, but a sacrament in which the whole kin—the god with his clansmen—unites. In partaking of it each member of the kin testifies and renews his union with the rest. The god himself is eaten, and yet he is at the same time embodied in the sacred stone. Archaic thought sees no contradiction in this. Our inquiries into the Life-token have already shown that a man is separable into portions. The savage conception of life permits of its division without destroying its existence or its essential unity. Not only, therefore, is the totem himself divisible: the kin, including the totem-god in every one of his forms, is regarded as one entire life, one body, whereof each unit is literally a member, a limb. The same blood runs through them all; and elsewhere, as among the Hebrews, “the blood is the life.” Literally they may not be all descended from a common ancestry. Descent is the normal, the typical, cause of kinship and a common blood. It is the legal presupposition, a presumption not to be rebutted. But kinship may also be acquired; and when it is once acquired by a stranger he ranks thenceforth for all purposes as one descended from the common ancestor. In a state of society organised on the lines of kinship this is an important matter. A man who is not of the kin is a stranger; and a stranger is a foe. The kinless man has no rights, no protection: he is an outlaw. His hand is against every man’s, and every man’s hand against him. To acquire kinship, the blood of the candidate for admission into the kin must be mingled with that of the kin. In this way he enters into the brotherhood, is reckoned as of the same stock, obtains the full privileges of a kinsman.

That the blood-covenant, whereby blood-brotherhood is assumed, is not a primæval rite, is obvious from its artificial character. It has its basis in ideas which must have been pre-existent, and which I have endeavoured to make clear in this and the foregoing chapters. At the same time its barbarism, and the wide area over which it is spread, point with equal certainty to its early evolution, and to the fact that it is in unison with conceptions essentially and universally human. Even among races like the Polynesians and the Turanian inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia, where the rite itself may not be recorded, there are, as we shall hereafter see, unmistakable traces of its influence on their customs.

As Society evolved, the clan-system gradually broke up over large tracts of the earth’s surface. In the same measure as the clan relaxed its hold upon the individual members, blood-brotherhood assumed a personal aspect, until, having no longer any social force, it came to be regarded as merely the most solemn and binding form of covenant between man and man. For that purpose the gods of one or both were frequently made party to the contract, and the blood of the covenanters was smeared upon the idols as well as upon one another. The deities thus continued to watch over a rite in which they had originally taken part as members of a clan. For as the bonds of kinship were loosened the totem developed into a god; and even so the totem’s interest in the rite as a member of a clan developed into that of a god as witness and avenger of the covenant. But though the significance of the rite changed, its evolution was continuous. Religion, like other forms of human thought and other human institutions, has been a slow and constant growth. If the whole field be surveyed, it will be found that there are no yawning chasms dividing period from period, and cult from cult. Everything evolves by processes analogous to those with which we are familiar in the physical world. The totem, released from the bonds of kinship, and soaring upward to the heaven of Godhead, ceases not to be worshipped with rites appropriate only to the social reunions of the clan. True, these rites are gradually modified; but alike by their symbolism and by their barbarity they bear unfailing testimony to their real birth. Such was the Hebrew practice of sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice before the Lord, or upon the mercy-seat, daubing it upon the horns of the altar, or pouring it out at the base, and the converse practice of sprinkling it upon the congregation, or putting it upon the priest at his consecration. Among other nations the practice was grosser still.

“Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood

Of human sacrifice,”

The modes of thought portrayed in the ritual of sacrifice are entirely analogous to those disclosed by the practices we discussed in the last chapter. Their great aim is union with the deity. It is attained by placing in contact with him something already part of ourselves, as our blood, hair, clothing, or other property; or else the blood of a victim of which we are about to consume the remainder, just as among medical practices we found that of giving part of the patient’s food to an animal before partaking of the rest, with the object of being united with a healthy body. It may, indeed, be, if we were to trace back the superstition in these medical cases, that the animal made use of was at first a totem-beast. To investigate this, however, would require much greater space than I have at command.

This sketch of totemism, including the means of union and communion between the clan and its totem on the one hand, and between the individual members of the clan on the other hand, is hasty and imperfect. Yet I hope it may prove sufficient for our purpose, the more so as the writings of Professor Robertson Smith and Mr. Frazer, who have studied the subject with great detail, are happily easy of access. Without, therefore, dwelling longer upon it we may turn to glance at some of the modifications undergone by the ceremony of the blood-covenant. A rite so barbarous would not maintain itself unimpaired as culture advanced. Other rites are softened in course of time; a part is taken for the whole, or a sham for the real thing; and this is no exception. I have referred to some of the forms it has assumed, but only to such as bear to the most casual observer the mark and witness of the original whence they are derived. There remain to be briefly considered some of the remoter variations.

