Reference: The Primal Religions
Reference: The World’s Religions by Huston Smith
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
Primal peoples are oriented to a single cosmos, which sustains them like a living womb. They assume that it exists to nurture them, they have no disposition to challenge it, defy it, refashion it, or escape from it. The overriding goal of salvation that dominates the historical religions is virtually absent from them.
A useful place to begin is with the embeddedness of primal peoples in their world. This starts with their tribe, apart from which they sense little independent identity. The web of tribal relationships sustains them psychologically and energizes every aspect of their life. To be separated from the tribe threatens them with death, not only physically but psychologically as well. Other tribes might be viewed as alien and even hostile, but to their own tribe they are related in almost the way that a biological organ is related to its host’s body.
Primal people sense little independent identity apart from their tribe. Other tribes might be viewed as alien and even hostile.
As for the tribe, it is embedded in nature, and again so solidly that the line between the two is not easy to establish. Indeed, in the case of totemism it does not exist. We shall continue with totemism in a moment, but let us first note the route we shall be taking. The contrary of embeddedness is a world of scissions and segregations, so we shall approach the embeddedness of primal life by noticing the relative absence of these in its world. Totemism is a fitting place to begin, because it shows primal peoples disregarding altogether the division between animal and human.
A tribe is embedded in nature so solidly that the line between the two is not easy to establish. There are no scissions or segregations within the tribe.
In totemism a human tribe is joined to an animal species in a social and ceremonial whole that gives them a common life. The totem animal bonds the human members of its clan distinctively to one another, while acting as their mate, friend, guardian, and helper, for it is of their “flesh.” They, in return, respect it and refuse to injure it unless in dire distress. The totem animal serves as the clan’s emblem, and at the same time symbolizes the ancestor or hero whom the members commemorate. It also symbolizes the life force of the species, for the health of which the human members of the totem are ritually responsible. All this springs from the conviction that human beings and nature belong to a single order. Rituals for increasing the totem species do not stem from standing apart from nature and attempting to control it. They are, instead, expressions of human needs, specifically the need for the normal order of nature to be preserved. They are ways of cooperating with nature at those seasons when the increase of a particular species, or when rainfall for that matter, should occur. Rather than being attempts to produce extraordinary effects or control nature magically, primal rites work mainly to maintain the regular and normal; they are rituals of cooperation. As such they have both economic and psychological sides. While articulating economic facts and needs, they also sustain confidence in the processes of nature, spiritually conceived and determined, and renew hope for the future.
In totemism a human tribe is joined to an animal species in a social and ceremonial whole that gives them a common life. It springs from the conviction that human beings and nature belong to a single order. The primal rites work mainly to maintain the regular and normal; they are rituals of cooperation.
Totemism itself is not universal among tribal peoples, but they all share its nonchalance concerning the animal/human division. Animals and birds are frequently referred to as “peoples,” and in certain circumstances animals and humans can exchange forms and convert to their opposite numbers. The division between animal and vegetable is equally muted, for plants have spirits like the rest of us. The following anecdote can illustrate this; it was related to the author by the father of a student who was involved. At one point the art department of Arizona State University decided to offer a course on basket weaving, and approached a neighboring Indian reservation for an instructor. The tribe proposed its masterweaver, an old woman, for the position. The entire course turned out to consist of trips to the plants that provided the fibers for her baskets, where myths involving the plants were recounted and supplicating songs and prayers were memorized. There was no weaving.
Animals and birds are frequently referred to as “peoples,” and in certain circumstances animals and humans can exchange forms. The division between animal and vegetable is equally muted, for plants have spirits like the rest of us.
