Tokarev, and early forms of religion. FROM
The name of the historian and ethnographer S. A. Tokarev is known to the reader from the book "Religion in the history of the peoples of the world", which is very popular. The proposed edition introduces the reader to the works of S. A. Tokarev devoted to the origin of religion and its early forms. History buffs will meet some of them for the first time.
The book is intended for anyone interested in the history of culture and religion.
HISTORICAL CONTINUITY OF RELIGION FORMS.
The last question to be touched upon in this introductory chapter is that of the historical connection or continuity between different forms of religion.
Attempts to arrange the forms of religion in a strictly sequential order, where each form seems to grow out of the previous one, where one belief is considered as a logical development of another, can hardly lead to success. Such schemes of the seemingly immanent development of religion were built repeatedly, starting from the schemes of Volney and Hegel and up to the construction of Lobbock, and later they were replaced by schemes of a multilinear or, as it were, fan-shaped development of religion (Taylor, Wundt, etc.), where from one embryonic belief, for example, from faith in the human soul, grow like a fan in different directions, more and more complex forms of religious ideas. Having overcome the simplified one-linearity, these schemes still did not overcome the main vice - the idea of the spontaneous evolution of religion, where each stage is considered as logically growing from the earlier one and all together are ultimately derived from the primary elementary belief - from the same belief in the human soul.
Such evolutionary schemes, whether single-line or multi-line, are very reminiscent of the actions of a magician who, in front of the audience, removes an endless paper tape from his mouth, so that the audience only wonders where he put it there.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EARLY FORMS OF RELIGION AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT 13
Introduction, PRINCIPLES OF MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS 14
Chapter 1. TOTEMISM 51
Chapter 2. Witchcraft (harmful rites) 84
Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Erotic Rites and Cults 116
Chapter 5. FUNERAL CULT 153
Chapter 6. EARLY TRIBAL CULT (initiations) 206
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Shamanism 266
Chapter 11. NAGUALISM 292
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 AGRICULTURAL CULTS 360
THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION AND EARLY FORMS OF BELIEFS 375
THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN AND EARLY FORMS OF RELIGION 376
THE ESSENCE AND ORIGIN OF MAGIC 404
WHAT IS MYTHOLOGY? 507
TO THE QUESTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FEMALE IMAGES OF THE PALEOLITH EPOCH 552
THE PROBLEM OF TOTEMISM IN THE COVERAGE OF SOVIET SCIENTISTS 564
MYTHOLOGY AND ITS PLACE IN THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF HUMANITY 577
SACRIFICES 589
ON THE CULT OF THE MOUNTAINS AND ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 602
INDEX 612.
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Chapter 1
totemism
The problem of totemism in bourgeois literature
The concept of totemism as a form of religion was one of the first to receive the right of citizenship in ethnographic and general literature. By this term it is customary to understand the division of the tribe into groups related by kinship along the female or male line, and each of these groups believes in its mysterious relationship with one or another class of material objects - the "totem" of the group, most often a species of animals or plants; the connection with the totem is usually manifested in the prohibition to kill it and eat it, in the belief in the origin of the group from its totem, in magical rites of influencing it, etc.
The very word "totem" (of Algonquian origin) first entered European scientific literature at the end of the 18th century. (J. Long, 1791). McLennan's work On the Veneration of Animals and Plants (1869–1870) 53
Mac Lennan J. F. On the worship of animals and p!ants//Fortni-ghtly Review. 1869. Oct., nov.; 1870 Febr.
And a summary article by James Frazer "Totemism" (1887) 54
Frazer J. G. Totemism. Edinburgh, 1887.
They attracted wide attention to the phenomena of totemism. Already by the beginning of the XX century. so much factual material related to this form of beliefs was accumulated that it was quite justified to appear in 1910 a large consolidated four-volume work of the same Frazer "Totemism and Exogamy" 55
Frazer J. G. Totemism and Exogamy. L., 1910. P. 1–7.
He, in turn, revived the interest of scientists in totemism even more. In the journal "Antropos" in 1914, a special department "The Problem of Totemism" was opened, in which discussion articles by prominent scientists from different countries were published for 10 years. In 1920, the Flemish ethnographer Arnold van Gennep tried to sum up the discussion about totemism by publishing the book "The Current State of the Totemic Problem" 56
Van Gennep A. L'état actuel du problemème totemique. P., 1920.
In which he gave an overview of the various theories of the origin of totemism (about forty). Currently, the number of these theories has exceeded fifty.
The peculiarity of totemic beliefs and rites is so striking in the study of these phenomena that almost none of the many authors who have written about them has tried to deny that we are dealing here with a special group of essentially homogeneous facts, with a certain form of religious beliefs and rites. The only exceptions here are representatives of the American "historical" school, who are prone to special skepticism, for example, Alexander Goldenweiser and Robert Loewy. 57
According to Goldenweiser, the "totemic complex" could arise in different countries differently and consist of heterogeneous elements (Goldenweiser A. The method in investigating totemism// Anthropos. 1915–1916. V. X–XJ. H. 1–2. P. 256–265). Lowy "is not sure that all the wit and erudition expended on this subject have established the reality of the totemic phenomenon." In his opinion, “the problem of totemism breaks down into a number of special problems that are not connected with one another” (Lowie R. Primitive society. N. Y., 1925. P. 115).
It is, of course, very difficult to fully understand such a complex phenomenon as totemism, but many of the bourgeois researchers expressed witty and valuable considerations that help to clarify its essence, and partly its origin.
