Mircea Eliade AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS An Introduction

Mircea Eliade
AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS: AN INTRODUCTION P A R T I*
There is a general belief among the Australians that the world, man, and the various animals and plants were created by certain Supernatural Beings who afterward disappeared, either ascending to the sky or entering the earth. The act of "creation" was not so much a cosmogony as it was a molding and transformation of a pre-existent material; it was not a creatio ex nihilo but the shaping of an amorphous cosmic substance that had already existed before the appearance of the Supernatural Beings. I n a similar fashion, the "creation" of man was rather a modification of a previously shapeless or monstrous being. The myths tend to emphasize the morphological completion and spiritual instruction of the primeval man rather than his coming to life from a pre-existent material form. Man was truly made when he received his present form and when the religious, social, and cultural institutions which were henceforth to constitute the most precious heritage of his tribe were revealed to him. The coming into being of man and the actual world took place in the "Dream Timem-the alchera or alcheringa time, to use the Aranda terms for this primordial and fabulous epoch. The physical
*This is the first of a series of articles on "primitive" religion. I am grateful to my former student, Miss Nancy Auer, for the care with which she corrected and stylistically improved the text. Part I1 will appear in February, 1967. 108
landscape was changed, and man became what he is today as the result of a series of deeds by Supernatural Beings. Nowhere in Australia do these creative acts of the "Dream Time" personages impress us with their grandeur. As a matter of fact, the majority of the central Australian "creation myths" tell only of the long and monotonous wanderings of different types of Primordial Beings; in the course of these wanderings they modified the landscape, produced plants and animals, and performed a series of "rituals" which ever since have been scrupulously repeated by the aborigines. The narratives of these creative acts constitute what we call "myths"; indeed, they are "sacred" and serve as foundations and justifications for the entire religious life of the tribe. The "Dream Time" came to an end when the Supernatural Beings left the surface of the earth. But the mythical past was not lost forever; on the contrary, it is periodically recovered through the tribal rituals. As we shall see, the most sacred and especially the secret ceremonies are supposed to reactualize the mythical events, thus rendering present the fabulous time of the beginnings. As is the case with all other "primitive" religions, to understand the Australian religion ultimately means to know what happened in ill0 tempore, that is to say, what type of Primordial Beings made their appearance a t the very beginning, what kind of activity they carried out-and to what purpose-and what became of them afterward. As is to be expected, the most animated debate between scholars has been the one concerned with the type or structure of the Primordial Beings: were they Sky Gods, "All-Fathers"; theriomorphic mythical ancestors; ghosts of famous chieftains? This controversy is extremely significant both for the comprehension of Australian religions and for the history of the understanding of archaic religions by Western scholars-in fact, the debate is revealing for the history of the modern Western mind in general. For this reason we shall dwell in some detail on the discussion concerning a specific class of Australian Primordial Beings, the socalled All-Fathers or Sky Beings of the southeastern tribes. As these populations have disappeared or have been too rapidly civilized, we do not possess their complete mythologies. But enough information has been gathered by observers during the second half of the nineteenth century, and particularly by A. W. Howitt, to enable us to grasp the structure of their religions. The main characteristic of all these populations is their belief in supernatural Sky Beings. To simplify this presentation, I will use almost exclusively the data of Howitt. But references to some of the
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Australian Religions: A n Introduction

earlier authorities will be made later on, when we will discuss the impact of Howitt's observations on contemporary scholarship.
THE SKY BEINGS OF SOUTHEAST AUSTRALIA
In his book on the Narrinyeri tribe, published in 1847, George Taplin wrote that these aborigines "call the Supreme Being by the names Nurrundere and Martummere. He is said to have made all things on the earth, and to have given to men the weapons of war and hunting, and to have instituted all the rites and ceremonies which are practised by the aborigines, whether connected with life or death. On inquiring why they adhere to any custom, the reply is: Nurrundere commanded it. Nurrundere went to Wyrra-warre, taking his children with him."l Wyrra-warre is said to be the sky, and Taplin adds that "the Narrinyeri always mention his name with reverence." He relates that during a great kangaroo hunt, "on reaching the hunting-ground, a wallaby, which had been killed on the road thither, was produced, and a fire kindled by the women. Then the men standinground, struck up a sort of chant, a t the same time stamping with their feet. The wallaby was put on the fire, and as the smoke from it ascended, the hunters, at a concerted signal, rushed towards it, lifting their weapons towards heaven. I afterwards learned that this ceremony was instituted by Nurrundere."2 This scene recalled to Howitt the commencement of a certain ritual, when the men pointed to the sky with their weapons or with branches, "as indicating the great Biambun, whose name is not lawful to mention excepting at the ceremonies, and only when initiated persons are present." 3 Another tribe, the Wiimbaio, believes that Nurelli made the whole country, together with its trees and animals. After giving laws to the aborigines he went up to the sky, and he is now one of the constellations.4 According to the myths of Wotjobaluk, Bunjil, the Supreme Being, once lived on the earth as a Great Man but eventually ascended to the sky. Bunjil is also called "Our Father." 5 Other supreme Beings of the southeastern tribes-Baiame, Daramulun, Mungan-ngaua-likewise are spoken of as "fathers."
1 George Taplin, The Narrinyeri. A n Account of the Tribe of Australian Aborigines Inhabiting the Country around the Lakes Alexandrina, Albert, and Coorong (Adelaide, 1847), p. 55; quoted by A. W. Howitt, T h e Native Tribes of South-East Australia (hereinafter cited as "Native Tribes") (London, 1904), p. 488. A critical examination of Taplin's data is found in Wilhelm Schmidt, Ursprung der Gottwid~e (hereinafter cited as "C'rsprung"), I (2d ed.; Miinster, 1926), 328, 399 ff., 408. 2 Taplin, op. cit., p. 66; quoted by Howitt, Native Tribes, pp. 488-89. 3 Howitt, Native Tribes, p. 489. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., pp. 489-90.
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Mungan-ngaua, for example, literally means "Father of All of US."^ The Kulin and the Wurungerri describe Bunjil as an old man with two wives; his son is Binbeal, the rainbow. Bunjil taught the Kulin the arts of life and social institutions. Then he ascended to the sky land; from there he supervises the tribe. Howitt points out that this celestial being was usually referred to as Mami-ngata, that is, "Our Father," rather than by his name Bunjil. Howitt was also impressed with the fact that the human element predominates over the animal in these myths.7 It is important to note that knowledge of the names and myths of these Supreme Beings of the southeastern tribes is restricted to the initiates. Women and children know almost nothing about them. Among the Kurnai, for example, the women know only that there is a Supreme Being in the sky called Mungan-ngaua, "Father of All of US."^ I n fact, it is only during the final and most secret stage of the initiation that the novice learns the most essential myth-namely, that Mungan-ngaua lived on the earth a long time ago and taught the ancestors of the Kurnai all the elements of their culture. Mungan-ngaua founded the secret rites of the initiation (jeraeil), and his married son, Tundum, conducted them for the first time, using the two bull-roarers that bear the names of him and his wife. But a traitor revealed the mysteries of the jeraeil to the women. I n his anger Mungan-ngaua brought on a cosmic cataclysm in which almost the entire human race perished; soon afterward he ascended into the sky. His son Tundum and Tundum's wife were both turned into porpoises.9 There is obviously a great difference between what was known before the initiation-the fact that there is a celestial "Father" whose voice resembles that of the distant thunder-and what the neophyte discovers in the course of the secret rites. He learns the myth of the Supreme Being: his creative deeds, his anger, and his disappearance from the earth. He also learns that the disappearance of Mungan-ngaua brought to an end a fabulous period. I n sum, the neophyte discovers that a series of dramatic and sometimes catastrophic events took place in a mythical past. As we shall see, the revelation of the secret and traditional "sacred
"bid., pp. 490-91. Ibid., p. 492. Howitt once met a n old woman, a survivor of the Theddora tribe, and when he asked her about Daramulun she answered: "All that I know of Daramulun is that he comes down with a noise like thunder, to make the boys into men. We call him Papang" (ibid., p. 493). Papang, Howitt explains, means "Father." The "noise like thunder" is that of the bull-roarers. 9 Ibid., p. 630. See also M. Eliade, Birthand Rebirth (New York, 1958),pp. 10-31.
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Australian Religions: An Introduction

stories" constitutes the core of every Australian initiation ceremony, even among those tribes that do not share the belief in a celestial Supreme Being. To help complete the picture afforded by our scanty data of the southeastern tribes, we might add a few more examples. According to the Kamilaroi, Baiame created all things. Though generally invisible, Baiame has appeared in human form, bestowing various gifts on the tribe.10 During his initiation the Yuin novice learns the myth of Daramulun ("Father"; he is also called Biamban, "Master"). Long ago, Daramulun dwelt on earth with his mother. The earth was barren, hard, and sterile as a stone-and there were no human beings, only animals. Daramulun created the ancestor of the Yuin and taught him how to live. He gave him the laws which are handed down from father to son, founded the initiation ceremonies, and made the bull-roarer, the sound of which represents his voice. It is Daramulun who gives the medicine men their powers. And when a man dies, Daramulun meets and cares for his spirit.11 As Howitt has already pointed out, all of these names-Bunjil, Baiame, Daramulun, etc.-most probably refer to the same divinity. "He is evidently everlasting, for he existed from the beginnings of all things, and he still lives." 12 There is no doubt that the belief in such a celestial Supreme Being belongs among the most archaic and genuine traditions of the southeastern aborigines. The belief was witnessed before the installation of the Christian missions. Furthermore, as we have noted, the names, the myths, and the rituals associated with the High Beings are most secret, being revealed exclusively to the initiates. If the Supreme Being should be suspected of being merely a result of missionary propaganda, one must wonder why he is unknown to the women and why he became so central to those religious and social traditions that belong to the mythical past.13 We might add that the same type of divinity, considered to have created the world and man and to have ascended to heaven after bestowing upon man the rudiments of culture, is attested in many other archaic religions. It is difficult for us to imagine that missionary propaganda would have given
Howitt, Native Tribes, p. 494. Ibid., p. 495. 1 2 Ibid., p. 600. 13 Ibid., pp. 501 ff. Schmidt examined the value of Howitt's personal observations at great length and criticized some of his conclusions; see Ursprung, I, 211-47, 296-301, etc.; see also Vol. I11 (Miinster, 1931; xlvii+ 1155 pp.), Index,
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rise everywhere to the same type of divinity and to the same mythological pattern.
THE STORY OF A CONTROVERSY
When Howitt published his book in 1904, most of the facts concerning the Supreme Beings of southeast Australia were already known from his own articles in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute ( J A I ) , 1882-87,l4 and also from the information brought together by Andrew Lang in his work The Making o Religion f (London, 1889). One may suspect that, without the intervention of Lang, the facts communicated by Howitt would have played a more important role in the interpretation of Australian religion. As a matt'er of fact, in the 1904 monograph Howitt watered down his first evaluation of the High Gods, as presented in the articles of the J A I . One reason for this change of mind might have been the tumult raised by Lang's book. It is true that E. B. Tylor, in his article "Limits of Savage Religion" ( J A I , XXI [1891], 283-301), had tried to explain the Australian High Gods in terms of the direct or indirect influence of Christian missionaries. Nonetheless, this hypothesis was not very convincing, although in some instances a Christian influence was plausible.15 But in pleading for the authenticity of the Australian beliefs Lang had made the mistake, astutely pointed out by E. S. Hartland,lG of presenting the Australian gods almost in Christian terms. Hartland rightly remarked that the Australians do not speak of "immortality" or "eternity" but of "very long life." (What Hartland did not realize was that these plastic expressions, "long life," "old age," etc., fill the same function as the "immortality" or "eternity" of the other, more elaborate religions.) Another methodological error was Lang's tendency to consider the mythical element as secondary or aberrant. Lang labeled as "mythsv-which for him were "obscene or humorous tales"everything he did not like in a "primitive" religion; we shall dwell
l4 See, e.g., the following articles by A. W. Howitt in the J A I : "On Some Australian Beliefs" (XI11 [1884], 185-98); "The Jeraeil, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai Tribe" (XIV [1886], 301-27); "On the Migration of the Kurnai Ancestors" ( X V [1886], 409-27); and "On Australian Medicine Men" ( X V I [1887], 23-58). ' Howitt knew from his long and intensive work among the southeastern 5 Australian tribes that Tylor's theory was untenable. See also N. W. Thomas, "Baiame and the Bell-Bird," Man (1905), pp. 44-62; Schmidt, Ursprung, I , 249 ff. l6 See E. S. Hartland, "The 'High Gods' of Australia," Polk-lore, I X (1898), 290-329.

upon this ideological prejudice later on. He was nevertheless impressed by artl land's criticism, and in his reply he reminded his opponent that already in his Myth, Ritual and Religion (Vol. I [London, 19011, chap. xi) he had admitted the coexistence of "the mythical and the religious elements in beliefs." 17 But Hartland rightly emphasized that this implies an acknowledgment of the justice of his criticism.18 Lang continued to fight for the recognition of Howitt's discoveries; he even fought against Howitt's own interpretation of his discoveries. I n an article entitled "God (Primitive and Savage)," 19 Lang once again summarized his arguments in favor of the authenticity of the Australian All-Fathers, first quoting the following letter written by Baldwin Spencer to J . G. Frazer on August 19, 1902:
As t o the "discovery" of a high ethical religion amongst the lowest savages there is not, I am convinced, any such thing in Australia. The great difficulty is that we have had statements made on the authority of men like Gason. The latter was a police-trooper, I believe, who was perfectly honest, but a t the same time perfectly incapable of dealing with matters such as these. I n the days when the evidence of Baiame and Daramulum was collected the importance of securing minute and detailed information was really not realized, nor was it imagined that there were men without any so-called religious ideas; and as I have endeavoured t o point out in one of our chapters, i t is the easiest thing possible t o be misled by what a native tells you in regard to such a point as this.20
But Lang sarcastically remarks ("God [Primitive and Savage]," p. 244a), "Spencer must have forgotten that the chief authority on Daramulun is Howitt," (cf. Native Tribes, pp. 494 ff., 526, 528, 543). Lang was by now well aware of the fact that most of the oldest authors were suspected either of an imperfect scientific training or of a religious bias. Thus he acknowledges that James Manning, although "he began his researches about 1833-34, when missionaries had not arrived, Melbourne did not exist and there
l 7 Andrew Lang, "Australian Gods: A Reply," Folk-lore, X (1899), 1-46; see p. 14. 1 8 E. S. Hartland, "Australian Gods: Rejoinder," Folk-lore, X (1899), 46-67; see p. 60. The Lang-Hartland controversy was laboriously analyzed by Schmidt in Ursprung (1, 273-311) in the enormous chapter "Die Kritik der Theorie Langs" (pp. 211-487), which follows the chapter devoted to "Der monotheistic Praanimismus A. Langs" (pp. 134-210). Another discussion of Lang's ideas is to be found in Raffaelle Pettazzoni, Dio. Formazione e sviluppo del monoteismo nella storia delle religioni (Rome, 1922), I , 43-60. See below, n. 33. 19 Andrew Lang, "God (Primitive and Savage)," in J. Hastings (ed.), Enc?/clopaedia of Beligion and Ethics, V I (Edinburgh, 1913), 243-47. I n this article Lang uses many examples already quoted in his discussion with Hartland. J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, I (London, 1910), 148. 114
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were no churches near his station," erred in representing Baiame and Grogorally too closely "to the Father and Son of Christian doctrine." But he points out that Manning's account was corroborated by Mrs. Langloh Parker, in her book The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905). And he stresses the fact that a benevolent and creative being was attested "in 1833, 1855 and 1889-95 by three witnesses, allvery intimate with the Kamilaroi and Euahlay tribes," and that their information precedes by many years the appearance of missionaries.21 Likewise, Andrew Lang shows that A. L. P. Cameron, our chief informant on the "nations" of Itchumundi, Karamundi, and Barkingi and the author of a long description of the All-Father of these tribes,22 cannot be easily dismissed: indeed, he was accepted by Frazer as an authority for the totemic institutions of these tribes (cf. Totemism and Exogamy, I, 380-87). Again, Lang reproaches Frazer (ibid., p. 151) for quoting the opinion expressed by E. M. Curr in The Australian Race (I [London, 1886-871, 45) that the aborigines dress up what they have learned from missionaries "with a view to please and surprise the whites," without informing his readers that Howitt (Native Tribes, pp. 503-506) had "replied and crushed Curr." Indeed, Howitt had shown that the Kurnai were not exposed to missionary propaganda. To the contrary, Lang continues, "where missions have long settled, as among the Dieiri and the Southern Arunta, not the farthest ray of Gospel light was discovered by Spencer and Gillen among the Arunta, or by Howitt or his informants among the Dieiri. Howitt found only a daemon named Brewin among the Kurnai (see Kamilaroi and Kurnai [Melbourne, 18811) till he was initiated into their esoteric rites and doctrines." 2 3 Finally, Lang discusses Howitt's own ideas concerning the AllFathers. He reminds us that in 1881, while still uninitiated, Howitt knew nothing of this belief. In 1884-85 he wrote copiously and with some enthusiasm about it in thc Journal of the dnthropologiml Institute. He then spoke of the being as "the Supreme Spirit, who appears to me to represent the defunct headman." In 1904 Howitt lNative Tribes, p. 5031 renounced the idea that the All-Father is a spirit, but still regarded him as an idealization of a tribal "head-man," who had created the world or most of it, among
21 On Manning and Mrs. Parker, see also Lang, "Australian Gods," pp. 26 ff., 28 ff. A fresh analysis of their information was undertaken by Schmidt, Ursprung, I, 151-52 (Manning), 304 ff., 358 ff. (Mrs. Parker). 22 A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on Some Tribes of New South IVales," J A I , XIV (1885), 351 ff. 23 Lang, "God (Primitive and Savage)," p. 245a.

other wonderful works, and whose very name was tabued among men on earth except on the most sacred occasions. He "can go anywhere and do anything." In the same work Howitt rather watered down his expressions of 1884-85 [Lang, "God (Primitive and Savage)," p. 245al. Howitt was convinced that the belief in the All-Fathers "was a concomitant of social advance on the coast and in well-watered countries." But Lang reminds Howitt that "he had recorded the belief among tribes with the simplest and most archaic social organization . . . and among tribes as far removed from the sea and in conditions as unfavorable as the peoples of the Darling River and its hinterland7'(ibid.).And Spencer and F. J. Gillen had discovered the High Being Atnatu among the Kaitish tribe, in the arid and infertile center of Australia. On the contrary, no All-Father belief was identified by Spencer and Gillen among the Arunta, with their highly advanced social organization (but see below, pp. 126 ff. Andrew Lang quotes the lines in which Howitt admits that the All-Father "is evidently everlasting, for he existed from the beginning of all things, and he still lives. But in being so, he is merely in that state in which, these aborigines believe, everyone would be if not prematurely killed by magic" (Native Tribes, p. 503). But, Lang comments, only men can be killed, and not the All-Father, who existed before death entered the world. "In this being," continues Howitt, "although supernatural, there is no trace of a divine nature" (;bid.)-words that surprise Lang: No trace of a divine nature, he exclaims, "in a benevolent and everlasting creator, in several cases the dispenser of reward and penalty in the future life!" Howitt concludes that "it cannot be alleged that these aborigines have consciously any form of religion," because no sacrifice is offered and (except in very rare cases) no prayer is addressed to the All-Bather. And again Lang ironically reminds Howitt that he himself had discovered and described the worship of Daramulun.24
This controversy on the nature and structure of the Australian High Gods was entangled in a series of prejudices. The "evolutionist" scholars (Spencer, Frazer, Hartland, etc.) were convinced
24 I n the last section of this article (ibid.) Lang discusses the beliefs of the Arunta and Dieiri tribes, and especially their alcheringa heroes and mura-mura, who live in t,he sky and are called upon by the Dieiri for rain; for Lang this is a form of religion, because it implies prayers to a supernatural power.
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of the impossibility of a genuinely high religious conception among the Australian aborigines, for they were convinced of the aborigines' mental and spiritual inferiority. They found it impossible to believe that a "stone-age" man was capable of elaborating such a complex and "noble" figure as that of a Creator, an omniscient and ethical All-Father. This type of divine figure was expected only a t the apex of the religious evolution, not a t an early stage. As Hartland puts it: "As little . . . as the Australian theology do the precepts taught in the Australian mysteries, when carefully examined, yield evidence of anything higher than the state of savagery in which the natives are found."25 Moreover, there was also, a t least unconsciously, an implicit conviction of the religious, or "scientific," justification for the white man's conquest of the black fellow's continent. But similar, if not so gross, prejudices were a t work among the other party. Andrew Lang and his enthusiastic follower, Pater Wilhelm Schmidt, were equally "rationalists," though of another type. Lang thought that mythical creativity was somehow a sign of degeneration. Because he had discovered very few myths associated with the Australian All-Fathers, he thought that myth was secondary and ultimately disruptive of the highly ethical religious values. "Among the lowest known tribes we usually find, just as in Ancient Greece, the belief in a deathless 'Father,' 'Master,' 'Maker,' and also the crowd of humorous, obscene, fanciful myths which are in flagrant contradiction with the religious character of that belief. That belief is what we call rational, and even elevated. The myths, on the other hand, are what we call irrational and debasing." And he adds: "The religious conception uprises from the human intellect, in one mood, that of earnest contemplation and submission; while the mythical ideas uprise from another mood, that of playful and erratic fancy." 26 Now it is a characteristically and inveterately Western and rationalistic approach to separate "myth" from "religion" and to proclaim that this separation of "irrational" from "rational" elements can be justified by historical research: "in the beginning" archaic man disposed of a very simple, rational, and ethical "religion"; then the "playful and erratic fancy" intervened and spoiled everything. But fortunately a "good religion" can always reverse the process and purify itself by Entmythologisierung. As a matter of fact, the myth is the ground of religion. And nowhere
" "The 'High Gods' of Australia," p. 328.
26
Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, I (London, 1901), 6 5 .
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else is this situation more clearly illustrated than in Australia: we always find the myth at the beginning of religion-of any type of religion. It is true that the "All-Fathers" or Sky Beings have fewer myths than other Supernatural Beings, but this fact-which is attested throughout the entire history of religion-has another explanation than the "secondary character" of myth postulated by Lang. while Andrew Lang was writing his last article on the High Gods, Wilhelm Schmidt was completing the first volume of his monumental Ursprung der Gottesidee.27 By that time he had already acquired the prestige of a great linguist and ethnologist, and he had published an imposing number of books and monographs. He spared no pains in reading, analyzing, criticizing, and interpreting all the available materials on the Australian High Gods, with a view toward substantiating, correcting, and systematizing the ideas of Andrew Lang. He thought that he would be able to explain certain contradictionsin the data-and particularly the coexistence of "mythical" or "degraded" elements with the more elevated conceptions of the High Gods-in terms of various crosses between the High God beliefs and later religious creations. He applied the method of historical ethnology that had been elaborated by Fritz Graebner for the purpose of identifying different cultural and religious strata. A few years later Schmidt published in the third volume of Ursprung der Gottesidee a systematic presentation of the religious beliefs and customs of the southeastern Australians, covering almost six hundred pages.28 In his old age Wilhelm Schmidt complained that almost no one had read this kxhaustive monograph and that very few scholars had made use of his meticulous analysis and elaborate system of cultural stratification. This is true. And, unfortunately, it is true not only with regard to the first and third volumes of Ursprung der Gottesidee but also the other nine volumes. (The twelfth and last volume was published posthumously in 1955). The neglect of such a monument of learning-twelve thousand pages consecrated to the idea of God among the most archaic peoples!-is due to many
2 7 The work first appeared in French, between 1908 and 1910, in Anthropos, the new journal founded by Schmidt. The reprint also was circulated separately under the title L'Origine de l'idde de Dieu. Etude historico-critique et positive. Premidre partie: Historico-critique (Vienna, 1910; 316 pp. in 4"). The German text was published in 1912 (xxivf510 pp. in So), and a second, enlarged, edition appeared in 1926 (xl+ 832 pp.). 28 Ursprung, 111, the Australian materials, pp. 565-1114. Schmidt once again examines the southeastern Australian religious beliefs in Vol. VI of his Ursprung, entitled Bndsynthese der Religionen der Urvdlker Amerikas, Asiens, Australiens, Afrikas (Miinster, 1935, lii 593 pp); see s.v. "Australier." 118
causes, some of them decidedly unworthy of the work. (A great many ethnologists and historians of religion found it impossible to believe that a Roman Catholic priest would be able to write "objectively" about primitive religion; 29 others simply refused to read so many thousands of pages by the same author; others did not read German). But there are also more serious factors that help to explain the negligible impact of Ursprung der Gottesidee on contemporary scholarship. One is the author's rigid and excessive rationalism, his conviction not only that an Urmonotheismus existed but that he could prove its existence with the help of historical ethnology. Even more than Lang, Schmidt had attempted to identify Western conceptions of divinity among the "primitives." What he called Urmonotheismus was not merely the belief of the most archaic populations in One creative, omniscient, and omnipotent God; it was also an awareness of the idea of a Supreme Being, without myths and devoid of any anthropomorphic traits and weaknesses. Pater Schmidt asserted that the idea of the Supreme Being belongs to a religious stage preceding any mythological formulation.30 But such an assumption is in contradiction to everything that we know of homo religiosus in general and of primitive man in particular. A Supreme Being is always a primordial and creative Being, and "primordiality" and "creativity" are mythical thought structures par excellence. If, almost everywhere in the world, the mythologies of the Supreme Beings are not as rich as the mythologies of the other species of divine figures, it is not because such Supreme Beings belong to a premythological epoch but simply because their activity is somehow exhausted in the works that they do in the beginning. They are said to have created or shaped the world and man, to have founded the principal social institutions, and to have proclaimed the moral laws. Now, the story of this type of creation is rather simple and may appear monotonous in comparison with the more dramatic mythologies of other divine beings whose works and adventures took place after the cosmogonic period had come to an end (although, of course, these latter works and adventures were also represented as having taken place in the primordial, mythical time). TO give only one example: the fact that Bunjil, the Supreme
'9 Against this view, see the critical-but sympathetic-appraisal of Schmidt's work by Robert H. Lowie, T h e History of Ethnological Theory (New York, 1937), pp. 77 ff.; idem, Primitive Religion (Xew York, 1924), pp. 127-31, 167-69. 30 Already in his lecture "Die Mythologie der austronesischen Volker," Mittheilungen der anthropologische Uesellschoft i n W i e n , X X X I X (1909), 240-59; seep. 258. But Schn~idt repeated this view time and time again in his writings.
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Being of the Kulin, is represented in his myths as having a brother, sons, daughters, and one or sometimes even two wives constitutes, for Schmidt, evidence that we are not in this instance being confronted with the original Bunjil; we are dealing with the result of a series of cross-fertilizations from later cultural strata, each of them associated with a different type of mythology. According to Schmidt, Bunjil's brother reflects the influence of the lunar mythology characteristic of the Zweiklassenkulturen; his wives and children are the result of the crossing of lunar and solar mythologies characteristic of the Mischkulturen.31 What is implied here is, of course, the assumption that contact with "mythological thinking" (i.e., the lunar and solar mythologies) and with alien social structures (e.g., the Zweiklassenkultur) inevitably must produce a deterioration in the original representation of the Supreme Being. But the very notion of the deterioration of a noble and spiritual Figure because of his implication in "human" contradictions and behavior is an "enlightened" Western idea. I n a great many archaic and traditional cultures ("primitive" cultures, the Ancient Near East, India, etc.) "human" extravagances do not discredit the transcendental prestige of a deity. Furthermore, Schmidt's analysis of Bunjil's various "strata" is only a hypothetical reconstruction; it is not the description of a historical process; and it is certainly not the kind of hermeneutical work expected from a historian of religion. The historian of religion would have been expected to provide not only a hypothetical reconstruction of Bunjil (the passage from the "pure" Supreme Being to the Bunjil with the brother, wives, and children) but an interpretation of these religious changes-provided, of course, that such changes could be substantiated. The "anthropomorphic figuration" of a High Being does not necessarily imply the degeneration of an antecedent and elevated figure. It rather represents a modification of the means of expression, a new "incarnation" of a religious idea. Similarly, a theriomorphic divinity is not necessarily an inferior or a poorer religious form than an anthropomorphic one. Animals lost their numinous aura only late in the history of religions. For hundreds of thousands of years the animal forms were the expression par excellence of transcendent and sacral powers. I n sum, Wilhelm Schmidt was correct in trying to uncover and explain the historical changes in Australian religion; but his negative appraisal of these changes was an extrapolation, the product of his Western presuppositions.
31
See Ursprung, I, 342 ff., 371 ff.; 111, 674-75; etc.
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AUSTRALIAN HIGH GODS A N D THE WESTERN ZEITGEIST
But whatever might have been the limitations of Andrew Lang, Wilhelm Schmidt, and their respective followers, a t least they have the merit of having studied an important aspect of primitive religions in general and of Australian religions in particular. The conception of a High Being-no matter how different this High Being might have been from the Supreme Beings attested in other, more complex cultures-was a t least something which a great number of religions could be said to have in common. The distance between "primitives" and "civilized" man did not appear as an unbridgeable gap. But very soon after the publication of Lang's last article and the first volume of Ursprung der Gottesidee, the Western Zeitgeist changed, and the interest in the problem of High Gods faded out. Emile Durkheim's Les formes e'le'mentairesde la vie religieuse (1912), Sigmund Freud's Totem und Tabu (19 13), Lucien LBvy-Bruhl's Les fonctions mentales dans les socie'te's infe'rieures (1910) reoriented the attention of sociologists, psychologists, historians of religion, and cultivated readers toward totemism-particularly Australian totemism-and toward what LBvy-Bruhl called la mentalite' pre'logique. We need not enter into an elaborate discussionof their respective theses and hypotheses here.32 What is significant for our present discussion is the fact that, even though ethnologists have repeatedly criticized and rejected these hypotheses, the Zeitgeist of the post-World War I period seized upon Australian totemism as a central problem, significant not
See M. Eliade, "The History of Religions in Itetrospect: 1912-1962," Journal of Bible and Religion, X X X (1963), 98-109, esp. 99 ff. For Emile Durkheim, the Australian High Gods are dependent upon the system of totemic beliefs. Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil, and others seem to have been phratry totems that have been deified. According to Durkheim, this apotheosis took place through the initiation ceremonies; see T h e h'lementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain (1915; reprint, New York: Collier Rooks, 1961), pp. 329 ff. One must distinguish between Durkheim's pertinent analyses of certain aspects of Australian and other archaic religions, which are extremely valuable, and his general theory of the social origin of religion. This theory has been criticized and rejected by a majority of scholars. Rut the popular success of Durkheim's chef d'euvre is dut. primarily to his identification of religious experience with collective enthusiasm. This means, ultimately, that T h e Elementary Forms is more important for our understanding of Western mentality than for our appraisal of primitive religion. Durkheim's popularity foretold what was to break out in most Western societies within the next ten to fifteen years. As a matter of fact, T h e Elementary Forms prepared the Western reader to understand the forthcoming events of the first European war, the rise of nationalism, and the appearance of fascism and communism. In an individualistic and agnostic anticlerical France, Durkheim emphasized the religious nature of collective interests and enthusiasm. He prepared his readers to understand how the state, the social class, or the nation can become tremendous hierophanies. 2-H.O.R. 121
32

