The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

541

Professor V. M. Mikhailoviskij, “Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 133, 134.

542

Th. Parkinson, Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, Second Series (London, 1889), pp. 160 sq.

543

See above, vol. i. pp. 315 sqq.

544

B. F. Matthes, Makassaarsch-Hollandsch Woordenboek (Amsterdam, 1859), s. v. soemāñgá, p. 569; G. A. Wilken, “Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,” De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 933; id., Verspreide Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), iii. 12.

545

R. H. Codrington, D.D., The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 250 sq. Compare id., “Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands,” Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, xvi. (1880) p. 136.

546

W. H. R. Rivers, “Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxix. (1909) p. 177. Dr. Rivers cites a recent case of a man who had a large lizard for his tamaniu. The animal lived in the roots of a big banyan-tree; when the man was ill, the lizard also seemed unwell; and when the man died, the tree fell, which was deemed a sign that the lizard also was dead.

547

George Brown, D.D., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), p. 177. The case was known to Dr. Brown, who made notes of it. The part of Melanesia where it happened was probably the Duke of York Island or New Britain.

548

“Totemismus auf den Marshall-Inseln (Südsee),” Anthropos, viii. (1913) p. 251.

549

Much of the following evidence has already been cited by me in Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 593 sqq.

550

Herbert Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals (London, 1890), p. 53.

551

Notes Analytiques sur les Collections ethnographiques du Musée du Congo, i. (Brussels, 1902-1906) p. 150.

552

Father H. Trilles, “Chez les Fangs,” Les Missions Catholiques, xxx. (1898) p. 322; id., Le Totémisme chez les Fâṅ (Münster i. W. 1912), pp. 473 sq.

553

Father H. Trilles, Le Totémisme chez les Fâṅ (Münster i. W. 1912), pp. 167 sq., 438 sq., 484-489. The description of the rite of blood-brotherhood contracted with the animal is quoted by Father Trilles (pp. 486 sq.) from a work by Mgr. Buléon, Sous le ciel d'Afrique, Récits d'un Missionnaire, pp. 88 sqq. Father Trilles's own observations and enquiries confirm the account given by Mgr. Buléon. But the story of an alliance contracted between a man or woman and a ferocious wild beast and cemented by the blood of the high contracting parties is no doubt a mere fable devised by wizards and witches in order to increase their reputation by imposing on the credulity of the simple.

554

Alfred Mansfeld, Urwald-Dokumente, vier Jahre unter den Crossflussnegern Kameruns (Berlin, 1908), pp. 220 sq.

555

J. Keller (missionary), “Ueber das Land und Volk der Balong,” Deutsches Kolonialblatt, 1 Oktober 1895, p. 484; H. Seidel, “Ethnographisches aus Nordost Kamerun,” Globus, lxix. (1896) p. 277.

556

John Parkinson, “Note on the Asaba People (Ibos) of the Niger,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) pp. 314 sq.

557

Charles Partridge, Cross River Natives (London, 1905), pp. 225 sq.

558

Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), pp. 459-461. The lamented authoress was kind enough to give me in conversation (1st June 1897) some details which do not appear in her book; among these are the statements, which I have embodied in the text, that the bush soul is never a domestic animal, and that when a man knows what kind of creature his bush soul is, he will not kill an animal of that species and will strongly object to any one else doing so. Miss Kingsley was not able to say whether persons who have the same sort of bush soul are allowed or forbidden to marry each other.

559

John Parkinson, “Notes on the Efik Belief in ‘Bush-soul,’ ” Man, vi. (1906) pp. 121 sq., No. 80. Mr. Henshaw is a member of the highest grade of the secret society of Egbo.

560

Rev. Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, New Edition (Edinburgh and London, 1901), pp. 51 sq. Compare Major A. G. Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), p. 217: “When Efik or waterside Ibo see a dead fish floating in the water of the kind called Edidim by the former and Elili by the latter – a variety of the electric species – they believe it to be a bad omen, generally signifying that some one belonging to the house will die, the man who first sees it becoming the victim according to Ibo belief. The only reason that is assigned for this lugubrious forecast is the fact that one of the souls of the departed is in the dead fish – that, in fact, the relationship or affinity existing between the soul essence that had animated the fish and that of one of the members of the household was so intimate that the death of the one was bound to effect the death of the other.”