Many authors noted, not without surprise, that in totemism there are, as it were, two sides - social and religious. This circumstance caused a lot of difficulties for bourgeois researchers, and some of them - Lang, Kunov, Pickler and Shomlo, Haddon, Grebner, W. Schmidt, Hartland and others - concentrated their attention on explaining the social side of totemism, while others - Taylor, Wilken , Fraser, Rivers, Wundt and others - tried to explain the "religious" (more precisely, psychological) side of it. From our point of view, totemism is by no means exceptional in this respect; each of the forms of religion, as has already been said, has its own social side, and in totemism this latter is only more conspicuous.
What are the positive results of the discussion of the totemic problem in Western literature? 58
I dwell here only on positive achievements in the study of the problem of totemism, passing over in silence all the rather numerous unsuccessful theories and hypotheses on this problem. For an overview and criticism of various theories of the origin of totemism (criticism, however, not entirely sufficient), see, for example, in the book: Haytun D. E. Totemism, its essence and origin. Dushanbe, 1958, pp. 108–142.
Some authors have well analyzed the psychological side of totemism. Thus, for example, Bernhard Ankermann correctly emphasized that the psychological premise of that “specific relationship between social group and the totem, the feeling of unity between the two", which constitutes the most characteristic feature of totemism, was the "lack of individualism", that "collectivism of the genus" (Sippe), on the basis of which the concept of the individual soul could not yet develop, which is why totemism cannot be deduced from animistic ideas. Ankerman pointed out that the psychology of the proximity of a human group to a totem could have developed in the conditions of that hunting life, in which a person was alone with the animals and did not possess high technology that would raise him above them; the images of the predatory or cunning beasts with which man struggled hovered before his mind and during his leisure hours. This "circle of thoughts of animalism" (Gedankenkreis des Animalismus) was, according to Ankerman, "that nutritious soil from which totemism grew" 59
Ankermann B. Ausdrucks und Spieltätigkeit als Grundlage des Totemismus // Anthropos. 1915–1916 B. X-XI. H. 3–4. S. 586–590.
Similarly, Richard Thurnwald came close to understanding the psychology of totemic beliefs when he noted the collectivism of primitive thinking underlying these beliefs, and emphasized the deep archaism of this primitive totemic psychology, which he associated with "pre-animistic thinking" 60
Thurnwald R. Die Phychologie des Totemismus//Anthropos. 1917–1918 V. XII-XIII. H. 5–6. S. 1106, 1108–1111.
Some researchers were not far from understanding the essence of totemism and were able to see the connection between totemic beliefs and the very fact of dividing a primitive tribe into independent communities - hordes. So, already in Robertson Smith (1884) we find the idea that the totemic animal is the sacred animal of the clan, whose blood symbolizes the unity of the clan, its unity with its deity; ritual killing and eating of a totemic animal - this prototype of any sacrifice - is nothing more than the conclusion of a "blood union" of the clan with its god 61
Robertson Smith W. Lectures on the religion of the Semites. L „1907. P. 138, 285, 312–314h Ap.
Robertson Smith also clearly saw that in totemism a person transfers the features of his social structure to the whole of nature: nature here is divided into groups, societies, according to the type of human societies. 62
Ibid. P. 126.
The same idea was developed in 1896 by Jevons. According to the latter, primitive people, "divided into clans or tribes", had to inevitably believe that "all objects, animate and inanimate, are organized in the likeness of the only society that a person had an idea of, that is, in the form of a human society"; hence the idea of the similarity of the species (kinds) of animals and plants with the genera and clans (kinds or clans) of people should have arisen: these types of animals and plants were totems 63
levons F. An Introduction to the History of Religion. L., 1902. P. 99-101.
But how did the idea of the connection of a certain clan with a certain kind of animals arise? Many researchers have tried to answer this question, but, as a rule, unsuccessfully; however, some of these attempts are noteworthy. So, for example, Reutersheld (1914), correctly noting that “totemism is clearly rooted in the collective life perception, and in no way in any feeling of the individual”, that here “a group of people enters into a relationship with an animal and plant species”, asked himself the question of what this relationship is based on, and answered it with the assumption “that one clan learned to use some animal or parts of it in a way that is characteristic of its culture” (examples - wearing the skins of a certain animal, grass belts, etc. d.). “It is clear that primitive man, who thinks of himself as a part of the surrounding nature, must feel an unusually intimate connection between his clan and the kind of animal that distinguishes him from others” 64
Reuterskiöld E. Die Natur des Totemismus//Anthropos. 1914.B.IX. H. 3–4. S. 648–650 H Ap.
In such a simplified form, this idea, of course, is not very convincing and it is difficult to confirm it with any facts, although there may be a grain of truth here.
In a somewhat more general, and therefore more acceptable form, a similar idea was expressed in 1911 by Arnold van Gennep, from the point of view of which totemism is “the distribution between secondary (secondaires) groupings of a whole society (i.e., between clans. - S. T .) parts of the territory and everything that grows (se produit) in these parts of the territory or lives in them " 65
Van Gennep A. Qu'est-ce que le totemisme? // Folklore. 1911. P. 101.
But all this still does not explain the origin of the belief in a supernatural connection between the group and its totem. An attempt to bridge between real relationships and fantastic ideas in totemism belongs to the famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim. The latter, as is known, saw in totemism the original form of any religion in general and, explaining the emergence of totemic beliefs, thereby tried to solve the question of the origin of religion as such. From his point of view, the totem - this elemental form of the deity - is a symbol of the primitive clan, in its person the clan honors itself. "The god of the clan, the totemic principle, cannot be anything other than the clan itself, but hypostatized and represented in images under the sensuous species of a plant or animal serving as a totem" 66
Durkheim, E. Les forms élémentaires de la vie religieuse. P., 1912. P. 143, 158–159, 167, 294–295, 315–318.