only for the origin of religion but for the origins of society and culture-and even of Western man's neuroses. The few but important works published after 1920 in which the Australian High Gods were competently discussed passed almost unnoticed. We have seen the fate of the first volumes of Schmidt's Ursprung der Gottesidee. I n 1922 Raffaele Pettazzoni brought out the first volume of his Dio. Formazione e sviluppo del monoteismo nella storia delle religion, subtitled L'Essere celeste nelle credenze dei popoli primitivi. He devoted a short but substantial chapter to the Australian High Gods and also discussed at length the ideas of Lang, Howitt, Schmidt, A. van Gennep, and other scholars. Pettazzoni, who had read Vico and who recognized the significance of mythical thought, rejected almost all of the previous interpretations.33 He did not doubt the authenticity of the Australian High Gods-not only because he had read all the important primary sources but also because he understood the figure of the High God as a product of mythical imagination. For Pettazzoni, the Australian (and other archaic) Supreme Beings are celestial gods; but ultimately they are mythical personifications of the sky and of the atmospheric phenomena (thunder, rain, rainbow, etc.) Other scholars,34 and even Schmidt, had described some of the Australian Supreme Beings as celestial gods.35 But Pettazoni insisted that a Sky Being has a naturistic structure mythically perceived: he not only lives in the sky but his activity i s the activity of the sky.36 As was to be expected, Schmidt criticized this interpretation sharply and repeatedly.37 His main objection was that the High God, being conceived as a person, could neither be derived from nor identified with, the sky. The discussion between the two scholars went on for the rest of their lives.38 I n one of his last
33 See Pettazzoni, op. cit., I , 43 ff. (Lang, S c h m i d t ) , 60 ff. ( a critical discussion o f A. v a n Gennep's Mythes et ligendes d'dustralie [Paris, 19061). V a n Gennep thought t h a t t h e Australian high gods are naturistic deities or, more precisely, thunder gods (dieux-tonnerre);see ibid., Introduction, p. cxvi. 34 K g . , Frobenius, I m Zeitulter des Sonnesgottes (Berlin, 1904), I , 7 3 f. f, o n Baiame; W . F o y ; T h . Preuss; Graebner; etc. (see Pettazzoni, op. cit., I , 64 f f . ) . 35 B u t Schmidt denied t h a t t h i s implies a personification o f t h e s k y ; see below, n . 37. 36 See Pettazzoni, op. cit., I , 67 ff., 355 ff., etc. Pettazzoni never published his projected second and third volumes o f Dio, t o b e devoted t o t h e "Supreme God i n t h e Polytheistic Religions" and t o t h e "Unique God i n t h e Monotheistic Religions" ( I , p. x v i ) . B u t i n 1955 h e brought o u t a n imposing monograph, L'Onniscienza d i 1)io (Torino);o n Australian High Gods, see pp. 507-12. 37 See, e.g., Schmidt's Ursprung, I , 270-73, 67&90; Anthropos, X X I (1926), 269-72; and T h e Origin and Growth of Religion, trans. H . J . Rose ( N e w Y o r k , 1931), pp. 209-14. 38 See, e.g., 1%. 'ettazzoni, "Monoteismo e 'Urmonoteismo' " (Studi e materiali d i I storia delle religioni, X I X - X X [1943-461, 170-77) and " D a s E n d e des U r m o n o theismus?" ( N u m e n , IT1 [1956], 156-59; N u m e n , V [1958], 161-63).
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articles, Pettazzoni recognized t h a t he was "now in partial agreement with Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt as t o the non-reducibility of the Supreme Being t o the Celestial Being." Nonetheless, he adds t h a t he is still of the opinion t h a t the Supreme Being "is not mainly the product of logico-causal thought, a s Schmidt holds, but rather t h a t this notion is the product of mythical thought." 39 B u t i t is only necessary for us t o read Pettazzoni's most recent works t o see t h a t he outgrew t h e main thesis of L'Essere celeste, namely, t h a t the primitive Supreme Beings are "personifications" of the sky. Pettazzoni's ideas were known and discussed only among a limited number of scholars. Probably a larger audience was acquainted with Graebner's last book, Das Weltbild der Primitiven, where t h e founder of historical ethnology sun~marizes views on his the Australian All-Father. About this "great creative God," Graebner writes : Generally there exists beside him another figure, powerful but subordinate, most frequently considered to be his son, but often as the primeval ancestor of mankind. Sometimes, for instance among the Kurnai, the great god has no wife, or only an invisible one; occasionally he has produced his son without having a consort. His principal attribute is that of creator, or first cause of, a t least, everything which is important for men; he is the first maker of the most important implements, as the boomerang; he is a magician whose power knows no bounds; he is the celestial chief. Knowledge of him is imparted to the youths a t their initiation, when they are received into the status of men; it is given them by the elders. . . . I t is moreover very important that the great god is considered not only as creator and maker of all things, but also as guardian of the tribal morality. It is of him that the legend is told how in the old days, when men had forgotten their good habits, he sent the conflagration and the flood to punish them. . . . As regards the nature and meaning of the great god, it must first be said that his existence completely satisfies the lively desire of the natives to know the cause of things. But Preuss is perhaps right in doubting that so abstract an idea as the first cause could have been capable, among primitive men, of producing a figure which is always so full of life. The god is of course also supposed to be the originator of the rites and magical practices by which man rules nature; and to this extent his existence ensures the continuance of the human race even now. . . . His pre-eminent significance and the vividness with which he has been developed are due, in this ancient culture, to another factor still, I mean the ethics. This god is the preserver, not only of the psychical, but above all of the social existence of man, and thus of his very essence."40
39 1%.'ettazzoni, "The Supreme Being: I'henomenological Structure and HisI torical Development," in M. Eliade and J. M. Kitagawa (eds.), T h e History of Religions, Essays in Methodology (Chicago, 1959), p. 60. JO F. Graebncr, U a s Weltbild der Primitiven (Munich, 1924), pp. 25-27, quoted by Schmidt, T h e Origin and Growth of Religion, pp. 247-48. Graebner published a
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HIGH GODS AND CULTURE HEROES
Graebner's account may be considered the last authoritative and positive account of the southeast Australian High Gods. By the beginning of this century, these tribes had lost their cultural autonomy, or even disappeared physically, and new research became almost impossible. On the other hand, the new generation of ethnologists has tended to regard the observations of earlier writers with soine suspicion. For example, in their great synthetical work The World of the First Australians, Ronald and Catherine Berndt seem to doubt even Howitt, who "went so far as to speak of an 'All Father.' " 4 1 The fact that in "most of southern Australia today it is no longer possible to check on such material" (The World of the First Australians, p. 202) has obliged the Berndts to let the religious beliefs of these populations pass almost unnoticed. I n 1943, a t Menindee, they were unable to obtain an articdlate Baiame myth. "He was still well known, but allusions to him were mainly in the context of initiation and magic, and to his appearance during certain rites" (ibid.). Even in an acculturated society, the secret cult of a High Being would seem to be the most resistant! 42 We must add that what, in the first quarter of the century, was called "All-Father," "High God," or "Supreme Being" is now being called, by some Australian ethnologists, "ancestral hero," "culture hero,"43 or "sky hero" and "sky culture hero" (Elkin). , . P. Elkin does not seem to be as skeptical as the Berndts in re4 gard to the earlier information about the Supreme Beings of southseries of articles, "Zur australischen Religionsgeschichte," in Globus, 96 (1909), 341 ff., 362 ff., 373 ff., in which he attempted to establish the chronology of the three distinct cultural areas that he had previously discovered. Graebner's research and his results, for obvious reasons, were ignored by Durkheim. See also Rudolph F. Lchmann, "Die Religionen Australiens und der Sudsee, 1911-1930," Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft, X X I X (1931), 139-86. 41 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, T'he World of the First Australians (Chicago, 1964), p. 202. Although Schmidt's Ursprung is quoted in the b~bliography,the authors do not discuss his ideas on Australian religion. * 2 From an old man, now dead-the last of his people to be initiated-the Berndts collected a rather complete myth of Ngurunderi (of the lower Murray River in South Australia). The authors call Ngurunderi an "ancestral hero." He behaves like one; his myths consist of a series of travels and adventures, during which he shaped the land and performed some metamorphoses. "Finally he dived into the sea to cleanse himself of his old life and went up into the sky: Waieruwar, the spirit world. But before disappearing, he told the Jaraldi people that the spirits of their dead would always follow the tracks he had made, and eventuallv join him in the sky-world" (ibid., p. 204). This last detail is important. Ngurunderi seems to represent a sky hero who preserved some traits of a celestial High Being. 43 See R. M. and C. H. Berndt, ibid., p. 141, with reference to Baiame and Daramulun.
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east Australia. I n speaking of Baiame, Daramulun, Nurunderi, Bunjil, etc., he asserts that they "bestowed on men their various items of material culture, gave them social laws, and above all, instituted the initiating rites. It is in the latter that the initiates first gain any real knowledge of him, and learn his secret name; even today civilized Aborigines will not breathe that name t o the outsider." 44 But Elkin calls Baiame, Daramulun, and the others "sky heroes." They see and know everything and live in the sky, "a place often pictured as possessing much quartz, crystal and fresh water." During his initiation the medicine man "can visit this sky land and see something of Baiame; and finally, the departed go there as they are entitled to do by reason of their initiation" (Aborigines,p. 224). The sky hero, Elkin continues, usually was referred to by the aborigines as "father" or "all-father," the bullroarer was his symbol, and "he was and is the sanction for essential laws, customs and rites" (ibid., p. 225). One can readily see that Elkin's presentation of the south Australian sky hero corresponds almost exactly to Howitt7s and Lang's description of the "All-Bather" and to Graebner's "great god." Most probably the eminent ethnologist hesitated to use these terms because of their ideological, and even theological connotations. As a matter of fact, Elkin's "sky hero" is a real god-in his opinion, a mystery-religion type of god: "As far as I can see the matter, and I have discussed it with initiates, this sky-hero corresponds to the hero of religious secret societies, the mysteries of which go back to the old mystery cults of a few thousand years ago, and with which I am prepared to believe that this cult is historically connected, by whatever incidents it was brought to the Australians" (ibid., p. 244). We shall not discuss here Elkin's hypothesis of the historical connection between the mystery cults and the Australian initiation.45 What is important for our endeavor is (1) that Elkin does not doubt the authenticity of the southeast Australian Sky Beings and ( 2 ) that he considers them to precede the totemic Heroes chronologically. Indeed, he writes: Initiation and the secret life spread all over Australia and though now in central and northern parts of Australia, the belief in the sky-hero of initiation has either ceased to exist or else has been pushed into t,hc
4 4 A. P. Elkin, The Australian Aborigines (hereinafter cited as "A6origine.s") (1938; 3d e d , 1954; reprint, New Y o r k : Doubleday & Co., 1964), p. 224. 45 So far as I know, Elkin has never rnade explicit what he rneant b y "the old rnystory cults o f a few thousand years ago." Eleusis? Hellenistic mystery religions? B u t at the center o f such mystery cults were "dying and rising gods," n o t " s k y
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background by the totemic heroes whose spirits are tied to the earth, yet a careful survey of the evidence suggests that initiation there, too, was possibly, in former days, a means of gaining knowledge of the skyhero and access to his world. In the north-west, the heroes who taught the natives how to make the bull-roarer, and who introduced initiation ceremonies, belong to the sky. I n an important and widespread Central Australian myth concerning incompletely formed beings, which I thirllc refers to an initiation rite performed on candidates, the hero and operator came from the sky.46 Other central Australian myths seem t o illustrate the same ontological a n d chronological sequence: Sky Beings-totemic Heroes. Already in 1904 Spencer a n d Gillen had described Atnatu, t h e Primordial Being of the Kaitish tribe (in central Australia, just north of the Aranda), as preceding the alcheringa times, t h a t is, the epoch of the "creation." Atnatu "arose u p in the sky in the very far back-past . . . H e made himself a n d gave himself a name." H e has wives a n d sons, the sons also being named Atnatu. Because certain of his sons neglected his sacred services, he expelled t h e ~ n from the sky. These sons came down t o earth a n d became the ancestors of men. Atnatu sent t o men "everything which the black fellow has." H e is described a s "a very great man, black," conducts sacred services in which the bull-roarers swing, a n d punishes those mortals who do not sound the bull-roarers a t the initiation ceremonies.47
heroos." Perhaps he was thinking of Mithra, the only mystery god who does not know death; but Mithra cannot bo classified among the "sky heroes" either. I n his book Aboriginal M e n of High Degree (Sydney, 1946), pp. 76-77, Elkin points out the sirnilaritios betwoon the parapsychological powers of tho Australian medicine man and tho feats of the Indian and Tibetan yogis. He is incliuod to accept a historical connection botwoon thorn (see Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 99 ff.). IVo shall roturn to this problem later. For the moment, lot us add that thoro aro also similaritios botweon tho medical ideas and practices of tho Australian medicir~o men and those of tho aboriginal tribes of India; so0 E. Droboc, "Hoilkundo bei derl Eingeboronon Australion," Wiener Beitriige zur Kulturgeschichte z ~ n dLingz~istik, I X (1952), 280-307; see p. 305. But such similaritios do not imply an influonce frorn tho Indian or Tibetan yogis. Elkin also compares the initiatory pattern of the Australian modiciue man to a mummification ritual attested in eastern Australia, which might represent a Melanesian influence (Aboriginal illen of High Degree, pp. 40-41). But Elkin is inclined to boliovo that Melanesian influenoos were boarors of ideas and techniques that had originated in highor culturos. I s Elkin connecting the initiation of the Australian modicino man with the Egyptian ritual of mummification? Such hypotheses would remind on0 of the "Egyptian diffusionism" of G. Elliot-Smith and W. J. Perry. I n any case, it is a n unwarranted hypothosis: the same pattern of initiation is to be found among the Siberians and North and South American shamans; so0 M. Eliado, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York, 1964). 4 6 Elkin, Aborigines, p. 224. 4 7 B. Spencer and F. J. Gillon, T h e Northern Tribes of Central Australia (Londo~i, 1904), pp. 498 ff. Elkin, Aborigines, p. 225, rightly observes that these aro the prototypo of the rites performod on earth.
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"Amongst the western Aranda and Loritja," Elkin writes, "the dream-time heroes are said in some myths to have had formerly associations with the sky-world and access to it by way of a mountain. The sky-hero, however, caused this to sink and so the dreamtime totemic heroes had to, remain on earth."48 This mythical tradition is important and deserves to be analyzed more closely. We shall utilize primarily the new information recently published by T. G. H. Strehlow.49 According to this author, it was believed in the Aranda-speaking areas that the earth and the sky had always existed and had always been the home of Supernatural Beings. The western Aranda believe that the sky is inhabited by an emu-footed Great Father (Knaritja), who is also the Eternal Youth (altjira nditja). He has dog-footed wives and many sons and daughters. "They lived on fruits and vegetable foods in an eternally green land, unaffected by droughts, through which the Milky Way flowed like a broad river; and the stars were their campfires. I n this green land there were only trees, fruits, flowers, and birds; no game animal existed, and no meat was eaten. All of these sky dwellers were as ageless as the stars themselves, and death could not enter their home." 50 The "reddish-skinned" Great Father of the sky is in appearance as young as his children.51 Strehlow then
Elkin, Aborigines, p. 225. T. G. H. Strohlow, "Porsonal Monototomisrn in a Polytotomic Community" (hereinafter citod as "Porsonal Monototomism"), Festschrqtjtir A d . E. Jensen, I1 (Munich, 1964), 723-54; see also his Aranda Traditions (Melbourne, 1947) and "La gcmollith de 1'8mo humaine," L a T o u r Saint-Jacques (Paris, 1957), No. 11-12 (Num6ro sp6cial sur la magie), pp. 14-23. Most of this information is already given, in a more condonsod form, in C. Strehlow's works; see n. 51. But wo prefer to follow T. G. H. Strohlow's presentation, if only for the fact that his first language was Aranda. 50 T. G. H. Strehlow, "Personal Monototemism," p. 725. 5 1 C . Strohlow found similar beliefs arnong the Kukatja (whom he calls "western Loritja") and Maturltara (whom he calls "southorn Loritja"); they spoko of a Sky Being with a wife and a small child. Gillen, too, reported that arnong tho eastern Aranda group of Alice Springs "the sky is said to bo inhabited by throe porsonsa gigantic man with an immense foot shaped like that of the ornu, a woman, and a child who novor dovolops beyond childhood" (quoted by T. G. H. Strehlow, "Personal Monototomism," p. 725). We do not have to take up the long discussion that followed C. Strohlow's discovory of the Sky Being Altjira among tho Aranda and of Tukura arnong the Loritja; soe C. Strehlow and M. von Loonhardi, Mythen, in Sagen und Marclten des Aranda-Stam,me.~ Zentral-Awstralien, Vols. I-IV (Yrankfurt a.M.: Voriiffentlichungen aus dem stadtisohen Viilker-Musoum, 1907-20). Sponcer der~ied that there wore such gods; he insisted that the Aranda spoko only of alcheringu, i.e., of tho mythical or "Droam Time." But it was soon realized that both afirrnations wore fundamentally correct and did not contradict each other (in spite of Spencer's refusal to accept the oxistonco of an Aranda Sky Being). As a matter of fact, C. Strohlow's Altjira is par oxcollonce the being of tho primordial, mythical "Droam Time," alcheringa. One can only regret Spencer's malicious statement that C . Strohlow's rnatorial "had to bo obtained orally from some of the old rnen who wore Christianized members of tho Mission" ( T h e A m n t a : A S t u d y of a Stone Age People, Vol. I [London, 19271, Proface, p. ix). T. G. H. Strehlow rightly
4*
49
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goes on: "Although I have not recorded any traditions about emufooted or dog-footed sky dwellers outside the Western Aranda territory, it is nevertheless true that everywhere in the Arandaspeaking area a firm belief was held that the power of death was limited to the earth, and that men had to die only because all connections had been severed between the sky and the earth." Strehlow reminds us that traditions about broken "ladders" have been found at many ceremonial sites. Among the lower southern Aranda there is a myth of a gigantic casuarina tree which, a t the beginning of time, stood a t a sacred site in the Simpson Desert and touched the sky with its topmost branches. A few miles away there was another casuarina tree which was ready to provide a suitable ladder for men to climb to the sky. But the tree was cut down by certain mythical personages, and the bridge between earth and sky was destroyed forever. There is also the myth of the two Ntjikantja brothers, already related by Strehlow in his Aranda Traditions: after pulling up the spear on which they had climbed into the sky, the brothers uttered a death curse upon the earth dwellers.52 The Ntjikantja brothers, like the sun, the moon, and the stars, emerged from the earth and wandered about on its surface doing the same sort of works as the other earth-born totemic ancestors. But while the majority of the totemic ancestors finally returned into the ground, those who rose into the sky took on celestial bodies and knew neither decay nor death. The Ntjikantja brothers turned into the Magellanic Clouds.53 For Strehlow, "it is clear that it would be impossible to regard the emu-footed Great Father in the sky of Western Aranda mythology as a supreme Being in any sense of the word; for neither he nor his family ever exerted any influence beyond the sky" ("Personal Monototemism," p. 726). Indeed, these Sky Beings did not create or shape the sky; nor did they bring into existence either plants, animals, men, or the totemic ancestors; nor did they inspire or control any of the ancestors' activities. I n sum, these Sky Beings
points out that his father's primary western Aranda informant was an exceptionally intelligent medicine man born about 1846, "whose prestige as an authority on the beliefs extended far beyond the Western Aranda area" and who "remained an inflexible champion of the old order throughout the years of C. Strehlow's stay at Hermannsburg" ("Personal Monototemism," pp. 723-24, n. 1; see ibid., the biographies of the other informants). 52 T. G. H. Strehlow, A r a n d a Traditions, p. 78. He gives the curse of the brothers: "You miserable death-doomed wretches, all of you must die now! YOU may never return from the earth while you are living, and you may never return after you are dead" (" Personal Monototemism," p. 726). 53 T. G . H. Strehlow, "Personal Monototemism," p. 726. 128
were not even interested in what happened on the earth. The evildoers had to fear not the Great Father of the sliy but the wrath of the totemic ancestors and the punishment of the tribal authorities (ibid.). All of the creative and meaningful acts were effected by the earth-born totemic ancestors. For this reason the myths and religious functions associated with these ancestors will detain us at length later on. From the perspective of History of Religions, the transformation of a Sky Being into a deus otiosus seems to have reached its farthest limits among the western Aranda. The next step could only be his falling into total and definitive oblivion. This probably did occur outside of the western Aranda territory, where Strehlow was not able to find any comparable beliefs in Sky Beings. But one can point out two characteristic traits even in this indifferent, otiose, and "transcendant" Great Father and Eternal Youth that range him among the Supreme Beings: ( 1 ) his immortality, his eternal youth, and his beatific existence; (2) his "ontological" and "chronological" precedence over the totemic heroes-he had been there in the sky for a long time before the emergence of the totemic ancestors from under the earth. Moreover, the religious significance of the sky is repeatedly proclaimed in the myths of the celestial immortality of those heroes who were able to ascend into heaven, in the mythical traditions about "ladders" or trees connecting heaven and earth, and especially in the widespread Aranda belief that death came into being only because the communications between earth and heaven had been violently interrupted. As is well known, similar beliefs are attested in many other archaic religions. The myth of a primordial communication with Heaven (through a Mountain, Tree, Ladder, Liana, etc.) and its subsequent interruption is related to the Ancestor's loss of immortality or of his original paradisal situation. A celestial Supreme Being is usually implicated in these fateful events. After the breaking of the communications between Heaven and Earth the God retires, becomes more or less a deus otiosus, and only a few privileged persons-shamans, medicine men, heroes-are able to ascend to heaven and meet him. Now, we do not know how much of this mythical theme was known to the Aranda. But the fact is that the religious prestige of heaven did continue to survive, particularly in the notion that immortality belongs to the celestial bodies and Sky Beings. Noting that in Kaitish mythology "the sky-being existed before this dream-time," Elkin surmises: "This possibly represents the
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historical sequence in that area and indeed in all the central, northern and north-western regions. Initiation was a t first admission to the beliefs and rites connected with the sky-hero, but later it included also admission into cult-totemism with its myths of the dream-time heroes, which in many tribes, as far as our knowledge goes, ultimately overshadowed the former belief and associations."54 This would imply that at one time the Sky Being beliefs were more widely diffused in Australia. Their disappearance or transformation follows the general pattern of the withdrawal of a celestial deus otiosus and his eventual and final oblivion. But what is important here is that the religious function of the Dream Time heroes (or totemic ancestors) becomes equivalent to that of the Sky Beings. As Elkin remarks: "Just as in central or north-western Australia, to say a custom is altjira, djugur, ungud, etc., that is, dreaming, is to give it final and unimpeachable authority, so in eastern Australia, to say of a custom, 'Baiame say SO' is to provide the same kind of sanction. Finally, the myths in which the skyhero figures, perform the same aetiological, historical, and sociological function as do those of the dream-time heroes, and through their representation in symbol and rite, entry is gained to the sacred, life-giving world-but this time it is in the sky." 55
1Ve shall return to this functional equivalence between the models revealed in the "dreaming period" and the injunction of the type "Baiame say so." For the moment, let us examine two other celestial Supreme Beings and their actual roles in the religious life of their respective tribes. The BLd, of the West Kimberley, revere a Supreme Being called Djamar. He has no father; but we do know the name of his mother. Djamar never married. It is said that he "walks with a dog."56 One of Worms' informants told him: "Djamar made all things . . . He is living in the salt-water under a rock. Where the sea is bubbling there Djamar lives."57 But this means only that Djamar's first bull-roarer (tjuringa, called by the Bad galaguru) is still there, under the foam of the breakers. The young initiates are led to the stony bed of the creek and are shown
Ellrin, Aborigines, p. 225. Zbid., pp. 225-26. Elkin specifies that "the two sets of beliefs co-existed not onlv in Central Australia but also on the north coast of New South Wales" (p. 226, n. 4). 5 6 E. A. Worms, "Djamar, the Creator," Anthropos, XLV (1950), 643-58; see p. 650. 57 Zbid., p. 655.
54
55
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the holes where Djamar had planted his bull-roarer. "Earnestly the old men impress on the youths the terrible force of the original tjuringa, by pointing out the baldness of the surrounding hills and the damaged bark of the trees struck by Djamar when he whirled the bull-roarer. It smashed the rocks of the foreshore" ("Djamar, the Creator," p. 643). After these events Djamar ascended to the sky, together with his tjuringa. From there "he watches the people and gives them the native law which we call Djamarcc-mara. He sees when a man kills another with a spear or boomerang" (ibid., p. 650). Nevertheless, despite his ascension, Djamar "remains in Ngamagun Creek, and in all places where his engraved galaguru are preserved. These are carefully hidden by the natives in hollow trees near the silent water pools of their tribal country" (ibid., p. 643). The myth of Djamar is revealed during the initiation ceremonies. On this occasion the old men go into the forest searching for the tree under which Djamar rested in the mythical times. (And once again we note how, through the ritual, the mythical time is reactualized and the original tree is made present.) From this tree the bull-roarers of the new initiates will be prepared.58 Djamar's nature as a High Being is also reflected in his relations to Culture Heroes. One of these Culture Heroes, Nalgabi, carried Djamar's galaguru to a neighboring tribe. Djamar walked with another Hero, Marel, to a certain place, where Mare1 remained and where he still lives. "Mare1 makes the secret songs, but for men only. He watches the young initiated men and teaches them the law of Djamar" (ibid., p. 650). Another Culture Hero, Minan, made dances and the smooth black stone axes. He now lives a t a certain place in Beagle Bay. "Djamar orders Mare1 and Minan. He is their boss" (p. 650). Finally, another Hero, Ninj, was told by Djamar to make fish traps out of sticks and stones. "He got his job from Djamar." 59 Thus it would seem that Djamar can be compared to the southeastern Supreme Beings: he is creator, he revealed the moral laws, he charged a certain number of Culture Heroes with the task of civilizing the Bad and supervising their religious ceremonies; finally he ascended to the sky, and from there he still watches men's behavior. The only aspect of this complex that is not clearly attested
58 Ibid., pp. 650 ff. On the BBd initiation, see E. A. Worms, "Initiationsfeiern," A n n u l i Lateranensi, I1 (1938), 179-80; idem, "Religiose Vorstellungen und Kultur einiger nordwestaustralischer Stiimme in fiinfiig Legenden," A n n a l i L a t e ~ a n e n s i , Vol. IV (1940). 59 Worms, "Djamar the Creator," p. 650; see also E. A. Worms, "Djamar and His R,elation to Other Culture Heroes," Alathropos, XLVII (1952), 539-560,
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among the southeastern High Gods is Djamar's relation to the tjuringa. Formally, this tjuringa is a "pictograph or metaphorical record on wood.'' Some of the incised marks represent Djamar himself, others figure objects used by him, or lesser Supernatural Beings. Only an initiate can "read" the drawings correctly. But the galaquru is not only a symbol of Djamar; it is also a replica of the original bull-roarer that Djamar deposited under the rock of Ngamagun. Now, that original bullroarer also exists in the sky. This would seem to imply that Djamar is that original galagurzi (see ibid., p. 650). The notion that a divine being is embodied in his tjuringa reminds us of the identification between the mythical Heroes (Ancestors) and specific tjuringa which is characteristic of the central Australian tribes-a conception we shall discuss later. For the moment it is important for us to emphasize the mystical plurality of Djamar's bodies. As Worms points out, "wherever today an authorized replica of this galaguru is carved, carried or stored, there Djamar and his original location of Ngamagun is occasioned again. There his personal presence is obtained, repeated and multiplied. 'We cannot carry that rock to this place. Therefore we make this djidi (i.e. tjuringa)-and Djamar is here,' " said one of Worms' informants.60 We can surmise that Djamar was able to conserve his religious actuality particularly because of the ritual importance of the galaguru, which can be considered his "mystical body." The initiation consisted of the communication of Djamar's myths and the disclosure of his identity both with the celestial galaguru and with the primordial one buried under the rock a t Ngamagun. Our second example is taken from the Murinbata, a tribe of western Arnhem Land studied carefully and at great length by W. E. H. Stanner. The pattern of the Murinbata religious life is constituted by a series of events that took place in the "dreaming period." But there are also a number of "pure spirits" whose religious prestige is independent of that prodigious mythical period. The most eminent among them is Nogamain, "a sky-dweller, who lived (according to some) 'of his own will' or 'in his own fashion'and alone, except for a dog, with 'no father, no mother, no brother, no child'; but (according to others) with a wife and son, the son being symbolized by a hunting spear. It was supposed to be Nogamain's influence a t work, through his son, if a hunter killed a kangaroo or wallaby with one throw of a spear." 61 According to
VI," Oceania, XXXIII (1963), 239-73; see p. 264 (also: Oceania Monograph No. 11, reprint, p. 162).
60 Worms, "Ujamar, the Creator," p. 657. 61 W. E. H. Stanner, "On Aboriginal Religion,
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Stanner, some people identified Nogamain with the man in the moon. Others were not so sure; when asked of his abode, they raised their arms toward the whole sky and said a single word: "on high." Thunder and lightning were attributed to "the people of Nogamain." He was also responsible for sending spirit children; Stanner heard many times: "Nogamain sends down good children." 13ut he also received the same information about other "pure spirits." The most important cultic act was the prayer for food in case of distress; one of Stanner's oldest informants remembered that, as a child, he had heard the oldest men "calling out to Nogamain a t night when they lay in camp short of food" ("On Aboriginal Religion," p. 264). I n Nogamain we have a clear example of a celestial god in the process of being supplemented by other Figures (Hunmanggur and Kukpi also send the spirit children) and on the point of losing his religious actuality (only one of the oldest informants remembered, from his childhood, the prayer of the oldest men). The discrepancies and contradictions between various descriptions of Nogamain, as remarked by Stanner, are an indication of his progressive religious irrelevance. I n comparison with the Great Father of the western Aranda, Nogamain still preserves a certain religious actuality: for example, he cares for men. But unlike Djamar-or, we can surmise, Atnatu of the Kaitish-he does not play any important role in the initiation ceremonies.
TWO KINDS OF "PRIMORDIALITY"
But apparently the irrelevance, the vagueness, or the absence of a celestial High Being does not modify the pan-Australian pattern of the religious life. As Elkin puts it: to say that a custom is altjira, "dreaming," is the same as to say of a custom: "Baiame say so." Elkin rightly insists on the chronological anteriority of the Sky Beings as compared with the Culture (or Totemic) Heroes. As we know, the same opinion was held by Lang, Graebner, and Schmidt. But what is important in this process is that the religious function of the primordial and primordiality remains the same. Whatever the context may be-supernatural Sky Gods, Culture Heroes, Wondjina or Ungud (to be discussed in our next articles)-the primordial mythical time has an overwhelming significance. Only that which was effected in illo tempore is real, meaningful, exemplary, and of inexhaustible creativity. Among the western Aranda we noted a passage from what might be called a "speculative" primordial time-the epoch of the celestial, eternal Great Father133

to a primordial time rich in existential values, the fabulous epoch of the "dreaming" when the totemic ancestors (or Culture Heroes) shaped the world, created the animals, and completed and civilized man. The "primordiality" of the Great Father was not of immediate relevance to the Aranda's existence; once the communication with heaven had been interrupted and death had come into the world, it was not very helpful to know about the immortality of Altjira's family or of those who had ascended to heaven. The only "immortality" accessible to the Aranda and to other Australian tribes was the reincarnation, the perennial return to life of the primordial Ancestors-conceptions we shall take up in a futnre article. Thus it seems as if the pattern of Australian religions implies the substitution of a "primordial" directly related to the human condition for the "primordial" preceding this condition. Such a process is known in other religions too; we might refer, for example, to the "primordiality" of Tiamat and the passage to the creative primordial epoch represented by the victory of Marduk, the cosmogony, anthropogony, and the founding of a new divine hierarchy. Or we might compare the primordiality of Ouranos with the establishment of Zeus' supremacy-or point to the passage from the almost forgotten Dyaus to Varuna and later still to the consecutive supremacies of Indra, Shiva, and Vishnu.62 What is significant in this substitution of an "existential" primordiality for a "speculative" one is that this process represents a more radical incarnation of the sacred in life and human existence. We shall have an opportunity to illustrate this process when we examine the coming into being of the Aranda totemic Ancestors and the myths of the Australian Culture Heroes. The abundance of embryological imagery is not without a profound religious meaning. I t is as if the entire grandiose cosmogonic drama were being interpreted in terms of procreation, pregnancy, embryonic existence, and obstetric operations. But none of these fabulous events is either "human" or "profane" in nature. They are primordial, creative, exemplary, and thus religious acts. Ultimately they represent mysteries which only the fully initiated men will be able to grasp.
62 See also the discussion of a similar problem by Charles H. Long, "The West f African High God: History and Religious Experience," History o Religions, 111 (Winter, 1964), 328-42.
[ T o be continued]
MirceaEliade
AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS: AN INTRODUCTION
P A R T 11*
For the Australians, as well as other primitive societies, the world is always "their own world," that is to say, the world in which they live and whose mythical history they know. Outside this familiar cosmos lie amorphous, unknown, dangerous lands, peopled by mysterious and inimical ghosts and magicians. The aborigines dread an adventure, even in numbers, into unknown territories.1 These strange lands do not belong to their "world" and consequently still partake of the uncreated mode of being. Yet even the most arid and monotonous landscape can become a "home" for the tribe when it is believed to have been "created" or, more exactly, transformed by Supernatural Beings. Giving shape to the land, the Supernatural Beings a t the same time made it "sacred." The present countryside is the result of their work, and they themselves belong to a realm of being different from that of men. These Primordial Beings, moreover, not only molded the landscape; they also inserted in some places "spirit children" and "spirits" of various animals, brought forth from their own bodies. The epoch when the Supernatural Beings appeared and began
* This is the second of a series of articles on "primitive" religions. I am grateful to my former student, Miss Nancy Auer, for her care in correcting and stylistically improving the text. 1 A. P. Elkin, The A?~stralian Aborigines (3d rd., 1954; reprint, New York; Doublrdsy & Co., 1964), pp. 38 ff., 49 ff.
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to transform the world, wandering across immense territories, producing plants and animals, making man as he is today, giving him his present institutions and ceremonies-this epoch was the "Dream Time" or, as some authors call it, the "Eternal Dream Time" or just "Dreaming." This mythical time is "sacred" because it was sanctified by the real presence and the activity of the Supernatural Beings. But like all other species of "sacred time," although indefinitely remote, it is not inaccessible. It can be reactualized through ritual. Moreover, it constitutes "a kind of charter of things that still happen, and a kind of logos or principle of order transcending everything significant for aboriginal man."2 Or, as Ronald and Catherine Berndt put it, "the mythological era ... is regarded as setting a precedent for all human behavior from that time on. It was the period when patterns of living were established, and laws laid down for human beings to follow."3 Everything which fully exists-a mountain, a water place, an institution, a custom-is acknowledged as real, valid, and meaningful because i t came into being in the beginning. I n a previous article we discussed the works of "creation" effected by the Sky Gods of the southeast Australian tribes; we also pointed out traces of a similar type of celestial divine Being in other parts of the continent. I n southeast Australia, the origins are dominated by the creative activity of the Sky Gods ("All-Fathers"). We shall now examine a t some length other Australian conceptions of the beginnings, in order to discover what type of Supernatural Beings dominated such fabulous, creative epochs.
THE AR-4NDA MYTH O F ORIGINS
According to the Aranda, the earth in the beginning was like a desolate plain, without hills or rivers, lying in eternal darkness. The sun, the moon, and the stars were still slumbering under the earth. There existed no plants or animals, only semi-embryonic masses of half-developed infants, lying helplessly at places which
2 W. E. H. Stanner, "The Dreaming," in T. A. G . Hungerford (ed.), Australian Signposts (Melbourne, 1956) pp. 51-65 (reprinted in William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, Reader i n Co~nparative Religion [New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 19581, pp. 513-23; see p. 514). 3 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 188, cf. ibid., p. 187, for a list of Australian terms for "Dreaming." We have analyzed the structure and meaning of the necessity t o relate all human behavior to paradigmatic precedents in our Myth of the Eternal Return (English trans., New York: Pantheon Books, 1954, reprinted as Cosmos and H i s t o ~ y :The Mgth of the Eternal Retq~rn[New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 19591).
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i4ustralian Religions: An Introduction

were later to become salt lalies or water holes. These shapeless infants could not develop into individual men and women-but neither could they grow old or die. Indeed, neither life nor death was known on earth. "Only below the surface of the earth did life already exist in its fulness, in the form of thousands of untreated supernatural beings that had always existed: but even these were still slumbering in eternal sleep."4 Finally these Supernatural Beings awakened from their sleep and broke through the surface of the earth. Their "birthplaces" were impregnated with their life and power. As the Sun too rose out of the ground, the earth was flooded with light. The Supernatural Beings that "had been born out of their own eternity" (altjirana nambakala) had various shapes and appearances. Some rose in animal forms, like kangaroos or emus; others emerged as perfectly formed men and women. "In most of these supernatural beings there was an indivisible linking between elements found in animals (or plants) on the one hand and in humans on the other. Those beings that loolied like animals, for instance, generally thought and acted like humans; conversely, those in human form could change a t will into the particular animal with which they were indivisibly linked."5 These Supernatural Beings, commonly designated "totemic Ancestors," began to wander on the surface of the earth, giving t h r central Australian landscape its actual physical features. Some of them assumed the functions of "Culture Heroes." They "sliced massed humanity into individual infants, then slit the webs between thcir fingers and toes, and cut open their ears, eyes and months" (Strehlow, "Personal Monototemism," p. 728). Other Culture Heroes taught men how to make tools and fire and to cooli food. When all these earthborn Supernatural Beings had accomplished their labors and completed their wanderings, "overpowering weariness fell upon them. The tasks that they had performed had taxed their strength to the utmost" (ibid.,p. 728). Thus they sank back into their original slumbering state,6 and "their bodies either vanished into the ground (often a t the site where they had first emerged) or turned into rocks, trees, or
4 T. U. H. Strehlow, "Personal Jlonototemism in a Polytotemic Community" (hereinafter cited as "Prrsonal Xonototemism), Festschrift fiir A d . I<. Jcnsen, 11 (Munich, 1964), pp. 723-54; see p. 727. 5 ICirL., p. 727. This is, of c.ourse, a widely spread conception among the archaic Iluntcrq. G But, although resting in perpetual slnnlber, the) were aware of what went on on the earth (ibid.,p. 741).
tjurunga objects. The sites which marked their final resting places were, like their birthplaces, regarded as important sacred centres, and were called by the same name---pmara kutata. Both kinds of pmara kutata could be approached only by initiated men, and only on special ceremonial occasions. At all other times they were places that had to be avoided on pain of death" (ibid.,p. 729). The disappearance of the Supernatural Beings put an end to the mythical age, whichrat least in the case of the Aranda-had a somehow paradisal character. Indeed, the Ancestors "were free from the multitude of inhibitions and frustrations that inevitably obstruct all human beings who are living together in organized communities. Nor were they accountable for their actions to any superior Power. For they were personages living in a world where the human notions of good and evil had but a shadowy meaning: they wandered around 'beyond the borders of good and evil,' as it were."7 This does not mean, however, that they were completely beyond all moral laws. T. G. H. Strehlow recalls certain myths showing that criminal acts did not remain unpunished.8 These primordial personages had a specific mode of being which, though different from that of men as they now exist, nonetheless constitutes its source and model. This is the reason for the immediate, "existential" interest of the Ancestors' myths for the Aranda-and also for their indifference to the Sky Beings. Indeed, unlike the Sky Beings, the Primordial Ancestors were subject to ageing and decay. But, unlike present-day men, they were immortjal;even those who were "killed" by other totemic Ancestors have continued to live in the form of tchurungas. Nonetheless, before they finally sink into the earth, death has bekn brought into the world through some of their acts. Thus the first men come into existence in a world of labor, pain, and death.9 But the "life" that is left behind by the Ancestors throughout the land assures continuity with the fabulous past. And what we call "religion" and religious activity is just that corpus of traditional techniques and
7 Ibid., p. 729. Cf. also T. G. H. Strehlow, A r a n d a Traditions (Melbourne, 1947), pp. 30 ff. on "the Golden Age" of the totemic Ancestors. 8 Indeed, "there existed some indefinably nameless Force which was capable of bringing about the final downfall of even the most powerful supernatural beings that had believed themselves superior in strength to all possible opponents" (Strehlow, "Personal Monototemism," p. 729). "bid., p. 729. Cf. Strehlow, A r a n d a Traditions, pp. 42 ff., for the myth of the origin of death. The first dead had begun to emerge slowly from his grave when Urbura, the magpie, thrust a heavy spear into his neck and stamped him back into the ground with his hcel, shouting: "remain rooted down firmly for all time; do not attempt to rise again; stay forever in the ground!"
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rituals by means of which the contemporary Aranda succeeds in keeping himself in communication with the mythological past of his tribe. As a matter of fact, this "communication with the mythical past" begins with the conception of every present-day man, that is, when the fetus receives the minute part of his totemic Ancestor's "life" that constitutes his "immortal" soul. As Strehlow has recently pointed out, the Aranda believe that every human being possesses two souls: the first, the mortal soul, comes into being with the fetus, as a result of intercourse between the parents; the second soul, a particle of the Ancestor's "life," is received by the pregnant woman. It is this second, immortal, soul that gives his physical characteristics to the individual and also creates his p. entire personality (ibid., 730). Thus one can say that every new conception also reiterates the primordial activity of the Ancestors: in the beginning, they found an amorphous, prehuman mass which they transformed into real human beings; after the disappearance of the Ancestors, particles of their "life" (i.e., immortal souls) penetrate the fetus (which is animated by the mortal souls) and actually create the complete man. What is striking in this description of Strehlow's is the singular, one might almost say extravagant, mode of being of the Aranda's mythological Ancestors. Their ontological structure gives them a special place among the many types of Supernatural Beings known to the historian of religions. They are different from the celestial gods, although like them they are uncreated and immortal. Moreover, some of the earthborn Supernatural Beingsthe Sun, Moon, and others-are said to have ascended to heaven and become planets and stars. This means that the earthborn "immortals" were able to become celestial immortals; they had only to climb to heaven. I n the first article of this series we recalled certain traditions about such "climbing to heaven": in the beginning, communication with heaven was possible and even easy (by climbing a tree, a liana, a ladder); another myth clearly connects the origin of death to an interruption of the traffic between earth and heaven: two mythical Ancestors who had climbed to heaven afterward pulled up the spear and pronounced a death curse upon men (ibid., pp. 725-26). Thus one can say of the Aranda reports that there were originally three classes of Beings, all of them uncreated and immortal: (1) the celestial gods in heaven; (2) the Primordial Beings under the earth; (3) the Primordial Proto-Men on the earth. They are different in that the
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last two classes of Beings have passed through an indefinite period of slumbering; moreover the last, the Primordial Proto-Men, although uncreated, knew only an "embryonic" immortality: when they truly became men through the anatomical operations performed by certain Culture Heroes, they lost their original condition of indefinite virtuality. The ontological originality of the totemic Ancestors is further emphasized by the fact that, though immortal, they were exhausted by their creative works and sank again under the earthfrom where, strangely enough, they nevertheless can see and judge man's deeds. Moreover, as we shall see, they could be "killed" by men (of course, mythological, primordial men) and, as a result of this murder, a t least a part of them (their "spirits") ascended to heaven and became celestial bodies and phenomena.10 Another characteristic of their mode of existence is their multiplicity and their simultaneous presence on the earth.11 An Ancestor exists simultaneously: ( a ) under the earth, (b) in various cosmic and ritual objects (rocks, waterfalls, tchurungas, etc.), ( c ) as "spirit children," and finally as (d) the man (or men) in which he is presently reincarnated. Now, it is a characteristic of religious thought in general, and of archaic thinking in particular, that Supernatural Beings are conceived as singular and unparalleled solutions of the unity-multiplicity problem. But what seems to be peculiar to the Australians is the mysterious connection between their land (i.e., mystical geography), the mythical history of that land (i.e., the deeds of the Ancestors), and man's responsibility for keeping the land "living" and fertile. All of this will become clearer as we proceed in our investigation. But we can already perceive that the ontological structure of the Primordial Beings (the mythical Ancestors) is so complex-more complex, for example, than that of the Sky Being (who is, in fact, a Supreme
10 Other myths tell how Primordial Beings climbed to Heaven by means of a lance and ultimately became celestial bodies. Cf. M. Eliade, "Notes on the Symbolism of the Arrow," to appear in the Festschrift for Erwin Goodenough. 11 "The body of the Ulamba ancestor is shown a t many points of the route he once travelled: the main peak of Ulamba, the rock from which he sprang into life, the sharp hill near the mountain pass south of Ulamba, the great boulder which forms the lower portion of the Ulamba sacred cave, and many other rocks elsewhere, are, each one individually, stated to be 'the body of the Ulamba ancestor.' I n addition, there is a tjuringa of him a t Ulamba, and others in different storehouses, and the natives still would not have been troubled even for a moment by their number. The body of the tjilpa chief Malbanka is (or was) to be found, as far as I know, in form of a tjuringa in each one of the main caves which are to be found along the far-flung trail which he and his sons once travelled (Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, pp. 28-29).
2-H.o.R.
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Being becoming a deus otiosus)-because they are involved in or incarnate the mysteries of life and fertility, of death and rebirth.
NUMBAKULLA AND THE SACRED POLE
To understand better the paradigmatic creativity of these Primordial Beings, we shall discuss a few examples. In general the myths represent the Ancestors as powerful and creative. They can fly above and walk beneath the earth. They travel everywhere, performing sacred ceremonies and depositing "spirit children" in the ground or in various natural features. But their myths are seldom exuberant or dramatic. For example, Spencer and Gillen tell the following story of Numbakulla, whose name means "always existing" or "out of nothing." (This is one of the Supernatural Beings discussed by Strehlow [see p. 210 above], called altjirana nam,baliala, "born out of their own eternity"). According to the traditions of the Achilpa, one of the Aranda groups, Numbakulla arose "out of nothing" and traveled to the north, making mountains, rivers, and all sorts of animals and plants. He also created the "spirit children" (kuruna), a very large number of whom were concealed inside his body. Eventually he made a cave or storehouse, to hide the tchurungas that he was producing. At that time men did not yet exist. He inserted a kuruna into a tchurunga, and thus there arose the first Achilpa (mythical) Ancestor. Numbakulla then implanted a large number of kuruna in different tchurunga, producing other mythical Ancestors. He taught the first Achilpa how to perform the many ceremonies connected with the various totems. Now, Numbakulla had planted a pole called Kauwa-auwa in the middle of a sacred ground. (A representation of this pole, made from the trunk of a young gum tree, is erected on the ceremonial ground during the long series of initiation rites known as the Engwura). After anointing it with blood, he began to climb it. He told the first Achilpa Ancestor to follow him; but the blood made the pole too slippery, and the man slid down. "Numbakulla went on alone, drew up the pole after him and was never seen again. "12
12 Sir Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Arunta. A Study of Stone Aqp People (London, 1927), I , 355 ff., esp. p. 360. Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, p. 78, quotes the west and south Arande myth of the Ntjikantja Ancestors: the two brothers ascended into the sky by climbing up a tall spear (cf. above, p. 212). Spencer and Gillen, op. eit., pp. 307 ff., relate another myth: the two Numbakulla made men from a living, embryonic substance (inapatna). Such a "Creation" of 214
This pole is charged with important symbolism and plays a central role in ritual. The fact that Numbakulla disappeared into the sky after climbing it suggests that the kauwa-auwa is somehow an axis mundi which unites heaven and earth. Elsewhere, and particularly in the oriental cultures and the areas under their influence, the axis mundi (conceived as a pillar, a tree, a mountain, etc.) actually constitutes a "center of the world." This implies, among other things, that i t is a consecrated place from which all orientation takes place. I n other words, the "center" imparts structure to the surrounding amorphous space. Both the Achilpa myth and the actual ceremonial use of the pole illustrate very well this double function of communication with heaven and means of orientation. The myth relates in seemingly endless detail the wanderings of the first Achilpa Ancestors after the disappearance of Numbakulla. They traveled continuously, in small groups, carrying out ceremonies, circumcising the young men, occasionally leaving one of them behind. When these mythical groups performed the Engwura rituals, the kauwa-auwa "was always erected and made to lean in the direction in which they intended to travel."l3 I n other words, the sacred pole helped them to chart the unknown space into which they were preparing to adventure. One day an accident befell one of these mythical groups: while pulling up the kauwa-auwa, which was very deeply implanted, the old chief broke it just above the ground. They carried the broken pole until they met another group. They were so tired and sad that they did not even try to erect their own kauwa-auwa "but, lying down together, died where they lay. A large hill, covered with big stones, arose to mark the spot."l4 Seldom do we find a more pathetic avowal that man cannot live without a "sacred center" which permits him both to "cosmicize" space and to communicate with the transhuman world of heaven. So long as they had their kauwa-auwa, the Achilpa Ancestors were never lost in the surrounding "chaos." Moreover, the sacred pole was for them the proof par excellence of Numbakulla's existence and activity.
man by the metamorphosis of a prehuman element is indicated in the symbolic designs of the tchurungas; cf. L. Adam, "Anthromorphe Darstellungen auf australischen Ritualgeraten," Anthropos, LIII (1958), 1-50; see pp. 36 ff. 13 Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., p. 382. On the ceremonial pole, cf. Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, pp. 77 ff. 1 4 Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., p. 388. For the meaning of this myth and its related ritual, cf. Ernesto de Martino, "Angoscia territoriale e riscatto culturale nel mito Achilpa delle origini," Studi e Materiali d i Storia delle Religioni, XXIII (1952), 52-66. 215