The progression of the preceding paragraph reaches its logical term when we note that even the line between animate and “inanimate” is perforated. Rocks are alive. Under certain conditions they are believed to be able to talk, and at times—as in the case of Ayers Rock in Australia—they are considered divine. It is easy to see how this absence of discontinuities produces embeddedness. Primal peoples are not blind to nature’s differences; they are famous for their powers of observation. The point is rather that they see distinctions as bridges instead of barriers. Fertility cycles, along with the ceremonies that celebrate and sustain them, establish a creative harmony between humanity and its setting, with myths confirming the symbiosis at every turn. Male and female contribute equally to the cosmic life force. All beings, not overlooking heavenly bodies and the elements of wind and rain, are brothers and sisters. Everything is alive, and each depends in ways on all the others. As we continue this meditation on embeddedness, there comes a point where the order reverses itself and we begin to think, not of primal peoples as embedded in nature, but of nature, seeking itself, as extending itself to enter deeply into them, infusing them in order to be fathomed by them.
Even the line between animate and “inanimate” is perforated. Everything is alive, and each depends in ways on all the others. This absence of discontinuities produces embeddedness. Primal peoples see distinctions as bridges instead of barriers.
Turning from the world’s structure to human activities, we are again struck by the relative absence of compartmentalizations between them. For example, “Among the languages of American Indians there is no word for ‘art,’ because for Indians everything is art.” Equally, everything is, in its way, religious. This means that to learn of primal religion, we can start anywhere, with paintings, dance, drama, poetry, songs, dwellings, or even utensils and other artifacts. Or we could study the daily doings of its peoples, which are also not separated in sacred and profane. A hunter, for example, does not set out simply to assuage his tribes’ hunger. He launches on a complex of meditative acts, all of which—whether preparatory prayer and purification, pursuit of the quarry, or the sacramental manner by which the animal is slain and subsequently treated—are imbued with sanctity. An inquirer who lived with Black Elk for two years reported the latter’s assertion that hunting is—Black Elk did not say represents, the reporter emphasized—life’s quest for ultimate truth; the quest requires preparatory prayer and sacrificial purification. “The diligently followed tracks are signs or intimations of the goal, and the final contact or identity with the quarry is the realization of Truth, the ultimate goal of life.”
Among the languages of American Indians there is no word for ‘art,’ because for Indians everything is art. Equally, everything is, in its way, religious. All activities are made up of a complex of meditative acts imbued with sanctity.
Thus far we have been noting the absence of sharp divisions within the primal world, but another absence is, if anything, more telling; namely, the absence of a line separating this world from another world that stands over and against it. In the historical religions this division emerges and much comes to be made of it.
There is also an absence of a line separating this world from another world that stands over and against it.
Plato, speaking philosophically for Greek religion, presents the body as a tomb. The Hebrew Scriptures contrast the created world with a holy, righteous, transcendent Lord. For Hinduism the world is maya, only marginally real. The Buddha likened the world to a burning house from which escape is imperative. An apocryphal account has Jesus saying, “The world is a bridge; pass over, but build no house upon it.” The Koran compares the world to vegetation that will be quickly harvested or turn to straw. In Japan Master Taishi called the world a lie against which only the Buddha is true. World devaluation figures prominently in the historical religions.
In contrast, the world devaluation figures prominently in the historical religions.
In primal ones divisions of such severity never appear; there is, for example, nothing like the notion of creation ex nihilo. Primal peoples are, we are emphasizing, oriented to a single cosmos, which sustains them like a living womb. Because they assume that it exists to nurture them, they have no disposition to challenge it, defy it, refashion it, or escape from it. It is not a place of exile or pilgrimage, though pilgrimages take place within it. Its space is not homogeneous; the home has a number of rooms, we might say, some of which are normally invisible. But together they constitute a single domicile. Primal peoples are concerned with the maintenance of personal, social, and cosmic harmony, and with attaining specific goods—rain, harvest, children, health—as people always are. But the overriding goal of salvation that dominates the historical religions is virtually absent from them, and life after death tends to be a shadowy semi-existence in some vaguely designated place in their single domain.
Primal peoples are oriented to a single cosmos, which sustains them like a living womb. They assume that it exists to nurture them, they have no disposition to challenge it, defy it, refashion it, or escape from it. The overriding goal of salvation that dominates the historical religions is virtually absent from them.
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