The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Durkheim Émile
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with human forms, are engraved upon the posts at the sides of the door of entry, which are as high as 15 yards; they are generally painted with very bright colours.[279] However, these totemic decorations are not very numerous in the Tlinkit village; they are found almost solely before the houses of the chiefs and rich men. They are much more frequent in the neighbouring tribe of the Haida; here there are always several for each house.[280] With its many sculptured posts arising on every hand, sometimes to a great height, a Haida village gives the impression of a sacred city, all bristling with belfries or little minarets.[281] Among the Salish, the totem is frequently represented upon the interior walls of the house.[282] Elsewhere, it is found upon the canoes, the utensils of every sort and the funeral piles.[283]
The preceding examples are taken exclusively from the Indians of North America. This is because sculpture, engravings and permanent figurations are not possible except where the technique of the plastic arts has reached a degree of perfection to which the Australian tribes have not yet attained. Consequently the totemic representations of the sort which we just mentioned are rarer and less apparent in Australia than in America. However, cases of them are cited. Among the Warramunga, at the end of the burial ceremonies, the bones of the dead man are interred, after they have been dried and reduced to powder; beside the place where they are deposited, a figure representing the totem is traced upon the ground.[284] Among the Mara and the Anula, the body is placed in a piece of hollow wood decorated with designs characteristic of the totem.[285] In New South Wales, Oxley found engravings upon the trees near the tomb where a native was buried[286] to which Brough Smyth attributes a totemic character. The natives of the Upper Darling carve totemic images upon their shields.[287] According to Collins, nearly all the utensils are covered with ornaments which probably have the same significance; figures of the same sort are found upon the rocks.[288] These totemic designs may even be more frequent than it seems, for, owing to reasons which will be discussed below, it is not always easy to see what their real meaning is.
These different facts give us an idea of the considerable place held by the totem in the social life of the primitives. However, up to the present, it has appeared to us as something relatively outside of the man, for it is only upon external things that we have seen it represented. But totemic images are not placed only upon the walls of their houses, the sides of their canoes, their arms, their utensils and their tombs; they are also found on the bodies of the men. They do not put their coat-of-arms merely upon the things which they possess, but they put it upon their persons; they imprint it upon their flesh, it becomes a part of them, and this world of representations is even by far the more important one.
In fact, it is a very general rule that the members of each clan seek to give themselves the external aspect of their totem. At certain religious festivals among the Tlinkit, the person who is to direct the ceremonies wears a garment which represents, either wholly or in part, the body of the animal whose name he bears.[289] These same usages are also found in all the North-West of America.[290] They are found again among the Minnitaree, when they go into combat,[291] and among the Indians of the Pueblos.[292] Elsewhere, when the totem is a bird, men wear the feathers of this bird on their heads.[293] Among the Iowa, each clan has a special fashion of cutting the hair. In the Eagle clan, two large tufts are arranged on the front of the head, while there is another one behind; in the Buffalo clan, they are arranged in the form of horns.[294] Among the Omaha, analogous arrangements are found: each clan has its own head-dress. In the Turtle clan, for example, the hair is all shaved off, except six bunches, two on each side of the head, one in front, and one behind, in such a way as to imitate the legs, the head and the tail of the animal.[295]
But it is more frequently upon the body itself that the totemic mark is stamped: for this is a way of representation within the capacity of even the least advanced societies. It has sometimes been asked whether the common rite of knocking out a young man's two upper teeth at the age of puberty does not have the object of reproducing the form of the totem. The fact is not established, but it is worth mentioning that the natives themselves sometimes explain the custom thus. For example, among the Arunta, the extraction of teeth is practised only in the clans of the rain and of water; now according to tradition, the object of this operation is to make their faces look like certain black clouds with light borders which are believed to announce the speedy arrival of rain, and which are therefore considered things of the same family.[296] This is a proof that the native himself is conscious that the object of these deformations is to give him, at least conventionally, the aspect of his totem. Among these same Arunta, in the course of the rites of sub-incision, certain gashes are cut upon the sisters and the future wife of the novice; scars result from these, whose form is also represented upon a certain sacred object of which we shall speak presently and which is called the churinga; as we shall see, the lines thus drawn upon the churinga are emblematic of the totem.[297] Among the Kaitish, the euro is believed to be closely connected with the rain;[298] the men of the rain clan wear little ear-rings made of euro teeth.[299] Among the Yerkla, during the initiation the young man is given a certain number of slashes which leave scars; the number and form of these varies with the totems.[300] An informer of Fison mentions the same fact in the tribes observed by him.[301] According to Howitt, a relationship of the same sort exists among the Dieri between certain arrangements of scars and the water totem.[302] Among the Indians of the North-West, it is a very general custom for them to tattoo themselves with the totem.[303]
But even if the tattooings which are made by mutilations or scars do not always have a totemic significance,[304] it is different with simple designs drawn upon the body: they are generally representations of the totem. It is true that the native does not carry them every day. When he is occupied with purely economic occupations, or when the small family groups scatter to hunt or fish, he does not bother with all this paraphernalia, which is quite complicated. But when the clans unite to live a common life and to assist at the religious ceremonies together, then he must adorn himself. As we shall see, each of the ceremonies concerns a particular totem, and in theory the rites which are connected with a totem can be performed only by the men of that totem. Now those who perform,[305] who take the part of officiants, and sometimes even those who assist as spectators, always have designs representing the totem on their bodies.[306] One of the principal rites of initiation, by which a young man enters into the religious life of the tribe, consists in painting the totemic symbol on his body.[307] It is true that among the Arunta the design thus traced does not always and necessarily represent the totem of the initiated;[308] but these are exceptions, due, undoubtedly, to the disturbed state of the totemic organization of this tribe.[309] Also, even among the Arunta, at the most solemn moment of the initiation, which is its crown and consecration, when the neophyte is allowed to enter the sanctuary where all the sacred objects belonging to the clan are preserved, an emblematic painting is placed upon him; this time, it is the totem of the young man which is thus represented.[310] The bonds which unite the individual to his totem are even so strong that in the tribes on the North-west coast of North America, the emblem of the clan is painted not only upon the living but also upon the dead: before a corpse is interred, they put the totemic mark upon it.[311]
III
These totemic decorations enable us to see that the totem is not merely a name and an emblem. It is in the course of the religious ceremonies that they are employed; they are a part of the liturgy; so while the totem is a collective label, it also has a religious character. In fact, it is in connection with it, that things are classified as sacred or profane. It is the very type of sacred thing.
The tribes of Central Australia, especially the Arunta, the Loritja, the Kaitish, the Unmatjera, and the Ilpirra,[312] make constant use of certain instruments in their rites which are called the churinga by the Arunta, according to Spencer and Gillen, or the tjurunga, according to Strehlow.[313] They are pieces of wood or bits of polished stone, of a great variety of forms, but generally oval or oblong.[314] Each totemic group has a more or less important collection of these. Upon each of these is engraved a design representing the totem of this same group.[315] A certain number of the churinga have a hole at one end, through which goes a thread made of human hair or that of an opossum. Those which are made of wood and are pierced in this way serve for exactly