THE MYTH O F BAGADJIMBIRI
The creative deeds of such mythological heroes are equivalent to a cosmogony. The world came into being as a result of their work. I n some cases, the cosmogonic character of the Dream Time activity is quite evident. This is true, for example, of the mythology of the Karadjeri tribe, which centers around the two brothers Bagadjimbiri. Before their appearance there was nothing a t allneither trees, nor animals, nor human beings. The brothers arose from the ground in the form of dingos, but they later became two "human" giants, their heads touching the sky. They emerged from the earth just before twilight on the first day. When they heard the cry of a little bird (duru) that always sang a t that time, they knew i t was twilight. Previously they had known nothing a t all. The two brothers subsequently saw all kinds of animals and plants and gave them names. That is to say, from that moment, because they had names, the animals and plants began to really exist. Next the brothers saw a star and the moon and named them also. Then the Bagadjimbiri went toward the north. On their journey they encountered men and women without genital organs, and the brothers provided them with organs made from a species of mushroom. They threw a pirmal (a long stick) a t an animal and killed it; the Karadjeri found the stick and have performed the same act ever since. The two brothers founded the initiation ceremonies and utilized for the first time the ritual instruments: a stone circumcision knife, the bull-roarer, and the long pirmal. They saw a snake and sang the song for the production of snakes. Then they differentiated the dialects. The two Bagadjimbiri had a great deal of hair, some of which they pulled out and gave to every tribe. (Thus every tribe now possesses a corporeal particle of the Heroes.) But a certain man killed the brothers with a spear. Their mother, Dilga, who was far away, detected the odor of corpses upon the wind. Milk streamed forth froin her breasts and flowed underground to the place where the brothers lay dead. There it gushed like a torrent, drowning the murderer and reviving the two brothers. The two Bagadjimbiri later transformed themselves into water snakes, while their spirits became the Magellanic Clouds.15
Ralph Piddington, "Karadjeri Initiation," Oceania, 111 (1932-33), 46-87; idem, An Introdnction to Social Anthropology (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1950), pp. 91-106. The murder of Bagadjimbiri may be connected with another Australian
216
This myth constitutes the foundation of all Karadjeri life. During initiation the ceremonies instituted by the two Bagadjimbiri are re-enacted, although the meaning of some of the rituals is no longer clear to the aborigines. This mythical pattern is well known in different parts of Australia: the epiphany of the Culture Heroes, their wanderings and their civilized activities, their final disappearance. As we shall see, every act of the Heroes (Ancestors) is duly repeated by the members of the tribe. As Strehlow put it: "All occupations originated with the totemic ancestors; and here, too, the native follows tradition blindly: he clings to the primitive weapons used by his forefathers, and no thought of improving them ever enters his mind."l6 But of course this is true only up to a certain point: the Australians, like other primitives, have changed their lives in the course of history; but all such changes are considered to be new "revelations" of Supernatural Beings.
A MYTHICAL GEOGRAPHY
Through the initiation rites the neophyte is gradually introduced to the tribal traditions; he discovers all that happened ab origine. This "knowledge" is total-that is to say, mythical, ritual, and geographic. I n learning what took place in the Dream Time, the initiate also learns what must be done in order to maintain the living and productive world. Moreover, a mythical-or mysticalgeography is revealed to him: he is introduced to the innumerable sites where the Supernatural Beings performed rituals or did significant things. The world in which the initiate henceforth moves is a meaningful and "sacred" world, because Supernatural Beings have inhabited and transformed it. Thus i t is always possible to be "oriented" in a world that has a sacred history, a world in which every prominent feature is associated with a mythical event. W. E. H. Stanner writes, with regard to the Murinbata mythical geography: "The Murinbata considered the countryside filled with plain evidence that the dramas had occurred. The places of climax were known and named, and each one contained
mythical theme: a Culture Hero "kills" the young man during the initiation and is finally himself slain by the surviving members of the tribe; cf. B. Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (London, 1914), pp. 214 ff., 270 ff., 295-305. 1 6 Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, p. 35.

proof-a shape, or form, or pattern of a great event."l7 Likewise Spencer and Gillen, relating their journey to an important totemic center in the company of a small group of natives, disclose for us the mythical geography of the Warramunga tribe. A range of hills marked the path traversed by the mythical Ancestor of the bat totem. A column of rock represented another Ancestor, the opossum man; a low range of white quartzite hills indicated the white ant eggs thrown there in the Dream Time by some mythical women. "All the time, as we travelled along, the old men were talking amongst themselves about the natural features associated in tradition with these and other totemic ancestors of the tribe, and pointing them out to us."lS And thus, during the three days of the journey, they passed near innumerable tangible traces of the Primordial totemic (cultural) Heroes. Finally they approached the famous waterhole where the mythical snake Wollunka lived. Near the sacred pool the natives "became very quiet and solemn," and "the chief men of the totemic group went down to the edge of the water and, with bowed heads, addressed the Wollunka in whispers, asking him to remain quiet and do them no harm, for they were mates of his.. .. We could plainly see that it was all very real to them, and that they implicitly believed that the Wollunka was indeed alive beneath the water, watching them, though they could not see him."lg One must read the descriptions of Spencer and Gillen i n extenso to understand why even the most dreary landscape is, for the aborigines, charged with awe: every rock, spring, and water hole represents a concrete trace of a sacred drama carried out in the mythical times. For the Western reader, these endless wanderings20 and fortuitous meetings of the Dream Time Heroes seem excessively monotonous. (But then the wanderings of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses also seem monotonous for the admirer of Balzac or Tolstoi.) For the aborigines, the vestiges of the mythical drama are more than a cipher or stencil enabling him to read the sacred stories imprinted in the landscape. They reveal to him a
17 W. E. H. Stanner, O n Aboriginal Religion ("Oceania Monographs," No. 11, [Sydney, 1963]), p. 254. 18 B. Spencer and I?. J. Gillen, T h e ATorthern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 19041. n. 249. - - - - ,, r - - - 19 Ibid., pp. 252-53. 2 0 The theme of the wanderings of the Ancestors appears to he characteristic of Australian mythology, hut it is not exclusively Australian. I t is found, for example, among the ~alyfornian Mohave (Yuman tribe); cf. A. L. Kroeber, H a n d book of the Indzans of California (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bull. LXXVIII [Washington, D.C., 19251), pp. 75&57; idem, "Seven Mohave Myths," Anthropological Records, X I , No. 1 (1948), 4-8.
history in which he is existentially involved. Not only is he the result of those endless wanderings and performances of the mythical Ancestors; in many cases he is the reincarnation of one of those Ancestors. As T. G. H. Strehlow puts it: "The whole countryside is his living, age-old family tree. The story of his own totemic ancestor is to the native the account of his own doings at the beginning of tim,e, a t the dim dawn of life, when the world as he knows i t now was being shaped and moulded by all-powerful hands. He himself has played a part i n that Jirst glorious adventure, a part smaller or greater according to the original rank of the ancestor of whom he is the present reincarnated form." [italics minel.21 Learning the mythical history of the familiar countryside, the initiate experiences a sort of anamnesis: he remembers his coming into being in the primordial time and his most remote deeds: "At the time of birth the totemic ancestor who has undergone reincarnation is totally unaware of his former glorious existence. For him the preceding months have been a 'sleep and a forgetting'. If he is born as a boy, the old men will later on initiate him and reintroduce him into the ancient ceremonies which he himself had instituted in his previous existence."22 Through his initiation, the novice discovers that he has already been here, in the beginning; he was here under the appearance of the mythical Ancestor. I n learning the deeds of his mythical Ancestor, he learns about his own glorious pre-existence. Ultimately, he is taught to repeat himself such as he was ab origine; that is to say, he is to imitate his own exemplary model. We shall have an opportunity to take up this problem again in the course of our investigation. For the moment, it seems relevant for us to point out the Platonic structure of the Australian doctrine of anamnesis. As is well known, for Plato learning is recollecting; to know is to remember (cf. Meno 81). Between two existences on earth, the soul contemplates the Ideas: i t shares in pure and perfect knowledge. But when the soul is reincarnated, it drinks of the spring of Lethe and forgets the knowledge it had obtained from its direct contemplation of the Ideas. Yet this knowledge is latent in the man in whom the soul is reincarnated, and it can be made patent by pllilosophical effort. Physical objects help the soul to withdraw into itself and, through a sort of "going back," to
21
" Ibid., p. 93.
Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, pp. 30-31.
219

rediscover and repossess the original knowledge that it had possessed in its extra-terrestrial condition. Hence death is the return to a primordial and perfect state, which is periodically lost through the soul's reincarnation.23 Of course, there can be no question of assimilating the Australian conception to Plato's doctrine of anamnesis. But it is significant that the belief in the perpetual reincarnation of the Ancestors has forced the Aranda to elaborate a theory of anamnesis fairly close to that of Plato. For Plato as well as for the Aranda, physical objects help the soul to remember his real identity. With this difference: for Plato, the soul through death is able to contemplate the Ideas, and thus to partake in Knowledge. For the Aranda, the knowledge in question is not philosophical but mythical and "historical": that which the novice discovers through initiation is what he did in illo tempore; he learns not ideas but his own primordial deeds and their meaning. He discovers in the mythology of a certain Hero his own fabulous biography. Certain physical objects (rocks, tchurungas, etc. ) reveal themselves as proofs of his first and glorious existence on earth. For Plato, the physical objects help the soul to recover the knowledge of his extra-terrestrial condition. But for both Plato and the Aranda, the true anamnesis is the effect of a spiritual activity: philosophy for the Greek philosopher, initiation for the Australians.
Thus the Aranda geography reveals a structure and a meaning because it is charged with mythical history. Even the geographical orientation is related to a mythical history. The aborigines follow the paths marked out by the Supernatural Beings and the mythical Ancestors. They seldom approach a sacred site by the shortest route; rather they deem it necessary to walk on the same path taken by the Supernatural Being connected with it.24 The mythical history that transformed a "chaotic land" into a sacred and articulated world helps, moreover, to bind together groups and tribes. The paths pass through the "worlds" of different tribes, and between these tribes there is a "secret bond of friendship and a mutual claim to hospitality and protection."25 The members of a cult group can travel safely along the path of the Hero even in
23 M. Eliade, M y t h and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963). p. 124. 2 4 Elkin, op. cit., p. 153.
25
Ibid.
220
other tribal territories. Each cult group is the custodian of a particular episode of the myth and of the particular rites associated with it. "But as continuity with the past, a full knowledge of social and ritual sanctions, and a complete assurance for the present and future can only be maintained and gained by a knowledge of the myth as a whole and the performance of all the rites, i t is essential that each 'lodge' should do its part. Thus the groups and tribes are linked together by the cult-life."26 Though apparently confined to familiar territory, the "world" of a tribe is conceived as being all-embracing. Owing to the Australian kinship system, everybody is-or can be-related to everybody else. If a friendly stranger approaches a camp, he is always finally recognized as being related to someone of the group. Consequently, for the Australians, only one "world" and only one "human society" exist. The unknown regions outside familiar lands do not belong to the "world"-just as unfriendly or mysterious foreigners do not belong to the community of men, for they may be ghosts, demonic beings, or monsters. But the "world" must be kept alive and productive. By themselves, men have no power to "save" the world, to keep it indefinitely as it was "in the beginning," full of useful plants and animals, with creeks and rivers and with the rains coming a t the right time. But men have been instructed to do what the Supernatural Beings and Heroes did during the Dream Time period. All of the ceremonies are only reiterations of these paradigmatic acts. The ritual reactualization of the mythical history reactivates communication with the Dream Time, regenerates life, and assures its continuation. I n short, the ritual "re-creates" the world. The wanderings and the actions of the Ancestral Heroes are re-enacted in long and tedious ceremonies. The so-called increase ceremonies (intichiuma), which center about the vegetable and animal foods-yams or lily roots, kangaroos, snakes, birds-assure the renewal of the species through a ritual repetition of their creation in the Dream Time. The renewal of the edible species, animal and vegetable, is tantamount to a "world renewal." This should not surprise us, for the "world" is first of all the land where the man lives, where he h d s his food and shelter. As we shall later discover in a more detailed way, alimentation has a sacramental value. I n absorbing his food, the "primitive" partakes in the sacredness of the world. Living as

a h u m a n being is in itself a religious act. For men assume the responsibility of preserving the world as it was made by the Supernatural Beings, periodically regenerating the world through rituals, and especially through the "increase cememonies." Some of these increase ceremonies are slight and mechanical, others, on the contrary, are quite dramatic.27 For example, it has happened that a particular mythical Being performed increase ceremonies at a certain site, leaving a stone as storehouse for a specific animal life or spirit. "Another place on his journey might have been sanctified and made efficacious by the loss of some of his blood or part of his body, or by his body being transformed into stone. Such a site is henceforth sacred. It is a channel from the creative and eternal dream-time. The creative power is brought into operation and causes the increase, for example, of kangaroos, by the care bestowed on, and the rituals performed at, the site."28 The performers say: "Let there be plenty of kangaroos here and there." But they also "blow powder from the stone, throw stones from the sacred heap, or take a mixture of powdered stone or earth and blood from the sacred place and deposit it in the countries where an increase of the species is desired and should normally occur.. .. The sacred stone or heap is not, for them, just stone or earth. It is in a sense animated; life can go forth from it."29 AS we shall later see, the various acts of the "increase" ritual reiterate exactly the gestures of the Ancestors.
REDEEMING SYMBOLS
The increase ceremonies are apparently simple and monotonous. But for the initiates a seeming simplicity sometimes hides a very complex symbolism. And this is true of all Australian rituals. To give a single example: in northeastern Arnhein Land an emblem signifying a goanna's tail and vertebrae is ritually exhibited during a certain ceremony. Totemic designs are painted down its trunk, and feathered pendants attached. Slowly the actor removes it from its shade, posturing as he does so; he writhes along the ground, holding the sacred stick close to his breast. Singing continues; he is revealing one of the mysteries to participant-onlookers,all highly-initiated men. What does this mean? Here is an emblem which is a symbol of a
27 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 227-31. See the elaborate description of the intichiulna ceremonies in Spencer and Gillen, T h e Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 167 ff., 283 ff. See also below, p. 23.5. 28 Elkin, op. cit., p. 199. 29 Ibid., p. 200.
222
goanna's tail and vertebrae, withdrawn from its shade. But to the neophyte it is much more than this. The shade or hut symbolizes a special conically-shaped mat, brought by the Djanggawul Fertility Mothers from a spirit land away in the sunrise, beyond the Morning Star. This mat is really a womb. When the goanna tail emblem is removed from it on the sacred ground, this signifies that the first people, ancestors of the present-day eastern Arnhem Landers, are being born from their Mother; and they, in turn, are associated with a combination of fertility symbols. Actually, there is symbol within symbol, meaning within meaning, much of it connected with fundamental ctrives.30 We meet here some new religious ideas (the Mother, the womb), about which we shall have more to say. But this example shows us how, in the guise of a very simple ritual, a rich mythology can be disclosed to the initiates and, consequently, how the connection with a spiritual world is maintained and reinforced. The disclosure of the sacred history of the tribe sometimes takes many years. Step by step, the individual becomes aware of the greatness of the mythical past. He learns how t o re-live the Dream Time through the ceremonies. Eventually he shall be completely immersed in the sacred history of his tribe; that is to say, he shall know the origin and understand the meaning of everything from rocks, plants, and animals t o customs, symbols, and rules. As he assimilates the revelation conserved in the myths and rituals, the world, life, and human existence become meaningful and sacredfor they have been created or perfected by Supernatural Beings. At a certain moment in his life, a man discovers that before his birth he was a spirit and that after his death he is to be reintegrated into that prenatal, spiritual condition. He learns that the human cycle is part of a larger, cosmic cycle; the Creation was a "spiritual" act which took place in the Dream Time, and, although the cosmos is now "real" or "material," it nonetheless must be periodically renewed by the reiteration of the creative acts that occurred in the beginning. This renovation of the world is a spiritual deed, the result of a reinforcing communication with the "Eternal Ones" of the Dream Time. I n a similar fashion, human existence begins and ends-provisorily-in a spiritual world. As the Berndts put it: "To begin with, the essence of man or woman is purely spiritual. After birth ... it takes on a materialistic form: but it never loses its sacred quality. Woman possesses this sacredness almost without any effort--especially in such places as northeastern Arnhem Land:
30
R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The First Australians (Sydney, 19.52), pp. 78-79. 223
Australian Religions : An Introduction

but for man the accent is on ritual, and organized ceremony. For both, sacredness increases with advancing age; and a t death they become, again, completely spiritual."31 Should the sacred ceremonies be neglected and the social customs despised, the world will regress to the darkness and chaos that existed before the "Dream Time" and the coming of the Supernatural Beings.32 As a matter of fact, the "world" of the aborigines has already been almost destroyed by acculturation, and the survivors linger on in a life of frustration and sterility. "A camp without ceremonies, where moonlit evenings are silent, or broken only by the muttering of the card-players or a sudden burst of quarreling, is a camp where the people's zest for living has been lost or diverted into other or less satisfying channels. Where sacred ritual has been allowed to lapse, people no longer maintain conscious contact with their own traditions and background: and once this vital link has been broken, the whole course of their lives must reflect the change."33 Of course this is not yet the physical destruction of the cosmos presaged by the myths. But the result is almost the same: as the old "world" created or perfected by the Supernatural Beings becomes meaningless through acculturation, it is progressively obliterated. The survivors of this spiritual cataclysm will have to rebuild their culture with other means and new materials. The crystallization of a new Australian culture is still a thing of the future. But the degeneration and ruin of traditional values as a result of encounters with Western culture is a general phenemenon among "primitives." We shall have many occasions to point out the distortion, the hybridization, and the oblivion undergone by the most archaic religious ideas and beliefs. We shall also have an opportunity to analyze some new religious and cultural creations, born from the tragic encounter with Western values. For the moment it suffices for us to emphasize the Australian's need to live in a real "world." This means an articulated, significant, resourceful land, formed, enriched, and consecrated by Supernatural Beings. Such a "world" has a "center" or a structure -and for this reason it is "oriented," it is not a chaos, an amorphous, bewildering vacuity. The coming into being of the world, of plants and animals and men, is the result of a sacred history
Cf. Helmut Petri, "Drts Weltende im Glauben australischer Eingeborenen," Paideuma, IV (19.50), 349-62. 33 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The First Australians, pp. 98-99.
31 32
Ibid., p. 59.
scrupulously preserved in the myths and periodically reiterated in the secret ceremonies. This implies not only that the world has a "historym-a sacred history unfolded during the Dream Timebut also that man has assumed the responsibility for maintaining the world, by continuously re-enacting the stupendous events of the beginning and by endlessly infusing the land with the powers of "Dreaming." When man ceases to communicate with the Dream Time and to re-enact his mythical history, the world will disintegrate and life will wither, to disappear eventually from the surface of the earth. Again and again we shall encounter Australian religious creations which have sprung forth from such fundamental conceptions. But they are never exactly the same. From tribe to tribe, from culture to culture, there are significant variants, shifts of perspective, brilliant innovations. No living culture is able to repeat itself indefinitely, for the simple reason that no culture endures in absolute isolation. The meeting of cultures, even of kindred forms which have issued from the same matrix, always provokes creative, if sometimes minute, innovations. Thus there exists no culture without history, without changes and transformations brought on by external influences. But this "history" is not acknowledged as such by the primitives; although they are aware of the modifications that have taken place in a more or less remote past, they telescope these modifications into a primordial and ahistorical time and interpret them as the acts of mythical Beings. I n sum, by the simple fact that the innovation has been accepted and absorbed into the traditional pattern, i t is considered to have taken place in the Dream Time period. and MYTHOLOGY OF THE UNAMBAL We shall now present, in some detail, the religious traditions of the Unambal, a tribe of northwest Australia. The German ethnologist Andreas Lommel has recently published a clear and well-articulated monograph on these people,34 whose mythology and religious customs differ in several respects from the patterns found in southeast and central Australia. These differences illustrate the complexity and richness of the Australian religious experience. But they are also important for another reason: they reflect
THEOGONY
34 Andreas Lommel, D e Unambal. Ein Stumm i n Nordwest-Australien (Hami burg, 1952).
225

certain historical changes, which we shall consider a t the end of our investigation. The Unambal begin any narrative related to their life, their customs, or their myths by recounting the beginnings of the world. This is a practice found among many other primitive peoples and shows the importance of the creative happenings of the primordial time. Thus, in the beginning, say the Unambal, only earth and heaven existed. Deep in the earth lived-and even now livesUngud, in the form of a great snake. Ungud is often identified with the earth, but also with the waters. I n the sky lives Wallanganda, who is lord of heaven and at the same time personifies the Milky Way. Wallanganda is supposed "to have made everything." He threw water on the earth, but Ungud "made the water deep," and so i t started to rain. Thus began life on earth.35 Together, Wallanganda and Ungud created everything, but only during the night, as the outcome of a creative dream. Ungud transformed himself-or herself, for Ungud can be of either sex or even bisexual-into the Beings which he dreamt. Similarly, Wallanganda "dreamed" the Beings which he begot. He threw out from heaven a "spiritual force" and shaped it into images. Afterward, he projected these images, painted red, white, and black, onto the rocks and caves, where they can still be seen. This, according to the Unambal, was the origin of the painted images of plants and animals. These pictures also constitute the "spiritual centers" of the Beings which they represent. The relation between the images and the Beings depicted is said to be that of "father and brothers." Only after molding the "spiritual force" of the Beings into their respective images did Wallanganda make them in concreto and send them all over the land. Wallanganda painted the beings without mouth or eyes (these organs were later given by Ungud). Wallanganda continues to beget, incessantly, sending "spiritual germs" on the earth. He does not let his creatures die.36 On the rocks and cave walls, by the side of the reproductions of plants and animals, there are also anthropomorphic images, without mouths, which are called Wondjina. They personify the rain. According to the Unambal, the Wondjina were first found by Ungud, in a "creative dream," a t the bottom of the waters. For
Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 11-12. According to other versions of the myth, it was not Wallanganda who made the rock paintings but the bird Kujon, at his order. Wallanganda projected from heaven the "spirituel force" of the Beings, and Kujon painted them gradually as he grasped these messages in his creative dream. Cf. ibid., p. 12.
35 36
this reason, every river, lake, or well belongs to a specific Wondjina image located in the neighborhood. Immediately after coming into being the Wondjina went forth upon the earth, bringing the rains and changing the landscape, making hills and plains.37 While "the stones were still wet," the Wondjina built great "stone houses." (This, incidentally, indicates a megalithic tradition, about which more will be said later.) Then the Wondjina lay down on the "wet rocks," and their "impressions" produced the first rock paintings. The Wondjina entered the earth where their images are found today; they have subsequently lived under the earth, in the waters belonging to the rock paintings. There they incessantly create new "child germs." According to the Unambal, every man begins as a "child germ," called jallala. His father finds him in a dream and in another dream projects him into his wife. This jallala is in fact a portion of a Wondjina living in a certain water place; but it is equally a fragment of Ungud. When a jallala takes human form it is called jajaru and represents the "Ungud part" of the individual, or that portion of his soul which is descended from Ungud. Often the jajaru is said to be located in the kidneys; a t death it goes back to the water hole and there awaits a new incarnation.38 There is a close relationship between a man and his place of "spiritual" origin. Generally speaking, one is always descended from the same Wondjina and the same water place as one's father. Thus there is always a certain number of individuals sharing the same spiritual origin. They are the rightful possessors of the region in which the water place and its respective Wondjina image are located. The oldest individual is considered to be the proper incarnation of the Wondjina. I n speaking of his Wondjina this old man uses the first person: "As I came along in the Dream Time and I left my impression on the rock.. .." He has the duty of repainting periodically, before the rainy season, the image of the Wondjina on the rock wall. He says: "I am going now to refresh and invigorate myself; I paint myself anew, so that the rain can come." He uses red ochre, white and yellow colors, and charcoal. After finishing his repainting he takes some water into his mouth and blows i t on the rock image. I n this manner, says the Unambal, the Wondjina brought rain in the Dream Time.
See other myths about the Wondjina in ibid., pp. 15 ff. Cf. also below, p. 232. Lommel, op. c i t . , p. 13. A man is supposed to have other souls, whose origin is unknown to the present-day Unambal. One of these souls is the "shadow" which, after death, goes to the land of the dead and preserves there a sort of postexistence. See also ibid., p. 39 (the destiny of the souls after death).
37
38
227
Australian Religions: A n I~ztroduction

Near the anthropomorphic Wondjina are images representing plants and animals. As a matter of fact, the plant and animal totems are derived from the same "spiritual" source as man. Thus the aborigines live in an organic relationship with all nature. When mankind dies, the Wondjina will also die, and therefore the animals will no longer increase, the rain will no longer fall, and the vegetation will dry up. I n short, the "world" will regress to the pre-creation "chaos." Like many other Australian tribes the Unambal not only are divided into two exogamous classes but also apply this "dualistic" system to the entire world, spiritual as well as natural. From primeval times, Ungud, Wondjinas, men, animals, and plants have belonged to one of two classes. The classes are named after the cranelike bird Kuranguli and the wild turkey Banar. These mythical birds are two Culture Heroes, who, after taking human form, founded all the rules and institutions. Everything that they did in the mythical time must be done again and again by the Unambal. The myth of the Culture Heroes somewhat parallels that of Wallanganda and Ungud. It is said that they came from heaven, that they are self-created, that they are the two Ungud snakes. Moreover, the first Wondjinas were nothing other than forms of the Culture Heroes. From them the first men descended; the first Ungud souls were made by them. Kurangali is more beautiful and more intelligent than Banar, who is in fact rather stupid. For this reason, they frequently enter into conflict 39-a mythological theme that is widely diffused. Through the initiation rites, particularly the rites of circumcision and subincision, the adolescent is progressively introduced into this mythical tradition. As everywhere else in Australia, men immerse themselves more deeply in the world of myths as they grow older. The medicine man is the main factor in renewing communication with the primeval times. His role in the spiritual life of the tribe is considerable. I n the medicine man the creativity of the Dream Time is kept alive. While in extasis he is able to send his soul to Ungud. We shall learn more of his powers when we discuss the problem of the Australian medicine man.
UNAMBAL AND UNGARINYIN
As is the case with every other Australian tribe, one can discern in the Unambal traditions some basic common elements, which
can be considered pan-Australian, persisting side by side with more specific conceptions and beliefs. It suffices for us to examine the traditions of the neighboring Ungarinyin in order to see how the religious conceptions vary from one tribe to the next. Fundamentally, the Unambal and the Ungarinyin partake of the same religious pattern. But i t appears that some beliefs have been either lost or radically modified by the Ungarinyin; or such variant beliefs can be interpreted as innovations introduced by the Unambal into an earlier pattern common to both tribes. Like the Unambal and other Australian groups, the Ungarinyin believe in a mythical primordial time (Mlan), when creation took place.40 The Ungarinyin also know Ungud (the Rainbow Serpent) and the anthropomorphic and celestial Walangala; but the structures and functions of these figures are different. Walangala is not a creator. The Ungarinyin believe that the Creation is the work of Ungud and the Wondjina. Ungud sent the sweet water from heaven and created the first ancestral couple in the waters. Walangala can be considered as both a celestial god and a Culture Hero. He founded all the social and cultural institutions-and particularly the initiation rituals. The neophyte is taught the myths of Walangala during the most secret phase of the ceremony. Walangala is now in heaven; he sends the spirit children and watches to see whether the rules prescribed by him in the Mlan time are being respected. If they are not, Walangala will send a flood. I n short, Ungud is the creator of life in all of nature, and Walangala is the author of the spiritual part of man. But one cannot say that Walangala is an anthropomorphic Sky God and Ungud a theriomorphic primeval deity. Ungud, too, ascended to heaven a t the end of the primordial time. And some myths assert that Walangala was anthropomorphic while on earth but became a serpent in heaven. As Helmut Petri has noted,41 this is not felt as a contradiction by the aborigines. Many Wondjina take on a serpentine aspect a t the end of Creation, without losing their anthropomorphic q~alities.4~ Many things remain obscure about WQangala. He can certainly be compared with the celestial Supreme Beings ("All-Fathers") of
4 0 Helmut Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nwdwest-Australien (Braunschweig, 1954), pp. 98 ff. 4 1 Ibid.,p. 116. 42 We have here one of the most archaic expressions of the snake as the symbol of virtuality.
229