Society is God, according to Durkheim; and the earliest form of society - the primitive clan - is recognized by its members as the first form of the deity, as the totem of the clan.
The shortcomings of Durkheim's concept were noted more than once in Soviet literature: this is an abstract sociomorphism, an empty and abstract idea of "society", an absolutization of the opposition between the "ordinary" (profane) and "sacred" (sacré) world, one-sided ignoring of the different sources of religious beliefs. For all that, however, Durkheim was close to solving the "totemic problem" when he spoke of the totem as a material symbol of the unity of the primitive horde or early tribal group. The idea that "totemism amounts to something like self-reverence (Selbstverehung) of the group" is repeated by Thurnwald 67
Thurnwald R. Die Phychologie des Totemismus//Anthropos. 1917–1918 V. XII-XIII. H. 5–6. S. 1110. Lorimer Fyson, the first in-depth researcher of the life of Australians, a subtle observer, Morgan's correspondent, was close to such an understanding of the essence of totemism. Fison wrote (1880) that the totem is venerated by the members of the group that bears his name "not because he stands above them as a deity, but because he is one with them, because he is the 'meat' of that bodily corporation. of which they are a part. He is literally "bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh" (Fison L., Howitt A. Kamilaroi and Kurnai. Melbourne, 1880. P. 169).
We will return to this issue later.
The last half century of the development of foreign science has not brought with it any noticeable progress in the study of the problem of totemism. Bourgeois thought, after the successes it had made before, stagnated more in place, or even took and is taking steps back.
In fact, let's look at the statements of the most prominent contemporary bourgeois scientists. The head of the West German "cultural-morphological" school, one of the most influential now in Western Europe, the heir of Frobenius Ad. Jensen resolutely denies the established understanding of totemism as a typically collectivist form of religion and believes that totemism known to us now should not be considered as a form of religion at all: it is only a “transfer” to human groups (kinds, clans) of earlier ideas, which Jensen calls “real "(eigentlicher, echter) totemism and which his like-minded Africanist Baumann called "proto-totemism". What is this "real" totemism, or "proto-totemism"? It turns out that this is a belief in the mythical semi-animal ancestors "dema" (the word is taken from the language of the Papuans marindanim), the images of which allegedly go back to the "divine" "master of animals", moreover, the faith is purely individual, not containing the "social side" 68
Jensen Ad. E. Mythos und Kult bei Naturvolkern. Wiesbaden, 1951, pp. 181–196.
These conclusions, by the way, are close to the thoughts of the well-known modern Australian scholar A. Elkin, as well as Helmut Petri; these scientists artificially single out "cult totemism" in Australia, opposing it to "social totemism"; at the same time, Petri came to the conclusion that it was precisely “cult totemism” that was the primary 69
Ibid. S. 183–184. Elkin A. Indigenous population of Australia. IL. 1952, pp. 139–149 and others.
This view was strongly supported by the West German ethnographer Erhard Schlesier. 70
Schlesier E. Die melanesischen Geheimkulte. Göttingen, 1958, pp. 199–201.
Finally, the head of the Vienna School of Ethnology, Joseph Heckel, tried to summarize the study of the problem of totemism in modern times. Rejecting completely the former views of the "cultural-historical school" on totemism as a phenomenon characteristic of only one "cultural circle", Haeckel solves the problem purely eclectically. He believes that totemism developed from various sources; but of these, he attaches the main importance to personal totemism, as well as the "socialization" of animal guardian spirits 71
Haekel J. Der heutige Stand des Totemismusproblems//Mit-teilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien. 1953. B. 82. H. 1–3. S. 47–48.
Thus, returning to the hopelessly outdated view of some American ethnographers late XIX in.
In other words, many contemporary bourgeois scholars somehow contrive to close their eyes to the most essential thing in totemism that many of their predecessors saw well: its purely collective character. By distorting history, they put individual forms of belief at the beginning of development; putting the facts on their head, they deduce both the ritual practice of totemism and the beliefs themselves from myths, while the social basis of totemism is generally discarded 72
The theoretical studies of the French ethnographer Claude Lévi-Strauss stand apart (Lévi-Strauss C. Anthropologie structurale. P., 1958; Le Totémisme aujourd'hui. P., 1962; La pensée sauvage. P., 1962). The views of Levi-Strauss, who considers totemism from the point of view of the “structural” methodology he defends, are of indisputable interest, although in many ways they are very vulnerable. They deserve special treatment, for which there is no place here.
Soviet scientists approach the problem of totemism quite differently. Critically accepting the most valuable achievements of bourgeois science, Soviet ethnographers examine this problem from all sides.
One of the first to approach the correct understanding of the totemic problem was S. P. Tolstov. He pointed out (1931) that for totemism the "feeling of connection" of the human group "with the territory it occupies", "with the productive forces of this territory" is extremely important. Tolstov believes that "... a sense of production connection with a given species (or species) of animals and plants underlies the totem ideology" 73
Tolstov S.P. Problems of prenatal society//Soviet ethnography. 1931. No. 3–4. S. 91.
True, Tolstov groundlessly contrasted this "sense of connection with the territory" with the feeling of "blood kinship" with the totem; he believed that the idea of "blood relationship", as well as the belief in the origin of people from the totem, could not yet exist in the era of the birth of totemism, because it was still the "prenatal era" 74
There.
In a later work (1935), S.P. Tolstov defined totemism as “the ideology of a society whose blood and hence social ties are based on group marriage” 75
Tolstov S.P. Survivals of totemism and dual organization among Turkmens//Problems of the history of pre-capitalist societies. 1935. No. 9-10. S. 26.