561

P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1912), pp. 80-87. The Ekoi name for a man who has the power of sending out his spirit into the form of some animal is efumi (id., p. 71 note). A certain chief named Agbashan, a great elephant hunter, is believed to have the power of transforming himself into an elephant; and “a man of considerable intelligence, educated in England, the brother of a member of the Legislative Council for one of the West African Colonies, offered to take oath that he had seen Agbashan not only in his elephant form, but while actually undergoing the metamorphosis” (id., pp. 82 sq.). In this case, therefore, the man seems to have felt no scruples at hunting the animals in one of which his own bush soul might be lodged.

562

Letter of Mr. P. Amaury Talbot to me, dated Eket, North Calabar, Southern Nigeria, April 3d, 1913.

563

Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), pp. 538 sq.

564

C. H. Robinson, Hausaland (London, 1896), pp. 36 sq.

565

J. F. J. Fitzpatrick (Assistant Resident, Northern Nigeria), “Some Notes on the Kwolla District and its Tribes,” Journal of the African Society, No. 37, October, 1910, p. 30.

566

Extract from a Report by Captain Foulkes to the British Colonial Office. My thanks are due to Mr. N. W. Thomas for sending me the extract and to the authorities of the Colonial Office for their permission to publish it.

567

The Daily Graphic, Tuesday, October 7th, 1902, p. 3.

568

Rev. W. C. Willoughby, “Notes on the Totemism of the Becwana,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905) p. 300. The writer adds that he found a similar belief as to the sympathetic relation between a wounded crocodile and the man who wounded it very general among the Wanyamwezi, who, in 1882, were living under Mirambo about two hundred miles south of Lake Victoria Nyanza and a hundred miles east of Lake Tanganyika.

569

F. Speckmann, Die Hermannsburger Mission in Africa (Hermannsburg, 1876) p. 167. Compare David Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas, Second Edition (Edinburgh, 1875) pp. 47 sq.; “The Kaffirs believe that after death their spirits turn into a snake, which they call Ehlose, and that every living man has two of these familiar spirits – a good and a bad. When everything they undertake goes wrong with them, such as hunting, cattle-breeding, etc., they say they know that it is their enemies who are annoying them, and that they are only to be appeased by sacrificing an animal; but when everything prospers, they ascribe it to their good Ehlose being in the ascendant”; id., op. cit. p. 148: “When in battle two men are fighting, their snakes (Mahloze) are poetically said to be twisting and biting each other overhead. One ‘softens’ and goes down, and the man, whose attendant it is, goes down with it. Everything is ascribed to Ehlose. If he fails in anything, his Ehlose is bad; if successful, it is good… It is this thing which is the inducing cause of everything. In fact, nothing in Zulu is admitted to arise from natural causes; everything is ascribed to witchcraft or the Ehlose.”

It is not all serpents that are amadhlozi (plural of idhlozi), that is, are the transformed spirits of the dead. Serpents which are dead men may easily be distinguished from common snakes, for they frequent huts; they do not eat mice, and they are not afraid of people. If a man in his life had a scar, his serpent after his death will also have a scar; if he had only one eye, his serpent will have only one eye; if he was lame, his serpent will be lame too. That is how you can recognise So-and-So in his serpent form. Chiefs do not turn into the same kind of snakes as ordinary people. For common folk become harmless snakes with green and white bellies and very small heads; but kings become boa-constrictors or the large and deadly black mamba. See Rev. Henry Callaway, M.D., The Religions System of the Amazulu, Part ii. (Capetown, London, etc., 1869) pp. 134 sq., 140, 196-202, 205, 208-211, 231. “The Ehlose of Chaka and other dead kings is the Boa-constrictor, or the large and deadly black Mamba, whichever the doctors decide. That of dead Queens is the tree Iguana” (David Leslie, op. cit. p. 213). Compare Rev. Joseph Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country (London, 1857), pp. 161 sq.; W. R. Gordon, “Words about Spirits,” (South African) Folk-lore Journal, ii. (Cape Town, 1880) pp. 101-103; W. Grant, “Magato and his Tribe,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905) p. 270. A word which is sometimes confounded with idhlozi is itongo (plural amatongo); but the natives themselves when closely questioned distinguish between the two. See Dudley Kidd, Savage Childhood, a Study of Kafir Children (London, 1906), pp. 14 sq., 281-286. The notion that the spirits of the dead appear in the form of serpents is widespread in Africa. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 73 sqq. Dr. F. B. Jevons has suggested that the Roman genius, the guardian-spirit which accompanied a man from birth to death (Censorinus, De die natali, 3) and was commonly represented in the form of a snake, may have been an external soul. See F. B. Jevons, Plutarch's Romane Questions (London, 1892) pp. xlvii. sq.; id., Introduction to the History of Religion (London, 1896), pp. 186 sq.; L. Preller, Römische Mythologie3 (Berlin, 1881-1883), ii. 195 sqq.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer2 (Munich, 1912), pp. 176 sq.