the southeastern tribes; but no prayers are addressed to him (as is the case with Mungan-ngaua and Baiame), and nothing is said of his omniscience or his benevolence. It is possible, as Petri suggests,43 that an original creative deity has split into two divine personages, but we do not have the necessary data to deal with this problem. Directly related to Walangala is another Sky Hero, Ngunyari, who plays an important role in the initiation ceremonies. Ngunyari is supposed to have made the bull-roarers "with his blood and elbows" and to have put his voice in them. He also painted the bull-roarer with lightning motifs-which is another way of saying that the bull-roarer is the thunderbolt. Ngunyari determined all the injunctions having to do with the bull-roarers (they must be hidden in caves, far from women and children, etc.).44 After a series of wanderings, during which he revealed the mysteries of the bull-roarer to the aborigines, he ascended to the sky by means of a ladder. Now his shadow can be seen near Whlangala, on the Milky Way.45 Ngunyari is still remembered by the old men of the tribe, but his bull-roarer and its cult already belong to the past. They were supplanted by another type of bull-roarer, similar in form to the central-Australian tchurunga. These bull-roarers "belong" to a newcult, Kurangara, about which more will be said later.46 There are also other Culture Heroes: BBnar and Kurbnguli, known also by the Unambal; W6doi and Djungun, two small night birds who, after their work in the primeval time, ascended to heaven and became the two stars Alpha and Beta Gemini;47 many mythical Ancestors; and finally KBlura, who is associated
Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien, p. 116. Ibid., pp. 119 ff. 45 Ibid., p. 118. A. Capell found the NgGnyari myth also among the Unambal and the Gwiini, but without the story of his wanderings in the west; cf. "Mythology in Northern Kirnberley, North-West Australia," Ocear~ia,I X (1939), 382402;see p. 396. 46 Petri thinks that, among the Ungarinyin, N g h y a r i and the bull-roarers are of recent origin. They were introduced from the East. But it is impossible for us to know whlt type "of cult objects were previously in use and supplanted by Nghnyari and his bull-roarers. The aborigines, naturally, assert that N@nyari and the bull-roarers were with them "from the very beginnings" (Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien, p. 128). 47 Like BBnar and Kuranguli, these two Heroes are different and antagonistic: one does everything in tho correct way, the other one is stupid and inefficient. They fought together and W6doi killed Ujungun, from whose blood ochre originated. 230
43
44
with rain and with spirit children and can be considered the last important figure of the mythical lore of the tribe.48 We see, then, how the traditions of two neighboring tribes can vary. We also see how a cult can disappear almost under our eyes to be replaced by a more dramatic and aggressive one (Kurangara); this process must be kept in mind in analyzing the different layers of the Australian religions. But for the moment another feature commands our attention-a feature which, though characteristic of the Unambal and Ungarinyin, is not limited to them. We have noted that the structure and function of W;ilangala is repeated in Ngunyari and in other Culture Heroes. All of them are supposed to have founded the tribal culture and especially to have revealed the initiation rites. One has the impression that a speciJic paradigmatic model i s being repeated again and again, as if a certain type of mythological figure and a certain religious function must be continuously reactualixed, made present, active, and eficient. We shall encounter the same phenomenon in other primitive cultures. Related to this process of reproducing the type and function of a Supernatural Being in a series of successive personages, one notes a contrary process of reintegrating a multitude of mythical persons in a single divine figure. The Ungarinyin believe that a t the end of the Dream Time the Wondjina entered the earth and became Ungud. Thus Ungud, the serpent, is conceived both as a unity and as the totality of an indefinite number of Wondjina.49 From a certain point of view one might speak of the processio~l or emanation of a divine principle, followed by the reintegration of these multiple hypostatizations. Even if this process were the result of the mingling of two or more cults, originally unrelated, the fact remains that the aborigines were able to deal successfully with such a paradoxical theory. The conception of Ungud as being simultaneously a unity and a totality of numberless separate individuals is not exceptional among the Australians. We have already noted that the Aranda point to the body of their mythical ancestor in all of the places where he traveled. They believe "in the simultaneous presence of the ancestor a t each of the many scenes which once witnessed the fulness of his supernatural powers."50
Petri, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien, pp. 132 ff., 139 ff. Ibid., p. 147. Cf. also T. HernAndea, "Myths and Symbols of the Drysdale River Aborigines," Oceania, X X X I I (1961-62), 113-27, for similar conceptions of the Ungur and Wondjina (Galoru) among a population of northern Kimberley. 50 Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, p. 29.
48 49
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THE WONDJEYA AND THE RAINBOW SERPENT
Most of the beliefs of the Unambal and the Ungarinyin are also to be found, with the inevitable variations, among the other tribes of northern Kimberley and Arnhem Land. The paintings of the caves and rock shelters of northern Kimberley 51 both depict the mythology of the tribe and at the same time serve as a means for reanimating the contact with the Dream Time. Each gallery includes representations of various species of animals and a t least one anthropomorphic Being, the Wondjina. The Wondjinas are associated with sky, rain, the Rainbow Serpent, spirit children, and fertility. Capell describes them as "superhuman beings (male or female) whose homes are in caves," who "possess life-giving powers associated with waters," and who are related to the Rainbow Serpent, which is considered by Capell to represent a later religious creation.52 But the structural continuity of all these mythological figures is also demonstrated by the etymologies of their names. E. A. Worms has proved that the terms wondjina, ungur, and ungud are all connected with the widely found Australian and Tasmanian root wan-, wun-, win-, "water." Wondjina
51 On March 26 and 27, 1838, Lieutenant George Grey discovered two caves containing paintings (cf. the description and colored sketches in his Journals of Two Expeditions of Discoveries (London, 1841), I, 201-4, 213-15). Many other caves with similar rock paintings were explored, described, and photographed by F. S. Brockman (1901), H. Basedow (1916), and W. R. Easton (1921). I n 1928, A. P. Elkin visited three sets of cave and rock-shelter paintings of the Ungarinyin and for the first time presented in a coherent way their relations to the religious, economic, and social life of the tribe ; cf. A. P. Elkin, "Rock Paintings of NorthWest Australia," Oceania, I (December, 1930), 257-79; idem,Studies in Australian I'otemism ("Oceania Monographs," No. 2 [Sydney, 19331),pp. 67-73. Grey's caves were found again in June, 1947, by H. Coate; cf. A. P. Elkin, "Grey's Northern Kimberley Cave-Paintings Re-found," Oceania, X I X (September, 1948), 1-15. Coate was able t o collect some information from the natives in regard to these two caves. The first one seems to be connected with sexual relations and Wondjina (Elkin, "Grey's Northern Kimberley Cave-Paintings Re-found," p. 9); the second, discovered by Grey on March 27, belongs to another mythological tradition, namely, that of Galaru, the Rainbow Serpent (ibid., pp. 10-11). For a comparative study, cf. E. A. Worms, "Contemporary and Prehistoric Rock Paintings in Central and Northern Kimberley," Anthropos, L (1955), 546-66; A. P. Elkin, "The Origin and Interpretation of Petroglyphs in South-East Australia," Oceania, X X (1949-50), 119-57; A. P. Elkin and C. H. and R. M. Berndt, Art in Arnhem Land (Melbourne, 1950); Agnes Schulz, "North-West Australian Rock-Paintings," Memoir8 of the National Museum of Victoria, No. 20 (Melbourne, 1956), pp. 7-57; Charles P. Mountford, Art, Myth and Symbolism, in his Records of the AmericanAustralian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land (hereinafter cited as "12ecordsn), Vol. I (Melbourne, 1956), cf. R. M. Berndt, "The Mountford Volume on Aboriginal Art," Mankind, V (October, 1958), 249-61; A. P. Elkin, "Art and Meaning: A Review Article," Oceania, XXXIII (September, 1961), 54-58); F. D. McCarthy, The Cave Paintings of Groote Eylandt and Chasm Island, in Mountford, Records, I1 (Melbourne, 196O), 297-414). Cf. also W. Arndt, "The Interpretation of the Ddemere Lightning Paintings and Rock Engravings," Oceania, X X X I I (March, 1962), 163-77. 52 A. Capell, op. cit., pp. 389 ff., 403.
232
literally means "near the water"; Ungur and Ungud, "belonging to the water."53 A. P. Elkin has observed that, among the Ungarinyin, the name Ungud refers to the mythical time and to the Rainbow Serpent; but it is also equivalent to Wondjina.54 "The Wondjina paintings are therefore efficacious because they are Ungud, because they were instituted by Ungud, or in the Ungud time."55 According to Petri,56 the Ungarinyin have three names or concepts for the personages of the primeval times: Ungur, Ungud, and Wondjina. The aborigines consider Ungur and Ungud to be similar to the Wondjina; but they are "more boss" than the Wondjina. It is probable that Ungur refers to the primordial time when Ungud, the Rainbow Serpent, carried out the Creation. The Wondjina are the Heroes and lawgivers57 who came forth from Ungud and who continued the Creation a t the Ungud sites. Ungud is invisible to all human beings, except for the medicine man. The bhn-man ("Ungud doctor7')not only can see Ungud; he speaks to him. Ungud gives the medicine man his magical powers, which are symbolized in the kimba,or quartz crystals. The quartz crystals are believed to have had a celestial origin. Indeed, Ungud, the master and protector of the waters, being the Rainbow Serpent, also extends to the sky. From a certain point of view, one might say that Ungud represents the mythological expression of the effort to unite the opposites, to articulate the polarities in a single paradoxical unity. Let us add that the Rainbow Serpent 5 8 is an important mythological figure in many parts of Australia, and almost everywhere
Worms, op. cit., pp. 549-50. Elkin, "Rock Paintings of North-West Australia," pp. 263; 269, n. 8. 55 Ibid., p. 276. 56 Petri, Sterbende Welt i n Nordwest-Australien, pp. 102-3. 57 I t has been remarked that the figures of the Wondjina give the impression of a skull without jaws (cf. Adam, op. cit., p. 22, n. 44). The painted image may resemble a corpse, that is t o say, the body of a Hero who transformed himself into a painting a t the time of his death, while his spirit descended into a nearby Ungud pool, ready to act when his image is repainted (cf. Elkin, "Grey's Northern Kimberley Cave-Paintings Re-found," p. 12). The caves are often the place for the final disposal of the bones of those who are spiritually related to the nearby water pool (Elkin, "Rock-Paintings of North-West Australia," p. 278). 5 8 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LVI (1926), 19-26; idem, "The RainbowSerpent Myth in South-East Australia," Oceania, I (1930), 342-47; Ursula McConnell, "The Rainbow-Serpent in North Queensland," Oceania, I (1930), 347-49); Elkin, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth in North-West Australia," Oceania, I (1930), 349-52; Ralph Piddington, "The Water-Serpent in Karadjeri Mythology," Oceania, I (1930), 352-54. Cf. also John Loewenstein, "Rainbow and Serpent," Anthropos, LVI (1961), 31-40.
53
54
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it is supposed to convey to medicine men their magical powers in the form of crystals. Thus i t appears that the Creation, the rain, fertility, and the supernatural powers o the medicine men are traced f to one and the same source: a primordial Supreme Being o a cosmic f structure; for Ungud belongs concomitantly to the subterranean waters, to earth, and to heaven. The Rainbow Serpent appears ab initio, a t the very beginning of the world. The Wondjina completed the Creation; but their powers are derived from the Rainbow Serpent, just as the powers of the medicine man originate from him. We have here an exemplary primordial figure. The Rainbow Serpent can be compared with the Mesopotamian Tiamat and other ophidian Beings of the oriental cosmogonies. But such a comparison is only partially valid, for Ungud, the Rainbow Serpent, was never conquered and displaced by a younger divinity as Tiamat was conquered by Marduk. For the Ungarinyin there is perfect continuity between Ungud, the Wondjina, and the individuals who, up to our own day, keep their world alive. Moreover, the medicine men continue to maintain direct personal relations with the Rainbow Serpent.
REITERATING THE CREATIVITY O F THE DREAM TIME
The religious actuality of Ungud and the Wondjina is demonstrated particularly by their powers as the source of rain and of fertility. I n northern Kimberley, if a rock painting is touched by a man from the proper totemic clan, rain will fall and the spirit children will become available for incarnation. Likewise, repainting the animal and vegetal images is said to increase the respective species. "In one part of Northern Kimberley the man who finds a spirit-child, must go to the gallery and touch up the painting of the rainbow-serpent, and even paint a representation of a spiritchild, so that the former will be able to keep up the supply."59 These spirit children are pre-existent; while unborn, they sojourn in well-defined sites. "The pre-existent spirits for the most part came into existence during the long-past dream time as a result of some activity of a hero; according to some beliefs, however, they are made from time to time or brought into being by a creative hero whose activity was not confined to the past but is continuous."60 Among the Ungarinyin, Petri found only the belief that the spirit child is found by the father in a dream; cohabita59
60
Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 201; c f . Oceania, I, 262.

Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 198.
234
tion is considered merely to be a pleasure.61 Similar conceptions are attested among many neighboring tribes of the Ungarinyin.62 And, as is well known, all over central Australia procreation is not directly associated with sexual intercourse.63 The "increase" of the animal and vegetal species by repainting the rock figures is not a magic act but a religious 0ne.64 The men are reactivating their contact with the source of life. Thus the creativity of the Dream Time is again reiterated on earth. The same principle informs the "increase ceremonies" (intichiuma or, to use the more general Aranda term, mbanbiuma) of the central Australians, so abundantly described by Spencer and Gillen. The ceremonies are carried out a t spots associated with the mythical history of the tribe: that is, the sites where the totemic Heroes performed the rituals for the first time. Each actor represents a mythical Ancestor; as a matter of fact, he reincarnates that Ancestor. Each ceremony lasts only a few minutes, and while it is being performed the audience chants a song narrating the mythical episode in process of re-enactment. At the conclusion of each ritual, the old men explain its meaning and the meaning of the decorations and symbols to the newly initiated youth.65 AS T. G. H. Strehlow puts it, the chorus of old men "chant those verses of the traditional song which commemorate the original scene in the life of the ancestor which has been dramatized in the ceremony witnessed by them."66 Among the Karadjeri, notes l'iddington, the increase ceremonies take place a t specific centers, founded during the bugari ("dream") time, where the spirits of the species had been left in abundance. Sometimes the performers chant a song associated with the mythical origin of the community.67 Thus the increase of a natural species is brought about through a reactivation of the contact with the Dream Time Heroes, and such a reactivation can be brought about by refreshing the rock paintings ( Wondjina), by re-enacting the original creative act, or by chanting the myth in which this episode is narrated.
Petri, Sterbende Welt in N o r d ~ ~ e s t - A u s t r a l i ep., 163. n Ibid., p. 170. 63 Cf. M. F. Ashley-Montagu, Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines (New York, 1938). But see now T. G. H. Strehlow, "La g4mellit6 de 1'6,rne humaine," L a T o u r Saint-Jacques, No. 11-12 (Paris, 1957), pp. 1&23; ide111, "Personal Monototemism." DD. 730 ff. 64 Petri, Sterbende Welt i n L h o r d w e s t - ~ u s t r a l i e n , pp. 197 ff., 215-16; Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines, pp. 199 ff. 65 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, pp. 318 ff. 66 Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, pp. 56-57. 67 Ralph Piddington, "Totemic System of the Karadjeri Tribe," Oceania, 11, No. 4, (1932), 377-78.
61
62
Mircea Eliade
AU ST R ALIAN RELIGIONS
INITIATION RITES AND SECRET CULTS
PUBERTY RITES
Ultimately, all Australian religious activities can be considered as so many different but homologous means of reestablishing contact with the Supernatural Beings and of immersing oneself in the sacred time of the "Dreaming." Every religious act-a ritual, the recital of a myth, a secret chant, the making of a sacred instrument, etc.-is only the repetition of an event that took place in the beginning of time, in short, an imitation of models revealed to the tribe by Supernatural Beings. On the other hand, every individual is fundamentally a "spiritual" being. His most secret self is a part of that sacred world he is periodically trying to recontact. But he does not know his own real identity: this must be revealed to him through the initiation rites. Thus, one may say that the initiation reinstates the young Australian in his original, spiritual mode of being. As W. Lloyd Warner says with regard t o each Murngin male, "the personality before birth is purely spiritual; it becomes completely profane or unspiritual in the
* I am grateful to Miss Nancy Auer and Mr. Alf Hiltebeitel for their care in correcting and stylistically improving the text. Part IV will appear in November, 1967.
Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

earlier period of its life when it is classed socially with the females, gradually becomes more and more ritualized and sacred as the individual grows older and approaches death, and at death once more becomes completely spiritual and sacred."l The Australian initiation ceremonies accomplish a gradual introduction of the novice into the sacred world.2 This means, first, that the novice will be separated from the profane world of childhood, where he was under the care and guidance of his mother, and, second, there will be disclosed a sacred history which eventually will bring about the understanding of his own spiritual identity. Some time before, a "sacred ground" has been prepared, where the men will perform their secret rituals. The sacred ground is arranged differently according to the traditions of each tribe, but it is always related to the mythical events that are to be progressively re-enacted by dances, chants, and pantomimes. I n some cases, the sacred ground represents an image of the world as it was made in the beginning, when the world was sanctified by the presence of the Supernatural Beings. Thus, according to R. H. Mathews, the Kamilaroi used to prepare two circular enclosures. The larger, about seventy feet in diameter, had a pole three yards high in the center "with a bunch of emu's feathers tied on the top." I n the smaller circle, two young trees were fixed in the ground with their roots in the air. The two circles were connected by a path. "On either side of the path a number of figures are drawn on the ground or modelled in clay. The largest, which is fifteen feet in height, is that of the Supreme Being, Baiami. A couple represents the mythical Ancestors, and a group of twelve human figures stands for the young men who were with Baiami in his first camp. Other figures represent animals and nests."3
1 W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization. A Study of a n Australian Tribe (reprint; New York, 1964), pp. 5-6 (originally published 1937; rev. ed., 1958). 2 On age-grading ceremonies and other types of initiation, see M. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth (New York, 1958) (reprinted as Rites and Symbols of Initiation [New York, 19661);subsequent references are to the 1958 edition. For more recent bibliographies, see C. Bleeker (ed.), Initiation (Leiden, 1965). For other interpretations of the puberty rites, of. Y. W. M. Whiting, R. Kluckhohn, and A. Anthony, "The Functions of Male Initiation Ceremonies a t Puberty," in E. E. Maccoby, Theodore Newcomb, and C. Hartley (eds.), Readings i n Social Psychology (New York, 1958), pp. 359-70; Edward Norbeck, D. Walker, and M. Cohen, "The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites," American Anthropologist, LXIV (1962), 463-85. 3 Eliade, op, cit., p. 5, summarizing R. H. Mathews, "The Bora or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kamilaroi Tribe," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXIV (1895), 411-27, esp. 414 ff. The plastic figuration of the Supreme Being is rather exceptional; it is to be found only among the Yuin and the Wiradjuri-
62
The novices are not allowed to look a t these images, which will be destroyed a t the end of the ceremony. According to Mathews, the "bora ground represents Baiami's first camp, the people who were with him while there, and the gifts he presented them with."4 That is to say, the participants in the ceremony relive the mythical epoch in which the initiation (bma) was held for the first time. They reintegrate the sacred time when Baiami was present on earth and founded the mysteries that are now performed. I n short, there is a reactualization of Baiami's presence and creative works, and hence a regeneration of the world, for the world is renewed by the reproduction of its exemplary model, Baiami's first camp.5 As we shall see, this is true of all Australian initiation ceremonies. Innumerable ritual pantomimes with their related chants are displayed on such sacred grounds, far from the main camp. Very few of them are intelligible to the novices. But this reactualization of the most important episodes of the sacred history of the tribe renews contact with the sacred world. The initiation ceremonies are as important for the spiritual life of the community as they are for the mystical metamorphosis of the novices. The separation from the mother takes place more or less dramatically. The least dramatic ritual is found among the Kurnai, where, as a matter of fact, the entire initiation ceremony is quite simple. "The mothers sit behind the novices; the men come forward in single file between the two groups and so separate them. The instructors raise the novices into the air several times, the novices stretching their arms as far as possible toward the sky. . .. They are then led into the sacred enclosure, where lying on their backs with their arms crossed on their chests, they are covered with rugs. From then on they see and hear nothing. After a monotonous song, they fa11 asleep; later, the women withdraw."G But among other tribes, especially in the central and northern parts of the continent, the women not only cry and lament, but also try to resist, a t least symbolically; in some places, they even use spears
Kamilaroi. On this problem see W. Koppers, "Zur Frage der bildnerischen Derstellung des Hochgottes," Ethnologica, N.F., I1 (Cologne, 1960), 1-11, esp. ff. 4 Mathews, op. cit., p. 418. Cf. the description of the clearing in the men's country," on which the circumcision ceremonies are held, among the Walbiri, in M. G. Meggitt, Dwert People. A Study of the Walbiri Aboriginw of Central Australia (Sydney, 1962), pp. 385 ff. (reissued, Chicago and Toronto, 1965). 5 Eliade, op. cit;, p. 6. 6 Ibid., p. 7, summarizing A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribw of South-East Australia (London, 1904). PP. 625 ff. Cf. also Eliade, OD. pp. 7-9, for some other cit., examples of initiation amokg southeastern ~ u s t r a l i i n tribes.

against the men who are approaching to take the young boys away.7 The age a t which the boys begin their initiation varies from six or eight to twelve or even fourteen years. The duration of the ceremonies also varies, from a few months to two or three years. But the most important differences are in the types of bodily operations undergone by the novices. Notwithstanding all these variations, the Australian age-grading ceremonies fall into a pattern. Generally speaking, every puberty initiation series includes the following elements: (a) the segregation of the novices in a special isolated camp or in the bush; (b) the instruction received from their tutors; (c) certain bodily operations; (d) the disclosure of ritual objects and the acceptance of novices a t some secret ceremonies; (e) the final washing, that is, the cleaning off of all traces of the sacred world and the ceremonial return to ordinary life.8 As we shall presently see, most of the initiatory rituals and behaviors are informed with the symbolism of death and resurrection (or death and rebirth). As a matter of fact, the novice dies to the profane world of childhood and irresponsible innocence, the world of ignorance, and prepares himself for rebirth as a spiritual being.9 The mothers and the womenfolk, as well as all the initiates, understand this ritual death literally. The mothers are convinced that their boys will be killed or swallowed by mysterious and hostile Supernatural Beings. But they also know that the boys will come back to life again, although not as they were before initiation: their children. For this reason they mourn over the novices as the dead are mourned.10 As for the initiates, their trials and conduct during the seclusion period, and particularly
7 A. P. Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines (New York, 1964), p. 179. "All the female relatives grab up spears and spear-throwers and pretend to fight the men to prevent them from removing the boys" (Warner, op cit., p. 251). 8 Cf. Eliade, op. cit., p. 4; Elkin, op. cit., pp. 179-84; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, T h e World of the First Australians (Chicago, 1964), pp. 136-47. The essential bibliography on Australian initiation is quoted in Eliade, op. cit., pp. 138-44. See especially F. Speiser, "tfber Initiationen in Australien und Newguinea," Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel (1929), pp. 56-258; R. Piddington, "Karadjeri Initiation," Oceania, I11 (1932-33), 46-87; Norman B. Tindale, "Initiation among the Pitjandjara Natives of the Mann and Tomkinson Ranges in South Australia," Oceania,VI (1935),199-224; E . A. Worms, "Initiationsfeiern einiger Kiisten- und Binnenlandstamme in Nord-Westaustralien," Annuli Laterunemi, I1 (1938), 147-74; Warner, op. cit., pp. 114 ff.; Meggitt, op. cit. pp. 281-316. 9 "The mothers and the father's sisters together also represent the secular world that the neophyte is leaving, whereas his fathers and his mother's brothers stand for the secret life he is entering" (Meggitt, op. cit., p. 293). 10 Cf. Eliade, op. cit., pp. 8-9 64
the different bodily operations, continuously emphasize their ritual death. For example, they may be covered with branches or rugs, and they are not permitted to use words, only sounds and signs. The novice "is even carried about on some occasions as though he were helpless. I n some tribes he is laid along the top angular space formed by two lines of men crossing their spears, and there he has to lie as though he had been killed by the spears, while the two lines move about, and the women cry."ll Even the most simple ritual operation-knocking out one of the incisors-symbolizes the death of the novice a t the hands of a Supernatural Being. During the operation the bull-roarer sounds, indicating the presence of the Supernatural Being. Among the Wiradjuri, the novices are told that Daramulun is coming to burn them. But after the tooth evulsion, the instructors point to the bull-roarer and say: "This is Daramulun!" The novices are allowed to touch and whirl the bull-roarer, and they are told the myth of the origin of initiation (Daramulun boasts that during the initiation he kills the boys, cuts them to pieces, burns them, and then restores them to life, "new beings, but each with a tooth missing."l2)
SYMBOLIC DEATH
Circumcision, which is probably the most important Australian initiation rite, is the ritual killing par excellence.13 The performers of the operation incarnate or represent Supernatural, rather demonic, Beings. Among some tribes, the bull-roarers are whirled before the operation and are shown to the novices immediately afterward.14 The meaning is obvious: the circumcision is effectuElkin, The Australian Aborigines, pp. 180-81. Mathews, summarized in Eliade, op. cit., p. 13. On the tooth evulsion, cf. also R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 140-41. 13 "The Walbiri explicitly equate circumcision with ritual killing" (Meggitt, op. cit., p. 294). We do not intend to discuss here the meanings and functions of circumcision among the primitives in general. The psychological "origins" of circumcision are irrelevant for the historian of religions; he is interested only in the religious values and meanings bestowed upon this operation in various cultures and in different times. On circumcision as an initiatory ordeal, see Eliade, op. cit., pp. 21 ff., 141 ff. Cf. also Ad. E. Jensen, Beschneidung und Reifezeremonien bei Naturvolkern (Stuttgart, 1933); F . Speiser, ''Uber die Beschneidung in der Sudsee," Acta Tropica, I (1944), 9-29; F. R. Lehmann, "Bemerkungen zu einer neuen Begriindung der Beschneidung," Sociologus, VII (1957), 57-74; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 143 ff. 14 See some examples in Eliade, op. cit., pp. 21-22, 141. On bull-roarers in Australia, cf. 0. Zerries, Das Schwirrholz. Untersuchung iiber die T7erbreitungund Bedeulung des Schwirrens i m Kult (Stuttgart, 1942), pp. 84-125. Speiser considers the Australian bull-roarer to be of Melanesian origin; see "Kulturgeschichtliche Betrmhtungen uber die Initiationen in der Sudsee," Bulletin der Schweizerischen Qeadlschaftfiir Anthropologie und Ethnologie, XXII (1946-46), 28-61, esp. 50 ff. 65
11 12

ated by a representative of the Supernatural Beings whose "voice" is heard in the sound of the bull-roarer. But the novice is also instructed about the actual source of the Supernatural Being's "voice." I n other cases, the killing of the initiate is represented as a swallowing by a gigantic monstrous Being, usually a Snake. But the meaning of circumcision can change when the initiation ceremony is integrated into a new cult. Thus, in western Arnhem Land, today's novices are "identified with those who were born, in the beginning, to the Djanggawul Sisters. A boy who has just had his foreskin cut off is said to have emerged from his Mother, here meaning Djanggawul."15 Other less important operations are depilation of body or facial hair, a ritual found mostly among the non-circumcising tribes,la and cicatrization, in which A. P. Elkin deciphers a "death" significance.17 I n a number of tribes the initiate undergoes a second operation, the subincision, some time after the circumcision. The interval between the two operations varies, from five or six weeks among the Arunta to two or three years among the Karadjeri. The original religious meaning of subincision is still somewhat unclear.18 In some cases, the idea of bisexuality is emphatically stressed, for example, among the Pitta-Pitta and the Boubia of northwest central Queensland, who assimilate the subincision wound to the vulva.19 But the primary purpose of the operation seems to be obtaining fresh blood for use in religious ceremonies. It is probable that even in this case the original model was the menstrual flow. As a matter of fact, two ends can be satisfied by imitating the "women's mysteries." Just as the women get rid of "bad blood" by menstruation, the initiates can expel their mother's blood by laceration of the subincision wound.20 Second, the laceraR. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 145. See, inter alia, ibid., p. 142. 17 Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines, pp. 173, 182. 18 See Eliade, op. cit., pp. 25 ff., and the bibliographies quoted on pp. 142 ff. Cf. especially H. Basedow, "Subincision and Kindred Rites of the Australian Aboriginal," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LVIII (1927), 123-56; M. F. Ashley-Montagu, Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines (New York, 1938), pp. 302 ff.; Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic Wounds (1st ed.; Glencoe, Ill., 1954), pp. 173 ff.; J. Winthuis, Dm Zweigeschelchtewesen (Leipzig, 1928), pp. 29 ff.; H. Baumann, Das doppelte Beschlecht. Ethnologische Studien zur Bisexualitat i n Ritus und Mythos (Berlin, 1955), pp. 313 ff.; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 145-46. 19 W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North- West-Central Queenslano! Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 180. Cf. also other examples quoted in Eliade, op. cit., p. 26. 20 This idea is current in New Guinea. A Kuman explained to John Nilles: "This is done to release the bad blood accumulated since he was in his mother's womb, his inheritance from the woman" (quoted in Eliade, op. cit., p. 27).
15 16
tion amply provides the blood needed for the ceremonies. For, almost everywhere in Australia, a t a certain moment during the initiation a blood rite is performed. It consists of anointing the newly initiated with arm-blood from the older men, or else giving them some of this to drink. The older men also anoint themselves or each other and drink blood. This blood is sacred; there is a secret name for it, and it is usually associated with some mythical hero's act. It gives life, strength and courage and so fits the candidates for the revelations which are to be made. At the same time it unites them to the elders of whose blood they have partaken; indeed, it does more; it unites them to the initiation heroes, for the blood taken under such conditions is the hero's or ancestor's life, and so to drink it, brings the initiated into the mythical world. A special song must be chanted while this blood is being drawn, and this changes it-consecrates it, as we would say, and gives it sacramental efficacy.21 Ronald and Catherine Berndt think that anointing the novice with blood emphasizes anew his ritual death (op. cit., p. 141). I n some cases, red ochre is substituted for blood. The most important concluding rituals are the fire ceremony and the washing. The fire ceremonies are universally diffused; according to Elkin they may leave the greatest impression on the initiates. The novices are "roasted" near the fire, or they stare a t the flames until they are almost dazed, or burning coals are thrown on them, or they are dropped onto thickly smoking fire, and so on.22 These fire ceremonies have both an initiatory and a purificatory function. On the one hand, the ritual "roasting" is supposed to achieve a sort of mysterious transmutation of the novice. The exemplary model of such transmutations is the "mastery over fire" displayed by shamans and medicine men in so many archaic and traditional cultures.23 From a certain point of view, one can say that the fire ceremonies proclaim in a very concrete and dramatic way the results of the initiation: the novice shows his spiritual transformation. The "natural condition" (fear of fire, the inevitable combustion of that which is put in contact with burning coals, etc.) now gives place to a "spiritual" mode of being. Moreover, Elkin points out that the fire ceremony is usually the
21 Elkin, DD. 26 ff.
22 Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 183. On ritual "roasting" of the novices, see Eliade, op. cit., p. 7 and n. 13 (bibliography); Bettelheim, op. cit., pp. 180 ff. 23 Cf. M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York, 1964), pp. 474 ff.; idem, The Forge and the Crucible (London and New York, 1962), pp. 79 ff.
-.
The Australian Aborigines, p. 183; of. also pp. 173-74; Eliade, op. cit.,

final rite in the initiation series (The Australian Aborigines, p. 186). Thus purified, the newly initiated may safely come back to the secular world. The washing has the same purpose: to annihilate all traces of the sacred world (the blood used in decoration, etc.) before coming in contact with the uninitiated. "Preparations are made by the women for the return which is carried out ceremonially. The newly initiated is welcomed as one returned from the dead" (ibid.). Nevertheless, the essential element of initiation is not to be found among the bodily operations;24 it is rather the novice's experiences and instruction while living away from the main camp. The seclusion in the bush in itself constitutes an experience of ritual death. The novice is dying to the profane world of childhood. He is gradually introduced to the sacred history of the tribe and is permitted to witness, a t least in part, its pantomimes and ceremonial dances. It seems as if no real change in the human mode of being can be achieved without "dying" to the previous condition. The passage from a "natural" to a "spiritual" mode of being cannot take place except through a ritual death followed by a resurrection or a new birth. Death is the paradigmatic expression of the end of a mode of being. Obviously, this is not an exclusive particularity of the Australian religions. Initiation as a symbolic death and resurrection is widely known in the history of religions. But what seems to be characteristic of the Australian form is, on the one hand, the fact that the entire religious life is grounded in the experiences and revelations of the age-grading ceremonies and, on the other hand, the fact that a great number of liturgical cycles are usually performed on the occasion of such initiations.
INITIATION AND ANAMNESIS
But the ritual death is only a preliminary condition for the novice's introduction to the saored history of the tribe. I n learning the myths and the rituals, the novice also learns about his personal relations with, and responsibilities toward, the actors of that saored history. It is a very complex type of "learning," related to
24 "I have mentioned the physical operations because many white folk imagine that the operation is initiation and that, having been present a t a circumcision or tooth-knocking rite they really understand Aboriginal secrets. The bodily operations, however, are not the important and essential element of They can be omitted if circumstances render such a step necesinitiation sary, without endangering the reaI purpose and effect of initiation" (Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 172).
.. .
...
...
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all levels and dimensions of human existence. As Ronald and Catherine Berndt put it: Although initiation involves training for life, it is training for a special kind of life. They learn more about their place in the local scheme of things, man in relation to man; man in relation to the natural environment; and man in relation to his gods. The fundamentals of these are assumed to have been learnt before, and only practice will make perfect. But the kind of knowledge which is transmitted through the initiation rituals is the inherited and accumulated store of knowledge handed down from the past-reinterpreted, it is true, to conform with current conditions, but kept as far as possible in the mould of the past.25 Of course, the "past" is so religiously valuable because it is related t o the sacred history of the tribe, that is, to the "Dreaming," the mythical time. Through initiation, the novice discovers that the world has a hidden meaning that cannot be grasped by ordinary intellectual operations but must be revealed and explained by the older men. This is for the simple reason that the meaning of the world, of life, and of human existence is finally the result, not of a "natural" process, but of a series of mythical events-in sum, of a sacred history. And one of the most moving experiences of initiation occurs when the novice becomes wholly conscious of his personal relations with the sacred history of the tribe. As we have already pointed out,26 in some cases the initiation is equivalent to an anamnesis. The neophyte discovers and assumes his real identity, not in the "natural," immediate world in which he had moved-before his initiation, but in a "spiritual" universe which first and gloriously emerged in the mythical time of the beginnings and never completely vanished thereafter. This is particularly evident among the Aranda. According to T. G . H. Strehlow, after the preliminary rites (isolation of the novice, circumcision, subincision), a t the end of the probation period, the elders decide to make the new initiate the owner of his personal tjurunga.27 The neophyte is taken to the storehouse of
25 26
R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 182. M. Eliade, "Australian Religions: An Introduction, Part 11," History of
Religions, VI, KO. 3 (February, 1967), 219. 27 On the mythology and rituals of tjurungaa see B. Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (London, 1914), pp. 143 ff.; B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 257 ff.; idem, The Arunta. A Study of Stone Age People (London, 1927), I , 99 ff.; T. G . H. Strehlow, Aranda Traditions (Melbourne, 1947), pp. 54 ff., 85-86, etc. Cf. also L. Adams, "Anthropomorphe Darstellungen auf australischen Ritualgeraten," Anthropos, L I I I (1958), 1-50.
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the sacred objects. His father or his father's brother explains t o him the significance of the various physical objects of the sacred site. "A large party of other men belonging t o t h e totemic clan on whose territory the cave is situated accompany the young man. There is one correct trail, and one only, by which the ceremonial site may be approached. It is firmly fixed b y tradition for every ancient storehouse."28 I n the mountainous regions, the tjurungas are deposited in caves. I n northern Aranda territory, they are usually placed on platforms erected among the branches of a mulga tree. When approaching the sacred site the men lay down their weapons and start talking in whispers or using sign language. Finally they sit down near the mulga tree, while the leader climbs the platform and brings down the bundles of tjurungas. H e passes them to the old men, and as each tjurunga is being handed around, the verse "belonging" t o i t is chanted. Everyone presses the tjurunga to his body. When i t is handed t o the novice, the elders explain its marks and ornaments, and also the mythical event evoked b y the chant. Eventually the tjurungas are replaced on the platform in their bundles. The party returns to the two clusters of stones in the clay hollow a few yards away. The old leader lifts up the rough stone from the top of one heap, revealing a round, smooth, red-ochred stone underneath. The father of the young initiate then takes the hand of his son, leads him to the cluster, and places the smooth round stone into his hands. Having obtained the permission of the other old men present, he tells his son: "This is your own body from which you have been re-born. I t is the true body of the great Tjenterama, the chief of the Ilbalintja storehouse. The stones which cover him are the bodies of the bandicootmen who once lived a t the Ilbalintja Soak. You are the great Tjenterama himself, today you are learning the truth for the first time. From now on you are the chief of Ilbalintja: all its sacred tjurungas are entrusted to your safe keeping. Protect them, guard the home of your fathers, honour the traditions of your people. We still have many things to tell you. More verses, greater and more secret ceremonies will be made known to you than to any of your mates. They are all your own heritage: we have only kept them in trust for you. Now we are getting old, and we pass them on to you since you are the true chief reincarnate. Keep them secret until you are growing old and weak; and then, if no other young men of the bandicoot totem are living, pass them on to other tried men from our clan who may keep alive the traditions of our forefathers until another chief be born."29 The initiate is taught b y his father and the old men the chant containing the name of Tjenterama. This name, which henceforth
28 29
Strehlow, op. cit., p. 114.

Ibid., pp. 117-18.
70
will be his real name, must not be pronounced in the presence of women, children, or foreigners. The small stone is greased and red ochred and replaced in its hole, hidden under the other stones as before. I n the evening the party returns home, and a sacred ceremony is held in honor of the newly made chief of Ilbalintja. For the rest of his life, no one is allowed to perform that ceremony again except in the presence and with the permission of the chief.30 Sometimes the initiate is not taken to the sacred site. Two or more old men bring the tjurunga, and the father shows it to his son. "Young man, see this object. This is your own body. This is the tjilpa ancestor who you were when you used to wander about in your previous existence. Then you sank down to rest in the sacred cave nearby. This is your own tjurunga. Keep close watch over it,"31 The initiate receives his tjurunga when he is twenty-five years old. By the time he is thirty-five to forty years old, he knows all the chants and the ritual secrets.32 For a novice is not taught all the secrets a t his f i s t initiation. "He continues to learn about sacred ritual and myth, and so on, all through his life, and he may be middle-aged or relatively old before the final revelations are made to him. Initiation merely opens the door to the secretsacred and esoteric life of the men of his community. The actual process may go on for a long time, in a series of stages. For instance, he may be able to see certain objects but not yet handle them, or witness certain rites but not participate in them."33
A progressive initiation is characteristic of most Australianreligions.

As a result, there are several classes of initiates, although the phenomenon of the male "secret society" is not yet clearly articulated. I n Australia the progressive initiation assures that in due time every novice will obtain all the knowledge he is entitled to receive. But the main reason for gradually introducing the young men into the tribal secret tradition is the fact that the entire community needs periodically, for its own religious equilibrium, a recapture of the sacred time of the beginnings. Many characteristic examples of secret ceremonies that pursue concomitantly the initiation of youth and the renewal of life by a
30 31 32 33
IBid., pp. 118 ff.