This idea is largely correct, although one-sided. One can agree with S.P. Tolstov that “totemism is not the ideology of the tribal system as a whole”, but one can hardly agree with him that “totemism is older than the clan” 76
There.
It would be more correct to say that totemism is the religion of an early tribal society.
This is how A. M. Zolotarev defined the essence of totemism. “Totemism is the first form of religious awareness of kinship relations,” he formulated very successfully. "Totemism arose as the first form of awareness of kinship in the human collective on the basis of the primitive hunting and gathering economy of the Paleolithic." In the era of the late, i.e., paternal-clan, building, totemism loses its ground: “The awareness of blood relationship makes the totemic idea of kinship redundant, and together with the flourishing of the paternal clan, totemism gradually dies off.” Zolotarev correctly understood the significance of the mythological images of “totemic ancestors”: “A totemic ancestor is a personification, however, never taking a strictly personal form, a collective in an animal-mythological image” 77
Zolotarev A. Remnants of totemism among the peoples of Siberia. L., 1934. S. 6.
The same correct, though slightly different, understanding of the essence of totemism can be found in D.K. Zelenin: or any other kind of animal. The basis of such totemic unions could be those real, real unions that concluded between themselves two different exogamous clans in order to serve each other with marriage ties. 78
Zelenin DK Ideological transfer to wild animals of the social and tribal organization of people//Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Dep. total Sciences. 1936. No. 4. P. 403. However, in other works Zelenin strongly deviated from this point of view: see, for example, his "The Cult of the Ongons in Siberia" (L., 1936).
Much attention was paid to the problem of totemism by DE Khai-tung. His understanding of the problem as a whole coincides with the views of other Soviet ethnographers (“totemism is a religion of an emerging kind”, etc.) 79
See: Khaitun D. E. Totemism, its essence and origin. S. 149.
Although he is inclined to somewhat narrow the very content of totemic beliefs, reducing them to the belief in the origin of people from the totem, and consider all other aspects of totemism as secondary 80
See: ibid. pp. 50–51, 142–148.
The indisputable merit of D. E. Khaitun is that he showed a wider prevalence of totemism in the past and present than was commonly believed, discovered the presence of totemic beliefs or their remnants among the peoples of all parts of the world, including those in whom Frazer did not could find totemism.
Basically, it seems to me, the understanding of totemism by A. F. Anisimov, who sees in the “central idea of totemism” a historically arisen “ideological reflection of the specific features of the early tribal society - the consanguineous structure of social groups, in the form of which historically social production developed” 81
Anisimov A.F. Religion of the Evenks. M., 1958. S. 54. Of the foreign Marxist scholars, in my opinion, A. Donini came closest to the correct point of view on totemism, although one cannot agree with him in everything (Donini A. Lineamenti di storia delle religioni pp. 46–47, 75–76).
One of the latest works, where totemism is considered, is the book by Yu. I. Semenov, dedicated to the formation and early history of human society. Totemism for Yu. I. Semenov is “the first form of awareness of the unity of the human collective”, which arose “as a reflection of the objective unity of the primitive human herd” 82
Semenov Yu. I. The emergence of human society. Krasnoyarsk, 1962. S. 376.
Following S. P. Tolstov, Semenov believes that totemism originated at the prenatal stage, in the era of the “human herd”, he considers the well-known finds of ritually buried bear skulls in the caves of Drachenloch and others to be evidence of it. Yu. I. Semenov attaches a large role in the emergence of totemic beliefs, the practice of hunting disguise, which gives rise to the idea of the proximity of a person to an animal. Yu. I. Semenov considers totemic taboo and belief in totemic ancestors to be secondary and later elements of totemism. Significantly at odds with other Soviet researchers of totemism, Semenov does not consider original totemism a religion. In his opinion, totemism only gradually "overgrown" with magical rites and thus "turned out to be inextricably linked" with religion. 83
See: ibid. pp. 478–479.
Thus, the ground for solving the problem of totemism has been sufficiently prepared by the works of the best bourgeois, and especially Soviet researchers. In this sense, it is only necessary to summarize the results achieved. But our task here is also something else: we must try to consider totemism not only in itself, but within the framework of the general history of religion, that is, to determine its connection with other primitive and later forms of religion.
Australian totemismThe classic country of totemism is undoubtedly Australia. Its indigenous population can be considered as being in the 19th century. (if you use the Morgan-Engels periodization) at the middle stage of savagery or in a transitional state from the middle to the highest stage of savagery. The wandering hunting tribes of the Australians still lived in a communal-tribal way of life; most of them were dominated by a primitive maternal clan, while others had already (for reasons that are not entirely clear to us) the transition to the male account of kinship, which, however, did not in the least violate their primitive social order. The Australians did not even have the germs of economic stratification, but there was a developed division of collectives associated with a primitive age-sex division of labor: men hunted, women and teenagers gathered plant food.
We have numerous and very accurate descriptions of the life, culture and beliefs of Australians. In particular, their totemic beliefs and rituals are described well and in detail. There are also summaries of factual material on Australian totemism: the works of E. Futter, G. Roheim 84
Vatter E. Der australische Totemismus. Hamburg, 1925; Rôheim G. Australian totemism, a psycho-analytic study in anthropology. L, 1925.
Totemic beliefs and rituals were prevalent, apparently, among all Australian tribes. 85
As an exception, only two tribes can be noted, regarding which there is evidence - and even then not very reliable - about the absence of elements of totemism in them; this is the Niol-Niol tribe on the northwestern coast (Klaatsch H. Schlußbericht über meine Reise nach Australien//Zeitsclirift für Ethnologie. 1907. S. 637) and the Chepara on the east (Howitt A. The Natives Tribes of South-East Australia. L ., 1904. P. 136–137).