570

H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific Coast (London, 1875-1876), i. 661. The words quoted by Bancroft (p. 662, note), “Consérvase entre ellos la creencia de que su vida está unida à la de un animal, y que es forzoso que mueran ellos cuando éste muere,” are not quite accurately represented by the statement of Bancroft in the text. Elsewhere (vol. ii. p. 277) the same writer calls the “second self” of the Zapotecs a “nagual, or tutelary genius,” adding that the fate of the child was supposed to be so intimately bound up with the fortune of the animal that the death of the one involved the death of the other. Compare Daniel G. Brinton, “Nagualism, a Study in American Folk-lore and History,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia, vol. xxxiii. No. 144 (Philadelphia, January, 1894), pp. 11-73. According to Professor E. Seler the word nagual is akin to the Mexican naualli, “a witch or wizard,” which is derived from a word meaning “hidden” with reference to the power attributed to sorcerers of transforming themselves into animals. See E. Seler, “Altmexikanische Studien, II.” Veröffentlichungen aus dem Königlichen Museum für Völkerkunde, vi. heft 2/4 (Berlin, 1899), pp. 52-57.

571

Otto Stoll, Die Ethnologie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala (Leyden, 1889), p. 57.

572

Thomas Gage, A New Survey of the West Indies, Third Edition (London, 1677), p. 334. The same writer relates how a certain Indian named Gonzalez was reported to have the power of turning himself into a lion or rather a puma. Once when a Spaniard had shot a puma in the nose, Gonzalez was found with a bruised face and accused the Spaniard of having shot him. Another Indian chief named Gomez was said to have transformed himself into a puma, and in that shape to have fought a terrific battle with a rival chief named Lopez, who had changed himself into a jaguar. See Gage, op. cit. pp. 383-389.

573

Antonio de Herrera, General History of the Vast Continent and Islands of America, translated by Capt. John Stevens (London, 1725-1726), iv. 138 sq. The Spanish original of Herrera's history, a work based on excellent authorities, was first published at Madrid in 1601-1615. The Indians of Santa Catalina Istlavacan still receive at birth the name of some animal, which is commonly regarded as their guardian spirit for the rest of their life. The name is bestowed by the heathen priest, who usually hears of a birth in the village sooner than his Catholic colleague. See K. Scherzer, “Die Indianer von Santa Catalina Istlávacana (Frauenfuss), ein Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte der Urbewohner Central-Amerikas,” Sitzungsberichte der philos. histor. Classe der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna), xviii. (1856) p. 235.

574

Otto Stoll, Die Ethnologie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala (Leyden, 1889), pp. 57 sq.; id., Suggestion und Hypnotism2 (Leipsic, 1904), p. 170.

575

A. W. Howitt, “Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) pp. 57 sq. Compare id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 148, 150. It is very remarkable that among the Kurnai these fights had a special connexion with marriage. When young men were backward of taking wives, the women used to go out into the forest and kill an emu-wren, which was the men's “brother”; then returning to the camp they shewed the dead bird to the men. The result was a fight between the young men and the young women, in which, however, lads who were not yet marriageable might not take part. Next day the marriageable young men went out and killed a superb warbler, which was the women's “sister,” and this led to a worse fight than before. Some days afterwards, when the wounds and bruises were healed, one of the marriageable young men met one of the marriageable young women, and said, “Superb warbler!” She answered, “Emu-wren! What does the emu-wren eat?” To which the young man answered, “He eats so-and-so,” naming kangaroo, opossum, emu, or some other game. Then they laughed, and she ran off with him without telling any one. See L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane, 1880), pp. 201 sq.; A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 149, 273 sq. Perhaps this killing of the sex-totem before marriage may be related to the pretence of killing young men and bringing them to life again at puberty. See below, pp. 225 sqq.

576

Gerard Krefft, “Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Lower Murray and Darling,” Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, 1862-65, pp. 359 sq.

577

A. W. Howitt, “Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) pp. 56 sq.

578

A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 57; id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 150.

579

A. W. Howitt, “On the Migrations of the Kurnai Ancestors,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. (1886) p. 416.

580

C. W. Schürmann, “The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln,” in Native Tribes of South Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 241. Compare G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand (London, 1847), i. 109.

581

A. W. Howitt, “Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) p. 58. Compare id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 148-151.