Ibid., p. 119.
Ibid., p. 122.
R.M. and C. H.Berndt, op. cit., p. 138.

re-enactment of the sacred history are to be found in Arnhem Land. Such ceremonies celebrate the mysteries of Fertility Mothers and of a mythical Serpent. These secret cults are a relatively recent discovery of Australian ethnology. The first important fieldwork was done by Warner in 1927-29, followed twenty years later by the work of Ronald Berndt.34 The cults spread rather rapidly in the last forty or fifty years and influenced one another or even coalesced. Thus we have today mostly syncretistic secret fertility cults, although their original form is still recognizable. Among the most widespread ones are the ritual sequences related to the Wauwalak (Wawalag, Wagilag, Wawilak) Sisters and a female and male (Berndt)or a bisexual (Warner)python, Yurlunggur. Their myths underlie three ritual complexes. The first, djunggawon (djungguan), is an age-grading ceremony; the second, gunabibi (Warner) or Kunapipi (Berndt), is primarily a secret fertility cult; the third, ngurlmak-in the opinion of Ronald and Catherine Berndt the "most important of the three9,-is essentially "revelatory in character."35 As a matter of fact, each of these ritual sequences constitutes an initiation ceremony, in the sense that in every one of them a certain number of young men are for the first time introduced to specific secrets of the cult. What characterizes all of them, as well as all other esoteric mysteries of Arnhem Land, is the dominant role played by female Primordial Beings and the importance of sexual and fertility rites and symbols. As we shall presently see, their myths and rituals refer continuously to the religious values of menstrual and afterbirth blood, semen, copulation, fecundity, and birth. The meaning of this apparently recent innovation in comparison with the central and southeastern Australian pattern will retain us later on. Each of the three ritual sequences illustrates certain portions of a fundamental myth, but the main mythological theme underlies every ceremony in part. The principal personages are the two Wauwalak Sisters and a mythical Snake. Their adventures are related in a cycle of songs which are chanted on the sacred ground during the ceremonies.36 The myth narrates how the Sisters came into northern Arnhem Land from farther south. Before leaving, the elder Sister had incestuous relations with a member of her
34 Warner, op. cit.; Ronald &I.Berndt, K u n a p i p i (Melbourne, 1951); see also W. S. Chaseling, YuEengor, h'omads of Arnhem Land (London, 1957). 35 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 240. 38 Some of the sacred songs are published by R. M. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 85-132. 72
clan and was thus pregnant during the journey. She is called "with child," while her younger Sister is called "without child" (R. M. Berndt, op. cit., p. 20). As they walked they caught some animals for their supper, declaring that these animals would become sacred later on and thus play a role in the ceremonies. Then they rested awhile, and the elder Sister gave birth to a girl. When the Mother was able to travel, they went in the direction of the sacred well Muruwul. There they made f i e and wanted to cook, but the animals jumped from the fire into the well. The plants which were also in the bag ran away too. They knew that since one of the Sisters was impure because of her afterbirth blood, they ought not to go near the well, in which snakes, including Yurlunggur (Julunggul), lived. Indeed, attracted by the smell of blood, Yurlunggur lifted her head from the well and spouted water. The Sisters saw the clouds and built a hut to escape the rain. The following night Yurlunggur sent lightning and emerged from the well, crawling toward the hut. The younger Sister tried to keep the snake away by dancing, and her dances are re-enacted in the Kunapipi ceremonies. Finally, the Sisters took refuge in the hut, but Yurlunggur followed them and swallowed both of them and the child. Yurlunggur then returned to the Muruwul well where she met her husband and then boasted to the other snakes that she had swallowed the Wauwalak Sisters. Their loud and sinister noise is imitated during the ceremonies by whirling bull-roarers. There are different versions of the last part of the myth. One of them is the following: "After the swallowing, the female Julunggul returned to Muruwul; there she vomited the Wauwalak and child, who were revivified by the bites of the ants, but were eventually re-swallowed. The Wauwalak spirits are still a t the sacred well; 'we can't see them, although they can see us, for now they belong to Julunggul.' When they see human beings coming to this site, the Julunggul swallows them again in their spirit form."37 We shall come back to the most relevant episodes of the myth while describing the rituals that depend on them. We shall also discuss the religious structure of the Snake, taking into consideration not only the Wauwalak theme but other Australian mythicoritual systems as well. For the moment, we may point out the complex symbolism of Yurlunggur. To start with, the sex of the
37
Ibid., p. 31. See also the myth of Wauwalak women in Warner, op. cit.,
73
pp. 2 4 M 9 .

Snake is not clear. Warner asserts that there is only one Snake, a male 0ne,38 while R. M. Berndt thinks that there are two Snakes, a male and a female. Berndt quotes the natives' interpretation, that Yurlunggur entering into the hut is "like a penis going into a vagina."sQ On the other hand, the act of swallowing seems to have a feminine symbolism, for after swallowing the Sisters, Yurlunggur becomes pregnant. Most probably these variations and apparent contradictions point to an original bisexuality of the Snake. And we shall see that the bisexuality is only one, though the most impressive, expression of the "divine totality" (ideally, a coincidentia oppositorum).
The first ritual sequence, the age-grading djunggawon, begins with the ca1I of the sacred trumpet (yurlunggur). The novices are told by their fathers and other men, "The Great Father Snake smells your foreskin. He is calling for it" (Warner, op. cit., p. 251). After a series of preliminaries (journey of the young boys to visit the various relatives and clans and invite them to the coming ceremony, etc.) the novices are decorated and painted and taken to the sacred ground. There is a series of dances around a sacred pole accompanied by the chant "A-wa!-a-wa!" which is the sound of falling rain. "They do that because those two old women did that when they tried to stop the rain" (ibid., p. 256). Ordinarily older women do the dancing and the wailing, and in the native interpretation they are "all the same" as the Wauwalak Sisters. Afterward, the older men sing of Yurlunggur and his well, and the yurlunggur trumpet is blown over the uncircumcised novices. The native interpretation of this ritual is: "Yurlunggur crawled right into the camp with the women and their children. He swallowed them."4O While other songs are chanted and pantomimes are enacted that refer to different incidents of the myth (movements of Yurlunggur, lightning, black rain clouds, etc.), the men cut their arms, and the blood is collected into a paper-bark basin. The dancers paint themselves with this sacrificial blood, considered to
3s See, e.g., Warner, op. cit., pp. 238-40, 242 ff., eto. For Warner, "Muit or Yurlunggur is man and woman, but he is thought of as male" (ibid., p. 373). 39 R.M, Berndt, op. cit., p. 25. Warner writes that "the oirournoised penis haa the mark of the snake upon it because the python has taken the foreskin and by the operation the blood has been let for the Great Father" (op. cit., p. 126). 40 Warner, op. cit., p. 261. The version recorded by Warner speaks of two Sisters and their children; of. ibid., pp. 240 f f .
74
be the menses of the Wauwalak Sisters. Warner was told during a ceremony : That blood we put all over those men is all the same as the blood that came from that old woman's vagina. It isn't the blood of those men any more because it has been sung over and made strong. The hole in the man's arm isn't that hole any more. It is all the same as the vagina of that old woman that had blood coming out of it. This is the blood that snake smelled when he was in the Mirrirmina well. . . . When a man has got blood on him (is ceremonially decorated with it), he is all the same as those two old women when they had blood. All the animals ran away and they couldn't cook them [ibid., p. 2681. The following day represents the climax of the ceremony. The dancers are painted with human blood. The boys who are to be circumcised are also painted, but "blood is never used because it is magically too powerful for an uncircumcised boy" (ibid., p. 272). The novices are shown the animal dances, and the older men explain their meaning. They are also shown the sacred trumpet, yurlunggur. "Each initiate is asked t o try to blow the trumpet. Then the old men command all of them to 'respect their fathers and mothers,' 'never to tell lies,' 'not to run after women who do not belong t o them,' 'not to divulge any of the secrets of the men to the women, men who belong to a lower division of the association, or uninitiated boys,' and all in all to live up to the tribal code" (ibid., p. 274). Eventually the young men are circumcised. Then their wounds are steamed over a fire while they are instructed: "You must not use obscene language. You must never tell a lie. You must not commit adultery, etc." (ibid., p. 278). Finally the ceremonial trumpet is buried a t night in the mud of the totemic well, so that the women will not see it when they approach the site (ibid., p. 281). Though the main purpose of djunggawon is the circumcision of young men, the ceremony comprises a great number of rituals restricted exclusively to the already initiated adults. I n other words, the age-grading ceremony is integrated into the celebration of certain episodes of the sacred history. Only the previously circumcised young man can be initiated in the Kunapipi secret cult. The reason seems evident, for the principal aim of the cult is universal fertility.
KUNAPIPI AND NGURLMAK
The Kunapipi ritual is usually held in the dry season when food is abundant, in other words, when people are reaping the benefits of
75

previous ceremonies. The ritual sequence may last from two weeks to several months. Messengers are sent out to inform members of neighboring groups. The ritual ground is prepared in the bush, and a bull-roarer is made and anointed with blood. "Some time afterward the first rites take place in the main camp. Men sing the 'outside' or camp version of the Wawalag and Kunapipi songs, while the women dance: non-sacred garma or clan songs are also sung. This continues for some weeks."41 Finally, one evening the bull-roarer is twirled and the voice of Yurlunggur is heard. The Kunapipi leader and all the women call out in answer, just as the Wauwalak Sisters cried when Yurlunggur approached them. The young boys, smeared with red ochre, are taken from the main camp to meet the Snake. I n fact, they are an offering to Yurlunggur, and the Snake swallows them. Thus propitiated, Yurlunggur returns to the sacred ground, which symbolizes the Muruwul well.42 The women lament over the initiates as if they are dead.43 On the sacred ground, singing and dancing continue through the night. The dances commemorate the animals that the Sisters tried to cook but that escaped from the fire into Yurlunggur's well. Dances, pantomimes, and songs go on for some weeks, until a large crescent-shaped trench (gana1a)-symbolizing the uterusis dug. At some time the novices are placed in the ganala and covered with bark. Two large jelmalandji emblems are erected beside the ganala, and after the bark sheets are removed the boys are told to look a t Yurlunggur emerging from the sacred well. After further dances, firebrands representing the lightning sent by Yurlunggur are thrown over the ganala where the novices are crouched. The dancers re-enact the swallowing of the Wauwalak Sisters. According to Ronald Berndt, "the actual swallowing, said
R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 241. The sacred ground itself, shaped in the form of a triangle, is Yurlunggur's body, and the hole a t its apex represents the well Muruwul; cf. ibid., p. 241. 43 I n some versions, the boys are not swallowed by Yurlunggur but by another snake, Lu'ningu, who, according to the myth, having seen Yurlunggur swallow and then disgorge the two Sisters, wanted to imitate him. He went wandering about the country, swallowing young men, but when he disgorged them they were dead and sometimes reduced to skeletons. I n revenge, men killed him, and later they raised a monument representing him-the two posts called jelmalandji (R. M. Berndt, op,cit., pp. 35 ff.). I n the ritual, Berndt writes, the young novices "leaving the main camp for the sacred ground are said to be swallowed by Lu'ningu, just as he swallowed the young men in the Dreaming Era" (ibid., p. 37). But the two Snakes-Yurlunggur and Lu'ninga-are confused, for on their return to the main camp, the men tell the women: "All the young boys have gone today; Julunggul has swallowed them up" (ibid., p. 41). Cf. also Eliade, B i r t h and Rebirth, pp. 49 and 149 (n. 28).
41 42
76
to mean coitus, may also symbolize the 'return of the Wauwalak to the uterus of their Mother,' as in the conventional interpretation of Kunapipi mythology. The vomiting of the Wauwalak with their revivification and reswa,llowing,and their subsequent swallowing in spirit form, extends the symbolism and may be compared with the comings and goings (birth and rebirth) of the totemites to and from the Mother's uterus."44 Continuing the ritual, the men open their arm veins and sprinkle blood on one another and into the trench: this is the blood of the Sisters. Finally they dance around the trench, filling it with sand and earth. The main ceremony is almost completed. The final rituals are the ceremonial exchangk of wives and the return of the initiates to the ordinary camp. "Ritual licence, widely known as the gurangara, is an integral part of the Kunapipi. It is said to establish goodwill, to cement the bonds of friendship, bringing members of different groups closer together. Moreover, it draws women further into the sacred scheme of the Kunapipi, and symbolizes fertility, which is the main aim of the ritual."45 The following morning two forked posts, with a thick connecting pole between them, are set up. The pole is covered with branches, and the freshly initiated boys are placed under them, holding on to the pole with their hands. They are, that is, in the womb, and they will emerge reborn-"their spirit comes out new."46 The third ritual, the ngurlmalc, represents a rather recent addition to the Wauwalak mythological cycle; it was adapted from the Blligator River region. For our purpose ngurlmak is important because it re-emphasizes the fertility elements and the bisexual symbolism already present in the first two cults. The myths, as usual, are varied and confused. One of them tells how the Mother came from the islands and, in moving about, left spirit children to become the ancestors of the different tribes.47 Another myth narrates how a girl was killed by her fianc6, a python with whom she refused to sleep. The python (sometimes a male Rainbow
4 4 R. M. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 31-32. The symbolic regressus ad uterum is a welllrnown motif in many types of initiations; cf, inter alia, Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 51 ff. 45 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit. pp. 242-43. 48 R. M. Berndt, op. cit., p. 53. See also the description of a gunabibi ceremony in Warner, op, cit., pp. 280-301. Warner considers this ritual constellation an agegrading ceremony. 4 7 Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 226; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 210. "In one version she tried to circumcise the children she had made. At first she was unsuccessful and the children died: in those areas people do not practice circumcision today. But a t last she succeeded, and the children survived: in these places, therefore, people continue to circumcise" (ibid.).
77
Awtralian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Serpent) made a hollow log, an ubar, into which he entered. Eventually the girl put in her hand and was "bitten" and killed. The ubar is one of the most sacred objects, and plays the central role in the ngurlmak initiation. During the ceremony, the novice is symbolically "killed" by the Snake. He places his hand in the ubar, where it is touched by a maraiin stone, representing the Serpent's head. But the symbolism of the ubar is still more complex. Among some tribes (e.g., the Gunwinggu) i t represents the uterus of the Mother, but it can also be identified with the Rainbow Serpent. Among the Maung a t Goulburn Island, the ubar is still the womb of the Mother, but it is also the genital organ of the male Rainbow Snake.48 The hollow log is beaten continuously during the ceremony, and this resonant sound signifies the Mother's voice calling men to the sacred ground. ("In some versions, this ground, the mother's womb, and the ritual is one of rebirth."49) I n the second part of the ceremony a whistling summons the Rainbow Snake. The Serpent moves, arches his body, and ascends to the sky. "He is the harbinger of rain, rejuvenator of the earth: he is the instrument through which the rebirth of nature is achieved, with the help of the Mother."so
THE ANCESTRESS AND THE SNAKE
All these ceremonies, but especially the last two, are connected with the mystery of maintaining life and fertility on earth. I n the tropical regions of Arnhem Land, life and fertility depend primarily on having the proper amount of rain. For this reason the ritual scenarios of the Ancestresses and of the Rainbow Serpent have been brought together. Most probably, this conjunction is a recent phenomenon, for the Rainbow Serpent is found almost all over the continent, while the cults of the Primordial Mothers are exclusive to Amhem Land and are known to have been imported from Melanesia.51 Nevertheless, the convergence of the two systems is most relevant for an understanding of Australian religions. Though limited to the northern part of the continent, such
4s R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 211. I n Goulburn Island, the ubar is said to have belonged in the beginning only to women (R. M. and C. H. Berndt, Sexual Behaviou~in Western Amhem Land [New York, 19511, - 122). On this - p. motif, cf. below, pp. 86 ff. 49 Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 226. 60 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The Wwld of the First Australians. D . 234. 51 Cf. A. P. Elkin, Preface tb R. M. ~ e r n d t , cit., p. xxii; ~ l k & , - ~ Awrtralian op. he Aborigines, p. 229; Wilhelm Schmidt, "Mythologie und Religion in Nord Australien," Anthropoa, XLVIII (1953), 898-924.
fertility cults disclose a pan-Australian pattern. As everywhere else in Australia, the cult of the Ancestress reiterates a primordial drama. The rituals assure the continuation of the cosmic life and a t the same time introduce the initiates to a sacred history that ultimately reveals the meaning of their lives. Incidentally, the most striking parallel to the Australian ritual re-enactment of the "Creation" is to be found in post-Vedic India. The brahmanic sacrifice repeats what was done in the beginning, a t the moment of Creation, and it is only because of the strict and uninterrupted performance of the sacrifice that the world continues and periodically renews itself. Moreover, it is only by identifying himself with the sacrifice that man can conquer death. Likewise, as we have abundantly seen, the Australian religious system consists in the repetition of the paradigmatic acts performed by Supernatural Beings in the Dream Time. It is by this continuous imitation of divine models that the Australian keeps his world alive and fertile, understands his proper mode of being, and finally conquers a "spiritual" post existence. Thus, structurally, there is no solution of continuity between the Australian and brahmanic ritual ideologies. This continuity has to be kept in mind when one tries to evaluate the "style" of Australian spiritual creations. It is interesting to know how the aborigines judge the sacred history they so faithfully relive and re-enact. For the Murngin, for example, the beginning of that fateful drama is related to a primordial sin. If the Wauwalak Sisters " 'hadn't done wrong in their own country and copulated with Dua Wongar men [an incestuous act] and then come down to the Liaalaomir country and menstruated and made that snake wild [angry]', this cycle would never have occurred. 'Everyone and all the plants and animals would have walked about by themselves.' There would have been no copulation between the sexes and no children and no change. 'After they had done this wrong they made i t the law for everyone."'52 I n other words, without that "original sin," the world, life, and human existence would not have been as they are today. But, on the other hand, the Wauwalak Sisters tried to repent by teaching men the rituals in which the episodes of the primordial drama are continuously re-enacted. Through these rituals, man is purified, and nature is aided in the keeping of its seasonal rhythms.
52
Warner, op. cit., p. 376.
79

"These ceremonies are designed to aid nature, or possibly it would be better to say to restrain man from preventing by his unclean actions the coming of the dry season of plenitude" (Warner, op. cit., p. 376). The world as i t is now, man's specific mode of being, and "religion"-all this is the result of a primeval sin of the mythical Ancestress. (Let us recall that this is a well-known pattern: even for Judaeo-Christianity, "religion" is the consequence of the Ancestor's fall.) Ultimately, this means that the world and human existence must be accepted as they are because they represent the result of a divine drama. Moreover the authors of the catastrophe taught man how to live in a "fallen" world, and especially instructed him how to avoid aggravating the situation. Fundamentally, the role of the Ancestresses is ambivalent: they initiated man into their sacred mysteries, but these mysteries are the consequence of their sins. This ambivalence opened the way to countless identifications, in the first place the identification of the Ancestress with the Snake. Kunapipi, which means "Old Woman," "Our Mother," is also one of the names of the Snake who swallowed the Wauwalak Sisters.53 I n the Oenpelli area, "Kunapipi is sometimes identified with Ngaljod, the Rainbow: she is a woman, 'our Mother,' but also a snake, and she may take other shapes too."54 I n the Alligator River region in western Arnhem Land, "our mother from earliest times" becomes identified with the female Rainbow Serpent.55 The coalescence of the two symbols is even more clearly expressed in the Kunapipi cult, where the subincised penis represents the Snake and the incision itself the womb of the Mother.56 As we have already seen, the sexual symbolism of the ubar includes both the Mother and the bisexual Snake.
THE RAINBOW SERPENT
These multiple confusions and identifications may reflect historical contact between, and coalescence of, different cults.57 But, on the other hand, the ambivalence of the Ancestress corresponds to a richer and even more complex ambivalence of the Snake. We have
R. M. Berndt, op. cit., p. 16. R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, p. 245. Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 226. 56 R. M. Berndt, op. cit., p. 16.57 See, e.g., J. de Leeuwe, "Male Right and Female Right among the Autochtons of Arnhem Land," Acta Ethnographica, XI11 (Budapest, 1964), 313-48; XIV (1965), 303-48. The author thinks that the myths and rituals of Arnhem Land point to a n archaic gynecocracy of diggers and gatherers which was overthrown later on by the males.
53 54 55
here a characteristic religious phenomenon: a Supreme Being becomes a "totality" by integrating a series of polar and even contradictory attributes and activities. Such a process is encouraged and facilitated by the fundamental religious dialectics of the wincidentia oppositorum, which we have studied in many of our previous works.58 The religious ambivalence of the Snake is illustrated on several levels of reference. We have already said something concerning the sexual ambivalence of Yurlunggur (see p. 74). W. E. H. Stanner's informers described the Rainbow Serpent, Angamunggi, "in terms of the familiar All-Father imagery: as the primeval father of men, the giver of life, the maker of spirit children, and the guardian and protector of life"but "they suggested that he had a womb."59 I n the Roper River area also the Rainbow Snake is considered bisexual.60 Even more important are the polarities manifested in the Serpent's cosmic epiphanies and activities. Analyzing the belief of theunambal and theungarinyin, wenoticed that Ungud, the Primordial Snake, represents the mythical expression of the union of opposites.61 Among many other tribes, the Rainbow Serpent is closely associated, on the one hand, with subterranean water and, on the other hand, with rain and, as such, with the sky. The great python of northern Australia "is the rainbow, which is his house or his trumpet, and is omniscient in the heaven and in the subterranean depths."62 Apropos of the large rock paintings of the Rainbow Serpent, Elkin writes that they "express the desire for that link with the world on top, without which there would be no rain, and consequently no water present in the 'wells' and rockholes."63 As a cosmic figure, related to universal fertility, the Rainbow Serpent has both creative and destructive aspects: he brings the rains, but also the catastrophic floods, etc.64 A. R.
5 8 Bee, e.g., M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York and London, 1958), pp. 419 ff.; idem, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (New York and London, 1958), pp. 244 ff., 267 ff., etc.; idem, Mephistophelee and the Androgyne (New York and London, 1966), pp. 78 ff. 59 W. E. H. Stamer, On Aboriginal Religion (Oceania Monograph No. 11 [Bydney, 19631, p. 87). Kunmanggu, the Rainbow Snake of the Murinbata, "may have been bi-sexual" (ibid., p. 96). 60 Ronald M. Berndt (ed.), Australian Aboriginal Art (New York, 1964), p. 83. 6 1 Eliade, "Australian Religions: A n Introduction, Part 11," p. 234. 62 Frederick D. McCarthy, Australia's Aborigines: Their Life and Culture (Melbourne, 1957), p. 119. The great mythical Water Serpent "is often the Rainbow-Serpent and like the latter, is in touch with the sky" (Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 304). 63 A. P. Elkin, "Art and Life," in R. M. Berndt (ed.), Australian Aboriginal
A+t. D - 14. . -r --- 7
64 See the bibliography on the Rainbow Serpent in Eliade, "Australian Religions: An introduction, Part 11," p. 233, n. 58. Vittorio Lanternari, La Orande Festa

Radcliffe-Brown thought that the Rainbow Serpent could be considered "as occupying the position of the deity and perhaps the most important nature-deity."65 But he is more than a "naturedeity." The Rainbow Serpent is related to women's mysteries, to sex and blood and after-death existence, and as we shall see, he also plays a central role in the initiations and mystical experiences of medicine men. I n other words, he is an important deity because his structure has permitted the Rainbow Serpent to unite the opposites and finally to become a "totality." I n different contexts, he could actualize a great number of religious possibilities which were latent in his all-embracing symbolism. We saw how the sexual symbolism of the Rainbow Serpent was overarticulated in the Kunapipi cult, and we shall see how other, and different, symbols gain primary roles in the medicine men's mystical experiences. I n sum, the quest for a naturistic genesis, or "origin," of a deity is meaningless. Any religious creation has, evidently, its source in life, ultimately in nature; but the identification of the source does not disclose to us the meaning of that particular creation. The Rainbow Snake is no more a rainbow than a snake. The "natural" meteorologic phenomenon and the "natural" reptilian species are religiously valuable because they are related to a religious structure, that of the Rainbow Snalre.
INITIATION O F OZRLS
As everywhere else in the world, the Australian girls' initiation is simpler than that of the boys.66 At the first sign of puberty, the girl is separated from the main camp and sent for several days into seclusion. The break with the world of childhood is provoked by the physiological symptoms of menstruation. For this reason, the girl's initiation is largely individual. During the period of seclusion the girls are instructed by older women. They learn songs and specific myths, and especially the behavior and duties of married women. The concluding ceremony is simple but significant. Among some coastal tribes of northern Australia, the girl
(Milan, 1959), pp. 329-49, considers the Australian Rainbow Serpent a "Lord of the Rain" and explains his myths and rituals as related exclusively to this cosmic phenomenon. 65 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth in South-East Australia," Oceania, I (1930), 342-47, esp. 342. More recently, Frederick D. McCarthy (op. cit., p. 129) expressed a similar opinion. 66 See Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 41 ff.; Bettelheim, op. cit., pp. 239 ff.
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is painted with ochre and richly decorated by women. "At the climax, all the women' escort her a t dawn to a fresh water stream or lagoon."67 After a ritual bath she is led in procession to the "main camp, amid a certain amount of acclamation, and is socially accepted as a woman."6s The essential rite is a solemn exhibition of the girl to the community. She is shown to be an adult, that is, to be ready to assume the mode of being proper to women. It is a ceremonial proclamation that a mystery has been accomplished. "To show something ceremonially-a sign, an object, an animal-is to declare a sacred presence, to acclaim the miracle of a hierophany. This rite, which is so simple in itself, denotes a religious behaviour that is archaic. Very probably this ceremonial presentation of the initiated girl represents the earliest stage of the ceremony."69 I n other places, the girl's initiation entails an artificial defloration followed by a ritual intercourse with a group of men.70 H. Basedow mentions the "smoking ceremony" and ritual bathing among the Laragia and the Wogaidj.71 I n the Great Victoria Desert, after her seclusion the girl is taken into the bushand has her hymen cut. "Next day she is painted with red ochre and white clay and decorated with string necklets, and a pearlshell, with its 'life-giving' properties, restores her to life."72 Such operations as this artificial defloration and also the ceremonial group intercourse with the young girl, are most probably mutilations and rituals invented by men and inflicted upon women a t a certain stage of the men's growing authority. But, exactly as in the case of boys, the girl's puberty rites are only the beginning of her initiation. I n some cases, one can even speak of gradual stages of initiation. Among the tribes of northwestern Australia, "with sexual maturity the girl may take part in the women's secret corroborees. After she has a child, she may assist a t the rites carried out for her female relatives. Later she gradually learns the songs that are h r a g u ( =sacred) and gunbu ( =taboo) to the men, and in old age she directs proceedings and becomes responsible
R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The First Australians (New York, 1954),p. 54.
R. M.and C. H. Berndt, Sexual Behaviour in Wastern.Arnhem Land, pp. 84-91.
Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, p. 43.
Roth, op. cit., pp. 174 ff.; B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tm'bes oJ
Central Australia (London, 1938), pp. 457 ff.; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, p. 151. 7 1 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, p. 152. 7 2 Ibid., p. 152; Werner, op. cit., p. 300, n. 15, writes that in northeastern Arnhem Land a girl, when she has had her &st menses, is decorated with a flying fox (a large fruit bat) design associated with death. 83
67 68 60 70

for the handing on of her knowledge to the generation of women below her."73 Childbirth especially constitutes a mystery. Dr. Phyllis Kaberry had more difficulty in collecting seoret childbirth songs than she had in obtaining information from men in regard to the initiation of boys.74 I n most of the Northern Territory and neighboring regions, the women have their own seoret rituals, to which men are not admitted.75
Catherine Berndt was able to study two such women's ceremonies in the Victoria River district. The first one, tjarada, was "shown" to certain women, in dreams, by the two Mungamunga-fairylike creatures assooiated with the fertility cult of the Mother. They are said to be very attractive, although normally invisible, and t o "possess supernatural powers, being able to go underground, and walk about the sky among the clouds: some women declare that they are assooiated with rain, and with the giant Rainbow Snake."76 The woman remembers what she had seen in dream and re-enacts the ceremony, thus becomingits lawful owner. To partake in the tjarada involves some danger; i t implies contact with the sacred power of the Mother. The most important ritual object is a long pole, representing a snake (C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 33). The participants paint themselves in white and red ochre, with varied and beautiful patterns. The tjarada usually takes place on a special ground a t some distance from the main camp. The men and young boys are warned not to approach the dancing place. Most of the songs are erotic in nature, but some of them refer to the Mother's journeys and adventures (ibid, pp. 40 ff.). The second ceremony, jawalju, is considered to be "bigger" than tjarada because it is more closely associated with the dreaming period. More precautions are taken than in ordinary circumstances, to prevent men from seeing what is going on. "Jawagu ceremonies are compared by the women to those which the men perform on the sacred ground; they all, it is said, have the same source and Dreaming background" (ibid., p. 45). Several dances reenact the travels and activities of the Ancestral Being, or Beings, Ininguru,
73 Phyllis M. Kaberry, Aboriginal W o m a n , Sacred and Profane (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 237. 7 4 Ibid., pp. 241 ff. On other women's secret ceremonies in relation to children, cf. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 45 ff. 75 Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines, p. 193. 76 Catherine H. Berndt, "Women's Changing Ceremonies in Northern Australia," L'Homme. Cahiers d'ethnologie, de gdographie et de linguistique, I (Paris, 1950), 31. 84
responsible for the ceremony. I n the Dreaming period the Ininguru traveled across the "desert" country, but now they reside in the sky, although they still visit the earth to see what is going on (ibid., p. 44). Some of the songs are used for healing, others to stop a fight or a quarrel." It is interesting to note that the pattern of these women's secret ceremonies corresponds almost exactly to that of the ceremonies performed by men: the oult consists in the re-enactment of a series of rather banal incidents which took place in the mythical time.78 Though the women are not admitted to the male secret ceremonies, they do play a subsidiary role in some of them. For instance, they observe the prescribed taboos while the men are gathered for the secret rituals, they dance and chant in many preliminary stages, they answer ritual calls, and they are even present at some final episodes.79 Of course, in the fertility cults of Arnhem Land the ceremonial role of women is more important. I n the Maraian ceremony the women meet the men when they retire to the camp, and with their bodies painted they join them in dances around the ceremonial pole. I n the Yabuduruwa oult of the Roper River district, the women are brought on the final night to within ten yards of the secret ritual ground. ''KO screen is raised between them and the latter."sQ They lie and sleep there knowing that a specific ritual object-related to the central figure of the myth-is buried superficially under them. They do not touch the sacred objects until they are awakened, but then they carry them ceremonially. "At this very time an important ritual is in progress and the women cannot but hear the rhythmic breathing as well as the gong beats. If they turned their heads as they jogged along
77 Catherine Berndt also describes a recent "individual" ceremony, founded by a woman after a period of grave mental disturbances; her memory failed her, "like as if I been finished, dead" (ibid., p. 53). During this "trance" Mungamunga appeared to her in dreams, showing her a "big" ceremony they were performing. She awoke one morning "clear-headed and apparently her usual self" (ibid.), and soon afterward she founded the cult. This "ecstatic" experience, implying a preliminary period of "madness," unconsciousness, and visions, followed by a total psychomental recovery and a radical transformation of life (the passage from a "profane" to a "sacred" existence), is a characteristic syndrome of shamanistic experiences; cf. Eliade, Shamanism: Ecstatic Techniques of Ecstasy, esp. pp. 33 ff. 78 When Catherine Berndt did her fieldwork, the women's secret ceremonies were already rapidly decaying. Fewer and fewer women took part in the rituals (C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 6 1 ff.). For many younger women the main interest of the chants and dances was exclusively erotic (of. ibid., p. 59), and most of them used the ceremony as a magical means for their erotic life (ibid., p. 70). Incidentally, this transformation of a decaying religious cult into a magical operation is a process relevant for the understanding of magic as a secondary phenomenon. 79 Elkin, T h e Australian. Aborigines, pp. 190-91; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, T h e World of the First Australians, pp. 214 ff. 80 Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines, p. 191.
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they could see the actors. However, they light the iguana tails a t the fire, and move off in a long sinuous line to the camp, conscious that they have played their part well."81
There are also mythical traditions that indicate a more important role for the women in religious life in earlier times. Among some tribes, the (mythical) women are even considered the inventors of the rituals and the original owners of the sacred objects. Thus, among the Aranda, B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen found the souvenir of a time when women had more to do with sacred ceremonies than a t present.82 And Strehlow points out that in Aranda mythology the Ancestresses are "usually dignified and sometimes aweinspiring figures, who enjoyed unlimited freedom of decision and action. Frequently they were much more powerful beings than their male associates, and the latter sometimes lived in constant terror of their mysterious supernatural strength. These feminine ancestors used to carry about tjurungas, and they instituted sacred ceremonies. Today many chants are still sung in their honor by groups of men . . . These men regard themselves as the natural 'trustees' of all the sacred tjurungas pertaining to the women of their group."83 Moreover, there are some allusions to the role played earlier by women in the rites of circumcision. For example, an Aranda myth relates that the women once found the boys ready for circumcision; they seized them, put them on their shoulders, and performed the operation.84 Another tradition points out that in the beginning the men made use of fire sticks to circumcise the boys, with fatal consequences, until the womeil threw a sharp piece of flint up to them.85 Among some tribes, the foreskin of the initiated boy is given to his
81 Ibid., p. 192. I n Bathurst and Melville Islands, the women are still allowed to participate in sacred rites; cf. Charles P. Mountford, The Tiwi (London, 1958); De Leeuwe, op. cit., XIV, 339. 82 Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Azcstralia, pp. 195, 196. 8 3 Strehlow, op. cit., p. 94. But now the men look down upon their own women. "Our women are of no use a t our ceremonial gatherings. They are altogether ignorant of the sacred tjurungas. They have fallen from the estate of our great feminine ancestors. Why, we do not know" (ibid.). 84 Spencer and Gillen, The ~Vatiue Tribes of Central Australia, p. 442. 85 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, "A Preliminary Report on Field Work in the Ooldea Region, Western South Australia," Oceania, Vols. XII-XV (1942-45); see XI11 (1943), 257. But see also n. 47, above. Bettelheim (op. cit., p. 170) has quoted similar myths of circumcision as a feminine invention from New Hebrides. The same tradition is found among the Bambuti: circumcision was discovered by a woman, who supposedly saw the apes practicing it (P. Schebesta, Les Pygmbes du Congo Belge [Brussels, 19511, p. 266).
86
sister, who then dries it, anoints it with ochre and suspends it from her neck.86 Even more intriguing are the traditions that at the beginning the ritual objects were discovered and owned by women. I n a Wiknatara myth, the first bull-roarer was twirled by two young girls, who said: "It belongs to us women, really we have found it! But no matter! We leave it for the men. It is they who will always use it!"87 I n the Western Desert south of Balgo, the mythical women possessed all the sacred rituals before they were taken from them by the men. Likewise, in western Arnhem Land the ubar ceremony belonged in the beginning only to women.88 The Djanggawul myth in northeastern Arnhem Land tells how the two Sisters built a shelter and hung their baskets in it full of sacred emblems. While they were away, their Brother and his companion stole the baskets and began performiilg the ritual. The women "were too frightened to go near that place, fearful not of the men but of the power of the sacred songs. The men had taken from them not only these songs, and the emblems, but also the power to perform sacred ritual, a power which had formerly belonged only to the Sisters. Before that, men had nothing. The myth continues: The elder Sister said, ' . . . Men can do it now, they can look after it . . . We know everything. We have really lost nothing, because we remember it all, and we can let them have that small part. Aren't we still sacred, even if we have lost the baskets?'"89 Another myth tells how at the beginning the Ganabuda women had all the sacred things, while men had nothing. "But one man,
86 Spencer and Gillon, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 251; of. also Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 352, 368, etc., for other examples of the relation between women and circumcision (or subincision). Cf. Bettelheim, op. cit., pp. 159 ff. 87 U. H. McConnel, "Myths of the Wikmunkan and Wiknatara Tribes," Oceania, VI (1936), 68. I n a Wikmunkan myth the women say: "this is a bullroarer, we found it! We women! It is we who have found it!" (ibid., p. 82). 88 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, p. 215. "Then we had nothing: no sacred objects, no sacred ceremonies, the women had everything" (R. M. Berndt, K u m p i p i , p. 8; of. also pp. 55, 59). 89 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, p. 216. Cf. ibid., p. 239, the ritual re-enactment of the theft. The complete text of the myth is in R. M. Berndt, Djanggawul (London, 1952), pp. 38-41. Another version is in Chaseling, op. cit., pp. 133-34; "In those days women were the guardians of ceremonial secrets, and their male children led a vague, indolent existence. But when the ancestresses began preparing for the first great intertribal ceremonies, their sons became jealous." They stole the "totems," and when the Djanggawul Sisters tried to recover them, they were driven away by the power of the men's ritual singing and dancing. The Sisters said: "No matter, let the men keep the totems," and so it has been ever since. See also Charles P. Mountford (ed.), Records of the American-Australian Scientijc Expedition to Arnhem Land, I {Melbourne, 1956), 269 ff.
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Djalaburu, creeping close and watching them secretly one night, discovered that they kept their power (maia) under their armbands. He succeeded in stealing this. Next morning the women tried to swing their bull-roarers, but they could hardly manage t o do so: they had lost their power. After that, Djalaburu led them down to where the men were; the men went up to where the women had been, and tookover their responsibility for attending to sacred rnatters."gO What is significant in these traditions is the fact that the (mythical) women accepted the consequences of the theft, that is to say, the passing of the magico-religious powers from their hands into the men's. I n some cases, the saving mystical knowledge is purposely communicated by the Ancestress in dreams. Such was the mode of transmission from the Wauwalak Sisters to the Wongar ancestors: they taught them all the secret dances and chants while they were in a deep sleep. They told them: "We are giving you this dream so you can remember these important things."gl Similar myths relating how the women possessed the ritual objects and cultic scenarios are to be found elsewhere, especially in Melanesia and South America.92 We shall discuss them when we present the religious systems of those areas. As was to be expected depth psychologists accorded considerable attention to such mythological traditions. Some authors even thought that these myths mirror a primordial situation that was once universal. The historian of religions is confronted with a different problem. The first thing to be considered is the nature of the sacred objects and rituals said to have been originally owned by women: they are "totemic" emblems (type ranga), bull-roarers, masks (in South America), ceremonial songs and dances related to sexuality and fertility, or a ritual operation (circumcision) claimed to have been discovered, perfected, or suggested to men by women. All these sacred objects and secret rituals have something in common: they are powerful, somehow "magical" instruments, for they can incorporate or represent supernatural forces (e.g., bull-roarers), or, more precisely, they can compel the incarnation of such supernatural forces (e.g., the masks). They are all related to the epiphanies of life (blood, sex, fertility) or to the "powers" deriving
R. M. and C. H. Berndt, T h e World of the First Australians, p. 224. Warner, op. cit., p. 249. 92 See Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 29 ff. and p. 145, n. 50; F. Speiser, "Die Frau als Erfhderin von Kultgeraten in Melanesien," Schweizerische Zeitschrift far Pqchologie und ihre Anwendungen, I11 (1944), 46-64. 88
90 91
from them. However, no important religious doctrines--an& no significant cosmological myths-are said to have been discovered by, or to have been the original property of, women. I n sum, these traditions tell us that a t some time in the past men stole, or received, from women a number of powerful symbols and that this incident marked a radical change in both sexes: from a subordinate position, men became the masters. But, judging from the Australian myths, this radical transformation has been candidly accepted by women. We must also keep in mind that the theme of the theft is restricted to the fertility cults of Arnhem Land. I n other words, these myths tell us that men began to perform the women's secret ceremonies after stealing-or receiving-the sacred objects or the ritual scenarios. But, as we have already noticed, the Arnhem Land fertility cults are the result of rather recent influences from Melanesia. That is to say, the mythical motif "it belongs to us women" reflects "historical" changes and not a "primordial" situation. Similarly, no conclusion can be deduced from the myths that proclaim the role of women in the discovery or the perfection of circumcision, and this for the simple reason that, in Australia, this operation is "a comparatively recent custom which has spread from the northwest,"g3 that is, the same Melanesian zone of influence from which the fertility cults were diffused. Consequently, no general theory of the "origin" and the original meaning and function of circumcision can be based on the Australian evidence. Nevertheless, some of these myths indicate a process that really took place and considerably modified the Australian religions. The Aranda traditions, for example, express quite clearly the recognition of a more powerful sacrality of women in mythical times. This means that earlier there was a stronger religious collaboration between the two sexes. It is probable that the excessive secrecy of most male religious ceremonies does not correspond to an original situation but represents a later development. We have already noticed the tendency of the Australian initiation scenario to become a Mannerbz~nd-typeof secret society. I n this case, the related myths convey the women's loss of their previous religious "powers." I n regard to "it belongs to us women" mythology, it certainly represents a characteristic episode of northern Australia's sacred history, but its basic elements are to be found beyond that area. They reflect the dramatic impact made by the inclusion of
$8 Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 138. Also among the Bambuti (cf,n. 85, above), the circumcision is recent.
89