; among many of them, in particular among the tribes of Central Australia, totemism constituted the dominant form of religion and left its mark on some of those beliefs and rites, which themselves, perhaps, had a different origin. Among the other peoples of the world known to us, totemism does not reach such a development as among the peoples of Australia. This gives us the right to expect that it is here, rather than anywhere else, that the conditions for the development of this form of religion can be grasped.
Totemism in Australia has five kinds, if we consider it from the side of those social formations with which totemic beliefs and customs are associated. These five types are as follows: 1) group (tribal, "clan") totemism, 2) totemism of phratries, 3) totemic "marriage classes", 4) sexual totemism, 5) individual totemism.
Of these five types, individual totemism is undoubtedly a late and secondary formation: it was common among a few tribes, and even among those personal totems were assigned for the most part not to all members of the tribe, but only to men or even to one healers; a personal totem was given to a person in addition to his main, “clan” (clan) totem. All this makes us consider individual totemism rather a symptom of the beginning of the decomposition of the totemic system. 86
See Chap. eleven.
With regard to sexual totemism, also noted among a few tribes, mainly among the southeastern ones, the question of it will be considered later, in another connection (see Chapter 4). Further, totemism, associated with the so-called marriage classes, was prevalent, apparently, only among the tribes of Queensland (described by Roth and Pamer). And this circumstance is not accidental; the fact is that the "marriage classes" among Australians usually do not represent strong and stable groupings; we are talking, in essence, only about a kind of systematization of kinship terms, and, for example, children always belong not to the marriage class of the father and not to the marriage class of the mother, but to the third marriage class, and it was only among the tribes of Queensland that the marriage classes acquired some features stable social units, with which, obviously, the transfer of totemic features to them is connected.
Two types of totemism remain: those associated with "clans" ("totemic groups") and those associated with phratries. The relationship between these two types of social formations can be established with complete clarity. Phratries are archaic formations, among some Australian tribes 87
Predominantly among the marginal: among the Kurnai and the tribes of the Kulin group in the southeast, among the Chepar in the east, among the cockatoos in the far north; from the tribes of the inner part of the mainland, the absence of phratrial division was noted among the western Loritians.
Already completely disappeared, while others have survived as a relic that has almost lost its living meaning. Totemic groups, "clans", are actually genera, although in their early, one might say, in embryonic form. They are usually divisions of phratries, pushing the latter into the background; they are quite real and vital social units. These facts agree very well with what is known about “clan” (clan) totemism and the totemism of the phratries. The latter as a system of beliefs and rituals ceased to exist, and only such facts as the totemic names of some phratries (“White Cockatoo” and “Black Cockatoo”, “Wedge-tailed Eagle” and “Raven”, etc.) testify to its former dominance. some myths and traditions, and, finally, traces of the deification of the phratry totem among the tribes of southeastern Australia. The totemism of the "clans", the most famous and widespread, is a completely living phenomenon that corresponds to the real significance of the social unit (kind) with which it is associated.
Early forms of religion.
// M.: Politizdat. 1990. 622 p. ISBN 5-250-01234-5 (Atheist Literature Library).
[ V.P. Alekseev ]. - 5
Early forms of religion and their development. - 13
Introduction. Principles of morphological classification of religions. - fourteen
Chapter 1. Totemism. - 51
Chapter 2. Witchcraft (harmful rites). - 84
Chapter 3 - 104
Chapter 4. Erotic rites and cults. - 116
Chapter 5 - 153
Chapter 6 - 206
Chapter 7 - 227
Chapter 8 - 242
Chapter 9 - 255
Chapter 10 Shamanism - 266
Chapter 11 - 292
Chapter 12 - 307
Chapter 13 - 320
Chapter 14 - 331
Chapter 15 - 360
The problem of the origin of religion and early forms of belief. - 375
The problem of the origin and early forms of religion. - 376
Essence and origin of magic. - 404
What is mythology? - 507
On the question of the significance of female images of the Paleolithic era. - 552
Mythology and its place in the cultural history of mankind. - 577
Sacrifices. - 589
About the cult of mountains and its place in the history of religion. - 602
Subject index. - 61...
S.A. Tokarev is a scientist and popularizer of science.
The book lying in front of the reader is a collection of works by one of the outstanding Soviet scientists - Sergei Aleksandrovich Tokarev. His major works in the field of history, world culture, ethnography and religious studies, translated into many languages, earned him well-deserved international fame not only among specialists, but also among a wide range of readers.
Sergei Alexandrovich Tokarev was born on December 16, 1899 in the city of Tula in the family of a teacher. In 1925 he graduated from Moscow State University, and since then his life has been inextricably linked with historical science, with ethnography. He worked as a lecturer at the Communist Workers' Institute of China. Sun Yat-Sen, and in 1928 he became a researcher at the Central Museum of Ethnology. In 1932, he headed the sector of the North in this museum. At the same time, he worked in State Academy history of material culture and in the Central anti-religious museum. In 1935 S.A. Tokarev was awarded the degree of candidate of historical sciences, and in 1940 he defended his doctoral dissertation.
The Great Patriotic War, and S.A. Tokarev was evacuated to Abakan, where he headed the department of history in pedagogical institute. In 1943 he returned to Moscow and headed the sector of ethnography of the peoples of America, Australia and Oceania in the newly organized Moscow branch of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and since 1961 - the sector of ethnography of the peoples of foreign Europe. In the same years (1956-1973) he headed the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University, and later, having resigned
these duties, continued to teach lecture courses there.