The sacramental essence of the rite has escaped many modern travellers. Yet it might have been thought obvious enough. It is, perhaps, most clearly brought out where the blood is mingled with the food of the participants. It has been well insisted on, and its connection with the totem-sacrifice exhibited at length, by Professor Robertson Smith. Nor, after what has been said about it in the foregoing pages, and after the analogous superstitions discussed in preceding chapters, is it necessary to dwell on the point here. But it can excite no surprise that the rite should have degenerated into a solemn meal eaten together by the persons entering into the new bond. In early times no one would have a right to eat together save the brethren of a clan; and on the other hand, all who ate together would, presumably at least, be members of the same clan. Hospitality—the relation of host and guest—would form the only exception; and hospitality, as practised in savage and barbarous communities, may be described as a temporary reception into the kin or family. But none save brethren habitually shared the common meal. To eat together, therefore, would of itself be a sign, though not an infallible sign, of kinship. Eating together is—not merely on solemn occasions, as the sacrifice of the totem-beast, but in a lesser degree at other times—an act of communion. The sharing of a common substance as food unites those who partake of it in a common life: it makes them parts of one another: they incorporate one another’s substance. This is the significance of eating “things sacrificed to idols,” and of “sitting at meat in an idol’s temple.” The idol is supposed to have partaken of the meat; and those who afterwards eat of it share by that act the idol’s life; they partake of his substance. This is the significance of the offering of first-fruits; the bulk is holy and fit for the worshippers’ food, because a portion, and through that portion the whole, is first united with the god. What is true of special feasts, and of communion with the god, holds good of everyday meals, and of communion by the clansmen with one another. To admit a stranger into the clan, then, it will be enough that he be allowed to partake of the common meal. If the admission be simply for a temporary purpose as a guest, it will take place without any extraordinary formalities. If a permanent union be contemplated, then ceremonies must be performed indicative of the intention, and uniting the parties in the unmistakable bond of a common life.

The exigencies of a Congress-paper no doubt compelled Mr. Crombie to shorten his list of examples. His conclusion is in harmony with the opinions advocated in the present volume. But if those opinions be correct we may go further than Mr. Crombie has ventured. The transfer of saliva is more than a gift of a portion of the spitter’s life. It is a gift of a portion of himself, which is thus put into the power of the recipient as a pledge of goodwill. Nay, it is a bodily union with the recipient, such as can be effected by a blood-covenant. Possibly as Mr. Crombie suggests, it is, where an interchange of saliva occurs, a form of blood-covenant consequent upon milder manners, like some of the modifications we have already glanced at. Rather it seems to be a more evanescent and less solemn, though still emphatic, form, intended only for temporary purposes. I hope the examples I propose to adduce will bear out this contention.

Let us first recall the uses to which we have, in previous chapters, found saliva put. Equally with the other issues of the body, it is a means of witchcraft whereby the spitter may be injured and perhaps done to death. In the same way it is available as a means of compelling the love of one of the opposite sex. It is dangerous to spit into the fire. To spit the half of a piece of bread which the patient has been chewing, and has therefore mixed with his saliva, into a tree is in Transylvania a specific against toothache. And to spit in certain prescribed places is a remedy for various diseases. The natives of South America spit their coca-quids upon the cairns in the Cordilleras; and every Basuto traveller spits upon the pebble he is about to add to the heap outside the village he is approaching. It is hard to put any meaning into these superstitions, unless it be one that ignores the separation of the saliva from the body of which it once formed a part. The märchen cited in Chapter IX., by causing the heroine’s spittle to answer for her, as if she were present, after she has in fact fled from the ogre’s thraldom, exaggerate the identification of the saliva with its owner to the height of endowing it with a large measure of her consciousness and personality. The same exaggeration is to be observed in a practice among children in New England, doubtless derived from the old country, of divining by means of saliva where a bird’s nest, or something else for which they are searching, is. A boy will spit into the palm of his hand and striking the spittle with the forefinger of the other hand will say:

“Spit, spat, spot,

Tell me where that bird’s nest is,”

Having now sketched the results arrived at by Professor Robertson Smith and other distinguished anthropologists in reference to the blood-covenant, and briefly discussed several forms of the rite, I have endeavoured to put before the reader a series of parallel usages with saliva. This has led us to other superstitions more closely related to those of sorcery, medicine and worship earlier passed in review. In all these alike we have found the same ideas—the ideas, namely, which form the core of the incident of the Life-token and the practices it embodies. Armed with the conclusions drawn from the consideration of the blood-covenant, we will go on to examine some other social institutions and ceremonies on various planes of civilisation.