sexual and fertility rites into an earlier religious system. Almost all the ritual scenarios dependent on this myth emphasize a rather ambivalent attitude to women and women's mysteries. This may be explained as a consequence of the drastic innovations brought about by the Melanesian influences. But, on the other hand, one must not forget that long before all these more or less recent innovations there always existed a tension between the two types of sacrality, masculine and feminine, a reciprocal envy and jealousy of the other sex's mysteries, which explains why so many feminine magical symbols and prestiges were appropriated by shamans and medicine men, and vice versa.94
94
See, inter alia, Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 78 ff.
[To be continued]
Mircea Eliade
AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS P A R T IV:* THE MEDICINE MEN AND THEIR SUPERNATURAL MODELS
Provided he pursues his religious instruction, every male hopes to learn, in his old age, the sacred history of the tribe. This ultimately means re-establishing contact with the actors of a sacred history and, consequently, partaking of their creative powers. But, as everywhere else in the world, so is it in Australia that man's relations with the sphere of the sacred are not uniform. There are always some exceptionally gifted individuals longing, or destined, to become "religious specialists." These medicine men, doctors, shamans, or, as A. P. Elkin aptly calls them, "men of high degree," play a central role in the life of the tribe.1 They cure the
* I am grateful to my student, Mr. Alf Hiltebeitel, for his care in correcting and stylistically improving the text. A fifth and concluding - part is planned for a forthcoming issue. 1 The most important monograph on Australian medicine men is A. P . Elkin's Aboriginal Men of High Degree (Sidney, 1945). Helmut Petri's "Der australische Medizinmann," Part I, Annuli Lateranensi (Cittfi del Vaticano), XVI (1952), 159-317; Part 11, XVII (1953), 157-225, is an original and well-documented study (though apparently the author did not know Elkin's book). Marcel Mauss's
Australian Religions: The Medicine Men

sick, defend the community against black magic, discover those responsible for premature deaths, and perform important functions in the initiation ceremonies. But the most specific characteristic of the medicine man is his relation with the Supernatural Beings and the other heroes of the tribe's sacred history. He is the only one who is really able to recover the glorious conditions of the mythical Ancestors, the only one who can do what the Ancestors did, for instance, fly through the air, ascend to heaven, travel underground, disappear and reappear. Moreover, only the medicine man can encounter the Supernatural Beings and converse with them, and only he can see the spirits and the ghosts of the dead. I n sum, only the medicine man succeeds in surpassing his human condition, and consequently he is able to behave like the spiritual beings, or, in other words, to partake of the modality of a Spiritual Being. As in so many other parts of the world, the medicine man in Australia is not the product of a spontaneous creation; he is "made," either by Supernatural Beings or by the medicine men of his tribe. One becomes a medicine man by inheriting the profession, by "call" or election, or by personal quest. But whatever way he has taken, a postulant is not recognized as a medicine man until he has been accepted by a certain number of "men of high degree" and been taught by some of them, and, above all, until he has undergone a more or less spectacular initiation. I n most cases the initiation consists of an ecstatic experience, during which the candidate meets Supernatural Beings, undergoes certain operations, and undertakes ascents to heaven and descents to the subterranean world. All these ecstatic experiences, as well as the scenarios of the "quest," follow traditional patterns. For instance, the aspirant to the profession goes to sleep in isolated places, especially near the grave of a medicine man, and he is expected to have visions or
"L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques dans les soci6t6s australiennes" (Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1904), 1-55 (reprinted in Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Mdlanges d'histoire des religions [2d ed.; Paris, 19291, pp. 131-87) is still valuable for the critical discussion of the older documents. Curiously enough, in the section dedicated to Australian religions (Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, I11 (Miinster, 1931), 565-1114), Wilhelm Schmidt devoted only a few pages to the medicine men of the southeastern tribes (Kurnai, pp. 635-38; Kulin, pp. 709-12; Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi, pp. 902-5). The rest of the literature will be quoted in passing as we proceed in our study. Some of the material published by Ronald M. Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic and 'Clever Men,'" Part I , Oceania, XVII (1946-47), 327-65; Part 11, ibid., XVIII (1947-48), 60-86, was already used or summarized by Elkin in his Aboriginal M e n of H i g h Degree, from Berndt's field notes. We shall therefore refer to both sources. 160
even initiatory revelations similar to those of all the "elected." The basic experience is an inspired vision, during which the future medicine man encounters the Supernatural Being who will bestow upon him the sacred powers. The meeting is always dramatic, even in cases where (as among the southeastern tribes) the "making" does not include a ritual "killing" of the postulant (although still, even in such cases, the transmutation of the postulant's mode of being-from a human state to a "spiritual" one-implies, as we shall presently see, a "death" followed by a resurrection). The Supernatural Beings, or their representatives, radically change the bodily condition of the aspirant (by inserting sacred substances, etc.), and at the same time teach him how to bear himself as a "spirit" (how to fly, etc.). Among the tribes where the "making" comprises a ritual killing, the Supernatural Beings or their representatives perform certain operations on the lifeless body of the candidate; they remove the insides and substitute new ones, inserting also sacred substances, quartz or pearlshells. Whatever the nature of the ecstatic experience, the aspirant comes back to life as another person: he has seen the Supernatural Beings face to face and been "made" and taught by them. What remains to be learned from the old masters is now of a more or less technical nature. His mystical initiation introduced him to a spiritual universe which henceforth will be his real world.
INITIATION O F A W I R A D J U R I MEDICINE MAN
Ultimately, the three ways of becoming a medicine man-(1) inheriting the profession, (2) "call" or election, (3) personal "quest" -result in a specific experience, without which a change in the novice's mode of being would not take place. This can be clearly seen in the process of initiation. Where the profession is inherited, the father carefully prepares his son before provoking the rapture which will transform his life. A. W. Howitt reports a characteristic example of a Wiradjuri medicine man who had been initiated by his father. When he was still a young boy, his father took him into the bush and placed two large quartz crystals against his breast. They vanished into his body, and he felt them going through him "like warmth." The old man also gave him "some things like quartz crystals in water. They looked like ice and the water tasted sweet." After that, the boy could see ghosts. When he was about ten years old, after having his tooth out in the age-grading ceremony, his father showed him a piece of quartz crystal in his hand, "and when I looked at it he [his father] went
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down into the ground and I saw him come up all covered with red dust. It made me very frightened." The father asked him t o try to produce a piece of crystal, and the boy brought one up (probably from his own body). Then the father led his son through a hole in the ground to a grave. Going inside, the boy saw a dead man who rubbed him all over to make him "clever"; the dead man also gave him some crystals. When the father and son came out, the father pointed to a tiger snake and told the boy that it was his secret totem (budjan) and that from then on it would also be his son's. "There was a string tied to the tail of the snake, and extending to us." It was one of the strings which the medicine men draw out of themselves, of which more will be said later. The father took hold of the string, saying, "Let us follow him." The snake went through several tree trunks, and finally to a tree with a great swelling around its roots. There the snake went down into the ground, and they followed it coming up inside the tree, which washollow. After they came out from the tree, the snake took them into a great hole in the ground. Here there were many snakes which rubbed themselves against the boy t o make him a "clever man." The father then said: We will go up to Baiame's camp. He got astride of a Mauir (thread) and put me on another, and we held by each other's arms. At the end of the thread was Wombu, the bird of Baiame. We went through the clouds, and on the other side was the sky. We went through the place where the Doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly. My father said that, if it touched a Doctor when he was going through, it would hurt his spirit, and when he returned home he would sicken and die. On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp. He was a very great old man with a long beard. He sat with his legs under him and from his shoulders extended two great quartz crystals to the sky above him. There were also numbers of the boys of Baiame and of his people, who are birds and beasts.2 I n sum, the physical transformation of the novice begins with his assimilation of quartz crystals. After taking some of these crystals into his body, the boy can see the "spirits," invisible to non-initiates, and can travel underground. The dead man in the grave, who probably was a former medicine man, likewise gave
2 A. W. Howitt, T h e Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 406-8. See also the visit to heaven of a Wuradjeri ( = Wiradjuri) medicine man through a small aperture revealed a t intervals in the revolving two walls of a cleft, described by Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic," Part I, p. 362. The "hole in the sky" is known also among the Kurnai; cf. Howitt, op. cit., p. 389. This is the wldely known initiatory motif of Symplegades; cf. M. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth (New York, 1958), pp. 64-66, 130. 162
him quartz crystals, and also rubbed against his body, as the snakes did later in order to infuse him with their powers. The initiation was completed by an ascension to heaven, where the boy and his father saw Baiame with two great quartz crystals extending from his shoulders. We shall repeatedly encounter these motifs, and their meanings will become clearer as we proceed with the description of different types of initiation. For the moment, let us add that, according to the beliefs of the Euahlayi, Baiame is fixed in the crystal rock on which he sits. The medicine men reach his celestial abode after a laborious journey: they climb a mountain for four days, and when they reach the top they drink from a spring and are reinvigorated. There they are greeted by Baiame's spirit messengers, who finally present the requests of the medicine men to the enthroned High Being.3 The celestial structure of Baiame is repeatedly emphasized; he is even imagined as fastened in the crystal-like vault of heaven.
BAIAME AND THE MEDICINE MEN
The role of Baiame in the making of the Wiradjuri medicine men, which can be only inferred from Howitt's description, seems to be, on the contrary, decisive according to the data collected by R. Berndt a t Menindee, in New South Wales. Already a t an early age the postulant was trained by a "doctor," preferably his father or grandfather. The doctor's spirit took the boy's spirit with him a t night, up to the sky, while the medicine man climbed skyward on a magical cord to make rain. When the boy was twelve years old, the doctor "sang" into him his assistant totem. Thus, by the time of his tribal initiation the boy knew already some of the fundamental principles of his future profession, "but he did not possess the power, insight or control to work magic." He obtained all these through a ritual and a spiritual experience. When he was between twenty and thirty years of age, Baiame informed the postulant's teacher in a dream that he would initiate the young man. "Similar dreams occurred to other guardians in the same or adjacent tribes. . . . They all met a t a fixed time with their candidates a t a sacred place. The latter were seated on a long 'couch' of leaves, while the doctors sang to summon Baiame. He came from out of the air towards the seated groups. He looked like any doctor, except for the light which radiated from his eyes. Coming up to each postulant, he said: '1'11 make you,' and caused sacred
3 K. L. Parker, T h e Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), pp. 25 ff., 35-36; idem, More Legendary Tales (London, 1898), pp. 84 ff. Cf. Elkin, op. cit., pp. 102 ff. 163

powerful water, said to be liquified quartz, to fall on him." This water spread all over the postulants and was completely absorbed by them. Then feathers emerged from the candidates' arms, which in two days grew into wings. I n the meantime Baiame had disappeared, and the postulants were instructed by their masters in the significance of the sacred water and the feathers. The symbolism of celestial ascension is evident in the case of both of these mystical objects. Indeed, the next stage consists in each postulant going personally to meet Baiame. The Supernatural Being teaches him to fly and also how to use quartz crystals. "Baiame sang a piece [of quartz] into his forehead so that he would be able to see right into things. He also took from his own body a flame, which he sang into the postulant's chest, and taught the latter how he could release it. Then, directed back to his camp, he flew, sang off his wings, walked in and sat alongside of his guardian, with whom he discussed his experience." The third experience takes place after the "making." All the new doctors go to a sacred site and there lie on a couch of leaves. "After the 'singing,' Baiame appeared, placed a cord in 'U' fashion across the chest and down the legs of each of them, and sang it into them. Henceforward, this was to be used as a spider uses his web. Baiame then bid them farewell and went away." The newly made doctors then remain in seclusion for two or three days, practicing magical displays. According to another account given to Berndt, the ecstatic experience of the "call" can take place without any prearranging or conditioning. One would-be medicine man was hunting when "he found himself dragged down and across to a strange country on the other side of the sea. Then Baiame carried him off to a very large cave, where he pierced him with his 'X-ray' eyes and, looking into his mind, asked whether he had been made a man, and also prepared by his father to receive Baiame's power and knowledge." The answer being affirmative, Baiame made him a doctor in the way already described.4 Thus it seems that, whereas the doctors only prepare the young man for his future profession, the actual initiation is effectuated by Baiame. We know too little about the actual making of the medicine man5 to be able to distinguish between the purely
4 Elkin, op. cit., pp. 96-98. A more detailed description of this initiation was published by Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic," Part I, pp. 334-38. 5 We must always keep in mind an admonition coming from such an experienced fieldworker as Elkin: "It is difficult to obtain complete knowledge of the initiation of adult males into full membership of their secret life. Judging from fresh bits of 164
visionary and the concrete ritual elements of the above scenario. It is probable that a t a certain moment the postulant, in a more or less halucinatory state, takes part in a ritual in which Baiame is impersonated by one of the old doctors. But what is relevant for the understanding of the southeast Australian medicine man is the fact that the source of the mystical power is related to a celestial High Being and that the initiation consists in the appropriation of his various prestiges, the first and foremost of which is the ability to fly. According to the Wiradjuri tradition, when Baiame left the earth, he assembled all the doctors and told them that he "made" them in order to carry on his work once he returned to his home.6
AN INITIATION SCENARIO
The essential elements of the southeast initiation scenario seem t o be (1) the bright cave, (2) the miraculous feathers, (3) the flight, (4) the quartz crystals, (5) the magic rope. All of them are connected with the sky and the celestial powers. The celestial element seems least evident in the symbolism of the cave. We shall, in fact, quote later on some examples from central Australia in which the cave is charged with an opposite symbolism. But among the southeastern tribes its celestial character is clearly emphasized by the luminosity of the initiation cave. To add only one other example, a Kurnai medicine man (mullamullung) told Howitt that, in a dream, his dead father and many other old men carried him through the air over the sea, and set him a t the front of a big rock like the front of a house.
I noticed that there was something like an opening in the rock. My father tied something over my eyes and led me inside. I knew this because I heard the rocks make a sound as of knocking behind me. Then he uncovered my eyes, and I found that I was in a place as bright as day, and all the old men were round about. My father showed me a lot of shining, bright things, like glass, on the walls, and told me to take some. I took one and held it tight in my hand. When we went out again my father taught me how to make these things go into my legs, and how I could pull them out again.7
infomation that I acquire from time to time, I doubt whether we have, i n any one instance, been admitted into all the sec~ets the ~ i t u a and knowledge. But if this is of l difficult, it is more so when we come to inquire into that ritual through which a medicine man acquired power. Those who are not members of the profession know little about it" (A.P. Elkin, The A u s t ~ a l i a n Abo~igines [New York, 19641, p. 300; my italics). 6 Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic," Part I, pp. 334 ff. 7 Howitt, op. cit., pp. 408 ff.
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The cave is bright because it is covered with quartz crystals, that is, it ultimately partakes of the mystical nature of the sky. As for the wings and feathers, their ascensional symbolism is evident. The growing of wings as a result of a mystical initiation is a well-known motif, found also in the high religions. Thus, for instance, the Taoists believe that when a man obtains the tao, feathers begin to grow on his body.8 For Plato also, a man "beholds the beauty of this world, is reminded of true beauty, and his wings begin to grow" (Phaedrus 249e), for "aforetimes the whole soul was furnished with wings" (ibid. 251b). This imagery was repeatedly utilized and elaborated by the Neo-Platonists, the Christian fathers, and the Gnostics.9 Of course, these images are related to the conception of the soul as a volatile spiritual substance, comparable to and identified with birds and butterflies. But it is significant to find already in an archaic religion a similar scenario of mystical initiation conceived as an ascension, that is, acquisition of the capacity to "fly" like a bird. Flight is one of the most widespread, and probably the most archaic, expressions of transcending the human condition and "becoming a spirit."lO The journey to heaven is characteristic to the making of the medicine man among most tribes of southeast Australia. The Wurunjerri postulant is carried by the spirits through a hole in the sky to Bunjil, from whom he receives his powers.11 The Kurnai distinguish between the medicine men (mulla-mullung) and the birra-ark, who "combined the functions of the seer, the spirit-medium, and the bard" (Howitt, op. cit., p. 389). The medicine man is initiated by mrarts, or spirits in the bush, and has to wear a nose bone which the spirits grasp to convey him to the clouds. It is said that, preceded by the spirits, the medicine man climbs through a hole in the sky land; there he sees people dancing and singing, and on returning he teaches the Kurnai these songs and dances.12 The kunki of the Dieiri can fly up to the sky by means of a hair cord; they have direct communication both with
8 Max Kaltenmark, L e Lie-sien tchouan. Biographies ldgendaires des immortels taoistes de l'antiquite' (Peking. 1953), p. 20. See also 31. Eliade, S h a n ~ a n i s m : Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York, 1964), pp. 403, 450 ff. 9 Cf., inter alia, P. BoyancB, "La religion astrale de Platon B Cicdron," Revue des Etudes grecques, LXV (1952), 321-30; A. Orbe, "Variaciones gnosticas sobre las Alas del Alma," Gregorianum, XXXV (1954), 2 P 3 5 ; J. Danidlou, Message ivange'lique et culture hellinistique (Paris, 1961), pp. 116 ff. 10 Cf. M. Eliade, Mythes, r&ves et mystdres (Paris, 1957), pp. 132 ff. ( = M y t h , Dreams and. Mysteries [New York, 19601, pp. 99 ff.). 11 Howitt, op. cit., p. 405; see also pp. 389 ff. 12 Ibid., p. 389. On the birra-ark, the mulla-mullung, and the bun$ of the Kurnai, see now Engelbert Stiglmayr, "Schamanismus in Australia," Wiener Vdlkerkululliche Mitteilungen, V (1967), 161-90. Also the Wongaibon me&cine 166
the Supernatural Beings and the mythical Ancestors (muramuras).l3 According to Berndt, the medicine men south of Murray could travel through the air on a cord projected from their own bodies; they also could take any form and make themselves invisible.14 Among several tribes of southwestern Victoria, the ascension of the medicine man to heaven seems to have been the central element in the cure of a patient.15 But the medicine man's ability to fly is known also in other parts of the continent. Among the Aranda, for instance, the doctors assume the form of eagle-hawks, which Elkin correctly interprets in terms of their power to travel through the air.16 I n Kjmberley, the doctors visit the dead by going up to the sky on a string.17 And the close relationship between the medicine man and the Rainbow Serpent also implies the former's ascension to heaven. For the moment we may quote an initiation from the Forest River District, northern Kimberley, where the motif of ascension is integrated in a scenario different from the one presented above. The medicine men's power ultimately comes from Ungud, the Rainbow Serpent, but it is a "fully qualified practitioner" who performs the initiation. The master carries the postulant to the sky either by using a string which "hangs down from the sky, with cross pieces on which the two men sit," or by taking the form of a skeleton, sitting and pulling himself up with an arm-over-arm motion on a rope. I n this second case, the postulant had been previously transformed into an infant; the medicine man put him in a pouch and fastened it to his body. When near the vault "the latter throws the postulant out of the pouch on to the sky, thus making him 'dead.' Having reached the sky, the 'doctor' inserts into the young man some little rainbow snakes and some quartz crystals." After bringing him back to earth, the doctor introduces more of these magical substances into the postulant through the navel, and finally awakens him with a magic stone. "The young man returns to his normal size, if he had
man could visit the sky land; Cf. A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XIV (1885), 360-61. 13 Howitt, op. cit., pp. 358-59. Cf. also Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, D . 119. 1 4 Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 85; Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic," Part I , pp. 356 ff.; Part 11, p. 79. 15 Elkin. Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 85. 1 6 B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Natioe Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 522 ff.; Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 121. 17 Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 138.
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Australian Religions :The Medicine Men

been changed, and next day he tries himself to go to the sky." His instruction proper begins after this ecstatic experience.18 Elkin rightly remarks that the reduction to infant size and the resemblance between the doctor's pouch and the kangaroo's indicate that this is a ritual of rebirth.19
INITIATION BY BEING SWALLOWED B Y A MONSTER
An initiation reported by Berndt from the Western Desert tribes of South Australia presents a similar scenario, but considerably developed. &!tourned as dead because he is going to be "cut into pieces," the postulant goes to a certain water hole. There two medicine men blindfold him and throw him into the jaws of the great Snake, Wonambi, who swallows him. The postulant remains in the Serpent's belly for an indefinite time. Finally the two medicine men give the Serpent two kangaroo rats, whereupon he ejects the postulant, throwing him high into the air. He falls "alongside a certain rock-hole," and the doctors set out in search of him, "visiting and camping at each of a series of rock-holes until they find him at the last one." But he has been reduced to the size of an infant, "Wonambi having made him like that." (The initiatory theme of regression to the embryonic condition in the monster's belly, homologous with the maternal womb, is apparent here.) The doctors take the baby in their arms and fly back to their camp. After this consecration, which is pre-eminently mystical because it is performed by a Supernatural Being, the initiation proper begins, in which a number of old masters play the principal role. Placed within a circle of fires, the baby postulant rapidly grows and recovers his adult size. He declares that he knows the Serpent well, that they are even friends, for he stayed in his belly for some time. Then comes a period of seclusion, during which the postulant meditates and converses with spirits. One day the doctors take him to the bush and smear his body with red ochre. "He is made to lie full-length on his back before fires, and is said to be a dead man. The head doctor proceeds to break his neck and his wrists, and to dislocate the joints at the elbows, the upper thighs, the knees and ankles. . . Actually, the operator does not amputate each part properly, but rather makes a mark with the stone." The doctor puts into each cut a life-giving shell; he also stuffs shells into his ears, so that the postulant will be able to understand and
18 10
Ibid., pp. 139-40.

Ibid., p. 140. Cf. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, p. 160, n. 72.
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speak to spirits, strangers, and animals, and "into his forehead, so that it may be turned in all directions." His stomach too is stuffed with shells, "in order that he may have renewed life, and become invulnerable to attack by any weapons." Then he is << sung" by the medicine men, and revives. All return to the main camp, where the new doctor is tested: the fully initiated men throw their spears at him; but because of the shells with which he is stuffed, he is not harmed.20 This example is representative of a highly elaborate initiation. We can recognize two principal initiatory themes in it: ( 1 ) being swallowed by a monster and (2) bodily dismemberment-of which only the second is peculiar to the making of medicine men. But, although he undergoes a return to the womb, the postulant does not die in the Serpent's belly, for he is able to remember his sojourn there. The real initiatory death is brought about by the old doctors, and in the manner reserved for medicine men: dismemberment of the body, change of organs, introduction of magical substances. I n some cases an initiation through fire is completed by a second ordeal, "passing through the water." Elkin studied such a "making" of the medicine man among the Kattang-speaking peoples who occupied the northern shore of Port Stephens. The ceremony continues for six months. When a candidate has "died," he is thrown on the fire by the old masters and kept there until he is completely consumed. One such candidate declared later on that he "felt" nothing, because, comments Elkin, "he was in a condition approaching hypnosis, though he could see what was there." Eventually, "he was restored by the old men putting their hands on his shoulder, after which he was shown secret symbols and taught their meaning. As a result the man became a new personality and, as it were, no longer belonged to the earth but to the sky-world." According to Elkin, it does not seem that all candidates went through this ceremony, which in any case was not sufficient to make a "clever man." To reach that stage, the neophyte had "to pass through the water." He is thrown into a
20 Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, pp. 112 ff.; R. and C. Berndt, "A Preliminary Report of Field-Work in the Ooldea Region, Western South Australia," Oceania, XIV (1943), 56-61; of. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth, pp. 97-98. Other examples of postulants being swallowed by a snake are in C. Strehlow, Die Aranda und Loritjastamme in Zentral-Australien (Frankfurt a. M., 1908), 11, 9-10; GBza Roheim, The Eternal Ones of the Dream (New York, 1945), pp. 184 ff.; Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 112 (the Wirangu tribe).

sacred waterhole, from which he looks up to Gulambrd, the Sky Being, and asks for power. Eventually the medicine men bring him out and put their hands on his shoulder to restore him to consciousness. The initiation continues in the bush; the candidate swallows quartz crystals, which he will later project when performing magical tricks. As a result, the newly made "clever man" is able to go up to the sky in dream and also to cure sick people.21 Among the Laitu-Laitu tribe the medicine man is able to go to the bottom of a lake or a river and stay there for days near the spirit Konikatine. He returns "with his eyes bloodshot, and his cloak covered with ooze," and reports his experiences. Elkin rightly infers that the descent "was most likely part of the initiation, as well as henceforth a privilege and necessity, and represents the period of seclusion in which powers were given."22 The lakes and water holes are also the domain of spirits and ghosts. The descent to the bottom of the lake signifies a descensus ad inferos. As a matter of fact, the Laitu-Laitu medicine man is "made" by sleeping for a month on a hut over the grave of a doctor.23
THE RITUAL "KILLING" OF THE POSTULANT
I n many of the initiations described above, the future medicine man undergoes a symbolic death followed by resurrection. As we have seen (cf. my "Australian Religions, Part 111, Initiation Rites and Secret Cults," History o Religions, Vol. VII, No. 1 [August, f 19671) this is the initiatory pattern par excellence. I n central Australia and other parts of the continent, the initiatory death is expressed in terms of the "killing" of the postulant and the insertion of magical substances into his body. This scenario is abundantly attested by the sources.24 We shall limit our survey to a
Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 91. Ibid., p. 93. W . E. Roth reported that Brisbane medicine men dove to the bottom of deep pools to obtain magical quartz ("Superstitions, Magic and Bfedicine," North Queensland Ethnography, No. 5 [1903], p. 30). Of course, all these symbols and rituals are related to the Rainbow Snake. 23 Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 93. Also the Clarence River doctors sleep on graves (ibid., p. 91). Cf. other examples (ibid., pp. 105-6). 24 Already in 1798, Colonel Collins reported that among the Port Jackson tribes one becomes a medicine man by sleeping on a grave. "The spirit of the deceased would visit him, seize him by the throat, and opening him, take out his bowels, which he replaced, and the wound closed up" (cited by Howitt, op. c i t . , p. 405). Among the Wotjobaluk and Jupagalk, a Supernatural Being named Ngetya, who lives in the bush, cuts open the postulant's side and inserts quartz crystals (ibid., p. 104; Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 85). To make a medicine man, the Euahlayi carry the neophyte to a cemetery and leave him there, bound for several nights. Eventually a man comes with a stick; he thrusts the stick into the young man's head and puts a magical stone the size of a lemon into the wound. Then the spirits appear and intone magical and initiatory songs to teach him the
21
22
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few characteristic examples. Among the tribes of the Warburton Ranges (Western Australia), initiation takes place as follows. The aspirant enters a cave, and two totemic Heroes (the wildcat and the emu) kill him, open his body, remove the organs, and replace them with magical substances. They also remove the shoulder bone and tibia, which they dry and, before restoring them, stuff with the same substances.25 The Aranda know three ways of making medicine men: (1) by the Iruntarinia, or "spirits"; (2) by the Eruncha (i.e., the spirits of the Eruncha men of the mythical times); (3) by other medicine men. I n the first case, the candidate goes t o sleep in front of the mouth of a cave. An Iruntarinia comes and "throws an invisible lance a t him, which pierces the neck from behind, passes through the tongue, making therein a large hole, and then comes out through the mouth." The candidate's tongue remains perforated; one can easily put one's little finger through it. A second lance cuts off his head, and the victim succumbs. One of the Iruntarinia carries him into the cave, which is said t o be very deep and where it is believed that these spirits live in perpetual light near cool springs (in fact, the cave represents the Aranda paradise). There this one Iruntarinia tears out his internal organs and gives him others, which are completely new. The candidate returns to life, but for some time behaves like a lunatic.26 The Iruntarinia then carries him to his camp, although unseen, for such spirits are invisible to all human beings except medicine men. Etiquette forbids the newly made doctor to practice for a year; if during that time
art of healing (Parker, op. cit., pp. 25-26). Among the Maitakundi tribe, the initiatory murder is effectuated by the master himself: he "kills" the postulant, throws him in a water hole, and leaves him there for four days. Then he takes him out, puts him between fires, and smokes the body quite dry (Roth, quoted by Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, pp. 129-30). The Mulukmuluk neophyte is attacked by "devils": they kill him, open his abdomen, cook and eat him. "The devils carefully collect the bones into a basket, which two of them rock until the man becomes alive again" (Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 137; on the symbolism of the skeleton and rebirth from the bones, cf. Eliade, Sharnunism, pp. 158 ff.). Among the Wardoman, the postulant is cut and killed by Wolgara, the spirit who judges the dead. Finally, Wolgara summons a white hawk which reanimates the candidate (Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 137). 25 Elkin, Aboriginal H e n of High Degree, p. 116; Eliade, Birth and Rebirth,
p.
n7
Y l .
The "madness" of the future shaman is a well-known motif in Siberian shamanism but is found also in other parts of the world (cf. Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 23 ff., 33 ff., 38 ff., etc). Though not common in Australia, the motif is attested not only among the Aranda (of. also Strehlow, quoted by Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 123) but equally among the Pita-Pita (Roth, quoted by Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, p. 128) and in eastern Kimberley (Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree, pp. 138 ff.).
26
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the opening in his tongue closes, the candidate gives up, for his mystical virtues are held to have disappeared. During this year he learns the secrets of the profession from other medicine men, especially the use of the quartz stones that the Iruntarinia placed in his body.27 The second way of making a medicine man resembles the first, except that, instead of carrying the candidate into a cave, the Eruncha take him underground with them. Finally, the third method involves a long ritual in a solitary place, where the postulant must silently submit to an operation performed by two old medicine men. They rub his body with rock crystals to the point of abrading the skin, press rock crystals into his scalp, pierce a hole under a fingernail of his right hand, and make an incision in his tongue. Finally his forehead is marked with a design called erunchilda, literally, "the devil's hand." His body is decorated with another design with a black line in the center representing Eruncha and lines around it apparently symbolizing the magical crystals in his body.28 A famous medicine man of the Unmatjera tribe told Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen of the essential moments of his initiation. One day an old doctor "killed" him by throwing crystals (atnongara stones) a t him with a spear thrower. The old man then cut out all of his insides, intestines, liver, heart, lungs--everything in fact, and left him lying all night long on the ground. In the morning the old man came and looked at him and placed some more atnongara stones inside his body and in his arms and legs, and covered over his face with leaves. Then he sung over him until his body was swollen up. When this was so he provided him with a complete set of new inside parts, placed a lot more atnongara stones in him, and patted him on the head, which caused him to jump up alive.29 Among the Warramunga, initiation is performed by the puntidir spirits, which are equivalent to the Iruntarinia of the Aranda. A medicine man told Spencer and Gillen that these spirits came and killed him. "While he was lying dead they cut him open and took all his insides out, providing him, however, with a new set, and, finally, they put a little snake inside his body, which endowed him with the powers of a medicine man."30
27 Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., pp. 522 ff.; idem, The Arunta: A Study of a Stone Age People (London, 1927),11, 391 ff.; cf. Eliade, S h a m u n i m , pp. 46-47. 2s Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, pp. 526 f . The Arunta, 11, 394 ff.; f; Eliade. Shamanism, p. 47. 29 Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 480-81; Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 47-48. 30 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, p. 484; of. ibid., p. 486, on a second initiation of the Warramunga medicine man; see also Eliade, Shamanism, p. 48. 172
The Binbinga hold that medicine men are consecrated by the spirits Mundadji and Munkaninji (father and son). A doctor, Kurkutji, told how, when entering a cave one day, he came upon the old Mundadji, who caught him by the neck and killed him. He cut him open, "right down the middle line, took out all of his insides and exchanged them for those of himself, which he placed in the body of Kurkutji. At the same time he put a number of sacred stones in his body." After it was all over, Munkaninji, the younger spirit, restored him to life and told him he was now a medicine man. Then he took him illto the sky and brought him down to earth near his camp, "where he heard the natives mourning for him, thinking that he was dead. For a long time he remained in a more or less dazed condition, but gradually he recovered and the natives knew that he had been made into a medicine man."31 I n the Mara tribe the technique is almost exactly the same. One who wishes to become a medicine man lights a fire and burns fat, thus attracting two spirits called Minnungara. The spirits first make him insensible, then cut him open and take out all his organs, which they replace by organs from one of their own bodies. Then they bring him t o life again and carry him up into the sky. From then on, the Mara medicine man can climb a t nighttime by means of a rope into the sky, where he can converse with the star people.32
AUSTRALIAN SHA3IAKIC INITIATIOKS
The characteristic elements of these initiations are (1)the "killing" of the neophyte, (2) the removal of organs and bones and their replacement with new sets, and (3) the insertion of magical substances, especially quartz crystals. A similar pattern is found in the shamanic initiation of Central Asia and Siberia, South America, and some parts of Melanesia and Indonesia. The Central Asiatic and Siberian scenarios in particular present the most striking parallels to the examples quoted above. Like the Australian aspirant, the Siberian and Central Asiatic shaman undergoes an ecstatic initiation during a period of sickness, mental disturbances, or "dream." He sees himself tortured and eventually "killed" by spirits or mythical Heroes. These demonic beings chop his body, disjoint the limbs, cut off the head, boil the flesh, clean the bones, scrape the flesh and replace it with new flesh, and
31 32
Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, pp. 487-88.