Breadth and versatility of S.A. Tokarev manifested itself already from his first steps as a researcher. He actively works on mastering the huge literature on the ethnography of Oceania, critically rethinks this literature, and soon becomes an unsurpassed expert on the ethnography of Australia and Oceania. At the same time, Sergei Alexandrovich is deeply engaged in the ethnography of Siberia, mainly South, collects specific ethnographic material and works in the archives. At first glance, such a concentration of research efforts in two different, distant from one another areas can be perceived as a dispersion of scientific interests. But it was she who to a large extent determined the encyclopedism of knowledge of S.A. Tokarev, his ability to work with a variety of data.
A characteristic feature of S.A. Tokarev as a researcher was not only a constant expansion of the scope scientific activity, but also further deepening, polishing already put forward and previously argued provisions. The system of kinship among the natives of Australia, the reconstruction of the social structure of the Melanesians, social stratification on the islands of Tonga, the interpretation of the folklore traditions of the Polynesians as an ethnogenetic source - these are the milestones of his research in Australian studies and oceanography. The volume of publications S.A. Tokarev on the above topics is such that, put together, they would constitute a solid work. To a certain extent, the result of all these specific developments was the volume "Peoples of Australia and Oceania" in the "Peoples of the World" series, published in 1956 and often called "Tokarevsky". Sergei Alexandrovich owned most of the text in this volume, which rightfully took pride of place in world ethnographic literature.
No less significant are the achievements of S.A. Tokarev and in the study of ethnography and history of the peoples of Siberia, their settlement and social system. His research in this area culminated in the publication in the 30s and 40s of three books of a consolidated nature: “Pre-capitalist survivals in Oirotia” (1936), “An outline of the history of the Yakut people” (1940) and “The social system of the Yakuts of the 17th-18th centuries.” (1945). Skillful comparison of ethnographic
observations and written sources, the filigree of the source analysis, the impartiality of the approach to the analyzed problems, the caution and balanced conclusions are the most characteristic features of the research method of S.A. Tokarev, which are fully reflected in these books.
To the same cycle of works S.A. Tokarev can also be attributed to the monumental book “Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR. Historical foundations of everyday life and culture”, which was based on a series of lectures he gave at Moscow State University. For many decades, Sergei Alexandrovich taught a course in ethnography of the peoples of the USSR at the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University; in typewritten form, these lectures were widely used as study guide students and graduate students in universities and scientific institutions of the country. Established specialists also often turned to them, they contained so much original information, the results of independent study and interpretation of many fundamental problems of the ethnography of the USSR, meaningful historiographical and critical excursions. The author himself in the preface to the book, with characteristic modesty, wrote that it was being published "as a textbook primarily for university teaching" (p. 3). But in fact, it has far outgrown the framework of a textbook, having taken the form of an encyclopedic work on the peoples of the USSR and the historical dynamics of their culture.
The book covered all aspects of traditional culture, including the material one. The description of the latter is closely linked to the forms of economic activity. In general, S.A. Tokarev was in high degree a synthetic vision of the subject of research in all its complex direct and indirect connections is characteristic, therefore the entire descriptive part in this book - and it occupies a considerable place - is extremely interesting. A lot of attention is paid to the study of traditional beliefs. The presentation is conducted in accordance with the territorial principle, and the analysis of each large territorial population of peoples is preceded by a review containing complete and generalized historical and historical-ethnographic information. But besides this, the description of each people opens with an outline of ethnogenesis, in which the author's point of view is carefully, unobtrusively, but at the same time quite clearly and definitely formulated.
on the basis of an objective consideration of the main previous hypotheses. It is natural that a book of such volume, content and scientific level has been used for the third decade as an invaluable source of information on the ethnography of the peoples of the USSR.
The intensive development of S.A. falls on the 70s. Tokarev problems of the history of ethnographic science. As a matter of fact, works on this topic are typical of Tokarev's entire work, starting from the first years of his scientific activity. He constantly informed the scientific community about the latest achievements of ethnographic and archaeological science abroad, speaking with critical articles on various theoretical concepts, acquainted Soviet readers with the life and work of the most prominent and authoritative figures in science about peoples and their culture. Reviews, essays on the practical activities and ideological foundations of individual ethnographic schools, portrait sketches did not obscure S.A. Tokarev of general problems of the history of science, and he paid much attention to the development and substantiation of the periodization of the history of ethnographic science in Russia and the USSR.
Everything said about Tokarev's research in the field of history and the current state of ethnography had another aspect - many books by foreign scientists were published in Russian under his editorship and with his prefaces. These prefaces are unusual in this genre. By the abundance of facts, clarity of wording, compressed style, these are small monographs covering the problems of the published book and convexly depicting the figure of its author. So the works of Te Rangi Hiroa, Elkin, Lips, Heyerdahl, Neverman, Chesling, Danielson, Worsley, Buckley, Frazer and many others were published. Among them were ethnographers-country experts, travelers, historians of religion, theorists of ethnographic science. And for all of them, the editor and author of the preface found expressive words characterizing the scientific significance of their works, their place in the ideological struggle of their time, personal characteristics and life destiny. So gradually, year after year, a whole library of ethnographic books written by foreign scientists was created in Russian.
And in this area of many years of vigorous activity of Sergei Alexandrovich, the result was large-scale
independent monographs. The first of them was published in 1966 and was devoted to the history of ethnographic science in Russia. The periodization proposed in earlier articles by the scientist found a complete justification in this book. But no less interesting is the coverage of individual periods in the history of Russian ethnography and the characteristics of its most prominent representatives. Such is the erudition of the author, so skillfully he selects individual facts and combines them, cites letters, memoirs of contemporaries, official documents, that one gets the impression that all the people characterized are well known to the author not only by work, but also personally, they rise as if alive from the pages of his book ... And since many of them were not only ethnographers, but also religious scholars, philologists, historians, publicists, public figures, the book of S.A. Tokarev goes far beyond the history of ethnography and acquires general cultural significance.