582

James Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), p. 52.

583

See Totemism and Exogamy, i. 47 sq. It is at least remarkable that both the creatures thus assigned to the two sexes should be nocturnal in their habits. Perhaps the choice of such creatures is connected with the belief that the soul is absent from the body in slumber. On this hypothesis bats and owls would be regarded by these savages as the wandering souls of sleepers. Such a belief would fully account for the reluctance of the natives to kill them. The Kiowa Indians of North America think that owls and other night birds are animated by the souls of the dead. See James Mooney, “Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians,” Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part i. (Washington, 1898) p. 237.

584

A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiv. (1885) p. 350 note 1; A. W. Howitt, “On the Migrations of the Kurnai Ancestors,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. (1886) p. 416; id., “Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) p. 57.

585

L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 194, 201, sq., 215; Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. 416, xviii. 56 sq.; A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 148-151.

586

The following suggestion as to the origin of totemism was made in the first edition of this book (published in 1890) and is here reprinted without any substantial change. In the meantime much additional evidence as to the nature and prevalence of totemism has come to light, and with the new evidence my opinions, or rather conjectures, as to the origin of the institution have repeatedly changed. If I here reprint my earliest conjecture, it is partly because I still think it may contain an element of truth, and partly because it serves as a convenient peg on which to hang a collection of facts which are much more valuable than any theories of mine. The reader who desires to acquaint himself more fully with the facts of totemism and with the theories that have been broached on the subject, will find them stated at length in my Totemism and Exogamy (London, 1910). Here I will only call attention to the Arunta legend that the ancestors of the tribe kept their spirits in certain sacred sticks and stones (churinga), which bear a close resemblance to the well-known bull-roarers, and that when they went out hunting they hung these sticks or stones on certain sacred poles (nurtunjas) which represented their totems. See Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 137 sq., 629. This tradition appears to point to a custom of transferring a man's soul or spirit temporarily to his totem. Conversely when an Arunta is sick he scrapes his churinga and swallows the scrapings, as if to restore to himself the spiritual substance deposited in the instrument. See Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, op. cit. p. 135 note 1.

587

(Sir) George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia (London, 1841), ii. 228 sq.

588

L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 169. According to Dr. Howitt, it is a serious offence to kill the totem of another person “with intent to injure him” (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) p. 53). Such an intention seems to imply a belief in a sympathetic connexion between the man and the animal. Similarly the Siena of the Ivory Coast, in West Africa, who have totemism, believe that if a man kills one of his totemic animals, a member of his totemic clan dies instantaneously. See Maurice Delafosse, “Le peuple Siéna ou Sénoufo,” Revue des Études Ethnographiques et Sociologiques, i. (1908) p. 452.

589

According to Plato, the different parts of the soul were lodged in different parts of the body (Timaeus, pp. 69c-72d), and as only one part, on his theory, was immortal, Lucian seems not unnaturally to have interpreted the Platonic doctrine to mean that every man had more than one soul (Demonax, 33).

590

J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, iv. (Leyden, 1901) pp. 3 sq., 70-75.

591

Le sieur de la Borde, “Relation de l'Origine, Mœurs, Coustumes, Religion, Guerres et Voyages des Caraibes sauvages des Isles Antilles de l'Amerique,” p. 15, in Recueil de divers Voyages faits en Afrique et en l'Amerique (Paris, 1684).

592

Washington Matthews, The Hidatsa Indians (Washington, 1877), p. 50.

593

H. Ling Roth, “Low's Natives of Borneo,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxi. (1892) p. 117; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 50.

594

A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en maatschappelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxix. (1895) pp. 3 sq.

595

A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. (Jena, 1867) p. 248.

596

In some tribes, chiefly of North American Indians, every man has an individual or personal totem in addition to the totem of his clan. This personal totem is usually the animal of which he dreamed during a long and solitary fast at puberty. See Totemism and Exogamy, i. 49-52, iii. 370-456, where the relation of the individual or personal totem (if we may call it so) to the clan totem is discussed. It is quite possible that, as some good authorities incline to believe, the clan totem has been developed out of the personal totem by inheritance. See Miss Alice C. Fletcher, The Import of the Totem, pp. 3 sqq. (paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August 1887, separate reprint); Fr. Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians,” Report of the United States National Museum for 1895 (Washington, 1897), pp. 323 sq., 336-338, 393. In the bush souls of the Calabar negroes (see above, pp. 204 sqq.) we seem to have something like the personal totem on its way to become hereditary and so to grow into the totem of a clan.