Ibid., p. 488; Eliado, Shamanism,pp. 49-50.
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change the body fluids.33 The motif of inserting magical substances is less frequent; there are only rare references to pieces of iron set to melt in the same caldron with future shaman's flesh and bones.34 But this motif is attested, for example, among the Semang of the Malay Peninsula,35 the Dyak of Borneo,36 and it is a specific trait of South American shamanism.37 As me have already pointed out,38 Elkin compares the initiation pattern of the Australian medicine men to a mummification ritual of eastern Australia, which seems to have been introduced by way of the Torres Strait Islands, where a certain type of mummification was practiced until quite recently. Moreover, Elkin is inclined to relate such Melanesian influences to other higher cultures (Egypt?). We shall not discuss here the origin and diffusion of this shamanio initiatory pattern. But the dependence of its Australian variant on a (ultimately Egyptian ? ) mummification ritual is a gratuitous hypothesis. Are we then to explain the Siberian and South American shamanic initiations by similar influences of mummification rituals? The wide distribution of some complementary initiatory motifs, attested in Siberia as well as in Australia-for instance, the novice's voyages to heaven and into the underground -and also the similarities noticed among shamanistic practices all over the world, point to an archaic stage out of which the different types of shamanism have eventually evolved. Of course, this does not mean that certain forms of shamanism have not been, in the course of time, strongly influenced by higher and more recent cultures. Central Asiatic and Siberian shamanism, for instance, presents evident traces of Iranian (ultimately Mesopotamian), Indian, and Buddhist influences.39 A priori, the possibility of Asiatic influences on Australian mystical techniques cannot be excluded. Elkin compares the parapsychological powers of the Australian medicine men with the feats of Indian and Tibetan yogis. For walking on fire, using the "magic cord," the
Cf. Eliade, S h a m a n i s m , pp. 35 ff. Ibid., pp. 35, 50, etc. There are other differences: in Siberia the majority of the shamans are "chosen" by spirits or Supernatural Beings; also, their ecstatic experiences are far more "dramatic" (or a t least they are described to be so) than amone the Australian medicine men. -.. D .. 35 Spirits and masters of initiation introduce crystals into the candidate's body; cf. Eliade, S h a m a n i s m , p. 52. 36 The old shaman inserts magical "power" in the form of pebbles or other obiects (ibid., P. 57). g7 Cf.'ibid., pp. 52 ff., etc. 38 Cf. Eliade, "Australian Relieions: An Introduction. Part I." Historu o f Religions, V I , No. 2 (November, 1566), 126, n. 45, referrkg to E G n , ~ b o r i g % d M e n of H i g h Degree, pp. 40-41. 39 Cf. Eliade, S h a m a n i s m , pp. 495 ff.
33
34
--
~ - -
power of disappearing and reappearing, "fast traveling," and so on, are just as popular among Australian medicine men as they are among yogis and fakirs. "It is possible," Elkin writes, "that there is some historical connection between the Yoga and occult practices of India and Tibet and the practices and psychic powers of aboriginal men of high degree. Hinduism spread to the East Indies. Yoga is a cult in Bali, and some of the remarkable feats of the Australian medicine men are paralleled by their fellow-professionals in Papua."40 If Elkin's conjecture should prove correct, we should have, in Australia, a situation comparable to that of Central Asia and Siberia. But, again, this does not mean that the corpus of rites, beliefs, and occult techniques of the Australian medicine men was created under Indian influence. The archaic structure of most of these rituals and beliefs is obvious. Furthermore, the Australian medicine man stands in the center of the most secret, that is, the oldest, religious tradition of his tribe. His "magical tricks" are of an archaic type, and most of them are practiced by the shamans and magicians of other primitive cultures, where it is difficult to assume Indian influences (e.g., the Arctic zones and Tierra del Fuego).41 We shall content ourselves with only a brief presentation of one of these "tricks," namely, the "magical rope."42 We have quoted the example of the Wiradjuri medicine man using a mysterious cord to climb up to heaven (see p. 162). According to the information gathered by Berndt, the cord was given by Baiame and "sung" by him into the body of the novice (p. 163). At initiations or before an assembly of fully initiated men, the doctors displayed their powers by "singing out" their cord; lying on their backs under a tree they sent up the cord "in the same manner as does a spider, and began climbing up, using both hands one after the other, so that the top of the tree was reached." They then sent out the cords to the next tree "and walked across through the air."43
40 Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, pp. 76-77. I have already quoted and discussed this passage in Birth and Rebirth, p. 100. 4 1 On the contrary, as I have already pointed out ("Australian Religions, Part I," p. 126, n. 45), there are notable similarities between the medical ideas and practices of the Australian medicine men and those of the aborieinal tribes of lnLdia. 42 I have discussed this problem in "Mythes et syrnboles de la corde," EranosJahrbuch, XXIX (1961) 109-37, reprinted in my Mephistophdlds et I'androgyne (Paris, 1962), pp. 200-237 (="Cordes et marionnettes"). Unfortunately, in the English translation, Mephistopheles and the Androgyne (New York, 1965, pp. 160-88), the English quotations are not always reproduced from the original texts, but rendered from the French translation. 43 Berndt, "Wuradjeri Nagic," Part I , p 340.

A magical performance, witnessed by a Wiradjuri during his initiation in about 1882, included walking on fire and climbing up on the magic cord. At that occasion, a Wongaibon "clever man" lay down on his back near the base of a tree and "sang" his cord out; the cord went directly upward, and he climbed it reaching the top of the tree where there was a nest some forty feet from the ground. "While climbing he was in exactly the same positionhead well back, body outstretched, legs apart and arms to the side-as when he 'sang out' his cord. He climbed into the nest, and sat there, waving his hands to the people down below. Then he came down, in the same way that a spider uses its thread, with his back to the ground. When he rested on the ground, the cord could be seen coming down and reentering the testes."44 Similar "tricks" are known also from other primitive societies. For example, the shaman of the Ona, one of the tribes of Tierra del Fuego, possesses a "magic rope" nearly three meters long, which he produces from his mouth and causes to disappear instantly by swallowing it.45 AS we argued in a previous study, such magical exploits must be compared to the fakirs' "rope trick." Indeed, the two constitutive elements of the rope trick, namely, the climbing of a rope by the conjurer assistant and the dismemberment of his body, are to be found conjointly in the traditions of Australian medicine men. The significance of these exploits is obvious: they illustrate the occult power of the medicine men, their ability to transcend "this world" and act Like Supernatural Beings and mythical Heroes. Climbing to the top of trees on the "magic cord" is a "proof" of the medicine man's capability to ascend to heaven and meet the celestial High Beings.
MEDICINE MEN AND THE RAINBOW SERPENT
The insertion of quartz crystals or other magical substailces (pearl shells or "spirit snakes") into the body of the fut,ure medicine man seems to be a pan-Australian practice. The possession of such substances is "absolutely essential, for the medicine man's powers are associated with, and indeed mediated through, them."46 As a matter of fact, the assimilation of such substances is tantamount to a mystical "transmutation" of the medicine man's body.
44 Ibid., PP. 341-42. Elkin quoted these examples, from Berndt's field notes, in Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, pp. 64-65. 45 See E. Lucas Bridges, T h e Uttermost Part of the Earth (New York, 1948) pp. 284 ff. 46 Elkin, T h e Australian Aborigines. p. 305.
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Among some southeastern tribes the quartz crystals are supposed to have fallen from the vault of heaven. They are in a sense "solidified light."47 But almost everywhere in southeast and northwest Australia the quartz is connected with the sky world and with the rainbow.48 Pearl shells are similarly connected with the Rainbow Serpent, that is, in fact, both with the sky and with the waters. To possess such substances in his own body ultimately means to partake of the mystical essence of the celestial High Beings or of the cosmic deity par excellence, the Rainbow Serpent. Indeed, in a great number of tribes the medicine men are reputed to obtain their powers from the Rainbow Snake.49 According to an early account, the Brisbane natives believed that quartz crystals were vomited by the Rainbow Snake: "the medicine men knew where to dive for them, i.e. wherever the rainbow ended."50 The medicine men of the Kabi, a tribe in Queensland, receive from the Rainbow Snake not only the crystals but also the "magical cord."sl Mathews reported that a Wiradjuri doctor can go and meet the Serpent WBwi, "who conducts him into his den and sings him a new song for the corroboree." The doctor rehearses until he learns the song, then he returns and teaches his fellows to sing and dance.52 Among the tribes Lunga and Djara, in Hall's Creek District, the medicine man is made by Kulabel, the Rainbow Snake, who "kills" the aspirant when he is bathing at a water hole. He becomes sick and mad, but eventually he receives his power, which is associated with quartz crystals.53 For the Unambal, the source of the medicine man's power is Ungud. During his sleep, the aspirant's soul goes to Ungud, and he receives crystals from the subterranean Snake.54 Also among the Ungarinyin the voca47 Eliade, MephistophdlBs et l'androgyne, pp. 24 ff. The old sources on the quartz crystals ere compiled and discussed by Mauss, op. cit., pp. 136, n. 1; 137, -n. 3; 139ff. 4 8 See Elkin, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, pp. 43 ff.; cf. also pp. 93, 98, 103, and 107 ff. on the role of quartz crystals in the making of medicine men. 49 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LVI (1926), 19-25, esp. p. 19 (Queensland) and p. 24 (Kakadu, in Northern Territory); idem, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth in South-East Australia," Oceania, I (1930), 342-47; A. P. Elkin, "The RainbowSerpent in North-West Australia," Oceania, I (1930), 349-52 (Forest River District, Karadjeri, etc.); idem, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, p. 144; etc. 50 Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia," p. 20; cf. above n. 22. 5 1 J. Mathew, quoted by RadclifTe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Rlyth of Australia," pp. 20-21. 5 2 Radcliffe-Brown, "The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia," p. 21. 53 Elkin, "The Rainbow-Serpent in North-West Australia," p. 350; idem, Aboriginal M e n of High Degree, pp. 138 ff. 54 A. Lommel, Die Unambal. E i n S t a m m in Nordwest-Australien (Hamburg, 1952), pp. 42 ff.
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tion and power of the medicine man are provoked and bestowed by Ungud, and in a few cases by the Celestial Hero W&langala.55
FUNCTIONS AND PRESTIGES O F T H E MEDICINE MEN
We see now that the initiation achieves the "transmutation" of the aspirant's human condition. He "dies" and has his bones and flesh cleaned or replaced and his body stuffed with magical substances; he flies to heaven, dives in the waters, or goes underground to meet Supernatural Beings, Ancestral Heroes, or ghosts; and finally he comes back to life-a radically "changed" being. As a matter of fact, he is now, ontologically as well as existentially, nearer to the Primordial Beings than to his own human fellows. Not only can he see, meet, and converse with such Beings, generally invisible or inaccessible to ordinary mortals, but he behaves like one of them, and precisely the one who initiated him or gave him his mysterious, superhuman powers. Like the Primordial Beings, the medicine man can now fly, disappear and reappear, see the spirits of the living and the dead, etc. Thanks to his "transmutation," the medicine man lives simultaneously in two worlds: in his actual tribal world and in the sacred world of the beginning, when the Primordial Beings were present and active on earth. For this reason the medicine man constitutes the intermediary par excellence between his tribe and the Heroes of his tribe's mythical history. More and better than other members of the tribe, he can reactivate the contact with the "Dreaming Time" and thus renew his world. And because he can reintegrate a t will the fabulous epoch of the beginnings, he can "dream" new myths and rituals. Such new creations are eventually introduced into the religious tradition of the tribe, but without bearing the mark of personal innovation, for they belong to the same primordial, eternal source of the "Dreaming Time." All the public functions and duties of the medicine man are justified by his singular existential condition. He can cure the sick because he can see the magical objects that caused a sickness, and he can eliminate or annihilate them.56 He can be a rainmaker because he is able to go to heaven or summon the clouds.57 And when he defends his tribe against magical aggression, the medicine
55 H. Petri, Sterbende Welt in hTordwest-Australien (Braunschweig, 1954), pp. 250 ff. 5 6 See the bibliography in Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, p. 160, n. 238. Cf. also Lommel, op. cit., pp. 45 ff. 5 7 See Petri, "Der eustralische Medizinmann," Pert 11, pp. 175-90; idem, Sterbende Welt, pp. 175-90.
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man acts as a black magician: no one can use the "pointing bone" better than he or surpass him in "singing" a deadly poison into a victim. His social prestige, his cultural role, and his political supremacy derive ultimately from his magico-religious "power." Among the Wiradjuri it was believed that a very powerful doctor was capable even of reviving a dead man.58 Summarizing the role of the Wiradjuri medicine man, Berndt emphasizes his "deep knowledge of all tribal matters, particularly those relating to the traditional and religious life." He was par excellence the "intellectual" of the tribe, and at the same time a man of great social prestige. "It was possible for him to assume the chief headmanship and to play a leading part in the totemic ceremonial life; in this way he could become both temporal and spiritual leader of the group."59 But, although enjoying a singularly privileged position, the medicine man is not the only one capable of re-establishing contact with the Heroes of the primordial times, and thus gaining magicoreligious powers. As a matter of fact, every fully initiated member of the tribe can, through specific rituals, reintegrate the mythical epoch. The "increase ceremonies," for instance, or the ritual repainting of the Wondjina images, are periodically performed by a variety of initiated adults. Every one re-enacts, and thus relives, his particular sacred "history." Moreover, there are specific magical powers which can be, a t least in part, mastered by any adult male. Anyone can practice black magic by "singing" or by the "pointing bone."60 Likewise, rainmaking is not an exclusive privilege of the medicine man. There are professional rainmakers, and, furthermore, there are many other inspired individuals who can produce rain.61 Yet there still are other types of magicians and ecstatics whose functions, in some cases, overlap with those of the medicine man. As we have already seen, the doctor can fight the black magician with the latter's very own techniques. With few exceptions, found mainly in the southeast part of the continent, the medicine man does not practice black magic for aggressive purposes and personal
5 s But only if the deceased too were a "strong man"; Berndt, "Wuradjeri Magic," Part 11, pp. 82 ff. 59 Ibid., Part I, p. 332. 60 Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, pp. 160 ff.; cf. p. 164, n. 234, a bibliography on "black magic." Add R. M. and C. H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians (Chicago, 1964), pp. 266 ff. 61 I n central Kimberley, though each chief of a totemic group can produce the rain by repainting a particular Wondjina, only the medicine man is capable of stopping the rain; cf. Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, p. 187. 179

reasons; and in the exceptional cases when he resorts to it, it is against members of other, hostile tribes. The antisocial drives of the sorceror and black magician singularize them, and distinguish them as clearly as possible from the medicine man. Such differences are less evident, however, between the medicine man and the so-called "corroboree doctor," the inventor of new songs and dances. Certainly any medicine man can invent new corroborees as a result of oneiric or ecstatic experiences. I n a great number of tribes, the medicine men are inspired by their voyages to and into the land of spirits, and consequently the enrichment of the tribal tradition is achieved through these tribally recognized spiritual guides.62 For instance, among the Kulin, the Wotjobaluk, and the Wurunjerri, the medicine men are also the bards of the tribe, and in some cases the bard's direct inspiration comes from Bunjil.63 But, as we have seen (p. 166, above), the Kurnai distinguish between the true medicine man (mulln-rnullung) and the visionary poet and creator of corroborees, birra-ark. Among some tribes, the authors of new songs and dances are classified as a special group. In western Kimberley, for example, the invention of new corroborees is a part of the medicine man's function, while in central Kimberley the so-called "Devil doctor" is clearly distinguished from the "Ungud doctor." The "Devil doctor" divulges new corroborees following his ecstatic (i.e., oneiric) voyages in the land of the dead or his encounter with bush spirits while the source of inspiration of the other class of doctors is Ungud.64 Ultimately, the dichotomy between medicine man and "corroboree doctor" may have its origin in the increasing religious importance of a certain type of ecstatic experience, namely, the voyage in the land of the spirits and of the dead. The creation of new songs and dances has become more and more dependent on such types of personal, spontaneous, ecstatic experience. Thus religious and artistic creativity was encouraged among individuals outside of the traditional closed group of professionals.
See the examples listed in ibid.,pp. 192 ff. Howitt, op. cit., p. 418. 64 Petri, "Der australische Jledizinmann," Part 11, pp. 90 ff. There are also examples of songs and dances inspired directly by a spirit. This is the case among the Dieiri: when a man dies, the spirit appears to his younger brother and, during several nights, teaches him a new chant; of. 0. Siebert, "Sagen und Sitten der Dieri und Nachbar-Stiimme in Zentral-Australien," Globus, XCVII (1910), 185. Exceptionally, as among the Barkinji of the Darling River, the experts in black magic are equally the authors of new corroborees; cf. F. Bonney (1884), quoted by Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, p. 193.
62
63
"SPECIALISTS"
AND "INNOVATORS"
We are confronted with two different, though somehow related, categories of religious phenomena: (1) the consequences deriving from the variety of the medicine man's magico-religious experiences and (2) the tendency of the non-professionals to enlarge their "powers" and socio-religious prestige by acquiring some of the professional's esoteric knowledge and secret techniques. The medicine man's various activities are fostered by the many different possibilities he has to experiment with the sacred and master the magico-religious forces. Like the shamans and other religious professionals, the Australian medicine man is a "specialist of the sacred." But the great variety of his experiences with the sacred invites further "specialization"; thus, as we have just seen, a t a certain moment and among certain tribes the rainmaker or the ecstatic author of new songs and dances becomes part of a new class. It is difficult to decide whether the process of "specialization" has always started within a class of medicine men in which all these functions coexisted or, on the contrary, whether the "specialization" has taken place among spiritually gifted individuals outside the professional group. Most probably it has happened in both ways-for, as we have seen, a medicine man can be, and often is, also a rainmaker, a poet, and author of new corroborees, whereas, vice versa, any initiated male may acquire one of these techniques and become a "specialist." But a rainmaker as such can never fulfil the complex functions of the traditional medicine man or enjoy his religious and social prestige. And it is probable that at a certain moment the same could have been said with regard to those authors of corroborees who were outside the professional group. As regards the tendency of the non-professional to acquire magico-religious powers through the "specialist's" techniques, this is a well-known and universal phenomenon. I n Australia, such a tendency is validated and encouraged by the tribal initiation. A fully initiated male is not only introduced to the sacred history of his tribe but also taught how to recapture the sacredness of the fabulous beginnings. In some cases-in Kimberley and elsewhere -the very introduction of an individual into the religious life confers upon him one of the medicine man's powers, namely, the power to bring the rain. In general, one could say that two ways lie open to a nonprofessional desiring to augment his magico-religious powers: (1) the techniques of black magic and (2) ecstatic experiences. The
181
Austra,lian Religions: The Medicine Men

most elementary black magic, that is, the "pointed bone," is accessible to everyone; but more complicated acts (e.g., "fat stealing") are restricted to the "specialist." Moreover, the fear of black magic and, consequently, the risk of being suspected of sorcery, is so widespread that very few might be tempted to increase their powers by acquiring such dangerous techniques. On the contrary, the oneiric and ecstatic experiences represent the source of magico-religious powers par excellence. Here also the traditional medicine man served as a model. But the ecstaticoneiric experiences of the non-professionals were less rigidly dependent on archaic patterns, and hence their religious and artistic expressions could make, in some cases, a deeper impression on some sections of the tribe. On the other hand, lacking the wellarticulated esoteric mythology of the medicine man, the ecstatic's creations could be appropriated, modified, and used for various purposes. I n some cases, the corroboree became a magically oriented ritual, though not necessarily of the "black magic" type. But in the process of acculturation, under the impact of Western culture, some of the new corroborees became independent wandering cults. The original intention of the corroboree, namely, the non-professional's desire to augment his magico-religious powers, gave place to an antitraditional and aggressive attitude. Thus the new corroborees express both a rebellion against the traditional religious system of the tribe, represented chiefly by the medicine men, and a public avowal of the growing interest in magical powers as such. As we shall see in the next article, the KurAngara cult abundantly illustrates such a process. I n sum, the imitation of the Supernatural Beings, revealed and taught to the medicine m a n during his initiation, i s repeated, at another, lourer level, by the spontaneous or voluntary imitation of the medicine man's own techniques by non-professional but gifted individuals. A similar situation is found in other parts of the world. I n some parts of Siberia and Oceania, the shaman's behavior, techniques, and trances are imitated or feigned by all kinds of ecstatic or psychotic individuals, and even by children.65 Ultimately, such phenomena illustrate the desires and hopes of the non-professionals to acquire the "power" and prestige of the "specialists of the sacred" without, however, submitting themselves to the hardships, risks, suffering, and long period of learning demanded by the traditional initiation of "men of high degree." From a certain
65 See some examples in Eliade, Shamanism,pp. 252 ff. (Koryak, Chukchee) and pp. 362 ff. (Oceania). 182
point of view one may identify in this process the beginnings of << secularization," for it clearly expresses the reaction against the privileged religious elite, and, implicitly, the will to empty that elite's values, behavior, and institutions of the sacred aura they originally had. On the other hand, the secularization of a traditional religious form opens the way to a process of resacralization of other sectors of the collective or individual life.
[To be continzced]
Mircea Eliade
AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS P A R T V: DEATH, ESCHATOLOGY, AND SOME CONCLUSIONS
The medicine man plays a central role in death rituals, for he is able to discover the "murderer" and thus to direct the revenge. Thanks to his spiritual powers and social prestige, the crisis provoked by death does not materialize in frantic suicidal actions. As in so many other religions, the very act of dying is evaluated in terms that contradict each other. On the one hand, the Australians believe that only through death does man reach his highest spiritual status, that is, he becomes a purely spiritual being. "Death, the final rite of passage, transfers him from all the world of the profane and puts him (his soul) entirely into the world of the sacred."l On the other hand, with very few exceptions (e.g., infants or the very old men), every new death occasions a catastrophic crisis. The entire community reacts with its utmost energy and after completing the first funerary rrtes burns down the property of the deceased and abandons the camp. Like birth, death
1 W. Lloyd Warner, A Black Civilization (Harper Torchbook [New York, 19641).p. 402. 244
is not "natural"; it is provoked by someone. Al dead are victims l of sorcery. The magic accounts even for such emphatically "natural" causes as being speared in combat; for, it is argued, the blow was fatal only because a sorcerer made it so. With every new death, the society in its totality relives the same dark menace perceived for the first time when death made its appearance in the world. For death was not unavoidable. Men are mortal beoause the mythical Ancestor was killed or because he was prevented from coming back to life. The absurdity of dying is proclaimed with every new death: it is not a "natural" event, it is a murder effectuated by spiritual means, that is, by magic. Consequently, the criminal has to be sought out and discovered and the victim avenged. I n some parts of the continent, during his death agony, the relatives gather around a man and chant songs of his totemic cult clan. This comforts the dying man and prepares him for the return to the sacred spirit world. As long as he can, he takes part in the singing.2 Among the Murngin, the song summons his father and his ancestors. "If we didn't sing he might go back beoause evil ghosts (mokois) might catch him and take him out in the jungle country where they live. It is better that his old grandfathers and his ancestors come and get him and take him straight to his clan well where his totem came from" (Warner, op. cit., p. 403). Every man has two souls: the real self-"the eternal dream-time soul which pre-existed and will exist, for a time or eternally, and which, in some tribes, may be reincarnated9'-and another soul, "which can appear in dreams, which may take up its abode within another person after its owner's death, or may live in the bush and play tricks, scare and even damage its incarnate relations" (Elkin, op. cit., p. 317). It is this second soul, the trickster, which resists the definitive separation from the body, and it is especially against it that the living defend themselves with the help of rituals. The wailing of women, the gashing on the head to draw blood, and other manifestations of grief and despair begin during the agony, but they reach a real frenzy immediately after death. Menaces are uttered against those who could have protected the victims from the black magic but failed to do so. The collective grief and wrath are controlled only by the certainty and the emphatic reassurance that the dead will be avenged. The victim
A. P . Elkin, The Australian Abcwigines (New York, 1964), p. 315; Warner, op. cit., pp. 403 ff, 245
Australian Religions: Death, Eschatology, Some Conclusions

himself will help to identify his murderer. For, although there are many kinds of inquests, almost all of them are directed either by the indication given by the corpse or by the soul using it's former body to inform the medicine men. There are different types of burial, among the most common being interment, cremation, and exposition of the body on a platform3-but none is immediate and radical. Usually there are two or three stages between the "official" declaration of death and the definitive abandonment of the remains, and the "inquest" takes place during one of these stages. The medicine man can discover the country of the murderer by examining the ground around the grave, or by seeing the spirit of the dead coming out of the grave on the side nearest the murderer's country, or by perceiving the spirit of the culprit near the grave, or else by dreaming of him.4 But the oorpse, or rather the spirit which is nearby, is also able to indicate the "murderer." For instance, the dead man's hair is pulled in jerks while names of different tribes are pronounced, and the guilty group is revealed when some hair is removed. In northeastern South Australia the following method was used: the corpse was placed on the heads of three men, and when mention was made of the murderer's tribe, the corpse jumped off. Also, the corpse may be disinterred and the internal organs examined. As Elkin puts it: "The forms of inquest show that the spirit of the deceased still 'animates,' controls or may use the corpse or parts of it. . . . Indeed, it is not until revenge has been taken or satisfaction obtained, and the burial and mourning rites completed, that the spirit finally leaves the body and goes to the home of the dead or its spirit-home" (op. cit., p. 325). But the very fact of a delayed and prolonged inquest, with the elaborate interpretation of the signs indicating the country and the group of the culprit, limits the gravity of the revenge. As a matter of fact, the revenge expedition is not always organized-"a magical rite may be performed instead, an invitation to a meeting and fight may be set, a settlement may be made by the 'payment' of a woman, the present death may be balanced against a previous death or other grievance which the murderer's group has against the deceased's group, or, as in some tribes, the initiation, that is a ritual killing of
3 On the different types of burial, see Elkin, op. cit., pp. 329 ff.; R. >I. and C. H. Berndt, The World ofthe First Australians (Chicago, 1964), pp. 329 ff. 4 On the inquest, cf. Elkin, op. cit., pp. 311 ff.; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 406 ff.; Helmut Petri, "Der australisohe IvIedizinmann," Part 11, Annuli Lateranensi (Cjttit del Vaticano), XVII (1953), 170 ff.
246
a young member of the former group, may satisfy the latter" (ibid., p. 328).
THE POSTEXISTENCE OF THE SOUL
The inquest and the burial rites help us to understand the Australian ideas of the soul. As everywhere else, the conception of the soul and its postexistence are confusing and not seldom contradictory. As we have seen already, there are two souls, and only the "primary pre-existent spirit" is supposed to have a meaningful postexistence. I n fact, it returns to its spirit home, from which it came originally or where its creator lives. This home may be the sky (as in most of eastern Australia and parts of the west and northwest) or the totem centers (as in the greatest part of northern and central Australia), or, in some cases, beyond the sea.5 In the northeastern part of Arnhem Land, it is said that a human spirit divides after death into three parts. "One returns to its totemic center, to wait for rebirth. One, the mogwoi, is a trickster spirit which is much more mobile but still remains locality-bound. The third goes to the appropriate land of the dead, to join and then merge with the creative beings and spirits already there."6 As we might expect, the land of the dead is differently imagined. At the Australian level of culture we already find the most characteristic traits of what may be called the mythical geography of the disincarnated soul. Thus, the spirits ascend to heaven by a rope thrown by some Supernatural Beings;7 or they cross an invisible tree which forms a bridge from a rock to the land of the dead, the crossing itself accompanied by several other tests;s or, as among the Wiradjuri, the spirits climb a cord up to the sky world of Baiame;g or, as among Kulin, they ascend to the sky on the "bright rays of the setting sun" (Howitt, op. cit., pp. 438-39). For the tribes on the Herbert River in northeastern Queensland, the dead travel to the sky by the milky way (ibid., p. 431); the Kamilaroi believe that their dead go to the Magellan clouds (ibid., p. 439). For the eastern Kimberley tribes, the land of the dead lies in the west. The spirits "occasionally return to their own country, to their
Cf. Elkin, op. cit., p. 336; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 412 ff. R. M. and C . H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 416. The Dieiri too distinguish three souls (ibid., p. 413). I n the Lower Murray River; of. ibid., p. 412. 8 This is a well-known and widely distributed motif (cf. M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy [New York, 19641, pp. 482 ff.). 8 R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 413; A. W. Howitt, T h e Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 435 ff. 247
5

graves or to the gorges where their bones have been hidden."lO The jiridja moiety of the tribes in northeastern Arnhem Land believes that the land of the dead consists of certain Torres Straits Islands along with the southern coast of New Guinea; for the dua moiety, it is the island of Bralgu. The arriving soul is tested before being accepted, a motif also found elsewhere in Australia. I n the case of the dua moiety the guardian examines the newcomer to see if he was initiated (R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 416 ff.). Among the Gunwinggu of western Arnhem Land, the spirit is helped to pass unobserved by the wife of the guardian of the road (ibid., p. 414). And the experiences and initiatory tests of the Wiradjuri medicine man, climbing into the sky world to bring the rain,ll also confront every soul at death (R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 413). Death is essentially an ecstatic experience: the soul abandons the body and journeys to the land of its postexistence. The difference from other ecstatic states-sleep, trance provoked by sickness, shamanistic voyages-consists in the fact that the soul of the dead leaves the body for good, thus bringing on the decay and final destruction of the latter. Howitt quotes a certain number of voyages to heaven accomplished by ordinary people, even women (i.e., non-initiated persons).l2 Such spontaneous ecstatic journeys, however, are rather rare. On the contrary, the medicine men travel frequently to heaven or wherever the land of the dead is situated. And there are even stories of men who visited such fabulous countries in concreto. Warner and the Berndts cite the story of a man, Jalngura, who paddled for several days, reached Bralgu, the island of the dead, where he met different spirits and finally came back to his village, but died that very night.13 All these journeys to the land of the dead have a prototype: the first voyage of the Supernatural Beings or of the mythical Ancestors. I n southeast Australia the Supernatural Beings retired to heaven, and likewise, at the end of their cultural activity, some of the mura-mura climbed there too.14 The medicine men repeat this celestial ascent, and so does the soul of every man after death.
10 Kaberry, quoted in R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 414. On Melville and Bathurst Islands the spirits "return to the place of their birth a t the various totemic sites" (ibid.). 11 Quoted in M. Eliade, "Australian Religions, Part IV: The Medicine Men and Their Supernatural Models," History of Religions, VII, No. 2 (November, 1967),
163.
12 13
14
Op. cit., pp. 436 ff. R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 417-18. Howitt, op. cit., pp. 426 ff.
Once again, though for the last time, man does what was done in the beginning by a Supernatural Being. With every new death, the primordial scenario is re-enacted. No moral issues are involved in successfully reaching the abode of the dead and joining the other spirits. There is no punishment for sins, and the only tests are of an initiatory character. If there is a discrimination between the souls, implying differences in their postmortem condition, it is in relation to the rituals performed and the religious knowledge received and assimilated during the lifetime, that is to say, in the degree of their initiation. One of the characteristics of archaic conceptions of death and postmortem existence is such an indifference to "moral" values. It seems as if, in this perspective, "morality" is meaningful exclusively for man in the incarnate condition but is insignificant in the postmortem state, which is a purely "spiritual" mode of being. Such "spiritual" existences are susceptible to modification primarily by the force of the rituals performed and by the "saving knowledge" accumulated on earth. But whatever may be the nature or the proportion of the postmortem modifications, the indestructibility of the human spirit seems to be a fundamental and pan-Australian conception.15 Essentially this means the indestructibility of the spiritual unit which made its appearance in the "Dreaming Time." We may compare this conception with the pre-systematic ideas of karma and the permanence of Gtman. I n post-Vedic India, as well as in Australia, the rituals-that is, the repetition of paradigmatic acts -and the "saving knowledge" derived from the understanding of the divine origin and essence of the rituals led to the idea of an indestructible spiritual agent. We have previously discussed some new religious creations, occasioned by contact with Melanesian culture ("Australian Religions, Part IV," p. 174). I n recent times, the impact of Western civilization provoked still more radical reactions. A case in point is the Kurangara, a cult which originated in the central desert, probably no more than sixty to seventy years ago, and spread with great rapidity to the north and north-west.16 Its interest for the historian of religions is its rejection of the traditional religious
1 5 "Despite occasional remarks to the contrary, there seems to be some agreement on the indestructibility of the human spirit" (R. M, and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., p. 419). 16 Helmut Petri, "KurBngara. Neue magische Kulte in Xordwest-Australien," Zeitsehrift fur Ethnologie, LXXV (1950), 43-51, esp. 50; idem, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien (Braunschweig, 1954), p. 263; idem, "Wandlungen in der
Australian Religions: Death, Eschatology, Sorne Conclusions

behavior and ideology, and the exaltation of magical power. The Kurangara does not everywhere present the same mythico-ritual scenario. I n 1938, Helmut Petri investigated the cult among the Ungarinyin, where it was in full development, and Andreas Lommel among the Unambal, where it was in its initial phase. Already at that time the differences were notable.17 When, in 1944-45, Ronald Berndt studied the Kurbngara (gu'rangara) in the upper Kimberleys, he found a quite diverse situation; not only were its original function and meaning changed, but in those regions the gu'rangara was integrated in the Kalwadi-KadjariKunapipi cult, that is to say, in a "fertility" complex.18 As far as we can judge from the information available, the meaning and function of Kurbngara can be best grasped among the Ungarinyin. There, the cult reveals a brutal reaction against the traditional religious values of the old generation, and a trust in the "saving power" of a new type of secret society. According to Petri, the root of the term Kurhngara is unknown, but the natives translate this word by "poison," meaning that it is magically powerful and dangerous.19 The central figures of the cult are the Djanba, who may be classified as anthropomorphous spirits, but skeleton-like and tall as trees, with long sexual organs. They are cannibals and can disappear or take any form. The Djanba are invisible to non-initiates. They are considered immortal: they came into being at the beginning of time; "they made themselves." Petri compares them to Ungud (Sterbende Welt, p. 258). Their power is due to a magical substance, grdare, which they have in their bodies.20 Because of this grdare, the Djanba can see everything that is hidden.
geistigen Kultur nordwestaustralicher Stilmme," Veroffeentlichungen a u s d e m M u s e u m fur Natur-, T7olker- und Handelskunde in Bremen, Ser. B , No. 1 (1950), pp. 33-121, esp. 90 ff. Cf. also E. Worms, "Die Goranara-Feier in australischen Kimberley," A n n a l i Lateranensi, VI (1942), 208-35. 1 7 Andreas Lommel, "Modern Culture Influences on the Aborigines," Oceania, X X I (1950-51), 14-24, esp. p. 22; idem, Die Unambal (Hamburg, 1952), pp.
00
0 1 11.
Ronald M. Berndt, "Influence of European Culture on Australian Aborigines," Oceania, X X I (1950-51), 229-40, esp. 233. 1 9 Petri, ''Kurltngara," p. 43. I n his book, Sterbende Welt in Nordwest-Australien, p. 257, Petri remarks that among the western and southwestern Aranda groups the terms k u r a n and kuranita mean "spirit," "shadow," "life-essence," but also "blood." The suffix -ngara designates, in Kimberley, "appertaining to." All over Australia the ritual objects of very distant tribes are considered magically powerful. This is, of course, a well-known phenomenon: the "foreigners" are looked upon as magicians, cannibals, or ghosts; their religious activities and objects are considered deadly powerful. zo &dare is compared by the initiates to the spirals or concentric circles agraved on the sacred woods, minboru.
18
250
The most important sacred object of the cult is a wooden slab called minboru, similar to the central Australian tjurunga, but sometimes up to two meters long. The minboru are deposited in the secret places where the Kurkngara is carried out. They are said to have originated from the bodies of the Djanba and are the visible representatives of them. I n central Kimberley only those who have already gone through tribal initiation can become members of Kurangara, but in western Kimberley such conditions are not necessary.21 The rituals, consisting of corroborees, dances, and bodily painting, re-enact the deeds of the Djanba. Songs are chanted in an unknown language (some words, however, belong to a central Australian dialect).22 The essential rite consists in eating kangaroo flesh and pressing a minboru on the body. Through the ritual, man receives grdare and gains power. The chief of the cult, the "Kurkngara doctor," possesses great quantities of gr6are and as a result has direct rapport with the Djanba; he can see them and converse with them.23 Helmut Petri speaks of "black magic."24 The acculturated young men are impressed with the seemingly unlimited powers of the white men, and they hope to obtain comparable powers through magic. They are convinced that, like the medicine men, they too can project such magical "power" and kill a t a distance. They do not believe anymore in the values accepted by their forefathers. They look to the Djanba to obtain the powers which, they think, the traditional Supernatural Beings and Cultural Heroes could not give them. As a matter of fact, most Kurkngara members are young men whom the medicine men-the "Ungud doctors"-refused to initiate in the tribal mysteries because they followed "the white man's way." The "Kurkngara doctors" have thus become the competitors of the traditional medicine men.25 The members of the cult are against the "Ungud doctors" and the
Petri, "Kurhngara," p. 47; idem, Sterbende Welt, p. 262. The origin of the belief in Djanba is still an open question. Worms thought that it derived from the cultic system of the Mangala and Walmadjeri, tribes from south of the Fitzroy River (cf. Worms, op. cit.). But Petri rightly observes that, in the qeranqara of these tribes, Djanba represent a foreign element, brought in from central Australia. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the Aranda origin of some cultic elements, we do not find the cult or the mythology of Kurbnqara among the Aranda. (Djanba, for instance, were not noticed.) Petri surmises that Kurbnqara might have originated among some of the ethnic groups west of the Aranda, whose culture is today inaccessible (Sterbende Welt, p. 261). 23 Petri, Sterbende Welt, p. 259. KuTdngaTa is the unseen active force of the Djanba, but it is also the "singing," the technique of the black magic; cf. idem, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, p. 165. 24 Petri, ''Kurltngara," p. 49. 25 Petri, Sterbende Welt, pp. 218 ff., 256.
21
22
251

elders, keepers of the traditions. They consider the tribal initiation less important than Kurhngara and even negligible; the bull-roarers, sacred for the older generation, are forgotten, their place being taken by the minboru; and the Djanba replace the traditional Supernatural Beings. Notwithstanding all this, we still have here a recent re-evaluation of the pan-Australian mythico-ritual pattern. The Djanba were probably a class of Culture Heroes; the Kurhngara ritual seems to be the adaptation of a traditional initiation sequence; the minboru slabs are a variant of the central Australian tjurunga. The structure of Kurdngara resembles that of any other Australian secret cult: mythical Beings are expected to transmit powers through dances, manipulation of sacred objects, and other specific rituals. What is new is the ideological orientation: the breaking off from the old religious tradition and the exaltation of the magical powers. Being a response to a cultural situation which is becoming rapidly generalized, namely, the situation created by increasing contacts with Western civilization, the diffusion of Kurhngara is remarkably dynamic. The overwhelming importance of "magic" is understandable in a popular movement born from a spiritual crisis. The phenomenon, well known throughout the history of religions, was noticed elsewhere in Australia. We have already pointed out how, very recently, a women's secret cult has attracted the younger generation for exclusively magical reasons.26 The exuberant efflorescence of magical elements in the latest phases of Indian Tantrism represents a similar phenomenon. "Magic" flourishes when the meaning of traditional religious forms is lost or becomes irrelevant. But the essential ritual and ideological elements of the predominant religious system are not abolished; with a degraded or distorted meaning, they are reorganised to serve different purposes. For the younger generation of many Australian tribes, Kurhngara is the only possible answer to the profound crisis caused by the collapse of the traditional values. I t is significant that this new dynamic cult presents the character of a hasty imitation. Discussing analogous religious processes in Patterns in Comparative Religion, we used the expression doublets faciles ("easy substitutes" is only an approximate translation).27 Indeed, what strikes one in such a development is the
26 M. Eliade, "Australian Religions, Part 1 1 Initiation Rites and Secret 1: Cults," History of Religions, VII, No. 1 (August, 1967), 85. 27 Eliade, Patterns i n Comparative Religion (New York, 1958), pp. 383 ff., 448. 252
facility with which certain goals are supposedly attained. I n the case of Kurdngara, the "powers" both of the traditional magician and of the white man are proclaimed accessible to everybody, without the personal vocation, the training, and the initiation which, up to a few years ago, were considered indispensable. Among the Unambal the cult, as it was investigated by Lomme1 in 1938, seems even more strongly influenced by Western symbols and ideology. Tjanba (=Djanba) has a house of corrugated iron and hunts with a rifle. He is able to impart leprosy and syphilis, diseases hitherto unknown. He asks his fellow ghosts for tea, sugar, and bread. "The cult language is pidginEnglish. The cult is directed by a 'boss,' the slabs are stored away by a 'clerc,' the feasts are announced by a 'mailman,' and order and discipline during them is maintained by some specially appointed 'pickybas' (from police-boys)." The "boss" uses the same methods as the traditional medicine man, "only the symbols have changed. It is now no longer the Ungud snake but the Kurbngara slab which incorporates life and death."28 According to Lommel, the cult expresses the fear of the approaching end of the world. His Unambal informants described the eschatological syndrome in terms familiar to many other traditions: "the social order will be completely reversed: women will take the place of men; they will arrange the feasts and hand on the slabs, whereas the men will gather edible roots, without being allowed to participate in the feasts."29 Some of Lommel's interpretations have been challenged by R. Berndt, especially the supposed pessimism of the cult and its antifeminism. Berndt demonstrates the integration of Kurdngara in the ritual system of Kunapipi, where women play a role.30 He also reminds us that in the mythology of the Australian fertility cults the source of ritual power and sacredness is found in women.31 But these inconsistencies and contradictions may be explained by the different re-evaluations of Kurdngara ideology and purposes in the cult's diffusion from tribe to tribe.
WANDERING CULTS AND MILLENARISTIC MOVEMENTS
Kurhngara is exceptional only because of its amazing vitality, success, and wide diffusion. Many other wandering cults were
28 Lommel, "Modern Cultural Influences on the Aborigines," p. 23; cf. i d e m , D i e U n a m b a l , pp. 82 ff. 20 Lommel, "Modern Cultural Influences on the Sborigines," p. 24. 30 R. M. Berndt, op. cit., p. 233. 31 Ibid., p. 235; cf. Eliade, "Australian Religions, Part 111," pp. 56 ff.