He devoted two books, published in 1978, to the history of ethnographic research in European countries. One of them covers a huge period of time - from the beginning of empirical knowledge in ancient Egypt to the middle of the 19th century. This is a leisurely and detailed story about how peoples first became interested in the appearance, language and culture of each other, what rich ethnographic information we receive from the works of ancient chronographs and historians, how slowly but inevitably ethnographic information accumulated in the Middle Ages and what a revolutionary influence on it The growth was provided by the era of the Great geographical discoveries, as, finally, the contours of science in its modern sense took shape in the 18th-19th centuries. Along with historical and ethnographic literature, the author widely used the texts of sources, and this conveys to us a unique image of the past, builds a continuous series from free and free descriptions of Herodotus to harmonious ethnographic prose, allows us to see in the views of the ancients the prototypes of many ideas close to modernity.
The second book, so to speak, is more "ethnographic". This is the history of the already established ethnographic science, its methodological guidelines and methodological achievements. Demonstrating the widest erudition, S.A. Tokarev from characterizing one direction of ethnographic thought to another, it is easy
and freely navigates the differences in the views of scientists from different schools, no matter how small these differences may be, tactfully and calmly sets out his critical considerations. This book is an excellent example of an objective presentation of the development of a vast and important field of human knowledge, free from preconceived opinions and biased personal assessments.
In the last two decades of his life, Sergei Alexandrovich was engaged in the typology of culture, which was reflected in a number of articles and especially in the four-volume collective work prepared under his editorship "Calendar customs and rituals in foreign European countries" (1973-1983). In this regard, it is impossible not to mention the fact that, headed by S.A. Tokarev until his death on April 19, 1985, the sector of foreign Europe of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences - the first structural association of European ethnographers not only in the USSR, but also in Europe - covered in its work the entire subject of European ethnography and in many respects anticipated those forms of European ethnographic research that are currently being developed.
But perhaps the most famous among different categories of readers was brought by S.A. Tokarev his works on the history of religion. Almost simultaneously with the "Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR" in 1957, his first book on religion was published. We are talking about "religious beliefs of the East Slavic peoples of the XIX - early XX centuries." Sergei Alexandrovich became interested in religious studies from the very first steps of his scientific activity, constantly reviewed foreign religious literature, wrote seven essays characterizing the role of traditional beliefs of the peoples of Siberia for the book "The Religion of the Peoples of the USSR", published in 1931. Already in his first monograph on the history of religion, remnants pagan beliefs and cultures of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians are characterized with exceptional detail not only on the basis of ethnographic observations in the narrow sense of the word, but also using information from written sources and against the backdrop of all the achievements of Slavic studies in the study of the religion of the Slavic and neighboring peoples of Europe. The author also demonstrated in it a broad understanding of the problems of the ethnography of the East Slavic peoples in general.
The book on Eastern Slavic beliefs opens the list of generalizing works by S.A. Tokarev on the history of religions and their place in societies of different geographic location and different stages historical development. In 1964, the books "Early Forms of Religion and Their Development" were published and "Religions in the history of the peoples of the world". The latter went through three editions and has been translated into almost all major European languages. Both of these works are historical and cultural studies of an extremely wide content, including consideration of the conditions for the emergence and structure of early religious beliefs, the historical circumstances of the emergence of world religions, their pantheon, the ideological role of religion in various socio-historical formations, and many issues of the sociology of religion. S.A. In these books, Tokarev showed himself to be both an orientalist, a historian of social consciousness, and a representative of comparative cultural studies, largely predetermining the main directions of research into the history of religion in subsequent decades.
In addition to these generalizing books, S.A. Tokarev owns a large number of articles devoted to the most diverse problems of the history of religion, starting with the definition of mythology and its place in the cultural history of mankind, through the classification of magical rites, the study of the essence of totemism, elucidating the ritual meaning of female images of the Upper Paleolithic era and ending with the analysis of certain aspects of the religious beliefs of those or other peoples in connection with the general problems of the dynamics and functioning of their culture.
The main of these articles are collected in the collection offered to the attention of readers. They give a fairly complete picture not only of the author's views on the problems of the origin and development of various forms of beliefs and his fundamental contribution to the science of religion, but also of the most characteristic features of his research manner - the desire for the most complete consideration of factual data, caution in their comprehension and interpretation, avoiding far-reaching and not fully substantiated conclusions, and finally, about a concise, simple and at the same time elegant author's style.
The articles by S.A. Tokarev on various issues of the history of religion are a logical addition to his fundamental religious books.
V.P. Alekseev, Academician, Director of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences
The book lying in front of the reader is a collection of works by one of the outstanding Soviet scientists - Sergei Aleksandrovich Tokarev. His major works in the field of history, world culture, ethnography and religious studies, translated into many languages, earned him well-deserved international fame not only among specialists, but also among a wide range of readers.
Sergei Alexandrovich Tokarev was born on December 16, 1899 in the city of Tula in the family of a teacher. In 1925 he graduated from Moscow State University, and since then his life has been inextricably linked with historical science, with ethnography. He worked as a lecturer at the Communist Workers' Institute of China. Sun Yat-Sen, and in 1928 he became a researcher at the Central Museum of Ethnology. In 1932, he headed the sector of the North in this museum. In parallel, he worked at the State Academy of the History of Material Culture and at the Central Anti-Religious Museum. In 1935, S. A. Tokarev was awarded the degree of candidate of historical sciences, and in 1940 he defended his doctoral dissertation.
The Great Patriotic War began, and S. A. Tokarev was evacuated to Abakan, where he headed the department of history at the Pedagogical Institute. In 1943 he returned to Moscow and headed the sector of ethnography of the peoples of America, Australia and Oceania in the newly organized Moscow branch of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and since 1961 - the sector of ethnography of the peoples of foreign Europe. In the same years (1956-1973) he headed the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University, and later, having resigned these duties, he continued to teach lecture courses there.
The breadth and versatility of S. A. Tokarev's scientific interests manifested themselves already from his first steps as a researcher. He actively works on mastering the huge literature on the ethnography of Oceania, critically rethinks this literature and soon becomes an unsurpassed expert on the ethnography of Australia and Oceania. At the same time, Sergei Alexandrovich is deeply engaged in the ethnography of Siberia, mainly South, collects specific ethnographic material and works in the archives. At first glance, such a concentration of research efforts in two different, distant from one another areas can be perceived as a dispersion of scientific interests. But it was she who to a large extent determined the encyclopedism of knowledge of S. A. Tokarev, his ability to work with a wide variety of data.
A characteristic feature of S. A. Tokarev as a researcher was not only the constant expansion of the scope of scientific activity, but also further deepening, polishing of already put forward and previously argued provisions. The system of kinship among the natives of Australia, the reconstruction of the social structure of the Melanesians, social stratification on the islands of Tonga, the interpretation of the folklore traditions of the Polynesians as an ethnogenetic source - these are the milestones of his research in Australian studies and oceanography. The volume of publications by S. A. Tokarev on the above topics is such that, taken together, they would constitute a solid work. To a certain extent, the result of all these specific developments was the volume "Peoples of Australia and Oceania" in the "Peoples of the World" series, published in 1956 and often called "Tokarevsky". Sergei Alexandrovich owned most of the text in this volume, which rightfully took pride of place in world ethnographic literature.
No less significant are the achievements of S. A. Tokarev in the study of ethnography and the history of the peoples of Siberia, their settlement and social system. His research in this area culminated in the publication in the 1930s and 1940s of three books of a consolidated nature: “Pre-capitalist survivals in Oirotia” (1936), “An outline of the history of the Yakut people” (1940) and “The social system of the Yakuts of the 17th-18th centuries.” (1945). Skillful comparison of ethnographic observations and written sources, filigree source study analysis, impartial approach to the analyzed problems, caution and balanced conclusions are the most characteristic features of the research method of S. A. Tokarev, which are fully reflected in these books.
The monumental book “Ethnography of the peoples of the USSR. Historical foundations of everyday life and culture”, which was based on a series of lectures he gave at Moscow State University. For many decades, Sergei Alexandrovich taught a course in ethnography of the peoples of the USSR at the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University; in typewritten form, these lectures were widely used as a teaching aid by students and graduate students in universities and scientific institutions of the country. Established specialists also often turned to them, they contained so much original information, the results of independent study and interpretation of many fundamental problems of the ethnography of the USSR, meaningful historiographical and critical excursions. The author himself in the preface to the book, with characteristic modesty, wrote that it was published "as a textbook primarily for university teaching" (p. 3). But in fact, it has far outgrown the framework of a textbook, having taken the form of an encyclopedic work on the peoples of the USSR and the historical dynamics of their culture.
The book covered all aspects of traditional culture, including the material one. The description of the latter is closely linked to the forms of economic activity. In general, S. A. Tokarev was highly characteristic of a synthetic vision of the subject of research in all its complex direct and indirect connections, therefore the entire descriptive part in this book - and it occupies a considerable place - is extremely interesting. A lot of attention is paid to the study of traditional beliefs. The presentation is conducted in accordance with the territorial principle, and the analysis of each large territorial population of peoples is preceded by a review containing complete and generalized historical and historical-ethnographic information. But besides this, the description of each nation opens with an outline of ethnogenesis, in which the author's point of view is carefully, unobtrusively, but at the same time quite clearly and definitely formulated on the basis of an objective consideration of the main previous hypotheses. It is natural that a book of such volume, content and scientific level has been used for the third decade as an invaluable source of information on the ethnography of the peoples of the USSR.
SA Tokarev's intensive development of problems in the history of ethnographic science falls into the 1970s. As a matter of fact, works on this topic are typical of Tokarev's entire work, starting from the first years of his scientific activity. He constantly informed the scientific community about the latest achievements of ethnographic and archaeological science abroad, speaking with critical articles on various theoretical concepts, acquainted Soviet readers with the life and work of the most prominent and authoritative figures in science about peoples and their culture. Reviews, essays on the practical activities and ideological foundations of individual ethnographic schools, portrait sketches did not obscure the general problems of the history of science from S. A. Tokarev, and he paid much attention to the development and justification of the periodization of the history of ethnographic science in Russia and the USSR.
Everything said about Tokarev's research in the field of history and the current state of ethnography had another aspect - many books by foreign scientists were published in Russian under his editorship and with his prefaces. These prefaces are unusual in this genre. By the abundance of facts, clarity of wording, compact style, these are small monographs that cover the problems of the book being published and clearly depict the figure of its author. So the works of Te Rangi Hiroa, Elkin, Lips, Heyerdahl, Neverman, Chesling, Danielson, Worsley, Buckley, Frazer and many others were published. Among them were ethnographers-country experts, travelers, historians of religion, theorists of ethnographic science. And for all of them, the editor and author of the preface found expressive words characterizing the scientific significance of their works, their place in the ideological struggle of their time, personal characteristics and life destiny. So gradually, year after year, a whole library of ethnographic books written by foreign scientists was created in Russian.