noticed a t the turn of the century.32 I n almost every one of them the "black magic" elements were strongly emphasized.33 One could describe their emergence and growth in the following terms: a dynamic and magically oriented cult originates from a partial disintegration of the traditional pattern, accompanied by a reorganization and re-evaluation of the traditional symbolism and ritual scenario. As far as we can judge, the success of the magically oriented wandering cults was due to a certain dissatisfaction with the traditional tribal religion. Moreover, as is clearly shown by the brilliant career of Kurkngara, even if the cult emerged and developed initially in an aboriginal milieu, utilizing exclusively archaic and pan-Australian elements, its popularity and rapid diffusion in later stages are largely due to the consequences of the various tribes' contacts with white man's tools, powers, and beliefs. Until a few years ago, the only known case of a prophetic millenaristic cult stimulated directly by contact with Western culture was molonga or mulunga. Having originated in east central Australia and Queensland at the turn of century, in only a few years mulunga reached all the tribes of central and southern Australia. The corroboree lasted five consecutive nights, and many dances portrayed a future war against the whites. At the end appeared Ka'nini, the Spirit of the "Great Mother from the Water,'' who, in a series of pantomimes, swallowed all the whites.34 This nativistic and millenaristic cult presents a certain analogy with Kurkngara: the mischievous mulunga spirit, just like the Djanba, is invisible to all except the medicine men. But the analogy stops here, for the Djanba are desert spirits, whereas mulunga is related to the waters.35 I n 1960, Helmut Petri and Gisela Petri-Odermann noticed a sort of revivalist movement in the Canning Desert of Western Australia, but one lacking prophetic, nativistic, and millenarSee some examples in Petri, Sterbende Welt, pp. 263 ff. Cf. Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, pp. 168 ff. I n the early 1930's, Stanner noticed among the Daly River tribes (Northern Territory) a collective neurosis provoked by the terror of m a m a k p i k , i.e., the "Devil Doctors," the black magicians par excellence; of. W. E. H. Stamer, "A Report of Field Work in North Australia: The Daly River Tribes," Oceania, IV (1933), esp. 22-25. 34 0. Siebert, "Sagen und Sitten der Dieiri und Nachbarr-Stiimme in ZentralAustralien," Globus, XCVII (1910), 57-59; cf. summary by Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, pp. 166-67. 35 Petri, "Der australische Medizinmann," Part 11, p. 167. In his book Movimenti religiosi d i libertb e d i salvezza (Milano, 1960), V. Lanternari included Kurbngara among the prophetic cults (cf. pp. 220 ff.), but he did not discuss the mulunga, whose prophetic-millenaristic structure is obvious. 254
32 33
istic ideas. I n 1963, however, the situation was radically changed; the natives refused to accept the two anthropologists again in their traditional ceremonies, and the anti-European feelings were high.36 The Petris found out from a sympathetio native that a new cult was expected to arrive in the region. They learned that Jinimin ( = Jesus) had appeared recently amidst the aborigines. He has black and white skin, and he announced that the entire country will belong to the natives, and also that no distinction will exist between whites and blacks. However, this will happen only when the natives become powerful enough to conquer the whites. The victory, however, is certain provided the "old law" be faithfully respected. Jesus appears thus as a revivalist prophet of the traditional culture. He is said to have descended from heaven one early afternoon, creating a great surprise. Some people photographed him. He ascended back to heaven a t twilight, leaving the Worgaia cult as the means to attain the millennium. Worgaia is a Great Mother type of cult, probably originally from Arnhem Land. Its dynamism was first noticed in 1954.37 Another myth from this cult tells of a stone boat sent by Jesus from heaven. The same informants stated definitely that the ship was there from the beginnings of time, from the bugari-gara. This is equivalent to saying that Jesus is classified among the mythical Heroes of the tribe. Only as such could he have sent the ship in the primordial time. The ship is invested with two functions: (1) it will serve as Noah's ark when the diluvial rains will kill all the whites with "sacred water"; (2) it is described as loaded with gold and crystals; in other words, it expresses the idea of the richness of an Australian society that suffered the influence of the white man's economics.3* Thus, concluded the Petris, an originally non-aggressive revivalism evolved into an aggressive nativistic and millensristic cult through a Christian-sectarian reinterpretation. The process took place after the liberalization of official politics with regard to the aborigines and after the aborigines received equal rights with the whites. This indicates that nativistic and millenaristic
36 Helmut Petri and Gisela Petri-Odermam, "Nativismus und Millenarismus irn gegenwartigen Australien," Festschrift fur A d . E. Jensen, I1 (Munich, 1964), esp. 462. The cause of the change was traced to a white Australian Marxist who had organized a co-operative exclusively for the use of the aborigines. He eventually convinced them to refuse all information to the anthropologists, for they, as a rule, are not sympathetio to the native traditions. 37 Ibid., p. 464, n. 8. 38 Ibid., p. 465. Cf. M. Eliade, M4phistophdlBs et l'androgyne (Paris, 1962), pp. 194 ff. (English trans., Mephistopheles and the Androgyne [New York, 19651, pp. 155 ff.).

movements are related more to mystical nostalgias than to purely economic and political circumstances; or, to put it otherwise, it proves how much a politically oriented nativistic movement is permeated with religious symbolism and mystical values.39 Though manifestly syncretistic, this new millenaristic cult is grounded essentially in a pan-Australian religious pattern. Jesus is metamorphosed into one of the Culture Heroes of the mythical time, and the strength and ultimate "salvation" of the tribe is declared to be dependent on the respect of tradition. The results of increasing contact with the Western world are therefore not always disruptive of traditional values. Moreover, an antiWestern attitude does not necessarily result in pessimism and despair, nor are the purely magical elements inevitably exalted. I n sum, the emergence of this cult proves again that future modifications of a "primitive" religion cannot be anticipated. The Australian mind reacts creatively, and therefore diversely, to the challenges raised by acculturation. Even the "political" aspect of some of the new cults represents a creative innovation, being, in fact, a drastic re-evaluation of the traditional understanding of "power." I n all these wandering cults the role of some gifted and dynamic personalities-either medicine men, "black magicians," or "inspired" men and women-seems to have been decisive. The central issue was always a reaction against tradition or a re-interpretation of some of its aspects. As the examples which we discussed illustrate abundantly, even the most violent rejection of the "old law" was expressed in "new" forms that utilized the archaic panAustralian pattern. The process underlying these radical disruptions and transformations observed in the last sixty to seventy years may help us to understand the less dramatic changes that took place earlier in Australia, as a result of Oceanian and Asiatic cultural influences. Creative innovations and unexpected metamorphoses continue to take place under our eyes. I* Elcho Island,-north of Arnhern
39 According to a letter of F. Rose, summarized and quoted by the Petris, another movement-of the characteristic cargo type--was noticed a t Angas Downs Station, central Australia, in 1962. Here the Americans were to bring trucks loaded with different goods, just as they brought them once during the war. At that time the whites appropriated all these goods by trickery, although they were intended by the Americans to be bestowed upon the natives. Cf. Petri and Petri-Odermann, op. cit., p. 466, n. 10. On the millenaristic motif of the "coming of the Americans," of. Eliade, Mdphistophdlks et l'androgyne, pp. 155 ff. (English trans., pp. 125 ff.). 256
Land, about ten years ago, a man named Buramara built a "Memorial," a cement-based structure in which the most sacred and secret tribal emblems, the ranga, were publicly displayed. Among these ranga, until then inaccessible to women and noninitiates, a cross was also exhibited. But Buramara did not intend to Christianize the ancestral religion, although he had his Bible and had been under the influence of missionaries for many years. The "Memorial" cult represents, as Ronald Berndt aptly calls it, an "adjustment movement."40 At one point Buramara discovered that the ranga, which had been photographed by some anthropologists, were being shown to "all the people throughout Australia and other places. . . . We got a shock. We're not supposed to show these mareeiin, these ranga to just everybody. . . . Then we saw a film a t the Elcho church. It was from the AmericanAustralian Expedition, and i t showed the sacred ceremonies and emblems. And everybody saw it. . . . We've got no power to hide (these ranga): they are taking away our possessions. Are we to lose all this? Our most precious possessions-our ranga! We have nothing else: this is really our only wealth" (R. Berndt, An Adjustment Movement, p. 40.). According to the aboriginal usage, Buramara thought that if the ranga "are shown publicly we should receive something in return" (ibid., p. 40). What Buramara and the other leaders of the cult expect from such a revolutionary innovation is first of all a strengthening of the cultural and political unity of the Arnhem Landers. Indeed, the publicly displayed ranga express their own "soul," the quintessence of their culture (ibid., p. 87). "The Memorial provides a focus and a rallying point" (ibid., p. 91). Dressed especially for the occasion and wearing a ranga around his forehead, Buramara delivers sermons from a pulpit in front of the Memorial. Traditional singing and dancing take place on the sacred ground. "We have our songs and our dances, said Buramara in one of his sermons, and we do not leave them; we must keep them, since this is the only way to keep us happy. If we drop these it would be very awkward for everybody. . . . Now the missionary here has good news and a good way. We have two minds to think: we worship two Gods. The European Bible is one way: but these ranga here on the Memorial are our Bible, and this is not far from the European Bible" (ibid., p. 77). As a matter
40 R. M . Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem L a n d , Northern Territory of Australia (Paris and The Hague, 1962). 257

of fact, as Berndt has found it, Christianity as such has not been obtrusive (ibid., p. 81). Thus, it would seem, the history of Australian religions is not yet closed, although the consequences of acculturation may become more and more distressing. One cannot say that the creativity of the Australian religious mind is definitely exhausted or that all that will come from now on will be of only an antiquarian interest.
HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF AUSTRALIAN CULTURES
For more than three-quarters of a century, the Australians have passionately interested anthropologists and sociologists, psychologists and historians of religions.41 The reasons are obvious: the Australians are food-gatherers and hunters, culturally comparable only with the Fuegians, the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert, and some of the Arctic Eskimos. Thus, one could say that they continue in our days a pre-Neolithic type of culture. Furthermore, the isolation of the continent enhanced the scientific interest in Australian civilization, which was considered to be both exceptionally archaic and unitary. Explicitly (as in the cases of Frazer, Freud, and Durkheim) or implicitly, scholars were incited by the hope that, through studying the Australians, they would have a chance to discover the "origins" of religious and social institutions. We know now that such hopes were chimerical. At most, one could say that by studying and understanding the Australians we may grasp the structure and meaning of an archaic type of culture; but this hardly enables us to glimpse the "origins" or the first stages of human culture. Moreover, as recent research abundantly shows, the Australians did not develop-or rather "stagnatev-in a radical isolation, as was thought by Baldwin Spencer and most of his contemporaries. The radio-carbon dates associated unquestionably with human remains are still controversial. According to Gills, the radio-carbon dating of samples from Keilor indicates 18,000 years; but Abbie thinks that we do not have certain proofs of human remains extending back more than 8,000 years.42 Mulvaney, however, is inclined to accept
4 1 For a review of the earlier inter~retations. see D. J. Mulvanev. "The Australian kborigines 1606-1929: opinio; and ~ieldwork,"~ i s t o r i c zstudies, VIII ' (1958), 131-51, 297-314. 4 2 See W. E. H. Stanner and Helen Sheils (eds.),Austvalian Aboriginal Studirs. A Symposium of Papers Presented at the 1961 Research Conference (Melbourne and Oxford, 1963), p. 82.
Gill's more remote dates;43 and the linguist Cappell, estimating that 8,000 years are insufficient to account for the development of Australian languages, suggests "something between 15,000 and 20,000 years."44 Whatever the case may be, the sources of Australian civilization lie ultimately in Southeast Asia. McCarthy documented the dependence of Australian prehistoric cultures on Indonesian and Malaysian centers of diffusion, and Tindale supports his conclusions.45 What is more important, Australia was continually influenced by the flow of culture traits from these areas into Cape York, Arnhem Land, and the Kimberleys. "In other words, the Aborigines' is not an isolated culture which developed independently as is commonly supposed; it is one that has thrived, in a limited manner, on the continuous progress of Oceanic cultures with their roots in Asia. Thus we can distinguish a very large number of customs among all aspects of Aboriginal culture which have an unbroken distribution from Australia into New Guinea and Melanesia, and some further afield. They include customs which are ancient in Australia's cultural terms, and many other of more recent origin which have a limited distribution in the north and east, and which leave no doubt that they were introduced via Cape York whence they spread over the continent."46 There were long and intimate contacts between the Torres Strait Islanders and the Cape York aborigines. New initiation patterns and Hero cults, together with some technological innovations, arrived from New Guinea and Torres Strait, penetrating the aboriginal culture in Cape York, "where the bow and arrow, skindrum, and other non-Australian paraphernalia are used" (McCarthy, "The Oceanic and Indonesian Affiliations of Australian
D. J. Mulvaney, "Prehistory," in ibid., p. 39. A. A. Cappel, summarized in "Discussion on the Antiquity of Man in Australia," in Stanner and Sheils (eds.), op. cit., p. 84. On the prehistory of Australia, cf. Mulvaney, "Prehistory," pp. 33-51 (select bibliography, 50-51); idem, "The Stone Age of Australia," Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, XXVII (1961), 56-107. See also F. D. McCarthy, "A Comparison of the Prehistory of Australia with That of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula and Netherlands East Indies," Proceedings of the Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Par East, Singapore, 1938 (1940),pp. 30-50; idem, T h e Stone Implements of Australia (Sydney, 1946); J . Haekel, "Ethnologische und prahistorische Probleme Australiens," Wiener viilkerkundliche Mitteilungen, I1 (1954), 66-85. 45 McCarthy, "A Comparison of the Prehistory of Australia . ."; idem, "The Oceanic and Indonesian Affiliations of Australian Aboriginal Culture," Journal of the Polynesian Society, LXII (1953), 243-61; idem, Australia's Aborigines: Their Life and Culture (Melbourne, 1957); N. B. Tindale, "Man of the Hunting Age," Colorado Quarterly, VIII (1960), 229-45. 46 McCarthy, "The Oceanic and Indonesian Affiliations of Australian Aboriginal Culture," pp. 243-61, esp. 252 ff.
43 44

Aboriginal Culture," p. 253). The cultural relations between Melanesia and Australia are surprisingly numerous, and have occasioned a large literature.47 Warner and Berndt have documented Indonesian influences in Arnhem Land,48 Berndt and McCarthy discovered pottery sherds in northeastern Arnhem Land,49 and Mulvaney considers it not unlikely that there have been Indonesian Bronze-Iron influences. Indeed, McCarthy had identified a number of typical Bronze Age elements in Australian decorative art (spirals, concentric circles, etc.).50 Nevertheless, although Australia has never been "isolated," this does not mean that we must always look outside the continent for explanations of Australian developments. As McCarthy has said; While Aboriginal cdture is not a local Australian phenomenon, neither is its development due solely to outside influences. Davidson presented convincing evidence to show that important modifications, or evolution, of certain artefacts took place in Australia, as for example from the one-piece bark canoe to the pleated and multi-piece sewn types; from emu feather kurdaitja shoes to the marsupial, rabbit skin, and bark sandals; from clay skull cap to the use of headnet, separate and dummy mourning caps; and from plain-handled throwing sticks and spearthrowers to those fitted with a gum grip and finally with a stone adze, and the many uses of the spearthrowers in Central Australia. He thus credited the Aborigines with making many intelligent improvements to their artefacts, and in addition pointed out that they had invented or discovered a number of kinds of receptacles by an intelligent exploitation of their resources.51 I n the discussion following this paper of McCarthy's a t the Symposium on Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra, May, 1961), D. F. Thomson pointed out that the people of Cape York, though familiar with the bow and arrow of the neighboring warlike Torres Strait Islanders, did not borrow them, considering the bow and arrow inferior to their fighting spears. Also, "in far north Queensland a gardening culture, familiar to some of the
47 See the bibliography in ibid., pp. 253 ff.; of. also the references listed in the following three notes." Discovery of Pottery in North-eastern Arnhem Land," 48 R. M. Berndt, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXVII (1947), 133-38; R. M. and C. H. Berndt, op. cit., pp. 20 ff., 424; Warner, op. cit., pp. 445 ff. 49 R. M. Berndt, "Discovery of Pottery in North-eastern Arnhem I y d " ; F. D. McCarthy and Frank M. Setzler, "The Archeology of Arnhem Land, Records of the American-Australian Scientijc Expedition to Arnhem Land (1948), I1 (1960), 223-27. 5 0 Mulvaney, "Prehistory," p. 50. 5 1 F. D. McCarthy, "Ecology, Equipment, Economy and Trade," in Shnner and Shiels (eds.), op. cit., p. 181. Cf. ibid., p. 188, the bibliography of D. 8. Davidson's publications quoted by McCarthy in his paper.
260
coastal people through contact, was rejected, while some other elements were absorbed and modified or dovetailed into their existing patterns."52 Thus, what was once highly esteemed as a static and "monolithic" culture, an expression of a Naturvolk living somehow outside history, has proven to be, like all other cultures, "primitive" or highly developed, the result of a historical process. And the fact that the aborigines reacted creatively with regard to external cultural influences, accepting and assimilating certain elements, rejecting or ignoring others, shows that they behaved like historical beings, and not as a Naturvolk. I n other words, the historical perspective introduced by prehistorians and historically oriented ethnologists has definitively ruined the image of a stagnant and elementary Australian culture-an image, we may recall, that was successfully popularized by the naturalistic interpretations of nineteenth-century anthropologists. I n fact, the distinctive characteristic of Australians and other primitive peoples is not their lack of history but their specific interpretation of human historicity. They too live in history and are shaped by historical events; but they do not have a historical awareness comparable, say, to that of Westerners; and, because they do not need it, they also lack a historiographical consciousness.53 The aborigines do not record historical events in an irreversible chronological order. The changes and innovations, which imperceptibly but continuously transformed their existence, were telescoped into the mythical era; that is, they became part of the tribal sacred history. Like most archaic peoples, the Australians do not have any use for real chronology. Their sacred history is meaningful, not because it narrates the events in a chronological order, but because i t reveals the beginnings of the world, the appearance of the Ancestors, and their dramatic and exemplary deeds. I n conclusion, the reconstruction of the cultural history of the Australians has a great importance for Western scholarship and ultimately for the Western understanding of "primitive" peoples -but it is irrelevant for the aborigines themselves. This means also that the eventual reconstruction of Australian religious
5 2 D. F. Thomson, summarized in "Discussion," in Stanner and Sheils (eds.), op. cit., pp. 192-93. The phenomenon is not unparalleled: the Bambuti Pygmies did not borrow plant cultivation from the Bantu agriculturalists, with whom they lived in symbiosis a great number of centuries; of. P. Schebesta, Die BambutiPygmaen vom Ituri (Brussels, 1941), 11, 269. 53 Cf. M. Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York, 1955); idem, Myth and Reality (New York, 1963). 261

history will not necessarily disclose the meaning of the various aboriginal religious creations. Until recently, all innovations and external influences were integrated into a traditional pattern. Finding out that such and such a religious element-a Culture Hero, a myth, a ritual-was introduced rather late, and from a specific region, does not a t the same time reveal its significance in the system into which it was integrated. Such external religious elements became part of the traditional mythology, and consequently they demand to be understood and evaluated within that total context. Thus, an historical reconstruction of Australian religions, even accepting that such an enterprise will ever be possible, will not permit the scholar to dispense with the hermeneutical work, that is, the understanding of the different religious creations whose history he is trying to decipher. This certainly does not mean that the historical reconstruction is a vain endeavor. As we shall presently see, it was of the utmost importance in proving that circumcision, for example, was introduced rather late into Australia: one recalls the innumerable and extravagant theories, before and after Freud, grounded on the supposed antiquity of circumcision.
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS
Compared with the results obtained by the specialists in prehistory and historical ethnology, the historical analysis of Australian religious ideas, institutions, and beliefs has marked very little progress. Most probably, the rigidity of the first historical reconstructions, elaborated by Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt, discouraged the younger generations of scholars from utilizing the same approach.54 Besides, as we have pointed out,55 the interests of the scholarly world switched from historical to sociological and psychological analyses and interpretations of primitive religions. Nevertheless, the results of the last thirty years of comparative ethnological research did help to clarify some problems of great interest to the historian of religions. For instance, today no scholar will grant a primary religious importance to circumcision or subincision, rituals that were introduced rather late from Melanesia; nor will he consider "totemism" as the basic, universal, and most archaic religious form; furthermore, the fertility cults
54 See the rather melancholic observations of Wilhelm Koppers, "Diffusion: Transmission and Acceptance," in William L. Thomas, J r . (ed.), Yearbook of Anthropology (New York, 1955), pp. 169-81, esp. 171, 178 ff. 55 M. Eliade, "Australian Religions: An Introduction, Part I," History of Religions, V I , No. 2 (November, 1966), esp. 121 ff.
262
of Arnhem Land, though representing a characteristic aboriginal religious creation, are the results of Melanesian influences, and as such they cannot throw light on the older pattern of Australian religions. Also, in some cases we are now able to distinguish between chronologically different phases of religious institutions, as, for example, between the simplest forms of puberty initiation and some more elaborated rituals ultimately derived from Melanesia. Moreover, we realize today that megalithic cultures reached Australia a long time ago and have been completely integrated in the religious life of a great number of tribes from Kimberley to Cape York Peninsula.56 What results also from recent studies is the surprising diffusion of religious ideas, rituals, and vocabulary throughout the entire continent. I n some cases, the dispersion of a religious term in far distant places has posed difficult historical questions. For instance, Father Worms noticed that Bundjil, the name of the highest Being of the Kurnai and other tribes in eastern Victoria, is found in northern Kimberley as Bundjil miri, designating the Lord of the Dead, while on the southeastern coast of Carpentaria bungil is used for "man," and in the Seymour district the same term means "eaglehawk." Worms remarks: "On reading this we immediately ask ourselves who transported these words? At what time? By what exchange routes over our continent?"57 It is doubtful that this and other such problems can ever be solved in an historical perspective, for the simple reason that a great number of tribes have disappeared or are hopelessly acculturated. I n spite of the innumerable lacunae in our information, Father Worms was able to present a t the Canberra symposium a list of the "essential features" of aboriginal religions and another one of "probable incidental accretions." According to him, the "essential features" are: 1. the absence of esoteric doctrine; 2. belief in a personal sky-being; 3. belief in auxiliary spirit-beings-most often a son of the sky-being -who are the tutors in sacred rites and the donors of sacred instruments; 4. the existence of holy objects left behind by the sky-being, which represent him and contain all his power; 5. the use of liturgical drama to renew and symbolize the creative actions of the being; 6. initiation, excluding corporal operations for both sexes, but including
56 See, inter alia, E. A. Worms, "Comtemporary and Prehistoric Rock Paintings in Central and Northern Kimberley," Anthropos, L (1955), 546-66, esp. 552 ff.; Gisela Odermann, "Holz- und Steinsetzungen in Australien," Paideuma,
V I I (1959), 99-141. 57 E. A. Worms, "Religion," in Stanner and Sheila (eds.), op. cit., pp. 231-47;
cf. esp. p. 236.

tests of hardship, usually involving plucking of the hair; 7. traces of sacrifice and prayer, in the widest sense of the words; and 8. the existence of a leading liturgist, or medicine man [Worms, "Religion," p. 2321. Among the questions raised by these "essential features," the author asks: "Were essential features originally imported? From where? Which ones? Have others been lost, added to, developed or replaced? Which ones, when, and why?" and so on (ibid., p. 233). I n the list of "probable incidental accretions" he includes: "(1) the appearance of secondary beings-ancestors spirits, hero spirits-and of wander myths; (2) the introduction of esoteric practices which exclude women; (3) the appearance of stronger symbolism, especially in regard to the serpent and other animals; (4) the spread of circumcision and subincision while retaining older and less severe mutilations (hair-plucking, tooth-cutting, etc.); (5) numerous increase ceremonies, bilocation, thread cross, incantations and the element of fear; (6) second burial, variation of attitude toward life after death, etc."; and also (8) the idea of spirit children (ibid., pp. 233-34). And the author asks himself: "When did these and other incidental accretions in religion commence? Where did they come from?" and so on (ibid., p. 234). To a certain extent, Father Worms's classification follows that of Father Schmidt, with the difference that Worms's lists are tentative and are accompanied by a great number of open questions. Some of the characteristics enumerated by Father Worms seem plausible. As a matter of fact, most of the "essential features" may have belonged to the archaic stages of Australian religions. Furthermore, a number of "probable incidental accretions" (such as the spread of circumcision and subincision, the introduction of esoteric practices, etc.) most probably do represent late developments. But how can one prove that "numerous increase ceremonies," or "the element of fear," or "variations of attitude towards life after death," or the idea of spirit children are "indidental accretions"? Such beliefs, rites, and ideas could have accompanied the "essential features" from the very beginnings of Australian religions-which, let us repeat, are not to be confused with the "beginnings" of religion.
ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS
Father Worms's synthetical sketch seems to be the latest effort to present an all-encompassing view of Australian religions, analyzed
264
both morphologically and historically. Neither in the discussion which followed his paper nor elsewhere in the most recent ethnological literature, has such a "total" approach-his heritage from Graebner, Schmidt, and the Vienna School-aroused a real interest among scholars. On the contrary, as is well known, the Australian ethnologists, especially A. P. Elkin and his disciples and younger colleagues, have concentrated on monographical studies and morphological analyses of different religious forms and sy~tems.~g Moreover, Elkin, the Berndts, and Stanner have also published general presentations of the Australian religions. Stanner's methodological approach is particularly encouraging for the historian of religions. The eminent anthropologist emphatically asserts that Australian religion most be studied "as religion and not as a mirror of something else."59 He protests against the general notion that a study of totemism, magic, and ritual exhausts the understanding of a primitive religion. He equally rejects the convinction that the true aim of a real scientific study of religion is to discover "the effect in religion of some set of social or psychological variables" (Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion, p. vi). I n his monograph, Stanner repeatedly criticizes the fallacious presupposition "that the social order is primary and in some sense causal, and the religious order secondary and in some sense consequential. Thus, studies may issue in general propositions to the effect that religion 'reflects' or 'expresses' the social structure. It is quite difficult to see why such statements seem important or even interesting. They are not clear even as metaphor" (ibid., p. 27). The particular tribe studied by Stanner is the Murinbata, in the northwestern parts of the Arnhem territory, but the author aims a t disclosing a structure of meaning valid for other Australian religions as well. One of the most unexpected results of his analysis regards the initiation ceremony Punj or Karwadi. Stanner convincingly shows that this ceremony bears a marked resemblance to sacrifice (ibid., pp. 25 ff). The studies consecrated to symbolism, myth, and ritual (ibid., pp. 60-132) abound in new and fruitful ideas. The decisive role Stanner sees in the myths
58 This does not mean, of course, that the contributions of non-Australian ethnologists are less important. A case in point is a recent article by Helmut Petri, "Kosmogonie unter farbigen Volkern der Westlichen Wiiste Australiens," Anthropos, LX (1965), 469-79. The author discovered a cosmogony up to now unknown, explaining the creation of the world in four stages or epochs; see esp. p. 478. S9 W. E. H. Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion ("Oceania Monographs," No. 11 [Sidney, 1963]), p. vi. 265

depicting the "foundations" of the world will meet with the total agreement of the historian of religions.60 The Murinbata thought that they could understand the dramas which took place in the mythical time; they recognized in their countryside the concrete traces of those mythical events, and they asserted that they were "connected intimately-as individuals, sexes, genetic stocks, groups and categories-with personages, places and events of the dramas" (ibid., p. 152). I n the primordial times the "two domains of life became distinct but remained co-existent and interdependent. There were then, and are now, an incorporeal (but not necessarily invisible) domain, and a corporeal (but not necessarily visible) domain. The former has the greater power" (ibid., p. 153). The main rites reactualize the creative elements of the primordial times. "Each ritual occasion vivified in the minds of celebrants the first instituting of the culture, deepened the sense of continuity with men's beginnings, and reaffirmed the structures of existence" (ibid.). I n concluding, Stanner deplores that "it is not seen clearly enough that totems and social situations simply provided familiar, convenient symbols by which to adumbrate what could not be designated more sharply or succinctly: that is, the things of ultimate religious concern."el It was not in our intentions to summarize this rich, profound, and stimulating monograph. But it is important to point out the radical change in the anthropologist's understanding of Australian religion that is illustrated by Stanner's work. I n the first article of this series62 we made an allusion to the rather unfortunate consequences of the vogue of totemism, launched by Durkheim's Formes Blbmentaires, and of the hypothesis of the primitives' mentalitb prblogique elaborated by LBvy-Bruhl. Both interpretations were antihistorical and reductionistic ("sociologism" and "psychologism"). Half a century later, Stanner comes to these conclusions; "(1) If any Australian aborigines lived, as used to be suggested, in a stationary state of society with a static culture, the Murinbata were certainly not among them over any period which it is possible for inquiry to touch. (2) To identify their religion with totemic phenomena would be a mistake. (3)
60 Ibid., pp. 152, 164, etc. Cf. M. Eliade, "Australian Religions: An Introduction, Part 11," History of Religions, V I , No. 3 (February, 1967), 208-35. 61 Stanner, On Aboriginal Religion, p. 154. See also the conclusions, pp. 165-71. 62 Eliade, "Australian Religions: An Introduction, Part I," pp. 121 ff. 266
The society was not the real source and object of the religion" (ibid., p. 154). Developing and generalizing some remarks of Van Gennep and Radcliffe-Brown, Professor Claude L6vi-Strauss has brilliantly criticized what he has called the "totemic illusion."63 There is no specific and unitary type of religion called "totemism." For LBviStrauss, "the totemic representations amount to a code which make it possible to pass from one system to another regardless of whether it is formulated in natural or cultural terms."64 We shall have to discuss elsewhere LBvi-Strauss' general interpretation of mythical thinking. The model of his structuralist approach is inspired by structural linguistics, especially phonology. Paul Ricoeur and Jean Hypolithe have noticed with regard to La Pense'e sauvage that LBvi-Strauss is interested in a syntax, and not in a semantics, of myth. On the other hand, in many passages of La Pense'e sauvage the author does not limit himself to the operation of decoding systems of classifications and multiple relations but brilliantly analyzes specific Australian cultural creations, related to a particular mode of existing in the world. Thus, LBvi-Strauss seems equally interested in "semantics." Besides, nothing prevents a structuralist from enlarging his linguistic model, in other words, from carrying out his analysis on the level of the discourse. It is as yet too soon to evaluate the structuralists' contribution to the understanding of religion, and especially to the understanding of the innumerable forms and aspects of religious creativity, such as they appear in the flowing of time, in history. And this is of a paramount importance; for the ultimate goal of the historian of religions is not to point out that there exist a certain number of types or patterns of religious behavior, with their specific symbologies and theologies, but rather to understand their meanings. And such meanings are not given once and for all, are not "petrified" in the irrespective religious patterns, but rather
83 See Claude L6vi.Strauss, Le Totdmisme aujourd'hui (Paris, 1962), esp. pp. 21 f f . (English trans., Totemism [Boston, 19631, pp. 15 f f . ) ; idem, La Pensde sauvage (Paris, 1962), pp. 48 ff., 100 ff., and passim (English trans., The Savage Mind [Chicago, 19661, pp. 35 ff., 75 ff., and passim). 64 The Savage Mind, pp. 96-97 ( L a Pense'e sauvage, p. 128). "Totemism postu-
lates a logical equivalence between a society of natural species and a world of social groups" ( T h e Savage Mind, p. 104; La Pense'e sauvage, p. 138). Cf. also The Savage Mind, pp. 135 f f . Ethnologists of different schools have expressed comparable views; for instance, Ad. E. Jensen: "Totemistic relationships are only a part of a ramified system which enters into many departments of culture, of which the social order is but one" ( M y t h and Cult among Primitive Peoples [Chicago, 19631, p. 152). The German edition was published in 1951. 267

are "open," in the sense that they change, grow and enrich themselves in a creative way in the process of history (even if "history" is not apprehended in the Judeo-Christian or modern Western sense). Ultimately, the historian of religions cannot renounce hermeneutics.

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What are the main characteristics of Australian Aboriginal religious beliefs?

What are the main characteristics of Australian Aboriginal religious beliefs?

What is the 'Dream Time' and what role does it play in Australian Aboriginal mythology?

What is the 'Dream Time' and what role does it play in Australian Aboriginal mythology?

Mircea Eliade

AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS: AN INTRODUCTION P A R T I*

Australian Religions: A n Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

" "The 'High Gods' of Australia," p. 328.

Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, I (London, 1901), 6 5 .

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

See Ursprung, I, 342 ff., 371 ff.; 111, 674-75; etc.

AUSTRALIAN HIGH GODS A N D THE WESTERN ZEITGEIST

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

AUSTRALIAN RELIGIONS: AN INTRODUCTION

i4ustralian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

" Ibid., p. 93.

Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, pp. 30-31.

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions : An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: A n I~ztroduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Australian Religions: An Introduction

Elkin, The Australian Aborigines, p. 201; c f . Oceania, I, 262.

INITIATION RITES AND SECRET CULTS

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Strehlow, op. cit., p. 114.

A progressive initiation is characteristic of most Australianreligions.

IBid., pp. 118 ff.

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Awtralian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Warner, op. cit., p. 376.

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

A+t. D - 14. . -r --- 7

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults

Australian Religions: Initiation Rites and Secret Cults